Vienna: New Walküre in which Uusitalo looses his voice

A nightmare for Finnish bass-barytone Juha Uusitalo: At the premiere of Walküre, the first installment of the new Ring at the Vienna State Opera , Uusitalo was apparently singing with a cold and lost his voice during the Monologue. In the third act he could only whisper, and Oskar Hillebrandt, seemingly in the process of eating a pizza at the Westbahnhof, was brough in to sing the remainder of the part. Terje Stensvold, an excellent Wotan, is scheduled as Wotan in the next performance on Thursday.

The production is by Sven-Eric Bechtolf. Franz Welser-Möst conducts. The cast: Nina Stemme, Eva Johansson, Juha Uusitalo, Johan Botha and Michaela Schuster.

Reviews:

Der Standard thought the staging to be uninspired and naive in the conception. However particular praise to Johan Botha and Nina Stemme as the Wälsung twins.

Financial Times also was rather unimpressed with Bechtolfs staging, but even less impressed with Holender´s tackling of Uusitalo´s lost voice. Quote:

"Holender was greeted with storms of boos, a reception not inappropriate for a man who had failed to organise an understudy for the opera’s heaviest role. He held up both hands and talked. When he had hired Uusitalo four years ago, the man had been in fine voice. He has sung the role well in other houses. He was fine at the dress rehearsal. He, Holender, had advised Uusitalo to be more careful with his voice in the last rehearsals. Oskar Hillebrand had answered his mobile phone and agreed to sing the part from the pit, while Uusitalo acted his role silently on the stage, a solution that he, Holender, did not especially like, but what else can you do with such a production?The boos were tamed, but the cost was high. Uusitalo was just having a bad night. It can happen to anyone."

Walküre in Stockholm

Waiting for the complete Stockholm Ring, which will show in January 2008, here is my take on the Stockholm Walküre, which I attended last October at the Royal Opera in Stockholm:

Director Staffan Valdemar Holm´s take on this work (based on this Walküre) is largely psychoanalytic. He is not interested in politics and human evolution, but creates a world very similar to what I would´ve imagined to be that of Strindberg and Ibsen. The scenography is by Bente Lykke Möller and the setting is middle to late 19th century, ie. Wagner´s own time.

The first act is takes place in a large kitchen, with dinner plates on the wall, and reminded me distinctly of Nora´s world in Ibsen´s “A doll´s house”. Second act takes place in a room with 19th century romantic paintings on the walls and a pool table in the middle. The room is dark, and through the windows the snowclad mountains can be seen. It´s almost too much Strindberg. The Valkyries were all clad in black dresses in the same dark room with concrete walls and the same windows. Dressed as in the 1850´s (pictured at the bottom of the page).

The cast was quite good: Nina Stemme was wonderful as Sieglinde, Hans-Peter König had the voice for Hunding, but is not a very menacing stage present (as in his Bayreuth Hagen), Endrik Wottrick was a shrill and disappointing Siegmund (as he was in Bayreuth this year), while Martina Dike made a fine Fricka. I had really looked forward to Katarina Dalayman´s Brünnhilde – she seriously has potential to be really outstanding in this part - unfortunately she had cancelled the performance and was replaced by the vocally inadequate and not very interesting Carolyne Whisnant. Terje Stensvold made an excellent Wotan. I continue to be amazed at this man, who started his international career in his end-50´s after 30 years of (relative) anonymity at the Royal Norwegian Opera. And next year he has several engagements in London, Vienna and Berlin lined up. His voice was huge and quite steady throughout the entire range.

German conductor Gregor Bühl was conducting the Royal Swedish Opera orchestra. And disappointingly, the orchestra did not seem to perform according to international standards. Curiously, loudspeakers were placed on the wall next to our seats and they were transmitting the orchestral sound with about ½ seconds delay – which was extremely annoying. The orchestra sounded flat and uninspired throughout, which is my major reservation with this Stockholm Ring so far.

To summarize: The singers generally belong to the top-end of “the usual suspects”, the director´s concept seems interesting, but the orchestra did not quite match the other aspects of the production. Hopefully this will have improved before the premiere of the complete cycle in January.

By the way, the Stockholm opera has implemented the e-tickets, which you may order via internet and print out at home. Excellent service for out of town visitors.


All photos by: Mats Bäcker

Karita Mattila´s Fidelio at the Royal Opera

Fidelio. Royal Opera, Covent Garden. June 2007. Production: Jürgen Flimm. Cast: Karita Mattila (Leonore), Eric Halfvarsson (Rocco), Endrik Wottrich (Florestan), Terje Stensvold (Pizzarro). Conductor: Antonio Pappano.

