November 6, 2005: Osud in Vienna

2005-11-06 Osud (Janacek), Wiener Staatsoper

Zivný = Jorma Silvasti
Míla Válková = Cornelia Salje
Mílas Mutter = Anja Silja
Poet/Dr. Suda/Ingenieur = John Dickie
Lhotský/Verva = Adrian Eröd
Konecný = Georg Tichy
Fräulein Stuhlá = Ǻsa Elmgren
Frau Major = Regina Knauer
Ein Student = Robert Maszl
Eine alte Slowakin =
Waltraud Winsauer
Frau Rat = Janina Baechle
Eine junge Witwe = Eliza Zurmann
Erster junger Mann = Jeong-Ho Kim
Zweiter junger Mann = Ion Tibrea
Doubek als Student = Terry Wey
1. Dame/Pacovská/
Fanca/Soucková =
Ileana Tonca
2. Dame/Kosinská = Simina Ivan
1. Gast = Dritan Luca
2. Gast = Michael Wilder
Ein Ober = Wolfram Derntl
Hrazda = Cosmin Ifrim
Zán = David Prochazka
Nána = Michaela Marhold
Pianistin = Raluca Stirbat

Simone Young, conductor

6. November 2005



OSUD
(6. Aufführung in dieser Inszenierung)

Dirigentin: Simone Young
Inszenierung: David Pountney
Bühne: Stefanos Lazaridis
Kostüme: Johan Engels
Licht: Rudolf Fischer
Regieassistenz: Nicola Raab
Chorleitung: Ernst Dunshirn




AN OPERA about a composer writing a opera. A sort of opera in a opera. Or is this ... Without Jorma Silvasti as the composer this opera would no doubt fail.

Pountney has some point in his regie, it took some time grabbing it, but then I understood the opera better.

Thanks to Agnes Baltsa I have heard Jánácek music before in the opera Jenufa (Wiener Staatsoper 2002). That naturally meant that I had an easier time dealing with the music than I would have had without. But where Jenufa is a more straight forward kind of opera, it is more linear story and you get to know the persons more in a straight way. Osud, Destiny, is a peculiar opera, more operatic than most operas, starts with a chorus containing more of just feelings of sunniness than of sun.

Anja Silja as the mother of Mila. Die Silja is of course famous for her many roles, and is especially known for her Jánácek roles. So here was an expectation that she would as important as Emily Marty in the Macropolous Case or as the Küsterin in Jenufa, two roles that are really her own. But there is not such a big role for her. Of course Anja Silja did it well but I couldn't help to think that Agnes Baltsa would in this role spring much more excitement and be more of a "can't take one's eye of her". Some magnetism was lost. But this was not Anja Silja's opera.

The role of Mila was much more as long as it lasted. And Cornelia Salje was great in this opera. From the moment she appeared it was her show. All other singers faded except Jorma Silvasti as her lover Dr Zisny. Cornelia Salje sang and acted her role as no other could have created this dysfunctional woman, was it the experience with Zisny that have made her such or was it her mother's fault , or...

OSUD is an opera that stands or fails with the tenor singing Dr Zisny. Jorma Silvasti was certainly the chief motor in holding it all together. Where as the role of Laca Klemen in Jenufa never allowed him to show the full extent of his voice and acting ability. The longer one get into the opera one realizes that it is not being realistic is Dr Zisny's opera in the making that we see. Everything is maybe in the composers head. The opera is about the torment of a composer making an opera out of his own experiences. David Poutney makes it possible to see this opera for what is probably is, the working process of an opera seen from the composers view.

One important person in the opera is Doubek, the son of Mila & Zisny. He is in many ways the reason why it all happened. Zisny wants his small son and finds his old love of Mila being as it was new. They live together unhappily with Mila's mother who is demented. When an unfortunate accident kills both Mila and her mother, Zisny is finally able to write an new act. Then Doubek grows up. Zisny decides that the opera is going to be on a stage finished except that 3rd act is missing. When he tells the students about the opera/his life is is almost finished up thinking to hear Mila's voice and a sort of forgiveness/cleaning up the mess happens, and when Doubek helps his father up, Zisny take a bow to the audience, and is like that before our eyes we have seen the 3rd act take shape. It is an opera inside this opera.

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