Past Production Reviews
3Marc Minkowski’s Les Musiciens du Louvre are key to Adrian Noble’s production of Handel's Alcina, mounted only nine times since its 2010 première before this revival. When new, the production marked a rare foray into Baroque repertoire for the Wiener Staatsoper, and it remains so. This return of Minkowski’s Baroque specialist ensemble was met with sustained enthusiastic applause on opening night as all of the instrumentalists took their curtain call. Many of them had already been onstage, integrated into Noble’s interpretation of the opera as an evening of entertainment performed in the ballroom of an English Countess. With the Countess and her family and friends taking up the roles in the opera, Anthony Ward's stylish ballroom/conservatory set transforms to accommodate their theatrical imagination in lively and colorful ways, including a hot air balloon entrance for Bradamante and Melisso, and a brilliant field of green (the sorceress Alcina's island of bewitched seduction and transformation) that extends into the distance. The fresh cast yielded many captivating musical stretches, and together with Les Musiciens du Louvre, affirmed the value of spirit, dramatic variety and nuance within predictably repetitious forms and an admittedly generous venue. As the play-within-a-play came to the foreground, the principal singers became more vocally secure and expressive. Chen Reiss emerged persuasively as Alcina's sister Morgana for her Act I "Tornami a vagheggiar", in which she repeatedly urges (in vain) the disguised Bradamente to return. With the story continuing apace in this production, Rachel Frenkel's Ruggiero becomes aware of the deception all around as the extended bright landscape turns dark, but beautifully infused by starlight. In this magically sombre atmosphere, Frenkel achieved a welcome penetrating and full tone while gritty instrumental timbres effectively launched Margarita Gritskova's (Bradamente) riveting and tightly controlled "Vorrei vendicarmi", with its suicidal inner section. Following this troubled, searching dramatic thread through to "Ah! mio cor!", Noble and Myrtò Papatanasiu as Alcina scored a theatrically thrilling conclusion to the first part. Prostate for an extended time, seemingly powerless, Papatanasiu nevertheless conveyed her continued quest to control others through generous timbre, radiating sustained lines. Minkowski and his musicians helped charge the house with energy before the curtain fell. Although the score has been substantially trimmed, the lack of meaningful character development presents challenges as the plot of Alcina unfolds and aria types become less distinctive – an engrained issue that might have benefited from more vocal variety in the cast. Warmly lyrical were Benjamin Bruns' Oronte and Orhan Yildiz's Melisso. As the young boy Oberto, Lionel Wunsch tackled his three challenging arias with energy, a secure sense of pitch and captivating stage presence. What begins in this production as a private, amateur enactment of the story gradually deepens to support more direct identification with Handel's characters. The dance sequence is here treated as a tug of war between dark and light forces as Alcina sleeps, an effective interpretation of the music's sharply contrasting qualities. Later, during Morgana's mournful "Credete al mio dolore", the obbligato cello part is performed on stage. The concluding poignant instrumental cadenza elicits emotive responses from the onstage audience of silent male characters, who later seem poised to intervene when Alcina throttled Ruggiero. The onstage artistic spell is cleverly broken during Ruggiero's aria about an angry tigress, which is neither a convincing nor threatening simile, but entertaining and toe-tapping nevertheless.Baroque purists might prefer a more surefire line-up of brilliantly executed arias, but the theatrical framework of thisAlcina offers a great deal, and is cast in an appealing and not infrequently memorable way.
Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabitoemphasize the consistent restoration of women's rule in their spacious production of Bellini's "Norma". In the priestess Norma, who serves her gods and yet does not want to live chastely, Bellini depicts in glowing colors the disturbing double life of a woman who is extremely capable of love. However, she has also re-appropriated her dominion herself and has moved into the temple with her children. As a spiritual authority, Norma gives direction to her oppressed people. At the same time, there is a secret love agreement with Pollione, which he breaks when he falls hopelessly in love with Adalgisa. In her anguish, she entrusts her love to the High Priestess. In wild revenge, Norma first wants to kill her and Pollione's children, which the production captures in garish images. in trying Forcibly kidnapping Adalgisa from the temple, Pollione is seized. Norma orders a woodpile to be built for a priestess who has betrayed her country and her gods. But she does not mention Adalgisa's name, but her own. Then she is led to execution. All of this is only hinted at in the production (stage and costumes:Anna Viebrock ; scenic direction of the revival: Anika Rutkofsky ). There are always references to the modern world - from the telephone to the pull-out bed. Even if mystical and metaphysical moments are largely missing in this interpretation, the directing of the characters is all the more credible. One understands, above all, in the convincing performance of the excellent Spanish soprano Yolanda Auyanet,that Norma has the special dignity of a goddess, while she is only criminalized in Alexandre Soumet's play. At the same time, Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito make it clear that Norma is not Medea. Her vengeance is not so merciless, she is ready for a limitless self-sacrifice that leaves the people first shaken and then all the more angry. The strength and power of the mass rebellion stands out in this production in an extremely rousing and breathless way. Under the fiery direction of the young Italian conductor Giacomo Sagripanti, the Stuttgart State Orchestra performs with esprit and grandeur. Bellini's tonal language speaks with a thousand tongues, bringing boundless human passions to life. The brass players also appear at the side entrances and give the production a strange military character. One senses how strongly this work must have influenced Giuseppe Verdi, for example. Yolanda Auyanet lets the ecstatic surge of prayer in “Casta Diva” blossom in passionate cantilenas – and invoked in the cabaletta her marriage bond with Pollione in a most moving way. Yolanda Auyanet traces the contrast between prayer and cabaletta with an even timbre and top tones that rise to the limit. However, the magic of bel canto is also revealed in the touching embodiment of Adalgisa by the extremely emotional acting and excellent singing Diana Haller. Diminished intervals and chromatic passages of the score are then implemented in a gripping manner in the highest moments of despair. The outstanding Staatsopernchor Stuttgart ( studyer: Bernhard Moncado ) plays a central role in this , always dominating the stage in an almost all-encompassing manner. The radiant tenorAs Pollione, Massimo Giordano evokes his mental turmoil more and more believably, only to finally emphasize the larger-than-life presence of this character Giacomo Sagripanti has a special feeling for Bellini's overheated tonal language, which considerably strengthens and accelerates the singing culture and virtuosity of the singers. Liang Li portrays Oroveso as the head of the druids with a sonorous bass, while Regina Friedek as Norma's confidant Clotilde and Daniel Kluge as Pollione's friend Flavio provide interesting role portraits. Katarina Tomic and Konstantin Vogel can also be seen as Norma and Pollione's children . Cheers, frenetic applause.
The evening began with an interesting and funny doubling of what was happening on stage in the video. And especially in the middle part of the piece, an eerie portrait of the stone monster with its hidden corners and corridors is drawn on the revolving stage. It is a house where the sun enters only to die. The lightbulb flickers, in a wooden chamber an illuminated fan creates a spooky atmosphere. In part, Anna Viebrock collages older productions here, accompanied by Debussy's deceptive soundscapes. But when video sequences are recorded after the actual piece, recorded inside the National Theater, accompanied by dialogues from Elio Petri's science fiction film "La decima vittima", it all becomes too much, too vague, too slapstick. In the end, the extension of the piece has almost no effect at all, at least the viewer doesn't really get closer to Lady Madeline. It would have been better if the line had been drawn earlier. This leaves 90 long minutes with only restrained applause.
