Verdi - Macbeth (Salzburg, 2023)

Giuseppe Verdi - Macbeth

Salzburger Festspiele, 2023

Philippe Jordan, Krzysztof Warlikowski, Vladislav Sulimsky, Tareq Nazmi, Asmik Grigorian, Caterina Piva, Jonathan Tetelman, Evan LeRoy Johnson, Aleksei Kulagin, Grisha Martirosyan, Hovhannes Karapetyan

ARTE Concert - 29th July 2023

By now, we are probably all familiar enough with Krzysztof Warlikowski's bag of tricks to have some idea of how his opera productions are likely to play out. They are almost always willfully subversive of the stage directions, imposing a period updating on them, usually relating to whatever movie is currently popular or indeed willfully subversive, such as David Lynch or Nicolas Winding Refn. Pasolini's Salò too is often a favourite for opera directors, not just Warlikowski. The question is whether his approach is ideally suited to the tone and themes of the opera or whether it brings anything new out of them, but often it can be surprisingly effective. I'm not convinced that the directness of Verdi works from this kind of overly elaborate approach, even in a work as emotionally complex as Don Carlos, where I felt Warlikowski was lost for ideas. In the case of his Macbeth for Salzburg, it has the disappointing and for this opera the somewhat unfortunate effect of rendering it essentially bloodless.

Ordinarily, failing to live up to Verdi's dark tone for Macbeth would be almost fatal, but there are some compensations here. Up until relatively recently it was a largely neglected Verdi opera, particularly in the UK where it was considered lacking the depth and poetry of Shakespeare, too condensed into little more than the sound and fury of the play. Now it can be recognised for the magnificence of its set pieces and the musical attunement to the work's dramatic power. It's the consummate blood and thunder Verdi opera, one that also provides great roles and arias, notably for Lady Macbeth, and a famous chorus in 'Patria oppressa'. If nothing else, the greatness of those elements remains apparent in the Salzburg production, although muted slightly by the musical and stage direction.

Warlikowski chooses to align this production of Macbeth with Pasolini's film Edipo Re (Oedipus Rex), both in term of its visual look and period inconsistency, as well as using it as a way to delve into the underlying psychology for the murderous couple deriving from their inability to have children. This is hinted at in Shakespeare's drama but never made explicit (although many productions have similarly explored this angle). Lady Macbeth is shown visiting a gynaecologist in similar period costume to the framing 1920's Italy of Pasolini's Oedipus Rex, and being told she will never have children. That film is also referenced explicitly in a clip of a mother breastfeeding her baby. This presumably is the suggestion for Macbeth's murderous campaign against any successor, incited by jealousy and fear of being supplanted at the breast by his or indeed any child. It's an idea certainly, but whether it holds up in terms of Shakespeare or even Verdi's version of Shakespeare is debatable/doubtful.

Krzysztof Warlikowski retains the 1920s imagery for the main part of the production design, giving it also something of the feel of the Godfather or a 1930s' Hollywood gangster movie. Mixing periods, a widescreen television is used for Macbeth's viewing of Edipo Re (setting off his fear of a successor), which could stand in for a projector, although no effort made to make it look so. Live projections and filmed segments are of course used (a still photo from the production shows Pasolini's The Gospel According to St. Matthew is also referenced, but I didn't see this while viewing the production from the online steaming) and this is effective not just for showing behind-the-scenes views like the killing of Duncan, but helping lay the psychological groundwork and set mood. It's a dark mood certainly, but all of the suggestion and explicit explaining avoids a more direct and dangerous bloodletting drama, and the murder scenes of Duncan and Banquo consequently fall rather flat.

I'm not sure what to make of the weird sisters chorus in this production either. A mix of women in dark sunglasses and children wearing sinister masks, they seem to hint at a more radioactive doom for no apparent reason. The banquet scene for the appearance of the ghost of Banquo is more effective, the period used to establish Lady Macbeth like a vampish singer in Hollywood movie night club. Macbeth's breakdown is effective as he reacts to a balloon where he has unconsciously drawn Banquo's face, although its impact on his high society guests less apparent. Serving up a dead child at the climax of breakdown hits the mark however, and this becomes a running theme, with children in masks continually haunting Macbeth.

This leads to an unconventional approach to 'Patria oppressa', which becomes less about a downtrodden and despairing people rising up against the horror that Macbeth has inflicted upon a nation but is tied nonetheless into the obsessive idea of total genocidal destruction through its connection to the murder of Macduff's family. The chorus remaining offstage, replaced by about 20 children of Macduff dressed all in white underwear, who all partake of a drugged drink passed around by their mother to end their lives. Macduff's despair is somewhat heightened then - 'Ah, la paterna mano' suitably heartfelt and expressive in Jonathan Tetelman's delivery - as the bodies of the innocents are laid out. It's certainly effective as such, but some might think this traditional highlight of the opera has been underplayed.

A lot of the impact being dissipated is I feel partly due to the large size of the Grosses Festspielhaus stage. Warlikowski is partly forced to fill the large space with projections and supernumeraries, but Macbeth is an intense intimate drama that doesn't scale up effectively. Or not here in any case. Verdi's music often makes up for such failings, but filling in for an unwell Franz Welser-Möst, Phillippe Jordan's conducting felt a little too slick in places. Although the drive and impact was effective in the key scenes, there was perhaps not enough unbridled passion in it for me, which I think is also the main failing of the direction also. 

One place where there were few such qualms was in the singing. The huge choral forces certainly filled the space in vocal presence and the principals similarly all had the personality and singing ability to make an impression. Asmik Grigorian is superb as Lady Macbeth. Along with recent performances over the last few years, particularly at Salzburg, where she has worked with Warlikowski before on Elektra she is proving to be one of the best dramatic sopranos in the world. She doesn't quite bring the full fireworks you would like for a Lady Macbeth, but I would fault the direction on that point, as her acting and singing delivery can scarcely be faulted. The same could apply to Vladislav Sulimsky's Macbeth. It's a solid performance, the passion and fear are evident when the direction is effective (the banquet scene), less so in others (the assassination of Duncan). Bass Tareq Nazmi's Banco was astonishing in his depth and lyricism. It's unfortunate that Banco is not given a greater role and is killed off too soon, but we at least were able to enjoy an excellent 'Studia il passo, o mio figlio'.

