Horton - Schumann, Stockhausen, and Chopin, 17 June 2025

Wigmore Hall

Schumann: Piano Sonata no.1 in F-sharp minor, op.11
Stockhausen: Klavierstück VII
Chopin: Nocturne in C-sharp minor, op.27 no.1; Nocturne in D-flat major, op.27 no.2; Mazurka in A minor, op.59 no.1; Mazurka in A-flat major, op.59 no.2; Mazurka in F-sharp minor, op.59 no.3; Piano Sonata no.3 in B minor, op.58

Tim Horton (piano) 

Dedicated to the memory of Alfred Brendel, whose death had been announced earlier that day, this latest instalment in Tim Horton’s Wigmore Hall Chopin series offered a programme which Brendel might not have given but of which he would surely have approved. It opened with Schumann’s early F-sharp minor sonata, described in Jim Samson’s excellent programme note as ‘immensely challenging’. Indeed, seems the appropriate response: certainly for the pianist but also, I think, for the listener—or at least this one. Know and love much of Schumann’s piano music as I do, this work I struggle with. Often one needs to wait for such music to knock on the door, which it has yet to do for me. Horton, though, gave a commanding account, properly ‘orchestral’, though unquestionably written for the instrument to hand. The strange ‘Introduzione’ to the first movement, turbulent yet controlled, was given with a sort of tragic dignity that already spoke of affinity with Chopin, as did more ruminative passages later on. Schumann’s unusual conception of sonata form here was given its due: communicated rather than ‘explained’. The ‘Aria’ came initially as Eusebian relief, soon complicated to an almost Brahmsian degree: all over far too quickly, leaving one longing for more. Infectious energy characterised the scherzo, duly balanced by its trio, prior to quasi-Beethovenian struggle in a finale whose range of colour could not help but impress. the ascent to final climax finely prepared and achieved. 

I suspect I may have been in a minority in the audience in finding Stockhausen’s Klavierstück VII less challenging; yet perhaps not, given Horton’s vividly communicative, comprehending performance. It captured both what (as with almost any piece) is ‘of its time’ and what has enabled it to endure as key work in the piano literature. Attack, duration, all parameters were inextricably connected in a ravishing poetic vision of piano resonance and overtones. One could not help but listen in a different, moment-oriented way; one likewise could not help but be rewarded for doing so. 

The second half was given over to Chopin. The pair of op.27 Nocturnes complemented each other beautifully, independence of hands explored in different ways in both. Both were finely shaped, evidently conceived in single, long, ever-varying breaths. Telling rubato made its point without distracting. Both sounded as miniature tone poems: surely what they are. The three op.59 Mazurkas worked equally well as a set and as individual pieces, a fine lilt to the first ushering them on their way. What rhythmic and harmonic subtleties there are here, and what subtle yet unmistakeable pride, which latter quality also helped usher in the Third Piano Sonata. The first movement’s originality may be less startling than that of its counterpart in the Second Sonata, but it was nonetheless palpable in a performance that unfolded with all the time in the world: certainly not slow, yet equally neither hurried nor harried. Will-o’-the-wisp fluttering of the scherzo, turned on its head in the trio, prepared us more in contrast than kinship for the darkness that born in harmony and harmonic rhythm for the slow movement. The fantasia-like quality Horton brought to the finale both surprised and crowned, in a sense presaging similar qualities in the encore, the F-sharp major Nocturne, op.15 no.2, whose tonality also connected us to the close of the Schumann sonata. I look forward to the continuation of this fascinating series.

 

Belcea Quartet - Schoenberg and Beethoven, 11 June 2025

Wigmore Hall

Schoenberg: String Quartet no.1 in D minor, op.7
Beethoven: String Quartet no.14 in C-sharp minor, op.131

Corina Belcea, Suyeon Kang (violins)

Krysztof Chorzelski (viola)

Antoine Lederlin (cello)

Schoenberg must be one of the very few composers who, heard with late Beethoven, can emerge as the more difficult of the two. Whether intrinsically so is probably a silly and certainly a fruitless question; yet, in terms of overall programming, it made for an interesting and satisfying pairing from the Belcea Quartet, Schoenberg’s First (numbered) String Quartet followed by Beethoven’s C-sharp minor Quartet. 

Schoenberg’s work opened as if a sequel to Verklärte Nacht, not only in D minor tonality, but in motivic writing, melody, harmony, and much else. Quickly, its coil twisted in a supremely flexible performance which, as a whole, served more to question than comfortably conform ideas of its form ‘being’ the Lisztian four-movements-in-one. ‘Yes, but…’ was the fitting place to start—and continue. Schoenberg’s hyper-expressivity came to the fore not only in febrile instrumental lines but in their connection, division, and (re-)integration, the first Chamber Symphony rightly but a stone’s throw away, ripples soon reaching its world. Harmony and counterpoint created one another, putting me in mind of Schoenberg’s later recognition that Mozart had been his guiding star all along, long before he realised it (as in, say, the Fourth Quartet). Concerto-like violin solo, Brahms in ‘Hungarian’ mode taken surprisingly far east; post-Meistersinger fugato; Brucknerian unison; mysterious harmonics; themes poised between Brahms and Strauss, twisting as if the branches of a Jugendstil forest: these and more combined in a work of Beethovenian struggle poised between the composer’s own Pelleas und Melisande and Die Jakobsleiter. The Belcea’s – and Schoenberg’s – lingering goodbye, in essence an extended cadence, not only fulfilled and extended expectations; it also proved the ideal introduction to the concert’s second half. 

Beethoven’s Quartet emerged less as continuation than response, all the more touching – even Mozartian, albeit too ‘late’ in more than the chronological sense – for it. The fugue was shaped and built meaningfully without ever sounding moulded. The second movement in turn emerged tentatively from its shadows, soon establishing its own modus vivendi, fragility part yet only part of its character. Symmetries and onward development were the dialectic at play here, presaging those in fourth movement variations both rare and earthy. There was something exhilarating, arguably necessary, to the fresh air here: a woodland walk in the composer’s footsteps. The Belcea traced a path that took us somewhere stranger, disconcerting, even frightening, returning us safe and sound with a good dose of Beethovenian humanity. The scherzo’s relief had me smile and inwardly chuckle, its irrepressible qualities vividly told. A poignant, similarly noble sixth movement was disrupted by a seventh whose opening struck the fear of God into the hall, interiority of response no less disquieting. And so, that further dialectic was set up for the movement, without any sacrifice to the crucial element of surprise, to the eternal freshness of the work, and to the temporal freshness of this wonderful performance. It thrilled as it edified. 

As an unexpected bonus, we heard the slow movement from Beethoven’s final quartet, op.135. Its initial conception as an eighth movement, in D-flat major, to op.131 offered, if not an aural glimpse of what might have been, then a fitting choice of encore, tonally and otherwise. Its unfolding continued to surprise yet ultimately consoled.

Dido and Aeneas, Guildhall, 9 June 2025

Milton Court Theatre

Images: David Monteith Hodge
Dido (Karima El Demerdasch)

Dido – Karima El Demerdasch
Aeneas – Joshua Saunders
Belinda – Manon Ogwen Parry
Sorceress – Julia Merino
Attendant, Second Woman – Hannah McKay
Witches – Seohyun Go, Julia Solomon
Spirit – Gabriella Noble
Sailor – Tobias Campos Santiñaque

Director – Oliver Platt
Designs – Alisa Kalyanova
Movement – Caroline Lofthouse
Lighting – Eli Hunt

Video – Mabel Nash  

Chorus (chorus master: Henry Reavey) and Orchestra of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama James Henshaw (conductor)

This new Guildhall Dido and Aeneas, directed by Oliver Platt and designed by Alisa Kalyanova, was not the Dido of your expectations. I can be reasonably sure of that. Doors opened to reveal a club scene onstage, electronic music of a decidedly non-Stockhausen variety blasting through the small theatre. Dido eventually joined, dancing as if her life depended on it; perhaps, in retrospect, it did. Belinda too (if indeed these were there names). And then, suddenly everything changed. Purcell’s music was to be heard. In an unanticipated Dr Who-like shift – will the Queen of Carthage turn out to be the new Doctor heralded by Billie Piper? – we found ourselves in a very different world indeed. Its denizens took what they wanted from Dido’s handbag, re-clothed her, and left her generally shocked and bemused, apparently having no more idea what was going on than I did. 

