Rubbed the Regie way
The several of you who guessed Iolanthe for last week’s Regie quiz were, well, not quite as wrong as everyone else. The work in question was Birtwhistle’s The Io Passion as performed at the Wiener Kammeroper in a staging by Nicola Raab. (But of course!)
Moving on: so, what are these folks up to?
The first poster thought Nathan Gunn was in one or more of the photos and if it is Gunn and he is currently in a new production, it is likely that
some readers would know what opera is pictured, as I do.
Und meine Kenntnis schon machte mich stumm.
and recognized it. if there’s a rule against saying so im sorry. i’m new to this
OT: there’s a summary of the ‘Anna Nicole’ reviews in the Guardian clicky
Well, I’m going to follow the Cosi callers on this one, because what CAN the men in the first picture be but disguised Albanians?
So 1) Ferrando, Guglielmo, Dorabella, Fiordiligi
2) Ferrando wrathfully resolves to persuade Fiordiligi, with Despina and Don Alfonso in the background
3) The first scene, the boys and Don Alfonso.
It’s a completely irrational guess, I suppose, because it could never be obscure enough to work as a regie quiz, but this looks like Gotterdärmmerung:
1. Hagen, Gutrune, Gunther, Nancy T’ang.
2. Hagen summons the Gibiching vassals. Unusually, they will sing seated.
3. Siegfried and the Rhine-dudes, cast here as countertenors, or body-doubles, or who really cares. We need one more!
Fidelio?
1. Quartet “Mir is so wunderbar.”
2. Pizarro exulting “Ha welch ein augenblick”
3. Pizarro solicits Rocco’s participation in his despotic crimes, while he gets a massage (release not shown). “Jetzt, alte, es hatt es eile”
Total randomness, but for some reason all that came to mind was Die Frau Ohne Schatten
Okay, I always stink at this, but it feels like Die Liebe der Danae. Regie = German, right?
Clearly, this is the Otto Schenck (on acid) production of Britten’s Peter Grimes:
Photo One: Peter and Balstrode do some “special research” with Auntie’s two nieces…
Photo Two: “Now the Great and Bear and Pleiades”
Photo Three: Grimes “auditions” some new apprentice candidates
*sigh* I was in Vienna last week and I had a choice between:
a) Figaro at the Staatsoper with Erwin Schrott and Franz Welser-Most being the draws or
b) The Io Passion, a real tempter since I’m a huge Birtwistlean
I chose a) and at the intermission I was regretting it. My thought was “Premiere of a new production! At the Staatsoper!”. It was a very nice production but when your Countess and Susanna aren’t the equal of the Count and Figaro, it throws things off. A good performance, but kinda dull. Plus, like I’m ever going to get a chance to hear the Birtwistle again…..
I am SO SORRY, Henry. I was at the Figaro prima too and it was, IMO, totally forgettable on a musical level and incompetent crap on a dramatic level. They messed up Figaro in ways I could not have imagined any director would have been dumb enough to do…
I liked the production a bit more than you, UZ, but one problem was where I was sitting: in the top Rang, on the stage right; anything that happened on the 1/3 of stage right, I just turned my attention to the orchestra and FW-M because I couldn’t see the stage. I was disappointed in the singing of Dorothea Röschmann as the Countess; I know that it’s tough to sit backstage for a whole act and then have to come out and sing Porgi amor with not so much as a bar of music to warm up with but still. Maybe it’s because of where I was sitting but I simply couldn’t hear Sylvia Schwartz’ Susanna half the time.
So, UZ, were you one of the boo-birds at the Figaro prima when the production team came out for their bows?
But Oh. My. God. was the Billy Budd the next night a totally different story. A great Willy Decker production, a fine cast (Peter Rose as Claggart especially), great chorus work, terrific propulsive conducting by Graeme Jenkins, it left me shattered at the end, it must have gotten almost a dozen curtain calls AND when the lights went up, people were *still* clapping.
Also went to Die Liebe die Danae (good production, well sung and played but it’s still 2nd tier Strauss), Respighi’s Marie Victoire (a real find of an opera, a great production and very fine cast) and Franchetti’s oddly dramatically structured but musically interesting Germania at the Duetsche Oper Berlin.
I was bitterly disappointed, to say, the least, to get an e-mail on Thursday from Opera Bonn saying that due to a flu bug that had ravaged the cast, the performance of Schreker’s Irrelohe on Saturday was canceled and being replaced by Turandot. They simply couldn’t find any replacements for such a rarity on such short notice. I almost burst in to tears when I read that e-mail, it was the centerpiece of my trip. The Turandot was fun, but in no known universe would I make a production of Turandot at a 2nd-tier German house the centerpiece of a very expensive and exhausting overseas trip.
It’s Die Liebe DER Danae of course, and I was happy that the Staatsoper does the 4-act version of Billy Budd with the crucial scene at the end of the first act that was cut out in the 2-act version.
No, I didn’t boo the Figaro production team, but for one of the first times ever I was tempted. It was just incompetent. The comedy was all timed wrong and the production consisted of a lot of busy little details instead of actual direction that creates characters and situations. Embarrassingly amateurish. The cast wasn’t disastrous but you can do better on a decent repertory night. I was in parterre (ha) standing room and could hear Schwartz, she was OK but nothing special. Schrott and Pisaroni overall the strongest in the cast, I thought, Röschmann the most glamorous voice but showing some issues.
I wasn’t so crazy about the Billy Budd, though I also liked the conducting. The production was strong but showed most of the usual Staatsoper problems of minimal revival rehearsal. Rose very good, Eröd fine but not great, and Shicoff totally wrong for the part and singing Vere like he was a verismo revolutionary.
Sorry about your Oper Bonn issues. But I’m jealous of your Berlin jaunt.
Some of the German houses will at times make abrupt changes in the schedule. In 2002 the Staatstheater Stuttgart delayed the opening night of their new production of Don Giovanni (by Hans Neuenfels) by ten days because of “technical delays” – they offered me tickets to Fidelio on the original date, but thankfully I was able to reschedule my flights and hotel.