If it was a bit of struggle to connect Warlikowski's ideas, direction and production design to Verdi's opera and at the same time make it fully inhabit the stage, the production gained force as the opera progressed. The downward spiral of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth was well depicted, the murder of Macduff's family during ''Patria oppressa' hit home, as the opera made its way towards its suitably dramatic conclusion. I can't help feel that a little less over-thinking in the direction and the conducting, a smaller scale production and a little more trusting in Verdi's score would have been much more effective.

External linke: Salzburg Festival, ARTE Concert, Photographs - © SF/Bernd Uhlig

Mozart - Don Giovanni (Salzburg, 2021)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Don Giovanni

Salzburger Festspiele, 2021

Teodor Currentzis, Romeo Castellucci, Davide Luciano, Mika Kares, Nadezhda Pavlova, Michael Spyres, Federica Lombardi, Vito Priante, David Steffens, Anna Lucia Richter

ARTE Concert - 8th August 2021

There are many facets to Mozart and Da Ponte's trilogy of operas, many facets of human behaviour that can be explored in them, universal traits that provide no easy answers to questions that on the surface can appear - and be played - as comedies but which underneath touch on some very disturbing subtexts. Don Giovanni can be depicted as villain or a victim of his own lusts - someone who loves too much, as someone who just isn't used to taking no for an answer, or in today's view, as a sexual predator and abuser of women. Don Giovanni is always worth a fresh perspective, but - perhaps more controversially (and it isn't often you can say that there is something more controversial in a production than the stage direction of Romeo Castellucci) - Mozart's score is also worth looking at in new ways. 

Teodor Currentzis has been upsetting those who like their Mozart played in the familiar Classical style for quite a while, but he's certainly not the only conductor finding more interesting facets to Mozart using historically informed direction on period instruments and using reduced ensemble orchestration. With Mozart's opera seria works that might be more palatable - and Salzburg have presented interesting Currentzis directed productions of La Clemenza di Tito in 2017 and Idomeneo in 2019 - but Don Giovanni is a different matter altogether. Rather than simply playing it to a way that has become rote and unadventurous over the years, Currentzis again seeks new ways to explore and express the wealth of character that is within Mozart's music. Forcing the listener to really listen to it. Making it feel fresh, shiny and new again. Like a virgin.

There's a theme that a director like Castellucci would certainly seize upon in a work like Don Giovanni, but there are less obvious ways to approach that. And there's maybe an allusion to stripping away the image of the sanctity of Mozart being forced into accepted conventional interpretations in the opening scene of Salzburg's Don Giovanni. In a white temple like setting, workmen strip away the Christian iconography of a church, leaving the elegant bare white edifice to show its basic underlying structure, ready to be built upon anew. A flame burns away any remaining holiness and indeed, the first person seen on the stage is a naked woman (well, it is Castellucci), one presumably no longer a virgin, since she has evidently been seduced/raped by Don Giovanni.

Rather than keep it simple and minimal, Castellucci then bombards the stage with all manner of effects, symbols and supernumeraries. A car crashes down on to the stage, a wheelchair, basketballs, a broken piano. Don Giovanni, Leporello and the Commendatore are dressed in white, while the avenging Donna Anna comes storming on in black with a retinue of Furies that surround and strive to bring Don Giovanni to justice for his crimes against women. It looks like Don Giovanni has juggled too many basketballs this time. The recitative as Don Giovanni and Leporello make their escape is played out with cartoon eyes on a black screen, Donna Anna mourns the crutch of Commendatore, Don Ottavio pours red powder on his arms and punctures a line of basketballs in his promise of securing revenge.

This is evidently not the Don Giovanni you might be familiar with but neither is it inappropriate to the tone of the work and its treatment by Mozart and da Ponte. It might do something different with the visuals and the pace, the use of instruments and emphasis of the music, but it still engages with the themes and the tone of the work. It's not so much Don Giovanni's debauchery and libidinous lifestyle that are condemned here as much as his failure to accept responsibility for and deal with the consequences of his actions. He leaves death and the destruction of lives behind him (something seized upon with a more political slant in Michael Haneke's version), including a suggestion that he has abandoned a pregnant Donna Elvira (Federica Lombardi doubled with a naked pregnant woman), while a child also pursues Don Giovanni on the stage.

The lightness of the treatment and the heaviness of the underlying implications is borne out in the music. Leporello's 'Madamina, il catalogo è questo' has a lovely lightness, the piano weaving in and out of the musicAeterna arrangement, the beauty of the aria contrasted with the sinister note behind the revelations of conquests. Castellucci provides plenty of contrasting imagery, mixing the absurdity with the comedy, with pointed symbolism and contemporary references that include a photocopier. Likewise he brings Michael Spyres's Don Ottavio on wearing a Danish mountaineer outfit (a familiar inscrutable symbol also used in his Moses und Aron) accompanied by a poodle. It looks ridiculous (several characters have a live animal avatar - Masetto a mouse, Don Giovanni a goat) but takes nothing away from the chilling account of Donna Anna on the recognition of her father's murderer, the scene re-enacted as a Greek tragedy.

Which is something that the legend of Don Giovanni could certainly be said to aspire to, it not being entirely out of place with the opera seria reworkings of mythology that preceded Mozart in the earlier part of the 18th century. Just as Mozart brought a contemporary edge to that genre in his progressive music and Da Ponte in the humanisation of the drama while still retaining the otherworldly elements that elevate it to grand drama - so Castellucci brings a corresponding touch of re-interpretation of an epic myth for a modern age while reflecting and respecting the underlying complexity of the work's blend of surrealism, comedy, tragedy, symbolism and instruction on the consequences of moral dissolution. In an expansive gesture that brings 150 women as extras to the stage, Don Giovanni here is held to account for his crime not by a stone statue, but by the women he has wronged. 

Teodor Currentzis seems to be doing his best to submerge as much as possible any of Mozart's familiar melodic embellishments. Whether this is for the sake of upsetting those who like their Mozart played in a conventionally acceptable way, whether it's out of sheer bloody-mindedness to stake out is reputation for being a fearless re-interpreter of Mozart, or whether he finds it appropriate to reevaluate and strip away the varnish of mannerisms that the work has accrued over the years and present a more historically informed account of the score is something the musicologists can argue over. Aligned with the drama an Castellucci's sensibility, the music however doesn't lose a fraction of its distinctive Mozartian qualities of beauty, sensitivity or dramatic flair.

