There is often a feeling of unresolved longing, of wistful nostalgia in Richard Strauss, particularly in Arabella, his last collaboration with writer Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Set in a genteel 19th century, it is his most romantic opera, one of secret adoration, rival suitors and love at first sight.
The music is luscious and lyrical to match. But how, one might wonder, would these sentiments play out in the world today? Director Tobias Kratzer takes the audience on an imaginary journey of discovery. Despite some reservations, I found his interpretation persuasive—challenging, but ultimately an affirmation of love and tenderness.
Arabella Waldner is being courted by three young beaux, but falls instantly for the stranger Mandryka, who has himself fallen in love with her picture. Meanwhile Zdenka, who has been forced to dress as a man because the family cannot afford to present her in society, has been forging love letters, supposed from Arabella, to persuade army officer Matteo to marry her sister and thus save the family fortune, although it is she herself who secretly loves him.
After a fairly traditional first act, presented like a light period drama, Kratzer uses the corridor outside the second act ball scene as a passage of time, with the costumes of the actors gradually updated from the 19th century to the late 1920s, with a couple of gratuitous Nazi thugs, through the 1960s to the present day. Behaviour becomes more dissolute, with a little coke snorting and bondage along the way.
At the heart of the production is the role of Zdenka, played with particular delicacy by Elena Tsallagova. "I don’t want to be a woman like you," she tells Sara Jakubiak’s Arabella. Kratzer suggests this to indicate a bisexual identity, as Zdenka duly repaints on her moustache after her betrothal to Matteo. This is taking something of a liberty, a counterpoint to Straussian conservatism, as the text merely states that she does not want to be "cold, coquettish" like her sister.
That adds nothing to the plot, but nor does it detract from it. Hey, it takes all sorts.
Designer Rainer Sellmaier’s sets effectively juxtapose the surprisingly comfortable rooms and reception in the hotel where the impoverished Waldners are staying, while a live video relays their actions—a puzzling incongruity until one sees the later perspective on events seen from a distance of 150 years.
There is not a weak link among the singers—Jakubiak always clear and smooth, with an exultant sound in her final aria "Das war sehr gut", by which time she shows greater signs of emancipation, displaying her equality in a water fight with the man she previously called her master.
In the process, the filthy-rich Mandryka, the expansive and expressive baritone Russell Braun, achieves a sort of redemption, while the equally impressive tenor Robert Watson happily embraces his thinly moustachioed Zdenko / Zdenka. Albert Pesendorfer, Thomas Blondelle, Kyle Miller Tyler Zimmerman, Hye-Young Moon and Alexandra Hutton provide strong and well drilled support, and conductor Sir Donald Runnicles maintains perfect balance and transparency in the score.
Footnote: The limited resolution of the available images displayed here do not reflect the high visual quality of the DVD.