Intermezzo

Keith Warner, Danish Jumper - the REAL reason he left

Yesterday the Royal Danish Opera announced that its Artistic Director Keith Warner had  resigned prematurely. His contract was due to expire in 2014.

The official press release included this statement from Keith Warner:

“It is with immense sadness that I feel I must resign my post at the Royal Danish Opera. A combination of factors, made acute by the recent devastating budget cuts, has led me to feel that in the present circumstances, I am unable to realise my great dreams for the company. We part good friends. The talent of the performing company is beyond compare and the dedication of the entire staff is without reproach. I’m sure we will continue to build pathways towards each other in the future.”

But is that all? Apparently not.

The speech he gave to opera house staff (as documented in Politiken) tells a different story.  

Saying he actually handed in his resignation as early as November, he goes on to slam senior management. "Why would I not resign?" he asks. "I have to front to you and the world endless decisions over which I am given shallow choices, little real control and absolutely no respect."

Danish Opera slashes jobs

The Royal Danish Theatre, Denmark's principal opera and ballet company, is set to fire 100 employees - 10% of its workforce - in response to budget cuts.  They include 35 artistic staff, believed to include members of the chorus, ballet and orchestra (which dates back to 1448, making it possibly the world's oldest). Three productions will be cut from next year's schedules as well.

The redundancies follow an agreement with Danish political parties to save 100 million Kronor (£11 million) over the next four years.

The company operates from a number of different premises, including the spectacular new Operaen, which costs a small fortune to heat, light and maintain. A consultants' report had indicated that the required savings might be made in this area, together with salary cuts and other expense reductions.  The dismissals came as a surprise, but the general manager Erik Jacobsen claims that following earlier trimming, there remains no other way to reduce costs.

Kasper Holten to succeed Elaine Padmore at Royal Opera House

 

Having reached an age you'd never guess from her recent photo below, the Royal Opera House's Head of Opera, Elaine Padmore, is set to retire at the end of this season.

Her replacement is Kasper Holten, currently Artistic Director of the Royal Danish Opera in Copenhagen (coincidentally, the position Padmore held before her Royal Opera House appointment).

Holten announced in 2009 his decision not to renew his Copenhagen contract when it expires in July 2011, and since then he has written and directed Juan, a movie based on Mozart's Don Giovanni. He is also an opera director in his own right, best known internationally for the Copenhagen Ring. It's not clear at this stage whether he plans to direct any productions for the Royal Opera House, but I wouldn't be surprised.

His contract with the Royal Opera House runs to 2016.

UPDATE - check out the ROH press release for more background.

Lulu goes to Copenhagen - a first night report

Lulu - Royal Danish Theatre, 15 October 2010

Heaving crowds descended on Copenhagen from all corners of the operatic empire on Friday night to witness the unveiling of the Royal Opera's new Lulu. It seemed every opera house in Germany had dispatched an ambassador - and was that our own Elaine Padmore I spotted too? The attractions - a production by newly-anointed Opernwelt Regisseur des Jahres Stefan Herheim, and the premiere of Eberhard Kloke’s reconstruction of the unfinished third act. 

Herheim's Copenhagen Lulu in photos

 

It seems Stefan Herheim has a system. In a by-now typical contextual reference, Copenhagen's old opera house is faithfully reproduced on the stage of Copenhagen's new opera house for his new Lulu, which premieres on Friday. Who knows what'll happen when it transfers to Oslo and Dresden?

And it looks as if he's solved the portrait issue in a novel way:

Ei blot til lyst, as inscribed above the stage, means by the way 'not just for pleasure' - in other words, for education and cultural enrichment too. Rather appropriate as the production opens on Copenhagen's annual Kulturnatten or Culture Night, when over 200 museums, churches, galleries, clubs, concert halls and other venues all over the city open their doors to all.

More photos (all by Miklos Szabo for Royal Danish Opera) overleaf.

Lulu in Copenhagen - a first glimpse

Stefan Herheim's Lulu premieres in Copenhagen this Friday.

not the same old Lulu

 
The Royal Danish Opera's new Lulu opens on 15 October, marking the first time Eberhard Kloke’s new reconstruction of the unfinished third act will be heard in public. I haven't heard or seen this new score myself, but Berg completed so much it seems unlikely Kloke's version can differ hugely from the familiar Cerha reconstruction. But you never know.

And if that alone doesn't make it worth catching, the director is the brilliant Stefan Herheim.

No production photos at this stage, but Gesine Völlm's costume designs (over the page) suggest a generous makeup budget and hint at how the character doubling will be handled.

something is British in the state of Denmark

Keith Warner, who directed a brilliant Wozzeck and a slightly less brilliant Ring cycle for the Royal Opera House, is to lead the Danish Royal Opera. He takes over when Kasper Holten's contract ends in July 2011

Copenhagen Opera House - photos

Copenhagen's new opera house, Operaen, is right on the harbour's edge, with a view of the city across the water. It was only opened a couple of years ago, and any local controversy over its inelegant oil filter looks was outweighed by the outrage over the massive tax break given to the private donor who funded the project.

It's not to be confused with the old opera house (Gamle Scene) in the heart of town, an exquisitely traditional house complete with candle holders and painted ceilings, sadly rarely used for opera these days.