Think what you might also of Romeo Castellucci's contribution, whether it adds any value or provides any new insights but - much like his stunning Die Zauberflöte for La Monnaie - it's certainly original, often spectacular and rarely dull, always surprising with some new idea that puts emphasis on different aspects of the work. It's also not without the occasional bit of flash/bang showmanship, which Mozart wasn't beyond employing himself. Castellucci has become a stylist in white haze, his productions as distinctive now as Robert Wilson's geometric minimalism in blue, and just as visually arresting in their conception, design and execution. This looks simply stunning and impressively choreographed.

It has to be said however, that it's more of an "interesting" production than a great one. Despite the efforts to bring "real people" onto the stage (see Castellucci's rather more successful Die Zauberföte again) and the impressive efforts to pull it all together into a coherent whole, it doesn't always succeed in finding the human warm within the work where it traditionally should. The idea of making Don Giovanni and Leporello look almost identical is another fine idea that makes the identity confusion more realistic, but it also loses something when the two baritones are practically indistinguishable.

Perhaps just as much at fault as the production, the singing didn't quite measure up or compensate for the lack of human warmth in the production. The singing is generally fine, and of a very high standard, as you would expect, but despite good performances from Davide Luciano as Don Giovanni (stripped fully naked at the finale) and Vito Priante as Leporello, and with perhaps the sole exception of a mighty performance from Nadezhda Pavlova as Donna Anna, the production never allowed you to engage with any of the characters of at least sympathise with their dilemma. Overall, this feels like an admirable production with good ideas and visuals, that despite its controversial trappings, plays out nonetheless in a rather run of the mill fashion.

Links: Salzburg Festival, ARTE Concert

Mozart - Così fan tutte (Salzburg, 2020)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Così Fan Tutte

Salzburg Festspiele, 2020

Joana Mallwitz, Christof Loy, Elsa Dreisig, Marianne Crebassa, André Schuen, Bogdan Volkov, Lea Desandre, Johannes Martin Kränzle

ARTE Concert - 2 August 2020

It was going to have to be different if the Salzburg Festival was going to go ahead in any form this year, but despite a reduced programme and reduced audience on account of the Covid-19 restrictions and despite a characteristically minimalist stage set for a Christof Loy production, there's nothing in the least socially distant or socially distancing about this reworked version of Mozart's Così fan tutte. In fact the 2020 Salzburg production is a very physical, tightly choreographed, condensed in its cuts and in the precision in which it gets to the heart of Mozart's extraordinary and oft misunderstood opera.

It's appropriate in this case for Così fan tutte and exactly how you want it to be, because despite all its buffo comedy elements, Da Ponte's ludicrous plotting and the libretto's seemingly superficial and clichéd characterisation, the opera is actually deeply insightful in its observations about human nature, about love, relationships, men and women, about holding illusions and facing up to reality. Far from being a light comedy, the libretto is beautifully poetic, the music deeply moving and extraordinarily expressive of a wide range of human emotions and experiences that come from heart and the head. Or it can be if it's allowed to be.

Loy's minimalist 'generic' productions tend to work well with such works, where you don't need to be distracted by the mechanics of the plot, the period or the location, and can focus on the characters and the relationships between them. It may seem obvious but that can be done physically and spacially, the distance or closeness between them the characters measured out in their proximity to one another on the stage, whether they look at each other or not, whether they touch or hold. Fiordiligi and Dorabella here are clearly close friends, comfortably tactile in each other's company. The boys Guglielmo and Ferrando are tactile in a little more rough and tumble way, playfully jostling their master, Don Alfonso, showing more eagerness to impress than feel any real feeling for their girlfriends.

Loy, who in my experience usually works with as full an uncut version of an opera as possible, takes the opportunity of working with conductor Joana Mallwitz not just to compress the opera down for health and safety reasons (reducing the time spent in the hall for the audience, with no interval where they can mingle and spread any virus contagion), but to cut back on the more buffo elements, the dialogues that might be more offensive and sexist to a modern audience. That doesn't have to be the case - Christophe Honoré managed to integrate those potentially objectionable views into a rather more questioning view of Così fan tutte and humanity in his 2016 Aix-en-Provence production - and it does occasionally make the opera feel a little too rushed here, losing a nonetheless important element while not really making the plot or motivations feel any more credible or realistic.

Arguably, the plot was never meant to withstand the scrutiny of realism, but the human emotions and experiences in this remarkable work are nonetheless timelessly truthful and insightful. Christof Loy and Joana Mallwitz necessarily put aside some of the more comic interludes and sacrificing this aspect of the human experience, and instead look for those moments of beauty that is brought out by what is patently and intentionally a fake situation. It's faked or contrived by its creators however precisely to evoke specific emotions in order to understand what is important. It's not hard either to see where those moments of truth and beauty are; you need to look no further than the exquisite arias, more beautiful here than any in the far more famous arias of Don Giovanni, and at least on a par with the finer moments of that other Mozart/Da Ponte masterpiece that is Le Nozze di Figaro.

The compression employed here that requires some measure of suspending disbelief actually heightens the necessity of their being a willingness to believe on the part of both sets of lovers. And what Mozart and Da Ponte achieve is indeed a school for lovers, an education on its joys, anxieties and insecurities, its feelings of deep spiritual awakening and devastating fears of betrayal. It's a bit of a crash course, achieved by sleight of hand over an intense period of a day, where you are never really sure how aware the characters are of the game they are playing or at what point reality takes over and it stops being a game.

Seen that way, the opera is actually employs a post-modernist meta-behavioural effect far ahead of its time, one similar to that achieved by the late filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami in Certified Copy (2010). I don't use this example randomly, since Kiarostami directed Così fan tutte in a production at Aix-en-Provence in 2008 (that I saw subsequently at the Coliseum in 2009), which makes me wonder whether, subconsciously or otherwise, he picked up the idea from Mozart and Da Ponte and expanded on it. You can't think of Così as naturalistic - it's ridiculous and silly, and yet everything about it is beautiful, achingly beautiful and right. It's completely authentic and makes perfect sense on a deep emotional and human level, on "how quickly a heart can change".

