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Osud / Le Villi,
Vienna State Opera
By Shirley Apthorp
Published: October 27 2005 03:00
Roberto has the willies. Literally. Willies are the vengeful ghosts of abandoned maidens, and they make faithless men dance to death. In Puccini's first opera, Anna gets to sing both before and after death, and Roberto gets what is coming to him. Silly plot? In the right hands, the piece packs a punch all the same.
Vienna's State Opera has let Karoline Gruber loose on it. Her new production tells the piece with droll irony as a kind of Bavarian Stepford Wives. The Willies are undead housewife clones, happily ironing in dirndls. Anna's evil pa Guglielmo makes her conform in the end.
Add José Cura as a gloriously self-indulgent, golden-throated Roberto, Krassimira Stoyanova as a radiant, refined Anna, and the robustly direct Franz Grundheber as the father, and you are in for a great night. With Simone Young whipping the orchestra into a frenzy it gets even better.
The mystery is why Le Villi was programmed as the second half of a double bill with Janácek's fourth opera, Osud. The two works have little in common, unless you count self- absorbed heroes who treat their women badly. David Pountney's plodding production does nothing for this dramaturgically problematic piece (plot: lightning strikes narcissistic composer twice), and Stefanos Lazaridis' shower- curtain set looks ridiculous.
Though Jorma Silvasti makes a superbly sensitive Zivny, Cornelia Salje is poised and pure as Mila and Anja Silja gives her all as the demented mother, it does the piece no favours to sing it in German. And the upper strings attack the score's angular leaps with discordant inaccuracy that is often painful to hear.
This was the first-ever staging of Osud in Austria. Surely the Staatsoper could have afforded a bit more rehearsal? Or at least it could have rostered the same musicians for the rehearsals and the performances. Young has plenty to say about Janácek, but it was hard to hear it behind all the wrong notes. Pountney's production already looks stale and neglected. It is enough to give you the willies.
*
Four operas have all the ingredients, but one still falls
Saturday, November 05, 2005
Donald Rosenberg
Plain Dealer Music Critic
Excerpt:
Vienna - The Vienna State Opera is a master chef of this most richly layered of art forms, this Sachertorte in sound and sight. A staple of Viennese culture since 1869, the Staatsoper, as the state-funded company is known, whips up 290 nights at the opera per season spiced by major singers, conductors, directors and designers. All, by the way, with the orchestra that becomes the great Vienna Philharmonic when the musicians step out of the pit.
Tradition doesn't preclude adventure. Later this season, the company will mark the 250th anniversary of the birth of one-time Vienna citizen Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart with productions of his most famous operas.
But in recent weeks, the house has been lavishing four rarely performed pieces on audiences: Benjamin Britten's "Billy Budd," Richard Strauss' "Daphne" and the double bill of Leos Janacek's "Osud" and Giacomo Puccini's "Le Villi." Each production claims superb singers and fine conductors, and the visual images often are as compelling as one is likely to find anywhere.
Not even the Staatsoper, of course, can avoid failure in excelsis. Karoline Gruber's production of "Le Villi" is a major dud whose feminist agenda renders Puccini's first opera alternately cartoonish and grim. The piece is no model of narrative coherence, but its tale of ghostly maidens, known as willies, who avenge unfaithful husbands deserves better than this mishmash.
Gruber sets the opera in a modern Tyrolean village, complete with pop-art appliances and blond wives in dirndls.
At least Puccini's score exerts its youthful passion. The composer of immortal operas already can be heard flexing his rapturous sonic muscles, and in the exciting, if raw, tenor of Jose Cura (Roberto), the gleaming soprano of Krassimira Stoyanova (Anna) and the solid baritone of Franz Grundheber (Guglielmo) the music is given its full due.
[....]
