Showing posts with label Gideon Poppe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gideon Poppe. Show all posts

Friday, 31 January 2020

A Midsummer Night's Dream, Deutsche Oper, 29 January 2020



Images: A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM von Benjamin Britten, Regie: Ted Huffman, Premiere am 26.1.2020, Deutsche Oper Berlin, copyright: Bettina Stöß

Oberon – James Hall
Tytania – Siobhan Stagg
Puck – Jami Reid-Quarrell
Theseus – Padraic Rowan
Hippolyta – Davia Bouley
Lysander – Gideon Poppe
Demetrius – Samuel Dale Johnson
Hermia – Karis Tucker
Helena – Jeanine De Bique
Bottom – James Platt
Quince – Timothy Newton
Flute – Michael Kim
Snug – Patrick Guetti
Snout – Matthew Peña
Starveling – Matthew Cossack
Cobweb – Markus Kinch
Peaseblossom – Lora Violetta Haberstock
Mustardseed – Selina Isi
Moth – Chiara Annabelle Feldmann

Ted Huffman (director)
Marsha Ginsberg (set designs)
Annemarie Woods (costumes)
DM Wood (lighting)
Sam Pinkleton (choreography)
Ran Arthur Braun (Puck’s choreography)
Sebastian Hanusa (dramaturgy)
Neil Barry Moss (Spielleitung)

Children’s Choir of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin (chorus director: Christian Lindhorst)
Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin
Donald Runnicles (conductor)


For my final review – unless, which seems unlikely, I manage to write up this evening’s concert before midnight – written as a European citizen, it is perhaps fitting to be writing of an English opera, performed by a German company, conducted by a Scotsman. Given the circumstances, I hope I shall be forgiven if it does not find me at my most inspired, should such a condition even exist. Hand on heart, Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is not an opera I can bring myself to care for greatly, although – perhaps there is a lesson, or at least an irony, here too – the Berlin audience reacted enthusiastically.




Shakespeare is a dramatist whom composers, at least opera composers, confront at their peril. However clichéd it may be to say this, there is so much music in his verse that setting it can seem superfluous. This is not a rule; there are no such rules. However, I cannot see, or rather hear, what is gained in this case, other than an undeniable creepiness to score and elements of the dramaturgy, which therefore does not seem an unreasonable place for a performance to take as its point of departure. In that, as in everything else, Donald Runnicles’s leadership of the excellent Deutsche Oper Orchestra and Children’s Choir and a fine group of soloists proved just the ticket. Rarely if ever have I heard those recurring slithering glissandi and the weird balances of instrumentation and of instrumentation-vis-à-vis-harmony sound quite so ambiguous, even callous in their indifference to the affairs of mere mortals. This was fairyland music properly unsentimentalised. Moreover, Runnicles communicated the constructivist aspects of Britten’s writing more powerfully than any conductor I can recall. Unsurprisingly, the closer it sounded to The Turn of the Screw, the more interesting the score became. There is only so much anyone can do about the general thinness of writing and a tendency, constructivism notwithstanding, towards diffuse formlessness; insofar as anyone can, Runnicles certainly did. Colour, however, came first and foremost. Those silvery slivers of orchestral moonlight cast, in a fine dramatic paradox, as much shadow as anything else.




The children’s choir had evidently been very well prepared by Christian Lindhorst. Indeed, I had to remind myself afterwards that most of its members would have been singing in a foreign language. A mixed cast included many Anglophone singers, but those who were not, at least in terms of mother tongue, could again hardly be distinguished from those who were. (Singing and musical performance more generally are, of course, international businesses in which British artists have been enabled to flourish by membership of the European Union; goodness knows what will happen next year.) It seems invidious to single out particular performances when all impressed and contributed to a whole that was unquestionably greater than the sum of its parts. I shall limit myself to noting vocal portrayals that, for whatever reason, particularly caught my ear. From James Hall came a warm yet, in the best way, piercing Oberon, channelling Alfred Deller’s memory through something more than imitation; he was well matched by Siobhan Stagg’s spirited, knowing (at least until she was not!) Tytania. Gideon Poppe and Samuel Dale Johnson offered an excellent rutting pair of impetuous youths, well matched and contrasting with their lovers, Karis Tucker and Jeanine De Bique. James Platt’s bluffly comic Bottom led a characterful troupe of rustics.