Sailor (Tobias Campos Santiñaque) and Chorus

We now appeared to be in a rural English community, with straw figures, a maypole, and enforced country dancing, clothes suggestive more of the early twentieth century than Purcell’s time, let alone that of Dido and Aeneas. When Aeneas arrived, seemingly similarly abducted, he had no more idea what was going on. So far as I could discern, neither of them did throughout, brought together by the strange villagers, though again, neither did I. Punk-triffid witches did their thing. Aeneas eventually resolved to stay, Dido by then rejecting him, physically berating him, until he turned on her and seemed on the verge (at least) of sexual assault, until she stabbed him, after which she was led to the Maypole to be hanged. It was quite absorbing in its way and very well blocked and choreographed, but I really could not tell you what it was about or how it cohered. Was that the point? It may have been, given liberties taken – nothing wrong with that – for the missing music, but I suspect I was missing something. Was it perhaps all an unfortunate dream, arising from nightclub hallucination? I fear I shall simply have to admit defeat. 

Dido and Chorus

All in the cast, the excellent chorus included, threw themselves into this oddly compelling vision in wholehearted, committed fashion. Karima El Demerdasch’s Dido was first-rate, from wild abandon – difficult to imagine Janet Baker or Jessye Norman in this production – through fear and unease to final tragedy. Accomplished through the synthesis of words, music, and gesture that, put crudely, is operatic performance, this signalled not only great promise but great achievement. I am sure we shall see and hear more from her. Aeneas is, especially by comparison, a bit of a thankless role, but Joshua Saunders made a good deal of this bemused conception. Manon Ogwen Parry’s Belinda and Julia Merino’s Sorceress were both very well taken, as indeed were the other, smaller roles, Tobias Campos Santiñaque’s Sailor a winning ‘boozy’ moment in the spotlight. James Henshaw’s conducting complemented the punk-folk conception of the staging, more City Waites than Les Arts Florissants, let alone English Chamber Orchestra. It may not be how I hear it, but it is hardly how I see it either, and performance should always extend beyond ritual. There was, then, much to enjoy—and to puzzle over.

Saul, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, 8 June 2025

 

© Glyndebourne Productions Ltd. Photography by ASH

Saul – Christopher Purves
David – Iestyn Davies
Merab – Sarah Brady
Michal – Soraya Mafi
Jonathan – Linard Vrielink
Abner, High Priest, Doeg, Amalekite – Liam Bonthrone
Witch of Endor – Ru Charlesworth
Dancers – Lucy Alderman, Robin Gladwin, Lukas Hunt, Dominic Rocca, Nathan Ryles, Daisy West

Director – Barrie Kosky
Revival director – Donna Stirrup
Designs – Katrin Lea Tag
Choreography – Otto Pichler
Revival choreography – Merry Holden
Lighting – Joachim Klein

The Glyndebourne Chorus (chorus director: Aidan Oliver)
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
Jonathan Cohen (conductor)

Saul (Christopher Purves)

I found myself listening at home to Saul a few months ago (Charles Mackerras’s outstanding Leeds Festival recording with Donald McIntyre, James Bowman, Margaret Price, et al.). It made for often uncomfortable listening, the ever-problematical identification of Handel’s Protestant England with the ‘children of Israel’ all the more when daily we see the Philistines’ successors mercilessly slain in the name of a latter-day ‘Eretz Israel’, itself the product of the imperialism on which the new, fiscal-military state of Great Britain had been founded. Culminating in news from the Amalekite – David’s ‘Impious wretch, of race accursed!’ – that Saul has been slain and Israelite exortation to ‘Gird on thy sword, thou man of might’, it seemed both a work both for now and absolutely not. At least it was not Joshua or Judas Maccabeus, I thought; and indeed its central dramatic concerns are not necessarily those, however glaring they may stand out now. The work’s political dimension is important, but is one of several and arguably not the most important. In any case, it extends beyond war and empire to broader questions of kingship—not least given the precedent of the Whig establishment’s treasonous support for the Dutch invasion that had removed ‘the Lord’s anointed’ within living memory, and without which George II would stand nowhere near the throne. 

Barrie Kosky’s Glyndebourne production of Saul was first seen in 2015: what may now seem a very different world, prior to Britain’s fateful referendum, Trump’s election, Covid, the invasion of Ukraine, and of course genocide in Gaza. None of those things came out of nowhere, of course, but the world was different. He was – and is – perfectly entitled to explore other aspects of the drama, and it is neither his nor revival director Donna Stirrup’s fault that events have overtaken us. Kosky offers a typically pugnacious, persuasive defence of staging such works at all and of his particular aesthetic in the programme. ‘But when you put Handel’s oratorios on stage you know that there will be a flood of opera reviewers who’ll say these pieces were not written for the stage, so why are we staging them? Get real! Opera is not about rules and regulations. Handel’s oratorios are sometimes more dramatic than his operas. We know that because we can hear it. Their musical landscapes are often more radical than those of the operas.’ I agree with every word. Why, then, beyond the inevitable unease concerning aspects of the drama, did I have my doubts—as someone who has long thought it cried out for the stage? 

There are problems intrinsic to the work, of course, as there always have been, lying beyond the cul-de-sac of alleged intention. The chorus’s role is one: how to deal with it onstage? Kosky certainly makes the most (as, for instance, in his Komische Oper Hercules) of his opportunities in this respect. An opening festal tableau, gestures arrestingly frozen, draws one in, Kosky’s detailed direction of each member of a crowd that also combines with excellence en masse dovetailing with Katrin Lee Tag’s painterly vision.An eighteenth-century audience, so it seems, participates, mirroring the dual function of the chorus itself, roots in Greek tragedy apparent and brimming with dramatic potential. 

David (Iestyn Davies)

The problem for me comes with elements of the conception of the protagonists. Not all of it: much shows great insight. A brazenly opportunist David is the trump card: charisma born of body and battle, seemingly willing to do anything – or anyone – to further his clear yet unstated lust for power. Why bother to spell it out, when the crowd will for him? ‘Saul, who hast thy thousands slain, welcome to thy friends again! David his ten thousands slew, ten thousand praises are his due!’ There is, moreover, a creditable effort to make more of Saul’s daughters and their roles, though that also leads us to more difficult territory. In that programme interview, Kosky states his dislike of realism, but that seems to refer to aesthetics rather than to psychology. (I actually would not have minded more on the former side and less dance, however finely accomplished; but that is a matter of taste, no more.) It is a particular form of psychological realism that, though I can see the temptation, also leads the drama to become less interesting and arguably less coherent. If one portrays calculation in such realistic way, there is nothing ‘mad’ about Saul’s reaction. Michal and still more Jonathan must simply be in love with David, which is obviously part of what is going on but surely not the only or overriding dramaturgical concern. And the decision to present Saul for much of the time as if already in Bedlam – perhaps even as if a flashback – is ultimately reductive, again crowding out other concerns. 