It's been a tough year for the arts, but there's a reminder here that we can't afford to lose or fail to nurture the kind of talent that is evident on the stages of Salzburg and mirrored on stages across the world. Like the Salzburg Elektra, the talent here is world class, as good as any classic historical performance of these works, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Marianne Crebassa in particular is just outstanding here as Dorabella. Elsa Dreisig brings that dreamy sincere youthful idealism to Flordiligi and there is plenty of youthful enthusiasm in the performances of André Schuen and Bogdan Volkov. Lea Desandre is a bright and entertaining Despina and Johannes Martin Kränzle an ideal Don Alfonso, charmingly mischievous with just a hint of a sinister motive. Much of the secret of making these characters work and come alive is just sheer nerve and enthusiasm, putting cynicism aside and being willing to believe that we can aspire to be better. That's half the battle with the opera as much as in the matters of love it deals with.

August 2020 may have meant a reduced opera programme for Salzburg, with only Elektra and Così fan tutte staged, but the choice of works and their presentation - both premiere performances broadcast live-streaming - showcase everything that is brilliant about opera, about why it is important and why we must find a way to keep it and other performing arts alive through the current crisis. There's a lot we can learn from the arts about dealing with the current times, a lot that Strauss, von Hofmannsthal, Mozart and Da Ponte have to show us. Elektra shows one response to the world, of individuals put through extreme and challenging experiences, mental illness, enforced separation, Così another very different but challenging experience. Both however show that we're only human and capable of making mistakes, but the consequences of not learning from them are too terrible to imagine.

Links: Salzburg Festival, ARTE Concert

Strauss - Elektra (Salzburg, 2020)

Richard Strauss - Elektra

Salzburger Festspiele, 2020

Franz Welser-Möst, Krzysztof Warlikowski, Aušrinė Stundytė, Tanja Ariane Baumgartner, Asmik Grigorian, Derek Welton, Michael Laurenz, Tilmann Rönnebeck, Matthäus Schmidlechner, Sonja Sarić, Bonita Hyman, Katie Coventry, Deniz Uzun, Sinead Campbell-Wallace, Natalia Tanasii, Valeriia Savinskaia, Verity Wingate

ARTE Concert - 1 August 2020

Back in 2013, Krzysztof Warlikowski set the Munich production of Richard Strauss's Die Frau ohne Schatten in an asylum. That's not a particularly original way to deal with such a wonderfully colourful and rich fairy-tale, but it remained largely effective through the power of Strauss and Hofmannsthal's extraordinary vision, with its psychoanalytical undercurrents that Warlikowski was careful not to dilute with too many distractions or modernisms. If there's ever a Strauss opera that deserves to be set in a mental institution though it's Elektra, where the mental disintegration of its lead figure as scored by Strauss is even more extreme than that of the preceding Salome (also recently reworked by this director). Warlikowski doesn't explicitly set this 2020 Salzburg production of Elektra in an asylum, but for all the aberrant behaviour on display in the House of Atreus, it might as well be.

As is often the case it's difficult and usually not particularly instructive to deconstruct Warlikowski's intentions or examine too closely how they align with the themes of the work in question, particularly when he goes overboard in cinematic references such as in the recent production of The Tales of Hoffmann. Some of the director's familiar mannerisms are there in the Salzburg Elektra, but mainly evident only in the set design of his partner and regular collaborator Małgorzata Szczęśniak. They take full measure and width of the Felsenreitschule venue in Salzburg to create a huge (socially distanced) space for the work, much wider than the usual claustrophobic set usually reserved for this intense work. If there's a method to this, it can only be to rise to the scale of the orchestration itself, and in terms of that and Franz Welser-Möst's conducting of the Vienna Philharmonic, it certainly gives full expression to the opera's immense forces.

One side of the stage does indeed have the look of a rundown asylum, with a long narrow communal bath and row of showers with rust stained steel walls on Elektra's side of the House. The water from the shallow pool causes flickering reflections that highlight and suggest the constant uncontrolled agitation of Elekra's mind over the murder of her father Agamemnon and her desire for vengeance upon her mother Clytemnestra. The other side of the stage holds a glass panelled interior room of the palace where Clytemnestra and her maids are bathed in blood red lighting, Warlikowski using video cameras to project what goes on inside. In its totality the set effectively creates an environment that simultaneously reflects the internalised emotions barely controlled by external appearances.

Other than that Warlikowski sticks fairly closely to the ample expression that is already there in the music with few of the distractions or diversions that you usually find with this director. There is an autopsy, a few stray figures who wander dazed onto the stage, some dummies of children, but there are no dancer interludes and no short film introduction, although the scene is set with a recital of backgrounding text before the opera starts. With the spirit of Agamemnon made present, it's clear then that the director wants to bring motivation and characterisation to the fore and, aligned with the score, it's impossible not to feel Elektra's pain on a deep and visceral level which, without taking away from the quality of the poetry and the psychological depths explored, is surely where opera is most successful and notable.

Crucially, you can't really achieve that level of dramatic intensity without an Elekra to match it and, well, there was little doubt that on her recent performances of growing power and intensity, Aušrinė Stundytė would be capable of measuring up to it. It's an outstanding performance, the Lithuanian soprano as ever almost completely immersed in character (to be completely immersed would surely be next to madness). But a damaged Elektra can't work in isolation. Warlikowski takes care not to present Clytemnestra as a domineering caricature and sung by Tanja Ariane Baumgartner, we see a more troubled and not unsympathetic figure who has been a victim of circumstances, but still very dangerous. Asmik Grigorian also permits you to have some sympathy for the usually wet Chrysothemis, the force of her delivery undoubtedly contributing to the success of that characterisation.

Make no mistake however, violence, madness and death are the inevitable outcome, deliriously unravelled in Strauss's extraordinary score and put into words in Hugo von Hofmannsthal's very distinctive and poetically rich spin on Sophocles' version of the Greek tragedy. For all the beauty of the language, it distills the essence of the drama down into the big questions and conflicts of life and death, hatred and love, family bonds and debts of honour, irreconcilable extremes that descend into madness and death. Krzysztof Warlikowski effectively visualises that violent climax with large scale projections of splattered blood and masses of flies. Whether you follow it or just feel it, the Salzburg production as a whole certainly succeeds in doing justice to one of the greatest opera works of the 20th century, still capable of leaving you almost breathless and in shock.

