Dvorák’s Rusalka is based on Bohemian folk-lore: the water nymph Rusalka, in love with a prince visiting her lake, wants to become human. But she will lose her ‘voice’; and the prince, cursed, will lose his life. The story could be a parable for the loss of innocence: indigenous peoples corrupted by modern invaders subsuming their cultural identity. The prince has found ‘a dumb woman in the forest’, they gossip . Rusalka, with the prince, remains unknown to him: fearful, and showing no passion. So the prince turns away -with the arrival of a ‘foreign princess’- to his own kind. Rusalka is stranded between alien cultures, neither a woman nor a nymph. Their love is doomed by the ‘curse’ of their incompatibility.
But operagoers visit Rusalka for Dvorák’s ravishing music; and would be reassured by Vienna State Opera’s traditional, late 19th century, modern-tweaked, production, directed by Sven-Eric Bechtholf. Rusalka (Olga Bezsmertna) begins staring out over a balcony, beneath, her father the wood goblin is being teased by water nymphs. Rolf Glittenberg’s set, on two levels with withered trees, cleverly depicts an underground, underwater world. In her aria , Rusalka’s feeling sad; she’d like to leave these watery depths: be human beneath the rays of the sun. ‘You want to be human?‘, her father (Günther Groissböck) interjects.- They have something called an immortal soul. ‘Don’t crave for a sinful soul’, he warns. But she craves love: sings of the man she sees bathing-without his clothes- in her presence. She knows that if she were a woman , she would embrace him and he would return her kisses. Erotic, voyeuristic? But it’s sung by Bezsmertna with unaffected innocence. Her wood nymphs would weep for her every night, warns her father. (Would they, the Prince is the very good-looking Piotr Beczala.) She will be lost forever, he forbodes. Groissböck- young Austrian, in demand- has a superlative baritone.
Now the opera’s hit number, that went viral for Dvorák (in the 1890s). In her aria Rusalka invokes the moon. You travel the world, looking down on the homes of mankind. ‘Oh moon, tell me where my beloved is, whisper to him that he may embrace me in his dreams, oh silver glittering moon…’ Bezsmertna sings movingly, without affectation, so plaintively. It’s meltingly sad.
‘Poor pale Rusalka’ visits sorceress Jezibaba (Janina Baechle). She pleads for a magic potion to release her. Baechle, huddled in dark furs, creeps around the stage picking up dead birds. She has elemental forces. ‘Is that all you’ve come for?’ Baechle’s is a formidable mezzo-soprano (a Wagnerian who sang Erda here recently.) If she fails to find human happiness, she and her lover will be cursed. Would she be voiceless for the price of her love?- Rusalka, defiantly, she’ll gladly be mute. (She thinks her human soul will overcome such obstacles.)
A voice is heard off-stage: Don’t shoot! We see a huntsman (baritone Mihail Dogitari.) The Prince knows she’s nothing but a spirit: will fade away. ‘Stay with me my faint spirit’; his hunt is over. Beczala is outstanding; his tenor has great power, but purity. Beczala leads in with Rusalka’s motif : Divine sweet dream! Bezsmertna’s Rusalka is in a white satin shift; he, Beczala, in a silver grey suit with traditional loden collar. The sisters sing one of their number is missing.
Act 2’s brilliantly lit stage is backed by a frosted window. The gamekeeper and cook sing about the strange creature the prince came across in the forest. The woman cannot speak, is quite pale. May they be protected from such ‘ill-fated love’.
Beczala sings ‘for days you’ve been laying at my side in a daze’. He stares into her eyes, but she’s enveloped in a dream. She, Bezsmertna, is laid out on a black velvet-covered platform. Why is he filled with anguish? Nevertheless, even if cold as ice, he must make her his. She, singing to the audience, feels no love for him, but cannot bear another to take her place.
The ‘foreign princess’ arrives, and intervenes reminding him of his duties: even a bridegroom is a servant. ‘And your beloved remains silent! Does she speak to you only with her eyes?’ Mezzo-soprano Monika Bohinec, brunette in a claret velvet gown, sequined midriff, and wearing a tiara. He’ll quickly make up for his neglect, he promises. (Rusalka looks on powerless, quivering.) Though his heart may belong to you, the honour is mine, boasts Bohinec’s princess.
Bezsmertna waltzes around the stage in a white wedding dress. Amazingly, and significantly, Rusalka doesn’t sing in this scene. The loss of her voice signifies the sacrifice of her individual self: the suppression of her cultural identity.
In this staging, a choreographed dream-like sequence, she stands overlooking a burlesque scene in which a rather plump prince (Beczala) in long-johns, jumps on the Princess (Bohinec) laid out in white on the ‘marriage bed’. Rusalka haunts them, in a prolonged motion, as if invisible: she’s a sprite after all.
The Goblin upbraids her. ‘You have fallen for the dazzling beauty of the world, alas!‘ For all her human form, a nymph’s blood flows in her veins. Groissböck’s goblin- in dark coat, with long platinum-white hair – forewarns her ‘Alas, poor Rusalka, human nature will become a curse to you. (Meanwhile, the human world is portrayed in a chic tableau. The Prince’s household in black outfits, bride and groom splayed out.)
‘Woe is me for betraying you,’ returning to her father, she’s found her voice again. Bezsmertna sings, hitting tremendous high notes. He has fallen for another, a wild , human beauty, and abandoned his poor Rusalka. Groissbock tears apart the wedding dress in a rage. Bezsmertna, powerful, impassioned, yet admits, ‘I was born of the cold water and have never known fire! I am cast out by you and lost to him.’ She’s neither woman or nymph: can neither live or die!
Meanwhile, the bitchy Princess sings asking ‘Where has she flown to, the one without a voice and a name. Bohinec back in her claret gown, taunts, will he embrace that sleepwalking beauty of his. Beczala sings enigmatically, how ‘he would break his vows to love only you’, singing of Rusalka’s cold, white beauty. Rusalka stands back of stage, as if reaching out to him. ‘Follow your chosen one to the depths of hell!’ thunders Bohinec.
Act 3 and again the double-levelled stage, upper storey balcony window looking out at the human world. Rusalka now sings from the underworld, bewailing her happy youth, condemned by her transgression to pine away in the cold waters. Didn’t you enjoy the kisses and find company in the human world, Jezibaba cajoles. Only human blood -his -can purge her and remove her curse. Excellent: chillingly sung by Baechle. But Rusalka rejects her: would rather suffer eternal torment. But he must know happiness!
She’s the outsider. A chorus of women sprites sing of how they will shun her; she will never be able to return to their world. The Goblin sings, it was the Prince who betrayed her: he’ll be avenged. There’s an enchanting, but problematic, scene in which the sprites hover over a body, their hands bathed in blood.
The Prince calls out to his ‘little white deer’; sings, night after night, he searches for her deep in the forest. Beczala, incongruously dressed – black frock -coat, silver trousers- like an old-fashioned crooner: Speak to me voiceless forest.
She sings, my dearest one, do you still recognise me?- He, if you are dead, kill me. If alive, save me!’ Suspended between worlds, she sings, she was once his beloved, now can only bring him death. A will-of-the wisp, her womanhood is defiled. If she were to kiss him now, he’d be lost forever. But he will pay for his deceit. Beczala, sings pleadingly, ‘Kiss me!’ He dies, petrified, as if metamorphosing into the trees.
His death was in vain, deems the Goblin. But Rusalka appeals to God to have mercy on his soul. Bezsmertna, who stepped in at short notice, was magnificent; and warmly applauded.
