As a reviewer I receive all sorts of operatic productions; most
I am glad to say give me great pleasure and joy. Some, alas,
do not. The 2001 Opéra National du Rhin’s tasteless
production of Korngold’s Die tote Stadt, for instance,
was, for me, revolting enough but this Rusalka, to my eyes,
really does take the biscuit.
The talented and beautiful young Latvian soprano Kristine Opolais
may shine in the title role but it’s a pity she had to
be associated with this Rusalka. It is another one of those
clever, clever modern productions where the producer feels impelled
to insert dark psychological overtones as they relate to modern
living on to a fairy tale.
Having watched the split-stage opening scene with characters
in revolting-looking costumes engaged in seedy relationships
and rabid child abuse in water-logged cellars, I felt like throwing
up. Don’t we have enough of this sordidness in real life
without having our noses rubbed in it for so called entertainment?
Pass.
Ian Lace
and another view from Nick Barnard
‘Damaged in body and mind’ reads the title of the brief accompanying
liner-note to this DVD. Caveat emptor might equally apply.
Certainly those who do not enjoy operas staged by interventionist
directors can pass by on the other side of the road immediately.
This is a production that is so determined to re-invent the
work for modern times that it is impossible for any viewer let
alone reviewer not to come away with a strong feeling either
for or against the concept - indifference is not an option.
"Highly acclaimed" is how the back of the DVD describes
this staging whilst I know of other reviewers who have found
it to be in extreme poor taste. For myself I find the 'big idea'
here essentially misguided and representative of the worst kind
of intellectualising of music and opera. Much more on that later;
a few preliminary thoughts as a preamble. Far from all is negative.
This is a major production by a major opera house. It
is strongly cast although few if any, of the singers are, as
yet, major names on the international circuit. The simple reason
for that is I guess that no major stars would want to put themselves
through the gruelling physical and emotional demands of this
version. All credit to them that they embrace it so whole-heartedly.
The Bayerisches Staatsorchester play beautifully and they are
caught in rich and well-balanced sound. There is quite a lot
of stage noise - more about that too later but the balance between
stage and pit is in the main very good - I think I caught sight
of radio microphones hidden in hairlines which I assume account
for the stable voice/pit balance. The performances are conducted
by TomአHanus - another name unknown to me but he clearly
has a good sense of the score and dramatic pacing. I do not
have my score of the work to hand but from memory it sounds
like a straight performance of the complete score. In musical
terms it would be up against the famous and much loved versions
from Charles Mackerras with Renée Fleming in the title role
on Decca or my favourite - one of Vaclav Neumann's very finest
recordings - featuring Gabriela Benacková and Richard Novák
an imposing Water Goblin on Supraphon. Both of those performances
are accompanied by the incomparable Czech Philharmonic. The
singers here do not 'better' their more celebrated rivals but
neither are they shamed by them. Indeed soprano Kristine Opolaďs
finds a far greater range of dramatic light and shade in her
singing than the more obviously golden-toned Fleming. Hence,
if this were a CD release alone there would be no controversy
at all and this review would be a simple discussion of the relative
merits of the different versions.
The video direction of Thomas Grimm is exceptionally detailed
pulling-in in tight close-up - almost voyeuristically at times
- in a way that surely complements the oppressive atmosphere
of this production. I watched this DVD in its standard albeit
HD incarnation. Often I feel that HD's ability to resolve textures
and images is too clinical - too revelatory. Again here that
same technology, prowling in pore-close reveals elements of
the performances - clearly intended - that would simply not
read from the back of the stalls. This is such a recurring happening
that I did begin to wonder how much of the staging presupposed
a camera's presence - this is not a big theatre/broad
gesture staging. Whether you like the details so revealed is
another question - that they are intentional is clear. As ever
with the camera in such close-attention certain performers are
revealed as better actors than others. Opolaďs is excellent
- her striking natural beauty complemented by some real detail
in the ‘physicalising’ of the role. Unfortunately next to her
the object of her water-nymph affections - the Prince sung solidly
if not excitingly by Klaus Florian Vogt - is wooden in the best
tradition of stage tenors. This impression is not helped by
the fact that the prompter is heard quite clearly giving him
each line. To be honest this is not such a big deal but the
impact of the moment is lessened.
So far pretty much so good and certainly not bad. Until one
considers the train-crash that is "the big idea".
