Hans Abrahamsen - The Snow Queen (Munich, 2019)
Bayerische Staatsoper, 2019
Cornelius Meister, Andreas Kriegenburg, Barbara Hannigan, Rachael Wilson, Katarina Dalayman, Peter Rose, Caroline Wettergreen, Dean Power, Kevin Conners, Owen Willetts, Thomas Gräßle
Staatsoper.TV - 28 December 2019
There would appear to be two significant works in Hans Abrahamsen's recent output that have led to the creation of his first opera The Snow Queen, and they also give some advance indication of how the work would sound. One is the musical meditation on the qualities, properties, texture and character of snow, Schnee, the other is the popular success of Abrahamsen's Ophelia song-cycle Let Me Tell You, with Barbara Hannigan adding her light, agile soprano to the composer's delicate compositions and arrangements.
Those two major works are interconnected within the narrative of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale The Snow Queen. Like all fairy tales, there is a darker edge that lies beneath the surface which has been softened over time and narration and director Andreas Kriegenburg isn't wrong in detecting an undercurrent of what we would now recognise as mental illness in the story, one exacerbated by a sense of loss and loneliness. Unfortunately, the libretto for the work remains superficial and never delves into the depths that Abrahamsen and Kriegenburg attempt to explore in the music in the new Bavarian State Opera production of this English language version of the opera following Snedronningen's premiere in Denmark in October 2019.
Essentially the narrative of The Snow Queen involves Gerda (Barbara Hannigan) trying to rescue her brother Kay from the clutches of the Snow Queen. Their grandmother has related a story of a magic mirror created by the devil that makes beautiful things appear ugly. The mirror has shattered into thousands of pieces and shards have pierced the eye and heart of Kay, who now longer recognises the beauty in the world and has fallen into a deep depression or despair.
While still seeking to retain some of the qualities of this inner snow world that combines beauty with coldness and bleakness of winter, Kriegenburg also expresses the fairy-tale world in terms of mental illness, Kay not literally abducted by the Snow Queen, but seemingly institutionalised. His sister Gerda is not far off a state of mental instability herself. She wants to help Kay find himself and does so through a kind of dream fantasy, encountering an old woman in a garden where the nurses have faces of flowers (and later reappear as angels), as well as a Castle Crow and a Forest Crow who lead her to the Ice Palace of the Snow Queen.
In theory, Kriegenberg's approach should be a good way of making the nature of mental illness relatable at the same time as fulfilling what appears to be a Bayerische Staatsoper tradition of finding/creating seasonal works beyond the ever popular Hansel and Gretel. In reality it never seems to weave a magical spell of enchantment, and in large part it's because the libretto really never lives up to the mood or emotional undercurrents of chilly despair that is certainly there in Abrahamsen's delicate complex flurries of music. The libretto is mostly based around Gerda's repetitive search for Kay - 'Where is Kay? I have to find Kay', even though he is physically present in the not terribly original setting of a mental institution with nurses and patients taking the roles of fairy tale characters.
The libretto moreover is very wordy without ever saying anything meaningful, the English parlando never particularly musical or scanning well to fit with the musical arrangements. It does develop into a flow, and there are some beautiful passages notably around the end of Act II before the interval, with a combined trio of Gerda, the King and Queen backed by a chorus. Unable to draw any deeper meaning out of the libretto, or express it through the production design. Barbara Hannigan is of course as impressive as ever and bass Peter Rose an interesting choice for the voice of the Snow Queen, but it all comes across as very pretty and not much else.
Harald B. Thor's sets combine and highlight the disparity between the fantasy with the real-world well enough, using simple plastic sheet backdrops that have an icy appearance, with shredded plastic giving an impression of light, fluffy snow, creating an artificial winter world that also captures a sense of the austere cold world of the mind in isolation. The use of costumes also makes the narrative easy to follow who are doubles and younger versions of Gerda and Kay, but neither Hannigan's expression, Cornelius Meister's conducting nor Kriegenburg's conception are able to bring any real sense of drama to this beautiful but rather lifeless production.
