I have always had an interest in Simone Kermes. She has been some sort of puzzle I could not seem to complete: on one hand, the cool-toned baroque diva with impeccable divisions and impossibly effortless in alts; on the other hand, this soprano with leather outfit, crimson*-dyed hair and rock-band vocalist flamboyant attitude. What is hidden in the abyss that lies between both aspects is a mystery one can only solve live.

I have tried to see Kermes in the flesh many times in vain. Although she hails from Leipzig, she has made herself rare in Berlin and, when I saw that she would be here this week-end, I have sought a ticket everywhere. Despite the fact that there was little publicity about her appearance at the RBB’s Haus des Rundfunks, I could not get one of the entirely free tickets. My attempt to go to the Deutsche Oper gala concert in which she would sing just one aria were also frustrated – the few remaining tickets costed the price of six complete recordings of Wagner’s Ring cycle. When all hope was lost and I was trying to set my mind on something else while shopping at Dussman, there I saw that poster saying she would appear there on Tuesday evening – no tickets necessary. It seemed to good to be true – and I soon imagined that it would be only an interview. In any case, there I went.

It was far more than an interview. Actually, the moderator fell ill and Simone Kermes herself decided to play that role. As soon as I saw her entirely at ease with the microphone, interviewing her conductor, making insanely funny jokes and dealing with the audience face to face, one could see that although La Kermes is ultimately a “character”, this is a character she plays in real life. There is no pasteurized glamour neither cultivated intellectuality about her – she is 100% German in her heartiness. One second after she had finished to sing a heavenly lamento, noticing that some people were leaving the hall, she grabbed the microphone. “It is so disconcerting when one leaves the moment you finish a song. You feel as if you have sung really badly. Have I?”. It was not a rhetorical question, since it was put to someone seated on the first row, who timidly said something like “of course not!”.

The curious thing about Kermes’s directness is that it does not feel harsh at all. Behind the bandleader attitude that involves stamping her feet on stage, grimacing and dancing to the rhythm of her own fioriture, there is a genuine unbridled enthusiasm. The lady has tons of personality and is totally uninhibited about pouring all that on stage. Accompanied by a not entirely stylish Semjon Skigin on the piano, she offered the audience tidbits of her new CD of Neapolitan arias with Le Musiche Nove under conductor Claudio Osele.

The first item was Vinci’s Fra cento affani e cento from Ataserse, in which she was not afraid of producing some hoarse sounds while looking frantic about herself. Although the whole thing was doubtlessly over-the-top, it was the kind of over-the-top made with such gusto that you cannot help surrendering. When she later sang Porpora’s Morte amara from Lucio Papirio, she just needed a second to shift into an atmosphere of extreme melancholy and spiritual concentration. Nothing sounded affected or elaborated – the impression was heartfelt and intimate as one voice-and-guitar sad pop song, although no rule of baroque style has been overlooked. After one hour of intelligent and entertaining comments on subjects from vocal technique, baroque and classical performing styles to sexual ambiguity in XVIIIth century and Pink Floyd, she offered a coloratura display in Hasse’s Come nave in mezzo all’onde from Viriate. After all that speaking, I can understand that some gear changes were not entirely natural, but one cannot cease to marvel at her purity of tone, the naturalness of her high notes, the perfect trills, among other technical niceties. After the warm applauses, she treated the audience to two encores – a chilling account of Pergolesi’s Tu me da me dividi from L’Olimpiade, during which she became the dictionary definition of fury, and a heartbreaking, hushed Lascia ch’io pianga from Handel’s Rinaldo.

She would also sign audience members’ CDs while talking to them as if she long knew everyone, making all sort of comments and seeming to be having as much fun as her fans.

The question my five or six readers (you too, Roberto!) are dying to ask me is – why I seem to be positive about a concert which has so much in common with the one Cecilia Bartoli offered at the Philharmonie that I ultimately did not like? And I am ready to answer. First, I find Simone Kermes’s vocal technique more honest than Bartoli’s – her soprano is healthy, natural and very much hearable in its brightness which has nothing metallic about it (to be honest myself, the comparison is not fair – the Philharmonie is a big hall and there was an orchestra there). Second, although there is something theatrical about Kermes, it does not seem affected at all. She must be that way while taking her breakfast cereals at home with her family. With Bartoli, there is an uncomfortable mix of coyness and clownishness à la Roberto Benigni that might please others but that is very irritating to me. Third, there is this blend of German bluntness and love of detail and of Italianate generosity of feelings and larger-than-life quality that makes her somewhat unique. No wonder the Italian reviewers all raved about her recent concert in Rome.

