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

Strauss - Salome (Munich, 2019)

Richard Strauss - Salome

Bayerische Staatsoper, 2019

Kirill Petrenko, Krzysztof Warlikowski, Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke, Michaela Schuster, Marlis Petersen, Wolfgang Koch, Pavol Breslik, Rachael Wilson, Scott MacAllister, Roman Payer, Kristofer Lundin, Kevin Conners, Peter Lobert, Callum Thorpe, Ulrich Reß

Staatsoper.TV - 6 July 2019

When you come up against a Krzysztof Warlikowski production that appears to be at great variance from what you expect, as in his Munich production of Salome, it can be useful to remind yourself what the work is supposed to be about. A straightforward biblical story it is not, but rather one of Oscar Wilde's most daring works, far more incisive of Victorian morals than any of his society comedies, a confessional work of taboo in Symbolist drama form, exposing the hypocrisy of a decadent order of repressed lusts hiding behind a veneer of respectability. Along with Freud's studies in Vienna at the turn of the century, it was certainly a work that appealed to Strauss as a way of breaking through the mannerisms of old music and expressing an unspeakable truth, ushering in a new millennium in a violent fashion.

That's over one hundred years ago however, so can Salome still have relevance today? Musically it's still an extraordinary piece of music, perfectly and meticulously connected to a subject that still has the power to shock on the stage, and it doesn't have to be tied to a Biblical story either to have a transgressive taboo feel. Warlikowski taps into that power in his Bavarian State Opera production, but appears to turn the focus away from exposing corrupt individual lusts and delves rather into the self-destructive nature of exposing those individual lusts - something Wilde could certainly attest to - and how they feed into a broken society that is collectively heading for self-destruction.

Is that something we can recognise today? Perhaps it's still not that evident, but Warlikowski chooses not to hit the audience who might be blind to the dangers in our own world today over the head with any heavy-handed contemporary associations. Evidently it's not set 2,000 years ago either, but looks closer to the first half of the 20th century, perhaps 1930s, a time when again, that dark desires and will of human nature would push individuals into a collective self-destructive death wish. There's no obvious war references that point to this either it must be said, but the force of Strauss's music and the fact that this production takes place in Munich make it hard not to make those obvious associations.

I've rarely seen the illicit desires of Salome expressed as powerfully as they are here in Krzysztof Warlikowski's production, and I don't just mean the desires of Salome herself, although Marlis Petersen of course gives a reliably intense performance, nor indeed the rather perverted degeneracy of Herod - likewise an impressive performance from Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke - but it's taken much further than usual also in Pavol Breslik's Narraboth, who clings, gropes and paws desperately at the Princess even as she appeals lasciviously to Jochanaan, and then commits suicide by taking a vial of poison, much to the horror of Rachel Wilson's Page who is clearly in love with Narraboth herself.

All this creates an explosive situation that plunges all of these figures into dangerous ground. That is reflected within Malgorzata Szczesniak's set, the library where Herod has been (strangely) entertaining his guests splits open to reveal a chasm, a gangway downwards to where the prophet Jochanaan, no less wrapped up in his own obsessions, lies in the cistern - but again the chasm isn't one into which Salome alone peers with dark self-destructive desire, but all of Herod's retinue eventually succumb. The contrast between the old world library and the modern gangway to destruction also works with the powerful violence of contrast Strauss's plunge into the development of modernism in his music.

That descent into madness is of course best exemplified in Salome's dance, which is consequently often problematic, particularly in finding a new way to present it. Warlikowski at least keeps it consistent with the central theme here, having Petersen literally engaged in an erotic dance with Death, or a courtier with his face painted in a Death mask, with an animated projection in the background of some kind of heraldic congress (don't ask, I'm not even sure I know what I mean by that). But since Wilde's drama is very much Symbolist in its stylisations this all works well with the text, particularly with the constant references to death heard in the beating of wings.