Tomas Netopil inspired idiomatic playing from Vienna State Opera orchestra and Chorus in a performance sung in Czech, authenticating Dvorák’s score. Vienna Staatsballet dancers added to a very special occasion. P.R. 10.09.2014
Photos: Olga Bezsmertna (Rusalka); Piotr Beczala (the Prince); Olga Bezsmertna and Günther Groissböck (Water goblin); theme image Olga Bezsmertna and Piotr Beczala
(c) Wiener Staatsoper /Michael Pöhn

Verdi’s Il Trovatore is one of a trio of operas -after Rigoletto, before La Traviata -that (beginning 1850s) launched Verdi’s worldwide fame. But Trovatore has fallen out of favour, reviled for a supposedly weak and implausible libretto, its scandalous ‘Church baiting’. Verdi’s contemporary critic Edward Hanslick scorned the sensationalised horror in which a gypsy brings up the son she rescues from a fire. In Verdi’s plot Manrico thinks he’s the son of gypsy Azecuna, who’s obsessed with avenging her own murdered child. The key theme is the deadly rivalry between unknowingly estranged blood brothers. The outsider (troubadour) Manrico and Count Luna (military commander) are on opposed sides politically, but also in love with the same woman, Leonora. Verdi’s love story is also a ‘parable of the repression of minorities.’
Vienna Volksoper’s Il Trovatore , a co-production with Bonn Opera directed by Dietrich Hilsdorf, has polarised opinion. So I’d expected a radically modern take. Not so. It was criticised as a tasteless spectacle, but well crafted. Arguably, the shock scenarios, derive from the material. The bloodthirsty scenes are justified in depicting the ‘Inquisition’.
In the event it is thrilling theatre, restoring the stage to Verdi’s mid-19th century context : gothic blood and gore, a mystery thriller of its time.
So I can’t understand why Vienna Volksoper wasn’t packed. No really big names, but the sets are splendid, the measure of the more famous Staatsoper, which invariably has full houses, and Volksoper Orchestra and chorus, under veteran Alfred Eschwé, are of the best.
The opening scene is pure spectacle, soldiers in colour co-ordinated burgundy and lilac; background authentically grey plastered walls. But it’s shocking- Ferrando, their CO stirs up the soldiers’ fear of witches and hatred of gypsies: setting the scene, underlying suspicions and racism. He sings of how a gypsy abducted and burned the Duke’s son; the witch- albeit life-size puppet- is baited and viciously bayoneted.
But the Chorus is splendid, Verdi a composer ‘at the height of this melodic vitality’. Indeed the Chorus- as in Rigoletto– have some of the most memorable tunes, (Trovatore’s characters perhaps less memorable.)
Verdi’s opera is unusually divided into ‘Scenes’. Purists might complain of ‘Director’s cuts’: the opera expurgated. But the episodes with introductory titles give a modern ‘cinematic’ quality.
So scene 2 (The Duel) Leonora is the focus, waiting for her troubadour. She’s warned by her friend of the consequences of the social mismatch. (Again a stylish set: four-poster bed centre, rear a wrought-iron stair well, refined regency silk-papered walls.) Leonora (Irina Oknina) is elegantly sung in her aria about the dream : not the most powerful of sopranos, but bewitching. And surprisingly, moving to the front of stage, she scales the heights: love is too great to put into words, her fate is defined in proximity to him. She casts off white satin layers: then in a ravishing aria -now with a wine glass in her hand- wearing only a white slip.
Manrico at Leonora’s window, observes her- in the arms of Count Luna. Mathew Hausmann, tall, black-hatted, croons every fibre in him burns of love: he must see her. He trembles, a heart gives hope. A voice off-stage, Manrico. Faithless! – She’s thrust between the two rivals. Manrico is Vincent Schirrmacher, effectively groomed as Italian. The two protagonists brandish their glimmering swords- the bed in between- Leonora at first separating them.
The Gypsy scene: Vedi! Le fosche notturne spoglie, the gypsies’ Anvil Chorus. A stage of black-clad figures, with a make-do statue of the Madonna on an oil barrel; left- stage a barred window. Azucena the formidable mezzo Chariklia Mavropoulou, sings of a woman burnt at the stake: the flames blaze to the heavens! As the female Chorus reiterate the men’s refrain- she emerges. Manrico, badly wounded, is on crutches, nursed to health by Azecuna. She sings of how she exchanged her own son- sacrificed to the fire -to rescue him. How her mother cried for revenge, her words engraved in her soul: how her own son cried so badly it was heart-rending. Mavropoulou, a fulsome lady, magnificently enacts her role. She sings, appeals to the heavens – kneeling- still consumed with grief. (God is this operatic!) -Manrico, then is he not her son? – She convinces him: has she not always given him a mother’s love. She was confused- reacting to her story- so overcome by emotion. The ‘accursed moonshine’ shone on him.
Manrico sings of how he wanted to administer the fatal blow to the Count; an unforeseen power stopped him. Now she offers him her dagger. He swears -without mercy- to avenge her and kill Luna.
In a grey-walled cloister, Count Luna hearing Leonora -presuming Manrico dead- intends to enter a nunnery, laments in his aria: everything is lost, but he ‘won’t let her become another Jesus’. She’s his! He sings of her beauty, her radiant smile. The Count is on his knees pleading- Housman finely articulated, but not the thrilling high notes. But what staging! He uncovers a marble life-size statue of Christ; unbolted, hides in its place. Red uniformed soldiers swarm in to abduct Leonora. Off-stage nuns are heard; they approach with candles. The Count jumps out from beneath a black cloak; and there’s Manrico holding his sword unsheathed. (Meanwhile nuns cluster behind the Christ statue for protection.) The Count clutches at Leonora. Soldiers raise their rifles as Leonora escapes with Manrico.
The witch hunters scene, in which Azecuna is interrogated, is shocking , but not gratuitous. (It anticipates Verdi’s Don Carlo where Flemish Protestants are incinerated.) Two black- hooded figures bearing placards are beaten in procession by soldiers- ironically accompanied by Verdi’s jolly Squilli echeggi la tromba guerriera. But front of stage, there’s a cage with a stooped figure being poked by inquisitors, a Priest attending. Azecuna is interrogated, put to the test. Gypsies have no roots, she responds defiantly. She’s handcuffed, plied by Luna with wine. She’s revealed as the child abductress- daughter of the witch they had burned. Azecuna cries out for Manrico. The soldiers, linked in a line, begin a ‘witches dance’. Azecuna is led to a fire. Macropoulu is heart-rending, chillingly powerful, but no way exaggerated.
Meanwhile (The Gypsy’s Son) Manrico and Leonora together at last, prepare to wed. He’ll think of her to his last breath (Ah si, ben mio. ) Schirrmacher sings eloquently, with beautiful diction. (Heavenly Chorus; Madonna foreground; we glimpse green lawns, people in flight, indicating war.)
In the Revenge of the Rivals, Manrico is led away blind-folded. Leonora positioned (centre stage) front of the bed, is seated blindfolded in a black coat, before her interrogator. In her aria, she reminds Luna of their previous love. Beautifully enunciated, Oknina’s Leonora, a lighter soprano, but no hint of strain. Her coloratura was beguiling. She’s shunted across the stage, observed silently by the Count. His only God is revenge, he sings. She begs mercy for Manrico. Her appeal enrages him. She swears to offer herself to him (while she takes poison unnoticed.) For him it’s a dream come true.
For The Execution, the set is a grey-plastered building. Manrico is sitting on a long bench with Azecuna now blind. Mavropoulou, hair -cropped, wearing large dark glasses, sings movingly she’s tormented by visions: the picture of the burning woman, her mother. Weariness bears down on her (Si la stanchezza m’opprime.) They find solace in Manrico’s troubadour song, D’amor sull’alli rosee.
Leonora has come to recue Manrico: but at what price? She has sold their love- he reproaches her- to his rival. She begs him to escape, or all is lost. Oknina is on her knees, the poison working too quickly. She collapses between the two rivals, confessing to Manrico, she chose death rather than life with another man. Manrico is carried away .
