Dusapin - Antigone (Paris, 2025)

Pascal Dusapin - Antigone

Philharmonie de Paris, 2025

Klaus Mäkelä, Netia Jones, Christel Loetzsch, Anna Prohaska, Tómas Tómasson, Jarrett Ott, Thomas Atkins, Edwin Crossley-Mercer, Serge Kakudji, Natalia Cellier, Cosma Moïssakis

Philharmonie Live streaming - October 2025

The themes and presentation of the ancient Greek dramas of Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus remain just as important a foundation for opera as it does for contemporary theatre. Even more so in opera which was originally conceived in the belief that Greek drama was sung. Medea, Orpheus, Elektra, and Oedipus have inspired some of the greatest works of opera from early baroque to modern times, which is not surprising, as the subjects and treatments are inherently dynamic and dramatic in their grappling with always relevant human and moral questions. Filled with death and destruction on a cataclysmic scale, the tragedies present dark tales about the price to be paid for contravention of moral laws and defiance of the gods, but there is more than one kind of god and the dramas still have something important and vital to tell us today about humanity and moral imperatives today. Especially today in our troubled times, when the rule of law is in danger of being disregarded, when what should be unthinkable atrocities are committed and permitted before our eyes.

It's in these febrile and dangerous times that Pascal Dusapin produces his latest work based on Sophocles' Antigone. Dealing with one woman's stand against injustice and belief in a higher law than that of corrupt or foolish rulers, it's a timely reflection on the horrors that we are seeing around us today and the potential consequences for us all if authoritarianism is not resisted - and even if it is. Created for the Philharmonie in Paris, Dusapin presents the work as an "opératorio", partly in concession to it being performed in the Grande salle Pierre Boulez concert hall rather than on an opera stage, but more to give it the concentrated force that the work merits.

Seen as a typically moral question of holding to individual beliefs or divine order above those of man-made laws of the state and resorting to activism when they are wrongfully employed, the subject of Antigone however raises many complex questions and ambiguities when viewed in a modern light. This is another reason why Dusapin chooses to work with Friedrich Hölderlin's 1804 German translation of the work, a reduction to a concentrated form of text. As an 'Opératorio in Five Acts', reduced to an hour and a half performance, the composer uses his always powerful musical expression to provide weight and subtext to explore the ambiguity within that version, and Dusapin's score for his Antigone indeed imbues the work with all the force and meaning that its subject merits.

The essence of the drama is retained and remains simple enough in outline, where as a background to what unfolds in Antigone, Eteocles and Polynices, the sons of Oedipus and brothers to Antigone and Ismene, have both been killed in a dispute over the rule of the city of Thebes. As a punishment for having gathered an army to march against the great city, Creon, their uncle and now ruler of Thebes (and uncle of Antigone) refuses a burial for Polynices, denying even any funeral rites to be said over his body. Antigone is horrified by the order, as much from human decency as for the fact that Polynices was her brother and, against the advice of her sister Ismene, defies Creon's proclamation and performs a burial rite, throwing soil and praying for her fallen brother where he lays.

The drama of Antigone is certainly is adaptable to the times and political events. I recall the segment 'The Postponed Antigone' by Volker Schlöndorff from a script by Heinrich Böll in the 1978 film Deutschland im Herbst, where the public TV executives pull a filmed theatre performance of Antigone from the schedules at a time of high tensions in Germany around the activities of the RAF/Baader-Meinhof terrorist group. That is an indication of the potential of the original work to inspire activism, while at the same time showing how the authorities can control and prevent such controversial views from being aired - but Dusapin's choice of Hölderlin's translation and his own efforts to take a neutral position calculatedly avoid any contemporary political interpretation of the work.