There's a lot going on, as there often is in Warlikowski productions, and as is also often the case, perhaps even too much. For a work as powerfully focussed as this there's a risk of distraction or spreading it out too thinly. If the dramatic charge consequently isn't always there as it might be, the musical and singing performances achieve everything that is required of them. It's simply a joy to have a conductor like Kirill Petrenko at the helm for a work as dynamic and charged as Salome. I don't think Warlikowski's direction works perfectly in alignment with Petrenko's reading and conducting of the score, but musically in its own right it's as powerful and measured a performance of this music as you can get.

Marlis Petersen as ever gives a committed intense performance. I don't think her voice has the fullness that it once had, but her voice has a perfect lyrical character that is essential for those switches between seductive and dangerous pleas and close-to-shriek utterances of exasperation. But my goodness, this was an exceptionally strong cast across the board, with Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke in particular bringing an other dimension to Herod, Michaela Schuster also avoiding lazy cliche with an almost sympathetic Heriodias, and committed performances from Pavol Breslik as Narraboth and Rachael Wilson as Heriodias's Page.

Wolfgang Koch made less of an impression as Jochanaan, not so much for his singing, which was impeccable, as it seemed that Warlikowski was less interested in the Prophet than in the other depraved characters. This was evident even in the usually gore-filled finale where Jochanaan's head is not presented on a silver platter but in what looks like a safe-deposit box, which doesn't even seem to contain a head since Koch's Jochanaan can be seen sitting to the side of the stage casually smoking a cigarette.

This seems to tie into something of a Liebestod moment here in the Munich production, since not only is Jochanaan alive or resuscitated, but Naraboth is also resurrected so that Warlikowski can provide an alternative twist on the ending of the opera. "The mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death", sings Salome as the whole ensemble, with a kind of bunker-like death cult mentality, hand out vials of poison and commit mass suicide. Make of that what you will - and it's good if there remains some element of shock and controversy about Salome - but aligned with Strauss's thunderous juddering final chords, it makes for a hugely effective conclusion that should leave you much to think on.

Links: Bayerische Staatsoper, Staatsopertv

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 - Parsifal (Munich, 2018)

Richard Wagner - Parsifal

Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich - 2018

Kirill Petrenko, Pierre Audi, Georg Baselitz, Christian Gerhaher, Bálint Szabó, René Pape, Jonas Kaufmann, Wolfgang Koch, Nina Stemme, Kevin Conners, Callum Thorpe, Rachael Wilson, Paula Iancic, Tara Erraught, Manuel Günther, Matthew Grills, Golda Schultz, Selene Zanetti, Noluvuyiso Mpofu

Staatsoper.TV - 08 July 2018

I'm convinced that if I never watched any other opera but Parsifal, I'd still continue to find it an inexhaustible source of wonder, continually offering new insights about life, its purpose and meaning. There aren't many operas that offer as much, particularly from what appears to be so little. Whether it's Wagner's music itself, the director involved in a new production, the conductor, the singers, the staging, it seems that there are infinite ways of exploring this enigmatic work. It seems impossible not to engage with its deeply spiritual content, and each and every new performance and contributor seeming to have something new to bring to it. That's certainly the case with this exceptional 2018 production of Parsifal from the Bayerische Staatsoper.

On a basic narrative level Parsifal seems to be a religious parable or fantasy that bears little connection with real life matters. In Monsalvat, a place outside of space and time, the knights dedicated to a cult of the Holy Grail are falling into despair, their hero Amfortas having been struck by the Holy Spear of Destiny no longer able to endure the pain of performing the ceremony of the unveiling of the the grail that gives strength to its acolytes. They are crying out for someone to resolve the conflict and division in the world since the spear has fallen into the hands of Klingsor. Along comes an innocent fool who doesn't even know his own name. He is moved by what Gurnemanz shows him and determines to do something about it, to learn and understand. That's Act I. In Act II, resisting temptations of the flesh he encounters Kundry, a restless spirit who awakes him to a new awareness not just of the self, but of others. He wrests the spear from Klingsor and, after many years of wandering lost, finds his way to return the lost spear to Monsalvat in Act III.

