Hugo von Hofmannsthal bemerkte 1921, dass der “Rosenkavalier gar nichts sei, wenn nicht ein Dokument der österreichischen Wesensart”. Dieses Diktum schien die Maxime der Grazer Neuproduktion gewesen zu sein. Marco Arturo Marelli, verantwortlich für Inszenierung, Bühne und Licht, ist überhaupt ganz offensichtlich ein genauer Kenner von Hofmannsthals Meisterlibretto. Den innersten Fasern und Nuancen des Textes folgend, gelang es ihm mittels eines riesigen, schräg über der Bühne platzierten Spiegels und einer hochsensiblen Lichtregie eine sinnlich-dichte Atmosphäre zu schaffen, eben genau jene spezifisch österreichische “Lebensluft”, um die es Hofmannsthal zeitlebens so intensiv zu tun war.
Month: February 2005
Don Giovanni at Toulouse Disappoints Le Monde
Une vague forme humaine étendue dans la pénombre – gisant, dormant ? C’est Leporello. A côté, le fameux livre de comptes de Don Giovanni – mille et deux conquêtes. Quelque part, la mille troisième est en train de se faire “inscrire” : Donna Elvira. La voilà d’ailleurs qui surgit, hors d’haleine, tâchant de démasquer son violeur.
Entre rêve et réalité, monde intérieur et espace externe, Brigitte Jacques-Wajeman, qui signe là sa première mise en scène d’un opéra du répertoire, a choisi de confronter le désir vital à l’inconscient mortifère (les mortes eaux de décors en noir et blanc).
Revamping Opera Australia
A PROGRESS report on the state of the Victorian Government’s opera review made one thing clear this week: any new company will look nothing like the one that died in 1996.
Victorian Arts Minister Mary Delahunty called interested parties to a meeting on Tuesday to brief them on the findings of a review of opera activities in the state, undertaken by strategic consulting firm LEK Consulting.
Turnover at Chicago
The Lyric Opera has effectively installed a turnstile backstage at the Civic Opera House to facilitate the comings and goings of the singers taking the principal roles of Floria Tosca and Mario Cavaradossi in its revival of the historic Franco Zeffirelli production.
Reviving Mendelssohn’s Revival
On March 11 1829 a marker was set down in musical history, when the 20-year-old Mendelssohn realised an ambition to give the first performance in “modern” times of Bach’s St Matthew Passion – a scheme dismissed by his elders as the fantasy of a couple of “snotty-nosed brats”.
Das Opernglas Interviews Anja Harteros
Als deutsche Sängerin im italienischen Fach Fuß fassen – Anja Harteros gelingt, was heute eher eine Seltenheit ist. Söhnke Martens sprach mit ihr in Hamburg. Ausschnitte aus dem Interview:
Sind Sie musikalisch durch Ihre Familie geprägt?
Nein, überhaupt nicht. In meiner Familie gibt es niemanden, der professionell Musik gemacht hat. Jedes Kind sollte das Hobby ausüben, das ihm Freude bereitete. Zuweilen tagte dann der Familienrat, und wir diskutierten eifrig über unsere Wünsche. Meine Mutter schlug mir das Geigenspiel vor, als ich 8 Jahre alt war. Ich war davon nicht besonders überzeugt. Erst ihre Bemerkung, dass dieses Instrument nicht jeder spielen könne, machte mich neugierig. Es hat mir auch wirklich Spaß gemacht.
La Clemenza di Tito — Another View
“Classy” is not a word we have come to associate with English National Opera in recent years. Populist, perhaps. Attention-seeking, certainly. But with Mozart’s late opera seria, ENO returns to the old-fashioned virtues of ensemble, intelligibility, beauty, truth. They should be obvious, shouldn’t they? But we rarely encounter them in harmony, as we do here in a production directed by David McVicar, conducted by Roland Böer and shared with the Royal Danish Opera.
This Summer at the Aspen Music Festival
The Aspen Music Festival and School will delve into the music of autobiography in its 2005 summer season.
The season, under the theme of “Self-Portraits,” will highlight composers who have told the stories of their lives in their music. Among the notable works falling under the theme are Haydn’s “Farewell” Symphony, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 and a semistaged performance of Strauss’ comic opera “Intermezzo.” Also to be presented are intensely personal works by Elgar, Mahler, Berg and Shostakovich.
As If You Were There
When the newly refurbished Royal Opera House reopened in December 1999, the great and the good found themselves trapped in their seats for a great slab of unstaged Wagner in German, with no introduction and no escape. Tony Blair, who was seated just in front of me, was clearly finding it hard-going; but to get out, he would have had to clamber over most of the royal family who, given the chance, might have beaten him to the exit. The Wagner, all agreed, was an unfortunate choice.
Il Gazzettino Interviews Claudio Scimone
Maestro Scimone, cosa rappresenta per lei questo riconoscimento del consiglio regionale che la indica come come ambasciatore della cultura veneta nel mondo?
«In un primo momento, oltre che commosso, sono rimasto anche un po’ stupito soprattutto considerando il libro d’oro molto ristretto di questo premio, assegnato sinora solo a un Patriarca di Venezia e a un eroe. Poi ho pensato che il significato di questa scelta del consiglio regionale è il riconoscere come sia importante per la nostra regione l’arte e la cultura che sono l’elemento di identificazione più importante del Veneto».