One last comment: as many bright-toned singers, Kermes’s voice works far better live, when it has a lovely smooth radiance. Also, her plunges into low register sound far more natural and substantial in the theatre. Comparing her live performance with the ones available in the CD, I found that the recording made her voice less rich in colour and character. In any case, this is a release to cherish – especially for the exquisite renditions of lamenti and arie d’affetto.

*It would take me a while to realise that Kermes is basically the name of the vermicule that produces crimson dye (therfore vermillion).

My five or six readers know that I have tried hard to get used to René Jacobs’s wayward Mozart. I have even showed some appreciation for his Idomeneo, but the truth is that it always requires from me an enormous effort of adaptation. This evening’s Zauberflöte, performed in concert version in the Philharmonie, tested my open-mindness from moment one. The orchestral sound was brassy, the tempo was too brisk for the string players and blurred divisions abounded.

Then there was the omnipresent odd sudden tempo shift. Although some of that seemed to be justified by the libretto, the libretto itself did not inspire the composer himself to write any of these in the score. It seems that the many cute liberties taken with what Mozart wrote did not annoy the audience: unwritten pauses, an intruding fortepiano “continuo” (also during dialogues), misplaced ornaments (does the folksong-like simplicity of Könnte jeder brave Mann call for decorations, for example?), soloists appearing in choral parts and chorus appearing in solo parts… Does Mozart need all that? One could surely make use of some theatricality, but Jacobs’s approach is so Schwarzkopf-ian in its various and self-conscious mannerisms that all possibility of immediacy and directness is lost; one would think that the work had been composed for a court theatre! If I had to find a positive side to all that, that would be finally listening to a conductor who had at least cared to read through the score, but I really wished he had not overwritten on it.

During this performance, I have started to think that it is a pity that all lyric voices today are probably singing Wagner and Verdi above their natural Fach today. Long gone are the days where substantial-voiced singers appeared in Mozart.  Our generation has very rare or no singers like Gundula Janowitz, Margaret Price, Francisco Araiza or Fritz Wunderlich and listening to Die Zauberflöte in a big hall such as the Philharmonie finally involves singing without the last ounce of tonal freedom, as we heard today.

Lovely as Marlis Petersen’s light soprano is, it has no colour in its lower reaches and moments that require stronger dynamics are met with some strain. Of course, she is an intelligent and expressive singer and her clever handling of Jacobs’s genuine andante for Ach, ich fühl’s deserves praise. Anna Kristiina Kaappola is tonally shallow and only acquires hearability in its high register. She handles the specific challenges of the part of the Königin der Nacht really nimbly – and her in alts are really bright and firm – but ”ordinary” phrases are handled in such an indistinguished manner that one could take the role as she were practising her Vaccai in front of the audience. In any case, her intent to sing her staccato notes with the vowel of the text is admirable. Daniel Behle’s tenor sounds a bit bottled-up and straight-toned in its higher reaches. That said, it has been a while since I last heard the role of Tamino sung with such variety, good-taste and stylishness. Daniel Schmutzhard’s Papageno, on the other hand, was tonally unvaried and vocally small-scaled. He is a funny guy and finally beguiled the audience with his acting skills, but there should be more than an Austrian accent (a must for the role, according to the conductor’s words in the libretto) in Papageno. Marcos Fink has a beautiful voice and sings with affection, but hitting the low notes does not mean that one has the depth of voice required by it. As it is, his Sarastro was more a matter of elegance than of authority. In his sense, the evening’s Sprecher, Konstantin Wolff offered something more forceful than anyone else. The three ladies, Inga Kalna, Anna Gravelius and Isabelle Druet were extremely spirited, but I wished for a bit more focus from all of them. In that sense, the three St. Florian Sängerknaben offered a particularly clear sound.

