The three opera houses here made their upcoming seasons public in late April. As much as I’d like to believe that the opera scene is impervious to the worldwide financial fiasco, the scaled-down nature of the upcoming seasons gives pretty strong evidence to the contrary. Both the Staatsoper unter den Linden and the Deutsche Oper Berlin will be presenting four new productions, down from six and seven respectively this season. Ironically - or at least unexpectedly - the Komische Oper Berlin, which receives the fewest subsidies of the three houses, has seven premieres planned for the 2009 / 2010 season…an audacious move in this economic climate. Further to that, I just discovered on the KOB’s website that they’ll be upgrading the seats in the baroque auditorium to become Berlin’s first opera house with individual subtitles. Interested parties can purchase the old opera seats for 50 Euros a piece (discount available for bulk orders). Here’s your chance to own a piece of opera history! Contact  rausdamit@komische-oper-berlin.de to place an order…today!

The Staatsoper will be undergoing a thorough renovation in 2011 that’s set to last at least three years. This fact might explain why their final full season pre-renovation is so “light.”Among the premieres, Federico Tiezzi’s production of Simon Boccanegra with Placido Domingo in the title role seems the some promising, as well as Dale Duesing’s staging of Chabrier’s L’Etoile, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle and starring Magdalena Kozena.

Many productions from the 2008/2009 season will appear in rep. None of the revivals seems overly exciting, except a dream Tristan with Waltraud Meier, Peter Sieffert and Rene Pape.

At the DOB, what seems most intriguing at this point is Intendantin Kirsten Harms’ new production of Die Frau ohne Schatten, which arrives in late September with Manuela Uhl, Doris Soffel and Robert Brubaker, Johan Reuter and Eva Johansson. News of this production is especially welcome after the Met decided to scrap their FroSch from next season’s schedule for financial reasons.

I’m also excited for the new Rienzi by Philipp Stölzl that will be presented during the Richard Wagner Festival Weeks during the winter (Nov - Feb), which will feature all of Wagner’s 10 other biggies - including yet another revival of Götz Friedrich’s weathered production of Der Ring des Nibelungen.

I guess that leaves the KOB, whose season includes a new Rigoletto by Barrie Kosky and Aribert Riemann’s Lear in a production by Hans Neuenfels.

Below is a list of all the new productions at each house (concert perfs not included):

-Deutsche Oper Berlin-

Die Frau ohne Schatten - R. Strauss

Barbiere di Siviglia - Rossini

Rienzi - Wagner

Otello - Verdi

-Deutsche Staatsoper unter den Linden-

Simon Boccanegra - Verdi

Fledermaus - J. Strauss

Agrippina - Handel

L’etoile - Chabrier

- Komische Oper Berlin -

Rigoletto - Verdi

Der Rote Zora - Naske

Lear - Riemann

Don Pasquale - Donizetti

Fidelio  - Beethoven

Orlando - Handel

La Périchole - Offenbach

When Kirsten Harms assumed artistic management of Deutsche Oper Berlin, during the 2007–08 season, she made clear her commitment to presenting forgotten works by composers both obscure and well known. In her first season as Intendantin, the house mounted arresting productions of Vittorio Gnecchi’s Cassandra (performed in tandem with Strauss’s Elektra) and Walter Braunfels’s Jeanne d’Arc — Szenen aus dem Leben der Heiligen Johanna. The trend to resurrect lost work continues this season with new productions of Strauss’s Die Ägyptische Helena and Respighi’s Marie Victoire.

Helena arrived at the house on January 18, in a production directed and designed by Marco Arturo Marelli, with costumes by Dagmar Niefind. It was less visually arresting than last season’s “rediscoveries” (in particular Christoph Schlingensief’s overstuffed take on the Braunfels opera) but also potentially less distracting.

This curious 1928 fantasy is the fifth collaboration between Richard Strauss and his favored librettist, Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Helena belongs in the pantheon of high-flying Strauss heroines, yet this opera feels oddly superfluous: it has remained outside the standard opera-house repertory for eighty years. There have been recent efforts to revive it, including a 2002 recording from Leon Botstein and the ASO and a flashy 2007 production at the Metropolitan Opera. Both those projects were made possible by the participation of soprano Deborah Voigt, the paradigm of the vocal powerhouse needed to carry this dramatically confusing and musically oversaturated work.

Ricarda Merbeth, a distinguished interpreter of Strauss, Mozart and Wagner and a veteran of Bayreuth and Vienna, was DOB’s Helena: the German soprano was the best thing about this uninspired production, which failed to make a case for the resurrection of this work. Merbeth has agility, heft and clarity to carry this demanding role off: it was scarcely her fault if she couldn’t manage to make sense of her character, or indeed much else of the heady libretto, an odd marriage of ancient myth and fantasy that falls squarely in between the self-consciously avant-garde Elektra and the sublimely ornamented Die Frau ohne Schatten. The plot is a historical what-if: in Hofmannstal’s reimagining of the Trojan War, Helena is whisked away from the murderous rage of her cuckolded husband, Menelaus, by the sorceress Aithra, who orchestrates a peaceful reconciliation between the two.

