Ben Baur / Reseñas

Kyungho Kim, der in dieser Saison schon als Prinz in Dvořaks »Rusalka» begeisterte, singt den Faust mit kraftvollem, strahlenden Tenor. Der lebensmüde Ennui („Wann kann ich endlich sterben?“) ist weniger sein Ding, umso leidenschaftlicher gibt er dann Liebenden.

The premiere of Henry Purcell's only opera Dido and Aeneas in 2022 will not take place in a girls' boarding school - as was the case for the London premiere in 1689. Nevertheless, the manageable number of premiere guests in the Aalto Musiktheater Essen gives the impression of being private. Chatting casually, shaking off the dust of the past year from your costume and suit, an exciting expectation hovers in the foyer. Will the Aalto protagonists and the opera-goers finally be able to expect more light in the pandemic-clouded sky this year? Purcell's one-hour tour de force through Greek mythology with the dramatic focus on the unhappy love of a woman for a man who carelessly spurns this love promises a musically ambitious, entertaining gallop into the second half of the 2021/22 season. The constellation between Dido , the queen of Carthage, who, despite her passion, sees herself as having state responsibility, and Aeneas , the Trojan hero who is destined by the gods to found a new Troy in Rome, combines happiness and sorrow into a tragedy . A material par excellence, made for a moving, inspired opera story. The libretto by Nahum Tate based on the 4th canto of Virgil 's Aeneid tells the story of the Roman odyssey of Aeneas after the Trojan War. He flees across the Mediterranean to Carthage with Jupiter's commission to found a new empire in Italy. Jupiter's will and claim to power become the fate of the burgeoning love between Aeneas and the widowed Queen Dido . The hero is ordered to sail to Italy immediately and follow divine destiny. Caught in self-doubt between divine mission and earthly love, he is caught by Mercury disguised as a witchunequivocally reminded of its mission. Aeneas sails to Rome to fulfill the founding myth - and sacrifices his love for a woman. Dido rejects his half-hearted offer to stay in Carthage anyway, pointing to infidelity as a punishment from heaven. She dies. Whether heartbroken or suicide is told differently in mythology. This romantically dazzling, tragically moving story is cast in colorless and powerless blackness in Essen. No sparkling sparks, no matter how hard Andrea Sanguineti tries with a chamber ensemble of the Essen Philharmonic to let these sparks jump onto the stage. Sometimes there is a leaden tiredness over Ben Baur 's uninspired production. The fact that one of the musicians repeatedly sinks into a nap in the long breaks between their performances and hardly resists the sleepiness does not make a good impression on the audience, who sits directly opposite the ensemble at eye level. In the long run, felt subliminally, an attention-braking eye-catcher that distracts from the music and what's happening on stage. If one considers that Dido and Aeneas is a semi-opera in the context of the courtly Singspiel of the 17th century, which has its (subordinate) place after the main program of theater and dance, questions arise logically: Can such a semi-opera work as an opera alone without the preludes? So must Baur 's attempt in Essen inevitably miss the mark? To approach Purcell’s semi-opera from a perspective of cultural-historical complexity or to approach it reflexively with a production, productions such as those by Sasha Waltz at the Berlin State Opera ( Strong Women Left Alone , November 6th, 2019) or those byDavid Marton as part of the Ruhrtriennale ( Martons Purcell- Kraftzentrale , August 31, 2019, both published here) with more convincing dramaturgy ( Christian Schreiber ) and staging stringency. A black-robed, often hooded opera choir from the Aalto Theater dominates the Essen stage . However , their harmoniously woven, atmospherically dense carpet of sound (rehearsed by Patrick Jaskolka ) does not succeed in anticipating light moments and possibilities beyond the dull gloom. For the audience, practiced in social distancing and connected to each other as masked fellow sufferers for two years, the negative darkness of the staging and equipment is very unconvincing. Looking at the solo vocal parts, it is noticeable that men tend to play more inconspicuous roles. Strong women dominate, left alone by men. Tobias Greenhalgh as Aeneas is the only man on the stage apart from the musically ungrateful marginal figure of the first sailor ( Ian Spinetti ). Purcell's composition gives Greenhalgh few opportunities to let the richly colored middle of his baritone shine. Even Jessica Muirhead in the role of Dido , contrary to the suggested expectation of the title, has relatively limited roles. Muirhead tops off with her Ah! Belinda I am prest after the overture at the beginning of the first act the field of action. Her silhouette, reflected on the bare stage background, evokes a cross image. Destiny takes its divine course. Dido's lament - When I am laid in earth - , one of the most famous baroque soprano arias, is performed with expressiveness that gets under your skin. Her silky, shimmering soprano proves the emotional power of music. Composer Purcell and librettist Tate give the acting and singing parts after Belinda ( Giulia Montanari ), Dido's confidante (also 1st witch and ghost) and the 2nd woman and 2nd witch ( Christina Clark) a greater plot presence overall. Her sopranos shine with a melancholic and powerful timbre. The applause for this premiere is more elegantly reserved than enthusiastically overflowing.

