Floris Visser’s take on Mozart set the Cologne Opera ablaze
Idomeneo, Mozart’s thirteenth opera (unlucky for poor old Idomeneo), written in 1781, is often viewed as worthy but dull. Not a patch on that flashy trio of Da Ponte works that came later – Figaro,Giovanni and Cosi.
First, some background. We find ourselves in Crete, about 1200 BC. Helen, the wife of King Menelaus of Greece, has been carried off by Paris, son of King Priam of Troy, triggering the Trojan War. As she is also the sister-in-law of Agamemnon, several Greek kings allied with him have joined forces to lay siege to Troy.
One of the kings is Idomeneo of Crete. Having been away for many years, Idomeneo has, prior to his eventual victorious return, sent ahead of him some Trojan captives, including Priam’s daughter, princess Ilia.
On her arrival in Crete, she is rescued from a storm by Idomeneo’s young son, Idamante, who has ruled as regent in his father’s absence. The two have fallen in love. Princess Elektra, daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, also loves Idamante.
After Elektra and her brother, Oreste, killed their mother and her lover – there’s a family tiff worthy of any 21st century Influencer! – she was forced to flee their home in Argos and has taken refuge in Crete.
For those unfamiliar with the opera, a handy Met synopsis can be found here. Suffice to say, ferry services in the Aegean have always been dodgy.
Packed with sequential da capo solo arias which tend to go on a bit, in past productions I have seen the action unfold in rather dull, solo-dominated sequences.
At curtain up King of Crete, Idomeneo is still missing at sea. Adamante, in an “I’m in charge” mood, tells us he has decided to set the Trojan prisoners free. He emotes – for quite some time – about fancying Ilia, the captured daughter of King Priam of Troy, something rotten. This is self-evidently risky. The rest of the cast usually stand around as Adamante expounds. This is what makes the opera clunky.
Arbace, a po-faced official, then advises Adamante in a formal letter/aria that selecting and agreeing to table motions to free Trojans is against the long-held Cretan traditions of smiting her enemies. Daddy is away, warns Arbace, and the heir to the throne risks facing a motion of no confidence in the Cretan Parliament.
Everyone knows he has done a behind-the-scenes deal after intense lobbying from Ilia. Still goes on today. Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle take note. This does not end well.
Elektra, Princess of Argos – the country, but sporting an outfit that could have come from the British down-market store of the same name – inconveniently fancies Adamante about as rotten as he fancies Ilia. She complains. If you can call a rage aria only complaining. At length.
In Idomeneo, she is relatively emotionally restrained. Eventually, in 1903, Elektra got promotion, to Strauss’ opera – Elektra – where with her very own title role she was allowed to let loose and go completely blood-lust bananas. That was, of course before she reached Crete. To today’s audiences Elektra arrives with form. She indulges in another rage aria at the end.
And so we beat on, each element of the plot usually being introduced with only occasional interaction between the characters. You get the drift. Worthy but mostly dull. Occasional vocal fireworks. That was the way it was at the beginning of opera seria at the end of the 18th century.
But not in Cologne 2024. This new production of Idomeneo, is directed by Floris Visser. His powerful re-interpretations of well-established works has audiences in tears and critics in fits when he introduces innovative elements. Such as the figure of Death in his 2022 Glyndebourne production of Puccini’s La bohème. And his 2023 Marriage of Figaro in Essen when Cupido (Love) and Satyr (Lust) spice up Mozart’s party.
Idomeneo plodding? Not on the Cologne stage. Buckle up. Heeeere’s Floris!
Visser is a founder member – perhaps the only member – of Special Opera Executive (SOE) whose undercover mission is to set European stages ablaze with explosive interpretations.
There are other disrupter candidates for membership of SOE. Perhaps Peter Sellars, Simon McBurney, or Bárbara Lluch. But I’m afraid their applications must be blackballed. No SOE for them.
They seek something Visser does not. Regime change. Their interpretations, especially Sellars’s, are effectively re-writes. They often profess to know better than composer and librettist.
Visser does something completely different. His tactics are to slip behind enemy lines – staid conventional interpretations – and introduce guerrilla characters who sharpen action and clarify plot. His productions never leave composer and librettist as inconvenient afterthoughts.
But his Death, Cupido and Satyr were minor explosions, mere scene setters for Idomeneo.
Now, what was most unusual? Was it the eight (difficult to count on the spur of the moment) zombies rising suddenly from the sandy graveyard in the final act? Or the ghost of Idomeneo haunting the whole performance, a premonition of him losing his mind?
Perhaps the silent figure of a masked executioner, wandering mechanically back and forth leaving handy axes for anyone plotting murder?
