Bayreuth Festival (3) - Tannhäuser, 4 August 2024

Festspielhaus

Images: Bayreuther Festspiele / Enrico Nawrath

Hermann, Landgrave of Thuringia – Günther Groissböck
Tannhäuser – Klaus Florian Vogt
Wolfram von Eschenbach – Markus Eiche
Walther von der Vogelweide – Siyabonga Maqungo
Biterolf – Olafur Sigurdarson
Heinrich der Schreiber – Martin Koch
Reinmar von Zweter – Jens-Erik Aasbø
Elisabeth – Elisabeth Teige
Venus, Page – Irene Roberts
Young Shepherd – Flurina Stöckl
Le Gateau Chocolat – Le Gateau Chocolat
Oskar – Manni Laudenbach
Pages – Simone Lerch, Laura Margaret Smith, Annette Gutjahr

Director – Tobias Kratzer
Set designs – Rainer Sellaier
Lighting – Reinhard Traub
Video – Manuel Braun
Dramaturgy – Konrad Kuhn

Bayreuth Festival Chorus (chorus director: Eberhard Friedrich)

Bayreuth Festival Orchestra

Nathalie Stutzmann (conductor)

Adieu or au revoir, I asked myself when leaving the Festspielhaus, but also from time to time during this performance of Tannhäuser. It will not, I hope, be adieu to the Bayreuth Festival. My years of attendance pale in comparison to those of many, but regular visits have become part of my musical, intellectual, and indeed social life, and I should be sorry to see that come to an end. But would it be to Tobias Kratzer’s production, and to the characters it has not only portrayed and explored but created, with lives, personalities, and possibilities of their own. The closest parallel that presented itself to me, perhaps ironically, was that of Frank Castorf’s Ring, which I also saw here three times, and to which by the end I had become quite attached. Even now, I sometimes wonder fancifully whatever became of Nadine Weissmann’s Erda, following Wotan’s brutal dismissal of her at (Al-)Exanderplatz. Somehow, ridiculous though this may sound, I should like to know that, a bit like Dallas’s Sue Ellen, she battled through. For Kratzer’s similarly classic – less controversially so – staging, time will tell. 2024 was scheduled to be its final outing, but there are plausible rumours that Le Gateau Chocolat and the gang will take the stage one more time two summers from now, when Bayreuth is due to give all works from The Flying Dutchman on, adding Rienzi for the first time in the Festspielhaus, for the Festival’s sesquicentenary.

Le Gateau Chocolat

As intelligent as it is entertaining (not necessarily a word one instantly associates with this opera), Kratzer’s metatheatrical, Ariadne-like Tannhäuser thus became all the more moving for me on this occasion, though I think that may also be attributed to a slight shift in tone. At its heart – it has a big heart – lies the opposition, faithful to Wagner’s own binaries and attempts to bridge them, between the world of the Wartburg and that of the Venusberg: the former as presented at Bayreuth, the latter a defiantly alternative, joyous troupe made up of Tannhäuser, his lover Venus, and two fellow artists, the fabulous Le Gateau Chocolat (as herself) and the enchanting Oskar (as in Günter Grass’s Oskar Matzerath, played by Manni Laudenbach with tin drum). They too make art; they too can be uncompromising; but differently, as in life, and in that they are quite unapologetic. The Overture – for better or worse, this is the Dresden Tannhäuser – shows through a mixture of film and staging our players on the road, running out of food and fuel, having to make an emergency stop at a service station to replenish supplies, only to be (almost) caught by a policeman. Venus, to the horror of the others, puts her foot down in a hit-and-run incident, occasioning Tannhäuser’s jump from the van and departure from the band. ‘Unapologetic’ has its limits. A lovely touch this year, was early on to have Oskar, lump in his throat, drink a shot in memory of Stephen Gould, the production’s first Tannhäuser.

