Wagner - Tristan und Isolde (Munich, 2021)

Richard Wagner - Tristan und Isolde

Bayerische Staatsoper, 2021

Kirill Petrenko, Krzysztof Warlikowski, Jonas Kaufmann, Mika Kares, Anja Harteros, Wolfgang Koch, Sean Michael Plumb, Okka von der Damerau, Dean Power, Christian Rieger, Manuel Günther

Staatsoper TV Live Stream - 31 July 2021

The final production of Nikolaus Bachler’s exceptional tenure as General Manager of the Bavarian State Opera may not be a perfect send-off, but it's certainly one that typifies his time there. It's a style that is adventurous, takes chances and divides audiences, and putting Krzysztof Warlikowski on Tristan und Isolde is something of a gamble. It's not uncommon to be left confused about what is going on and what the point of a production is, but more often than not, Munich productions manage to find a way to connect with a work in new and interesting ways. Warlikowski production of Tristan und Isolde actually doesn't appear that adventurous or controversial, or at least no more absurd and bizarre than a work with magic love potions, over-fervent raptures and philosophical ideas wrapped up in flowery language.

This time it looks - as with his Don Carlos - as if Warlikowski has again run out of ideas when confronted with the big beasts of opera. On one level, Tristan und Isolde takes place mainly within the ordinary surroundings of a wood-panelled 1920s' hotel room, while on another level, projections show an alternate - perhaps heightened emotional or fantasy - playing out of events. On one level it's Christoph Loy and another it's Bill Viola, whose extraordinary art installation screens for the Paris Tristan und Isolde separated the physical or material with projections of the ecstatic spiritual heights that would otherwise be difficult to translate into purely human actions on the stage. And when music and visuals come together, this opera can certainly achieve that level of transcendence.

Warlikowski's lack of any new ideas to separate those states (and connect them) is most evident in Act II. There's a build-up here that is expressed as the secret lovers meet that demands a corresponding gradual increasing intensity of feeling before they almost dissolve in rapture, but where little happens on a dramatic level other than the inevitable release of tension - a false release - with their discovery by Marke. On the stage in this production, there's not a lot going on and little visual sign of such deep feeling as it is expressed in the music. Warlikowski takes it to the other level in the projections that show the lovers physically separate but tantalisingly close, as water rushes out beneath the bed they lie on and submerges them.

The director emphasises this separation of the world we see and the one we feel right from the start, using people dressed as dummies with no distinguishing features to stand in for Tristan and Isolde during the Vorspiel. Its not so much an idealised form as a negation of one, where the physical characteristics don't matter as much as the interior lives. Without wishing to 'body shame' any performers, there's nothing new about that idea, and opera viewers have had to use their imagination to see less than perfect human forms and shapes aspire to an image of sublime godlike perfection ever since opera was invented.

You can take this idea too far - and Warlikowski inevitably does - bringing the dummies back as a doubles for Tristan and Isolde in Act III, populating Kareol with baby Tristans who, for some obscure reason, sit around a table in the wood-panelled room setting that the director also seems to have settled upon for no discernible reason. It takes more than a few odd references and mannerisms however to hold Tristan und Isolde back from reaching its goal, and it does seem to be the case that there's no need to be hasty in judgements; you need to wait and see where this takes us, and if any work repays delayed gratification, it's surely this one.

Warlikowski, for all his mannerisms and lack of any imaginative response to Tristan und Isolde (compared for example to Simon Stone's recent production at the Aix-en Provence festival that I viewed just a week before this), does however bring out one element of the work that hadn't really struck me before. I'm not quite sure how he does it, since there is little that visually alludes to it, but between him and Jonas Kaufmann, it's possible to see the commonalities of themes in Tristan that are developed further in Parsifal. The pain of the wound, the enlightenment through pain to consider one's origins, birth and mother's suffering on the way to achieving an enlightened state. Kaufmann - and very much Harteros too - at least made it feel that there is something deeper behind the pathology of both characters in their conflation of love and death, and it has nothing to do with a magic love potion. Their love-death union is derived from an awareness of human existence and love as a path to attain spiritual bliss that can only be completely fulfilled in the union of death.

Anja Harteros in fact embodies this much better than Kaufmann. She is a fine singer and a superb actress; you can practically see the music and every emotion it provokes flow through her. Her embodiment and communication of a role I find is always unerringly accurate - or makes you believe it so - but her voice isn't always able to match the same heights, particularly in the Wagnerian range. She's good, a true artist, but just not fully up to the demands of Isolde here right across the board. Kaufmann is also very weak, struggling to gain volume over the surge of the orchestra, but he is also simply unconvincing in a role that demands total and utter commitment. Kaufmann and Harteros have been much more convincing as a duo in Verdi, in Otello, in La Forza del destino and in Giordano's Andea Chenier, but most assuredly not in their role debuts as Tristan and Isolde.

There's no question however that both give it their all and Kaufmann is actually quite impressive in the critical Act III. I thought he might hold back from the exceptional demands placed on Tristan in this Act, and holding back is not something you can do in this opera. As committed as his Act III is, and as well as it is delivered, it still seems to lack the underlying conviction, of someone dying and longing to die, but unwilling to do so while his soulmate is still alive and separated from him - on several planes of existence. It's a lack of connection to his character here that I've felt in some of Kaufmann's performances; in some it might not matter so much in some works, but in Don Carlos and in Tristan und Isolde - two of the pinnacles of opera - half-measures and almost-theres are not good enough. 

With neither Kaufmann, Harteros nor Warlikowski being entirely up to the admittedly huge task of Tristan und Isolde, Kirill Petrenko - another person who has a huge impact in making Munich one of the centres of exciting opera in Europe - has his work cut out for him. In the absence of any kind of real stirring of passion on the stage, he has to make the music do most of the work. He doesn't quite manage it and in fact, judging by the sound purely on the live stream performance, it feels like he is trying too hard. He pushes the orchestra to those extremes, trying to conjure up day and night, light and dark, but there is little on the stage to match the intent, and the work often sounds aggressive. He is of course aware of the dynamic and pace and is able to rein it in and slow it down for 'O sink hernieder, Nacht der Liebe' in Act II, before building up the rush of emotions (the preparation of lethal injections, the lovers awash in a hotel room) that is shattered by the arrival of Melot and Marke. If it's fury you want to show, this is the way to play it, but it should be disappointment and resignation, shock and disillusionment. And credit where its due, you can see it in Harteros, if nowhere else.

