A piece of edification between TV satiricals and psychodrama: Salzburg shows Handel's “Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno”, with the boss admitting her diva position.
Purely from the paper form, everything points to a big yawn. No real people, just allegorical figures. Not even an opera, but “only” an oratorio - and then a prince of the church as a lyricist. But Cardinal Pamphili, a liberal intellectual, is more like Marx than Ratzinger in spirit. And in 1707 he met a composer in Rome who was in full bloom with stormy urges: “Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno” (Triumph of Time and Knowledge) is - similar to the then “Dixit Dominus” - one of Handel's most exalted scores violent rashes of emotions, whether in the dark or in ecstasy.
At Cecilia Bartoli's Whitsun Festival, which is reporting back after a compulsory break for a year, everything begins as “Salzburg's next top model”.
A TV event in neon pink and with a march of lots of eye candy of both sexes, from which the jury will choose a tall blonde.
What Handel / Pamphili thought of as a struggle between the characters time, knowledge and piacere, i.e. pleasure, for poor beauty (Bellezza), as a reflection on the ephemeral and the acceptance of decay and mortality, begins here as a story about his own Stars squeezing show business.
Cecilia Bartoli as Manager Mephistophela
Piacere, in the form of Cecilia Bartolis, is a high-heeled Mephistophela, a manager, a guy between Hannelore Hoger and Frauke Petry. And: Salzburg's Pentecostal star leaves the diva position to Mélissa Petit in this production. As Bellezza, she has to shoulder most of the arias - and does not necessarily do so with the most charming soprano, but with rather brittle lyric poetry as appropriate to the role. She has the fluency, including the technique for remote areas of the noting system. She believably shapes the ascent of a show hope to the great, silent exit after painful insight.
Director Robert Carsen plays out his experience as a figure hatcher and experienced stage magician in the equipment of Gideon Davey.
What begins as a TV satirical, expands, sometimes with a wink, sometimes with a tear, into a cool psychodrama.
A silent movement choir celebrates its youth and enjoys the hedonistic attitude towards life of having time forever (choreography: Rebecca Howell).
No trace of edifying theater.
Carsen is also not someone who takes the piece up and spices it up with irony.
At the turning point of “Il Trionfo”, when Bellezza looks in the mirror, the audience sees themselves thanks to a huge reflection wall.
An old trick, Carsen knows. But one that still works.
A good 700 places in the Haus für Mozart are occupied
The opponents of pleasure here are two men in black.
Lawrence Zazzo is the knowledge entertainer in a suit and with a bitter character counter.
Charles Workman is reminiscent of a US television preacher as the embodiment of time with a coat and priestly collar.
His tenor has also added a few annual rings, but has gained in expressive possibilities - and is still capable of the ornament sprint.
This also applies to the boss.
Bartoli is smart enough not to deny the length of her career.
The energetic, strictness of her figure is also made audible.
The hit of the piece, "Lascia la Spina", is a miracle of self-forgetfulness, a moment when the character Tempo has no chance: Here in Salzburg time actually stands still.
Instead, the coloratura motor rattles reliably again in Piaceres last aria, naturally with cheers.
A good half of the 1,500 seats in the Haus für Mozart are occupied. The first festival of the year reports that 60 percent of the guests came from other European countries. As last summer, Salzburg is allowed to place visitors in a checkerboard pattern. The controls at the entrances work smoothly, the bubbly is not missed: the two and a quarter hour is only played with a short blueprint anyway.
This concentration, this focus, is good for the performance. In the ditch, Cecilia Bartoli's house orchestra Les Musiciens du Prince-Monaco ensures the highest speeds. Conductor Gianluca Capuano lets the music lick and shows which wonder soloists the composer must have written the score for at the time. A couple of times this is taken to extremes and beyond limits, but this constant furioso and the intensity even in a quiet second are fun every second. The evening leaves open who wins in the end, the time, the knowledge or the pleasure. With the final notes, Bellezza opens the gate to the Toscanini courtyard on the back stage and disappears. For true beauty, other laws than those of this world must apply.
Further performances
as part of the Summer Festival on August 4th, 8th, 12th, 14th and 17th; Telephone 0043/662 / 8045-500.