Every opera lover knows "Carmen", but Georges Bizet's "Pearl Fishermen" are only rarely performed. The Graz Opera presents the early work in an antiquated production, the driving force of the evening is the soprano Tetiana Miyus. If you still own a video recorder and stumble across a couple of old, dusty VHS cassettes with opera recordings in the basement: What you would see on them would be amazingly similar to what the Graz Opera House is now doing with Georges Bizet's "Die Perlenfischer " indicates. Director Ben Baur and the Graz ballet director Beate Vollack bring very old-fashioned music theater to the stage, unfortunately without retro charm and almost parodically. The unbelievable events in Bizet's pseudo-Ceylon take place between fake blood, theater rocks and long-haired wigs. Baur, who had already shown two rather weak works in Graz, remained true to his method of "greasing up" the clothes box, especially towards the end, with a few visual stimuli (here a skeleton, a man on fire and the like), which did not give the impression of being unoriginal weakened, only strengthened. The appearance of Leïla in the first act indicates how attractive such an opera museum could be. Apart from such positive details, this time you have to be content with a rather banal love triangle against the background of a repressive, archaic system (strong as the high priest Nourabad: Daeho Kim). As regrettable as it is not to assign a director to a dramaturgically unsuccessful piece like “The Pearl Fishers” that authenticates the plot, the music of “Les pêcheurs des perles”, which premiered in Paris in 1863, is as astounding. Bizet's imagination did not allow itself to be domesticated by the weak libretto; it is a melodic, impressive work full of poetry, which already testifies to the talents of the great music dramatist. This poetry can be heard above all through Tetiana Miyus as Leïla, who lends lyrical brilliance and suppleness to this evening: she is not one of the coloratura automatons that one has often heard in this role, she sings with imagination, inwardness and rounded coloratura. She is not guilty of the dramatic outbursts in the third act either, in fact she creates them in a downright brilliant way. Miyus moved in her own league that evening. Her two partners in this opera, which is actually designed like a chamber play, are by no means bad: tenor Andrzej Lampert brings a radiant forte with him, but also gives the nadir a tormented, intense expression, whereby some ugly notes in the top register are certainly not intended to be creative. Baritone Dariusz Perczak is somewhat monochromatic, but very cultivated as a “forgiving” and “forgiving” Zurga in the end. In Bizet's work, the fourth main role is not taken on by the aforementioned bass Nourabad, but by the chorus, which boasts massive breadth here (rehearsal: Bernhard Schneider). Conductor Marcus Merkel creates the right mood for this work with its ominous exoticism, he lets the melodies flourish, but keeps the action in the pulse and demonstrates that this music, a sound blend of early Wagner, Grand Opéra and Offenbach, is not sentimental. Those who concentrate on the music will experience an impressive evening, those who look too much at the stage will probably think of the old VHS tapes at home.

Whenever Semyon Bychkov conducts Strauss I think I've died and gone to heaven. Here though, as he hauls himself through late Mozart, it's the other place that beckons. This Così fan tutte is beyond effortful: the maestro's laboured tempos in most of the arias are so extreme that he adds 15 minutes to the opera's standard running time.After a vocally tight first duet, both Corinne Winters and Angela Brower give delightful accounts of the young women. Winters in particular sings a Fiordiligi of rare range and beauty, with surprisingly strong mezzo notes as well as a radiant upper range. Brower's Dorabella could be more flighty in the second act, but that is down to the director's focus. Gloger shows little interest, either, in exploring the character of Despina, Alfonso's aide-de-camp, although Sabina Puértolas does what she can with her. Alessio Arduini sings a richly basso-shaded Guglielmo most winningly, but it is Daniel Behle who steals the laurels with an account of Ferrando's "Un' aura amorosa" in which time stands still (with a little help from Bychkov). What an exciting tenor he is! It all looks great, with an extravagance of fast-changing eye candy from designer Ben Baur that's exquisitely lit by Bernd Purkrabek, but the price to pay for Gloger's cleverness is an almost total detachment from the characters' psychological interplay—and that's a killer blow to this of all operas. Should the conductor share the blame for that? This Così will earn a revival, so we'll see.

Die PAMY Mediaproductions unter der Leitung von Alexander von Glenck hat es sich zur Aufgabe gemacht, in diesen besonderen Zeiten ein Zeichen für den Erhalt der Kultur zu setzen. Er produzierte im Lockdown eine Inszenierung, die Menschen vieler Altersgruppen für das Genre Oper begeistern möchte. „Figaro für Operneinsteiger“ ist eine knapp eineinhalbstündige Opernversion, geschrieben und inszeniert von der Regisseurin und Autorin Jasmin Solfaghari, die bei der PAMY die Abteilung Oper/Musiktheater leitet. Ihr Erzähler LUNA vom Mond erläutert die Verwicklungen dieser komplexen Handlung durch launige, sowie informative Texte und steht für das Publikum als „roter Faden“ zur Verfügung.