New Labour on its Way Out?

Photo: The new London Mayor, Boris Johnson (right) with Tory Party Leader David Cameron (left)

When the polls closed for the Local and London Authority elections in the UK at 10.00 pm GMT on May 1, it was clear that the governing Labour Party of Prime Minister Gordon Brown would suffer a heavy defeat. David Cameron was radiant: His Conservative Tory opposition would soon yet celebrate yet another success at the ballot box.

Soon it was confirmed: Labour had secured only 24% of the electorate of the 137 Local Authorities and reached only third place after the Liberal Democrats (25%), while the Tories clearly led with 40%.

But none of the parties was prepared for what unfolded in the early hours, when the votes were still counted for London Mayor and the London Assembly. The controversial Conservative candidate Boris Johnson was chosen as London’s new mayor, succeeding after two terms the city’s first-ever elected mayor, Ken Livingstone.

Although the race was close, it was expected that Livingstone – former left-wing Labour rebel who was elected in 2000 as an independent, and readmitted to the Labour Party in January 2004 – would still get his third term in office. But with only 29.5% of the popular vote, he dropped well behind his Conservative challenger who carried the victory with 33.5%.

While David Cameron, Tory Party Leader since 2005, had seen the signs of change coming in national politics as soon as May 2010 – the latest possible time for the Prime Minister to call general elections – Gordon Brown admitted that the result had indeed been worse than he expected.

“Today’s polls suggest, though, that Brown may be in fact in the same position as John Major in 1995 – headed for defeat,” concluded Nick Robinson, the Political Editor of the BBC, in his Newslog.

End of Tyranny – Janáček’s Káťa Kabanová at the Theater an der Wien

Picture: Anja Silja as Kabanicha; the collapse of her world at the end of Leos Janáček’s Káťa Kabanová, performed at the Theater an der Wien in April 2008.

The lavishly decorated interior of the Theater an der Wien, erected only a few years after Mozart’s death by impresario and librettist, Emanuel Schikaneder, is one of the most beautiful opera houses of the city. Smaller, though, it is at the same time far more intimate.

Therefore, operas that require large orchestral or vocal forces are a particular challenge to find the right musical balance. This challenge was successfully met in Leoš Janáček’s Káťa Kabanová, that premiered on April 13.

For those familiar with Janáček’s musical style, this work – unlike the much more famous Jenufa (1904) – shows the composer at his best. At the age of 67, he had produced an opera based on Russian playwright Alexandr Ostrovsky’s (1823 – 1886) The Storm, a drama full of passion with a strong underlining social criticism.

The idiom of the Czech language is well integrated into the vocal writing, as in most of Janáček’s stage works, as well as rich Czech folk tunes that are an essential part of the opera’s color, in a sound world in places reminiscent of Puccini.

The first glimpse of the stage is already a different world from the golden interior design of Schikaneder’s theater: A dark river channel in the middle towards the audience, while grey side walls close in on the oppressive gloomy scene.

Still the timeless stage design of Kaspar Glarner complements well director Keith Warner’s vision, recasting the idyllic scene of a small town on the Volga River of late 19^th century tsarist Russia into a steel bridge, which – with effective lightning and misty effects – creates even more an atmosphere of despair.

The plot is easily told: the young couple, Káťa, performed by the young German Soprano Melanie Diener, and Tichon, interpreted by American Tenor Raymond Very, live in with his despotic mother Kabanicha, sung by the famous German Soprano Anja Silja. Káťa, in order to escape the love-less marriage, starts an affair with Boris, performed by the American Robert Brubaker. But all turns terrible, when Káťa, filled with guilt, confesses her adultery to her mother-in-law in a dramatic thunderstorm, and escaping the shame, takes her own life in the Volga River. Tichon, finally raises up against his mother accusing her of comlicity in Káťa’s suicide.

Janáček compressed the five-act play into a three-act musical drama in the best sense, where the final act – set during a thunderstorm – explodes with enormous dramatic energy. There is thunder lightning and mist; the inner world of Káťa collapses of guilt and disappears in the dark. The steal bridge, around which the drama finds its conclusion after Káťa’s body was pulled out of the river, the dramatic orchestral finale nevertheless, ends the tyranny of Kabanicha’s world: Left alone on the bridge, it collapses in a spectacular lighting effect.