The Queen of Spades, Deutsche Oper, 20 March 2024

PIQUE DAME von Pjotr I. Tschaikowskij, Premiere am 9. März 2024 in der Deutschen Oper Berlin,
copyright: Marcus Lieberenz
Countess (Doris Soffel) and Hermann (Martin Muehle)

Hermann – Martin Muehle
Tomsky – Lucio Gallo
Prince Yeletsky – Thomas Lehman
Chekalinsky – Chance Jonas-O’Toole
Surin – Kyle Miller
Chaplitsky – Andrew Dickinson
Narumov – Artur Garbas
Master of Ceremonies – Jörg Schörner
The Countess – Doris Soffel
Lisa – Maria Motolygina
Pauline – Karia Tucker
Governess – Nicole Piccolomini
Masha – Arianna Manganello
Children’s commander – Sofia Kaspruk
Little Hermann – Aleksandr Sher
Little Lisa – Alma Kraushaar
Stage piano – Jisu Park
Old servant – Wolfgang Siebner

Director – Sam Brown
Designer – Stuart Nunn
Choreography – Ron Howell
Video – Martin Eidenberger
Lighting – Linus Fellborn
Assistant directors – Constanze Weidknecht, Silke Sense
Dramaturgy – Konstantin Parnian

Children’s Chorus of the Deutsche Oper (director: Christian Lindhorst)

Chorus of the Deutsche Oper (director: Jeremy Bines)

Statisterie, and Opernballet of the Deutsche Oper

Sebastian Weigle (conductor)  

The late Graham Vick was to have directed this new production of The Queen of Spades for the Deutsche Oper. According to the cast list, Vick laid down the principles for the production, but his successor Sam Brown, charged with bringing the project to completion, alongside designer Stuart Nunn and choreographer (and Vick’s widower) Ron Howell, will necessarily have brought much that his own to the piece. As he says in an interview, ‘I knew that the framework that he’d created provides a lot of room for conceptual freedom. … It may sound dramatic, but Graham’s ideas for PIQUE DAME outside of the equipment died with him. As a director, I have to walk my own path.’ Tempting though it may be to speculate what comes from whom, that is hardly the point. Having noted the situation, it is better to move on to discuss what it is we see and hear.

Chekalinsky (Chance Jonas-O'Toole), Tomsky (Lucio Gallo), Surin (Kyle Miller)

Layering of memory is a particular strength. Tchaikovsky – and his brother and librettist, Modest, as well of course as Pushkin – play with memories of the eighteenth century. That is doubled by the Countess’s memories of her ‘own’, earlier eighteenth century, Mme de Pompadour and all. The Grétry air is another case in point. In this production, without being merely indeterminate or arbitrary, which would defeat the point, further nesting occurs, for instance in the silent film excerpts (from a Russian adaptation of 1916), but also in the dressing and undressing of particular characters at different points, as well as in broader designs. Spanning three centuries – the nineteenth may not be overtly depicted on stage, but it is always present – is not an easy trick to bring off, but it is meaningfully accomplished here. Moreover, it is with us from the start, the opening scene with children’s chorus pointing to much of what is to come. A maltreated child, a social outsider even then, is abused by children and adults alike, only to have a little girl briefly come to him and show a little kindness. It prefigures what is to come, but perhaps it is also a memory. In this opera, though, it is always too late. The cards dealt by fate can never be changed, despite – or because of – their entirely random nature in what is no game of skill. 

Hermann, Countess

The cast acts out this game and propels it with great skill, heightening and extending its outlines in much the same way the production does. Martin Muehle’s Hermann is tireless, anguish-ridden, obsessive, perhaps a little on the Verdian side of Tchaikovsky, but I am not sure it behoves me, as one who speaks no Russian, to be too fussy here. It was above all his journey of catastrophe, and no one could doubt that Muehle grasped his fate and followed it. But it is not only his journey; part of the problem is surely that the characters are heading in different, mutually opposed and uncomprehending directions. Maria Motolygina’s Lisa, unable to escape from her childhood and clearly presented as such, was by the same token beautifully, often heartrendingly sung, her final scene powerful indeed. As expected, Doris Soffel’s Countess stole the show: not only a sterling performance, that ‘ancient’ air included, but one showing her sexual drives to be as strong as ever, perhaps even more so. Perhaps if she too had questioned her obsessions, she might have been happier—but is there any meaning in that ‘perhaps’? Thomas Lehman’s Yeletsky was finely sung indeed, as, in smaller roles, were Karia Tucker’s Pauline, Andrew Dickinson’s Chaplitsky, Chance Jonas-O’Toole’s Chekalinsky, Kyle Miller’s Surin, and many more, up to and including the chorus. Lucio Gallo’s virile, contemptuously masculine Tomsky showed how this singer can still absolutely hold the stage. Raunchy masked-ball choreography from Howell and excellent performances from the dancers not only returned to several questions already posed, but also asked a good number of their own.

