Plácido Domingo Fights Regie Menace

Bayreuth, Salzburg stagings blasted by star tenor.

Plácido Domingo (right) as Siegmund in Achim Freyer's
Los Angeles Opera production of Die Walküre.
Photo by Monika Rittershaus © 2010 Los Angeles Opera.

Tenor/conductor/impresario Plácido Domingo has unleashed an attack on both the Salzburg and Bayreuth Festivals. In an interview with Austrian News Magazin, Mr. Domingo expressed his disapproval of new productions of Strauss' Die Frau Ohne Schatten and Wagner's Tannhäuser at the venerable summer festivals.

"This is beyond me," the tenor, 69, said in the German-language interview. "As an opera director I would never allow something (like this.)"

Christian Loy's production of Die Frau Ohne Schatten moves the opera to a replica of the Sofiensaal, the legendary Vienna ballroom converted into a recording studio. The Sofiensaal was the site of many famous Decca recordings in the 1950s and '60s with the Vienna Philharmonic. Ironically, Mr. Domingo sang on Decca's last major production in Vienna: Sir Georg Solti's studio recording of...Die Frau Ohne Schatten.

"In Germany and Austria it is unfortunately becoming a habit," Mr. Domingo continued. He added that he would intervene in productions that did not meet his approval. "If I don't agree with the production, I have the production stopped."

Sebastian Baumgardner's Tannhäuser is another in a recent spate of Bayreuth stagings designed to provoke thought and dialogue about Wagner's long-lived operas. This staging moves the medieval song contest and spiritual conflict into a biogas facility, with characters literally recycled into raw materials like ethanol. Elisabeth meets her end in a recycling tank.

Mr. Baumgardner's version of Tannhäuser has met with hostile reactions from the über-conservative Bayreuth opera-goers as well as the Press. In recent years, the Bayreuth Festival, currently under the co-direction of two of the composer's great-grand-daughters, has mounted a Lohengrin where the chorus is depicted as an army of lab rats. This summer also featured Katherina Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. In Ms. Wagner's version, Hans Sachs transforms into a Fascist strongman and Beckmesser becomes an outsider artist.

"The responsibility is always the director," Mr. Domingo added.

In addition to his singing engagements and occasional moonlighting on the podium, Mr. Domingo currently runs the Los Angeles Opera. The L.A. Opera has recently mounted Achim Freyer's $32 million dollar staging of Wagner's Ring cycle, where the characters are recreated as bizarre tribal puppet figures, armed with lightsabers and papier-maché heads.

Mr. Domingo approved this production, which has met with puzzlement and even incomprehension from American audiences and critics. But then again, he has cast himself in the role of Siegmund.

DVD Review: The Wreck of the Flying Dutchman

Der Fliegende Holländer from the Netherlands Opera

Juha Uusitalo in the title role of Der Fliegende Holländer.
Photo from the Netherlands Opera © 2010 Opus Arte

This brilliant, occasionally terrifying production of Wagner's Der Fliegende Holländer comes, appropriately enough, from the Netherlands Opera. It is conducted by Hartmut Hänchen, who led an interesting Dutch DVD set of The Ring a few years ago. In fact it's really good until it sinks (with all hands) in the final scene.

Things start promisingly. Director Martin Kusej moves the action to a cruise ship, perhaps somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle. Daland is a "Love Boat"captain in naval whites and mirror shades. The Steersman puts on a gold lamé jacket before singing. Daland's crew and the Sandwyk villagers are re-imagined as vulgar tourists, scurrying about in life vests, carrying suitcases, bathing poolside, and wearing "party wigs" in the final act. The Dutchman's crew are strange and shadowy, monk-like in dark cowls.


In the middle of all this we find the Dutchman, played with intensity by Finnish bass Juha Uusitalo. Mr. Uusitalo is a hulking, intimidating presence, under a bald pate and glaring through ice-blue eyes. It doesn't hurt that he has a voice to match, billowing and blustery when needed and bringing the power when needed to fight over the orchestra. He is in the position of a refugee seeking asylum, but is treated as an unwelcome intrusion of reality into the insulated world of Captain Daland's cruise ship.