Think what you will of the singing and the production - and there's good support from Wolfgang Koch and Okka von der Damerau as Kurwenal and Brangäne - but there is nothing else in all opera like the Liebestod and the finale of Tristan und Isolde. It's one of the most sublime expressions of human feeling put into music or indeed any form of art, unparalleled in its capacity to reach deep inside and express something wonderfully mysterious and sublime. Despite the imperfections elsewhere, Kaufmann's final utterance of "...Isolde" and Harteros's soaring Liebestod touch on the work's extraordinary and unmatched core of emotions, the essence of life and death, of striving for a love that surpasses human boundaries and attains something spiritual and sublime. Despite the failings of the production as a whole, this moment as ever is worth waiting for. And if it still achieves its purpose, what has come before and the contributions of the performers must have succeeded on some level.

Links: Bayerische Staatsoper TV

Verdi - Otello (Munich, 2018)

Giuseppe Verdi - Otello

Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich - 2018

Kirill Petrenko, Amélie Niermeyer, Jonas Kaufmann, Anja Harteros, Gerald Finley, Rachael Wilson, Evan Leroy Johnson, Galeano Salas, Bálint Szabó, Milan Siljanov, Markus Suihkonen

Staatsoper.TV - 2 December 2018

While the dramatic qualities of Shakespeare's original play undoubtedly have a lot to do with the development of the nature and the emotional dynamic of the interaction between its characters, Verdi's Otello is the closest the composer would come to dramatic and musical perfection, the opera bringing its own charge and emphasis. There's little that a director can add to this and perhaps the best they can do is try to harness its power or bring a different emphasis without upsetting the balance. Some might seek to justify Jago/Iago's actions - and indeed Verdi's librettist Arrigo Boito invents a whole 'Credo' for him - but Amélie Niermeyer feels that a little more consideration of Desdemona's perspective can bring other elements out of the work. It's a balance that she meets well in her 2018 Munich production, but the real success of the production rests more on the performance of the three exceptional leads.

The opening scene of Otello, for example, is one of Verdi's greatest achievements, the conjuring up of a storm that sets the tone for what follows. Niermeyer of course retains the imagery of the storm as it applies to the narrative, an important introduction to the arrival of the Moor back in Venice, but the director also appropriates the storm as an emotional one by having Desdemona already in place in the scene, indicating that it's her perspective that is going to be considered. There's also a kind of doubling up however, a mirroring in Christian Schmidt's set designs, Desdemona in a white room in her innocence while the dark reality of the world to come without her lies outside.

That's the theory anyway, the 'concept', with the stage also turning a quarter turn each act to gradually reveal the totality. In practice it's not a major imposition and scarcely discernible but Desdemonda's presence is certainly felt more, and the injustice of Jago's plotting and Otello's jealous suspicions consequently come across more effectively. The actual mechanics of the plotting are not neglected either, the presence of the handkerchief as a device, how it changes hands and how it is used against Desdemona, is also emphasised. It even takes on a metaphorical aspect when highlighted this way; as an object of desire, as a symbol of love, of how the purity of that love is mistreated and turned against her, and as such it also has that dual function of innocence and destructiveness.

In its division of darkness versus light, dreams versus reality (as it applies to Desdemona) and reality versus nightmare (as it applies to Otello), the concept is uncomplicated and on a fairly high-level. It is used just to provide a context for the drama to take place within, or rather it describes the emotional context - as it applies to Desdemona mainly - rather than illustrating the dramatic action. Rather more effort is given to directing the singers as actors and knowing how to use talent like Jonas Kaufmann, Anja Harteros and Gerald Finley.

When you've got a singer and actress as skilled as Anja Harteros you want to make the most of it, particularly when she is paired with Jonas Kaufmann, as she has been successfully on a number of occasions. Bringing her Desdemona onto the stage earlier than usual, even just as a silent witness, Harteros is a phenomenal presence. She remains the centre around which the work revolves (and apparently the set too, although I didn't really notice it). She brings an intense emotional realism that is on a par with the dramatic and musical drive of the opera.

Otello also needs to be up to that level or perhaps even beyond it and Jonas Kaufmann is equally as strong a performer in terms of characterisation, interpretation and technique. Yes, he still tends to deliver everything at the top of his voice, but in this case with the nature of the ultra-sensitive Otello and with Verdi's writing of it, it's justified. One possible weakness of the opera version of the work is that we don't perhaps see enough of the tenderness of Otello's love for Desdemona that becomes so twisted, but it is there and Kaufmann also expressed the softer sentiments well, sentiments that are necessarily strong enough to be turned to such horrific ends.

So all you need then is a Jago convincing, capable and callous enough to really stir it up between Harteros's pure Desdemona and Kaufmann's conflicted Otello; do that and you're on fire. The Bayerische Staatsoper have Gerald Finley as Jago, another strong presence more than capable of holding his own against Harteros and Kaufmann. There's no histrionics here, his is not a malevolent force as much as a determined belief in his superiority, boosted by a measure of self-satisfaction and self-regard. It's this kind of detail that makes all the difference, that makes the characterisation convincing, that makes it capable of pushing it to those places that Verdi takes it in his score.

I love watching Kirill Petrenko conduct. Honestly, if this was just a concert performance without the staging and the camera was fixed on Petrenko directing the orchestra, it would be just as dramatically effective. Petrenko enthusiastically throws himself into the opera with complete belief in it, becomes the drama, lives the music, and when he does that inevitably the music lives too. And it's incredible music. You can certainly get jaded with Verdi, with La Traviata and even Rigoletto, but not when you hear Verdi in his mature late period played as well as this. Technically daring in its arrangements, arias, duets, ensembles and choruses all put to the service of the emotional drama and colour of every single scene, Verdi's Otello is every bit as powerful as Shakespeare's Othello can and should be.

Links: Bayerische Staatsoper, Staatsoper.TV

Wagner - Lohengrin (Bayreuth, 2018)

Richard Wagner - Lohengrin

Bayreuth Festival, 2018

Christian Thielemann, Yuval Sharon, Georg Zeppenfeld, Piotr Beczala, Anja Harteros, Tomasz Konieczny, Waltraud Meier, Egils Silins

BR-Klassik - 25 July 2018

The premiere of Bayreuth's new production of Lohengrin for their 2018 festival tends to emphasise the colourful fairy-tale qualities of the work, but whether it gets to the mythological qualities that Wagner's opera aspires to is another matter. Whether the values the work puts forward have any meaning or application to the world we live in today is questionable in any case. Dresden's production would seem to think not, retaining the work's medieval legend setting, but Bayreuth usually take a much more adventurous analytical probing of Wagner's works for continued relevance and contemporary meaning, as the previous production by Hans Neuenfels demonstrated. With Lohengrin, there's always the tricky question of its legacy to consider, which Olivier Py's production for La Monnaie recently explored. The intentions of the latest Bayreuth production are a little more difficult to fathom.

