STUTTGART - There is something very appealing about this city, often
neglected in comparison with (and especially by) Berlin, Munich, even
Frankfurt.

>From the main train station -  marked prominently by a Hegel quote in
neon, about (I think) the fear of error being worse than the error itself
- a pedestrian mall leads through all essential buildings and services one
can wish for, to a open-air ice rink surrounded by food booths... a
permanent carnival in the heart of downtown. (As to Hegel, chances are you
can do better with `Das diese Furcht zu irren schon der Irrtum selbst ist
than I.)

>From the center, you turn into a short arcade under a department store,
and on the other side: a gorgeous park with a lake and varied fowl,
theaters, museums and the opera house all in a bucolic world of smoothly
mixing styles of many centuries: a five minute walk from the busy,
efficient and modern commercial section. Here are culture and civilization,
integrated, nearby, working together.

In the Staatsoper (which is neglected Stuttgart's three-time winner of
Opernwelt's `Best Opera Company title): `L'Italiana in Algeri. It is a
delightful production, with Anna Viebrok's tremendous, four-story high,
split-level set, and Margarete Joswig singing a Horne-like Isabella, but
never mind. I will report on Stuttgart only after tomorrow's world premiere
of `Giuseppe und Sylvia.

The burden of this message is the `Ariadne auf Naxos I saw on my last
night in Berlin on Tuesday. I feel compelled to report on this, against the
experiences of the grossly overproduced Covent Garden `Tristan und Isolde,
the Berlin Staatsoper's musically wonderful, but over- and mis-directed
`Tristan, the upcoming Berlin `Macbeth with singers mountain-climbing on
stage, and even the huge Stuttgart `L'Italiana. How about smaller scale,
less intrusion, and honoring the music, even if - or because - there are
no big names involved?

I give you the Komische Oper, Berlin's third company, not really in
competition with the two biggies - the Deutsche Oper and the Staatsoper.
What I found out, against my own prejudices, is that a. you can forget
about the politics of old East Berlin, and b. drop the expectation of just
another Volksoper. I love the house: a compact, 1,260-seat round barn,
with red plush seats, off-white walls bearing just enough decoration and
splashes of gold to let you know that you're in an opera house, but nothing
ostentatious. A cozy, comfortable, good place.

After the hilarious, Mark-Morris type `Swan Lake the day before, I was
ready for some weird `Ariadne, but got something by the book instead.
It would have been at home at the Staatsoper (which Strauss led for
two decades at the beginning of the century), so authentic and loving
was the production. Uwe Eric Laufenberg's direction (learn that name!)
and Christoph Schubiger's elegant sets were a welcome change after the
hyperactive, rock-`em-sock-`em circus of Kupfer (often directing at the
Komische, by the way) and his ilk. Laufenberg trusts Strauss, and he
supports the music, advances the story, without tricks, shticks and
constant distraction.

The sets are clean, appropriate, beautiful... and unobtrusive! Two enormous
windows, taking up the entire upstage, with full-length curtains, vary the
setting. Colors, objects are all well coordinated, everything fits
together, even with a surprising costume here and there.

Against this disciplined, measured, self-effacing approach in the setting
and direction, an occasional bit of directorial innovation is all the
more effective. Near the end, when the Composer leaves with Zerbinetta,
abandoning his sacred art for a bit of a fling at least for the moment, his
piano catches fire and burns up - but very much in the background, hard to
catch, the opposite of the director getting in your face. A point is made,
but it's up to each member of the audience if they want to notice it. Sorry
to harp on this, but the contrast is with Kupfer making his singers (his,
not Wagner's, apparently) crawl around constantly on Hans Schevernoch's
huge angel, or the upcoming Peter Mussbach-Erich Wonder `Macbeth, with ist
steep hills the singers must negotiate, straining and sliding instead of
concentrating on the performance. I was glad to hear that Laufenberg is
directing quite frequently with other companies in Germany as well, a
youngish, very talented man acquiring a reputation as a good, sensible
and yet imaginative and effective director.

The cast - largely unknown not only to me, but to a local opera fan as
well - consisted of uniformly decent, reliable singers, nothing sensational,
but nothing to sneeze at either. In fact, I very much enjoyed listening to
Strauss, instead of pondering the great Mr. X or Madame Y in the starring
role. Remember enjoying a play or a film with unknowns exactly because the
cast didn't have that extra problem overcoming the suspension of disbelief?
It can work real well with opera - if only some of the bigger companies
dared to go starless-but-good now and then.

Even without the big names, it was a fine cast. Vlatka Orsanic handled
both the character and music of Ariadne with impressive dignity; she is
an exceptional actress, making sense of a silly-difficult role. Tatjana
Korovina was the delightful Zerbinetta; she gave a charming comic
performance and her agile vocal delivery came through even that mine
field of her great, unending aria. Christiane Oertel, the Composer, sang
gloriously in the middle range, her voice narrowing on higher notes. No
such problem for Frank van Aken, who sang the impossible music of Bacchus
flawlessly - you can't find too many of those tenors!

I wonder who is going to stand up for the artists of the Komische Oper the
same way Barenboim is fighting for the similarly `oppressed Staatsoper.
Both companies were in East Berlin, of course, and to this day, salaries
for them and every other company are determined GEOGRAPHICALLY, at 80
percent of their colleagues working for companies located in the former
West Berlin.

I happened to be visiting next door to Barenboim's office when the news
spread around the building that the federal culture minister has pledged
3.5 million marks to make up the difference for the 250-year-old orchestra
against the better-paid kid musicians of the Deutsche Oper. It's an
unprecedented move (if it actually happens, that is) because the federal
goverment does not handle any contributions; subsidies come, reluctantly,
from the Berlin goverment and the culture senator (who contrasted the `Jew
Barenboim with his Western counterpart's Karajan-like graces. Apologies
were made and accepted, but meanwhile the crazy two-tier salary structure
stays in place, even if expenses, taxes, etc. are the same for everyone.
You work on the wrong side of the Wall That Isn't There, and you make 80
pfennigs on the mark!

Janos Gereben/soon-of-SF
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