Wagner - Siegfried (Zurich, 2024)

Richard Wagner - Siegfried

Opernhaus Zürich, 2024

Gianandrea Noseda, Andreas Homoki, Klaus Florian Vogt, Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke, Tomasz Konieczny, Christopher Purves, David Leigh, Anna Danik, Camilla Nylund, Rebeca Olvera

Zurich Opera Ring für alle - 24th May 2024

Following the first two installments of the Andreas Homoki Ring Cycle for Zurich there was good reason to look forward to their continuation of the epic work in Siegfried. That's not always the case for me. After Das Rhinegold and Die Walküre, I often feel it's more of a duty to see a Ring Cycle through to the end, and it can even be a bit of a chore in some rare cases. Not so here. Even if Andreas Homoki directing and Gianandrea Noseda conducting just continued along the existing path without feeling the need to add any other new ideas, such was the standard and quality of cast in the first two parts that I was confident that the remaining two long evenings of Der Ring des Nibelungen would continue to be hugely enjoyable and as impressive as the first two.

And indeed it does, at least as far as Siegfried goes. There is nothing exceptional about the opening scene other than a sense that it is as good as and consistent in tone with what has come previously inside the house of the Ring. What is noticeable is that the white panelled walls have been swapped for a darker rooms for what takes place in Siegfried. Act I's room contains oversized pieces of furniture (presumably since its inhabitants are dwarf and youth) that hasn't been well cared for, all of it dull, worn, upturned and scattered around. The set doubles up as a forge and workshop very effectively when it comes to repairing Nothung. It matches the sense of disregard of Siegfried by Mime, whose focus is single-mindedly on one thing; the Ring.

Appearances aside, the real attention is given over to the detail of the musical performance that matches the alternatively playful and sensitive sides of the scene, a tone that is likewise conveyed though consistently fine singing performances that have been a hallmark of this Ring Cycle. Here Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke reprises his anxious and animated Mime, Tomasz Konieczny again the Wanderer, and Klaus Florian Vogt is introduced as Siegfried, each of them solid, reliable and playing to their best. You have everything necessary here to engage you in the drama that is to unfold over the course of the work, while the recounting of what has come before is anything but a chore.

Set up as such, more than any other time I can remember (other than expecting to be taken aback by the unpredictable in Frank Castorf's Ring cycle - who can forget the Mount Rushmore of Revolutionaries in his Siegfried?) I very much looked forward - this time for consistency rather than surprise - to seeing how the subsequent Acts would play out. Of course, it helps that since Zurich are using the same cast in the same roles almost throughout, you have the return of Christopher Purves as Alberich to look forward to in Act II. As expected, he is fantastic again here. The scene of Siegfried's reflection on his mother and his failed attempts to communicate with the Waldvogel feel a little overplayed in Act II, but it presents a lovely little oasis of beauty within a very dark scene of greed, treachery and dragon-slaying.

While such touches and little details are well-considered to balance out the tone of the work, and the consistency of the quality of the musical and singing performances count for a lot, there remains a niggling feeling that they could do a little more, that the production could benefit from a deeper exploration of some of the themes typically found in this work. The stage direction, lighting and costume design do give some clues however, gentle ones maybe, nothing too imposing, and it's literally all spelled out in black and white. The use of black and white clothing is a fairly obvious convention, but it's how it is applied here that adds another dimension and gives the work a little commentary worth considering. All the figures here are mythological, but there are some who are closer to nature and purer in their motivation and duty than others, uncorrupted by greed for money and power. The Rhinemaidens, Erda, the Valkyrie, the Waldvogel all are pure white spirits within the context here, as does the change to the basic set colour scheme in the two halves of the tetralogy. That's a fairly strong adherence and visual representation of a central theme of the work.

