2023-12-17 22:34:24
Feminist opera has been around for a long time. It flourished in the Italian bel canto of the early 19th century, as can be seen in the enormous number of female title heroines in Donizetti, for example – in the end they were usually dead or insane, but still the power centers of his pieces. The fact that the thing worked better at the time than some feminist-labeled efforts today is perhaps due to the fact that the term and the label currently exist, but there are hardly any convincing personalities who can rouse and inspire the male half of the world’s population, both in and outside the art world; but definitely back then.
One of these culture-defining figures of early Italian Romanticism was Giuditta Pasta, Vincenzo Bellini’s first Norma in 1831 and the protagonist of “Anna Bolena” by his competitor Gaetano Donizetti a year earlier. Five generations later, this double-meaning “English” role – because it refers to Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII, who was beheaded on his orders under hypocritical pretexts – in its embodiment by Maria Callas, became a striking starting point for the bel canto renaissance that has been going on ever since shapes opera schedules worldwide.
Now it was Berlin’s German opera Federica Lombardi who placed herself in this tradition – with good success: a queen from head to toe, who appeared as young as she was confident in her sensitivity and dignity. In terms of singing, she still lacked the looseness of the coloratura in the performance aria and also that lyrical aura of soft pain behind all the shine, which increasingly emerged as the tragedy progressed and finally, despite some physical weaknesses, in the monstrously long and culminating in a poignant farewell scene that was only brought back to life by Brünnhilde’s “Götterdämmerung” final song.
An unusual dwarfism
When she previously went into a duet with Vasilisa Berzhanskaya as her internally torn rival and successor Jane Seymour – dryer and more brittle in timbre, but perhaps even more intense in terms of emotional explosiveness – settling accounts with each other, forgiving each other, mutually despairing: then you could have the feeling , to witness a great moment in opera history in an authentic embodiment.
There were several reasons why such inflamed, rousing moments did not last the entire evening. First of all, there is a dwarfing of the men’s roles, which is unusual even for the female voice worshiper Donizetti, which is further increased by David Alden’s direction (essentially a remake of his Zurich production from 2021 with Gideon Davey’s imaginatively simple shadow-playing, but at least acoustically advantageous equipment).
Great theater works differently
So Percy, Anna’s ex-husband and now a disruptive factor in the royal plan to dispose of the previous wife as quickly as possible in favor of the new one, appears at his first appearance as a kind of noble bum with a laced satchel in a Biedermeier outfit, whose rain cape he later crumples into the corner while sulking . Perhaps he – filled vocally by René Barbera with a melodious gesture of languor and resignation – in this dejected, sorrowful figure he would be one of those Schubertian wanderers who always end up where happiness has just disappeared around the corner, but even with the most lavish fantasy, it is certainly not an erotic one or political competition for the king.
Heinrich, for his part, who is respectably dashing as a stage presence, is infantilized in yet another way: with simian gestures, undecided between macho omnipotent gestures and faint-hearted disappearance, and in his singing, too, there is no clear line between ranting outbursts and retreats into the inconspicuous. In the finale of the first act, all he can think of as a form of action for his fluffed-up, over-the-top power attitudes is to throw pillows around himself. Great theater works differently.
With all due respect
As the third male figure – the courtly crooner Smeton – the mezzo-soprano Karis Tucker acted according to Donizetti’s specifications, cartoonishly over-the-top, with weak voice and, like Barbera, unflatteringly costumed. Otherwise, high hats and double-breasted suits, umbrellas, wax lights and an unnerving ritual thoughtfulness of the actions: a little as if Spitzweg’s world of figures had broken into the Tudor house, admittedly covered in deathly dark dust – even the younger Holbein’s Meyer Madonna, which was used as a prop, seemed gray and cobwebbed The last generation also wanted to contribute to the scene.
Werner M. Grimmel Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 6 Werner M. Grimmel Published/Updated: Christian Wildhagen Published/Updated: Recommendations: 7
Of course, this Biedermeier, undramatic consolation didn’t correspond so badly with Enrique Mazzola’s musical talent, who preferred noble transparency and discretion rather than pointed plasticity. It became clear in this opera how strong the influences of the noble melodicist Bellini were on Donizetti (the lines ran the other way around again when taking over the trusting female rivalry in Bellini’s “Norma”); But in view of the very defensive tempos and dynamic damping, even in the Stretta endings, such experiences resulted in little immediate listening pleasure.
The fact that the conductor placed explicit emphasis on the unabridged score, including all of its comfortably spread out recitatives, occasionally put curiosity and enjoyment in the passable soloist tableau as well as the differentiated choral leading to severe tests, especially in the second half of the evening (actually more atmospherically dense). With all due respect for philological historical fidelity – less would have been more here.
#Donizettis #Anna #Bolena #Deutsche #Oper #Berlin