Shawn Mathey

Live performance from the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, 23 July 2005.

Juliane Banse, Cornelia Kallisch, Shawn Mathey, Martin Gantner, Ruben Drole and Alfred Muff star in this acclaimed adaptation of German composer Robert Schumann's opera "Genoveva," produced by Nikolaus Harnoncourt. Inspired by the works of Johann Ludwig Tieck and Christian Friedrich Hebbel, Schumann's tale centers on an ill-fated countess who finds her life turned upside down when she's falsely accused of adultery.

There are elements of Eurotrash in this outdoor Aix-en-Provence summer opera production. Nevertheless, the splendid singing and acting transform the story, normally treated as farce, into something considerably more serious. As many other critics have noted, the young lovers have not yet sorted everything out as this performance ends. Act One begins with the principal characters running around in the outdoor theater -- while the audience takes it in as if they had been advised to sit back and enjoy the novelty. Very likely they were also asked to refrain from applauding at the end of arias and ensemble pieces, in which the three-hour opera abounds.