In terms of what is the just and moral action to take, the message of Antigone's defiance and her stance in standing up for what she believes is right may seem fairly self-evidently and difficult to challenge, but as is often the case in Greek drama, all actions - even doing what seems to be the right and just thing in the circumstances - can have unintended consequences that reverberate down the line. You could even see the fate of the children of the incestuous marriage of Oedipus and Jocasta as being cursed by the time of Seven against Thebes and Antigone. In Antigone itself, Antigone's actions have immediate consequences for her when she is condemned to death, takes her own life and a series of other deaths follow in her wake.

So there is a lot to take in and consider in Antigone, and you have to say, based on the premiere performances of the work in October 2025 at the Philharmonie de Paris, Dusapin handles the subject impressively, finding the opposing contrasting forces within the drama and letting them assert their own power without imposing any heavy-handed contemporary reading on the work. More than Antigone, who is single minded and certain of her position - and who inevitably cuts an impressive figure as performed here by mezzo-soprano Christel Loetzsch - Creon has perhaps the more decisive and conflicted role. He knows a ruler cannot appear weak, that Antigone represents a challenge to his authority, but even knowing what will follow when the soothsayer Tiresias makes an appearance, he is unable to do anything to prevent the tragedy that is unfolding.

Dusapin obviously depicts this clash between Antigone and Creon in all its intensity, but despite the concentrated focus of this version, the other conflicts and views are all similarly well expressed and have a vital role to play in the overall balance of the drama, as well as introducing other perspectives that the individual viewer can relate to without being swayed to take one side or another. Ismene's advice to her sister to keep a lower profile and know their place as women, while Antigone wants to shout 'injustice!' from the rooftops introduces the inequality of women's views; Creon's son Haemon brings love into the equation, for Antigone, as well as between father and son. Fraternal love is there too of course in Antigone's conducting an unauthorised dignified burial of sorts for Polynices. Moral questions are agonised over, there are questions of self-sacrifice, honour and respect, both sides believing they have authority, creating a conflict the wisdom of age and holding to old ways over youthful impetuousness and new beliefs.

The dominant tone of the work however is one of unfolding tragedy and that is reflected in the orchestration of low dark sustained notes and lines on strings and brass. At times - as in Dusapin's more recent operas Macbeth Underworld (2019) and Penthesilea (2015) - there are occasional Reimann-like blasts from a large orchestra, although without quite the same sustained battery of seismic eruptions. The anger of Creon in pronouncement of the fate of Polynices is accompanied by a fusillade of rattling violent percussion crashes followed by ominous, rumbling mournful music. It's a musical language more in the line of Richard Strauss' Salome by way of Wagner, and under the direction of conductor Klaus Mäkelä it's every bit as expressive, operatic and dramatically visceral as that implies. Harp, bells and flute can stir up just as much menace and even while Creon brays out his threats, the music can hint at his words being empty; of compassion, of authority perhaps, moral and regal.

Directed by Netia Jones, who sees it as a kind of performance-installation for the concert hall of the Grande salle Pierre Boulez at the Philharmonie in Paris. the Antigone opératorio is nonetheless also fully operatic in performance. Jones can tend towards maximalism in her productions, but here settles for a monochrome minimalist set design that lets the singers take centre stage - figuratively speaking. The majority of the stage is taken up by tall imposing grey-white freestanding monolithic pillars (can it be a monolith if there is more than one?) which are reactive to lighting and effects created by Lightmap, projecting shadows, abstract markings, lines, swirling mists, clouds and gathering darkness, leaving only a corner for an array of microphone stands which are not used for oratorio purposes, but pleas and proclamations. Two video screens occasionally show time-delayed overlaid distorted images of the singers adding to the mood of a distorted reality, while the appearance of Tiresias seeing an enhanced reality wearing a VR-type headset is a good touch. The direction of the video recording of the performance by the Philharmonie de Paris for ARTE Concert makes creative use of movement and angles to capture the drama.

