This new production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin is the culminating completion of the Mozart/Da Ponte trilogy with Vincent Huguet as stage director. Huguet wants the Da Ponte trilogy to be understood as a legend of sexual liberation and its consequences, and the three operas of the cycle each tell of different phases of life. Don Giovanni about the escape of an ageing man in a world full of contradictions. Huguet sets the story of a seducer who ends up in hell for mocking his murder victim in the 1980s: Don Giovanni is a fashion photographer who uses his position of power to bed as many good-looking women as possible. The young ensemble of singers around Michael Volle as Don Giovanni, including Elsa Dreisig, Slávka Zámecníková, and David Oštrek, embrace this interpretation with immense enthusiasm. The Staatskapelle Berlin is conducted by Staatskapellmeister Thomas Guggeis. “An ensemble of young female voices who approached their roles with such freshness it was pure joy to listen to them.” (Bachtrack.com)
Aida
Even though Christian Thielemann conducted a lot of Italian operas during his “journeyman years” in Italy, this production at the Semperoper is his very first Aida. He tells this stirring drama by Giuseppe Verdi at the Semperoper Dresden with a great symphonic arc and a sense of detail. No blaring, no crashing: Everything is carefully balanced and lovingly modelled. With small breakes when it’s important, and otherwise a high basic pulse, Thielemann and the luxurious Staatskapelle Dresden counter the oratorical, statuesque nature of the piece with a lot of dramatic tension. Katharina Thalbach, known for her innovative and thought-provoking productions, created a classical set for the Semperoper and hence laid all the focus on the portrayal of the characters and their relationships and on the music. The “outstanding ensemble of singers” (Deutschlandfunk). “The crowning glory of this feast of voices is provided by Francesco Meli … currently the best Radamès” (Der Merkur), Krassimira Stoyanova as Aida, who beguiles with her power as well as with piani, and Oksana Volkova as Amneris, who comes up with darkly blazing passion” (Neue Musikzeitung).
Tosca
It is impossible to imagine today’s opera repertoire without Puccini’s Tosca, but rarely has an opera been so brutal: Murder, torture and love, jealousy and passion – everything is present in abundance. When it was written in 1900, this thriller set to music caused considerable controversy due to the political figureheads involved. Only much later the story about the deeply religious Tosca, the passionate Cavaradossi and the sadistic Scarpia was interpreted as the psychological drama it was meant to be. The drama on stage is accompanied from the orchestra pit by Marc Albrecht conducting the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra by pointed sketches of the characters, but also – as typical for Puccini – by lyrical turns and beautiful melodies that make this opera shocker unique. Next to Kristine Opolais sings the “discovery of the evening […] the young tenor Jonathan Tetelman […] A radiant and metallic tenor with a terrific penetrating power”(klassik-begeistert.de)
Giuditta
Giuditta was to be Franz Lehár’s ticket to the world of opera: His “Spieloper” or “musical comedy” was triumphantly premiered in January 1934. Intoxicating melodies and borrowings from Puccini, whom Lehár admired, and his tragically loving characters stand alongside operetta-like innocuousness. However, the end of the plot is by no means cheerful; the lovers Giuditta and Octavio go their separate ways in resignation. The “musical comedy” thus only seems to stand in stark contrast to the social present of the emerging war, the 1930s. Director Christoph Marthaler, known for his whimsically beautiful theatre evenings, picks up on the ambivalence of Lehár’s characters, who vacillate between opulence and resignation, between euphoria and the abyss. Orchestral music by Béla Bartók, Erich Wolfgang Korngold or Dmitri Shostakovich, songs by Viktor Ullmann, Hanns Eisler or Alban Berg as well as excerpts from Sladek oder Die schwarze Armee by Ödön von Horváth radically place Lehár’s operetta in the context of its time of origin. Giuditta in Christoph Marthaler’s version tells a love story within the turmoil and confusion of the times, brilliantly realised by a top-class cast led by Vida Mikneviciute and Daniel Behle.
