Weber - Der Freischütz (Munich, 2021)

Carl Maria von Weber - Der Freischütz

Bayerische Staaatsoper, Munich 2021

Antonello Manacorda, Dmitri Tcherniakov, Golda Schultz, Anna Prohaska, Kyle Ketelsen, Pavel Černoch, Boris Prýgl, Bálint Szabó, Tareq Nazm, Milan Siljanov, Eliza Boom, Sarah Gilford, Daria Proszek, Yajie Zhang

StaatsoperTV Live - 13 February 2021

One sure thing you can count on with an opera production by Dmitri Tcherniakov is that it's never going to be short of talking points and in some cases (Dialogues des Carmélites) downright controversy. Tcherniakov is still the only opera director I know to have had one of his works actually banned by the courts on the objection of the estate of the work's original author for subverting the true intentions of the work. You will definitely question whether he is true to the spirit of Romanticism in his setting of Weber's Der Freischütz in the executive room of the owner of a large corporation.

Furthermore, rather than opening the opera with a traditional shooting contest Tcherniakov has the competitors being urged to train a gun on and take down an unsuspecting member of the public from a window vantage point high on the office block of businessman Lord Kuno. Sure, you expect a modern director to find a new way to express the intentions of an old fashioned opera (albeit one of the most important in the history of German opera) but does this really conform to the original intentions and meaning of the original? Is Tcherniakov not again just seeking to be controversial by overturning and subverting a reactionary agenda?

For Tcherniakov, evidently the idea of a work that extols any kind of nationalist sentiment, superstition, romanticism or dealings with magic can't possibly be played straight to a contemporary audience and have the same impact as it might have had for its original audience. On the other hand there are deeper human qualities brought out in Weber's opera, and likewise Tcherniakov's intention is not to subvert the work, but use a similar exaggeration and shock factor to highlight an underlying idea. How far would someone go to impress the boss and marry into an influential family?

Well one thing you don't want to do is strike up a deal with the devil, or in the case of this production, get too friendly with and take the advice of the office weirdo, Kaspar. What he really does is encourages Max to pull the trigger that will open up his future destiny. He seems powerful and in control, but has strange ideas and hears voices and seems to be possessed, conversing with a split personality that he calls Samiel. He's also a bit of a gun freak. Too late, Max worries what he has got himself into and he has good reason to be concerned when he agrees to follow Kaspar to Wolf's Glen.

It does take a little twisting of the narrative to make this work, and where some might have more of an objection is in the director constructing his own narrative to put it into a quite different context from the original. In the gaps between scenes and in instrumental passages, Tcherniakov inserts subtitles that enter into the mind of the people involved and even creates a new narrative that you would think adds little, such as Agathe having previously been in a same-sex relationship with Ännchen, who dresses in a masculine if somewhat dandyish fashion. His take on the shock conclusion of the Hermit's forgiveness being a mere delusion and Agathe indeed being a victim of the magic bullet, is like Carmélites revisionism again, but it's enormously effective and appropriate here.

The more Romantic outlook on Der Freischütz would be the question of how far you would go for love when the path of virtue is the only road to salvation from the dark forces in the world, but Dmitri Tcherniakov's take on it as ambition and social climbing corrupting the soul can sit alongside that. You can debate whether that really gets under the skin of what the opera is all about, but there's no doubt - as is always the case I find - that he fully brings dramatic power and conviction to whatever he works on. If you didn't already know what a masterpiece Der Freischütz is, you would definitely feel it from the treatment here.

It also helps that the opera is played beautifully with Antonello Manacorda conducting the Bayerisches Staastorchester and there are some excellent singing performances. Golda Schultz in particular is impressive as Agathe and Pavel Černoch perfect as the rather unfortunate Max who falls under the spell as a wonderfully deranged Kyle Ketelsen as Kaspar/Samiel. It's also a very handsome production as most of Elena Zaytseva designs are for Dmitri Tcherniakov. In his latest mode of using elegant, tasteful wooden panel lined rooms to satirise middle- and upper-class luxury homes and offices (La Traviata, Tristan und Isolde, Pelléas et Mélisande), they could be showcase exhibits for interior design. In every respect, Tcherniakov's aim is perfect and his shot unerringly finds its true target.

