Hindemith’s Cardillac is a brilliant jeweller with a bad habit: he kills everyone who buys his wares. Hitler’s regime later banned performances of the opera, and Hindemith’s frugal mass-murderer vanished from German stages links of london charms. Last weekend, he made his first return to Dresden since the work’s 1926 premiere.
Dresden’s superlative Staatskapelle finds sensual curves in Hindemith’s astringent formalism now, just as it must have done then. Has Cardillac deserved its neglect? The piece has enjoyed a limited comeback elsewhere. It tells a gripping story through 90 taut minutes, and is loaded with allegorical overtones links of london sale. As an artist, Cardillac puts himself above moral judgment. Hindemith tells the tale with chilly discipline.
Philipp Himmelmann’s new staging for the Semperoper aims for timeless clarity. Johannes Leiacker’s set is a black box of Flemish renaissance perspective lines, and Bettina Walter dresses the chorus in swathes of cloth printed with Vermeer paintings links of london. Hindemith’s arm’s-length abstraction is echoed in decorative formalism, making it harder than ever to care about these unsympathetic characters. The lesson for us today? Pass. Himmelmann and his team seem more concerned with plucking the thorns from this prickly opera than with the difficult questions it poses links of london items.