The singing performances are exceptional, and a fully rounded range of voice types just add to the characterisation and the feel of this being fully operatic. It's certainly more declamatory by its very nature, less action-oriented, but deeply operatic in the presentation of the themes and the range of expression in the music and singing. Mezzo-soprano Christel Loetzsch sings Antigone with all the sense of a 'true believer' (whether of the will of Gods or of her own sense of moral certainty), but you can feel the deep emotional sense of loss at the tragedy of her brother's/brothers' fate. Soprano Anna Prohaska's timidity as Ismene can also be seen suggesting a more cautious response, a wiser one even. Creon is of course a bass, and Tómas Tómasson's performance makes you feel deeply involved in his predicament as one bad decision sets off a chain of horrific events. There are solid performances here to from baritone, Jarrett Ott (a Messenger), tenor Thomas Atkins (Haemon), bass Edwin Crossley-Mercer (Tiresias) and even an unearthly sounding counter-tenor Serge Kakudji appropriately as the Greek Chorus.

External links: Philharmonie de Paris, ARTE Concert

Strauss - Salome (Dublin, 2023)

Richard Strauss - Salome

Irish National Opera, 2024

Fergus Sheil, Bruno Ravella, Sinéad Campbell Wallace, Vincent Wolfsteiner, Imelda Drumm, Tómas Tómasson, Alex McKissick, Doreen Curran, Julian Close, Lukas Jakobski, Christopher Bowen, Andrew Masterson, William Pearson, Aaron O'Hare, Eoghan Desmond, Wyn Pencarreg, Eoin Foran, Kevin Neville, Leanne Fitzgerald

Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, Dublin - 12th March 2024

Although the musical and performance standards remained very high, I was left with the feeling that of late the Irish National Opera productions and musical choices were playing a little on the safe side in recent years. As I noted at the end of my review of La bohème however, the promise of Salome - one of the most controversial and groundbreaking operas of the 20th century - suggested that they were ready to take up the challenge of their adventurous earlier years and challenge the audience at the same time. There isn't much more challenging than a blood-soaked woman making love to a decapitated head to the discordant notes of Strauss's thunderous finale of Salome. You should be left semi-stunned at that conclusion, and soprano Sinéad Campbell Wallace and the INO's chief musical director Fergus Sheil made sure on that account.

Thankfully however, the INO at least avoided the advance promotional material's tenuous and opportunistic attempt to portray the opera as "a royal, Succession-like power struggle". There are certainly strong opposing individual positions in Oscar Wilde's Victorian-era drama, and much that can be left open to interpretation, but drenched in decadent poetic imagery of the Symbolists, the principle power struggle in Salome is between the spiritual side of humanity and the physical, sensual side. That's indeed how it is played out in this production, the focus and attention of that internal battle played out in the exchanged between Salome and Jochanaan/John the Baptist, but Herod's intervention and position is also essential to the dynamic and that is also given due attention in the drama, the music and Bruno Ravella's direction of this production.

The struggle as it is then does not need a biblical context, and indeed the entire description of the story amounts to little more than a couple of lines in the Bible. So other than the names of the principal figures there is no visual indication that this take place in biblical Judea. The terrace of Herod's palace designed by Leslie Travers is an impressive semi dome of concrete with a semi circular array of steps leading down to a tree at the front and centre of the stage, the tree in full glorious bloom surrounded by a small circular verdant garden. Herod's guards all wear contemporary grey camouflage military uniforms and carry guns. It's a beautifully abstract set, one designed to draw focus, using bold symbolist imagery in the style of the work without being slavish to the stage directions. The whole mood that it evokes is enhanced with superb lighting and use of shadows.

Some productions of this work tend nowadays to focus on the corruption of Herod's court as a way of understanding or justifying the corrupting influence it would exert on the young woman Salome. She is clearly indulged by her stepfather/uncle and lusted after incestuously by Herod, the drama making no bones about. There is little shown of the excesses of Herod's party, which remains firmly behind a locked door (unlike the recent French production for example). In this production you have to take Salome on her own terms. She is foremost a spoilt child, bored with what conventional privileges the family's riches have to offer. She longs for forbidden fruit - one of the images used in Wilde's wild extravagant and florid writing - and like Wilde himself - the writing almost premonitory of what would come - she is willing to pay the price for stepping outside the boundaries of what is acceptable in this religious and superstitious society detached from or denying certain human impulses.

