Musikfest Berlin (6) - RSB/Jurowski: Bach, Berg, Webern, and Schnittke, 5 September 2020

Philharmonie

Bach-Webern: Musical Offering, BWV 1079: ‘Ricercar a sei voci’
Berg: Three Fragments from ‘Wozzeck’
Webern: Variations for Orchestra, op.30
Schnittke: Concerto grosso no.1, for two violins, harpsichord, prepared piano, and chamber orchestra

Anne Schwanewilms (soprano)

Erez Ofer, Nadine Contini (violins)

Helen Collyer (piano and harpsichord)

Children’s Choir of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden (director: Ralf Sochaczewsky)

Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra

Vladimir Jurowski (conductor)

Only connect. Vladimir Jurowski has a longstanding talent for programming that does so—and ensures active participation from the listener in doing so too. Some connections in this programme were obvious, some less so, only revealed in performance and listening (at least for me). Whatever small reservations I may have had about some of Jurowski’s interpretative choices, they were outweighed by the illumination of his programming as a whole.


First up was Webern’s extraordinary orchestration, if we may call it that, of the six-part Ricercar from Bach’s Musical Offering. Clarity, both in itself and with respect to transition of lines between instruments, was a hallmark of this performance. There were times, especially earlier on, when I wished for a greater sense of flow, but Jurowski’s formalistic determination to have one hear processes, here and beyond, had its own rewards. There were many purely orchestral joys, in any case, from the sound of the RSB’s four double basses in pizzicato to any number of solos and transitions. There were also presentiments of much that was to come, the inner dialogue of string principals prefiguring Schnittke’s first Concerto grosso. The glorious full sound at climaxes, truly golden at the close, was moreover never a mere wash of sound, an idea utterly foreign to Webern; it was, like this concert as a whole, the sum of many parts.


Process was strongly to the fore in Berg’s Three Fragments from ‘Wozzeck’, for which orchestra and conductor were joined by Anne Schwanewilms and a thirteen-strong children’s choir—unlucky for some, Wozzeck’s child included—from the Staatsoper Unter den Linden. Jurowski’s deliberate way with this music worked well as an introduction to the labyrinth. In the first piece, Berg emerged in more Brahmsian fashion than I think I have ever heard (save, perhaps, in the songs). It became increasingly difficult not to see an imaginary stage in one’s head, even before the military parade and Schwanewilms’s full-blooded delivery of her part. If not note-perfect—is it ever?—it was vivid in its communication, which is surely the more important achievement. The second movement proved touching as ever, even to the point of the unbearable. Hearing this music after Bach, seven variations and a fugue, was revelatory; it offered a pathway to subsequent Webern too. Schwanewilms’s voice, an instrumental thread like that of the strings, offered musical as well as verbal argument. Workings were again clearly exposed in the final movement, generating musical drama in the absence of staging. That extraordinary build-up to Berg’s D minor climax could hardly fail, in our plague-ridding world, to have profound emotional force; it shattered, as it should, as it must. The orchestra, necessarily smaller than one would often hear, tended towards wind and somewhat away from strings, but that had its own fascination. To hear, finally, the world of children, innocent yet cruel, ready to pass on cruel gossip and doubtless other viruses too, chilled to the bone. Back to school, with that most terrifying of musical stops.


Webern’s Variations for Orchestra, op.30 followed, tension high from the opening double bass line, initiating such a variety of responses, through to the gestural mirrored intervals of the close. Again, process was paramount. This is not really how I hear the music in my head, or even in the score, but again, Jurowski’s way had its own justification, its analytical strength undeniable, vertical and horizontal unmistakeably apparent. That is not to say that it was cold, far from it, but rather that it was less flexible than Webern’s Romantic heritage—and practice—would suggest. There is no one way, and this remained Romanticism sublimated rather than banished. Different characters were imparted strongly to different variations: more than ever an heir to the op.27 set for piano. And those harmonies! I wanted to hear it again immediately, for what astounding music this is. Webern remains, as Stravinsky put it, ‘a perpetual Pentecost for all who believe in music’. Now, perhaps, we need that more than ever.