Found by a passing cyclist (the Shepherd), Tannhäuser proceeds to rejoin his former singers on the Festspielhügel, the Festival audience making its way around their discussions, in order to be present at the performance. As the first act is drawing to a close, Venus, Le Gateau Chocolat, and Oskar make their way to the Green Hill to win Tannhäuser back. Much of the actual audience – all who wish – then make their way down to the pond at the foot of the actually existing hill, for the cabaret show they have devised, beautifully compered by Le Gateau Chocolat, who draws proceedings (her own rendition of ‘Dich teure Halle’ included) to a close with a call for Bayreuth to come out of the closet and display of the Progress Pride Plag, a poignant and necessary call for queer liberation in the age of JD Vance and JK Rowling. 

For the second act, we move inside the Festspielhaus/traditional Wartburg, video taking us backstage, both for preparations (with fine, detailed work both by the live film crew and members of the chorus) and for events for which the house is anything but prepared. In explicit homage to the Young German Wagner, members of the troupe invade the temple of bourgeois art, reminding us who Wagner really was and what he stood for with the banner unfurled from the storied balcony at the front of the house: quoting the composer’s torrential revolutionary catechism, Die Revolution, of 1849: ‘Frei im Wollen/Frei im Thun/Frei im Geniessen/R[ichard] W[agner]’. Freedom in desire, deed, and pleasure offers an obvious, glaring contrast with the professed values of the Minnesänger, as of course Wagner proceeds to show in the song contest, here crashed by our alternative artists, Venus pushing herself forward as an ersatz Page (a phrase behind in the first instance). Eventually, a security guard alerts Katharina Wagner, who calls the police to arrest Tannhäuser, notably leaving a dejected, broken troupe behind as the curtain falls. 

No one is a winner here, then, and certainly not Elisabeth, whom we meet again in a desolate landscape, the van burned out, tasting soup Oskar has made. What has happened in the meantime can largely be left to our own imagination, but it is clear that the troupe has broken up and Elisabeth has similarly lost almost everything. If, moreover, she has not lost her final gift (or curse), she will do so shortly to Wolfram, though only because he agrees to dress as Tannhäuser, clown wig and all. It was clearly not a good idea; it does not seem to have brought them any joy; but in the absence of anything better in art or life, they felt a compulsion to do so in the back of the van. Only Le Gateau Chocolat, we learn, has made it, advertising watches from a giant billboard above. When Tannhäuser returns, he tears to pieces his own score in despair, pages littering the stage until tales of the Papal miracle reach us. Life having in crisis supplanted art – this is not a Nietzschean aestheticism, nor was Wagner’s – we see on film at the close an alternative path, which may or may not offer consolation: Tannhäuser and Elisabeth, riding off in the van into the sunset. Perhaps another day, in another world. 

None of this would amount to much without committed performances from all concerned. All principal roles other than Venus were played by the same artists I heard last year. Ekaterina Gubanova will return for the final two performances, but here she was replaced with Irene Roberts, who uncannily resembled her (tribute not least to those working in costumes and make-up). Her performance was alive, arresting, and unsentimental: very much what was required. Klaus Florian Vogt’s Tannhäuser was beautifully sung, tirelessly acted: another intelligent portrayal. Some do not like his voice or think it appropriate; it is for them, as his gang might (perhaps more colourfully) tell us, to deal with it. Elisabeth Teige gave another excellent performance as her namesake, showing strength and subtlety in her tragedy. Markus Eiche’s often tenor-like Wolfram offered a fine study not only in verbal response but also in wounded pride. Günther Groissböck was on considerably better form as the Landgrave than as the previous night’s King Marke. Other noteworthy performances out included Siyabonga Maqungo’s sweet-toned Walther von der Vogelweide and Olafur Sigurdarson’s charismatic Biterolf.