Ted Huffman’s production gave the impression of good ideas that might fruitfully have been taken further, while shining a clear path through the basic narrative. No one would have stood in any doubt as to who was who, nor as to what was taking place: more, after all, than can often be said in opera staging. I presume the mid-twentieth-century setting – 1940s? – was intended to suggest the period of writing or at least Britten’s life in some respect. It was not, however, immediately clear why we should not then have been closer to 1960. Military uniforms and a suggestion – or was that just me? – of a battlefield as all slept in the forest may have alluded to wartime; if so, without something more, I was rather at a loss as to why and with what consequences. In a programme interview, Huffman referred to Oberon and Tytania fighting over the Indian boy as being akin to the status of Britten and Peter Pears as a childless couple. Once more, if so, nothing more was made of it – and I should hardly have thought of that without reading. Lines delivered in somewhat exaggerated fashion by Jami Reid-Quarrell, Puck was likewise intended, I learned, to represent an outsider. Fair enough, although surely that comes with the territory. There was, however, no doubting Reid-Quarrell’s agility, nor the skill of Ran Arthur Braun’s choreography for him. Quite why Theseus, in a fine vocal and stage display by Padraic Rowan, was drunk, I am afraid I have no idea, but the use of giant puppets for Pyramus and Thisby was charming.




What did I miss? Christopher Alden’s superlative ENO production, far and away the best I have seen, went for the pederastic jugular. Would that more would grasp that thorny nettle with such dramatic verve – be it in this or any other Britten opera. Perhaps, though, I was missing the point. With that, I should probably sign off. See you on the other side, lost in a far darker wood than this, with blue passports, yet nothing in the way of fairyland magic and no ‘break of day’ for at least a couple of decades. If we are lucky.

Saturday, 23 September 2017

Der fliegende Holländer, Deutsche Oper, 22 September 2017


Deutsche Oper, Berlin

Erik (from a different cast, 2017 premiere)
Images: Thomas Jauk

Daland – Andreas Bauer
Senta – Martina Welschenbach
Erik – Robert Watson
Mary – Ronnita Miller
Steersman – Gideon Poppe
Dutchman – Josef Wagner

Christian Spuck (director)
Eva-Maria Abelein (assistant director)
Rufus Didwiszus (set designs)
Emma Ryott (costumes)
Ulrich Niepel (lighting)
Dorothea Hartmann (dramaturgy)

Chorus (chorus master: Jeremy Bines) of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin
Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin
Donald Runnicles (conductor)


Poor Erik. Most people who have seen and/or heard The Flying Dutchman must have thought that at some point, if only mildly and with a hint of contempt. It is in many ways a thankless role, perhaps not unlike Don Ottavio, albeit with less in the way of vocal beauty. And so, it is an interesting idea to place him at the centre of the action, to turn the drama into his story. The payoff in the third act of Christian Spuck’s production – we do not, thank God, have any intervals – is considerable. I rather wish, though, that what we see there might have been read back more clearly, strongly, or something at least, into the first two acts. Apart from Erik wandering around the stage, often sitting with his head in his hands, or wall hugging (yes, I am afraid so), everything else looks pretty ‘modern-ish-traditional’. Ulrich Niepel’s lighting creates, especially in the first act, plenty of dark atmosphere. Otherwise, Spuck’s production and Rufus Didwiszus’s designs look pretty much as you might have expected them to – at least unless you are of an unfortunately ‘folksy’ persuasion. (In that case, Wagner is probably not for you.) The small model ship we have seen in many other productions is there for Erik to hold. There is rainfall – its noise frankly distracting, and not in a good way, during the Overture; there is plenty of water; there are galoshes; there are nineteenth-century sewing machines; and so on.


