Company: Opéra national du Rhin
Director: David Pountney
Conductor: Roland Kluttig
Premiere: 20 May 2018
Event page
Old Weill hand David Pountney teams up with young Weill hand Lauren Michelle in a new production of three works at Opéra national du Rhin. Weill’s first and last major collaborations with Bertolt Brecht, Mahagonny Songspiel and Die sieben Todsünden, take shape alongside a rather different piece, Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire. The fully-staged production is directed by David Pountney and conducted by Roland Kluttig; Lauren Michelle and Lenneke Ruiten alternate as Anna I and as the Soprano in Pierrot lunaire.
The collaboration of Pountney and Michelle is especially noteworthy, partly because it is their first, though Pountney has advocated for Michelle since she made the finals in the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition in 2015 — the same year she took First Prize in the Lotte Lenya Competition. Michelle has made any number of marks since that breakout year, performing at Carnegie Hall, the Ravinia Festival, Washington National Opera, Wiener Staatsoper, and Welsh National Opera. Her Weill roles include Irina in Lost in the Stars (Washington National Opera, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra), and Rachel in The Road of Promise. Pountney has his own extensive history with Weill: Street Scene (English National Opera, 1989; Chicago Lyric Opera, 2001), Die sieben Todsünden (Opera North, 2004), and Der Kuhhandel (Bregenz Festival, 2004). That’s an impressive amount of combined Weill expertise. Given Pountney’s reputation for adventurous stagings, we may well hope for a thought-provoking production.
Three different cities host the triple bill: Strasbourg (20, 22, 24, 26, 28 May), Colmar (5 June), and Mulhouse (13, 15 June), for a total of eight performances.
Features
Learn more about Mahagonny Songspiel
Learn more about Die sieben Todsünden
