<Translated from Deutsch automatically>
Berlin. It happens relatively rarely that an opera premiere hits like a bomb and, luckily, does not tear the audience apart, but rather sweeps them away. Tchaikovsky's "Pique Dame", otherwise not exactly a lucky charm in the repertoire, achieved a real triumph at the Komische Oper. The performance is charged with suspense until the end. It unfolds like a cinema thriller.
It knows how to stir up, to frighten, to fascinate. From measure to measure it makes you curious about what will happen next on the way into the abyss. Because that is where the gambling-addicted loner Hermann is drawn: almost without any hesitation, incapable of any hint of inner resistance.
Thilo Reinhardt as the director staged this with furious intensity. For this, he had Paul Zoller build a handy unit set, in which the changing scenes of the three acts play out.
In the end, you don't even know who the biggest loser is: Hermann, at the card table, accidentally mowed down by his own pistol. Or the old Countess, threatened with the weapon to wrest the secret of the three winning cards in the game of chance, until she collapses dead after an attack of late, memory-filled love madness. Or even Lisa, whose love plays truly murderous tricks. According to the libretto's prescription, she is not allowed to drown herself in the Neva. She is pulled to the ground by the horde of gentlemen surrounding her, raped, left lying in despair.
Reinhardt's staging tackles the events without diversion. The merciless tragedy surely emerges under the hand to Tchaikovsky's music. Alexander Vedernikov paints it multicoloured and powerful with the brilliantly conducted orchestra. He knows where Tchaikovsky gets his dramatically coherent musical juice and spreads it out with the right accents. Listening to him is a pleasure.
The orchestra works harmoniously with the stage. But the choirs, too, superbly rehearsed by Robert Heimann, sing deeply into the events. The ladies are charmingly addicted to a main character named Vodka, who apparently wets their singing throats by the litre. Repeatedly, the furniture in the fine hotel foyer breaks. You wouldn't want to belong to the house staff. Repeatedly they show the notorious troublemaker Hermann the door. In vain—he pops up again and again to keep singing. His part is truly murderous.
Kor-Jan Dusseljee pulls it off with his untiringly stable tenor. He remains capable of intensification until the bitter end and in the third act purposefully reaches the climax of suffering from himself and the environment.
Orla Boylan is Lisa, the fiancée, who takes flight on the day of her joyous celebration. She has a fresh soprano and pleasant naturalness. How it happens that she head over heels leaves her future master, the fine Prince Yeletsky (impressively elegant: Mirko Janiska), to go to the ill-fated Hermann, remains one of the eternally unsolved female riddles.
Anja Silja! With her superiority of appearance, she is the secret focus of the performance. She is the keeper of the secret, the old Countess, shimmering in dignity, arrogance, imperiousness and manifold lived love. Temptation is still around her, but also mercilessness. She knows what she wants. More than that, what she does not want. But all her knowledge does not help her in death. Anja Silja sings about this with an unobtrusive voice.
Source.
Berlin. It happens relatively rarely that an opera premiere hits like a bomb and, luckily, does not tear the audience apart, but rather sweeps them away. Tchaikovsky's "Pique Dame", otherwise not exactly a lucky charm in the repertoire, achieved a real triumph at the Komische Oper. The performance is charged with suspense until the end. It unfolds like a cinema thriller.
It knows how to stir up, to frighten, to fascinate. From measure to measure it makes you curious about what will happen next on the way into the abyss. Because that is where the gambling-addicted loner Hermann is drawn: almost without any hesitation, incapable of any hint of inner resistance.
Thilo Reinhardt as the director staged this with furious intensity. For this, he had Paul Zoller build a handy unit set, in which the changing scenes of the three acts play out.
In the end, you don't even know who the biggest loser is: Hermann, at the card table, accidentally mowed down by his own pistol. Or the old Countess, threatened with the weapon to wrest the secret of the three winning cards in the game of chance, until she collapses dead after an attack of late, memory-filled love madness. Or even Lisa, whose love plays truly murderous tricks. According to the libretto's prescription, she is not allowed to drown herself in the Neva. She is pulled to the ground by the horde of gentlemen surrounding her, raped, left lying in despair.
Reinhardt's staging tackles the events without diversion. The merciless tragedy surely emerges under the hand to Tchaikovsky's music. Alexander Vedernikov paints it multicoloured and powerful with the brilliantly conducted orchestra. He knows where Tchaikovsky gets his dramatically coherent musical juice and spreads it out with the right accents. Listening to him is a pleasure.
The orchestra works harmoniously with the stage. But the choirs, too, superbly rehearsed by Robert Heimann, sing deeply into the events. The ladies are charmingly addicted to a main character named Vodka, who apparently wets their singing throats by the litre. Repeatedly, the furniture in the fine hotel foyer breaks. You wouldn't want to belong to the house staff. Repeatedly they show the notorious troublemaker Hermann the door. In vain—he pops up again and again to keep singing. His part is truly murderous.
Kor-Jan Dusseljee pulls it off with his untiringly stable tenor. He remains capable of intensification until the bitter end and in the third act purposefully reaches the climax of suffering from himself and the environment.
Orla Boylan is Lisa, the fiancée, who takes flight on the day of her joyous celebration. She has a fresh soprano and pleasant naturalness. How it happens that she head over heels leaves her future master, the fine Prince Yeletsky (impressively elegant: Mirko Janiska), to go to the ill-fated Hermann, remains one of the eternally unsolved female riddles.
Anja Silja! With her superiority of appearance, she is the secret focus of the performance. She is the keeper of the secret, the old Countess, shimmering in dignity, arrogance, imperiousness and manifold lived love. Temptation is still around her, but also mercilessness. She knows what she wants. More than that, what she does not want. But all her knowledge does not help her in death. Anja Silja sings about this with an unobtrusive voice.
Source.
An opera like an exciting cinema thriller. Thilo Reinhardt stages "Pique Dame" at the Komische Oper: Anja Silja is the focus of the performance
Klaus GEITEL, Berliner Morgenpost, January 2, 2009
