Midwives and firearms in Katie Mitchell’s plastic story of ‘Die Frau Ohne Treasures’

You can draw the clichés. Fickle mistresses, hysterical women, the insane femme fatale that everyone collapses into the accident – female opera paves often get considerably worse from then the men. Richard Strauss’ masterful Those Frau Ohne estimate Hardly an exception to this.

The fairytale libretto of Hugo von Hofmannsthal mainly outlines the men like silly good bags, while turning the wives into erratic and problematic characters. The core idea is the search for humanity, which the women mainly thank the shade (‘treasures’) that they throw – a symbol for female fertility. Without you are not a full -fledged person, the piece implies.

Misogyny? Oh well, you have to see something like that in his own time, more than a century ago, one thinks. Nothing, says British director Katie Mitchell, who shows the work at the National Opera through a contemporary lens. Those Frau Ohne estimate She directs them as a feminist scifi thriller, and that is more convincing than it sounds.

Hidden forces

Strong find is making marital tensions visible and the hidden forces that the plot play. The God Keikobad hangs in the original story only as a threat in the air (‘übermächte sind im spiel’), at Mitchell he always comes as silent, Gazelle-Koppig character on the scene. His henchmen from the spirit kingdom are ruthless wolves with mafiosopaks and hand guns.

Mitchell’s plastic display leaves little to the doubt. Artificial insemination and pregnancy ultrasounds replace the ‘shadow’ as a symbol of female fertility. The voices of unborn children are not kept outside the theater, but pulled to the center of the action.

That makes the complex storyline surprisingly insightful, with the help of the decors of Naomi Dawson, which was elaborated in cinematic detail. The minimalist-chic aesthetics of the imperial apartment, the messy house of Barak and his wife, with cheap wallpaper and yellowed kitchen cupboards, and the tiled waiting room as a rough underworld.

Violent thriller

The four -hour story flies by. According to the program book, Mitchell said, “the opera has transformed from a somewhat slow fairy tale to a fast and violent thriller.” That is perhaps a bit much honor for her own work, and not enough for the phenomenal music of Richard Strauss. It is extremely exciting in itself, and, because of the refined use of musical motifs, already brings the necessary shades of gray into that typical black and white distribution ‘man-good-female-lecht’.

The sensitivities of the score are in good hands with conductor Marc Albrecht. Those Frau Ohne estimate He knows through and through: he made his Amsterdam debut in 2008, and would close his chief conductor at the National Opera in spring 2020-were it not for the Covid Pandemie to throw production five years ahead in time.

The 130 musicians of the gigantically occupied Dutch Philharmonic seem to want to give everything for their old chef. The sparks splash from the orchestra bin, each solo goes smoothly. Albrecht already receives the first Bravos after the first break. Rightly so, because the lush orchestra game is reasonable to miss this production under his leadership.

Strong impression

The soloists also make a strong impression. Michaela Schuster is a wonderfully shrewd nurse, Daniela Köhler and Aušrinė Stundytė portray layered main characters. Ironically, absolute outpiders are, ironically, their male spouses: the flexible tenorstem of AJ Glueckert as Kaiser and the fantastic baritone Josef Wagner in the role of Barak.

Not everything in Katie Mitchell’s passenger control is just as easy to follow. Some key moments take place in the margins of the theater image and almost escape attention. Of other things, it remains to be guessed why they are so pontifically in the picture. Why is the children’s choir after having sung pizza in a drug lab? And should really be half the stage in the slots scene? That feels a bit sung from Strauss’ beneficial final sounds.

But the power of Mitchell’s story is that she does not try to wring the opera in impossible turns and present as a woman -friendly story. She mainly highlights the problematic elements from the opera, with accompanying gender behavior, without wanting to solve or brush away.

The message is maintained: the two women are incomplete without a shadow. Only in the light of a double pregnancy do they both find happiness. And what do their spouses do? They uncork a bottle of sparkling wine next to the echomonitor. They remain men.

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