Delicate, but without tearfulness, in a Moment, whose darkness is oppressive intimacy of the watch appear to be pushy, begins Charles Workman, the famous tenor Aria of Nadir from the Opera “The pearl fishers” of Georges Bizet: “Je crois entendre encore” – a reminder of the voice of the beloved woman, he met now, after years of separation, unexpectedly. The Symphonic orchestra of the Flemish Opera in Antwerp, accompanied him under the direction of David Reiland so gently, that this restraint already in the early songs of Gabriel Fauré by blade, black and grey Barkarolen of human weakness, such as “Les berceaux” or “Au bord de l’eau”, in which the rhythm is made of water imagery for the fluctuating reason of existence penetrates through the ear in our mind. The lyrical turn of the French Opera is in this moment: Meyerbeer is dead, the Pomp of the Grand Opera, and the dull become.
Jan Brachmann
editor in the features section.
F. A. Z.
Workman the high A, the H is just tedious, in the brittle falsetto. Maybe he would make the tones of the chest voice, pure, but also louder. Bizet recorded a Pianissimo on the H. The falsetto is appropriate here. It may not sound perfect, this Moment shows that loneliness and disappointment ached up into the Timbre. Workman in Antwerp, his role debut as Nadir. He sings with the beginning of fifty, a role that was supposed to sing a Tenor, at the latest, early thirties. But he sings it in the production of the Belgian theatre collective FC Bergman (which Stef Aerts, Marie Vinck, Thomas Verstraeten and Joé Agemans) as an Old man in a retirement home. His reflection on a failed life, a missed love device to the open vocal discussion with a roller, which comes late in the day, but by this interpretation grabs you, and proves how little Bizet was at the exhibitionism of vocal potency.
The staging of the new year’s eve, in Antwerp, and then to 24. January will be on view in Ghent, and the beginning of may, again in Luxembourg, it makes the viewer initially, is not easy sympathy for it. The everyday life in the old people’s home – instead of the Ceylonese pearl fishers commune is not portrayed with a Vividness which avoids the Macabre: An old man POPs dead with his face in the cake, the next breaks down on the Rollator. The room for the body wash and the refrigerator take up a lot of space on the rotary stage. Nadir and Zurga, two old friends meet again and assure again of cohesion (Workman and Stefano Antonucci sing the duet with taste, full of ease, without a sob, and Languish), to an old Diva with the sunglasses is supplied in a wheelchair: Léïla, the woman they once both loved.
it is Remarkable, however, how this production, which initially acts violently, a sense of maturity. The arrival of Léïla, causes Nadir and Zurga, several Memory slots. They are visible bulges in the Form of a gigantic shop window decoration: A wave of the sea, from Hyper-realistic plastic over the surface of the game. Life-sized puppets of the three main characters show as young people. With each reminder of thrust, the past is changing; the dolls are alive. The young Nadir (Jan Deboom) and the young Léïla (Bianca Zueneli) pairs.
to decide Whether this pairing has already occurred at the time or now in the imagination is to make up for. The reality accent device to Float. In an equally tender as tough scene Workman stripped as the Nadir of the old Léïla and caresses your skin wrinkled, until you put up that mask, and in all their youthfulness. This is also reflection on the demands of the carousel and the rule of law and the rules of age-appropriate behaviour on stage. Elena Tsallagova sings this Léïla with the greatest of vocal discipline and delicacy, for the decrepitude of age for the flowering Sweetness of the youth is equally haunting colors, and thus closes on a strong Phalanx of Russian singers – Olga Peretyatko, Aida Garifullina, Marina Prudenskaja, Ekaterina Semenchuk, which dominate at the moment stages in Europe.
The priest Nourabad (Stanislav Vorobyov) with his soft baritone is identical with the young Zurga, who urges the young Nadir, in order to obtain both friendship, for the waiver of Léïla. The musical intelligence of the singer Stefano Antonucci is shown in the fact that he makes as an old Zurga is the admission that “Je suis jaloux (I’m jealous)” to the climax of his whole game. What he sings at the end, the confession of a misguided life. He admits to herself that his friendship was idealism, hypocrisy and self-interest, and that it is magnanimous, it would have been to refrain from even then on Léïla and the friend, in order to allow both the youth and the fulfilment of their love.