You can see Siegfried (in shades of grey) in those terms, his refusal to accept the authority of Wotan, laughing at his pretensions that rely on a past reputation that no longer has any currency (literally) in a new world. In that light, it makes the confrontation between them as effective as it can be. Siegfried is not overawed by the golden majesty of the expensively built Valhalla shown to him. He has purer motivations, motivated by love for the mother he has never known and the promise of the maiden surrounded by fire. And, as far as those sentiments go, in Siegfried anyway, it's all about maintaining a coherence, a consistency, an equilibrium between the disparate elements and factors that come into play over the course of the opera, recognising the key scenes and giving them due attention in the direction of the performances.

I'm not sure you can extend this theory to the rapturous declarations of the final scene of Siegfried's awakening of Brünnhilde, but there's a limit to what you can do. Even as Klaus Florian Vogt and Camilla Nylund give it their all, it's all still a bit overly glorified, but in some ways you could look at this as perhaps a necessary scene to counterbalance what comes next in Götterdämmerung. As if recognising this, director Homoki includes some moments of fun - without making fun of it - when Siegfried and Brünnhilde get down to business in a playful clinch after Vogt shows his concern for the lack of respect shown to the hastily cast aside Nothung. 

Again it's a case of little details making a big difference, but aside from that it's left to the singers to deliver the impact of each scene in the opera, and there is no doubt they all carry it through brilliantly, as they did in the earlier parts. New here in the lesser roles are Rebeca Olvera as a bright Waldvöglein, we have a different Fafner here, but arguably he has transformed from Giant to Dragon and David Leigh sounds superb. Anna Danik's Erda makes the most of her brief appearances again here. What really counts of course is your Siegfried and while he might not be anyone's idea of a heldentenor, Klaus Florian Vogt’s unique voice yet again feels absolutely right for this production as it does for whatever Wagner tenor role he undertakes. He makes it seem effortless, which is quite an achievement.

External links: Opernhaus Zürich, Ring für alle Video on Demand

Photos - Monika Rittershaus

Wagner - Das Rheingold (Zurich, 2024)

Richard Wagner - Das Rheingold

Opernhaus Zürich, 2024

Gianandrea Noseda, Andreas Homoki, Tomasz Konieczny, Christopher Purves, Claudia Mahnke, Matthias Klink, Xiaomeng Zhang, Omer Kobiljak, Kiandra Howarth, Anna Danik, Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke, David Soar, Brent Michael Smith, Uliana Alexyuk, Niamh O'Sullivan, Siena Licht Miller

Zurich Opera Ring für alle - 18th May 2024

Das Rheingold opens to what is a familiar Zurich opera ‘house’ style, certainly under the direction of Andreas Homoki, as in his Der fliegende Holländer, but also Orphée et Eurydice and I Capuleti e i Montecchi, which is to say it takes place in a revolving set of white walls of elegant rooms. The intent here is at least more readily apparent even if it takes place nowhere near the Rhine, the playful Rhinemaidens skipping through the rooms in white silk pyjamas, all of this appearing to represent an ideal, a freshness, a world as yet untainted. That's all about to change, and Alberich's appearance and presence does feel intrusive and dangerous, Christopher Purves just superb in this scene with the Rhinemaidens and later also in the Niebelheim scene. I'm already seduced by the beauty and relative simplicity of Homoki's approach to Opernhaus Zürich's Das Ring des Nibelungen.

I'm getting ahead of myself of course, always thrilled by the possibilities opened up in the "preliminary evening" of this expansive work and this one looks promising, not trying too hard and risking tripping itself up further down the line as some do when they accumulate symbolism and buckle under the weight of a concept stretched too far to remain coherent. As far as taking this stripped down elegant house idea through just within the span of Das Rhinegold - which is challenge enough - it succeeds marvellously, directing the focus onto the characters and the significant roles they play within the drama and in Wagner's musical telling of it.