In order to fund the old house’s renovation, the Staatsoper Unter den Linden has programmed a series of concerts to raise money. Taking profit of the opportunity of Plácido Domingo’s baritone venture in Simon Boccanegra, a Wagnerian evening with star soprano Nina Stemme and conductor Daniel Barenboim was organized in the Philharmonie. However, the Swedish soprano fell ill and was replaced at the last minute by a regular in the Lindenoper, mezzo Michaela Schuster, last seen as Ortrud in the première of the new production last April.

However, before these singers could open their mouths, Barenboim treated the audience to a sensational performance of  Tristan und Isolde’s Prelude and Liebestod. As in his last performance in the Staatsoper, the conductor indulged in a considerate tempo in order to showcase the orchestra’s sophisticated phrasing, tonal refulgence and clarity. The ensuing Liebestod offered an entirely contrasting approach, almost dance-like, in which the escalating chromatic figures spiralled in clearly defined alternate dynamic effects to breathtaking results.

After a white-heat start, The Valkyrie’s Act I would finally settle into something rather less impressive. Although the orchestra was in great shape, the need to adapt to the soloist’s necessities took its toil in what regards horizontal clarity and pace. Of course, Plácido Domingo’s vocal longevity is a marvel. The tone is certainly darker these days, but the sound is still fresh. However, the tenor needed some time to prepare for his ascent to top notes or for fast declamatory passages, forcing the conductor to step on the break pedal, for the loss of fluency sometimes. That said, he seemed far more comfortable than last time I heard him as Siegmund at the Gala concert in Munich with Waltraud Meier some two or three years ago.  A colleague from the Staatsoper’s Noccanegra, Kwangchul Youn was in great voice, producing some powerful sounds as Hunding.

Michaela Schuster deserves a paragraph for herself. I have seen her only twice as Ortrud, both in Berlin and Munich, and have found her vocally no more than efficient, but tonight, in this soprano role, I was able to understand more about her voice. Free from the burden of sounding formidable and dramatic, one can see the naturally lighter hue of her voice, which is surprisingly pleasant, soft and bright. I could imagine that she would be a touching in French roles such as Charlotte or Didon. In her more relaxed self, she floats lovely mezza voce and phrases with authentic legato. When things start to get too “Wagnerian”, the usual harsh quality comes unfortunately about. Of course, when the phrase is congenial she produces some firm big acuti, but generally she attacks them in a strangely backwards placement only to focus them a few seconds later. In order to accomodate her, the conductor had often to kept the orchestra’s enthusiasm on a leash.  But that is all secondary when one considers her highly expressive interpretation. Crystal-clear diction, the wide tonal palette of a Lieder singer and a highly alert and imaginative way of colouring the text. Some moments of her performance were original and illuminating even in comparison with some very famous Sieglindes. I really wish she would give her Ortruds and Kundrys a rest and made better use of her talent for subtlety for more than a change.

I have read a lot about Robert Carsen’s production of Wagner’s Tannhaeuser and regretted that I could not be in Paris to check it. So when I read that it would be restaged in Rome, I’ve decided to follow Elisabeth’s advice: Nach Rom! However, here I am in Rome, but not Carsen’s production… The Teatro dell’Opera had later on checked its pocket and realized that, oops, they couldn’t afford to bring it. I felt inclined to be upset, but since they took the decision to hire Riccardo Muti as musical director, I have been trying to keep my mind open to the Roman opera house’s decisions. But, as much as Tannhaeuser had to keep his eyes closed not to see Italy’s charming landscape, I felt I should do the same before Filippo Crivelli’s ad hoc production. OK, limited budget is always challenging etc, but what I have just seen vies with Cecilia Bartoli’s new CD’s cover for the title of human race’s ugliest creations. And the idea was to knock you out from moment one.

Venusberg is basically an archway made of pink fabric upon which imaged of naked women taken from famous paintings were projected. Ah, and there was a couch for Venus, whose costume is reminiscent  of Disney’s The Little Mermaid. When the mention of the Virgin Mary’s name transforms the whole thing in Thuringia, Crivelli must have thought of the DDR, since it basically consists of three sets of flat tree trunks with a catwalk on the background. Act II was more conventional – it looks like the Met’s production bar the money. To make things worse, the show was truly poorly lit and the costumes left a lot to be desired. I leave the worst for last – Gillian Whittingham’s coreography for the bacchanale. Some of my neighbours laughed, while I tried to look away out of compassion.  In a few words, the idea seemed to have some people running back and forth or giving hands to each other and circling. Seriously, if vice looks like that, one can perfectly understand why Tannhaeuser longs so much for the Virgin Mary.

