Konzerthaus, Berlin
Die
Schöpfung/The Creation, Hob. XXI:2
Julia Kleiter (soprano)
Christian Elsner (tenor)
René Pape (bass)
Staatsopernchor Berlin (chorus master: Martin Wright)
Staatskapelle Berlin
Zubin Mehta (conductor)
It is always a joy to return to
Karl Friedrich Schninkel’s Konzerthaus in the Gendarmenmarkt, originally the
Prussian Royal Theatre, but latterly, once its post-war restoration was finally
completed in 1983, transformed into a concert house. The Staatskapelle Berlin
tends, diplomatically, to give its subscription concerts twice: once in West
Berlin’s Philharmonie, once in the East’s neo-Classical jewel. Its acoustic is
glorious, despite or perhaps even on account of, its interior transformation;
there is life in the old-fashioned shoebox auditorium yet, as the Musikverein
or Concertgebouw would attest. For a refugee Londoner, to have just one concert
hall of such quality is an extraordinary blessing. To have this, the
Philharmonie, the new Pierre Boulez Saal…
Composed
only a couple of decades before the construction of the theatre, Haydn’s Creation or Schöpfung seemed very much ‘at home’ here. Indeed, I could not help
but consider the strong connections of its librettist, Gottfried van Swieten, to
Berlin a little earlier. Joseph
II – by then Holy Roman Emperor and co-Regent with Maria Theresa – had intended
him to send him as Imperial Ambassador to Rome, but Swieten’s enthusiasm, noted
by the Papal Nuncio to Vienna, for ‘moderno
filosofismo’ put an end to that. Instead, Swieten was sent to Frederick
the Great’s Berlin, where he encountered Handel’s oratorios and other alte Musik, then perhaps surprisingly
well cultivated in Berlin circles
(certainly when compared with Vienna). Some of the seeds for his collaboration with
Haydn were sown here. (In
the present climate, moreover, it was impossible not to think that there could
hardly be a more European work by a more European composer and librettist. UKIP
and the fanatics running the United Kingdom into the ground would doubtless
object to a bilingual text: why cannot everyone speak English? Mostly everyone
here can, generally very well indeed; how is your German, Mrs May?)
Under
Zubin Mehta, the assembled forces gave a broad, central performance of Haydn’s
imperishable oratorio, The Creation,
neither noticeably ‘period’-influenced – one would hardly expect it to have
been – nor especially assertive in its ‘traditionalism’. All such terms are at
best problematical to the point of meaninglessness, I know; yet, by the same
token, the reader will most likely have a good sense of what is intended. Save
for the sparing use of the harpsichord during orchestral passages, then –
something about which I cannot bring myself to become too excited either way –
I cannot imagine that there would have been anything to scare the horses either
way, which is not to say that this was dull, or boring. An equally problematical idea is
that of permitting the work to speak for it itself, but that again is pretty
much the impression one received. There was plenty of air in the orchestral
performance, for instance, during the opening section of Uriel’s first aria,
but, by the same token, scope for something darker, when, during that same
aria, Hell’s Spirits briefly put in their not-entirely-frightening appearance.
Likewise,
the real depth to the sound of the Staatskapelle Berlin – always a great
strength of this orchestra – in Raphael’s ‘Rollend in schäumenden Wellen’ was
not at all at the expense of variegation in sound. Much the same, far from incidentally,
might be said about René Pape’s account of the solo line, about which more a
little later. Orchestral solos and ensemble writing were, without exception, beautifully,
even heart-rendingly, presented: take the clarinet in ‘Nun beut die Flur das
frische Grün’, or the ravishing three flutes against pizzicato in Uriel’s Third
Part opening number, ‘Aus Rosenwolken bricht’. Eden indeed, then, and the horns
proved just as beautiful, as noble of utterance. Even the timpani underlay,
subtle yet directed, had me think: ‘Have I actually heard it quite like that
before?’ Whether I had or no was hardly the point, for I was made, or gently
guided, to listen. Pictorial elements sounded as musical as well as
illustrative as I can recall. Maybe even Berlioz would have recanted from his
view that this was a work that made him want to murder somebody. A particular
highlight of the orchestral playing for me was the sound of violas and cellos
in Raphael’s accompagnato, ‘Und Gott
schuf große Walfische’: the archaism conjuring up a reimagined viol consort,
the modernity equally striking.
Tempi
were generally much as one, or I, might have expected, sometimes a little
slower – for instance, in a dignified reading of ‘Mit Staunen sieht das
Wunderwerk’ – and sometimes a little faster – for instance, in a very swift
reading of the final chorus – but never unreasonably so, and never with the
impression that something was being done
to the work. There was a Handelian sturdiness to choruses such as ‘Die
Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes’, which enabled quietly spoken majesty to
emerge. Perhaps there might on occasion have been a little more sense of theatre,
but subtlety and a lack of grandstanding reap their own rewards. Certainly the
choral singing was beyond reproach throughout. The clarity of, for example, ‘Stimmt
an die Saiten’ such that Haydn’s imitative writing registered as strongly as I
can recall, without prejudice to a necessary, or at least desirable, impression
of heft too.
If
Julia Kleiter might have seemed, on paper, somewhat lighter of voice than the
rest of the assembled company, such a contrast did not manifest itself in
reality. Indeed, if anything, it was the relative lightness of Pape’s voice
that surprised: not exactly toned down, but with a keen sense of style, and
splendid attention to the words. Their duetting as Adam and Eve proved a joy,
rightly breathing the air of the opera house as much as the concert hall, the
Konzerthaus’s staged past perhaps coming a little more to the fore of its
historical palimpsest. Pape proved suavely seductive – the rolling of his ‘r’
in ‘Der Früchte Saft alone… – and Kleiter sweetly knowing in response (‘Der
Blumen Duft’). Her phrasing and overall shaping of lines throughout was both
stylistically irreproachable and happily dynamic in dramatic expression.
Christian Elsner showed that a Heldentenor
– he is, I read, a noted Parsifal, although I think I am yet to hear him in the
theatre – need not shy away from Haydn, far from it. Indeed, there was
something almost of Siegfried Jerusalem (think of his Seasons with Marriner, or indeed his Magic Flute with Haitink) to the fine balance struck between style,
heft, and winning sweetness of tone. If I did not emerge from the performance
with any of my ideas concerning the work notably upset or transformed, there is
a good deal to be said, especially in such troubled times, for something that
reminds us of the civilization, the Europe, the Haydn for which we should all
be fighting.
