Trailer:
This was VERY good indeed in all aspects and it was a considerable revelation to me at how dark and powerful the story was. I had, ignorantly, assumed that operetta equalled very largely lightness and frivolity so this performance and work was a real education for me. A culture-clash drama with a downbeat ending it has something of the power of Madam Butterfly to which there are significant dramatic similarities - although the at times cloying sentimentality of Puccini was refreshingly absent.
The production was not ‘traditional’ in terms of the set precisely depicting the specified locations but neither was a radical regie-theater. The largely abstract but helpfully functional set allowed the focus to be thrown on the performers who more than rose to the challenge.. The stage was dominated by a large curved staircase forming an arc in the centre of which was a curtain which could allow one or both of the stairways to be revealed. The backdrop was (largely) a darkly and vividly attractive blue but which did change colour at times. The costumes were equally vivid and striking with blocks of colour used very effectively by both lighting and in chorus costume - vivid red with smartly used masks and fans to suggest China which gave striking contrast to the chorus in the opening. Initially the precise location was not clear - was Lisa a musical comedy start in Vienna? - the opening with ranks of dinner-jacketed chorus men suggesting this. But for me this was not important - what was was the establishing of her as quite a strong individual which made her final difficult decision plausible and powerful. I had the sense that in this production her falling in love was something of a surprise for her.
Vocally the performers were very fine indeed - the Act 1 duet being particularly powerful and the end of the Act when we moved to China being particularly effective. The Prince’s return to China and his duties and expectations was dramatically symbolised by his donning of the massive yellow robe of state - the only time this colour appeared in the production.The staging of and the occasional use of front-of-curtain as a location, often at key moments focused the audience even more on the dynamics of the people and their relationships -but with the final scene had additional power by the entirety of the stage being used with just the few central characters emphasising their loneliness and emotional distance from each other.
I found the start of Act 2 slightly less immediately engaging compared to Act 1. It seemed somewhat dramatically becalmed and musically here it seemed more ‘negatively operatic’, not in the style but because the singers were exploring their feelings and the dramatic impetus of the drama was slowed down rather than the music and singing advancing the plot - but this was the only time that I felt this.
The Tauberlied of the piece was, I thought, very finely sung by Beczela - and was it me, but when it was reprised at the end, did the verb tense change form being ‘you are’ to ‘you were’? Pretty sure it did but I stand to be corrected. And if so a classic case where a reprise of ‘the big number’ right at the end made dramatic sense - unlike, glaringly, in the close of Turandot where it was clearly put there for purely cynical reasons as it really makes no dramatic sense there at all.
Act 3 again for me, had a weak opening with the earworm-worthy ‘Zig, zig zig…Yuk! But matters soon restored themselves and the story came, rapidly and very powerful to its moving and, really, tragic climax, greatly helped, as I have said, by the staging with the characters totally isolated from themselves and each other.
So a fantastic couple of hours.
Piotr Beczala Prince Sou-Chong
Julia Kleiter Lisa
Rebeca Olvera Mi
Spencer Lang Count Gustav von Pottenstein
Cheyne Davidson Tschang
Martin Zysset Chief Eunuch
Conductor: Fabio Luisi