The Vienna Volksoper and the Vienna State Ballet in cooperation with the Tokyo Nikikai Opera Foundation have published a fairy tale ballet in the form of a musical theater for the whole family under the title “Iolanta and the Nutcracker” by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
This piece is the result of the collaboration directed by Lotte de Beer, choreographed by Andrey Kaydanovskiy and conducted by Omer Meir Wellber. It is a mixture of the lyrical opera, libretto by Tchaikovsky based on Henrik Hertz, play King René's Daughter based on the German adaptation by Hans Schmidt and The Nutcracker by Alexandre Dumas (father) and The Nutcracker and the Mouse King by ETA Hoffmann. Daniel Kahneman once said “We are blind to our blindness”. This quote reflects the essence of the piece.
content of the piece
The young woman Jolanthe, the daughter of King René, lived a happy, carefree life. She played with her friends and had no worries. When she met Vaudemont, her whole life changed. King René lovingly cared for his daughter Jolanthe and kept the fact that she could not see hidden from her hidden.
Ibn Hakia is said to have great healing powers and advises the king that his daughter must face her blindness by becoming aware of it and that way she can be cured. The king denies him access and thus prevents his own daughter from recovering. Jolanthe has been promised to Robert, the Duke of Burgundy, as his future wife since she was a child, but his heart beats for someone else. The knight Vaudemont falls in love with Jolanthe at first sight. He asks her to pick him a red rose, but the blind Jolanthe brings him a white rose twice. He realizes that she is blind and that she knows nothing about it. This puts him in a dilemma. He does not know whether he should reveal the truth about her blindness to her.
Performance – please do not attend with children under 11!
The piece is sung in German, the opera singers sing very high and I cannot understand how the piece is supposed to really inspire children and young people.
The singing is broadcast on screens, but I find it unnecessary because most of the children in the audience were unable to cope with the story on stage and reading the plot at the same time. I understood Jolanthe the worst. In my opinion, the other actors sang more slowly and clearly. The stage is very small and the set could have been better designed. The main protagonists were all dressed very blandly and uninterestingly. The dancers were all dressed in white, Jolanthe had a very unflattering white dress. Jorine van Beek's characters were fabulous. These characters were called Candy Children. They wore splendid, colorful, imaginative costumes.
Back to content
Jolanthe is a young, creative and, above all, imaginative character who, thanks to her hard-working court, lives a carefree and happy life. This phase of carefreeness leading up to the search for the missing element in her life was dramaturgically worked through very lovingly.
She dreams of a fairy-tale world with a prince in the form of a nutcracker. Her dream turns into a nightmare when her father appears as a threatening mouse king and suffocates her with his care. The doctor explains to Jolantha the interaction of body and mind and how important it is that she recognizes her blindness and that acceptance will heal her and finally allow her to see her surroundings. Her father refuses treatment and her imaginary world turns into a nightmare when the men become uncomfortable, frightening figures. The walled garden of the court is the princess's well-guarded area and entering it is punishable by death. Duke Robert, Jolanthe's future husband, who is in love with another woman, and the knight Vaudemont ignore the warning and enter it.
The knight falls in love with the princess without knowing who she is. Jolanthe immediately imagines a love scene with the knight. Vaudemont asks Jolanthe to give him a red rose as a souvenir of her because he has fallen madly in love with the unknown woman. She picks a white rose twice instead of a red one and in that moment the knight realizes that she is blind and secondly that she is unaware of her inability to see. The scene was played brilliantly by the actors. He then explains to her what light and sight are. This experience of love is very painful for her. The quote from Daniel Kahneman: "We are blind to our blindness" describes her experience very well. The realization of her lack of sight worries, confuses and hurts her greatly. Jolanthe accuses her father of having kept this secret and wants to undergo the treatment if her father agrees.
Only the king and the doctor point out to the knight that he has entered the garden without permission and inform him that he will be sentenced to death. Jolanthe asks the doctor to carry out the treatment. She begs the king to pardon the knight. Duke Robert returns, recognizes the king and tells him that he did not want to marry his daughter. The knight asks for Jolanthe's hand in marriage, who successfully sees her surroundings for the first time after the treatment. Jolanthe finds it difficult to see her surroundings in reality, uses her gift and voluntarily goes blind again.
Conclusion: How did the audience perceive this piece, my observations:
The last scene was also well presented. On the whole, the play was not adapted enough to the younger audience. The play was also too grey and too stiff for the children present. Most of the children were very restless after the break and had to be entertained by their parents with cell phones and the like. I have been to the children's theater and have seen many children's operas that were better adapted to their young audience.
Sometimes less is more and in this case the children didn't get much out of it. The costumes of the actors from the fantasy world of Jolanthe were fantastic. It's a shame that she only appeared on stage for a few minutes. The set could have been improved with cheaper options. The princess could have had a better costume. The knight, king, doctor and duke's wardrobe was much more interesting than hers. She was completely lost in the scenes with the ballet dancers. Personally, I wouldn't have seen this play with my students and I wouldn't recommend it to any of my colleagues.
essence of the piece
Daniel Kahneman's quote "We are blind to our blindness" reflects the essence of the play exactly. The question arises: is it better to give sight to someone who has never seen or not? The second question would be: can anyone who has lived without sight handle this new ability and be happy? In Jolanthe's case, she was much happier imagining things than actually seeing them in reality. The problems of this gift can be worked out well in a class setting. It offers many opportunities to pick apart the content of the play and work on it with various work assignments in all kinds of subjects. There are inexhaustible possibilities, especially in art and German or language classes. Young people and children can also create plays that take a different turn over time.
The presentation offers many possible opportunities for conversation and discussion for the lower and upper grades.
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