2023-05-22 03:03:09
Not love death and love pain, but simply the fear of death prevailed on Sunday evening in the Vienna State Opera. With Francis Poulenc’s “Dialogues des Carmélites”, a classic of the 20th century was used for the last season premiere, which was heard in the French original version for the first time in the house. The Salzburg director Magdalena Fuchsberger does without an interpretation for her house debut, which softens the awkwardness of the piece.
After all, Poulenc’s work, which premiered in 1957, resists most of the things that make up common opera hits: it’s not regarding erotic love, heroism or any other emotion from the musical theater canon. The focus is rather on the fear of death, because of which the aristocratic Blanche (role debutante Nicole Car appears here with a straightforward voice) enters the monastery. But even there, the world catches up with her once more: During the French Revolution, the Carmel convent is evacuated because of its anti-revolutionary orientation, and the fleeing Blanche has to watch as her sisters are sentenced to death.
Poulenc has written a women’s opera in which the men only have supporting roles. It’s regarding toughness, steadfastness and emancipation from a paternal male society. Fuchsberger and her stage designer Monika Biegler set this high mass of the martyr role in a wooden frame mounted on the revolving stage. This forest of steles acts as the heart chamber of faith, is a labyrinth and cave in equal measure, maze and shelter in one.
In the monastery walls without walls, permeable spaces allow for parallel actions that widen the claustrophobic focus of the piece to the eponymous dialogues of the nuns, who are drawn as secular women without hoods. At the same time, the whole construct has little elegance, making stringent lighting difficult due to the permanent shadows cast. The powerful climax with the execution of the women at the end is also drawn almost soberly. But Christ’s church is still being built.
The sound construction that Poulenc expert Bertrand de Billy builds in the ditch is cleverly made. The French conductor, who also interpreted the piece at the Theater an der Wien in 2008, cleverly knows how to alternate between the Puccini-esque passages and the outbursts of the work.
At the end there was unanimous applause for everyone involved, regardless of the topic of religious exegesis, which, despite the catchy music, was a bit outdated. At the same time, “Dialogues des Carmélites” represents the metaphor of a break in epochs. And perhaps that is precisely what has firmly established the piece in the repertoire as a parallel to today.
(SERVICE – “Dialogues des Carmélites” by Francis Poulenc at the State Opera, Opernring 2, 1010 Vienna. Musical director: Bertrand de Billy, staging: Magdalena Fuchsberger, set: Monika Biegler, costumes: Valentin Köhler. With Blanche – Nicole Car, Le Chevalier – Bernard Richter, Madame de Croissy – Michaela Schuster, Madame Lidoine – Maria Motolygina, Mère Marie – Eve-Maud Hubeaux, Le Marquis de la Force – Michael Kraus, Soeur Constance – Maria Nazarova, mother Jeanne – Monika Bohinec, sister Mathilde – Alma Neuhaus, Carmelite Confessor – Thomas Ebenstein, 1st Commissioner – Andrea Giovannini, 2nd Commissioner – Jusung Gabriel Park, Officer – Jack Lee, Jailer – Clemens Unterreiner Further performances on May 24th, 27th and 30th and on May 2nd June. The performance on May 24 will be broadcast from 7 p.m. on the State Opera’s streaming platform (play.wiener-staatsoper.at), while Ö1 will broadcast on May 27 from 7 p.m. www.wiener-staatsoper.at)
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