That of course is in the erotic lust that transforms into a bloodlust for the prophet Jochanaan. The production highlights the battle that rages between them, the battle between his call for her spiritual salvation from the sinful family she is part of and her struggle with her dark sexual desires. Those are amply demonstrated in their exchanges, in Salome's petulant turns between pleading and rejection, but Bruno Ravello finds other visual ways to express this and enhance it. The blossoming tree that covers the pit raised above the stage to reveal a circular platform with shallow water. More water rains down from its roots on Salome and Jochanaan, which the prophet tries to use it as a baptism, but Salome is just drenched in lust.

The Dance of the Seven Veils can and should be used to further enhance expression of sexual desire and how it can be employed, but too often it tends to be underplayed. Not so here. What is even more unusual about how this production makes use of the dance is that it is a rare occasion where Salome actually dances provocatively for Herod. Sinéad Campbell Wallace's movements feel natural and sinuous, using the whole of the stage, drawing close to and away from Herod who attempts to remove her drenched clothing. The use of shadows are also effectively used to draw and hold attention to those moves. Salome reaches the climax of the dance again splashing in the shallow water, spraying it around with her hair. It's a well-choreographed dance that makes its point at this critical juncture in the opera.

There is perhaps no deep analysis of the themes or the character of Salome that others have explored, and the work is certainly open to interesting interpretations, but leaving the work to speak for largely for itself is another option and it can be just as effective. The focus here is on the essential and the essential is the exceptionally good singing performance of Sinéad Campbell Wallace and the musical direction of Fergus Sheil conducting the INO orchestra. Campbell Wallace is every bit as impressive as should be, commanding attention in every movement, gesture and note, embodying Salome's unapologetic lust, unflinching corruption and blindness to all else but her object of desire. It is indeed a love that leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. Tómas Tómasson is an excellent Jochanaan, but there is a strong case for Herod being the true opposition that Salome is rebelling and testing her power against, and that is very much down to a superb performance from Vincent Wolfsteiner. Alex McKissick also made a strong impression as the young Syrian captain, Narraboth.

For me personally, the greatest pleasure was in hearing Strauss's remarkable score performed by INO orchestra under Fergus Sheil at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre in Dublin. This is how you want to hear what for me is the greatest opera work of the 20th century performed. There are other many other great works, but inspired by the extraordinary subject matter, Richard Strauss was the first to push music in a new direction that permitted further breaking of conventions and taboos in music. Sheil's attention to the detail is impressive, the music by turns seductive and brutal, dark and discordant, the conductor making full use of the thunderous dynamic that Strauss employs with an orchestra of this size. Combined with the singing performances and the stage production, this Salome had all the nuance and drama that this outrageous and shocking opera demands. The INO are back on full form.

External links: Irish National Opera

Wagner - Parsifal (Palermo, 2020)

Richard Wagner - Parsifal

Teatro Massimo, Palermo - 2020

Omer Meir Wellber, Graham Vick, Tómas Tómasson, Alexei Tanovitski, John Relyea, Thomas Gazheli, Julian Hubbard, Catherine Hunold

ARTE Concert

The unique nature of Parsifal as a Good Friday celebration, as a consecration for the stage of Bayreuth and as a spiritual journey in its own right, means that there are many ways of exploring it in a stage setting. There's no one way that works better than another but the most effective are those that simultaneously tap into and draw on the work for its unique source of power while also bringing something to it. When it comes to Graham Vick you have a director who is capable of doing just that in his own way, which is in a manner that relates it to the world we see around us. That's not so easy with a work that delves into the philosophical and spiritual and areas of religious mysticism, but Parsifal is a work that remains relevant for all time. Somehow Vick and conductor Omer Meir Welber manage to get all those essential qualities together in this January 2020 production at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo, or at least in some places better than other.