Without Erik, then, there really would be no Konzept on which to remark. No problem with that: one strongly delineated idea may well be enough. It is not, though, unless we count his mildly surprising behaviour and his different, slightly more colourful, clothes. Perhaps it has all been his dream; it makes, I suppose, a change from Senta’s dream. His stabbing her at the close is a moment of genuine drama. Then, everything recedes –the image and acts of a repressive crowd familiar from almost every staging, for how could they not be present? – leaving him alone on the stage, as at the beginning. The decision to use Wagner’s later musical thoughts – I tend very much to prefer Dresden – is thrown into interesting relief here; what is the ‘redemption’ we hear but certainly do not see (even on the questionable terms of Senta and the Dutchman)? Is it utter Wahn? Again, I wish we had seen or heard something more of a trail leading up to this, beyond, that is, Erik’s frequent onstage presence. Perhaps the idea had been more strongly, coherently presented when the production received its premiere earlier this year; rehearsal time and repertory direction can sometimes mislead. On the other hand, I can only comment on what I saw.



And, of course, on what I heard – which was a perfectly decent repertory night’s performance, with some things very good indeed. Donald Runnicles was generally on secure rather than inspiring form, emphasising the numbers within the score – yes, a perfectly justifiable approach ‘historically’ – rather than its musicodramatic anticipations (and more than anticipations). Bar a strange transition, including one glaring missed entry – these things happen – to the second act, and some slightly lacklustre treading of aural water early in the third, there were solid virtues to be heard. On the other hand, when performing in one single span, and perhaps especially when incorporating the 1860 Tristan-esque revisions, more in the way of overt Fernhören might make for a more fulfilling dramatic experience. (‘Yes, Cosima,’ I hear you reply. Guilty as charged in this, but only this, respect.) It is a very difficult work to bring off, though, with such competing demands; perhaps that ideal performance in my head is simply unrealisable, even if someone else were to agree to my ‘ideal’. Those occasional fluffs notwithstanding, there was much to be enjoyed in the orchestral playing, secure of line, and often impressively dark in tone. Choral singing also impressed, not least the confrontation between the two bands of sailors in the third act, clarity and heft there quite beyond reproach.


Whatever one thinks of placing Erik at the dramatic centre, he will still only have the same amount to sing. In that respect, at least, much will still hang upon the Dutchman. Josef Wagner gave a deeply musical, considered performance. He perhaps occasionally lacked the last ounce of dramatic power, for instance, during his first-act duet with Daland, sounding slightly out-sung at times. That, however, was probably as much a comment on the estimable performance of Andreas Bauer, no mere caricature: flawed yet honourable. Martina Welschenbach’s Senta took a little time to get going vocally, but grew into something impressive indeed. Her obsession with the painting – a dialectical result of Erik’s obsession with her, real or otherwise? – registered strongly from the outset. And in the ‘non-title’ role, Robert Watson sang Erik’s part very well, clearly alert to its competing stylistic demands: a trickier task than many imagine. Gideon Poppe’s Steersman proved a vocal delight, having one wish, as so often, that he had more to do; the same went for Ronnita Miller’s typically likeable, yet not too likeable, Mary. Did this all quite fit into the Konzept? I am not so sure. However, I do not think that was in any sense the fault of a fine cast of singers: something one should never take for granted.




Friday, 10 March 2017

Edward II, Deutsche Oper, 9 March 2017


Deutsche Oper, Berlin

Images: Monika Rittershaus
Edward II (Michael Nagy) and Piers de Gaveston (Ladislav Elgr)

Edward II – Michael Nagy
Isabella – Agneta Eichenholz
Piers de Gaveston – Ladislav Elgr
Roger Mortimer – Andrew Harris
Walter Langton, Bishop of Coventry – Burkhard Ulrich
Lightborn – James Kryshak
Angel – Jarrett Ott
Soldiers, Councillors, Guards, Tourguides, etc. – Markus Brück, Gideon Poppe
Spencer Jr – Gieorgij Puchalski
Prince Edward – Ben Kleiner