Set against that, the darker turn following the interval makes an undeniably strong impression. There is a splendid star-turn (literally) from the revolving solo organist onstage. When Saul visits the Witch of Endor, Kosky offers a nice sense of Tiresias in Beckettland, to the weird, disconcerting extent that Saul feeds from one of the Witch’s breasts. The doomed monarch also voices Samuel’s words himself: possessed or merely delusional? If Kosky and Tag’s Beckettland looks surprisingly (or unsurprisingly) close to that seen for their Castor et Pollux (ENO and elsewhere) and Don Giovanni (Vienna), most production teams have recognisable correspondences over time. Richard Jones & Co. anyone? The important question is what one does with them. 

Jonathan Cohen’s conducting I found more difficult to get on with: not only aggressively ‘period’, but of a variety that too often skated over Handel’s strengths as a musical dramatist. There was little grandeur, if often much rasping noise. The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment strings might surely have been permitted fuller tone at times. Excellent woodwind fared better: characterful and dramatically telling. Handel’s writing for bassoon – not only in the Witch of Endor scene – is worth an essay alone from someone. It certainly sounded so here. Greater variety of tempo was achieved as time went on, if there were still cases, especially in choral numbers, when breakneck speed disrupted ensemble. 

Merab (Sarah Brady), Michal (Soraya Malfi), and Jonathan (Linard Vrielink)

Christopher Purves’s Saul was superbly acted, if sometimes a little close to Sprechgesang (leaving aside purely spoken interjections further to enhance the impression of insanity). There was often, though, a thinness of tone to his delivery that complemented Cohen’s way with the orchestra, but which on ‘purely’ musical terms left me at least missing something more bass-like. Iestyn Davies’s David was outstanding in every respect: word, tone, and gesture a model of characterisation.  Sarah Brady and Soraya Mafi offered a haughty Merab and an attractive, calculating Michal, in fine dramatic contrast both with one another and with the honeyed, imploring sincerity of Linard Vrielink’s Jonathan. Kosky’s amalgamation of Abner, High Priest, and Doeg, into a single Fool-like character elicited sinister ambiguity from Liam Bonthrone, who also took on the ‘cursed’ role of the Amalekite, mysteriously hooded in the auditorium. Ru Charlesworth offered a darkly vivid portrayal for Kosky and Handel’s strange conception of the Witch of Endor. The Glyndebourne Chorus likewise responded to a varied set of challenges – Handel’s, Kosky’s, and Cohen’s – with fine musical and dramatic dedication. 

My reservations, then, were relatively minor. Audience enthusiasm suggested they were little shared. This was a highly enjoyable occasion, though might it have offered more dramatically? To my dismay, I could not help but wonder whether a concert performance, albeit differently conducted, might have come closer in that respect.

Shibe and friends - Dillon, Miller, and Boulez, 29 May 2025

Wigmore Hall

James Dillon: 12 Caprices (world premiere)
Cassandra Miller: Bel Canto
Boulez: Le Marteau sans maître

Sean Shibe (guitar)

Ema Nikolovska (mezzo-soprano)

Adam Walker (flute)

George Barton, Iris van den Bos, Sam Wilson (percussion)

Emma Wernig (viola)

Matthew Hunt (clarinet)

Mira Benjamin (violin)

Colin Alexander (cello)

Alphonse Cemin (conductor)

In this excellent Wigmore Hall concert for Boulez’s centenary year, Sean Shibe and friends, mezzo Ema Nikolovska first among equals, demonstrated once again the stature, challenge, and thrills of what arguably remains the composer’s signature work, Le Marteau sans maître. ‘Without feeling close to Boulez’s music,’ Stravinsky wrote to Nadia Boulanger in 1957, ‘I frankly find it preferable to many things of his generation.’ And we can certainly tend to think of it – almost unavoidably – in terms of music and musicians that had led up to it. Take its Asia-tilted percussion, strongly recalling Messiaen’s Trois petites liturgies (for which Boulez turned vibraphone pages at the 1945 premiere), here magically brought to life by George Barton, Iris van den Bos, and Sam Wilson; the crossing and continuation of lines between instruments, immediately apparent here in the first of the work’s nine movements, inevitably reminiscent of Webern, the serialist ‘threshold’; or the mesmerising, even Mozartian ravishment of the third ‘Commentaire’ on ‘Bourreaux de solitude’. (In the latter case, I am sure Così fan tutte did not actually play a role here, but I like to fancy that the older Boulez, recording that extraordinary, unexpected Ensemble Intercontemporain performance of the Serenade, KV 361/370a, alongside Berg’s Chamber Concerto, might nonetheless have subsumed it into his aesthetic realm.) Here, though, we looked, or rather listened, forward, if retrospectively, the first half presenting the world premiere of James Dillon’s 12 Caprices for solo guitar and Cassandra Miller’s 2010 Maria Callas homage, Bel Canto. 

Not having heard Le Marteau for a while – my most recent live encounter might actually have been eight years ago in Vienna – I experienced the joy of rediscovery, but also of that increasing sense in Boulez’s œuvre more widely of taking a place in the great modernist ‘museum’ to which he felt such ambivalent attraction. This is not ‘pointillist’ music, far from it, but using that as a starting-point for exploration, not least that connection of instrumental and vocal lines mentioned above, seemed fitting or at least not entirely absurd in the progress of this performance and the material on which it is founded. ‘Avant “L’Artisanat furieux”’ felt that way, anyway, its archetypal ‘exquisite labyrinth’ becoming ever more involved, conductor Alphonse Cemin and the ensemble equally ensuring there was no loss to visceral experience, no smoothing of the edges. Rhythm, as in Stravinsky, continued to drive. In similar spirit, flute and voice melismata (Adam Walker and Nikolovska) almost yet not quite combined in ‘L’Artisanat furieux’. As Boulez’s serial universe thereafter unfolded, an angrier presentiment perhaps of Pli selon pli, development seemed to occur as much retrospectively as in ‘order’. Relaxation had something splendidly disorienting to it, as if swimming uphill in waters unknown. Process in all its volatility could be felt, even if one could not – should not – put it into words. Throughout, one felt wholehearted commitment from the musicians: not only sure and knowing, but vividly exploratory guides to our ears. An invisible theatre, especially apparent in the two closing movements, welcomed to its stage ghosts from the past: a Pierrot-like line on Emma Wernig’s viola, or Debussyan arabesque upon arabesque incited and invited by Walker’s flute. This was above all music for now, resisting the museum even as it entered in. 

Dillon’s Caprices put me in mind, perhaps coincidentally, but the coincidence was strong, of Boulez’s own piano Notations, similarly aphoristic and twelve in number. Perhaps it was only this context that led me to think that way, but gesture and substance in the very first seemed to come from a related sound-world and mind. They then pursued their own path, of course, offering plentiful space for finely wrought, idiomatic guitar-writing and committed performance. Each caprice laid claim both to individual character in kaleidoscopic variety, and also to a strong sense of progression within the whole. Work and performance alike drew one in, in spellbinding fashion. Quoted in the programme as speaking of ‘a framing of the fugitive’, Dillon brought that Lorca-founded image to spellbinding if swiftly vanishing life, with outstanding advocacy from Shibe. 

In Bel Canto, Nikolovska and two mini-ensembles, one with her onstage, the other behind and above in the balcony, brought to life not only Callas’s ‘Vissi d’arte’, but the passage of time in her career: ‘not only’, in Miller’s words, ‘about the ageing of an extraordinary woman, but also about the listener. Time slows down to allow for an engagement with detail, for a submersion in the sound, and for meditative stillness.’ That is very much what we experienced, time slowing, even near-repeating, as if a record were stuck; and yet, it moved. There was something dream-like, even epiphanic to Nikolvska and the instrumentalists’ revelation, yet whatever one might have felt, there was nothing vague to it, their means as precise as, say, Berio’s layering in his Folk Songs or, indeed, Sinfonia, be they written or left to the performers’ judgement. The midway surprise of an unseen Romantic violin solo from behind (Mira Benjamin), vying in richness with Nikolovska’s voice, ever changing yet ever the same, registered as an invisible coup de théâtre, a prelude to sounds hitherto unimagined yet making perfect sense when they came. Not entirely unlike Le Marteau, one might say, although unmistakeably of the Mediterranean.

