Die Entführung aus dem Serail from Vienna

Musical Direction - Antonello Manacorda
Production - Hans Neuenfels

Bassa Selim - Christian Nickel (spoken)
Konstanze - Lisette Oropesa (soprano)
Konstanze - Actress - Emanuela von Frankenberg
Blonde - Regula Mühlemann (soprano)
Blonde - Actress - Stella Roberts
Osmin - Goran Jurić (bass)
Osmin - Actor - Andreas Grötzinger
Belmonte - Daniel Behle (tenor)
Belmonte - Actor - Christian Natter
Pedrillo - Michael Laurenz (tenor)
Pedrillo - Actor - Ludwig Blochberger 

Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail  (The Abduction from the Seraglio), 2020, comes to us from the Wiener Staatsoper.  It is directed by Hans Neuenfels, one of the more scandalous regie producers.  One of his characteristics is to dress the chorus all in the same outfits.  Here in spite of the fact that they are a mixed chorus, they are all dressed as men in black.

This is a Singspiel, which means it comes with spoken dialog in German.  In the original version of the opera there is a character, Bassa Selim, who does not sing.  Everyone else both sings and speaks.  So Neuenfels has seized on this and doubled all the rest of the cast.  So in addition to the singers, he has cast a whole other cast who play the rest of the roles and only speak.  He has also added more words.  This is hard to follow.  Two people in the same outfits are the same person.  You get a lot of easy to understand German from the actors and beautiful singing from the singers.  The actress Blonde occasionally speaks English.  "Me too."

Lisette is singing a very serious aria, and a young man in his underwear is holding a giant snake.  Huh?  What you would want to keep from this is Lisette and her arias.  "Martern alle Arten" is especially great.  She changes the opera completely.  Suddenly it is enormous.

I can think of only one semi-legitimate reason for this double casting.  Singers have careers that take them all over the world.  This is why the performing of operas originally in other languages but sung in the local language of the opera house is a practice that has pretty much died out.  We perform Hansel and Gretel and Magic Flute in English, but that is pretty much it.  The singer learns the role with the original text and then sings it everywhere with only some brief rehearsal.

So Neuenfels wanted to add a lot of new German dialog, and in order to have extended rehearsals, he assigns these new words to local people he can rehearse for a long time.  This is the only thing I can think of.  We don't care about this added dialog.  Maybe Neuenfels doesn't really like opera.

They love only Lisette.  As do I.  Serious booing for Neuenfels.

The Queen of Spades from Salzburg

👍🏻
Conductor: Mariss Jansons
Director: Hans Neuenfels

Brandon Jovanovich, Hermann
Vladislav Sulimsky, Count Tomski / Plutus
Igor Golovatenko, Prince Jelezki
Evgenia Muraveva, Liza
Oksana Volkova, Polina / Daphnis
Hanna Schwarz, Countess
Stanislav Trofimov, Surin
Gleb Peryazev, Narumov
Margarita Nekrasova, Gouverness
Julia Suleymanova, Chloe

We called it Pique Dame.  This version of Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades on Medici.tv from Salzburg was conducted by Mariss Jansons, the same man who brought us the version from the Netherlands here.

The period is set in the libretto because it says Catherine the Great makes an entrance in the party scene.  Here she is a giant skeleton, so make up your own mind.  For me this production is standard minimalism.  It works like no minimalism I have seen before.  The giant skeleton is the only thing that could be called an inexplicable nonsense, a feature of many modern productions, but it gets over quickly and goes back to the standard plot.  There's no minor character dressed up like Tchaikovsky to distract you from the opera.  There's just the opera.  What a concept.

We watch with no translation and don't mind at all.  Instead of the usual Hermann who stands around like a stick of wood, we have the brilliant physicality of Brandon Jovanovich in this role.  His costume makes him stand out from the crowd and his passion dominates the action.  I realized that I have been waiting for him.

It was lovely to see Hanna Schwarz as the old Countess.  Hermann points a gun at her, and she dies of fright before she can tell him the three cards.  Later she returns as a ghost and tells him the cards:  three, seven, ace.  He plays them and loses on the third card.  Just now I realized for the first time that the ghost of the Countess lies.  The third card was the Queen of Spades.  Well.  I guess I'm slow.

This played without any intermissions and for me without any warning.  Musically it was very beautiful.  Thank you.  I can recommend this version with added translation.  Without translation listen for "dri karti," three cards in Russian.


#ad

Manon Lescaut from Munich

Conductor: Alain Altinoglu
Production: Hans Neuenfels

Manon Lescaut: Kristine Opolais (soprano)
Lescaut: Markus Eiche Il (baritone)
Cavaliere Renato Des Grieux: Jonas Kaufmann (tenor)
Geronte di Ravoir: Roland Bracht (bass)

I didn't mind the production as much as I thought I would.  All that starkness only serves to emphasize how spectacularly wonderful the music was--the conducting, the orchestra, the soloists, Kristine and the ever more wonderful Jonas Kaufmann.  Thank you for bringing me what I wanted.  And thank you for making it even more magnificent than I imagined.
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