Director Martin KuŠej has found parallels between the fairy-tale
story of Rusalka and the modern-day tragedy of the imprisonment
of Natascha Kampusch in Vienna for eight years and the separate
but equally appalling story of Josef Fritzel who locked his
own daughter in their cellar for many years fathering eight
children by her. Before allowing distaste to overwhelm one's
critical faculty one has to admit that at a couple of points
in the two/three narratives there are points of confluence.
But to allow for these the rest of the storyline - let alone
the specific libretto which throws up contradictions and paradoxes
at every turn - whether at broad stroke or detailed point level
is forced to conform to the modern/abusive conceit. Personally
I do not find this shocking per se but neither is it
interestingly relevant or most of all revelatory. By all means
find new ways of staging 'old' stories. In fact fairy-tales,
given their timeless nature, are perhaps most suited to this
kind of updating but the point is that such updating needs to
preserve the essential element of timelessness. What a fairy-tale
reflects is the essential truths of the human condition.
Arnold Bax wrote in his autobiography 'Farewell My Youth' that
he believed that all great music was a response to basic truths
of love life and death. Surely the same is true of folk stories,
myths, legends and fables of every culture. KuŠej, by fixing
this in our time with such named and specific parallels by definition
must be endowing those same characters with contemporary
values, emotions and thought processes: an idea, which again
is in direct conflict with the words those same characters speak
and their resulting actions. A very simple and frustrating example:
KuŠej has made the father-figure of The Water Goblin into
the Fritzel character. At that single stroke the balance of
the part as written by Dvorák and his librettist Kvapil is destroyed.
Yes there is a paradox in the father/daughter relationship between
the nymphs and the old Goblin as written. But as Rusalka herself
says - these are elemental characters devoid of human souls
or the ability to love - hence her wish for mortal form. So
although sentient they are creatures of nature seeking that
most basic need - to recreate. It is not the distorted
humanity of a Fritzel. Surely the parallel the original team
were making was a Wagnerian one with the all-powerful yet ultimately
impotent Wotan overseeing his daughters the Valkyrie. There
is a playfulness in both text and music that utterly belies
the opening scene as staged where the nymphs good-humouredly
taunt and tease the Water Goblin. Here the singers say those
words but their actions are of frozen fear and horror as Goblin/Fritzel
descends the ladder into their watery cellar. Huge credit to
these nymphs and Rusalka for spending this entire opening sequence
in drenched underwear as they paddle around a set several inches
deep in water. Goblin/Fritzel then tries to force himself -
in a relatively graphic fashion - on several of the nymphs before
the scene where Rusalka pleads to be released from her watery
'prison' - a parallel at last. But here we hit more contradictions.
Kampusch/Rusalka explains that she has seen the Prince gazing
down at her. How? - she is a secret prisoner - Kampusch managed
to escape and Fritzel's crimes were uncovered by suspicious
neighbours. After only about two lines of pleading Goblin/Fritzel
relents - after many years of implacable torture and imprisonment
one assumes - saying she is free to seek the help of Mrs Fritzel/the
witch Ježibaba. Ježibaba has the power which the Water Goblin
palpably lacks but here Mrs Fritzel has spent the entire
opera to this point on-stage over-hearing her husband's abuse
below writhing and gurning in operatic excess indicating upset
and fear. Janina Baechle is a dramatic mezzo-soprano but she
lacks the acting finesse to make much of such ungrateful stage
direction. By the time Rusalka pops up out of the dungeon -
having astonishingly sung the famous hymn to the moon to a light-fitting
while lying on her back in a puddle - she is instantly transformed
into the semi-human all-seeing and all-powerful witch. I have
been deliberately ironic with much of the preceding descriptions
to counter what I perceive as pretension and pseudo-intellectual
waffle. Along the way there are neat and effective touches.
The moon/lamp I deride before actually looks rather beautiful
and certainly as filmed creates several striking images reflecting
in the water. Likewise - Rusalka takes on human form by being
given a pair of high-heeled shoes. Her struggle to walk in such
alien attire is a neat analogy for the broader challenge. The
hunting party enter in some kind of slow motion bare-chested
(why?) carrying shot-guns even though the Prince is singing
off-stage that they must not shoot their arrows. Since they
do nothing except creep across the stage pretending to aim at
invisible targets why couldn't that have been with a bow as
opposed to a gun? The climax to Act I as the Prince sings of
his immediate love - Vogt rather strained over the top of the
climactic phrases - ends spectacularly unromantically striding
off-stage with Rusalka slung over his shoulder like the kill
of the hunt. Yes I do get it that that is KuŠej's
point - Rusalka is little more than another trophy for the callous
Prince but again I'm not at all sure that's what Dvorák and
Kvapil envisaged and at a push I'll trust the earlier creative
team over the new. KuŠej labours this woman/doe/victim
image returning to it with obsessive frequency. Apart from anything
else it makes Rusalka into a hapless victim caught in the headlight
glare of the Prince's temporary infatuation. But we know that
is not the case - unworldly (quite literally) she may be, certainly
naive in the ways of men but she pro-actively sought the meeting
with the Prince. Her floppy inertia at the end of the act just
does not strike me as dramatically logical.