As it was, Béatrice Uria-Monzon had to provide all the sexiness by herself. Her soft-grained yet spacious mezzo soprano does seduction without much ado, but the exposed dramatic high notes test her sorely. I do not know if the conductor tried to help her with very fast tempi in the Venusberg scene, but apparently only made her lag behind the beat at moments. Martina Serafin seemed to inhabit an entirely different theatrical and vocal universe. Although she is Viennese, her whole approach suggests the words soprano lirico spinto. She has a warm, large, rich soprano, approaches phrasing almost like a Verdian soprano, with portamento aplenty and a Renata Tebaldi-ian cantabile glamour. The comparison with Tebaldi is not accidental – although she is very expressive, it is some sort of generalized yet touching expressivity. Also, her whole stage attitude has an old-fashioned grandeur, hardly compatible with the virtuous Elisabeth. In any case, this is a voice of impressive resources albeit not entirely in control. Many loud top notes came off poorly focused or harsh, and her mezza is not really reliable. Dich teure Halle was rather solid than triumphant, but her act III prayer was sensitively done. I am not entirely convinced that Tannhaeuser is a good role for Stig Andersen. His voice is not truly large, but he produces some forceful top notes now and then, provided that there is not many of them in sequence, for they noticeably tax him. Because of the stress, his praising of Venus in act I was quite arthritic, but he finally pulled out act III out of the freshness of his approach. Whereas many a tenor in this repertoire would tell his pilgrimage to Rome as a stretch of heroic singing, Andersen sang it with restraint, savouring the words, creating the impression of a broken spirit, colouring the Pope’s world with real scorn. A flawed yet valid performance. Matthias Goerne also has problems with high notes – anything above mezzo forte is dealt with either strain or head voice. But the whole performance seemed to be conveyed to the Abendstern song, which was so exquisitely performed that one would forgive him anything. Finally, Christof Fischesser was a reliable Hermann in spite of the occasional curdled-toned moments.

After a bumpy act I, conductor Daniel Kawka settled into such a honest performance that he finally won me over with his transparent ensembles, natural pace and cleanliness. I particularly appreciate the way he embraced the orchestra’s sound – bright and flexible, as many Italian orchestras tend to produce – instead of trying to impose a teutonic large and fat sound that would only vex them. And the house orchestra was in good shape – the brass section could be nobler, but was quite clean, the lean-sounding string sections produced liquid divisions and everybody kept animation to the last chord. It is a pity that the chorus was way below that level – the women are particularly problematic, including in what regards intonation.

For the Accademia di Santa Cecilia’s season opening concert, musical director Antonio Pappano has chosen Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, a work that this orchestra had the honour to premiere in Italy in 1924 (!). It is certainly the right choice to highlight the abilities of chorus and orchestra – and the Santa Cecilia acquited itself quite well in the test. The strings have a clear, bright sound and deal rather commendably with passagework and the brass are generally accurate and noble sounding. The chorus has a full-toned quality almost exclusively found in Italy – the tenors are particularly healthy-sounding. I found their energetic approach proper to Beethoven and maestro Norbert Balatsch has done a very good work to keep discipline within the animation. The sopranos had their edgy moments and some melisme could be clearer, but that are minor blemishes in a commendably large-scale and enthusiastic approach. At this point, my five or six readers may be puzzled by these words in relation to this post’s title – yes, the 1,000,000 dollar-question is: why has this performance ultimately failed to deliver the goods?

I have a friend who uses to say that you should always see the last in a series of concerts in Germany and the first of them in Italy. According to him, the last concert in Germany will have gained in experience from the previous ones and offer an improved experience, whereas in Italy the musicians will simply have lost steam before that. Is that a prejudiced notion? Probably. I haven’t seen the first concert out of these tree performances with Pappano, but the truth is that the last one seemed to have the flesh, but not the spirit. His phrasing was lively, even theatrical at times, but the sound picture lacked weight somehow and instead of momentum, one had the impression of edge, histery rather than vehemence. I do not know how much the acoustics are to blame, but I found many contrapuntal passages blurred also. The solo by the orchestra’s spalla in the heavenly Benedicuts was too sentimentalized in its generous vibrato to produce the right effect and the dona nobis pacem just failed to culminate into a sensation of conclusion.

Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis is also hard work for the soloists, and Pappano’s choice of singers was almost invariably wrong for the approach and for the hall. To start with, larger voices were needed. It is not that these singers were almost always overshadowed by the chorus, they were sometimes difficult to hear when singing with the orchestra alone. The soprano part, for instance, is particularly difficult because of the periculously high tessitura. Emma Bell does master the art of floating high mezza voce, although one can now and then feel how strenuous this must be, but when the dynamic is other than piano, the sound is simply too unfocused to carry in the auditorium. Anna Larsson’s low register, dark as it is, is similarly too soft-edged for this piece. Considering the riches of choice of Italian mezzos and contraltos with a forceful sound down at the bottom of their range, this is particularly frustrating. If Roberto Saccà is technically accomplished, the tone is too metallic and unflowing for this music. Only German bass Georg Zeppenfeld produced the right effect in this music, especially in the second part, when he sang with classical poise, liquid phrasing and chocolate-y tonal quality.

I have never convinced myself whether I like Cecilia Bartoli or not. Well, that is a lie. I am pretty sure if I had to choose between liking and disliking I would pick “disliking”. But I have been trying to like for ages. In any case, I did not want to make a decision before seeing her live. However, fate had carefully kept us apart before this evening, when I had a ticket and she did not cancel the concert in Berlin to promote her new CD (the hideous cover of it goes to the top of my shortlist of human race’s horridest creations).

As everyone knows, the CD is a tribute to castrati and the concert features arias written specifically for the voices of Farinelli, Caffarelli, Salimbeni et al. Of course, no-one has ever heard the voice of a castrato (with the exception of the bizarre recordings with Alessandro Moreschi), but every report insists on the point that the sound tended to be “metallic”, what makes perfect sense if you have a tenor’s voice (albeit in the alto or soprano register) in mind and remember that castrati tended to be large and often quite tall. Their voices should be particularly incisive - no wonder composers have written such over-the-top heroic music for them. I cannot help thinking, therefore, how wise is Bartoli’s idea to tackle this repertoire. Her vocal nature could not be farther from a castrato, apart from the fact that she can handle supernaturally fast coloratura – but is that all?

During the whole concert, my opinions grouped in pros and cons. I will start with the “pros”. Bartoli is, of course, an extraordinarily gifted musician – she has an impressive sense of rhythm, an almost unbelievable ear for pitch (it is amazing how accurate she is in her vertiginous fioriture), a sensitive and expressive artistry and star quality – and of course, even if one objects to her permanent spiccato approach to coloratura, she does that better than almost anyone. On the other hand, she has a Roberto Benigni-like attitude that verges on buffonry, with cute little gestures alternating with a Freddie Mercury-like rockstar frenetic routines. This evening, for example, she was not wearing a gown, but costumes. First, something which was supposed to be XVIIIth century’s man clothes, later adorned with a golden top, a trail and red feathers. I might be picky, but neither Vivica Genaux nor Magdalena Kozena need that sort of circus to deliver the goods.

And there is the problem of volume. It is not simply the fact that the voice has very limited volume. Many a small-voiced singer sings in big houses and you can still hear them, because their voices are evenly produced and focused. And Bartoli’s mezzo is probably one of the less focused voices I have ever heard in my entire life. Because she has such extraordinary flexibility, one tends to think that there is no technical problem with her. But what I heard tonight is a voice that barely pierces through a small period instrument band in heroic arias; the sound spreads a lot, shrinks into inaudibility in the higher reaches and rattles all the way. Lyric arias show her under a far more positive light. In them, her voice shifts into a colourless and disembodied sound which is nonetheless quite pleasing and floating. In these arie d’affetto, her ability to evoke a wide range of emotions come to the fore and one tends to forget all the mannerisms and glitches. However, in the end of the concert I only wished I have heard one moment of pure and simple healthy and uncomplicated vocal production.