Eberhard Friedrich drew out variegated performances from the Bayreuth Festival Chorus, words and meaning as intelligible as those of any soloist. And whilst I was unconvinced by some gear changes in Nathalie Stutzmann’s conducting – at the end of the first act in particular – and there remained a good few peculiar orchestral balances, possibly born of a desire to highlight Wagner’s debt to grand opéra, considerable progress had been made from last year. Ensemble was not perfect, but it was a good deal sight stronger than it had been in the first of the three productions I saw and heard this year. The sum of what, I think, we may in the best sense call this ‘show’ proved greater and deeper than its estimable parts. Here is to hopes for 2026.

Tristan und Isolde, Deutsche Oper, 3 July 2024

Tristan – Michael Weinius
King Marke – Günther Groissböck
Isolde – Ricarda Merbeth
Kurwenal – Leonardo Lee
Melot – Jörg Schörner
Brangäne – Irene Roberts
Shepherd – Clemens Bieber
Young Sailor – Kieran Carrel
Steersman – Byung Gil Kim

Director – Graham Vick
Designs – Paul Brown
Lighting – Wolfgang Göbbel  

Chorus of the Deutsche Oper (director: Thomas Richter) 

Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper

Juraj Valčuha (conductor)

Images from the 2011 premiere: © Matthias Horn

And so, the Deutsche Oper’s season, in which it has shown all ten of Wagner’s ‘Bayreuth’ works, begins to draw to a close. I have not managed to see them all; by accident rather than design, I have seen the current productions of trhe seven ‘music dramas’, but missed those of The Flying Dutchman, Tannhäuser, and Lohengrin (all of which I have a seen before). Of those I saw, all but Philipp Stölzl’s Parsifal were new to me. Stefan Herheim’s Ring I greeted enthusiastically, though not without reservations, in May; the Wieler-Viebrock-Morabito Meistersinger less so, though it had its moments. How would the late Graham Vick’s 2011 Tristan, which somehow I had missed until now, fare? 

Disappointingly, I am afraid. Maybe I was not in the right mood, though it was certainly not only that, but I do not think I have ever felt less engaged, or even interested, in a performance of what should always be a work like no other, on the edge of the possible but also of what one can bear. I doubtless quote this letter from Wagner to Mathilde Wesendonck too often, yet however drama-queenish the expression, the principle remains sound, or at least readily comprehensible: ‘I fear the opera will be banned – unless the whole thing is parodied in a bad performance –: only mediocre performances can save me! Perfectly good ones will be bound to drive people mad, – I cannot imagine it otherwise.’ Once again, sanity regrettably endured.

Let us begin with Vick’s production, at which I feel able only to throw my hands into the hair and say (polite version): goodness knows. One can admire his extraordinary work in Birmingham and indeed some or many of his stagings, without having much idea what is going on here and, more sadly, without being able to care very much. Is it perhaps all a drug-induced dream, Dallas meeting Trainspotting? One of the very few (on its own terms) theatrically convincing moments, presaged by a disturbing appearance (one of many, from a cast of irritating extras) by a shaking, wall-hugging addict, is when Tristan and Isolde inject themselves for what seems, even sounds, to be that elusive perfect hit. Who they are, though, and what they are doing in something that may be a house or may be a funeral parlour (Morold’s funeral, I thought to start with, though the coffin surely remains too long) is anyone’s guess. All manner of strange people come and go. A gang of menacing men in the first act suggests an approach founded, oddly, upon gender, when surely the whole point is the irrelevance of the phenomenal world, but it is soon gone anyway. 

So too are the woman who walks around naked and, in the second act, outside in the garden (albeit with an indoor fireplace), a male naked gravedigger. Perhaps it is hot out there, and Tristan’s overcoat is a product of his addiction. He and Isolde sit on the sofa for most of it, as if watching the television; they seem to have little interest in each other. A torch-cum-gigantic-peppermill sometimes comes into view above, though it does not seem aligned to the night/day axis. From time to time, a woman in adjoining room does the ironing. The Steersman makes his appearance bursting out of the bathroom in mid-shave. It all ends, banally enough, with Isolde, spying some more people walking around the garden, opening the door to join them. Quite. That the action in this ‘action’ (Handlung) is entirely metaphysical seems to have eluded Vick, as it does many, but this lacks so much as a hint of coherence on its own terms. I think the point, or at least a point, may be that they have grown old in the meantime; with that, at least, one can sympathise. 