Sebastian Weigle’s conducting had its moments, especially during the third act. (The opera was essentially given in scenes rather than acts, the interval given, as is often the case, following the arrival of Catherine the Great in the middle of the second act.) Then it became more idiomatic, conjuring up from the excellent Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper more of a Tchaikovskian sound than had previously been the case. We should not be too essentialist about such matters, but much previously had sounded rather on the Germanic side, albeit with distinctly odd balances, strings in particular notably subdued. A lack of dramatic sweep, without anything obvious put in its place, proved frustrating. 

Catherine the Great (Doris Soffel)

Singing and production continued, though, to offer considerable compensation. Soffel’s reappearance as Catherine the Great suggested she and the Countess were one and the same, her mocking laughter at the end of that third scene echoing the Countess’s ghostly reappearance (dressed as Lisa) to name the three cards. Was this all, then, just Hermann’s fevered imagination? And if so, to put it bluntly, what is the point? What we saw was not so cut and dried as that. Indeed, one of the projector quotations between scenes, from Dostoevsky, considering the nature of fantasy, how it must come close to reality, made that clear. 

If the scales here are tilted towards fantasy rather than reality, more so than any other production I can recall and than I have tended to think of it, then this remains a single production, concentrating fruitfully on a particular standpoint; another will be free to do something else. And it is only limited by it to the extent that almost any standpoint will limit: it enabled and heighted a strong sense of fate, from which not only Hermann, but also Lisa and indeed the Countess wish to escape, yet ultimately knew they cannot—and do not. 

There is, I think, something psychoanalytical to the approach. Certainly everything appears to be built on misunderstandings or downright lies: untruths, at any rate. What Hermann wants does not really exists; what Lisa wants does not really exist; what the Countess has wanted all her life has probably never existed at all. That holds for others too, not least Yeletsky. For all his apparent good fortune, he loses Lisa, and there is no sense of triumph in his final victory over Hermann. That it ends with a third and final death, all three ultimate protagonists departed, seems fitting in a sense that goes beyond Romantic death wish. Perhaps it is here, then, that the fantastic twist properly resumes, bidding us continue to question what we have seen and heard.

Arabella, Deutsche Oper, 1 April 2023

Count Waldner – Albert Pesendorfer
Adelaide – Doris Soffel
Arabella – Gabriela Scherer
Zdenka – Elena Tsallagova
Mandryka – Russell Braun
Matteo – Robert Watson
Count Elemer – Thomas Blondelle
Count Dominik – Kyle Miller
Count Lamoral – Tyler Zimmerman
Fiakermilli – Hye-Young Moon
Fortune Teller – Alexandra Hutton
Welko – Jörg Schörner
Djura – Michael Jamak
Jankel – Robert Hebenstreit
Room Waiter – Hainer Boßmayer

Tobias Kratzer (director)
Rainer Sellmaier (designs)
Clara Luise Hartel (costumes)
Jeroen Verbruggen (choreography)
Manuel Braun, Jonas Dahl (video)
Philine Tiezel (evening director)
Stefan Woinke (lighting)
Bettina Bartz, Jörg Königsdorf (dramaturgy)
Silke Broel, Lea Hopp, Janic Bebi (live camera)

Opera-ballet and actors of the Deutsche Oper Berlin

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

Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin

Dirk Kaftan (conductor)

Images: Arabella von Richard Strauss, Regie: Tobias Kratzer, Premiere am 18. März 2023 Deutsche Oper Berlin, Copyright: Thomas Aurin.

