Puccini’s Suor Angelica

Now Kirill Petrenko, too, will gradually ennoble the Berliner Philharmoniker's education program, initiated 16 years ago by Sir Simon Rattle, with "his own contribution. "Last night he succeeded for the first time in a stunning way with Puccini's Suor Angelica (under the meaningful working title "Faith to Face"). Briefly explained: "These performances [...] also unite several aspects of mediation work, which the Berliner Philharmoniker and Kirill Petrenko are committed to: In addition to the promotion of promising young musicians, this includes in particular the idea of inspiring people of all ages and diverse backgrounds for classical music within joint projects. With the cast of soloists from Berlin's music academies and the scholarship holders of the Karajan Academy, highly talented outstanding young musicians are given the opportunity to work intensively with a conductor of world renown as well as with an experienced team of directors. The adult amateur singers of the project choir have undergone a demanding selection process in advance and can thus join the children and young people of the Vocal Heroes in a highly professional setting for what is sure to be an unforgettable artistic experience." (Source: berliner-philharmoniker.de) The orchestra podium is recessed, so that the optical impression of a somehow existing orchestra pit, just like in the opera, is created. In front of it, there is an elongated white seating furniture divided into two parts, in which - for each of the 12 nuns and/or novices of this rather mawkish and "in spirit" rather annoying one-act play by Giovacchino Forzano - just as many sliding compartments have been punched in by the overall designer Oliver Proske. Behind/above the orchestra, an equally divided LED panel, on which then simultaneously (read: live) the large-face shots of the then respective singers become visible in pore-deep razor-sharp HD, moves back and forth. The performance begins with a whimsical and actually quite faceless piano prologue "based on motifs by Giacomo Puccini", composed and played by Matan Porat - during which the protagonists enter their place of action, stylized as a nunnery. It looks as if they have just joined the covenant of the church, because they are about to exchange their clothes from their pre-civilization with those of their new confinement; the costumes were made by Nicola Hümpel, who also directed. Ann Toomey sings and plays the title role, and she emerges from the circle of her companions - in Hümpel's view, the aforementioned nunnery could also have been logically sacrificed to a charitably organized women's shelter of our days - as probably the most emancipated of her peers; not only because at the end of the opera act she stands quite confidently for her self-determined suicide! And anyway, her soprano sounds on the one hand silky soft, on the other hand brutal; the real mixture that is needed for Puccini. This scenic idea of Hümpel's is also ingenious: The expectedly great entrance of the Princess (highly ingenious: the vocally still totally intact Katarina Dalayman, dressed in inconspicuous black managerial design!!), which starts with her live-filmed limousine drive to the main portal of the Hans Scharoun Building, continues with her walk through the foyer and her climbing of the stairs towards the "stage entrance", where she enters the stage. "Stage entrance", where she finally conquers the hall for herself, has extra bite and is of ominous quality! / The opera then ends in such a way that during/after the endlessly echoing, breathy finale of Suor Angelica, one only gets to see the Dalayman, who in the meantime had slipped away again into the foyer, where she pours herself some wine... The orchestra with the scholarship holders of the Karajan Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic performs Petrenko's mostly quiet, calm, balanced and thus completely "unhectic" view of things - partnerships don't get more compatible than this, and who was actually most inspired by whom here? My God, it was all great and beautiful!

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