The real drama lies in the orchestra, of course, or should. There were passages of relative fluency among the rest from Juraj Valčuha, but that is about the best one can say. More often than not, we had audible gear changes, surprisingly thin strings, odd balances, faulty ensemble, and a deadly tendency throughout each act to slow down. The second act felt interminable, whilst Tristan’s third-act agonies amounted to little more than a lengthy list of non sequiturs. The Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper, normally outstanding in Wagner, sounded as if it had had enough; I cannot blame it. 

Ricarda Merbeth’s Isolde had much to commend it, especially in the first act. She made a great deal of the words, offering a masterclass in scorn, though sustaining a line seemed less of a priority. Hans von Bülow’s claim that this is Wagner’s bel canto opera is as silly as it sounds, but that does not mean there is no melodic interest in the vocal line. Still, she outshone her Tristan, Michael Weinius, who had seemingly endless vocal reserves to call on. Given how shouted and unvariegated they were, it was tempting sometimes to wish that he had not; this was neither bel nor canto, and his acting was at best gestural. Leonardo Lee’s Kurwenal bloomed into what, alongside Günther Groissböck’s beautifully sung, finely detailed Marke, was surely the finest performance of the night. Irene Roberts sang well too, though a little more mezzo-ish depth would not have gone amiss, especially so as to contrast with Isolde. Given what the singers were presented with, though, it would be churlish to complain further. 

Wagner, then, was saved again. Next  stop: Bayreuth, including a new Tristan. Fingers crossed for a little madness.

Parsifal, Deutsche Oper, 8 March 2024

Amfortas – Jordan Shanahan
Titurel – Andrew Harris
Gurnemanz – Günther Groissböck
Parsifal – Klaus Florian Vogt
Kundry – Irene Roberts
Klingsor – Joachim Göltz
Knights of the Grail – Patrick Cook, Youngkwang Oh
Esquires – Sua Jo, Arianna Manganello, Kieran Carrel, Chance Jonas-O’Toole
Flowermaidens – Flurina Stucki, Sua Jo, Arianna Manganello, Hye-Young Moon, Mechot Marrero, Marie-Luise Dreßen
Voice from Above – Marie-Luise Dreßen

Director – Philipp Stölzl
Co-director – Mara Kurotschka
Set designs – Conrad Moritz Reinhardt, Philipp Stölzl
Costumes – Kathi Maurer
Lighting – Ulrich Niepel
Revival director – Silke Sense

Chorus, Men of the Extra Chorus, and Children’s Chorus of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin (chorus masters: Jeremy Bines and Christian Lindhorst)

Opern-Ballet, Statisterie, and Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin

Donald Runnicles (conductor)

PARSIFAL von Richard Wagner, Deutsche Oper Berlin, copyright.
Image: Matthias Baus

Memory plays all manner of tricks: major and minor. I could have sworn I had seen Philipp Stölzl’s Deutsche Oper Parsifal twice before this, distinctly recalling having revisited it. I actually have no record of having done so, and am reasonably sure I would. I was also more enthusiastic the first time I saw it, in 2014, than now, describing it – admittedly for the vocal performances as much as the production – as ‘a Parsifal demanding both to be seen and to be heard’. Now it seems to me that it fulfils its repertory role, but is in looking somewhat tired. What has happened in the meantime? The tempting answer would be Stefan Herheim’s Bayreuth production, which transformed experience and understanding for so many. I myself have thought of it as akin to Patrice Chéreau’s Ring; things can never be the same again. I still do, but in this case the chronology does not fit, Herheim having been seen for the last time in 2012. It may have had a role in raising expectation and achievement across the board. Ironically, a major production from the intervening years, Dmitiri Tcherniakov’s Parsifal for the house across town, has in retrospect a few points in common with Stölzl, perhaps more in terms of appearance than substance, yet it remained by some way the bolder experience. (Click here for a brief comparison of Herheim and Tcherniakov.) Maybe this just needs more time devoted to revival (a well-nigh insuperable problem with repertoire houses). Or perhaps all this talk of comparison is a little decadent, and we should simply concentrate on what lies in front of us. 

