Russian film and theater director Kirill Serebrennikov, an outspoken advocate of liberal causes, is not yet widely known here. It’s making headlines in Europe. His work requires attention. The provocation may be logical, but its seriousness acts as a stabilizing agent. At this year’s Edinburgh international festival, where opera is high on the agenda, Serebrennikov will make his UK directorial debut with the Komische Oper Berlin production of Mozart. Figaro’s mouthDirected by James Gaffigan. It is sure to be a noisy conversation (August 16-18).
Some context: Serebrennikov, 54, ran Moscow’s Gogol Center, an interdisciplinary art forum he founded, until he was accused of embezzlement in 2017. While he was tagged and under house arrest, he worked as a director. Così fan tutte (for Zurich Opera, later seen in Komische) via video calls. He said that Mozart saved his sanity in this difficult time. Serebrennikov, who was finally released and acquitted after his case was condemned many times internationally, left Russia in 2022 and currently lives in Germany.
This is new FigaroThe film, part of the Da Ponte trilogy he directed at the Komische Oper, is thrilling and outrageous. Some will condemn Serebrennikov for playing fast and loose with one of the canon’s untouchables. His belief is to revise, revisit and make relevant in his eyes. His style is horror-thriller, sexual perversion, and carnage along the way. Characters are added, subtracted, doubled. The scene is a flurry of activity even when you want silence. The arias have been reordered. In one case, music is being imported from: Cosiin another, a slow introduction to Mozart’s string quartet K465, “Dissonance.”
UK audiences are unlikely to tolerate the claim of disability. They can’t stand any of this Figaro
The Count and Countess are super elite collectors of modern art. They live in a white space à la Herzog and de Meuron. Marcellina (Karolina Gumos) has risen from former crone to elegant, trousered curator. The director’s own designs feature liberal references to multimillion-dollar names in the art world: Jeff Koons, Robert Rauschenberg, Jenny Holzer, Claire Fontaine, Bruce Nauman. Rich and poor, upstairs and downstairs are more important than the class issues in Mozart’s original. like Serebrennikov’s CosiThe scene is divided horizontally. Downstairs is chaos, full of washing machines, shopping carts, household cleaning supplies, men undressing (to go to the next laundromat to do laundry). Throughout, instant messaging and slogans on the big screen add layers of optical distraction.
Musically, the performance is safe but not yet outstanding. The orchestral playing is on point, but aside from the wind instruments, it could have more character. Or maybe there’s so much going on on stage that I’ve been paying less attention than usual. The best singing comes from Susanna (Penny Sofroniadou), the center of the action, tense and full of icy disdain for her employers; and her fiancé, Figaro (Tommaso Barea), who is a little in the shadows but has a strong voice. The rest of the troupe – including Hubert Zapiór (the Count) and Nadja Mchantaf (the Countess) – rise to the challenge of Serebrennikov’s uneasy staging.
The most striking is Cherubino’s doubling. He is played by actor Georgy Kudrenko as a deaf and mute gymnast-dancer, whose arias are sung by the invented figure of Cherubina (Susan Zarrabi). The striking Kudrenko is a regular at Serebrennikov (she was a postman in the director’s 2022 film, Tchaikovsky’s Wife). Like an erotic teenager, she throws herself onto the stage and jumps naked out the window. He prepared for the task with an international sign language coach to perfect his signing skill. His wordless grunts may need to be rethought for UK audiences who are less likely to tolerate his claim of disability. In fact, they can’t tolerate any of this. Figaro, none. Try. Let your prejudices be shaken. Powdered wig stagings will always be there. There is room in the world for both.
Never underestimate the skill required to frame the disordered, to refine the incomprehensible, while keeping anarchy intact. Linbury theatre’s double bill of two Dada-style chamber operas did just that, aided by a visual arsenal that included a hanged man, a guillotine, bridal bouquets, an army of teddy bears and plenty of pink. Kudos to directors Eleanor Burke and Harriet Taylor and designer Anna Reid and her team. The cast was selected from ROH’s Jette Parker artist program, which offers career advancement to rising professionals with exceptional talent.
Explaining plans will not help. There’s a taste here, though: Bohuslav Martinů’s larmes de couteau (1928), a mother tries to marry her daughter to Satan, but she prefers a corpse. John Harbison fully loaded Moon in march (1977), quoted in WB Yeats: Turandot The tradition of a virgin queen who kills her suitors unless they sing a song. Martinů’s score, played with stylish vivacity by the Britten Sinfonia – in the pit throughout, under the youthful baton of Edward Reeve – is eclectic and funny, bouncing attractively with accordion, banjo and alto saxophone. Dominated by the powerful tick-tock sounds of prepared piano as well as the vocal marimba, Harbison offers a glimpse into the work of a prolific American composer, now in his mid-80s.
Each small opera gives these performers a chance to move and sing en masse without getting in the way of natural emotion. Singers Valentina Puskás, Veena Akama-Makia, Edmund Danon and Jonah Halton excelled in both shows, showing versatility and great potential. They were joined by dancer Liam John Hill and boxer Aisha Weise-Forbes. I can think of a few operas that would benefit from the inclusion of a boxer. Let this become a trend.
Star ratings (out of five)
Figaro’s mouth ★★★★
Larmes de couteau/Full Moon in March ★★★★