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Newsreels & Archive - Oper Frankfurt, Germany 2011 - 2012

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NEWSREEL - September 2011 - Frankfurt Oper

Grand Director and Wagner specialist, Hans Neuenfels, brings his Basel Penthesilea to Frankfurt

The Frankfurt Oper is among the first of the Opera Houses in Central Germany to start its 2011 - 2012 season this year. And, although cuts in opera budgets and finance are eminent everywhere in Europe, the Frankfurt Oper proved once again to be able to present a program full of enthralling surprise.

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Hans Neuenfel's Basel 2007 Penthesilea (* Premiere 8. Januar 1927, Staatsoper Dresden), its first Premiere taking place on the 4th of September 2011. On the 3rd, the Opera has a 'warm-up' start with the 'Wiederaufname' (re-take) of Hartmut Kiel (director) and Christof Loy's (Stage) Cosi fan Tuti, the lovely two act, light and popular Dramma giocoso of Mozart. (* Premier 26. Januar 1790, Burgtheater, Wien).

Hans Neuenfels is of the Bayreuth Festival fame where his 2010 Lohengrin of Richard Wagner ran this year till the 26th of August and it will be re-run again in 2012. In 2008 he directed Tannhäuser for the Aalto Theater in Essen. He was laureled for both productions by a majority of the German public. His co-operation now in Frankfurt with Reinhard von der Thannen (stage) to produce the one acter opera, pera, Penthesilea, haexhilaratingrating effect of rating high in expectation. When the Opern Welt stated last year that the 'Oper Frankfurt’s excellent ranking is no doubt due in large part to its daring yet traditional programmed schedule' and it ranked the Opera as 'most popular Opera House in Germany', many became aware of the constant and stressed level of 'public expectation' deals with. It has one of the most demanding audiences in Europe and it is expected of the opera to be versatile in program designing, and, it demands high quality. The Frankfort Oper to seems to have been able to meet these criteria in the past three years. And, without fail, it brings every Season of the best that there is on the contemporary opera scene. It thereby set an example to surrounding Opera Houses of what can be done when management is fully in control, professional and have the knack of reciprocation and communication with its audiences. That, even in times of financial hardships. The programs and the tempo in presenting new productions, recurring re-takes and the Premieres it had managed in the past are proof of the high level of opera management that is floating around in the Opera. And this is what has caused the Opera's renown. The emphasis is always on the thrilling exceptional and the compromise is the retakes and one acter operas. The amount of money spent on a one acter opera is always less than a Grand Opera but the refinement in Frankfurt kfurt Oper's management is that they do not spend that much less but rober obt for the one opera and 'fill' it with upper-scale value.value. The combination and consecutive running of Penthesilea (Hans Neuenfels) with Cosi fan Tuti (the work of Hartmut Kiel) is such a refined bit of programming that it just has to be noticed. It also has the subtle touch of prediction and 'preparation' of the audience for the coming season in it, that it gives a good feel all round. Richard Wagner is coming full scale to Frankfurt and in the weirdest of ways Neuenfel's Penthesilea is a preparation for it. It sets the tone for myth working (Greek myth of Achilles) and 'Wagner's Ring' .... well Wagner is the wizard that uses the pas-par-tout of myth creation to create a new one. On the second of June 2012 the full sequence of Der Ring des Niebelungen will be starting with Das Rheingold, the first night, and continue in two batches during the month. Having two batches of the 18-hour 'piece of four operas' of 'Wagner's Ring' in itself is a clever move as well. It gives the opportunity that when one of the operas is missed in the first batch, it always can be picked up in the second batch. Although the expectation is that the tickets may already been sold out. The fact that the Oper Frankfurt produces Das Ring in full sequence in one month is an exceptional feat of management today. Most Opera Houses, the Aalto Theater in Essen, the Staatsoper Stuttagart and the Opera House in Hamburg, spread it out over months or Seasons the last years. It isn't as spectacular a feat as the feat of the June 2007 of the Oper Koln with the 'Gruner Ring' that was produced in two days, but surprising the audience with a programmation of Wagner's sequence of the Ring in one month, when everybody thought that times have changed so much that it wasn't financially possible anymore, is pretty high scalish in ambition. To produce Das Ring, the standard has become so high in the 21st Century, that it requires a tremendous input not only flamboyant modern stage technology, but also high priced singers and design directors. And therefor the first question basically is a very banal one - is the Opera House big enough to generate enough money to function as a valid source of recuperation of funds that was pumped into the production. The Aachen theater in Aachen will NEVER be able, for instance, to put Das Ring on. It can for ever only stay at the periphery of the Wagnerian operas. It has an old structure and only has some 300 seating possibility. Has the Frankfurt Oper sufficient seating? The toss side of the coin however is that Das Ring ALWAYS draws full seating in Germany. Or at least, that was the case until now. Will the Frankfurt Oper be stuck with empty seats? There is that possibility as Das Ring had quite a large exposure in this part of Germany and neighboring countries. (See article re the most provocative and modern production of Ivo Van Hove in Ghent, Belgium in 2006 - Ed.) Although nobody in Germany would even anticipate this. Wagner is still Wagner and what Neuenfels did this year at the Bayreuth Festival with Lohengrin proved that the 'return to the Wagnerian style of producing Wagner ' is a factor to recon with in contemporary opera productions. The 'traditional approach in the Frankfurt Oper' (Remark taken from the Opern Welt- Ed.) will see to it that definition with hold its parallax.

