THE NEW ZEALAND OPERA SOCIETY

Part three of the journey continues in Berlin, where my wife Brigitte and I stayed for three and a half weeks in January. We had been looking forward to an orgy of opera-going in this wonderful if virtually bankrupt city – it was sad to see, for example, a certain amount of vacant retail space evident even in the Ku’Damm (though the centre of gravity has certainly shifted away from here since unification), and the famous Kranzler coffee-house severely reduced in size and scope.

Unfortunately, this self-indulgence was somewhat restricted by my unscheduled bout of pneumonia coupled with pleurisy, which led to hospitalization followed by a lengthy recuperation. However, we managed (just) to get to performances at each of the three opera houses, and had no trouble getting good stalls or dress circle seats at very reasonable prices (30-40 Euros, that is approx. NZ$60-80).

Readers of this magazine will be well aware that opera in Germany is heavily subsidized, and they will have got the ‘low-down’ on the problems of the current Berlin opera scene from the characteristically punchy article by Barry Emslie in the January/February number.

Let’s hope that the new ‘Over-General-Director’ Michael Schindhelm can survive long enough to complete a rescue operation, the immediate need being to fill more seats on a regular basis. For the record, the Deutsche Oper has the largest seating capacity, with 1885 seats, followed by the Staatsoper with 1396. The Komische Oper is the smallest, with 1308.

The highlight of our Berlin stay was the performance at the Komische Oper (like the Staatsoper, on ‘Unter den Linden’) of Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsenk (sung in German). This Hans Neuenfels production was again clear-cut and had tremendous impact, the set featuring a series of small doors (rather like the doors of changing room cubicles) at the back and sides of the stage, through which the chorus could emerge from time to time, and a centrally-featured prop such as a double bed. Vassily Sinaisky conducted the mind-blowing score with gusto, and the brass interludes, played from the boxes about the pit, were simply sensational. Milana Butaeva was splendid both vocally and dramatically in the title role, as was Jens Larsen as her tyrannical father-in-law. Jürgen Müller as Sergei was also in fine form (there were shades of The Passion of the Christ in the whipping handed out to him!), and Andreas Conrad as the feeble husband was suitably fitted out with a picture frame over his head for most of the time. Carsten Sabrowski as the police chief and James Creswell as the ‘pope’ made splendid cameo appearances and provided much-needed comic relief.

Effective use was made of three black-cloaked androgynous ‘fate’ figures and the rape scene was chillingly dramatic. This must surely be one of the most powerful of twentieth century operas. The somewhat modestly-fitted opera house was almost full (hopefully this signals an improvement on last season’s 60% attendance rate at the Komische mentioned by Barry Emslie). Incidentally, we had steered well clear of the notorious Calixto Bieito sado-masochistic version of Die Entführung aus dem Serail which was playing at the same house, thus denying ourselves the chance to walk out slamming the doors (by the way, it’s almost worth paying the heavy subscription to Opera just to read Barry Emslie’s reviews from Berlin. His critique of Die Entführung is a classic).

Our choice for the Deutsche Oper (in the former West Berlin) was Janácek’s The Cunning Little Vixen which we hadn’t seen. It was sung in German on this occasion, and the less-than impressive house was quite well filled, though to a very large extent with (generally well-behaved) children. What a marvellous score! The orchestra was well directed by Kevin McCutcheon, a late replacement for the originally scheduled conductor who was indisposed. The production (by Katharina Thalbach) was traditional and charming, with some nice touches such as the appearance of a giant booted leg or gun barrel from time to time to put the dragonflies into perspective.

The scene changes between the woods and the forester’s house or inn were most smoothly handled, and the production well brought out the contrast between the freedom and vibrancy of life of the animals in the wild, and the depressingly restricted existence of humans like the school master and the priest. Fionnuala McCarthy made a charming vixen, although she was a little underpowered vocally, being shown up by the stronger voice of Ulrike Hetzel as the strutting fox. Lenus Carlson made a forthright forester, convincingly philosophic in his reverie at the end, and Volker Horn as the rooster, with his entourage of hens, was highly amusing.