Links: Bayerische Staatsoper, Staatsoper TV Opera Live
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
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
Carl Maria von Weber - Oberon, König der Elfen
Bayerische Staatsoper, 2017
Ivor Bolton, Nikolaus Habjan, Julian Prégardien, Alyona Abramowa, Annette Dasch, Brenden Gunnell, Rachael Wilson, Johannes Kammler, Anna El-Khashem, Manuela Linshalm, Daniel Frantisek Kamen, Sebastian Mock
Staatsoper.TV - 30th July 2017
The spirit and influence of Mozart's The Magic Flute weighs heavily upon Carl Maria von Weber's Oberon, König der Elfen, although it has more of a mythological quality and less of the masonic rituals. To bring it a little more down to earth in terms of human feelings and away from the fairies, the opera also borrows from the romantic complications of Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail, where the constancy of love is put to the test. It's a kind of experiment then, and this aspect is very much taken up in the Bavarian State Opera's entertaining production for their 2017 summer festival.
Oberon and Titania, like Sarastro and the Queen of the Night, are unable to reconcile their views on mankind, specifically on their capacity to love and remain constant and faithful in such matters, and they decide to conduct an experiment. Oberon selects a brave knight, Huon von Bordeaux to be his champion, his Tamino, with Scherasmin his valet as his Papageno. He is given a vision of a beautiful young maiden, Rezia, the daughter of the Caliph of Baghdad and the young knight is immediately enchanted, singing a Tamino-like 'Dies Bildnis ist bezaubernd schön' style aria.
The Magic Flute parallels continue to come with not one but three Pucks being in service to Oberon and the two adventurers being gifted with magical objects that will aid them on their quest: Huon, a horn, and Scherasmin a magic goblet. Immediately on their arrival in Baghdad, Huon is attacked by a fierce lion which he manages to overcome. Once in the caliph's court, where Huon helps Rezia escape from an unwelcome marriage to Prince, the opera becomes a little more Die Entführung aus dem Serail-like in its treatment.
Like The Magic Flute, and indeed Die Entführung aus dem Serail, the spirit in which the opera is played has a lot to do with how successfully it comes across. Nikolaus Habjan's production takes the 'experiment' side of the work at a little more literally, setting the production in a science laboratory where 'Oberon' and 'Titania' are scientists. The humans are not spirited away to Baghdad, but with a few puppet props (and a very large one for Oberon), and with the assistance of a 'magic spell' (delivered via hypodermic needle), the ordinary humans are led to believe that they have been transformed into knights on a noble quest to win the love of a beautiful damsel and her maid.
The distancing effect of this framing from a fairy tale is by no means a way to allow the work to be looked on ironically or in an inappropriately serious deconstruction, but rather as a way of making it even more playful. And perhaps a little more human. At the same time however, it's important to retain some of the magic and wonder of the fairy tale, and the Austrian director does that wonderfully by drawing on the traditional puppet shows that he grew up watching. Here they are full-sized puppets, used mainly for the Arabian characters and operated by technicians in the laboratory, and they do successfully inject a larger-than-life quality to the work.
It's a simple twist on the story, but one that is enough to lift it out of an antique fairy tale structure into the realm of the modern day without losing the essential magic spirit and the colourful character of the original work. Still, there aren't too many challenges faced by our 'heroes' in the first half of the story. As they make their escape on a ship to Greece in the second part of the work, Titania thinks that things need shook-up a little, and - in full Queen of the Night mode - she sends a huge storm to see how constant the couples remain when some turbulence is thrown their way.