And so the irritations mount. Act II opens in a bare room with
Rusalka alone - she shouldn't be there at all if truth be told
- together with a fish-tank and a deer strung up ready for gutting.
In comes the kitchen boy miraculously transformed into a somewhat
buxom girl - with a very fine voice it has to be said - for
no reason that is apparent until it gives the Forester an excuse
to grope her as indeed all the male characters in this production
seem compelled to do to every woman they encounter. There is
nothing at all in text or sub-text that makes this necessary
or even desirable so I imagine its only purpose is to add to
the audience's ill-ease. At the very least it projects a deeply
jaundiced view of male/female relationships. My main frustration
with the actions of the Forester here or the Goblin earlier
is that the action undermines the value of their words. The
Forester - sung by an underpowered if over-sexed Ulrich Reß
- is a precursor of the same named character (but much expanded
role) in Janacek's The Cunning Little Vixen. His function
is all but the same - the wise human commentator giving insight
into Nature and the mysteries of the Forest. They must be at
heart benevolent - aware and sympathetic to the cycles of existence.
To abuse a girl clearly uncomfortable with the deed runs contrary
to the very essence of the role. As an aside I personally find
it little short of bizarre that we are a society that demands
that parents go on child protection courses to supervise their
own children at local events yet we stage just such abuse in
major theatrical productions and call it Art.
As with any performance or work of art or indeed book there
comes a point when the audience member/reader/viewer either
engages more deeply or switches off. The opening of the second
Act was my switching off moment. I found that I no longer cared
about the quality of the singing or playing. I actually stopped
caring about the multiple annoyances of the staging; why does
the kitchen boy laboriously move chunks of bloody offal one
piece at a time from one bucket to an adjacent one?. Why do
the wedding guests come into a room where the doe is being gutted
simply to stare emotionless at Rusalka (who still should not
be there)? If it was a performance I attended in person I might
well have walked out. The endless psychological analysis that
one presumes went on at the numerous pre-production meetings
proves simply tedious. It is better if Rusalka is absent
through this Act's opening scenes - a) the fact that even when
mute her presence in the court causes interest, alarm and discussion
throughout the palace increases the sense of awe/fear/curiosity
her character inspires. b) by having on-stage but semi-ignored
by the characters there it changes the dynamic of their respect/fear
of their prince's potential future wife. KuŠej has the
kitchen boy sing his/her lines at Rusalka in a mocking fashion
which undermines her status and reinforces her as a victim.
c) on a purely practical acting level it forces Opolaďs to go
through ever more variations of distressed/confused/helpless
mute acting which frankly tests even her acting abilities beyond
breaking point. Finally we reach the point when she should
be on-stage with the Prince. Vogt was not the Prince at
every performance and certainly he seems less secure in the
dramatic aspects of the role. Here when singing to Rusalka his
eye line is often drawn to something high in the wings stage
left. It might seem petty to mention but with the camera in
such close attendance it does become distracting and dilutes
the emotional connection between the two characters. I began
to have doubts about Opolaďs' endless angst too. Surely Rusalka
realised that muteness would bring frustration, anger even fear
but what we get here is wall to wall brow-furrowing unhappiness
which simply does not ring true to the emotional arc the character
would travel - it makes her too two-dimensional. At some point
surely she would express happiness having achieved the twin-pronged
goals of human form and the love of the Prince. Shouldn't, if
anything, the worry and fear come later, when she realises
the fickle nature of the Prince and his roving eye. This fickleness
takes human form so to speak with the arrival of The Foreign
Princess. Here the role is performed with terrifying voluptuousness
by Bulgarian mezzo Nadia Krasteva. This is old-fashioned Eastern
Bloc power-house singing which seems slightly at odds with the
neurotic western concept offered here. Also, given Vogt's acting
limitations this seduction scene is strangely uninvolving for
all the scale of forces deployed.
