Bartók:
Violin Concerto no.1, Sz
36 Mendelssohn:
Selection from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, opp.21 and 61:
Overture and nos 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 10, 13
Vilde Frang (violin)
Mari Eriksmoen (soprano)
Kitty Whately (mezzo-soprano)
Ladies of the Philharmonia Chor Wien (chorus master: Walter Zeh)
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Iván Fischer (conductor)
What struck me initially during
the first of the two movements of Bartók’s 1933 version for orchestra of his Hungarian Peasant Songs was the sound of
the Berlin Philharmonic. Many have commented, whether since the departure of
Claudio Abbado, since that of Herbert von Karajan, even since the death of
Wilhelm Furtwängler, on how the orchestra has lost ‘its’ sound. Depending on
one’s standpoint, there is either a great deal of truth in that or there is
none; or perhaps there is a third way too. Certainly the orchestral sound has
not remained the same, but has that of any orchestra? Here, I heard – perhaps this
has come from hearing the orchestra often over the past year, in the
Philharmonie – what I might characterise as a ‘modern Berlin sound’, both in
character, rich, deep, and yet translucent, and yet, almost paradoxically, if
one is talking about ‘a sound’, adaptable, according not only to the music, but
also to the conductor. Am I saying anything at all there? I am not sure, but I decided
to mention it, since the thought struck me with some force.
The performance of that opening
work sounded very much, well, as the opening to a concert, almost as if it were
the aural opening of a storybook, which in a sense it was. Fantastical (at
times) orchestration made the original material sound new, just as a Bach
orchestration might, and yet, the ‘original’ was still there, just as with Bach.
Moreover, one could hear where the later Bartók came from, too; affinities even
with the Concerto for Orchestra
presented themselves. If I occasionally found Iván Fischer a little laboured,
keen to underline, less keen to suggest how the dances of the second movement
might hang together, there was no denying the straightforward excellence of the
Berlin Philharmonic’s playing – which, I think, Karajan and Abbado, perhaps
even Furtwängler, as well, of course, as Simon Rattle, would happily have
recognised. And the final dance was unmistakeably a climax.
Vilde Frang joined the
orchestra for Bartók’s First Violin Concerto. Her initially haunting solo line
truly drew one in to listen. Odd though this may be sound, I barely noticed to
start with that other violinists, then other instrumentalists had joined her,
such was the unanimity of purpose, almost as if the musicians were part of a
giant orchestral keyboard. (I thought, then, of Boulez’s
sur Incises, and of his work with
this orchestra.) Chamber music thus blossomed into orchestral music, in a truly
extraordinary way: all the time, so it seemed, led by the golden thread of a solo
line, even when it had fallen silent. The second movement offered a vigorous
response, very much in the manner, if not quite the style, of the later Bartók.
Fast vibrato from Frang proved no obstacle to the surest of intonation, for her
violin playing proved just as commanding as her broader musicianship. Musical
connections with Prokofiev, even Szymanowski, suggested themselves, without
this singular piece ever sounding quite ‘like’ anything other than itself.
I presume the programming of
music from A Midsummer Night’s Dream
was intended as a joke, given the date of the winter solstice. At any rate, it
brightened the darkness of a Berlin winter. It is perhaps peculiarly difficult
to speak of Mendelssohn’s music without resort to cliché. Words for the
Overture – that perfect miracle, from a seventeen-year-old – present themselves
all too readily, whether in work or performance: aetheral, gossamer, and so on.
Those words certainly came to my mind more or less immediately, along with the
recollection that Mendelssohn, so wisely, had once remarked that the problem
with music was that it was more, not less, precise than words. Perhaps I should
give up here, then, but I had better say something more. The aetheral strangeness of those opening
chords actually put me in mind a little of Mahler: the chorale in the first
movement of the Sixth Symphony, to be precise; the gossamer lightness of the Berlin strings’ response proved a true
delight. And if Fischer, to begin with, sounded unduly Toscanini-like, harrying
the score somewhat, he soon settled down. He understood – as many, surprisingly
do not – that the end of the development here is, as often with Mendelssohn, a
point of exhaustion, even if he somewhat overdid that exhaustion. It was,
moreover, a joy to hear a full string section (fourteen first violins, down to
six double basses) in this music. And who would not melt upon hearing those
strings, or indeed Emmanuel Pahud’s flute in the recapitulation?
