Germany Strauss, Daphne: Soloists, Staatsopernchor Berlin (refrain director: Gerhard Polifka), Staatskapelle Berlin, Thomas Guggeis (conductor). Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Berlin, 20.1.2024. (MB)
Manufacturing:
Director, set design, costumes, lighting – Romeo Castellucci
Revival director – José Dario Innella
Choreography – Evelin Facchini
Assistant director – Maxi Menja Lehmann
Set design help – Lisa Behensky, Alessio Valmori
Costume help – Clara Rosina Straßer, Theresa Wilson
Lighting help – Marco Giusti
Forged:
Peneios – René Pap
Gaea – Anna Kissjudi
Daphne – Vera-Lotte Boecker
Leukippos – Johan Krogius
Apollo – David Butt Philip
4 Shepherds – Arttu Kataja, Florian Hoffmann, Adam Kutuy, Friedrich Hamel
Two Maids – Evelin Novak, Natalia Skrycka
Seen for the primary time final 12 months, Romeo Castellucci’s manufacturing of Daphne receives its first revival. In a single sense, it may hardly be extra well timed, snow falling outdoors in wintry landscapes throughout Berlin and past, because it does onstage. But that instantly presents a better untimeliness to the mise-en-scène, for a contemporary snowscape appears perversely distant from the Thessalian pastoral of Joseph Gregor’s libretto (and Strauss’s creativeness). It’s stunning, in fact, and with Castellucci, issues aesthetic generally tend to tackle a life, approaching the painterly, of their very own. I’ve heard it stated a number of occasions that Castellucci has no idea of the dramatic; I believe that goes too far on this case, for that is no ‘mere’ set up and a narrative actually is advised. However the alterity to his aesthetic creativeness, to which audiences, maybe significantly opera audiences, reply very in a different way, is undeniably current—to my thoughts, extra fruitfully than in, say, his Munich Tannhäuser and even his Salzburg Salome. It could or might not be the story some wish to be advised – finally, I believe it stays the identical story, albeit from an angle sudden till one turns into accustomed to its shift – however we actually have narrative and growth in addition to setting.
That setting is one in every of widespread estrangement from Nature: not, I believe, in an particularly environmentalist sense, although that needn’t be excluded, however extra existential. In mild of that, the conception of the nymph Daphne, in response to a programme interview, as ‘a being who withdraws from all social relationships searching for intensive, I ought to say, (skin-)contact with Nature … a recent creature who breaks along with her environment’, appears central; so is her non secular, versus political, want to take action. And so, even within the deep snow, it’s there she needs to be. While others, not unreasonably layer their clothes, she sheds a lot of hers. It’s for us a radical break with all we worth, social, erotic, and so forth—and therein captures the dramatic essence of the work extra clearly than one would possibly suspect. The sudden slant makes clear what that essence and her character are usually not.
When Apollo does ultimately carry solar to this world it registers powerfully, inside its body. He, in spite of everything, is much from completely at house with himself, having uncomfortably, even shamefully, adopted the strategies of Dionysus to ensnare the nymph. However appearing in accordance with Nature brings the three key figures, Daphne, Apollo, and Leukippos briefly collectively, to an extent that may in any other case have been unattainable; preliminary estrangement arguably assists that. I truthfully can not say I understood why the quilt of the primary version of The Waste Land descended. It got here throughout a bit an excessive amount of as ‘referencing’ slightly than drama, although I suppose citation is inherent to the poem, and the act had an aesthetic in addition to mental presence of its personal. I’m assuming, I believe appropriately, that there’s better significance to the invocation of Eliot than merely the scene of a winter waste land. However to return to the snow, one factor one can do with and in it’s a favorite act of Castellucci’s: burial. (One other is the blood-like pouring and smearing of purple paint over the dying Leukippos, with tar-black reserved for Daphne herself.) Daphne’s transformation takes place each under – quickly, we are able to now not see her – and above, because the tree current all through has a form of apotheosis. There’s something magical right here, within the simplicity and marvel: ever tied or at the least associated to Strauss’s impressed orchestral and, ultimately, vocalised concluding transformation (very a lot the composer’s personal concept, rejecting Gregor’s concept of a choral finale).
While we naturally – rightly – accord Daphne’s vocalise a key function right here, it’s truly fairly quick; for probably the most half this transformation is orchestral, and Strauss known as it an ‘prolonged orchestral piece’. Right here and elsewhere, Thomas Guggeis led the Staatskapelle Berlin with true distinction. From the opening Harmoniemusik via the rating, the conductor traced an ever-transforming path, maybe hotter than what we noticed on stage, but not often heated and by no means remotely over-heated. This was a studying of refined mastery, upset at most a few occasions by one thing intrusive from with out—although that’s arguably Strauss’s personal accountability. The Goethian metamorphosis that certainly underpins Strauss’s methodology right here as strongly and as generatively as in Metamorphosen was painted, certainly lived, as if this had been a piece way more incessantly carried out than it’s; that’s, conductor and orchestra confirmed deep information and understanding, with out loss to a correct sense of discovery and magic. For the orchestral gamers had been at the least equal individuals on this achievement; I can not think about any orchestra, be it in Vienna, Dresden, or elsewhere, sounding extra at house and proving a extra rewarding information.
The solid likewise made an impressive contribution. Within the title function, Vera-Lotte Boecker’s silver tone glistened, gleamed and blended along with her orchestral colleagues, although it may actually develop into one thing fuller-voiced, thrillingly so, when known as upon. Boecker entered enthusiastically, furthermore, into the staging, greedy Castellucci’s at-times-somewhat summary enigmas and personifying them, enabling one to consider. Like her fellow performers, she performed the Straussian function of Music in addition to singing or taking part in its lower-case cousin. To have had not one however two wonderful Straussian tenor performances is kind of one thing. Johan Krogius and David Butt Phillip each shone as Leukippos and Apollo respectively: the previous providing a correctly rounded portrayal, superbly sung, Daphne’s likeable companion revealing tragic dignity in dying; the latter’s slightly totally different journey traced sympathetically and with due thriller. The deep voices of René Pape as Peneios and Anna Kissjudit as Gaea contributed a lot to the ensemble. Kissjudit could also be described as a mezzo, however her chalumeau-like tones revealed, as in her Erda, the power to sing a real contralto line too. Pape’s tone was equally luxurious and equally attentive to phrases. Shepherds, maids, and refrain had been all wonderful too. If Castellucci typically held the drama at arm’s size, although mirroring and responding it to all through, that distance and conception of distance arguably enabled the riches of the night’s orchestral and vocal performances to penetrate viewers consciousness the extra readily.
Mark Berry
