Reading List: Warum Oper?

The last few weeks of my reading-on-public-transit time have been spent with "Warum Oper?" (Why Opera?) a collection of interviews with opera directors which was published in 2005. Barbara Beyer, herself an opera director, leads 14 conversations circling around this question. "Why opera?" quickly splits into "Why do you dedicate yourself to engaging with opera?" or "Why does (or should) society engage with opera?" The answers provided by those interviewed are remarkable for being both rigorously thought out and intensely personal. Working one's way through these conversations provides insights and opinions from a "who's who" of directors working primarily in German-speaking Europe: Calixto Bieito, Claus Guth, Peter Konwitschny, and Martin Kusej among them. Somewhat to my surprise, Karoline Gruber was the only woman whom Beyer interviewed. I loved reading the book, but its virtues make it difficult to summarize. Rather than working through a set list of questions, the conversations as reproduced here seem to flow from topic to topic, responding to issues raised, sometimes structured to provide contrast with (or responses to) other interviews in the book. As someone not very familiar with the history of movements and key figures in 20th-century opera direction, I enjoyed the background provided on previous generations of directors, and was surprised by the diversity of approaches and philosophies represented by those interviewed. I was also impressed by what all the directors (with the possible exception of Sebastian Baumgartner) shared: a deep passion for and trust in opera scores, and tireless willingness to challenge themselves.

Fato inesorabile: La Forza del Destino in Munich

Leonora and the force of patriarchal structures. Photo © Bayrische Staatsoper

La Forza del Destino is much more often described as containing some of Verdi's finest music than it is described as being one of his finest operas. Martin Kusej's production, which I saw last Sunday, has the great virtue of bringing a clear and coherently developed concept to an opera (in)famous for being episodic. The opera can be presented as a sprawling epic, but the musical characterization of the principals is too fine for them ever to be lost to the audience in the turmoil. Kusej keeps the focus of the production on these principals--the anguished Leonora, the rabidly principled Don Carlo, and Alvaro, who, hunted by ill-fortune, turns too easily to violence. I think the production can function on several levels, but it is primarily shaped by the perspective of Leonora, who is attempting to escape, mentally at least, from a world defined by order. She is literally as well as figuratively stifled, longing for air; but as her heart-torn aria makes clear, she cares deeply about her place in this order and about the others in it.