The closure is vintage Verdi. In his death throes, Manrico calls for his mother. Azecuna sings triumphantly to Luna, ‘He was your brother!’…’Mother, you are avenged!’ Her vow fulfilled, yet, dying, she calls for Manrico, her son.
This Volksoper co-production is a triumph of stagecraft and not to be missed. The cast was adequate, Mavropoulou unforgettable. This revival justifies Verdi’s Il Trovatore, ‘a phenomenon in Italian opera.’ P.R. 3.09.2014
Photos: Stuart Neill (Manrico), Melba Ramos (Leonora) and Tito You (Luna) ;Melba Ramos (Leonora); Janina Baechle (Azecuna) .Photos of the September 2014 cast were not available
(c) Barbara Pálffy / Volksoper Wien

Vienna Volksoper’s spectacular new production of Emmerich Kálmán’s Countess Mariza (Gräfin Mariza) opens with a gypsy woman singing, ‘Love is a fleeting drama.’ Against a stage covered in white fabric, Annely Peebo in traditional Hungarian dress, a black sequined gown, sings it’s a story full of music we danced. She’s accompanied by a gypsy fiddler. The stage is taken over by young gypsy dancers in black, who perform front of stage. My God ,they are sensational- members of Vienna State Ballet- and very erotic, the five virtuoso couples gorgeous looking.
The white sheets collapse to reveal a palace state room, furniture covered over. Count Tassilo (Daniel Prohaska), whose family are bankrupt, is acting as manager for Countess Mariza’s estates. He’s welcomed by children, dancing for him in traditional Hungarian costumes. While Prohaska’s steward is white- suited , his friend Karl is in a sharp double-breasted geometric pattern suit, and sporting patent shoes. Very roaring Twenties! The background is the 1920s financial crisis, post World War 1. Tassilo’s estate is being auctioned off; and they’re not the only family to go under, after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire.
They reminisce of better times: the cue for the opera’s stand-out number, ‘Grüss mir die süssen, die reizenden Frauen in schönen Wien. Do you remember, when the evening falls, drinking a glass of wine, the sweet charming ladies? It’s a tribute to charming Vienna: the Danube, the waltzes, hidden alleys where couples linger. Mein Wien! Kálmán’s tribute has the measure of Johann Strauss. Tassilo’s romantic vision is sung by Prohaska, a very adequate tenor; but he looks good, and has charm.
Cut to Mariza’s welcome home party to celebrate her engagement to a ‘Baron Koloman’- he’s absent- invented to ward off gold-digging admirers. Another Gypsy song, one of the glamour highlights, with the men in cream suits wearing boaters, and the girls in 1920s shifts, very short and sexy. The stage rotates to reveal the Countess on the steps of her castle, surrounded by bodyguards in black hats and shirts, wearing dark glasses. Very camp. It’s brilliant staging. Come and set yourself free, play with feeling, party the night away! The gypsies are contrasted against the cream, gold set, two girls side stage, and the fiddler playing, black-hatted, looking very mean and moody.
Kálman’s operetta Gräfin Mariza, premiered in Vienna 1924, defined a new realism, with plausible characters, and gritty dialogue (A.Brammer and J.Grünwald.) Ursula Pfitzner’s Mariza, very modern, pulls on her cigarette. Her fiancée is ‘absent’; introduced to her new ‘steward’, she treats him condescendingly. Tassilo recognises his sister Lisa (Anita Götz) in the Countess’s retinue, but, ‘not a word’, Tassilo’s real identity kept secret. They ‘know each other’. The siblings meeting is a cue for Meine Schwesterlein. The stage opens up to a fantasy children’s playground, brought to life with animated figures.
The man the Countess is engaged to doesn’t exist. But a Baron Koloman Zsupan introduces himself! Thomas Sigwald, outrageous in a bright red brocaded blazer- looking uncannily like Graham Norton- rode straight to Budapest when he read he was to marry the Countess. He sings, he’d always dreamed of marrying a woman like her, only to be found in Hungary. His passion burns hotter than a goulash. His duet with Mariza Komm mit nach Varasdin is a showstopper. Suddenly, a whole row of Koloman look-alikes in red blazers and white pants lead in. They perform an ingenious dance routine, using over-sized garden tools as percussion instruments.
A disconsolate Tassilo, excluded from the ball, sings how he was once the Czarda’s cavalier. Prohaska is swigging on a wine bottle: it may all be different tomorrow. Background, a couple of gypsy lovers very uninhibited, are embracing; and lead into a gypsy fest extravaganza. The stage is filled with the Countess’s guests holding up umbrellas for a ‘When it rains’ ensemble.
The Countess in white is confronted by a gypsy offering her a glimpse into the future. Before the month is out her heart will be given. The man is not far away: a cavalier! Now Mariza moves from the castle steps into her dining room on the revolving stage. Tassilo – ‘her steward, he’s not there for her enjoyment’- now performs for her the Komm, Zigany number he’d refused after all. Their intimate meeting is ‘all very surprising’: he pushes the bottle he’s drinking from over to her, while she’s smoking one cigarette after another.
In the pause between the Acts, a little girl sings to the gardener, (telling her the story in a framing narrative), ‘The story’s over. They love each other?’ The old man replies, ‘if only it were so simple!’
The Countess reappears in a slinky grey silk jacquard skirt, low -cut blouse. ‘Yes, supposing you have all those millions, but you’re not happy,’ he sings. Dancing a favourite waltz number, they sweep into a room of waltzing couples – women in swirling chiffon, men in DJs.

Tabarins is the star number of Act 2. ‘Tonight at Ten, we’ll be at Tabarins’ Those sexy gypsy dancers- the guys in black hussar outfits, white commerbunds, against the girls in stunning white Charleston-era sheeny tops and head bands. (Now we know where David Rose’s The Stripper came from!) The dance troupe are a sensation.
Tassilo (Prohaska now in black DJ) warns Mariza, don’t you see all your friends are out for your money. But he is himself exposed by her admirer Prince Populesco: Tassilo is ‘the ideal Cavalier’. ‘To learn all that takes five hundred years at least.’ The Countess, furious, vows to crush him: leave him to me!
The stage revolves to a banqueting hall, the occasion for her revenge. (Simply the best staging I’ve ever seen here!) ‘Hey, Mariza, pull off your masterstroke!’
She knocks chairs over. – We hear the ‘Play on gypsy’ refrain- This gentleman is mad about romancing ,but she knows his game; and she throws money at him. Her only condition is he never speaks of love again. Tassilo sings, he fell in love once. She was a proud, fair lady. Komm, Zigany ‘Play with feeling – his number- show me what you can.’ Mariza sings -ironically- the gypsy’s refrain, ‘Before the month is out…’ (Pfitzner’s high notes are a little shaky.)
Earlier in the Sag mir, mein Lieb (Put on your prettiest dreams, be ready at ten), duet, Prohaska’s top notes were adequate, but not thrilling. She, Pfitzner, is pleasing and a little more. Their voices are fitted to operetta, not powerful, but as required. Kurt Schreibmayer’s Populesco, also ensemble, added ballast.
In the denouement, Sigwald, a terrific comic turn as Baron Koloman, reveals he’s only an actor. He’s actually in love with Lisa, Tassilo’s sister (Mariza’s once-imagined rival), who’ll marry him anyway. Sigwald sings well with Anita Götz’s very competent soprano.
