Felsenreitschule
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| Images: © SF/Marco Borrelli |
Das Floss der Medusa
La Mort – Kathrin Zukowski
Jean-Charles – Georg Nigl
Charon – Udo Samel
Bavarian Radio Chorus (chorus director: Max Hanft)
Hans Werner Henze’s oratorio The Raft of the Medusa has long been as celebrated for its abortive Hamburg premiere at the close of 1968, disrupted by riot police acting with as much justice as they do on Berlin streets and elsewhere today in pursuit of anti-genocide protestors. In rehearsals, the RIAS Chamber Choir, flown in from West Berlin to boost local forces, had been deliberately uncooperative, disdaining Henze’s politics. Hamburg waited for a new millennium finally to make amends, although the final rehearsal had been recorded, so it was broadcast instead. Even Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, according to Henze’s autobiography Bohemian Fifths, took out his fury at the composer rather than those actually responsible, whilst poor Ernst Schnabel, the librettist and former controller of North German Radio, responsible for recording that rehearsal and thus tempering further disaster, found himself ‘thrown through a plate-glass door by a representative of the forces of law and order and … briefly locked up in a cell for opposing the state’s authorities.’ It is a story worthy of staging or perhaps a film, and is told a little more fully in my review of the Komische Oper Berlin’s Tempelhof staging in 2023 and considerably more so in Bohemian Fifths. But whilst it is unavoidably part of what the work has now become, it is salutary to hear it more or less for itself, not least at the opening of this year’s Salzburg Festival with a considerable part of the local haute bourgeoisie in attendance—part of it at least, it seems, never happier than when being lectured on its depravity by an artist of the left. Indeed, unavoidable as reception becomes in this context, it put me in mind of the success of The Bassarids the first time around, in what was then Herbert von Karajan’s citadel, for its 1966 premiere: both in itself and because it proved a crucial station on the path to the more obvious political commitment of The Raft of the Medusa. Almost thirty years later, Henze would recoil from the prospect of having become a ‘world success’. What would that mean, he asked mischievously? Becoming a Leonard Bernstein?
If it were merely a lecture, merely agitprop, The Raft of the Medusa would doubtless be of historical interest, but not so much else. Here, in outstanding performances from all concerned, it showed beyond doubt that it is far more than that: of its time, no doubt, but equally of ours, message as well as material as urgent as ever. The vast forces were superbly marshalled by Ingo Metzmacher; in a work such as this, there is a great deal of ‘crowd control’, but it was never only that, any more than in a fine performance of the larger symphonies of Mahler. Indeed, from its entry, the ORF orchestra played this with the familiarity and commitment one might expect from the greatest of ensembles in such repertoire—and Henze’s Mahlerian heritage was clear from reinvention of his predecessor’s division of the greater whole into finely tuned (in every sense) ensembles. The ship’s negative roll call sounded as if a bitterly ironic Wunderhorn reveille.
The Choir of the Living was drawn from the Bavarian Radio Chorus, the Choir of the Dead from the WDR Radio Chorus. Make of that what you will; nothing ideally, for all choral singing, the Salzburg children’s choir certainly included, was excellent. The latter’s apparent childlike simplicity – far more difficult than it might sound, when set against orchestral slithering – was both exquisite and disconcerting. Without retrospectively wishing to dismiss the Komische Oper’s undeniable achievement at Tempelhof, this showed beyond doubt that, whilst good staging will do an oratorio no harm, an oratorio need not be staged and will probably work best without. The visual element of choral singers moving from left, the ‘Side of the Living’, to right, the ‘Side of the Dead’, in front of which initially La Mort stands alone, but to which she will soon recruit, is more than enough: starkly powerful without distraction from words and music, enabling the chorus to assume its true and indeed traditional vocation. ‘We speak with two voices,’ as Charon, spoken by Udo Samel, informed us in the Prologue: that of ‘Madame: La Mort,’ the chillingly seductive, strikingly clear Kathrin Zukowski, and that of Jean-Charles, ‘the mulatto from Djefara in French service, whom you will remember from Géricault’s painting’, less played than inhabited by a well-nigh possessed – and very un-Fischer-Dieskau – Georg Nigl.
Henze’s use of ‘African’ percussion might raise eyebrows now, but it is unquestionably well meant and certainly atmospheric. It reminded us not only of the world beyond European shores, but of oppression both more specific and more general as truth, reality, and delirium closed in: a colonial oppression to which open resistance would break out in the drum-beat of the closing orchestral section. Ominous, fatal (this year’s Overture Spirituelle theme is ‘Fatum’), and a cry of solidarity, it grew to a climax, as if to incite through the implicit call of ‘Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh’, then Wozzeck-like, stopped: over to us. So far, so good, and that final message was overwhelming. Yet what happened to lead us there was just as important and involving. This was a tale of humanity, but also of class struggle, in which ‘lesser’ ranks were heartlessly betrayed – ‘we for whom there was no room in the longboat’ – yet those who survived ‘returned to the world again, eager to overthrow it’. Contest between Jean-Charles and La Mort was unequal, yet real; this was no foregone conclusion, save when it had happened. ORF wind beguiled and disturbed, in context perhaps – and recalling the actual premiere took place in Vienna – an ambivalent homage to Henze’s beloved Mozart. Ghosts of Berg, Stravinsky, and Schoenberg were also present in the harmonies – Wozzeck surely a case of more or less direct allusion – but so, I think, was Dallapiccola’s Il prigioniero. Haunted above all by Bach, here was a secular, revolutionary passion: like Bach’s, both a work of mourning and yet imbued with some redemptive hope. Raising of the giant score at the end suggested where, aesthetically at least, some form of redemption might lie. If Berg's Violin Concerto, 'to the memory of an angel', echoed in harmony as well as violin solo, then here lay other angels, waiting to rise or even risen.
Surtitles came and went in what I assume
was a technical malfunction rather than arbitrary selectivity. That was
doubtless something of a pity for an international audience – probably less
international than in August – although the vivid, visceral nature of
communication in person was more than ample compensation. Bar a slight slip,
unless I were mistaken, in Charon’s opening narration, and overmiking of Samel’s
spoken contributions – at least we could readily discern every word – I am not
sure I can find another cavil. This was an outstanding opening, then, to this
year’s Salzburg Festival: as fine a Henze performance as I have heard, its 2018
revival of The Bassarids included, and unquestionably the most
moving.
I shall return to Salzburg in mid-August to review several more performances. This, however, will take some matching. For those who missed it, cameras were present. There will also be two Munich performances next February in Henze’s centenary year, from the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Simon Rattle, Anna Prohaska, John Tomlinson, and Nigl once more, conducted by longstanding advocate Simon Rattle. Now, let us remember the rafts and ‘small boats’ upon the treacherous seas, and the bodies and souls of those who cling to them.