Die dunkle Seite des Mondes, Hamburg State Opera, 18 May 2025

Images: Bernd Uhlig
Dr Kieron (Thomas Lehman), Creature of Light (Andrew Dickinson)

Dr Kieron – Thomas Lehman
Meister Astaroth – Bo Skovhus
Miriel – Siobhan Stagg
Creature of Light – Andrew Dickinson
Anima – Kangmin Justin Kim
The Bright Girl – Narea Son
Cornelius – Aaron Godfrey-Mayes
Dr Pulski – William Desbiens
Dr Raubenstock – Karl Huml
Dr Spinberg – Jürgen Sacher

Directors – Dead Centre (Ben Kidd and Bush Moukarzel)
Designs – Jeremy Herbert
Costumes – Janina Brinkmann
Lighting – James Farncombe
Video – Sophie Lux
Choreography – Sasha Milavic Davies
Dramaturgy – Angela Beuerle, Michael Sangkuhl

Live camera – Benjamin Hassmann  

Chorus of the Hamburg State Opera (director: Christian Günther)

Hamburg State Philharmonic Orchestra

Kent Nagano (conductor)

I really wanted to like this opera, Unsuk Chin’s second, following her widely and justly acclaimed Alice in Wonderland (2004-7). After all, I travelled from London to Hamburg expressly to attend its opening night. In some ways, I liked and admired it; or rather I liked and admired much of the music and stage performances, above all Thomas Leaman’s commanding account of the central role. It pains me to say that, nonetheless, as a dramatic and even theatrical experience what we saw and heard in Die dunkle Seite des Mondes (The Dark Side of the Moon) fell considerably short of the considerable hopes invested in it. My sense, moreover, was that mine was not, sadly, an eccentric reaction. 

A Faustian tale is no bad start; opera in particular and drama more broadly continue to flourish in development and variation of time-honoured subjects, to which something more timely will necessarily be brought. The (anti-hero), Dr Kieron, is a scientist, Dr Kieron, an unbearable, impossible colleague, who dismisses and needs the work of others, but who harbours the secret of his haunting by visions, which lead him to the realm of a ‘soul healer’, Meister Astaroth. Inspiration came originally from Chin’s interest in the relationship between the physicist Wolfgang Pauli and the psychologist Carl Friedrich Jung. 

Meister Astaroth (Bo Skovhus)

Chin’s score announces a darker soundworld, aptly enough, than that of her previous opera and indeed many other of her works, yet it is possessed, at least in its stronger sections, of many of the inventive qualities, especially rhythmic and timbral, that have justly lent her great esteem. There is exuberance and a true sense of potential in the orchestral lines, vividly brought to theatrical life, so far as I could discern, by the Hamburg State Philharmonic Orchestra under Kent Nagano, the house chorus a welcome addition in its several appearances. The beginnings of both acts, more than just the beginning in the first, offered the most compelling music and also, doubtless far from coincidentally, registered strongest in dramatic terms. Broadly, Kieron’s world convinces more than Astaroth’s, which may or may not be the point. Dramaturgically and theatrically, it seems conceived – in my case, it was certainly received – in a traditional way. A story is told on stage through words and music. There are no obvious metatheatrical questions posed; nor is there an evident desire to play with narrative, let alone a sense of the postdramatic. There is nothing wrong with that; many fine operas still take on such a form and probably always will. Traditional operatic virtues, then, probably need to register more strongly.   

The libretto, however, and more generally the plot come across as hopelessly contrived: not artificial in an arch or detached aesthetic sense, but mostly unfortunate. This, I am afraid, is also Chin’s work, written in collaboration with Kerstin Schüssler-Bach. It piles up words, fails to establish characters – most glaringly, in the case of the women, mere projections in a sense that surely extends beyond feminist critique – and often seems bizarrely unsuited to opera. I should actually go a step further and say that the problem was less its wordiness, although that certainly did not help, than that wordiness simply not having been very good. It would have come across unfortunately, had there been no music at all. Put another way, literariness needs to be good – very good – and if you are not a Hofmannsthal, remains better avoided. When something merely aspires to literariness, if indeed that is what is going on here. I honestly cannot imagine anyone caring about the characters—and it was not clear what else there was to care about. At times, an anti-war message seemed to surfacebut then it disappeared; or perhaps I had imagined it. It is surely not coincidental that the music’s invention registered most strongly when there were no words to get in the way. Then there is the length. On the face of it, it was refreshing to be presented with something that dared to be different, not to be confined to the consensus of how long an opera ‘need’ be. Like any artwork, it should probably be as long as it needs to be, but no longer. Offering something roughly the length of a Mozart-Da Ponte opera (done whole) shows ambition, if only it were realised. 

There was a good deal to suggest, however, that this had been developed as a whole, extending considerably beyond the composer’s work on her libretto. At its best, Dead Centre’s production seemed to ‘listen’ to the score and not only to the words. Without merely mirroring, movement, lighting, and much else seemed to spring from the same source, for instance in the set’s swaying to convey the drunkenness of the bar. If anything, though, it seemed too often to remain tied to the words and drama. If it would be too much to hope that a different staging might have redeemed them, something a little more interventionist might nonetheless have added something, perhaps fleshing out the characters rather than simply presenting them, such as they were. Even something that accentuated the c.1930 setting, present when one reflected yet not registering as something that mattered, might have contributed something. Live camera did, in a straightforward way, homing in on particular characters – for instance, during bar ‘crowd’ scenes – and register their facial reactions. 

Thomas Lehman’s assumption of the principal role, Dr Kieron, was thus in some ways all the more impressive: a fiercely intelligent act of apparent conviction, which created a character almost in spite of what he was presented with.  Bo Skovhus, as Meister Astaroth, similarly impressed with great stage presence throughout. Kieron’s former lover and morphine addict, Mirel, was woefully under-characterised in the work, but Siobhan Stagg did what she could, her coloratura duly sparkling—and suggestive of what might have been. Kangmin Justin Kim’s Anima was quite a star turn, splendidly feminine of tone and gesture, so much so that it was only when I checked the cast list I realised this had been a countertenor. Aaron Godfrey-Mayes made for a sympathetic Cornelius, assistant to Kieron. All seemed well sung; there was nothing evident for which to reproach the musicians, whether on stage or in the pit. 

A puzzling and, in many ways, frustrating evening, then, but one I was nonetheless pleased to have experienced. Not only because one learns from when things go wrong, though surely there is much to be learned here; but because I remain convinced there is something waiting to be released here. Where that leaves the opera, I am not sure. It is difficult to imagine the music, or rather some of it, retained and a new libretto fashioned. Perhaps there is some radical surgery that could be performed. Perhaps the best of it could be reworked into a shorter opera or another work entirely. Perhaps different performances and stagings would make a difference. Or perhaps I am entirely wrong: first night reports are notoriously littered with wrongheaded criticism. No one would be more delighted than I to find my criticisms misplaced, to owe the creators an apology, and to welcome a new work to the repertory. We shall see.