Superficial appearances aside, although it contributes to the mood of the whole production, creating a wonderful unity with the lighting, the richness of the musical performance of the Philharmonia Zürich under Gianandrea Noseda and the distinct character that they are attempting to establish from the outset, the real strength here is the stage direction. It's immediately obvious that the singers haven't been left to their own devices, but have been given purposeful direction and given something to work with, bringing life, personality and motivation to the work. There are no 'park and bark' performances here. It makes it fully engaging and entrancing, not to mention that the singing is also uniformly superb. What you have here is the full package, a considered approach that brings this vast enterprise to life with a lightness of touch that is uncommon in this work, but which suits it very well.

Are we seeing or are we likely to see any new angle on the work or any new ideas proposed? Well, it's too early to say for sure, but this doesn't look like a Ring Cycle that is going to run away with wild ambitious concepts. If it doesn't at this stage appear to be proposing anything new, if it is successful even just for finding a core purpose, sticking with it and bringing it out clearly, then along with a solid musical and singing performance, this is really all you need. That's established straightaway with Wotan first appearance, gazing on a landscape painting of his Valhalla within it. The dream of asserting his will and presence within a perfect world of splendour and magnificence; a noble nation with Valhalla at the summit. The lust for power/money is never satisfied, always wanting more, and there is a high price to be paid for that.

The lesson is one that Alberich learns to his cost as well, abandoning any love for his fellow man (or dwarf), exploiting their labour to satisfy his own lust for power. Whether you want to paint this - as others have done - as the Earth paying the price for unregulated capitalism, there are other ways of putting this across. In fact, Das Rheingold is a moral tale on the same level as Tolstoy's novella, 'The Forged Coupon', powerfully adapted for cinema also by Robert Bresson as 'L’argent'. No good ever comes from a false act. In fact, the harm of the original act, the stealing of the Rhinegold in the opening scene, is multiplied in severity all the way through the acts of bad faith employed by Wotan and Loge's deception of Alberich and then Fasolt and Fafner. Handed down to Siegfried, we see how this original act leads to the ultimate collapse of the Gods. Money is the curse, the lust for it by individuals over love for one's brother, enslaving and corrupting, the world ultimately destroyed by it.

There is no cleverness or symbolism employed or required to make this point clear. Rather there is a balance between the literalism of the mythological setting and serving the intent underlying the myth. The set gives this world a feeling of solidity, of a drama played out in the real world (so to speak). The images employed by Wagner just as effective in this context as they are in the original, the Tarnhelm a hood forged out of gold chainmail, Alberich's transformations indeed into a dragon and a frog. The ring here is an actual ring, the misappropriated Rhinegold piles of large solid gold nuggets. In keeping with the late 19th-early 20th century setting of the stately house, Donner and Froh wear blazers and straw hats and wield cricket bats, all of this just adding to the richness, taking nothing away from it. The acting, with this music associated with the actions, just adds to the sense of their being something real and important at stake in this Das Rheingold.

Since the focus is firmly on the drama being brought out of the underlying motivations of the protagonists, it is essential that you have singers of sufficient quality to really bring this out. Personally, aside from the terrific performance already mentioned by Christopher Purves as Alberich really nailing this down from the outset, Claudia Mahnke is an outstanding Fricka and Brent Michael Smith a menacing enough Fafner without having any need of the giant's height. But really, there are any number of performances to enjoy here, including Matthias Klink's entertaining Loge, which he plays like Master of Ceremonies on occasion. It's wonderful that this Zurich Ring Cycle will also have a rare consistency of the performers in the same role all the way though. Personally, I still can't warm to Tomasz Konieczny's Wotan, but it's indisputably an excellent performance. All things considered, when a Das Rheingold is this good, it increases anticipation for how the rest of this Ring Cycle will play out.

