Götterdämmerung, Deutsche Oper, 20 May 2024

Images: Bernd Uhlig (from 2021 premiere, with a considerably different cast)
Hagen (Albert Pesendorfer)

Siegfried - Clay Hilley

Brünnhilde – Ricarda Merbeth
Hagen – Albert Pesendorfer
Gunther – Thomas Lehman
Gutrune, Third Norn – Felicia Moore
Alberich – Jordan Shanahan
Waltraute – Annika Schlicht
First Norn, Floßhilde – Lindsay Ammann
Second Norn, Wellgunde – Karis Tucker
Woglinde – Lee-ann Dunbar

Director – Stefan Herheim
Revival directors – Eva-Maria Abelein, Silke Sense
Set designs – Stefan Herheim, Silke Bauer
Costumes – Uta Heiseke
Video – Torge Møller
Lighting – Ulrich Niepel
Dramaturgy – Alexander Meier-Dörzenbach, Jörg Königsdorf

Chorus and Additional Chorus of the Deutsche Oper (chorus director: Jeremy Bines)

Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper

Nicholas Carter (conductor)

All things, good, bad, and indifferent, must come to an end; or must they? The idea that Wagner’s Ring is cyclical is widespread – many routinely refer to attending a ‘cycle’ – but it is at least open to criticism. More on that later, but this Deutsche Oper Ring has certainly come to an end with performances of great distinction, perhaps the most uniformly well cast I have ever seen, and with astonishing conducting from Nicholas Carter, certainly the best I have heard since Daniel Barenboim in 2013. Not, of course, to forget the superlative playing given throughout by the Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper, showing itself once again to be the match of any (Wagner) orchestra in the world, the Staatskapelle across town included. No Ring would be anything at all without Wagner’s reimagined Greek Chorus, leading, commenting, questioning, seducing, thrilling, and chilling; this one, as translucent as it was darkly malevolent, as weighty as it was agile, did all that and more. Only now, in the final instalment, it was joined by Wagner’s actual chorus, those of the Deutsche Oper as seemingly always excelling not only vocally but as dramatic participants onstage. 

A Ring in the theatre is, of course, its production too; this marked the end of Stefan Herheim’s memorable staging. No Ring is perfect: it is not, should never be, that sort of work. It is too big, too unmanageable, too much a ‘world’ for that. This has contributed much, though, not least from its insistence on Wagner’s ‘three days with preliminary evening’ as a musically driven drama that navigates between the concerns of an ongoing rite and something explicitly contemporary. In that, at its best, it has penetrated to Wagner’s own mythological practice, doing what it has shown and what it has suggested to us. If the final scene of Siegfried proved for me a rare disappointment, it also gained from what happened next—though I still think it would have benefited from heightened attention to the drama of Siegfried and Brünnhilde and less to the crowd of copulating extras around them. Here, though, at the onset of the Prologue to Götterdämmerung, the generational shift (which has already, strictly, been accomplished) is accompanied by a scenic one; or rather, the action passes between two basic settings throughout, the old one of the rehearsal room and piano, and the new one of the Deutsche Oper itself. 

We probably should not make too much of a distinction, or maybe we should, between actors and chorus. Perhaps some have gone on to be audience members, whilst some continue in their movement and ‘extra’ roles. The more important thing, I think, is that two related worlds less collide than interact. There is, after all, little point in telling a story if no one is there to listen. In any case, the actors surround blindfolded Norns (echoing the state at one point of the treble Woodbird), choreographically heightening the drama just as they did to form the Rhine in the first scene of Das Rheingold—and just as they will in the final scene of Götterdämmerung to form the fire, aided by striking red lighting. Again, some of the most powerful effects are the simplest and, as Wagner put it, the most ‘purely human’. Meyerbeer’s ‘effects without cause’ are neither his business nor ours, whatever the (exaggerated) claims that have been made for the elder composer’s influence on this drama. A degree of grand opéra, yes, but other composers in that genre, the creator of Rienzi included, loom larger, which is not to say that a blazing account of the second act trio – courtesy of the orchestra, Carter, Ricarda Merbeth, Albert Pesendorfer, and Thomas Lehman did not thrill – for it very much did. 

Back for now, though, to Herheim. (In a sense, the distinction is false, albeit necessary to say anything at all.) The theatrical ‘business’ of dressing up continues to loom large, enabling characters to become – perhaps even to leave behind – ‘themselves’, as well as actors to become characters. White sheets become improbably large wedding dresses for Brünnhilde and Gutrune, their entanglements, their allure, and their physical dangers offering visual metaphors aplenty. Rhinemaidens, in losing their external trappings, become Norn-like, hieratic, in their warnings to Siegfried, Carter’s quasi-liturgical handling of the score both reflecting and leading that. Hagen assumes Siegfried’s heroic costume, whereas Siegfried fatally loses his. Gunther is likewise transformed from initial silliness (not a criticism, but rather a commendation of Lehman’s alert performance) into something more. The white tie of an ‘artist’ is the key, or at least it seems to be, as it is for Siegfried’s transformation (as well, undoubtedly, as whatever it is Hagen slips into his drink). Their scene on Brünnhilde’s rock is very well handled, both initially equals, sharing the lines, before Gunther fails and Siegfried must take over ‘as’ Gunther—before, of course, returning to the Gibichung Hall, where the sleep into which he keeps falling (Hagen’s doing?) overcomes him. It seems also to overwhelm during his final scene, staggering about, not ‘himself’—until he can finally become himself at his death, fully in keeping with Wagner. 

Gunther (Thomas Lehman), Siegfried (Clay Hilley)

In the meantime, Hagen’s departure into the audience for his watch proves, with further Brechtian use of house lights at critical moments, a telling and striking coup de théâtre. First he finds Waltraute there, his intimidation a prod to the mission she undertakes to her sister. Then he conducts the dialogue with Alberich from there, his father on stage, Siegfried sleeping. Alberich’s presence as clown of death, spying the action, even trying to force the ring from the sleeping Siegfried’s hand, visually informs not only his son’s appearance but that of zombie guests to the abortive weddings. As we hear the Nibelung and his ring musically envelop the action, so does he colour the participants too. Not for nothing does he manically play the piano at the end of the first act and resume his performance at the beginning of the second. His longtime antagonist appears too, actors assembling to show, first during Waltraute’s narration and on occasion thereafter, Valhalla’s throng of gods and heroes, a weary Walvater finally descending to the piano to receive Brünnhilde’s ultimate judgement. 

