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Elbenita Miller Hamburg
Staatsoper
05/24/2026 - & May 28, 30, June 3*, 5, 2026
Giuseppe Verdi: Luisa Miller
Pavel Yankovsky (Miller), Elbenita Kajtazi (Luisa), Hovhannes Ayvazyan (Rodolfo), Alexander Roslavets (Wurm), Gábor Bretz (Count Walter), Kristina Stanek (Federica), Mariana Poltorak (Laura), Colin Aikins (A peasant)
Chor der Hamburgischen Staatsoper, Alice Meregaglia (chorus master). Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg, Henrik Nánási (conductor)
Andreas Homoki (stage director), Paul Zoller (sets), Gideon Davey (costumes), Franck Evin (lighting)
E. Kajtazi (© Elbenita Kajtazi)
Though a great opera, full of drama and alluring melodies, Verdi’s Luisa Miller hasn’t been produced frequently enough the past several decades. The reasons for its decreased popularity are manifold, beginning with its requirement of no less than six major voices – a decidedly expensive prospect for such a not so popular work.
Premiered in 1849, just before the dud Stiffelio (1850) and the hit Rigoletto (1851), it is considered the first opera of Verdi’s “middle period”. Its popularity was quickly eclipsed by Verdi’s ensuing three mega hits, Rigoletto, Il Trovatore (1853) and La traviata (1853).
Musically, it’s more in the bel canto style, evoking late Donizetti more than early Verdi. It’s almost devoid of Umpapa rhythms typical of early Verdi, those he mercifully shed before maturing into Italy’s greatest operatic composer. In emulating Meyerbeer, the leading composer of the day, Verdi imposed a sextet of top calibre singers that made Luisa Miller difficult and costly to cast. Fortunately, five of the six in this Staatsoper Hamburg production possessed the attributes necessary to ensure the opera’s success.
Though not exactly a Verdi baritone, Belarus’s Pavel Yankovsky is nonetheless a refined singer with a warm timbre, good diction and elegant style. He possesses the needed warmth in the role of Luisa’s father, Miller. His deportment showed more nobility than supposedly other upper crust characters. He conveyed both authority and warm fatherly love in his Act I duet with Wurm, “Sacra la scelta... Ei m’ha spezzato il cor”, in which he refuses to give his daughter in marriage to Wurm, unless it is Luisa’s choice. He was especially moving in his Act III duet with Luisa, “Sotto al mio pie il suol vacilla”.
The revelation of the evening was an astounding singer, a native of Kosovo, lyric soprano Elbenita Kajtazi. This singer simply has it all: a beautiful warm timbre that is immediately recognisable, supreme technique with extreme ease in the upper register, stage presence, perfect diction and great looks. Thankfully, Luisa sings the most in this opera, thus Kajtazi’s contribution rendered the evening thrilling, despite some misgivings, of which later. In Act II, her response to the evil Wurm, “Tu puniscimi, o Signor” and the ensuing cabaletta, “A brani, a brani, o perfido,” were the evening’s most memorable moments.
German mezzo Kristina Stanek was a naturally regal Duchess Federica, endowed with a beautiful timbre and an ability to use her chest notes to convey rage or passion without a hint of vulgarity. Though the role is secondary, thanks to Stanek it was one of the most memorable. Admired two seasons ago as Brangäne in Geneva’s production of Tristan und Isolde, this is a voice I would welcome more often.
Recently heard as Boris Timofeyevich Izmailov at La Scala’s phenomenal production of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, Belarusian bass Alexander Roslavets is a remarkable singer and actor. Endowed with a powerful voice that matches his overwhelming stage presence, Roslavets seems destined to portray nasty characters. In the present production, he was an especially abhorrent Wurm. He conveyed the cowardice of the character instead of simply portraying him as evil. Thanks to this aspect, one almost took pity on him. The character is a precursor to Iago (in Otello), and as with Shakespeare’s character, he is frustrated by his own mediocrity. However, he is not evil for the sake of it like Iago; he is motivated by his love/lust for Luisa.