The Scherzo was as lithe as it
had been under Abbado, and at least as full of woodland character (those
clichés again, I know). This might sound banal, and perhaps it is, but I was
moved to marvel, which I do perhaps less often than I should, at quite what a
modern symphony orchestra can accomplish, and in particular at what this modern
symphony orchestra can. I was taken a little by surprise at the German in ‘Ye
spotted snakes’ or rather, ‘Bunte Schlangen, zweigezüngt!’ Schlegel’s
celebrated translation has its own enchantments, though, as of course does
Mendelssohn’s score. If I might have preferred a little more warmth initially
from soprano, Mari Eriksomoen, that was certainly forthcoming from Kitty
Whately and members of the Philahrmonia Chor Wien, who stood up from within the
orchestra. And any reservation was more a matter of personal taste, or lack
thereof, than anything else; these were fine vocal performances. Fischer let
the music run away with him occasionally, but recovered well enough. Wordless
drama characterised the Intermezzo, again bringing those Mendelssohnian
thoughts concerning the ‘definiteness’ of music to mind. Delectable horns and
woodwind came very much to the fore in the Nocturne, just as they must. Fischer’s
way with it was slightly on the sectional side, but I should not exaggerate. There
was, moreover, great passion to be heard from the strings. A resplendent and,
yes, moving Wedding March prepared the way for the mysterious, quirky,
Mahlerian foreshadowing of the Marcia funèbre. The final movement bound
together various gossamer threads
admirably. My only regret was that we had not had more of the music, and indeed
the play itself. And there was ambiguity to those fairies too, especially in
the delivery of their final line: 'Trefft ihn in der Dämmerung!’
Strauss:
Metamorphosen, in version for string septet by Rudolf
Leopold
Prokofiev
Sonata for Two Violins in
C major, op.56
Bruch:
Octet in B-flat major, op.
posth.
Daishin Kashimoto, Noah
Bendix-Balgley, Luiz Felipe Coelho, Christophe Horak (violins)
Amihai Grosz, Naoko Shimizu
(violas)
Ludwig Quandt, Bruno
Delepelaire (cellos)
Matthew McDonald (double bass)
It is doubtless in the nature
of such varied programmes, in which the emphasis seems to lie upon variety in
itself rather than on a unifying theme, that some works will appeal to any one
listener more than others. In that respect, I should count myself fortunate
that only – doubtless predictably – Max Bruch’s musically anonymous late string
octet that failed to intrigue me. (If, as a Bruch fanatic, should such a thing
exist, you prefer: I failed to be intrigued by it.) The date of composition,
although it apparently is based upon earlier materials, beggars belief: 1920.
It is not so much that it was written eight years after Pierrot lunaire, as that it sounds rather like a talented, yet
uninspired attempt to imitate the young, and I mean very young, Mendelssohn. Not
that the eight players – all of those listed above, save for Matthew McDonald
on double bass – in any sense failed it. Quite the contrary: I cannot imagine
it receiving a more committed, enlightened performance, determined to make the
most of its craftsmanship, without attempting to turn it into something it is
not. The spirit and cultivation of the playing were, from the opening of the first
of its three movements, undeniable: far more thrilling than the material
itself. It was surely to that, quite rightly, that the audience so warmly
responded. There were darker moments (relatively speaking) too, especially in
the central Adagio-Andante con molto di
moto. And if even these players could not quite convince one that the
generic character and/or form of a finale were transformed into something more
than that, they did their very best. No one should begrudge such pieces an
occasional outing – and who knows? Maybe others heard something in the piece I
did not.
Written for the same forces, Tōru
Takemitsu’s three early Son calligraphié
works (1958-60), proved more fascinating, at least to me. If their miniature
status and their spare directness of utterance perhaps inevitably brought to
mind Webern and – from the future – Kurtág, the harmonic language, especially
in so warm, yet never over-egged a performance proved more suggestive of Berg.
It might seem contradictory, and perhaps it is, to speak of spare directness
and then to mention languor, but there seemed to be plenty of space, however
considered, for that too, timbres often suggestive of a more Gallic sensibility.
The wholeness of the players’ conception, combined with attention to (Japanese?)
‘calligraphic’ detail, might have had one think these pieces repertoire works.
There seemed to me, at least on a first hearing, no good reason why they should
not be.
Strauss’s Metamorphosen is, unquestionably, although not necessarily in this
form, the version for string septet by Rudolf Leopold, made following
rediscovery of Strauss’s short score and first performed in 1994. The players
turned around so as to face in the opposite direction for this, following in
the footsteps of many musicians, Daniel Barenboim included, eager to play the
hall, even its audience, as a living instrument rather than a mere space for
performance. Not for nothing is the Pierre Boulez Saal’s motto ‘music for the
thinking ear’. Seven strings will never sound the same as twenty-three. Nor
should they attempt to; for, if that were the aim, why not use twenty-three?
