Anniversaries too often prove a
lazy way to programme. Sometimes, though, especially in the case of composers
in need of rediscovery, they afford excellent opportunities. Such has been in
the case of Karlheinz Stockhausen, latterly overlooked in favour of other
post-war avant gardists. His ninetieth birthday has brought forth a number of
outstanding performances. (One excellent thing about Stockhausen’s music in
performance is the consistently high quality of performance. Either you can do
it well, it seems, or you do not do it at all.) A standing rebuke to those who
would fashionably claim that the later Stockhausen, the Stockhausen of the Licht operas, had gone off the boil –
usually one discovers that they do not even know the later music – was provided
by Paris’s Opéra Comique and Le Balcon, in an unforgettable staging
of Donnerstag. Two
concerts in particular from this year’s Musikfest Berlin had the composer from
Sirius shine almost as brightly as his star itself: Mantra from Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Tamara Stefanovich,
and a truly once-in-a-lifetime – I hope I am wrong – performance from Aimard of
the first
eleven Klaverstücke.
Another anniversary composer,
Bernd Alois Zimmermann, in this case celebrating his
hundredth birthday, featured in an altogether magnificent concert
from Håkan
Hardenberger, the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, and John Storgårds in Vienna, Gunther Schuller and Dvořak the other
composers. Debussy may be less in need of special exposure, but the centenary
of his death brought a good number of excellent performances, from which I
shall choose first a January concert from the LSO
and François-Xavier Roth, Jeux in as comprehending an account as that is never something to
be taken for granted. Debussy,
Zimmermann, and Roth came together in a concert at least its equal with the
Berlin Philharmonic. Debussy’s Images
interspersed with works by Ligeti: no gimmick, genuine illumination.
Returning to opera, the
Festival d’Aix en Provence offered a splendid staging, broadly what one might
call ‘modern conventional’, yet excellent of its kind, of Prokofiev’s
The Fiery Angel. Katie Mitchell
had gone one further the previous night, with a long overdue feminist
reassessment of Ariadne
auf Naxos, also notable for a superlative performance of the
title role from Lise Davidsen. Over
to Salzburg and Hans Neuenfels showed that he very much still has ‘it’ in his
new production of The
Queen of Spades, Mariss Jansons and the Vienna Philharmonic in
the pit, a fine cast to boot. Indeed, this proved a vintage year for Salzburg
opera – an appalling Magic Flute notwithstanding
– with excellent new stagings of Henze (The
Bassarids, Krzysztof Warlikowski)
and Monteverdi (L’incoronazione
di Poppea, Jan Lauwers). Mozart's operas are perhaps the most difficult of all to bring off. Even to consider including one here speaks volumes: volumes should certainly be spoken of a magical Così fan tutte from Opera Holland Park this summer.
Earlier in the year, the Royal
Opera House’s world premiere performances of George
Benjamin’s Lessons in Love and Violence
revealed another towering operatic masterpiece from the composer. Fashionable
voices said otherwise; they are no more to be heeded than in Stockhausen’s
case. The Royal Opera’s new From
the House of the Dead (Warlikowski
again, in a long awaited house premiere) also shone, not least on account of
Mark Wigglesworth’s typically first-rate conducting. Frank
Castorf’s Munich production of the same work may ultimately have
eclipsed it – it would have eclipsed most things – but what a year it was in
which to see both. Daniel Barenboim conducted Tristan
und Isolde in a new, truly thought-provoking production – sad to
say, much misunderstood – by Dmitri Tcherniakov. Also at the Berlin Staatsoper,
now rightly returned to its home on Unter den Linden, came a further
Neuenfels hit: Salome that
announced to all the world in neon lights: ‘Wilde is Coming’.
I always look out for
Schoenberg performances. This year, the Dresden Semperoper offered perhaps the
finest staging I have yet seen of Moses
und Aron, directed by Calixto Bieito.
What a joy, moreover, to hear the great Staatskapelle Dresden in such music! Esa-Pekka
Salonen conducting the Philharmonia in Gurrelieder
sent shivers down the spine and brought (many) tears to the eyes: another
outstanding performance from a consistently excellent team.
The Wigmore Hall is reliably
the best concert venue in London, arguably the greatest chamber music venue in
the world. Highlights included a wonderful evening of string quartet music by
Schubert, Webern, and Haydn from the Hagen
Quartet, and more than one evening of Bach from Mahan Esfahani. From
the latter, I shall somewhat arbitrarily choose this
concert in June. Esfahani’s survey of the complete Bach harpsichord
works continues next year. Igor
Levit’s concert for Frederic Rzewski’s eightieth birthday, including
a Rzewski premiere, cannot fail to be included in any such survey. Pavel
Kolesnikov’s wonderfully imaginative – and coherent! – programme of
piano works from Louis Couperin to Lachenmann also lingers long in the mind. So
too do a recital of Haydn
from the Jerusalem Quartet and an evening of Fauré,
Brahms, and Schumann from Stéphane Degout and Simon Lepper
Other instrumental and chamber
highlights included hearing the Alban Berg Ensemble Wien (drawn from the Vienna
Philharmonic) at the inaugural BERGfrühling festival by Carinthia’s Lake
Ossiach. From that, I shall opt for a concert of Debussy,
Webern, and Mozart. Quite a year then: onwards and upwards…