You can never tell if it's a good thing with an opera but in the case of Parsifal it's not exactly a disadvantage that you can't immediately see the direction a production is going to take even when a full hour and a half of Act I has elapsed. If it adheres however to the underlying sentiment of the work then it will hold and move you and Vick certainly manages to make you feel viscerally what the opera is all about. It might sound like an excuse but more than anything this is an opera you need to feel before you can understand it. It's no surprise that Vick uses familiar modern military and war imagery for Act 1 as a way of establishing that the world is in the midst of a deep crisis, one that it is badly in need of a saviour, a healing and renewing force. In Act I, more than anything, you can feel the pain. And it's not just Amfortas who is in agony, but Gurnemanz, the knights of the Grail and ultimately Parsifal too who comes to feel their pain and suffering.

The setting of Act I is visually simple and minimalised. There's a sandy-looking floor of chipboard with a canvas screen behind, giving the impression of a contemporary Middle Eastern military base with troops in army uniform and Kundry wearing a burka. Vick doesn't appear to intend to impose any political commentary, he just uses images that you will be familiar with as a way to get through to the idea of pain and feeling compassion. As such, the progression of Act I is straightforward but there are unusual touches that stand out. The first is the very Christ-like image of Amfortas, which isn't anything new he makes the first striking impression here wearing a brutal crown of thorns. Gurnemanz's story of the spear is played out in shadows on the canvas, showing images of war, victory and submission. The procession of troops lining up for the unveiling of the grail is not ineffective for it being a tin cup, as the symbolism of what it stands for is fully felt in Amfortas shedding a blood sacrifice. More than that, the shedding of blood is also endured by the troops/knights who painfully open up cuts on their arms. Set to Wagner's miraculous score, it's an immensely powerful first Act.

I've made no mention of Parsifal in Act I as he is purposely nondescript here, which is no reflection on Julian Hubbard who sings the role well here, but this is not his time, nor space for that matter. He's not even 'Parsifal' yet. That comes in an Act II which when it opens quickly undercuts any sense of Klingsor being an otherworldly agent of evil and instead depicts him as a very human one. He's a rogue soldier in fatigues, smoking a cigar, dropping his trousers to reveal the bloodstain of his emasculation. You might expect the flowermaidens to also be wearing burkas in Vick's contemporary Middle Eastern setting, and indeed that is how we see the chorus, but initially the maidens are semi-clad in underwear only, looking on as Parsifal cuts his way through their men, later coming to him seductively in coloured wraps.

The strangest scene in Act II however is the appearance of Kundry as a head only, buried under the sand, positioned in the same place as the grail buried under the sand in Act I. Establishing the nature of Kundry is vital in any Parsifal and here she is not so much the temptress and seductress as having a surrogate motherly quality, bringing an Oedipal edge to her encounter with Parsifal. An iconic image of Mary Magdalene opening up from the floor hints at another side, and Kundry as a woman of course has many sides and many incarnations, weaving a web of illusion that Parsifal brings crashing down with his newly gained wisdom and the power that such wisdom conveys on him.

Just as you can't expect Parsifal to come to knowledge and understanding without undergoing the whole laborious process of learning, you can't expect to know what direction Vick is pointing towards until you get to the conclusion of this Palermo production. It is of course a variation on the idea of a return to the paradise, a return to lost innocence, but Graham Vick depicts this persuasively as the need to become like a child again, throwing off the artificial constructs of religion, war and racism that have led to a corruption of true nature of humanity, and aspiring to be something better. It's there in the Easter message of healing, of Death and Resurrection, wiping away the sins of mankind. In Act III the salvation is that the Knights are no longer called upon to fight wars and bleed. They no longer have the spiritual nourishment that the Grail once provided, a gift that was used in a corrupted way to sustain nationalistic pride and wage war. Now it is turned towards healing and compassion.

