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Before the first act of audition, these rather blunt, orgasmically discharging horns, full beats can be heard from a dial with a backward-running pointer in the new Munich “Rosenkavalier”.
That shines out of the darkness and immediately afterwards turns as if in delirium.
The second act rings a shrill alarm clock.
A cuckoo clock is used to whistle the completely crazy third one.
In the first finale, Marlis Petersen sits as the marshal, who has just been thinking about the world, elegantly in a feather-sequined dress on the gently swinging pendulum of a grandfather clock.
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And at the very end no Moorish boy who is hardly correct any longer picks up a forgotten handkerchief when the hybrid of old Cupid and father Chronos, who shuffled through the piece as an allegorical figure, tears the hands off the clock.
It almost looked as if the hour would never strike at the Bavarian State Opera for the much loved classic Schenk / Kleiber “Rosenkavalier”.
But even this dusty thing finally had its time.
After 46 years of service, it was dismissed in 2018;
The future director Serge Dorny had the equipment canceled for the time being.
Barrie Kosky now fell to the thankless task of offering the people of Munich and the rest of the current streaming / Arte world a worthy alternative.
He did it too.
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As a journey through the time when everything is ticking for everyone, especially for the work itself, which - “you have to be light” - since its rather coldly received premiere in 1911 itself has been so out of date with various, sometimes faked or asynchronous timelines that it is actually to be called pre-postmodern again.
First, Rufus Didwiszus' stage gives a clear view of the black and silver shimmering, fire-damaged rococo tomb of the Marschallin, where the contemporary, patented Marlis Petersen celebrates a Viennese pompe funèbre as a backward-looking icon.
The mostly beautiful costumes by Victoria Behr refer to the Twenties, the Italian singer (all attention: Galeano Salas) even appears as a baroque opera hero with a halo.
“It's a dream, can't really be”: Marlis Petersen as Field Marshal
Source: © Wilfried Hösl
There is no bed, but nice interaction with the fresh Octavian (Samantha Hankey), who later, as a perfectly womanly parlor girl, causes fashionable gender confusion.
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The second act at Faninal takes place in a picture gallery of seduction.
Lovingly cheeky Sophie from Katharina Konradi lies in a bed, full of anticipation, from whose perspective the story is now being told.
Nevertheless, the hour of the profound Christof Fischesser's completely un-Viennese, quite manly Och strikes again.
He would so much like to be a Faun, but actually remains just an improper MeToo man.
The musical arrangement also makes itself more and more convincing in this analytical ambience.
The first Munich “Rosenkavalier” new production since 1972 may not be played with the usual lush Strauss orchestra.
The totally reduced Coburg miniature version does not exist either.
The conductor and composer Eberhard Kloke has created a reduced alternative from the 36 musicians of the “Ariadne auf Naxos” orchestra (including piano and harmonium) plus special instruments.
It grants the singers more transparency, sounds harder, less sweet with strings, more modern.
And so the future Munich chief conductor Wladimir Jurowski conducts his Bavarian State Orchestra tightly, but on a casual leash, clever in the tempo dramaturgy, transparent, without any smiling Kleiber sentiment.
Everything always with a double bottom
That fits perfectly with this production.
Barrie Kosky consistently modernizes, scratches away the patina, but also allows Ludwig II kitsch with tinfoil body.
In this way he creates his “fantasy world from French operettas, Molière, Shakespeare, Viennese waltzes, Mozart, Sigmund Freud and farce-like boulevards”.
But always with a double bottom.
All apparently familiar types, the Italian intriguing couple, the wet nurse, the worried, fluffy father Faninal (with Johannes Martin Kränzle luxury staff), the domestics, they are given today's character.
The third act with the often silly Beisl-Spuk mutates into the absurd Pirandello theater on a stage, with a dummy audience and the curtain constantly closing.
In the end, of course, the Marschallin with her short, quickly comforting pain and the new lovers are alone in their happiness - in complete blackness.
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“It is a dream, it cannot be real,” the Amanti fly into the stage sky as a utopia.
The old god of love, who stops time for her, grins himself one.
And we're looking forward to this multi-layered “Rosenkavalier” - back in the real opera house very soon.
Can still be seen for 30 days free of charge on Arte / concert and staatsoper.tv