External links: Opernhaus Zürich, Ring für alle Video on Demand

Photos - Monika Rittershaus

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

Strauss - Die Liebe der Danae (Salzburg, 2016)

Richard Strauss - Die Liebe der Danae

Salzburger Festspiele - 2016

Franz Welser-Möst, Alvis Hermanis, Krassimira Stoyanova, Tomasz Konieczny, Norbert Ernst, Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke, Regine Hangler, Gerhard Siegel, Pavel Kolgatin, Andi Früh, Ryan Speedo Green, Jongmin Park, Maria Celeng, Olga Bezsmertna, Michaela Selinger, Jennifer Johnston

ORF2 - August 2016

"All that glisters is not gold", Shakespeare tells us in 'The Merchant of Venice', and the distinction is a relevant one in the case of Strauss's treatment of the King Midas myth in his late opera Die Liebe der Danae. Even though the opera was developed from an idea by Hugo von Hofmannsthal and is scored to some of Richard Strauss's most gorgeous and extravagant musical arrangements, the resulting work lacks the depth of their earlier collaborations, lacks an edge and does feel a little out of touch with the realities of the changing times in which it was composed. And yet, like the similarly compromised Arabella, it is not without merit, particularly if a director is able to bring something to it.

There is plenty of glitz and glister in Alvis Hermanis's production of the work for Salzburg, but not much that really taps into a seam of gold. It's all decorative, aiming for a generic fairytale look and feel with little care about whether it makes sense, and certainly not caring to look any deeper into the work for social commentary or contemporary relevance. Whether there is much to be gleaned on those levels from Josef Gregor's libretto is doubtful, but at least the Deutsche Oper production from 2011 attempted to relate the curse of Midas's gift to that of the "golden touch" of the composer, and also see the aging Strauss in terms of Jupiter's failing powers and influence in the new world. This however just feels like empty spectacle.

That in itself could be seen as a valid reaction to the piece as Der Liebe der Danae is certainly all glittery show, its lush post-Wagnerian Romantic melodic sweep as easy on the ear as the set designs are on the eye in this Salzburg production. Hermanis arranges the first two Acts as a decorative display of constant motion and changing colour, which at least reflects the musical flow of the work. That's the same principle that the director applied to the metronomic rhythms of Janáček's Jenůfa at La Monnaie, and here another parade of dancers in gold skin-tight suits are frequently present, dancing and writhing at the back of the stage.

It's not totally gratuitous then as it does relate to the dream-like quality of the music, which is itself an expression of the hopes of the bankrupt King Pollux to find a wealthy suitor to marry his daughter Danae and save him from his debtors. Her portrait has gone out to King Midas, so he has high hopes for the best possible match. Danae is also in the thrall of a dream, seeing her lover bring her gifts of gold, but it seems that those dreams might be frustrated when it is not Midas who arrives bearing gifts, but his messenger Chrysopher. Or so it seems. In reality, Jupiter is up to his old tricks, posing as Midas in order to seduce yet another mortal woman, and his messenger is indeed the real Midas.

The Salzburg production certainly gives a bold, colourful setting for this dream fairytale, its golden-red glows and exotic costumes all contributing to this effect, but it's all very random and free-associative. It's like, what's the first thing you think of when you hear this opera? Fairy tales and the Arabian Nights? Well, that's good enough, no-one is going to think too deeply about Der Liebe der Danae. This could account for the undue emphasis placed on Midas's past as a donkey driver in Syria dominating the tone and locations for Act III, the setting clearly evoking some kind of contemporary allusions for the director.

Hermanis is controversially on record for voicing his objections to Germany's refugee policy, quitting a theatre where he was contracted to work in Hamburg. Although those objections were supposedly based on fears of importing terrorism, there was a unpleasant racist tone to them that could be seen to be reflected in the caricatures of middle-eastern men in over-sized turbans and women with exaggerated breasts grasping for riches. The bottom line however is that the production is not terribly imaginative, it doesn't appear to have any consistency or purpose, and is merely static and decorative. It's certainly lovely to look at, but it doesn't really do justice to the characterisation or the treatment of mythology in the opera, nor does it manage to apply it meaningfully to any contemporary reality.