I accept that my understanding of Freudian symbolism is extremely
limited so the following ball scene - pausing long enough only
for us to see the Prince and Foreign Princess in coitus no-way
interruptus should we have been in any doubt as to their intentions
as exited the stage - left me utterly bemused. For the ball
the entire dancing chorus - male and female - are dressed as
brides in white and each dances with a skinned doe some simulating
sex with them all smearing their dresses with gore. Having collapsed
with exhaustion from this orgiastic romp they then proceed to
eat the does. This is descending into the realm of the gratuitously
sensationalist. If you need a guide book to help you navigate
the 'meaning' of any piece of performance art that piece has
failed. Having watched the 'making-of' documentary after the
opera it turns out this is a dream sequence - not that the symbolism
is any the clearer for knowing that. For not one single second
did Dvorák intend for this dance sequence to be anything more
than a dance divertissement echoing the extended ballets of
19th Century French Grand Opera. The orchestra sounds excitingly
powerful and impressive in this passage. However, KuŠej
clearly sees it as an opportunity - let off the libretto's moderating
leash - to wallow in fin-de-sičcle symbolic nonsense. I am sure
that there are critics and people out their congratulating themselves
for understanding what is going on here but for the vast majority
this represents everything that is bad and pretentious about
the Arts in general and Opera in particular. In the liner it
is rightly pointed out that in and around Vienna in 1900 there
was a hotbed of culture, science, psychology and the Arts. It
must have been the most remarkable time to be in that remarkable
city but it is quite wrong to assume that every single
piece of important art created at that time in some way reflected
everything from Mahlerian angst, via Freudian dream analysis
to Klimt-influenced secessionist eroticism. I dread to think
what KuŠej would make of The Merry Widow!
By now I have come to accept my confusion is par for the course
with this production. I stopped trying to rationalise why the
return of Fritzel/Goblin should require a dance double - younger
with more attractively placed stains; is KuŠej trying to
make this character appear more appealing to Rusalka in her
troubled eyes now or does the singer simply have a bad back
this night? This is the sequence musically that confirms a nagging
doubt from Act I. Günther Groissböck's relatively lyrical baritone
is simply not commanding enough for the role. He is also slightly
troubled by pitch and length of musical line - this is one of
Dvorák's most beautiful vocal passages full of poignant regret
and sadness. Yet more confusion reigns as Rusalka climbs into
the fish-tank. Not many operas have used a fish tank as an Act's
dénouement before but at least it allows Rusalka to keep up
her record of being soaked in each part of the piece; sadly
in Act III she is merely damp - a great disappointment. I have
to say at this point I did actually laugh. By now Rusalka has
regained her voice and Opolaďs is impressive at vocalising the
anger and frustration she found hard to physicalise. But somehow
to make the climax of this superb passage the descent into …
a fish-tank is simply comical. It's like Tosca jumping
off the bottom step of the stairs or Brünnhilde's Magic Barbecue
Music. I did chuckle a bit at the antics of the singing chorus
too who in the best traditions of German Opera Houses are contracted
to do little else but sing. So where their dancing compatriots
will merrily writhe with the odd dead animal the most this solidly
sensible crew will do is toy with a pastry while standing in
very straight lines - it is so spectacularly at odds with all
the other stage direction that it made me hoot. As ever the
climax to this second Act is thrilling and Hanus drives
it to a powerful and exciting conclusion. Krasteva is squally
but with a huge voice which reduces the impact of Goblin/Fritzel
final damning lines by vocally overwhelming them. Perhaps I'm
just being too literal but I simply cannot get my head around
how this character is one minute an abusive imprisoner and now
the dealer of just vengeance.
The third and final Act spills onto a second disc. The extended
confrontation between Rusalka and Ježibaba proves to be by far
the most rewarding sequence in this staging so far. For the
very simple reason that there is almost no overt directorial
intervention. Baechle is able to focus on the central facet
of her character's role - the vengeful human-hating witch and
Opolaďs makes the most of the torment of Rusalka torn between
worlds and loves. It’s an oasis of simplicity in a desert of
complexity. Sadly the desert soon returns. Ježibaba descends
into the watery dungeon - in Act I it seemed clear she never
went there as it was Goblin/Fritzel's domain - where she meet
Forester and the Kitchen Boy. They are interrupted by Goblin/Fritzel
who quickly murders the Forester - surely not in the original
libretto? - but is then immediately arrested by the police who
luckily have found his lair. This rather undermines the impact
of his last line "I'll be avenged wherever my power holds
sway" - from the inside of a rather small prison cell one
presumes. More dramatic absurdity follows. The following scene
shows the 'traumatised' nymphs now rescued from their dungeon
and in what looks like a rather spartan ward in a mental hospital.
