From the folks who brought you La Traviata in the Zurich Hauptbahnhof,
this Servus TV production, which is part of this summer's Salzberger Festpielen, is novel and pleasant. But ultimately, it’s more of a spectacle
than a drama-with-music.
Clearly, from an acoustic standpoint, an airplane
hangar is a less-than-optimal setting for the singers, and ensemble work is
occasionally dodgy. On the other hand, given the obstacles, the singers do
remarkably well. Of course, such flaws are part of the excitement of live
performance. The acting and singing range from OK to quite good and the visuals are almost always fun, fascinating, or at least interesting. All that is to say it’s a fun cool experiment, and if it gets more people
even superficially interested in opera, then job well done.