Die Walküre, Royal Opera, 17 May 2025

Royal Opera House

Siegmund – Stanislas de Barbeyrac
Sieglinde – Natalya Romaniw
Hunding – Soloman Howard
Wotan – Christopher Maltman
Brünnhilde – Elisabeth Strid
Fricka – Marina Prudenskaya
Gerhilde – Lee Bisset
Helmwige – Mauda Hundeling
Waltraute – Claire Barnett-Jones
Schwetleite – Rhonda Browne
Ortlinde – Katie Lowe
Siegrune – Catherine Carby
Grimgerde – Monika-Evelin Liiv
Rossweisse – Alison Kettlewell
Erda – Clare Almond
Actors – Illona Linthwaite, Lucy Brenchley, Clea Godsill, Maria Leon, Virginia Poli, Nadia Sadiq, Jay Yule

Director – Barrie Kosky
Set designs – Rufus Didwiszus
Costumes – Victoria Behr
Lighting – Alessandro Carletti

Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Antonio Pappano (conductor)

The Royal Opera’s new Walküre proved very good in every respect, often excellent, offering some degree of solace for having come close to taking out a bank loan to buy a ticket. Our ultra-neoliberal, genocidal government will no more fund the arts than its kindred, ever-so-slightly-less genocidal, ever-so-slightly-more-separatist predecessor. As the last remnants of humanity crash down livestreamed before us, an historic half a million-plus citizens protesting but a stone’s throw away to stop the genocide in Gaza, Wagner’s message could hardly be more urgent. Will anyone listen? Doubtless. Will any of the people who need to listen do so? Almost certainly not, as signalled by the unpleasant experience of passing a key architect of Brexit Britain’s malaise, Michael Gove, on the stairs. What do these people think the Ring is about? It is a question as old as the work itself, but then the same question could be asked – doubtless was – in the theatres of Athens. A politically committed artist such as Wagner could not have been less concerned with l’art pour l’art: that was at best the world of actually existing opera houses and their ‘absolute music’. Such is never all we have, though sometimes it may feel like it. As once again, Wagner and his performers sought to ‘make clear to the men of the revolution the meaning of that [non-]revolution,’ it was possible, whatever the catastrophes outside and perhaps even on account of them, once again to be moved and challenged by Wagner’s drama in the theatre. 

I missed Das Rheingold, though if the final Götterdämmerung has not by then subsumed us all, I hope to catch up when the whole Ring is staged. Barrie Kosky’s outward-looking Kammperspiel of a Walküre seemed nevertheless to stand perfectly well on its own merits. Hallmarks not only of Kosky’s direction, indeed not only of the cast onstage, but also of Antonio Pappano’s direction of a splendidly responsive Orchestra of the Royal Opera House were listening and collaboration: qualities in shorter supply than ever as fascism deepens its grip with every day—over Starmer’s ‘island of strangers’. Trump’s politics-as-gameshow, and almost anywhere else one can think of in the benighted ‘West’ (and not only there). 

I have not been a fan of Pappano’s Wagner in the past; here, both his conducting and that orchestral response sounded transformed. (In retrospect, there may have been something of an augury in the unusually Wagnerian Turandot I heard him conduct in 2023, but the Ring is a challenge of quite another order.) Now it seemed to spring directly from the words – perhaps a little too much, rather than asserting itself as an equal partner – but, if one wanted an Opera and Drama Wagner, at least according to many readings, here it was. There was none of the orchestral scrappiness, none of the merely following (‘supporting’) singers that had bedevilled earlier Ring performances I had heard. (I skipped the last outing of Keith Warner’s Ring, or rather could not afford to go.) No Wagner performance, not even Barenboim’s or Furtwängler’s, will cover every base; this is music, as it is drama, that encompasses and suggests more than any one performance can. On its own terms, it convinced, and there was no doubting the strong relationship built with the production.   

Kosky’s production is in many ways straightforward, its overriding concept of the despoliation of Nature (chapter four of my book on the Ring) clear and fatally apparent. A tree and all that has been felled from it, presumably beginning with Wotan’s spear (in the work’s prehistory as recounted to us by the Norns in the Prologue to Götterdämmerung), offer the roots and present of the tragic calamity that has befallen this world. Designs, especially set and lighting, contribute powerfully, a black-grey-white colour scheme occasionally bloodied in red, for instance that on Siegmund as Wotan chillingly watches him expire. Perhaps at some level he cares; perhaps not. Ambiguity renders it all the more chilling. There is perhaps a touch of the actor-politician Zelensky to him: a fascinating figure, with whom the Nietzsche of The Case of Wagner would have had a field day. Continuation and re-emergence of that red, flowing from the tree and seeping into the scene with the Valkyries and their carts of heroes (also tree-like, Nature’s wholeness still just about intact), made its point unmistakeably. So did Wotan’s brutal violence: no Rheingold ‘Nicht durch Gewalt’ here, should we take it seriously. Even Fricka’s glamourous arrival in a vintage car, which could readily have seemed an expensive distraction, took its place against this backdrop, connected to it in clear musicodramatic terms, as did Beckettian emergence of characters, Endgame-like, from holes in the savaged tree in the final scenes of the second act. For all the fuss about Erda, her appearance seemed in many ways of lesser importance, though the painterly provision of her spring fruits at the end of the first act was a nice touch. The tree doubled as Brünnhilde’s rock; in lesser hands, that might have confused, yet here seemed perfectly in order, aided by interventionist surtitling. 

Binding together musical performance and stage direction was of course the cast, which worked together very well indeed—almost as if this were a repertory spoken theatre with singing, in which company members worked together day in, day out. This made for moments of extraordinarily powerful emotional impact: Sieglinde’s ‘Lenz’ jubilation; Brünnhilde’s quandary following Wotan’s monologue, spotlit simply in front of the curtain; her embrace of Sieglinde following her decision to defy Wotan; and above all, Brünnhilde’s sobbing on her separation for the rock. Natalya Romaniw and Elisabeth Strid offered powerful portrayals of our two heroines, if we may call them that, founded, like the performance as a whole, in a word-driven approach that proposed rather than detracted from musical possibilities. Stanislas de Barbeyrac’s subtle Siegmund grasped at vocal steel when required, a fine match for Soloman Howard’s Hunding-as-policeman, as rounded a portrayal as any I can recall, perhaps more so, with unforgettable physical presence. Christopher Maltman’s Wotan occasionally lacked heft, but more than often than not impressed, in another highly text-driven performance. Marina Prudenskaya seems always to offer a class act, and certainly did here as a proud Fricka, marshalling instrumental reason just as her consort has always done. Individual direction (and performance) of the other Valkyries was put to excellent dramatic ends, one daring to tarry, so as to confront Wotan with the heinousness of his deeds, only to be brutally dismissed. 

I look forward to Siegfried. 

Piemontesi, Schubert and Liszt, 9 May 2025

Wigmore Hall

Schubert: Fantasy in C major, D 605a, ‘Graz’
Schubert: Four Impromptus, D 935
Liszt: Piano Sonata in B minor, S 178

Francesco Piemontesi (piano)

  

Francesco Piemontesi offered a series of surprises, none unwelcome, in this fine Wigmore Hall recital of music by Schubert and Liszt. No piece was taken for granted, though by the same token, none was remoulded for the sake of remoulding. An array of possibilities was brought to life through exquisite command of touch and formidable foundation of intellect. 

The so-called ‘Graz’ Fantasy, D 605a, made for an excellent, even spellbinding opening. I was immediately put in mind of an observation by Donald Tovey on the piano music of Liszt, that it showed – irrespective of its musical quality – he was incapable of making an ugly sound on the keyboard.  Simple C major arpeggios sounded as if they were the rarest things in the world, the fifth bar’s flattened submediant piercing as perhaps only Schubert can. The first section as a whole emerged as something akin to a threshold for pianistic Romanticism, its fantasia quality, harking back to Mozart and beyond, in gradual self-revelation. The alla polacca music, in a typically distant – as distant as one can be – F-sharp major was delightfully quirky, dancing as if it were early Chopin. As the music became more involved, Piemontesi’s performance was never cluttered; here, as elsewhere, there was always space, irrespective of tempo, whose fundamental qualities always endured. The serenity with which opening material returned was deeply touching. 