Whether you take it at face value or probe deeper and more critically, Lohengrin however is inextricably related to the matter of German nationalism, Wagner seeking through mythology and legend to identify the characteristics that define the German people. Whether it's critical of certain unpleasant and dangerous aspects of that nature or laudatory and idealistic is questionable, but it's possible to see it both ways. Doing so of course risks polarising those aspects into broad definitions of 'good' and 'evil', and the fairy-tale setting does tend towards such a Manichean division at the cost of any finer nuance. There are certainly other elements that suggest other ways of looking at the work, but it has to be said that initially, the symbolism is confusing and difficult to pin down.

Part of the reason for this of course could be down to the fact that the set designers, the artist Neo Rauch and his wife Rosa Loy, worked independently on their conception of the work and then tried to integrate that with director Yuval Sharon's ideas. There's a clear difference of views then on what the intention, purpose and relevance of Lohengrin is, but that can also provide an interesting dialectic that can promote some interesting new thoughts on the work. Even if it's hard to fathom, I have to say I'm more taken with the visual aesthetic in this new Bayreuth production than with the contradictory thoughts that LA Opera director Sharon - the first American director invited to work on a Bayreuth production - entertains on the work.

Visually the production design is stunning, a vision in pale blue. There's nothing naturalistic about the mythological fairy-tale setting of Lohengrin, so there's no need whatsoever to have it in any realistic/idealistic depiction of medieval Brabant. Rauch and Loy's designs do pay lip service to period in the stylised costumes, but they also have more eccentric fairy-tale touches like wings attached to the backs of the main characters; long insect wings mostly, and little bat wings for Ortrud. There no real sign that these are used for flying, although the sword-fight challenge between Telramund and Lohengrin takes place in the air on wires. What does stand out as incongruous but spectacular is the huge wireless electrical generator tower where Lohengrin makes his appearance and the giant Tesla electrical coils that the accused Elsa is tied to in preparation for burning at the stake.

The imagery and the conflict of characterisation in this production does have a tendency then to highlight the divisions between good and evil. Is God on the side of the German people or against them, and is the struggle between Ortrud/Telramund and Lohentrin/Elsa a contest really to determine God's will as a resolution to King Henry's concerns about how to unite the people behind him? Admittedly, this view is probably influenced more by Waltraud Meier's brilliant interpretation in her expression of the word 'God' while she sets out to manipulate Frederic von Telramund. There is however also something about the division between old ways and new ways, between faith and magic that is highlighted in the traditional ceremonial heraldry and the 'magic' of electrical forces, the gods of technology.  There is even some hint of visual reference to Fritz Lang's Metropolis in this, where there is a similar need to reunite heart and mind in order to bring the people together as a nation.

Whether that's relevant to today is of course open to interpretation, but certainly viable in that it can be applicable to all kinds of contemporary issues, and perhaps particularly German ones. Yuval Sharon however takes a somewhat contrary viewpoint to the meaning and contemporary relevance of the work, seeing it as some kind of an expression of #MeToo and women's rights. His questioning in an interview whether "Can real love exist if you aren't allowed to know the partner?" and his view that Elsa and Ortrud are strong women who need to assert their own personality over "corrupt men" (including Lohengrin), since "blindly trusting and obeying someone is not permissible in our society" seems to me to be the complete opposite of the intended view of the opera on questions of faith and trust. There's nothing wrong in challenging or updating that view, and Wagner's views are certainly open to reevaluation, but I don't think that the director makes a convincing case by imposing modern gender politics onto the work when the real issues surely lie deeper than that on placing one's faith and trust in the concept of a nation.

The question is at least relevant in terms of power - if you want to consider the references to electricity simply in those terms - in who has the right to wield it and how they wield it. Nothing of course is that clear cut, and inevitably, by the time we get to the third Act it becomes harder to tie all the different symbols and imagery together into something meaningful. Frederic von Telramund's body isn't brought onto the stage for the last scene, but his detached wings are pinned to a flat piece of scenery that looks like a bush. The people carry flickering moth-shaped lamps, and the concluding return of Godfrey, the heir to the throne of Brabant, turns up not as a swan or a child on a swan but as a fully grown green man who resembles an East Berlin traffic light Ampelmann carrying an illuminated green shoot (the merging of nature and technology - who knows? It's Bayreuth).

Whatever you make of it all, it's a great Lohengrin that looks and sounds terrific and is certainly thought-provoking. Christian Thielemann can do no wrong as far as I'm concerned, conducting this performance with pace and vigour, but never aggressively, allowing the full Romantic flow of the work to dominate. The casting on paper looks close to ideal, but the few concerns you might have are borne out to some extent. Little needs to be said about Georg Zeppenfeld's clear authoritative King Henry; his acting abilities are maybe limited to eyebrow raising, but there's not a lot of room for interpretation in the role. Tomasz Konieczny is a superb Telramund; no cartoon villainy here, he combines a steely formidability in his voice with a weakness towards the machinations of Ortrud. Waltraud Meier is evidently not the force she once was, but her experience and interpretation count for a lot, bringing much to a vital role that deserves more than caricature. I've never been completely convinced with Anja Harteros as a Wagnerian singer, but she is capable of surprising you in the right role. Elsa is not the right role.

The star of the show as far as I was concerned (and the Bayreuth audience as well from the sound of it, although Meier also got a long enthusiastic and respectful ovation) was Piotr Beczala. Drafted into the production at short notice following the departure of the scheduled Roberto Alagna, who found himself not fully prepared for the role, Beczala was a luminous heroic Lohengrin (despite Sharon's misguided attempt to paint this Lohengrin as some kind of cruel authoritarian figure), his voice clear, bright and lyrical, his diction superb, sounding genuinely otherworldly. It's great to hear a different voice from the ubiquitous Klaus Florian Vogt in this role (quite how Alagna might have sounded is anyone's guess, but it might be intriguing to hear that one day) and Beczala, who already demonstrated his capability for the role in the Dresden production in 2016, is even better here, completely in command. There's no question whose side God is on here.

Links: Bayreuth Festival, BR-Klassik

Wagner - Tannhäuser (Munich, 2017)

Richard Wagner - Tannhäuser

Bayerische Staatsoper, 2017

Kirill Petrenko, Romeo Castellucci, Klaus Florian Vogt, Christian Gerhaher, Anja Harteros, Elena Pankratova, Georg Zeppenfeld, Dean Power, Peter Lobert, Ulrich Reß, Ralf Lukas, Elsa Benoit

ARTE Concert - 9th July 2017

There's a stunning display of imagery and evidence of a unique perspective in Romeo Castellucci's Munich opera festival production of Tannhäuser. Musically too the performance of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester conducted by Kirill Petrenko is lushly gorgeous and the singing from an impressive cast is jaw-droppingly good. It's everything we've come to expect from the Bavarian State Opera over the course of this current season. If there was something missing from the Tannhäuser production however, it's that indefinable quality that can be described broadly as coherence.