Senta (Catherine Naglestad) is his ideal match, the one serious (old-fashioned?) woman on a ship full of frivolity. It is significant that she is the only one spinning in the second act. The other girls bully her and try to play "keep-away" with her wheel. The soprano sings with power, delivering a fine ballad and engaging in a powerful duet with Mr. Uusitalo helped by the conductor's crisp tempos. Their love affair is like the meeting of two high school nerds with limited social interactive ability. The big duet in Act II is both delicious and painful to watch.


Things come to a head in the Act III trio, with Marco Jentsch making a marginally sympathetic figure out of Erik. In a brilliant moment, this ensemble is performed with Mr. Uusuitalo onstage, and his emotional reactions at the dialogue between Senta and Erik is visceral, almost painful to watch. The trio that follows is everything it should be, the emotional core of the drama and Senta's conflict laid bare even as Wagner's orchestra batters at the senses. However, the unbelievable, altered ending (Erik shoots the Dutchman and Senta dead) kills the final act and leaves a sour taste.

Hartmut Haenchen opts for an energetic reading of the score, with the famous salt-spray figures and charging horns prominent in the famous overture. He takes the three acts without an intermission, but opts for Wagner's revised "redemption" music, both at the end of the Overture and the finale of the third act. The choral singing (all-important in this opera is tight and snappy, leading to a virtuoso moment in the third act when the two worlds collide. If it weren't for that ending, this Dutchman would be highly recommended.

Watch a trailer for Der Fliegende Holländer here.

Funny Games in Valhalla?

Teaser poster for the remake of Funny Games.
Image © 2007 Celluloid Dreams/Halcyon Pictures

According to a report on the Handelsblatt website, (and brought to this writer's attention by Zerbinetta's Blog) Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke may be on his way to Bayreuth.

The director is currently the leading candidate to direct the Bayreuth Festival's 2013 production of Der Ring des Nibelungen. Mr. Haneke would replace Wim Wenders, who was originally scheduled to direct the bicentennial Ring, but dropped out in recent weeks.

Michael Haneke is known for bleak, disturbing films like The White Ribbon (2009) and Funny Games (1997) the brutal story of two psychopaths who invade a family's vacation cabin and proceed to torture them in a series of sadistic "games." It was remade by Mr. Haneke in a shot-for-shot 2007 "American" version starring Michael Penn, Naomi Watts and Tim Roth.

He is also experienced as an opera director, following a controversial 2006 version of Don Giovanni, mounted in Paris.

The challenges of mounting a Bayreuth Ring are considerable. Directors have to produce all four operas at once, premiering the entire cycle in the course of a week. Past Ring-meisters have included Patrice Chereau, Sir Peter Hall, Harry Kupfer, and of course, Wagner himself.

This production will celebrate Richard Wagner's 200th birthday. Other possible directors include Oscar-winning filmmaker Florian Henckel von Donnersmark (The Lives of Others) and theater director Christof Loy.

DVD Review: Die Meistersinger: Deconstructed

Katherina Wagner takes a hammer to the Bayreuth legacy.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

The Bayreuth Festival's last three productions of Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg have been staid, by-the-numbers affairs, directed by the composer's grandson, Wolfgang Wagner. However, the current production, staged by Katherina Wagner, the new co-director of the festival (and Wolfgang's daughter) offers a bold approach. This Meistersinger (filmed on July 27, 2008) cuts to the opera's core, and questions the artist's role in society.

(In other words, if you draw the line at regietheater, don't read further.)

Wings Over Bayreuth: Wim Wenders to Direct the Ring

Image from Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire.
Photo by Wim Wenders, © 1998 Wim Wenders.

An article in Tuesday's Der Spiegel names director Wim Wenders as the next director of Wagner's Ring at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus. The German director is best known for such art films as Wings of Desire, Until The End of the World and The Million Dollar Hotel.

The choice of Mr. Wenders to direct the Ring continues the Bayreuth trend of bringing in major stage and film directors to tackle Wagner's massive four-part tetralogy. This tradition began in 1976 with the choice of Patrice Chéreau as the director of the so-called "Centennial Ring." Other Ring directors at Bayreuth have included Sir Peter Hall, Harry Kupfer, Alfred Kirchner, and Jürgen Flimm, with varying degrees of artistic success.

