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| Images: (c) Hermann und Clärchen Baus |
Schiller Theater
Soprano 1 – Narine Yeghiyan
Soprano 2/Iseut la blonde –
Anna Prohaska
Soprano 3/Branghien – Evelin Novak
Alto 1/Iseut aux blanches
mains – Virpi Räisänen
Alto 2/Iseut mère – Katharina
Kammerloher
Alto 3 – Stephanie Atanasov
Tenor 1 – Thorbjørn Gulbrandsøy
Tenor 2/Tristan – Matthias
Klink
Tenor 3/Kaherdin – Peter Gijsbertsen
Bass 1 – Arttu Kataja
Bass 2/Le Roi Marc – Ludvig Lindström
Bass 3/Le Duc Höel – Jan Martiník
Katie Mitchell (director)
Joseph W Alford (co-director)
Lizzie Clachan (designs)
James Farncombe (lighting)
Katharina Winkler (dramaturgy)
Premiered in May last year,
Katie Mitchell’s production of Frank Martin’s oratorio, Le Vin herbé, is now revived in fine form by the Berlin State Opera.
Mitchell’s tendency towards one-size-fits-all suits some works better than
others, but is in any case more restrained here. One perhaps also has greater
liberty – or at least greater immunity from werktreu
charges of desecration – in staging an oratorio anyway. Interestingly, the
first staging took place as early as 1948, at the Salzburg Festival under
Ferenc Fricsay, no less, only six years after the Zurich Madrigal Choir gave
the first performance of the completed version (the first part having been
performed by the same choir two years earlier than that). Mitchell’s approach
is metatheatrical, as one would expect, but without the paraphernalia of
cameras and so forth; rather, we see a dramatisation of, if not the first
performance, then a performance recognisably of that time. Rituals create
themselves, gain impetus, both from the performers’ behaviour and the props
provided: notably a table and a bed. There is more than a scent of Brecht: no
bad thing, especially in Berlin. Clearly the performers have been
well-choreographed, but they also give the impression of being those performers
performing, not just of doing what they have been told. It is a fine
production, which other companies and venues would do well to consider taking
up. ENO or the Barbican perhaps?
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| At the table - Matthias Kling (TRISTAN), Anna Prohaska (ISEUT LA BLONDE), behind: Thorbjørn Gulbrandsøy, Evelin Novak, Katharina Kammerloher, Stephanie Atanasov, Narine Yeghiyan, Arttu Kataja, Jan Martiník, Ludvig Lindström, Peter Gijsbertsen, Virpi Räisänen |
The work itself is alluring,
typical of what I know of the composer in its epitomising Webern’s summarising twelve-note
composition as involving imbibing of the method and then composing as before.
Frankly tonal, and yet so clearly, so rigorously organised, its roots lie as
much in, say, Pelléas as Tristan, despite the use on occasion of quotation
and the inevitable comparisons any composer, or indeed artist, will now meet
when daring to treat with this legend. Yes,
it comes from Joseph Bédier’s novel, Tristan
et Iseut, but facts are no refuge from the overpowering Rausch of Tristan; it is to Martin’s great credit that he is not overpowered,
far from it, without self-conscious distancing. Much of Tristan is, of course, chamber music, whatever ‘popular opinion’
will tell you; here, the ensemble is of true chamber proportions: twelve
voices, two violins, two violas, two cellos, double bass, and piano. Some of
that Second Viennese School sound arises – I could not help but think of
Schoenberg’s wonderful Weihnachtssmusik
– but that more betokens correspondence, if not quite coincidence, than anything
stronger. It is a true oratorio, too, with roots in a great tradition but,
again, not overwhelmed by it. Narrative works on its own terms, rather than as
that of an opera manqué.
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| Anna Prohaska (SOPRAN 2 | ISEUT LA BLONDE) |
Franck Ollu conducted the
excellent soloists (Wolfram Brandl, Yunna Shevchenko, Boris Bardenhagen,
Nikolaus Janhjohr-Popa, Mathias Winkler, Frank-Immo Zichner) from the
Staatskapelle Berlin. He seemed to me to do a very good job, sensitive to
music, to drama, to the way the two combine and keep their distance (especially
in a production such as this). But in a performance such as this, the element
of chamber music is at least as important, and here the Berlin orchestra’s long
tradition, aided and abetted by Daniel Barenboim, of subdivision into chamber
ensembles, truly paid off. The singers impressed too, though perhaps a little
more of Martin’s quasi-madrigalian intent might have been communicated at
times. The intent was worlds away, of course, from today’s early-music world,
but a hint or two of something akin to Nadia Boulanger’s singers – their Monteverdi
still rules at least a certain roost – would have bound them together more
closely. Anna Prohaska shone as Iseut, her voice revealing considerable
deepness as well as purity of tone. Matthas
Klink made for an ardent yet sensitive Tristan. Ludvig Lindström exhibited a
degree of malevolence which, in terms of psychological realism, is perhaps more
credible, certainly more usual, than that we associate with Wagner’s King Mark.
Yet another feather, then, in the Staatsoper’s cap.
