Deutsche Opera Berlin’s Il trittico is a crowd-pleasing mess

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Puccini balances on a knife’s edge between kitsch and melodrama. It is hard to get right. And much-feted newcomer Pinar Karabulut’s new production of Il trittico for Berlin’s Deutsche Oper absolutely does not. Despite that, or perhaps because of it, the evening is a roaring success.

Karabulut is a popular feminist figure on Germany’s theatre landscape, but has never tried her hand at opera before. And that means everything you might expect: that she does not know how to move a chorus convincingly, that she blindly repeats the worst opera clichés because she does not know what they are, and that singers are abandoned to their fates, left wildly gesticulating in the spotlight for lack of better instruction.

Karabulut’s concept is fine as far as it goes — a single set, a journey through the triptych’s three operas, from Hell (the murderous drama of Il tabarro) through Purgatory (the gloomy nuns of Suor Angelica) to Paradise (the dark comedy of Gianni Schicchi), with strained references to Dante. Michela Flück’s set looks like an extravagant extension of the landscapes that come in Kinder Surprise eggs, complete with lumpy plastic mountain, painted flames, and a paddling pool straight from Banksy’s Dismaland seaside resort art project. Everything revolves. A lot. Teresa Vergho’s costumes are vaguely futuristic, with a 1960s Star Trek-meets-high school musical vibe — Michele and Gianni Schicchi both wear big coats apparently made from a red shower curtain, the nuns are green insects with half-moon headpieces, and everyone has way too much hairspray.

After the strained awfulness of the first two operas, Gianni Schicchi is served up with lashings of Laurel and Hardy-style slapstick, and the audience collapses into hysterics. The harder Karabulut tries — and she really tries hard — the more they laugh. The closing applause is the loudest Berlin’s opera houses have heard in a long time, with a chorus of boos enthusiastically drowned out by cheers.

And so Deutsche Oper has a crowd-pleaser — something it badly needs. Is it feminist? Not especially. Is it good? For the most part, no. Chief conductor Donald Runnicles begged off sick on Saturday’s opening night, leaving John Fiore battling to keep things together, with little room left for subtlety.

The cast, at least, is excellent. Armenian soprano Mané Galoyan steals the show in the double roles of Suor Angelica and Lauretta, with singing that is sweet, rich, and winning; Jonathan Tetelman, despite having to perform his big aria in the muddy paddling pool with his hands tearing at the air like alien claws, makes a magnificent, heroic, bad-boy Luigi; Misha Kiria is charismatic as the homicidal Michele and the more endearingly criminal Gianni Schicchi; Violeta Urmana is sublimely wicked as the Principessa.

★★☆☆☆

To October 9, and on December 14, deutscheoperberlin.de