Tchaikovsky - Eugene Onegin (Vienna, 2020)

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Eugene Onegin

Wiener Staatsoper, 2020

Tomáš Hanus, Dmitri Tcherniakov, Liubov Orfenova, Helene Schneiderman,
Nicole Car, Anna Goryachova, Larissa Diadkova, Andrè Schuen, Bogdan Volkov, Dimitry Ivashchenko, Dan Paul Dumitrescu, Mykola Erdyk, Johanna Mertinz

Staatsoper Live - 31 October 2020

The perspective that the present gives us on the past should be one of age and wisdom looking back on the foolish acts of youth, but all to often the view from a comfortable distance is just as untrustworthy, leading us to look back fondly and nostalgically on times that were actually painfully difficult to live through and, for better or worse, character forming. Perspective and the passing of time is very much at the heart of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, and that's the focus of Dmitri Tcherniakov's new production for the Vienna State Opera.

Always at his best when directing Russian masterpieces, Dmitri Tcherniakov alerts us to the untrustworthiness of memory and nostalgia right from the outset of this production. There are no peasants and labourers toiling in the fields singing songs that ennoble the nature of working the land. Here in the Vienna production rather we see a large family gathered around a dinner table in a room that is a comforting sea of beige ("a golden dream"), where the guests join in and make fun of Madame Larina's nostalgic reminiscences. The old harvesting songs are also romanticised and sung as a dinner party recital by Tatiana and Olga.

It's a frivolous world, comfortably detached from real world feelings and concerns. Even Lensky's effusive poetry to Olga here seems playful, a fond recognition of the ways of a more innocence age. No doubt the sentiments are genuine, but they are made to look out of place here. Even Madame Larina no longer retains any of the romantic novelistic illusions of her youth. This opening setting proposes diametrically opposed views of the world between the dreamer and the reality, which of course only enforces and emphasises the distance between the impressionable bookish dreamer Tatyana and the aloof, arrogant 'man of the world' Onegin.

Although that delves further into the melancholy of such sentiments expressed in the music than most, it's far from the most original observation to make about Tchaikovsky's masterpiece. The queer interpretation by Krzysztof Warlikowski (Munich 2012), the expansive view of Russian society and culture in Stefan Herheim's production (Amsterdam, 2011), the doubling with dancers in Kasper Holten's production (Royal Opera House, 2013) autumnal moods of light and colour of Robert Carsen (The Met, 2007) all found innovative ways to tap into the many undercurrents that lie within this extraordinary opera. Tcherniakov more recently does seem to rein in indulgences and seem to play a little safer using beige-coloured living-rooms as a way to satirise the middle class, using them as a microcosm of society, but it can still be challenging and appropriate. Here the mood is intensified by the production never leaving the dining room, neither to spend the sleepless night in Tatyana's bedroom, nor even the duel scene.

Evidently then, the more pointed commentary is revealed in other little touches and in the direction of performers, all of them contributing to emphasise the central themes. The utter sincerity of Tatyana's depth of feeling at the conclusion of the letter scene is in heartbreaking contrast to the frivolity of Onegin and all the others around her. It even seems to embody that distinctly paradoxical Russian characteristic of frivolous sincerity and sincere frivolity that lies very much at the heart of the work. Perhaps it's in that character that Tcherniakov dispenses entirely with Monsieur Triquet and instead has Lensky sing the birthday ode to Tatyana (in Russian), the party descending into sheer playful mayhem that is in complete contrast to how Tatyana is feeling. And indeed Lensky.

In this production, it seems that Lensky has an even greater shattering of illusions than Tatyana, or it can certainly seem as such when it is sung and performed with such heartfelt sincerity as it is here by Bogdan Volkov. Lensky's experience proves to be just as critical to the impact and meaning of the work as a whole when it's permitted to be (Warlikowski also for example using the quarrel between him and Onegin as a way of tapping into those deeper sentiments). Here only Tatyana understands how he feels while the others laugh and mock. The duel is no less shocking for taking place in front of all the family and friends in the dining room, reduced to a tussle over a shotgun that accidentally goes off. The impact is every bit as tragic and devastating as it ought to be in the context of this highly charged romantic masterwork.

