Leipzig Oper. Opernhaus Saal, Leipzig. Parkett links (Row 14-33, 56 euros).
Selfie taken at intermission. We have know David and Vivian since our Cornell days in the 1970s.
Story. See previous post.
Ruben Dubrovsky - Conductor. Giulio Cesare - Yuriy Mynenko, Cornelia - Ulrike Schneider, Sesto - Kathrin Goring, Cleopetra - Olga Jelinkova, Tolomeo - Remy Bres, Achilla - Franz Xavier Schlecht/Matthias Hoffmann.
While Bach Fest continues in Leipzig, Handel Festival is happening in the nearby town of Halle. Tonight's opera was also part of the Handel Festival. We enjoyed very much our encounter with the opera about 10 years ago at the Met, so were looking forward to this event.
Unfortunately the performance didn't have English surtitles, and despite having read the synopsis, having seen the opera before, and having David explain to us the plot, we were quite lost during the close-to-three hours of music and acting. Things on stage do not unfold at a uniform speed (nor are they expected to), and once you lose you place, it takes a while to get back on track. And we are sure the Leipzig production is edited differently than described in the synopsis. The chorus sang at the beginning of the opera we saw at the Met, that wasn't the case today. It wasn't clear when Caesar appeared to die. The use of countertenors and Sesto's being a trouser role did not help, although I was less confused today than I remember from the Met performance.
Tolomeo was played by a young (at least youngish-looking) Remy Bres, which added to the already considerable cognitive dissonances. I had to constantly remind myself what role he had. For effect (visual and philosophical) the dead Pompey appeared on stage often, and he bore some resemblance to Tolomeo; which didn't help.
Nonetheless, the singers were all quite impressive. The rapid runs - especially ones sung by Cleopatra - were all done crisply; I wonder how they manage to find places to breathe. A few arias/duets were particularly enjoyable, even moving in the case of Sesto and Cornelia. The singer for Achilla couldn't sing today, so when he was on stage some singer would stand off stage and sing his lines. After a while I got used to it. The announcement before the opera began seemed to indicate another substitution, but I didn't catch it.
The set is quite simple. Most of the time it can be described as a room with two walls that can move up and down. There were all these red threads which I at first took to be laser beams, but turned out to be threads of fate as David explained. The three Fates (to weave, pull, and cut the threads) were represented by naked women (or in good body suits, I couldn't tell) who walked slowly. (Think the three norns in Wagner's Gotterdammerung.) Ptolemy also walked slowly - he was dead after all - most often bare feet but in a suit. At one point he poured out his ashes as ashes landed on him; towards the end he got white paint all over himself and turned into a statue. He managed to stay motionless on a pedestal for an impressive amount of time, more than those "live stationary statues" one sees at many public squares.
There was not a lot of violence in this production. People used guns, but no one was killed by a gun. The only killing on stage was Sesto killing Tolomeo by suffocating him with this huge plastic sheet. I was quite relieved when he got up at some point. That plastic sheet was also used to good effect when the Roman senators tried to stab Caesar; not quite correct chronologically, but that probably didn't matter to the production people. (Achilla also died by gunshot, but I don't remember the moment - perhaps off stage?)
Curtain Call. From the left: Pompey (who didn't have a voice role), ?, Achilla, Achilla's voice, Tolomeo, Cleopatra, maestro, Cesare, Sesto, Cornelia, ?, three women of fate.
At first I had no idea what this meant. It was explained to me these are the thread woven, pulled, and cut by the three women of fate. That this person (Pompey?) was all tied up meant he had no control over his life.
Cleopatra. Not sure who the lover is.
Tolomeo.
Sesto and Cornelia. They sang a moving duet.
Pompey pouring out ashes from an urn, while ashes fall from the opening in the ceiling.
Cleopatra and Tolomeo.
There are a couple of scenes I remember well from the Met performance. One was Cleopatra taking a bath in preparation to meet Caesar, there it was done cleverly with the use of panels to shield the bathing/changing Cleopatra. Here the scene is substituted by Cleopatra picking out a wardrobe. More straightforward, but worked. The other scene was the Met orchestra's concertmaster actually went on stage to play as Caesar was thinking about professing his love (per David). It was comical. Here the solo part was played in the pit, the music seemed a bit shorter, and didn't generate a chuckle in the audience.
Overall, I am still glad we got to see this opera. But I do wish they do more English surtitles at Leipzig. Fortunately, David was there to point out some aspects of the production, so I got a lot more out of the opera than I otherwise would have.
We all went to the train station to grab something to eat afterwards. Being a Sunday, many places closed by 8 pm (about when we showed up). Anne and I then walked about 10 minutes to this Wagner Monument, and found the plaque saying "Wagner was born here." We couldn't find it last time we looked.
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