Christof Loy (director)
Annette Kurz (set designs)
Klaus Bruns (costumes)
Stefan Bolliger (lighting)
Yvonne Gebauer, Dorothea Hartmann (dramaturgy)

Chorus of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin (chorus master: Raymond Hughes)
Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin
Thomas Søndergård (conductor)
Walter Langton, Bishop of Coventry (Burkhard Ulrich) and the crowd


Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini’s new music theatre piece – ‘Musiktheater in zehn Szenen,’ although I am unsure in what sense it is not an opera as conventionally understood – seems to have generated quite some controversy. I have avoided reading the offending article or indeed anything else until seeing this, but I hear that one journalist has been accused of homophobia in the insults she has hurled at the work. Let us leave that on one side – I can hardly do otherwise, not having read any of the commentary – and attend to Edward II on its own terms, or what I take them to be.


Foreground: Spencer Jr (Gieorgij Puchalski), Roger Mortimer (Andrew Harris), Gaveston, Edward 
 

It turns out to be one of those difficult things to write about: perfectly serviceable as an opera, competently constructed, doing pretty much everything one would expect it to and almost nothing one would not expect. The work’s ten scenes do not overstay their welcome; the pacing seems just about right. There is a very traditional operatic and more broadly dramatic contrast between the public and private: think of Schiller, or the Petrarchan AMOR/ROMA dilemma, although here, not unreasonably, one never has any doubt that King Edward will choose love and ‘sodomite’ – a word endlessly repeated – lifestyle over matters of state. A vicious crowd, stirred up by hypocritical clergyman, bays for sodomite blood. The Queen moves – perhaps a little quickly, but such is opera – from sympathetic, lonely figure to vicious, vengeful, murderess. There is, moreover, a genuine sense of ‘this could be any family’, the young Prince Edward torn between his two self-obsessed parents. Scartazzini’s score follows the action, in what sounds on a first hearing (with all the caveats that must imply) like a generic not-quite-contemporary modernism. It screams when one would expect it to, likewise creates a hushed atmosphere when one would expect; it has structural impetus of its own within scenes.


 

And yet, there is little that adds up to anything more than that, or at least it did not for me. We can leave aside the playing fast and loose with history and with sources: that is what dramatists do. However, the framing devices of librettist, Thomas Jonigk, come across as forced, and indeed almost haplessly agitprop. Attempts, for instance in comments by the Angel, to present knowingly anachronistic references to other pertinent historical events and figures, are a bit embarrassing, likewise the historical tour’s visitation of Edward’s cell at the close. The comparison between wronged Jews and sodomites is not pursued in any depth, and merely seems glib. It is, moreover, only really at the close – and perhaps this is deliberate, but if so, it again needs better framing – that Edward as a character comes into focus; everyone else, despite extremely strong performances, remains something of a caricature. Derek Jarman, let alone Christopher Marlowe, did this, or something akin to this, so much better. Scartazzini never seems to lead the action, to have the orchestra partake in it, engender it, rather than predictably mirror the events on stage. His vocal lines, such as they are, hold little or no interest of their own; I could not help but wonder whether he would have been better off writing a symphonic poem or equivalent on the subject.

Edward and Gaveston
 

The sad conclusion I ended up drawing was that this opera’s creators seem to have thought it enough to write a gay opera. Perhaps it is; we are not exactly blessed with a huge number of examples, at least overtly, proudly so. (Subtexts, however close to the surface, are another matter.) Overall, though, it feels too much like box-ticking, too little like something that might have arisen from genuine artistic necessity. Imagine what might have been done in an opera that placed queer experience at its complex heart, doing something akin to what Nono did for women’s revolutionary experience in Al gran sole carico d’amore. There will, I hope, be other opportunities – and, to be fair, there is an abundance of mediocre, or worse, operas dealing with heterosexual themes.
Isabella (Agneta Eichenholz) and Prince Edward (Ben Kleiner)

 

