The Opera Tattler

Reviews of Performances and their Audiences

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Category: Staatsoper Unter den Linden

  • Tannhäuser at Unter den Linden

    * Notes * Yesterday Tannhäuser had its final performance this season at Staatsoper Unter den Linden. To my great surprise, Harry Kupfer's production was fairly simple and worked well. The lines were clean and Buki Shiff's costumes for the principals were inoffensive, and some of her evening gowns for the chorus were stunning. This is…

  • Pelléas et Mélisande at Unter den Linden

    * Notes * This season's final performance of Pelléas et Mélisande at Staatsoper Unter den Linden was last Wednesday. The 1991 production, the work of one Ruth Berghaus, is truly absurd. Hartmut Meyer's set and costumes were both contributed to the folly. The set consists of a downstage mound with a hole in it, which…

  • Don Carlo at Unter den Linden

    * Notes * The penultimate performance this season of Don Carlo at Staatsoper Unter den Linden was last Monday. The opera was presented in Italian as four acts, which does not start off with Don Carlo and Elisabetta meeting in Fontainebleau. Philipp Himmelmann's production included many scrims and walls, designed by Johannes Leiacker. The set…

  • 7th Performance of Don Giovanni at Unter den Linden

    * Notes * The April performances of Don Giovanni at Staatsoper Unter den Linden began last night, conducted by Asher Fisch. There were a few times that the orchestra and singers were not quite together, but worse was all the banging coming from backstage. Doubtless this will improve over time, but it was not particularly…

  • Asher Fisch Conducts Don Giovanni

    Asher Fisch will replace Daniel Barenboim as the conductor of the five April performances of Don Giovanni at Staatsoper Unter den Linden. I cannot say I'm not disappointed, though Fisch is a perfectly good conductor.

  • The Opera Tattler in Berlin

    So far I've only gone to hear Don Carlo at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, which was not as amusing as it could have been, despite featuring quite a lot of nudity during the auto da fé scene. One cannot complain too much, as René Pape is singing Filippo II. I also took several photographs…

  • Norma at Unter den Linden

    * Notes * The Opernphrenologe went to Berlin for work, and managed to see this evening's performance of Norma at the Staatsoper. Annegret Ritzel's production was awful from the very beginning when the female chorus first pretended to be rocks and then proceded to crawl to a tree stump in the center. The choreography was…