L'enfant et les sortileges and Der Zwerg in Munich

L'enfant et les sortilèges / Der Zwerg - Nationaltheater Munich, 13 November 2011

Like his compatriot Krzysztof Warlikowski, Grzegorz Jarzyna is a mainstay of Polish theatre, but on this showing their styles are very different. Faced with quintessential kiddies' opera L'enfant et les sortilèges, I dread to think what Warlikowski would do. It would be adventurous, it would be different, but they'd probably have to slap a warning on it.

Jarzyna takes a more populist approach. Here, he's opted for strict literalism, as if he's illustrating a story book. The Teapot is a man with a teapot on his head, the Fire is a lady in orange tinsel, the animals look like animals. Even a five year old could follow it, which is probably the point - there were quite a few in the audience.

The first, 'realistic', section is set in a trailer, with cameramen filming the Child's wanton misbehaviour (and annoyingly obstructing the view) while blown up images are projected on a screen above. (Nope, no idea). It doesn't even help with vocal projection, being so far upstage that the singing sounds like tub tunes from a distant bathroom.

The evening improves considerably the moment the Child steps out of the trailer into a rudimentary forest, where he meets the anthropomorphic objects and animals his imagination has conjured. The main problem I have with this set-up is that it neatly separates the twin worlds of reality and imagination which Ravel has taken such care to intertwine. But perhaps that's the point.

This opera has to be a team effort, not a star vehicle, something the strong cast, almost entirely from the Staatsoper's resident ensemble had clearly taken to heart. But although competently and enthusiastically performed, it somehow failed to leap into life.

The problem I think lay in the pairing of Ravel and conductor Kent Nagano. They're simply too alike. Nagano's clear, analytical approach can breathe revelatory cool air into more overheated work. Here it simply chilled an opera that's already a bit too clever for its own good. Some typical Sunday night playing (not unique to the Bavarian State Opera Orchestra) didn't help either.

The second half of the evening was more satisfying. This is not the first time L'enfant et les sortilèges has been paired with Der Zwerg. To link the two, Jarzyna plays on their thematic similarity - a central figure who lives in the world of the imagination. Again, it's a very literal and easily followed interpretation, perhaps a wise choice for an opera that's so rarely seen (though I was baffled by the cars strewn around the set).

The exception to pure literalism is the titular Dwarf himself. The very ordinary-looking John Daszak plays him walking tall, plainly dressed. In fact he's the only 'normal' person in the Infanta's court of grotesques, where colossal wigs and boldly-coloured crinolines are the style of the day. And this is his problem. At the end, encircled by mirrors, he realises he's not exotic or interesting enough to win the heart of a woman with floor-length orange curls and a skirt like a Victorian bathing tent - which, give or take the odd item of clothing, is the story of Zemlinsky's doomed infatuation with Alma Schindler, said to have inspired the opera.

Daszak made a compelling hero, if none too secure on some of the higher notes, and was matched well with Elena Tsallagova as the Infanta. The finest singing of the evening though came from the experienced Irmgard Vilsmaer as Ghita - not without the odd wobble but well-projected and dramatically assured.

Nagano did much better with this half of the programme, taming much of Zemlinsky's proto-Hollywood over-ripeness and emphasising the individuality of his orchestration. But even a fine performance like this one (or indeed Xian Zhang and the LSO's excellent Die Seejungfrau a few days earlier) couldn't hide the fact that the composer's moments of brilliance are scattered, and his sidelining in musical history perhaps not unfair.

Production photos, L'enfant et les sortilèges: