Intermezzo

the oldest show in town

La Bohème - Bayerische Staatsoper, Nationaltheater, Munich, 30 December 2009

Otto Schenk's Munich Bohème, which recently celebrated its fortieth birthday, proves that a traditional production if thoughtfully crafted needn't have a sell-by date. From a glance at the photos, it doesn't look that different from Covent Garden's slightly younger yet markedly more tired effort. What sets it apart are the details. It's sensitive to the emotional temperature of the music, attentive to the text, and doesn't indulge in gratuitous additions. Nobody just stands there and barks out their lines across the stage. When Rodolfo and Mimi fall in love, they move closer together. When she's in bed dying, his arm supports her.

What is particularly successful is that even on the packed stage of the second act, the eye is unerringly directed towards the action. Not earth-shattering stuff but it takes great skill.  A novice could follow the action without understanding the words or knowing the plot. The production illustrates the story, which is the one and only selling point of the traditional style. Otherwise it's just a concert performance with a twee backdrop. Mentioning no names.

Under Asher Fisch the orchestra were sleekly assured. Not the most detailed or dramatically exhilarating performance I've ever heard, but a beautifully balanced and mature reading.

This particular run is outstandingly well-cast, and there were some superb performances. All were slow to find their voices - we had to wait until the third act for Anja Harteros's wobbles to settle and her sweet and touching Mimi to blossom. I could forgive a little shoutiness from Levente Molnár's big-hearted joy of a Marcello, and Musetta's petulant charm was captured perfectly in the beautiful silvery soprano of Elena Tsallagova, a name to watch out for. But Massimo Giordano's Rodolfo stole the show, a reminder that the real tragedy in La Bohème is not Mimi's death, but Rodolfo's loss. Giordano's grief radiated across the auditorium - I wonder if anyone managed to stem a tear.

*****   more photos on next page   *****

Munich's portable opera house

The world's biggest and best opera festival is expanding.

The Bavarian State Opera have commissioned a new temporary structure for the 2010 Munich festival. The Pavillon 21 Mini Opera Space has a capacity of 300 and can be dismantled, transported and set up anywhere, though to begin with it will be sited in a square behind the main opera house. Its spiky shape was based on computer-modeled spatial sound recordings of a Jimi Hendrix song and serves a practical purpose. Inside, the acoustic reflecting surfaces are increased. Outside, noise is reflected and absorbed by the perforated aluminium panels of the shell.

It will be christened with a new production from Germany's oldest enfant terrible, Christof Schlingensief, but the State Opera's Director, Nikolaus Bachler hopes in future to invite "international artists from the fields of performance, visual arts, literature and composers, VJs, directors and musicians" and "unusual and unexpected formats".

Munich's opera houses in photos

This is the main opera house, the Nationaltheater in Max-Joseph Platz. During the summer, the days are long and the theatre isn't air-conditioned, so everyone piles out on to the steps during the interval:

off the wall

Here are few of the posters the Bavarian State Opera plastered around Munich's opera house last week (more here):

Wozzeck makes a splash in Munich

Wozzeck - Bayerische Staatsoper, Nationaltheater, Munich, 17 July 2009

Michael Volle's magisterial performance as Wozzeck is the main strength and the main weakness of Andreas Kriegenburg's production, here in its first revival after opening to ecstatic reviews last November. Wozzeck is a man who has somehow sunk to the bottom of life's bucket. Hapless and hopeless, crushed, humiliated and abused by all around him, he is sustained only by his love for Marie and their young son.

Yet despite all the intelligence and musicality of Volle's singing and all the daring and commitment of his no-holds-barred acting, his rich, commanding baritone suggests one of life's winners.

His rage is terrifying rather than impotent, his creeping lunacy is scary not sad. The production design doesn't help - Wozzeck and his family are sturdy, upright and 'normal', while all around them are seen through Wozzeck's eyes as hideous Grosz-style caricatures. No dramatic issues can detract from the sheer beauty and fluency of Volle's singing, but Angela Denoke was the truly tragic heart of the production. She sang Marie with a compelling humanity, her gleaming soprano locating that elusive combination of vulnerability and sheer dramatic power.

Whether as opera, play or otherwise, Wozzeck/Woyzeck seems remarkably resistant to any treatment thrown at it, and despite the alleged 'difficulty' of the music, Berg's version has the power to captivate even cynics and neophytes. Kriegenburg takes full advantage of this licence, and his production is a marvellously-sustained piece of theatre, along with the previous night's Ariadne auf Naxos one of the best nights I've had in an opera house for ages. The stage is submerged beneath water - Wozzeck's world is cold, damp and supremely uncomfortable. It's supremely evocative - the only criticism is that making an inch or so of water resemble more profound depths involved a lot of intrusively noisy splashing.

Above this, clever lighting makes Marie's grubby room look suspended as if hovering weightless. Wozzeck's son follows him round, a mute leech clutching desperately at his father, breaking away now and again to comment on the drama in stark black graffiti. A black-suited herd slump around, sporting signs demanding work or money, sometimes bearing the weight of the set quite literally on their shoulders. The doctor is strapped and splinted like the result of one of his own experiments; the captain sports a grotesque semi-naked fat suit. If it doesn't quite add up in any rational way, that's because what's set out is Wozzeck's own distorted perception.

Kent Nagano conducted with grace and ease and a forensic eye to detail. He finessed the abrupt gear changes with a light touch, never losing momentum. And he came fully prepared - a stout pair of wellies ensured he could take his deserved place at the curtain call.

As fate would have it, the week's oppressively hot weather gave way to a tumultous thunderstorm as the opera drew to a close.  Nobody dared brave it - as the black skies cracked open above, the seasonally-dressed audience crowded into the foyer and on to the stairs to watch Maximilianstrasse turning into a river even deeper than the puddle on stage.

If only I'd had Kent Nagano's foresight. Instead I was forced into a post-opera first. I put up my brolly, slipped off my Alaïas - and waded home barefoot.

Ariadne auf Naxos mit Diana Damrau in München

Ariadne auf Naxos - Bayerische Staatsoper, Prinzregententheater, Munich, 16 July 2009

This Robert Carsen production was the big hit of last year's Munich Opera Festival. This year it was revived with the original cast for a final handful of dates at the intimate and acoustically spectacular Prinzregententheater before it transfers to the larger Nationaltheater in September with a new cast.

With city centre traffic totally snarled up in the Merkel/Medvedev summit motorcade, it was a long hot (32°C)  walk to the theatre. Never have I been so grateful to sit on cold hard seats for two hours - this production is played, controversially, without a break. As the prologue ended, the Komponist (Munich's reigning Queen of Pants, Daniela Sindram) handed the score down to Bertrand de Billy in the pit, then strolled to the front of the stalls to watch the whole opera section - in character of course:

Carsen so successfully integrates the two sections that this doesn't seem gimmicky - it's just another one of the identity games that are played throughout. Transformation is everywhere. As we entered the theatre, a ballet troupe were rehearsing on stage, surrounded by mirrors that reflected and replayed their every move. Later the dancers reappeared in the opera section, clad in Carsen's frequently-favoured Tanztheater aesthetic with long black dresses and flowing hair.

There was a brief glimpse of another of his trademarks in the Prologue (was gentle self-parody the aim?) as some of the cast appeared in caricature mask heads. Things were never quite what they first seemed - some of the elegantly robed and tressed dancers turned out to be big hairy men - the acting troupe (look carefully):