Tag Archives: kasten

The Samiel show

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Productions on the lake stage at Bregenz are usually spectacular but rarely stray very far from the traditional/canonical.  The production of Weber’s Der Freischütz, directed by Philipp Stölzl and recorded in 2023 is quite radical though.  I think there are three main elements to this quite ambitious reworking.  One is to give Samiel a much enhanced role.  Here he is both MC and puppetmaster; controlling the action, including playing with time, and addressing the audience directly.  The second element is to emphasize that this is taking place in the aftermath of the Thirty Year War and, to add to the misery of that, the village has suffered severe flooding.  This sets up a duality between Agathe as the one who still, despite everything, trusts in God and Ännchen who believes God has forsaken them.  This tension serves to make the two girls perhaps the most important figures, after Samiel, in the piece.

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A fascist Macbeth

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Krysztof Warlikowski’s production of Verdi’s Macbeth; recorded for video at Salzburg in 2023 is certainly not short of ideas.  Whether it all hangs together is another matter.  There seem to be two main ideas in play.  We are in a 1940s-ish fascist state with party armbands and so on.  This gets more explicit as the piece develops.  On top of this there’s a foregrounding of Lady Macbeth as the real driving force of the drama coupled with the idea that what’s driving her is her inability to provide an heir.  For example, she’s clearly the one being crowned after Duncan’s murder and babies are a recurrent visual motif.

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Butterfly at Bregenz

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Puccini’s Madama Butterfly is an opera I really have trouble with.  Done “straight” it’s just a horrible mixture of cultural appropriation and just plain ick.  It does have some good music though and opera companies insist on doing it roughy every five minutes so it would be really nice to find a production that worked dramatically.  The lake stage at Bregenz is just about the last place I’d expect to find that so I was pleasantly surprised that Andreas Homoki’s 2022 production is maybe the most interesting I’ve seen.1.arrival

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Hoffmann in Hamburg

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The 2021 recording of Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann from the Staatsoper Hamburg is fairly straightforward but it’s visually interesting and musically excellent.  I don’t think Daniele Finzi Pascas’ production has a “concept” as such.  It’s still about three imaginary women who make up Hoffmann’s dream woman and he still ultimately rejects even her in favour of Art.  Each of the five acts is given as different and distinctive look and feel though the use of mirrors and aerial doubles is a recurrent theme.  It’s worth noting up front that Olga Peretyatko sings all four ladies.

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Spectacular Die frau ohne Schatten from the Mariinsky

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Richard Strauss’ Die Frau ohne Schatten is a problematic work on many levels.  Hofmannsthal’s complicated and heavily symbolic libretto places considerable demands on both audience and director.  There are ideas about women, marriage and child bearing in the libretto that sit very uncomfortably with modern audiences.  It’s also a beast to cast requiring not just a truly Helden tenor and soprano but a second soprano of almost equal heft who can handle some fairly tricky coloratura.  It’s also long and requires a large orchestra.  In some ways it’s surprising that it gets performed as often as it does although when done well it’s a piece of quite extraordinary beauty and power.

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