Wagner at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, a retrospective, February 2010
Posted on 17 February 2010Five Wagner operas in six days … was quite a marathon, but well worth it, particularly for three of the productions.
Tag Archives: Deutsche Oper
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Wagner Wochen, February 2010
Posted on 15 February 2010Rossini’s comment that, “Wagner has lovely moments but awful quarters of an hour” was spoken before Die Meistersinger was created, and this opera has, for me, not a dull moment — it’s one glorious thing after another. Of course a determined director can spoil it, as happened at Bayreuth this past summer in Katharina Wagner’s diabolical production, …
Tannhäuser, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Wagner Wochen, February 2010
Posted on 13 February 2010… what really made the evening was Stephen Gould’s Tannhäuser. He was forceful and articulate with a superb tone and strong stage presence. This is the sort of singer one wants as Tristan or Siegfried — Covent Garden please note.
Der fliegende Holländer, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Wagner Wochen, February 2010
Posted on 12 February 2010I’m afraid Tatjana Gürbaca was not up to the job. She was probably more concerned with her own strange concept, in which the men were shown as financial traders, and the women as performers and party girls.
Rienzi, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Wagner Wochen, February 2010
Posted on 11 February 2010In the second part … it all came together. The amateurish rise to power of the clown-like Rienzi is over. Here he is shown in his bunker on the ground level of the stage, with the people on the street level above.
Lohengrin, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Wagner Wochen, February 2010
Posted on 10 February 2010Friedrich’s excellent staging is well supported by the performers, particularly Waltraud Meier, who plays the evil Ortrud with subtle malice, and Eike Wilm Schulte, who portrays a fiercely tendentious Telramund with a commanding voice — this nasty pair both exhibit great stage presence.
Wagner Week at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, February 2010
Posted on 31 January 2010I shall be in Berlin for a week of Wagner operas at the Deutsche Oper: Lohengrin, Rienzi, Der fliegende Holländer, Tannhäuser, and Meistersinger.
Der Rosenkavalier, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Feb 2009
Posted on 18 February 2009Daniela Sindram was the best Octavian I’ve ever seen, singing and acting the part of a young man to perfection. … Kurt Rydl’s portrayal of Baron Ochs was superbly natural, without over-acting or stepping over the line into farce, as sometimes happens with this part, and his singing was thoroughly engaging.
Die Ägyptische Helena, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Feb 2009
Posted on 16 February 2009This little-performed opera by Richard Strauss received a wonderful staging by Marco Arturo Marelli and his team.
Cassandra by Vittorio Gnecchi, and Elektra by Richard Strauss, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Feb 2009
Posted on 15 February 2009Cassandra, by the Italian composer Gnecchi, was written four years before Stauss’s Elektra. It tells of Agamemnon’s return to his wife Klytemnestra, who intends to kill him as revenge for his sacrifice of their daughter Iphigenia …
Ariadne auf Naxos, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Feb 2009
Posted on 13 February 2009This imaginative and coherent production by Robert Carson sets the opera in modern times, complete with a mobile phone at one point, and it’s the only time I’ve seen the richest man in Vienna actually appear on stage.
Salome, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Feb 2009
Posted on 12 February 2009I felt sorry for Manuela Uhl as Salome, because she didn’t come over well until the final scene, and was given no dance.