THE QUEEN OF
SHEBA
The opera Queen of
Sheba by Karl Golmark hasn’t been shown in Finland that often, so I was happy
to get a chance to see it in the Hungarian National Opera. They had produced
the opera on the 100th anniversary of the composer’s death. Goldmark
was born in Hungary and even though this opera was composed in Vienna, what
would be a better place to see it than Budapest.
The story is a
triangle drama between the Queen of Sheba, a young courtier Assad enthralled by
her and Sulamith, Assad’s betrothed, the high priest’s daughter. The production
was a rather traditional opera story containing great feelings and some
oriental flavoured exoticism in music. The music of Goldmark does contain some Wagnerian
influences, but it is definitely not a Wagner copy.
In all its traditional
tones, the production was in my opinion successful. Visually the opera was
wonderful: the setting by Evá Széndrenyi was solid and the costumes by Anikó
Németh were really showy – even though the skirts of the ladies in the court
were slightly weird. There were also a
lot of dances in the production. My personal favourites were the exotic animals
of the court of the queen. It wasn’t always possible to follow everything that
happened on the stage in the big scenes, so also for that reason you could
easily see this opera twice.
The production can definitely
boast of having found good performers for the opera. My personal favourite was
Erika Gál in the role of the Queen of Sheba. She has a lovely luminous mezzo
voice, which was a pleasure to listen to.
Eszter Sümegi, who sang the role of Sulamith, has a very strong voice
and only on the second half of the opera she had a chance to show also her
ability to sing lighter phrasing, which really caressed your ears. I also admired
the singing technique of Zoltán Kelemen in the role of King Salomon. And last,
but not least, I would also like to give credit to the chorus of the Hungarian
National opera for their good work.
Based on this production
I can warmly recommend to all Budapest visitors to spend an evening in the
Hungarian National Opera. There are great singers and interesting productions
to hear and see for different tastes!
 |
| Erkel Theatre |
 |
| The performers |
 |
| The programme |
Ei kommentteja:
Lähetä kommentti