Der Zwerg

"Editor's choices - May 2020: Kratzer's contemporary staging of Zemlinsky's 1922 one-acter centring on self-image and discrimination is astute and moving; Elena Tsallagova is marvellously unsympathetic as the brittle, Instagram-famous Princess, whilst British tenor David Butt Philip and actor Mick Morris Mehnert collaborate to powerful, ultimately agonising effect as the open-hearted but maligned Dwarf gifted to her as a birthday-present".

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"Zemlinsky's one act opera Der Zwerg (The Dwarf) is an impressive work but it is problematic ... The music, however, is impressive. It is in the late romantic idiom we associate with Strauss and early Schoenberg ... Musically, the performance here is very good. Elena Tsallagova is an excellent Donna Clara, pretty but heartless ... David Butt Philip sings the dwarf with eloquence and passion ... Emily Magee, who sings Ghita, Donna Clara's attendant ... is warm with a maternal touch. The smaller parts are all well taken and the chorus, as Donna Clara's friends, have the right degree of enthusiasm and nastiness. Donald Runnicles conducts with fire and passion".

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"Zemlinsky's opera packs a tremendous punch, both dramatically and musically. Part of that is down to the literary source, Oscar Wilde's short story ... This Deutsche Oper production opts for a slightly uncomfortable halfway house, presenting the opera alongside a dramatisation of an eight-minute piece by Schoenberg ... Sadly, I didn't buy director Tobias Kratzer's staging choices, however ... Nor did I warm to the central conceit of have two artists playing the Dwarf, one actor and one singer ... Happily, there are no complaints about the musical performances ... Donald Runnicles, so distinguished in Mahler and Strauss, brings all of his insights to the score".

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"Musiken är lite eklektisk, senromantisk, anmärkningsvärt harmonisk i en ond tid. Solisterna övertygar i sina dramatiska och vokala uppgifter, i synnerhet James Johnson (Ullmann) ... Även Zemlinskys tonspråk är en smula eklektiskt, hela tiden sångbart med klanger som associerar till Wagner och Strauss ... Roderick Dixon, en kraftfull tenor, ger en gripande bild av Dvärgen, troskyldig i en falsk värld ... Dirigenten James Conlon och den stora LA-orkestern gestaltar det innehållsrika partituret kammarmusikaliskt".

"See- und Hörspass macht Alexander Zemlinskys Oscar-Wilde-Vertonung Der Zwerg ... Der versatile Tobias Kratzer ... hat sich eine clever Rahmenhandlung einfallen lassen, um den Einakter sinnig zum Abendfüller zu strecken ... Den grandios tenorstemmenden David Butt Philip als normal gewachsenes Über-Ich und den wortlosen, damit noch verletzlicheren Kleinen (Mick Morris Mehnert) ... So spannungsvoll dicht wie die Regie dirigiert auch Donald Runnicles dies vielschichtige, grandios charakterisierende Partitur zwischen Spätromantik und Moderne, die so präzise lautmalerisch zu erzählen weiss".

"So although this makes for a well-performed programme from March 2019 in Berlin, it cannot match the cruel beauty of Oscar Wilde's original fairy story, either in its writing or its dramatic realisation here ... The opera staging ... everything is set in modern concert dress in a featureless white room, here perhaps a concert hall with busts of artistes ... Runnicles, his players and his cast have obviously used their rehearsal time ... to maximum effect. The orchestra play their difficult cues like angels ... The staging is similarly tightly rehearsed, the filming and recording excellent".