Indeed, interesting things are happening and is on in the Frankfurt Oper. It is good advice to the USA opera lover to enroll on the web page of the Frankfurt Oper to get the latest of news and tips for a gossip on the contemporary opera scene. It is an Opera that continuously surprises and deliver examplic trends. Whereas the Oper am Rhein in Dusseldorf/Duisburg and the School of Art in Ghent, Belgium explore New Music and parole, the Frankfurt Oper keeps on focussing on the exceptional 'new traditional'.

Argo Spier, Opera Critic Benelux - Opera Pages
Consulting editor, Elaine Parney, USA

 

 

NEWSREEL - June 2010
[ Harry Kupfer & Hans Schavernoch's exciting interpretation of Hector Berlioz's Faust Verdammnis]

'... Harry Kupfer and Hans Schavernoch's Fausts Verdammnis is one of the most exciting re-definitions of the 'spectacle' called opera that has been seen in contemporary opera since long.... the balance between the three main artforms in the operatic definition of spectacle, namely music(score), picture (drama/stage) and poetry (libretto). Rarely was such congruety in form and content achieved on stage ... and this makes of the Oper Frankfurt on the W. Brandt Platz (within walkind distance from the Main trainstation a place to be. And yes, it is happening in Hessen.'
Argo Spier, Opera Critic Benelux

In the month of the yearly Roses exhibition in Frankfurt (Germany), mid-June 2010, the Oper Frankfurt unleased with such a rigor a tour d' force worth of making a claim, and proving it as well, that it has become the new place to be for high contemporary opera productions in Europe. In four days it ran three Premieres with top quality casts and performances of extremely high quality - Francisco António de Almeida's La Giudita on the 12/06 (Oratorium); Hector Berlioz's Fausts Verdammnis (La Damnation de Faust) on the 13/06 and Georg Philipp Telemann's Pimpinone on the 15/06. Not the fact that three Premiers were physically possible for the Opera to run consecutively , but its choice of the productions and the quality of the end product it delivered is the criterium to be watched for the Opera's now 'top notch' qualification as a 'hottest spot' in contemporary opera among the mainstream opera venues. Two of the productions are sufficient to prove the point, the Hk & HS .... + almeida....

