Moses und Aron

"Moses und Aron on the Paris stage ... Director Romeo Castellucci loves to shock. So how did he approach a new production of Schoenberg's challenging and complex opera for Paris's Opera Bastille? ... His high-minded and ambivalently visual Moses und Aron owes as much to art history as to theatre ... Castellucci, with his bull and his ink, has managed somehow to make indelible images out of an opera in which images are the greatest evil of all".

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"The encounter between the prophet Moses and his brother Aron takes place in a whited-out landscape that transforms human figures into ghosts. Black liquid pours like abundant blood or oil on the singers, and becomes a lake in which they are baptized and drowned. The golden calf is a one-and-a-half-ton Charolais bull ... The spectacle - in all senses - ... remains unforgettable. You could quibble with specific ideas in Mr. Castellucci's work, but the sweep and scale of his vision in this "Moses" is a path to Schönberg's unforgiving, glorious opera".

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"Vurdering: Diapason d'or".

"Willy Decker setzt sich in seiner brillanten Inszenierung für die Jahrhunderthalle Bochum über Schönbergs allzu naive Bühnenanweisungen hinweg ... Die Besetzung des Moses mit dem drahtig-agilen Dale Duesing sei unter den hervorragenden Mitwirkenden hervorgehoben".

Vurdering (Szene): 3/5.

Vurdering (Musik): 4/5.

"Der souverän disponierende Philippe Jordan entfaltet einen seidigen Schönberg-Schönklang, die strenge Zwölftönigkeit hat etwas irisierend Leichtes, verführerisch Geistesklares. Man folgt interessiert dem Dialog des hier mit einem tonprächtigen, männlichen Bariton (Thomas Johannes Mayer) ... und den biegsamen ... nicht unsympatischen Aron (John Graham-Hall). Und man bewundert rückhaltlos den fast akzent-freien, von José Luis Basso einstudierten Chor, der sich ebenzo diszipliniert wie frei durch den Raum bewegt".

"Nickler takes an effectively practical tack, abstract but straightforward ... Both Grundheber and Moser sieze every cue for lyrical expression ... No wonder the Viennese loved it".

"This is a visually fascinating, but ultimately unsatisfying production. There can be no complaints, though, about the musical performance".