Before (re-)turning to the close, I should add a little about the vocal performances. Merbeth combined the headstrong virtues of her Walküre Brünnhilde and the lyrical ones of her Siegfried performance into a memorable assumption of her role. Clay Hilley again proved tireless – as tireless as a Siegfried can ever really be – and committed as the doomed hero. Pesendorfer and Jordan Shanahan’s Hagen and Alberich cast spells both dark and magical through voice and stage presence alike. Lehman’s Gunther and Felicia Moore’s warmly sympathetic Gutrune captured the difficult, sometimes thankless essence of their characters, always alert to the particular demands of the staging. Annika Schlicht’s chalumeau-like Waltraute was as much of a vocal and dramatic joy as her Fricka. Norns and Rhinemaidens were uniformly excellent. This was, I am delighted to reiterate, at least the equal of any Ring I have heard in uniform excellence of casting, and perhaps more than that. There may have been starrier casts; there may have been individual performances ‘bettered’ in one way or another, for there always will be. Yet across the board, the Deutsche Oper’s strong sense of company will take some beating. 

Following departure of all from the stage and a splendidly oracular image summoning up memories of Delphi, but also of Patrice Chéreau and Pierre Boulez revelling in Wagner’s own revisiting its prophetic indeterminacy, we return to where we began: rehearsal room with lights, emergency exit, and piano, no sign of suitcases, refugees, or anyone/-thing else we have seen in between. A cleaner (with a hint of Erda to her?) comes to check all is as it should be. All has been washed away, or has it? Others will doubtless come along to stage the work again. The question remains whether they will have learned anything. For Wagner’s ‘watchers’, those ‘men and women moved to the very depths of their being’ were all along intended to imply this was not entirely a return, that consciousness had been created or raised. The Ring ends not in E-flat-major, but in D-flat, the key of Valhalla. Over, then, to those who have made it, us included. Only, given the achievements to date of ‘human consciousness’, who would bet against catastrophic repetition?

Die Walküre, Deutsche Oper, 12 May 2024

Images: Bernd Uhlig (from 2020 premiere, with a different cast)

Siegmund – Daniel Frank
Sieglinde – Elisabeth Teige
Hunding – Tobias Kehrer
Wotan –Derek Welton
Fricka – Annika Schlicht
Brünnhilde – Ricarda Merbeth
Siegrune – Arianna Manganello
Roßweiße – Karis Tucker
Gerhilde – Felicia Moore
Ortlinde – Maria Motolygina
Waltraute – Elissa Pfaender
Helmwige – Flurina Stuckl
Schwertleite – Alexandra Ionis
Grimgerde – Nicole Piccolomini
Schwertleite – Lauren Decker
Hundingling – Eric Naumann

Director – Stefan Herheim
Revival director – Silke Sense
Set designs – Stefan Herheim, Silke Bauer
Costumes – Uta Heiseke
Video – William Duke, Dan Trenchard
Lighting – Ulrich Niepel
Dramaturgy – Alexander Meier-Dörzenbach, Jörg Königsdorf

Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper 

Nicholas Carter (conductor)

What if the Volsung twins did not engage our sympathies so fully as they usually do? What if their actions were less positive than we tend to think? Sometimes, recently, those questions have been posed implicitly by what still seems to me a strange desire positively to reassess the Fricka of Die Walküre. Not that Wagner is the only point of reference here, but the Ring’s creator was very clear on this, both in the work ‘itself’ and in other writing. A letter to Theodor Uhlig (12 November 1851, so before he had started work on the music) speaks of Wotan’s ‘struggle with his own inclination and with custom (Fricka)’ and indeed Fricka herself refers to ‘the guiding rope of custom, rent asunder,’ which she would ‘bind anew’. Latterly, some seem to have decided to take the part of Fricka’s family-values morality. Like every character – this is part of Wagner’s greatness – Fricka is given her due, and should be in performance. A caricature, whilst tempting, will get us nowhere. What I took from the first act of Stefan Herheim’s Walküre – thus before her reappearance – was something slightly different: a willingness, refreshing if unsettling, to challenge the dominant narrative concerning Siegmund and Sieglinde, a challenge to which Fricka would assent, albeit for different reasons. Sieglinde has still been deeply wronged, of course: the evening begins with her, traumatised, unable to make the central stage piano sound. Only after several fruitless attempts does the orchestra launch its storm. It is a questionable pursuit in ‘real life’, of course, to cast doubt on how trauma may manifest itself; perhaps the same should be the case here. That said, many of Siegmund and Sieglinde’s acts seem designed to dissipate sympathy, from her insistence on kissing him far too ‘early’ and in front of the mute Hundingling (her child with Hunding, I presume), to her murder of him who, starved of affection from his father seems only to wish to find a new family with his mother and her new lover. That Siegmund too rejoices in that act underlines the predicament. His holding Hunding earlier at knife point also reverses roles somewhat. Ultimately, the strength both of acting and Personenregie (seen also, for instance, in the individual treatment of the Valkyries) made a case for reassessment. So too, arguably, did the doubt –preconceptions properly challenged – I continued to feel. The framing is powerful and provocative; that is what matters most.

 

Likewise or at least related, in the third act, the true horror of what Wotan proposes for Brünnhilde, too readily sentimentalised, comes across more clearly than I can previously recall. Portrayal of male violence, especially sexual violence, against women onstage is a controversial issue now, and rightly so. Nevertheless, Herheim’s portrayal of Valkyries raped by a host of the undead – immortality and mortality a crucial theme for Wagner’s deeply Feuerbachian drama – underlines what the god intends for his ‘favourite daughter’, too often lost in final reconciliation. Hundingling, notably, has taken his place along them; what else, after all, could he have learned from his earthly sojourn? This scene seemed to alter the dramatic, perhaps even the temporal, proportions of the third act. The latter probably were objectively different too, conductor Nicholas Carter working in tandem with the production. Throwing the dramatic weight forward had the first two scenes seem considerably more substantial, the third a logical, still deeply moving outcome to its predecessors. The emotional torrent of Wagner’s – and the once more outstanding Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper’s – strings still registered keenly, yet a shadow rightly hung over what we heard and felt.

