One of the most awaited items in the Berlin Staatsoper’s 2020/2021 season was the new production of Lohengrin by Calixto Bieito in which both Sonya Yoncheva and Roberto Alagna would sing the roles of Elsa and Lohengrin for the first time. But 2020 being the annus horribilis we all know too well, these plans required some adaptation, and it is praiseworthy that the opera house at Unter den Linden was able to go ahead and, even without an audience, show its new staging to the world in the Internet. The first challenge in this performance was the need to reduce the orchestra to keep it within COVID regulations. Conductor Matthias Pintscher, who leads the Ensemble Intercontemporain, believes that this exercise enable him to make a study in tone coloring of Richard Wagner’s score. Indeed, with slimmer strings, one could find many hidden gems here, especially in what regards woodwind. This was an absolutely transparent performance, and this extended to articulation and structural coherence too. However, the challenges in Lohengrin go far beyond tone colouring. It is notoriously difficult to conduct because of its lack of rhythmic variety. In the hands of the right conductor, the audience hardly notices that. Unfortunately, this evening’s performance made me realize too well of what happens when the conductor does not display a flexible beat. Beautifully and transparently as the orchestra played, it did feel monotone after a while, especially considering a cast almost entirely miscast. And I am not speaking specifically of Roberto Alagna.
Lohengrin is a role entirely within the possibilities of the French tenor, who has tackled far more demanding parts in his career, such as Verdi’s Otello and Manrico. I am not sure, but I think that Lohengrin is his first German role, though. Now and then, France has supplied Bayreuth with important singers, such as Régine Crespin, Ernest Blanc and Jean-Philippe Lafont. Alagna sang the role of Lohengrin with awareness of style, employing portamento in a tasteful manner and with an attentive ear to melodic flow, his French accent unobtrusive, rather charming I would say. I just wished he had not waited so long to try this part – his voice has lost its purity of emission and that was truly missed in his farewell to the swan in act 1. When the writing tended to the heroic, he had his rough moments too, especially after the act 3 narration. I confess I was more curious to hear Yoncheva as Elsa. I don’t think she has the voice for the role, but she is the kind of singer you want to hear in whatever she does. Unfortunately, she was not able to appear in the première and was replaced by Lithuanian soprano Vida Minekviciute, who shows at first an appealing fleece-like quality. She also phrases with poise and sensitivity, even in a role heavy for her voice. However, one soon realizes that her vocal production is fluttery and her attempts to soften the tone make it even more fluttery. After a while, her singing becomes sadly quite predictable. The competent mezzo Ekaterina Gubanova finds no problem in the high tessitura in the part of Ortrud, but hers is a voice the creaminess of which prevents her from producing the bite the writing requires. She lacks resonance in the lower end of her voice too, and as a result her Ortrud sounded unusually well-behaved and unthreatening. The pairing with Martin Gantner’s clear-toned and light-voiced Telramund made the first part of act 2 almost matter-of-fact. In order to pierce through the orchestra, he needed to open his tone in a glaring manner, what made he sound like a Charaktertenor rather than a Heldenbariton. René Pape has been a reference in the role of the King Henry and still holds his own commendably after so many years. Now it sounds a bit high for him, and he tired a bit in the end. The young Adam Kutny’s dark-toned Herald was plagued by some sort of vocal discomfort, maybe he was in a bad-voice day, and I would need to hear him a second time to say something.
I don’t feel really motivated to write about Calixto Bieito’s lazy staging, conceptually pretentious and scenically unpretentious. At first, it seemed like what Barrie Kosky would have done in an uncreative day. The scene opens in a courtroom, all singers and choir members in suits. One notices that the herald is acting a bit funny, but I doubt someone would guess what would come next. He paints a clown face and goes all slapstick. There are lots of model cars, with which Ortrud likes to play while making evil faces, and Lohengrin’s and Telramund’s combat is some sort of telepathic confrontation. In the end, everybody have posters “love”, “hope”, “a girlfriend”, “peace”. The second act shows Ortrud playing with dolls, Elsa stealing bits of her wedding cake, everybody else on stage painting clown faces and acting like zombies. The Telramunds end up locked in the same cage from which Elsa stood trial in the first act. Act 3 has Lohengrin and Elsa having her frustrated honeymoon on a white couch on a carpet with artificial grass. Telramund doesn’t try to kill anyone – he just brings a pot with a living plant. We’re back to the courtroom, Lohengrin shows his bare chest, conjures Gottfried and gives him the origami swan from act 1. The end. According to Bieito, all this represents a society that infantilizes people, because they live ready-made relationships and follow scripts. In his view, Lohengrin is an escapist, Elsa opposes reality while trying to discover answers in her inner world and, while Telramund and Ortrud have their feet on the ground, he is lost to himself in his search for power and she is frustrated for not being a mother. OK, whatever. After reading the program, the only thing I could trace back onstage were the toys.
