“Blåskjegg’s castle” at the Norwegian Opera and Ballet – Reviews and recommendations

Opera director Tobias Kratzer is in the wind at the moment. The 44-year-old German is both awarded and declared a genius for his inventive productions of both well-known and lesser-known operas. In his debut at Den Norske Opera og Ballett, Kratzer has developed what undoubtedly appears to be a promising concept: to combine three initially different works into one coherent action, located in one and the same apartment, centered around one and the same male character. Kratzer’s basic idea is that all three of these works thematize modern gender roles, and enable a thematization of men’s potentially “toxic” masculinity. PATRIARCH: In “Frauenliebe und -leben” we meet a woman (mezzo-soprano Ingeborg Gillebo) trapped in the 19th-century patriarchal family structure. TV pianist Håvard Gimse, on the right her husband (baritone John Lundgren). Photo: Erik Berg / DNOB ALFAHANN: Hertug Bluebeard (John Lundgren) in a modern and suit-clad version, together with the 1980 version of Judith (Maja Evenshaug Christiansen). From the second part of the performance. Photo: Erik Berg / Den Norske Opera og Ballett HANREI: The aging husband (John Lundgren, in the middle) meets a younger rival (tenor Rodrigo Porras Garulo) in Alexander von Zeminsky’s “A Florentine Tragedy”, the performance’s third part. Th mezzo-soprano Tone Kummervold (Bianca). Photo: Erik Berg / Den Norske Opera og Ballett “Blåskjeggs borg – an opera trilogy” has thus, under Kratzer’s direction, become an all-evening performance that shows a series of women’s destinies over a large historical period, confronted with the same sullen male figure – the latter throughout by baritone John Lundgren. It must be said that this show undoubtedly has qualities. Not least, a greatly expanded opera orchestra plays with finesse and gusto under its incoming music director Edward Gardner. Nevertheless, the main impression is that Kratzer gapes over too much, and that the direction too often comes at the expense of the expressive power of the works’ own dramas. Vast storytelling The main panel in Kratzer’s triptych is Béla Bartók’s blood-drenching adventure horror “Duke Bluebeard’s Castle”. “Duke Bluebeard’s castle” Opera written by the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók (pictured, 1881-1945). Libretto by Béla Balázs (1884-1949). The opera is written for orchestra, mezzo-soprano and bass-baritone. It had its premiere in Budapest in 1918. This is Bartók’s only opera, but is nevertheless considered one of the most important opera works of the 20th century. “Duke Bluebeard’s castle” is originally based on an old French fairy tale from 1697 by the French author Charles Perrault. Since the fairy tale was written, similar stories about women discovering the dark sides of men have appeared in similar stories all over the world, among others by the German Brothers Grimm and Norwegian Asbjørnsen and Moe. Plot: Judith has escaped from her own wedding and joined her new husband, Bluebeard, in his gloomy castle. Here she finds seven locked doors, which she insists on unlocking. Here she discovers his past relationships and darkest secrets. Under Kratzer’s direction, Bartók’s intense psychodrama has become a tale of modern meat markets and skeletons in the closet: A young woman joins a suit-clad alpha male in his luxurious apartment, and gradually discovers the unhappy fates of the former women in this man’s life. In short, all had to pay with their lives for having exceeded accepted gender roles in various ways, except for one prostitute who was suffocated while performing and videotaped SM sex. The ambition to have all these femicides play out on stage parallel to the action in Bartók’s opera already requires considerable directorial virtuosity. The challenge is not lessened by the fact that Kratzer chooses to make the opera a kind of chronicle throughout the 20th century, presumably to build a historical bridge between the two outer wings of the performance (more on them in a moment). LOCKED DOORS: Duke Bluebeard’s new wife discovers what lurks in Duke Bluebeard’s past. Video: The Norwegian Opera and Ballet In historical retrospect, we move at a fast pace from the period around the First World War, via the 1960s space race up to the 1980s VHS cassettes. Predictably enough, this sweeping storytelling causes Kratzer to lose his grip on the story told in Bartók’s music and Balász’s libretto. Astoundingly lifeless The rooms behind locked doors that the opera actually talks about are saved at best by half-hearted directorial emergency solutions, such as the lake of tears behind the sixth door being represented by a half-empty drink bottle. Judith’s climactic outburst of joy at the sight of Bluebeard’s mighty kingship (the view behind the fifth door) comes unmotivated into thin air, coincidentally in front of the apartment’s home cinema system. IN DEATH: Judith discovers that the Duke’s women had to pay with their lives for transgressing accepted gender roles. Photo: Erik Berg / Den Norske Opera og Ballett Such laxness is not the biggest problem, however, and could be lived with. The main problem is that the drama between Judith and Bluebeard is surprisingly lifeless throughout Bartók’s one-acts. Baritone John Lundgren sings throughout dull and powerless, as if he never really has anything to say. Mezzo-soprano Dorottya Lang makes a powerful entrance, but throughout the drama is about as featureless as her partner. Inhibited and restrained We have already become familiar with one of Bluebeard’s former wives in the first part of the performance, which is a staging of Robert Schumann’s song cycle “Frauenliebe und -leben” from 1840. “Frauenliebe und -leben” “Frauenliebe und -leben” ( A woman’s life and love) is a song cycle consisting of eight lieder, written for soprano and piano in 1830 by the German composer Robert Schumann (1810-1856). Lied is German for song. In the German lied tradition, these are poems that the composer has set to music with piano accompaniment. These are rarely staged, but were often performed in intimate and often private contexts. “Frauenliebe und -leben” is one of the best known and most popular song cycles within the 19th century lied repertoire. The work has its origins in the