Once upon a time there were two Rosenkavaliers in Avignon
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Avignon. Opera Grand Avignon. 7-X-2022. Richard Strauss (1864-1949): Der Rosenkavalier, opera in 3 acts to a libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Director: Jean-Claude Berutti. Sets: Rudy Sabounghi. Costumes: Jeanny Kratochwil. Lights: Christophe Forey. With: Tineke Van Ingelgem, soprano (La Maréchale); Mischa Schelomianski, bass (Baron Ochs de Lerchenau); Hanna Larissa Naujoks, mezzo-soprano (octave); Jean-Marc Salzmann, baritone (Monsieur de Faninal); Sheva Tehoval, soprano (Sophie de Faninal); Dana Axentii, mezzo-soprano (Marianne Leitmetzerin); Krešimir Spicer, tenor (Valzacchi); Hélène Bernardi, soprano (Annina); Jean-François Baron, bass (Police Commissioner); Olivier Trommenschlager, tenor (Maréchale’s Butler/Faninal’s Butler/an Innkeeper); Saied Alkhouri, baritone (a Notary); Carlos Natale, tenor (a singer); Clélia Moreau, soprano (a milliner); Mathias Manya, tenor (An Animal Breeder). Choir (choral master: Aurore Marchand) and Masters of the Opéra Grand Avignon (choir master: Florence Goyon-Pogemberg) and Orchester national Avignon-Provence, musical direction: Jochem Hochstenbach
The Opéra Grand Avignon renews the brilliance of its Pierre Grimes of 2021 by opening its 2022 season with a great masterpiece of the XXe century.
It is reported that at the premiere in Dresden, in 1911, of Hofmannsthal’s masterpiece set to music by the composer of Salomewe had chartered special trains departing from Berlin and even that Richard Strauss’ fifth opera had generated a number of derivative products: rose soap, porcelain figurines… We cannot say that a good century later, the trains depend Paris to Avignon were crowded, the few rows of deserted seats in the hall reopened a year earlier, giving a more relative idea of the speed than one would have expected of this irresistible opera with literary and musical inspiration of the highest level. . Especially since this new production was worth taking the train for it too.
The Rosenkavalier requires gigantic skills. It is the first merit of the house directed by Frédéric Roels to have succeeded, via an intelligent co-production with the Theater Trier, in bringing them all together. First of all, an Orchester national Avignon-Provence in a rather dazzling form, boosted by Jochem Hochstenbach, current musical director of the German house. From the dreadful first bars, the horns roar, imposing an aplomb that will almost never be denied: the virtuoso babble of musical comedy, the fascinated suspension of lyrical affects, the cataclystic torrents, and the chiselling of a good number of details, the harp benefiting from the most ardent attention. The pit-plateau balance is remarkably managed, as can be seen during the procession of beggars from the I, or even the amazing crowd scenes where the Choir and the Masters of the Opéra Grand Avignon make a big impression. impression.
The plethoric gallery of secondary roles is generally well distributed. The young Olivier Trommenschlager, much in demand by the staging (the two Butlers and the Innkeeper), rises a little sharply to the assault of the murderous high notes concocted by a self-declared composer allergic to tenors, even of character. Likewise sent to the front unceremoniously by the composer, Carlos Natale’s Singer returns with almost all the laurels. Jean-Marc Salzmann, who has been playing the role since the 90s, is an experienced Faninal who is delighted with the crèche. Nicely sketched by the costume designer, Dana Axentii draws a very beautiful Marianne Leitmetzerin; Helene Bernardi, precise and sonorous Annina (even in ensembles), trains with Kre’s luxury Valzacchišimir Spicer a rather hilarious paparazzi couple. Mischia Schelomianski affirms the scope and range of Ochs. Tineke Van Ingelgem, a young Marshal with a somewhat confidential medium, is growing up little by little before our eyes. Sheva Tehoval touches with infinite precaution the radiant high notes of the role, below she also makes her Sophie live. The coppery mezzo, the firepower, the silhouette of all possibilities: Hanna Larissa Naujoks, called to the rescue four days before the premiere, possesses the attributes of an authentic Octavian.