Arabella hovers on the edge of the repertoire in non-German-speaking countries, a little more popular in Germany and Austria than elsewhere. It has appeared once in London during my opera-going career, early on, in a production by Peter Mussbach, conducted by Christoph von Dohnányi, and starring Karita Mattila. Sitting in the amphitheatre of the Royal Opera, it was difficult to know what to make of it, given that much (most?) of the action was on the higher level of a split-level set, too high to be seen: by any standards, a failing of basic stage direction. I have also seen it twice in Munich, experiences I was happy to have had, yet neither of which won me over. Perhaps we are too ready to assign the label ‘problematic’ to dramatic works, yet the premature death of Hugo von Hofmmansthal certainly presented its problems to this, and to Richard Strauss. Although revisions had been made to the first act of Hofmannsthal’s libretto in light of Strauss’s criticism, as was their custom, Strauss set the remainder as it stood: a creditable mark of respect, though not perhaps the best decision on artistic grounds. I came, then, to the Deutsche Oper’s new production, first in a Tobias Kratzer Strauss trilogy (subsequent seasons will see Intermezzo and Die Frau ohne Schatten), not necessarily expecting to be convinced, yet actually finding myself rather more so than I had expected. 

Kratzer’s production was not without its flaws, yet offered definite virtues too; I shall come shortly to both. It undoubtedly benefited from strong, committed performance, as did we, not least from late substitutes (explicitly identified as such on the cast list) conductor Dirk Kaftan and, in the title role, soprano Gabriela Scherer. How much of the musical interpretation was Kaftan’s and how much that of his predecessor Donald Runnicles, I do not know. In such circumstances, it often tends to be a bit of both. It surely owed a good deal of its success to Kaftan, though, in what, dim memories of Dohnányi notwithstanding, I found the most successful performance I had heard. I greatly enjoyed the greater warmth, especially from the strings; what can often come across as an icy score, too eager to place itself, more with Hofmannsthal than Strauss, close to operetta, here sounded positively Wagnerian—enabling us far better to sympathise with characters who, if we are honest, are not all the most sympathetic. That is, we did not necessarily align ourselves with them or I did not, but I gained greater insight into them as characters, in a particular situation. Arabella herself, as well as the opera that takes her name, could take her place more readily in a line of Strauss, and even Wagner, heroines. And the action, its ebb and flow as well as its pacing and, crucially, its meaning, took flight before our ears as well as our eyes. 

Scherer proved ready both to dig deeper verbally than many a star soprano (though certainly not Mattila!) in what has often been seen as a ‘vehicle’, and also, especially in the first act, to offer a more rounded portrayal that did not present Arabella as an empty or implausible angel (whatever Mandryka might claim). Elena Tsallagova’s animated Zdenka/Zdenko was a joy from beginning to end. She did not put a foot, or note, wrong, engaging us in her plight and its vocal beauties in equal measure. If I say that Albert Pesendorfer and Doris Soffel as their parents proved excellent character singers, that is not to praise their acting ahead of their vocal artistry, but rather to say that it was impossible to dissociate one from the other. Russell Braun’s Mandryka and Robert Watson’s Matteo offered similarly rounded performances, engaging equally with the not always allied demands of Strauss and Hofmannsthal. Arabella’s trio of Viennese suitors met with detailed characterisation and differentiation from Thomas Blondelle, Kyle Miller, and Tyler Zimmerman. And if liking the Fiakermilli remains sadly beyond me, Hye-Young Moon’s performance was razor-sharp. 

Kratzer’s production begins and, for the first act proceeds, relatively traditionally—at least in terms of being set where it ‘should’ be, though surely winning against tradition as Schlamperei in sheer keenness of observation. Much of both libretto and score seem emphatically to request this, and it is actually rather a nice surprise to see the faded grandeur of an 1860s Vienna hotel; not only that, it serves splendidly as backdrop for the financially driven nastiness playing out in front of it. All is heightened by live video work, picking up detail and enhancing the sense of much action – too much? – that might yet spiral out of control. The second act drags us out of what might seem to some nostalgia, though it is surely always more than that. For some the ball can seem a little long, though surely no one would feel it played out over a century-and-a-half. That, however, is what happens here, one shift taking us forward to the time of composition, Nazis rushing on stage to beat up a cabaret (indeed Cabaret) monkey, further ‘progress’ leading us to more sexually and otherwise liberated times: to the disco era, and finally what seems to be contemporary, frankly pansexual clubbing, leaving us in the here and now for the third act, albeit with filmed footage of where we began. The idea, I think, is to explore different attitudes towards sex and, perhaps still more so, gender.

