Tristan und Rusalka

Here, just in from Opera News, are my reviews of the recent productions of Tristan und Isolde and Rusalka, from the Deutsche Oper and Komische Oper Berlin respectively.




After worthy new productions of Die Meistersinger at Komische Oper and Die Walküre at Staatsoper, the Berlin opera season's ambitious Wagner plans hit a snag with the March 13 premiere of Tristan und Isolde at Deutsche Oper Berlin. Director Graham Vick delivered a static, unfocused and ridiculous production, with the action confined to the living room of a modest suburban house. Paul Brown's nondescript, Ikea-inspired set was swiveled in various directions to distinguish between the three intended locations. The logic behind the characters' actions was difficult to penetrate. Tristan sat despondently on a sofa for most of Act I. Kurwenal entered wearing an apron. Melot awkwardly rearranged furniture in Act II. In Act III, he was killed coming out of the kitchen. Most perplexingly though, toward the end of the anguished final act, Tristan, now an old man, wandered offstage before Isolde reached him. The naked bodies that appeared periodically just added to the general confusion and detracted from the emotional power of the performances.

The title roles were taken by DOB regulars Peter Seiffert and Petra-Maria Schnitzer.  The pair had surprisingly little onstage chemistry, despite being a real-life couple. Schnitzer, who was taking on the role for the first time, cut a serviceable if somewhat light figure as Isolde. Her voice carried her well through the evening, and she sang with full, open tones that turned marvelously creamy in the love duet. Aside from a couple of shrill high notes of greeting to Tristan during his Act II entrance, Schnitzer seemed to be playing it safe: she demonstrated a finesse that came at the expense of emotional complexity and vocal shading. 

Despite some less than persuasive acting (especially during the Act I climax, in which the lovers took the potion intravenously), Seiffert, a practiced Tristan, was astonishing, vocally and dramatically convincing all the way through the evening. He rode the crest of the love duet admirably (thanks, as well, to Schnitzer and a hushed orchestra) and showed up for the murderous Act III in top form. Here, Seiffert landed his punishing high notes with brilliance, urgency and accuracy. 

Eike Wilm Schulte was an unusually bright-voiced Kurwenal who made the role his own with a gripping and precise account marked early on by some idiosyncratic staccato. Icelandic bass Kristinn Sigmundsson was miscast as King Marke, sounding less a wounded monarch than a sorry old man. Perhaps this was Sigmundsson's idea of understatement, but a Marke without nobility makes little sense. Sigmundsson certainly improved in Act III, but he never fully vanquished the tired, despondent tones that marred his performance. Jane Irwin, as Brangäne, was off-form for much of the evening, especially during her warning cries, "Habet Acht!" which rang out flatly. 

In the pit, Donald Runnicles led the superbly prepared orchestra in a propulsive and sensitive reading of the marathon score, occasionally overwhelming the singers. The prelude was full-blooded, with a plush, velvety sound to the strings, although the horn blasts could have been more prominent. Among the more pleasant effects were the soft texture of the ebbing strings and winds during the love duet and the understated mournfulness of the English horn solo in Act III.



Glimpses of the future were sighted at Komische Oper Berlin in late February, when incoming intendant Barrie Kosky took the house under the sea for his new production of Dvořák's Rusalka (seen Feb. 20). If Kosky's staging of Dvořák's melancholy fairy-tale opera was any indication, the house's future seems to be rather consistent with its present — not at all surprising, considering the popularity that Kosky has enjoyed during the tenure of the reigning Intendent Andreas Homoki. Rusalka is the sixth opera that Kosky, a versatile Australian director with a flair for batty regietheater concoctions, has directed at the house since 2003's Le Grand Macabre. His most recent outing here was last season's Rigoletto, a Houdini-inspired staging that was notably airless and menacing. It was a relief, then, to see that his take on Rusalka was both more restrained and more coherent.

The strangest part of Kosky's staging was also the one easiest to overlook — a mock-up of a miniature theater served as a slightly cramped space for the production to unfurl. The stage remained quite bare for most of the evening, save for a few tables and benches. Only in Act III was the whiteness of the set put to use, when a digital mock-up of the stage was projected onto the space, creating a slightly dizzying Disney Haunted House-type effect.

Kosky emphasized the story's inherent tragedy and the inevitable futility of Rusalka's mission. Though the plot was presented in a farce-like, even slapstick manner, the violence made one chuckle and wince at the same time. One such moment was Rusalka's transformation into a full-fledged woman. Here, the heroine was literally filleted by Ježibaba, who sliced open Rusalka's tail with a large knife and jerkily pulled out her vertebra. Indeed, fish were a generally prevalent theme of this production; Kosky littered the stage with aquatic specimens to both comedic and poignant effect. The Gamekeeper and Turnspit's scene in Act II contained many remote-controlled fish and eels flipping and flopping, soon to be hacked open and gutted. In the opera's finale, Rusalka hooked herself to a fishing rod left in the dead prince's arms, which provided an eerie and melancholy closing tableau.

Kosky's staging was consistent with the predominant style of KOB (physically dynamic regietheater), but there was more news to report in the singing department. In the title role was the Norwegian soprano Ina Kringelborn, a recently appointed ensemble member who did stellar work as Eva in September's premiere of Meistersinger. She lent the role of the water nymph a sweet urgency that encompassed rapture and despair. She often turned plaintive and sang with slightly dark shadings. Her range was impressive and blessedly free of breaks. Her delivery of the famous song to the moon was highly dramatic yet controlled — a stupendous legato-based performance noted for its controlled, steady phrasing, which Kringelborn ornamented with passing notes that galloped.

Timothy Richards, an old hand at the house, was disappointing as the Prince. His voice was too weighty for the role, and while he sang ardently, he often sounded leaden and even tired, despite a few brilliant high notes. He seemed to have trouble staying on top of the music, a shortcoming magnified by his stellar costars. Top male honors went to two other ensemble members, bass Dimitry Ivanschenko as Vodník (the Water Gnome) and tenor Peter Renz as the comical Gamekeeper.

As for the women, the striking Ursula Hesse von den Steinen made for a sultry Foreign Princess. She seduced the prince with her menacing and quivering voice. Agnes Zwierko was petrifying as the sorceress Ježibaba and struck bloodcurdling tones with dramatic conviction that bordered on the hammy, an impression heightened by this production. (In one scene, she killed a black cat and squeezed the blood out of its neck for Rusalka to drink.) 

Patrick Lange, KOB's young chief director, led his orchestra in a sensitive performance that conveyed the work's dramatic sweep and brought out the score's delicate harmonies through careful dynamic variation. Dvořák's shimmering and most through-composed opera was sullied only by occasional sloppiness in the horns.