The staging and costumes by Toto (in Thomas Enzinger’s production) are a world -beater- miles better than the rather threadbare affair for Kálmán’s recently performed Czarda’s Princess. Alexander Rumpf conducted Vienna Volksoper forces with panache, orchestra in snazzy black suits and red ties, attuned to Kálmán’s syncopated dance rhythms. Worth a trip to Vienna. P.R. 15.05.2014
Photos: Vienna Volksoper ensemble; Daniel Prohaska (Count Tassilo) and Nicholaus Hagg (Karl Liebenberg); Ursula Pfizner (Countess Mariza) and Daniel Prohaska (Tassilo) and members Vienna State Ballet ; Featured image Ursula Pfizner and Vienna State Ballet
(c) Barbara Pálffy/ Volksoper Wien

Giordano’s Andrea Chénier is the story of the poet of the French Revolution who sacrificed his life for his ideals. Giordano’s fourth and greatest opera, Chénier is described (by Vienna State Opera) as a ‘must for all opera lovers.’ For once this was no hype, the opera -new to me -was a revelation.
Through Chénier we see aspects of the French Revolution, from pre-revolutionary aristocracy to the reign of terror. Chénier’s commitment to freedom and humanity provokes enmity and suspicion. First at a pre- Revolution celebration at the Contessa di Coigny (where he falls in love with her daughter Maddelena); in the Jacobin Terror he’s a suspected counter-revolutionary on the run. Chénier is the artist always at odds with corruption and political repression.
In Otto Schenk’s design , Vienna State Opera’s stage for the Countess’s party has faux painted walls (resembling tiers of an opera house): front stage, the salon has antique furniture.
The valet Gérard (baritone Anthony Michaels- Moore) sings passionately, ‘You have fathered slaves’: how he hates their gilded house, their stylish gallants. ‘Your fate is sealed!’
Maddalena (soprano Norma Fantini) appears rather plump. She suffers in a tight corset; her servant Bersi (Alica Kolosova) thinks it’s absolutely superb. She also complains about her hideous petticoat: even if born a beauty, she now looks terrible. This is an unnatural world- the aristocracy- of artificial courtesies and sycophantic flattery. So her mother, white-haired, haggard, is greeted, ‘how elegant, absolutely charming’, ever youthful. It’s all flattery and teasing.
The poet, Andrea Chénier (Johan Botha) stands out, against the frills and frippery, in a navy jacket and culottes. Botha is unmistakeable to any opera lover, especially for his Wagner roles. He stands observing the show from the side-lines. They’re talking of ‘dark clouds’, impending revolution. But the ladies sing about the tomorrow they await in an innocent pastoral. Botha seems to scowl in contempt as a harp plucks in the background.
Maddalena, this figure of curiosity, asks how a poet is inspired by his muse. Chénier’s aria is a highpoint of the opera, and Botha’s lyrical tenor sublime beyond words. ‘Poetry, he replies, is as capricious as love; the muse is unpredictable, not to be commanded. He gazes up at the eternal blue of the heavens, the world bathed in golden sunlight, a boundless treasure. He extols his beloved fatherland. But the revolutionary poet criticises the Church, the Priest deaf to the pleas of an old man. And the nobleman does nothing against such poverty.
Turning to Maddalena, beautiful woman, do not scorn the words of the poet. ‘You know nothing of life, a divine gift, don’t deride it!’ She’s entranced by Chenier. (‘She’s a strange girl’, comment the other women.) Gérard is also deeply impressed.
A demonstration outside of starving peasants disturbs the party. Gérard resigns. The Countess’s guests will, nevertheless, return to their gavotte. Botha was enthusiastically applauded. Botha sang Walther in Wagner’s Meistersinger, the outsider to the guilds’ cant and ceremony: here the whole rotten feudal system.
Act 2 opens to a huge square, left stage café tables and chairs; a white statue; and an upturned carriage. A Revolutionary tribunal hearing. Gérard promoted to the Chamber of Deputies. Secret police agents -black-hatted, dandy- tick off a list of suspects: Chénier is included. In Chénier’s aria, Botha sings movingly of a power that says you shall be a poet. So, although advised to leave by his friend Roucher (Boaz Daniel) , his destiny demands that he should stay. And -bewildered by a lady’s anonymous letters-the name of his destiny is love. ‘Believe in love, Chénier.’ Botha’s rendition is ardent, captivating. Botha- his life undone- accepts Roucher’s pass.
Giordano’s music is a revelation- surging late 19th century romanticism, contemporary with Puccini (La Boheme, 1896) : an exhilarating experience, especially with Paulo Carignani conducting Vienna State Opera Orchestra and Chorus.
Through Bersi, her former maid- who shelters Maddalena, now sought by the police- Chenier makes contact with Maddelena. In their duet, Maddelena, in a white shawl recognises Chénier: ‘Do you remember me?’ Now Fantini is more shapely: the artificial padding she wore as a Countess’s daughter discarded. (The aristocrat’s clothing represented unnatural constraints against real feeling.) Their destiny was to meet again. She sent him the letters. She’s alone, in danger, and afraid. Will he, her last hope, protect her? Fantini is rather good. And Botha magnificent singing of their moment of blissful love. To an oboe accompaniment, she washed away his last cowardice: he’s prepared to die. Despite the danger, the Terror, they pledge to stay together; even unto death! ‘Magnificent moment of blissful love’, they proclaim in duet. (This has the measure of Puccini’s best!)
Act 3: a Revolutionary court. The window facades are blacked out, a crowd of observers looking on; but elegant furniture front of stage. There’s talk of France attacked on all sides, by Prussians, Austrians. Women are urged to contribute their jewellery; mothers to give their sons to France, the motherland. ‘Old Madelon’ -Monica Bohinec in an unforgettable cameo- sings how she’s lost both her sons. She offers her grandson- barely a boy- yet he’s instantly conscripted.
A creepy police informer is dressed in black hat, frock coat, breeches and boots- rather foppish with a walking stick. Gérard (Michaels-Moore) is barely recognisable in a dashing black tailored jacket, braided in red. In his aria, Gérard hesitates- disillusioned – to sign Chénier’s death warrant. Once he was driven by hate. But now realises he’s still a servant: all he’s done is change masters. He was a child of the war of liberation. Why does he no longer have faith in the vision? (He wanted to arouse a conscience in the people: turn the world into a paradise.) He has betrayed his calling; he is a libertine, still slave to his passions.
Madame di Coigny introduces herself, now in a simple white dress. He’s captured her lover Chénier. Now Gérard confesses he wanted her, even as a small girl – his life-long passion, he, the servant always eavesdropping. He grasps her, wants to bury his hands in the sea of her blonde hair. If her body is the price of Chenier’s life, then take her.
Maddalena’s aria, La mamma morta, poignantly sung by Fantini, reminds of Verdi (Amelia’s plea in Un Ballo in Maschera ).They murdered her mother in the doorway of her room. She was alone, in poverty, trouble and danger. Bersi prostituted her beauty to save her. In all this wretchedness, love came to her. But she offers to dry his tears and watch over him. Does he (Gérard) see blood all around him? She will help him forget. ‘I am love, love, love! Mine is the body of a dying woman , so take it!’ (Tremendous!)
Out of love for Maddalena and his earlier sympathy for Chénier, Gérard helps him escape; but Chénier is nevertheless arrested. Gérard accuses the Court of violating justice: of murdering poets. Michaels-Moore powerful, impassioned: his life is a ship on course for death, so be it. But he will fly the standard for his country. You will not drag it through the dirt: Chénier is no traitor.
The Marseillaise is heard in the background. Maddalena has offered to take the place of a condemned prisoner so she can be with Chénier. They run into each other’s arms. Chénier sings of his troubled soul, but she is all he ever desired. So they will go to the guillotine together: in the hope of a new life, together in death. Their final duet vicino a te is terrifically sung. The feeling is Wagnerian, reminiscent of Tristan und Isolde’s Liebestod, love in death. ‘Death! Eternal love!’, ‘death arriving with the sun.’ Maddalena (like Isolde) walks to her death. Strains of Wagner-realising something new is, after all, the reworking of the familiar- did not detract from discovering a major operatic work, Giordano’s masterpiece. P.R.9.05.2014
Photos: Johan Botha (Andrea Chénier) and Maria José Siri (Maddalena); Anthony Michaels-Moore (Gérard); Alfred Sramek (Mathieu), also featured image. Photos of Norma Fantini as Maddalena were not available.