One - Harry Kupfer and Hans Schavernoch's Fausts Verdammnis is one of the most exciting re-definitions of the 'spectacle' called opera that has been seen in contemporary opera since long. It is new in the fact that it zapped back into the orthodoxy of opera in such a way that it restored (and what a relief it was to the writer and the serious opera lover to experience this in the Oper Frankfurt on the 13th of June 2010 after we all had been exposed to so much modern hype junk with all its pauperish feeding into multi-media the last 10 years which was convieniently sold as 'opera') the balance between the three main artforms in the operatic definition of spectacle, namely music(score), picture (drama/stage) and poetry (libretto). Rarely was such congruety in form and content achieved on stage ... and this makes of the Oper Frankfurt on the W. Brandt Platz (within walkind distance from the Main trainstation a place to be. And yes, it is happening in Hessen. (Hessen, one of Germany's provinces & situated in central Germany - Ed.)

Two - The return to Oratoria! The Oper Frankfurt has a virulent feel of what is slowly premeating contemporary opera and by programming Francisco António de Almeida's not so well-known but beautiful La Giudita alongside Hector Berlioz's Fausts Verdammnis - two quite different genrés normally contrasting each other yet there are complimentary archisms and architypes in both to have a super complimentary attraction to each other - the femme fatale and vagina denta, being the cause of the demolishing and distruction of the phalic in man; it is the head of the man that is the price to be paid for sexual intercourse - it confirms its ability to sense evolution trends in Contemporary opera. A benchmark to this evolution was set with the daring move of the Salzburger Opera House in Austria to run George Händle's Oratorio, Theodora in the mid of the German Summer Festivals in 2009. The rarity of this choice created a different kind of expectation and dialogue and suggested that the new dynamic of the return to the 'triviality' of early- Christian martyrdom in contemporary opera is real. As such it too was a fresh wind breezing in from that side of the Austrian/German Alps and predictions that Oratorio will in the near future win back its rightful place on the opera scene is now confirmed with the Oper Frankfurt's choice of La Giudita. This is already happening in France as well. (See newsreel Opéra National de Lorraine, Nancy, France). And there is the new technology that broadens scopes. The Festival in Salzburg was opened with a ceremony at the Felsenreitschule, which was broadcasted live on ORF2 and 3sat. The Adagio from Joseph Haydn’s Symphony in D-Minor Hob. I:26 Lamentatione was performed. This too is within reach of all Oper Houses - live broadcasts and for consecutive viewing and listening in diverse media ... and this makes of the Oper Frankfurt on the W. Brandt Platz (within walkind distance from the Main trainstation) a place to be. And yes, it is happening in Hessen.

 

Maria Brengtsson, Soprano, in Richard Strauss' Daphne in Frankfrank till June 2010

'... The Guth and Smith creation of Daphne deals with time lapses and in the opera the evolution of time crystallized into various tableaux vivants that have 'that perfect balance' and creative time management, not staying still, but looming on the verge of time and timeless suggestive movement ... it has this without interruption. And these are the criteria for successful opera ... balance, symmetry and reciprocity...!'
- Argo Spier, Opera Critic Benelux

'... Strahlender Mittelpunkt der Aufführung ist die schwedische Sopranistin Maria Bengtsson als junge, ebenso sensibel agierende wie singende Daphne. Schon ihr Auftrittsarioso „O bleib, geliebter Tag“, eine leuchtende Eloge an die Natur und „meine Brüder, die Bäume“, lässt aufhorchen. Geradezu magisch, mit blitzsauberen Koloraturen und makellosen Registerwechseln gelingen die große Klage um den verschmähten Leukippos („Unheilvolle Daphne“) und der Verwandlungsmonolog am Ende, dessen wortlose Vokalisen hier wie ferne Echos durch das Gemäuer dringen."
- Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Christian Wildhagen 30.03.10

