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

Two reviews  originally published at: www.operanews.com

Götz Friedrich’s popular production of Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin returned to the Deutsche Oper Berlin for three performances in late October and early November. This stylish, historically careful production (seen Nov. 2) is among the DOB’s most beloved and has been presented more than fifty times since its premiere in 1990.

The evening’s main attraction was South African tenor Johan Botha, cast in the title role. Berliners last saw Botha in Staatsoper Unter den Linen’s September revival of Fidelio, where he appeared opposite Waltraud Meier’s Leonore. At the DOB, Botha got to sink his teeth into a meatier role than Florestan: he reenergized this well-worn production in much the same way he did the 2006 revival of John Dexter’s 1979 production of Don Carlo at the Metropolitan Opera.

Botha sang marvelously all evening long. His singing was lofty and lush, if at times a little short on texture, but his smooth, robust heldentenor always delivered the goods generously and with effortless volume. His large physique makes him an unconventional romantic hero, but his charisma and expressive voice rendered the love duet believable and made the revelations of the final scene electrifying.

The tenor was surrounded by an impressive cast. His costar was Bayreuth veteran Petra-Maria Schnitzer, who tackled Elsa in last season’s revival of this production. The Austrian soprano has a durable voice that can at times be stiff. At the beginning of the evening, she strained for high notes, and her stamina faltered at the end of Act II, when she sounded exhausted. But she pulled off a wonderfully powerful Act III duet with Botha, in which she proved capable of switching between love, fear and delirium convincingly.

Ortrud and Telramund were Swedish mezzo Susanne Resmark and German baritone Eike Wilm Schulte (another Bayreuth veteran), both of whom were near-perfect in their menace and fury. Schulte was the only singer to match Botha in sheer vocal force, sounding lushly grim and vengeful. He sang with sinewy agility and full-throated texture. He and Resmark had wonderful chemistry: while Schulte let loose despairing howls, Resmark hissed her venomous words with villainous glee (though occasionally imperfect diction). She landed her high notes with a banshee-like cackle, and her low range was bloodcurdling — in a way reminiscent of Strauss’s Klytämnestra, a role she has tackled to much acclaim. It was a terrifying performance, most convincing during her seductive Act II duet with Else.

In the small but crucial role of the king’s Herald, Marcus Brück offered clarion tone. Unfortunately, King Heinrich himself was the wooden Jan-Hendrik Rootering, whose sonorous and ultra-deep voice couldn’t quite cut through the massive ensembles.
The justly famed chorus of Deutsche Oper Berlin sounded a bit clumsy at first, with the women outperforming the men. But they managed to gel for Acts II and III, doing excellent work in the extensive choral scenes.

In the pit, Danish maestro Michael Schønwandt lent an understated sense of urgency to his reading. In the overture, the strings squeaked a bit, and the brass was curiously muted. Schønwandt offset the triumphalism of the Act III prologue with an exaggerated tempo, which made the darting violins sound more anxious than festive. The extensive trumpet sections (including the onstage elements and the sections scattered throughout the theater for the prologue to the final scene) were exceptionally powerful. Despite a slight scenery malfunction at the end, when a silk curtain refused to flutter to the ground and had to be raised up laboriously, Friedrich’s well-worn production still packed an emotional wallop.

A. J. GOLDMANN

The Komische Oper Berlin’s world premiere of Robin Hood, an “adventure opera” by Frank Schwemmer, attracted an audience of generally well-behaved six- to ten-year-olds to an 11 A.M. performance on November 6. The Komische is to be applauded for commissioning a seriously-modern children’s opera, even if both score and libretto (written by Michael Frowin) leave much to be desired in terms of quality and accessibility. The through-composed, loosely atonal score is light-years away from the schmaltzy Hollywood sound of Rachael Portman’s The Little Prince; it’s closer in technique to Charles Wuorinen’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories, to give two recent stateside examples of the genre.

Schwemmer, a young German composer, has written a dramatically compelling and well paced if somewhat pedestrian score, which has a few (usually diatonic) memorable moments and a fair amount of choral writing for the children’s choir (in this production members of the Ernst Senff Choir). Generally speaking, both score and production were clever without necessarily being sophisticated.

The opera’s whimsical plot concerns Daniel, a boy growing up in Berlin who discovers that a computer game of Robin Hood that he plays obsessively contains a secret portal to medieval England. Before he knows it, he’s palling around with Robin, Friar Tuck and Little John in Sherwood Forest, where it seems that half of Berlin’s junior population is stuck and feeling a little homesick. But before they find the portal back to modern times, they need to contend with the dreaded Sheriff of Nottingham and Price John, pretender to the throne of England.