Considered against Lensky and Tatyana, Onegin is reduced to a mockery in the opera named after him. His return to society in Act III and his self-important tale of his difficult years is met with icy disdain and casual dismissal at the high society function in another elegant dining room, this one a blaze of rich red and formality compared to the easy golden nostalgia of the Larin estate dining room. Onegin finds himself unwelcome, not some tragic romantic figure as he is in Deborah Warner's somewhat misguided 2013 Met production, and certainly not the one he thinks he is. The Russian society here is changed too, now one of ostentatious wealth where outsiders are not made comfortable, detached from their roots and the past.

Tomáš Hanus carried much of Tchaikovsky's romantic melancholy and Russian-ness in his conducting and it was played well; a little bit broad in its sweep I felt, but the music has a lot to cover. Onegin is an inconstant man, difficult to really grasp, particularly when he is played as someone superficial and unsympathetic here. André Schuen never really convinces of any sincerity but that seems to be what Tcherniakov is aiming for here. It's only at the conclusion that he lets go and reveals or becomes aware of his true feelings and expresses everything of the ignominy of a rejected lover. It put one in mind at this time of the level of self-delusion turning to realisation of a populist US President who can't quite believe that he has been rejected by an electorate who used to hang on his every word and tweet. As mentioned earlier, Bogdan Volkov raises Lensky to a new level of importance in this opera with a heartfelt performance that is in complete contrast to Onegin.

The role of Tatyana is a difficult one, needing a singer capable of covering the range of naive youth with a more reflective mature experience. And yet, do we ever really change? Is Tatyana not the same, even after the passing of years? Doesn't she prove to be still capable of making a foolish mistake, still capable of following her heart, following a self-destructive urge and throw caution to the wind. Is she not Russian? No one is immune to such feelings at any age, as Prince Gremlin also testifies in "All men surrender to love's power". Tcherniakov recognises and so does Nicole Car, presenting a consistent vision of the romantic that lies at the heart of anyone who has seen, understood and been moved by the extraordinary beauty and sadness of life through love as its portrayed in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin.

Links: Vienna State Opera, Wiener Staatsoper Live

Smetana - The Bartered Bride (Munich, 2019)

Bedřich Smetana - The Bartered Bride

Bayerische Staatsoper, 2019

Tomáš Hanus, David Bösch, Selene Zanetti, Pavol Breslik, Günther Groissböck, Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke, Oliver Zwarg, Helena Zubanovich, Kristof Klorek, Irmgard Vilsmaier, Ulrich Reß, Anna El-Khashem, Ogulcan Yilmaz

Staatsoper.TV - 6 January 2019

Like the few great comic operas that endure across the years, the principal strength of The Bartered Bride is not sophisticated satire or even its comic content, since few opera comedies 'translate' well over time. Like Mozart for example, the comic potential of Smetana's most successful opera lies in its recognition of essential human qualities and in the ability of new performers to continually renew and breathe life into the work. Of course there's another essential element that contributes to the work's success and longevity and that's Smetana's glorious music. Musical and singing performances are well catered for in the new Munich production and under David Bösch's direction it succeeds to a large degree in keeping the whole thing lively and entertaining, and you can't ask for more from a light comic opera than that.

I was unsure however that there would be anything to gain or any subtle commentary to be made from Bösch's decision to switch The Bartered Bride's setting of a bucolic idyll of a Czech country village for a dung heap. That said, there's not much idealisation of life in the countryside in the opera, the villagers resigned from the opening song to the fact that there's no room for sentiments of love when the realities of money are far more important. Wedding and woe go hand in hand unless it's properly managed and love makes fools of those who enter into it without proper consideration for such necessities.

That doesn't leave much hope for the romance between Marie and Hans. Marie's parents Kruschina and Kathinka have called upon the marriage-broker Kezal to formalise the arrangements that have been agreed long ago to advantageously marry Marie to one of the sons of Tobias Micha. Since one of them has disappeared and is believed to be dead (hmmm, I wonder where he might have gone...), that means that Marie is going to be married to Wenzel. It's going to take some quick thinking and scheming on the part of Marie not just to outwit Kezal but also manufacture a circumstance where her marriage to Hans might be acceptable. To Marie's surprise however, Hans seems to have allowed himself to be bought off, signing a contract that makes Marie the bartered bride of "one of the sons of Tobias Micha" (hmmm...).

The Bartered Bride is a simple enough story with a fairly obvious plot twist, but it's the strength of the sentiments of Hans and Marie (and Smetana's scoring of such) that give the work its irrepressible human character. The two lovers are under no illusions or romantic ideals about their situation; they just know that they were meant for each other and are confident enough to believe that they won't be separated by any circumstance arranged by their parents and that they will work something out. It's not so much a case of love conquers all as a battle of cleverness and wit.

Of course the obstacles that have to be overcome have to be serious enough as to make it seem insurmountable, and money is always a familiar reality, even if arranged marriage isn't as much a universal problem. What is of course most important and most successful about how Smetana deals with the subject in The Bartered Bride is that the forces of ideal and reality, or love and opposition are embodied in the characters and in the musical character of the piece. The situation itself is not inherently funny, and how it plays out is merely amusing, but it comes alive in the playing, in its characters, in how they are interpreted and in how the music brings vibrancy and life to it all.

Marie and Hans are the romantic characters, so the majority of the comic potential lies with the marriage facilitator Kezal and in how the lovers seek to outwit him. David Bösch emphasises the disparity between Kezal's flamboyantly over-dressed, bare-chested, arm-wrestling activities and the dung heap village that he has visited, and Günther Groissböck plays it up terrifically, his looming overbearing presence dominating the stage whenever he is on it. For their part, Selene Zanetti and Pavol Breslik have to play the part not just of simple country people with romantic ideas, but show the sincerity of their feeling in the lovely arias that Smetana writes for them, showing the underlying human qualities that are essential to the character of the work. Both are simply outstanding for technical delivery, sweetness of timbre (with a steely determination underpinning it) and for the deftness of the comic playfulness in the delivery elsewhere.

Patrick Bannwart's dung-heap set proves versatile enough to introduce other elements of visual comedy and extravagance such as a tractor that Marie drives over a wedding dress, some live pigs, a beer festival and the requirement to set up a site for the travelling circus in Act III. Another little running visual joke where the prompter - the box buried in a smaller dung pile - is invited to take part in the entertainment provides another light amusing touch that works well. Aside from the circus, where Bösch does his own thing but still provides spectacle and amusement, all of this fits well with the rich folk-influenced dances, choruses played with verve and dynamism under the musical direction of Tomáš Hanus. Plenty of spectacle and light humour, with wonderful music and lovely singing, you really can't ask for more from The Bartered Bride.

Links: Bayerische Staatsoper, Staatsoper.TV

Dvořák - Rusalka (Vienna, 2017)

Antonín Dvořák - Rusalka

Wiener Staatsoper, Vienna - 2017

Tomáš Hanus, Sven-Eric Bechtolf, Krassimira Stoyanova, Dmytro Popov, Elena Zhidkova, Jongmin Park, Monika Bohinec, Stephanie Houtzeel, Gabriel Bermúdez, Ileana Tonca, Ulrike Helzel, Margaret Plummer, Rafael Fingerlos

Staatsoper Live - 25th October 2017

Initially it doesn't look like there's much originality in Sven-Eric Bechtolf's production of Rusalka. It's all very much within the director's fairy-tale world, the frozen ice-palace worlds where his Pelléas et Mélisande takes place and Der Rosenkavalier (which is indeed a kind of fairy-tale. In the case of Rusalka, which really is a fairy-tale, it hardly seems the best way to tap into the darker undercurrents that run through the work, but they do seem to rise to the surface as the production progresses.