Links: Bayerische Staatsoper, StaatsoperTV

Shostakovich - Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (Paris, 2019)

Dmitri Shostakovich - Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk

L'Opéra National de Paris, 2019

Ingo Metzmacher, Krzysztof Warlikowski, Dmitry Ulyanov, John Daszak, Aušrinė Stundytė, Pavel Černoch, Sofija Petrovic, Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke, Oksana Volkova, Andrei Popov, Krzysztof Baczyk, Marianne Croux, Alexander Tsymbalyuk

Paris Cinema Live - 16 April 2019

I love the way the Paris Opera site has a warning for this production of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk advising that "Certain scenes may be inappropriate for the young and the easily offended". You could almost take it for granted that the conservative contingent of the audience at the Paris Opera are going to find much offensive in a Krzysztof Warlikowski production, and there is much indeed to find offense with. This time however it's not Warlikowski that brings controversy to a production but rather it's a case that this daring opera that Stalin ordered to be banned still has the potential to shock. Warlikowski merely helps realise its potential on stage for a modern audience.

Personally I think Warlikowski is less of a wild card than he typically used to be at La Monnaie in Brussels, the Bayerische Staatsoper in Berlin and the Teatro Real in Madrid where he really pushed buttons by twisting narratives - brilliantly and meaningfully - and imposing his own vision through extended scenes, movie references and even his own film inserts, throwing in glitter, dancers and all manner of bizzareness. Recently, particularly in Paris, he has actually toned down his interpretations a little, as in the recent Don Carlos and also with From The House of the Dead. With Lady Macbeth again the eccentricities are largely eliminated, the changes are still large but of minimal interference only to make the work even more powerful.

The reason for that is of course that Shostakovich's opera, banned in Russia after Stalin viewed it, is a force in itself. I don't think however that I've ever appreciated the full brilliance of the work as it's expressed here in the 2019 Paris Opera production. All the bold, daring satire of the corruption in Russian society and its treatment of women is given full vent in a rich musical arrangement that is dramatically attuned, expressive of sinister intent and murderous violence, but also warmly seductive and downright lewd. Conductor Ingo Metzmacher has a lot to do with that (and large shoes to fill when the current musical director Philippe Jordan leaves), but it's more a combination of efforts and, as it ought to be, a collaboration between composer, conductor and director. Not forgetting the performers, and we definitely won't forget the performers here.

I guess I'm not going to get tired of praising Aušrinė Stundytė for her singing and dramatic interpretations any time soon, but I might have to work on finding new adjectives if she keeps delivering at this level. This is another extraordinary performance, fearless in her complete absorption into difficult and challenging characters. Her choices to date have been good in that respect (most recently at Aix-en-Provence in Prokofiev's The Fiery Angel) and there are few female roles as superbly written from both character and singing viewpoint as Katerina Ismailova. It's a role Stundytė has impressed in before (Lyon) and she brings a great deal of thought, personality and subtle psychology to this performance, to an expression of complex human emotions pushed to extremes.

I would say that Krzysztof Warlikowski plays no small hand in directing and channeling that performance and in giving it an effective and credible context to work within. Of course, working in collaboration with his regular set and costume designer Małgorzata Szczęśniak, it's far from natural realism, but rather attuned to the undercurrents, to internal hopes and dreams, to fierce personal drive and disillusionment that comes when those ideals clash with reality, with the circumstances of life in rural Russia, with the attitudes of an oppressive patriarchal society, with institutions that are riddled with vice and corruption.