And perhaps it's not so difficult to pinpoint where the lack of coherence comes from, since that's the job really of the director. Romeo Castellucci's account of Wagner's opera however doesn't strictly hold to its traditional imagery or themes, but tends to revisit them from a more abstract perspective. As is often the case with Castellucci it's probably a mistake to try and think too deeply about the imagery or try to connect up all the dots and references into a coherent whole. On its own terms his visual representation of the opera is quite striking and unexpected. This is definitely not a case of a director nailing his ideas firmly to a single recognisable concept, but rather one that opens it up for the audience to apply their own interpretation.

It's hard for example to understand just what kind of statement the director is making upfront when a legion of topless Amazonian archers take to the stage during the overture and embark upon a synchronised ritual of target practice onto the projected image of a eye, which then becomes an ear. In Castellucci's mind, they are cupids, straight out of the libretto's description of Venusberg, their arrows representing love and the wounds it creates, but there's more of a Leni Riefenstahl Olympia character here and in other imagery that is reminiscent of propaganda art of the Third Reich. It could also be seen to relate to the ancient mythology of Diana, goddess of the hunt and nature.

It's an idealised image of perfection however that is ultimately shown to be corrupting to Heinrich, and Castellucci finds equally extreme imagery to represent this with the goddess Venus bubbling out of a mound of heaving forms melded together in pool of rippling flesh. As unconventional as the imagery is, it can be related to or seen as a response to the broad character of Tannhäuser, albeit with a little more sinister edge to it. That's certainly the character also of Wartburg when Heinrich returns there, with the Landgrave and his entourage shown out hunting in red robes, ritually washing themselves in the blood of a felled deer rather like a cult to Diana. 

Thus far you can relate the imagery, albeit tenuously, to themes in Tannhäuser. Heinrich, having seen more of the world, is reluctant to rejoin Hermann's order, which can be seen to be a perversion of nature - a slaughter and a circle of blood that is regarded with horror by the young shepherd boy. Elisabeth - Anja Harteros wearing a nude-print dress - represents a vision of purity that the singers aspire to but which is too unworldly to be capable of attaining. The imagery turns ever more bizarre in an attempt perhaps to relate this to the ideal of a pure kingdom or nation, with flawless bodies moving behind a white veil in perfect synchronisation, suggesting some kind of body fascism that is just as disturbing as the fleshy imagery of Venusberg.

Sequence after sequence moves ever more distant not only from any conventional symbolism but any kind of consistent rationale that you could apply. Disembodied feet litter the stage; a lightbox that presents the themes of the singers is obliterated from the inside by frenzied spraying of black paint; pilgrims carry a huge gold boulder and return with smaller sized gold rocks; monumental bases hold the rotting, disintegrating corpses of Heinrich and Elisabeth, as hundreds of thousands of millions of years pass and they turn to ash, but they are emblazoned with the names of 'Klaus' and 'Anja'. The image of the arrow is present throughout, but its symbolism changes according to the scene, representing wounding love one moment, the hunting of Tannhäuser the next, but primarily and significantly as the final image seen on the stage, it represents the flight of time.

It all looks beautiful and is visually engaging, but without extensive programme notes and explanations it would be hard to follow just what the director is reading from Tannhäuser. According to Castellucci, Heinrich is a figure who is doomed to never attain the perfection he seeks in either realm (Venusberg/Wartburg), but rather the quasi-religious perfection represented by Elisabeth/Maria can only be found in a dimension outside space and time. Even with that explanation it's a very unique perspective that hardly illuminates nor illustrates the opera in any conventional fashion. And, despite the apparent desecration of the work's high-minded ideals, it doesn't entirely overcome the sanctimonious tone that you sometimes find at the work's conclusion.

There are however rare pleasures to be found elsewhere. In terms of singing, Christian Gerhaher's warm, lyrical Wolfram steals the show and it's not often you can say that in Tannhäuser, and that's no mean feat either when up against singers of the class of Vogt, Harteros, Zeppenfeld and Pankratova in the major roles. It does make for an odd but interesting imbalance, since it makes Wolfram's ode to Grace ('Anmut') in the singing competition a persuasive and appealing vision against which Heinrich's reaction seem churlish. That's through no fault of Klaus Florian Vogt, who sings as purely and beautifully as ever here, although not quite with the same commanding conviction for this role as he can provide as Lohengrin, von Stolzing or even as Parsifal.

I had some minor reservations about Anja Harteros when she sang Elsa in the Salzburg Easter Festival Die Walküre but she is very impressive as Elisabeth here with some absolutely gorgeous singing, holding her line beautifully with a smooth legato. She seems at a bit of a loss what to make of Elisabeth and I suspect Castellucci didn't really give her a lot of direction here. It's a pity because Harteros is a fine singer/actor and could do a lot more, but her singing performance alone is good enough. Castellucci doesn't do Elena Pankratova any favours by burying her in a mound of prosthetic flesh, but the Russian soprano didn't let that deter her either from an excellent performance.

Links: Bayerische Staatsoper, ARTE Concert

Wagner - Die Walküre (Salzburg, 2017)

Richard Wagner - Die Walküre

Salzburg Easter Festival - 2017

Christian Thielemann, Vera Nemirova, Peter Seiffert, Georg Zeppenfeld, Vitalij Kowaljow, Anja Harteros, Anja Kampe, Christa Mayer, Johanna Winkel, Brit-Tone Müllertz, Christina Bock, Katharina Magiera, Alexandra Petersamer, Stepanka Pucalkova, Katrin Wundsam, Simone Schröder

3Sat Live - 15th April 2017

It seemed like an interesting idea to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Salzburg Easter Festival by reconstructing the original sets created for the first production there of Die Walküre, overseen by the festival's founder Herbert von Karajan. In reality - or at least at the remove of a television broadcast - while the sets did indeed provide an impressive backdrop, they served as nothing more than a platform for a rather stagnant production devoid of any fresh ideas or real direction. Some committed performances however and the momentum of the work itself ensured that the production wasn't a total loss.

The reconstruction of Günther Schneider-Siemssen's set designs are about as far as the production goes in terms of recreating the original 1967 production. They are however stylised enough to still work to tremendous effect with a central design that works with a circular platform not unlike Pierre Audi's production for the DNO. The set designs prove to be relatively flexible for reconfiguration and spiralling and are updated with some projection technology that allows the static backdrops a little more movement without moving too far away from the original conception. The sets look suitably grand, ancient and mythological, but at the same time remain functional as a platform for the action to be played out without over-encumbering the performers.