Links: Salzburg Festival, ARTE Concert

Verdi - Simon Boccanegra (Salzburg, 2019)

Giuseppe Verdi - Simon Boccanegra

Salzburg Festival, 2019

Valery Gergiev, Andreas Kriegenburg, Luca Salsi, Marina Rebeka, René Pape, Charles Castronovo, André Heyboer, Antonio Di Matteo, Long Long

Unitel Edition - Blu-ray

Whatever the plotting and structural weaknesses of early and mid-period Verdi operas, you have to admire the composer's ability to put every ounce of musical conviction behind them, and none more so than the likes of Don Carlos and Simon Boccanegra. If you can find a conductor willing to push it but not sacrifice character detail for bombast, if you can get a director willing to approach the work on the basis of its deeper underlying themes, and you can get singers of equal conviction and technical ability to deliver it with passion and meaning, then those works can approach true greatness. Getting all those elements lined up however is no small task.

The most obvious area of Simon Boccanegra that needs particular attention - and where it is lacking in this Salzburg production - is the plot. To put it mildly, it's difficult to follow and has issues with credibility, contrivance and coincidence. It doesn't have a particular large cast of principals, but the connections between them have conflicts of duty, position and romantic complications, all of which in a lesser production can tend to obscure or distract from the chief underlying theme of the opera, which was clearly the subject that was most significant for Verdi; the bonds between a father and his daughter.

Falling somewhere between Rigoletto and Don Carlo - and not just chronologically - Simon Boccanegra has a central father/daughter relationship that is threatened by personal vanity and ambition in the former work and the heavyweight political concerns intruding on personal freedom and happiness in the latter, not to mention a tone that is consistently gloomy and pessimistic. It never manages to reconcile these two sides despite Arrigo Boito and Verdi's 1881 revisions to the original 1857 version, but with a creative director who can recognise the qualities of the music and bring strong dramaturgy to a production it is possible to make Simon Boccanegra work.

Calixto Bieito's revelatory Paris production is a rare case where the true genius of the work is brought out, the director recognising that what is missing - on the surface at least, it's not missing in Verdi's music - is the presence of the spirit of Maria. Amelia's mother is very much the connecting tissue, the emotional charge that drives Boccanegra's gloomy despair and Fiesco's desire for revenge, the common factor that links the otherwise disconnected scenes separated by time or off-stage developments.

Unfortunately Andreas Kriegenburg, whose productions have consistently failed to really connect with the works in question as far as my experience goes with this director (Not so keen on his Les Hugenots, Die Walküre or The Snow Queen, although I liked his Wozzeck rather more), doesn't have anything similar to offer that might make the plotting and characterisation credible, much less illuminate the deeper undercurrents that Bieito so successfully explored. Aside from functionality the best thing you can say about the pretty vacant set design (again by Harald B. Thor) is that it fills the huge stage of the Festspielehaus impressively. At a stretch it raises the human struggles to an epic scale, or conversely, it shows that all the family feuding is ultimately pointless in the grander scheme of things.

I'm not sure however that this mixed message is particularly meaningful in the context of Simon Boccanegra. At the very least the director should be attempting to make the plot easier to follow and alert the spectator to the nature of the family tragedy that is about to unfold. Andreas Kriegenburg has nothing to bring to the work other than a stylish modern setting with figures carrying tablets and texting messages on mobile phones, and there's a little bit of theatrical mannerism in recognition of the fact that the operatic drama is itself stylised rather than naturalistic. It neither draws however from the melancholic soul of the work nor succeed in making it feel contemporary and relevant.

It's unfortunate because in other respects the Salzburg production is impressive. Valery Gergiev is often criticised for lack of rehearsal but there's no faulting the measured control of the Wiener Philharmoniker here, harnessing all the power of the work, pinpointing the key scenes, particularly the Council Chamber scene at the close of Act I and the highly charged Act II trio confrontation between Adorno, Boccanegra and Amelia. That probably has as much to do with an almost flawless cast that includes an incandescent Marina Rebeka as Amelia, a heartfelt Charles Castronovo as Adorno and an always reliable René Pape as Fiesco. Luca Salsi's Boccanegra is warmly and capably sung, but perhaps due to a failing of the direction, it doesn't carry the necessary dramatic or melancholic weight here.

The musical performance and singing performances are so strong and well-presented in HD on the Unitel Edition Blu-ray that this is certainly worth a look. If Kriegenburg doesn't really help the plot work, Verdi's remarkable score almost convinces in its own right with performances like this and a strong audio/visual presentation. There are no extra features related to the production on the disc, but the booklet contains a brief overview of the problems Verdi had with the work and some commentary on the Salzburg production.

Links: Salzburger Festspiele

Mozart - Idomeneo (Salzburg, 2019)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Idomeneo

Salzburg Festspiele, 2019

Teodor Currentzis, Peter Sellars, Russell Thomas, Paula Murrihy, Ying Fang, Nicole Chevalier, Levy Sekgapane, Issachah Savage, Jonathan Lemalu

Medici streaming - 12 August 2019

After their take on La Clemenza di Tito in the same venue in 2017, there would have been little doubt that the 2019 Salzburg Festival production of Idomeneo would be controversial; the only question being whether it would be Peter Sellars or Teodor Currentzis who would be most wayward in their in interpretation of one of Mozart's most interesting operas. Well, it's a close run thing.

Mozart's operas are so rich in music and multifaceted in their content and themes that they are eminently amenable to deeper exploration, reinterpretation and modern revision; nothing about them has dated. As an early opera seria however, with a baroque libretto written for André Campra, Idomeneo does certainly still have one foot in a bygone age, yet it is already progressive in terms of Mozart's reworking, reinvention and humanistic outlook. Filtered through the young Mozart's sensibility and remarkable talent, all those conventional laments, jealousies, cruel twists of fate and extreme human sentiments feel vivid, alive and real.

It's so powerful an advance on the mannerisms of the past that it demands an equally imaginative, modern and humanistic interpretation in stage performance. Perhaps not everyone wants it to go as far as Dieter Dorn’s at the Munich Bayerische Staatoper or Damiano Michieletto in Vienna, or indeed as Sellas and Currentzis not unexpectedly take it here, but it's hard to argue that they don't bring a sincere response to the musical and dramatic content of Idomeneo, striving to find a way to highlight the richness of its themes and development of its characters.