On another level Parsifal is a story of redemption, the Grail and the Spear symbols of the gifts that God has given which can be used for good or evil. Mankind has taken a wrong step and it needs someone - someone pure who doesn't know the ways of the sinful world - who can heal the divisions and put us back on the right path; a return to innocence through death, rebirth and renewal. Parsifal's journey is not an easy one, the acquiring of learning and knowledge is difficult and painful, but it is through pain and loss that he acquires compassion and, through compassion, purpose. The opera however is not just about Parsifal, but Gurnemanz, Amfortas, Kundry and even Titurel reaching his end, all have their own paths to take towards redemption, resolution, transfiguration and transcendence, but Parsifal is the light that shows them the way.

There are many paths to follow then in Parsifal, and evidently even the above description and reading is greatly simplified. What lifts Parsifal to another level entirely and which can't be put into simple narrative terms is of course Wagner's miraculous music. Noble, dignified, passionate and compassionate, it embodies all the qualities of being human and striving to understand, but there's an abstraction in the flow and blend of melodies and leitmotifs, in the use of instruments and sounds, in the choral and ceremonial aspects of the work that also touches on something deep and spiritual and makes this little fable something more meaningful and endlessly capable of revealing new depths.

So what are we to make of Pierre Audi's new production of Parsifal for the Bavarian State Opera's 2018 summer festival? Well, initially, not a great deal. There's no particular emphasis or vision in display in the first Act, other than the distinctive and unusual set designs by the German artist and sculptor Georg Baselitz. Audi has successfully worked with visual artists before - not so long ago with Anish Kapoor on another production of Parsifal for the Dutch National Opera - and it does succeed in bringing another personal vision of a world that lies between abstraction and reality, a world turned upside down and deflating. Monsalvat appears to be deep in the woods, the knights congregating around a rough hewn structure of stone pillars that come together like a pyramid bundle of sticks sculpture. Kundry is to be found under the skeleton of whatever beast she rode in on. The outdoor-living monks wear heavy robes and tribal paints on their face, stripping down to reveal padded naked suits when Amfortas carries out an act of self-bloodletting within the sacrificial altar of the stone sculpture.

Aside from the eccentricities of the designs - which are nothing more than bringing the style of Georg Baselitz's paintings and designs to life - there's not much in the way of a concept revealed here. It seems to be relying on Kirill Petrenko's conducting of the score to bring out the real depth and mysteries of the work, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Under Petrenko, this is a performance of extraordinary quality by the Bayerisches Staatsorchester, perfectly paced and balanced to allow the emotional depth at the heart of the work infuse the limited dramatic action, and indeed even the otherwise unspectacular 'time becomes space' and unveiling of the grail 'transubstantiation' scenes.

It's only in Act II of this production that the path, intent and purpose of the work becomes evident. The more I see Parsifal, the more it becomes clear that the key figure in the work, the role that is most rewarding in terms of following the progression from lost to found, from self-interest to care for others, is not Parsifal but Kundry. How successful this is may well be down to the singers involved, and Nina Stemme is just astonishingly good here - one of the greatest performances of this role I've ever heard or witnessed. But the characterisation and understanding of who Kundry is important, and Audi and Stemme seem to have paid particular care and attention to this aspect of the work.

It's significant that Kundry is seen awakening out of a long "sleep of death" at the beginning of all three acts. It's her long-suffering moans we hear clearly in each of these scenes as she is called back into the pain of existence. Wild, untamed and confused, seeking redemption for a kind of 'original sin', she struggles with her own nature, unsure of the path to take, helping to ease the pain of Amfortas in one incarnation, forced to act as an agent of Klingsor in another. Tired of being torn, she wants to believe that there is a chance of rest, that someone will bring her struggle to an end. Like all the others, it can't be done by will alone, but in Act II - according to the very direct imagery of Georg Baselitz - a wall is breached.

Pierre Audi also pays particular attention to Parsifal in this Act and Jonas Kaufmann is very much able to make something of this characterisation and his interaction with Stemme's extraordinary Kundry. In a quite different reading of Wagner's exotic music for the Flowermaidens scene, Parsifal is not seduced, but rather the music seems to exude compassion - not love or lust - that he feels for these poor twisted naked bloody creatures of Klingsor (as Baselitz depicts them in lumpy padding). It's not just compassion though, but fear of compassion, unprepared for what it will take out of him. It's a reaction that for the first time made me think of the Flowermaidens scene not as some false Garden of Eden but rather as something closer to Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, a religious scene that Wagner would undoubtedly have considered and referenced in relation to compassion, pain and sacrifice.