And a few challenges are exactly what the opera itself needs, having coasted along fairly easily on the tails of Mozart for the first half. Weber rises to the challenge with some lovely choruses and a huge dose of Romanticism that provides plenty of opportunity for spectacle with musical and singing fireworks to match. The production, the singing and the musical performance from Ivor Bolton all live up to those requirements as well. Brenden Gunnell is excellent as Huon, exhibiting a fine lyrical Tamino-like tenor and fully entering into the spirit of the piece. Annette Dasch is no less committed as Rezia, bringing considerable character to the role, even if she doesn't always land well when she launches at those high notes.
Oberon, König der Elfen is certainly less well known than Weber's classic Der Freischütz, but it's an enchanting piece. It's less ambitious than Mozart in sentiment and execution and certainly doesn't have the same musical genius or memorable pieces, but it has considerable character of its own, particularly when a good production like this shows its merits.
Arrigo Boito - Mefistofele
Bayerische Staatsoper, 2015
Omer Meir Wellber, Roland Schwab, René Pape, Joseph Calleja, Kristine Opolais, Heike Grötzinger, Andrea Borghini, Karine Babajanyan, Rachael Wilson, Joshua Owen Mills
Staatsoper.TV - 15 November 2015
There's a problem with Mefistofele, and it's surprising since it is the only complete opera written by Arrigo Boito, the librettist for some of Giuseppe Verdi's greatest works. Boito's librettos for Otello and Falstaff are so filled with poetic insight, depth of characterisation and tense drama that they spurred Verdi on to the late creative peak of his career. While Boito is evidently no match for Verdi as a composer, what is surprising is that it's not the music that is the weak point in Mefistofele, it's the drama. Admirably tackling for the first time a work that nonetheless deserves greater recognition, the Bavarian State Opera in Munich only manage to emphasise those weaknesses in a spectacular but dramatically inert production.
During his introduction, Nickolaus Bachler, the director of the Bayerische Staatsoper, calls Mefistofele "an opera for experts". This means that Boito, choosing to illustrate a number of scenes from 'Faust' in the manner of Berlioz rather than attempt to create a dramatic narrative in the style of Gounod, expects his audience to be familiar with those operatic antecedents, or with Goethe's work itself. Accepting it on those terms, Mefistofele is a powerful work that does have a character of its own, as well as a distinct perspective - the title indicating that the interest lies with Mephistopheles here rather than Faust - that suits Boito's lyrical strengths. That doesn't mean however that it can't be given a greater dramatic presence on the stage.
The problem with Roland Schwab's production for Munich is not that it is short of ideas or spectacle, as much as it lacks any distinctive real-world vision that would give the work a greater coherence and a stronger dramatic line. It's clear that the director makes an effort to flesh out the characterisation, particularly in the central role of Mephistopheles. He also introduces both Faust and Margherita onto the stage a little earlier than they need to be there, and keeps them there even when there's not a great deal for them to do. Sustaining this kind of characterisation however ultimately becomes difficult within the rather abstract conceptual framework that the director has come up with, and the character are often left standing around or singing out to the audience.
There are many ways you can interpret the setting here, but essentially, it seems to me that the purpose is to emphasise the hold that Mefistofele wields over the world. Starting with Mefistofele putting a record onto an old gramophone, it's the devil who is calling the tunes here, settling back in his armchair to watch a plane hurtling towards a city tower, with a somewhat random image of John Lennon also projected over this scene. Freezing the moment, the remainder of the opera seems to take place in what looks like the framework fuselage of this plane that is about to crash into the city, held there only as long as it takes Mefistofele to win his bet against the heaven as to the extent of his power and influence over mankind.
Boito's scoring and writing would certainly indicate that this influence is considerable, and that ultimately all the horror and havoc caused by human agency is scarcely negated by a last-minute death-bed redemption. He may not have ultimate control of Faust's eternal soul, but by heck, he causes a great deal of death and horror in the world while he is alive. Isn't that bad enough? Boito's vision is certainly a dark one that explores this nihilistic element, and his musical interpretation of it can often be overblown, how else are you meant to deal with a war on this scale between heaven and hell?