Initially however, you are definitely thrown a little off-balance by the oddness of the set developed for the very specific demands of the Salzburg Felsenreitschule. Not a single object on the stage is related to the actual Crete settings of the opera, nor are they naturalistic or in most cases even identifiable. The stage on the floor of the Riding School theatre has clear plastic tubes that rise up as columns with coloured lights, the stage littered elsewhere with misshapen plastic containers, tubes and inflatable blob like creatures - perhaps a different kind of monster that is disgorged by the sea in this age of environmental disaster. The costumes of the Greeks and their Trojan prisoners is militaristic, but the coloured camouflage outfits look more like pyjamas.

As unusual as the set looks, the unfamiliar sound, pacing and rhythms that Teodor Currentzis brings out in the period instrument interpretation of the opera with the Freiburger Barockorchester can be even more unsettling as it sounds very different here from any recording you might be more familiar with. The intention is clearly to push the range of expression that Mozart employs for this opera, marking it out as very different from the baroque works that precede it, exploiting and emphasising the dynamic that Mozart employs for this unique and brilliant work.

At times you get the impression that the intention is also to do everything possible to break away from Mozart as comfortable and easy-listening, perhaps over-emphasising and deliberately pushing against the familiar. It's slow when you expect it to be faster, fast when you expect it to be slower, aggressive when you would expect merely forceful, but it never seems to work against the intent of the work. It hints rather that all might not be as it appears on the surface of the moral, political and romantic dilemmas of each of the characters whose lives have been thrown into turmoil under the curse of Neptune; absolutes and certainties - being saved from the dead, feeling secure in love, family loyalties - are all indeed turned on their head.

What Currentzis and Sellars do however is force you to reconsider the work in new terms, not rest on the certainty of familiarity, but be challenged afresh by every scene, every aria and recitative, every single note, trying to hear what is really being expressed in the melody, the tempo and the instrumentation - the fortepiano notably playing a larger role here than in any version of this work I've heard before.

If you can put up with Peter Sellars's more annoying mannerisms - the choreographic ritualised steps and semaphore arm signals (which are at least better than park and bark performances) - his direction of the internal nature and conflict of the characters is interesting. It's almost what you would expect to find in The Magic Flute: characters out of balance, seeking to find an emotional equilibrium as well as find an accord with the forces of nature and their place in the world, seeking wisdom, seeking answers, seeking peace and willing to endure suffering and trials for it. It does show that Idomeneo is practically a prototype for Die Zauberflöte (With Electra a furious Queen of the Night and Neptune a lesson-giving Sarastro), and in that respect the treatment is thoroughly Mozartian.

Not that some sections of the Salzburg would notice. When it comes down to who upsets them most, the director traditionally gets it in the neck and Currentzis's eccentricities and indulgences are overlooked. In truth, neither are entirely successful and it comes across as a little over-laboured, over-intellectualised, existing in some theatrical vacuum that doesn't entirely connect with Mozart's Idomeneo on a relatable and instinctive human level. It's a fascinating account nonetheless of a magnificent, deeply beautiful work, one that is emphasised by some fine committed singing performances, notably from a sweetly lyrical Ying Fang as Ilya and a fiery Nicole Chevalier as Elektra (almost stealing the show at the finale), but all of the performances impress, including Paula Murrihy as an intensely sincere Idamante and Russell Thomas as a warm and troubled Idomeneo.

Links: Salzburg Festspiele

Tchaikovsky - The Queen of Spades (Salzburg, 2018)

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - The Queen of Spades

Salzburg Festival, 2018

Mariss Jansons, Hans Neuenfels, Brandon Jovanovich, Vladislav Sulimsky, Igor Golovatenko, Evgenia Muraveva, Oksana Volkova, Hanna Schwarz, Alexander Kravets, Stanislav Trofimov, Gleb Peryazev, Pavel Petrov, Margarita Nekrasova, Oleg Zalytskiy, Vasilisa Berzhanskaya, Yulia Suleimanova, Imola Kacso, Márton Gláser, Juan Aguila Cuevas

Medici.tv - 16 August 2018

No matter how familiar you might be with an opera, there is always the potential for a new production to bring something new out of it. Mariss Jansons exploring the richness Tchaikovsky is always a great experience, finding a human warmth in it where other conductors find Russian coldness and stiff formality. Both aspects are actually present in The Queen of Spades and Jansons controls and paces wonderfully to bring that out here in Salzburg, as he has done elsewhere.

A good director can also find something new and surprising to explore in the work of a great composer, and while he can be controversial and somewhat 'out there' at times, the very least you can say about Hans Neuenfels is that he has a unique vision that will be quite unlike any other interpretation of the work. Expectations and conventions must be put aside as you never know what will come next, and it can be very revealing to see a familiar work afresh, as it were, see it from a different perspective. If a work is rich enough, it is capable of endlessly revealing new truths and interpretations.

Even a work that is ostensibly a ghost story? Yes, certainly. Stefan Herheim most recently and convincingly demonstrated how much of Tchaikovsky (it's a lot!) is in The Queen of Spades at the Dutch National Opera (soon to be transferring to the Royal Opera House), again with Mariss Jansons conducting there. Hans Neuenfels not unexpectedly has an entirely different outlook on the opera for the 2018 Salzburg production, but surprisingly, while abstraction holds out over naturalism in the set designs, he sticks fairly closely to the stage directions, finding other ways to delve deeply into the subject and themes of the work.

And to some extent that is determined by the variety of tones, by the hot and cold nature of the work itself that Jansons brings out here, from the heat of passion to the chilling cold-bloodedness of murder and ghostly revenge. As with his Lohengrin for Bayreuth, those divisions are expressed visually in a black-and-white manner, and the chorus also have an important role to play in highlighting those extremes between the darkness of inner torment and the longing for the light of purity and innocence.

That's brought out right upfront in the opening scene of The Queen of Spades, where the children's chorus are subjected to almost militaristic control. It's always been a strange way to open and it doesn't seem to have much direct relevance to anything else that develops in the opera unless you contrast it with other parallel and equivalent scenes. For Hans Neuenfels, that's a matter of setting things in black or white, so the children are all dressed in white, while Liza, Pauline and her 'Circle of Friends', in the following scene quite literally form a circle, dressed in black like some kind of secret society. Pauline's song of life's morning looking towards the grave certainly takes on a different complexion here.

Quite what this contrast is precisely trying to say is hard to pin down and it seems a little reductive - as it often did in his Bayreuth Lohengrin - to mark divisions this way, but it is effective and makes an impression that forces you to reconsider how you look at the opera. What it does clearly mark out however is the contrast between how Hermann (in red) and the Countess dress colourfully in contrast to everyone else. The key to this can perhaps be found in the nurses with the children and with Liza's governess's words to her and her friends, that you must follow the "rules of society", know what is "proper and right" and "observe the conventions". Hermann and the Countess lie outside those strict black and white principles.