I HEAR VOICES 
As this point, I think we’ve seen everything there is to be done with Lohengrin Regie-wise. I am not a traditionalist by any stretch of the imagination but with Lohengrin I have gotten a little tired of directors trying to read into it to the extent that they do. There’s only so much that can be done with it and these days a real sense of dejavu has set in whenever I see a new production of this piece. Every director essentially regurgitates the same theme at this point.
As for Bieito, I have seen enough stellar work for him that count myself as a “fan” of sorts, but when he’s on auto pilot it’s always apparent to an absurd degree and falls back on a certain house style that can be way off the mark. These days he’s really at his best in lesser known or more ambiguous operas.
Musically it was all fairly dull. Barenboim is insanely variable, particularly now that he’s older, but for my money I find him to be, at his best, one of the best Wagner conductors ever and I missed him. Points for trying in these circumstances but that’s about as enthused as I can get. No point getting into Alagna, who I have enjoyed from time to time while always finding him a somewhat dubious prospect. Like you say, no real reason why this wouldn’t be a good role for him but he’s waited way too late to sing it. I probably enjoyed Gubanova slightly more than you did without being able to disagree with much of what you found wanting. I guess I enjoyed the fact that she didn’t scream and was musical. I tend to like her generally even if she’s not the most exciting singer. Ortrud needs more than what she brings to the table, but of the cast I liked her best and probably would have been happy with her. There’s been kind of an Ortrud vacancy since Meier doesn’t do it anymore, most of the ones I’ve seen lately have been serviceable and occasionally more but rarely memorable. So Gubanova will do for now and maybe she’ll grow into it. The rest were decent. Agree that Yoncheva, whose choices have been rather strange, would probably have been taxed but at least an interesting sound in the role.
My problem has nothing to do with directors trying to read into it – I find that great – but rather directors trying to impose their own agendas over a work without taking a good look at it first. But what I truly dislike is a director who is more concerned about his interview for the program than STAGING anything he speaks about there. I have seen a couple of Bieito’s productions – including straight theatre – and one must knowledges that he really directs his cast and now and then there is true insight. But more often than not I have the impression that he already knows what he wants to do before one tells him if it is going to be Lohengrin or La Bohème. He is not the only director who could be accused of that.
This Lohengrin, for instance, was well directed. Wherever the camera would take us, there would be someone on stage in a coherent character doing something in keeping with the overall aesthetics etc. But it added nothing to my insight into Wagner’s Lohengrin. But maybe that’s me. I have an “emotional” connection with Lohengrin and the Lindenoper: it was precisely Lohengrin in the Staatsoper Unter den Linden the first opera I have ever seen in Europe. And also my first when I moved to Berlin ten years later.
Both times it was Barenboim conducting – and he made it a truly emotional voyage. I agree with you about Barenboim’s status as the leading Wagner conductor alive, although I guess Thielemann is for me a no. 2 that sometimes takes the first place. For instance, I would rather hear Die Walküre and Götterdämmerung with Barenboim, but I would choose Thielemann for Rheingold and Siegfried. In any case, I’ve never seen Thielemann in Lohengrin, and Barenboim’s is the reference in my memory of live performances. Especially in the first performance, with the Kupfer production, which was an eye-opener for me, a staging that really was about exploring all kinds of possibilities in Wagner’s libretto.
It was also the first time I saw Waltraud Meier. And she was something else – you followed her onstage wherever she’d go, not only for her acting but mainly for her way with the music and the text. She wouldn’t miss a word or a note to put across a point. And this has nothing to do with showing Ortrud as a “bitch” or a “witch”. Actually, the Kupfer production took entirely Ortrud’s point of view. As for Gubanova, yes, it was a blessing to hear someone not screaming herself out in the role and singing consistently in healthy, round tones. But again – I think the voice lacks the edge for the part and this is something she is not going to acquire. She could do Ortrud her own way, I agree – it would have to be a chic Ortrud, the dagger hidden behind the velvet. I don’t see her either as a verbally specific Ortrud. That’s now what she usually does – she would have to do something more Italianate, more about vocal glamour. It can work – I’ve seen Marianne Cornetti sing Ortrud more or less like that and it worked somehow. In the videocast, Gubanová was outside her element, trying to emulate a fierceness she doesn’t have. This happens when the director has a ready-made concept and doesn’t “listen” to his actor, so that they can find a common ground when he or she can be truthful and also fit the concept. You can tell a sweet person “be wild!” and expect him or her to be convincing. That’s now how it works.