Here there is, almost by definition, a greater sense of chamber music, but it
was a greater sense in performance too, the players seemingly relishing the
opportunity to play with the difference, although never to be different merely
for the sake of it. What I noticed earlier on was an apparently slower tempo
than often one hears. (I say apparently, since it sounded to be as much a
matter of holding back harmonically, and have no idea whether it was in terms
of accursed metronome beats.) Such was not how it was to be all along, though,
for lighter, even relatively brighter passages seemed to gain momentum, both in
terms of tempo and harmonic rhythm. (Are the two in fact distinct?) This was a Metamorphosen which, perhaps unusually,
had more of late Strauss’s typical Mozartian sonata form balance and dynamism, vis-à-vis
dark Wagnerism. It was not, however, a case of one against the other, but of
dramatic conflict. Likewise, the balance and generative conflict between
harmony and counterpoint sounded almost as if born of a Mozart quintet,
rendering transitional passages – yes, I know the whole work is essentially
transitional… – especially interesting. The cultivated gravity of return led to
a soft-spoken sense of approaching yet never reaching suspension. And yes, the Eroica moment spoke as eloquently as
ever, in its new yet old setting: a metaphor perhaps for the performance as a
whole.
Prokofiev’s Sonata for Two
Violins, played by concertmasters Daishin Kashimoto and Noah Bendix-Balgley, fared
wonderfully well, in a performance as dramatic, even aspirantly balletic, as it
was razor-sharp of intonation. The bitter-sweet post-Romantic intertwining and
separation of instruments in the first movement proved a masterclass, performative
as well as compositional, in two-part writing. Bartókian fury, soon transmuted
into something else, which in turn was soon transformed, and so on, characterised
a powerfully yet never pedantically developmental second movement. Sweetly,
songfully enigmatic, the simple, side-slipping pleasures of the third movement
delighted. What I thought of as the sincere tricksterism of the finale did so
too, in its very different way. It offered both a sense of uniting the work’s
strands and yet also questioning them. Strauss was far from the only composer
of this period to don compositional mask upon mask.
Berlin Radio Choir (chorus master: Philipp Ahmann)
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Christian Thielemann (conductor)
There are musical works at
which, in awe, one strain’s one’s aural neck – and then there is the Missa solemnis (no need, just like the
Ninth Symphony, to say whose). It has its detractors; so does Fidelio. However, their accusations, in
both cases, seem founded on gross misunderstandings of what Beethoven was
doing. Ultimately, they perhaps even add to the works’ stature: almost
unquestionably so, I think, in the case of the Missa solemnis. Its extreme difficulty is both the point and not
the point. As with all late Beethoven, indeed pretty much all Beethoven,
dialectics ensure that difficulty and simplicity, rupture and wholeness, so on
and so forth, are not just banally ‘connected’, but inconceivable, conceptually
let alone performatively, with one another.
Performance: there’s the rub,
or perhaps the greatest rub. I have noticed that, with many honourable
exceptions, it is singers who are most likely to condemn those works of
Beethoven that include voices. (It is surely an error to name them ‘vocal works’,
a mistake that gets close to the heart of the matter.) If you want concessions,
to your personal taste, to your ease of performance or listening, concessions to
anything really: Beethoven could hardly be less your man. It is not ‘about you’,
as the modern slogan has it. And yes, I know very well that I am drawing upon, thinking
and writing within, the Romantic myth of Beethoven, of the towering, glowering
genius. Such knowledge, whether we like it or no, is the essence of our modern
and/or post-modern predicament. Guess what, though? The myth happens to be
true. The enigmatic quality and the extreme difficulty are integral to the
work; in the complexity of its attempted, impossible mediation between subject
and object, they are, just as in Hegel (well, more or less ‘just as’), doing
the work of Geist (Spirit), of God,
of history, of whatever we want to call it, or It. Calling the Missa solemnis a ‘concert work’ is at
best misleading, despite its actual – as opposed to envisaged – performance history.
It is not only a sacred work, but a resanctification of, through serious
reckoning with, the Mass itself – and not only its text. Reactionaries will not
like that, but so what? Nor does Geist.
Performance, however, is not, as it were, the only rub. The business of
aesthetics, of reflection upon art, almost immediately, even immanently, arises
with this work. Such is modernity – and is this not most likely Beethoven’s
most modern work of all? I have long entertained the fantasy – and who knows:
sometimes fantasies are realised – that the Missa
solemnis in particular and perhaps Beethoven in general would be my
retirement job. (Let us leave aside the sad reflection that retirement itself
will doubtless remain a mere fantasy for those of us betrayed and destroyed by
the ‘Brexit’ generation.) I certainly do not feel remotely prepared to tackle
it yet. In that respect, I both take heart and become ever more fearful from
Furtwängler’s decision no longer to perform it. Like Beethoven himself – and surely
we ought to afford his view a little respect, Wellington’s Victory notwithstanding – Furtwängler thought it
Beethoven’s single greatest work, yet considered its challenges too great for
him or indeed anyone else ever to be able to realise. And if Furtwängler,
surely the greatest recorded Beethovenian of all, thought so…
Furtwängler’s view has
overwhelmingly, tragically, been proved correct. I cannot, of course, claim to
know all recorded performances of the Missa
solemnis, let alone all other performances. Of the recordings as such (as
opposed to performances that have survived on recording) only Klemperer’s 1966
version for me really confronts its challenges head on and emerges with credit.
(One can hardly say ‘surmounts’ them; no one surmounts Beethoven’s challenges,
or if (s)he does, that is perhaps the most lamentable fate of all.) And,
perhaps perversely, although I should like to think in some sense dialectically
– well I would, wouldn’t I? – I had, before this performance from Christian
Thielemann and Berlin forces, attended only one performance in the concert
hall. True, they do not necessarily come along so very often, but nor are they
so rare as that might imply. I had not wanted to risk a mediocre, let alone a
poor, performance: bad enough in symphonic Beethoven – what is more
soul-destroying than thinking ‘pointless’ and-or ‘meaningless’ to a performance
of the Fifth Symphony? – but somehow even worse here, for it might end up
sounding like what its detractors think it does. I had chosen my single
performance well: Colin Davis, shortly before his death, and with mortality
seemingly, even at the time, hanging over Beethoven’s grand reckoning not only
with the Mass but with God Himself. It
was a performance I shall never forget – and again, like Klemperer, that is
part of the problem for whatever comes after. It may, it would seem, also be (re)listened to on YouTube, but I have never felt the desire to try – and doubtless
to fail – to repeat an unrepeatable experience. (Indeed, although I have
offered a link to the review, I do not yet even wish to re-read it.) And the
thoughts it gave rise to, seemingly spanning the entirety of musical and
theological history, or doubtless I flatter myself…
Apologies for having spent so
long, relatively speaking, concerning my own thoughts, or attempts at thoughts,
about the work rather than the performance. (Believe me, I could have gone on
for much, much longer; I almost thought myself retired.) They seemed necessary,
though, not even merely advisable, to explain how I heard Thielemann’s
performance – or perhaps, to those who gained far more from it, how I did not
hear it. Or perhaps I too was avoiding a confrontation. It seems somehow almost
unforgivably banal to move to saying ‘it had much to admire, yet…’. And yet,
that is what I must do; for, despite many very real virtues, the sheer excellence
of all performing forces the greatest among them, I was left almost entirely
cold. Was that another turn, as it were, of the Adornian dialectical screw? I
thought I had truly grasped the work, however fleetingly, and then had not?
Maybe a little, but not really, I think.
Thielemann clearly knew the
work, or the notes, and what he wanted from it, or them. He was conducting from
memory. Moreover, he clearly knew exactly how to get what he wanted from those
uniformly excellent performers. Any criticisms I shall make are in no sense
criticisms of them. One might have thought that a musician who, not
unaggressively, positions himself as a standard bearer of the great German
tradition would have been in a good position to communicate the mysteries of
this work. There is, of course, no single tradition, though. And whilst I have
in the past admired Thielemann’s Beethoven greatly – his recordings with the
Philharmonia, for instance – his more recent Beethoven, still more so his
Wagner, seems to have been filtered through a materialist conception that might
work for Strauss, and often does work for him, magnificently, but which cannot
really cope with the meaning(s) of works by Beethoven and Wagner. We can
certainly applaud the need not to say the same thing over and over again, or
indeed merely to imitate the past; but that does not mean that an alternative,
simply by virtue of being an alternative, has any of the answers.