As with much Strauss, particularly those that are more Wagnerian in scope (and there are many correspondences here with the Ring), the voices and the ability to meet the singing challenges count for a lot here. The individual members of the principal cast in the Salzburg production are all exceptionally good, but there is some terrific ensemble work from the other character roles of the four kings and Jupiter's old flames Semele, Europa, Alkmene and Leda. Krassimira Stoyanova yet again demonstrates for me that she is one of most impressive singers of Strauss around today. Her interpretation and acting aren't particularly exciting - not that she is given much character to work with here - but her range, technique and the timbre of her voice are all just wonderful.

Much the same could be said about Tomasz Konieczny. I was unimpressed by his Wotan for the Vienna Ring Cycle two years ago where he had the vocal ability but a rather grating tone. Here however in the Wotan-like role of Jupiter, he combines power with superb vocal colouring. The all-important closing scenes of Die Liebe der Danae between Danae and Jupiter consequently are vividly expressed. Gerhard Siegel is certainly more lyrical in the human role of Midas, if not really a convincing rival in the romantic stakes. Norbert Ernst's cuts an appropriately bright and sparkling figure as the Loge-like Merkur, and Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke is excellent in the role of King Pollux. With a cast like this and Franz Welser-Möst conducting an unrestrained (a little too unrestrained?) account of Strauss's extravagant arrangements and melodies, it's disappointing that Alvis Hermanis is unable to rise to the heights that Strauss was aspiring to, but of course never quite reaching himself.

Links: Salzburger Festspiele, ORF2

Schoenberg - Gurre-Lieder (Amsterdam, 2014)

Arnold Schoenberg - Gurre-Lieder

Dutch National Opera, Amsterdam - 2014

Marc Albrecht, Pierre Audi, Burkhard Fritz, Emily Magee, Anna Larsson, Marcus Marquardt, Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke

Opus Arte - Blu-ray

Arnold Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder is an unusual piece that is difficult to classify, but it's also a work that it is difficult to associate with one of the most radical composers of all time. Gurre-Lieder uses a Romantic musical language that is not typical of the Schoenberg who would shake up the old traditions with serialism, yet it comes at a time when the composer was already moving away from the traditional musical forms. Orchestrated like an opera, Gurre-Lieder certainly doesn't fit easily into the song-cycle, cantata or oratorio format, but neither would it appear to have the dramatic qualities for an opera. For a work that nonetheless remains one of Schoenberg's best known and most performed works, it's surprising that no one has attempted to adapt it to the stage until this 2014 production at the Dutch National Opera.

The fact that there is no clear narrative form to Gurre-Lieder might however work in its favour when it comes to presenting in on the stage. There are no predetermined stage directions to be adhered to and there are no preconceptions about how the work ought to look and be presented. There might be a few clues in its origins, references and the period it derives from, but a director is free to make whatever they want of the songs, the sentiments and the arrangements. Whatever images Gurre-Lieder with its grand, lush orchestration might have conjured in the mind previously however, it's unlikely to be anything like the setting that Pierre Audi devises for the Amsterdam stage.

As abstract as it might appear there is clearly an effort made by the director and the music director to get inside the work's complicated life, its history and period, at the same time as it tries to illustrate what there is of Gurre-Lieder's sparse storyline. Based on a German translation of a series of poems written in 1900 by Danish writer Jens Peter Jacobsen, the Gurre-Lieder recount the affair and the consequences of the love of King Waldemar for a young local girl called Tove. Amidst premonitions, laments and mourning, Tove dies at the hands of Queen Helwig and Waldermar loses his mind, imagining summoning an army of the dead to avenge her death before he too expires in a blaze of remorse.

...Or something like that. To be honest, I've never really paid much attention to the lyrical content of Gurre-Lieder's Romantic meditations and expressions, which is probably why it's such a good idea to try and put the work across visually in dramatic terms. Pierre Audi's concept works in at least giving the listener something to think about in this dimension of the work, even if it still proves difficult to hold one's attention and derive any deeper meaning out of the verse. It's not great storytelling, but it can be evocative, dramatic and poetic, particularly when it is combined with Schoenberg's gorgeous post-Wagnerian musical compositions.