(c) Wiener Staatsoper/ Michael Poehn

Vienna State Opera’s spectacular period production Rigoletto (stage Pantelis Dessylas) opens in the Duke’s palace. The banqueting hall where the Duke is entertaining his Court has rich oak panelling; the costumes, late Renaissance, appear authentic. So Verdi’s plot is dramatically more plausible than those modern stagings using the Court as a Mafia analogy.
The opening scene sets in motion the tragedy. The Duke (Piero Pretti) sings boasting, he finds pleasure today, he may be with another tomorrow. And without scruples, proceeds to woo the beautiful wife of Ceprano, his loyal retainer. Pretti, well named, has an irrestibly mellifluous tenor. We’re in no doubt about his lechery, but he’s charming.
Rigoletto role is that of court jester -a Shakesperean Fool- aiding and abetting his Duke, and mocking his courtiers. But he’s victim of his own intigues. Rigoletto’s tragedy is inherent within the characteristically Verdian relationship between over-possessive father and daughter seeking independence and love.
Leo Nucci’s Rigoleto, short, red-haired, appears slightly stooped, in fact a hunchback. And he’s actually wearing a harlequin outfit. Nucci is an operatic legend, celebrating his 500th stage appearance (4th April 2014) and 35 years performing at Vienna State Opera. His Rigoletto is a special treat for opera lovers. His distinguished baritone has enormous timbre, and he inhabits the role with subtle characterisation. Nucci holds the stage firing his caustically witty ripostes.
But the tragedy is sealed by Count Monterone’s outburst, demanding an explanation of the Duke who’s dishonoured his daughter. Rigoletto scorns the slighted father. Monterone curses both master and servant, but it’s Rigoletto who is haunted by the curse.
Act 2 , returning home, Rigoletto is accosted by Sparafucile, a professional assassin, (in whom Rigoletto sees a reflection of his own life.) Rigoletto’s aria -deeply troubled by the curse- is a highpoint of the opera. It reveals insights into his complex nature, the demon that drives him. To cellos and double basses- unsettled, disturbing- Nucci sings movingly, we are all alone. Rigoletto compares himself to Sparafucile: Sparafucile murders with his dagger, he uses words. He repeatedly sings , mantra-like, the old man put a curse on him . Now echoing Shakespeare’s anti-heros- Richard III , Iago- sings Nature has made him vile. How terrible it is to be crippled. But he may not weep. His young, handsome master orders him ‘Make me laugh’. If he, Rigoletto, is evil, it is because of him.
But here-(at home) -he becomes another man. Now upbeat orchestral strings: his daughter Gilda appears. His love for her humanises him. Gilda (Valentina Nafornita, a charming brunette ), complains she ony ever goes to church. – ‘Don’t remind a man of the happiness he’s lost’. His wife died. Only she is left to him, his mercy.-‘But what grief,’rejoins Gilda, ‘Calm yourself father.’-‘Only you are left to me.’ In a powerful interaction between Nucci and Nafornita, Rigoletto, Verdi’s obsessive father, ‘You are my family, country, universe.’ She’s been there three months, hasn’t seen the town. ‘Is the door locked?’ – ‘Always. Your precious flower will never be broken.’ . (Rigoletto instructs the housekeeper, Giovanna, she needs to be vigilant.)
Gilda confides in Giovanna (Juliette Mars), she’s been seeing a young man in church, (‘a student’). He’s generous, and refined. She doesn’t want a nobleman; she’d love him all the same.
‘Say those sweet words again!’ The Duke (disguised) has insinuated his way in. Pretti’s tenor is melting, melodious. ‘She is the sunshine of his soul’. Physically, Pretti is short and slight in relation to Nafornita, who’s seated on the garden bench, he standing over her. Their duet is well delivered. Their voices melt; she coos along. (The Duke is shameless, such is the power of rhetoric!)
In Gilda’s aria , Let his name be engraved on my heart, Nafornita is accompanied by a flute solo: jaunty rhythms introduce the well-known Caro nome, ‘Beloved name, may you always remind me of love…’ Nafornita’s display of coloratura is pleasing , but (standing left of stage by a well) she sounded a little shaky at one point. (She was unwell.) Elsewhere, Nafornita’s gorgeous stage presence and acting compensated.
We see the sumptuous palace interior; tables strewn with chess sets. Pretti sings angelically, he’s overcome by her virtue. And sententiously, she has been stolen from him. (The Duke’s courtiers have abducted the secreted-away Gilda, believing her Rigoletto’s mistress). With saintly indignation, he sees her tears as she calls to ‘her beloved Gualtier’ (his disguise). Terrifically sung by Pretti in a rich red velour house coat: the devil has all the best tunes.
Chorus- Vienna State Opera’s excel in Verdi- sing, ‘He has discovered a rare beauty’. In one of the great Verdian choruses- ‘They carried her out…blind-folded the girl.’ They actually sound quite charming. Verdi gives them a jaunty swagger, mocking their false bravado. The Duke sings of the poor girl: love summons him (Possente amor) . Chorus repeat (ironically), why is he so agitated.
Nucci’s scene, searching for Gilda (end Act 2) is harrowingly well played. They mock him, ‘Poor Rigoletto! What’s new, jester?’ They taunt him- Where can she be?-Verdi’s strings sardonic, almost laughing, jeering. Nucci, hunch-backed, is pitiful in his jester’s costume. In his aria -The girl you abducted last night is my daughter- their contempt changes to embarrassed silence. Rigoletto begs for pity; he can only weep. He pleads, have a heart. Then, a long sustained note, ‘You are fathers…’, accompanied by a superbly played cello solo. It was powerfully rendered. The applause for Nucci went on and on.
Gilda is brought in. Distraught, shamed. She’s been deceived, but confesses her love. Rigoletto sings, have no fear my angel. We are alone, speak. Gilda admits she saw the young man every sunday in church. She said nothing, but their eyes spoke. He came to her secretly yesterday, then left. But she ‘was filled with hope.’
Nucci sings poignantly, he hoped she would rise up as high as he, Rigoletto, has fallen. Weep my child to my heart! He swears to avenge the honour of fathers. Terrible vengeance is his one desire. The jester will strike him down. (The Duke sings, side of stage, he suspects me.) The scene ends tremendously, Verdi’s conflicting voices in ensemble.
Opening Act 3, an imposing rocky stone building (the Tavern). Maddalena (Nadia Krasteva) salaciously tempts the Duke. ‘All moral sense vanishes in the act of love.’ There is no doubt of his deception of Gilda. The Duke is incorrigible: ‘Come here and hear his heart beating.’ She is leading him on- dangling her legs- all thighs. Krasteva’s mezzo is excellent!
Now the Duke’s iconic aria La donna e mobile… ‘Woman is as wayward as a feather in the wind. Her pretty face is deceitful, whether weeping or sleeping.’ It’s insolent, bragadaccio, misogynistic; and accented by a soaring clarinet solo. Outside they’re overheard by Rigoletto and a despairing Gilda. He’s given Gilda time to get over him. Would she still love him if he were deceiving her? Besotted, she continues to love him. (Later Rigoletto negotiates with Sparafucile: Kill him and he’ll double the reward.) Again we hear the Duke’s swansong. Cruel misogyny! Pretti, in a grey swashbuckling outfit: Lamentable the man who puts his trust in a woman! But it is superbly sung, reaching thrilling high notes. Well applauded.
For Rigoletto the moment of vengeance is here at last. (A storm brewing, a sack is delivered.) ‘Take a look at me, the jester. Now he is at my feet!’ Then he hears the Duke’s refrain, as if mocking him, from the balcony, (La Donna e mobile), so beautifully sung by Pretti. Insidiously alluring, satanic?