The full, warm sound of the
Berlin Philharmonic at the opening of the Kyrie
augured well: not entirely unlike Thielemann’s Philharmonia Beethoven; perhaps
also with a certain kinship to the Klang of
Leonard Bernstein’s Concertgebouw recording; not much at all in common with the
sound of any of Herbert von Karajan’s intriguing multiple attempts at reckoning
with the work (see, for instance, here
and here),
although perhaps at another level – deeper or shallower? perhaps both? – not so
distant conceptually from Karajan’s approach. Militant authenticists would not have
liked it, but who cares? And the bounds of the movement – perhaps the only one
that has recognisable bounds – were well chosen; I was put in mind of an
observation from Joseph Kerman to the effect that this was the only part of
Beethoven’s setting that had no hyperbole. (I cannot recall his precise words,
and do not have them here with me to check, so I hope that I shall be forgiven for
distortion, misattribution, or even downright invention!) Moreover, whilst,
from observing Thielemann, one might have feared an overly moulded performance,
it did not – at least not here – sound like
one. And if one had a problem with what it looked
like, one could also, as with Bernstein, close one’s eyes. (Even Karajan did
not, of course, do that for works with chorus when conducting them.) There was,
moreover, a fine sense of a ‘natural’ – however constructed that might have
been – tread to the movement’s progress. Beethoven, quite rightly, was not to
be hurried; nor was he to be static. Individual soloists versus the ‘mass’ of
the chorus sounded in balance, and dramatically rather than banally so. It did
not ‘sound like’ Haydn, but perhaps still belonged in a similar conception to
his. Beethoven as (sort of) Haydn? That is hardly unreasonable, especially
here.
The rest of the Mass does not,
of course, and rarely if ever did Thielemann seem quite to know – not that I
think he was not trying – to portray, to dramatise that. The breakneck speed of
the opening of the Gloria was surely
an attempt, far from unreasonable, to do that – but what does reason, at least
Enlightenment reason, have to do with this work? Superlative playing from the
orchestra and superlative singing from the chorus impressed, as did the
extraordinary clarity of what one heard: bassoons beneath the chorus, for
instance. It ‘worked’, I think, but something was missing. The beating Larghetto heart of the movement arguably
did not, Thielemann seemingly struggling to establish a basic pulse, although
the woodwind solos predictably ravished in a materialist fashion. Even once the
pulse had settled, though, it all sounded a little too glamorous. There was,
though, a welcome sense of decision to follow: there can be no argument with
either Beethoven or Whoever Stands Above Him; or alternatively, there can, but
it will fail. Such good work, very sadly, was largely undone by a
preposterously indulgent Luftpause
before ‘in glora Dei Patris’. What might work – might – in Thielemann’s Meistersinger
‘Wach auf!’ does not work here; it came across as mere egotism. Just because
you can do something, it does not follow that you should. Following that,
perhaps not inappropriately in situ,
came weirdly operatic ‘Amens’. Beethoven as Verdi? No thank you.
Still more is at stake in Beethoven’s
Credo, both statement of and struggle
to believe. Here, alas, there was far too little sense of struggle. Tension was
built up admirably in the first section, very controlled, even controlling, but
that is not to be disdained; we hardly want a free-for-all. It was, again,
mightily impressive. ‘Et incarnatus est’ brought Palestrina, increasingly
adorned, to the stage, not unlike an aural representation of a Gothic church,
decorated by Rococo successors. Egotism once again, however, brought a bizarrely
prolonged silence between the ‘Crucifixus’ and ‘Et resurrexit’ sections.
Perhaps this is unfair, but it was almost as if Thielemann wanted to dare the
audience not to fidget, or even to applaud. What followed was highly theatrical
– one may argue about whether it should be, but it is not an outrageous
conception – without ever conveying any real sense of theological, or other,
meaning. Neutrality as opposed to neutralising tendencies doing batter with
subjectivity in the material and its development? Beethoven as sewing pattern?
Again, no thank you.
That tendency to draw out ‘preparations’
– not in a liturgical sense – was again to be heard in the Sanctus as we approached the ‘Pleni sunt coeli’ section. Alas, it
sounded more like a trick of the trade than a reading or communication of the
text. There was no gainsaying, though, the outstanding level of execution.
Warmly cultivated playing from concertmaster, Daniel Stabrawa – I wish
violinists would not stand as if concerto soloists for this – was greatly to be
admired, but did this feel in context as if it represented, even embodied, the
descent of the Holy Ghost? Oddly, the music of the ‘Benedictus’ section sounded
closer than I could recall hearing before to Die Zauberflöte. Beethoven as Mozart? Well, we can argue about
that.
Darkness, even if again of a
somewhat materialist conception, rightly haunted the opening of the Agnus Dei. Franz-Josef Selig’s solo
seemed to speak with something close to perfection of both that darkness and
the humanity that might emerge de
profundis. A comparison with Sarastro would be indicative, but only if it
involved contrast too: there is nothing of a noble yet flawed character to the
music here. (The flaws obviously, I hope, refer to Sarastro, not to Mozart!)
