Deutsche Oper Berlin: Descent into Hell with Puccini

The center half is essentially the most delicate: in the beginning of his “Trittico” Giacomo Puccini units a love triangle with a murderous consequence, the finale is a crass comedy. On the heart of the one-act triptych, which premiered at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in 1918, is the story of Angelica, a younger noblewoman who turns into pregnant whereas single, is allowed to hold her little one, however is then locked in a monastery.

She has to attend seven years till a relative lastly comes to go to. However her aunt continues to punish the sinner with contempt. Solely when Angelica begs to know one thing about her son does the Zia Principessa hard-heartedly clarify that he died two years in the past.

The way in which the Italian composer describes monastic life, “Suor Angelica” can simply turn out to be a convincing holy picture, a goosebumps kitsch, particularly within the closing scene when the protagonist commits suicide with a purpose to be near her little one in heaven.

However John Fiore is aware of precisely find out how to keep the fitting stability between sentimentality and sensuality. On the “Trittico” premiere on the Deutsche Oper, he mixes the tonal colours very delicately, utilizing watercolors as an alternative of laying them on thickly. And the home orchestra instantly tunes into Fiore’s interpretive line, glides by way of the atmospheric adjustments, acoustically enveloping the singers in “Suor Angelica” with a fragile blue Madonna cloak.

Within the different two quick operas, too, John Fiore by no means lets issues get loud, controls the amount wherever potential, and depends on magnificence as an alternative of extreme emotion. Which is all of the extra outstanding as a result of he solely joined the manufacturing group a number of days earlier than the premiere, filling in for common music director Donald Runnicles, who was as soon as once more surprisingly sick.

Purgatory underneath the steps

On Sunday night, Fiore’s fine-tuning stands in most distinction to the visible aspect of the brand new manufacturing: director Pinar Karabulut, set designer Michael Flück and costume designer Theresa Vergho present no restraint and instantly go all out: the scene presents itself like an untidy set warehouse, right here a mountain of papier-mâché Purple, there somewhat church, right here a staircase that results in nowhere, however beneath the steps of which painted flames of hell blaze, there a footbridge over a muddy puddle.

With their inexperienced winged capes and the stylized horns on their shiny bathing caps, the nuns in “Suor Angelica” appear to be Colorado beetles within the animated sequence “Biene Maia”, whereas the evil aunt comes throughout as a Claudia Roth double. And but Mané Galoyan and Violeta Urmana handle to offer the duet between the fallen maiden and the outdated maid a dramatic peak, for instance the scale of the battle purely musically – and thus to the touch the viewers’s coronary heart.

Parody and slapstick

Within the opening “Tabarro” that is much less profitable, Carman Giannattasio stays vocally pale, Jonathan Tetelman, as her lover, wrings his fingers and reveals off his tenor materials, whereas Misha Kiria, because the betrayed husband, has an impressive heroic baritone, however solely to underline his emotions scooping air together with his left paw.

Is that this non-direction imagined to be a parody of old style stand-up theater? Just like the fidgeting grotesque in “Gianni Schicchi” a homage to the good Herbert Fritsch? The make-up artists of the Deutsche Oper do a powerful job right here, and the ensemble additionally provides themselves utterly to the slapstick. That is what Dante, in whose “Divine Comedy” Puccini discovered the anecdote, meant.

His joke is sparked by the truth that the intelligent up-and-comer Gianni fools the snobs of the old-established noblesse. With out this socially important dimension, Karabulut’s blatant joke finally stays cheese: Feta of the material.