The equally extraordinary, postwar sound of the prepared piano ushered in the Prelude of Schnittke’s Concerto grosso no.1. Its sinister childishness had one recall the close of Wozzeck, yet here, quite rightly, meaning was more enigmatic. Initial, non vibrato string response underlined a sense of the sinister, eventually relieved yet never replaced by violin vibrato: from a cruelly reimagined past to the here and now? Tension gradually screwed up over a chillingly clear pedal. The following Toccata offered fiddling writ large—and writ wrong: quite memerising. And yet, before we knew it, we were once again in a sinister nursery world. Integration of those tendencies, or at least its attempt, unleashed a veritable house of horrors. Machines collapsed, though had they ever been intact? Schnittke’s ‘Recitativo’ properly spoke, ever uneasy, its growing intensity continuing into the Cadenza, which then spun off the rails in other directions, many of them. What could have been a better introduction to the idea of polystylism, whether in work or performance, than the hyper-Romantic surprise of the Rondo? There was nothing remotely amusing about Brahms’s appearance—just as it should be. Incongruity was the name of the game. The closing ‘Postludio’, return of prepared piano and all, seemed both to mean something and nothing. This was a commanding performance, intrinsically the finest of all four, although connection was the key throughout.

Musikfest Berlin (2) – RSB/Jurowski: Die Frau ohne Schatten, 1 September 2019

Philharmonie

Images: © Monika Karczmarczyk

Emperor – Torsten Kerl

Empress – Anne Schwanewilms

Nurse – Ildikó Komlósi

Spirit-Messenger – Yasushi Hirano

Barak – Thomas Johannes Mayer

Dyer’s Wife – Ricarda Merbeth

Apparition of Youth – Michael Pflumm
Voice of the Falcon – Nadezhda Gulitskaya

Voice from Above – Karolina Gumos
Guardian of the Temple Threshold – Andrey Nemzer

The One-Eyed – Tom Erik Lie

The One-Armed – Jens Larsen

The Hunchback – Christoph Späth

Night-Watchmen – Christian Oldenburg, Philipp Alexander Behr, Artyom Wasnetkov

Maids, Unborn, Children’s Voices – Sophie Klußmann, Verena Usemann, Jennifer Gleinig, Alice Lackner, Vizma Zvaigzne

Children’s Choir of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden (chorus director: Vinzenz Weissenburger)

Berlin Radio Chorus (chorus director: Benjamin Goodson)

Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra

Vladimir Jurowski (conductor)

Concert performances of opera are strange things. So too, of course, are stagings of opera, albeit often in different ways; Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal knew that better than most, on which see (and hear) Ariadne auf Naxos. Yet a concert performance will likely ever remain ‘ein sonderbar Ding’, as the Marschallin might have put it. Important also is the way one comes, either individually or as an audience, to such a performance. Does one view – a fraught verb, here, but I shall stick with it – it as closer to an audio recording, in which one follows the libretto, even the score, and perhaps goes so far as to stage it in one’s head? Does one take the more overtly reactionary view of expressing relief that the work is not being messed about by a stage director who may be clueless or may just have ideas other than one’s own? Or does one view the situation in more positive terms, as an opportunity to concentrate on the opera’s musical qualities, not so much undistracted, as heard in superior performing conditions? Symphony orchestras may have the opportunity to fill in harmful gaps in their repertoires: does it make sense for an orchestra to play Beethoven and Mahler, without ever touching more than a Wagner overture or prelude, or to play Strauss tone poems without reference to Strauss’s operas? It may be a matter of cost, too, and the only way some works will gain a hearing at all, especially in countries less blessed operatically than those of the German-speaking world.

Those and other positions are, of course, far from mutually exclusive. Moreover, one’s aesthetic stance may well be called into question: generally a very good thing. Much, for instance, as I know and feel the Ring should be staged; much as I long for a production that begins to do it justice (alas, only one to date in my live theatrical experience); I also know that two of the most powerful Wagnerian experiences of my life have been ‘concert stagings’ and concert performances of the Ring, both in the distinctly unpromising terrain of the Royal Albert Hall. Ultimately, a performance is what it is: a unique event, with affinities to others, yet never quite to be reduced to them. Why such ruminations, then? Partly to try to understand my reaction; I have not, Parsifal-like, come from nowhere. But also, I hope, to try to help readers who may have been more involved than I found myself by this Frau ohne Schatten to understand.

Ultimately, I wonder whether this is an opera that lends itself especially well to concert performance. One may well, with equal justice, wonder from its stage directions whether it lends itself well to staged performance. But most of us by now have, thank God, moved on from any conception of slavish adherence to such directions. Directors as different as Robert Wilson, Claus Guth, and Krzysztof Warlikowski have all brought imaginative and communicative standpoints to bear on the work. There have, of course, been less successful stagings, a nadir surely being Christof Loy’s ‘I cannot be bothered to stage the work at all’ production for Salzburg, but that will always be the case. This is a musical drama, in many ways a complex musical drama and for many a problematic one too. That need not in itself entail staging, but I felt too little dramatic thrust as a whole on this occasion: not so much from the singers, most of whom tried to inject a degree or two of such dynamism, as from Vladimir Jurowski.

