Kirill Karabits, Conductor; Annilese Miskimmon, Director; Miriam Buether, Set Designer; Jess Farncombe, Lighting Designer; Rolf Romei, Paul; Allison Oakes, Marietta and Voice of Marie; Lauren Bridle, Marie; Audun Iversen, Frank/Fritz; Hubert Francis, Graf Albert; Sarah Connolly. Brigitta; Rhian Lois, Juliette; Clare-Presland, Lucienne; William Morgan, Victorin; Innocent Masuku, Gastone
Die Tote Stadt is a work I have been aware of for a long time, since poring through the pages of Opera magazine in the late 70’s / early 80’s as this opera began its re-appearance in the German opera house repertory. I was very excited over 40 years later to see it in the Loughborough Festival’s 2022 offering with Rachel Nicholls, and I booked a ticket – unfortunately the long journey to Moreton – in Marsh got scuppered by a rail strike and I had to cancel that. I was therefore very pleased to see this production coming up, never having heard a note of the work before. Was my excitement justified? By and large, yes. It is a marvellously orchestrated work, lush, sparkling, firing on all cylinders, with touches of Mahler, Wagner, Puccini, a dash of Lehar, and particularly Richard Strauss – a kaleidoscopic experience that is built on the principle that if you can have 15 rather than 10 lines of instrumental scoring at any moment in the work, the larger number always wins out. At the same time, compared to the Miracle of Heliane, a slightly later work, it is more melodious and less crushingly dense and polytonal in sound texture (see review from this sort of time last year)
Is it a rediscovered masterpiece? No – there are several defects: 1. It’s quite a long evening, and I felt that it could have been pruned by about 20 minutes to good effect, particularly the sequence with Marietta’s acting/dancing friends, a poor relation to Zerbinetta and co in Ariadne auf Naxos; 2. The libretto is occasionally a bit clunky, segueing a bit too obviously into the ‘big’ arias and romantic moments. 3. Somehow also the libretto (a product of Korngold himself and his domineering father, a true successor to Leopold Mozart in the management of his child prodigy son) seems unbalanced (I felt we could have done with more of Paul’s dreary life in the ‘tomb’ of his museum to Maria before he meets Marietta, and perhaps less of the psychotic dream). Also the ” it was all a dream after all” seems to devalue the experiences we have gone through with Paul and Marietta – in fact the production deliberately blurred the distinction between what was reality and what was dream, maybe as a response to that.
But for all that, I would happily see the work again – I would go to a second performance on this run, if I weren’t so busy – and am thinking that I should buy a recording of it. The opera deals with loss and grief, and moving on from these, at an emotionally powerful depth, and these themes are of course universal – they explain why the post First World War audiences were gripped by the work, and its continuing relevance for us today after the recent pandemic. There is a lot of simply gorgeous and memorable music that is growing on me – particularly of course Marietta’s Song, which is new to me. And it is of course an extraordinary achievement for a 23 year-old. There are lots of connections – timing, idiom, attraction for an audience when first performed – with Strauss’ Die Frau ohne Schatten, though undoubtedly the latter work is in a different league
So what of the production and the performance? The setting was a possibly 1920’s (some reviews said 1950’s) large room, and the singers were costumed somewhere early to mid-20th century. The back wall of the room lifted up at points to reveal a see-through gauze curtain through which shadowy figures could be seen moving in procession with lots of smoke – Marie’s re-enacted funeral and other moments (curiously the funeral figures seemed more late 19th century). The overall colour scheme was greys, blacks and browns with then Marietta standing out in greens, blues and other vivid colours. The acting was very good – Rolf Romei gave a terrific portrayal of Paul, throwing himself around the stage with passion and energy. In what I imagine is a tricky role to get right, Allison Oakes was an excellent Marietta whose acting performance was never over the top, always creating sympathy for the character; it must be easy to exaggerate things on this role. In terms of singing the supporting cast was led by Sarah Connolly no less as Birgitta the maid, a warmly sung portrayal, and Paul’s friend Frank was sung beautifully by Audun Iversen (a Norwegian singer with international experience and no particular UK connections – so much for ENO supporting mainly British singers). Allison Oakes (a new name to me) as Marietta was quite a find – she is British but like Catherine Foster (who I am seeing next week in Turandot) she has built her career in Europe, and she is now singing the heavy Wagner roles in Germany; her voice sounded wonderful in the Coliseum acoustic: powerful, able to sing quietly to beautiful effect and without stress or wobble in the higher register. Rolf Romei as Paul was announced as ill – one sensed that he was holding back some of the time and a few top notes cracked, but he was clearly and powerfully experienced in signing the role. At the end of the day, though, it’s the orchestra and how it is handled that is the remarkable thing about this work, and this Kiril Karrabits and the ENO orchestra performed the work marvellously, with the Coliseum acoustic ideally suited to this sort of sound. I’d very happily see and hear this work again
John's musical journey 