Grosses Festspielhaus
Florestan – Jonas Kaufmann
Leonore – Adrianne Pieczonka
Don Pizarro – Tomasz Konieczny
Rocco – Hans-Peter König
Marzelline – Olga Bezsmertna
Jaquino – Norbert Ernst
Don Fernando – Sebastian Holececk
Leonore’s Shadow – Nadia Kichler
Pizarro’s Shadow – Paul Lorenger
First Prisoner – Daniel Lökös
Second Prisoner – Jens Musger
Claus Guth (director)
Christian Schmidt (designs)
Ronny Dietrich (dramaturgy)
Olaf Freese (lighting)
Torsten Ottersberg (sound design)
Andi A. Müller (video design)
Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus (chorus master: Ernst Raffelsberger)
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Franz Welser-Möst (conductor)
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| Florestan (Jonas Kaufmann) Images: Monika Rittershaus/Salzburg Festival |
I shall start with the good news. It will
not take long. Yes, no surprises here: it was Jonas Kaufmann. Kaufmann may not
have been able to save the day, but his Florestan proved almost as impressive
as it had in
Paris more than six years ago. Perhaps I am being unfair or unduly cautious
when I say ‘almost’; it may just have been a matter of a less than exalted
setting, or simply an inability on my part to relive the thrill of hearing
Kaufmann’s portrayal for the first time. Whatever the truth or otherwise of
that, there was nothing for which I could fault him. His baritonal tenor seems
just right for the role, but what he does with it – and it seems that he can do
anything he wishes – is still more breathtaking. As I wrote in 2008, ‘He exhibited a
heroism to rival that of Jon Vickers, albeit without the vocal oddness.’ There
can be no arguing with his acting abilities either. Called upon to portray an
apparent descent into madness, quite at odds with the text, such of it that
remained, let alone with Beethoven’s score, Kaufmann marshalled all of his
artistic resources to powerful effect.
What else? Hans-Peter König’s Rocco, after a somewhat
indistinctive start, grew in humanity. The Two Prisoners made their mark well,
and the chorus proved well-trained. Otherwise, there was little to inspire.
Admittedly, Adrianne Pieczonka improved as time went on; Kaufmann’s presence
seemed to lift performances, at least onstage, across the board. However, her
tone was often harsh and her intonation was at best variable. Olga Bezsmertna’s
Marzelline was blowsy, and Tomasz Konieczny’s Pizarro undistinguished, lacking
even pantomime malevolence. On its own terms, the Vienna Philharmonic played
well enough, but it was impossible for me to assent to those terms.
For that, Franz Welser-Möst was squarely
to blame. Beethoven surely stands as the antithesis of mediocrity, but
Welser-Möst proved quite unable to raise his game. At his very best, he sounded
like a poor man’s Toscanini – a rich man’s is bad enough – but this was
uncomprehending stuff indeed. Proceeding phrase by phrase, sometimes even bar
by bar, there was not a hint of a longer line, let alone of the indomitable
spirit with which this most noble of operas is infused. The orchestra was
brash, harsh, often entirely lacking in tonal variegation. Chugging replaced
development. The absurdly-inserted Leonore
III Overture – a great conductor can just about get away with that
regrettable ‘tradition’ – was an ordeal such as Florestan himself might have
had to endure. The audience, bafflingly, gave it a rousing ovation. Still more
bafflingly, conductor and orchestra stood to take their bows – yes, in the
middle of the second act. How frustrating, then, to know that the greatest
living Beethoven conductor, Daniel Barenboim, was also in town.
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| Leonore (Adrianne Pieczonka) and her 'Shadow' (Nadia Kichler) |
And yet, there was worse. I approached
Claus Guth’s production with an open mind. On the face of it, ridding Fidelio of its dialogue seemed a bad
idea – is the dialogue really so bad? Why cannot people simply leave it alone?
– but perhaps it might have worked in practice. It does not. I am pretty sure
that, had I not know the opera, I should have had no idea whatsoever who anyone
was or what he or she was doing. Fidelio
without the dialogue is at best an interesting concert; that, however, would
require at the very least a conductor up to the task. Worse, still, however is
the Konzept which replaces
Beethoven’s. Instead of a call to humanity, we had something one might just
about dignify with the term ‘existentalist’. It is all, apparently, about
freeing oneself from the imprisonment of one’s own mind. Or, as Norbert Abels
declares in the programme, admittedly in translation, ‘In an ever-shrinking
world of universal enmeshment, of the transcontinental interconnectedness of
the globe, of the unlimited procedures of saving and monitoring data,
Beethoven’s opera still navigates as the utopia of man’s escape from his
self-inflicted imprisonment.’ Shorn of its verbiage, that might conceivably
prove a fruitful addition to what we have already; as a replacement, it simply
smacks of modern self-indulgence. ‘Fidelio,’
according to Abels, ‘is usually interpreted as a salvation and liberation opera
with a political background.’ It is hardly ‘interpreted’ as such; it
straightforwardly is that, and this is not a work that seems especially
amenable to perverse reinterpretation. Whilst Guantánamo, Gaza, all manner of
other actually-existing prisons, still exist, indelible stains upon humanity,
is it acceptable to suggest that the solution is simply, to ‘find ourselves’? Weird
sound effects punctuate the movements: presumably the workings of the
unconscious. Or something. If they are intended to terrify, they sadly fail;
they are not nearly loud enough. Instead, they merely irritate. Invoking Freud is not enough; it never was.
Claus Guth justifies himself, again in
the programme, by disingenuously claiming that Beethoven’s revisions leave us
with an ‘indefinite, indeed open form’. For some unspecified reason, the
Salzburg Festival ‘in particular, offers us a place to open a space for
non-normative ideas where we are able to experiment as if in a laboratory.’ All
very well, if they work, but they do not. Instead, we have especially crass
references to Beethoven’s deafness thrown in, a woman, Leonore’s ‘shadow’,
frantically using what appears to be sign language, Florestan covering his ears
in agony, and a banal narrative of personal self-discovery (I think, in
Leonore’s case) superimposed upon the opera to no good effect. I shall leave
the last word to designer, Christian Schmidt: ‘On our quest for a place for the
events, we tried … to avoid any clarity.’ Quite.