That said, the Deutsche Oper deserves only praise for the commitment it has shown, both in staging the new work and, still more, doing so in performances of such quality. Its orchestra and chorus, the latterly brilliantly trained by Raymond Hughes, played under Thomas Søndergård with a confidence that suggested this might have been a repertory work. Balance, weight, incisiveness, tenderness: all those qualities and more were present in the pit; on stage, one could hardly have asked for more from the chorus, director Christof Loy’s blocking of the partly differentiated mass a joy in itself to behold. Indeed, Loy’s work in general – I speak as someone who has been far from a constant fan of his productions – deserves great credit, essentially presenting the opera as a somewhat abstracted version of classic grand opera, with slightly alienated invasions from without. The ‘family values’ crowd was an obvious ploy, replete with placards from any reactionary demonstration one might care to look at, but it made its (agitprop) point well enough.

Angel (Jarrett Ott), Edward, and Spencer Jr
 

Michael Nagy drew one in more than one had any right to expect in a visually torn, vocally secure performance of the title role. As the Angel only the King could see, Jarrett Ott offered all the strength and comfort Edward might ever have asked: a rock in a vicious world indeed. Ladislav Elgr, seen for about ninety per cent of his time on stage merely in well-fitted white vest and briefs, exhibited as the favourite, Gaveston, a near-ideal marriage of fun, born of social desperation no doubt, and magnetism. Agneta Eichenholz made the most of that abrupt transition from wronged woman to monster in a powerful assumption of the role of Isabella. The darkness of her relationship to Andrew Harris’s unreconstructedly masculine Mortimer could only really be hinted at, given the confines of the work, but hinted at it certainly was. There was a good deal of camp humour to be had from the recurring double act – from thirteenth-century soldiers guardedly admitting their sodomite tendencies to modern tour-guides – of Philip Jekal and Gideon Poppe. The Mime-like nastiness, with an undoubtedly chilling Nazi allusion of just following orders, of Edward’s murderer-with-abortionist’s-bag, Lightborn, was splendidly portrayed by James Kryshak. Ben Kleiner’s treble could hardly be faulted as the young prince; he knew how to deport himself on stage too. And last but not least, Gieorgij Puchalski’s performance in the non-speaking role as Spencer Junior, the new favourite risen from the ashes of the old, showed just what the suggestiveness and sheer physicality of a dancer in a vocal work can achieve.


 

If the above tends too much towards a list, that is part of my point. These were all, without exception, fine performances indeed; they did all they could with a work that could have been much worse, but ought to have been much better.

 

Thursday, 2 April 2015

Madama Butterfly, Deutsche Oper, 29 March 2015


Deutsche Oper, Berlin

Cio-Cio San – Hui He
Suzuki – Jana Kurucová
Kate Pinkerton – Stephanie Lauricella
Pinkerton – Fabio Sartori
Sharpless – Elia Fabbian
Goro – Gideon Poppe
Prince Yamadori – Jörg Schörner
The Bonze – Marko Mimica
Imperial Commissiner – Carlton Ford
Official Registrar – Thomas Lehman
Mother – Martina Metzler
Cousin – Saskia Meusel
Aunt – Keum-Shin Kwon
Child – Birte Weigelt

Pier Luigi Samaritani (director, designs)
Gerlinde Pelkowski (revival director)

Chorus of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin (chorus master: William Spaulding)
Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper
Yves Abel (conductor)


For an evening off from the Staatsoper’s Festtage, I walked a little further up Bismarkstrasse to the Deutsche Oper, to see a revival of Pier Luigi Samritani’s Madama Butterfly. There is obviously no point in comparing the first night of a new Parsifal with such an instalment of the Deutsche Oper’s ‘Puccini weeks’, but by any standards, this very different evening did not do badly at all. There is not a great deal to say about the production; it looks very much like the other two productions I have seen of the work. (How I should love to see something different: say, Calixto Bieito’s staging for the Komische Oper!) But it does its job well in ‘traditional’ terms, and on this occasion, its 137th performance (!) since the premiere, benefits from keen revival direction by Gerlinde Pelkowski. Lovers of what might be called ‘conventionally beautiful’ Puccini stagings will be delighted, and doubtless will have been already. I am less sure about the use of sheets – often a device in such productions – which tends a little towards the bathetic, but it is not difficult to live with, even so.


