Salzburg shows: Giorgia Meloni as the Phantom of the Opera

2024-08-06 14:20:38

Festival on the Salzach celebrates its holy places: Mozart’s “La Clemenza di Tito” becomes a political satire, Strauss’ Capriccio” a pearl play. And then Schönberg comes with a passionate singer.

Cecilia Bartoli is 58 years old, Elsa Dreisig is 33. Roman Bartoli sang Zerlina as her first opera role at the Salzburg Festival in 1994, and many more followed. Now he is in the summer production of the Salzburg Whitsun Festival, which he leads, like Sesto in Mozart later, not especially beloved Seria. Tito’s Clemency stage debut. Three Danish-French citizens in Fjordligi in the improvisation of “Così fan tutte” in the Corona summer of 2020, which she played here, and now she sings Countess Madeleine in Richard Strauss’ “Capriccio” for the first time – in a game performance.

At Elsa Dreisig’s current age, Cecilia Bartoli is already a world star, unusual for a mezzo. At that time, she released her first album with her CD Vivaldi, which quickly became a trend and sold millions of copies. And now, too late, comes one of Mozart’s mid-teenage mezzo parts. He sold them very wisely. Because of the sound and the analytical direction of director Robert Carsen (hope this will not become a trend!) this season takes a watery approach to the two original castrato roles of Sesto and his friend Annio, who loves Servilia’s sister. And open eyes whether they are looking for a girly woman or a girly man. However, in the design of the sonorous Anna Tetruashvili with her short hair, Annio appears as a man.

However, if Sesto was a same-sex lover who married the public Vitellia, who only wanted the power and throne of Titus, the myth from the Roman period seems more reliable on the one hand. And the grown-up Cecilia Bartoli, on the other hand, does not have to play a boy, but can express the wonder of the tragedy of the mad woman through the sadness of her music: especially the slow, quiet, melancholic melodies, but also in precise coloratura. He does this with a confident strategy and a practical level of knowledge of what works and how and how to cover weaknesses through performance.

With his calm, contemporary tableau of a sober Senate chamber in today’s Rome, Carsen provides his star with the ideal background foil for a clever, serene and yet passionate character study that is surprisingly unified in the wide range of Bartoli violence. And Gianluca Capuano, who performed passionately with the times and powers at the meeting of Les Musiciens du Prince – Monaco, reinforced this abundantly and effectively in the sense of material.

A discussion about music

Sesto, completely loyal to Vitellia, becomes very much a tool for the bad guys from the back line of the agents. Everyone here is a public servant, a cog in a political card game that certainly has similarities with the United States Capitol and the storm of Trump supporters. In the end, the all-forgiving Titu (doubtful plastic tenor voice: Daniel Behle) is killed by Vitellia’s henchmen and Sesto is taken away. But she herself took a triumphant seat in the Führer’s leather chair, with a blonde wig and leather skirt, Georgia Meloni’s revenge.

Even if this is not a real show for the summer of 2024, this “Shoot” is beautiful Salzburg. This is at least the fourth production since the beginning of the Mortier years. In addition to Mozart, Richard Strauss, one of the founding fathers of the festival, is also known as a resident here. “Capriccio”, his penultimate opera, “one dialogue for music”, where in 1942, in the middle of the Second World War, nothing more than a word was agreed whether or not it should be given preference to the voices or the words in the opera, which was last performed in 1985, also reformed the atmosphere. Since then, the article has been discovered by a number of smart directors, and the time it was created can be linked to its content in many electronic ways. Nevertheless, the director Christian Thielemann did not have time to try it, and he could not fix it.

Even Thielemann, one of the best current Strauss interpreters, who only worked in front of the cameras in a Dresden concert, missed the audience experience this time. Without scene, the shimmering, shimmering, allusive, but also tiringly description of the score seems even more artificial. Talk about breathing art every so often and develop a more intellectual life. We hear the voice of precious stones, precious, perfect, but not porous, indifferent, sensible. And of course the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra has also moved towards a one-dimensional, soapy euphony.

In the great banquet hall, all harmony and unity was lost. An impressive team, matching down to eight serving roles, working perfectly alongside each other. Full of euphony in two reading lovers, flattering Sebastian Kohlhepp (Flamand composer) and fluid Konstantin Krimmel (Poet Olivier). In the middle, the quiet brother (mirror: Christoph Pohl) flirts with the actress Clairon (flat: Ève-Maude Hubaux). Mika Kares milks his sense of theater director La Roche excellent for meaning, Jörg Schneider gently dabs the tired prompter Taupe; Tuuli Takala and Josh Lovell are reserved caricatures of Italian singers.

And Elsa Dreisig? Her Madeleine is sweet and sings with pointed articulation – after the music stops. A northern, luminous soprano, not a southern-looking soprano. But in the end, to the magically unfolding moon music, the stage is lit-blue, this countess stands in her straight-falling dress, her hands tightly on the instruments, only the non-existent scene as the “Bat” parlor interim Adele in the ball gown of Lady Rosalinde. There is a lack of word penetration and ambiguity, but above all diva allure, the aplomb of a star, prima donna Bang. What you can experience with Cecilia Bartoli even has a brief smile as a measure of audience growth. Sung beautifully and accurately, that’s not enough for this psychedelic parade number.

Anna Prohaska also has an aura of wonder, not so much because of her soulful voice. It is a total work of art. And in a late Schönberg chamber music evening in the neo-yellow baroque Mozarteum hall, which has its precious filigree represents the core of the Salzburg Festival, it even these previous intense, but this time completely reserved, during 15 George songs from the “Book of Hanging Gardens”.

If Prohaska appears in a green dress with splits and splits, like the unintelligent Gorgon in Gustav Klimt’s Beethoven Frieze, then the devil “Everyman” Christoph Luser, who previously spoke of Schönberg, as well as the beautiful oscillation by the two movements of the second Schönberg Quartet Minguet Quartet benefit. Whether “Litany” (the third act) or the next “Elegy”, whether it darkens the deep sorrow or “wind from other planets”, now only Anna Prohaska reigns here. Rapturous, with a silver, veiled tone and commanding gesture. An introduction. Actor. “Time with Schönberg” rather than “time for Prohaska”.

Three ladies from the Choice Festival are featured in the round. After the Salzachgang over the Makart footbridge to the old town side, all that remains is the obligatory stop at the “Sausage Queen”, which has been there for 73 years. One man is working there today, but the “Scharfe Lange” is going down well.