As with much other opera I have heard from him, in and out of the opera house, Jurowski’s conducting seemed not only oddly formalist but, within that framework, sectional sometimes to the point of dramatic inertia. It was not so much a lack of longer line, a common problem among lesser conductors, but what came across as a definite aesthetic stance, only undermined by whipping up of highly conventional ‘excitement’ – getting louder, faster – at the ends of many sections: the close of the second act a case in point. I am not sure one can have it both ways; or rather one can, but should one? More conversational passages, moreover, seemed strangely underplayed, as if they were acres of undistinguished recitativo secco (an exaggeration, I know, but never mind), for which tightness of orchestral control might be relinquished not for flexibility as for nonchalance and even slight fuzziness (if nothing on the scale of Zubin Mehta’s recent unhappy way with the work, also in Berlin). There were passages of great interest, to be sure, although more timbral than harmonic. Jurowski seemed happiest when able to apply unusually hard-edged, even brittle, tone to the work, as if to undermine its sumptuousness. Strauss as ’20s Hindemith has a certain fascination: except such a conducting stance seemed sooner rather than latter forgotten, whatever the excellence of playing, whether in solo or ensemble, by the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra. Such excellence was not quite, however, accompanied by the familiarity that an opera house orchestra would have brought to the score, for how could it be? Likewise, the singing of the Berlin Radio Chorus, very fine in its way, did not and could not speak of the immersion a stage run could. Interestingly, the Staatsoper children’s choir suggested stronger memories of the stage (in that Guth production, as conducted by Mehta).

Ildikó Komlósi as the Nurse

What of the solo singing? In London, Jurowski has made some very odd choices with singers. That was perhaps less the case here, although amongst the principals, it was only really Ildikó Komlósi’s Nurse whose musico-dramatic star shone as brightly as any on stage. The role is a gift, of course, Strauss and Hofmannsthal at their collaborative best, but Komlósi grabbed the gift and made it her own as a singing actress who can, unquestionably, sing. Ricarda Merbeth also gave a good account her role in a sincere, musical, verbally attentive performance as the Dyer’s Wife. If Thomas Johannes Mayer’s Barak sometimes would have benefited from greater heft, he nonetheless brought similar verbal acuity to his performance. Torsten Kerl and Anne Schwanewilms were more awkwardly cast, Kerl’s Emperor often sounding distinctly elderly, sometimes overwhelmed by an orchestra Jurowski did a great deal to keep down. Schwanewilms had some wonderful moments; there was no doubting the dedication of her performance. There were other moments, however, in which the role now sounded sadly beyond her. ‘Supporting’ roles were generally very well taken, though Nadezhda Gulitskaya’s Falcon will not have appealed to all vocal tastes. I have not heard a countertenor sing the Guardian of the Temple Threshold before, but Andrey Nemzer certainly made his presence felt in an intriguingly florid account.

Much to ponder, then, and the audience reacted with enthusiasm less alloyed. This seems to be the beginning of a Strauss opera series for the orchestra, akin to that of Wagner’s ‘canonical’ dramas under Marek Janowski. There was certainly enough of merit here to warrant keeping an eye – and ear – open for future instalments.

(This performance will be broadcast on 7 September 2019, 18.05 CEST, across Europe, including UKW, Kabel, and Digitalradio in Berlin.)

Salzburg Festival (2) - Die Frau ohne Schatten, 21 August 2011

Grosses Festspielhaus

Image: Salzburg Festival/Monika Rittershaus

The Emperor – Stephen Gould

The Empress – Anne Schwanewilms

The Nurse – Michaela Schuster

Barak – Wolfgang Koch

Barak’s Wife – Evelyn Herlitzius

The Spirit-Messenger – Thomas Johannes Meyer
Apparition of Youth – Peter Sonn
Voice of the Falcon – Rachel Frenkel
Guardian of the Threshold of the Temple, First Servant – Christiana Landshamer
Voice from Above – Maria Radner
The One-Eyed – Markus Brück
The One-Armed – Steven Humes
The Hunchback – Andreas Conrad
Second Servant – Lenneke Ruiten
Third Servant – Martina Mikelić
Voices of the Unborn – Janna Herfurtner, Christian Landshamer, Lenneke Ruiten, Rachel Frenkel, Martina Mikelić, Maria Radner

Christof Loy (director)
Johannes Leiacker (set designs)
Ursula Renzenbrick (costumes)
Stefan Bolliger (lighting)
Thomas Jonigk (dramaturgy)
Thomas Wilhelm (choreography)

Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus (chorus master: Thomas Lang)
Salzburg Festival Children’s Choir (chorus master: Wolfgang Götz)
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Christian Thielemann (conductor)