The advent of the first of four impromptus, that in F minor, felt like the opening of a new chapter: not exactly presaged by the Fantasy, yet foretold. This was, of course, a different Schubert, from the close of his all-too-brief compositional life; and yet, without contrivance, it was also the same Schubert, similarly spun from the finest of Egyptian cotton, if that is not to undersell. There was something dream-like, though not too dream-like, to the piece’s progression, to the emergence of music that had somehow always been there, waiting simply to be voiced as a song without words. Its ambivalence and the pain of return to the tonic could hardly have been more movingly conveyed. Perhaps the second impromptu, the A-flat Allegretto, was a little understated, a little too innig; or perhaps that was simply a matter of taste. There was no doubting its lyricism, nor that of the B-flat theme and variations, Piemontesi’s disinclination to make a meal of it welcome. Subtlety of melodic line, the telling quality of lilt and breath, and the ‘natural’ quality to this music-making, not least in the unexaggerated pathos of the fourth variation, all proved telling. One can overdo the ‘sonata’ designation to these pieces; if Schubert had intended them as such, he would doubtless have said so. Nonetheless, the fourth, returning to F minor, felt very much like a finale: one that foretold Brahms still more than Liszt, taking its leave nonetheless from the world of the Moments musicaux. 

In the introduction to Liszt’s B minor Sonata, Piemontesi seemed determined to show – more to the point, he did – that preconceived oppositions are worth no more than the ether into which they are typed. This music can be taut and rhetorical, if one so chooses, and will most probably benefit from such integrative performance. At any rate, it provided quite the launch pad for the exposition proper, whose initial combination of fury and rhythmic insistence sounded new, not to be compared to previous ‘schools’ of performance. Throughout, decisions that initially had me wonder provided their own confirmation, for instance the continued insistent quality for the coming of the second group. Though on a considerably grander scale, the work in context nonetheless emerged as a mercurial, sulphurous successor to the Schubert Fantasy—not that Liszt could have known it, undiscovered until 1962. Yet its concision truly told too, Liszt’s Beethovenian side inevitably revealing itself amidst, indeed through, the grandiloquence. Again, there was no sense of being rushed; time seemed almost to stand still prior to the fugato, which verily bolted, preparing the way inevitably for return. The (certain) uncertainty in aftershock was not the least surprise in what felt like a symphonic poem for, certainly not reduced to, piano. 

Two encores, both again welcome surprises, were a lively account Wilhelm Kempff’s transcription of Bach’s Chorale Prelude, ‘Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme,‘ BWV 645, which built magnificently, and a delectable response in ‘Au lac de Wallenstadt’ from Liszt’s first (Swiss) book of Années de pèlerinage.

The Excursions of Mr Brouček, LSO/Rattle, 6 May 2025

Barbican Hall

Mr Brouček – Peter Hoare
Mazal/Blankytný – Aleš Briscein
Málinka/Etherea/Kunka – Lucy Crowe
Sacristan/Svatopluk/Lunobor/Domšík – Gyula Orendt
Würfl/Čaraskvouci/Councillor – Lukáš Zeman
Čišničeck/Child prodigy/Student – Doubravka Novotná
Kedruta – Hanna Hipp
Básník/Oblačný/Vacek- Arttu Kataja
Artist/Dohuslav/Vojta – Stephan Rügamer
Skladatel/Harfoboj/Miroslav – Linard Vrielink

Tenebrae (chorus director: Nigel Short)
London Symphony Orchestra
Simon Rattle (conductor)

Images: Mark Allan

Simon Rattle’s survey of the Janáček operas has proved a tale of two cities: Berlin (first the Philharmonic and latterly the Staatsoper) and London (the LSO). The latter has been mostly in concert, although it shared Peter Sellars’s concert staging with the Berlin Philharmonic. Now, on the back of Robert Carsen’s Berlin staging, originally seen at the Janáček Festival Brno, the LSO’s series reaches The Excursions of Mr Brouček to the Moon and to the 15th Century. 

Of those I have attended, this unquestionably marked the highpoint: one of those performances it is difficult immediately to imagine being bettered. At the heart of that was the magnificent playing of the LSO. Janáček had not previously played a large part in its repertoire, though I remember an interesting, also highly criticised Glagolitic Mass from Colin Davis. It hardly could, one might say, for a symphony rather than an opera orchestra, which incidentally reminds us of a long-term consequence of Davis and Clive Gillinson’s tenures, nurtured by their successors: regular performances of opera in concert, supplemented by occasional appearances in festival pits. Intimacy of acquaintance with Janáček’s writing, its melodic, rhythmic, harmonic, and timbral qualities, inextricably bound to the Czech language, told—as, I think, it did with Rattle, who has long championed this music and who no longer has anything to prove. Precision, heft, the way the orchestra ‘spoke’: this and so much more made for an ideal partnership, rendered all the more impressive by a uniformly impressive cast and chorus (the ever versatile Tenebrae choir, trained and sometimes conducted here by Nigel Short). 

From the opening of the first part, dance rhythms and orchestral colours, xylophone immediately recalled from Jenůfa, created a dramatic stage before our ears, so much so that it is difficult to imagine anyone truly regretting the lack of staging. Time of day, temperature (literal and metaphorical), place, and much more were palpable, indeed unavoidable. As dawn approached at the end of the first part, one felt it emotionally, overwhelmingly so, as well as temporally. For a tenderness embedded in the composer’s deep humanity was always apparent, in a reading that saw no reason to exaggerate the bizarre, zany elements, as perhaps did David Pountney in a memorable 2022 staging for Grange Park Opera. There is room for all, but this went deeper, also underscoring the extraordinary, innovative brilliance of the composer as a contemporary of Strauss, Schoenberg, and yes, Puccini. There was absurdity, yes, but in that absurdity lay deepest sincerity, and the second part, darker and more soulful from the off, proved more moving still. Soundworlds related yet distinct offered both contrast and connection between the opera’s two parts. 

Peter Hoare, who had also sung the title at Grange Park, proved if anything a still more captivating Mr Brouček, alive to his provincial, bourgeois absurdity, not without affection, yet quite without what would have been deadly sentimentality. Like his fellow cast, this was a portrayal that sprang from the page, deeply rooted in words, music, and their alchemy, without being bound by them. Lucy Crowe gave as fine a performance as I have ever heard from her, alternating various roles as Málinka, Etherea, and Kunka, bringing something special to each of them, refulgent of tone, yet acerbic where called for, and hinting without didacticism at what might unite them. Much the same might be said in principle of all those taking on multiple roles, world-class casting offered by the likes of Gyula Orendt, Linard Vrielink, and Aleš Briscein. Truth be told, there was not a weak link in the cast; more to the point, the drama lay in connection, collaboration, and of course conflict. We were fortunate, I think, to see and hear a cast that had mostly performed together onstage in Berlin. 

Dare we hope, then, for all of Janáček’s operas to feature in subsequent instalments? However tempting, we should probably retain perspective and simply enjoy them one at a time. Sometimes I worry that, in ever-straitening times, opera with full forces, be it staged or unstaged, might come to seem an ‘unaffordable’ luxury. Smaller versions, cleverly adapted, whether will slightly reduced orchestrations or full-scale reductions, can form a crucial part of our operatic ecology, but that must never be at the expense of the ‘real thing’. One can hardly hope for a better reminder of such ‘reality’ than the magical surreality of these Excursions.

