Intermezzo

Deutsche Oper Berlin 2014 - 2015 season

This might look like an odd place for an international company to stage an opera, but it's where the Deutsche Oper Berlin will be showing their first premiere of the 2014-15 season.

From mid-summer until late November their main house is undergoing renovations. A variety of substitute venues will be commandeered - these include the Philharmonie, the Berlin Festpiele House, and, as you see above, the car park behind the Deutsche Oper.

Following the general trend this year for seat-filling favourites, there's not much to get excited about, although the Xenakis should not be missed, and Evelyn Herlitzius in Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk could be exciting. The star quotient is mostly to be found in revivals, and remains on a par with previous years,

The premieres are:

• Oresteia by Xenakis - in the Deutsche Oper car park
• The Rape of Lucretia - c.Nicholas Carter d. Fiona Shaw - the Glyndebourne production will be shown in the Haus der Berliner Festspiele
• Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk  c.Donald Runnicles d.Ole Anders Tandberg, with Evelyn Herlitzius and Sir John Tomlinson
• La rondine c. Roberto Rizzi Brignoli d. Rolando Villazon - yes, that one
• Roméo et Juliette c. Donald Runnicles d.Sasha Waltz
• Faust c. Marco Armiliato d.Philipp Stölzl, with Teodor Ilincai, Ildebrando D'Arcangelo and Krassimira Stoyanova

Top of the revivals list has to be Lohengrin. Kasper Holten's production was not well received on its first outing, but the cast - Vogt, Harteros, Meier - is pretty much unbeatable. Harteros turns up in Tosca and a single concert Ariadne auf Naxos as well. 

On top of his directorial duties, Rolando Villazon is taking on the role of Don Carlo. Elina Garanca perks up the Rosenkavalier casting, and Lyudmila Monastyrka takes on Abigaille in her inimitable fashion.

The opera without divas

Imagine melodic, romantic music sung by an invisible choir. Imagine handpainted landscape backdrops of a type not seen since Wagner designed his own scenery. So far, so populist. But now imagine that's it. No actors, no singers, not even a well-trained dog.

Inspired by the Halldór Laxness novel World Light, ex-Sigur Rós musician Kjartan Sveinsson has joined performance artist Ragnar Kjartansson to produce a musical theatre piece without anyone on stage.  Der Klang der Offenbarung des Göttlichen (The Explosive Sonics of Divinity) is a one hour experimental work currently on show at the Volksbühne in Berlin, performed by full offstage orchestra and choir. Exploring the limits of deconstruction, all the audience will see is the slowly shifting scenery.

Kjartansson explains:

“I grew up in the theatre, since my parents are both actors and directors, and I’ve always been in great awe of the non-narrative parts and the abstract components during rehearsals – the ceremonial mystique of a test phase when the actors are not yet on stage and there is nothing but the machinery, the props and scenery. I wanted to pay tribute to the mechanics and the formal elements of the theater. It’s a theatre play without actors that will only use the stage and the music as theatrical elements, intended as an homage to the machine, to the art of stage painting and the scenery. One could also say it's opera without divas.”

Il trovatore from Berlin

Well, 2 minutes and 36 seconds of it anyway.

Domingomania

Placido Domingo and Anna Netrebko have been busily bigging each other up in advance of tonight's Trovatore.

She's as good as Callas, he rashly proclaims.

She in her turn recalls seeing him in Otello at the Mariinsky in the '80s. "After the show, I'll never forget hundreds of people storming the stage! Past all the guards! And Placido stood there, barefoot, in a nightshirt - the closing scene of Otello takes place in Desdemona's bedroom - and calmly signed autographs. It was horrendously cold, it went on forever, but he had a look and a word for everyone. Phenomenal."

Barenboim explains the difference between Germans and Italians

"German culture leads to seeking depth in music; if it sounds lovely, then it's presumed to be superficial. For the Italians, it's exactly the opposite: if it doesn't sound nice, it's not art." On the eve of his first stab at Il trovatore, Barenboim contrasts Verdi's guiding principles of rhythmic rigour and melodic freedom with Wagner's harmonic uncertainty. 

Has his departure from La Scala left a gap in his diary? In the Tagesspiegel interview, he laughs off a mention of the Berlin Philharmonic vacancy. The Staatsoper is, he says, his "life's work".

Netrebko, Domingo and ..... Rivero

Ever since Aleksandrs Antonenko pulled out of Il trovatore at the Staatsoper Berlin just days before the premiere, Daniel Barenboim has been scrabbling around for a replacement tenor.

Someone who won't melt under the star wattage of Netrebko and Domingo. Someone who can nail those top Cs. And most importantly, someone reliable who'll stay the course. Two tenors before opening night is plenty enough.

Step forward Gaston Rivero,  a finalist in Domingo's 2006 Operalia contest who's sung Manrico in Klagenfurt, Nuremburg, Limoges and, as you can hear above, Bordeaux.