At the very least, the Glittenberg's set and costume designs are lovely to look at and they do seem to strike a good balance between abstract stylisation and the idea of a more traditional fairy-tale world. There are two levels representing the water goblin's world and the world of the humans, but the division isn't quite as strict as that and it tends to relate more to where Rusalka is and where she wants to be at any given time. At one point the other side represents her idealisation of the real world above and later it's the security of the water goblin's kingdom that she wants to return to.

The connections between the water kingdom and the "real" fairy-tale world, and between the creatures and humans who inhabit these places are beautifully realised. The Prince is seen floating dream-like in a pool and Jezibaba appears in a ball of fire, the sets seeming to respond to Rusalka's innocent impressions of the world. Those impressions change as she gets to know how men and women behave in the world, and the whole look and feel of this Rusalka changes with it.

If there's not really any other level to engage with it and no real world context to the fairy-tale imagery there is (always at Vienna I find) the compensatory delights of the singing and musical performances, and those are something quite special in Rusalka. Tomáš Hanus conducts an invigorating musical performance, alive to the joyous folk elements in the score as well as its whole Wagnerian Romantic sweep. More than just being a magical fairy-tale, you can hear how sensitive the score is to the light and dark of human emotions in this kind of presentation.

The singing performances are superb with the ever impressive Krassimira Stoyanova heading the cast. Never a great actress, the role works to Stoyanova's advantage as Rusalka is a simple water nymph and only half-human. Associated with pale blue moonlight, Rusalka drifts sleepwalking her way through the world, but mainly Stoyanova can get away with a less nuanced and engaged acting performance because her singing is just glorious. This is how Rusalka should be sung and all the expression it needs is there in the singing delivery.

The simplicity of the fairy-tale perspective on the world however changes as Rusalka engages with the Prince and his court, witnessing the cruelty of hunted animals and the reality of what takes place between men and women. Bechtolf depicts this wonderfully in a suggestive ballet sequence that contrasts with Rusalka's bed, wedding dress and flowers. The world outside, the water goblin visible behind through the frosted windows, help dispel Rusalka's idealised dream.

It takes a little more than that, but all the angles are covered in the characterisation with singing performances to match. Dmytro Popov is a lovely lyrical Prince and Elena Zhidkova a suitably formidable - but not necessarily vindictive - foreign Princess. Their mistreatment of Rusalka is more of an inability to relate and an inability to see love as something more spiritual the way Rusalka sees it. Or at least in the Prince's case, not until it is too late, which is of course the tragedy of the opera. Jongmin Park and Monika Bohinec also give strong performances with a similar level of nuance - sympathetic yet menacing - as Water Goblin and Jezibaba.

There might not be any great real world context in this Sven-Eric Bechtolf production and certainly nothing in the manner of a Martin Kušej or a Stefan Herheim-like psychological and gender-studies analylsis of its undercurrents, but the essence of Rusalka is all there in the designs, the music and the singing performances. The alternative to a watery-grave for the Prince is beautiful and heartbreaking - two words that should always be associated with Rusalka and the Vienna production achieves that.

Links: Wiener Staatsoper, Wiener Staatsoper Live

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

Leoš Janáček - The Makropulos Case

Bayerische Staatsoper, 2014

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

Staatsoper.TV - 1 November 2014

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dvořák - Rusalka

Antonín Dvořák - Rusalka 

Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich 2010

Tomáš Hanus, Martin Kušej, Kristine Opolais, Klaus Florian Vogt, Nadia Krasteva, Günther Groissböck, Janina Baechle, Ulrich Reß

Unitel Classica/C-Major

From the man who envisaged the Flying Dutchman as an asylum seeker in a 2010 production of Wagner’s Der fliegende Hollander for the Nederlandse Opera, cutting-edge opera director Martin Kušej reworks Dvořák’s dark fairy-tale Rusalka into a case of child abuse, where an innocent wood nymph and her sisters are victims of a Josef Fritzl-like Water Goblin. Evidently then, this production for the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich in 2010 is not one for the traditionalists. For anyone a bit more open minded to the greater potential of opera, this is an incredibly imaginative interpretation that gets right to the dark heart of the opera, and it’s sung magnificently by all the principal performers.