And post-Wagnerian, neo-Romanticism is very much the tone here in terms of subject and execution, so it's not surprising that Audi's production reflects that to some extent. The staging and subject (more so than the music) evokes gothic imagery that you might expect to find in Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande, there's a fatalistic love affiar that is reminiscent vaguely of Tristan und Isolde (in this case the music leads more towards the comparison), while the lush orchestration and fairytale elements can put one in mind also of Strauss's near contemporary Die Frau ohne Schatten, a work that also draws heavily from the period, from the thinking and art movements that were developing and cross-pollinating in Vienna at this time.

If there's one overall consistent theme as such that the DNO production applies as a concept for representing the work on the stage, it's perhaps this idea of great change. That's applicable to the age the work was composed in as much as to the great change in musical forms that Gurre-Lieder heralds. There's a nightmarish quality to the production that comes with this fear of death, the end of one era and the beginning of another. The anxiety particularly affects Waldemar, but the premonitions of the Wood Dove and the raising of a dead army all carry a fearful edge. Schoenberg's glorious choral finale of the rising sun on a new day certainly holds out promise for the future, but with Waldemar dying, there is a certain ambiguity there. The sun will still rise regardless and change will come, for better or worse.

There might not be anything particularly revelatory here, but the stage production does represent the essence of the work and, at the very least, it invites the listener to consider anew what the work is about much more so than a more conventional concert performance would. Marc Albrecht's conducting of the piece also benefits from these visual cues and highlights the very particular variety of musical language that Schoenberg uses in the work. The singing is perhaps not quite strong enough to carry over those huge orchestral forces, but Burkhard Fritz is wonderfully lyrical as Waldemar, Emily Magee impresses as Tove and Anna Larsson stands out as the Wood Dove. The other roles have the same Romantic lyricism and are well handled by Marcus Marquardt and Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke. The DNO chorus are, needless to say, mindblowingly good, which is a distinct advantage for the impact of this work's finale.

The chorus are indeed the main focus of the extra feature on the Blu-ray disc. DNO productions on Opus Arte releases always include an excellent interview/making of feature on the background to the production and rehearsals, and this one is well worth viewing. There's also a Cast Gallery and an informative essay on the work by Gavin Plumley, along with a brief synopsis in the enclosed booklet. The HD image and sound options are superb, really putting across the qualities of the production and the performance. The singing is mixed a little low in the DTS HD Master-Audio 5.1 mix, but there's a better balance and perhaps more impact in the LPCM stereo mix.

Links: DNO

Shostakovich - The Nose (Royal Opera House, 2016)

Dmitri Shostakovich - The Nose

Royal Opera House, London - 2016

Barrie Kosky, Ingo Metzmacher, Martin Winkler, John Tomlinson, Rosie Aldridge, Alexander Kravets, Alexander Lewis, Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke, Peter Bronder,Helene Schneiderman, Susan Bickley, Ailish Tynan, Jeremy White

Opera Platform - 9th November 2016

Outrageous. I think that's the key word to aim for in a production of Shostakovich's The Nose. Gogol's wonderfully absurd and satirical comedy is given a musically extravagant treatment by Dmitri Shostakovich and it calls out for an outrageously surreal comic response on the stage. I'm surprised that Terry Gilliam hasn't been ear-marked for this one at some stage, but The Met's recent production at least found an appropriate illustrator's flourish in William Kentridge. If it's outrageous you're looking for however, Barrie Kosky is your man. 

In Gogol's story and Shostakovich's opera, the nose of interest is that of the Collegiate Assessor Platon Kuzmitch Kovalev. Somehow it disappears from his face, is found in the bread mix of the barber's wife and then goes off to have an independent life of its own, much to the consternation of Kovalev. Even worse, it seems to be having a better life than him, being seen in all the important places around the city and even making the rank of State Councillor. Kovalev meanwhile finds that the absence of a nose don't confer much credibility on him with anyone, not with the police or the newspapers when he tries to report it missing, and it pretty much kills any prospects of marriage he might have had.

