The Bavarian State Opera is again unlucky with Corona and has to ban its “Falstaff” premiere online.
The production lives from the costumes and from conductor Michele Mariotti.
Verdi's last opera as a ghost premiere in the empty house and with a zoom conference for the finale
The figures carry something weird between Moshammer chic and Russian haute couture
The evening functions as a celebration of superficiality, but Verdi's humor cannot get a grip on the director
Life without him?
It would be like soup without a pinch of salt, without “un bricciolo di sale” - at least Falstaff sings himself. This could be dismissed as further proof of the narcissism of a duped womanizer.
Or like director Mateja Koležnik as a speech on the state of all nations.
So: No more live music, the screen set up for everyone involved in the Zoom conference - and for a canned “Falstaff” final.
That’s what you get out of it, pointing fingers towards politics, if you let culture bleed to death.
The nasty closing punch of this new production could be discussed for a long time - as unprepared as it ends this ghost premiere at the Bavarian State Opera and as much as the idea seems copied from the usages of directing Peter Konwitschny.
As is well known, he also pulled the plug at the “Flying Dutchman” at the same house (and not only there).
Above all, however, the final turn of this Verdi project has little to do with the two and a quarter hours before: May there be a little more criticism submitted later?
Toilet paper and high heels in the closets
The Staatsoper's bad luck for the premiere continues.
While Walter Braunfels' “The Birds” only existed as a single performance in front of 50 listeners at the end of October, this “Falstaff” initially only ekes out a digital existence.
As a live streamed premiere on Wednesday evening and in future as a homepage video for 14.90 euros.
After all, the house is still alive.
And it must - precisely because of this the new production planned for last summer has now been rescheduled - have enough “finished” ideas for better times.
The new “Falstaff” also lives, above all, from Ana Savić-Gecan's costumes.
Weird nouveau riche between Moshammer “chic” and Russian haute couture, more plastics than fabric elastics, celebrate themselves above all. While the eponymous hero stores toilet paper in the closet, the smart suburban women delight in the high-heeled shoe collection.
A permanent party of walking caricatures, for which Raimund Orfeo Voigt keeps his stage walls with 16 doors in constant motion.
They overlap and always open up new perspectives, but hardly any more insights.
Above all, however, it offers many small spaces for parallel acts, for sudden appearances, mutual eavesdropping.
Thanks to the camera work, this looks reasonably focused on the home screen.
It is quite possible that live in the National Theater gives the impression of being over-staged.
The evening functions as a genre image and celebration of superficiality.
But Koležnik's staging also shows: The “Falstaff” humor, which is fed by falling heights, from sudden ironic tragedy, from constant interplay, also from stepping back and looking at the piece from above, all of this is difficult to get under control.
But there is one person who has the key to it, the conductor Michele Mariotti.
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The finale is a canned Zoom conference.
© Wilfried Hösl
You just have to watch him trace Ford's monologue with the State Orchestra.
The dark, poisonous creeping can be heard (Verdi's reminiscence of Iago's prayer, which he wrote a few years earlier), the machismo, the disappointment of a horned man and at the same time the fluffy of this scene.
Mariotti tickles this and much more.
The exuberant comedy sparkle suits him just as much as the Stretta effects when, at the end of most scenes, Verdi turns on the turbo and looks into the audience for applause.
Wolfgang Koch in the title role seems cross-cast
“Falstaff”, you also learn that, above all needs strong types.
They are not available for all roles.
At least for the title role: Wolfgang Koch seems cross-cast.
The usually rocked down is the sometimes tired, sometimes excited midlife crisis guy.
The typical Falstaff grandeur is missing.
Koch has not yet released himself, as many glances at the conductor prove.
Vowel he moves between a soft parlando tone and fear-biting drama, a distinctive mix.
As Alice, Ailyn Pérez lets it be known (also vocally) that a tragedy got lost in the clip-and-fold comedy and is enjoying it with many small nuances.
Boris Pinkhasovich brings impressive baritone ore into the field as Ford.
But then the rest of the ensemble quickly gets lost in the lively background noise, as appealing as everything is sung in the case of Elena Tsallagova (Nannetta).
For the “Falstaff” series in May, then hopefully in front of an audience, there are sometimes completely different line-ups - and, given the better circumstances, maybe a real finale.
Recording
available from December 5, 12 noon, at staatsoper.tv.