Once more, although Thielemann often looked as if he were about to pull the
music around, he did not do so unduly; indeed, the sternness with which he
conducted the Berlin strings was greatly to be admired in terms of potential
meaning as well as executive accomplishment. There was no doubt that we were
all, worthless sinners, to be on our knees here. The longed for unambiguous major
chord, when it came, was treated to what I thought of as ‘fleeting length’: not
indulgent, now, but provocative in a better, productive sense. What never quite
materialised, though, was the cosmic scale to the later sounds of this
movement. It was as if we had returned to the world of the Kyrie; even the terror of war sounded as if heard a little too much
from afar, or even as a near-visual, ‘beautiful’ representation.
I was not overwhelmed, then,
either by this microcosm, or by Thielemann’s
Missa cosmogony. I do not doubt, and certainly do not mean to call into
question, that he had considered what he was doing. Perhaps it was just not for
me. I am not sure, though, that it was for Beethoven – whatever we mean by that
– either. Still, it made me think, if more afterwards than at the time. I was
led to think even about what it meant not to have been made to think. And then
I returned to Adorno, and with the unquestionable egotism of a mere fallen
human being, to something I had written in my first book (on Wagner’s Ring), towards its close:
Adorno was quite justified to claim that serious consideration
of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis – perhaps the most enduringly enigmatic musical
work yet written – could only result in its Brechtian alienation, in rupturing
‘the aura of unfocused veneration protectively surrounding it’. One of the
greatest problems with respect to the Ring is that such rupture has
become well-nigh impossible. To be aware of this is only a beginning, but
better than nothing. We should remain grateful that the enigma of the Ring
pales besides that of Beethoven’s work. If we could understand why Beethoven
set the Mass, we should, Adorno claimed, understand the Missa Solemnis.
Understanding why Wagner wrote the Ring and beginning to understand the
work itself suddenly seem less forbidding prospects.
Gretel (Elsa Dreisig) and Hänsel (Katrin Wundsam)
Images: Monika Rittershaus
Peter – Arttu Kataja
Gertrud – Marina Prudenskaya
Hänsel – Katrin Wundsam
Gretel – Elsa Dreisig
Witch – Jürgen Sacher
Sandman – Corinna Scheurle
Dew Fairy – Sarah Aristidou
Achim Freyer (director, designs,
lighting)
Geertje Boeden (assistant
director)
Petra Weikert (assistant
designer)
Sebastian Alphons (lighting)
Jakob Klaffs, Hugo Reis (video)
Elena Garcia Fernandez, Larissa
Wieczorek (dramaturgy)
Children’s Chorus of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden (chorus master: Vincenz Weissenburger)
Staatskapelle Berlin
Sebastian Weigle (conductor)
The first performance of Humperdinck’s
fairy-tale opera, Hänsel und Gretel,
on the night before Christmas Eve, 1893, in Weimar, was conducted by Richard
Strauss. The work’s second staging, in Hamburg, in September of the following
year, was conducted by Gustav Mahler. It reached Berlin, this very house, then home
to the Royal Court rather than the State Opera, the following month, and has
belonged to the world ever since. Alas, that very popularity and a strange, seemingly
related, insistence on presenting a tale of child abuse with sugar coating have
tended to lead to the opera’s underestimation, or at least to insipid
presentation, even non-interpretation. What, after all, is a fairy tale, if it
is not an invitation to interpretation, for children, for adults, for all? For
those to whom the Brothers Grim(m) were something a little more interesting
than Eric and Donald Trump Jr, this would be mind-numbingly obvious; alas,
audiences being what they often are…
Hänsel, The Witch (Jürgen Sacher), and Gretel
Achim Freyer does not penetrate so
deep as LiamSteel in his Royal College of Music staging; when I saw that, I more or
less instantly realised it was the production for which I had been waiting much
of my adult life. (Yes, as I never tire of pointing out, much of the best
London opera takes place in our conservatoires.) But nor does he try to; his concerns
are different. He is certainly not pandering to reactionary ‘tastes’, in the
manner of Adrian Noble in his Vienna Disneyfication. Where Freyer excels, as, at his best,
he always does, is in the creation of a world, both childlike and perhaps not.
