Bluebeard’s Castle and The Miraculous Mandarin in Florence
By Fabio Bardelli on 6/10/12 • Categorized as Ballet,Festival,Opera
BELA BARTÓK
THE MIRACULOUS MANDARIN / BLUEBEARD’S CASTLE
Florence, Italy, Teatro Comunale
. 2012, june 3rd
Review by Fabio Bardelli. Photos: Gianluca Moggi
FLORENCE: The Maggio Musicale Fiorentino presented a most interesting evening, with two of the best known works of the great Hungarian composer. Bluebeard’s Castle was last performed on stage in Florence in 1981, conducted by Bruno Bartoletti in a magic evening (I remember it very well) together with Stravinskij’s Petrushka, protagonist Rudolf Nureyev.
A dark atmosphere unites the two operas, both staged by Jo Kanamori, choreographer of the ballet and stage director of the opera, in coproduction with Saito Kinen Festival. Kanamori stages almost an “unicum”, the two parts being almost the continuation of one in the other.
The Miraculous Mandarin’s plot is simple enough, but the choreography makes it heavier putting new elements on stage, coming from oriental culture and expressivity, taking inspiration in Japanese theatre. Anyway, considering that the history is located in far East, this all is understandable and is highly enhanced by the skilled and exciting dancers with their outstanding technique and expressivity: among them I must mention the protagonist Sawako Iseki and the two united companies, Noism Dance Company and Maggio Danza.
Bluebeard’s Castle is the only theatrical opera written by Bela Bartòk (libretto by Bela Balasz), and its musical language is fully 1900s, first expressionism with French and European influences, deeply rooted in the complex cultural athmosphere of its time (its first performance was in 1918).
The opera is fully in Bartòk’s spirit, bringing on stage the psychological conflicts between the two protagonists, Bluebeard and Judit. Japanese stage director Jo Kanamori seems to have the urge to fill up the stage with anything, so we see “doubles” of the two characters, black dressed mimes, figures bringing laternes and so on. The scene by Tsuyoshi Tane, Lina Ghotmen and Dan Dortell is made of movable transparent panels beyond which we can see shadows or lights projections; this scene is always full with dancers and mimes who after a while divert the audience’s attention from the interior drama between Bluebeard and Judit.
In the whole, it’s a not-naturalistic staging and not very respectful of libretto, even if there are some suggestive ideas, such as that of showing the tears in the opening of the fourth door as white dressed mime-dancing girls. But we face continuosly the problem of a too crowded stage distracting from music and text
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. Light design by Masakazu Ito and Jo Kanamori is very suggestive, and costumes by Juichi Nakashima are beautiful.
Matthias Goerne’s Bluebeard is not very convincing, and probably the singer himself isn’t very convinced by the role. Goerne is a German baritone who alternates Lieder repertoire with operas, and he depicts an intimistic Bluebeard closed in himself, with a few impulses and a lot of generic introspection. Vocally, Goerne shows problems in the deep notes, sounding sometimes forced and not always at ease with the intense Bartòk’s score.
Daveda Karanas has a high mezzo voice, not very charming and not very flexible. Anyway her Judit has been in the whole convincing, as well as Andreas Palerdi has been accettable in the short spoken part of the Prologue.
Hungarian conductor Zsolt Hamar shows to be perfectly at ease in both score’s troubling, livid nineteenth century-like atmosphere; he leads the orchestra with determination and the ensemble asserts himself with a very good performance.
Theatre wasn’t full, but the audience enjoyed the performance with many applause for the whole cast at the end, specially warm to the conductor and the staging’s authors.
Review by Fabio Bardelli
translation from italian to english Bruno Tredicine
Direttore: Zsolt Hamar
Orchestra e Coro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino
Regia e coreografia: Jo Kanamori
Scene: Tsuyoshi Tane, Lina Ghotmen, Dan Dorell
Costumi: Juichi Nakashima
Luci: Masakazu Ito, Jo Kanamori
(riprese da Gianni Paolo Mirenda)
THE MIRACULOUS MANDARIN
Noism Dance Company. MaggioDanza
BLUEBEARD’S CASTLE
Il Duca Barbablù: Matthias Goerne. Judit: Daveda Karanas. Il bardo: Andras Palerdi
Nuovo allestimento. In coproduzione con il Saito Kinen Festival
Maggio Musicale Fiorentino: www.maggiofiorentino.it/
SAITO KINEN FESTIVALMATSUMOTO: www.saito–kinen.com/e/