As Le veilleur, Shavleg Armasi sang in a jet black bass that descended to the sepulchral depths with fullness – and he also made much of the words. Jens Larsen was a tower of strength as Tirésias, like Melrose, unafraid to compromise the beauty of his bass to illustrate the desperation of his character. She also sang in impeccable French, making every word audible and filling them with meaning. In the extensive cast, Karolina Gumos gave us a superbly-sung Jocaste, in a ruby red mezzo with wonderful resonance and ease throughout the range. Diction across the board was comprehensible and aided by the fact that the seat-back titles also offered the original French. He was unafraid to compromise the beauty of tone to display Œdipe’s desperation, and held the stage with a highly energetic and unflinching stage presence. His Œdipe was sung in decent French and with a firm baritone that had good resonance. Melrose has made a speciality of these big twentieth and twenty-first century roles. There was much to admire in the performances of the principals, not least Leigh Melrose in the title role. Yet while Titov’s staging does provide a burst of theatrical energy, it felt that we were only getting a fragment of the work rather than the whole thing. Perhaps, due to our current plague, there was a need to reduce the work to its essence and place the choruses away from the main stage. The sense of a world struggling through a plague – how relevant right now – and of how Œdipe’s actions affected those around him. And yet, I lost a sense of the wider context of the work and its characters. He also created a haunting stage picture, with Œdipe alone in the pool, his silhouette projected onto the wall behind, reinforcing his loneliness. That doesn’t mean that Titov’s staging lacks impact – the sight of Œdipe having gouged his eyes was suitably horrifying, amplified by the choral sound from high up. The production cut around 40 minutes of music, and the effect was to really concentrate the action on the central character, removing the societal implications and making this a much more intimate piece than the cast of thousands sprawling epic that it is at its core. The effect of the chorus singing as if commenting on the action worked well to an extent, but I must admit to missing the effect of a mass of individuals expressing jubilation or horror as required, and the wall of sound that would come as a result. The set (Rufus Didwiszus) was an impressive steel encasing structure, set around a central pool, intimating from the very start the fact of the inevitability of Œdipe’s fate. Perhaps also due to the current sanitary restrictions, the choruses were placed around the highest balcony in Evgeny Titov’s production, singing into the auditorium, while on stage the principals acted out the action with the aid of a group of extras. Face masks are compulsory around the house, but can be removed during the show, while the house sold reduced capacity with seats blocked out and sold in units of 1 or 2. EU Green Passes are checked, and guests given a wrist band to wear for the duration of their stay. Audience members are required to check in using either of the tracing apps used in Germany, or through a handwritten form. The house has taken a different approach to last night’s in Hamburg to the current sanitary measures. Following high-profile productions at De Munt – La Monnaie (later imported by the London Royal Opera), as well as in Salzburg, it was the turn of the ever-ambitious Komische Oper to take on Enescu’s magnum opus. Saturday, September 11th, 2021.Įnescu’s Œdipe is undergoing something of a mini-revival currently. Kinderchor der Komischen Oper Berlin, Vocalconsort Berlin, Chorsolisten der Komischen Oper Berlin, Orchester der Komischen Oper Berlin / Ainārs Rubiķis.