 

If that sounds earnest, even contrived, perhaps it is; I think it might have been done less clunkily, though one might argue there is a little of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando to the conceit. However, the denouement, which may sound banal, nonetheless seems to me not only to work but to affect more readily than it might sound. Born, it seems, not only of the inclusiveness (ideally speaking, anyway) of a partying atmosphere – Adelaide, leading Dominic by a leash, ballet couplings to suit many a taste, and so on – an accepting world, perhaps opposed to or at least expanding upon the more traditional heteronormativity of Arabella and Mandryka, seems to be born before our eyes and even our ears. It may seem a stretch to portray Zdenka as trans; it may also seem a little unsubtle to have her (and, nicely, a converted Matteo) display the transgender flag at the close. Yet in this context, and also given the actual lived experience, as we now should say, of the character, it is arguably less so than narrow, operatic experience might initially suggest. In some ways, after all, operatic treatment of gender, including yet far from restricted to trouser roles, stands light years ahead of broader society. Why not celebrate that? And recognition and transformation are longstanding themes in opera, as well as of particular importance to both Hofmannsthal and Strauss. If Arabella does not seem the likeliest Strauss opera to bear a ‘message’, there is no harm in it doing so now and again, especially at a time when such a message stands so sorely needed. If Adelaide can adapt, and enjoy herself in doing so, why cannot we all?

Deutsche Oper Strauss-Wochen (2) - Elektra, 7 April 2016

Deutsche Oper, Berlin

Elektra – Evelyn Herlitzius

Chrysothemis – Manuela Uhl
Klytämnestra – Doris Soffel
Orest – Tobias Kehrer
First Maid – Annika Schlicht
Second Maid – Rebecca Jo Loeb
Third Maid – Jana Kurucová
Fourth Maid – Fionnula McCarthy
Fifth Maid – Elbenita Kajtazi
Overseer – Stephanie Weiss
Confidante – Nicole Haslett
Trainbearer – Alexandra Hutton
Young Servant – James Kryshak
Orest’s tutor – Seth Carico
Aegisth – Clemens Bieber

Kirsten Harms (director)

Bernd Damovsky (designs)
Claudia Gotta (Spielleitung)
Silvana Schröder (choreography)

Chorus of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin (chorus master: William Spaulding)

Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin

Donald Runnicles (conductor)  

With the second of these five evenings at the Deutsche Oper, we come to Strauss’s first collaboration with Hugo von Hofmannsthal – and probably his (and their) greatest opera of all, Elektra. It may or may not be one’s ‘favourite’; such is a matter of personal taste. But the greatness of this relentless tragedy, which grabs one by the scruff of one’s neck and refuses to let one go for well-nigh a couple of hours, would be disputed by no one, even Theodor Adorno, notwithstanding his attack on its ‘entire final section,’ in which ‘banality is dominant’.

Is that how it seemed here? (The greatness, that is, rather than the alleged banality.) Yes, of course. We were in safe hands with Donald Runnicles and the excellent orchestra of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin. If I had a reservation concerning Runnicles’s conducting, it was that, in the longest term, it had a tendency towards the sectional. The post-Wagnerian melos flowed wonderfully within scenes, or subdivisions thereof, and the attention paid to characterisation, harmonic and timbral, of such sections was very much welcome. However, the connections between them sometimes were sometimes a little obscured. One can have both, as Semyon Bychkov showed so triumphantly at the Proms in 2014; but then, Bychkov arguably has no peer, certainly has very few peers, at least who are alive, in this music. That concert performance was one in a million, as anyone there would attest. This was a very fine performance in the theatre, with which no one could reasonably have been disappointed. Runnicles also offered considerable variety of pacing, which never jarred, and which complemented, interacted with, the variegation of the orchestral writing so thrilling brought to life by his players.