Again, this is something that has to be fully felt in order to be fully understood. Some of the shadowplay imagery in Act III is consequently quite shocking, the result of a world thrown into chaos, where coldness and horror hold sway. Amfortas, as a leader of men is tired of it all, even more unwilling to continue to wage an endless war; reluctant to give sustenance and countenance to its continuance he topples Titurel out of his coffin. In the healing of the wound, Parsifal opens up a new way guided only by love and compassion. That is the Holy Grail.

In order to feel that the production obviously needs rather more than visual references and cues, and fortunately it's a beautiful interpretation in terms of musical and singing performances. Omer Meir Wellber rushes it along a little fast in places, or maybe I've been listening to too many slow versions recently, but there is a deep flow to the performance, completely Wagnerian, and it supports and helps bring out all those undercurrents that Vick hints at in his direction. Catherine Hunold doesn't quite get under the skin of Kundry the way another interpretation might, but she proves to be a fine replacement for Eva Maria Westbroek, providing some lovely lyrical singing in Act II with Parsifal, but she is also able to bring an edge of chilling drama when it's needed.

I've seen Julian Hubbard a number of times - he's a regular in Irish National Opera productions - but I've never seen him take on anything as big as Parsifal. I believe he also was engaged as the understudy before having to take over the main role and he acquits himself exceptionally well, making it look almost too easy, but also essentially human. The other principal roles are all superb. John Relyea is a fine Gurnemanz, his solemn intoning warm and reassuring, his storytelling compelling, his belief unshakable, his joy at the end overwhelming. Tómas Tómasson is wholly enveloped in the painful distraction of Amfortas, and Alexei Tanovitski's Klingsor is one that shows up the weak foundation of his blustering menace in the face of a greater power.  Strong singing and good characterisation all around, the Good Friday message of the Palermo Parsifal hits home exactly the way it should.

Links: Teatro Massimo Palermo, ARTE Concert

Tchaikovsky - Pique Dame (Wiener Staatsoper, 2015 - Webcast)

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Pique Dame

Wiener Staatsoper, 2015

Marko Letonja, Vera Nemirova, Aleksandrs Antonenko, Tómas Tómasson, Markus Eiche, Barbara Haveman, Marjana Lipovsek, Elena Maximova, Thomas Ebenstein, Sorin Coliban, Benedikt Kobel, Janusz Monarcha, Clemens Unterreiner, Aura Twarowska, Caroline Wenborne

Wiener Staatsoper Live at Home - 28 January 2015

It's probably not a coincidence that Tchaikovsky's two most popular operas, Eugene Onegin and Pique Dame (The Queen of Spades), are both taken from works from Alexander Pushkin. Tchaikovsky would take creative inspiration from several other sources in his operas and ballets and find a certain Russian character in them, but there's a pure Russian Romanticism in Pushkin's work that clearly appealed to the composer and inspired his most successful musical dramas. It's Eugene Onegin that presents grand Romantic sentiments in their purest form and they are expressed with great yearning in Tchaikovsky's score, but Pique Dame finds other Russian characteristics tied to similar themes that Tchaikovsky also successfully translates into music.

Gambling is one such device that is used in Russian literature to express the extravagant Romanticism of the Russian soul in the abandonment of oneself into the hands of fate. It's there in Dostoevsky in 'The Gambler', and it's there in Niikolai and Doholov's card games in Tolstoy's 'War and Peace'. In most cases, it's more than just a device, gambling a very real Russian problem that almost destroyed Tolstoy in real life. In the case of Hermann in The Queen of Spades, there's a similar 'all or nothing' attitude to his gambling, that will either be his salvation or destroy him, and it's inextricably linked (or is just another manifestation of the deeper gambler/Russian psychology) in Hermann's feelings for Liza.