In Act I, for example, Hunding's lodge and tree are as one; a huge twisting mass of an ancient sequoia erupting through the wooden floor of the house (and seemingly through the stage itself), providing a large hollow for a room, the hero's sword Nothung sunk deep into its bark. After the darkness of the opening of Die Walküre, the dark mists give way via lighting and subtle back projections to the brightening of Spring colour. Similar effects are used to bring darkness and shade to the tilted circular stage of the second Act, where Wotan seems to have the fate of the world marked out on the floor and handily written in erasable chalk, because Fricka has a few ideas of her own as to how things are going to play out.

It's darkly dramatic, but nothing more. Concept, themes or even direction in this Die Walküre however are almost non-existent. It's not even as if the Salzburg Easter Festival believed that they could lift the designs of an old production and expect it to work by itself. Vera Nemirova is brought in as the director to bring some kind of control over how the drama is played out, but she doesn't seem to bring a great deal to it. There are a few modern touches made to the costumes and props to prevent it looking too embarrassing, but the costumes still look frightfully outdated, Brünnhilde replete with armour, spear and winged helmet.

If there is one element that you can be fairly sure won't be old-fashioned about the production, it's Wagner's score with Christian Thielemann conducting the Staatskapelle Dresden orchestra. And, taking a look over the cast list, there's also a solid line-up with a good mixture of experience and freshness (Seiffert, Zeppenfeld, Kowaljow, Harteros, Kampe, Mayer) that on paper at least looks like it might be capable of making something more of the work on the performance side under Thielemann's direction. It does indeed win through on this front, but only in the long run and not without some initial concerns and bumps along the way.

The majority of the performances were routine and capable, but with a few exceptions not really managing to bring any great sense of life or urgency to the rather dull, traditional staging. Georg Zeppenfeld of course will always be one of those exceptions and his Hunding was flawless as usual. Peter Seiffert has the ideal tone for Siegmund, but he seems tired by the end of Act II. Siegmund would have been running from Hunding all this time so tiredness can be excusable. What matters is that, as tired as he might be, he's not yet ready to let Brünnhilde take him to Valhalla without Sieglinde, and there all the touching poignancy of the moment comes across. Vitalij Kowaljow's Wotan and Christa Mayer's Fricka were fine, but never really rose above the deadness of the direction given to them.

Personally, I was most interested in seeing how Anja Harteros coped in her scenic role debut as Sieglinde, and it wasn't without some trepidation. I admire the ambition, ability and range of Harteros to take in everything from baroque, grand opera and verismo (where she seems to me to be best suited) and extend that now into Wagner, even if not every style suits her voice. I had my doubts about her Act I performance, her Sprechgesang sounding rather thin and stretched, but her voice blooms into emotional expression terrifically. Her commitment can't be faulted and I was won over by her performance by the end of Act II. If nothing else, she brought some life to a production that for the most part felt rather static and routine.

Anja Kampe is another singer who can be relied upon to bring a certain fire to roles, but even though I've seen her sing Kundry more than capably, Brünnhilde is a role that can be beyond the reach of most mortals. I doubted Kampe's ability in her role debut when she seemed to struggle a little in her Act II opening exchanges with Wotan (her costume didn't really lend her any kind of conviction either), but like Harteros she grew in conviction as the opera progressed. Unlike the Act II scenes, there was palpable tension and fear in her Act III encounter with Wotan, a tension that carried over marvellously from the Valkyrie scene, where you can almost feel the dark cloud of the Warfather approaching.

While the lack of imagination in the direction didn't help the earlier scenes, much of this change from static delivery of long lines of text to a rather greater sense of mounting tension and danger is down to the wonder of the extraordinary inherent momentum that Wagner builds up in Die Walküre. The work itself more or less takes over, asserts its own power and comes through to a devastating conclusion/conflagration. It doesn't do it on its own of course, but those forces have to be controlled and managed perfectly. I didn't think Christian Thielemann was doing enough in the pit in the first two Acts to lift the production out of its routine delivery, but the efficacy of his tight rein is evident by the way that the dynamic shifts in the final scenes, from thunderous to deeply moving in its poignancy over questions of fate and how much influence we can have over it. That momentum in the music and singing performances carries this Die Walküre through, but other than that, there is little that is memorable about the revival of this classic production in Salzburg.

Links: Salzburg Festival

Giordano - Andrea Chénier (Munich, 2017)

Umberto Giordano - Andrea Chénier

Bayerische Staatsoper, 2017

Omer Meir Wellber, Philipp Stölzl, Jonas Kaufmann, Luca Salsi, Anja Harteros, J'Nai Bridges, Doris Soffel, Elena Zilio, Andrea Borghini, Krešimir Stražanac, Christian Rieger, Tim Kuypers, Ulrich Reß, Kevin Conners, Anatoli Sivko, Anatoli Sivko, Kristof Klorek

Staatsoper.TV Live - 18th March 2017

What can a director possibly bring to an opera like Andrea Chénier? Not an awful lot you would think (and David McVicar's recent Royal Opera House production would seem to bear this out) other than making sure that there is fidelity paid to the historical and the personal drama that lies at the heart of it. There's not much room for personal interpretation or modern revisionism in a work that has very specific application to the French Revolution and it shouldn't need any great elaboration or in-depth examination. The situation of three people caught up in its events and trying to follow the path of their hearts provides all the drama and spectacle it needs, with music and arias to match the heightened sentiments. Andrea Chénier is at least always a spectacle and that is a good starting point for Philipp Stölzl's production, but we get much more than that at the Bavarian State Opera.

Regarding himself primarily a filmmaker, even though he has done more notable work in the opera house at Salzburg and the Deutsche Oper, Stölzl's detailed storytelling risks over-complicating a work that is already quite densely and carefully designed. It overlaps and layers contrasting situations of love, revolution and poetry on the same page and at the same level of intensity. A more cautious director might strive for a different balance or a more restrained approach on at least one of those levels, but then it probably wouldn't be entirely Giordano's Andrea Chénier. The work itself, its enduring popularity and continued success stands on its own merits in that respect.

Even then the subject of the opera never seems terribly appealing. The first Act in particular is intense, deeply serious and not a little bleak at the prospect of the social 'reforms' taking place under the law of the Third Estate. It hardly seems like the best place to set a love story, but this is verismo opera and as such it's hard-hitting and unsparing in its approach to the flame of love briefly flaring up in a cold and inhospitable environment. Philipp Stölzl seems intent on making all those layers and complications visible right up there on the stage at all times and almost simultaneously; the servants and common people down below, the aristos above in a huge cross-section of the Château de Coigny.

