Postcard from Brabant
On the heels of this, may I direct everyone’s attention to a funny and fascinating article about Stefan Herheim‘s production of Lohengrin from last spring at Berliner Staatsoper? Now we know what to do with those old costumes and sets that gather dust! [via the wellsungs]
Klaus Florian Vogt in Stefan Herheim's Lohengrin at the Berlin State Opera. "If you can't handle ambivalence, stay away from Wagner!" warns reviewer Per-Erik Skramstad
There is also a video!
Kwangchul Youn was terrific in Tristan here last year!
BTW, here is a proper video trailer of the production:
http://www.staatsoper-berlin.org/de_DE/news_audiovideo
(Don’t miss the Domingo Boccanegra trailer, which also has some good singing both from said Youn and Georghiu challenger Anja Harteros)
Bit too much going on there and you can hear the sound of points being hammered home. Schuster sounds exciting, but — though I know some people love him — Vogt just sounds silly to me. Wan little voice.
No boobs, but in the COSI trailer, Hanno Muller-Brachmann way up there in the Barihunk sweepstakes.
I realize that our reactions are inevitably subjective, but I cannot see Vogt as having a voice that is wan and certainly not small. At the MET he sounded glorious--I was delighted to have seen his debut, join in in the tremendous audience welcome, and observe the enthusiastic congratulations of his colleagues during the calls. He had all the volume he needed for the big moments, and the exquisite control to float a melting “Heil dir, Elsa” in act 2.
Don’t you love when people comment so decisively on voices they obviously have not heard. Kind of like when people think anna netrebko has a small voice.
It’s great that people are finally recognizing that the relationship between Lohengrin and Elsa is “fraught”, and that she isn’t a “boob” or ninny for opening her mouth. She doesn’t ask questions for the reason Ortrud does, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t right to question the situation.
Elsa used to be lumped together with other so-called “boobs” like Gilda. And she’s not a dolt either. But that’s another opera…
The problem with LOHENGRIN is that it is a far darker and more complex “myth” than it appears at first glance. Not only are we right to support Elsa’s questioning of an unknown marriage partner, but at the same time Lohengrin really does stand as a metaphor for the artist in society and his difficulty gaining acceptance (see MEISTERSINGER or PALESTRINA). wagner of course felt this problem keenly. When considering this aspect of the symbolism remember that Elsa becomes the stand-in for society, just as the other minstrels were in TANNHäSER (same dilemma again).
I won’t go on. Wagner’s early masterpieces paved the way for what he accomplished in the works of genius that start with TRISTAN and proceed through PARSIFAL. And they are almost always about the artist in society and questioning authority.
How marvelously refreshing it would be these days to see an opera staged as it was in the early 1900s. Classical presentation. Traditional. That really would be shocking.
When was the last time the Zeffirelli Boheme shocked anyone?
The more pertinent question is whether a production of Boheme should strive to shock…