‘Peter Grimes’ Review: Opera Stars Capture an Omicron-Battered Vienna


VIENNA – Every time I open Instagram these days, I see an ad for “Hamilton”. Once a destination musical that required months of planning or deep pockets, now algorithmically spreading the word that last-minute tickets are up for grabs, no need for the #Ham4Ham lottery.

like this live performance status The Omicron variant elevates shows and keeps audiences at home.

Take the Vienna State Opera, one of the world’s largest companies and a major tourist attraction. It had to shut down for about a week in December due to the coronavirus, but is now returning to full capacity. Nearly 450 seats (in a home that’s just over 1,700) were still unsold Wednesday morning, and are just hours away from the grand opening of a luxuriously revamped revival. Britten’s “Peter Grimes” – One of Europe’s hottest tickets, apparently featuring star tenor Jonas Kaufmann and fast-rising soprano Lise Davidsen.

By curtain time, the house seemed much fuller, but hundreds of tickets remained for each future performance. Why people can be discouraged and why The company is officially begging For participation: Visitors to the State Opera, who must wear N95 quality masks inside the building, should also be fully vaccinated and supplemented and also tested (by PCR, especially immortality antigen) for virus.

I was not alone in the effort to prepare all the necessary documents as I entered: an ID, a non-transferable ticket, a vaccination certificate and a negative test result that came with a price tag of 70 euros for traveling from Berlin. where rapid tests are widely available and free, but PCR is not.

The things we do for the opera.

And in this case, for the opportunity to hear Kaufmann in her debut as Peter Grimes and Davidsen in her stage debut as Ellen Orford – first impressions of roles these artists are rumored to be taking on elsewhere in future seasons. Metropolitan Opera.

Often stranded in Christine Mielitz’s staging of neon-line opera – a psychologically complex tragedy of provincial cruelty and loneliness – Kaufmann and Davidsen were forced to rely on their dramatic instincts rather than a cohesive vision. Although the evening was greeted warmly and far from a disaster, none of the singers seem to have found a new signature role.

Kaufmann, in particular, has struggled to clearly trace his character’s decline from social isolation to instability and suicidal delusions. Grimes, a fisherman believed to have killed his apprentices by mob villagers, carries the weight of perception; In this production, he is literally burdened by the ropes and the corpses of children who died under his watch. Equally heavy on the ear, Kaufmann sang mostly in tones of exhaustion, over-confidence in undulating pianissimos punctuated by outbursts that were heroic rather than painful or violent.

If this approach—resignedly resigned rather than volatile—was made for static storytelling, it paid off in Grimes’ wildly insane scene. Long sullen under a halo of agony, Kaufmann was even more animated in this silent monologue, adding something inevitable to his character’s death.

But in this scene, as throughout the opera, Britten radiates spiky marcato and staccato articulation. Kaufmann instead chose a coherent legato, sometimes contradicting the orchestra and in extreme cases making the sentences incomprehensible.

Davidsen’s Ellen is leaving the powerful roles of Wagner and Strauss that quickly made her famous. “Grimes” requires comparative humility, a challenge Wednesday faced with graceful control – cleverly dispensing the resonance that he’s gifted when necessary to show his iron will against the hasty decisions of a small town, and in moments falls into a glassy pianissimo. convincing despair. He matched the precise indications of the piece with clear speech and diction, but in World War II. In Act, she weaves a graceful mournful quartet with Noa Beinart as Aunt and Ileana Tonca, and Aurora Marthens as two Nephews.

The other star on the scene was bass-baritone Bryn Terfel as Balstrode – the only resident of “The Town Hall” (named after Ellen), with some sympathy for Grimes. But in this performance it was difficult to discern; There was a touch of malice in Terfel’s solid voice, grins in places, as if encouraging Grimes’ destructive path. It came as no surprise that at last Balstrode told poor Grimes to sink his boat into the sea.

Other actors, good and bad, stood out: the impressive textures of Martin Hässler’s Ned Keene and the black comedy of Thomas Ebenstein’s Bob Boles; but also Stephanie Houtzeel’s Mrs. Sedley’s shrieking cries are a more fitting interpretation for Brecht than Britten.

Conductor Simone Young has shaped tremendous sonic peaks and valleys in the orchestra. The major interludes were different narratives: the first set a tone with its eerie subtlety, the third angular and ballet, the fifth slightly swaying but tense. And the choir, dressed in monochrome and often moving in harmony, sang with a character as richly defined as any artist on the stage. III. In The Curtain, its members truly embodied the destructive power of a determined mafia.

This scene is one of the scariest scenes in opera, a grand climax in a work that, when performed at this level, makes any painstaking safety protocol worthwhile. If you can get past that hurdle, there are a few opportunities – and many, many tickets – to hear it for yourself.

Peter Grimes

At the Vienna State Opera until February 8; wiener-staatsoper.at.



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