From femme fatale to angel: Lulu in Hamburg

By Matthew Rye, 13 February 2017

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“Barbara Hannigan... negotiating the part’s stratospheric highs while hanging upsidedown”

Reviewed at Hamburgische Staatsoper: Main Hall, Hamburg on 12 February 2017

Berg, Lulu

Staatsoper Hamburg

Kent Nagano, Conductor

Christoph Marthaler, Director

Anna Viebrock, Set Designer, Costume Designer

Barbara Hannigan, Lulu

Anne Sofie von Otter, Countess Geschwitz

Marta Świderska, Theatrical Dresser

Matthias Klink, Alwa

Peter Lodahl, Negro, The Painter

Jochen Schmeckenbecher, Dr. Schön / Jack the Ripper

Victor von Halem, Schigolch, an old man

Tigran Martirossian, Animal Tamer, Athlete

Denis Velev, Theatre manager

Martin Gebhardt, Lighting Designer

Malte Ubenauf, Dramaturgy

Veronika Eberle, Violin

Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg

Frauenliebe und -sterben: Kratzer’s triple bill at Staatsoper Hamburg

Mengguang Huang, 15th April

Director Tobias Kratzer engineers a haunting pasticcio of Schumann, Bartók and Zemlinsky, tracing the domestic sphere’s shift from romantic surrender to the blood-soaked secrets of a century-spanning house.

****1

Vampires, Disney and Donald Trump: Monster’s Paradise in Hamburg

Kevin W Ng, 1st February

Olga Neuwirth and Elfriede Jelinek take on Donald Trump in their latest operatic collaboration.

****1

Unsuk Chin's opera Die dunkle Seite des Mondes premieres in Hamburg

Mengguang Huang, 31st May

At Staatsoper Hamburg, Unsuk Chin’s new opera The Dark Side of the Moon immerses audiences in an hypnotic, introspective journey, where dreams, science and psyche collide in a rigorously crafted, thought-provoking spectacle.

****1

Franciscan virtues for a modern age: a multimedia Messiaen remix

Peter Quantrill, 2nd June

No half measures in a triple-decker Hamburg staging of Saint François d'Assise at the Elbphilharmonie.

***11

Staatsoper Hamburg's new Boris Godunov traverses Russian history

Alexander Hall, 16th September

Opening the new opera season, Kent Nagano powerfully directs Mussorgsky's great psychodrama about a famous tsar, marred only by Frank Castorf's visually confusing and symbolically overweighted production.

****1

Beauty and the beast: Sciarrino's Venere e Adone premieres in Hamburg

Alexander Hall, 28th May

What does opera in the 21st century look and sound like? Streets removed from anything Mozart, Verdi or Wagner would have recognised. But Salvatore Sciarrino is his own man.

***11

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Matthew Rye

Matthew read music at Oxford and worked in music journalism for 30 years as a writer, critic and editor. He wrote numerous programme and CD booklet notes, spent 13 years as a Daily Telegraph critic, worked at BBC Music Magazine and was reviews editor of The Strad. He also wrote for The Wagner Journal and Opera and blogged at ferneklang.blogspot.co.uk. He was general editor of 1001 Classical Recordings You Must Hear Before You Die (Cassell Illustrated, 2007) and was the author of a new series of eBooks, Masterpieces of Music (Erudition).