For me, it’s largely that I just think at this point all Lohengrin productions seem the same. Directors seem to have drained the well for me with this opera. Bietio’s failure here saddens me because his Parsifal was one of the best opera stagings I’ve seen, period.
Total agreement, Thielemann is number two and occasionally number one. Basically they are neck and neck. But Barenboim’s Tristan at it’s best is miraculous. And I agree about Gubanova, it was mostly a small miracles thing in relation to everyone else. Highly doubt it will work for her to any major degree, the other Wagner she sings are much better suited to her instrument and temperament.
I LOVED the Kupfer Lohengrin. I loved Kupfer in his prime and his Barneboim/Wagner staging’s were highlights of that decade at that theater.
I see your point about stagings of Lohengrin, but I guess that great directors are like Wagner sopranos. You don’t get a bunch of them per generation. As a result, we have lots of imitation going on until someone makes something new. After 2020, I would thank God even if I had to see it in a revival of an Otto Schenk production.
Thielemann’s Tristan is top tier, but Barenboim just transports you to another dimension. I’ve seen him conduct it a few times, always with the same production – and it felt different every time. As for the Kupfer Lohengrin. I’ll never forget that one.
Listened to (but didn’t watch) this Lohengrin. Had plenty of time for leisurely listening: Wednesday/Thursday we got 96 cm. of snow. The studio mixing of soloists, orchestra & chorus produced some remarkable audio ensemble effects not possible in live performance (particularly toward the end of Act 2). Alagna may be over the hill, but he still has enough control over his voice to sing this role elegantly; Gubanova’s covered vocal technique enabled her to subtly control her vibrato–>tremolo–>vibrato. Haven’t heard this kind of singing in this role for quite awhile, but I didn’t hear any of the bright, steely, penetrating tones I associate with Ortrud. Miknevičiūtė’s Elsa worked well for me – hers is a purely lyric voice and, as far as the flutter goes, Pilar Lorengar’s Elsa had much more flutter than Miknevičiūtė (albeit with a GREAT deal more vocal color). So, I was pleasantly surprised, since I wasn’t looking forward to hearing her because I had found Miknevičiūtė’s 2018 performance as Senta in Der fliegende Holländer quite disappointing. Here as Elsa she was still unable to muster up enough vocal assertiveness for the dramatic confrontations; nonetheless much of Elsa;s music can be sung very well by a pure lyric and it was refreshing to hear it done so again.
— Thanks for posting this review; I miss your performance reviews. Appreciate the personal sincerity in what you write.
Hi, Jerold! Good to hear from you! I don’t know if I would call it studio mixing, since it was broadcast live without an audience. Or so they say. What made the balance so particular is that the orchestra size had to be reduced in order to follow pandemic regulation. As a result, the strings are lighter and one hears a lot that they would have overshadowed in a “regular” Wagnerian performance.
The role of Lohengrin makes perfect sense for Alagna. I like what he does with it – but now he is clearly past his good days and the voice gave out at moments in the third act. As for Gubanova, well, it is nice for a change to hear someone in the role of Ortrud who has ANY control over her voice, as she does. My problem isn’t exactly that she lacks the penetrating edge, but rather that: in order to sing in the velvety way you describe and still make an impression, she needs a larger voice. And, although, it was smoothly sung, it wasn’t subtle. She lacks crispiness of textual delivery and the low register doesn’t truly have any impact. I find it was commendable, but it is not the role – and again I don’t think she had to sing it like Christa Ludwig, evil laughs included (no criticism here – I ADORE Ludwig as Ortrud). For a debut in the role, Mikneviciute did fine. The sound is pleasant and she sings with affection. I’ve seen the comparison with Lorengar, but I have to say that Lorengar had more than more color in her voice. Lorengar’s flutter did not sound like an obstacle for her to achieve anything – she floated mezza voce whenever she needed, the tone was always fruity, plump and healthy and when she had to produce a heroic high note, the voice sounded extra focused and firm. With Mikneviciute, it didn’t feel that way. But we agree that lyric sopranos, provided that they can pierce through the orchestra when necessary, make convincing Elsas – I remember Isokoski, who was terrific in a performance in Vienna, for instance.
– And I thank you, Jerold! I would give everything to be in a theatre and see a LIVE performance, but well… Glücklich ist, wer vergisst…