My lack of enthusiasm might have something to do with the firework repertoire – one aria that encapsules all kind of vocal difficulties might add pepper to a program, but five or six of them just make it hard to diggest. The slow arias added the necessary contrast, but their degree of pathos seemed somehow reduced, especially in comparison to Handel’s Lascia la spina, presented as an encore. After that, one understands why one still sees the Caro Sassone’s works in the world’s most important opera houses, but not any opera by Leonardo Vinci or Porpora.

The Orchestra La Scintilla (from the Oper Zürich) played energetically under the direction of its concert master Ada Pesch. It is a pity, though, that the orchestral numbers were quite similar to each others and that baroque transversal flutes do not really work in big halls. But that was no obstacle to the evening’s main soloist.

Christine Mielitz’s production of Wagner’s Lohengrin for the Semperoper dates from 1983, i.e., like Trabants, it was made in the DDR.  To start with, it looks very old – as in those black and white photos from productions with Martha Fuchs, Max Lorenz et al. It also looks very old in the sense of “drab”, wobbly flats and mosaic-mirror swann included. Costumes are so stylistically chaotic that you could write a book about them. If the point were an ostalgie-oriented “revival”, all the bizarrerie could be seen as an endearing memento of an era, but that would require refurbishing and technical adjustment. As it is, it just seems that the theatre could not afford a new production. In any case, if I have to highlight something positive about the staging, it would be the stage direction. I do not mean it is revelatory, intelligent or even efficient, but it looks as if someone has really taken the time to rehearse everyone on stage. As a result, the level of acting among choristers and numeraries ended up particularly convincing. To make things better, the soloists were generally talented in that department as well.

Not only does Camilla Nylund have the physique du rôle for Elsa, but also she is a particularly sensitive actress. Her warm and velvety lyric soprano has an elegant and sensuous quality, but, even if she never forces, it does lacks the cutting edge of a jugendlich dramatisch voice. As a result, she would often be overshadowed by orchestra and partners, especially in her high register. In that sense, she was well contrasted to her Ortud,  Judit Németh, whose powerful acuti flashed through the opera house. It is true that she ran out stamina at some point in the last scene of act II, but she offered an intelligent performance, with crystal-clear diction and subtle word-pointing. Jukka Rasilainen’s dark-toned Telramund was more reliable than exciting, but he sang the difficult part with considerable ease. Georg Zeppenfeld’s noble, rich bass filled King Henry’s phrases with good taste and sensitivity.

I had seen Klaus-Florian Vogt’s Lohengrin before on April at the Lindenoper, but this evening he offered an even more exciting performance.  His legato was more functional than in Berlin, his heroic top notes more integrated in his otherwise more “unearthly” singing style. Maybe because the production left more space for his stage interpretation, his whole performance was more spontaneous and touching too, what is more commendable considering that conductor Christof Prick kept the Staatskapelle Dresden perceptibly louder throughout than Bareboim in his Berlin performances. That is almost forgivable, considering the richness and beauty of sound of the Wunderharfe, even if the orchestra was not at his top level this evening, especially the brass section, which was particularly erratic. To say the truth, the conducting was kapellmeisterlich at best and unkind to the singers when leading the orchestra to full volume in order to achieve (undeniable) excitement at the expense of the cast, especially the mezzo soprano, who had to fight with mountains of decibels to pierce in Ortrud’s fits of paganism.

Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte is a challenge to any stage director – this is not an opera for children, but it certainly is a fairytale, the depths of which should rather be hinted at than fully explored. Günter Krämer’s 1991 staging for the Deutsche Oper tries to update things a bit, by having Monostatos talking pocket psychology while Pamina rests her head on his shoulder or the three ladies threatening Papageno with pistol guns. Some of the “creative” touches have their charm, especially the opening scene with the dragon operated by puppeteers who take part in the action, but some elements in the original plot are replaced by basically nothing and a couple of episodes are ultimately uneventful, such as the Queen of the Night’s arias.

To make things even more uneventful, conductor Matthias Foremny offered a lazy approach to the score, lacking forward-movement, energy and purpose. Notes followed each other without any spirit behind them as if the idea were to play safe. I just wonder how safe one has to be with a world-class orchestra and a reliable cast. I’ve chosen the word “reliable”, because the performances this evening rarely went beyond that. 

