With roaring applause, the Berlin Opera public yet again clearly let it be known where their preferences lay.
Berlin opera audiences, as is their wont, rarely just relax and sit on their hands at the end of a performance. They are at either extreme end – of either booing with catcalls [or just booing if they are in a polite mood] or the opposite are widely enthusiastic and shout and clap for tens of minutes with blusteringshouts of approval.
The extreme negative expressions are usually reserved for conductors, and orchestras. But their favourite villains and for whom the most opprobrium is saved are stage directors – those daring artists who like to challenge conventional and standard performance wisdom.
Simon Boccanegra, is Verdi’s somber opera about a 14th century Genoese doge with a complicated life story, a dead girlfriend, a missing daughter and many enemies.
This Saturday Placido Domingo, conductor Daniel Barenboim, diva Anja Harteros and the Orchestra of the Staats Oper won enthusiastic applause, while stage director Federico Tiezzi was thoroughly and loudly booed.
First-night Berlin viewers howled their displeasure at unknown Italian director Tiezzi’s absurdly decorative staging. Singers weighed down by proto-Renaissance robes, brought to mind “Batman” and “Shrek.” Domingo sings his final death scene in a floor-length gold frock with matching tea-cosy hat, while his daughter stood about in white lace.
Saturday’s premiere was all about Domingo, aged 68, and applause broke out the moment the Spanish singer set foot on stage. Placido Domingo who now sings as a baritone, is a former tenor of iconic fame. He has aged without losing his good-looks appeal, although he no longer can sing the high tenor notes that brought him earlier fame.
Verdi’s opera “Simon Boccanegra” is set in perilous times – by a politically involved composer -the opera is full of conspiracies and confusing shifts of power; women take a back seat. Simon is a melancholy man whose only relationship is with his long-lost daughter Maria, who turns up in the arms of an enemy.
Hindered by Tiezzi’s catastrophically static staging [resembling a museum exhibit] Domingo never lost the plot and remained focused throughout. Domingo simply did what he does so well. He sang with brilliant presence, musical intelligence, fastidious attention to detail, and bold imagination. The low notes are not always the loudest, but the high notes are effortless, and everything in between is utterly compelling.
“This is a co-production with Milan’s La Scala where Barenboim is also musical director. “Simon Boccanegra” runs five more nights at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden.
Tags: , classical music, domingo, staatsoper, Verdi