With Helena, Strauss continued his mad love affair with the female voice. Merbeth filled the house effortlessly, soaring above the dense orchestration: her bold, ornamented passages in the sumptuous Act II aria “Zweite Brautnacht” were particularly impressive.

Merbeth may have been the evening’s star attraction, but she was well supported by her colleagues. American soprano Laura Aikin was a bright-voiced, creamy Aithra, who held up well alongside Merbeth in their duets. Menelas, like so many Strauss tenor roles, is a punishing and thankless part, yet Robert Chafin — another American artist — gave the Spartan king a vocally convincing and dramatically compelling performance that cut through the thicket of female voices: his work was so brazen that he not only held his own against Merbeth and Aikin but seemed to be waging war against Strauss’s disdain for the male voice. The powerful Danish baritone Morten Frank Larsen and tenor Burkhard Ulrich also did excellent work as Helena’s suitors, Altair and Da-ud.

Though ill conceived — it combined garish design with fussy stagecraft — Marelli’s production didn’t seem to take itself seriously enough to become genuinely disruptive. The stage was bathed in blues, pinks and greens, and it rotated to reveal three different sets. Aithra’s island palace was an upscale brothel, with wig and corset-garbed floozies galore on tap to entertain visiting legionnaires. Here and in the desert, carnival-like murals of sand, palm trees and ruins adorned the walls. Luckily, Marelli’s trashier ideas did not encroach on the bedroom, seat of the main marital drama and the setting for the opera’s most compelling music. Here, an upside-down couch and palm-tree jutted out from the reflective wall — surrealistic touches that brought to mind the aforementioned (and superior) Met production by David Fielding.

The evening was about the singing and the music. Maestro Andrew Litton drew a lush, often bombastic account from the orchestra that heightened both the defects and merits of this imperfect work.

A. J. GOLDMANN

Originally Published at Operanews.com

Walter Braunfels (1882–1954), a German composer labeled “degenerate” by the Nazis, is receiving a belated rehabilitation at the hands of Deutsche Oper Berlin, which pulled out all the stops for the world stage premiere of the composer’s 1942 opera Jeanne d’Arc — Szenen aus dem Leben der Heiligen Johanna (Joan of Arc — Scenes from the Life of St. Joan). There might be better news to report, however, had Deutsche Oper not decided to recruit one of the most controversial figures in opera today, Christoph Schlingensief, to stage this production (seen May 2).

Schlingensief gained the opera world’s attention in 2004 with a staging of Parsifal at Bayreuth that included time-lapse footage of decomposing rabbits. Schlingensief’s preparations for Johanna brought him to Nepal, where he took copious video of corpses being ceremoniously burned along the Ganges. That footage, projected across the entire stage for the better part of the evening, was but one element of a crude, chaotic and baffling production that made it exceedingly difficult to enjoy Braunfels’s fascinating score.

Braunfels was a popular opera composer in 1920s Germany. After World War II, he enjoyed a successful career as an academic, but his predominantly tonal musical style was considered old-fashioned. Braunfels never again found success as a composer.

In the last fifteen years, there has been a slight renaissance of interest in Braunfels. Johanna, which Braunfels worked on from 1938 to 1942, was first heard in Stockholm in 2001, in a concert performance conducted by Manfred Honeck. Even without Schlingensief’s overreaching production, this remains a fairly ambitious opera, with more than twenty singing roles and extensive choral writing. There was some unimpeachable singing to be heard at DOB, especially from Lenus Carlson as Trémouille and Paul McNamara as St. Michael. Daniel Kirsch was a sympathetic and slightly pathetic Dauphin, especially in his opening aria, an introspective number worthy of Verdi. Morten Frank Larsen was in fine form as well, as Gilles de Rais, Joan’s staunchest supporter. As the Maid of Orleans herself, Mary Mills played her role to a fever pitch, with a raw, exposed sound that was always honest if not always accurate. She was brazen and fearless, even if her high notes were somewhat strident.

However, the fine voices were visually overwhelmed by the frequently rotating sets of hospital rooms and funeral pyres, onto which were projected multiple images of burning corpses. This production suffered from an acute case of ADD: nothing was allowed to stay still, not even for a moment. Cows, goats and sheep were paraded across the stage. A row of young boys was ritually circumcised, or possibly castrated. An epileptic, emaciated mime twitched across the stage, smearing himself with blood. A midget wearing a red raincoat (à la Nicholas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now) accompanied the English soldiers who apprehend Joan.

A tight, eight-scene structure makes Johanna feel at times like an oratorio — in particular, a Passion — with its frequent alternation between clearly demarcated arias, arioso-like outpouring and extensive choruses. Dramatically speaking, the scenes are disjointed and often take on the character of chamber operas strung together by virtue of musical cues and motifs. This is music that is deeply scarred and fragmented, even if it does aspire to Wagnerian totality. The score serves a graphically illustrative purpose to Braunfel’s own libretto (based on the trial transcripts from 1431), which was hopelessly blurred by Schlingensief’s mess of a production.