It's a simply stunning Act II, superlative on every level of execution in concept and performance. Its position as the true pivotal scene in the opera is fully realised here, the single greatest enactment of this Act that I have ever seen. It's not just Stemme, Kaufmann and Koch, it's Audi's direction, Baselitz's simple but meaningful set designs and, essentially, Kirill Petrenko's management of the ebb and flow of Wagner's near miraculous score reaching out and bringing all of this together. When you see it the way it is supposed to be done it's no wonder that Klingsor is so quickly and easily dispatched at the end of the Act. Parsifal has become an unstoppable force that has still to learn to control and come to terms with the knowledge and power he has gained through the medium of Kundry, but at this point he's just burning fire.

By the time we return to an upturned Monsalvat in Act III, it really does feel like a long time has passed, that Parsifal's righteous fire has lost none of its force but Kaufmann's demeanour wields it like a smouldering sun exuding only light and warmth. The tone and intent of this Act remained deeply moving and sincere in its account of redemption, rebirth and a return to innocence but it felt to me that there were understandable signs of tiring in the orchestra and in the performances. It also brought out the one real weak-point in this production, which was Christian Gerhaher's Amfortas. Gerhaher sings one of the most beautiful lyrical Wolframs you will ever hear in Tannhäuser, but he seemed to me ill-suited and lost as Amfortas. Then again, with the focus wholly on how Kundry and Parsifal become the catalyst to change, there is inevitably less attention paid to the other aspects of the work. If Amfortas's pain was at the same level, it would not only present a different balance, it would almost be too much for a viewer to bear in this production.

René Pape's Gurnemanz is also underdeveloped. Pape is left to stand inhabiting his own world, almost invariably poised beatifically with hands clasped in front of himself, focussed on the delivery but visibly wilting under the heat in the theatre as much as under the weight of the role. It has to be said that the delivery is still very good. I have mixed feelings about Jonas Kaufmann's Parsifal. On the one hand he does bring depth and compassion to Parsifal, his singing heartfelt and emotional. On the other hand his range lacks effectiveness as he tires, going from soft and barely audible to full-volume belting at the cost of real emotional feeling. He tries to compensate in his acting and often overcompensates. Without question however he delivers some spine-tingling moments here, particularly in his interaction with Nina Stemme's Kundry. There I'm afraid words are completely inadequate to express the depth of detail, the warmth of tone and expression in Stemme's ability to bring one of the greatest characters in all opera to life. It's just extraordinary and it makes this Parsifal extraordinary as well.

Links: Bayerische Staatsoper, Staatsoper.TV

Wagner - Die Walküre (Munich, 2017)

Richard Wagner - Die Walküre

Bayerische Staatsoper, 2018

Kirill Petrenko, Andreas Kriegenburg, Simon O'Neill, Ain Anger, John Lundgren, Anja Kampe, Nina Stemme, Ekaterina Gubanova, Daniela Köhler, Karen Foster, Anna Gabler, Michaela Selinger, Helena Zubanovich, Jennifer Johnston, Okka von der Damerau, Rachael Wilson

Staatsoper.TV - 22 January 2018

Based on the live streaming broadcast of Die Walküre, there doesn't appear to be any grand concept applied to Andreas Kriegenburg's Munich Ring cycle, but after a few recent Ring cycles that have been heavily weighed down by all manner of symbolism and interpretation (Bayreuth, Mannheim), it's refreshing at least to step back once in a while and just let the music speak for itself in Wagner's epic work, as it's surely strong enough in that respect. It's perhaps easier to get away with that though when you have Kirill Petrenko conducting and an exceptional cast of the level assembled here, but Kriegenburg's direction isn't without some ideas and character, even if it's difficult to determine just what it is from this part of the cycle alone.