All around, refugee suitcases formed the set, reminding us of the external world encountered in Das Rheingold. A war zone is suggested, aptly for all that unfolds, the second as much as the external acts. These people’s reappearance and different reactions to what they saw reminded us we should not take ‘their’ reactions for granted, ‘othering’ them as an undifferentiated mass. These, like the characters of the Ring many are playing, are individual human beings, not some other species known as ‘migrants’. Wagner was a refugee too and expressed pride in having been so; so is Siegmund, always ‘geächtet’, as he puts it. And so too, we should remember, is Sieglinde, returning to her Medea-like act. We always feel sympathy for Medea, so should we not for this Sieglinde too? If not, why not? From where, we might ask, are they refugees? The world around us has all too many possibilities, as does history. So too does reception history: might we not understand them also as heirs to the ‘men and women moved to the very depths of their being’ at the end of previous Ring productions. Celebrated predecessors such as Chéreau and Kupfer spring particularly to mind. For reception, always a Herheim speciality, continues to be so. The brilliant coup de théâtre of turning on the house lights when Wotan wills ‘das Ende’ may be old hat: Brecht, 1924, as a friend commented. But is that not the point here, that theatre and reception history more broadly contribute to what we see and hear, both when it conforms and when it does not? One could not want for alluring yet dangerous contrast in fire from lighting and video here either.

Carter’s direction continued to impress. If I found the opening Prelude hard-driven, then I often do; it could reasonably be replied that this is, after all, a storm. This conductor’s chemistry with the orchestra was not the least of this performance’s virtues; nor was careful shaping, without sounding unduly moulded, of paragraphs and scenes to form not only a satisfying musical whole, but one that interacts tellingly, excitingly with the action onstage. There are so many potential approaches to this music that it is perhaps impossible, even for a Furtwängler, to keep them all in the air. If, though, I sometimes missed the dramatic and dialectical despair conjured from the second act – that extraordinarily difficult yet crucial sequence – by the likes of Bernard Haitink or Daniel Barenboim, the sheer malevolence of the darker music associated not only with Hunding, but also with Wotan, was rendered strikingly immanent. It is a wonder, given the repeated telephone calls taken by someone in the far left of the stalls, that the Annunciation of Death managed to move at all, but it did. (It certainly had me devising my own such annunciation for whomever the culprit may have been.)

 

Herheim’s different conceptual approach to Siegmund and Sieglinde doubtless had consequences for perception of their performances. So too did relatively unappealing – especially so in Siegmund’s case – scenic presentation. That said, whilst Daniel Frank sang the role well enough, it did not seem to me the most keenly dramatic of performances, however considered. Elisabeth Teige engaged attention and sympathy more powerfully as time went on as his sister-bride. Tobias Kehrer’s Hunding seemed to me revisionist in an ultimately more convincing fashion, imparting deeper understanding of how and why even this most unsympathetic of characters might have turned out the way he did, without neglecting that he had. Derek Welton’s Wotan came across as perhaps more tightly, certainly more darkly, focused than that of Iain Paterson in Das Rheingold; that is perhaps in part a matter of material, but surely also pays tribute to the intelligence and musicality of this fine artist. At times, profoundly, disconcertingly other-worldly, the god could also readily turn human, all too human. Annika Schlicht’s Fricka was again not only beautifully sung, but verbally scrupulous, as here she must be all the more. From a fine complement of Valkyries, Ricarda Merbeth captured an excellent balance of waywardness – how could anyone delude himself she could for long be kept in check? – and growing compassion.

If, initially, I felt if not underwhelmed, then less overwhelmed than by the fizzing theatricality of Herheim’s Rheingold, this Walküre grew on me and has continued to do so. Music drama is, after all, not only theatre, as an increasingly Schopenhauerian Wagner would have been first to argue. At the close, Mime-as-Wagner returns, to deliver at the ‘right’ musical moment Siegfried from Sieglinde, collecting the shattered pieces of Notung too. Both Mime and Wagner soon had their doubts as to what sort of monster they had created. That here they have done so from, as it were, the very spirit of music, the ever-present piano, will surely prove significant. Soon we shall discover for ourselves.

Das Rheingold, Deutsche Oper, 11 May 2024

Images: Bernd Uhlig (from 2021 premiere)

Wotan – Iain Paterson
Donner – Thomas Lehman
Froh – Attilio Glaser
Loge – Thomas Blondelle
Fricka – Annika Schlicht
Freia – Flurina Stucki
Erda – Lindsay Ammann
Alberich – Jordan Shanahan
Mime – Ya-Chung Huang
Fasolt – Albert Pesendorfer
Fafner – Tobias Kehrer
Woglinde – Lee-ann Dunbar
Wellgunde – Arianna Manganello
Floßhilde – Karis Tucker

Director – Stefan Herheim
Revival director – Constanze Wediknecht
Set designs – Stefan Herheim, Silke Bauer
Costumes – Uta Heiseke
Lighting – Ulrich Niepel
Video – Torge Møller
Dramaturgy – Alexander Meier-Dörzenbach, Jörg Königsdorf

Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper
Nicholas Carter (conductor)

We begin in the rehearsal room, piano onstage, vast grey slab wall and fire exit behind, lights above. Below, the orchestra tunes, actually tunes. The magic of theatre, of music theatre, of opera, and of all concerned to bring it to our eyes and ears brings the two together: not necessarily so we cannot tell the difference between ‘drama’ and ‘reality’, but so that we are made aware of the ever-shifting boundaries between them, how one brings the other into being, as is also the case for Wagner’s related yet different trinity of drama, music, and gesture in Opera and Drama. That ‘book of all books on music’ (Richard Strauss) is, in a sense, the fount of all we see and hear; onstage, it is represented by the piano: the instrument around which so many rehearsals have taken place and at which Wagner sat to compose; from which for many, though not all composers, the miracles of the modern orchestra first come into being. A suitcase-laden procession of refugees, the perennial image of our times – from the vicious, racist ‘swarm’ of Cameron and Farage’s ‘breaking point’, to Merkel’s inspirational ‘Wir schaffen das’ and the welcoming crowds I saw at Munich Hauptbahnhof – crosses the stage and initiates the action, one of them, Wotan or better the human being who will play that role, plays the celebrated E-flat with which the Ring begins. This is no ‘crisis’; it is a reality and, in that reality, an opportunity. These people are the very stuff of the drama, of our drama, and of theirs. Decisions made and roles played will be matters of life and death. How differently this plays now that Merkel’s Willkommenskultur has itself been assigned to history, how all the more necessary then it is to find a new path. 