It would be very easy to apply this despairing nihilism to the situation in the world today, but the Munich production squanders the opportunity. Mefistofele still surely reigns in the world today. The fact that this performance took place just two days after the Paris attacks just emphasised how abstract and vacant the production was, totally incapable of making any meaningful connection to the very subject that Boito is writing about. Boito's imagery is strong - "Let us dance! For the world is now lost. On the countless dead shards of the fatal globe, our steps blaze and mingle in a wild dance of Hell" - but all Schwab has to offer are empty theatrical cliché's, S&M costumes, zombie demons, stock dance gestures, operatic overacting and empty spectacle. We even get the obligatory asylum scene at the conclusion.
Detached as it might be from the real world, conceptually, Schwab's production holds together well. Mefistofele's influence - particularly as it is so well-played and sung by René Pape - is shown to hold sway. The bet here is not so much that Mefistofele can corrupt Faust, as reduce him to despair at the realisation of his own nature and the extent of his corruption. Strapped to one of the chairs on the plane, Faust is raised up to see the consequences of his actions and the true nature of man - "Who pushed her into the abyss?" Mefistofele asks Faust of Margherita, "You or I?". The realisation of what he has done inevitably drives Faust mad. The final scene, albeit that it takes place in an asylum, is also simultaneously in the crashed plane, where a forensic team picks through the wreckage for clues.
Boito's Mefistofele has its flaws then, but its philosophy is not one of them. With a strong production willing to delve into the depths it explores and a musical accompaniment that supports it, Mefistofele is capable of being turned into something more meaningful and become more of a fixture in the repertoire. Munich's production feels strangely detached and absent, failing to ignite even the coup de théâtre of the opening scene by having the huge choirs of heaven sound like they were singing from an adjacent building. Perhaps the sound mixing just wasn't the best for the internet streamed production, but there was a similar disengagement throughout between the stage and the pit. The Bayerische Staatsoper's failure to do justice to this work is very disappointing.
So too is the singing. René Pape at least gives an impressive performance that is full of character. Mephisopheles is a role that he is is familiar with in Gounod's Faust, but he is able to take advantage of the more detailed characterisation and prominence that Bioto gives to the role in Mefistofele, and is wonderfully menacing in his singing and delivery. Joseph Calleja is a terrific singer with a great voice that just oozes classic Italianate lyricism, but even though you couldn't fault his singing or his performance here, he just feels wrong casting him as Faust. This is surely more of a role for Jonas Kaufmann, were he not already overworked in Munich and on the world stage. Kristine Opolais is another Munich regular who is miscast in roles that are out of her depth. She's good when called upon to project high emotion, but thin and nearly inaudible in middle range and insecure in pitch at the lower register. Good singers all, but Pape aside, not the kind of performers who are capable of rescuing this dramatically inert production in Munich.
Links: Bayerische Staatsoper, Staatsoper.TV
Alban Berg - Lulu
Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich, 2015
Kirill Petrenko, Dmitri Tcherniakov, Marlis Petersen, Daniela Sindram, Rachael Wilson, Rainer Trost, Bo Skovhus, Matthias Klink, Hartmut Welker, Martin Winkler, Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke, Christian Rieger, Heike Grötzinger, Andrea Borghini
Staatsoper.tv - 6 June 2015
As many times as Lulu is produced and reinterpreted and as many times as Alban Berg's unfinished opera is reworked, the central character, like the opera itself, remains something of an enigma. Much can be made of the ambiguous and enigmatic character of Lulu in the first Act, where her essence is captured by the Artist in a painting. It's a painting that earns him fame and fortune, but it is also ultimately responsible for his madness, suicide and death. You would expect any modern production of this still very modern and challenging opera to make something of the implications this has for nature of the work itself, as well as the themes it covers. You can also be fairly sure that these won't be neglected in a production by Dmitri Tcherniakov at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich.
