A woman who knows what she wants
Barrie Kosky directs Die Lustige Witwe in Zürich (****½) [live]
Die Lustige Witwe was the most successful operetta of the 20th century. In 1948, the year of the composer's death, the counter already stood at 300,000 performances worldwide! Erich von Stroheim (1925) and Ernst Lubitsch (1934) devoted a film to it, and Claus Guth (Frankfurt, 2018) was inspired by it. So did Zurich director Barrie Kosky.
On two occasions the operetta went through a "holocaust," the director believes. First because it was banned and later -after the war- because opera singers with far too heavy voices took over the genre and turned it into something completely different. That is a curious statement for a director who has his newest operetta production staffed with one of the Wotans of our time. And as for the National Socialists : they were confronted in 1933 with a thriving entertainment industry that was thoroughly Jewish. Even Nazi-friendly operettas that were anti-jazz and propagated Heimat ideals turned out to be written by Jewish authors. One of the strategies of the National Socialists was to ennoble the operettas of non-Jewish composers (such as Lehár) and give them the means and prestige of opera. Thus came about the recordings with the Vienna Philharmonic and with opera stars plucked from Wagner operas. The funny thing is that Adolf Hitler's favorite version of "Die Lustige Witwe" was one that had become polished by Peter Kreuder with many jazz elements and was shown as a revue at the Gärtnerplatztheater in Munich (1938).
"Die Lustige Witwe" thrives on the chemistry between Hanna Glawari and Danilo Danilowitsch. How they allow their mutual wounded pride after the trauma of their youth to slowly melt away is what this operetta is all about. While Camille and Valencienne still embody the double bourgeois morality, Hanna and Danilo as a couple bear witness to a greater openness with Paris in the background as the prototype of the modern city with its liberated sexual morality. It should be clear that it is Hanna who dominates all situations and sends the tender war scenario to its happy ending, albeit with the help of 20 million.
The director refers to Hanna and Danilo as complex, modern characters. Hanna, with her confident charm, harkens back to Offenbach's portraits of women although she is not as mischievous or sassy. Is that why the director adds the usually cut second verse of the so-called "Weibermarsch" (in an arrangement by Patrick Hahn) as an epilogue, giving the women the last word. In it, Hanna says that men are often despots, prone to infidelity, and always looking tipsy. Hanna now sounds like a female Don Alfonso, projecting a kind of "Cosi fan tutte" curse on the male populace. We can't help but wish Danilo the best of luck in his new destiny as a husband.
"I wake up in the morning, the world is on fire. And I go to rehearse an operetta in which a fan goes missing and two people meet secretly in a pavilion", Kosky told the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. Fortunately, the director did not fall into the trap of selling out the operetta to overly facile political commentaries.
Die Lustige Witwe has no overture. Sometimes conductors compose their own overture as a collage of the main themes. No one seems to want to play the overture that Lehár would only write 35 years later for his 70th birthday. Like Guth, Kosky has the piece starting off on a melancholy note. This time Marlis Petersen is not sitting in front of the make-up mirror in her artist's lodge but she looks equally glum and scarred by loneliness or a broken heart. Musing and seated at a grand piano, she seems to be playing a piece. It is taken from an old piano roll on which the composer can be heard in a pot-pourri from his work. Athletic dancers in tuxedos soon take over. This is, after all, a dance operetta.
Throughout the performance, the piano will be brought in and out of focus by the revolving stage like an art object. The Count will take his nap under it. At the center of Klaus Grünberg's set is a cylindrical space bordered by a theatrical curtain which will open up both for the mass scenes like Hanna's garden party as well as for the most intimate moments like the "Lippen schweigen" waltz. It will also serve as a garden pavilion. Art Nouveau-style sconces enhance the fin de siècle atmosphere.
Michael Volle makes a great impression from the first minute of his performance, so perfectly timed is his text reading, so powerful and full does his baritone sound. One can regularly hear his Hans Sachs ringing through in it. It gives the part a depth that is of a completely different nature than what Johannes Heesters and Peter Alexander achieved during the later glory years of the operetta. But it also has a downside : when he has to sing "Lippen schweigen" humming or in mezzo voce, the vocal line becomes problematic. At other times he sings everyone off stage with his stentor voice, especially in the introduction to " Es waren zwei Königskinder," when his level of stress peaks. The dancing is also laborious.
Like 6 years ago in Frankfurt, Marlis Petersen sings the Hanna part with a rather small voice. Was she suffering from a cold as she confessed the following day on her instagram page? Hanna Glawari should ideally be sung by a soprano of a slightly larger stature after all, especially when she shares the stage with a Wotan-experienced Danilo. As a result, the Vilja song did not end up being a highlight and the conductor was obliged to rein in the orchestra. Nor did she exude the self-confidence Kosky likes to see in the character. Vocally, she could not dominate, causing the character to lose dramaturgical power. What we got to see was a fairly burnt-out widow.
Self-confidence is what Katharina Konradi has in abundance. After her flawless Adele in Munich, here she once again sings and acts a ravishing Valencienne, initially in a gorgeous black glitter gown. With her natural talent for the vis comica, Valencienne's double standards ("Ich bin eine anständige Frau") fits her like a glove. The three duets with Camille are therefore among the best moments of the evening. It is also in the scenes with the second couple that Barrie Kosky's clever actors' direction reaches its peak. Every scene, by the way, is marked by slapstick. Real effort has been put into the actors direction and the timing, so important in operetta, is perfect. With his rather moderately projecting, not very bright tenor, Andrew Owens as Camille fascinates more by his acting than by his singing. Kosky has brought out the very best in him. Don't let Martin Winkler sing Baron Ochs but engage him for slapstick roles like the one of Baron Mirka Zeta. In those he is mercilessly perfect.
The men's chorus, as always, is in group submissive and addicted to the widow and her millions. The gentlemen who sing and dance the "Weibermarsch" do so with such confidence that they clear the stage and return to receive applause. An obvious highlight. The repeat follows with dancers. The dance finale "Das hat Rrrass ! So, tralala la la la!" is uninspired in a choreographic sense. Kim Duddy's dance numbers, for 6 male and 6 female dancers, were generally efficient, rather classical but in no way innovative. Queerness was largely absent from the choreographies, meaning that although the male dancers wriggled into women's dresses in the finale they would do so without being provocatively effeminate.
Like Guth, Kosky lets the second and third acts merge into one another with a reprise of the Vilja song in the orchestra. It gives costume designer Gianluca Falaschi the opportunity to present his fantasized folklore of the fictional Balkan state as a défilé of extras with feathered headgear. The grisettes, led by Valencienne, indulge in a cakewalk. The dance finale itself is abruptly cut short to give added emphasis to the epilogue.
The 28-year-old Patrick Hahn is GMD in Wuppertal where he is currently conducting a fulminant Tristan und Isolde. The world of operetta seems to be no stranger to him. It was a scintillating reading where especially the woodwind players of the Philharmonia Zurich excelled with many precious details in their amusing comments.