Warlikowski's interventions than are fairly expansive in assuming a very distinctive presence on the production design, but they do not interfere with where the real strengths of the work lie. Instead of a grain factory, this production of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk is situated in an abattoir. That might sound heavy handed, and yes, the handing of bloody sides of cattle is pretty disgusting, but it does capture something of Katerina's distaste for the world she is trapped in, as well as providing a humorous and ironic contrast between her belief that even cows have a purpose, while her life has none. The set where meat is handled also provides a chilling location for the near-rape of Aksinya. If viewers are easily offended by such scenes, they should be.

Rather than wallow in the degradation of society and how it clashes with individual liberties, Warlikowski and Szczęśniak move on and find other ways that illustrate what Shostakovich vividly depicts in his music. A large part of the drama takes place in a long trailer that represents Katerina's room, moved to a central position on the stage where it rotates and can viewed from a number of angles that permit the viewer to see the all sexual positions Katerina is able to perform with her lover Sergei, Warlikowski choreographing the sensual undercurrents and the outright raunchy actions to what is there explicitly in the music. The room later doubles as the trailer where Katarina and Sergei are held with the other prisoners in Act IV, underlining the impression that she has trapped herself.

Most brilliantly of all however is how Warlikowski depicts Katerina and Sergei's marriage as something of a blood wedding, with blood red curtains surrounding it and the bride and groom all in red. Instead of having the guests whisper rumours and asides about the bride and the mysterious disappearance of her husband, it's delivered by a stand-up comedian with a line in edgy humour, with circus acts also capturing brilliantly the absurdity and farce of the situation that is all there in Shostakovich's playful music for this scene. Similarly Shostakovich's music can't disguise the forced comedy of the police-chief and the institutional corruption of the authorities that even Stalin couldn't miss, and that blends superbly into the high farce that this Act descends into with the discovery of the body hung up with the other sides of beef.

Warlikowski also seeks to use a limited amount of projections, some of them barely noticeable as overlays of dripping blood down the red curtains, but always in an effort to get deeper into the psychology that underlies Katarina's behaviour, fears and dreams. Some 3-D computer graphics are created to capture a sense of floating and drowning underwater, and that also blends effectively into the wider considerations of the work.

I've always felt that Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk is a compelling work but rarely have I felt so absorbed by its dramatic drive as I have here in its telling by the stunning collaboration of Warlikowski, Metzmacher and Stundytė. Stundytė obviously dominates with her tour-de-force singing and acting performance, but the ensemble action and singing all work together tremendously well, with strong performances also from Pavel Černoch as Sergei, an impressive working of Aksinya's role by Sofija Petrovic, with excellent work also from Dmitry Ulyanov as Boris Timofeyevich, Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke as the Village drunk/comedian and Oksana Volkova as Sonyetka.

Links: L'Opéra National de Paris

Janáček - The Makropulos Case (Bayerische Staatsoper, 2014 - Webcast)

Leoš Janáček - The Makropulos Case

Bayerische Staatsoper, 2014

Tomáš Hanus, Árpád Schilling, Nadja Michael, Pavel Cernoch, Kevin Conners, Tara Erraught, John Lundgren, Dean Power, Gustav Belácek, Peter Lobert, Heike Grötzinger, Reiner Goldberg, Rachael Wilson

Staatsoper.TV - 1 November 2014

The challenges that come with putting on a production of Janáček's The Makropulos Case are probably no more difficult or easier than dealing with the specific requirements of any of the composer's operas. In all of his works, it's not only vital to settle on a consistent tone and temperament that brings the music and the staging together, but the key singing roles have to be perfect - and singing in the Czech language is no easy matter for a non-native. It's only however when you get to see one of those works come together on every level, that you realise just what its most important ingredients are. The Bayerische Staatsoper's 2014 production of The Makropulos Case is revelatory in that respect.

While all the other elements are still important, it's clear from the Munich production that The Makropulos Case only really works as it should when you have a soprano of great charisma and ability singing the role of Emilia Marty. I'll come to that later, but the other elements are important to consider in how they relate to each other. Musically, everything was perfectly in place here. Tomáš Hanus has prepared a new critical edition of the work, and if it can be judged simply on how well Janáček's music delivers the intent of the libretto, it's a superb interpretation, but it's also clearly responsive to the composer's familiar rhythms and the advancements in the musical language that are evident at this late stage in the composer's career.

