Death and tobacco

Kirill Petrenko conducts Puccini's "Suor Angelica" at the Education Project in the Philharmonie. The libretto is atrocious. A woman is forced into a convent, where she learns seven years later that her illegitimate child has long since died. Thereupon, in the greatest despair, she mixes herself a poisonous potion and may still be glad that the Holy Virgin saves her at the last minute from eternal damnation, which would have threatened her as a suicide - by lifting her into the celesta-flooded sky. As touching as Giacomo Puccini's music in the one-act opera "Suor Angelica" is, the material is strong stuff for people of the 21st century. That doesn't stop the Berliner Philharmoniker from choosing the piece - actually the middle part of Puccini's cycle "Il Trittico" - under the title "Faith to Face" as the first education project of new principal conductor Kirill Petrenko. Because it still has a lot to tell us today, he says, about humanity in inhuman surroundings and motherly love. And, of course, there are still women who have their children torn from their chests. "Nico and the Navigators" director Nicola Hümpel has all the actresses perform on a catwalk in the Philharmonie - originally Tempelhof Airport was planned. Today, her staging is especially in the padded supporting roles of the remaining sisters in this convent near Siena. UdK and "Hanns Eisler" soloists sing them convincingly, make individual characters out of them: the glutton, the shy one, the exalted one. Risk-free sound Composer Matan Porat, who himself sits at the piano, has written a prologue based on Puccini's first two bell notes, which gives each sister one minute to present herself gesturally. Live broadcasts on a large screen bring the action close to the viewer. Suddenly Kirill Petrenko stands at the podium. His movements are extraordinarily soft and flowing, elegant and suggestive. In this way he elicits from the musicians of the Karajan Academy of the Philharmonic a finely balanced sound that is also largely free of risks and rarely leaves the medium dynamic range. With handbag through the foyer Ann Toomey as the protagonist Angelica also takes no risks. She sings intonation-securely, but with a restrained despair, which could definitely be shown to greater advantage. One wishes her voice had a bit more substance in all registers. This is provided by the mature alto of Katarina Dalayman, who as the evil princess and Angelica's aunt walks on the screen long before her physical appearance, parks in front of the philharmonic hall, and walks through the foyer with her handbag. The meeting of the two women - one with low, long note values, the other with much shorter, more vital tones - is the high point and focal point of the hour-long work. It was the princess who once put Angelica in a convent. And she now brings her the bad news of her son's death, while the other sisters gather around Angelica like the Valkyries around Brünnhilde. That the aunt is aware of her guilt is revealed by the trembling with which she sips an aperitif at the bar at the end, back on the screen. As an educational project, "Faith to Face" is successful Conclusion: As an educational project, "Faith to Face" is a success. The production is modern, coherent, it gives students an opportunity to perform, and it also inspires the young people involved, especially the singers of the philharmonic's own Vocal Heroes Choir, for classical music. Nevertheless, the production is also affirmative, for it cannot criticize monastic life with all its constraints, permanent feelings of guilt and guilty conscience without at the same time exposing it. How we are to deal with the many unbearable materials in the opera, which so often end in the sacrifice and death of a woman, if we still want to listen to this music: That remains a problem that even this evening cannot solve.

<< Back to press overview