An extra point of confusion here; are they wood-nymphs - as
the liner cast list calls them - or water nymphs? The staging
and their obsession with bottles of water would imply the latter.
They sing merrily about disporting themselves through the forest.
In context this does sound rather deranged but then if
every operatic character was judged for sanity on the strength
of the words they uttered every institution for the insane would
be bulging at the seams with operatic refugees. What is annoyingly
stupid within the terms of dramatic logic this production pretends
to aspire to is that having captured the 'evil' Goblin/Fritzel
would the police then parade him past his recent deeply damaged
captives? They do here - for the unavoidable reason that he
has lines to sing. For me this is head-thumping-against-the-wall-in-frustration
annoying. Concept meets logic head-on and logic goes for nothing.
While I'm in head-scratching mode - the wood-nymphs earlier
told Rusalka they would run from her and now they are sharing
the same ward. She's lying silently on one of the bunk beds
- again she should not be onstage at this point if truth be
told. Fritzel/Goblin refers to her "down below your spurned
sister is lamenting". So while it is OK to ignore the simple
logic of this story here this is replaced by getting the nymphs
to 'act' OCD: lots of obsessive hand-rubbing and so on. This
strikes me as self-congratulatory attention to spurious detail
at the expense of the greater narrative line. The Prince is
able to penetrate to clearly lax security surrounding this ward
too. I've given up worrying about the fact that when he sings
"this is the place" referring to the Act I forest
glade we are now in a psychiatric ward. Instead I take pleasure
where I can in the beautiful playing of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester
whose musicians seem determined to play with all the beauty
and majesty the score the demands and this production denies.
Were I ever to listen to this performance again it would be
with sound only. The achingly poignant final scene between Rusalka
and the Prince is unbalanced by the subtlety of Opolaďs' singing
and acting in stark contrast to the all-round woodenness of
Vogt. The end of the opera sees Rusalka walking upstage to a
life as an asylum inmate. Given the obviously live nature of
the performance it seems rather odd to cross-fade rather too
swiftly to an image of water with superimposed children's laughter
allowing for no applause and actually cutting away leaving the
piece without the one or two beats of silence that the music
demands.
I have written at length here for the simple reason that I think
it is necessary to try and dismantle this nonsense masquerading
as Art. I dread to think how much time and money was spent bringing
this misbegotten creation to the stage. I should say that on
disc 1 there is a 'making-of' documentary in which all the great
and the good of the production seem to fully support and indeed
enthuse about it. I think it only fair that I should point out
that all of the interviewees are strongly supportive of this
production. Costume Designer Heidi Hackl goes further to say
that all of her most valued professional experiences have been
working with this director. She does go on to say that she knows
that every KuŠej production will feature blood. Strangely
I find this idea less inspiring than she clearly does.
There is the germ of a valid concept here which is that the
abusive Fritzel and his wife take on the mythic characters of
Goblin and Witch to both control and justify their prisoner’s
plight. If this was developed from a new script I could imagine
it working even if one were able to put aside the ill-ease of
using this storyline as entertainment. But time and time again
I have to come back to the fact that the libretto used produces
too many jarring inconsistencies that the basic idea cannot
avoid or explain. Too often in the documentary the speaker will
talk about how a particular moment - staging/costume/direction
created for them a striking image or resonance. For sure that's
fine and I understand that totally - but a series of striking
images does not make for a coherent whole and coherence is the
quality this production lacks most of all. One last curious
contradiction - the synopsis in the liner follows the traditional
plotline not the version as staged and is therefore all but
irrelevant. As is standard with DVD there are no texts but subtitles
are selectable in six different languages. As standard with
such discs these are coded as 'Region 0' making them playable
anywhere in the world. The opera is performed in the original
Czech.
This is as controversial a production of a major piece of the
repertoire as I have ever seen. Others I am sure will respond
to its contemporary imagery far more than I. A Shabby Shocker.
Nick Barnard
There is a review of this production on Seen and Heard. http://www.seenandheard-international.com/2011/07/21/rusalka_munich_opera_festival_2011_opolais_jmirurzun_jflaurson/
A Shabby Shocker.
Chorus of the Bavarian State Opera 
[2 DVDs: 156:00 + 36:00 (documentary)]