Attention, then, is focused firmly on the musical performance, and especially on the singers. Yves Abel conducted the orchestra ably, without making any particular points. It was not the most symphonic Puccini I have heard, and certainly not the most modernistic, but by the same token, continuity was achieved. The orchestra could hardly be faulted, and I have no desire to try. When really given their head, the strings sounded gorgeous, the perfect compliment to a decidedly ‘traditional’ starring couple.


By that, I mean that these were big voices, employed to general audience delight. Hui He’s Cio-Cio San offered enormous dynamic range, sensitively deployed, although in the spirit of charity, I shall pass over her diction. Fabio Sartori’s Pinkerton was similarly ‘old school’, perhaps still more so. He will certainly win no prizes for his acting, but he showed that, in such repertoire, he would not be shamed by comparison with the starriest of Italian tenors. The first-act duet was, in musical terms, close to everything one might reasonably have hoped for. Jana Kurucová’s Suzuki was subtler, offering welcoming relief: a credible, indeed sympathetic character portrayal in its own right. Elia Fabbian’s Sharpless presented equivocation through musical strength: not the easiest achievement to bring off. Gideon Poppe’s Goro showed an alert stage as well as musical animal. I suspect we shall hear more from Stephanie Lauricella, the Kate Pinkerton. (I know she has little to sing, yet always find myself surprised by quite how little!) A highly creditable evening, then, for all concerned. I only wish the opera itself were a little less offensive and a little more ambiguous…

Monday, 15 December 2014

Turandot, Deutsche Oper, 12 December 2014

Deutsche Oper, Berlin
Turandot – Catherine Foster
Altoum – Peter Maus
Calaf – Kamen Chanev
Liù – Heidi Stober
Timur – Simon Lim
Ping – Melih Tepretmez
Pang – Gideon Poppe
Pong – Matthew Newlin
Mandarin – Andrew Harris
Prince of Persia – Aristoteles Chaitidis, Jan Müller
Two Girls – Elbenita Kajtaz, Christina Sidak
Lorenzo Fioroni (director)
Claudia Gotta (revival director)
Paul Zoller (set designs and video)
Katharina Gault (costumes)
Chorus of the Deutsche Oper (chorus master: William Spaulding) of the Deutsche Oper
Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper
Ivan Repušič (conductor)