*
Premiere of OSUD by Leos Janacek and LE VILLI by Giacomo Puccini
Martin R Botz
Der Neue Merker
23 October 2005
Excerpts
The first musical drama written by the 25-year-old Puccini already clearly showed his melodic inventiveness and his unique orchestral voice. Of course, one finds hints of the natural style of Verismo, Puritani (in the aria of Guglielmo), even Tosca (the first aria of Anna). But the personal style of a genius quite clearly exists. The two-act work makes for a good hour [of entertainment].
The story corresponds roughly with that of Giselle. In the Black Forest, Roberto, who is engaged to Anna, travels to Mainz to claim a big inheritance. Once there, he discovers the "sweet" life and forgets his bride. She dies of a broken heart. When he finally returns, conscience-stricken, the Villis (spirits of brides who have died of abandonment and broken hearts) force him to dance to death.
In general, I enjoyed the direction of Karoline Gruber but what was missing from the staging was the dancing demise of the betrayer. The scenery, again by Johan Engels, was garish-colored and pseudo-folkloric. In the second act all becomes gray. The scenery: a coniferous forest intermingled with multiple images of a larger-than-life young man (who did not, however, look at all like Roberto). In the opening of the opera, Guglielmo, deliciously played by Franz Grundheber, makes evident the hope and desperation of the father. Krassimira Stoyanova began with a wonderful aria “Se come voi.” She created a touching mood with her pure and tender timbre and devoted singing.
José Cura is the unfaithful Roberto. He throws himself completely into his role – his strong presence makes itself felt even if he does not always sing "in accordance to the school." In his big second act aria “Ecco la casa,” he is simply great.
Ernst Dunshirn prepared the busy chorus for both pieces in exemplary fashion—high praise! Simone Young, already proven in Hamburg, showed mastery in the gradation of dynamism and volume, in the flow of the melody, in the nice accentuation and good support of the singer. The members of the Philharmonic Orchestra had an excellent evening.
The applause for both rare pieces, for the singers and the conductor, for choir and orchestra as well as the production team of Osud (boos for those of Le Villi, though to me not completely warranted) was very strong and prolonged. If at all possible, plan to attend.
*
Le Villi
Vienna Staatsoper
The interval….and then the Staatsoper was reduced to the level of municipal theater in a German province. Not because of the musical quality: Simone Young conducted with some instinct, if occasional banality, and again the choir rehearsed by Ernst Dunshirn sang flawlessly. And naturally the principle actors were different [from Osud]. Applauded wildly by the audience, José Cura (Roberto) sang the emotion-drenched music with bloom, Krassimira Stoyanova was miraculous as Anna, and Franz Grundheber managed to create the role of Guglielmo in spite of the direction. And with that we have arrived at the absolute low of the Staatsoper season. Not because Karoline Grubers’ direction is overly provocative but because Karoline Grubers’ direction is neither particularly skillful nor intelligent. It is simply bad....
*
Le Villi - Vienna
by Eduardo Benaroch
WIENER STAATSOPER - Viena 23 de Octubre de 2005 -
Puccini - LE VILLI - José Cura, Roberto; Krassimira Stoyanova, Anna; Franz Grundheber, Guglielmo. Conductor: Simone Young. Director: Karoline Gruber.
Orchestra and Chorus of the Vienna Opera.
[….the evening ended] with the first opera of Puccini, a really interesting work. If the musical language contains many Wagnarian influences, there are also moments of great lyricism which already hint at the approach of the more mature Puccini.
The plot is a German fable, very rural and simple: a young peasant falls in love with a nice young man. When he leaves for a short business trip and is seduced while away, the mountain woman dies of sorrow and then reappears as a spirit to claim her husband. Through all this, the father of the young woman is a good-natured man who ends up with a broken heart caused by the loss of his daughter.
It is an innocent work but one full of passion and of feeling and that's why the new production by Karoline Gruber caused so much frustration.
Gruber decided to take a feminist approach and to use Anna, the protagonist, as her mouthpiece. Anna is now a young woman who does not like domestic chores and who feels uncomfortable ironing or cooking or sweeping the flat. Ah, does the reader wonder how we know this? Because Gruber’s production plants us on the stage with a refrigerator, a washing machine and an ironing board. ...... all set in the middle of a rural scene of the 19th century! It is true that we are now being asked to use our imagination to see farther [than the composer intended] but this staging did not make sense.