There certainly doesn't seem to be any grand vision here as Kriegenburg's Die Walküre plays the familiar story out in a fairly straightforward fashion on relatively minimalist sets. It's an approach that is rather more in keeping with the recent move away from the more extreme kinds of interpretation we have been accustomed to seeing at the Bayerische Staatsoper. The production is unobtrusive, it doesn't call attention to itself, but by the same token it's not particularly attention-grabbing. The intentions of the director however would appear to be working not so much with drama as with the 'space' around it, using supernumeraries and dancers who "represent the reality that surrounds the singers" rather than interfering with the work itself.

Act I, for example, is dominated by a huge tree in Hunding's lodge, which is decorated it seems by desiccated corpses. Siegmund is initially kept at a fairly large distance away from Sieglinde on the large open set that has only a few indications of a home environment, the space filled rather by 'invisible' servants who pass the drinks and set up a long dinner table between them, as well as (curiously) tend to dead bodies in the background. Wearing torch lights strapped to their palms, they also reflect light and appear to be directing or highlighting the invisible tensions between the twins and Hunding. Other than establishing that undercurrent of menace and confusion, there isn't a lot else you can do with characterisation here to bring any real drama out of the scene, but the musical and singing performances take care of it well enough. The richness of the score and how Petrenko manages it is clearly evident even at this stage, the Act flowing from cold menace to warm wonder, with Ain Anger's menacing Hunding fully conveying one end of that scale and Simon O'Neill and Anja Kampe bringing us gloriously through to the other.

Act II is of course an even greater challenge with its long scene between Wotan and Fricka. Kriegenburg plays around with the various tones of this Act, opening with an epic Valhalla intro in swirling mists, but then settling for a tone set by the extra figures around the singers that establishes itself as business-like. In a bare wood-paneled wide office space, with a large prestigious painting hanging on the wall. Wotan is more of a businessman or lord of a vast estate, playfully engaging with his daughter Brünnhilde, but he has documents to sign, matters to arrange. Up to now, like the servants who even form a throne for him to sit on, everything bends to his will and it's been a relatively simple matter of sending Brünnhilde and the Valkyrie warriors to carry out his orders. That way of working, as we all know, is about to change.

Dancers are used to set up the war-like environment that prefigures Act III's Ride of the Valkyrie, with warriors (in business suits), impaled on top of spears. It's a strong image, but the actual appearance of the Valkyrie is disappointing. With no mounts of any kind, their reins are attached to the poles and it's a bit undramatic. The singing again makes up for any shortcomings here, as does Petrenko's conducting which works hand-in-hand with the action and the demands of the singers. Act III is critical and regardless of the strengths and qualities of a production, the musical performance, no Die Walküre is going to have the necessary impact unless it has a convincing Wotan and Brünnhilde, and no-one could surely be disappointed with John Lundgren and Nina Stemme in those roles.

If Andreas Kriegenburg's production is successful (provisionally as far as Die Walküre is concerned, without having seen the other parts of this Ring cycle), it in how he (and the performers) manage to bring out the father/daughter relationship as the true heart of the work. It's much more than just a regular parent/child relationship that you would find, for example, in a Verdi opera. With his daughter as an outward expression of Wotan's will, it's also about the wielding of power and how the exercise of it can corrupt and have other unforeseen consequences. As Stemme alludes to in her interval interview, it's also about becoming human, emancipating oneself from older ways, and Brünnhilde makes mistakes but makes them honestly with the best of intentions. Critically, through Siegmund and Sieglinde she learns about true love and doesn't so much lose her divinity as become more human.

Stemme, seeing this character though all three Ring operas in which she has a role in this Munich Ring cycle, sings terrifically as you would expect, but also displays a wonderful warm, sympathetic relationship with Lundgren's superbly sung Wotan. Lundgren has already demonstrated his capability in this role at Bayreuth, and here he just seems to have assumed the personality of Wotan completely. The Wotan/Brünnhilde relationship is a vital element in Die Walküre, and whether you put it down to the quality of the singing or the direction, or both, it's really nailed here. Although important as the lynch-pin that the drama of Die Walkure turn on and a formidable character in her own right, Fricka's role has less room for interpretation and motivation. She acts out of wounded pride at the evidence of Wotan's betrayals making a mockery out of her office of marriage, compounded by the brother and sister relationship of Siegmund and Sieglinde, and can consequently come across as strident and harsh in her judgements, but Ekaterina Gubanova sings the role well and succeeds in showing Fricka as someone with a sense of what is right and how false actions can have consequences.

