Cardillac in the Estonia Theatre in Tallinn, the 25th of February, 2018

I almost missed Estonia Theatre’s performance of Paul Hindemith’s opera ”Cardillac”. I had finally managed to find a suitable date for it in my calendar last spring, when the main singer fell ill and the performance was cancelled. Fortunately they offered me a chance to change the date to the last performance of the opera that took place this weekend, a year later. After the performance I was even happier that I did not miss this opera.

“Cardillac” tells about a goldsmith, who falls in love with his own creations, so much so that he cannot give them up. When he has to sell them to clients, he murders the buyers to get the jewellery back. The story is rather weird, but Hindemith tends to have weird stories in his operas. The music was also typical Hindemith. I liked its dramatic nature very much.

I think Estonia Theatre did a great job in collecting an excellent group of professionals, who managed to create an impressive performance. The excellent director of the piece was Vilppu Kiljunen from Finland. The drama of the story was underlined by the stage and costume design (Kimmo Viskari, also from Finland). Stage design consisted mainly of red geometrical units and the abundant costumes used only three main colours (red, black and white). Viskari was able to create together with the light designer Anton Kulagin a truly visually interesting opera. It was enjoyable to follow it and two hours felt like a blink of an eye. Standing ovation to Estonia Theatre, who took this opera to its programme! It must have taken a bit of courage to do that, since the opera is not among the big classics and it is always a bit risky to perform less known operas. They can cause big economic losses even in national operas. But sometimes it is worth a risk, like it was this time.  

The choir of Estonia Theatre was once again in good shape both vocally and in its physical performance. The title role was sung with aplomb by Rauno Elp. My own favourite was Heli Veskus in the role of the Lady. She was absolute superb in her role. Also Helen Lapalaan in the role of Cardillac’s daughter did well. She was suitably girly and confused and her voice rang nicely.