What, then, lay in front of us here? In broad terms, Stölzl’s concept, insofar as I understand it, presents Monsalvat as a Templar-like community that has not only become tired, but deadly in preservation of long since dead rituals. Fanatics keep alive certain external forms, albeit in the form of weird tableaux vivants, which tellingly freeze rather than develop. Control, as in the typical secular claims against ‘religion’, is all—of the self and others, bloody (self-)flagellation included. These doubtless just about keep things going, but whatever it may have been that animated the community in the first place, presumably in some sense the Grail or related to it, has long since vacated the premises. Klingsor’s anti-Monsalvat is not merely the same: the cave within clearly hosts a different cult. There is something disquietingly orientalist, if not nearly so blatant as Uwe-Eric Laufenberg’s Islamophobic farrago at Bayreuth, to it; that may, of course, be deliberate, in playing with our conceptions. There is, though, I think, a strong implication that they ultimately have more in common than separates them. And the way the Flowermaidens emerge from the stone, becoming something otherwise through minimal shedding of costumes and clever lighting, is a nice touch. 

Presumably the whole thing, though, is a delusion: anti-religion claiming its title, against Wagner, though in common with many who have admired him. Talk of renewal, let alone that extraordinary – almost always ignored or underestimated – third-act claim of taking Christ down from the Cross, is probably just mumbo-jumbo; it certainly seems to be a lie. When Parsifal returns, Amfortas impales himself on the spear: a way out for him, though not necessarily for those left behind. Perhaps, as I noted last time, Stölzl heeds John Deathridge’s warning against resolution in ‘high-minded kitsch’, for redemption is an alien concept, one that never arises. The problem for me was not so much the grim framing, as the danger that by now the production had become its own ritual, in danger of succumbing to something not a million miles away from what it claimed to portray. 

Image: Bettina Stöß

Donald Runnicles led a performance not so very different – as memory serves – from Axel Kober ten years ago, though probably still more secure. He and the splendid Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper (the chorus too) put not a foot wrong throughout. This was not the sort of performance one might characterise as a particular ‘reading’; Runnicles’s collegial brand of music-making is not about that. Instead, he drew on what is, by now, clearly deep knowledge and understanding of the score to present it as faithfully as he could, neither merely framing nor inciting the action, yet considerate of the competing demands that go towards performance of opera (even, or especially, one calling itself a Bühnenweihfestspiel). If there were times when I might have preferred the orchestra to take the lead more strongly, there is room for various approaches here. 

Runnicles’s musicianship unquestionably allowed the cast, entirely new from ten years ago, to shine. Klaus Florian Vogt’s voice is, to my ears, more suited to some aspects of Parsifal’s character than others. He comes across, like no other, as father of Lohengrin (whilst still tempting Nietzsche’s mischievous question: how did he manage that?) There were a beauty and clarity to line and verbal projection that are not readily to be gainsaid, though ultimately I missed a sense of development. (One might, I suppose, argue that that is less needed in this production than in many.) Günther Groissböck’s Gurnemanz intrigued, not so much because he looked younger than many, but because he acted younger, particularly in the first act, there being a creditable distinction between both portrayals. Here was a charismatic leader, not some old bore, with interesting implications for those who listened and followed, and the life of the community as a whole. Jordan Shanahan proved an unusually likeable Amfortas, although he certainly had us share his pain too. As Kundry and somewhat like Runnicles, Irene Roberts seemed more concerned to bring out the text than present a strong ‘reading’ of her own. This she did with great skill, as did the cast as a whole. What was the problem, then? Perhaps there was none after all, or rather it was mine.