The value of Árpád Schilling's direction is less easy to determine. Visually, Márton Ágh's costume and production design doesn't appear to have a great deal to contribute to the drama, the message or the purpose of the work, but conceptually it's on solid ground and it provides a setting that suits the tone that has been carefully established. Act I in Dr. Kolenatý's office is somewhat Kafkaesque, the minimal set consisting of a marbled wall with chairs studded vertically into the narrow side of the revolving set. There are a few steps from this leading down to a snow-covered front-stage. It feels imposing, intimidating, confusing and otherworldly, which isn't a bad impression to give as the details of the Prus versus Gregor case are outlined, and the way that the enigmatic Emilia Marty becomes involved in it.

The stage of the opera-house, or the back-stage of an opera house in Act II, is bright, modern and clinical. Asylum-like almost, with stylised padded walls. Quite what the tone is meant to indicate isn't entirely clear, but if you want to see it that way, it's perhaps a view of Emilia Marty's inner world. Having lived in various guises for the last 300 years, it could be seen as a reflection of her needing to renew and refresh, clinically detach herself from the sentiments and emotions that would inevitably become a heavy burden over such an extended lifetime. There's nothing playful about the science-fiction concept for this opera. It's a serious attempt to examine what gives life meaning, and of course, what gives life meaning above all else is the fact that it will one day come to an end.

Schilling's directing takes this very seriously, as does the musical interpretation of the score by the conductor Tomáš Hanus. Picking up on several other incidents that occur in the work and some of the comments made, Schilling takes this a little further. As a few late additions to the set indicate - including a kind of sacrificial flagellation - what is considered here is not just what would it mean for a person to cope with the eternity of existence, but what it would mean to be a woman, to be a beautiful woman, and to be the object of constant attention, to be pursued, hounded and living permanently as an object of desire to men (and women, if we also consider Krista's fascination with Emilia Marty, which should not be discounted as something incidental). Imagine that and imagine being forever young, beautiful and talented.

Well, that's the challenge that the soprano singing Emilia Marty/Elina Makropulos has to be able to work with. Aside from the language and musical challenges, aside from having to carry the weight of 337 years of being a woman in this position, she also has to be ageless, alluring, enigmatic and charismatic. No small order. Enter Nadja Michael. Michael hasn't been the most consistent singer in the past - when I last saw her Lady Macbeth in Munich she was all over the place really - but there's no questioning her presence and commitment in a performance. Emilia Marty proves to be a perfect fit for Nadja Michael.

I don't know about her Czech - she occasionally sounds a little less than perfectly clear in enunciation - but there's no faulting her singing performance or her ability to enter into her character. Marty is of course an opera diva, and I think Michael can relate to that. She looks simply terrific here, having that necessary presence and allure, wearing short blonde curls here and a teasing dress in Act II that reveals rather a lot. Her performance however is utterly magnetic and otherworldly credible. It would be a bit of a problem if the great opera singer Emilia Marty couldn't sing her own role, but there's no danger of that here, and Michael's performance is enthusiastically and deservedly acclaimed at the curtain call of the live streamed broadcast.

This is the kind of performance that can carry a show, but the other roles are supportive in how exceptionally well they are sung. Pavel Cernoch gives a clearly sung and impassioned Albert Gregor ('Bertie') and John Lundgren's Prus is well-measured and wonderfully sung, his role and relationship to Emilia Marty considered within the context of what it adds to the concept. The other roles are all more then capably sung by the Munich troupe regulars, with Reiner Goldberg in particular giving a touching performance as the former lover of the Carmen-like Andalusian gypsy Eugenia Montez. (There's a whole other question in The Makropulos Case of opera as an eternal artform of passions, and that's not neglected here either). Lyrical, dramatic and passionate, this was everything that Janáček should be, and it will do much to continue to raise his profile as one of the greatest composers of the 20th century.