Lohengrin, Vienna State Opera, 1 May 2025

Henry the Fowler – Günter Groissböck
Lohengrin – Klaus Florian Vogt
Elsa – Camilla Nylund
Telramund – Jordan Shanahan
Ortrud – Anja Kampe
Herald – Attila Mokus
Brabantian nobles – Wolfram Igor Derntl, Thomas Köber, Panajotis Pratsos, Jens Musger
Pages – Daliborka Lühn-Skibinski, María Isabel Segarra, Charlotte Jefferies, Viktoria McConnell

Directors – Jossi Wieler, Sergio Morabito
Designs – Anna Viebrock
Lighting – Sebastian Alphons
Assistant set designer – Torsten Köpf

Vienna State Opera Chorus

Extra Chorus, and Choir Academy (chorus director: Thomas Lang)

Vienna State Opera Orchestra and Stage Orchestra

Christian Thielemann (conductor)

Images: © Wiener Staatsoper / Michael Pöhn
Gottfried (member of the Wiener Opernschule), Elsa (Camilla Nylund)

Lohengrin has sometimes been described as Wagner’s ‘Italian opera’. I do not hear it that way myself, thinking rather that if such a thing were to exist, it would be with a pronounced Teutonic accent in the guise of Das Liebesverbot. For me, if one is to classify in this way at all, Lohengrin marks Wagner’s fond farewell to German Romantic opera. However, if I remember correctly, Christian Thielemann said during his time in Dresden he subscribes to the ‘Italian’ conception of the work, and for the first time, I found myself hearing it as a valid, indeed convincing reading (it not the only one). The lyricism, orchestral and vocal, of Thielemann’s reading – and there was no doubt here that this was Thielemann’s Wagner – swept along, even enveloped spectators and artists alike, not at the expense of harmony, timbre, and other musical parameters, but as arguably the guiding force in their interaction. Transitions were very much of a piece with the conception outlined in a fascinating programme note in which the conductor characterised Lohengrin as ‘Wagner’s first truly though-composed work’. 

It can be otherwise understood – arguably was by Wagner himself, in a letter to Schumann – but the point is that the conception compelled and convinced. The Vienna orchestra, which clearly adores playing with him, was not only a willing participant, but also, it would seem, an inspiration in this particular conception. I had the sense that, like a Wagner conductor of old – naming no names for now – this was his ‘Vienna’ Lohengrin, whilst his Berlin or Dresden version of the work might be quite different. Indeed, it marked quite a contrast with what I heard from him at Bayreuth in 2019, almost entirely for the better. Viennese strings glowed, woodwind spoke with a magic born in Mendelssohnian forest, yet turned somewhat phantasmagorical, and brass thrilled and threatened by turn or in tandem. This was no Bruckner orchestra-as-organ, insofar as the cap fits in that case, but there was as ever no denying the conductor’s virtuosity in leading it as an organist of sorts, less in bending it to his will as allowing wills to merge in coherent collaboration. And of course, the orchestra sounded as it never could emerging from a covered pit. 

Interestingly, it was not only Thielemann and the orchestra whom we had also seen and heard in the previous week’s Parsifal; it was the five most prominent soloists and the outstanding chorus too. Only a sharply characterised Herald from Attila Mokus had not been heard in connection with the swan-knight‘s Monsalvat father. This was quite a Wagner ensemble, by any standards, Bayreuth’s included, headed again by Klaus Florian Vogt. If Lohengrin were the role with which Vogt made his name, I felt if anything his Parsifal had proved a little stronger. This was still a tireless performance, though, with precisely the timbral quality that continues to divide opinion. Vogt can certainly act too, even when lumbered as here with a deeply unflattering wig. 

Henry the Fowler (Günther Groissböck),
Lohengrin (Klaus Florian Vogt)

Camilla Nylund’s Elsa was anything but a portrayal-by-numbers; she entered wholeheartedly into the stage concept at work here, on which more soon, initially rousing our suspicions and engaging our compassion in apparent contrition. Anja Kampe’s Ortrud was similarly complex and uniquely fiery, a portrayal very much her own, yet marking her a worthy successor indeed to the likes of Waltraud Meier (my first, at Covent Garden in 2003) and Petra Lang. Jordan Shanahan and Günther Groissböck brought both ambiguity and clarity to their roles as Telramund and King Henry. No praise could be too high for the contribution of an augmented Vienna State Opera Chorus, trained by Thomas Lang: harmonically grounded, agile on stage, and as gleaming of tone where required as the orchestra. Partners in crime, as it were—and with Thielemann too, his shading of the chorus at the close of the first act astonishingly variegated and quite unlike any performance I have heard before. 

For the somewhat odd conception, or part-conception of this new production from Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito was of a crime scene. Or, as designer Anna Viebrock described it in the programme: ‘We’re not telling a story of salvation, we’re making a thriller. This criminalistic perspective alone takes us way beyond the horizons of expectation.’ Since we pretty much witnessed Elsa disposing of her brother Gottfried during the Prelude to the first act, there was nothing much of a crime to be solved, and indeed everything turned out just as we might have expected. Leaving the ‘criminalistic perspective’ on one side and turning to the broader dramaturgical standpoint, there was a considerable amount to be gleaned from the ‘basic premise … [of] “Elsa did it”’. 

Ortrud (Anja Kampe)

Immediately distrusting her and Lohengrin, engaging more sympathetically perhaps with Telramund and Ortrud was an enriching experience not only dramatically but musically too, the flick of that switch having one hear not only them but at times the orchestra differently too. The broader portrayal of a time of political instability in which religion – less so, theology – appeared to take on a sinister German-Protestant hue and, needless to say, play a deeply sinister role was full of historical resonance, without being pinned down to specific reference. If the production concept seemed strongest in the first act, somewhat running out of steam by the third, the level of musical excellence was such that it was difficult to mind too much. Ultimately, here was a Lohengrin that demanded to be heard and was worth seeing too.

Il mondo alla rovescia, Salzburger Landestheater, 30 April 2025

Images: SLT / Tobias WItzgall

La Generala – Daniele Macciantelli
La Colonnella – Hazel McBain
L’ajuntata maggiora – Katie Coventry
Marchesa – Nicole Lubinger
Amaranto – Luke Sinclair
Il Conte – George Humphreys
Admiral – Yevheniy Kapitula
Il gran Colombo – Michael Schober
Girasole – Alexander Hüttner

Director – Alexandra Liedtke
Set designs – Philip Rubner
Costumes – Johanna Lakner
Dramaturgy – Anna N.M. Lea
Lighting – Sebastian Schubert

Chorus and Supplementary Chorus of the Salzburg Landestheater (chorus director: Mario El Fakih)

Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra

Carlo Benedetto Cimento (conductor)

La Generala (Daniele Macciantelli), Il Conte (George Humphreys), L’ajuntata maggiora (Katie Coventry), La Colonnella (Hazel McBain)

If it often proves difficult to think or write about, say, Alexander Zemlinsky without invoking his still-more-celebrated brother-in-law, how much more difficult is it for Salieri—without, well, you know mention of a certain other composer contemporary to him, perhaps all the more so in Salzburg. Or perhaps not, since Salieri has been doing relatively well there of late. Last year’s Mozartwoche offered him a number of opportunities, those I heard very well taken. This year, the bicentenary of his death, the Landestheater gives his 1795 dramma giocoso, Il mondo alla rovescia, on which he had begun work in 1779, only to set it aside and return to it in 1792, renewing an initial collaboration with his (and Lorenzo Da Ponte’s) friend Caterino Mazzolà, who the previous summer had worked with a Salzburg composer on a revision of Metastasio’s La clemenza di Tito for Leopold II’s coronation as king of Bohemia. (In the meantime, Mazzolà’s libretto, then entitled L'isola capricciosa, had been set by Giacomo Rust, briefly Hofkapellmeister in Salzburg, for the 1780 Venice carnival.) It is perhaps ironic that we now know Mazzolà best for an opera seria, when by far the greater part of his operatic work was in the buffo genre, here taking its leave from Carlo Goldoni’s Il mondo alla reversa (another Venice carnival piece, by Baldassare Galuppi in 1750). Some may know another Salieri collaboration, La scuola de’ gelosi, but any opportunity to acquaint oneself with further Mazzolà as well as further Salieri is greatly welcome. This opera, given its modern premiere in 2009 in the composer’s home town of Legnago, is now heard in a new version prepared at the behest of conductor Carlo Benedetto Cimento by the same musicologist and mandolinist Bernardo Ticci, now drawing on all available sources. Some music, including a vocal duet with mandolin, here played expertly onstage by Mert E. Akyüz, thus receives its first hearing since 1795. 