German-French poet and naturalist Adelbert von Chamisso’s poem cycle “Chamisso” from 1830. Plot: The nameless main character in the song cycle meets a typical female fate around 1840. Her feelings revolve around her husband, whom she adores above all else on earth. Through the songs, she tells about her life: from first love, to weddings, marriages, births and death. “Frauenliebe und -leben” contains some of Schumann’s most heavenly music, despite the fact that the lyrics of Adelbert von Chamisso are from today’s point of view squirming in one’s chair. Under Kratzer’s direction, these eight songs become a story about a woman (both sung and performed by mezzo-soprano Ingeborg Gillebo) and her falling in love, marriage and death within the framework of a somewhat vague northern European bourgeoisie in the mid-19th century. FAITHFUL: The wife dedicates her life to her husband. Photo: Erik Berg / Den Norske Opera og Ballett After a series of girl births (to the increasing irritation of the patriarch of the household – precisely, he yes) the woman dies in childbirth after finally giving birth to a boy. The woman is then carried out of the apartment in a coffin during the last song’s piano playing. Kratzer’s staging thus plays on the ironic contrast between the romanticized female idyll in Chamisso’s texts, and the more glaring realism that plays out in the scenic “reality”, where the woman’s function essentially consists in bringing the patriarchy forward. PERFORMING SCHUMANN: Soprano Ingeborg Gillebo in the role of Mrs. However, the effect could have been stronger if the continuous pantomime in the background had been less caricatured. Although Gillebo’s mezzo-soprano is too expressive to allow herself to be pushed completely to the sidelines, there is nevertheless something inhibited and restrained about the musical whole. The otherwise eminent Håvard Gimse seems surprisingly tied down and musically anonymous in his role as a piano-playing family guest. A redundant tragedy Kratzer’s choice of Alexander von Zemlinsky’s “A Florentinsk Tragedie” (1917) as the performance’s third work seems less motivated, and to some extent appears superfluous. Thematically, the performance would have appeared more focused and comprehensive if it had limited itself to Schumann and Bartók. “A Florentine Tragedy” “A Florentine Tragedy” is an opera written by the Austrian composer, conductor and teacher Alexander von Zemlinsky (1971-1945) in 1915-1916. It premiered in Stuttgart the following year. The opera is based on an unfinished play by the writer Oscar Wild, which he left behind when he was imprisoned in 1895. The libretto is by Max Meyerfeld, who translated Wild’s text into German. The opera consists of only one act. Zemlinsky emigrated to the United States in 1938 when the Nazis seized power in Austria. In his own time, his ability as a teacher was thought to be more important than his compositions. It was not until the 1970s that his musical work was reassessed. Plot: The merchant Simone returns home from a business trip and catches his wife cheating with the young nobleman Guido Bardi. The triangular drama develops into a deadly confrontation. “A Florentinsk Tragedie” appears as a rather blatant attempt to copy Richard Strauss’ succès de scandale “Salome” (1905), with yet another “scandalous” text by Oscar Wilde bathed in orchestral textures plucked unrestrainedly from Strauss’s operas. The opera is a triangular drama in which an aging husband outmanoeuvres his younger and more upstanding rival, first verbally and then physically, and thus wins back the favor of his young wife – this is the wild “tragedy”. Kratzer here chooses a simpler directorial concept, and the opera essentially appears as a straight modernized version of an action that originally takes place in 16th-century Florence. UTRO: Mezzo-soprano Tone Kummervold in the role of Bianca. She finds a lover in the young Guido, played by tenor Rodrigo Porras Garulo. Photo: Erik Berg / Den Norske Opera og Ballett The performance is infused with new scenic energy through mezzo-soprano Tone Kummervold (Bianca) and tenor Rodrigo Porras Garulo (Guido), who both play their roles with stage presence and vocal excess. But here too, Kratzer is unable to avoid sucking much of the dramatic energy out of the stage space. In Wilde’s text, the husband does not catch the wife and the lover in the act. The lover is there when the husband comes home unannounced, but the husband cannot be absolutely sure that infidelity has occurred, nor can the wife and the lover be absolutely sure of the husband’s suspicions. The entire plot of the opera, in short, consists of Simone using her verbal cunning to lure her lover out onto thin ice, then brutally and cold-bloodedly killing him when he is sure of his cause. TRAGIC END: The husband Simone is played by baritone John Lundgren. The triangular drama ends with a cold-blooded murder. Photo: Erik Berg / Den Norske Opera og Ballett But without the basic tension in the air, the husband’s lines are reduced to a farting and half-ironic game for the gallery. When the lover in Kratzer’s direction tumbles half-naked out of the wardrobe already in the first scene, you can literally hear the air seeping out of the dramatic balloon. There are moments that are indicative of a performance that seems more concerned with its own ideas than taking the works’ own statements seriously. news reviewer Title: “Blåskjeggs borg” Works: Frauenliebe und -leben (1841) / Blåskjeggs borg (1918) / A Florentinsk tragedy (1915–16) Place: Den Norske Opera og Ballett Music: Robert Schumann / Béla Bartók / Alexander Zemlinsky Libretto : Adelbert von Chamisso / Béla Balázs / Alexander Zemlinsky Musical direction: Edward Gardner Director: Tobias Kratzer Scenography and costumes: Rainer Sellmaier Lighting and sound design: Michael Bauer Cast: Ingeborg Gillebo (soloist), Håvard Gimse (pianist), John Lundgren (Hertug Bluebeard), Dorottya Lang (Judit), Eline Øverby (Judit 1918), Liv Rørmark (Judit 1969), Maja Evenshaug Christiansen (Judit 1980), Begoña Puentes (Maid), Rodrigo Porras Garulo / Magnus Staveland (Guido Bardi), John Lundgren (Simone), Tone Kummervold (Bianca), Children from the Children’s Choir, Opera Orchestra Date: 20 January – 16 February



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