The Tales of Hoffmann. Kathryn Lewek (Giulietta/Stella), Benjamin Bernheim (Hoffmann), Kate Lindsey (Nicklausse). Photo: SF/Monika Rittershaus.
“Failure across the board,” says is Judith von Sternburg’s devastating verdict in the FRafter being awarded the Salzburg Festival experienced how the French director Mariame Clement Jacques Offenbachs “The Tales of Hoffmann” is told as the story of a film director who is more concerned with art than with love: “If director Clément … has no interest in the great drama, distrusts it, distrusts Hoffmann as a lover and sufferer, she herself finds herself in a certain in the wrong operaAnd she then has to tell something new and find something in the play that can justify it. The fact that Antonia and Olympia will survive their affairs with the title character is indeed pleasing. But it remains a side effect in the Bustle of ideas that fundamentally denounce the plot. If everything is just Chintop there is no transition to the magical and dark romantic…” Also Standard– Critic Ljubiša Tošić thinks: Despite some “slapstick partial successes”, many opportunities were missed here.
In the HE DOES Jürgen Kaube has much less to criticize, the motif of the film scenery does not always work, he says, but in addition to the surprising production, it is above all the soprano Kathryn Lewekwho shines as Olympia, Antonia and Giulietta: “What is wonderful about Lewek’s voice can be defined more precisely. It comes from a strong bodyLewek has both feet much more on the ground than Hoffman’s beloved ones designed by Offenbach. Her Olympia is not a wind-up machine, but a Rampensau in Barbarella–Lookwho runs away when Hoffmann tries to reach under her skirt. Her Antonia does not bleed to death through singing, but rather escapes the artistic-religious theater that is being performed around her by making a resolute exit. When the doctor is called, he has to take care of Hoffmann, not her, unlike in the original. As Giulietta, she is not the Queen of the Nights, but her singing attests to the power she exerts on Hoffmann, because she does not squeak her coloraturas in her head, but from the chest with many nuances sings.”
In November last year, the play “Mothers – A Song For Wartime”, by the Polish director Marta Górnicka together with Ukrainian and Belarusian refugees at Berlin Gorki Theater staged, German premiere, currently it is at Zurich Theatre Spectacle to see. Women and children were in the war against Ukraine “the most vulnerable group and paradoxically the most ignored group in political discourse,” she says in NZZ–Conversation: “For ‘Mothers’ we looked for topics that are not covered in official reports. For example, violence against women. Rapes are the most powerful weapons of the Russian army – a Torture methodworse than murder, because they leave a permanent injury and humiliation in the living victim. The violence of Russian soldiers is part of the collective memory of Polish, Belarusian and Ukrainian women.” Many in the ensemble were also disappointed by the hesitant support from the Westshe continues: “They believe that the Western European states have clung for too long to the illusion that the opposition from today’s Russia would one day create a democracy.”
More articles: In the Time sings Jil Sander the outgoing Hamburg Ballet Director John Neumeier a brief farewell serenade: “John made Hamburg culture rich and modern with his brilliant choreographies. I always felt close to him in his energy and the fearless implementation of his vision.”
