Operatic life in Vienna
Operatic life in Vienna: 3 operas in 3 opera houses in 3 days!
As London is reduced to one opera house, Covent Garden, as the ENO is forced to leave the capital (hopefully Labour will reverse this daft decision!), Vienna continues to flourish as a musical city. It has effectively four different opera houses with the main opera house, the Staatsoper, opening a new studio opera house next year. In a recent visit I saw an excellent ‘Turandot’ at the Staatsoper reviewed recently in the EMR, with Asmik Grigorian excellent as Turandot. We also visited Graz Austria’s second city which has a beautiful opera house and, although the season had ended, in the three days we were there they staged an interesting modern ballet, a production of Kurt Weill’s ‘Tom Sawyer’ with a packed audience of school children, and an operetta. Clearly Austria, a country not much bigger than Scotland, takes its opera seriously!
‘Richard III’ – after Shakespeare and Purcell, Theater an der Wien at the
Kammeroper, 17 June 2024
We began the week with a gem – a new dramatic interpretation of Shakespeare’s ‘Richard III’ in German translation, set to music by Henry Purcell and other English Restoration composers. The piece is the creation of director Kateryna Sokolova and musical director Benjamin Bayl for the Theater an der Wien. The theatre’s famous building on Linke Wienzeile is currently still closed for modernisation and refurbishment, but a full programme has been maintained using other venues, in this case its second venue, the delightful Kammeroper, a small opera house seating 300, tucked away down a side street off the Fleischmarkt. Richard is portrayed by three players, an actor, a singer and a dancer, and they with the rest of a talented cast proved a rounded portrait of Shakespeare’s complex villain and the social context within which he was able to operate. The piece is thought provoking, moving and sometimes funny, a thoroughly entertaining evening. (see Christine Twine’s full review in the Edinburgh Music Review, 26/6/2024)
‘The Gospel According to the Other Mary’, Volksoper, 18 June 2024
This is a semi-staged oratorio by John Adams with a libretto by Peter Sellars using lots of different biblical sources. It was originally performed in Los Angeles in 2012 with Gustavo Dudamel conducting, but its first proper staging was at the ENO in 2014 and it got a mixed reception. Tonight was the European premiere and the Volksoper was packed for the occasion. This was my first visit to the Volksoper which traditionally tends to focus on operettas but it recently gained a new director who is clearly intent on more challenging productions. This European premiere was also made special by the presence of Peter Sellars and he received a warm welcome at the beginning. Shock-headed Peter as he is known, and yes he is still shock-headed, is a controversial figure. I remember meeting him in Adelaide when he was appointed the Adelaide Festival director. He explained how he was going to revolutionise the Adelaide Festival and make it themed on the environment. I laughed and said, “I don’t think Adelaide will like it’ - six months later he was gone!
Sellars attempts to recreate the events at the end of Jesus’s life focussing on the character of Mary Magdalene, also using words and ideas from other contemporary authors such as Dorothy Day and Primo Levi. The style of the production veered from social realism to surrealism and attempting to present the main elements of the biblical stories such as the washing of Jesus’s feet, the last supper the crucifixion and the resurrection. It didn’t convince me and I wasn’t gripped by John Adams music either. I found it strident and grating and there was little melody or beauty. The singers did their best with the material they had but again failed to move me so I confess that I left at the interval, shock-headed Peter certainly shocked me this time!
‘Cosi Fan Tutte’, Wiener Staatsoper, 19th June 2024
We approached this production of Cosi with trepidation after shock-headed Peter at the Volksoper the night before. We had another enfant terrible, Barry Kosky threatening another piece of ‘Regietheatre’ on Mozart. However I have to report I wasn’t so much shocked but bored by his Cosi! The set was a rather classical looking arch but on the stage the characters seemed to be making a rather modern trendy film. Kosky likes lots of physical action in his operas so there was lots of leaping about and stage actions which didn’t help the plot or the singing of the main characters. Among the singers portraying the four lovers Federica Lombardi was best - the others, Emily D’ Angelo as Dorabella, Peter Kellner as Guiglielmo were less memorable, but - singing from the pit, in support of the indisposed Filipe Manu - Ben Bliss did a very good job. It’s interesting that Manu continued gamely to perform his very active acting role – judged too demanding for a last minute replacement – a testament to the frenetic activity required by Kosky of his performers! Kate Lindsay played Despina in a very odd way as a punk with earphones, no doubt at Kosky’s direction, and her singing wasn’t too convincing either. Christopher Maltman fortunately didn’t have anything too silly to do and sang a very decent Don Alfonso. Overall Kosky didn’t shock, but it wasn’t a very memorable production and I can truthfully say I have seen many better Cosi productions. Phillipe Jordan as conductor produced the usual excellent sounds from the orchestra but still with very few women musicians in the orchestra. That’s something that even Kosky can’t change!