I say ‘perhaps’, since who is to say what is ‘childlike’ and what is not, or
indeed what its opposite might be. Is that, again, not part of the essence of
fairy tales? Clowns are present, of course; there is that undeniable element of
Freyer house style, but why not? It does not look, like sometimes his staging
have, as merely more of the same, or one size fits all; nor does it feel like
it. The sense of theatre is keen, not without framing, for instance when the wondrous
flick of the lighting switch opens the metaphorical story book at the opening,
yet without ever seeming pleased with itself, or too clever-clever. Children,
of whatever age, do not like that; often they are right not to do so. We never
see the ‘real’ Hänsel and Gretel, or rather the ‘real’ singers, not really, for
their masks cover their faces several times over. But what is ‘real’? And what
is ‘real’ here? Perhaps the plot interests Freyer less: a pity, I think, but he
has other concerns. And the dream-like sense of proceedings, if only in
retrospect, acquires a more darkly, yet also brightly, sense of the political
and its possibilities, with a final unveiling of the sign ‘REVOLUTIO’.
Unfinished business, or a joke? Dreamers or anti-dreamers, from Novalis to
Brecht, may – or may not – have their say. Life with Freyer, life in many fairy
tales, is a circus; yet think of what a circus, that theatre of cruelty, of the
absurd, of society and anti-society, involves, suggests, incites.
If only the musical side of
things had lived up to those possibilities. Sebastian Weigle’s conducting was,
alas, throughout Kapellmeister-ish in
the negative sense. ‘Light’, as if attempting a demonstration that Mendelssohn
were not worth listening to, almost entirely without Wagnerisms, let alone the
kinship with Strauss Christian Thielemann in that Vienna performance had
imparted, rightly or wrongly to the score, the greater sin of Weigle’s reading
was listlessness. I do not think I have ever heard the first act drag so; nor
have I heard the music sound less magical. Weigle is certainly no Strauss or
Mahler. It would be a hard task indeed to have the Staatskapelle Berlin sound
bad in this music, and it did not; but this great orchestra was sadly undersold
throughout, achieving a few moments of wonder despite, not on account of, its
conductor.
It was not a vintage night for
singing either, although Elsa Dreisig sparkled as Gretel. Katrin Wundsam
sometimes sounded rather harsh as Hänsel. Marina Prudenskaja and Arttu Kataja
sang well enough as their parents, likewise Jürgen Sacher as the Witch, but
perhaps needed something more in the way of inspirational musical leadership –
I shall never forget Colin Davis in 2008 – to lift their performances to
something more memorable. There was hope, though, that in a subsequent revival,
not only better conducted, but perhaps more engaged with the possibilities
hinted at by Freyer, something more than the sum of the parts might emerge.
That hope is, after all, the fuel on which opera houses, especially houses now reborn
such as this, should burn.
The Staatsoper Unter den Linden
is now reopen for good. That re-reopening,
as it were, has taken place with two new productions of two favourite works of
mine: Hänsel und Gretel (which I
shall also review shortly) and L’incoronazione
di Poppea. I wish I could offer a wholehearted welcome to this production
of Poppea, not least as my final
instalment in rather a wonderful Monteverdi year, the highlight of which was
surely an RIAS Kammerchor Vespers, conducted by
Justin Doyle (see also interview here). Eva-Maria Höckmayr’s production offers, alas, little in itself,
almost a non-production, whilst the musical performances were somewhat mixed.
Let us start, however, with the good news, which was very good news indeed. In
what I believe was her first role in a Monteverdi opera – madrigal performances
and much other early music notwithstanding – Anna Prohaska truly shone in the
title role. She can certainly act, and did, called on, like much of the cast,
to be onstage for an almost absurd proportion of the evening. There was, then,
no doubting her stage presence; but nor was there any doubting her vocal
presence. Never forced, ever audible, increasingly imbued with darker, richer
tones than I recall when first hearing her, without any sacrifice to clarity
and cleanness of line and words, Prohaska surely offered a performance that
would have made anyone wish to hear her again, whether in Monteverdi, Nono,
or somewhere in between. Her Poppea, moreover, was no one-dimensional schemer,
no mere sex-kitten, although she certainly offered plenty in the way of allure
and manipulation; this was a woman reclaiming a woman’s role, certainly not
apologetic, yet unwilling simply to have as a male projection – be that
Monteverdi’s, Giovanni Francesco Busenello’s, ours – might have her act.
Seneca (Franz-Josef Selig), Nerone
Her leading men, as it were,
also offered intelligent, multi-dimensional performances. Max Emanuel Cencic’s
Nerone was occasionally a little on the squawky side, yet only occasionally. Otherwise
he judiciously, even provocatively, balanced the character’s vanity and sexual
allure, for if Poppea is to be more than merely a male projection, then surely
the other characters, male and female, need to come more into their own. Ottone
is, more often than not, a thankless role – almost a Don Ottavio for the
seventeenth century. Xavier Sabata, though, gave him depth and greater ambition
and nastiness of his own than one often encounters – without that diminishing
his helplessness in the arms of Fate. Jochen Kowalski, who has had a long,
distinguished career not only as a countertenor, but as a countertenor in
Berlin, tended, alas, to suggest that that career should probably draw to a
close. Perhaps it was just an off-night, but here he was barely capable of
singing countertenor at all, proving more successful when giving up that good
fight to sing instead as tenor. He still had stage presence; for the most part,
that was all.
