Prokofiev The Fiery Angel opera to libretto by the composer. Directed 2021 by Andrea Breth at the Theater an der Wien. Stars Aušrinė Stundytė (Renata), Bo Skovhus (Ruprecht), Natascha Petrinsky (Hostess of the Inn / Abbess), Elena Zaremba (Fortune Teller), Nikolai Schukoff (Agrippa von Nettesheim / Mephistopheles), Alexey Tikhomirov (Inquisitor), Markus Butter (Mathias / Faust), Andrew Owens (Jakob Glock / A Doctor), and Kristján Jóhannesson (innkeeper / A Servant). Constantin Trinks conducts the ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien and the Arnold Schoenberg Chor (Chorus Master Erwin Ortner). Set design by Martin Zehetgruber; costume design by Carla Teti; light design by Alexander Koppelmann; dramatic advisor was Antonio Cuenca Ruiz. Directed for TV by Tiziano Mancini. Sung in Russian. Released 2022, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: NA
We already have a stupendous version of The Fiery Angel from Opera di Roma. And now the Blu-ray cornucopia gives us another version of this pungent, sour fruit of an opera. Marina Frolova-Walker, the Russian culture expert who writes for Gramophone (June 2022 at page 87) weighs in. Director Andrea Breth puts her characters in a psychiatric ward. Marina complains that it's hard for the audience to become emotionally involved with medical casebooks. Searching for something nice to say, Marina does note that this was performed and recorded during the Covid pandemic (in a theater with no audience) and can be considered a "monument" to that time of great stress. Steven Jude Tietjen, writing in the September 2022 Opera News, page 63, is more favorable in giving a “Critic’s Choice” award. Per Tietjen, director Breth reframes the infatuations between the characters as “psychological obsessions detached from reality.” The setting creates physical difficulties for the singers, but they rise to the occasion with brilliant interpretations. Finally, Constantin Trinks presents a “towering, exhilarating reading” of the score.
Just looking at the front artwork might give one vertigo. Here’s a (terrifying) trailer from C Major. Watch and decide if you have the nerve to buy this:
OR
