Photograph: Thomas Aurin
“Don’t be a tsar, be a carpenter,” proclaimed the Deutsche Oper Berlin Ensemble because the curtain fell on Albert Lortzing’s Zar und Zimmermann. The age-old urge to topple regimes resonated all through the spieloper, in the end concluding on a constructive be aware in a Mozartian, “Ah, Tutti Contenti” trend.
An operatic “deep lower”, Lortzing’s Zar und Zimmermann premiered in December 1837 in Leipzig, and there had not been a brand new manufacturing in Berlin since that by Winfried Bauernfeind within the Nineteen Eighties. The long-awaited manufacturing opened final month on the Deutsche Oper Berlin, succeeding a complete competition of Lortzing’s works in Leipzig this previous spring. The Deutsche Oper manufacturing directed by Martin G. Berger and performed by Antonello Manacorda, obtained fairly a number of unfavourable opinions, so I clearly needed to go see the “bonbonfarbenen Present” for myself.
The gist of the piece is as follows: Tsar Peter I of Russia travels to the Netherlands to commit industrial espionage. In Saardam, Peter befriends a defector additionally named Peter (Ivanov), and whereas one Peter struggles to include his jealousy over his girlfriend, Marie, Tsar Peter faces a political rebellion again house. When Saardam’s mayor, van Bett, makes an attempt to find the undercover Tsar, what follows is a comedic case of mistaken identification.
Probably to keep away from Russian geopolitics, Berger invented a small “operetta state” that Tsar Peter presides over, Volkszarentums Tschirikistan. Berger additionally up to date the dialogue all through the spieloper, permitting for particulars akin to wiretapping and election rigging to intensify the drama. The up to date dialogue and trendy manufacturing upset critics, and whereas a few of their criticism was warranted, I fairly loved Berger’s manufacturing.
The opera opened with a seemingly AI-generated propaganda movie. Usually, the usage of something remotely AI-generated is a right away turn-off for me, as I consider that cultural establishments ought to prioritize the inventive output of human beings over that of machines. Nonetheless, the propaganda movie was most certainly meant to color the uncanny farce of the tsarist “utopia” of Volkszarentums Tschirikistan. The absurdity of Tschirikistan was clearly tongue-in-cheek, from their economic system primarily based on canoe carpentry to their nationwide animal, the unicorn, centered on the nation’s flag. The costuming by Esther Bialas, too, mirrored a step away from actuality because the ensemble wore Japanese-European-coded pink tracksuits.
Whereas Berger’s added dialogue might have launched pointless characters and plot traces, it supplied many alternatives for real laughter: for instance, a constant gag that everybody was named Peter. An particularly hysterical second adopted the introduction of a brand new character, and the reasoning for doing so was “[because] the composer wrote a sextet.” The beloved “dance of the clogs” earned many smiles, having been reworked right into a razzle dazzle, Broadway-style faucet quantity.
As for the vocal performances, Artur Garbas (Tsar Peter) and Patrick Zielke (van Bett) had been the clear standouts. Garbas, a younger baritone, has an old-school, blooming Baritone sound and a charismatic presence to go together with it. Zielke was completely solid because the comedic van Bett, operating backward and forward with out lacking a measure of patter. Sadly, the central soprano position (Marie), sung by Nadja Mchantaf, disenchanted, for whereas her voice is gorgeous, it got here throughout as labored, swallowed, and over-covered.
Madison Schindele
Maddie Schindele is predicated between NYC and Berlin and is a Ph.D. candidate in musicology. She enjoys writing about modernist German opera, incapacity, and feminist musings!