So who’s in the sack instead? Impossible! She left for Verona. We hear Nafornita, her voice feeble. She deceived her father. She loved him too much; disguised to save the Duke, must die for him. Crushed, Rigoletto, declaims, ‘Oh terrible God!’ She has been struck down by revenge. Pathetically, if she goes, he’ll be left alone. The sheer abjection of human despair- man juggled by fate- is akin to the desperately pitiful King Lear picking up his smitten daughter Cordelia. In Verdi, fusing music with high drama, the scene cannot fail to move.
Nafornita performed in spite of illness: against the towering performance of Nucci, and Pretti’s virtuoso tenor. Jesus- Lopez Cobos, distinguished in Italian repertoire, encouraged Vienna State Opera orchestra to their Verdian best. And that glorious Chorus! P.R. 4.4.2014
Photos: Valentina Nafornita (Gilda) and Leo Nucci (Rigoletto); Valentina Nafornita and Piero Pretti (The Duke of Mantua); Featured image Piero Pretti (the Duke)
(c) Wiener Staatsoper/ Michael Poehn

Late March in a stormy, cold Vienna, Spring has been postponed. Doom and gloom also on the stage of Vienna State Opera’s Berg’s Wozzeck. Alban Berg’s opera is based on George Buchner’s stage pieces concerning the (1821) criminal case of a barber who stabbed his woman to death. Wozzeck, a low-ranking soldier is forced to work privately for his captain , and volunteers for his doctor’s experiments, so he can support Marie and her child by him.
But Berg’s modernist opera -the first complete ‘atonal’ opera- is a work for our time, not just early 20th century, but recognisable now. Berg was moved by this man, ‘maltreated, spurned by the world, plagued by visions, who murders his lover, and drowns himself’. Berg’s opera – modernist-like Schnittke’s plays – tells the story through episodes, over 3 Acts , each five scenes. Berg’s music heightens the emotional atmosphere in these individual scenes, incorporating old and new musical forms. And (for 1925) its social realism radically depicts scenes from everyday life. An indictment of social injustice, Wozzeck ‘widened the notion of opera still living off stylised costumes and standardised characters.'(Schoenberg)
The Captain (Herbert Percoraro), pampered in the barber’s chair, waffles away with patronising advice. Wozzeck- so the Captain smothered in lather- ‘always looks so frantic’. A decent man with a clear conscience does everything …with control. Herbert Percoraro, a lyrical, high -pitched tenor, emits a manic laugh- against Mathias Goerne’s deep bass. Ja wohl, herr Hauptmann, Wozzeck repeatedly nods. Mathias Goerne has played the role of Wozzeck so often he now embodies the character. Physically, Goerne looks demonic; his large, staring eyes have a haunted look.
The Captain taunts him, Wozzeck has a child , unblessed by the Church: Wozzeck is a good man but has no morals (ein guter Mennsch, aber er hat kein Moral.) Wozzeck rebuts him ‘suffer the little children to come unto me.’ The law of God, poor people don’t see it. Morals! We are poor people; try practising your morals with no money. Goerne, standing glowering over the Captain waves his razor menacingly. Pecora rejoins, he’s a good man, but he thinks too much – often repeated of Wozzeck (the lower classes’ thinking could lead to revolution.)
This brooding violence re-emerges in the following hunting scene. Wozzeck tells Andres the place is ‘haunted’: the story -almost comical – how one evening a head came rolling down, someone thinking it a hedgehog.
Marie (Scene 3) watching a military band from her window, sees the Drum Major. He glances after her: soldiers are handsome fellows. ‘Come boy, you’re just a whore’s son,’ she sings. She’s a pretty maid, but she has no husband. As Marie, Evelyn Herlitzius is a ravishingly expressive soprano.
Their home resembles a shack in a southern U.S. movie – Depression era. Wozzeck looks in through the window – a striking contrast to the Drum Major. Wozzeck sings of his visions, ‘There was shape in the sky, all glowing. It came after him!’ (She goes to look after her son.) Herlitzius, tremendously powerful, rails, ‘This man’s obsessed, he didn’t even look at his child.’ All this thinking is driving him mad. And, desperately, ‘God , what it is to be poor.’ She can’t bear it any more. She’s frightened.
Wozzeck’s other way of earning money: the Doctor (Wolfgang Bankl). Doesn’t he give him three groschens a day! Has he eaten his beans? See, you’re philosophising again. (‘You see in nature…) Wozzeck is on all fours, like a dog. Bankl’s white-jacketed doctor is a chilling forerunner to a Nazi War Camp doctor. Wozzeck mistakes the Doctor’s interest in his visions for human sympathy. But Bankl triumphantly declares,’You’ve got a perfect mania- a classic case. Just keep being good.’ With his hypothesis, he’ll be famous.
In the scene between the The Drum Major and Marie, the Major (Herbert Lippert) appears at Marie’s s door. She mocks his swagger. He forces himself on her. She fights him off- like a wild animal. Then, unable to resist him, they copulate.
Opening Act 2 , Marie is with her boy. Again the expressionistic painted stage set, grey with cloudy abtract shapes in black; or are they dirt-engrained walls? Marie tries to hide the earing ‘she found’. Wozzeck interrogates her- ‘it must be gold?’- but relents. Plaintively Goerne sings , ‘Nothing but drudgery under the sun. We even sweat as we sleep.’ But he offers his pay and money he’s earned on the side. She sings, I’m not a good person. What a world! She could kill herself. Herlitzius, overwrought, affecting, is sensational.
The Doctor and Captain’s meeting in the street is comical. The strutting Captain (Bankl) in a top hat looms over the Captain (Percoraro), who, breathless, is trying to catch him up. ‘Permit me to save one life! Here’s you, bloated, fat, subject to aploplexy…’
Wozzeck, what’s your hurry. You charge through life like an open razor!‘ They mock him over his wife’s affair with the Drum Major. (The Captain admits he was once in love too.) But Goerne pleads with harrowing pathos, she’s all in the world he’s got. ‘God in heaven, it almost makes you want to hang yourself.’ To the Doctor,’He’s a rare specimen, this Wozzeck.’
Wozzeck confronts Marie, hints at her affair: her red lips have no blisters. ‘You were with him!’ -‘What if I was?’-‘You bitch!’ He’s about to strike her, but Goerne, again philosophical, sings movingly on the human condition, ‘Man is an abyss. It makes you dizzy looking all the way down.’
Wozzeck is outside a cheap tavern, brandy-soaked. It’s effectively staged, soldiers dancing with local women, huddled together on a cramped raised platform. Berg’s music seems to subvert the waltzing rhythms. He walks in, as Marie and the Drum Major appear and openly flirt, kissing passionately. The dance ends, Wozzeck’s about to go over. Goerne sings he’s comfortable here; but death would be as comfortable. Earthly things are in vain…Everything rots away; then, hiccupping, ‘his soul stinks’ . A fool cavorts: why is the world sad.
In the soldiers’ barracks, there are lines of men’s bodies either side of the stage. Wozzeck can’t sleep, sees flashes, hears the refrain ‘Oh, God, lead us not into temptation.’ The Drum Major bursts in, picks a fight with Wozzeck and brutally strikes him. He’s left bleeding and brooding.
Opening Act 3 Marie is sitting in her room , desperately seeking consolation in her bible, identifying with Mary Magdalene seeking forgiveness. Then- the stage set excellent -an expanse of flint grey water and skies. Marie and Wozzeck are walking by the ‘pond’. Wozzeck sings enigmatically,’you won’t need it in the morning. ‘
There’s a horrid moment as Herlitzius jerks- like receiving an electric shock- and topples. Goerne sings of how red the moon is… He has cut her throat. No one else can have her. Tot! A tremendous wailing sound emanates from the orchestra; a long sustained note, hellish drums, an ominous knocking.