 

I am now entirely converted to the cause of Evelyn Herlitzius: what an artist! One performance in particular I had heard from her in the past had been somewhat problematical, although I admired her Kundry here in Charlottenburg a couple of years ago. Here that wildness of intonation had been tamed, but without damage to the wildness of characterisation, which was such that the most exalted comparisons with any great Elektra of the past would not have been in vain. The range of colourings in the voice, opening almost contralto-like, would be worthy of an essay in itself, but just as noteworthy was the dramatic use to which they were put, certainly responding to the words, yet with equal certainty leading them, challenging the seemingly indissoluble mixture of ‘Strauss-Hofmannsthal’ to ever-greater heights, readily yet thrillingly achieved. She inhabited, gave voice to, embodied the character of Elektra, standing in a line of singing-actresses which, for any Wagnerian, necessarily extends back to Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient. (And no, of course Schröder-Devrient did not sing Elektra; but imagine…!)

 

Doris Soffel was an imposing, vicious Klytämnestra. All singers in this role must navigate the treacherous boundaries of caricature, pantomime, even camp. Soffel did so with great success, tragedy enhanced rather than undermined. The Aegisth of Clemens Bieber I found rather rough-hewn vocally, although well enough acted. Manuela Uhl brought to life a splendidly sympathetic Chrysothemis, not without character flaws (to put it mildly!) but credible in the dramatic round. Tobias Kehrer’s Orest started stunned, even shellshocked, drained of his humanity, regained through a truly moving recognition scene with Elektra, and checked by what fate ordained he must go on to do. It was a chilling progression and regression, which reminded us that, possessed though she might be, Elektra is, in her way, as manipulative as they come, and that Orest is, by any standards, a deeply troubling character. The smaller roles were all well taken.

Alas, there is little to be said in favour of Kirsten Harms’s production. For the most part, until the end, it does not get in the way, but that is because it does not do anything much at all. Bernd Damovsky’s designs are impressive, and would doubtless be more so in a more involving production. (Most sets for Elektra tend to look pretty similar; this is no exception.) For the most part, the singers seemed to have to fend for themselves. Perhaps it was as much from this as from the pit, a new singer or two wandering on as another left the stage, that that sense of a ‘sectional’ quality had arisen; it was certainly much more pronounced scenically. As for the bizarrely choreographed final scene, in which Elektra was joined by strikingly hapless Furies (I assume that is who they were): more amdram than Sophocles, sadly. Even here, though, at least for the most part, the musical drama managed to rise above its scenic limitations.

 

Munich Opera Festival (2) - Arabella, Bavarian State Opera, 6 July 2015

Nationaltheater, Munich

Count Waldner – Kurt Rydl

Adelaide – Doris Soffel
Arabella – Anja Harteros
Zdenka – Hanna-Elisabeth Müller
Mandryka – Thomas Johannes Mayer
Matteo – Joseph Kaiser
Count Elemer – Dean Power
Count Dominik – Andrea Borghini
Count Lamoral – Steven Humes
Fiakermilli – Eir Inderhaug
Fortune Teller – Heike Gröyzinger
Waiter – Niklas Mallmann
Welko – Bastian Beyer
Djura – Vedran Lovric
Jankel – Tjark Bernau

Andreas Dresen (director)

Frauke Meyer (assistant director)
Mathias Fischer-Dieskau (set designs)
Sabine Greunig (costumes)
Michael Bauer (costumes)
Rainer Karlitschek (dramaturgy)

Bavarian State Opera Chorus (chorus master: Soren Eckhoff)

Bavarian State Orchestra
Philippe Jordan (conductor)

I had last seen Arabella as part of the Munich Opera Festival’s Richard Strauss Week in 2008. It is not, I am afraid, my favourite Strauss opera; in fact, it is probably my least favourite. However, I am always willing to be convinced. There was a great deal to admire in this performance, but I fear that asking for more than to admire it on the work’s own terms would have been to ask the impossible. A tale of operetta-ish Jane Austen – or is that of Jane-Austen-ish operetta? – the libretto unfinished (and set as it was written by Strauss, out of respect for Hofmannsthal), it is not a work that makes it easy for one to care about its characters, nor indeed for their plights, such as they are. Its outings other than in Strauss’s Germanic heartland, and sometimes even there, veer dangerously close to that dubious operatic phenomenon: the ‘vehicle’ for a star soprano. Yet Arabella herself remains a curiously blank canvas on to whom men, and to a certain extent women, project their fantasies. That is not in itself an unpromising idea, if one can steer clear of misogyny: after all, one can say the same, up to a point, about Lulu. But is Strauss’s – or indeed Hofmannsthal’s – heart really in it? Is this ultimately more than an unsuccessful rehash of certain themes in Der Rosenkavalier? Again, I remain to be convinced.

