There’s no doubt that Mélisande endeavours to escape past troubles when she first appears in Barrie Kosky’s production of Debussy’s opera, yet Nadja Mchantaf is no reticent, wispy maiden. Every vocal and physical gesture – always precise and penetrating – displays an atypically forthright quest for vitality, something that Arkel’s chauvinistic world does not readily offer.
The genre of semi-opera is a peculiarly British one. Emerging from the courtly Masques during the restoration, the semi-opera served as an English operatic utterance, at a time where opera was emerging as one of the pre-eminent theatrical forms in Europe.
Johann Adolf Hasse (1699-1783) was a renowned opera composer of the eighteenth century. As the Kapellmeister at the Dresden court from 1731 to 1763, he composed a large number of Italian operas and his fame spread all over Europe. His wife, the equally famous mezzo-soprano Faustina Bordoni (who also sang in Handel’s operas in London), starred in many of his operas.
Allzu lange kaute Rameau für den Geschmack des damaligen Publikums auf der Gegenüberstellung von Gut und Böse, Schwarz und Weiß herum. Wäre die Neuproduktion der Komischen Oper Berlin die Uraufführung gewesen, hätte es Rameaus Bühnenmusik wohl auch nicht leichter gehabt.
Die Neuinszenierung von Richard Heubergers Operette ließ Charme, Ironie und Walzerseligkeit vermissen und konnte, trotz einiger guter Momente, über weite Strecken auch musikalisch nicht gänzlich überzeugen.
