Volksoper Wien.
Galerie Rechts (Seat 5-18, 44 euros).
Story. See
previous post.
Gerrit Priessnitz – conductor. Hoffmann – Vincent Schirrmacher, Die
Muse/Niklaus – Juliette Mars, Olympia – Sophia Theodorides, Antonia – Anja-Nina
Bahrmann, Giulietta – Kristiane Kaiser, Stella – Ursula Pfitzner,
Lindorf/Coppelius/Dr. Mirakel/Dapertutto – Josef Wagner.
Poster describing tonight's cast and creative team.
Vienna State Opera evidently has a little sibling called
People’s Opera, so we decided to give this a try, making the Tales of Hoffmann
our sixth opera on this trip, and our seventh musical event.
The website for the opera said the show would be done in
German and French, and that there would be German (only) surtitles. A bit of a worry, but we thought we should
know enough about the music, and that the story is simply a retelling of three
of Hoffmann’s failed love experiences.
How difficult can it be? On top
of that, Shirley and I each had a year of German in college … Bottom line,
while we clearly knew what story was being told at any moment, there was really
no way to get the gist of the action.
One year of German 30 odd years ago?
No use. What was to me most surprising was that there were only a few
tunes that I remember well: Olympia’s song, and the opening theme to the
Giulietta segment came readily to mind.
Volksoper stages more than operas. Here they are clearly doing the Wizard of Oz.
Overall it was an enjoyable experience. For many reasons - including language, length
of opera at 3:45 hours, and this being the seventh concert in 10 days – we were
slightly overwhelmed.
Our seats were in the middle of the Galerie, the highest
level in the theater. The sound was
generally so good that I wonder if there is some sort of enhancement system in
place.
Schirrmacher looked very Asian – he is equal parts
British, Chinese, Japaneses, and Mongolian – and has lived in Vienna for a
while. He had to sing against several
“leading ladies” and did very well. The
costumes were a bit humorous. Olympia
the robot had a wide hemmed dress which she opened up at some point to show her
“legs” which could be contorted in different ways. Half of Antonia’s dress was painted as a
skeleton which extended to part of her face – she was on the verge of dying,
afterall. For the gaudy scenes, women
were in flesh-colored body suits. Mad
scientists and the like looked their parts with wired headgear and very long
fingers. Given the undoubtedly low
budget they had to work with, the set designers did a credible job of creating
believable scenes for the various acts.
The Met production we saw last year may have been more intricate, but I
don’t think it had a lot over tonight’s production.
Schirrmacher taking a bow. Behind him are Olympia, Giulietta, the conductor, the Muse, and Antonia (notice the half-skeleton dress and make-up.)
The Hoffmann in this poster looks nothing like Schirrmacher.
There was considerable “stand-alone” orchestra music,
which was well-performed. Again it
sounded so loud that I wondered if it was sound enhanced.
The posters on this opera had a bearded western-looking
gentleman in the role. I wonder if
Schirrmacher was a last-minute substitute.
The idea behind a “Volksoper” makes sense, and given the
relatively inexpensive tickets seems to be realized to a certain extent. We noticed many young people (teenagers) in
our section, a phenomenon unthinkable in the US. However, the availability of only German
surtitles makes the show of only limited to tourists. I wonder if any thought
has been given to making this more accessible to people who don’t speak German.
One argument against it is probably they don’t want this to be like Vienna
State Opera, but tourists will drive up the ticket prices, or make tickets more
difficult to get.
Getting to the opera house was easy enough, although CS –
who was on his own taking photographs in the city – went to Volkstheatre
instead. He eventually realized it was
the wrong place and got to Volksoper about 10 minutes late, again a testament
to the efficient transportation system.
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