Staatsoper Unter den Linden
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| Images: Ruth and Martin Walz Bogdan Volkov (Don Antonio), Goran Jurić (Mendoza), Aida Garifullina (Luisa), Anna Goryachova (Clara d’Almanza), Violeta Urmana (Die Duenna), Maxim Paster (Moderator), Stephan Rügamer (Don Jerome) und Lauri Vasar (Don Carlos) |
Don Jerome – Stephan Rügamer
Don Ferdinand – Andrey
Zhilikovsky
Luisa – Aida Garifullina
The Duenna – Violeta Urmana
Don Antonio – Bogdan Volkov
Clara d’Almanza – Anna
Goryachova
Mendoza – Goran Jurić
Don Carlos – Lauri Vasar
Moderator – Maxim Paster
Dmitri Tcherniakov (director)
Elena Zaytseva (costumes)
Elena Zaytseva (costumes)
Gleb Filshtinsky (lighting)
Alexey Poluboryarinov (video)
Jana Beckmann, Detlef Giese
(dramaturgy)
Prokofiev and Sheridan might
not immediately sound the most obvious match. When one thinks about it a
little, however, it is not incongruous – even if it remains surprising. The
collaboration stands at a distance, of course, of more than a
century-and-a-half: a distance that brings its owns challenges and
opportunities. Mediating ‘in real life’ was Prokofiev’s partner, Mira
Mendelson, who was translating into Russian the libretto Sheridan had written
for Thomas Linley the Elder and Younger. As ever, things are lost and gained in
translation, perhaps itself a form of performance or at least akin to
performance. Dmitri Tcherniakov’s new production of Betrothal in a Monastery plays with these and other ideas, creating
and recreating – and inviting us to do likewise.
There is already parody in the
text: that of ideas of honour in Spanish drama, that of opera, that of pasticcio, and so on. What remains? Many
such questions are open; it is, to a certain extent, up to us. For it is the ‘opera
community’, or rather some from its more extreme wing, ripe for parody or perhaps
incapable for further parody, that lies at the heart of the production. We find
ourselves at a meeting of a group for recovering opera obsessives: an aspirant
singer; a burned out opera critic; a young woman whose affection for Jonas
Kaufmann was sadly unrequited; a man who lives his life via ‘classic’
recordings; a star diva, whose attempts at a comeback have not proved
successful, and who wishes to rid herself of this world; and so on. These
people need help. But will they receive it from this course, which, in having
them come to collaborate in consideration of an opera, might liberate them? And
what would such liberation entail? We follow them through their breathing
exercises, their quarrels, their bringing to life stock characters and more,
the (necessary?) cruelties inflicted on them by the Moderator (or is he just a
fraud?) As they put together an ‘opera’ of sorts, something that may or may not
fit the bill, depending on who we are, when we are, where we are, so do we (or
not).
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| Goran Jurić (Mendoza), Aida Garifullina (Luisa), Anna Goryachova (Clara d’Almanza), Andrey Zhilikhovsky (Don Ferdinand) und Maxim Paster (Moderator) |
Choruses are heard - by them, not by us! - through
headphones, guiding excerpts from a ‘real’ work. There is no difficulty in
apportioning further, incidental roles to the same singers (for instance,
drinking monks in the fourth acts). It is a virtue or rather dramatic necessity,
given that the number of group members remains the same. Once again, therefore,
the process of dramatic creation returns to the foreground; once again, we
consider possible connections between characters, perhaps (or perhaps not) in a
new light. Our human caricatures build, it seems a community of their own, one
that no one could or would have built for them. (Untrue, I suppose, given that
director, cast, other musicians, and the audience do just that – but in a way,
the untruth remains true.) Ultimately, they seem reconciled to the absurd(ist)
glories of an operatic past to be plundered at will: represented on stage by a
colourful, jolly, yet ridiculous pageant of characters and assumptions from past
and present – just as Prokofiev was doing in something that both was and was
not an opera buffa. How we judge that
is up to us, but we know that some magic, something beyond mere construction,
has taken place; the conceit has broadened out into a ‘real’ drama, a ‘real’
performance, whatever they might mean.
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| Lauri Vasar (Don Carlos), Goran Jurić (Mendoza), Violeta Urmana (Die Duenna), Aida Garifullina (Luisa) und Bogdan Volkov (Don Antonio) |
The opera is not often heard
outside Russia. Here, wisely, there were a good number of Russian singers in
the cast. There was much to enjoy from all of them, whatever their nationality,
Moderator Tcherniakov having guided their dramatic progress with his customary
skill. At the centre of machinations stood the magnificent Violeta Urmana,
seemingly having a whale of a time sending up her very own star ‘role’, whilst
retaining something poignant beneath. Aida Garifullina and Anna Goryachova both
revealed strikingly rich voices, complementary yet contrasted, as if woodwind
instruments that spoke. Stephan Rügamer and Goran Jurić offered finely judged
parodies of parodies – again, without that being their sum total. Andrey
Zhilikovsky’s touching Don Ferdinand left one wanting more. The whole was
definitely greater than the sum of the parts: just as it should be.
If Daniel Barenboim’s
leadership of the Staatskapelle Berlin – and the musical forces more broadly –
sometimes sounded as if it might have benefited from a couple more performances
truly to come into focus, there remained much to savour, especially after the
interval. Conductor and orchestra relished Prokofiev’s quicksilver changes of
mood, not only mirroring but commenting on, even contradicting what we saw and
heard onstage. The composer’s extraordinary gifts as a melodist were
reconfirmed and contextualised. Again, there was work for us to do – as there
surely always will be in this enigmatic work. Some, booing at the close,
clearly resented that; they always will. For the rest of us, it was an
intriguing, challenging, and amusing evening.