Generala, Conte, wedding guests

This is not the place for a synopsis, but for a work that will be unfamiliar to most, the basic idea is that two shipwrecked Europeans, a Count and Marchioness are taken captive by a female General (Generala, hence I have kept Italian in the cast list) and the island society over which she rules, one in which usual gender roles have been reversed, so that men do the housework, women do the soldiering, and so on, so that the Count comes to enjoy being fought over by two women, the Generala and a younger Colonella, whom he favours and with whom ultimately he will elect to stay on the island. In a sense, the idea is simple, but its ramifications are not, a dichotomy well realised in Alexandra Liedtke’s staging, brought to life in excellent, often outstanding performances from a fine cast and the Mozarteum Orchestra, galvanised by Cimento, for whom this resurrection has clearly been a labour of love. 

Projection of a few words and pictorial scenes sets the scene, yet it is still a surprise to see men in happy if oppressed domesticity when the curtain rises, clad in Barbie (Ken) pink, cleaning equipment to hand, soon lorded (ladied) over by military women who engage in the crudest of seduction—though a question immediately posed by the shadow projection of its outcome is how consonant that particular act might be with the island’s ‘natural order’ of things. Doubtless it can be and for some in a twenty-first century will be, but the question hints at an inability of any of us to escape certain aspects of gender roles, whether or no we wish to do so. The variety of means – action, designs, thought bubble interventions, etc. – with which points are made might sound didactic on the page, yet notwithstanding one or two sobering exceptions, for instance a reminder of the gender pay gap today among musicians, the general tone is comedic, even comical. If one does not get one reference, say to Barbie, one will probably do so another, say to The Magic Flute or to Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, alluding to the Count’s arrival on land as well as gender-reversal, as he sits to be painted. And lest you think this all sounds too binary, the painter and dressmaker Girasole are evidently more interested in one another. (In the programme, we learn that, ‘according to Salieri’, presumably Mazzolà too, the latter will end up partnering the Generala’s adjutant, but it counsels us to find out the meaning of ‘lavender marriage’.) So the production lightly yet firmly develops the drama from its original state, well aware of the differences in outlook between societies 230 years apart, but also of what has not changed. I was a little surprised to see the Generala’s grotesquerie – the joke being she is an older woman, sung en travestie by a basso buffo – go unquestioned, but perhaps that is also the point. We have not moved on as much as we think, and we still find the premise in large part absurd. The production’s openness to different standpoints is a strength and arguably a necessary one. 

Amaranto (Luke Sinclair) and others

Intention is always a fraught issue, whether in performance or ‘the music itself’ (‘TMI’), a once-fashionable problematising term in musicology (feminist critiques included), but from which we now have mostly moved on. Whether Cimento ‘meant’ to bring to the fore things I thought and heard I cannot possibly know without asking him, but I can certainly say that much did come to mind, dramatically and conceptually. Above all, he drew outstanding, committed playing from the orchestra, big-boned and subtle, characterful and situational, fully aware of structure, form, dramatic momentum, and their interaction. No, Salieri does not have the gift of musical characterisation that someone else does, but nor does Haydn; even Gluck’s gift here is distinctly limited in comparison. Very few composers from any period of musical history do, if indeed that is what they are attempting (which we should by no means take for granted). I found particularly interesting the way vocal writing and number form more generally adapted or did not according to gender reversal. Was this parody? And if so, whose parody was it anyway? How much was playing with expectation, in a different way from Così fan tutte, yet one whose requirements for musical learning did not, amongst the more knockabout material, necessarily seem less. Moreover, the wind and specifically brass writing, often associated, obviously enough, with militarism set me to think how much might this have been (re-)conceived, or at least received, as an opera in wartime, coming about two years before Haydn’s Missa in tempore belli. Indeed, in broader conception, Haydn’s Goldoni opera Il mondo della luna, written only two years before Salieri’s initial compositional work, often came to mind dramatically—and perhaps even musically. 

Individual performances were uniformly excellent. Daniele Macciantelli clearly had a ball as La Generala, never putting a stage or vocal foot wrong whilst doing so. If you wanted to know how soprano coloratura – and much else – might be used to convey toxic masculinity/femininity, Hazel McBain was your person as La Colonnella. George Humphreys managed the competing demands – allure, cunning, and resolve – as well as, well, any woman might have done. In a strikingly different role from Lucio Silla (not JC Bach’s), in which I saw him last year, our Amaranto Luke Sinclair showed that comedy, properly understood and presented, is so much more than mere amusement—whilst offering that too. In a ‘smaller’ role that nonetheless seemed considerably greater, Alexander Hüttner did likewise as Girasole. Nicole Lubinger’s Marchesa’s journey to greater feminist self-knowledge was finely traced. As the Generala’s adjutant, Katie Coventry similarly combined striking stage presence and every musical virtue, as she had as Cecilio in that Lucio Silla.  Yevheniy Kapitula as the Admiral and Michael Schober’s Gran Colombo rounded off the cast in ‘smaller’ roles that yet contributed to an evening that was so much more than the sum of its parts.

Colonnella, Conte, Ajutanta

Overall, then, the overt emphasis was comedic, although creditably not to the extent one could not also consider what else might have been done, always bearing in mind that no one staging or performance is likely to cover all bases. Dramas worth performing are usually more open, if sometimes to the discomfort of their creators, than any single approach will allow. Scenically, what I missed was a stronger sense of that wartime context. That is not a complaint but rather an observation concerning what further layering might be added—and doubtless reflecting my own historical (and contemporary) preoccupations. Austrian defeats of the previous year 1794 (Fleurus and Aldenhoven) would doubtless have informed the first critical responses of many to an opera premiered in January 1795. And there may be reason to consider a gendered element there too. Little more than three years earlier, during the Bohemian coronation festivities for Emperor Francis II’s father and predecessor, Leopold II, La clemenza di Tito received star theatrical billing, its premiere the evening of the coronation itself. That, however, was as first among equals in a programme that also included August Kotzebue’s topical, one-act comedy Der weibliche Jacobiner-Club, pitting the Parisian Madem (sic) Duport, radicalised by revolution, against her traditionalist husband. 

There is a case to be made that bourgeois revolutionaries strengthened gender binaries and power relations; certainly with hindsight that seems to have been the case. But it was not necessarily how things seemed at the time. Comedy was often a ‘safe’ way of expressing and exaggerating fears of social upheaval. Revolution and the revolutionary wars, which were how the former most immediately manifested itself in this part of Europe, might also threaten another variety of the ‘world turned upside down’, or at least be feared to do so. Music could – and did – deepen and question such assumptions and indeed their questioning too.