Opera director of the Theater Trier since 2018, Jean-Claude Berutti is a man of the theater (he notably directed the Théâtre du Peuple in Bussang) and a music lover, who has a few operas to his credit. His reading of Rosenkavalier quickly displays three assets. First of all, the distance taken from the candy box XVIIIe of the libretto which perhaps no longer wants today. The elegant black costumes worn by the protagonists point to a contemporary aristocracy living in homes of a bygone era, but still tempted by the outmoded: in Act II, we “play at rose knight around a rose whose red sang glimpsed at the I returned to the silver of tradition.
Then the mirroring with Robert Wiene’s film (The Rider of the Rose, 1926) for which Strauss had composed a specific soundtrack (we learn at the first intermission), a silent film whose images provided a moving counterpoint to the Avignon production. The ghost of the Maréchale can thus haunt II, its cinematographic melancholy in black and white overhanging the chromatic insouciance of the young lovers in flesh and blood. Two Rosenkavaliers for the price of one, therefore, in a dialogue, until the end, quite productive: at the fall of the curtain of I, superimposed on the wallpaper of the Maréchale’s apartment, whose walls are falling apart, the chosen shots of the film say quite well a universe in the process of metamorphosis. A progressive dislocation which will lead, in III, to the back of the decor of a bare theatre: a much-seen effect but which still functions fully.
Finally, we follow with constant interest the direction of the actors and their finds: the rose that falls between the two lovers, whose wigs then bump into each other when they bend down to pick them up… Berutti forgets no one, inviting us to look into the pieces of this opera to the confusion of genres assumed: Baron Ochs, stupid to the point of not seeing the loving dialogue that the Maréchale and Oktavian continues under his eyes and on his knees; the hairdresser Hippolyte degenerated into Hippolyte; the Notary leaving to spin the perfect love with the Singer… After three good hours of music, while we were still wondering when the director was finally going to keep the promises of his note of intent (” The main character is time “, as had been magnificently thought, but also put in image, Barrie Kosky in Munich), arises Mohammed, the mute page, also degendered without his first name having been changed, provided with an enormous hourglass on which he sits. fall asleep. A pretty image on a stage gradually deserted by its decor, but which would have even more force if the backstage had been able to accommodate all of the two surviving sections of walls of the Maréchale’s now vanished apartment.
Photo credits: © Mickaël & Cédric Studio Delestrade Avignon
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Avignon. Opera Grand Avignon. 7-X-2022. Richard Strauss (1864-1949): Der Rosenkavalier, opera in 3 acts to a libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Director: Jean-Claude Berutti. Sets: Rudy Sabounghi. Costumes: Jeanny Kratochwil. Lights: Christophe Forey. With: Tineke Van Ingelgem, soprano (La Maréchale); Mischa Schelomianski, bass (Baron Ochs de Lerchenau); Hanna Larissa Naujoks, mezzo-soprano (octave); Jean-Marc Salzmann, baritone (Monsieur de Faninal); Sheva Tehoval, soprano (Sophie de Faninal); Dana Axentii, mezzo-soprano (Marianne Leitmetzerin); Krešimir Spicer, tenor (Valzacchi); Hélène Bernardi, soprano (Annina); Jean-François Baron, bass (Police Commissioner); Olivier Trommenschlager, tenor (Maréchale’s Butler/Faninal’s Butler/an Innkeeper); Saied Alkhouri, baritone (a Notary); Carlos Natale, tenor (a singer); Clélia Moreau, soprano (a milliner); Mathias Manya, tenor (An Animal Breeder). Choir (choral master: Aurore Marchand) and Masters of the Opéra Grand Avignon (choir master: Florence Goyon-Pogemberg) and Orchester national Avignon-Provence, musical direction: Jochem Hochstenbach
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