Past Production Reviews
7Abandon hope, all ye that enter the Staatsoper Hannover to see Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, directed by Silvia Costa. The legend of Orpheus and Eurydice has inspired so many poets, musicians, painters, sculptors, film directors, choreographers. Gluck, Offenbach, Cocteau, Camus, Rubens, Poussin, Corot, Anouilh, Tennessee Williams, Balanchine, Stravinsky, Poynter, Stanhope, Watts etc, etc. There have been over 100 operas. Monteverdi’s opera, which premièred in Italy in 1607 and is universally agreed to be the first great opera, is about the power of music. Orpheus, with his golden lyre (a birthday present from Apollo, his dad) and his virtuoso singing, charms mortals, gods, the dead, animals, birds, fish, rivers, trees, rocks, everybody and everything. Silvia Costa’s production charms nobody and she was booed in the curtain call. The production is badly staged, badly designed, badly lit and badly filmed. Costa’s conception is that the tragedy has already happened. Orpheus is disorientated and reliving the nightmare he has been through. He is still in the Underworld, a dark, sombre, ugly underworld full of naked bodies. The performance is his hallucination. Orpheus loses Eurydice twice: firstly, on their marriage day when she is bitten by a snake and dies; secondly, after he had retrieved her from Hades and, contrary to Pluto’s clear instructions, he looks back to see if she is still following him and loses her forever. Orpheus (Luvuyo Mbundu), clothed all in white, suffers deeply. “Give me back what is mine!” he cries. Costa works him hard. She has him crawling all over the stage, playing with props and even doing some graffiti. When he takes off his shirt, he looks more like a boxer than a poet. Nobody looks physically right, except Prosperpina (Nina van Essen). Hope (Nils Wanderer) is costumed and made-up to like a commedia dell’arte clown. Caronte (Markus Suihkonen) is practically invisible. Plutone (Richard Walshe) has big breasts and swimming trunks. The chorus don’t look like nymphs and shepherds; they look like miserable refugees. Apollo (Marco Lee) appears dressed as a doctor and wearing a head mirror. He assists in Orpheus’s suicide with a cyanide pill. One option for home viewers would be to ignore what is going on the murky screen and just listen to the singers and the orchestra conducted by David Bates. There is some lovely music. Monteverdi is good value.
“On this happy and auspicious day which marks the end of the amorous sufferings of our demi-god, let us sing, shepherds, such sweet melodies, that worthy of Orpheus may be our concerts.” So implores the Shepherd at the start of Act 1 of Monteverdi’s Orfeo, in an earnest appeal to celebrate the forthcoming nuptials of Orfeo and Eurydice – to which the nymphs and shepherds respond with a carefree canzonet in praise of Hymen, whose “flaming torch” brings to the lovers “cloudless days”.