Andreas Homoki, the Komische’s intendant, headed the fun, fast-paced production, which benefited greatly from the colorful sets of Frank Philipp Schlössmann and the irreverent, quasi-historically-accurate costumes of Gideon Davey. Homoki’s ideas were often more inspired than those of Schwemmer: the inventive stagecraft provided most of the excitement and surprises over the course of the show’s two hours. The apartment of the hero, David, is a conscious parody of Berlin’s often zany interior decorating. The orchestra was seated backstage (a fact revealed midway through Act I). Sherwood Forest emerged from the orchestra pit, sank and receded when appropriate, often to the accompaniment of a woefully overused strobe light.

The cast was drawn mostly from the Komische’s ensemble. Across the board, the singers sang and acted with heightened drama, to make the plot readily intelligible to the audience and often just to poke fun at operatic conventions. Thomas Eberstein, perhaps the Komische’s most endearing tenor, played Daniel with adolescent stubbornness and restless energy. Baritone Christoph Späth sang Robin in suitably overblown mock-heroic style, his numerous entrances announced by an ascending/descending three-note figure and usually an archer’s pose. As the boy’s father, Jens Larsen, a powerhouse baritone and frequent performer here, gave one of the afternoon’s most accomplished and genuinely operatic performances. Another shout-out goes to tenor Peter Renz, who, as Prince John, sounded like a cross between Mime and Herodes in his anxious villainy. Hagen Matzeit screeched and whined his way through as the prince’s henchman “Berater” Harry. His character was made up as a rabbit with stereotypically Asian features and brought to mind the Orientalist tendencies of Puccini and Gilbert and Sullivan. Drink-loving Friar Tuck, sung by bass Hans-Martin Nau, was given some of the score’s tonal passages, which he belted out in a deep, raspy growl.

Patrick Lange led a scaled-down orchestra with prominent and inventive percussion and chivalric trumpets, which tore through the score spiritedly. It was heartening to see the Komische be bold enough to commission a serious-minded children’s opera, though the decision to make this the first new opera production of the season was somewhat puzzling.

During the curtain call, the girls shrieked loudly for Maid Marian, the boys for Robin. And naturally, the entire audience let out a collective “yuck!” when the two kissed.

I thought I’d share with you a fascinating and obscure Hindemith work that I recently heard on the Kocian Quartet’s 3 CD release of the Complete Hindemith String Quartets, which I recently found used at a bookstore in upper Manhattan. This cumbersomely-titled piece is based on an episode from Hindemith’s early career, when as a freelance violinist he played the overture to Wagner’s “Flying Dutchman” at a resort spa with a string quartet whose members has woken up late and had no time to rehearse. I found a video of YouTube (with no performer information listed), which I am posting below. Enjoy this playful and mischievous piece.

Originally Published on Operanews.com

 

Robert Dean Smith, who filled in for an ailing Ben Heppner in the Met’s HD transmission of Tristan und Isolde on March 22, appeared at Berlin’s Staatoper unter den Linden the following week in the German company’s revival of Harry Kupfer’s 1999 staging of Tannhäuser (seen March 30).

The American tenor was in fine voice, yet while his performance as Tannhäuser was pleasant enough, it was rarely overwhelming. He sang his entrance aria, “Dir töne Lob” in a gently lilting style: careful phrasing carried him through the evening. In his scenes with Venus, he chose not to adopt the usual devil-may-care attitude of arrogance and feistiness that most Tannhäusers sport, but his out-of-synch duet with the love goddess left much to be desired, as did his melodramatic acting, which greatly detracted from the dramatic impact of this production.

One thought at first that the heldentenor might be holding himself in reserve — Tannhäuser is a challenging assignment for any tenor — but when Smith failed to distinguish himself in the Act II singing contest, one was left with serious doubts. It seemed more than likely that Smith was simply exhausted. His exhaustion was nowhere more evident than alongside the domineering Christof Fischesser, the powerhouse bass who sang Hermann and commanded more attention than anyone else in the contest scene.

German baritone Roman Trekel gave a curiously understated performance as Wolfram, full of soft quivers and half-whispered words. He seemed to be “feeling” the music a little too much and drawing it out unnecessarily: for all its artful soulfulness, his performance seemed contrived.