Kosky delivers an energetic staging that matches Shostakovich's musically eclectic score for The Nose, even adding a tap dancing routine to a score folk and jazzy rhythms, oomph-pah trombones and tuba and even a balalaika ballad, the music alternating between moments of dark reflection, comic verve and symphonic interludes. It's a technical challenge to find the right mood for each scene, particularly as the work is played straight through without an interval and with minimal time for scene changes, but Kosky and his design team come up with some inventive solutions that don't compromise on the director's individual sense of style and his tableau arrangements.

Barrie Kosky doesn't do obvious, but he has some familiar tics and tricks that are starting to become quite predictable. There is some of the director's trademark campness thrown into the Royal Opera House's all-singing all-dancing production, with gratuitous male dancers in corsets and suspenders, but primarily what you get in a Barrie Kosky production of the Nose is an appropriate sense of irreverence. And noses evidently. Lots of noses. It's not just Kovalov's nose that is prominent here, there are noses everywhere you look - which is kind of obvious. As obvious as... well, you know what.

Well, maybe not so obvious, since there is a rather large dose of comic absurdity and satire in The Nose, and any attempt to look for deep meaning in it is doomed to appear rather silly. Kosky gets the comic absurdity, but doesn't really do the satire. But then, Gogol's satire was very much to do with certain peculiarities of Russian society, with its system of rank and position, with power and authority, with corruption and bribery. There is a pre-Kafkaesque edge to it, but that's not what Shostakovich goes for, and neither does Barrie Kosky.

So what does Kosky find in this Royal Opera House production of The Nose? You might not be surprised to find that Kosky picks up on the undercurrents of a castration complex that Kovalev undergoes in his emasculation. Without his nose, Kovalov no longer feels like a man, he is unable to pursue women, and marriage to the daughter of Pelageya Podtotschina Grigorievna is out of the question (although he was always ambivalent about this match in the first place). Evidently you would expect Kosky to make a big deal of this, and literally at one stage he does indeed make a 'big thing' out of the nose.

So it's typically Kosky, a little bit camp, a little bit vulgar (David Poutney's funny English translation keeping it nice and sweary as well), but it's also clever, entertaining and fun. There's some inventive use of tables and desks driven on wheels to keep things moving along. The production is funny in some places and kind of laboured dead air in others, but it's that kind of a hit and miss opera. Summing up the whole enterprise however, an observer comes on to the stage and gets the audience laughing at the idea that anyone would make an opera out of this "sorry little tale"; "It's of no use to any of us". So there's no point in, ahem, looking down your nose at it.

Singing The Nose in English is perhaps a necessity unless you have a large cast of Russian singers ready to take on the 78 singing and speaking parts (outside of Russia, I would think that only the Bayerische Staatsoper have that kind of resource to draw on). English works just fine, particularly in Poutney's good translation, and we get good singing and speak-singing performances from Martin Winkler as Kovalev and John Tomlinson in a variety of colourful roles that he assumes brilliantly. Alexander Kravets's District Inspector is terrific, and Susan Bickley and Ailish Tynan enter into the spirit of the whole thing wonderfully. I'm not at all familiar with the music, but Ingo Metzmacher's conducting of the orchestra certainly holds together all the varied rhythms, moods and peculiarities of the piece.

