Bernd Uhlig
One in all my favourite reads from final summer time was Jack Zipes’ Fairy Tales and the Artwork of Subversion. In it, Zipes maintains that the literary fairy story “developed an extended custom of commenting and reflecting social actuality in a important vogue by the play on and ingenious symbols, motifs, and plots.” Within the overwhelming current, can we flip to fairy tales to remind us of modes of resistance and care? Can fairy tales function a car for commenting on our present political actuality?
The artistic staff on the Staatsoper Berlin might have puzzled the identical factor when producing Das kalte Herz, a brand new opera with music by Matthias Pintscher and a libretto by Daniel Arkadij Gerzenberg. Das kalte Herz premiered on the Staatsoper on January 11, 2026, and is loosely based mostly on Wilhelm Hauff’s 1827 fairy story of the identical identify. Composer and conductor Pintscher just isn’t identified for his vocal compositions; fairly, he’s praised for his creative course, having lately been appointed music director of the Kansas Metropolis Symphony. Admittedly, I’ve been a fangirl of Pintscher since seeing his 2018 efficiency of Stockhausen’s Gruppen on the TATE Trendy together with his Ensemble Intercontemporain. Together with his conducting profession in thoughts, I anticipated the opera to sound like a brand new music tackle a nineteenth-century Bildungsroman story. Pintscher delivered precisely this, describing his compositional course of as “portray with a very broad brush on a very massive canvas,” eliciting a gestural soundscape of forest imagery.
Hauff’s Das kalte Herz facilities on an sad Peter who trades his coronary heart for wealth (and dancing expertise). Within the authentic story, Peter visits a Glasmännlein to solid his needs and sells his coronary heart to Holländermichels, however librettist Gerzenberg abandons these characters. Moderately, Gerzenberg introduces a trio of ladies who form Peter’s future: his mom, lover, and the goddess Anubis. For followers of the Strauss/Hoffmansnthal operas, it could be fascinating to notice that we had been near seeing a realization of this story from the duo, Hofmannsthal forsaking notes and correspondence for a mission titled Das steinerne Herz. Likewise, Hofmannsthal cites Hauff’s story when drafting Die Frau ohne Schatten, suggesting that Strauss revisit the story in letters from round 1911. All to say, this story has been within the standard creativeness since its publication in 1827, with many movie diversifications thus far.
The opera is offered as twelve tableaus with 4 orchestral interludes. The opera opens within the forest the place an previous girl decked in a fur coat (sure, symbolism already), tells a younger Peter about “an eerie ritual the place the folks of the village make a sacrifice to the gods.” The vocal writing for the previous girl function, sung by Adriane Queiroz, was disjunct to the purpose the place I discovered myself asking whether or not it was Sprechstimme. The orchestration’s broad paint strokes within the opening scene created a mimetic soundscape of the forest, birthing flowing brooks and singing birds, nevertheless it didn’t present any melodic materials. This system notes steered that there can be leitmotifs within the orchestration, and whereas my conservatory-trained ear listened out for them, I felt as if I used to be looking for the animals in Peter and the Wolf! And sure, ultimately we did hear a wolf-like French horn motif.
Within the second tableau, we meet our protagonist, Peter, who sings an aria invoking the goddess Anubis. The vocal writing for Peter (baritone Samuel Hasselhorn) was an enchancment, with Pintscher giving Hasselhorn lengthy vocal phrases to showcase his talents. In Peter’s aria, the orchestration strikes out of the best way for the sung phrases, the vocal writing depicting wind wisping by the house between the timber. Right here, nonetheless, is when the libretto begins to fail us. Peter sings of how he’s “consumed by sorrow,” but we don’t know why (aside from as a result of he was born on a Sunday?) The staging, directed by James Darrah Black, doesn’t give us any solutions both, as ropes hoisting a group of lifeless wolves descend and cling over the stage, remaining there for your entire opera. Within the subsequent tableau, we meet Clara (soprano Sophia Burgos), Peter’s lover. Burgos’ coloratura sparkled above the forest soundscape, singing together with chicken track offered by the woodwinds. But, the viewers is left to imagine particulars of their relationship from their physique language, fairly than the libretto or accompanying musical materials.
The chat between lovers is brief, as Azaël (a talking function carried out by Swiss actress Sunnyi Melles) seems and tells Peter a fairy story. The story, which is supposed to be the ethical throughline of the work, is about an previous man who refuses to assist a wolf. The story presents an “each man for himself” mentality which can undoubtably come again to hang-out us. Whereas Azaël tells the story, she skins a wolf. Name me a prude, however there was an excessive amount of skinning on the operatic phases of Berlin recently! Within the subsequent tableau, Peter’s mom (mezzo-soprano Katarina Bradic) seems and guarantees Azaël that she is going to personally take away Peter’s coronary heart. Lastly, when Anubis (mezzo-soprano Rosie Aldridge) arrives in a pink Queen of the Night time-like robe, she requests Peter’s coronary heart and informs him that it will likely be changed with a stone. Lastly, the orchestra awakes, and we’re launched to the total breadth of the Staatskapelle’s brass part. Throughout this tableau, a refrain of twelve heartless males roll out a line of TVs which might be seemingly displaying a knockoff of the Rocky Horror opening (the explanation for this stays unclear).
The spotlight of the opera was when Peter realizes he lacks all emotion after having his coronary heart changed with a stone. Following a superb bass clarinet solo, Peter’s aria is sung a cappella, permitting Hasselhorn’s voice to envelop the viewers with out orchestral disruption. The silence of the orchestra all through Peter’s aria captures the essence of a heartless life—that with out music. “I really feel nothing,” Peter sings, leaving the viewers to surprise whether it is higher to really feel nothing or really feel the big selection of human emotion. The vocal writing nearly sounded Baroque, Monteverdi’s “Possente spirto” coming to thoughts when basking in Hasselhorn’s appoggiaturas. If it’s not apparent but, Hasselhorn’s voice is marvelous; I’ve been listening to his Schubert recordings continuous since leaving the opera home Friday night time, and I extremely advocate them!
Within the last tableau, “night time with out morning,” Peter’s mom realizes her wrongdoing and refuses to show over his coronary heart to Anubis. What did we study? Did Azaël’s story of “every man for himself” warn us of the hazard of selfishness? Did repeating the phrase “the legislation compels you to be quiet” train us in regards to the risks of collective silence? Black means that the “piece is in regards to the battle of humanity and nature and the savagery of mankind destroying nature and due to this fact destroying mystical qualities.” Whereas Black’s message didn’t totally land, I applaud try to return to a realm of mysticism and fairy tales.
Madison Schindele
Madison Schindele is a NYC-based musicologist and Ph.D. candidate on the CUNY Graduate Heart. Her analysis facilities on the politicization of procreation in German operas, participating with incapacity and feminist concept all of the whereas. When not musicking she enjoys numerous unrelated hobbies (motorcycling, puppeteering, conventional greek people dancing), and displaying strangers images of her rescue pit bull, Lilly!
