Fatal Obsession

With all the attention-seeking productions that tread the boards of Berlin’s opera houses in a given year, Robert Carsen’s new staging of Die tote Stadt – which kicked off the Komische Oper’s new season – was striking for its extreme respectability. Even when diving into the glittery demi-monde of the second act or inverting the opera’s ‘it was all a dream’ plot twist into its own unsettling Twilight Zone ending, it remained scrupulously tasteful. The musical direction of Ainārs Rubiķis was equally even-handed and level-headed, turning the overheated moments of Korngold’s score down to a gentle simmer without diminishing their dramatic heft. The sets were elegant, the singing was for the most part very good; there was, objectively, nothing about the production that could be described as a serious flaw.

Yet the excess of respectability…