Elektra’s white-dress marriage to Adamante? Normally she only hopes to head off on a sea cruise, to exile with her beloved.
I particularly liked the Tosca allusion, when Elektra eventually jumped off a rugged cliff and disappeared into Hades, just as Tosca leaps from the battlements of the Castel Sant’Angelo.
There is much more to this production than new, mute characters. Visser has written a new ballet after the conventional ending, reprising Mozart’s overture. No voices. Idomeneo’s funeral is enacted in the graveyard where the zombies emerged from the sand. Adamante, Ilia and their young son mourn the dead king. Normally Idomeneo snuffs it without any real explanation.
As the ghost of Idomeneo had obviously descended to madness this ballet sequence, including flash visits while he is in long term terminal care, tied loose hanging plot lines together.
Some clever tics added poignancy. In flashbacks a young Adamante repeatedly rejects a wooden, carved Trojan toy horse. The famous victory in Troy is already tainted in Crete by Neptune’s curse.
And Cologne Opera? Colognians are serious folk. Their Rhineland opera house has been closed for nine years. Major rebuild meets lack of progress. Regulatory snafus have forced revisions and delays. The original budget of €253m has soared to beyond €1bn.
Was it being refurbed by Scotland’s Ferguson Marine shipyard, famously over budget and out of time with Cal Mac’s new Glen Sannox? No, but in conversations a similar tale of reconfiguring due to changing safety and environmental regulations emerged. So much for German efficiency.
Meantime, home is an unappetising, enormous industrial unit several miles from the town centre. That explained why my ill-informed choice of the dingy Opera Hotel – also in need of a refurb – because it must be a convenient short walk away was a boo-boo.
I arrived at the venue an hour early, to suss it out. It was, bleak, deserted – and locked. An armed guard told me it would not open for 30 minutes. “Where can I grab a coffee?” “Nowhere.” Terrific. Rain. I eyeball a portacabin with a sign on the door, “Büro”. Unlocked.
Disavowing an urge to kill the first person I met, I went in and eventually found a surprised official. Clearly unaccustomed as she was to dealing with humans, it took a while to persuade her to lead me to a coffee machine, a double espresso, a chair in a lecture room, and a pledge: “Sumvun vill be coming soon”.
That “sumvun” turned out to be a charming press officer who had heard all about Reaction and my far-flung dispatches. That’s because I had told her in several emails before I pitched up. I was accepted into the fold. Introduced to Hein Mulders, Cologne Opera’s Intendant at the interval. I had met up with Visser pre-performance.
My neighbours in the auditorium – which was unrelentingly industrial, but acoustically OK – were never going to give up their opera easily, even if exiled to industrial estate boondocks for nine years and counting. The house was packed. They loved Visser’s fresh take.
The orchestra was stunning, in full view as there is no pit. From my up close and personal vantage point in row 2 it was immediately obvious this was a close-knit team. Frequent mutual eye contact. Maestro Rubèn Dubrovsky was in sympathetic but total control. Especially obvious during the final, unfamiliar ballet sequence.
You may find a full cast list here. My star of the night was Romanian soprano, Ana Maria Labin. She was a powerful Elektra. Any casting directors reading? Please cast her in Strauss. Meantime Labin has an extensive and interesting discography to enjoy.
What did I dislike about this Visser production? It was uber-active. Idomeneo, clearly disturbed from the start – he sported a bloodstained bandage on his head – thrashed to and fro across the stage endlessly and often. It seemed to little purpose. We got the “disturbed” point early on. Too much.
I could live without the zombies. That said, I’m sure this new version will be taken up by other houses, as it is so much more dynamic than current staid efforts doing the rounds.
As I left the warehouse a very different song popped into my mind; “Being Boring” by the Pet Shop Boys. As they prophetically and triumphantly concluded, they were never boring. That’s the quicksilver Visser.
I’m off to Copenhagen after Easter to see his new production of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. This time his newbie is the son of the dastardly bigamist, Lieutenant Pinkerton, seeking the historical context for his father’s relationship with his mother, the doomed Cio-Cio-San, in a Japanese museum.
I concluded last year’s Essen Figaro review like so:
“Who dares wins. Floris Visser has dared with his interpretation of Figaro and won hands down. A fresh take on a well-loved work, true to the spirit and musicality of the composer and librettist, delivered with emotion, engaging vigour and humour. Does opera get any better than that?”
Prophetic, or what? Happy to report, Captain Floris Visser’s SOE one-man lonely opera club band is still engaged in successful manoeuvres across Europe setting opera stages ablaze.
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