Revisões de produção anteriores
5Both the musical score and Flimm’s staging are finely crafted and offer a wealth of compelling aural and visual material. At its best, the overall effect was akin to a sublime landscape painting rich in detail and impressive in its scope.
Die Einschübe aus Stradellas Kantaten und Opern in „Ti vedo, ti sento, mi perdo“ erzeugen bisweilen jenen Raumklang, auf den das Publikum zumeist vergeblich wartet. Selbstredend sind auch die sich in die musikalische Vergangenheit öffnenden Fenster von Sciarrino deutlich überschrieben im Sinne einer Aufarbeitung der 400-jährigen Operngeschichte. Dazu häufen sich auf der Bühne absurde Momente, die situativ an Pirandellos „Sechs Personen suchen einen Autor“ ebenso erinnern wie in der Operncollagentechnik an John Cage. Und wie bei „Warten auf Godot“, so warten auch die Akteure (darunter ein arg redundantes Kinderballett) dieser Handlung vergebens auf Stradella – er kommt definitiv nicht!
The festival's highlight is Stravinsky's "Oedipus Rex," for which a Western-and-Japanese team created an elaborate set, complete with a reflecting pool covering the stage to evoke a misty path blending East and West. The soprano Jessye Norman was cast in the lead role of Jocasta, the mother of the ancient Greek king Oedipus.
Seiji Ozawa led a monumental new “Oedipus Rex” at the fledgling Saito Kinen Festival in Matsumoto, Japan. Directed by Julie Taymor--she of masks, puppets and a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant--that production of Stravinsky’s opera-oratorio seems as close to definitive as the difficult work may allow.
West Side Story, an unconventional choice for a festival that focuses on classical music and opera, but a great success, which has also been planned for a run of long sold out performances at the Summer Festival. Bartoli is Maria, in a role which has been tailored to fit her by stage director Philip Wm. McKinley. She is already on stage before the music begins, in a prologue that the director has created in order to show what Maria is doing twenty years after Tony’s death - she’s still working in the tailor shop, and when the working day is finished sets out to walk home in the neighborhood in which two decades before she found and lost the love of her life. In the street, she thinks and remembers. And there starts the music, with Bartoli on stage for the whole of the performance, among the memories of her youth. She is doubled by another, younger Maria, Michelle Veintimilla, who takes part in the action and the dialogue but does not sing - all the singing belongs to the older Maria’s memories, and is accordingly performed by Bartoli. This looks a little awkward during the duets, but in general it works and is compelling. Bartoli’s operatic voice is somewhat too heavy for musicals, and the vibrato may at moments sound inappropriate, but she sings with delicacy and tenderness, and the applause that met her rendition of Somewhere was fully deserved. As Tony, tenor Norman Reinhardt sounded more at ease with the lighter singing style and showcased his excellent vocal skills in the aria Maria. All other singers had a background in musicals and were great performers, especially Karen Olivo, ideally cast as Anita.
