Credits etc from Die Tote Stadt

This is the cast list and credits for the production, and an intro from Giordano, the director of the Jyske Opera.

After the successful Danish premiere of Puccini’s La fanciulla del West (August 2009), The Danish National Opera once again presents, in August 2010, a masterpiece from the great opera repertoire that people have not previously been able to experience in Denmark: Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Die tote Stadt. With its extremely expressive style the opera is a milestone in the late-romantic German opera repertoire after Wagner and Strauss. The music as well as the dramaturgy point towards the great epic movies which became the popular art form of the 20th century.
“Die tote Stadt is about the loneliness of deep sorrow, about the dark side of life when we are struck by an existential crisis where the meaning of life and death itself fills and tortures our soul. Never has this theme been more present or relevant than in our seeming welfare society”, Artistic Director Giordano Bellincampi states. Hallucinations, thrills and reality get tangled up in this surreal drama of one of the 20th century’s most breathtaking operas. “With its intense, psychological plot and ingenious music Die tote Stadt is a performance worth experiencing”,


Composer
Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Libretto
Paul Schott (Erich Wolfgang & Julius Korngold, [Erich's papa])

Conductor
Jaroslav Kyzlink

Director and stage designer
Mikael Melbye

Projection designer
Wendall Harrington

Lighting designer
Anja Myung Hansen

Costume designer
Deirdre Clancy

Choreographer
Marie Brolin-Tani

Cast.

Paul
Torsten Kerl

Marietta, dancer / Marie's revelation
Ann Petersen

Frank, Paul's friend
Jørn Pedersen

Brigitta, Paul's housekeeper
Anette Bod

Juliette, a dancer in Marietta's troupe
Elsebeth Dreisig
Lucienne, a dancer in Marietta's troupe
Trine Bastrup Møller
Victorin, the director in Marietta's troupe
Jan Lund
Fritz / Pierrot in Marietta's troupe
Daniel Hällström
Count Albert
Jens Krogsgaard
Gaston - a dancer
Ahmad Salhi

Kor
The Chorus of the Danish National Opera
Orkester
Aarhus Symphony Orchestra

Die Tote Stadt - Act 1.

And here are some pictures mostly from Act 1.

Die Tote Stadt - Mostly Act 2

Here is Act 2, with the traveling circus folk, that I tried to base German cabaret from the 1920s and some Klimt fabrics.

Die Tote Stadt - Act 3

Here are some pics from the production - have to remember to start with the end, as otherwise everything seems back to front on the Blog. I will put up a proper credits list when I get into the theatre, so as to be sure of spelling the names right.

Die Tote Stadt 1 - Aarhus

Here are some photos of the filming of the projections, and of the 1st dress rehearsal which took place before the said projections were done. The very brilliant Wendall Harrington and Ruppert [with 2 ps] Boyle made them. That's Ruppert with the dancing nuns.

Aarhus 2

The theatre has found me a very nice flat here. It's further away from the opera-house than last time, 2 kilometers across the middle of Aarhus, an ordinary seeming block from the front, but with an endlessly fascinating view across the harbour. The yacht club has its marina directly in front across a cycle way, and to the right is the ferry port and the docks are beyond that. I just love being by the water, I suppose that bits of it are fairly tatty, with graffiti on the boat sheds and so on, but somehow the sea, the ships of all sizes and the light make it lovely.
I rented a bike to get to and from work, also a pleasure in Denmark, as the town roads are organised with bikes in mind, and flocks of cyclists zoom around all over the place. And having got my nerve back and into practice in Balboa Park I do fairly well, if slightly wobbly at start-up still.

Over a footbridge on the quay is a tremendous fish shop, run by a family of enormous Viking fisherman, [5th generation, it says]. I don't think we have such places in the UK, nearly all the fishmongers having been wiped out by the dreary supermarkets. Today, quite apart from the splendid selection of fresh and prepared fishy things, there was a 5' shark on the floor with ice around it, and not looking all that dead. And here is a photo of one of the ugliest fishes I ever saw.
Further harbour excitement was the arrival of an absolutely humungus cruise ship. I counted 9 rows of portholes, not including the bits on the top and underneath. It's gone now, sailing off with much honking of fog horns.

I've been in Aarhus [half way up Jutland on the right hand side] for a few weeks now, for the production period of Korngold's opera “Die Tote Stadt”.
The dead city in question is Bruge. I found it really hard to get into, being as it is the Fruedian story of a man's obsession with his recently deceased wife and her hair. 

It was a huge hit in the 1920's, and now that the band is with us I begin to see why.
Korngold was very young indeed, 23 when he wrote it, and it all obviously just came tumbling out. I'm not enough of a musician to place it properly musically, I'm told it has echos of late Puccini, and there are certainly bits of Strauss, and possibly Weill in the circussy bits.
He certainly doesn't stint himself, orchestrally speaking, 2 harps, celeste, bells, organ, and goodness knows what else.


The fun bits for me are the circus troupe, the procession of dead Brugians, and Marie's portrait- come-to-life and doing a Lois Fuller type dance.



Here are some of the drawings.

Mad George

I didn't take any photos at all during the technical rehearsals of George, the readiness of the costumes suffered a bit from being a, the 3rd show, and b, the most decorated. All that gold trim and frogging is immensely fiddly and time-consuming to apply. Endless bodily fluid notes for the poor King's 'small clothes' didn't help either.
The big 18th century wigs are a nightmare as well, they look wonderful or ghastly, seems there is no middle way! Molly O'Connor has done wonders.
But the results are spectacular, I could have done costume drawings till my shoulders seized up, but all would have been for nothing had they not been so brilliantly executed by Stacy Sutton's extraordinary team. I really think the Old Globe has one of the best costume shops in the world - truly world class.

More Shrew Pics

This is a somewhat random selection, I had trouble up-loading the last entry - and it's lost in the ether.
This includes Petruchio's wonderful horse - Neither of the horses got the reception I was expecting from the audience last night.
Maybe everyone's got too used to Avatar style computer graphics to appreciate what is in essence a hobby horse toy and a puppet. We shall see!