Così fan tutte
With Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte, the Staatsoper Unter den Linden continues its acclaimed Da Ponte Cycle, designed jointly by director Vincent Huguet and conductor Daniel Barenboim. “Huguet places the action in a French-style and coherent manner in an environment that could be set either in today’s world or in the flower child world of the late 60s and 70s. In doing so, he understands Cosi as what it probably was according to the intentions of Mozart and Da Ponte. And Cosi fan tutte, which has always been thought to have a tendency to be misogynistic, suddenly shimmers in a friendlier, modern light: Is it not free love that is the problem, but the strict, outdated, basically inhuman understanding of fidelity?” (Der Tagesspiegel). Federica Lombardi, Marina Viotti, Gyula Orendt, Paolo Fanale, Barbara Frittoli, and Lucio Gallo embody their roles vocally impressively and with pleasure in the play. “The work of the young French director Vincent Huguet showed well pointed humour” (Musik heute).
Sleepless
Adapting a short story of the same title by the Norwegian writer Jon Fosse, Hungarian conductor-composer Péter Eötvös, one of the most influential figures in contemporary music, wrote Sleepless on commission. He and librettist Mari Mezei interweave snapshots of the existential search for belonging, crime as a response to human indifference and the struggle with a sense of being out of place, generating a somewhat suggestive, operatic stream of consciousness. The world premiere also marks the Staatsoper Unter den Linden debut of the Hungarian film, theatre and opera director Kornél Mundruczó, well-known for cinematically realistic works that often address contemporary social themes.
La Traviata
Fondly known as “La Traviata of the Mirrors”, this iconic production returns to the familiar Macerata Opera Festival. The exeptional staging designed by Josef Svoboda allows the audience to experience a masterpiece through the gaze of giant mirrors. This production with new costumes stirs emotions and engulfs you in the tragedy that is Violetta Valéry’s predicament. Soprano Claudia Pavone brings the famous courtesan to life. The Sferisterio Opera Festival in Macerata, central Italy, has become a true gem whose performances are enthusiastically acclaimed by audiences of genuine opera lovers from far and wide. The open-air stadium (Sphaeristerium) was constructed 1820-29 and is one of the most renowned neo-classical buildings in Italy.
Aida
The 2021 edition of the Macerata Opera Festival was inaugurated with the same opera chosen in 1921 by Count Pier Alberto Conti. At that time, the Sferisterio, formerly a stadium for an ancient ball game, was turned into a venue for opera performances. 2021 was actually a double celebration: Aida, one of the most loved operas, premiered in Cairo in 1871, so this marks its 150th anniversary. Teatro. “A completely singular reading of Verdi’s score, supported by an undisputed musicality.” Connessi all’opera
Capriccio
Capriccio by Richard Strauss is an opera about opera as an art form: it describes the creation of a musical drama with wise cheerfulness and full knowledge of this genre of theatre. The “conversation piece with music” is Strauss’s last complete stage work, his farewell as an opera composer, the cultivated conclusion of a well-considered life’s work. The composer worked closely with the Semperoper Dresden for six decades, and nine of his operas were premiered on the Elbe. To this day, the house and its orchestra, the Staatskapelle Dresden, celebrated worldwide as the “Strauss Orchestra”, cultivate his work with a unique intensity and quality. The celebrated Strauss interpreter and principal conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden, Christian Thielemann, leads a top-class ensemble with star soprano Camilla Nylund as the Countess, Georg Zeppenfeld as La Roche, Daniel Behle as Flamand, Nikolay Borchev as Olivier, Christa Mayer as Clairon and Christoph Pohl as the Count. In Jens-Daniel Herzog’s new production, the plot unfolds in full poetic power and impressive imagery.
The Fiery Angel
Prokofiev’s Fiery Angel is one of the outstanding operas of the 20th century. Director Andrea Breth transfers the story of Renata, who is plagued by visions, to a clinic. The atmosphere is characterised by agonising hopelessness, but at the same time heightened by the emotional excesses of the inmates. This monochrome approach, which dispenses with any historical embellishment, is legitimised by the careful elaboration of the characters. Aušrine Stundyte, one of the outstanding singing actors of our time, and the congenial Bo Skovhus play out the consequences of traumatisation with merciless precision in Breth’s interpretation. “Musically gripping, scenically intense.” (Wiener Zeitung) / “A scenic sensation.” (Kurier) / “Aušrine Stundyte succeeds in her singing balancing act between eruptive power and vulnerability.” (Die Presse)