I recall a similar multi-level approach in Stölzl's Rienzi, but the layering of different lives and underlying realities is also evident in his Parsifal, where the overture played out to a detailed scene of the crucifixion of Christ and the laughter that seals Kundry's fate. It's not a detail that normally needs to be elaborated on in that opera, nor is the backstory described by Gurnemanz usually shown as if there are Stations of the Cross. The director takes such literalism and over-elaboration to new lengths here, but it works. The extraordinary set rolls the building along to reveal new wings, more buildings and more rooms filled with little detailed miniatures that look like scenes from period revolutionary paintings.

The handling of each little scene however is superb, adding to the bigger picture of the opera without diminishing the impact of the main drama. Act II culminates with a superbly choreographed chase through the Paris sewer system where Chénier and Maddalena are pursued by revolutionary soldiers, the intensity of the dramatic staging matched by the delivery of the singing. It does much to enliven the difficult scene-setting first act considerably and set things up for the latter half of the work which provides much more scope to explore the contrasts and contradictions of the revolution, the characters, their beliefs and their personalities.

It's a world of contradictions and Stölzl does well to highlight them. Having Gérard sing of transforming the world and embracing all men with love while we can see Chénier being tortured in a cellar below him is not just a matter of heavy-handed irony, but it actually brings nuance to the contrast between ideals and actions, something that Gérard at this stage probably already recognises. It can certainly come across as heavy-handed when you add a romantic triangle into this, but again, this is another case of ideals not matching actions. The heart is a contradictory thing and love can quickly turn to hate.

For this reason it's also possible to see Gérard as just as important a figure in the opera as Andrea Chénier or Maddalena, or perhaps that is indeed a matter of emphasis and context that can be applied to the opera. Or perhaps it is a side of the opera that can become more meaningful depending on the times we are living in, which proves that Andrea Chénier can be about far more than a tale of the French Revolution, and it doesn't need any modernisation for its more universal meaning to extend beyond the historical events of the past.

The casting in Andrea Chénier can have much to do with where that balance lies and you can hardly say that the Bayerische Staatsoper cut any corners here. Jonas Kaufmann and Anja Harteros are the big attractions and they don't disappoint in either singing or acting performances. It's difficult to pin just how good they are down to one scene, as every moment is entirely in character with few of the traditional operatic mannerisms. It might be better if Kaufmann could hold back a little occasionally, and it might save his voice from further problems, but in the same way as Andrea Chénier wouldn't be Andrea Chénier if it was half-hearted, Kaufmann wouldn't be Kaufmann if he wasn't giving it everything. This is a character that he really believes in however, and you can't fault his commitment, performance or ability.

I haven't always felt that Anja Harteros was right for every role I've seen her in - and Verdi can definitely be a strain on her voice - but there's no question she has the voice for verismo and the acting ability to go with it. Again, it hardly serves to look at any one scene in isolation as this is a performance that grows and develops along with the drama, but you can't ignore her 'La mamma morta' scene. Her reaction to Gérard's advances are superb, the hatred, disgust and disdain mixed with passionate determination is palpable. Stölzl certainly sets up the scene well, not unexpectedly showing the actual dead mother vividly in a movie-like cutaway, but Harteros is more than capable of giving this aria all the poignancy it needs. She even seems to look directly into the camera during the live broadcast and it really feels like one of those 'moments'. She nearly brings the house down.

What most impressed me about the Bayerische Staatsoper's production - and really you have your choice of impressive qualities here - is that not content with having Kaufmann and Harteros, they matched Chénier and Maddalena with an equally impressive Gérard in Luca Salsi. It's by no means a lesser role, and may even be a more complex character than the other two, but giving equal weight to Gérard (in the same way that Stölzl gives equal weight to the smallest detail in each of the scenes) really brings out the true value of the opera. With a Gérard like this you have an impregnable, solid triangle that can support all the tensions of the drama, the politics, the romance and the tragedy.

The Bayerische Staatsoper really are operating at the highest levels of artistry at the moment. Their current live broadcast season at least shows them as one of the best houses in Europe at the moment, and this Andrea Chénier is no exception. It's not a favourite work of mine, but there is no denying its power when it is done well. My only complaint would be that Stölzl's staging is more of a 'big screen' production that would have more impact live than it would on a reduced streamed internet broadcast. I'm sure in the theatre that the orchestral performance would have matched the scale of the production, because it came across clearly even in the live stream. Omer Meir Wellber conducted another powerhouse performance from the Bavarian orchestra that was dynamic, intense and sensitive, faultless in its musical and dramatic pacing, everything flowing towards that devastating conclusion. I'd be reluctant to describe any production as 'definitive' but this is an Andrea Chénier that is as good as it gets.

Links: Bayerische Staatsoper, Staatsoper.TV

Verdi - Un ballo in maschera (Munich, 2016 - Webcast)

Giuseppe Verdi - Un ballo in maschera

Bayerische Staatsoper, 2016

Zubin Mehta, Johannes Erath, Piotr Beczala, George Petean, Anja Harteros, Okka von der Damerau, Sofia Fomina, Andrea Borghini, Anatoly Sivko, Scott Conner, Ulrich Reß, Joshua Owen Mills

ARTE Concert - March 2016

Un ballo in maschera sits in that difficult period of Verdi works just after the composer's 'galley years' where the musical writing is more mature in characterisation and experimental in form but still not quite as fully developed as it would be in his late works. The operas of this late-middle period still lean towards bel canto convention in arias, melody and number structure and are often burdened with ludicrous melodramatic plots that sit uncomfortably with the new found sophistication and melodic invention of the musical writing. The relationship or indeed the disparity between the music and the drama can be particularly hard to establish in a production of Un ballo in maschera.

A production that takes the drama at face value and plays it straight with all the period conventions (such as the 2008 Madrid production) does the work no favours at all. Proving that the themes and composition of the work are strong enough however, La Fura dels Baus successfully adapted the opera to a futuristic science-fiction setting where arguably the melodrama sits better. Also recently, the Met in New York have made the case that an elegant middle way between these two extremes that can also be effective, particularly when you have good Verdi singers. The question of appropriate singers in fact might ultimately be the key to making the work dramatically convincing.

The Bayerische Staatsoper's production, directed by Johannes Erath, works the middle path. It finds the same sense of elegance that you can see in the David Alden production; the sophistication of the music is there in Zubin Mehta's conducting of the orchestra; and the singing - with a few worrying exceptions - largely captures the inner emotional tone of the work. The set design and look and feel also suggests a black-and-white Hollywood melodrama - also evident in Alden's production - but there is more of an emphasis here on the air of fatalism that lies at the heart of the work, a sensibility that Verdi's music captures much better than the torrid romantic complications and the overheated political plotting of the assassination.