Finnish soprano Camilla Nylund made a thrilling entrance as Elisabeth, with an accurate, energetic “Dich, teure Halle.” She changed dramatically for her grief-filled Act III appearance, when she sang with controlled hysteria and darker, tremulous hues: she made her character’s anguish totally convincing.

Michaela Schuster was a sultry, menacing Venus whose habit of launching her high notes with too much force worked against her seductive air, making her sound shrill. The Staatsoper’s recent discovery, Anna Prohaska, was dazzling in her small role as the young pilgrim, singing in a remarkably even, boyish voice.

In Harry Kupfer’s striking yet baffling production, the Venusberg looks like something out of Fellini Satyricon, with copious naked bodies posed statuesquely in a variety of lewd acts. The Act II singing contest was held in a recital hall with stadium seating for the spectators (one of the best-dressed choruses in recent memory). During Tannhäuser’s ode on the profane love of the Venusberg, Smith climbed onto a grand piano that was rooted in the middle of the stage, and which he later used as a shelter from the crowd’s wrath. The stage was curiously bare for Act III, save for a votive Madonna at which a scruffy band of pilgrims, suitcases in tow, stopped to sing their chorus.

In the pit, Philippe Jordan, the Staatsoper’s principal guest conductor, was a sensitive guide during the lengthy overture, which he scaled down to chamber-like dimensions before letting loose with full force the massive crescendos and luxuriant, achingly-slow glissando horn passages, the expressive strings and strong, march-like percussion. Throughout the evening, alas, the orchestra was often not entirely together with the singers. The Act II finale was particularly badly coordinated.

A. J. GOLDMANN

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

BY AJ GOLDMANN

 

Hansel and Gretel
The New York City Opera

City has jumpstarted the holiday season with a revival of one of their finest, James Robinson’s imaginative and high-concept 1998 production of Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel.

Though a well-known figure in his day, Engelbert Humperdinck’s reputation today rests squarely on “Hansel and Gretel.” The composer’s slavish devotion to Wagner inspired him to surrender his own powers of innovation (if indeed he had any) in order to write music like the composer of the “Ring.” Indeed, Humperdinck’s on the record as saying “I’d gladly give up ‘originality’ to be able to write choruses like the ones in Parsifal.” With “Hansel and Gretel” – by far the best known of Humperdinck’s eight operas – he comes pretty damn close in mastering Wagner’s lush, brassy orchestrations and leitmotivic technique. In a sense, Humperdinck can be credited for an even greater coup than his mentor by writing a work whose appeal extends far beyond the potential audience for “Meistersinger.”

City’s somewhat weathered production is a classic in every sense of the word: effective, elegant and original. The production (and English-language performing translation) transposes the action from the Brothers Grimm original to late 19th century Manhattan, where Hansel and Gretel live in a tenement with their German immigrant parents. They make their way uptown in search of dinner and wind up, lost and exhausted in Central Park. The witch is in fact a high society lady, and her pastry mansion – you guessed it – is a mansion on the Upper East Side.

They’ve assembled a fine cast to boot, singing the clever and metrically accurate translation of Cori Ellison. The Ellison translation retains the German original of the folk songs, while providing compelling and amusingly updated and place-specific dialogue for the siblings as they wander around the city at night looking for supper.

The show’s brightest star was undoubtedly the soprano Jennifer Aylmer, who brought gusto and soft, subdued shading to the alternately timid and audacious Gretel. She was very much at home in her character’s middle range, never sounding muddled, dull or plain tired. Jennifer Rivera, a brusque mezzo, exaggerated Hansel’s tomboyish swagger and spunk, but she turned out a solid performance that showcased her sensuous and lulling voice, most noticeably in the bedtime prayer that ends act one. The “adults” were somewhat less consistent. The baritone Michael Chioldi boomed out the Father’s joyous (and possibly drunken) song with a fullness that had hitherto been lacking. But he often sacrificed accuracy for power. The Mother, sang by Cheryl Evans, was more controlled and suitably forlorn in her small role. And as the wicked child-eating witch, Jessie Raven was positively lurid. Appearing late in the performance, she sang the show-stopping role with maniacally voluptuous tones. They was no denying that she possessed the seductive cackle and evil glimmer to bring her mosterous character to life.

In the pit, Steven Mosteller led a spirited and full-bodied performance that could overpower some of the softer voiced (Aylmer’s included). But with music as deliriously grand and warmly reverent as this, it scarcely mattered.