Les Huguenots, Deutsche Oper, 2 February 2020

DIE HUGENOTTEN von Giacomo Meyerbeer, Regie: David Alden, Premiere am 13.11.2016, Deutsche Oper Berlin, copyright: Bettina Stöss

Marguerite de Valois – Liv Redpath

Comte de Saint-Bris – Seth Carico

Comte de Nevers – Dimitris Tiliakos

Valentine – Olesya Golovneva

Urbain – Irene Roberts

Tavannes – Paul Kaufmann

Cossé – Jörg Schörner

Méru – Padraic Rowan

Thoré, Maurevert – Alexei Botnarciuc

De Retz – Stephen Bronk

Raoul de Nangis – Anton Rositskiy

Marcel – Andrew Harris

Bois-Rosé – Andrei Danilov

Archer du guet – Timothy Newton

Two courtiers, Two Catholic girls – Jacquelyn Stucker, Karis Tucker

David Alden (director)

Giles Cadle (set designs)

Constance Hoffman (costumes)

Adam Silverman (lighting)

Marcel Leemann (choreograpy)

Teresa Reiber, Gerlinde Pelkowski (Spielleitung)

Jörg Königsdorf, Curt A Roesler (dramaturgy)

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

Opera-Ballet of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin 

Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin

Alexander Vedernikov (conductor)

The Meyerbeer enigma – or enigmas: will they ever be solved? Shall we ever even agree what they might be? There remains, at least for me, an object of fascination in the phenomenon itself, not that I could be sure of telling you what it is. A certain variety of cynic will doubtless lay into Wagner at this point. People always do, of course. (It makes a change from Jeremy Corbyn.) However, on returning to Wagner’s description in Oper und Drama, I suspect that he came closer than most: ‘a monstrously coloured, historico-romantic, devilish-religious, sanctimonious-lascivious, risqué-sacred, saucy-mysterious, sentimental-swindling, dramatic farrago’. (It sounds better/worse in German: ‘ein ungeheuer buntscheckiges, historisch-romantisches, teuflisch-religiöses, bigot-wollüstiges, frivol-heiliges, geheimnisvoll-freches, sentimental-gaunerisches, dramatisches Allerlei’.) Either that, or Wagner transformed our understanding of musical drama so much as to render it well-nigh impossible for us to hear this bizarre, often incomprehensible music otherwise.

There is, I suspect many will agree, a particular problem concerning how to stage a work such as Les Huguenots for a modern audience. I was inclined to give David Alden the benefit of the doubt for quite some time. Not only have I admired several other Alden productions, but this also shows some sign of recognising that there was a problem and of attempting to address it. Or does it? Part of the way through, I was as bewildered by what was going on visually as I was by what was happening – I think that is the word – aurally. The opera seems somewhat carelessly updated to the nineteenth century, to no particular end, though perhaps with no particular loss either. The period comes across as too late to coincide with the time of composition: more Second Empire than July Monarchy, though perhaps I am misunderstanding. Indeed, it comes across as having been chosen more for its ‘look’ and for the strange interpolation of big-house Offenbach dance numbers, ultimately more vulgar than ironic, than anything else. Little or no attempt is made to accommodate the action to its new setting. One gains no sense of a framing, nineteenth-century glance back towards the sixteenth century, let alone of equivalents being found. As to who these people are, what they are doing, how one might react to them: who knows?

