Highly gifted and young: director Ilaria Lanzino

Unlike in the neighboring Rhine cities, the Düsseldorf Opera does not present the work as a chamber piece but places it on the grand stage, which makes the visionary power of the dark vision considerably more compelling. Especially since the highly gifted young director Ilaria Lanzino works with subtle, always work-related theatrical elements and refrains from a heavy-handed moral finger-pointing.

In doing so, she develops an exciting drama without the often dry aftertaste of most productions. Helpful, too, is the simple yet effective stage design by Emine Güner, an expansive, flexibly transformable web of ropes and strings in which the characters act as if caught in a spider’s web or moved like marionettes. The director makes clever use of the large stage for her precise direction of the performers so that not for a single beat does even the slightest hint of boredom arise. (…) Overall, the work gains remarkable enhancement and reveals qualities that one would hardly have suspected in view of the often half-hearted, moralizing productions.

nrz

 

“Director Ilaria Lanzino creates a production filled with clear and effective symbolism. With white threads stretched across the entire stage, reminiscent of laser beams, she creates spaces and different levels. At the center: the Emperor’s room – both throne and cage. The stage design and costumes come from a single source – Emine Güner – and recall retro-futuristic films about otherworldly life, perfectly complementing the grotesque, bizarre gestures and stiff movements of the singers.”

Bachtrack

 

“No less impressive is what director Ilaria Lanzino has made of it: something timeless, with great symbolic power. Indeed, love and death are inseparably linked.”

“An incredibly strong evening.”

“Here, everyone is imprisoned, entangled, twitching on strings or dangling in nets. All are enmeshed in their own selves, their utopias, their delusions. Even the Emperor does not master the cords, though he sees himself as the puppeteer. When he proclaims immortality after Death temporarily abdicates, his delusion becomes apparent. Thus the threads, these hair-fine props, weave together into a grand parable. As so often, the restraint of means heightens the intensity of expression.”

Rheinische Post

 

“Director Ilaria Lanzino creates a production filled with clear and effective symbolism. With white threads stretched across the entire stage, reminiscent of laser beams, she creates spaces and different levels. At the center: the Emperor’s room – both throne and cage. The stage design and costumes come from a single source – Emine Güner – and recall retro-futuristic films about otherworldly life, perfectly complementing the grotesque, bizarre gestures and stiff movements of the singers.”

Bachtrack

 

“A magnificent production that completely convinces.”

Theaterkompass

 

“Everything succeeds.

It is one of those evenings where everything comes together: intoxicating sadness. A marvelous ensemble: on stage – and in the pit. A superb production – beginning in a kind of spider’s web that ensnares everything and everyone, allowing no escape. (…) The production – somehow gentle – forgoes effects, as does the music: everything feels coherent, including the restrained acting. The images: haunting – penetrating – calm. Somehow, everything is perfect in a quiet way. You think: it could hardly be done better. One is drawn into this labyrinth of hopelessness.”

Niederrheinische Nachrichten

 

“In Düsseldorf, the director explores all of this and finds for the echo of the machinery, the melodrama of the representatives, and the singing of the people, authentic gestures, movements, and symbols – such as the inflated video portrait of the Emperor’s black-uniformed torso appearing behind his blustering figure. (…) That, alongside the precarious existence of the two authors, the roles of the other endangered souls inside and outside Theresienstadt are also given voice through characters and staging – the direction renders this not obtrusively but compellingly visible. (…) Direction, set, and lighting (Thomas Diek) conjure a constant aura of doom, in which everyone speaks and moves – sometimes drastic and comical, sometimes noisy and quiet – all hopeless existences together. Tragedy and comedy lie as close together as Death and Harlequin stand to each other. (…) The audience’s applause confirmed how deeply they were touched by the spirit and signs of this perfect performance.”

ioco

 

“With her production, Ilaria Lanzino achieves a coherent and comprehensible interpretation of the story, skillfully packaging the inhuman behavior of the Nazi regime and the inhumane conditions of the concentration camp inmates into a parable. The production does not come across with a raised moral finger; rather, the director brings the original chamber opera to the large stage of the opera house with a fine sense of proportion and vividly illuminates the interplay of life and death. Only occasionally, and at just the right moments, are large-scale images used – for example, during Overall’s speech, accompanied by a large video projection of the Emperor. Otherwise, it is also the small moments that particularly stand out. The final image, too, is convincing (…) Finally, at this point, an urgent appeal to opera lovers across the country: ‘Hello, hello! The Deutsche Oper am Rhein is showing a supposedly small opera with a great effect, which can unfold its full power on the grand stage. Go and see it!’”

Der Opernfreund

 

“Death sits quite prettily at the edge of the stage when he refuses to work and observes the world overwhelmed without him, with a good measure of irony. The characters are portrayed as quite broken and capable of transformation (…) As far as direction of movement, lighting design, and scenic microcosm are concerned, Lanzino does a lot of good work.”

Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger

 

“The production at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf (…) also convinces scenically in an intelligent, understated staging. (…) Overall himself is the striking baritone Emmet O’Hanlon, whom the director portrays as a rather doubtful, hesitant figure: behind the gold paint on his face, a human being like the Soldier and the Girl, Sergej Khomov and Anke Krabbe. Most human of all, however, are Life and Death: Life, the brilliant, radiant tenor and Harlequin David Fischer; Death, the gentle dark figure Luke Stoker, who settles comfortably at the edge of the stage after going on strike. That both shine again at the end, their work clothes (black cape, harlequin costume) as good as new, is the most optimistic interpretation one could have here: Life and Death can carry on as always.”

Frankfurter Rundschau

 

Direction: 10/10

Orpheus, Nov/Dec 2020 Edition