Herheim and his revival successors do this, moreover, not through dwelling on origins, but through the brazenly theatrical (and musical) magic of opera. Reality never quite disappears, but the insight of Schiller, Marx, and many others, Wagner included, that, left to his own devices, given the freedom and the education to do so, man will create is not only the starting point, but a point, if you will, of (Nietzschean, even Schopenhauerian) eternal recurrence that yet, through (Hegelian) history, is never merely that. The animating philosophical conflict of the Ring has begun. Likewise, animating joy in and through theatre, of the rehearsal piano rather than the piano composer, of Wagner’s creative life has been reignited, through Rhinemaidens’ magic tricks, Loge’s devilish flashes of fire, ever-resourceful use and reuse of stage staples such as billowing sheets, and the whole Wagnerian phantasmagoria of sight, sound, and sensation. Froh’s final rainbow is surely, at some level, a successor to Götz Friedrich’s rainbow tunnel in the previous Deutsche Oper production. History and, more specifically, reception both form and liberate us in our response. 

The first scene emerges, in typical, theatrical twin bind and opportunity, both seamlessly and with seams openly to show from what has gone before. The Deutsche Oper’s actors – ‘extras’ if you prefer, but the term seems more than unduly limiting – form the Rhine from themselves: what else do refugees have? They have their packed belongings, of course; still more will come from them in due course, the gods’ costumes included. Inciting, reflecting, and been incited by the Rhinemaidens’ play, their beautifully, sexily choreographed movement suggests a Venusberg-am-Rhein, with all the occasional awkwardness of an orgy’s need for perpetual reignition. Alberich, or the person who becomes him, models himself on that saddest of theatrical figures, the clown. That is how the others see him, of course; most poignantly of all, it is how he sees himself when they hand him back his mirror. He has, as Wagner shows us, been so sorely provoked, with so little prospect of reward in a cruel non-golden age of aesthetic hedonism, that renunciation of ‘love’ – as someone once said, ‘whatever that means’ – is an obvious next step. The ring he creates seems immediately to do his bidding—until, and ay, there’s the Ring’s rub, it does not. And we see it, as well as its consequences, throughout. 

From those sheets come the Rhine, the mountains of the gods’ realm, even the tree at the end from which, I assume, the next instalment will spring. A premonition of Volsung twins strongly suggests so: a sparing use of video and thereby all the more powerful. The whole Bayreuth project was built on technology, as was the world from which it sprang. So too were they built on choices of what to use and when, not on idiotic euphoria and fear about film supplanting theatre or ‘artificial intelligence’ supplanting actual, human intelligence. The hoard, perhaps the best I have seen, comes from those suitcases: a true bric-a-brac show, including musical instruments (echoing, almost literally, Alberich’s possession and instrumental use of a trumpet in the first scene) and religious artefacts, cross and menorah included. 

They cover Freia clumsily, brutally, yet also completely inside the piano from which she and Fricka, in posed nineteenth-century tableau vivant-style have risen, and through which portal she and the giants (her love for Fasolt is movingly real, as it should be) have passed to and from Riesenheim. Donner and Froh are splendidly caught too, stars of rock (Freddie Mercury) and disco (wig carefully prepared with hairspray, soon lost) respectively. Loge is a true Mephisto to two Fausts, Wotan and Alberich, with a little – in this he is not alone – though never too much of previous Herheim creations, the Parsifal Klingsor and the Lohengrin Herald reincarnated in something dazzlingly new. Alberich’s Nibelungs are, for once, a true host of night, terrifying to behold, images of death and the undead, marching to his lead. (Again, I recalled, a brief yet telling image from the second act of that Bayreuth Parsifal.) Indeed, throughout, the ways in which movement proceeds both in time to the music and not, yet never heedless to it, are not the least indication that we are in the hands of a musical stage director. Attempts at musical direction, both from the piano and conducting from the score, of the would-be leaders of our stage world, tell – and play – their own stories too. 

Art and its tricks, then and now, are not reality; they spring from it, yet we see, far more clearly how they are put together, whilst wondering all the more at them. They are more than reality; again, they form and react to it, at least potentially liberating us from it. And they cross history, through an artwork’s reception, always a joy for and from Herheim. Wotan’s winged helmet for once says much, not least in the boredom with which he discards it. So does Mime as Wagner in trademark velvet beret, a cunning tribute-cum-insult, in which the inventor of the Tarnhelm who cannot ever quite become an artist embodies the brilliance and insecurity of his creator. Yet ultimately, that craftsman also brings the drama, brings us, the score from which first he, then others reads, sings, learns, and is bound by. In a duly ambiguous representation of Werktreue, it becomes Valhalla, the sacerdotal fortress and resting place of heroes. Meanwhile, the sword, emblem of Wotan’s ‘great idea’, is placed through the piano lid, ready for a truer, more courageous hero to extract it. 

If Herheim surpassed my expectations, so too did the performances. Nicholas Carter’s musical direction proved, quite simply, a revelation. Carter has recently led performances of the Ring in Bern; returning to the Deutsche Oper, he offered an ideal balance between thorough musical grounding and theatrical spontaneity. This was a performance in which everything both fell near-miraculously into place and yet also involved itself in the dramatic here and now, as much, as it must, contributing to the drama as reflecting it. Balances were, without exception, well judged, as were tempi. What particularly struck me was the keenness of ear – and ability to project it – in recognition of Wagner’s different kinds of writing. Rarely, if ever, have I heard so clearly the roots in Gluckian accompagnato of Fricka’s contributions to her first exchange with Wotan, also of course tribute to the astute, rich-toned artistry of Annika Schlicht. My sole, extremely minor musical disappointment lay with the anvils. All else fairly sprung off the page as if in a musical Kammerspiel, mediated in the mind’s eye by the magical mechanics of the piano. 