Rimsky-Korsakov - The Tsar's Bride (Berlin 2013 - Webcast)

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov - The Tsar's Bride

Staatsoper im Schiller Theater - Berlin, 2013

Daniel Barenboim, Dmitri Tcherniakov, Anatoli Kotscherga, Olga Peretyatko, Johannes Martin Kränzle, Tobias Schabel, Pavel Cernoch, Anita Rachvelishvili, Stephan Rügamer, Anna Tomowa-Sintow, Anna Lapkovskaja, Carola Höhn

ARTE Live Web Internet Streaming - October 2013

It was fairly evident from the Metropolitan Opera's recent revelatory production of Borodin's Prince Igor that director Dmitri Tcherniakov not only wants to introduce rarely performed Russian opera works to western audiences, but he also wants to make them fresh, modern and relevant in the transition. That view is confirmed by the Berlin Staatsoper's production of Rimsky-Korsakov's The Tsar's Bride (from October 2013), where it doesn't take too long for the facade showing a winter street scene from the period of Ivan the Terrible to fall and reveal a very different behind the scenes contemporary setting in a TV studio.

References to a Tsar are never going to fit comfortably into any modern production of Rimsky-Korsakov's The Tsar's Bride, least of all a Dmitri Tcherniakov one. The director's idea here then is to cast Tsar Ivan's oprichniks as television executives, exercising their control over the public and obedience to the government through the broadcast of propaganda messages. The so-called 'tsar' that they serve however is only a virtual creation mocked up on computer software, his on-screen appearances in the broadcasts put together with an actor and motion capture technology. This whole background scene-setting sequence - far from the original work - is played out as a series of projections and e-mail chats exchanged between Grigory Gryaznoy and his staff, searching for a suitable bride for their tsar.

It's a typical Tcherniakov setting then, one where the public face and the reality beneath the surface and behind the scenes is contrasted and compartmentalised. This is reflected in the stage designs of Act I which have the director's familiar divisions into separate rooms, one showing a green-screen backed television studio filled with cameras where the recordings are made under bright studio lights. This backs onto a production office where the broadcasts are monitored, and a third section presents a conference room for the oprichnik executives to make their policy decisions and carouse in revelry of their power. On a revolving stage, the ingenious design is allowed to flow freely from one scene to the next, retaining in the process the wonderful flow of Rimsky-Korsakov's score.

The more 'public' scenes of Act II, and the opening of Act III take place in the living room of the Sobakin's house which is depicted in the boxed-in style of Tcherniakov's Paris Opera Macbeth. Marfa and her family can be seen through large windows in a big room with a flatscreen TV. As well as bringing the broadcasts of the "tsar" to the public, it also proves to be a strong way to depict the jealousy of Lyubasha as she looks in on the happy household and her love rival. So while we don't have the any mysterious monks appearing wearing a black oprichnik cassock, the television broadcasts of the computer generated virtual Tsar have perhaps a more sinister and insidious aspect. As always with this director then, it doesn't always work on a strictly literal level, but the intentions and meaning come through well.

Whatever you make of the concept, there's no denying that the rich dramatic vitality of The Tsar's Bride is all there in the performances. Whether that's because of Tcherniakov's direction or despite his intervention is a matter of judgement, but certainly the musical strengths of Rimsky-Korsakov's score are in evidence in the rousing account of the work conducted under the baton of Daniel Barenboim. Reflecting the richness of the work, with romantic rivalry, fantasy elements and love potions, the raging passions are all played out in a typical bold Russian character with big declaimed arias and roaring choruses, and Barenboim directs it all brilliantly, in a production that is bursting with life and vigour.