NEWSREEL - April 2010 - With its production of Daphne (World Premiere,1938, Dresden), now running and programmed to have more performances during the course of the Season till June 26, 2010, the Oper Frankfurt is one of the first Opera Houses in Germany that is trying to make a serious statement with the work of Richard Strauss in 2010. It chose one of the later works of Strauss, a one-actor opera with firm ties to early Greek mythology. At the end of the first decade of the twentieth century Strauss was considered the ideal embodiment of fin-de-siécle decadence and most Opera Houses since then have adopted this viewpoint. Daphne is one of his late works and somewhat different from the 'normal Strauss' who became so beloved by the masses for his Der Rosenkavalier. The choice of the Oper Frankfurt could initiate a revival of the 'full' Strauss' repertoire and, in time, provide contemporary opera a new representative perspective. In Köln, the Oper Köln is presenting at the same time as Daphne, the romantic hit from his later period, Der Rosenkavalier (World Premiere 1911, Dresden). Der Rosenkavalier has always sparked a debate as to whether Strauss regressed with it or whether he was revisiting the lush and dissonant worlds of Salome and Electra which, from their beginning, were cheered as path-finding works by the modernist movement of the time. Last year there was a strange, yet totally new concept of Salome presented at the Oper am Rhein in 2009, along with the creation of Tatjana Gürbaca. It created a furore. (See our newsreel of Salome concerning it -Ed.). In the Aalto Theater, Essen - the city in the Ruhr Gebiet of Germany that has been declared by UNESCO as World Heritage Capital 2010 and the Opera House with the slowest-loading website this writer has ever encountered, Frau ohne Schatten is scheduled to perform on June 2010. The performance will play as a repetition of a former creation and not much is expected of it - yet it is Strauss and it is also in the same league as the speculative Strauss revival.

Daphne, now in Hesse (the province in Germany in which Frankfurt lies - Ed.), is a lovely and refreshing breeze in this possible revival - and a magnificent concept. The stage production of the Claus Guth (mis-en-scene) and Christian Schmidt (stage) creation is a superb definition of Strauss' intentions and, being performed in spring, it is a star among the rather darkish and loaded Wagnerian operas that are now being performed all over. In the neighbouring city of Stuttgart in Baden-Würtenberg, Calixto Bieto had the Premiere of a new creation of Parsifal on the same night as the Premiere in Frankfurt - on April 28, 2010. It lasted 6 hours ... six full hours of world destruction and internal Untergang.

Using a rotating stage and the images and setting of a dilapidated and wasted old grand house, the mis-en-scene of Guth and Schmidt exploits symmetrical arrangements to present a powerful expression of form-content congruity. As the 'older' Daphne comes forward, the 'young' Daphne retreats and this plays continuously in a subtle, soft way. Yet the dramatic urgency is present in the movements across the stage - vertical, horizontal and diagonal - and always present is a hazy and real ir-reality, contrasting with the surreal. The dynamism of the 'younger' Daphne contrasts with the 'hazy and almost ghostly' floating of the 'older' Daphne - yet there is complimentary symbiosis in the motion. Guth and Schmidt created a superstructure of poised and suggestive gestures, using a dramatic setting that not so much suggests an and/or outer on-stage world, but rather a world of the 'with-in'. The suggestive poses of all characters are so well-chosen, rehearsed, practised and integrated that it is a pleasure to watch them while becoming part of the form/content unity. Strauss' later works are about this. Guth and Schmidt know it. And while a revival of Strauss' work may indeed be in the making in Germany, their Daphne will be know later as one of the most integer creations with incentive force. It is a successful production. This Daphne has historical lapses and the evolving of time crystallized into its tableaux vivants so strongly that the overflows between various time sequences are just perfect. Nothing is standing still or stalling or dead, yet everything on the verge of time collapse is both suspenseful and peaceful. 'Timelessness' throughout the production suggests movement and is in balance with movement. The 'knots' tying movement and space togeter are tied with perfect precision. And THIS IS the criterion for successful opera! In comparison with the use of the tableaux vivant in Calixto Bieto's creation of Parsifal in Stuttgart, the use of the tableaux vivant where driven upbeat tension creates an almost Spielbergian drive toward movement and action, the use of it in Daphne is not merely a technique but an art. The complicated relationship is a refinery defined. Both creations are, however, 'must sees' as both signify important changes in contemporary approaches to drama in opera.