Occasional cutaways to the orchestra pit during the broadcast showed just how much Kirill Petrenko was not only managing the detail and dynamic of the score, but clearly enjoying himself immensely with the wonders on offer. The musical director of the Munich house seems to have a strong affinity with Wagner, and indeed with the Bayerisches Staatsorchester if the broadcast performances this season and last are anything to go by. Everything you want from Die Walküre is there in terms of drama and romantic sweep, but Petrenko never lets the work get carried away into bombast, finding the deeper sensitivities in the anguish and tragedy of the final act, giving them voice and allowing room for the singers to fill these epic characters of legend with real human feelings. And the singers assembled are more than capable of doing that.

Links: Bayerische Staatsoper, Staatsoper.TV

Puccini - Il Trittico (Munich, 2017)

Giacomo Puccini - Il Trittico

Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich - 2017

Kirill Petrenko, Lotte de Beer, Wolfgang Koch, Eva-Maria Westbroek, Yonghoon Lee, Ermonela Jaho, Michaela Schuster, Claudia Mahnke, Ambrogio Maestri, Rosa Feola, Pavol Breslik, Kevin Conners

Staatsoper.TV Live - 23 December 2017 

For me personally, if you want a showcase for the composer's work, Puccini's trittico consists of La Bohème, Madama Butterfly and Tosca. That's not a terribly original selection I admit, but they are each pinnacles of popular Italian opera that have delighted audiences for over a hundred years, and they do reflect the range of prime Puccini. On the other hand, the idea of watching those three operas back to back is perhaps too much for any sensitive mortal to endure, so fortunately Puccini has a rather more accessible and less emotionally fraught option, although anyone watching the Suor Angelica section of the Bavarian State Opera's 2017 production of Il Trittico might have just cause to dispute that point.

There's a case to be made that the heightened human dramas of each of the three short opera that form Il Trittico are just concentrated essence of Puccini, and indeed there is some correspondence with the composer's great full-length operas. Il Tabarro covers much of the same range as La Bohème (and even directly references that opera); Suor Angelica is a variation of sorts on Madama Butterfly's mother forced to abandon her child; and Gianni Schicchi... well, Gianni Schicchi just stands in a category entirely of its own, not only among Puccini's compositions, but as pretty much the best and funniest work of comic opera ever written.

Il Trittico is not only a showcase of some of Puccini's best writing, but it can also be a showcase for a director who is unable to resist the temptation to try to link them at least thematically, since there is little common convergence of tone, period or character between the three short works. Lotte de Beer connects the three pieces in only the most abstract of ways for the new production in Munich. Each of the one-act operas remains in the period of its original setting, and plays out closely to the libretto, but each take place within the wide opening of what looks like a large tunnel. The concept behind this is something to do with time, connecting the past with the future, but it's not something that makes a great impression or present the works in any new or revelatory way.

It's a bit unimaginative but it's in keeping with the more half-way house that the Bayerische Staatsoper have been employing recently, moving back a little from the more extreme ends of Regietheater. It might not be as adventurous, but it does seem to be working much more consistently than the hit-and-miss approach of recent years. As far as Il Trittico goes, Bernhard Hammer's set designs do at least narrow the stage down to a tighter focus that emphasises the emotional density of the works, while Lotte de Beer's relatively straightforward direction lets the dramas showcase their own qualities.

Each of the dramas plays out then strictly in period costume and according to the original intentions of the libretto, and the lighting ensures that the mood of each piece is faithfully represented on the stage and that it never feels clinical, even if there are few of the usual props. The only extravagant effects are those which are called for in the music and the drama, with one of the sections of the tunnel rotating 360-degrees at the concluding dramatic revelations of Il Tabarro and Suor Angelica, lifting their moments of death and transcendence to another level. Gianni Schicchi, as I say, is a very different kind of work with a punchline all of its own, and that's taken into account here without the need for 'special effects'.

