Grigory Shkarupa / Vélemények

Die Inszenierung von Dieter Dorns Traviata war reduziert – sehr reduziert sogar. Aber bei der Wiederaufnahme an der Berliner Staatsoper unter den Linden war man dankbar dafür. Denn der an niederländische Stillleben gemahnende Bühnenaufbau mit den Vanitas-Allegorien des durch Tänzer geformten Totenkopfs hinter einem übergroßen zerbrochenen Spiegel und der stilisierten Sanduhr lenkte nicht vom Wesentlichen ab. Und das waren die Sänger. Allen voran Elsa Dreisig, die frisch aus dem internationalen Opernstudio sogleich auf die Bühne und ins Solistenensemble der Staatsoper geholt worden war, und die zu Saisonbeginn die Gretel in Hänsel und Gretel und sodann direkt die Violetta in Giuseppe Verdis La traviata geben sollte.

Musically the evening was in a class by itself, superior even to the previous Festtage performances. The Staatskapelle had reached a state of grace even before the curtain had gone up, with fulsome strings and subtle woodwinds giving way to tidal swells of brass. Daniel Barenboim has always been good at drawing mysterious solemnity from the Vorspiel, but on this evening he achieved something close to perfection. The intensity of those opening moments in the dark of the theatre carried over into the first act, bringing momentum to the action without compromising the spacious tempi and ineffable majesty at the heart of Mr Barenboim’s reading. Gurnemanz’s journey through the backstory proceeded with unerring focus, and his lament for the dead swan was bolstered by a sad luminescence.

The young Achim Freyer’s design is a marvel of ingenious simplicity. The floor of the stage is white with thinly etched black lines. An area in the centre of the stage is enclosed by a square of white curtains, an image of a Seville street gently etched upon them. These curtains are opened and closed to allow access to action, which floats playfully above concrete concerns of verisimilitude. The music lesson’s harpsichord is an ingenious trompe-l'œil box; the storm is enacted with the simplest and most effective means.

Belle reprise à Berlin, au Staatsoper Unter den Linden, d’une production de novembre 2013 du Trouvère, dans la vision de Philipp Stölzl. A revoir la version initiale (Domingo, Netrebko, Rivero, Prudenskaya, pour le quatuor vocal, le tout sous la direction de Barenboïm), on se dit hâtivement qu’il ne peut s’agir là que d’une seconde distribution en somme. Or, ce n’est pas tout à fait exact, tant cette soirée, pour irrégulière qu’elle fut par certains aspects, nous offrit aussi de jolis moments, voire quelques fulgurances dont on se souviendra.

Of the three principals, Marcelo Álvarez was most successful at integrating a strain of lyricism into an otherwise dramatic role. His Dick Johnson stood apart from the patrons of the Polka bar not only in sartorial terms – his crisp black suit put him immediately at odds with the jeans and flannel around him – but in his suave, supple delivery, especially his elegantly sculpted expressions of feeling for Minnie at the end of the first act. As Jack Rance, Michael Volle distinguished himself as much through intelligence as force; he was the most charismatically dangerous figure on stage, yet his glowering, contemptuous manner with the miners made his brief flashes of humanity all the more disarming. He was also an ideal vocal partner for Ms Kampe, and in an opera full of grandly-wrought emotion, the palpable malice in the scenes between Minnie and Rance emerged as perhaps the most authentic; for all the production’s visual flash, it was the simple confrontation between these two forces that provided the evening with its greatest excitement.