Juliette is probably Martinů’s best-known opera, but it remains an obscurity. Performances have been scarce up until the last decade or so, and the sole complete studio recording dates from 1964 (a more recent Austrian radio broadcast, and a single disc of extracts also exist). For fans of Martinů, or anyone interested in the lesser-explored corners of interwar opera, the announcement of a high-profile new production of Juliette at the Staatsoper Berlin, featuring Rolando Villazón and Magdalena Kožená, plus musical direction from Daniel Barenboim, must have been cause for celebration.
Yet this was no mere evening for specialists. Claus Guth’s ceaselessly inspired staging used Martinů’s complex libretto – adapted from the play Juliette ou la clé des songes by Georges Neveux – as the basis for a compelling and wholly absorbing meditation on…
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