Sometimes opera directors come up with a twist to a plot hat is illuminating without requiring pretzel logic to actually align it with the libretto. I think Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabit’s production of Wagner’s Lohengrin for the Wiener Staatsoper in 2024 manages that pretty well.
I have long been of the opinion that Beethoven’s Fidelio is structurally flawed. The first and second acts are so different intone and dramatic intensity that it never seems quite to hang together. Tobias Kratzer obviously shares this view but being smarter than me finds a way to leverage it. For his production at the Royal Opera House in 2020 he takes the two acts and effectively makes the second a commentary on the first. It’s worth quoting his own words:
Like no other opera, Beethoven’s Fidelio falls into two unequal halves. Act I is a historical melodrama on freedom and love in the post-Revolutionary era. Act II is a political essay on the responsibility of the individual in the face of the silent majority, a musical plea for active empathy.
Opera is full of patriarchy. It’s a bit odd then that Leoš Janáček wrote two operas about dominating matriarchs and the consequences of their actions. The better known of the two is probably Jenůfa but the later Kát’a Kabanová deals with similar themes. Both are bleak and have watery endings.
The Deutsche Oper’s production of Zemlinsky’s Der Zwerg, recorded in 2019 in Berlin, is directed by Tobias Kratzer who seems to be the rising star among young German opera directors. I can see why. This is a thoughtful and clever production that really does have something to say without being unduly gimmicky.
operaramblings 