Rather to my surprise,
Katharina Kammerloher’s Ottavia proved variable, less sure – or indeed
beautiful – of line than most performances I have heard from her. Franz-Josef
Selig, as ever, offered a thoughtful performance as Seneca, alert to the
character’s irritating side – not only as seen through the eyes, or heard
through the ears, of Nerone and Poppea. Evelin Novak’s Drusilla impressed too,
as did Mark Milhofer’s deliciously camp – yet crucially, eminently musical –
Arnalta. Gyula Orendt rose above his announced ailment to give notable
performances, which doubtless could have been finer still, as Liberto and
Lucano. Most of the smaller roles were well taken, often by members of the
company. Quite why children were engaged to double the gods in the Prologue I
have no idea; moreover, whilst it is certainly a tall order to ask children to
sing Monteverdi at all, let alone on stage, the audience probably deserves to
hear voices that are vaguely capable of remaining in tune.
Diego Fasolis made heavy,
unvaried weather of the score. Many current ‘Early Music’ clichés were present,
including the irritating addition of ‘colourful’ percussion. It was a relatively
large band for Monteverdi in all: nothing wrong with that in principle, but it
did have me wonder why we were hearing period instruments. I do not think I
have heard a more dully conducted account, closer to a failed attempt to copy Nikolaus
Harnoncourt than to something livelier, whether at the ‘period’ or – one can
but hope – the Leppard end of the spectrum. Might it not, moreover, have been
an occasion to look to a composer’s realisation of the score, say Krenek’s or Dallapiccola’s, or to commission a new one? The Staatskapelle Berlin
would certainly have been a vocal sight for sore ears, much of what we heard resembling
– although it certainly is not – acres of dullish recitative. Why, moreover, in
this version credited to Fasolis and Andrea Marchiol, did we hear material
interpolated from elsewhere, such as L’Orfeo?
It was hardly ‘authentic’, in any sense, offering little more than a longer
evening. Poppea is not a short opera;
here it felt far longer than it should.
As for Hockmayr’s production, I
struggled for the most part to find one, beyond a cursory nod to a threadbare metatheatricality that has degenerated into mere fashion. From Jens Kilian, a single, undeniably
impressive golden set, with intriguing geometrical possibilities – circular and
otherwise – promises much, as does Julia Rösler’s ‘punkish Renaissance-Baroque’
costumes, Nerone and Poppea perhaps more, yet not entirely, contemporary (to
us). I had the sneaking impression, though, however erroneous, that the singers
had largely been left by Hockmayr to get on with it. There is, at least for me,
no obvious concept, other than the characters being all as bad as each other:
hardly original, and actually rather dull. Yes, they all have their flaws;
neither Ottone nor Ottavia is a paragon. There is surely room for greater
differentiation, though, differentiation which need not lead to moral
judgement. And so, in the final scene, Poppea’s sudden trauma at her elevation,
unforgettably portrayed by Prohaska, seems to come out of nowhere. Likewise the
frankly silly twist that has Nerone wander off with Lucano. Yes, of course the
two are close, and will remain so, sexually and otherwise: the orgy has shown
us that. But surely to have Nerone already opt so obviously for another rather
than to remain omnivorous seems little more than an unprepared cop out. Perhaps
Hockmayr had thought this all out and either it did not come across very clearly,
or I was missing something. Perhaps.
Apologies for the lack of a proper review. I have been very busy, both with work and other matters, and never found the time to write one. I wanted, though, to mention this excellent evening at the Tangoloft in Wedding (Berlin). Caroline Staunton directed Gian Carlo Menotti's Old Maid and the Thief intelligently and resourcefully, with a neat metatheatrical framing to deal with the work's frankly problematical treatment of gender. The cast proved excellent, musically and dramatically, as did Rebecca Lang's score reduction (quite a miracle!) and musical direction. It was a wonderful treat, moreover, to have an array of cabaret songs after the interval. For me, the highlight was Reuben Walker's Eisler, but that was as much a matter of the material itself as the performance, for all singers shone, as did the outstanding pianism of Kunal Lahiry. At this remove, I am loath to say more than that, lest my memory play tricks, but strongly recommend following the fortunes of this enterprising company. I am sure it will not be the last time I report back from one of their performances.
