Conductor, Nicholas Carter; Director, Otto Schenk; Designer, Günther Schneider Siemssen; Costumes, Milena Canonero; Lighting, Gil Wechsler. Arabella, Rachel Willis-Sørensen; Zdenka, Louise Alder; Fiakermilli, Julie Roset; Countess Adelaide Waldner, Karen Cargill; Matteo, Pavol Breslik; Mandryka, Tomasz Konieczny; Count Waldner, Brindley Sherratt
This production looks like something from another era (and indeed it is – first seen in 1983) and may be, for some, as much a sentimental journey back to a period of operatic history long before the advent of regie-theater, as the work was for Strauss and Hofmannsthal in the evocation of a long-gone mid-19th century Vienna in the context of the 1920’s / early 30’s. How long is it since you heard a Covent Garden audience clap at the opening of the curtains on an act? – the Met audience was doing it ecstatically at the beginning of each act in this screening. Here is an idea of what the general mis-en-scene looks like and there’s also a clip of Arabella singing ‘Aber der Richtige’. Arabella: Live in HD ; Strauss’s Arabella: “Aber der Richtige” (Rachel Willis-Sørensen)
As I have said before in this blog, a cinema screening is a different experience from a live performance on stage as far as the audience is concerned. Things which would go undetected in what you’d see on stage in a live performance can be mercilessly shown up on the screen. While the slightly dilapidated sense of the scenery in the first and third acts could be reasonably explained away as demonstrating the kind of downmarket hotel the Waldners now have to stay in when in Vienna, owing to their penurious state, the second act also looked dingy, and as though it had seen better days, and this, I guess, is a reflection that all the scenery is now over 40 years old…….The other thing which cinema is bound to show up is any noticeable difference between the age of the performer and that of the character they’re playing, and here I have to say that Rachel Willis-Sorensen, to me, looked just too mature on screen to be a credible Arabella, even though she sung it wonderfully (while Louise Alder, by contrast, only 3 years younger, was a highly believable Zdenka(o)). Such is the way of the big-screen.
But apart from the set and the maturity of Arabella, this was a highly satisfying performance (and also from a purely chauvinist perspective, it was highly satisfying to see that three of the 5 main roles were taken by Brits – plus with Susan Bickley playing a support role). Rachel Willis-Sorensen was commanding in her singing, with a beautiful sense of line and some lovely soft singing and floating of high notes. Vocally she had the heft as well to soar over the orchestra, and also that intangible ability to connect with her audience through her voice (difficult to say what this is, but you know it when you see and hear it). Her facial acting was very good – always alert and meaningful – no staring out front trying to work out the conductor’s beat……Willis-Sorensen was interesting, during an interval interview, on the feminism of the opera (not an often-expressed view). She felt that, apart from one or two phrases from a past perspective (‘I am a subject and you are a ruler’, she says at one point to Mandryka), Arabella is a forthright character who knows what she wants and is clear when she has found it – she doesn’t suffer fools gladly. Louise Alder was a sympathetic Zdenka, again with some beautiful phrasing, an always alert stage presence, and excellent acting. Mandryka was sung by Tomasz Konieczny, whose performance, I thought, was outstanding, though it was unclear how loud his voice would have sounded live at the Met. He was a thoroughly sympathetic presence, he acted very well and credibly, and didn’t overdo the wild man of the woods aspect – he just came across as a man of strong emotions, in many ways the counterpart of Arabella, and at the mercy of his temper. His voice was able to encompass both the high register aspects and low notes of parts of the role, and his singing, particularly in the early part of Act 2, where he is singing about the lands he owns and what he can offer Arabella, was glorious. Brindley Sherratt and Karen Cargill both clearly enjoyed themselves hamming up aspects of their roles, while retaining their stage credibility.
The name of Nicholas Carter, who was conducting, is new to me, but it’s clear from a brief Google search that he is a rising star – an Australian, he was appointed General Music Director of the Stuttgart Opera recently, and this was his Met debut. He was interviewed in one of the intervals about how he went about preparing the orchestra for this work, and he was very interesting on how important clarity was for him in delivering the score – he said something like “the different sections of the orchestra were wanting to play everything very full-on. But there are so many different strands in the music that you have to hold back, to play everything at less than 100% intensity, and then you will be able to create both the sound Strauss wanted and not drown the singers”. And indeed the orchestral playing did have a sort of transparency and delicacy about it which added to the whole experience.
I loved hearing this work again, after listening to it live for the first time in over 50 years when I was in Berlin last March. I hope it’s done somewhere in the UK soon
John's musical journey 