Tcherniakov finds an effective way to depict Lulu and the work itself as an enigma by using a set built entirely of glass compartments. Everything appears to be open and transparent on the surface, but in reality it conceals an invisible maze-like structure. Painted onto the wall of this opera/this life is the Artist's portrait of Lulu, a bare life-sized outline, an abstraction, unfinished, not quite connected. The outline is filled in by what appears occasionally behind - sometimes one of the main players pressed to the glass, trying to grasp hold of the portrait of Lulu, or simply pinned to it, unable to escape the force it exerts. At other times, the glass compartments each show a world of other couples, each in the same universal struggle between man and woman.
It's a very high concept then, one which is apparently very simple on the surface but which is representative of the enigma of the opera itself and its construction. It manages to express small moments and insights, as well as being able to relate to them as having universal and a 'meta' application. This is Lulu as an exhibit, a reflection of what others want to see in her, of the complexity of the personality of Lulu herself and her relationships with each of the other characters, but the glass structure also forces the viewer to reflect on what it says about their own life and relationships, looking into a mirror, comparing and contrasting. In theory and in purely visual terms, it's an impressive concept, but the reality is that it doesn't have a great deal of anything new to say about Lulu.
As clever and as simple as the idea is, and despite trying to find a consistent line to follow that might provide a key to the work as a whole, Tcherniakov's Lulu only expresses and perhaps even just deepens the enigma. You can't fault the idea of exploring the central relationship of Lulu and Dr. Schön (who transforms in the final act into Jack the Ripper) which the director states he uses as his focus for the work, but the results aren't in any way new or revelatory. He's not wrong either in trusting that the superb singers cast in these roles are more than capable of expanding and filling in on the complex personalities at work here, but any deeper understanding of Lulu the person and Lulu the opera remains elusive.
That might just be a problem with the nature of the work itself. I certainly don't think you can seriously fault Marlis Petersen for the committed performance she gives here as Lulu. It's brilliantly sung and full of personality - perhaps a little too much even. Lulu here has something of a cruel streak, a more conscious flirtatious edge that expresses her own personality, showing her as more than just a plaything in the hands of a number of men. There's a growing dominance and imposition of her will as the work progresses, which - considering her background and treatment - inevitably becomes twisted into something broken and self-destructive. And yes, as Tcherniakov intends, it's made clear how this path of self-destruction is tied up in her relationship with Dr. Schön.
As Dr. Schön, Bo Skovhus provides a singing and dramatic performance more than strong enough to work alongside Petersen's intense Lulu. As much however as the two of them create a strong central core that can be seen as progressing through the fractured narrative structure, Lulu still remains unfathomable in relation of how she fits into the world. Or how she doesn't fit into it. Lulu remains an abstraction, and Tcherniakov's closed compartmentalised sets unfortunately contribute to this sense of dislocation and unreality. Justification for it can certainly be found in the structure of Berg's score and the episodic nature of the drama itself, but as much as the performers give to the work individually, it still never quite seems to add up to any illumination of the whole. This Lulu remains an outline to be filled in by the viewer's own interpretation. As it always did.
The variety of tones and the structure is, of course, in the nature of the work itself. If Tchernaikov wasn't able to bring anything to it or draw any clear dramatic or psychological thread through the work, Kirill Petrenko at least managed to find a consistent tone (using the Friedrich Cerha completed Third Act version) that nonetheless incorporated all its rich musical variety of expression. There was a more lushly orchestrated sweep through the whole of the work and less of the jagged-edged dissonances that could be highlighted. All the extraordinary textures and tempi of the work were nonetheless weaved right through the performance, providing a Lulu that was far more interesting to listen to than engage with dramatically.
The next Bayerische Staatsoper live broadcast is Pelléas et Mélisande on July 4th.
Links: Staatsoper.tv, Medici