Concerning the score - the most celebrated part of the opera's score is the section that the composer and librettists (Joseph Gregor and Stefan Zweig) laboured over the longest, the final transformational scene. Its high tessitura poses challenges for sopranos who undertake the role, but few of Strauss's operas can claim a more magnificent ending. The Swedish soprano, Maria Brengtsson, on the night of April 2, 2010 passed the challenging test with the brightest of colours as she took the audience with her in her triumphant transformation from mythological-cum-archetypical virgin to the Freudian sanative phallic tree, tearing down all barriers of reserve in emotion and casting such a magical spell with such crisp colors and sharp-register changes that when her wordless vocals died down like disappearing echo’s, sound still was present in the silence. It was eerie to experience this naked confrontation with one's own wornness, pulled between staying and 'returning home to the South'. ('South is a metaphor for 'death' - Ed.) And she shed the pain of transformation with such convincing professionalism, becoming a tree and re-enacting the primordial nature of this deed with such serenity that many a spectator (present writer included) felt as if the source of Strauss's original design, the dialect of being in growth and returning constantly towards the pathological refusal of it, is wrapped around his shoulder like a chilling, soaked blanket, icy with shivers rippling into his soul. And I am sure she herself, she too, must have felt it. In Daphne's premiere in 1942 in La Scala, Milan, the leading soprano, Gina Cigna, said of this role after the performance:

'I was flabbergasted by the tessitura...' and she told the opera historian, Lanfranco Rasponi, 'You kill yourself and in the end you have absolutely nothing left'.

With the character Daphne, Strauss has created one of the most memorable new city-storytelling personages of the twentieth century, one that will be with us for a long time coming and, when portrayed, as it is now in Frankfurt by Maria Brengtsson, it will hold its contemporary validity right into the next 'smart' century of 3000. The speechless 'older' Daphne character that moves in and out and alongside the 'younger' Daphne is part and parcel of this new mythological design. Corinna Schnabel has given perfect body to this symbiotic enhancement of addition. Daphne is a very sensitive 'door', to enter with care, and Corinna has understood the proceedings of the alchemic ritual, carrying it out with reverence. She pours emotion received from both Maria Brengtsson's performance and the conducting of Sebastian Weigle out like buckets of lead tipped over the stage - heavily and unavoidably.

***

Daphne in Frankfurt is a 'must see' for every American opera visitor that may have come to Germany for the festivities in the Ruhr Gebiet. The trip he will have to take by ICE train, lasting about 3 hours from Köln to Frankfurt, will be very well worth both his money and his time. The only problem that may occur when he arrives in Frankfurt is that all performances may be sold out. The Frankfurt Oper fulfils an important role in defining contemporary opera productions in Germany and many have already discovered this. The city also has a sophisticated and well-informed opera audience of its own with many spectators having already occupied fixed seasonal seats. 11,000 seasonal tickets have been sold in the last 10 years.

maria brengtsson - homepage

Argo Spier, Opera Pages
Consulting editor, Joneve McCormick, USA

 

 

ARCHIVE - March 2009 till February 2010 - The premiere of Antonio Vivaldi's Orlando furioso takes place on Sunday February 14th 2010, at 18.00hrs. It is being performed in Frankfurt for the first time.

See the Oper Frankfurt 2010 program.

oper frankfurt program 2012

libretto's, articles and general info re opera

pictures courtesy monika rittershaus

“I have made every effort to restore music to its true role of serving poetry by means of its powers of expression” - Gluck, Alceste journal (1769)