National Opera Company to perform again after 45 years
Directed by Jonah Kim, who has been active in Europe.
17th – 20th, Seoul Arts Center Opera Theater
Wagner‘s ‘Tannhäuser‘ at the Seoul Arts Center Opera Theater starting on the 17th. With Lord Hermann (above right, bass Choi Woong-jo) and his niece Elisabeth (soprano Lena Kuchner) holding hands, people are waiting for the opening of the singing contest. Provided by the National Opera”/>
Act 2 of Wagner’s opera ‘Tannhäuser’. It is a large hall where singing contests are held. Women dressed as office workers from the 1930s type on typewriters and organize data, and teenagers dressed in clothes reminiscent of the Hitlerjugend also stand. The lord holding his niece Elizabeth’s hand seems somehow greedy.
In the original work, Venus, the goddess of lust, who only appears in Act 1, wanders around. A cameraman films his facial expressions on stage and the video is projected onto the back of the stage. Venus’ expression is reminiscent of a woman in agony after losing her true love. This is the rehearsal site on the 15th for Wagner’s opera ‘Tannhäuser’, which will be performed at the Seoul Arts Center Opera Theater from the 17th to the 20th.
The National Opera will stage Wagner’s mid-period masterpiece ‘Tannhäuser’ when he was 32 years old, 45 years after its Korean premiere in 1979. The production will be directed by Yona Kim, a Korean director who has been active in Europe, mainly in Germany. He has met Korean audiences through the National Opera’s ‘Escape from the Concubine’ in 2015 and the Daegu International Opera Festival’s ‘The Ring of the Nibelungs’ in 2022.
In the director’s note published in the program book, Jonah Kim stated, “This opera is a story about Wagner’s self-contradiction as he longed for both Eros and a devoted woman.” He said, “Venus could have been a passionate woman who was faithful in love, and Elisabeth could have been a victim who was forced to love altruistically.” The intention is to exclude the dichotomy that Venus is evil and the heroine Elizabeth is good.
In order to equally express the asceticism and hedonism in the original work, he mixed the various versions that Wagner came up with for this work. In the first act, the Paris version was chosen, in which Venus has a large role and his character is expressed three-dimensionally, while the ballet scene, which emphasizes decoration, was omitted. In acts 2 and 3, the ‘vivid’ Dresden version of the premiere is used.
In rehearsal, soprano Lena Kuchner, who played the role of Elisabeth, the Lady of Salvation, seemed like a singer who had drawn and cut out a drawing for the role. The pure, penetrating, loud sound extended clearly to the back of the audience. Tenor Heiko Börner, who played the role of Tannhäuser, also showed off the characteristic sounds of typical German Helden (heroic) tenors from half a century ago. An interesting performer was Tom Eric Lee as the pious knight Wolfram. It had a strong vibrato and a unique tone that seemed to be a composite of several sounds, and the sound was produced effortlessly. The ‘Song of the Evening Star’ he sings is different from that of any other singer.
Kuchner, Börner, and Lee will appear on the 17th and 19th. The role of Venus will be played by mezzo-soprano Julie Robardandre, and the role of Lord Hermann will be played by bassist Choi Woong-jo. The performances on the 18th and 20th will feature Aaron Cowley as Tannhäuser, Sujin Moon as Elisabeth, Songmi Yang as Venus, Taehyun Kim as Wolfram, and Sunghyun Ha as Hermann. Philippe Auguin, who met Korean audiences with the National Opera’s ‘Lohengrin’ in 2016, took over the conducting. The National Symphony Orchestra and the Neue Opera Chorus will appear.
Yoo Yun-jong, cultural reporter [email protected]
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