Aside from the concluding moments however, Il Tabarro feels mostly functional in the Munich production. It is nonetheless effective in its emotional expression and the impressionistic dark undercurrents are realised in the intense musical direction of Kirill Petrenko, and in the singing performances of Wolfgang Koch, Eva-Maria Westbroek and Yonghoon Lee. As the final piece Gianni Schicchi is often a winning conclusion to Il Trittico if a director can really tap into the work's rhythm and humour, and Lotte de Beer captures that well. There are neat little touches to the comic acting and great timing from Michaela Schuster as Zita and Ambrogio Maestri as Schicchi, with some sweet singing from Rosa Feola and Galeano Salas standing in for Pavol Breslik, who lost his voice and had to mime the role.

It's Suor Angelica however that is the standout piece here, the main course to Il Tabarro's starter and Gianni Schicchi's icing on the dessert cake (someone has been watching too much Masterchef on TV recently), and what makes this Suor Angelica so memorable is the extraordinary performance of Ermonela Jaho. The Albanian soprano has taken on the role of Sister Angelica before, most notably in the Royal Opera House production of Il Trittico available on DVD, and she is always impressive, but it seems like there are still depths in it for her to explore. Vocally, it's a stunning performance, marrying technique to an intense dramatic delivery that pushes at the limits, with precisely pitched high notes carrying a distinctive timbre that is Jaho's own sound and expression. It's probably the single greatest performance I've seen in an opera all year.

Since I'm making a big deal about this being a showcase work (in case you haven't noticed), one shouldn't neglect the part played by Kirill Petrenko's conducting of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester. By no means does he attempt to find a common sound for the work as a whole, but finds the appropriate tempo and tenor for each individual piece. More than just being a distillation of classic Puccini pieces, Il Trittico is Puccini+, where the composer explores new sound worlds. There are hints of Wagner's Flying Dutchman in the situation and dynamic of Il Tabarro, you can hear the influence of Impressionism and there is even some dissonance as Puccini responds to demands of each of the works in new creative ways. It's an evening of marvellous music that the Bayerische Staatsoper's Il Trittico showcases brilliantly.

The next live broadcast from the Bavarian State Opera is Wagner's Die Walküre on 22nd January 2018.  Conducted by Kirill Petrenko, Directed by Andreas Kriegenburg, the cast includes Simon O'Neill, Anja Kampe, Nina Stemme, Wolfgang Koch and Ekaterina Gubanovana.

Links: Bayerische Staatsoper, Staatsoper.TV

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

Shostakovich - Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (Munich 2016)

Dmitri Shostakovich - Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District

Bayerische Staatsoper, 2016

Kirill Petrenko, Harry Kupfer, Anatoli Kotscherga, Sergey Skorokhodov, Anja Kampe, Misha Didyk, Heike Grötzinger, Kevin Conners, Christian Rieger, Sean Michael Plumb, Milan Siljanov, Goran Jurić, Alexander Tsymbalyuk, Kristof Klorek, Dean Power, Peter Lobert, Igor Tsarkov, Alexander Tsymbalyuk, Selene Zanetti

Staatsoper.TV - 4th December 2016

There was a time when Harry Kupfer's productions could be quite radical and not be too concerned with holding slavishly to the directions stipulated in the libretto, but while he is still capable of some striking stage pieces, there's more of a 'classical' look and feel to his productions now. That at least was the case with his elegant but unexceptional Der Rosenkavalier for Salzburg in 2014, and there's a similar aesthetic applied to this production of Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. The bigger surprise however is that this is a very 'straight' production for the Bavarian State Opera, a house that in the recent past has been inclined towards rather more challenging interpretations.

Kupfer's production however doesn't stick entirely to the book. Rather than being set in the middle of the 19th century of the time of it was written by Nikolai Leskov, the Munich production is set at the beginning of the 20th century, closer to the time of Shostakovich's composition in 1934. Perhaps more significantly this setting is just before the time of the Russian Revolution, highlighting perhaps distasteful aspects of Russian society in a way that Shostakovich might not have been able to do so openly in the Soviet Union. On the other hand, it's not as if Shostakovich was anything less than scathing about the social order and the behaviour of the authorities, the merchant class and working class - the work meeting with Stalin's disapproval and eventually being banned - so it's not clear that there is anything gained from this updating.