In the context in which it is presented, lines like “I’d like to leave her to escape from the depths/I want to become a human being/And live in the golden sunshine” take on an entirely new meaning when they are uttered by a young woman being held captive with her sisters in the basement and routinely abused by their father. Cut off from the outside world, it’s not surprising that they see their world differently, considering themselves wood nymphs and their father as a Water Goblin as a way to evade the reality of their situation. Could any sense of what these poor creatures endure be any more powerfully achieved than by such a production, where this abusive captor descends from the upper-level of the set down into the dark, dank cellar, where a group of young girls wait fearfully for his arrival, and have to deal with him forcing himself upon them?

Escaping from this dungeon, and faced with the reality of life outside the abusive circle that is the only kind of relationship she has even known, Rusalka is evidently profoundly traumatised and damaged by the experience, her “womanhood defiled”, and she remains mute and unable to communicate or function as any other human being. It destroys any chance of sustaining a normal relationship, and destroys her chance at happiness with the Prince who has discovered her in the woods. “I am cursed by you”, she accuses her abuser, and the words, the tone and the true depths of what this means takes on an incredibly sinister and infinitely more tragic edge when it is applied to real-life in this way and taken out of the realm of mere fairy-tale.

Is this a distortion of the original intentions of the opera, or does it get to the heart of what is already suggested in the fairy-tale story (and we all know the dark origins of such tales), and to the heart of what is there in the often sinister tone of Dvořák’s score itself? Even where there is a playful tone in the music and singing, this can also be played upon – and has been used often in opera in this way – for the additional emphasis that can be achieved when contrasting what is played and sung with what is actually shown. In most cases however, there is no need for such excuses, and it’s uncanny just how often the actual libretto and the music score chime in perfect accord with Kušej’s brilliant and powerful interpretation.

This radical staging allows for some incredibly powerful moments and shocking imagery. The scene where Rusalka totters like Bambi on her human legs, looking with wide-eyed innocence down the barrel of the Prince’s shotgun is absolutely breathtaking, Rusalka’s background of abuse only emphasising the distinction between their roles as hunter and prey, and the problems that this is going to create in any kind of relationship between them. This is echoed in another nightmare scene (really, this is not a production for lovers of Bambi) where bloody, skinned deer are ripped open and their entrails devoured by brides in wedding gowns.

It’s hard to argue that such interpretations have no place in opera when the power of the piece speaks for itself, when it shows an audience something of the world we live in today, tackling in a genuinely artistic and insightful way a subject that we would find hard to relate to or even come close to comprehending. One could question why not create a new opera to deal with such subjects rather than use Rusalka, but it’s hard to dispute that this production doesn’t give as much to Rusalka as it takes from it, using the power and an edge that is already there in the music, but taking it to a new level.

A lot of credit for this has to go to also to Tomáš Hanus, the Bayerische orchestra and the performers who all work together to help bring this off. Kristine Opolais, who has recently made a major impact in Covent Garden in a new production of Madama Butterfly, not only has the voice to carry this, but she has excellent acting ability also in a highly challenging role, and it makes all the difference here. Klaus Florian Vogt’s lyrical tenor should already be well-enough known and he not unexpectedly demonstrates a fine sensitivity as the Prince here, but the darker tones of Nadia Krasteva as the foreign princess and Günther Groissböck as the Water Goblin also make a lasting and unforgettable impression. This quality of interpretation ensures total fidelity to the intent of the opera as it was originally written.

There’s little to fault either with the presentation on Blu-ray. The image is clear and sharp with no significant issues, though some minor flutter can be detected in one scene. Audio tracks are PCM Stereo and DTS HD Master Audio 5.1.  The surround track is listed on the cover as DTS HD-MA 5.0, but this is incorrect, and there is definitely activity on the LFE channel (which isn’t even usually the case on most 5.1 mixes). The BD comes with a fine half-hour featurette on the production, featuring interviews with all the main contributors.