As of: February 15, 2024, 5:00 p.m
By: Markus Thiel
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Hanna Glawari (Marlis Petersen) and Count Danilo (Michael Volle) have a long shared past.
However, it takes a very long time for them to draw the consequences.
© Monika Rittershaus
He has just set off a revue fireworks display in Munich with the “Fledermaus”, and in Zurich, with the “Lustige Dowager”, director Barrie Kosky becomes very melancholy.
In the Lehár operetta he lets a mature woman look back.
There is then a warm hug.
After all the bickering, bitterness and moody denials.
But what the Glawari wraps around is not the beloved person himself, but his framed photo.
And you don't know: Did he run away?
Just traveling?
Or maybe even died - and she's a widow again?
Director Barrie Kosky invented a small framework plot.
It begins with the dreamy title heroine at the grand piano, along with canned melodies from a historical piano roller that Franz Lehár once recorded himself in a rubato-loving way.
And it ends just as quietly, when the hits of his piece fade away in a single violin note.
The greatest possible contrast is to the operetta fireworks that Kosky set off in Munich a few weeks ago.
While this “Bat” became a parade of caricatures with men and women on the verge of a nervous breakdown, “The Merry Widow” at the Zurich Opera House is surrounded by a constant melancholy.
Kosky tells the piece, which he spent a long time as an operetta man (!) like the “bat”, just sneaking around, as a flashback.
This has a lot to do with its star protagonist.
Marlis Petersen (Hanna Glawari) and Michael Volle (Graf Danilo) are no longer 25, but are at least in their third spring.
We see a couple who have a long past.
Two stubborn people, a bit more sensible and cunning, who have long belonged to each other.
What they know but don't want to admit.
For the graying Don Juan, going to Maxim and the Grisettes is both routine and escape.
And valve – you have to do something with the juices that are still rising.
How does Kosky deal with Hitler's favorite operetta?
Volle, the most magnificent Wotan of our time, sings Danilo as a mixture of (too) late boy, annoyed desperado and natural phenomenon.
Petersen, excused as indisposed, discovers her truths between the lines, as always.
Not one who sings expansively, but rather reflects the text clearly and with fine tone.
Thanks to her costume and wig, her Glawari is a cool revenant of the equally cool Marlene Dietrich.
Which brings us to the location.
How Kosky, as a Jewish director, would deal with Hitler's favorite operetta was quite exciting to imagine in advance.
As is well known, Kosky risked Hitler's favorite opera, Wagner's "Meistersinger", as a subtle political piece in the holy Bayreuth.
In “The Merry Widow” he, together with set designer Klaus Grünberg and Gianluca Falaschi, only allows historical elements as sublime quotes or background foil.
The evening is immersed in an apocalyptic atmosphere, in an atmosphere in which everyone longs for something.
Or seek salvation in escapism.
When Danilo rumbles about a “declaration of war” to his Glawari, you cringe.
And when the second couple, Camille and Valencienne, talk about the “magic of quiet domesticity” and claim “The world outside is so far away,” then it is so subtly shown that you understand: Here (not only) they have had enough of the headlines.
The two are less of a buffo couple and contrast agent in Zurich; they could be Hanna and Danilo 30 years ago.
Katharina Konradi (Munich's “Fledermaus” Adele) sings in a correspondingly rich and yet high-spirited manner, while Andrew Owens gradually experiences his emotional outing, which sounds courageous, sometimes stiff-toned.
Martin Winkler as Baron Mirko Zeta and cuckolded husband is, as with his Munich “Bat” prison warden, responsible for the grotesque department, which the natural comedian succeeds in brilliantly.
Just a curtain ring on a reduced stage
The fact that everything becomes plastic is also due to the equipment.
A curtain ring that reveals or conceals things, behind it a circular horizon, the ever-present wing - there is nothing more.
Which doesn't mean that Kosky doesn't fire rocket revue stages.
The guys swarm around the widow as a horny troupe of tuxedos, choreographer Kim Duddy has everything from the can-can (including a man's butt in a thong) to the mass waltz.
As always with Kosky, the performance is great.
You know what you're getting: a craft that everyone has to marvel at, even if you may struggle with the concept.
For a quiet interlude, ballerinas with enormous headdresses come in, a magical moment without action.
A reflection on the 1920s, which hardly glitter in gold here, but in black and white.
“Babylon Paris,” if you will.
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The 28-year-old Patrick Hahn, whiz kid, general music director in Wuppertal and principal guest conductor with the Munich Radio Orchestra, is an accomplished podium man.
He clearly enjoys the centrifugal forces of Lehár's score and yet is able to tame them.
It has traction, taste, and is sometimes (too) symphonic.
What remains in our ears from this evening is not the “Women’s March”, which was sung in a surprising way, or the “Maxim” invocation.
But the final “lips remain silent” when Hanna and Danilo are finally alone and united.
The fact that Volle has a small scratch on his voice here, of all places, makes you swallow all the more: This Danilo is (unintentionally) moved by the moment.
Barrie Kosky’s Zurich “widow” has less to do with his “bat”.
This melancholy way of life is linked to his other Munich litter – the “Rosenkavalier”.