A Kammerspiel would be nothing without its actors, and here both individual performances and ensemble as a whole were second to none. There may be (some) starrier assumptions elsewhere, but none more alert to the joy, as well as to the necessity, of musicotheatrical creation. As Schlicht’s consort, Iain Paterson offered a thoughtful performance, typical of the cast as a whole in its alertness to verbal and musical texts alike, as well as to their alchemic reaction as part of a new-yet-rooted performance text. Any Loge worth his salt will steal the show, 'durch Raub', yet Blondelle’s owned it too: tricksy, fiery, manipulative, and corrosive, in words and line as in gesture. Albert Pesendorfer and Tobias Kehrer shone as the giants, their performances as finely differentiated as those of Ya-Chung Huang’s intelligent Mime and Jordan Shanahan’s masterclass in the role of Alberich: sympathetic up to a point, yet as brutal in his forming by events as he had initially been hapless. This clown had grown up to lead troops, not a troupe, his curse echoing in the ears until the close. An excellent trio of Rhinemaidens underlined that too, their cries piercing any attempts there might have been to rejoice. So too did the coup de théâtre of Erda’s appearance and finely sung warning (Lindsay Ammann), emerging from the prompter’s box so as, well, to prompt, ‘sensibly’ clad like a stock librarian of yore. To whom, after all, should one turn for wisdom regarding texts?

St Matthew Passion, Deutsche Oper, 29 March 2024

Evangelist – Kieran Carrel
Jesus – Padraic Rowan
Bass – Joel Allison
Tenor, False Witness – Kangyoon Shine Lee
Petrus, High Priest, Pontifex II – Youngkwang Oh
Pilatus, Judas, Pontifex I – Artur Garbas
Soprano, First Maid – Siobhan Stagg
Alto, False Witness, Second Maid – Annika Schlicht
Girl – Zoé Höchse
Friend – Selina Nüsse

Director – Benedikt von Peter
Revival directors – Eva-Maria Abelein, Matteo Marziano Graziano
Set designs – Natascha von Steiger
Costumes – Lene Schwind
Video – Bert Zander
Lighting – Roland Edrich
Dramaturgy – Dorothea Hartmann

Children’s and Youth Choirs of the Deutsche Oper (director: Christian Lindhorst)

Youth Choir of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden

Children’s Choir of the Aalto-Theatre, Essen (director: Patrik Jaskolka)

Chorus of the Deutsche Oper (director: Jeremy Bines)

Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper

Alessandro De Marchi (conductor)

Images: Marcus Lieberenz

Had someone told me I should be attending performances of the two Bach Passions on consecutive evenings, Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, in Leipzig and Berlin, my first reaction might have been of scepticism, followed by reflection that this could not fail to be a Holy Week to remember. And indeed, it has not failed, neither in that nor in any other respect. However, had I then been told that I should find a staged performance in an opera house considerably more involving, not only thought-provoking, than a concert in the Thomaskirche, my reaction might have turned to something a little stronger than scepticism. Yet so it came to pass. I had little idea what to expect, though memories of Deborah Warner’s Messiah for the English National Opera (remember them?) continue to cast a baleful shadow. There might have been common ground, in that the Deutsche Oper’s production claimed to share a concern for ‘community’. Yet whereas, in London, that had been an unfortunate buzzword, here community involvement, not only from five choirs, amateur and professional, but also from a Berlin (and beyond) public that seemed to go beyond the typical, nonetheless broad opera audience, as well as both intelligently considering what community the work might construct and questioning what that might mean in an increasingly secular society. 

Benedikt von Peter’s staging, a co-production with Theater Basel, was first seen in Berlin last year. Here, in one of its first revival performances, it attracted a large audience both in the traditional auditorium and in additional seating onstage. Or perhaps that should be congregation, as we were addressed in the titles; we were given the music for two chorales to sing too: ‘Was mein Gott will,’ and ‘O Haupt von Blut und Wunden’. The production is in many ways, especially during the first part, quite straightforward. That works to its advantage once critical possibilities are voiced; they are grounded in something that has arisen, it seems, rather than having arisen from initial antagonism. Its spatial-conceptual framework would seem to have developed collaboratively from discussions between the director and conductor Alessandro De Marchi, doubtless dramaturge Dorothea Hartmann too. The two orchestras are on stage, either side of the space in which the production plays out. The conductor is at the front of the stalls, and the choirs are positioned around the auditorium in the shape of the Cross, an arrangement, we are told, modelled on an expansion of the separation of forces between altar and ‘swallow’s nest’ gallery. It certainly helps break boundaries between performers and audience, rendering us all in some sense congregants—whilst maintaining the possibility of different levels of engagement according to belief or inclination.

 

Members of the Children’s Choir of the Deutsche Oper carry the Cross onstage in the monumental opening chorus. I have heard it both more and less monumental. This was not, thank God, a dogmatic performance, De Marchi showing himself commendably pragmatic: all too much a rarity, alas, in today’s ‘authenticke’ world. If its tempo was fast, at least to my ears, it was not absurdly so; nor was there whining rigidity. Klemperer’s approach would, after all, neither have suited the occasion and forces, nor doubtless the conductor’s inclination, any more than something more objectionable. Once past a little discrepancy between orchestras – eminently forgivable in the circumstances – one felt drawn in to the greatest of all (music) dramas: visually, aurally, aesthetically, and yes observantly. Children act out the Passion, with overtones of Oberammergau, as it is musically enacted by the adults, the Evangelist in particular assuming the role of their instructor. Thus we see ‘disciples’ leave a little boy alone, tied and blindfolded—as indeed we hear that. But I have missed a stage: before that first chorus, a little girl has read to us from the Book of Isaiah. She appears to be simply reading a lesson, but becomes an increasingly critical voice, shouting to the deserting disciples, albeit to no avail. At the close of the first part, she frees Jesus: out of humanity, not necessarily faith. Indeed, elements of faith continue to trouble her, unable to reconcile her ethics with the economy of salvation. Having been freed, Jesus runs off to join the others, those who had captured him, rather than be comforted by his liberator: a difficult, hurtful act, rich in symbolism. After all, he must; he has no choice in any of this. She returns to the Bible, to read, learn, and think though not necessarily in the way her instructors intend.