The Wenders Ring is scheduled to open in 2013. It will replace an unpopular production by director Tankred Dorst which opened in 2005 to scathing reviews. Mr. Dorst was, in turn, a replacement for Swedish filmmaker Lars von Triel, whose eleventh-hour decision to pull out of the Ring left the Festspielhaus in chaos.

Written over a 26-year period in Wagner's life, the Ring cycle (full title: Der Ring des Nibelungen) retells the mythic saga of the hero Siegfried, the Valkyrie Brünnhilde, and the struggle over a cursed magic ring that allows its wearer to rule the world. The four complex operas (Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried, Götterdämmerung) present considerable hurdles to any director, requiring gods, dwarves, giants, two dragons, magic fire and an apocalyptic climax that portrays the end of the world in fire and flood.

This production represents Mr. Wenders' operatic debut.

Opera Review: Guilt Without Gilt

The New La Traviata at the Met.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Couch surfing: Marina Poplavskaya in La Traviata
Photo by Ken Howard © 2010 Metropolitan Opera

The Metropolitan Opera's new Willy Decker production of La Traviata was a complete success on Tuesday night, from the stark, simple staging to the bravura performance of Marina Poplavskaya as Violetta. Gianandrea Noseda conducted, leading the performance with a specific vision for the work that matched the production and showed a thorough understanding of this subtle, complex score.

Verdi's most intimate opera benefits from the Decker approach: a bare, curved, white room set on a steep rake. Its only adornments: a long white bench, the occasional couch, and a gigantic clock, solemnly reminding the viewer that this is an opera about a woman whose time is running out. It is a vast improvement over the pouffes, gilt, and frou-frous that adorned the Met's past two Traviatas. Both were by Franco Zeffirelli. Each recalled the worst excesses of Busby Berkeley and Martha Stewart.

Despite some early problems adjusting her big voice to match the dynamic level of the orchestra, Ms. Poplavskaya settled in and delivered a nuanced portrayal of Violetta. Whirling about the stage in high scarlet pumps and a red dress, she went from being every man's fantasy to every man's victim--a potent interpretation that will resonate in the minds of opera lovers for years to come.

But there is more to this performance than singing coloratura while balancing atop a couch. Ms. Poplavskaya plays Violetta as Verdi intended, capturing every facet of this jewel of a part. She tossed off the fearless fioritura of "Sempre libera" in the first act, moving her big voice with an impressive agility above the stave. As the evening progressed, (and her world collapsed) she seemed to wither away both vocally and physically. Yet her singing did not suffer: she broke hearts with the equally challenging "Addio, del passato" in the final act.

The breaking heart in question, Matthew Polenziani, was an ardent Alfredo, singing with a flood of warm tone. He coped admirably with Mr. Noseda's urgent, spitfire conducting. Alfredo is another victim in this production, of his father's bullying and the mob mentality of the Parisian party scene. The Act III re-staging of the ballet--which featured a male dancer (choreographer Athol Farmer) in Violetta's red dress and the crowd of black-tie revellers charging like a giant bull became a terrifying sequence.

As Germont père, Andrzej Dobber was a brutal figure, most notably when he struck his wayward son across the face in their Act Two confrontation. This Polish baritone took a stark, stern approach to the role that suited Mr. Decker's conception perfectly. Even the old favorite, "Di provenza il mar" sounded vaguely threatening when delivered in his growling voice. Bass Luigi Roni was onstage for most of the opera as Dr. Grenvil, playing Violetta's physician as a specter of impending Death. This, along with the giant, omni-present clock, underlined the mortal nature of La Traviata, elevating the opera to the status of Verdi's greatest tragedy.

DVD Review: Cuckoo Cocoon

The Zurich Zauberflöte moves the action to an asylum.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Birdman of Zurich: Ruben Drole as Papageno
Image © 2008 by Hans Jörg Michel/Opernhaus Zürich

From the Zürich Opernhaus and music director Nikolaus Harnoncourt comes this new DVD performance of Mozart's Zauberflöte. Mr. Harnoncourt is an acclaimed conductor who built his reputation on performances with period instruments, and unusual textual decisions. However, this performance is on modern instruments, crisply played and note-complete.