This Jürgen Flimm production of Fidelio has previously been seen at the Metropolitan Opera and was considered controversial when it opened in 2000. Why, I find it hard to see.

Jürgen Flimm´s Fidelio is text-book straight-forward, no-nonsense, following Beethoven´s "script". Yes, it does take place in an unspecified time-period, probably mid-20th century in a totalitarian state. We do see handguns, and A President as opposed to A Minister arrives towards the end. But that pretty much sums up the controversy, as I see it. Furthermore Jürgen Flimm is very detailed in his direction of the singers and there is constantly activity on stage, though not approaching my irritation threshold.

Finnish soprano Karita Mattila is a radiant Fidelio, a part optimally suited to her unique air of shyness combined with determination, her wonderful middle-register and straight-forward singing, with a minimum of portamento. The velvety beauty of her middle must be among the most beautiful things on an opera stage today. Emotionally involved as well as vocally convincing. As she appeared here, Karita Mattila seemed the ideal Fidelio.

The magnificent Norwegian bass-barytone Terje Stensvold was Pizzaro. Employed for 30 years at the Norwegian National Opera before embarking on an international career 5-6 years ago, at 60 he now seems to be everywhere, with a voice effortly filling the auditorium.
Endrik Wottrich, with the dubious pleasure of being completely overpowered by Terje Stensvold in the Stockholm Walküre, delivered his one aria (well). Eric Halfvarsson was in more steady voice than is often the case for him at this point in his careeer as Rocco.

But...what happened in the pit? The orchestra conducted by Antonio Pappano sounded disorganised, dissynchronized, dis---whatever. Better luck next time. Really.

Ticket prices at the Royal Opera are what they are, obviously. And, it may be argued, if the quality of performances are three times as high as anywhere else, they obviously would be justified..

The Metropolitan run of this Fidelio production (with Karita Mattila, Ben Heppner and René Pape) is released on DVD.

The post-nuclear Ring - Deutsche Oper Berlin

This is Götz Friedrich´s ”cold-war” Ring from 1984, still in the repertoire at Deutsche Oper Berlin. I attended a Cycle during the second week of February 2007:

The Gods have escaped into a tunnel after the nuclear war has destroyed the world. This tunnel is a constant feature in the cycle serving as backdrop of the end-game of the Gods: The end is like the beginning, and the bomb detonates once again in the end of Götterdämmerung, sending Alberich scrambling for the gold once more.

The relatively bare stage brings a certain mythologic quality to the work, although I find the whole set-up dusty and the direction of the singers uninteresting (difficult to say if this was the original intention of Götz Friedrich since he died in 2000).

I suspect that Donald Runnicles may actually be a quite competent Wagner conductor, although his style is a bit too passive and distant for my liking.There were glimpses of fine playing by the orchestra, but generally it was close to disastrous: Imprecise to an embarassing degree combined with odd changes in tempi not followed by the singers. Worst in Rheingold, gradually improving however, with Götterdämmerung the absolute highlight, after 12 hours rehearsing, I suppose. To Runnicles´ defence I must add, that it was the first time he conducted the orchestra and being a revival production, rehearsing time probably was limited. But there is no doubt, that in Wagner, the leading orchestra is at the Berlin State Opera, especially when Daniel Barenboim is on the podium.

The singers were the usual suspects: Evelyn Herlitzius (Brünnhilde)-very lively and engaging, Eva Johansson (a fine, though neurotic Sieglinde), Robert Dean Smith (quite moving as Siegmund, making excellent use of his not too large voice), Alfons Eberz (vocally a fine Siegfried, but otherwise rather stiff ). And Terje Stensvold as a vocally magnificent Wotan. Voc. Impressively how this man´s international career seems to have started at a time where most others´ end.

But the most impressive performance was Matti Salminen´s excellent Hagen, stepping in for an indisposed Hans Peter König. Moving in and out between magnifying glasses, showing his face in grotesque proportions, he was the absolute center of Götterdämmerung, personifying evil and with subtle irony as well. And vocally – no problems at all with Hagen´s Call. Incidentally, Matti Salminen also sang Hagen, when this production premiered in 1984 and is the most convincing Hagen I have seen since the late Aage Haugland in Aarhus in the late 1980´s.

This is in fact, a relatively visitor-friendly Ring Cycle scheduled in one week only. However, the Deutsche Oper is not a very attractive venue, especially when compared to competing venues such as the State Opera, not to mention the Dresden Semperoper, only 2 hours away.

Although the staging still holds a certain interest, as well as serving as a historic doument of Friedrich´s work and being an important production in the history of Ring stagings, I´d say that for artistic reasons a new Deutsche Oper Ring would not be out of place, but for monetary reasons this looks not very realistic.