 

In the second part, the girl (Zoé Höchse) returns, ever more ‘troublesome’ to the forces of organised religion. She cannot accept what is happening and is eventually banished by the Evangelist. (There is, I think, more than a dash of Greta Thunberg to her.) So too is her friend, and so too are some of the other children, convinced by the rebels’ arguments and understandably unwilling simply to do as they are told. Disturbingly, having remained separate following his trial, Christus briefly takes part in these expulsions too, but we can find ample Scriptural warrant for that, should we wish. By contrast, some of the ‘remaining’ children are elevated to sung as well as visual participation: a couple of them highly impressive as well as touching. As not only tragedy becomes clear but also its truer theological, sacrificial meaning – that of the Cross in whose form the entire drama unfolds – the children who cannot accept it invade the stage with their own, unresolved questions as placards. Epic theatre meets Christian ritual, and ultimately it us for us to decide (or not). Questioning a Bach Passion may seem odd, indeed unwelcome, to many, and surely it would be in a church. In an opera house, though, things are different. It might well not have worked, but it did. 

That was due in no small part, of course, to Da Marchi and his musical forces. The Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper played with great style and sensitivity: not trying to be something they were not, but engaging in a recreation of Bach for today, without ever suggesting they might prefer to be playing Wagner. Indeed, in their obbligato roles, one sensed a moment of musical liberation: how wonderful, it seemed, that for once they could not only play this repertoire, but engage in music theatre of their own. Likewise the massed choral forces, used sparingly together, but voicing drama and reflection from around us, evoking a great basilica as much as Stockhausen. All involved in their direction deserve credit, pastorally as well as musically, this mirroring work and production in practice. One can question some of the musical choices, but that will always be the case in such music; one can still learn from the choices made. I might not choose to use lutes for the continuo, but I greatly appreciated their contribution.

 

Kieran Carrel proved an excellent Evangelist. It is at the best of times a considerable task, emotionally as well as vocally; with additional ‘dramatic’ duties, it became all the more so. Carrel’s understanding and communication of that understanding seemed to gain depth from those challenges, fully engaging with circumstances and their conceptual framework. The same might be said of Padraic Rowan’s Christus, darkly beautiful: strangely, properly remote yet also approachable. The other vocal soloists also all impressed. Battling a cold, Joel Allison nonetheless offered moving accounts of the bass arias; there were only a few occasions when one could tell. Tenor Kangyoon Shine Lee proved at least his match in the tenor arias, finely sculpted line and tone at the service of the text. Siobhan Stagg, Annika Schlicht complemented each other well as soprano and mezzo, offering performances both considered and, so it seemed, dramatically spontaneous. Youngkwang Oh and Artur Garbas impressed similarly in their parts. There really was no weak link, but rather in a true sense a musical community that both constructed and was constructed by Bach’s great Passion and its particular enactment.

Il trittico, Deutsche Oper, 30 September 2023

Michele – Misha Kiria
Giorgetta – Carmen Giannattasio
Luigi – Jonathan Tetelman
Il Tinca – Ya Chung-Huang
Il Talpa – Andrew Harris
La Frugola – Annika Schlicht
Song seller – Andrei Danilov
Two lovers – Lilit Davtyan, Andrei Danilov

Sister Angelica – Mané Galoyan
La Zia Principessa – Violeta Urmana
Abbess – Lauren Decker
Sister Zelatrice – Annika Schlicht
Mistress of the Novices – Davia Bouley
Sister Genovieffa – Lilit Davtyan
Sister Osmina – Stephanie Lloyd
Sister Dolcina – Gyumi Park
Nursing Sister – Arianna Manganello
Alms Sisters – Alyson Rosales, Kristina Griep
Novice – Maria Motolygina
Lay Sisters – Julie Wyma, Margarita Greiner

Gianni Schicchi – Misha Kiria
Lauretta – Mané Galoyan
Zita – Annika Schlicht
Rinuccio – Andrei Danilov
Gherardo – Burkhard Ulrich
Nella – Karola Pavone
Betto di Signa – Michael Bachtadze
Simone – Andrew Harris
Marco – Dean Murphy
La Ciesca – Arianna Manganello
Maestro Spinelloccio – Jörg Schörner
Ser Amantio di Noclao – Markus Brück
Pinellino – Christian Simmons
Guccio – Gerard Farreras
Buoso Donati – Derrick Amantidis

Pinar Karabulut (director)
Michela Flück (designs)
Teresa Vergho (costumes)
Carsten Rüger (lighting)
Dorothea Hartmann (dramaturgy)

Children’s Chorus (director: Christian Lindhorst) of the Deutsche Oper Berlin (director: Christian Lindhorst)
Chorus of the Deutsche Oper Berlin (director: Jeremy Bines)
Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin
John Fiore (conductor)

IL TRITTICO von Giacomo Puccini, Premiere am 30 September 2023, Deutsche Oper Berlin, copyright: Eike Walkenhorst (Suor Angelica)

Integral performances of Puccini’s Il trittico, first seen and heard at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in 1918, have seemed to gain in popularity of late. In recent years, I have seen two different productions in London (Covent Garden and Holland Park) as well as last year’s Salzburg Festival staging. The problem is largely one of cost, I suspect: to stage three operas, with decidedly different casting requirements, in a single evening does not come cheap, even if one does what one can to share resources, human and scenic. The balance will continue to shift between treating each opera as an individual work and some sense of a greater whole, and that is no bad thing. A signal virtue of Pinar Karabulut’s new Deutsche Oper staging, of which this was the first night, is that that balance and indeed the idea of the altar triptych remain central to her conception: not in a didactic or even overtly representational way, but nonetheless so as to suggest one knows the same artist and purpose are at work. In the middle stands the explicitly (anti-)Marian Suor Angelica, ‘flanked,’ as Karabulut explains in a programme interview, by ‘the dramatic tragedy Il tabarro and the grotesque comedy Gianni Schicchi’. 