All in all, it is wildly diverse music that evokes many different epochs. One surely hears the influence of Wagner and Verdi, but Weill and Hindemith poke through as well. There are jazzy horns and jaunty clarinets. The trumpet call that awakens Joan to her mission brings to mind Ives’s “Unanswered Question.” Bach and Telemann also echo in the devout and liturgical phrases. In the more rapturous moments, one feels the sweep of Berlioz, and in the expansive orchestral interludes, one finds hints of Richard Strauss.

In the pit, Ulf Schirmer conducted with a great deal of muscle and zest. The chorus of the DOB and the Staats- und Domchor Berlin (a renowned boy’s choir that dates from 1465) were well coordinated and effective, despite the strange configurations in which they were placed.

This just in from Opera News. Follow the original link here

Götz Friedrich’s 1984–85 production of the Ring arrived in January at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, carrying with it a mixed bag of musical and theatrical goods (seen Jan. 5, 6, 10 and 12). The sold-out cycle was presented over two weekends. There were several last-minute changes, most notably cancellations from the conductor Mikko Franck and American baritone Greer Grimsley, who was to sing Wotan.

In Das Rheingold, DOB found an excellent replacement in Johan Reuter, a bright-voiced, creamy baritone who infused Wotan with an unexpected degree of youthful ardor. In the first two evenings of the cycle, Fricka was the astonishing Marina Prudenskaja, an aristocratic mezzo who vented her righteous anger in a fierce, razor-like voice. Another standout was Oleg Bryjak as Alberich, a bloodcurdling bass who in this production controlled Nibelheim from an underground factory reminiscent of Fritz Lang’s film Metropolis. But the evening belonged to the boisterous and ironic Loge of Clemens Bieber, who dispensed his dubious advice with cunning glee and a self-confident, mellifluous tenor.

Die Walküre introduced James Johnson’s Wotan to the cycle. The capable baritone returned for the Wanderer in Siegfried, singing with deep, rounded if occasionally raspy tones, giving the god the proper balance of severity and vulnerability. The true star of Die Walküre was Christopher Ventris as Siegmund, who sang heroically and with impressive dramatic range. As his Wälsung sister, Sieglinde, Petra Lang was understated and unconvincing in Act I. In Act II, she registered greater dramatic commitment but sang with hysterical, uneven tones. Her best moment was a rapturous reaction to Brünnhilde’s annunciation.

Irène Theorin’s Brünnhilde was frustratingly uneven. She was in good voice for her striking Act II entrance and managed the “Hojotoho” with exciting assurance. However, she lacked the requisite stamina and was struggling by the beginning of Act III. For her final scene, Theorin sang more softly, which seemed to reduced the strain and paved the way for a smooth, effective ending of the opera.

Top vocal and dramatic honors in Siegfried belonged to Burkhard Ulrich, a cunning yet eminently likable Mime. As Siegfried, American tenor Stephen Gould, a Bayreuth veteran, made an equivocal impression: seemingly underpowered in Act I, he plowed through Act II with exciting juvenile ardor and maintained enough stamina for a satisfactory Act III love duet.

Alfons Eberz made for a much finer Siegfried in Götterdämmerung: his riveting heldentenor faltered only in the long Act III monologue. As the Siegfried and Götterdämmerung Brünnhildes, Luana DeVol was at her vengeful best in Act II of the final opera. She was less compelling when it came to expressing the transports of love; moments that called for airy smoothness were often wobbly. Her performance was tainted by frequent patches of strident vibrato and piercing high notes, especially regrettable in her immolation scene.

Lenus Carlson’s tentative performance as Gunther reinforced his character’s consummate spinelessness. Edith Haller was a naïve, and rosy-voiced Gutrune. Marina Prudenskaja had a rousing cameo as the Götterdämmerung Waltraute. The evening’s finest performance came from Matti Salminen, who sang Hagen with a netherworldly bass and menacing intensity.

The chorus of the DOB was well prepared as the Gibichungs. Among the cycle’s other integral vocal clusters, the Rhinemaidens and Norns were pitch-perfect and impressive, unlike the confused mess of leather-clad Valkyries.

Twenty-eight-year-old Finnish conductor Mikko Franck was to lead the entire cycle but bowed out on short notice. In his place, Lothar Zagrosek (aged sixty-five) and Philippe Auguin (aged forty-six) shared conducting duties, which made for a less unified cycle. Zagrosek was fiery and brisk. However, he often treated the individual leitmotifs in isolation rather than demonstrating their function in the larger musical fabric. Auguin’s performances were more careful and leisurely, although he was more prone to drown the singers out.

Friedrich’s production has enjoyed more than forty performances: wear and tear showed in some creaky sets and malfunctioning props. The stage concept, a massive “Time Tunnel” that connects the various worlds of the opera with our own, is visually striking yet underutilized. At the end of Götterdämmerung, after some confusing pyrotechnics, ostensible survivors of the wreckage huddle together and lift their eyes to an apocalyptic landscape inhabited by statuesque figures draped in white shrouds. The arresting visuals provided an effective complement to the cosmic musical bursts with which the opera concludes. It seemed to signal not only a farewell to the gods but the fact that this much-used production is perhaps ready to be retired.

A.J. GOLDMANN