keskiviikko 27. heinäkuuta 2022

Ulisse in the Frankfurt Opera, the 21st of July, 2022

What a great combination: summer holiday trip, last opera performance of the season and a totally new opera composer for me! All this I experienced, when I saw Luigi Dallapiccola’s only full-length opera “Ulisse” (Odysseus) in the Frankfurt opera.  

Even though the opera tells the story of Odysseus, Dallapiccola has made a version of his own of his travels. In this story Odysseus still travels for decades and meets obstacles before he returns to his home in Ithaca, but there is also a lot of deep contemplation of life and its meaning in it.  

The opera is from 1968, so it is modern and I was not fully won over by the music. It may well be that that was due to the fact that the music was too difficult for me, but at times the orchestra played some interesting bits. The director Tatjana Gürbaca had made a performance that was typical for German opera – rather modern with nothing new and earth-shattering. Everybody in Germany has seen these group sex scenes: it is really time to come up with something totally new.  

My favourite soloist was Katharina Magiera, who sang the roles of Circe and Melantho. She had a gorgeous, full alto voice, which was a pleasure to listen to. Not that the other singers were bad, she just was so much better.



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