The third act offers a case in point. Confusingly, everything here appears to take place in whatever it is the Pré-aux-clercs has become: more suggestive of a Calvinist church to start with, although ecclesiology, let alone theology, seems even less on Alden’s mind than Meyerbeer’s. Characters are regularly pushed onstage astride large horse statues, the frequency of such arrivals presumably reflecting a desire to attain better value for whatever they must have cost. The idea of spectacle is certainly worth playing with, but here there is not enough spectacle, let alone idea. If you like seeing fire onstage, then the denouement will be for you, but only if you have never seen it accomplished with greater spectacle. Throughout a dance, a blow job, a round of champagne, some other such staple, or a combination of the above will occur when nothing else immediately suggests itself. Why the archer du guet, a sort of royal nightwatchman, appears as a wraith I simply have no idea. Having wondered what Alden might make of his claim in the programme booklet that, to a twenty-first-century audience Meyerbeer’s operas can seem ‘with their collage technique ironic, cool, and postmodern’, I can only really say nice try; or rather, more of an actual attempt would have been welcome. If the idea were to reflect the messy dramaturgy, if one can even call it that, of Meyerbeer’s opera, then it needed framing better than this. Any unhappy coincidence, however, was more likely to have been just that.

I can imagine a conductor bringing more to the material, making more of it, than Alexander Vedernikov. Perhaps there is no ‘whole’ to give a sense of here; if so, discontinuity would be better off coming across as an aesthetic choice – difficult, yet far from impossible – rather than a mere default option. Orchestra and chorus alike sounded less than inspired, at times ragged and uncertain. There is doubtless little that can be done about the interminable quality of certain arias; nor about the composer’s seeming inability to bring them to a close when he finally makes the attempt; nor about the weirdly unfinished nature of many of them, as if Meyerbeer had sketched a vocal line and obbligato instrumental solo and been in too much of a rush to add the rest. Perhaps he was. If so, though, why has anyone ever taken this music to heart, as many would genuinely seem to have done? Cutting would probably not have helped. A viola d’amore staying more or less in tune throughout its ‘star’ moment – here taken onstage – surely would.

As for solo singing, it was a mixed bag. French pronunciation, let alone style, was rarely a strength. No one should argue for casting on nationalistic or even national grounds; I could nevertheless not help but wonder whether the presence of a French singer or two would have helped. As it was, female singers tended to fare better than their male counterparts. Liv Redpath’s light, clear soprano, often somewhat instrumental in tone, was granted ample opportunity to shine, opportunity well grasped. If her melodies and those of others remained obstinately unmemorable, when indeed they cohered at all, fault for that lies elsewhere. Irene Roberts, as the page Urbain, offered finely honed complement and contrast. If Anton Rositskiy’s Raoul proved somewhat rough-hewn, the tenor offered staying power and a winning ardency. Olesya Golovneva’s heartfelt Valentine sounded more genuine than any of the writing itself, and was all the more welcome for it. Dimitris Tiliakos impressed too, as a suave, clean-toned Comte de Nevers.

This remained, however, a baffling evening, in which little of the interest of the composer's own Robert le Diable, let alone of another, immeasurably superior composer's Rienzi, was to be discerned. Why Meyerbeer? I have considerably less idea than I did before.

Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Deutsche Oper, 24 October 2019

 Deutsche Oper, Berlin

Image: Bettina Stöß

Hoffmann – Marc Laho

Stella, Olympia, Antonia, Giulietta – Heather Engebretson

Lindorf, Coppélius, Miracle, Dapertutto – Byung Gil Kim

Muse, Nicklausse – Irene Roberts

Andrès, Cochenille, Franz, Pitichianaccio – Andrew Dickinson

Mother’s Voice – Ronnita Miller

Spalanzani – Jörg Schörner

Luther, Crespel – Andrew Harris

Hermann – Matthew Cossack

Schlemihl – Timothy Newton

Natanael – Ya-Chung Huang

Laurent Pelly (director)

Christian Räth (revival director)

Chantal Thomas (designs)

Joël Adam (lighting)

Charles Carcopino (video)

Agathe Mélinand, Katharina Duda (dramaturgy)

