Three operas in three nights in Vienna

‘Tristan and Isolde’, Richard Wagner

Wiener Staatsoper - 24/09/23

This was a controversial production by radical opera director Calixto Bieito. The first act had Tristan and Isolde and everyone else sitting on swings as in a children’s playground but suspended over a rather bleak beach. It looked pointlessly uncomfortable. The second act had Tristan and Isolde suspended in separate tilting boxes hung over the stage. They ripped off wallpaper to try and reach each other but never quite managed it; their frustration was nicely conveyed, though at the expense of a lot of gratuitous rubbish. The third act was unfortunately visually dominated by 50 nude men and women who walked slowly to the front of the stage sat down writhing and squirming, and then withdrew slowly to the back of the stage where they stayed largely immobile for most of the act. The writhing finished at the point where Tristan regained consciousness, but that is no help in understanding why they were there!

The good news is that despite this silly production ‘Tristan and Isolde’ was a good musical experience, with Wagner’s wonderful music well played by the Vienna Philharmonic, conducted by Philippe Jordan. Above all the singing was excellent, in particular the Isolde of Anja Kampe, who surely has taken the place of Nina Stemme as the finest Isolde of the present time. Her ‘Liebestod’ was a magical end to deeply flawed production. Andreas Schager was a very decent Tristan, again rising above the silly production. Scotland’s Iain Paterson was superb as Kurwenal; it’s a pity we don’ t see more of him in Scotland. Tanja Ariane Baumgartner as Brangäne and Günther Groissböck as König Marke both performed well.   

Great music and great singing can as here survive poor productions, but the questions are why should they have to? And how much more would we have benefitted from well-conceived sympathetic stagecraft? Maybe it’s time the opera singers joined a trade union and exerted their musical muscle to resist such absurd productions. They would be doing us all a favour! 

‘Les martyrs’, Donizetti 

Theater An Der Wien - 25/09/23

This is a very rarely performed Donizetti opera, partly I suspect because it’s not very good in comparison with his great operas such as ‘Lucia Di Lammermuir’, partly because it demands a big cast and lots of extras, and because it was written in French for the Paris opera of course it needs dancers. To be fair to Theater An Der Wien they gave us all these things in their temporary headquarters in the Museum Quartier, a very decent substitute opera house. The music was provided by the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra under the lively baton of Jeremie Rhorer and the chorus by the Arnold Schoenberg Chorus.     

The original story of ‘Les Martyrs’ concerned Christian martyrs under the Romans but this production attempted to update it, not very successfully, to 1915 and the crushing of the Armenians by the Turks. There were lots of supposed body parts strewn around the stage which apparently caused some booing on the first night. To me they looked rather silly and not offensive and certainly tonight’s audience applauded rather than booed at the end.

The music is overall quite lively Donizetti and there are some decent arias, but overall it’s not a great opera and it wouldn’t worry me if I never saw it again. The singers were generally adequate rather than great, the best of them being American tenor John Osborn and Italian soprano Roberto Mantegna who played the principal roles of Polyeucte and Pauline. Bass baritone David Steffens was also a very good Felix. The sets and the costumes were colourful and the lively music kept the audience’s interest and the performance got a warm response.

‘The Barber of Seville’, Rossini

Wiener Staatsoper - 26/09/23

‘The Barber of Seville’ is arguably Rossini’s finest opera and one of the greatest comic operas of all time. I have seen many productions over the years and among the finest I remember Joyce Di Donato breaking her leg in the first night at Covent Garden and still singing superbly on crutches in the second act. Sadly, I have to report that this was the worst, most stilted and caricatured, production of the Barber I have ever seen in over 50 years of opera going. 

The fault begins I suspect with the design. There are no sets, only lots of coloured panels and curtains which slide around while the characters attempt to act out their parts; this leads to overacting, aided by a dancing Doppelgänger who mugs every character; this in turn leads to overacting and over-singing, even by experienced Rossini singers like Laurence Brownlee as Graf Almaviva . Kate Lindsay is a very experienced soprano but acted more like a mechanical doll rather than a vibrant Rosina. Davide Luciano as Figaro clearly has a good voice but his acting and singing were often over the top. Don Basilio, sung by Peter Kellner, sadly applied the same over the top treatment to La Calumnia, Rossini’s finest comic aria. Bartolo played by Marco Filippo Romano was as much of a caricature as his big wig and Berta the servant was so top heavy she kept falling down!   

So for me this was a painful night, but sad to report most of the audience seemed to enjoy it. The orchestra were ably conducted by Gianluca Capuano. Sadly, this time the singing did not survive the production. 

Cover photo: ‘Tristan und Isolde’ - Wiener Staatsoper / Michael Pöhn