2024-09-29 07:54:12
At the time of the election, Vienna also had a Verdi scandal: the Russian exile Kirill Serebrennikov took “Don Carlo” to the costume gallery. The noise during the show was so loud that the director started taking unusual measures.
Before the fourth act, Philippe Jordan raised the white pocket square flag on his staff. The head conductor of the Vienna State Opera, who had never been an adept with sound equipment, could hardly find himself in a position to prevent the sound attack in any other way. They didn’t come from the stage, but from the hall, where some gangsters put up an additional show: Boo Kirill Serebrennikov! Expressions of disapproval during the performance have, of course, little meaning after completion. There was a short temper tantrum against the director, and then this precedent was already marked.
And all because the director of the Russian star who has moved, who now lives in Berlin, followed in his second Vienna show (the first success, “Parsifal” Wagner, is in 2021 during the pandemic without an audience , only for TV cameras). He went “Don Carlo”Verdi’s Spanish aristocratic play based on Schiller, began in the clothing research institute of the same name instead of in the monastery of San Yuste, the retreat of the abdicated Charles V. There it remains as a clothing venue; in Serebrennikov system that looks somewhat gothic with its dull white, sterile marble block architecture with scanner robotic arms.
“Don Carlo” is about a dysfunctional family with rough father-son, wife-wife and step-mother fights, and the power of the ruling church even more over the monarchy. But over the three and a half hours of Verdi’s black-hot, grandiose Grand Opéra, there are two leading ideas: the four well-grounded protagonists of each story are doubly draped in precious court robes. adapted to their famous celebrity images. And the fifth person, the Marquis Posa, who had already been made by Schiller, idealistically advocate for the oppression of Flanders, and wanted to mediate between the Infante Carlo and his father Philip II. He is not a freedom fighter, but a fighter against the production of clothes. With his group of young activists, he discredits the field of research. For whatever reason.
This shift does not seem logical or particularly exciting. So we see naked people, clothed laboriously by helpers in tight-fitting clothes made from gray cardboard boxes, standing around among the singers, having no contact with they as they search the stage endlessly. Until the break after the auto-da-fé exercise, which turned into a video chaos of criticisms against all kinds of current disasters, people were dressed, then dressed again and wrapped in bathing suits. In the fourth act (the Italian version of Milan is played; the State Opera also has the original French version in Konwitschny’s adaptation from 2001 in its repertoire) the doubles appear in half-dress again.
Unique on stage
The structure of the research institute is not very binding: researchers are neither preserved nor destroyed. And why did the family conflict disturb this school? Serebrennikov, who is otherwise able to guide his characters with complex thinking, lets many valuable lead moments slip by. In Vienna, the only historic exterior of the Habsburg monarchy of Spain, one can easily refer to the Art History Museum there with its grand staircase, domed room and Velázquez Hall as a clothing store as a stage. The unclothed Philipp could have entered into a lively, poetic dialogue with the emperor, who bursts with emotion in his great monologue aria in the third act.
But here everyone is standing around without a job, extras like stars: no problem, let it be a narrative arc. It comes with the unsatisfying claims of a clichéd theater director, such as a naked object from the sky (another doppelganger; she sings tightly: Ileana Tonka), which allegedly touches her T-shirt, which is possible deal with China’s child labor. to the wall
This is not only the height of the story, which is very difficult, it also affects the music design as a heavy mold. What respect do we have for a weak ruler in half the world, who is a school principal who just carries a card in a coat with a wallet? Especially since Roberto Tagliavini sings beautifully but palely with a round bass, without any power of nature. Neither the heroes of the Grand Inquisitor (Dmitry Ulyanov) nor the scientific advisor (as the script predictions reveal) nor the patriarchal monk (Ivo Stanchev) have any of these. The power of the voice for violence in the Papal State this radiation is in control.
The experienced Eboli (here: sales director) of the trust but not the enthusiasm Eva-Maud Hubaux lets the few burqa-clad people pass her in the veil. A real rival, in love with the Infante, in the love dilemma between Carlo (who always… more histrionicTenor-playing Joshua Guerrero, who doesn’t know who or what he’s playing) and the queen / vice principal who had promised him once, didn’t even have a touching confrontation in the third act.
And the star soprano Asmik Grigorian, making her debut as Elisabeth von Valois, also sings in a concentrated, accepted way, with a slightly stressed soprano on a cold light. Neither the farewell to the Countess Aremberg, who is sent back to France, nor her grand aria in the fourth act is really surprising. Even he, with an otherwise impressive level of love, could not explain why the Queen and others always had to wear black coats. His constricted, tied, dead feelings become clear through Verdi’s music.
The horns are already sounding at the beginning, and otherwise direct, the difficulty of the emotion of Philippe Jordan and even the noise of the State Opera Orchestra does not develop a very big operatic emotion. There is a lot of wit, even a nervous minuet, but the dark power of this musical hybrid architecture is not expressed in anything other than a contemporary way. The only thing left to learn after a brilliant evening of opera in the parlor rather than on the stage is that in the 16th century women’s underpants were already half-length, while men tucked their crown jewels into a drawn shirt. between the legs before the pubic capsule becomes attached to the harem pants.
Completely alienated by the guide, hardly present as a friend, and flawless as a political puppet, Posa is in his “Liberta” shirt by the dry voice, the poor Etienne Dupuis. And it seems like a final, boring, grotesque directorial idea when, after this disappointing performance, he is presented with a tube of samples of Asmik Grigorian’s vegan premium natural cosmetics line in the foyer. Then art and business, which Serebrennikov made clear, suddenly became the same.
Summary appointment for following performances at the Vienna State Opera. On September 29, 2024 on Arte, then in Art media library.
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