Harry Kupfer

 

I worked with Harry Kupfer during and after the days of the DDR where he was a cultural mascot. However, I never heard any political word pass his lips. He was amiable and of course eminent. A small boyish figure he smoked a pipe in the way intellectuals did in those days. His years at the Komische Oper, Berlin were worthy of his predecessors Walter Felsenstein and Joachim Herz.

I remember seeing his production of 'La traviata' in which Violetta dies literally in a gutter. He was invited to direct 'Elektra' as the opening production of Brian McMaster's era at the Welsh National Opera. The company had by then only just become fully professional and the audience could be described as innocently provincial. 

Unbelievably to readers today, the premiere of this quite avant garde and hard-hitting production was preceded by the playing not just of God save the Queen but also the Welsh National anthem!

What did the Welsh audience think? They lapped it up. Great success.

Later, Paul Findlay, assistant General Manager of the Royal Opera House invited the Komische Oper to give two productions by Harry Kupfer at Covent Garden: his famous Orpheus (Gluck) and Smetana's 'Die verkaufte Braut.'

In this country there were further productions at Welsh National Opera including 'Fidelio' in which Palestinian freedom fighters were discretely included in the crowd in the final scene and at the ENO: a Pelleas and Melisande in 1981..

Something he once said remains in the mind. He estimated the great Russian producer Boris Pokrovsky very highly. He had seen many Pokrovsky productions and may have known the man, This was a reminder of Harry's East German roots. Moscow was just down the road. For West Germans it was somewhere alien and unknown.