Germany Mozart, Così fan tutte: Soloists, Choral Soloists (director: Jean-Christophe Charron) and Orchestra of the Komische Oper Berlin / Erina Yashima (conductor). Schillertheater, Berlin, 14.1.2024. (MB)
Manufacturing:
Director, Set and Costume designer – Kirill Serebrennikov
Implementation of course, choreography – Evgeny Kulagin
Employees director (Spielleitung) – Martha Jurowski
Co-Costume designer – Tatyana Dolmatovskaya
Assistant Set designer – Nikolay Simonov
Dramaturgy – Beate Breidenbach, Maximilian Hagemeyer
Lighting – Olaf Freese
Video – Ilya Shagalov
Forged:
Fiordiligi – Penny Sofraniadou
Dorabella – Susan Zarrabi
Guglielmo – Hubert Zapiór
Ferrando – Caspar Singh
Despina – Alma Sadé
Don Alfonso – Seth Carico
Sempronio – Amer El-Erwadi
Tizio – Goran Jurenec
There ought to by no means be a run-of-the-mill Così fan tutte: Mozart’s most beautiful opera, arguably his profoundest, and maybe finally his biggest. (It’s, at any charge, my present favorite, and never solely as a result of I heard it final.) This was actually not it, whether or not in origin, course, or efficiency. Certainly, this staging from Berlin’s Komische Oper is an impressive achievement in nearly each respect, giving one a lot to consider, a lot to relish, and far by which to be discomfited. On prime of that, it’s a very long time since I’ve seen and heard so completely completed a solid.
Kirill Serebrennikov’s manufacturing was first seen in Zurich in 2018, albeit below extremely uncommon circumstances stemming from the director’s home arrest. His choreographer and assistant Evgeny Kulagin, right here credited with ‘Umsetzung Inszenierung’, took Serebrennikov’s place in particular person, passing to Serebrennikov’s lawyer movie recordings of what was creating in rehearsal for the director in flip to touch upon by way of video message. Therefore the considerably concerned checklist for the manufacturing workforce, which I assumed essential to incorporate as an entire and with as clear a translation of phrases as I might. Following a number of extensions to his home arrest, adopted by conviction for fraud, probation, dismissal from the Gogol Centre, and bans on journey and management of any cultural establishment in receipt of presidency assist, Serebrennikov’s suspended sentence was ultimately cancelled by one other courtroom on account of fine behaviour and the journey ban lifted. Having been permitted to journey to Germany in 2022, he was capable of direct the Berlin incarnation of the manufacturing, of which that is now the primary revival. It will be troublesome to disclaim that these circumstances make the manufacturing’s achievement all of the extra spectacular; it actually suggests some fact could but lie within the double-edged, Romantic adage that antagonistic circumstances can foster nice inventive achievement.
Onwards, in any case, to the manufacturing ‘itself’. It has already begun when one enters the theatre. A horizontally break up set (ranges 1 and a couple of) reveals at this stage – it stays, while the settings it reveals change over time – two health club settings, female and male, extras figuring out. Train of a distinct type, orchestral tuning, offers the accompaniment. The extra bodily selection onstage continues into the overture, skipping noises proving one thing of an aural irritant, albeit a minor problem within the larger scheme of issues. Guglielmo and Ferrando arrive, and ultimately Don Alfonso, with a lot stereotypically, certainly performatively masculine behaviour to be noticed because the stage is about. It quickly turns into clear, although, that while Alfonso has some form of maintain over the lads on the health club – not solely our pair of lovers – he’s additionally a deeply broken particular person, broadening and deepening his characterisation from the everyday stock-character cynic. This can be linked with battle, which looms eerily massive for a manufacturing conceived in 2017-18; I couldn’t assist however ponder whether some modifications had been made in gentle of the invasion of Ukraine, which Serebrennikov publicly opposed. For, when Guglielmo and Ferrando are despatched off to fight – it’s unusually clear what could be concerned, coffins and all, the ladies in mourning – the army online game whose management Alfonso is making an attempt, certainly struggling, has him shaken, traumatised. Is that merely a metaphor? Maybe. We could keep in mind Monteverdi’s Madrigali guerrieri et amorosi and any variety of different literary and inventive connections and constructions. Revelation of the betrayal or defeat he has suffered in battles of the center, by way of a show of textual content messages, provides additional context however doesn’t exclude one thing darker and deeper nonetheless. My sense was of a veteran of each kinds of battle — and extra.