The emphasis in the Munich production then is largely restricted to the bedroom. A bed remains at the centre of the stage for most of the performance, and there's even another one mirrored on the ceiling high above the stage. Rather than just being merely a suggestion that it is the romantic complications that dominate (the bed tends to be an overused stage prop in this respect), it also strives to evoke that air of fatalism within the work. This is hinted at very early on during the overture which shows a dream-like encounter between Riccardo (in the Boston governor version of the opera) and the fortune-teller Ulrica, that ends with Riccardo sprawled lifeless on the bed. This vision persists when the Earl visits the fortune-teller, having been informed of her impending banishment for witchcraft, but the scene is also present in the final act pinned high above on the ceiling.

Following the internal voice of the opera rather than the plot and locations does manage to rein in the overheated nature of the more familiar plot points, but it risks making not much sense either. There's no gypsy camp or gathering at Ulrica's hut but rather figures - all elegantly attired in formal evening dress - tend to wander into the bedroom and deliver their parts. Strangest of all, Amelia doesn't go outdoors to gather herbs for her potion, but it takes place in her bedroom where her husband Renato doesn't at first recognise her and is then surprised when her identity is revealed (by strange men wandering into the room), yet he's not surprised to find Riccardo there in his bedroom. It's all very strange and dreamlike. You can take for granted too that there are no masks at this "masked ball".

As much of a cliché as it might be, you could see this production as a dream sequence of a revenge fantasy brought out by Renato's suspicions and his playing out of the role assigned to him by the fortune-teller's predictions. Emotionally at least that is pretty much the level the opera operates on anyway, so it's not too much trouble to go with the flow. Visually, the idea of dream logic is also reflected in the impressive reverse mirror-like design of the stage set with its staircase elegantly winding from the room below to the upside-down one above. A Hitchcockian use of doubles comes into play on one or two occasions with Amelia and Riccardo, and even Oscar's true female identity(!) is revealed here, all of it suggesting the perspective of Renato struggling to reconcile questions of identity and personality.

The performances all fit well with this dark vision, but the singing doesn't always meet the requirements. Piotr Beczala at least, looking uncannily and fittingly like Anton Walbrook, gives a good and only occasionally faltering performance as Riccardo. He's proving to be one of the best Verdi tenors out there at the moment, with a distinctive timbre and style of his own. George Petean does well to hold the emotional drama of Renato's key role in this production. Anja Harteros seemed somewhat distracted or absent as Amelia, her singing line wavering and unconvincing, strong on the high notes but weak and unsteady in the lower register. Her performances can be variable, but either this was a particularly bad off-night or the role just isn't entirely right for her.

Zubin Metha's conducting of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester is smooth and elegant without igniting the underlying passions that are there to be exploited. In that respect at least it's in keeping with the overall tone of the production. And, in a way then, the imperfect production is also in keeping with Verdi's flawed opera which doesn't quite have fully-rounded characters who can live up to the overheated plot of suspicion, jealousy and murder that fails to make a whole lot of sense. We're not quite at Otello yet. 

Links: ARTE Concert, Bayerische Staatsoper

Strauss - Arabella (Bayerische Staatsoper, 2015 - Webcast)

Richard Strauss - Arabella

Bayerische Staatsoper, 2015

Philippe Jordan, Andreas Dresen, Kurt Rydl, Doris Soffel, Anja Harteros, Hanna-Elisabeth Müller, Thomas J. Mayer, Joseph Kaiser, Dean Power, Steven Humes, Eir Inderhaug, Heike Grötzinger

Staatsoper.tv - 11 July 2015

Despite its evident attractions, Richard Strauss's Arabella has never quite managed to outshine the opera it was meant to replace, Der Rosenkavalier. Or, if not replace, improve upon. As a second bite of the cherry of Viennese and Mozartian nostalgia, Arabella is much too self-conscious about all those references and allusions and a little too calculated, never succeeding in capturing anything like the indefinable magic of the original. Not that Der Rosenkavalier wasn't very calculated in its creation, but somehow it manages to transcend all of its cleverness to become something wonderful and beautiful in its own right.

As is Arabella in its own way, and as such, as the lesser Strauss work that is performed more often, it's always open to new ideas, reinterpretation and re-evaluation. Andreas Dresen's production for the Bayerische Staatsoper sets the work nominally closer to the time it was written, hoping perhaps to gain a little more depth, resonance and relevance from the world that Strauss and Hofmannsthal would have lived in. The 1920s also have an advantage of holding the same kind of fading glamour for a modern audience as the lovely evocation of period Vienna would have had for the composers.

I say nominally 1920s however, as it's a fairly abstract set design with not much that is recognisably realistic. And yet, it does find a way to capture the beautiful sense of melancholy of the period, the sense of uncertainty, the searching for hope and faith in what lies ahead for us all that pervades Arabella and gives it its distinctive and characteristic beauty. Possibly the death of Strauss's great friend and the librettist of the work, Hugo von Hofmannsthal feeds through to Arabella's mood of concern about a world were old certainties can no longer be counted upon. There's room in this respect for Arabella to be more in touch with real sentiments than the farce of Der Rosenkavalier, and some productions of Arabella do indeed manage to elevate the work if still never rival the indefinable and constantly shifting qualities of Der Rosenkavalier.

Mathias Fischer-Dieskau's set designs for Andreas Dresen's production enhance that sense of upheaval and change in the world through Expressionistic influences (also from the '20s), and they are also able to draw on allusions to the Great Depression, which has undoubtedly led to the financial insecurities of Graf Waldner and his family. Quite consciously, Dresen emphasises the 'in-between' places that most of the drama of Arabella takes place in by placing staircases at the centre of the set. I'm sure it's not by coincidence either that Hofmannsthal purposefully chose to set the work almost exclusively in places of transition, and staircases obviously have a very clear symbolism for fortunes that can go both up and down.

It succeeds in creating an environment in which you can feel Arabella's sense of not quite being in one place or another. She's a young woman, still the star of the ball, who could once have expected great things for her life, but now, due to the ruin of her family's fortune, she is forced to having to choose between three Counts, none of whom she is in love with. Then there's Zdenka in the 'in-between' state of a girl who has been forced to dress as a boy since her family cannot afford to marry off two daughters. Even when Mandryka fails to live up to the promise she holds for him, it's just another case of not being quite here nor there. Arabella is a fascinating role in this respect and those qualities are supported well, without overemphasis, by the stage direction, even if the sparse set doesn't really convey the full richness of the character.

