Genoveva

Robert Schumann Genoveva opera with libretto by Robert Reinick and the composer. Directed 2008 by Martin Kušej at the Zuruch Opera House. Stars Juliane Banse, Shawn Mathey, Martin Gantner, Cornelia Kallisch, Alfred Muff, Ruben Drole, Tomasz Slawinski, and Matthew Leigh. Nikolaus Harnoncourt directs the Orchestra and Chorus of the Zurich Opera House (Chorus master Ernst Raffelsberger). Set by Rolf Glittenburg; costumes by Heidi Hackl; lighting by Jürgen Hoffmann; TV director was Felix Breisach. Released  2009, disc has 7.1 dts-HD Master Audio. Grade: C+

This is Schumann's only opera, an obscure work that few people have seen. The orchestra music is interesting. But there are no great melodies for the singers, and the libretto is too stuffy and simple to support a night out. So why not take a chance and see if you can spike the bowl with design and directing. Now pipe on board enfant terrible Martin Kušej, whom we have previously met in HDVDs of Electra (also at Zürich) and Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (at the iconoclastic Nederlandse Oper). Kušej likes to build a box within the stage; and within the box he creates his own abstract universe of symbolic and surreal images and actions---with emphasis on dislocation, inexplicable moves, garish violence, nudity, smearing, splatter, and the like (you know you're in trouble if the box says you have to be 12 years old to see the show). To the expert and the initiated, this can be bracing and profound; to the traditional, it's Eurotrash.

Too bad we can't fetch Robert Schumann in a time machine and watch the expression of his face during a performance. My inclination would be to dial out the Kušej Genoveva --- except for one thing. The videography on this disc is preternaturally superb. I kept finding myself wanting to defend Genoveva from her assailants and to save Juliane Banse from having to suffer this production in front of those people in the theater in Zurich. I couldn't take my eyes off her at curtail call. Even though the show is over, she seems to be temporarily insane. This suggests that she finds Kušej's vision valid and important. Or maybe that's the way any woman looks who has survived Folterverhör (interogation by torture). If this thumbnail piques your interest, you might like this HDVD a lot: so I give it a grade of "C+."