For when the opposing ‘workforce’ takes inventory, led by Despina, no longer a servant however a therapist, she reveals Fiordiligi and Dorabella slides of typical male behaviour, particularly within the armed forces. What higher method to present her sufferers – the phrase is definitely used within the subtitles, which alternate as devoted translation and information to the manufacturing – what their lovers will actually be as much as, if they’re nonetheless alive? Her visible aids pursue various traces, some frankly feminist, some extra cynical. The therapeutic flip that has knowledgeable a lot of Dmitri Tcherniakov’s newer productions (e.g. Carmen, Les Troyens, and the Ring I’ve seen; as effectively, I’m instructed, his personal Così, which I’ve not) is first introduced on board but additionally introduced into query. If anybody is perpetrating a hoax right here, it’s arguably Despina, who additionally, removed from coincidentally, appears essentially the most resilient of the lot.
Clichés that elsewhere have grow to be drained, as an illustration the usage of cell telephones, each for messages and footage, are for as soon as used to real dramatic ends. That is, in spite of everything, how fashionable communications work — and fashionable relationships, even intercourse, too. Nowhere is that this clearer, but additionally extra genuinely complicated, than when Guglielmo and Ferrando are changed by their ‘Albanian’ – on this case, first Arab – counterparts, Sempronio and Tizio, right here performed by actors (Amar El-Erwadi and Goran Jurenec) whose time on the health club appears to have been nonetheless extra profitable. The paradox over whether or not they’re precise, employed replacements – I feel they nearly actually are – is such that one can take completely different views. ‘Completely different views’, although, could also be understood in a distinct sense, motion (of assorted varieties) being considered from one other degree by way of video hyperlink (not essentially ‘impressed’ by the director’s remedy, however gaining larger which means nonetheless by that connection) and even ‘in particular person’ however as ghostly presence, apparently unseen by and certainly deceased for Fiordiligi and Dorabella. There are particularly merciless touches, resembling considering all is effectively, solely to listen to the bathroom flush from the en suite toilet: all very a lot within the spirit of these extraordinary horns of cuckoldry Mozart employs at essential factors within the rating. Precise horns are donned by each ‘Albanians’ at one level, suggesting an assumption of quasi-divine standing, Dionysus and even Zeus, enabling and initiating congress and conquest.
For males now are as objectified as ladies. As a homosexual man, Serebrennikov will know this all too effectively, however so do many youthful heterosexual males too. This stays a heterosexual opera on essentially the most basic degree, with out say the step into overt lesbianism taken by Stefan Herheim in his reimagination of Die Entführung aus dem Serail as an exploration of affection between and past the sexes. However, the our bodies of all involved, however particularly Sempronio and Tizio, are so resolutely within the gaze of us all that boundaries blur and dissolve whether or not we prefer it or not — and the implication can be that almost all, maybe all, of us do. We’re all actors, taking part in roles right here, Ferrando explicitly in assuming the metatheatrical, ambiguous with respect to diegetic standing, function of ‘a singer’ in ‘Un’aura amoroso’, ‘credited’ at its shut by Don Alfonso. That extends, furthermore, to gender roles, certainly a tribute to the much-maligned but ever-relevant Judith Butler. It finally comes as no shock, even perhaps as a unusually satisfying fulfilment, that the title scrawled on the again by Don Alfonso is corrected to ‘Così fan tutti,’ tellingly ‘girlish’ hearts atop the ‘i’s an extra flip of the dialectical gender-screw (because it have been).
And but, this stays a deeply disillusioning expertise for all, the fashionable anomie of what are both resort rooms or a contemporary condo so modern it’d as effectively be, not the least of the bridges constructed between deeper meanings to be drawn from Mozart (to a lesser extent, Da Ponte too) and Serebrennikov’s conception. Each ladies have incomplete, neon-lit crucifixes above their beds: most likely solely a ‘design characteristic’, however extending into one thing extra in Fiordiligi’s case, allied to her little shrine (to what, although?) assembled for ‘Per pietà’, when she drags it throughout the ground, failing twice to take care of the electrical connection. For Mozart, these parodies of opera seria have a message that’s, amongst different issues, deeply theological; which will or will not be the case right here, however it’s actually to not be excluded. That is, in spite of everything, a Ardour of Ardour to rival – to my thoughts, even to surpass – Tristan und Isolde.