Dante informs proceedings too. Gianni Schicchi has its origins in The Divine Comedy, of course, but Karabulut and her team offer a progression that takes us from the inferno of Il tabarro, explicitly headed with the celebrated inscription, ‘Lasciate ogne speranza voi ch’intrate’. It is far from an unreasonable location for the tragedy of Michele, Giorgetta, and Luigi to unfold; indeed, one might see it as approaching self-evident. What is often given in a naturalistic, or at least highly suggestive, Parisian setting, here becomes a more fantastic, invented world, with at least a hint of science fiction to it, visited at one point by curious visitors who might be from another planet. For this is certainly not an overtly Christian or theological approach, even as we progress through purgatory to paradise; indeed, it becomes if anything less so. Suor Angelica has, quite deliberately, nothing of the Christian convent to it, although its scenic connections with what has preceded and what will follow are cleverly suggested by framing elements retained, as if we were travelling upwards within a (secularised?) theatrical cupola. It is a futuristic society, or seems to be, albeit one with a perhaps unfortunate air of colourised early Dr Who. This, at any rate, is the world from which those visitors have earlier passed through another, as they will do also in the final piece, presented as a satyr play with a vengeance. We see suggested not only an entirely female world, but one in which patriarchy may actually have been superseded, or at least set to one side. If so, its mixings seem decidedly blessed—and perhaps that is the point.

Gianni Schicchi

 

Influence of the commedia dell’arte is seen throughout, in masks, in stylisation of action, and not least in Teresa Vergho’s costumes, connecting in scarlet what she describes as ‘three veritable figures of death: Michele, the Principessa und Gianni Schicchi’. I am not sure I agree when it comes to the third figure, though it is an interesting and far from insupportable thesis. The important thing is not whether one necessarily agrees, though, but that one is led to reflect. Commedia dell’arte functions as a distancing, even alienating (pre-, yet also post-Brecht) strategy, yet proves also in its relative artificiality to provide a way in to emotional directness that avoids the sentimentality to which Puccini stagings can still fall prey. The audience certainly seemed strongly to appreciate the release offered by the final piece’s presentation, living up to Karabulut’s billing of grotesquerie. Doubtless there is a vein of puritanism in my wishing for something a little more restrained, subtle even; such matters are more related to taste than judgement, and this high degree of physicality is more a mainstay of German than English theatre. 

John Fiore stepped in at short notice as conductor, replacing an indisposed Donald Runnicles. There was no doubting, doubly impressive in the circumstances, Fiore’s knowledge of the score and his ability to communicate his reading of it to the excellent Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper. At times, though – and again I think this is mostly a matter of taste – I found the sound a little too pre-packaged: without wishing to essentialise, this seemed a rather transatlantic understanding of Puccini, made, as it were for the Met. (Fair enough, one might say, given that is precisely where the operas were made for.) Surface sheen and extraordinary dynamic range were characteristic, yet so was stereotypical ultra-broadening for vocal climaxes—and, sadly, no attempt to evade or silence the applause within operas this helped provoke. I missed a little more Wagnerism – doubtless I would – though I greatly appreciated the unapologetic refusal to tone down the shock, in context, of Puccini’s bitonal and other explorations. Petrushka may be a little too apparent in Il tabarro, but there are many, many worse models. And if the Seine were less apparent visually – the water we saw was somehow both more elemental and more figurative, Stygian perhaps – we certainly heard it loud and clear as a character of its own in the score.

Il tabarro: Michele (Misha Karia), Luigi (Jonathan Tetelman)

 

Misha Kiria, Salzburg’s Gianni Schicchi, played the (anti?)-hero here too, as well as Michele. His versatility and sensitivity rightly garnered prolonged audience approbation. Likewise Mané Galoyan’s heartfelt, properly differentiated Suor Angelica and Lauretta. Violeta Urmana’s Zia Principessa proved a typical star turn: almost, one might say, an ‘also starring…’ moment. Carmen Giannattasio and Jonathan Tetelman, doubtless assisted by the production, brought undeniable sexual chemistry to their portrayal of Giorgetta and Luigi; it was difficult to take one’s eyes and ears off them, whether apart or together.  Andrei Danilov’s Rinuccio was similarly as ardent as one could wish for, a winning development of his (retrospective) cameo as the Song seller in Il Tabarro. Andrew Harris’s Simone and Annika Schlicht shone as Simone and Zita respectively. But there was little in the way of weak vocal links—and plenty of character to even the smallest performance. That quality was certainly shared by the Chorus and Children’s Chorus, splendidly prepared by Jeremy Bines and Christian Lindhorst. Whatever my doubts concerning a few aspects of detail, doubts that seemed from the audience reaction very much a minority response, this was an evening that spoke of the strength in depth of the Deutsche Oper as well as the enduring appeal and enigma of Puccini’s Trittico.

Salome, Staatsoper Unter den Linden, 4 December 2019

Images: Monika Rittershaus
Oscar Wilde (Christian Natter), Salome (Aušrine Stundytė)

Herod – Vincent Wolfsteiner

Herodias – Marina Prudenskaya

Salome – Aušrine Stundytė

Jochanaan – Thomas J. Mayer

Narraboth – Peter Sonn

Herodias’s Page – Annika Schlicht

Jews – Ziad Nehme, Michael Smallwood, Matthew Peña, Andrés Moreno Garcia, David Oštrek

Nazarenes – Adam Kutny, Ulf Dirk Mädler

Soldiers – Arttu Kataja, Erik Rosenius

A Cappadocian – David Oštrek

A Slave – Ireene Ollino

Oscar Wilde – Christian Natter

Guards – Ernesto Amico, Allen Boxer, Nikos Fragkou, Jonathan Heck, Maximilian Reisinger, Tom-Veit Weber

Hans Neuenfels (director)

Philipp Lossau (assistant director)

Reinhard von der Thannen (designs)

