Werther with Alagna and Garancia in Vienna
Werther with starcast in Vienna
By Henning Høholt
VIENNA: It was a great pleasure to enjoy the starcast that general manager Dominique Meyer presented in his casting of Werther at Wiener Staatsoper last night.
Roberto Alagna in the titelrole and the outstanding Latvian mezzosoprano Elina Garanca as Charlotte together with the house´s own baryton Tae-Joong Yang as Albert did a wonderful job. They have outstanding voices and their types fit well into the figures they are presenting. Furthermore it was a great pleasure to listen to the outstanding orchestra lead by the french conductor Bertrand de Billy, i exspecially enjoyed the many wonderful soloparts played by the solo violinist and the solo cellist, often in close chambermusically cooperation with the harpe
.
Still that I am a bit old fashion, and dont like when performances are being renewed and moved away from the originally ideas, as it, unfortunately, some times change the history so it is being more difficult tounderstand why they do and say this and that. The beautiful scenography and wellfunctioning costumes by Peter Pabst, with a huge three in the center and its leaves surrounding the two first acts, and changing from summer colour, green in July to autumn colour brown in the second act, was giving all the startof the history a good framing. That it was moved up to the 50′ in this frame worked well. The regi by Andrei Serbanfollowed well the ideas in thehstory, and through his regiwork the moods change easily in the different scenes.
The beautiful operahouse was nearly 100% full, and the audience was enchanted.
Please enjoy our review of Roberto Alagna as Faust in Paris:
http://www.kulturkompasset.com/2011/10/new-spectacular- faust-at-bastille/
http://www.kulturkompasset.com/2011/10/roberto-alagna-as-faust-in-paris/
and Elina Garanca at Theatre des Champs Elysees in Paris: http://www.kulturkompasset.com/2012/10/elina-garanca-a-high-light-in-paris/