It's left to Anja Harteros to convey all the uncertainty, longing and melancholy of Arabella in the singing, as well as the warmth and beauty of her personality as Strauss scored it. In terms of vocal delivery, Harteros can hardly be faulted. She has the full richness of tone and the range to do Strauss well, and it's an expressive voice too. Harteros is not a bad actor either, but I don't think she quite manages to embody the qualities of elegance and warmth of this beautiful, mistreated, forgiving soul as she graciously comes to accept the unfair reality of the world we live in, taking it as it is.

Thomas Johannes Mayer sings Mandryka wonderfully, looks the part and puts personality behind it. Kurt Rydl and Doris Soffel are old hands at the parts of Waldner and Adelaide and both in good voice here. Joseph Kaiser's is also on familiar ground and an assured Matteo, as is Hanna-Elisabeth Müller as Zdenka. Eir Inderhaug is a firecracker of a 20s' cabaret singer Die Fiakermilli. As I witnessed a few years ago in Paris, Philippe Jordan has a real feel for all the moods and complexities of this work, and the Bayerische Staatsorchester delivered a wonderful warm spirited account of the score.

Links: Staatsoper.tv

Verdi - La Forza del Destino

Giuseppe Verdi - La Forza del Destino

Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich 2013

Asher Fisch, Martin Kušej, Vitalij Kovalev, Anja Harteros, Ludovic Tézier, Jonas Kaufmann, Nadia Krasteva, Renato Girolami, Heike Grötzinger, Christian Rieger, Francesco Petrozzi, Rafał Pawnuk

Staatsoper.TV Live Internet Streaming - 28 December 2013

The weakness in Verdi's La Forza del Destino lies within the imperfect fractured nature of the subject itself, while the strength of the work lies in Verdi's attempt to bring those various elements together into a coherent form. Like most of Verdi's work in his mature middle period before his late masterpieces, he doesn't entirely succeed in overcoming the structural weaknesses of the plot. Sometimes a director, a conductor or a singer can bring an internal consistency to these works, but La Forza del Destino still remains a challenge. It's not one that Martin Kušej can do much about in his Bavarian State Opera production, but there's still a lot to admire in Verdi's work, particularly when it has a cast attached to it like this one.

The imperfections in La Forza del Destino are most evident in the structure. Act I (with its famous overture in the revised version) - in which the Marquese di Calatrava is accidentally killed by Don Alvaro while he is attempting to elope with the Marquese's daughter Donna Leonora - is detached by a number of years from the main body of the work. Across those intervening years, the three figures at the centre of this tragedy have each been struggling to live with the consequences. Donna Leonora has taken religious vows disguised as a man and is seeking peace living as a hermit. Don Alvaro has joined the army and in a quest for redemption. Calatrava's son Don Carlos is looking for revenge and wants to kill both Leonora and Alvaro. There's nothing to unify those characters other than the Force of Destiny that no man can escape. And a lot of coincidence.

Verdi at least attempts to hold it all together with some consistency and dramatic through composition with the unifying Fate theme acting as a connecting leitmotif that weaves throughout the work. Given the problems of the diverse characters and their diverse aims, it's an imperfect effort and Act I and II drag on with little dramatic drive and only a few standard numbers thrown in (Preziosilla's patriotic call to arms in 'Al suon del tamburo') to enliven all the moping and soul-searching. Dramatically, the work only really develops in Act III and IV when Don Carlo and Don Alvaro meet-up under assumed names and temporarily become firm friends. Verdi's advanced musical language however enables him to make much more of the complex characterisation of hatred and friendship in a time of war, as well as the mixed emotions of a man rejoicing that his injured enemy has been saved since it means that he can kill him himself.

Even with Verdi's score, this kind of characterisation can only really be made to work with a strong cast, and the Bayerische Staatsoper have a cast to die for, or a cast who will die for it, if you like. Anja Harteros is a world-renowned performer with a powerful expressive voice and fine acting ability. Whenever I've seen her however, she's been less than precise in her pitch and range, and it's tested here as Donna Leonora in La Forza del Destino. You could put any minor failings down to the exigencies of live performance, particularly when one is as passionately involved in a role as Harteros seems to be here, but it's the humanity of her situation that is key here and that's delivered with complete commitment. You expect no less from Jonas Kaufmann and he throws himself at the role of Don Alvaro. There are no surprises here just solid reliability, but when you have such meticulous control and such a voice, you can't really ask for more.

The lack of any real opportunity or appropriate circumstance for Donna Leonora and Don Alvaro to make any real connection is one of the structural problems with the work, and it prevents the audience from hearing the soprano and tenor together (although there have been other opportunities for Harteros and Kaufmann to sing Verdi together this year, most notably in Don Carlos at Salzburg). On the other hand, it's the Don Alvaro/Don Carlo situations provide plenty of opportunity for fire, and Kaufmann has a worthy adversary in baritone Ludovic Tézier. Another solid performer, Tézier really raises his game in this company and is superb in his solo arias, in his duets and in his dramatic interaction with the others.

Martin Kušej's approach to La Forza del Destino is much the same as his Macbeth for Bayerische. It's minimal, clean, modern and darkly pessimistic, the sets plain and functional for the earlier acts, although the use of a table throughout, like it was borrowed from the rehearsal room is rather odd. It distinguishes itself with one or two striking symbolic images that hit home what the work is all about (even if they do nonetheless, like Macbeth, take a little time to set up and further break the flow of the work). Whereas a killing field of skulls was the abiding image of the death and destruction under the reign of Macbeth, here in La Forza del Destino, it's the use and the image of the cross that is the dominant image for religion, for faith and for destiny here, and they result in a mass of large white crosses forming a rocky outcrop for the vital final act denouement.

Kušej also makes important note of the idea of war and how central it not only to this particular opera, but to Verdi's viewpoint and revolutionary involvement in the Risorgimento throughout his career. Act III, for example, has as a backdrop an unsettling overhead cutaway of a house tilted at 90-degrees with a hole ripped through its centre. Symbolic, you think? "Everything is upside down", Fra Melitone observes at one point, but the concept of lives violently ripped apart is in the background throughout La Forza del Destino. There can be no peace for any soul while one is at war; no true brotherhood, families destroyed, men who would in other times be friends are now enemies, even pride and honour are twisted by hatred and the desire for revenge.

If nothing else, that sentiment came across loud and clear in Martin Kušej's production, but the tragedy of this situation - beyond the pure melodrama of the plot - was also superbly enacted by Harteros, Tézier and Kaufmann. Imperfections remain, but La Forzo del Destino still proves to have a potent mix of all the vital Verdi ingredients that make great opera.