Whenever Hindemith's operas are mentioned, Opera Chic cannot avoid to think that his masterpiece, by far, is Sancta Susanna -- that unholy hymn to the agony and the ecstasy of convent life, to the drily brick-and-mortar ways of the Church, not to mention an impressive treatise on emergency sex toys -- but Cardillac, a musical whodunit, has a special place in OC's heart (the DVD of the heavily-inspired-by-Fantômas 2005 Paris production -- the UK link is here -- conducted by Kent Nagano and directed by André Engel is -- visually -- strikingly elegant, if a bit timid in its conducting).
Lucky Dresden audiences are now being treated by Opera Chic Conductor of 2008, il maestro Fabio Luisi, to a tasty helping of Cardillac -- the rare 1926 version, Opera Chic's favorite with its rawer, imperfect, savage beauty -- in a new Philipp Himmelmann, coolly Expressionist production.
Die Welt appreciated the dark beauty conjured by Luisi and his orchestra; Neue Musikzeitung caught the hommage the director paid to the late Heath Ledger.
A nice video is here. In the image below, the cameo by The Dark Knight's Joker.
(All photos, except Heath Ledger's below obviously, courtesy of Semperoper Dresden © Matthias Creutziger)