If it's set in the 20th century, it's perhaps just to make the work feel a little more contemporary and less about any specific political regime. Kupfer's production doesn't particularly dwell on the political or social aspects of the work, or even its essential Russian character. If there is any aspect of the work that is given more emphasis, it's perhaps the more universal treatment of the relationships between men and women. On this front, Shostakovich's musical treatment of the story was and still is a fearsome piece of work; a no-nonsense and quite daring depiction of the most base impulses that drive women and men, and what happens when they meet in two particularly driven people.

It's Kirill Petrenko's musical direction from the pit that makes the strongest case for the murderous havoc that this encounter generates, so if Kupfer's stage direction doesn't particularly inspire, the production as a whole at least pulls no dramatic punches. Musically, I don't think I've ever heard this work sound so vibrant and punchy, the unbridled musical underscoring matching every excess of the unbridled passions described in the drama; rape, adultery, murder, drunkenness, beatings, police corruption and brutality are all vividly described. Sensitivity, tenderness, love, some kind of sympathy for the position of Katarina Ismailov, the Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk? Not so much.

...or at least not in this production anyway. Despite the bombastic approach of Shostakovich to undesirable human behaviours and actions, there is room for nuance and sensitivity, but there's little of it in evidence here. It's interesting to contrast the musical treatment here with Petrenko's direction of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg in October. The conductor and orchestra unquestionably bring out all the dramatic qualities of the music and the passions expressed, but there's less light and shade to work with in Shostakovich's score. Nonetheless, there is an ebb and flow to the rhythm of the dramatic action, and when you follow that the impact is explosive. You certainly get a sense of that here.

If there is room to work with the balance and weight of a more sensitive reading, it's perhaps in the hands of the singers, but the approach here tends to match the same explosive delivery of the score. On that level alone, the performances are impressive. Anja Kampe is on wonderful form here and it's thrilling to behold. Her Katarina is very much a woman driven by huge passions that aren't satisfied being the wife of the inadequate son of a wealthy grain merchant, and she's prepared to go to whatever lengths necessary to resist her fate, even if that is far beyond what a woman in her position can expect to be permitted. It's unfortunate that it's only through someone as self-serving as Sergey that she is able to find a way out.

Misha Didyk, from my experience, tends to border on hysterical in his delivery, but with the strong direction of someone like Stefan Herheim (in the recent DNO Queen of Spades), his anguished tone can be put to good use. Here, as Sergey he leans towards the shrill and histrionic, but there is at least a good place for it in Sergey's arrogant, wheedling, self-serving character, and it adds an edge to that unquestionably passionate relationship that develops between Sergey and Katarina. Anatoli Kotscherga sings a powerful Boris and successfully avoids letting the character slip into caricature. There are no weak points in any of the other roles, with Sergey Skorokhodov's Zinovy, Goran Jurić's chief of police and whoever plays the Shabby Drunk all in particular standing out.

Unfortunately, the rather indifferent production design and direction doesn't give the work the boost or the necessary edge it might have had. All the locations are rather sanitised and prettified, with Kupfer using again similar dramatic black-and-white cloud and landscape projections to those in his production of Der Rosenkavalier. If there is a trend towards a softening of the wilder Regie excesses on the part of Kupfer and the Bayerische Staatsoper that feels less adventurous, on the musical front at least the Munich house are going from strength to strength under their new music director Kirill Petrenko, and I'll happily settle for that.

The Bayerische Staatsoper's line-up for the rest of the live broadcast season next year is staggeringly good. On 26 Feb it's Rossini's SEMIRAMIDE, conducted by Michele Mariotti and directed by David Alden with an impressive cast that includes Joyce DiDonato, Alex Esposito, Daniela Barcellona and Lawrence Brownlee. We then have to wait until 1 July for Franz Schreker's DIE GEZNEICHNETEN, conducted by Ingo Metzmacher and directed by Krzysztof Warlikowski. Kirill Petrenko returns to conduct Wagner's TANNHÄUSER on 9th July in a new production directed by Romeo Castellucci.

Links: Bayerische Staatsoper, Staatsoper.TV