It's a work then that demands equally passionate Russian singing, and there are few disappointments on that score. The real stand-out performance came surprisingly from Anita Rachvelishvili, who is really showing that she is by far and away strongest as a singer in the Russian repertoire. As Lyubasha, she has a showcase a capella song in Act I which she handles admirably, but there's depth of character and passion here as well. Her expression of jealousy of Marfa and anger at Gryaznoy's betrayal really holds the emotional heart of the work together and allows the viewer to sympathise with Lyubasha as she is driven to the extreme of plotting Marfa's downfall. That culminates in an outstanding and chilling expression of anger at her rival at the close of Act II.

Olga Peretyatko has a voice of marvellous depth and character, capable of tackling the most demanding of Rossinian coloratura heroines with no thinning of the voice across the range. In Russian opera, and in a role like Marfa, there is however an extra force and stamina required and Peretyatko's voice isn't quite right for it. Her timbre is so bright and beautiful however that it's still delightful to hear her sing such a role. Where it really comes into its own is in Marfa's final 'mad scene' of poison delirium, which has to be credible enough to move even Gryaznoy to repent, and it is. Even if he is not Russian, the German baritone Johannes Martin Kränzle sings like one, boldly declarative and passionate, bringing a measure of the kind of characterisation that is also required to make the role of Gryaznoy real.

The Berlin Staatsoper's production of The Tsar's Bride was recorded for broadcast in October 2013 and played for a limited time only on the German version of the ARTE Live Web/ARTE Concert web site. It's no longer available for on-line viewing.

Dvořák - Rusalka

Antonín Dvořák - Rusalka

La Monnaie/De Munt, Brussels, 2012

Ádám Fischer, Stefan Herheim, Myrtò Papatanasiu, Pavel Cernoch, Annalena Persson, Renée Morloc, Ekaterina Isachenko, Julian Hubbard, André Grégoire, Marc Coulon

La Monnaie, Internet Steaming, 14 and 16th March 2012

Watching Stefan Herheim’s production of Dvořák’s 1901 opera for La Monnaie/De Munt in Brussels (performed in March 2012 and broadcast via their internet streaming service), I began to think that we are getting to a point now where it would be something of a novelty to see Rusalka done as a straight fairytale. From Martin Kušej’s brilliant envisioning for Munich of the water nymph as an abused young woman held in captivity in an underground basement to the recent debacle of the production for the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, which placed Rusalka in a brothel, there’s a predictable familiarity now to seeing Rusalka as an abused woman at the hands of men. Stefan Herheim’s production then may seem to adhere to this modern revisionism of the role by casting her as a prostitute, but by altering the perspective of the work to that of the Water Goblin, her “captor”, gives an interesting new view on the central theme of the corruption of innocence.

This Rusalka is considerably different in temperament then from how Kušej and Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito view the character, or indeed from a traditional view of the water nymph. Here, on a street corner, on a remarkably lifelike stage set that could be a street corner on any middle or eastern European city (albeit with an English bobby on the beat), the streetwalking Rusalka is all glitter and glamour in the eyes of the old man, Vodník, who wants to possess her and keep her for his own pleasure – a femme fatale who, in the end, will drive him to commit a violent crime of passion. This Rusalka is no innocent – she’s street-smart and wise to the dangers that her lifestyle and clients like the old man represent and she dreams of a better life out of the dark world she lives in, but is she really cut out for the refinement of the world above? It’s this inability to deal with the disappointment that her unrealistic idealisation of what a normal life and love means, certainly as far as men are concerned, that is to be her tragedy here.

There’s quite a leap involved in making Rusalka a prostitute, and characteristically for this director – like his recent Eugene Onegin for De Nederlandse Opera – there’s a great deal of complexity to how the narrative is structured in order to make this idea work and a significant altering of traditional perspective. Perhaps surprisingly however, the director’s approach of actually listening to the music and not just the libretto would seem to justify and bear out his approach here. The musical theme for the Water Goblin is indeed threaded through the work as a leitmotif, and it gives Herheim the justification to consider how women are looked upon and objectified by men from a modern perspective, as well as from the older tradition.