We see Wozzeck sitting at the entrance to a tavern, a hole cut out of the expressionistically painted wall. Wozzeck, drunk, clings to a woman, with his bloodied arm. (No shoes, she can go barefoot into hell.) They all come out, repelled by the blood on his hands.
Wozzeck returns to the pond. ‘Alles still..still und tot.’ Wading in, he sings incoherently, Marie, what is that red band around your neck? But the red moon will betray him. He can’t find the knife; imagines himself all bloody, as if washing himself with blood. (The Doctor and Captain, passing, think they can hear someone drown.)
The final scene shows children playing. Does the boy know about Marie:’Your mother is dead, out there by the pond.’ The boy is seen fading into the expanse of blue cloud: perhaps the outsider, philosophising.
Wozzeck is the victim of a modern, ‘capitalist’ society- poor, down-trodden, exploited; and psychotic, driven mad. If Wozzeck has to be experienced, this current production could hardly be bettered. Directed by Adolph Dresen, Herbert Kapplmueller’s staging, evocative, atmospheric, is not distracting. The cast distinguished, Berg’s orchestration is endlessly fascinating, and to hear it performed by Vienna State Opera orchestra (conducted by specialist Dennis Russell Davies), a privilige. P.R. 23.3.2014
Photos: Featured image Evelyn Herlitzius (Marie); Mathias Goerne (Wozzeck); Evelyn Herlitzius (Marie) and Monika Bohinec (Margret); Mathias Goerne (Wozzeck) and Evelyn Herlitzius (Marie)
(c) Wiener Staatsoper/ Michael Pӧhn

Johann Strauss’s music, was never more popular, with the New Years Day waltzes beamed worldwide. But are the Operettas rather outdated? Not this gleaming new Vienna Volksoper production of A Night in Venice (Eine Nacht in Venedig) . Strauss’s score is gloriously tuneful, its arias evergreen; and, libretto by Die Fledermaus’s F. Zell and Richard Genee, it still works as great theatre. (A packed house responded to the witty dialogue with spontaneous laughter.) And there’s nothing second rate about this cast, nor the very smooth sound of Vienna’s Volksoper orchestra.
The preposterous plot of lovers’ intrigues- further complicated in a Venice carnival- centers on the visit of the Duke of Urbino, a notorious womaniser- aided by his personal barber (Figaro?) Caramello, seeking Barbara, the frisky wife of elderly senator Delacqua. To thwart jealous Delaqua, Annina -actually Caramello’s lover- takes her mistress Barbara’s place. And the servants- Ciboletta, the Senator’s cook, in love with Pappacoda- manipulate their masters. But whereas in Die Fledermaus the champagne is to blame, in A Night in Venice, it’s the carnival. Alle maskiert, Alle maskiert, wo Spass, wo Tollheit und lust regiert.‘ The masks and disguises of carnival are opportunity and excuse for fun, wildness and desire.
It opens with a pageant around Pappacoda’s traditional (Venetian) macaroni stall- quaint outfits with pointed hats. Behind, backstage, there are cut-out floating waves on wires, and- in Hinrich Horstkotte’s clever design – there’s an ingenious network of canals across the stage. Annina (soprano Mara Mastalir), posing as her mistress Barbara, appears in a pink gown singing magically of frutti die mare (she’s a fisherman’s daughter.) Barbara, on a jaunt, Manuela Leonhartsberger, appears only briefly. Ciboletta the cook (Johanna Arrouas), nattering away, is a fine-voiced soprano (Volksoper ensemble). Caramello, the Duke’s assistant, tenor Jorg Schneider, is a big boy. The operetta’s comic lead sings the famous Komm in die Gondel (end Act 1) and the Laguna Waltz (Act 3). Caramello’s ‘quite a fellow’- bouffon hair, eccentric moustache, culottes, and orange boots- sings he’ll do anything to get Annina back in his arms. Her song of loyalty doesn’t ring true. The quartet of disguised pairs, Ciboletta/Papacoda and Annina/Caramello, introduce the Alle maskiert number: (fun, folly, and …sex!)
The Duke of Urbino introduces himself. ‘My greetings to the fine city of Venice. Nature made you a place for love.’ Vincent Schirrmacher’s entrance lifts the production to a higher level. His is a very impressive tenor, authorative, in the traditional (Viennese) operetta style. He’s got star quality. Schirrmacher’s dressed in a purple glitter outfit, Venetian headpiece, white cravatte. Good looking, perhaps oriental -it doesn’t matter, he’s got charisma, and such a voice. He’s never seen Barbara unmasked, so he’s taken in by the disguised Annina. ‘The moon has filed a suit before the Court’, he wafts. The costumes are ingeniously designed so we can see behind the masks.
The Chorus, Volksoper’s, crucial in the scheme, have some of the plum numbers. ‘For who knows what tomorrow will bring…’ extends into ‘Man is pre-occupied with three things: Love , wine and coffee.’ Si nette tutto in sacce. Bring it on.
The interior of the Duke’s palace looks surprisingly opulent -Volksoper is Vienna ‘s second opera house, after all. The Duke, Schirrmacher, is dressed in very glamorous gold orienatal robes. Annina, Mara Mastalir, the other star of the show, sings she will do what it takes to lure her man. Mastalir’s soprano is beguiling, with outstanding technique. The Duke, pursuing her- the disguised Annina – around the stage, is tantalised. But why so cruel, Barbara? She sings, don’t get so close : I spoke (only) of a rendez-vous…The music loosens all restraints, Schirrmacher croons.
The second Act staging -given Volksoper’s relatively modest resources – is remarkable. A screen descends. There is a sensational framing of the cast as if on a boat. It’s like a floating box, around them and behind, Venice waterways, projected onto the opening white screen. Very effective.
Who doesn’t know of the doves of Saint Marco, sing the Chorus. They set an example for any couple. In the ensemble, some cast are waving tall rods which appear like doves fluttering. Hilariously camp.
The highlight again is Schirrmacher’s aria, ‘Ah , how lovely to gaze at the lovely ladies…As rash as the ebbing tide, their flights of fancy; no one knows what they’re thinking.’ Lovely ladies, Schirmacher’s gorgeous tenor rises.
In Act 3 the ridiculous senator Delacqua is looking for his wife Barbara everywhere. There’s a lot of dialogue in operetta, interspersed between the musical numbers. And thus ‘operetta’, transported to America, was a forerunner to the musical, especially from the 1930s the Hollywood musical. But this dialogue is German -although there are English subtitles- and it’s very witty. Agricola, asks Delacqua is that a man? ‘No but she wears the trousers,’ explains Ciboletta, his cook . ‘Now I’m confused!’ The old senator (Hubsch) wanders in a daze, repeating ‘I’m looking for a woman, I’m looking for Barbara.’ He’s told, your wife will turn up on Ash Wednesday, when the disguises are discarded. So the show closes with the repeated refrain, ‘It’s carnival all around. Whatever bores us will be ridiculed.’ It’s an extravagant looking set, and the carnival costumes are respendently colourful, intricate, top drawer.
This new Vienna Volksoper revival of Strauss’s A Night in Venice must be recommended. The production is traditional, but so is carnival. The cast were polished, the leads Schirrmacher and Mastalir outstanding. Volksoper chorus were exemplary, and the Volksoper orchestra refined, but under Lorenz C. Aichner, not quite their best (as under Volksoper’s director Albert Eshwe.) P.R. 4.1.2014
Photos: Mara Mastalir (Annina) and Vincent Schirrmacher (Duke of Urbino) ;
Featured image Group shot ensemble
(c) Barbara Palffy / Volksoper Wien

In the plot of Beethoven’s Fidelio, Don Pizzaro, governor of a state jail, holds Florestan secretly imprisoned on political grounds. Sounds familiar? Redolent of political oppression from time immemorial? Never more so than in the 21st century. So why must it be located historically, in the early 19th century? Otto Schenk’s traditional production for Vienna State Opera has bare mud-grey walls, is sparsely furnished for head jailor Rocco’s house. Florestan’s wife Leonore has disguised herself as a man named Fidelio, hoping as the jailor’s assistant to reach Florestan. But Rocco’s daughter Marzelline- rejecting Jaquino’s attempts to woo her in the first scene- has fallen in love with Fidelio. (The gender implications, one of ‘the strange history of transvestite heroines’, are another matter.) This over-complicated plot is testing -except for seasoned opera fans. The dull staging doesn’t help, but it’s Beethoven, his only opera, so there are musical compensations!