Heidi Stober, for example, has a pleasant creamy voice, but her phrasing is too often inert. Pamina is a gift-from-Heaven of a role for a lyric soprano – it offers every imaginable possible opportunities for a singer to show her sense of style and to use her expressive tools, but Ms. Stober let so many of them pass by that in the end no-one really cared about her performance. Unfortunately, Hulkar Sabirova was not in her best voice – she struggled a bit with high notes and only achieved Der Hölle Rache out of sheer technique. She has a rich voice and impressively clear divisions – I reckon she must be a very exciting Queen of the Night in a good day. Yosep Kang is a healthy-voiced and stylish Tamino, but tonal variety is not really within his possibilities. What has happened to Mozart tenors who could colour a Mozartian phrasing with true affection and genuine elegance? Reinhard Hagen’s noble-toned Sarastro is always an effective piece of casting, but the results were rather cold if one has in mind René Pape’s last Sarastros in the Lindenoper. Simon Pauly’s Papageno falls in a different slot – that was a truly endearing performance, beautifully sung, stylishly phrased and intelligently handled, also in the acting department. Last but not least, the three boys from the Knabenchor der Chorakademie Dortmund were unusually musical and pleasant-voiced.

Richard Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten is one of the most formidable works in the operatic repertoire – it is like performing Mahler’s 6th Symphony with the cast of Verdi’s Il Trovatore with stage requirements of Wagner’s Ring. These superhuman requirements demand the sympathetic ear of the audience and probably also some gratitude. It is such a monumental and unique masterpiece that being able to see it live at all is an unmissable opportunity. An opportunity we should probably thank the Deutsche Oper’s Intendantin, but she happens to be also the stage director.

If there is a subject in Operatic Stage Direction course called “how to stage act III”, Kirsten Harms probably missed it. As in her Tannhäuser, although her acts 1 and 2 are not the most amazing things on the face of Earth, they are quite acceptable -  what she really ruins is the end. Here she tries to relate the plot to the time of the work’s creation – although the costumes suggest rather WWII, the action is set during WWI and we see the Empress and the Emperor living in a palace that looks like a hall in the Pergammonmuseum, while the Baraks live in their rather large and airy shanty. Since the sets are quite good-looking and the idea is not bad per se, I had no problem with that – but I confess I find Harms’s idea of deleting the plot’s magic elements self-defeating. As it is, the Empress and the Nurse’s scheme to get a shadow seems to be work exclusively on money. And I am not sure that this is the idea. But that is a detail compared to the fact that the Emperor here wird nicht zu Stein. He is kidnapped at night in front of the Empress’s eyes, who has no dream at all about that. Have I forgotten that the Nurse is executed by the Spirit Messenger? And that all the complex imagery imagined by Hofmannsthal to act III is reduced to a setting who seemed to be a rest from the closing tableau of an old production of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut? Because Harms believes that, after act II, “nothing exists anymore, no imperial palace, no shelter for the impoverished; all dreams, all mistakes are over”. I am sorry – but that is not what the libretto says and it sounds just an excuse to justify the fact that the budget was used up in acts I and II.

Considering the economy of means on stage, one would feel inclined to turn to the pit to find riches of expression, but the truth is that Ulf Schirmer was a bit economical himself. He is a stylish Straussian who never forgot to play it “as if it were Così fan tutte”, keeping thus the proceedings extremely clean, elegant and transparent, but one could expect a bit more abundance of sound in the purely orchestral passages and a bit more Schwung in the highly dramatic situations of act II, for example. Lyric moments such as the Emperor’s act II scenes seriously lacked affection and forward movement.