Here's a view from the opera house of the landing stage for the ferry boat (the easiest way to arrive from town centre), and beyond it, the city. It was already pitch dark at 6.30 (well, it was November):

Huge windows wrap around the building. The giant pumpkin looming behind is the outer shell of the auditorium:

Here's what it looks like from inside. The whole structure's been opened up, so that corridors and passageways become balconies and gangways that feed the pumpkin with operagoers. Not for vertigo sufferers -- the clear glass sides give the impression of traversing a diving board. The sparkly crystal footballs look a little less magical close up -- they seem to be made of twisted plastic:

The auditorium itself is dark, and as cosy as a 2000 seater can be. Spectacular lighting creates tiny shimmering pools that transform the utilitarian stained pine and blue tweed into something more magical. This is a view looking up and across from the back of the stalls:

This is the view from the very back row of the uppermost tier, where I sat for the performance of Don Carlos. Probably the worst view in the house, but I could still see everything clearly, partly because the seats are vertiginously tiered (even more than Covent Garden amphitheatre I think). The sound was also excellent from up here. The only problem was the coughing, chatting, sweet-munching, getting-up-and-coming-back-in-again audience, who made the family circle of the Met seem like Trappist nuns in comparison:

An exciting shop in the town centre:

Det Danske Googliske Weirdness

Danish strangeness.......even stranger than the huge porny pølser flogged from porkwagons all over Copenhagen.......for some unknown reason, nothing I posted to this blog from Denmark comes up on Google.....what gives?

photo (c) ratemypølse.com

***UPDATE***and WTF?!?***

Hay, tiny bloggerelves in Googleland must be actually reading this stuff - my Danish posts mysteriously turned up on Google soon after I posted the above.....

Don Carlos in Copenhagen *UPDATED with pics*

Don Carlos - Operaen Copenhagen, 23 November 2007

Anyone who imagined Denmark was an operatic backwater would have to revise their opinions if they caught this stunning performance. Performed in the four-act Italian version, musically and visually, it was as good as it gets. Any shortcomings were mostly down to Kasper Bech Holten's production concept, which sets the drama 'in the near future in a totalitarian state' in an apparent attempt to emphasise the political aspect of Verdi's opera and in doing so bring it closer to its source, Schiller's play Don Karlos. The idea is not a bad one, but the execution is in places clumsy and unsophisticated. It reduces the delicate examination of power politics to the brute level of gun-waving physical force and in doing so, critically, diminishes the threat of clerical authority.

It does give the opportunity for some eye-poppingly gorgeous sets, like the one pictured above for the Act 2 scene 2 auto-da-fe (which thanks to the lame-o production concept is turned into a cocktail party punctuated by war movies and Flemish suicide bombers -- yes I groaned too). The shiny walls, lit red here, were elsewhere left grey and moved to the sides, or inverted to make an exterior wall. Around the stage was a wire fence, usefully deployed to delineate Carlos's prison, an irritatingly inappropriate Guantanamo-style compound packed with orange-suited inmates. But whatever its infidelities to Verdi, the production did look good throughout. And (in marked contrast to most Royal Opera House productions) all the action is considerately positioned and unobstructed -- even from my top-deck side seat, I could see the whole thing perfectly.

But on to the best thing about the production, the singing, which was without exception superb. I doubt if I will ever get to hear a Philip better than Stephen Milling's. Formidable, charismatic, he effortlessly dominated his every scene, the dark core of the whole opera.

Austrian tenor Nikolai Schukoff, the only non-Scandinavian in the cast, was for me the big discovery of the night, retaining his dignity despite being required to play Don Carlos as a crazy mixed-up teenager. A fantastic actor with a bright and distinctive voice - even the slight strain at the top was curiously appealing - his resilience and conviction quite overcame the silliness with which he was surrounded. And he's coming to London! - on December 1, he joins the LPO at the Royal Festival Hall for Beethoven 9 (his London debut?), and returns on April 14 for a more substantial runout, in Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde.

One of the evening's highlights was Schukoff's perfectly-judged duet, Dio, che nell'alma infondere, with John Lundgren (Rodrigo), here a bespectacled (=brainy) 'freedom fighter' of cryptic motivations, but a creditable vocal performance.

Tina Kiberg made an affecting Elisabetta, especially in her final aria Tu che le vanità . Resistant to any hint of intimacy to the last, Holten set this in an airport lounge, complete with the nowadays-obligatory gratuitous canine intervention in the form of a sniffer dog. Kiberg triumphed over the distractions of her surroundings with melting sincerity. Oh, and she had the added disadvantage of being suited up like Mrs Thatcher c.1985, so all the more credit to her.

Randi Stene (Eboli) struggled at the top end of Nel giardin del bello, but was otherwise assured and convincing. Even when she was 'disguised' as Elisabetta without the customary mask -- or indeed, for some obscure reason, any actual disguise at all. Like all the cast though, with the exception of Stephen Milling, her Italian diction lacked clarity.

The orchestra weren't particularly Italianate either, though in every other respect Michael Schønwandt drew an outstanding performance from them, marked by clarity, balance and precision. His measured pace and heavy textures were at least a suitable match for Holten's concept, and he was sensitive to the needs of the singers, never overwhelming them.

Here's hoping Hytner and Pappano can pull together something this convincing for the Royal Opera House's forthcoming Don Carlo (tickets on sale 5 December and likely to sell out rapidly).

***UPDATE***

Here are some curtain call pics from Don Carlos. The star of the show, with handler:

Conductor Michael Schønwandt:

Nikolai Schukoff and Tina Kiberg:

John Lundgren and 'a lady':

Sten Byriel, Randi Stene, and the great Stephen Milling: