Citizen, Murderer, Nobleman

Christopher Maltman: In any case, Vienna around the turn of the century! Those great figures like Sigmund Freud, Alexander Zemlinsky, Gustav Mahler, and later Erich Wolfgang Korngold! I believe Vienna was a truly unique place during this era of innovation and intellectualism. In addition to literature, theater, and the visual arts, there was also a kind of musical explosion, which transformed the traditions of the 19th century and led to the musical world in which we live today.

Dimitry Golovnin: For me, it’s definitely the same! That era is particularly close to my heart; its music touches my soul directly. You know, I have a musical background as a trumpeter, and I’ve played so much from that era and from the ones that followed. Of course, it’s quite clear: Mozart is beautiful. Beethoven is fantastic. But I’m a child of the 20th century, not just in music, but in other arts as well. I feel very connected to this era.

DG: Yes , absolutely! But in a different way than you might think. I have imposter syndrome—that so-called “pretender syndrome.” Every time I’m on stage, I think to myself, “My God, what am I doing here?” So there’s always a little bit of the orchestra musician in me who asks this question from the pit and says: “Get down here right now!” But of course, on the other hand, there’s this immense joy in being allowed to stand on stage. Yet I always feel, too, that it is a very special honor to be allowed to sing in these famous venues, and I want to live up to those expectations. I want to prove that I’m good, and I try not to bring shame upon the orchestra, with which I feel a deep connection. After all, I used to be one of them! It is precisely this sense of belonging that is a great help and source of support to me. Some of the musicians know that I used to be in the orchestra, and when they look at me, I feel very close to them—and very strong.

CM: Simone is an enigma. He’s full of contradictions. His wife sees him as a very boring businessman who can only get excited about the price of wool and whose heart beats exclusively for business. As the audience, we get to examine albeit short opera: his intelligence, his patience—and the fact that he’s a bit of a philosopher, as he demonstrates in some very revealing moments. On the surface, then, he is this truly boring citizen, but deep down he hides an incredible passion that we only truly experience toward the end of the opera. For me, therefore, when you look at him in detail, one of the most complex and interesting characters in the entire opera genre.

DG: In the story and in the music, Guido Bardi is portrayed as a man who is extremely arrogant and foolish. Both of these traits are already evident in the way he treats Simone and in the way he speaks about a man’s wife right in front of him. Who would dare to do such a thing?! Yet he does it. And yet: Guido’s music is very beautiful! Wonderful lines, melodies. But that doesn’t help—he remains a crazy character.

DG: Well , he’s the new guy. Unfamiliar. Younger and more vibrant than Simone. And he’s rich. But above all, the way he treats Bianca is different. He speaks to her in beautiful words; he treats her well. Of course, all of that makes him so much more attractive than Simone, who is her old husband.

CM: And who treats Bianca very harshly. You can tell right away that there’s a very complicated relationship between the two of them. And then, as Dmitry says, this rich, handsome prince shows up, who offers Bianca an escape from her boring life spent between wool and the spinning wheel, as well as from her older, domineering, misogynistic husband. He promises adventure, love, and luxury. It’s entirely understandable that Bianca feels drawn to Guido.

CM: I'm not sure if Bianca feels much sympathy for him at first. And neither does Guido …

CM: Simone elicits more sympathy because the libretto makes it clear that Bianca is about to do something wrong. In my opinion, Simone realizes this immediately. His talk is just a way to buy himself some time to think through his next moves.

DG: After all, you always identify with the characters on screen. No one in the audience would want to be in Simone’s shoes when he comes home and finds his wife’s lover there. On the other hand: Everyone likes it when their partner stands up for them and is willing to fight for them. In other words: Simone.

CM: In our production, the dynamic is admittedly a bit different—there’s no initial sympathy for Simone.

CM: That's right. When I heard the piece for the first time, I was shocked by those final phrases—the ones that, as you say, are well-known and for which this opera is also famous. But if you consider another libretto by Oscar Wilde—namely, *Salome*— one realizes that this connection between death and passion, death and sexuality, is always extremely strong in his work. Guido’s death at Simone’s hands, in my opinion, reveals the psychological depth of the married couple: Bianca’s romanticism and her strength in standing up to her husband for so long, and Simone’s passionate, philosophical spirit and his view of right and wrong. And somehow, this incredibly violent act shatters the shells of these two characters, Bianca and Simone, and enables them to see each other as they truly are deep down. And from this bloody act, a flower, so to speak, springs forth—and that is quite typical of Oscar Wilde.

CM: I think Simone knows from the very beginning what’s going on between Bianca and Guido. Perhaps if Guido had been less overconfident, self-important, and arrogant—less cheeky— less brazen, and hadn’t provoked Simone to the extreme, he would have come out of it alive. But as soon as he openly flaunts his sense of superiority in front of Simone, she has no intention of letting Guido get away with it alive.

DG: One might ask whether this constitutes murder, since it was, after all, planned. At the very least, one has to give Simone credit for not striking Guido from behind in the dark, but rather challenging him to a fight. So it could have turned out differently. Guido at least has a chance and isn’t defenseless.

(laughs) No, not at all! Linguistically, the whole thing points to a bygone era—the Renaissance—but it’s a reconstructed language, not an original one. So a 19th-century poet wrote about a Renaissance theme in a completely different country. Of course, there is a certain degree of detachment involved here. Therefore, a German translation is by no means a distortion. And in fact, some of this English flair has been preserved in the German translation. At one point, I say as Simone: “What does this stain on the cloth mean?” In German, you wouldn’t actually phrase it that way … So the translation was crafted with a keen sense of English linguistic structure.

CM: Definitely. Especially in those last two lines we were talking about, there’s a bit of a wink. Because up to that point, there had been absolutely no hint of love or passion between Simone and Bianca. And then he turns the whole story on its head, without explaining anything further. That’s his style: he shows us just how incredibly clever and witty he is—and how far ahead of his audience he is.

DG: I’ve already sung Zemlinsky’s King Kandaules, so his musical language isn’t entirely new to me—and even back then I marveled at the beauty, intelligence, and the captivating power of his music. Now, regarding tradition: It’s always a double-edged sword, for it can be good, but it can also be dangerous. Dangerous because some people think that something stemming from a tradition must always be a certain way and never any other. But this view stifles any new and fresh perspective on music. You can never discover anything new that way; instead, you always stay on the paths that have already been trodden. Of course, tradition is important; I’m not against it. But you have to know how to deal with it. If, on the other hand, we have no tradition, we are completely free. That means we can look at the music with an unbiased perspective and base our interpretation solely on what is written in the score.

DG: It’s not that simple. Because Guido’s role is rather small. But in terms of character, perhaps similar to Sergei in Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, whom I also sang at the State Opera. He’s also the kind of character who is seen as attractive by a bored wife, but who has a bad temperament. Sergei, too, isn’t afraid of husbands, and he, too, is very full of himself.

CM: (laughs) Actually, it’s exactly the right length! Because Simone is an extreme, very difficult role. In that sense, I’m glad that Eine Florentinische Tragödie isn’t a two- or three-act opera. Because that would be really, really challenging!