Turandot (sung in Italian with German surtitles), in the faded grandeur of the Staatsoper (up the road from the Komische Oper, and barely half full on this occasion) saw another film director (Doris Dörrie) let loose on opera. The result was a damp squib. Most of the characters wore costumes which were a sort of cross between ‘Asian’ and ‘alien’ in style, except for Calaf who looked frankly embarrassed in his blue track suit top and black trousers. Ping, Pang and Pong made a sprightly and engaging, if distinctly ‘Latin’ trio, but were saddled most of the time with extremely cumbersome animal/alien suits which made movement difficult for them.

The two central props were a giant cell-phone and an enormous giant panda. The cell-phone idea was quite good in a way – the display screen, for example, was used to show a ‘thumbs-down’ (literally) from an unseen Turandot, which resulted in the execution of the Persian prince, and then the stylized (and extremely ugly) face of the princess herself – which did make Calaf’s immediate raptures about her beauty ridiculous. And it was clever to have Calaf text his challenge and later text his answers to the riddles, which showed up on the screen. It was very clumsy, however, to wheel the contraption on and off stage.

As for the giant panda, this was where Turandot had her ‘apartment’, so that it opened up to reveal her, and she descended from it via an unfolding staircase. The princess herself was feisty and snarling. She wore an outfit that loooked like a spikey version of what Lucy Lawless wears in the role of ‘Xena’, and she adopted interminable martial arts positions – hardly the woman with a heart of ice! She also had a teddy bear strapped to her waist, supposedly to signify a little girl who hadn’t learned how to grow up.

In their reverie at the start of Act Two, Ping, Pang and Pong (excellent vocally) were made to ‘ride’ motorcycles, each with a floozie in tow, said floozies then dismounting to spread rugs for a picnic after which they simulated sex with the imperial trio (who at least still had most of their clothes on) in virtually every position presumably known to the Karma Sutra.

But the ending was the worst of it. We had the new Berio version, which sounded fine to me, if a little grating at times, but with the last section played while Calaf and Altoum had a beer together (from the bottles) at the kitchen table in the dingy modern flat to which Calaf had brought his new bride, while the ‘princess’ circled round them with folded arms in a dressing gown with a stupid grin on her face – till she finally gave her father his hat and sent him packing. It was just unbelievably bathetic.

Meanwhile, what of the music? Julien Salemkour conducted in a routine manner. The chorus had their moments. Sylvie Valayre managed the high part of Turandot pretty well, but without real distinction. Dario Volonté made a somewhat wooden Calaf and his voice, though reasonably strong, had little in the way of tonal quality – but at least it’s always good to hear someone else singing ‘Nessun Dorma’! Most appealing by far of the main characters was the most sensitively and richly sung Liu of Olga Mykytenko. Her heart-melting appeal to Calaf, though, was delivered as she wrapped him up in bandages. This was clearly a physical manifestation of her attempt to ‘bind’ him to herself, but I simply found it distracting, and Calaf did an oafishly clumsy job of breaking free.

So, that was our Berlin operatic experience. Circumstances meant that unfortunately we couldn’t get to any of the Strauss festival at the Deutsche Oper – Salome with the mouth-watering cast of Susan Antony, René Kollo and Alan Titus (but I was told by someone who went that the production – by Achim Freyer – was an absolute disaster), and Der Rosankavalier (production ‘after’ Götz Friedrich – this was given a definite thumbs-up by my source), conducted by Christian Thielemann and featuring Deborah Voigt as the Marschallin (she who was axed from last year’s Covent Garden Ariadne auf Naxos because she was deemed ‘too large’ – she has since shed 40 (?) kilos and aspires to play Salome!). Voigt was also appearing in Die Frau ohne Schatten (Thielemann again conducting), an opera which I hadn’t seen since a Covent Garden production in the 1960s featuring Donald McIntyre.

It was unfortunate that we had to miss all this but, although some readers may disagree, there are some things in life even more important than opera! Brigitte, incidentally, was able to meet our New Zealand opera-singer friend Hamish Morrison who these days unfortunately has only limited time for singing since he is in partnership running an art gallery a short distance off Friedrichstrasse.