Tchaikovsky: Iolanta and the Nutcracker

Olesya Golovneva, Stefan Cerny, Georgy Vasiliev, Andrei Bondarenko, Mila Schmidt, Felipe Vieira, Wiener Staatsballett,
Orchester der Volksoper Wien, conducted by Omer Meir Wellber
staged by Lotte de Beer, choreography by Andrey Kaydanovskiy

When Tchaikovsky premiered his famous ballet The Nutcracker in Saint Petersburg 130 years ago, it was presented as a double bill, as standard at the time, together with the opera Iolanta. The Volksoper Wien, being part home to the famous Wiener Staatsballett, under the helm of the new artistic director Lotte de Beer and music director Omer Meir Wellber presents both works again in one evening, but not as two separate pieces, but by fusing the two works into one. It’s a “successful debut that is also musically convincing” and the “two pieces intertwine like gears”. Jorine van Beek’s costumes makes it a “feast for the eyes” (Die Presse). “This imaginative ‘music theatre for the whole family’ enchants above all the numerous children and young people. (...) The Volksoper Orchestra once again demonstrated its power of performance” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung). In short: it’s a family-show to the core.

[KWT]

Just seen this on DVD. I expected the *entire* opera performed with the *whole* of the ballet given as some kind of entertainment for the opera’s title role at the end: a disappointingly mediocre production of extracts cobbled together from the opera and ballet, the former sung in German. As bad as Tcherniakov’s _Nutcracker_ but at least we get a very good and sensible staging of _Iolanta_ which can be watched independently of his ugly staging of the ballet. Not recommended.