Schillertheater: Werkstatt
(sung in German)
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| Image: © Gianmarco Bresadola |
Giovanni Falcone – Andreas Macco
Judge, Chief Witness A.O. –
Martin GerkeMafia Boss, Politician A.O. – Milcho Borovinov
Innocent Citizen, Great Writer A.O. – Udo Samel
Spectator, Colleague, Friend – Klaus Christian Schreiber
Vocal Quartet – Caroline Seibt, Isabelle Rejall, Friederike Harmsen, Nadia Steinhardt
Benjamin Korn (director)
Annika Haller (designs)Sébastien Alazet (sound)
Georgi Krüger (lighting)
Benjamin Wäntig (dramaturgy)
Members of the Staatskapelle Berlin and the Orchestral Academy of the Staatskapelle Berlin
David Robert Coleman (conductor)
A witty follow up to the Falkon of Die Frau ohne Schatten, recently performed in Claus
Guth’s staging at the Staatsoper? No, this chamber opera by composer Nicola
Santi and librettist Franco Ripa di Meana is very much rooted in ‘real life’,
in this case, the story of the Sicilian prosecuting magistrate and judge,
Giovanni Falcone, murdered in 1992 by the Mafia; as such, it is anything but a
satyr play. In twenty-six scenes ‘and a finale’ (here marked, in Mahlerian
fashion, ‘Abschied’, on the screens that showed titles for the offstage vocal
quartet, but not for the characters onstage), we travel, at swift, almost
ultra-filmic pace, through a hero’s life that is neither hagiographic in the
common, if somewhat erring sense, nor ironic alla Strauss. There is a documentary quality to the action; we
learn quite a bit, or presume we do, flitting between Palermo and Rome, an
aeroplane set emerging out of the wall from time to time in Benjamin Korn’s
spare, resourceful staging, those flight scenes more inward, Falcone’s writing
in and reading from his diary lightly suggestive of what we might consider a
metatheatrical standpoint. The brief intrusion of a television clip from the
celebrated Maxi trial both underlines that quality and lightly questions it, the
‘real thing’ being clearly different from staged interpretation and
reimagination. Likewise the bizarre, yet memorable, sudden appearance of real
disco music – cheesy Italian pop, I cannot say more than that – in a scene in which
Falcone, lonely even though in company, dances to the visual accompaniment of
flashing lights.
That contrasts, of course, with Sani’s score: what seemed to me a skilful, if not, at least on a first hearing, especially individual blend of instrumental ensemble and electronics, performed with great conviction, insofar as I could tell, by players from the Staatskapelle Berlin, its academy, sound engineer Sébastien Alazet, and conductor David Robert Coleman. There are passages in which the music seems to ‘express’ something akin to what we see on stage, motivations behind it, reflections upon it, and so forth, others when greater autonomy is apparent; for the most part, however, it seems very much part and parcel of an approach that might be considered more ‘multimedia’ than traditionally operatic. The characters – of which only Falcone himself really stands out, other performers taking on a number of essentially situational roles – sing, speak, and do something more or less Sprechstimme-like: not all of them, for two (here, Udo Samel and Klaus Christian Schreiber) only spoke, actors seemingly quite at home in a world of musical drama. There is a real sense of company, of collaboration, formed around the excellent Andrea Macco in the title role. But it is perhaps the interventions from the equally excellent female vocal quartet, not entirely distant from the music of Nono (if Intolleranza, perhaps, rather than his later operas), that caught my ear more often in a more strictly vocal-cum-musical sense. Perhaps, though, the contrast, is the point; it certainly helps to make things a little less straightforward than they otherwise might be. I could not help but wonder whether the decision to eliminate female characters entirely from the stage action had been wise, but one should always be wary of criticising someone for not having written an entirely different work.
Il
tempo sospeso del volo –
perhaps a hint of both Nono and Dallapiccola – seems to have been the work’s
actual title when premiered. Perhaps the catchier, less abstract Falcone – a touch of the television
mini-series? – was held to make more sense for a foreign audience. Whatever the
truth to such idle speculation, the work was given in German translation (by Korn,
Serena Malcangi, and dramaturge, Benjamin Wäntig), in the small workshop
theatre next door to the Staatsoper’s temporary home, the Schillertheater, and
seemed to work pretty well in that new form, even if I could not help but
wondering how it might have sounded in Italian. If I sound as though I am hesitant
on a more critical level, that would be a fair observation. I was pleased to
have seen and heard the piece, but was not quite sure what to make of it. That,
I think, would require greater acquaintance. There are many worse things,
though, one could say about a work of art than that. In any case, not every
work is for the ages; that need not mean that it has nothing to say to us at a
particular time. The Berlin State Opera’s offerings of new music in this ‘Werkstatt’
theatre are only to be commended, broadening our knowledge of a musico-dramatic
scene of which we might otherwise know little or nothing.