Manuela Uhl does not exactly possess the hoher dramatischer Sopran required in the score, but what she has does fine as well. Her jugendlich dramatisch voice has the necessary crystalline quality, she has easy top notes and knows how to spin a Straussian phrase, but exposed dramatic passages bring a touch of sourness and some flutter too. She is a committed actress, uttered a chilling “ich will nicht” and looks really well. Eva Johansson comes closer to the high dramatic soprano label and she can even floats high mezza voce, but her vocal production has many instable and insecure moments. Because of her technical glitches, she is often too busy with the notes to find operating space to express anything.  The difficult end of act II found her really out of sorts and often off pitch. When Robert Brubaker first opened his mouth, the words “James King” occurred to me, but soon it became clear that the role is too high for his voice and strained him beyond any possibility of smoothness. On the other hand, Johan Reuter’s dark and rich bass-baritone fills Straussian lines sensitively and elegantly. I leave the best for last: yes, it is true that bête de scène Doris Soffel is not a dramatic mezzo soprano, but she is the kind of artist who makes it happens, regardless of what “it” is. She is not afraid of going larger than life, knows how to create dramatic impact and has an endless supply of forceful top notes. Finally, the Deutsche Oper should be praised for the high quality of singers in small roles, particularly Hulkar Sabirova in a series of key high soprano parts.

The Straussian credentials of the Philippe Jordan+Staatskapelle Berlin team have been more than sucessfully presented in this year’s season opening concert, when they treated the audience to an exemplary rendition of the Alpensinfonie.  Playing in the Lindenoper’s pit has not prevented them from offering a truly symphonic approach to Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier. From the  first bars, one could feel that this would be a special evening: faultless French horn solos, glistening string playing, vivid woodwind. More than that – a conductor in complete control of his forces who could therefore concentrate on expression and drama.

Although the score features beautiful and touching vocal parts, the audience would turn to the orchestra tonight to find the multilayered portrayal of the character’s emotions. Maestro Jordan did not need to play effects, he could give himself and his musicians the necessary time to let notes speak – during the Feldmarschallin’s famous act I monologue, one would invariably be distracted from Hofmannsthal’s text by the richly coloured chamber-like writing for wind instruments. Act III showed such thematic clarity that one would never consider it a long stretch of unmelodic music between act II and the final trio, which did not fail to be the emotional highlight of the evening in its perfectly calculated dynamic and tempo ebb-and-flow .

So why was this performance finally not unforgettable? I am afraid that the answer is simply that a symphonic approach needs voices large enough to cope with a large orchestral sound – and rather than adding to the ensemble, the largely light-voiced cast gathered here was overshadowed by it. Although Anne Schwanewilms often produces some exquisite sounds, her lyric soprano is also often too thinly produced to be really heard over the full orchestra. When she really tried too sing loud, the results were often pinched, unflowing or rather edgy, not to mention that her method to reach high notes is basically pecking at them. She is an intelligent singer who uses the text effectively, but I wonder how long her technique will allow her to sing roles that require true legato in the high register.

Katharina Kammerloher is usually billed as a mezzo-soprano, but at least this evening one would take her for a soprano. At some moments, her voice even sounded similar to her Marschallin’s, although her basic tone is creamier and her top notes richer. Even if her Octavian was rather on the light and feminine side, it was also beautifully and stylishly sung. I have previously written that I was curious to hear Sylvia Schwartz in a high-lying role – and I was right to suspect that they work particularly well for her. As Sophie, she could explore the best part of her voice and float effortlessly velvety top notes. It is true that her soprano is a bit small, but Sophie rarely has to deal with heavy orchestral writing – and she also has the looks and the right attitude for the role.

I had never been convinced by Alfred Muff, whom I knew from recordings, and I was doubly surprised by his Ochs tonight. First, because his voice is far darker and larger than the microphones suggest. Second, because the part really fits his voice. He finds no problem with the very low notes and the declamatory writing. He has some fondness for off-pitch effects, but the truth is he was the only member of the cast who could really project over the orchestra (I would also add Irmgard Vilsmaier’s quasi-dramatic soprano, rather too loud for the role of the duenna). Martin Gantner was an efficient Faninal, but he missed too many theatrical points to be really convincing and, in spite of the anounced sickness, Stephen Rügamer seemed at ease in the difficult tessitura of the Italian Tenor’s aria.

Nicolas Brieger’s 14-years old staging takes so many unnecessary and pointless liberties with the libretto (Mohammed is here a dwarf, the three orphan girls are here boys, naked maids run through Faninal’s palace, the act III inn is depicted as an outdoor place with a bed hidden behind bushes) that in the end you just believe that nobody bothered to read the libretto. To make things worse, Joachim Herzog’s costumes are erratic, mixing styles from different centuries with no apparent purpose.  It is decidedly provincial and unworthy of Germany’s capital city.