Links: Royal Opera House, Opera Platform

Berg - Wozzeck

Alban Berg - Wozzeck

Bayerische Staatsoper, 2013

Lothar Koenigs, Andreas Kriegenburg, Simon Keenlyside, Angela Denoke, Roman Sadnik, Kevin Conners, Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke, Wolfgang Bankl, Scott Wilde, Matthew Grills, Dean Power, Heike Grötzinger

Staatsoper.TV Internet steaming - 6th October 2013

It's hard to know how you should feel or quite by what criteria you judge the performance of any Alban Berg opera. Wozzeck, Berg's only completed opera (Lulu's third act remained unfinished at the time of his death), should I suppose be a painful experience and should gradually beat you down much in the same way that life does for its protagonist. The music too is by no means comforting or easy to listen to, but neither is it inaccessible or "difficult" in the way that Lulu's 12-tone serialism can often be. As a reflection of the drama, it's dark and unrelenting, and so too is the Bayerische's 2013 production directed by Andreas Kriegenburg and conducted by Lothar Koenigs.

Part of the problem with knowing quite what to make of Wozzeck and its protagonist undoubtedly stems from the fragmentary nature of the episodes in Georg Büchner's original unfinished manuscript. Wozzeck, we are told in the introduction to the Bayerische's production, is a good man who is ground down by the system, by the brutality, ignorance and hypocrisy of other people, by poverty, misery and illness, by life in general. But is he a good man, is he an innocent or is he simply a disturbed individual? It's difficult to tell, since he reacts angrily to Marie's infidelity but remains outwardly impassive to what goes on in relation to the abuse and exploitation of his nature and character by the Captain, the Doctor and the Drum Major. Until obviously, it all becomes too much and he finally cracks...

If there's any indication then just what the inner nature of Wozzeck is, it must be found in Berg's music. Here you have his personality, his confusion and his building anger, all in a way that makes rather more sense of the eventual violent release of his frustrations. And, yes, it tells you that Wozzeck is at heart a good man. Berg's music is a rich combination of sounds, melodies and voices, a genuinely free experimental attempt to redefine the structures of operatic language outside of the constrictions of the traditional or indeed the atonal language. There are no restrictions, old is mixed with new, the three acts of five scenes are each described as 'Character Pieces' (Act I), a 'Symphony in Five Movements' (Act II) and 'Six Inventions' (Act III) that employ a variety of musical forms and styles to cover the whole range of the subject. It truly is music in service of drama and character, not in service of music itself.

If a production engages with it in the way that it ought to, it should achieve the full impact of Wozzeck's terrible sequence of dramatic events. The three acts played straight through without intermission Andreas Kriegenburg's production and Harald B. Thor's sets unquestionably achieve that. Under predominately monochrome lighting the locations are almost invariably within damp, dank and misty and silver-blue moonlit settings capture the utter darkness and misery of the situation. They also give some indication of Wozzeck's mindset and even give premonitory hints of his eventual fate - Wozzeck spending most of the time with his feet soaking as he plods across the waterlogged stage.  There's practically no colour, the production team resisting the urge even to splash some red around.  There's a brief flame at one stage, but no sunsets and no blood.

You would however expect the stage and lighting to depict a rather dark and grim picture, so what is notable about the Bayerische's production is its division between interiors and exteriors that don't so much coincide with Wozzeck's actual location as to whether his mind is locked-in or outwardly expressive (and even then, his outward expressions are still somewhat dissociative). There is also a slightly greater role given over to Wozzeck and Marie's son, who remains mostly within the boxed room detached from the watery floor space that the others occupy. He is mostly silent but paints words on the wall on occasion ("Papa, Geld!, Hure" - Father, Money! and Slut) that heighten the sordidness of the situations and indicate that the child is not untouched by them.

All of this works with the nature of the work itself and doesn't over-complicate the character of the music or the singing performances which are just as vital an aspect. Again you can hardly judge the singing performances for their beauty of expression, but there are nonetheless great demands placed on all the performers and they cope well. Simon Keenlyside has considerable experience in the role of Wozzeck and is performing the role in several other productions this season. His performance here is, not unexpectedly, deeply intense, conveying as much through his posture and bearing as he does through his expressive singing. Angela Denoke is just as impressive as Marie, a thankless role of a character that is scarcely any less put-upon than Wozzeck, but this is a strong production all round, with the Bayerische's regular company singers all putting in solid performances as the work's gallery of grotesques.