"Die
Entführung aus dem Serail" (or Il Seraglio)
Opera
by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Dear
Readers,
One
has to admire Yekta Kara’s staging of The
Abduction from the Seraglio
at the Ankara State Opera House. I was frankly sceptical about her
previous productions, which I found unusual, not to say maverick.
This is different. It is, in a word, fantastic.
Elsewhere
in the world, all the opera’s characters speak German. In Ankara,
each keep to his or her native tongue, and they all understand each
other. A first on stage, and possible only in Turkey.
While
Selim Pasha and his servant Osman naturally speak in Turkish, the
English slave girl, Blonde, delivers in smooth, fluent English. And
Pedrillo, servant to the Spanish nobleman Belmonte, adopts broken
Turkish when he needs to make himself understood, but otherwise
speaks and sings in German. And so the opera is Turkified in a way no
other staging anywhere has ever before attempted.
Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart’s Abduction
from the Seraglio
(Die
Entführung aus dem Serail
in its original German, Il
Seraglio
in Italian, and in Turkish Saraydan
Kız Kaçirma)
is an absolute gift to Turkish opera lovers.
Belmonte
(tenor), his beloved Konstanze (soprano), the servant Pedrillo
(tenor), and Pedrillo's girlfriend, Blonde (soprano), are prisoners
of Selim Pasha and are being held in the pasha's summer mansion
somewhere on the Mediterranean. The pasha's harem guard, Osman, is
the villain of the piece. There are lots of beautiful harem girls and
guards, everyone is dressed in authentic Ottoman style, and we have a
nice, happy ending.
This
opera was one of the first with a German libretto. Audiences, even
those like the author with only elementary German, can easily follow
the simple, comic German conversation. Premiered at the Burgtheater
in Vienna in 1782, it was an immediate success, though Mozart made
very little money out of it – just 450 florins – despite the fact
that the revenue from the first two performances alone was 1200
florins, and the opera is still making money today.
Sultan
Abdülhamid I (1774-89) was on the Ottoman throne at the time, and
one wonders if the Ottomans were aware of the opera, and if so, how
comfortable they were with its criticism of the their administration
(though there are positive aspects). However, the first Turkish
Embassy in Vienna was only opened in 1916.
When
Mozart composed the opera, almost a century had passed since the
second siege of Vienna and the city’s narrow escape from Turkish
invasion. At the time of the siege, Vienna would have resounded to
terrifying Janissary war music coming from beyond their gates.
Several generations later, Mozart managed to work this music into his
wonderful operatic tunes, using orchestras reinforced with a bass
drum, cymbals, triangle and recorder (nowadays replaced with a
piccolo).
Today
the opera is regularly performed on European stages, and at least
eight CD recordings are available, including one starring probably
the greatest Konstanze of them all: the soprano Edita Gruberova
(Decca, 1985).
Yekta
Kara’s staging benefits from wonderful authentic costumes and fine
theatrical performances, while the set design is plain, but pleasing
and realistic. While Selim Pasha’s performance is powerfully
theatrical, Osman’s is rich in Turkish motifs, and in the parts of
Konstanze and Blonde, our sopranos compete with each other
brilliantly in gorgeous, flawless voices.
Ankara
State Opera is to be congratulated for this truly extraordinary new
interpretation. Maybe one day it will be staged in Vienna itself,
just to show them: ‘This is our
opera.’
The
Abduction from the Seraglio
will be staged in Ankara again on April 2, 12 and 21 and on May 10.
Front seats are recommended. Tickets are available online from
dobgm.gov.tr. (https://secure.dobgm.gov.tr/opera2013/devopera.aspx).
It
will also be coming to the Istanbul Opera Festival this summer (June
3–17).
Not
to be missed. Ankara, 10-March 2014
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