The Teatro Real corrects a “gap” by programming Strauss’s ‘Arabella’

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The musician’s latest opera, the result of his collaboration with the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal, is presented for the first time in Madrid, 90 years after its premiere in Dresden

“A big event.” This is how Joan Matabosch, artistic director of the Teatro Real, describes the performance of Richard Strauss’s opera Arabella, which can be seen at the Teatro Real from 24 January to 12 February. And is not for less. After its premiere in Dresden (Germany), it took Arabella nine decades to reach Madrid. It is the sixth and last work that the composer Richard Strauss and the playwright Hugo von Hofmannsthal wrote together, a union that gave rise to titles such as ‘Elektra’, ‘The Knight of the Rose’ or ‘Ariadne of Naxos’. This performance closes an inexplicable gap in the collection of the Teatro Real.

The production is under the musical direction of David Afkham, the conductor of the National Orchestra of Spain, a great connoisseur of the music of Richard Strauss, who will conduct his second opera at the Teatro Real after ‘Bomarzo’ in 2017. The direction is in the hands of Christof Loy, who has already signed four prestigious productions at the Colosseum in Madrid, two of which are Strauss operas: ‘Ariadna de Naxos’ and ‘Capriccio’. Loy has been immersed in the work for nearly two decades, as the production shown in Madrid was initially conceived for the 2006 performance in Gothenburg, and has since evolved into the current production. The work, described by Matabosch as a “sad comedy”, tells the story of a nobleman impoverished by gambling and waste, who offers the hand of his eldest daughter, Arabella, to save his family from ruin. The protagonist bravely accepts this humiliating role and hides her shame through the game of seduction of a wealthy provincial who is unaware of the hypocrisy of Viennese society, which will end in a bittersweet “happy ending”.

and serious, which delve into what underlies the canons of comedy.

For the staging of the work, Christof Loy plays with two levels, an almost cinematographic realism in terms of the set design, with the German director stripping the space of ornaments, regal decoration and ornate costumes, transforming a luxurious hotel into a diaphanous place. conceived by the set designer and costume designer Herbert Murauer, and another more psychological level, “like close-ups of the characters in which we forget the environment”. “You cannot separate individuals, he adds, from the society in which they live. And not this staging.

Regarding the score, David Afkman assures that “musically, the work is understood from the text, unlike titles like ‘Elektra’ or ‘Salomé’, which are musical blocks in themselves”.

Rich in compliments and double meanings, Strauss’s music gives voice to a cast of caricatured characters, sketched with subtle leitmotifs that articulate and intertwine waltzes, polonaises, Slavic melodies, sung and spoken parts, with brilliant, crystalline and meticulous orchestration. achieves flights of great emotional impulse.

Even in the vocal treatment of the characters, Strauss wanted to create symbols, says Joan Matabosch. There is a character, Zdenka, the protagonist’s sister, who wants to pass her family off as a boy: «In the competitive Viennese society, it was very difficult to raise and market two daughters for marriageable young people, with all that that means spending on dresses, jewellery, perfumes and finery,” says Matabosch. But ironically, Strauss doesn’t use a mezzo for the part, instead assigning her a soprano range even higher than her sister’s “with tones that seem to protest at any moment against those pants they’re making her wear.”

The opera has had a longer-than-normal rehearsal process since they began on December 4. According to Mataboch, there are operas that can be planned on paper, but ‘Arabella’ must necessarily be built during rehearsals. “It is almost more important – adds Matabosch – the relationship between the characters than the individualities”.

The singers, actors and dancers, dressed in black and white, move as if in a great emotional choreography, stripped of their masks, in a reading of great psychological depth and meticulous acting, in which stand out the soprano Sara Jakubiak and the baritone Josef Wagner as respectively Arabella and Mandryka. They are joined by Sarah Defrise, Martin Winkler, Anne Sofie von Otter, Matthew Newlin, Dean Power, Roger Smeets, Tiler Zimmerman, Elena Sancho Pereg, Barbara Zechmeister, José Manuel Montero, Benjamin Werth, Niall Fallon and Hanno Jusek.

Parallel to the presentation of Arabella, the Teatro Real, in collaboration with the National Museum of Decorative Arts, the Museum of Romanticism, the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Museum of History of Madrid, organized activities related to the work and its period . Likewise, Arabella will be broadcast live on MEZZO on February 9 at 7pm.

Source: La Verdad

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