Enough of doubts, anyway, at least for the moment. This was a splendid performance. The Bavarian State Orchestra was on excellent form throughout, Strauss’s orchestral sound perfectly captured, with enough clarity and, at times, irony to guard against the sentimentality that is perhaps more of a snare in this opera than any of his. (And yes, I include Rosenkavalier in that.) Philippe Jordan clearly knew the score and communicated its twists and turns admirably. Waltz and other rhythms were well pointed, phrases taking their place within a greater whole to highly convincing effect. My only real misgiving was that very difficult end to the final act. One should certainly feel the accelerando and its frankly sexual implications, but here, as so often, the gear change seemed unprepared. It is perhaps only fair to point out that it is something very few conductors manage to pull off. (Sawallisch, Keilberth, and Böhm spring instantly to mind, but then, without an encyclopædic knowledge of the discography, I am floundering. I seem to remember Christoph von Dohnányi, always a fine Strauss conductor, convincing here too at Covent Garden; he certainly did in the score as a whole.) Jordan’s achievements here were real – and greatly appreciated, as were those of this magnificent orchestra.

Anja Harteros had been due to sing Arabella in that 2008 performance, but cancelled; this time, she was present, and that made all the difference. (Her substitute had, sadly, left a great deal to be desired.) Harteros, like Karita Mattila at Covent Garden in 2004 made the most of the role, turning Arabella into as convincing a flesh-and-blood woman as one could imagine, without distorting unduly the frustrating ‘purity’ of the role. This was a graceful and – in the final scene – sexy portrayal, sung with consummate ease, beauty, and indeed commitment. One could not have asked for more. Thomas Johannes Mayer contributed equally to the sexual frisson at the end. His performance as Mandryka was dark, even on occasion demonic, fully living up to the high hopes Hofmannsthal seems to have entertained for the character and – who knows? – might actually have accomplished more fully, had he lived. Mayer’s Wagner singing is by now well known; he is clearly an equally fine Straussian. Hanna-Elisabeth Müller’s Zdenka was lively, spirited, unfailingly well sung: everything one wishes for in such a trouser(-ish) role. Doris Soffel’s Adelaide provided an object lesson in ‘secondary’ character portrayal, making far more of the compromised mother – not least in her second-act amorous encounter with Elemer – than one would expect. Kurt Rydl complemented her perfectly as Waldner: again compromised, but with life and honour in him when called upon. The couple’s way with Hofmannsthal’s text was surely second to none. Joseph Kaiser made for an attractive Matteo indeed, as much vocally as on stage, a plausible possibility for Arabella, had she been interested. As for the Fiakermilli, surely the most irritating character, if one can call her that, in all Strauss, Eir Inderhaug did a good job, without elevating the coloratura quite into something one could simply enjoy for its own sake, there being little else to detain one’s interest.

I say that, but director, Andreas Dresen, did what he could. In what is otherwise a relatively conventional, though that is certainly not to say dull or unthinking, production, the Fiakermilli’s presentation as an S&M Mistress of Ceremonies can hardly be missed. Dresen sees her, as a programme note made clear, as the initiator of the night’s amorous events, ‘the anarchistic element’, testing the guests’ boundaries. It is an interesting idea, even if there seems to be a limit to how emphatically the work, at least as it stands, can support it. Still, it is part of the task of a good production to present such possibilities and to see where they will lead. In general, Dresen seems content to draw out the characters – as, indeed, he would claim to be doing with the Fiakermilli – and that he does with skill, without turning them into something they cannot really be. Psychological realism and exploration not unreasonably trump the search for a Konzept, although I should be curious to know whether a more challenging staging would deepen appreciation of the work, or simply disrupt it. Mathias Fischer-Dieskau’s set designs, Sabine Greunig’s costumes, and Michael Bauer work together to stylish effect indeed: black, white, and red were the order of the day: the Austrian triband with eagle, I suppose, although not of course the colours of the Austrian Empire of the day. I am not sure that the colours necessarily signify anything, though, or even if they do, that there is further meaning to be discerned. Not unlike the opera, one might say.