Production shot from first staging:  © Bettina Stöß, 2008 

The Deutsche Oper has a very fine production of Turandot on its hands. Lorenzo Fioroni leaves us in no doubt what a magnificently vile opera it is, homing in quite rightly upon Puccini’s sadism, drawing out its political implications, and playing down, though far from entirely obscuring, the work’s deeply problematical Orientalism, which otherwise has a tendency to impede appreciation of what is still more repellent in the work. Put another way, this staging stands as distant from Zeffirelli and mindless school thereof, that is, from what has given opera in performance so bad a name, as Puccini does from Donizetti and the other drivel that has given Italian opera so bad a name and which, sadly, has in may houses relegated Puccini’s œuvre to the level of at-best-anodyne productions, cynically relied upon to boost the accursed box office.
Fioroni sets the action in a reasonably generic totalitarian state. There is enough of an imaginary ‘China’ hinted at, should that be important, but it is not central to the production. An enfeebled Emperor – or is he? is his present state partly a ruse de guerre? – presides, with the help of Turandot, a deeply sinister junta or Politburo (according to taste), and thuggish security services on the street, who mete out casual, or rather less-than-casual, physical punishment to those who would step out of line. Turandot appears to be calling the shots – almost literally, in some cases; for instance, when, following the solution of the riddles, she hysterically reaches for and uses her gun – but, as in all such cases, the dynamics of power and violence are not entirely straightforward. The crowd seems submissive, largely cowed, relishing yet fearing the brutality, but who knows? Ping, Pang, and Pong are now less an offensive and/or irritating addition, but political opportunists. They, like everyone else, do what they need to survive; they are not inhuman, but necessity and the promise of reward ensure collaboration and perhaps more than that.
Theatre is extremely important here. What we see enacted and re-enacted takes us to the heart of the problem, as indeed it does in Gozzi’s original tale. Ritual is enforced but also permits of certain criticism. Ping, Pong, and Pang, those crucial ministers – more crucial, I think, than I have seen before – employ the costumes and customs of theatre to show the people and us what the rules are and what the outcomes will be. Their tableaux involve impersonation, most notably in the case of a gender-subverting portrayal of Turandot herself, veiled and later preparing for a wedding; they also, inevitably, remind us all of the likely bloody outcome of any challenge to the system. And yet, they shift, chameleon-like, when the new order comes: a new order brutally signalled by the death of the Emperor and, most chillingly of all, Calaf’s stabbing of his father immediately after. Regime change has come upon us – and the courtiers, whatever their sly mocking when unseen, will adapt and most likely prosper.
The most shocking violence, of course, whether in work or production, is that suffered by Liù. Her enslavement, born of both social position and gender, is clear from the outset, when Calaf briefly forces himself upon her, making a great deal more sense of his actions in the third act. It is power in all senses that he wants; a moment of regret is all that is therefore necessary. Yet her figure, hanging in front of the action throughout the rest of the act, reminds us of the cost and the barbarism. ‘Love’, whatever that means, may claim to have won, but we know that it is merely a form of power, or rather that it is perhaps the most deadly form of power at all. (Coincidentally or otherwise, Wagner’s discovery of that truth during the writing of the Ring comes to mind.) The cruelty of the score, of its ritualisation and exploitation, is at one with what we see. For a view of the violence as not only instrumental but concerned with degradation of the body for its own sake chimes very much with Puccini’s fabled sadism. This, then, is a fidelity to the work that draws out what is present in it, a fidelity greater than that which the cheerleaders of a naïve Werktreue seem capable of understanding.
It was a pity, then, that Ivan Repušič’s conducting was not up to the same standard. There was nothing too much to worry about, but this was competent and, sometimes, a little frayed rather than clearly directed. The Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper played magnificently, though, so the occasional blurring did not detract so very much in practice. Nevertheless, a more incisive, indeed brazenly modernistic touch would have heightened the disturbed and disturbing sensations further. Choral singing lay almost beyond praise. William Spaulding’s training of the Deutsche Oper Chorus is well known, but still deserving of the highest plaudits; so, of course, is the contribution of the choral singers themselves. Keenly directed on stage as they were here, the heft, clarity, and meaning of their musical contribution was very much of a piece with their ambiguous yet threatening dramatic role. This was a mass that more than stirred musically, hinting perhaps at trouble to come for the new regime?
In the title role, Catherine Foster offered a committed dramatic portrayal, sadistic yet clearly hinting at great problems, personal and political, lying behind the sadism. If one could hardly empathise, one could begin to understand – which is just about all one can ask with this repellent character and her actions. Intonation was not always all it might have been, but for the most part there was dramatic compensation. Kamen Chanev’s Calaf was not dramatically subtle; such seems, alas, to be the way with the role. But the production, for which revival director, Claudia Gotta, surely also deserves plaudits, offered depth to what, in purely vocal terms, was an impressive performance. Simon Lim’s Timur was deeply felt, however, attention to words and musical line impressing throughout. Likewise, Heidi Stober’s Liù, which gained in resonance – in more than one sense – as the evening progressed. As the ministerial trio, Melih Tepretmez, Gideon Poppe, and Matthew Newlin all offered cleverly considered performances, alert to the shifting circumstances on stage and responding accordingly. The company and the performance as a whole proved more than the sum of its parts. A DVD release would be invaluable, especially for those misled – often understandably so – by more typical, inert presentations of Puccini.