Trailer here:
This was a fascinating experience - and experiment. Having seen here in Budapest an utterly dire attempt to stage Messiah, I was a little cautious about this - but it. worked for me.
I think a key element was that there was not an attempt to tell a story with this. Now this could work, in theory, but here it was more a multi-art form performance of the work where the performed music with the usual chorus and soloists had the visual addition of the ballet dancers. While dancers frequently have a place in opera, they and the singers and chorus tend to operate separate spaces and rarely share. Understandably I think as each uses a completely different art form to convey their meaning and if the two are mixed then there is a danger that one art form will distract from the other or that the expressive form of one cannot really be supported by the other. Dancers, for example, are all about movement and while many singers these days are very fine actors (they have to be - gone, thankfully, are the days of ‘park and bark’ productions - well, very largely) they cannot visually compete with dancers - and so far, no-one has expected ballet dancers to sing!
But here all was well. The sharing of the space worked well, one group did not distract from the other as the dancers provided a wonderful visual emotional equivalency, in the most abstract way, of the music.
The stage was bare, with a back wall at the back on which were written words from the Latin mass (and later added to by the chorus) while on the floor were what looked like cinders - a very dark and sterile environment. It was very low-lit - to excess at times I felt, with the exception of the final image (of which more later). Costumes were almost all black with a few natural muted colours or flesh tones occasionally appearing. The chorus were not always seen but where they were, for example in the Dies Irae with frantic rushing across the stage, they were used very effectively. This was matched by the frenetic and agonised twisting of one male solo dancer - and good example of all elements cohering very well and supporting each other rather than distracting.
In many places the seamless musical line was marvellously matched by the ‘line’ of the dancers , be they solo or more than one The Lacrimosa was particularly beautiful in this respect. A powerful combination of elegance and pain. Likewise the Sanctus with a wonderfully creamily smooth pas de deux against dark back wall enhancing the music. This was also the case with the Agnus Dei - same wonderfully controlled enhancement.
The final image was very effective. As the last notes died away what must have been the ceiling of the stage was slowly lowered down to about 45o to reveal a brilliantly lit platform with two metal structures running from front to back - and on one side a human figure curled in a foetal position. A marvellous ending.
Cast (all absolutely top flight):
Krassimira Stoyanova: Soprano
Veronica Simeoni: Mezzo Soprano
Francesco Meli:Tenor
Georg Zeppenfeld: Bass
Conductor: Fabio Luisi