R. Strauss’s Arabella, Deutsche Oper Berlin, 18.03.2023

Some operas seem to have been born to be stylized, updated or reinvented, while other titles are resistant to any kind of adaptation. R. Strauss’s and Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s Arabella goes for group two. There are carnival balls, waltz and champagne galore, girls to be married, concerns about honor and respectability – and yet this all exerts a fascination in a world where people can’t wait for the next season of Downton Abbey (or the new take on Empress Sissi’s life on German TV). Yet director Tobias Kratzer is apparently bothered. Why a work so unrelated to contemporary ethos is still around? And that’s what his new staging for the Deutsche Oper Berlin is about. 

It starts most surprisingly with costumes, sceneries and Personenregie apparently copy-pasted from Otto Schenk. But then you realize that there’s something odd there – the whole thing is so traditional that it veers towards cuteness. And there is a camera crew on stage highlighting some random elements of the scene. Sometimes they would block the view of Arabella’s face to film a vase of flowers, the image of which could be seen on a screen as big as half the scenic space. 

It is only when Arabella and Mandryka finish their duet that we realize that suddenly everybody is dressed as if they were in the 20’s, then the 30’s and so on until we reach the present days by the end of the act. The staging and the plot seem to be increasingly at odds with each other, but it is only in the last act that the growing abyss becomes evident. There are no sceneries, no “costumes” anymore. The “romantic” plot follows its own course on video – with a duel between Matteo and Mandryka, where Zdenka falls as a victim when she tries to interrupt it. On stage, there remains only one common aspect with the film – the transgender character, Zdenko/Zdenka, and that Matteo – very clearly in the libretto – confesses that he somehow sensed he went to bed with his best buddy. Arabella takes her sister’s side no matter what she’s done – “nothing you’d do would make us love you less”. Mandryka follows, the Waldners deem it a happy endings Arabella and Mandryka learn that romantic reverie means nothing. Love is about accepting and not judging. 

Although I have found Mr. Kratzer’s exercise in making sense of Arabella (rather than just accepting it without judging it) compelling, I have to quote Hofmannsthal: „Und in dem „Wie“ da liegt der ganze Unterschied“. Time shifts seemed to be happening a priori. Just like in the Opernhaus Zürich, the Nazis come to brutalize the guests during Fiakermilli’s yodeling. Then everybody gets intoxicated in the 70’s, Adelaide flirts in the clubber scene. So, yes, we could see the connection, and yet Hofmannsthal’s plot gets a bit lost in the middle of all that. We don’t know why a present-day Arabella finds it important to say goodbye to her maidenhood with a waltz, why Adelaide and Waldner are so concerned with damage to their daughter’s reputation in the middle of a party with naked people and drugs etc etc. In its own setting, these things take care of themselves. But once you take these important elements out of context, they need to be redefined in a new web of meaning. The way this was done, there was no time for development and the whole thing felt just thrown at our faces. The sloppiness in the adaptation only had the side effect of making the idea itself – which is not bad per se – questionable. The third act is marginally more successful in the sense that the directorial choices were clear, because there the text offers the director and the audience enough material to chew on. Arabella herself explains she has learned a lesson from Zdenka, she herself doesn’t want to be the woman everybody wanted her to be, she wants a new setting – and that’s precisely what the director gives her, even if the sets at this point were high-school theatre level and the costumes were horrendous (unless there was a point in making the singer in the title role look awful). More than that, I simply find the story as it is more believable than watching a bunch of people in black coming from an electronic music rave remotely interested in a family drama, especially when they gather around Matteo, Zdenka and Arabella in a collective embrace. 

All that said, even with the many and many loose ends in the concept, this was an undeniably valid theatrical experiment that restored the role of Zdenka to its central position in the plot – and if you have in mind the house’s dismal old production, you’ll even find it a win, win situation. 

When it comes to Donald Runnicles’ conducting, the results are also controversial. On one side, there is this ideal late-Romantic plush orchestral sound enveloping singers’ voices – and also a certain understanding of how to create the right atmosphere for each scene. On the other hand, clarity was rarely truly there – the strings phrased rather impressionistically and things tended to be unclear in terms of balance. The second part of act 2 is tricky, and it would be unfair to single out this performance for the sensation of untidiness in those pages that have only made sense when under the baton of genius conductors with the world’s best orchestras. The reason why the usual ungainliness felt doubly damaging this evening lies precisely in the fact that this was also the moment when the staging itself went through its less efficient moment too. 

These performances were announced with Rachel Willis-Sorensen in the title role, only to be replaced by Gabriela Scherer until Sara Jacubiak finally took over the premiere. As I have always been curious to hear Ms. Jacubiak in this part, I deemed it good news. Indeed, this American soprano has an ideal voice for the role. The sound is creamy, big enough, she has a rich middle register that makes her hearable enough in conversational passages and yet she has a non-problematic high register. Especially from act 2 on, she also managed to fine down her voice to softer dynamics and to color the text stylishly and intelligently. Her Arabella isn’t much of the “chic coolness” type à la Lisa della Casa, but rather fun-loving, warm-sounding with a tiny splash of Eleanor Steber (who was even richer in tone and more commanding too). 

Elena Tsallagova is probably the rounder-toned Zdenka I have ever seen live. Even if the old production had Julia Kleiter in the role, Ms. Tsallagova simply projected more forcefully in a way that also fitted this staging’s concept of a Zdenka who does not really want to sound vulnerable at all. She too acted very well. 

At first Robert Watson (Matteo) sounded like an entirely different tenor from the tenor who sang Siegmund in the Lindenoper. In act 1, he showed a tonal sheen new to me and seemed unfazed by the high tessitura. Later on, he would loose focus and increasingly make me remember the impression he caused in that Walküre. 

I hadn’t heard Russel Braun in ages and was surprised to find him again here as Mandryka. He is not the classic Heldenbariton one usually finds in this part, but rather made me think of Bernd Weikl in the natural brightness of his high register and the tasteful phrasing. Even announced as indisposed, he sang healthily and with great animation. 

This performance was filmed for German TV and is supposed to be released on DVD too. Although there was some booing in the end (both for stage director and conductor), the audience received it with applause. At some point, a group of people who were cheering it enthusiastically was questioned by a lady near them, “are you friends of the director?”. Yes, I can see her point, this wasn’t flawless, and yet I doubt you could find a performance these days with a more solid cast together with a world-class orchestra… and a staging at least worth while discussing.

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