Kathrin Hauer (assistant stage designer)

Sommer Ulrickson (choreography)

Stefan Bolliger (lighting)

Henry Arnold (dramaturgy)

Staatskapelle Berlin

Thomas Guggeis (conductor)

Manipulation lies at the heart of Richard Strauss’s art. One might argue that it lies at the heart of all art; there would be a strong case to be made for that. However, there is something particular about Straussian manipulation. In some ways not dissimilar to that of Puccini—both composers are expert at pressing particular emotional buttons and having many listeners enjoy such manipulation in full knowledge that they are being manipulated—it differs in the extraordinary level of technical sophistication and, often if not always, in the nested levels of knowing reflexion-in-contrivance. Artifice is good, then: perhaps, after Nietzsche, more in opposition to ‘bad’ than to ‘evil’. For Strauss, as Salome makes abundantly clear, is no more a Christian, perhaps even less willing to admit of metaphysical transcendence, than Nietzsche, of whom he had been an avid and discerning reader.

Salome and Wilde

Manipulation lies at the heart of Salome too; it lies also at the heart of Hans Neuenfels’s production, which, having seen when new last year, I was keen to see again. What I think came across still more strongly than last time—this may just have been me—was the central character’s awakening to that manipulation and, concomitantly, to her ability to manipulate. Such was a signal achievement for Aušrine Stundytė, showing herself every inch a singing actress, throwing everything into a performance that, rightly, was not always pretty, not always to be kept within bounds, very much a force of nature: trying, testing, both winning and losing. Working with Neuenfels’s staging—for which we should also understand Reinhard von der Thannen’s striking designs, Sommer Ulrickson’s choreography, and Henry Arnold’s thoughtful and provocative dramaturgy—we saw and heard from Stundytė a Salome led to self-discovery and ultimately to tragedy not only by Strauss but verbally and visibly by Oscar Wilde himself.

The latter’s advent, first foretold in neon lights (‘Wilde is coming’) and then portrayed, offered intriguing counterpoint to Jochanaan’s foretelling of another leader (and, if you like, divine manipulator)—and was once more acted and danced in a mesmerising fashion perhaps more readily associated with Salome herself by Christian Natter. And is not the Christ of whom this John the Baptist speaks his and his alone, a product of the imagination and repressed desires of a religious fanatic, incarcerated within—visible, throughout—phallic cistern. Was not Christianity always thus: recall Nietzsche’s ‘there was only one Christian and he died on the Cross’. Other religions are, true enough to the opera, treated no more favourably. Their claims, voiced exclusively by men, seem no more plausible and, perhaps more to the point, no more relevant to the story unfolding and to human flourishing beyond that particular story, than a horoscope. Strauss’s failure to conjure up music of more than empty ‘gravity’ for references to Christ tell their own story. Who manipulates whom, and to what end?

Salome looks elsewhere, to those who might actually know her: first, yes, to Jochanaan, but ultimately, more productively, to Wilde—and thus to art, to a game that is aesthetic as much as it is sado-masochistic. The two can hardly be distinguished, and why would one try? Weimar-expressionist cabaret beckons from Wildean decadence; Wilde learns from Strauss and Salome too, ultimately adopting a leather harness in her/his/their service. Such blurring of pronouns may be read in various ways—and probably should. In art, perhaps, the mightier the plagiarism, the mightier the achievement. When Jochanaan and the eunuch Wilde seem partially liberated by adopting the corset and bustle that had once constricted the now queerer, pant-suited Princess Salome, who manipulates whom? And yet, gender as play, as game, remains a deadly one. Salome dies; Salome is killed. Patriarchy—an imperialist, orientalist patriarchy at that—wins to fight another day, to slay another woman, another queer voice and body too. Does it not always? And yet, her smashing of one—only one, yet nevertheless one—of  the Jochanaan busts, an aesthetic representations with which Wilde has incited her, remains: as powerful a moment onstage as that of her murder at the command of a tyrant-abuser.

Wilde and Jochanaan (Thomas J. Mayer)

Herod’s upholding of patriarchal norms, decadent, hypocritical subversion of them notwithstanding, was expertly conveyed in a wheedling, beyond-Mime performance from Vincent Wolfsteiner. Marina Prudenskaya’s Herodias, haughty, contemptuous, impressively controlled in her channelling of sex and gender alike, proved the perfect foil—or, better, manipulator. Thomas J. Mayer likewise offered, in post-Wagnerian marriage of word, tone, and gesture, a Jochanaan for this production, no hint—costume aside—of the ready-to-wear. Peter Sonn proved a worthy successor to Nikolai Schukoff as Narraboth. At times heart-breakingly beautiful of tone, his longing was as aesthetically exquisite as it was therefore doomed. All smaller roles were very well taken indeed, yet also formed part of a greater whole. If I single out Adam Kutny’s First Nazarene and Annika Schlicht’s Page as having made the greatest impression, that is doubtless little more than a highly merited personal reaction.

Conducting the outstanding Staatskapelle Berlin, then as now, was Thomas Guggeis. Then he made headlines by standing in at short notice for Christoph von Dohnányi. Now the field was his own and it sounded as much. From this bubbling, post-Wagnerian cauldron, anything might spill, unless someone could tame it; the battle was vividly, meaningfully rare, rather than effortlessly aestheticised after, say, Karajan.  This was not a tone-poem with words; or was it? Unleashing the fabled darkness of this orchestra’s tone to ends in keeping with and in relationship to the vision on stage, yet in no sense constricted by them, Guggeis showed, as in his recent Katya Kabanova here, a keen ear for harmony, line, and orchestral musicodramatic eloquence. Crucially, he commanded the authority to have them speak in the theatre, in the dramatic here-and-now. This is not Elektra; it is not so single-minded, so monomaniacal. There are sideways glances; aesthetic contemplation shading into sexual frustration, if rarely fulfilment; hints at alternative futures; and so on. Such were rendered dramatically—often vividly— immanent, without throwing us from Strauss and Wilde’s central trail. Or so it seemed, for in the absence of any greater metaphysical authority, how could we know?  Aesthetically the answer seemed clear, yet how could it not? Who, then, had manipulated whom?