Credit score ought to once more be accorded the corporate’s extras (Komparserie) who had a lot to do all through and did it effectively, not least dressing the 2 brides in full conventional Russian marriage ceremony gown – they may nearly have been auditioning for Les Noces – solely to must undress them as soon as once more in acts of inflation, deflation, and revelation. In an excellent coup de théâtre, we flip abruptly to an interpolated musical memory – or premonition – of Don Giovanni’s Stone Visitor Scene. The Albanians, seizing maintain like twin Commendatores of ‘their’ ladies’s palms, could also be standing in judgement over them or could merely be making an attempt to maintain them. It’s a disruption that may probably solely be visited as soon as, distinctive to this manufacturing, however a extremely productive one, reminding us that even in essentially the most hedonistic, secular, ‘sex-positive’ society, the query of sin, of remoteness from the divine, doesn’t disappear, removed from it; we merely faux it has and mistake euphemism for theodicy. As desolate as ever, most likely extra so, the characters making an attempt to attract some form of lesson from occasions which have shattered their world appear fairly unaware that, on the extent above, an precise fireplace has begun to blaze. Narcissism, in spite of everything, is just not the least of our up to date sins — and/or illnesses.
All this, or most of it, would go for little, have been it not delivered to life by fantastic performances. This it actually obtained. I can actually discover nothing of any significance to which to object, and far to reward. If I write much less about them on this event, it’s not as a result of I take into account them much less essential; for one factor, they don’t seem to be to be extracted from what has been mentioned above, however fairly very a lot a part of it. In any case, Penny Sofraniadou and Susan Zarrabi portrayed, from the outset, correctly distinguished Fiordiligi and Dorabella, clear of line, if hardly of deeper intention. Each drew on different palettes of vocal color that would mix the place dramatically and musically obligatory, with out loss to identities that shifted but by no means merged. A lot the identical might be mentioned – and that is Mozart’s laboratory of musical quasi-geometry at work, in addition to their artistry – of the Ferrando and Guglielmo of Hubert Zapiór and Caspar Singh. Equally adept as actors and singers, their exploration of wounded masculinities was each bit as revealing as that of Seth Carico’s uniquely refined Don Alfonso. Ferrando, as common, had two fairly than his full three arias: a pity however not the top of the world. Alma Sadé’s Despina likewise not solely acquired new depth as Despina however contributed that larger vary. (And what a aid it was, for as soon as, to not must endure the same old ‘foolish voices’.)
Erina Yashima’s course of the orchestra proved equally impeccable. Hers was not the form of deeply private studying that leads one to talk of a specific standpoint, ‘Böhm’s Così’ or ‘Muti’s’; nevertheless it carried out a distinct, extra readily theatrical perform, near-faultless in its incitement, mirroring, and at instances questioning of the motion onstage. That I barely observed her tempi as such speaks for itself: there was a ‘rightness’ in context that would not be gainsaid. Nor might the excellence of the orchestral taking part in in a rating during which any false transfer, any slight infelicity of intonation or phrasing, will stand out like a sore thumb. The Komische Oper could also be identified primarily for its emphasis on theatre, however that ought to not imply the orchestra issues much less, fairly that it’s half and parcel of the motion. At any charge, so it sounded right here. They could not have been singing, however our ‘Albanian’ actors Amar El-Erwadi and Goran Jurenec additionally contributed significantly to the motion and its final achievement. If, as I steered earlier, the manufacturing was in a position even to reinvigorate well-worn directorial clichés with new which means, I’ll as effectively provide as my very own ‘a real ensemble efficiency’. Don’t take my phrase for it, although: if potential, attempt to see and listen to this Così for your self. It has, for no matter this can be price, my highest advice.
Mark Berry
Featured picture: Komsiche Oper Berlin’s Così fan tutte © Monika Rittershaus