Hungarian bass-baritone Gábor Bretz was Count Walter, Rodolfo’s father, who murdered his own cousin to usurp the title for himself and for his son. He personified the ambitious though weak nobleman. He used his voice subtly to portray the dissolute man’s tribulation, for despite his title, he never emanated true authority. Though he and Roslavets are both admirable singers, one would have liked a deeper hue for either bass role, to contrast with the others in the ensemble.
The disappointment of the evening was the last minute replacement of Rodolfo, in the person of Armenian tenor Hovhannes Ayvazyan. Though he showed ease in the upper register and could emit smooth high notes, his middle register was unappealing. One feels his voice is veiled and it only becomes free in the upper register. All of Ayvazyan’s high notes were on the spot, but the overall result was unappealing. Moreover, he failed to portray a nobleman. His deportment was less regal than either Wurm or even Miller. Unsurprisingly, even after the opera’s most famous aria, “Quando le sere al placido”, the public’s reaction was tepid. Alas, this is yet another tenor, endowed with brilliant high notes but little capacity to express diverse emotions. Loudness is all too often mistaken for passion, and with incomprehensible diction, it can border on the painful.
Hungarian conductor Henrik Nánási is a versatile conductor who is equally at ease in Verdi, Mozart or the French repertoire. Heard last season conducting Don Carlo in Naples, and earlier, masterfully at the helm of La Juive in Frankfurt, Nánási knows his scores inside out and understands how to bring them to life. Thanks to his delicate direction, especially in Luisa’s music, one could sense the connection to bel canto.
Luisa Miller was the third Verdi opera based on a play by Friedrich Schiller: Giovanna d’Arco (1845) was based on Die Jungfrau von Orleans (1801) and I masnadieri (1847) on Die Räuber (1781). A fourth opera, one of Verdi’s best, Don Carlos (1867) was based on yet another play by the German playwright, Don Karlos, Infant von Spanien (1787). German director Andreas Homoki seems to have returned to the source, Schiller’s play Kabale und Liebe (1784), for inspiration. Alas, therein lies the problem.
To be sure, Schiller was highly critical of the Duke Charles Eugene of his native Württemberg, who lived lavishly despite his duchy being relatively poor. He was tyrannical in imprisoning Schiller for leaving without permission to attend the premiere of Die Räuber. To fund his extravagant lifestyle, he sold his men as mercenaries to others. Duchess Federica (Lady Milford in the play) was based on the Duke’s mistress, and Wurm is based on the Duke’s acting minister Samuel Monmartin, a venal intriguer and manipulator. However, Verdi’s opera is not Schiller’s play.
Instead of viewing the opera as Luisa’s dilemma between her love for Rodolfo and her love for her father, Homoki sees it through class conflict and the nobility’s oppression of the peasantry. Even in Schiller’s play, Miller is middle class. Also in the play, Luisa’s mother is very much alive. Verdi did not omit her gratuitously; he wanted to stress the father-daughter bond.
As Schiller’s play was written the same year as Beaumarchais’s play La Folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro, the basis of Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, Homoki has the not so great idea to make Luisa Miller a harbinger of the upcoming 1789 French Revolution. Alas, the opera is uprooted from its bucolic Tyrolean setting into a facsimile of the sets of the verismo opera Andrea Chénier.
Though on more than one occasion a chorus of villagers sings to Luisa, Homoki instead gives us powdered nobles singing to the pretty peasant girl, a highly implausible occurrence. The idea is to constantly parade people in fancy attire and wigs. Unfortunately, these aristocrats are the likely image the audience will retain from the performance.
At the end of the opera, these same aristocrats are seen disheveled, looking terrorized around a guillotine, as if Luisa’s death and victimhood is their fault. I beg to differ; Luisa is given poison by the overly jealous Rodolfo, who believes Luisa’s letter (though it was written under duress). The Sturm und Drang character Rodolfo is the true culprit; he is simply a narcissist, unable to accept not being loved by Luisa. It requires a great singing actor playing Rodolfo and an imaginative director to make this “rejected” rich kid sympathetic. Alas, neither were to be found.
Despite its severely flawed staging and the unevenness of the cast, this will remain an unforgettable Luisa Miller thanks to Elbenita Kajtazi, a promising singer I hope to hear more from in future.
Ossama el Naggar
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