Hanover. The music whispers, but the picture speaks a clear language. But only at first glance. In the orchestra pit it shimmers between major and minor, on stage black and white dominate. In the Hanoverian new production, Franz Schreker's psychodrama "The Drawn Ones" is in an energetic field of tension. After three hours, this tension erupts in the great approval of the premiere audience. Concentrated and sonorous While Kapellmeister Mark Rohde unfolds the ten-minute prelude in an exemplary manner with the concentrated and sonorous performance of the Lower Saxony State Orchestra, the picture puzzle that director Johannes von Matuschka and his stage designer Christof Hetzer have set is solved. What lies there on a curvature of the earth is a human being. No, they are two people wedged together. They break away, one stands on crutches, the other leans on a stick that can be shaped into a makeshift chair, but can also be used as a weapon. They are the protagonists, the adversaries who are more alike than it first appears: the rich but ugly Alviano and the victorious but mentally crippled macho Tamare. Both later fight over Carlotta, the city governor's daughter. Together they form a trio infernale, Crime and psychological drama What Franz Schreker composed as a libretto more than 100 years ago is a thriller and psychological drama. The wealthy Alviano has created an artificial island that is a work of art and a place of pleasure. But he doesn't dare to enter this elysium of beauty because he doesn't want to disturb the harmony. And for fear of being pushed away and cast out. When he decides to give "Elysium" to the people of Genoa, his noble friends, who are hiding there in hiding and celebrating their violent sex orgies, find themselves in need. But then Alviano falls in love with Carlotta, the unconventional and terminally ill daughter of the Podestà, who is also a painter. When she talks about a painting in the second act, in which a hand clutches a heart deadly, she describes her fate - and gives singer Karine Babajanyan the chance to demonstrate the urgency of her soprano. Almost a chamber play Director Johannes von Matuschka tells this story almost as a chamber play, always concentrating on the duel between Alviano and Tamare. This is sometimes sparse in its scenic manageability, for example when Duke Adorno (powerful: Stefan Adam) stands around as if he were Gurnemanz, who would rather sing Klingsor. On the other hand, the guest Jordan Shanahan was also cleverly threaded into the duel with crutches and sticks. The singer, who was born in Hawaii, stood in for Brian Davis, who was ill, and cuts a fine figure as Tamare, both vocally and playfully. Robert Künzli, the in-house specialist for artistically torn heroes, appears as Alviano: with tenoral radiance and a pale tone when mental derangement envelops him at the end. His crutch work is admirable, as is his character portrayal: in love with self-hatred and consumed by unrealized love. Karine Babajanyan staggers towards the end with similar intensity: driven by the instinct and the death instinct. Her Carlotta also stands out in color from the black, gray and white and one is grateful to Florence von Gerkan for not choosing a bright red dress as costume designer, but a yellow one. Moderately orgiastic There are also many people in Genoa. The Hanoverian opera choir is magnificently prepared, the many roles of nobles and councilors are cleverly cast from the ensemble. With the various orgy scenes, which are presented here in a rather stylized way, one would prefer not to imagine what Calixto Bieito would have been up to as a blood-and-testicles director. The music is responsible for the moderately orgiastic here, which is ecstatic but never sultry, which knows "Star Wars" brass and fine violin web - all excellently illuminated by conductor Mark Rohde and the state orchestra. During its triumphal procession 100 years ago, "The Drawn Ones" had already come to Hanover. The Nazis banned this “degenerate music” and it was only heard again in Germany 40 years ago (with Neuenfels and Gielen in Frankfurt). Now the visitors apparently thought it was time to see and hear again: much applause for all.
Das großartige Ensemble (Celine Akçağ, Tahnee Niboro, Gudrun Pelker, Mathias Max Herrmann, Yannick Spanier, Richard Walshe, Sascha Zarrabi) agiert wie ein Körper, was auch an den ständig wechselnden Rollen liegt. Mit wunderbarer Präzision und geradezu schlafwandlerischer Abstimmung untereinander wurde hier gespielt und gesungen. Das war eine große Leistung!
Die sieben im Internet-Café anwesenden Personen mit den in den Wiederholungen wechselnden Rollenspielen werden von hoch-engagierten Sängern der Staatsoper Hannover, Céline Akçağ, Tahnee Niboro, Gudrun Pelker, Yannick Spanier, Richard Walshe und Sasha Zarrabi sowie dem Schauspieler Mathias Max Herrmann zur eindringlich zur Darstellung gebracht.
Welch Gegensatz ist da Daniel Miroslaws Basilio, den er elitär und etwas spießig anlegt. Mit einem voluminösen Bass ausgestattet, konnte er besonders mit der La calunnia-Arie überzeugen und sorgt zudem für so manchen Lacher durch sein lebhaftes Spiel im Quintett des zweiten Aktes
Peter Bording spielt ihn als smarten Softie im Macho-Gewand und singt mit locker eingesetztem, schönem Bariton - ein zarter Reflex auf Thomas Hampson, in Stimme wie Erscheinung.
