Dressed to be killed

The Deutsche Oper’s present Carmen is the refurbishment of Pier Luigi Samaritani’s 1979 production re-directed by Soeren Schuhmacher. It is a traditional, not really imaginative but not unpleasant staging, which has its moments of restricted budget, such as the invisible parade of a bullfighting team which should show up on stage (as shown here, only [...]

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Etwa bezaubernder

Back to the Lindenoper’s recreation of the historic (and historical) Schinkel production, I can now report a little bit more enchantment because this time I had a parterre ticket. When you have a frontal view of the stage, the cardboard sets do work to the right effect and the fun is not spoilt by the [...]

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Il Barbiere di… Kiev?

The Hamburgishe Staatsoper’s production of Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia (a revival from the 1976 Deflo/Frigerio staging) has become today something like the generic version of Barbiere di Siviglia. You have seen bits of that kind of stage direction, of those sets, of those costumes, of the physical comedy touches in some Barbiere somewhere at [...]

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Es ist wie eine Gruft

In Oscar Wilde’s play, Salome comes to a terrace in Herod’s palace where she would eventually hear the voice of Iokanaan coming from a cistern. It must be terrible to be in so black a hole. It is like a tomb, she says. But in Harry Kupfer’s ooooold production for the Staatsoper unter den Linden, one may [...]

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Wann kommt der nächste Tristan?

The Deutsche Oper’s revival of the 1980 Götz Friedrich production of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde was plagued by the same Tristanlosigkeit that has afflicted the Metropolitan Opera House’s last attempt on Wagner’s masterpiece. The original cast featured Robert Gambill, but one week before the performance the name of Peter Seiffert appeared as a replacement, but [...]

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Design for dying

Thomas Ostermeier’s staging of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler for the Schaubühne updates the plot to our days and shows the Tesman’s house as a posh town house with a Ligne Roset couch and stylish French windows to the garden. Jan Pappelbaum’s sets are indeed beautiful and intelligent – on a revolving stage we can see either [...]

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Israel in Egypt in Berlin

One of Handel’s most massive oratorios, Israel in Egypt is a tour de force for the chorus – the solo numbers are very scarce and, in the contrasting three parts (the original version was adopted for this performance), a showcase of choral writing possibilities are displayed – from anthem-like parallel structures to complex fugal episodes. [...]

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Die Entführung aus der Handlung

What is wrong with Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail to inspire some of the worst operatic stagings in the history of opera? Michael Thalheimer’s new production for the Statsoper unter den Linden is one of the most pretentious pieces of stage direction ever shown to an audience. One might wonder why I am surprised [...]

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A Butterfly worth while pinning

Although Puccini’s Madama Butterfly is said to be one of those operas in which everything depends on the singer taking the title role, the truth is that most of us have almost invariably seen sopranos who are not ideally cast from one reason or another. However, if the production is interesting, the conductor knows how [...]

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It’s glamourous, it’s fabulous, it’s splendidissimo

Think of pale pink and blue, and bright red and silver and the 60’s and a grand hotel somewhere in Alabama and the State’s governor political campaign – and segregation, withcraft and murder. No, it is not a movie with Jane Fonda and Paul Newman. It is the Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito’s 2008 production [...]

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