Vienna Volksoper

“Csárdásfürstin”: The last days of the operetta

Annette Dasch is Vienna's new "Cárdásfürstin".

(Bild: © Monika Rittershaus / Volksoper Wien)

With Emmerich Kálmán's "Die Csárdásfürstin", director Johannes Erath presents the operetta's deathly dull motion of no confidence. The Volksoper is in for a musical shock.

Bumsti! Karl Kraus lets it rip through his "Last Days of Mankind", in which he dealt with the First World War in a grandiose and monumental way. Bumsti! Shouts the field curate when he fires another gun. And the war-hungry crowd roars bravo. In the Volksoper, the howitzers are now also firing, so that you can feel a thud in your seat. But no one wants to shout bravo.

Because on stage, Emmerich Kálmán's "Csárdásfürstin" fails. Instead of vaudeville fluidity, there is gun smoke in the air and dead warhorses on the stage floor.

The play about the prince's scion Edwin, who is in love with vaudeville star Sylva Varescu, is set during the war and was first performed in Vienna in 1915. Edwin is even to be lured away from Sylva by conscription order.

Of course, the world war does not have to be ignored. Director Peter Konwitschny, for example, demonstrated this furiously in Dresden and Graz and put the "Csárdásfürstin" on the battlefield. However, he knows how to deal with it in a highly musical way and does not betray the genre. Nor does anyone today demand pop-slapping for operetta-fiddling girls from the Chantant or Csárdás hopscotch in colorful puszta fashions.

But at the Volksoper, director Johannes Erath fundamentally and deeply distrusts the operetta and the piece. Completely devoid of humor, he ignores any hint of entertainment or sentiment. He would rather stage the "Last Days" in the "Csárdásfürstin". And fails miserably. Even when some good ideas flash up, they get lost in the wrong piece. He writes a pointless version of the text, covers everything in leaden seriousness, allows the lively moments of fun to fade into a funeral march tempo, allows almost no number to be itself and constantly interrupts with text or other music.

Scene from the new "Csárdásfürstin": Annette Dasch, Jakob Semotan, Regula Rosin, Roland Koch, Juliette Khalil, Alexandre Beuchat.

(Bild: Volksoper/Monika Rittershaus)

Why does the well-behaved conductor Tobias Wögerer join in, even if he is quite loud with the Volksopernorchester? But almost nothing else is right on this evening either. Only the surtitles are a great stroke of luck. Because you can barely understand the dialog, let alone the sung text, if you can hear the voices at all. Even the wonderful Roland Koch in his speaking role as Prince von und zu Lippert-Weylersheim is lost in the dull scenery (Bernhard Hammer).

Annette Dasch at least shows impressive physical commitment as Sylva. However, even when she sings on the prompter's box, she is barely audible. Alexandre Beuchat, on the other hand, gives Edwin a rather harsh, loud baritone role.

Juliette Khalil is charming as the Stasi and the confident Jakob Semotan as Boni has to let the bangs hang out so much in this dark room that it becomes penetrating. Of course, it remains unclear at the end whether the completely disillusioned lovers can still find each other at all. The audience also acknowledges this with fierce boos. For a mishap that should be disposed of quickly before it causes any more damage. Because after this "Csárdásfürstin", one feels severely punished for daring to want to experience an operetta.