If you love Janáček’s operas, now would be a good time to visit Germany. Berlin’s Staatsoper opened Robert Carsen’s production of the seldom-performed Die Ausflüge des Herrn Brouček (The Excursions of Mr Brouček) on Sunday, with Bavarian National Opera’s Káťa Kabanová following the next day in Munich.
While Káťa Kabanová’s themes of provincial ennui, yearning and self-recrimination have helped seal its international popularity, Brouček’s bizarre tale of a mean-spirited landlord’s beer-fuelled dreams has been frequently dismissed as incoherent.
Only a year separates the first performances of the two works (1920 and 1921 respectively), though the former suffered a far more convoluted creation process. But with Simon Rattle on the podium, Berlin has all it really needs to argue that Brouček deserves more attention than it gets.
Rattle’s aptitude for shaping the small moment and his feel for biting irony are a perfect match for Janáček’s somewhat disjunct score. The Staatskapelle orchestra plays for him with utter commitment, and he creates lines of glassy clarity infused with lush warmth. The angularity and the astringent wit of the score suit him — he makes a formidable case for the piece.
Carsen’s production, which premiered in Brno last November, is gorgeous to look at. In a rundown village pub, the first half of the opera, in which Brouček journeys to the Moon, is set in 1968-69; the lunar landing plays on a TV screen, and the chorus is decked out in flower-power regalia. For the second half, where Brouček tangles with the 15th-century siege of Prague, Carsen and his team update the action to the 1968 Prague Spring uprising. It is a clever concept that never quite takes off; his glib appropriation of images from self-immolating student Jan Palach’s funeral leaves a bitter aftertaste.
Still, Carsen’s stagecraft, his ability to move bodies through space, and his design team’s psychedelic imagery mean that there is much to admire. There is a German saying: “The egg-laying wool-milk-pig does not exist.” Perhaps the challenge of finding political imagery that would have an equal impact in the Czech Republic and Germany was too much.
The cast is good, with Peter Hoare embodying the title role admirably. His combination of bumbling physicality and confident musicality is superb. Lucy Crowe is charming and sweet-toned as Malinka/Etherea/Kunka, while tenors Carles Pachon and Linard Vrielink cope manfully with Janáček’s stratospherically high vocal lines.
★★★★☆
Berlin has created a pleasing encounter with an engaging work, but Munich’s Káťa Kabanová is a gut punch. Krzysztof Warlikowski, like a handful of other top stage directors, is becoming a victim of his own success, with so many productions that some inevitably begin to ring hollow. Not this one. Warlikowski must harbour a passion for Káťa, because this is his finest work in years.
Designer Małgorzata Szczęśniak has created an eloquent set that is part waiting room, part dance hall, part courtyard; costumes recall both the US Deep South in the 1960s and parts of eastern Europe today. We feel the constant surveillance of a close-knit yet emotionally undernourished community, where bigotry boils just beneath the surface, and keeping up appearances is mandatory. Káťa is a misfit from the beginning. We find her swaying to a jukebox that only she can hear, her face (amplified by a video projection) showing a wash of emotions that suggest borderline personality disorder. She carries sharp scissors in her handbag and commits self-harm.
Corinne Winters is the star of the show as Káťa, her waif-like fragility and giant charisma dominating the stage; conductor Marc Albrecht manages his forces to ensure that she is never swamped by orchestral sound. Pavel Černoch’s emotionally unavailable Boris, John Daszak’s helpless Tichon, and Violeta Urmana’s toe-curlingly grand turn as the beastly Kabanicha are all benchmark performances. Albrecht’s musicianship keeps the audience mesmerised for this 90-minute rollercoaster ride; we hear the transcendence of Káťa’s unfulfilled dreams throughout.
Warlikowski and Albrecht have created a meticulous, dark and profound evening, with more than a dash of David Lynch. If you don’t already love Janáček operas, you will after this. See it!
★★★★★
‘Mr Brouček’ to April 3, staatsoper-berlin.de; ‘Káťa Kabanová’ to March 30 and on July 7, staatsoper.de