The structure of the work and its music also throws up such contrasts, from singing about happy days and enjoyment of life to being besieged by sudden storms, and that is the kind of emotional turmoil that Liza (who wears both black and white) seems to be most susceptible to. Hermann is just another blazing, burning ember on the fire of the confusion, uncertainty and naivety that lies with her, attractive and exciting in how he acts and behaves in a way that lies totally outside those normal rules of acceptable social behaviour.

If Neuenfels breaks the work down into such abstract terms while still holding to the familiar dramatic line, it's supported well by Jansons' elegant and passionate response to the music, alive to the precision of detail within it. The human element is brought out much more effectively by the characterisation and performances of a cast that boasts two exceptional leads in Brandon Jovanovich and Evgenia Muraveva as Hermann and Liza. I've become too used to Misha Didyk monopolising the role recently, but Jovanovich brings a much more lyrical and sympathetic interpretation to the madness of Hermann. Muraveva brings out Liza's innocence likewise in a sympathetic manner and sings marvellously, her Act III aria on the bridge absolutely heart-breaking.

With secondary roles all well cast and sung and a strong chorus that expresses all the variety of colour in the work with its little Pastorale and other diversions, this is an outstanding production at Salzburg that dispenses with operatic mannerisms, touches on its deeper themes and makes the ghost story at the centre of the work feel real and truly tragic.

Links: Salzburg Festspiele

Monteverdi - L'Incoronazione di Poppea (Salzburg, 2018)

Claudio Monteverdi - L'Incoronazione di Poppea

Salzburg Festival, 2018

William Christie, Les Arts Florissants, Jan Lauwers, Sonya Yoncheva, Kate Lindsey, Stéphanie d’Oustrac, Carlo Vistoli, Renato Dolcini, Ana Quintans, Marcel Beekman, Dominique Visse, Lea Desandre, Tamara Banjesevic, Claire Debono, Alessandro Fishe, Davic Webb, Padraic Rowan, Virgile Ancely

Medici.TV - 18 August 2018

The importance of Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea in the world of opera lies in its innovation, in extending the boundaries of opera beyond classical myths and bringing real historical figures to the stage. The strength of the work and the reason why it still holds such power almost 400 years later however lies in Monteverdi and librettist Busanello's fearless examination of human nature caught up in a powerplay and tyranny of love. And it's not just the interplay of the central figures competing, gossiping and plotting but the impact that this has on peripheral characters and society as a whole is very much a part of the wider remit of the opera.

Or at least it ought to be. Such is the strength of characterisation and the accumulation of events, plots, murders, suicides and, yes some of the most passionate expressions of love committed to music, that there can be a tendency for the drama to revolve around and turn inwards on the relationship between Nero and Poppea and forget about the devastating impact that their scheming and actions would have on the rest of the world. Directing for the 2018 Salzburg Festival production Jan Lauwers wants to keep that wider context present in the mind and visible, but essentially do it without detracting from the intensity of the musical content of the work.

That would be hard to do and not a wise move to make when you have William Christie conducting Les Arts Florissants, and when you have a cast like the one assembled here, one that combines experienced practitioners of Monteverdi and the Baroque (Stéphanie d’Oustrac, Ana Quintans, Dominique Visse) with a few major stars in the making not often heard in this repertoire (Sonya Yoncheva, Kate Lindsey). It's a tall order for any singer; there are few heroes or noble actions in L'Incoronazione di Poppea, all of them display at the very least meanness, arrogance and self-importance - arguably even Seneca, and certainly the gods of the Prologue.

As such, it's easy to get lost in these characters, and the superb cast make the most of them. Stéphanie d’Oustrac plays a particularly embittered Ottavia and takes it with relish, holding back on grand gestures but putting it all into the voice. Sonya Yoncheva puts everything into her singing and performance, an alluring presence that convincing turns Nero's head, but you don't get the same sense of engagement with her Poppea and I'm not certain she connects with the audience either, which has always been my experience with her at least. Full credit to her however for this ambitious venture out of standard repertoire that she takes well.

Kate Lindsey is a marvellous Nero. It's a stylised performance rather than a naturalistic one, but Nero is and should be seen as a larger than life character, albeit one with deep human feelings and failings. Lindsey navigates between anger and tenderness in a flash as Nero is driven by lust and power. "The heart is a poor counsellor. It hates laws and scorns reason", Seneca tells Nero, who retorts that "Laws are for those who serve". "Those who don't know how to rule gradually lose their power" warns Seneca, incautiously as it turns out, and therein lies the brilliance of what Monteverdi and Busanello observe and achieve in L'Incoronazione di Poppea, daring to put on stage sentiments that had never quite been expressed like this on an early opera stage before.

The challenge is to make the impact of all this visible on the stage and it's too easy to get overpowered by the scandal of powerful people behaving abominably to realise that it has consequences for everyone else. Monteverdi's opera however has many other parallel situations and characters that show that such behaviour is common across all social classes and sexes. Jan Lauwers however not only takes on the challenge of expressing the wild and contradictory facets of larger than life character like Nero or the ambition and ruthless single-mindedness of Poppea, but he extends it out and makes it vivid and real for each of the secondary characters and applicable to the wider world as well.

The quality of the performers in the  supporting roles accounts for the success of this endeavour to some extent - Carlo Vistoli's Ottone, Ana Quintans' Drusilla, Lea Desandre's Amore/Valletto and Marcel Beekman's Nurse all impressive - as does the presence of dancers of BODHI PROJECT and SEAD Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance, who are given more to do than just the typical interpretative double mirroring of characters. A constant presence in the background, spinning and whirling, they occasionally move forward and interact with the characters, deepening relationships, expressing and visualising those contradictory elements as well as helping force the sense of real relationships between characters who could typically and easily be left to express solitary sentiments in individual arias.

That's extended to keeping other main characters on-stage, such as Poppea wandering past when Ottone is expressing his secret feelings for her, and it also extends to some limited interaction with the musicians who are all there in a shallow pit on the stage. There should be a very definite interaction between the music and the performance, more so in the semi-improvised measures and accompaniment of music that is not fully scored. Interpretation is very much a feature of Monteverdi's operas and there's no right or wrong way, but there certainly ways that bring the music to life better so that they connect with the tone of the drama and communicate it to the audience. There's no doubting the ability of William Christie and Les Arts Florissants to do that exceptionally well here.

