Opernhaus Saal. Rang Rechts (Seat R3-P11, 145 euros).
The stage seemed bigger than I remembered it.
Story. As the child of a mortal and an immortal, Ada is immortal. She and the mortal Arindal fall in love, and the Fairy king demands that Ada keep her identify secret from Arindal for eight years; if she succeeds, she will also become mortal. If she does not, then she will turn into stone for 100 years and then return to immortality. Ada's two maids Zemina and Farzana try to dissuade her from staying with Arindal. Arindal is king of an earthly kingdom, in his absense his sister Lor and her friend Morald help defend the kingdom. On the last day of the eight years, however, Ada is supposed to cause all kinds of trouble for Arindal, and he must not curse her. On that day, Arindal thinks his two children are killed by Ada, and his army is wiped out by Ada's duplicity. So he curses Ada, and she disappears. The last act first sees Arindal hallucinating about killing Ada, then he is given a shield and a sword with he overcomes obstacles to rescue Ada. In seeing that, the Fairy king blesses Arindal with immortality, and Arindal's kingdom is handed over to Lora and Morald.
Conductor - Matthias Foremny; Ada - Kirstin Sharpin, Zemina - Athanasia Zohrer, Farzana - Sandra Maxheimer, Lora - Viktorija Kaminskaite, Drolla - Olga Jelinkova, Der Feenkonig & Groma - Sejong CHang, Arindal - Marc Horus, Morald - Nikolay Borchev, Gernot - Randall Jakobsh, Gunther - Patrick Vogel, Harald - Roland Schubert.
Over the course of three weeks, Festival Wagner 22 will have staged all 13 of Wagner's operas. The first three, Die Feen, Das Liebesverbot, and Rienzi are three operas I have not seen before (and had never even heard of the first two). I got tickets for the first two; Rienzi was sold out by the time I checked.
Frankly, my expectations were not high. Operas are not staged for a reason: not enough audience to justify the huge costs associated with new productions. And I usually need to see each of Wagner's operas a few times before I understand them.
I was pleasantly surprised on multiple fronts.
First, the production was a lot more elaborate than I expected, even more so considering how austere the prior operas I had seen at Leipzig Opera seemed. Raising and lowering of stages, a monarch butterfly with a throne hanging from it, fancy costumes, and even set rotation are all used in this production. Generally to good effect. There are three "levels" of beings: fairies, Medieval humans, and a modern family. Perhaps due to our seats in the balcony, the stage seemed larger than I remembered it.
The modern family aspect may be a bit puzzling and far-fetched. It happened during the overture (rather long at about 10 minutes), and the host was seeing his friends off after dinner, and the maid starts to clean up. When the overture ends, a set was dropped showing the fairy world, with the host - who is now Arindal - still wearing his shirt and vest, which he will wear during the whole performance.
There was a comic scene of jealousy between Lora and Morald that was nicely done: the dialog, the music, and the acting. However, it wasn't really necessary for the development of the story, and I am not sure the opera - even though it could be classified as a comedy - benefited from that level of comic relief. Anne overheard during the break someone thought it sounded Puccini-esque. Wagner wrote this at age 20, so around 1833, Puccini was born in 1858. Perhaps more like Rossini (Barber of Seville comes to mind).
While the sets generally look elaborate, I am disappointed at the props Arindal used to overcome obstacles on his way to rescuing Ada. They were supposed to be a shield and a sword, and we have a throw pillow and a piece of wood that looks like a table leg.
With the notable exception of Arindal, the singing was good all around. That of course is helped by the size of the auditorium. Arindal (and we are not sure if he was a last minute substitute or not) was just weak, and he never seemed to get into the plot. The other incongruent aspect was his in "modern" dress while most everyone else was either medieval or supernatural.
The story ends with Arindal being granted immortality. However, what we saw on stage was Arindal reuniting with the maid at the beginning of the opera. One could scratch one's head, or decide the maid represents Ada. That association would still have a lot of issues as they don't look immortal at all.
Photos from the Opera Website. Yes, the lady on the left has her glasses on.
The surtitles are in both German and English.
The role of Arindal wasn't played by the gentleman in this photo.
The 3-act opera is about 3 hours long, with two intermissions we were out at around 9:15 pm. It was still light out, sun sets at around 9:30. Many a musicologist has analyzed this work to understand its place in Wagner's evolution as a composer. A few things I note: he already wrote his own libretto; he clearly sounded traditional in many places, like the duet between Lora and Morald; redemption as a theme; and (this one I had not read, but probably not original) the different beings in the story (in this case fairies and humans, this production divides humans into medieval and present-day).
After Act 1.
Curtain call. Instead of Ada turning into stone, she was locked up in the cage.
It was David Y who reminded me a few months ago about this Festival (I had told him a couple of years back); he and Vivien have been to Leipzig several times for the Bach Festival, but they are not quite ready to make plans that (a few months ago) are subject to change because of changing pandemic travel restrictions. Of course for now nearly all restrictions have been lifted. As recently as May 31 FFP2-level masks were mandatory; now those who wear any masks inside the opera house are few and far between.
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