This Rusalka consequently may not be the most flattering or politically correct view of women – witches, prostitutes and nuns feature, many of them with exaggerated female figures in quite obscene body suits, the nuns even taking part in an orgy – and there is a great deal of violence enacted against them in brutal stabbings, but it’s precisely through this kind of altered perspective that the director intends to show an idealisation that the reality doesn’t live up to. It’s fascinating then that Herheim does indeed manage to get to the root of Rusalka’s tragedy through this mirrored perspective – the old man/water goblin present on the stage as a witness almost throughout – as it is by being the object of the desires and ideals of men that Rusalka is prevented (kept silent by a curse) from expressing who she wants to be herself.

You have to work hard however to get to this realisation as there is a bewildering array of imagery on the stage and considerable twists to characterisation that will be difficult to disentangle even for someone very familiar with the work. This includes a wife for the Vodník, who is not in the original libretto, who has a non-singing role, although she is played by the same singer (Annalena Persson) who is the Foreign Princess. While this and some other doubling of roles may initially be confusing, it reflects the director’s view of mirroring reality with the fantasy “fairytale” view of world that is fabricated in the mind of the old man/water goblin. At the very least however, the sheer effort of trying to fit it all together commands attention and forces the audience to reconsider what the work is actually about. Unless you thinkRusalka is just a lyric fairytale and is perfectly fine in that form without all the psychological probing.

Also commanding is the spectacle on the stage itself, which really is quite extraordinary. This production (originally staged for the first time in 2008 as a co-production between La Monnaie and Oper Graz) really is quite the most brilliant use of stage-craft I’ve seen in an opera for a long time. Some of it seems abstract and inconsistent with the themes, but you’ll probably find it fits in some kind of weird way, and is certainly never anything less than dazzling and thought-provoking. The street scene, designed by Heike Scheele, is remarkably realistic but, in keeping with the fantasy/reality theme, elements explode out and upward, as if you were looking at a children’s pop-up book – the counter of the corner café extending out into the street, an advertising pillar appearing out of the ground, on which Rusalka is perched as if on a pedestal, with a mermaid tail dipped inside the pillar. If you still can’t make sense of it all – it took me quite a little while to come around to the idea and the concept – the immensely powerful coup de theatre of the conclusion at least should bring the full impact and realisation of the meaning of the work in Herheim’s vision of its present day application as well as its relevance to Dvořák’s original work.

With performances as good as that of the principals cast here moreover, you’ll happily put up with some shock and befuddlement. As Rusalka and the Prince, Myrtò Papatanasiu and Pavel Cernoch are just magnificent. This Rusalka isn’t the usual wide-eyed innocent, but Papatanasiu nonetheless manages to bring across the vulnerability of her character as well as the inner strength of personality that seeks to express herself within this world dominated by the desires of men. She does that in her acting performance and she does it in her singing, and most impressively. The Prince can also be somewhat of a cipher, so it’s wonderful likewise to see the role sung so well and with some consideration of the duality of his nature. He can’t help himself when it comes to the beautiful vision in white that is Rusalka, or the attraction of the Foreign Princess who appeals to his baser desires. He’s only a man after all. There’s consequently steel in Cernoch’s voice as well as a wonderful lyricism.

Both Papatanasiu and Pavel Cernoch are both powerful enough singers in their own right – Willard White as the Water Goblin isn’t quite up to their level, but he is a strong presence nonetheless – but conductor Ádám Fischer ensures that they are never overpowered by the orchestra. The performance of the orchestra can perhaps feel a little restrained, but not unexpectedly, it seemed to capture the post-Wagnerian Romanticism of the piece well. Admittedly however, while the image quality is superb, the audio track on an internet stream wasn’t clear enough to hear the detail as well as it would sound on a High Definition Blu-ray disc. Superbly directed for the screen, this however is one spectacular production that certainly merits a wider HD release.

The internet stream of Rusalka at La Monnaie is available for viewing only until the 26th April (with French and Dutch subtitles only). The next production to be shown is Oscar Bianchi’s Thanks to my Eyes on 12 April, which will be available for viewing for 21 days.