A quiet revolution is taking place in the Vienna State Opera, one of the world’s greatest opera houses, under its new chief, Frenchman Dominique Meyer.
While Meyer, 55, officially took over the reins on the Ringstrasse on Sept. 1, his real trial by fire came on Sunday with the premiere of a new production of Paul Hindemith’s rarely-performed opera "Cardillac."
The evening reunited several artists originally assembled by Meyer’s predecessor, Romanian-born Ioan Holender who was the State Opera’s longest-serving director.
But Meyer quickly made his mark with small but noticeable changes, and the promise of more to come.
Some were cosmetic: the program for "Cardillac" is larger and glossier than the slim, dusty-looking booklets from the Holender era. The opera’s website and the posters are flashier and more modern.
But the Frenchman also appears intent on updating the house’s repertoire, including a return to baroque opera banned by his predecessor.
While Holender began and ended his 18-year reign with the great, complex German composer Richard Wagner — his final stagework "Parsifal" — Meyer chose a lesser-known work by the infrequently-performed composer Paul Hindemith (1895-1963) to ring in a new era.
Tonal in its musical language, the 90-minute three-acter from 1926 is no easy fare and firmly rooted in the "Neue Sachlichkeit" (New Objectivity) German art movement of the 1920s — a reaction against the heady romanticism of Holender’s beloved Wagner.
The score combines jagged harmonies and melodies with baroque musical forms as it tells the story of the lonely, embittered master goldsmith Cardillac who loves his jewelry more than people, including his own daughter.
Among those reunited for "Cardillac" are German director Sven-Eric Bechtolf, whom Holender first brought to the house a few years ago for a new reading of Wagner’s four-opera "Ring" cycle, and two stars from that production — Finnish baritone Juha Uusitalo who played the title role Sunday and Polish bass-baritone Tomasz Konieczny.
Rolf and Marianne Glittenberg, who also worked with Bechtolf on the "Ring," created the expressionist black and white "Cardillac" sets reminiscent of silent movies and costumes that looked straight from a Tim Burton movie.
And the conductor is Austrian Franz Welser-Moest, a regular and much-applauded guest in the Holender era who became the State Opera’s new general music director at the same time that Meyer took over.
The entire cast, conductor and directing team received a rapturous reception at the premiere, with the warmest applause going to Bechtolf and Welser-Moest.
"Cardillac" will have an initial run of five performances until Oct. 30. But Meyer’s next innovation comes next month with another first: a new production of Handel’s "Alcina" under French conductor Marc Minkowski and his period-instrument band, Les Musiciens du Louvre-Grenoble.
Not only was baroque opera was banned under Holender, it will also be the first time that the house orchestra, made up of members of the Vienna Philharmonic, is to be replaced by a guest ensemble.