It's Jan Lauwers however who manages to most successfully focus all those elements of music, dance, characterisation and expression and push them out beyond the stage. The stage itself is covered with images of classical paintings, a mass of bodies that remind you that this is not just a heated drama of consequence only to a little group of self-interested and self-serving people, but that their actions have consequences out in the wider world. That's a lot to take on, and much more than would normally be considered necessary when you have Monteverdi's music to express and enchant, Jan Lauwers' production for Salzburg, with its fine cast, make this ancient work feel as fresh and modern and relevant as many contemporary works, and perhaps even more so.

Links: Salzburg Festspiele

Strauss - Salome (Salzburg, 2018)

Richard Strauss - Salome

Salzburg Festival, 2018

Franz Welser-Möst, Romeo Castellucci, John Daszak, Anna Maria Chiuri, Asmik Grigorian, Gábor Bretz, Julian Prégardien, Avery Amereau

Medici.TV


There comes a point in a Romeo Castellucci production when you wonder if it's worth the effort trying to make sense of it. It's not that they don't have meaning and value, Castellucci's productions are original, striking and do often find a new way of looking at a familiar work, but there are strange elements within that defy any attempt to pin them down or directly relate them to the works in question. Even when the director provides you with some pointers of where he is coming from, you can't always follow where he is takes it. Ultimately however, it fits or it doesn't, it will work for some and not for others. His Salzburg Festival production of Salome presents the same issues and is likely to similarly split audiences.

Salome for Salzburg is typical Castellucci in that respect at least. Some of the director's familiar techniques and obscure images are in there, but the production is not just a rehash of familiar tricks and tics, and - unlike a director with a singular vision like Robert Wilson for example - he doesn't try to force each opera to fit into their distinct worldview, but rather approaches it on it own terms, even if there is sometimes a similar visual aesthetic. This production is very much a response to Salome, even if inevitably it doesn't entirely match the familiar imagery and stage directions that we are accustomed to expect on some level with this opera, and even if it can appear somewhat obscure and occasionally even baffling.

In fact, rather more than most directors who take a work on its own terms, Castellucci is also known for taking the location into consideration and making it part of the production. Not that you really have much choice when it comes to the Felsenreitschule venue in Salzburg, an open air riding school carved into the very rock of the city. There's a reference here then to a Latin inscription carved above the nearby Sigmundstor or Neutor Tunnel 'Te Saxa Loquuntor' ('The Stones are talking of you') that Castellucci employs as a distinctive way to consider the work in terms of its Salzburg production, but what it means is anyone's guess, and easier to describe than interpret.

The location itself is of course spectacular in its own right, even if it's just for scale and atmosphere. The arcades are actually blocked off here to form a more solid surrounding wall, with openings used occasionally for entrances, exits and props. If nothing else it gives 'presence' to the flow and decadence of Oscar Wilde's original text and the taboo-breaking nature of the content that is in line with the employment of Strauss's musical forces. The detail of the composer's attempts to account for the line-by-line control of mood and subtext is where Castellucci perhaps has more of his own personal views and ways of presenting it.

You expect eccentric touches and they are most obviously there with the lower half of everyone face painted red. Everyone that is except Herodias, who is painted green for some reason and Salome, whose face is not painted, but who is marked out in contrast to everyone else by her virginal white appearance. Virginal is very much suggested by the opening scene before the music starts, showing her as little more than a child - whether it's a flashback or a suggestion of her real age is unknown - who cuts through the veil that presents the Sigmundstor Latin inscription. The back of Salome's dress when she appears in the opera appears to be stained with menstrual blood. If it was any other kind of blood, I think we'd know about it from the production and her protective and vocal mother Herodias might have had something to say about it.

The other significant person in the work of course is Jokanaan, or the prophet John the Baptist, whose voice does indeed appear to talk of you from the stones (Te saxa loquuntor), imprisoned below the floor in a cistern. His face is painted black, making his first encounter with Salome very effective indeed; she slight and delicate in white, eclipsed by the dark, wild, primitive and almost bear-like mass of Jokanaan, a man who had lived in the wilderness. Indeed there is an eclipse of sorts, with a huge black circle that overwhelms and enfolds their first encounter. Reinforcing his wild erotic presence, a live horse can be seen rearing out of the circular pit that holds him. So far so much is mostly just giving emphasis to the forces at work in the opera, forces that are most definitely there in the sinister, sinuous, beautiful and violent music, the Vienna Philharmonica well conducted through that variety of moods and colours by Franz Welser-Möst.

The other strange and confusing touches in the production relate to and contrast with how we expect to see the more iconic scenes of the work. During the Dance of the Seven Veils, Salome doesn't actually dance (heaven forbid that Castellucci should be so literal), but instead she kneels head down semi-naked on a plinth with the word SAXA written on it, while a block of stone is lowered 'crushing' her beneath it. Feel free to interpret that how you like. Instead of Jokanaan's head being presented on a silver charger, we have Jokanaan's naked decapitated full torso, with the head of a horse (presented as a first appeal to Salome to change her mind) left beside it in a shallow pool of white liquid. As far as taboo-breaking goes, you would expect an animal head to have additional shock impact and hint at illicit desires - which you should really be aiming for at the conclusion of this opera - but neither the thunderous cacophony of the closing notes nor the staging really make the necessary impact here.

That perhaps doesn't matter as much when the performances have been intense elsewhere throughout (although I do think that the impact of the conclusion should be viscerally felt). Asmik Grigorian certainly carries the kind of soaring intensity that the opera's Salome ought to have, reaching the luxurious heights and the depraved depths of the work. Herod and Herodias can sometimes be given to older singers just past their prime, but that's not the case here with John Daszak and Anna Maria Chiuri. Daszak isn't ideal but does carry a suitable haunted quality. Chiuri is spectacular, giving this Herodias a lot more input than usual. Gábor Bretz is not the most sonorous Jokanaan, but again his presence is felt. I'm not sure that Castellucci has any great vision for the work or the characters, but he certainly gets to the heart of their natures, working with the opera and the location to bring his usual unique qualities and intensity to this Salzburg production.

Links: Salzburg Festival, Medici.TV