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

Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin

Daniel Carter (conductor)

It is a strange piece, The Tales of Hoffmann. I can only speak from my own experience, but, irrespective of performance, irrespective of production, irrespective of textual issues, it never quite seems to come off. Perhaps it is that, as a friend said to me last night, it is too ambitious. That seems to me a better emphasis than ‘problematical’, though arguably the distinction in meaning is negligible. It also points, as that wise and learned friend went on, to the opera’s charm: a more fragile and yes, perhaps, problematical beast, given scale and forces, than the more intimate, often acutely satirical opéras bouffes with which Offenbach is more naturally bien dans sa peau.

Something could – should – be done with those and other tensions, with the work’s metatheatricality, with the fantasy of a work that, after all, is designated an opéra fantastique. Laurent Pelly, alas, would not seem to be the director for any of that. If there is nothing especially wrong with his production, new last year, nor is there anything especially right with – or, better, compelling to – it, either. There are handsome, if highly conservative, set and costume designs (Chantal Thomas, with assistance from Jean-Jaques Delmotte in the latter case), accomplished revival direction and Spielleitung (Christian Räth and Eva-Maria Abelein), and that is about it. Of questions arising from writing an opera based on a play about a writer we have nothing; of any subtexts, be they political, aesthetic, sexual, anything at all, nothing; of a critical standpoint, nothing; of anything approaching modern, let alone contemporary, theatre nothing; and so on, and so forth. There was not even anything in the way of spectacle; unless, out of desperation, you were to count a large video projection of Antonia’s mother’s face, to accompany her voice from beyond. Were this the n^th revival, replete with a new lick of paint, of something in the repertory for four or five decades, one might think something once present had been lost; in this case, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that Pelly had presented precious little to get one’s teeth into in the first place. There is so much more potentially here – one need not look elsewhere – than is acknowledged by so reactionary a standpoint. Just when I thought there might be the glimmerings of a concept, however circumscribed, in the Olympia act, seeing the mechanical doll’s visible stage apparatus, it turned out to be no such thing: sometimes visible stage apparatus is just somewhat unfortunately visible stage apparatus. One can recognise and celebrate the skilled work of all involved backstage – true, valuable skills – while wishing it had been put in the service of something more interesting. The version employed had its virtues and its problems; I shall leave them for another day.

If there was little in the way of theatrical interest, however, there was much to admire musically. This was the first time I had heard Daniel Carter conduct, but I hope it will not be the last. If I say that his conducting did not attract attention to itself, I do not intend to imply that it was dull, far from it; rather, there was a rightness to his choices of tempo, of balance, and everything else that fed the illusion was ‘simply’ hearing Offenbach. The Deutsche Oper’s orchestra and chorus proved estimable partners in crime: incisive, fantastical, wry, full of body as required. French vocal style seems a well-nigh impossible thing for modern, international – even modern French – casts to bring off; or perhaps my expectations are at fault. That said, there was an uncommonly high success rate with the language: never something to be taken for granted. And if some singing tended unduly towards the Italianate, it was not so difficult to enjoy it for what it was. Marc Laho and Heather Engebretson worked tirelessly in the central roles, both vividly communicative, the latter distinguishing and yet combining the demands of her various characters with great success – and scoring higher in the stylistic stakes than most. Byung Gil Kim’s bass-baritone proved a joy from beginning to end; darkly suave, this is surely a Don Giovanni in the making, perhaps already made. Moreover, I can imagine Boris Godunov knocking on the door a few years down the line. Irene Roberts’s Muse and Nicklausse were beautifully, honestly sung and acted throughout: another artist from whom I hope to see and hear more. Andrew Dickinson and – offstage – Ronnita Miller also shone; as, highly creditably, did the excellent tenor, Ya-Chung Huang in the role of Natanael. There were no weak links, though; and, as so often, at this house, a proper sense of company. If only there had been a production to match.