Hermann knows he has no hope of his love for Liza being acknowledged, much less reciprocated. She's engaged to marry a handsome officer, Yeletsky, but Hermann throws himself at her mercy nonetheless. "Decide my fate!", he pleads, or blackmails, since he's holding a gun to his own head as he confesses that he cannot live if she refuses him. For her part, Liza is not indifferent to Hermann's declarations. On the contrary, she herself is fatalistically attracted to this mysterious dark figure who she has seen watching her from the background. There's plenty of room then in this alone for an Anna Karenina-like mutual rush to self-destruction, but Pushkin's story has another element that raises the stakes.

Pique Dame attaches such already heightened sentiments to what is essentially a ghost story. Hermann in his despair believes that Liza could never marry him because he isn't rich like Yeletsky. In his all or nothing frenzy, Hermann is prepared to pay whatever price is necessary, and the only option is gambling for the highest stakes. Aware of the legend of the three cards that surrounds the Countess, an infallible sequence of winning cards that can only be revealed to "one impelled by burning passion" (that's Hermann all right). Once a great gambler herself, known as the Queen of Spades, revealing the secret would however mean her death. In the event, it's only after her death at the hand of Hermann, that her ghost reveals the three cards that will seal his fate.

There's tremendous drama for Tchaikovsky to get his teeth into here, but Pique Dame is - for the most part, I find - surprisingly tame in its scoring. Pushkin's original work is a short story and benefits from its concision, but Pique Dame - even though it is imaginatively expanded with considerable colour - tends to dilute the intensity of the original. Tchaikovsky undoubtedly extends the Russian character of the work with choruses, a drinking song, a gaming song and a pastoral Intermezzo 'The Tender-hearted Shepherdess', but the most successful passages of the opera are those that relate to the ghost story and the passions of Hermann and Liza.

It's those aspects that also work best in Vera Nemirova's direction for the Vienna State Opera. Nemirova's production has no time for the usual Russian clichés and sets the work, for some unknown reason, in what appears to be an orphanage. This avoids the period trapping of wealth, privilege and position, the children looked after in the opening not by nurses and nannies, but by care workers. The orphanage building is also used throughout for interiors and exteriors, but it has a suitably ghost-like monastery appearance that suits the mood. Likewise avoiding old social trappings, the Intermezzo at the fancy-dress ball looks more like a showgirl cabaret here.

It's all reasonably moody and effective, particularly the apparition scene. In terms of distinctive directorial touches, there's nothing too outlandish attempted. The old Countess, for example, is not killed with a gunshot, but in the killing embrace of Hermann as a lover driven to the extremes of passion. Hermann raping the old lady introduces a much more desperate element to the work, tells us more about the mindset of Hermann, and actually fits with the warnings surrounding the revelation of the secret of the Legend of the Three Cards to one "impelled by burning passion". Similarly, Nemirova's bringing Liza's body back on the stage at the conclusion is a strong touch that brings home the impact of Hermann's choices and actions.

Marko Letonja's conducting of the work in Vienna was fine, but he was unable to ring any genuine emotion out of the cool calculation of the majority of Tchaikovsky's score. There are of course moments of great dramatic tension however, and those were built up well. The singing was strong from a good cast. Aleksandrs Antonenko can likewise be a little cool and steely but he grew greatly in intensity along with the role, never letting it tip over into full-blown insanity. After Hermann, it's the Countess who is the most charismatic personality here, and Marjana Lipovsek was just perfect here. The Countess is aloof and graceful, dismissive of fussy retainers, but she has to show fear and vulnerability, as well as regret for the past. Lipsivsek's performance could hardly be bettered. Barbara Haveman's Liza was also excellent, utterly commanding in Act III, and Elena Maximova supported her well as Polina.

The Wiener Staatsoper's Live at Home in HD season continues in February with broadcasts of TOSCA, ANDREA CHÉNIER, DON CARLO and an EDITA GRUBEROVA gala concert.  Details of how to view these productions in the links below.

Links: Wiener Staatsoper Live Streaming programme; Staatsoper Live at Home video