Through the whole work we see poor Anna clumsily trying to satisfy the appetite of her husband—for food, not sex--without being able to do so or indeed even knowing how to do it. And it is the young husband, Roberto, who with patience cooks and gets the beer....
Where are those in the feminist movement to stop this type of triviality that does no good for anyone?
Also there is an unnecessary arbitrariness to Roberto's return to his home that goes beyond the license of the director.
What we are able to see through this jumble is the simple relationship between two young people who love each other and this love is total. But Gruber does not want to leave us alone with the music and the characters so Anna sings as Roberto eats, enormous cuckoo clocks descend, and before departing for his trip, Roberto asks Anna to iron a shirt ...!
More artifice? When Anna tells Roberto of her dark premonition he pulls a can of beer from the refrigerator. During the orchestral interlude Gruber introduces all sorts of plot madness as Roberto returns his wedding ring to Anna. I do not have the desire to describe much more.
At least the singers were of good quality, especially Krassimira Stoyanova as a dreamy, frustrated young woman who was always convincing in spite of the obstacles created by the director. Vocally, she is an excellent lyric soprano and made a very suitable match with the impetuous and manly Roberto of José Cura, who demonstrated virility and sweetness....
Cura has had excellent moments lately and his voice has become seamless between registers, the high notes sure; he has also become a convincing actor by keeping mannerisms to a minimum.
The final scene finds Anna sitting at a gray refrigerator (earlier it was brilliant blue) with the door opened but in this refrigerator there is no food but instead a black substance. She finally attracts Roberto and hers father to the table in the remains of this colorless kitchen and the opera ends with three characters sitting at the table. Does this make sense?
Franz Grundheber completes the quality cast by singing a convincing Guglielmo, and though the tessitura does not set as well with him as other Verdian roles I have heard him in but he had little to do as an actor.
The chorus sang well while wearing ridiculous blonde wings that must have been difficult to tolerate.
Within this wasted opportunity, Simone Young conducted a skillful version of the score, underlining the drama that did not appear on stage, with the orchestra at least delivering the musical portion of the party.
*
Opera News
January 2006
José Cura pinged Corelli-like high notes off the ceiling.
Is there a Regietheater handbook promoting a gimmick du jour? Not long ago, everyone delivered an aria into a microphone, as if it were a karaoke stunt; previously everyone carried a backpack; this week, washing machines can be seen on three of Austria’s opera stages.
In a new double bill of Puccini and Janácek at Weiner Staatsoper (seen October 23), Karoline Gruber and her designer Johan Engels envisioned Le Villi as a Romantic-era Stepford Wives. Newlyweds Anna and Roberto, clad in simple white, are feted by clones in primary-colored plastic lederhosen and dirndls, and presented with household appliances, including an orange washing machine. During the first dance sequence of the opera ballo, the ladies iron and mop the walls. And what walls! The action is set on the Planet of the Guys, a stage-filling room wallpapered with more than 100 giants, identical images of an ordinary bloke in his skivvies interspersed with green foliage, his muscular thighs doubling as true trunks. It’s a man’s world, Roberto is a jerk, and his infidelity causes Anna to expire. But no vengeful wilis here: the land of the dead is merely a black-and-white mirror of Act I. Anna scoops dirt from the Refrigerator of Death onto dinner plates and serves it to remorseful Roberto, while the chorus forces the couple to adopt its clone identities.
Puccini could not have been better served vocally: radiant Krassimira Stoyanova’s breathtakingly perfect rendition of Anna’s “Se come voi piccina” cemented her status as a potential successor to Mirella Freni; her Roberto, José Cura, pinged Corelli-like high notes off the ceiling......Larry Lash
Last Updated: Sunday, October 01, 2006
© Copyright: Kira
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