• PostedMay 28, 2025
  • AuthorEd Harsh
Lauren Michelle in Die sieben Todsünden, part of the Kurt Weill triple bill at Milan’s La Scala. (Photo: Brescia e Amisano.)

Three Works Sparkle at La Scala Thanks to
Brilliant Cast and Riccardo Chailly’s Baton

 

During the COVID shutdown in 2021, Milan’s La Scala produced a double bill of Die sieben Todsünden and Mahagonny Songspiel. It was performed in an empty theater and recorded for broadcast. This season, the production has returned in live performance, transformed into a “Weill Triptych” with the addition of songs from Happy End punctuated at the close by “Youkali.” Director Irina Brook sought to form the disparate pieces into a dramatic arc by setting them loosely in the post-apocalyptic context of a large-scale climate disaster. Ricardo Chailly conducted the performances, with a cast featuring Alma Sadé along with 2015 Lenya Competition First Prize winner Lauren Michelle and mezzo Wallis Giunta, one of the rising Weill interpreters in the world today.

Press reports were unanimous in singling out the music as the source of the evening’s greatest rewards. Chailly “captured every tonal nuance and rhythmic pulsation, balancing the complex mixture of cultured and trivial elements, avant-garde dissonances and classic counterpoint, chamber music textures and popular forms” (Fabio Vittorini, Il Manifesto). Giunta was praised for her “smoky, seductive tone” and her “desperately moving” interpretation of “Surabaya Johnny.” Giornale della musica appreciated Michelle’s “controlled voice” and “dazzling physical presence, with the abilities of a circus contortionist” adding more generally that “the entire cast is first-rate, making it impossible to name everyone deserving mention.”

 

Markus Stenz’s “Impassioned” Musical Leadership Elevates Der Protagonist in Venice

 

Weill’s first opera, Der Protagonist, was a sensation at its Dresden premiere in 1926, a signal to the German musical world that a major talent had appeared on the scene. Although it has tended to be lost in the glare of the composer’s more well-known masterpieces, it still shows its merits whenever it is produced. Conductor Markus Stenz has proven his special affinity for Weill’s works on many occasions in the past, starting with the famous 1992 Ruth Berghaus production of Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny in Stuttgart. With the new production recently premiered in the Malibran Theater at La Fenice in Venice, Der Protagonist joins the list of Weill works benefiting from his touch. Giornale della musica describes his “impassioned conducting, which brings out with exuberance the musical variety in Weill’s score.” Reporting on the excellence of the La Fenice instrumentalists, GBOpera credits Stenz with “loving care” in “highlighting the dramatic tension of the music along with Weill’s skillful vocal writing.” Leading the cast are Matthias Koziorowski as The Protagonist and Martina Welschenbach, “emotionally intense and vocally soaring,” as The Sister.