Marzelline, Rocco’s daughter, is beautifully sung by a blonde Ildiko Raimondi. Beaming with love, in her first aria, Kommt Fidelio im Haus alles verändert, she sings how Fidelio has changed everything. Matti Salminen, seasoned Finnish bass is impressive as the approving father. Fidelio (soprano Ricarda Merbeth, former member of Vienna State Opera ensemble) sings of her mission, ‘Wie gross die Gefahr, wie schwach die Hoffnung’ , however great the danger, however feint the hope . As Fidelio /Leonore Merbeth, with straight black hair, seems a little fulsome. (A frockcoat doesn’t disguise the bust.) The trio gloriously affirm the Power of Love.
Rocco tells of the prisoner whose meagre rations have been reduced. Florestan has no light, no straw , nothing.
The Minister Don Fernando has heard of Pizzaro’s abuse of power. Pizzaro’s solution is now to murder Florestan. But first jailor Rocco must dig a grave in Florestan’s cell. A trumpet call will warn Pizzaro of the arrival of Don Fernando. Pizzaro (Tomasz Konieczny) enters, delivers his aria , Der Sieg ist mein (the victory is mine.) Konieczny is slim, hirsute, blonde, cropped beard: with modish close-fitting coat, scarf, and boots, much too attractive for the villain of the piece! The voice, a dramatic bass-baritone, is formidably authorative, however.
Merbeth in Fidelio’s aria Komm Hoffnung. Die Liebe wird’s erreichen (Love will reach it!) is a high point. Observing Pizzaro’s rage, more determined to succeed, she will penetrate the hidden place where her enchained lover is hidden. Her faith in love and freedom drives her on; her inner compulsion will not falter.
An incredible moment when the prisoners emerge, from the sides of the stage into the light -as if blinded. ‘Oh what joy to breathe in the open air. Their life as prisoners is a tomb. Oh, heavenly rescue! But their happiness –Was ein Gluck!‘- is counterpointed by other voices, knowing they are being watched and listened to. ‘Wir sind belauscht.’ We see guards patrolling on the stage’s overhead bridge. (Another resonnance for 21st century audiences, surely.)
Florestan has so far not been seen: that man who Rocco has been ordered to give less and less to eat. In Act 2, Florestan’s cell, we see Florestan (Peter Seiffert) kept like an animal on a chain- at first lying flat on the ground. ‘Gott! welch’ Dunkel hier!’, sings Peter Seiffert, a great Wagner helden tenor –Tanhauser, Tristan recently in Vienna- and an actor tremendous to watch. ‘What a test! But God’s will is just. The measure of suffering is up to him.’ And, poignantly, the springtime of life’s happiness has deserted him. He dared to speak the truth. Chains are his reward. But his consolation is his duty is done. (Meine Pflicht ist getan.)
But now he feels a gentle breeze…he senses his wife Leonore (Fidelio) will lead him to freedom. Seiffert seems to collapse. He lies again flat, prostrate. (No clapping. No time to applaud.)
Fidelio sings she will loosen his chains, bring him freedom, whoever you are. Florestan wakens. ‘Mercy, give me one drop of water’, Seiffert such a great actor. Fidelio offers him wine and bread – the bread she’s been saving for Florestan – although she can’t quite recognise his features. Florestan can’t repay ‘his’ good dead. He’s moved seeing the young man there, not realising who it is. ‘ It will be all over for him in a day or so.’ In Beethoven’s great trio -Florestan , Rocco, and Fidelio- each sing their separate lines in contrapunct. Florestan, repeats ‘O dass ich eux nicht lohnen kann ‘, if only I could repay you ; Fidelio and Rocco, ‘It’s more than I can bear’, ‘his life will soon be at an end.’
Pizzaro enters, gloats over his victim’s powerlessness. As Pizzaro is about to stab Florestan, Fidelio intervenes against his Mörderlust (bloodthirst)- steps between them. ‘First kill his wife!’ Fidelio draws a pistol, and reveals his identity. ‘What pluck! Shall he, Pizzaro, tremble before a woman?’
Now the trumpet call, signalling the arrival Minister Don Fernando, Beethoven’s trumpet surely one of the iconic moments in all music, sending a call to freedom, an end to tyranny. Du bist gerettet, saved by almighty God. ‘The hour of vengeance strikes. Love in league with courage will save you!’
O, namenlose Freude! After this suffering, this is beyond joy! (There are strains of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy movement.) Alone Leonore and Florestan thank God for their deliverance. The duet between Florestan and Leonore is marvelously sung and played, Seiffert and Merbeth reminding one of great theatrical reunions (King Lear and Cordelia?). ‘To hold her husband to her breast’, sings Merbeth poignantly.
There follows a long orchestral interlude, the most sublime of Beethoven’s orchestral overtures, Leonore (no. 3). But – blasphemy- isn’t this excessively long, so as to interrupt the dramatic momentum on stage? This is an opera. (The supremacy of libretto over music was argued by Gluck in his 1760s manifesto.) Or is Beethoven having the last word in the debate, proclaiming music over text? The audience applauded as if it were the end of the opera, a triumph for conductor and music director Franz-Welser Möst and his Vienna State Opera Orchestra.
Notwithstanding, the stage opened out- now brilliantly lit from the screen at the back- is flooded by the wives coupling with their male prisoners. Heil sei den Tag, the day long yearned for! Don Fernando (bass-baritone Boaz Daniel) sings, representing the best of Kings: their enlightened ruler, grants a general amnesty: ‘A brother seeks his brother and will help whom he hears.’ Fernando recognises the prisoner kneeling as his friend Florestan. (Fingers point at Pizzaro demanding his punishment.) It is only appropriate that Fidelio, now Leonore, should release his chains, set him free.
Oh Gott, welch ein Augenblick, what a moment. Inexplicably, you try us but never desert us. It says something of Beethoven’s optimism and faith in mankind that the opera should end on a positive note. Not tragically, or in dramatic ambiguity. The knife of Pizzaro was staived.
Retten des Gattanten; the married couple are saved. Seiffert, overcome with joy, bemused, blinking in the daylight, the glow of happiness. He shakes his head in astonishment.They, Seiffert and Merbeth , passionately embracing, look like young lovers experiencing love for the first time. Led by Florestan, the Chorus of released prisoners and the people join in a hymn of praise to the noble woman who saved her husband.
The Fidelio narrative is too relevant to be historicised . (‘Amnesty’ cheekily handed out flyers superimposing over the Fidelio program cover an appeal to free political prisoners.) Vienna State Opera’s classic (Schenk) stage design still appeals, but I’d like to see Fidelio updated, cutting-edge, to the 20th/21st century. P.R. 30.12.2013
Photos: Tomasz Konieczny (Don Pizzaro); Peter Seiffert (Florestan); Tomasz Konieczny (Don Pizzaro) ; Peter Seiffert (Florestan) ; Boaz Daniel (Don Fernando)
Featured Image: Ildiko Raimondi (Marzelline); Matti Salminen (Rocco); Ricarda Merbeth (Fidelio/Leonore)
(c) Wiener Staatsoper /Michael Poehn