Christof Loy strikes again. After a perversely misconceived Lulu and a still more reductive assault upon Tristan und Isolde, we seem to have reached the end of the line – at least I hope we have – with this Frau ohne Schatten. I see little point into going into great detail , though Loy does in his alternative synopsis, ‘Die Frau ohne Schatten: Eine persönliche Inhaltsangabe’. It would seem that the director despises this Strauss-Hofmannsthal collaboration considerably more than even Tristan, so much so that he declines to direct it all. Instead of the complex drama we might have seen, we witness an unutterably banal alternative, in which ‘an emerging young singer, sheltered and pampered by her well-to-do family is asked to take on the role of the Empress for a complete recording of Die Frau ohne Schatten. … from now she will have to meet human beings as they are …’ All that happens, then, is that we see the singers gather for a recording session in a mock-up set of the old Sofiensäle (well designed in itself, but it is difficult to care very much). At the end, for some reason, the singers take place in a Christmas concert. The claim that this aversion of responsibility somehow echoes Brechtian alienation, Anouilh even, seems beneath contempt. I cannot be bothered to say any more, save that a concert performance would have been infinitely preferable. What a scandalous, arrogant waste! If Christof Loy does not like Die Frau ohne Schatten, that is his problem: why should it become ours?

Thank goodness, then, for the Vienna Philharmonic under Christian Thielemann. If the first act, whilst of an orchestral standard that would have put almost any house to shame, was on occasion not always quite there, the latter half of the second and pretty much all of the third were simply outstanding. Orchestral heft and the full panoply of Strauss’s phantasmagorical colouristic vision (more than once Schoenberg’s Op.16 Orchestral Pieces came to mind) were married to a sense of purpose that seemed to me even to surpass that of Karl Böhm. Moreover, Böhm’s customary cut passages were restored. The VPO’s golden string tone is always – well, nearly always – a wonder to hear, but Thielemann proved as alert to the modernistic, post¬-Elektra tendencies in Strauss’s score as the dance echoes of Der Rosenkavalier. The great climaxes did not want in impact, but there was great delicacy to be heard too. And Thielemann’s ear for orchestral balance proved second to none.

One is unlikely ever to hear a perfectly cast FroSch. Here the principals mostly suffered from drawbacks, save for Michaela Schuster’s extraordinary Nurse. Hers was certainly the portrayal to savour above all others: malevolent, confident in pitch, almost imaginable in a ‘real’ production. Stephen Gould sang well enough as the Emperor – doubling up on stage, or above stage, as a recording engineer – but his phrasing and tone production were sometimes unvariegated. Still, at least he could sing the notes, unlike many who attempt the role. Anne Schwanewilms had her moments, sweetly sung, but too often she found herself wildly out of tune and her voice cracked on more than one occasion. Wolfgang Koch was mostly dependable as Barak, though again there were cracks, whilst Evelyn Herlitzius as the Dyer’s Wife veered between staggering dramatic vocalism in the best sense and seeming inability to sing a single note in tune. There was no faulting her energy, but its application was sometimes distressingly flawed. Choral singing was outstanding, however, a tribute both to the choirs and to their training.

It was the VPO’s show, then, and Thielemann’s, with Schuster the best of a mixed vocal bunch. On Loy, I shall say no more, for the moment, other than that it is a long time since I have been so angered by a ‘production’.

Elektra, Royal Opera, 15 November 2008

This should be read as an appendix to my principal review. I was fortunate enough to attend Elektra again and found that a very good performance had become a great one. Each of the singers was at least as good and most were even better, especially Johan Reuter, who sounded almost Wanderer-like upon his mysterious arrival. (We truly heard things through Elektra's ears here.) Susan Bullock was outstanding in the title role. Where, on the first night, her dance - and her accompanying words - did not quite come off, here they did, in a shocking yet inevitable ecstasy. Anne Schwanewilms's excellent performance - her diction was better this time around - reminds me that I did not mention Chrysothemis's weird, twisted, Frau-ohne-Schatten-ish obsession with marriage and children, played upon by Elektra in extremely nasty yet credible fashion. For this, Schwanewilms and director, Charles Edwards should be credited. Rarely can 'normality' have seemed so abnormal; Chrysothemis's transformation by the final scene thereby seems all the more credible.

Most transformed was Sir Mark Elder's conducting. Never having conducted Elektra before, it is now clear that he still had a little way to go on the first night. The Wagnerian inheritance was now clearer than ever. Everything now sounded 'right'; the Recognition Scene no longer dragged and balances appeared to have been reconsidered. (I wonder whether sitting in the amphitheatre rather than in the stalls made a difference too. The sound may be more distanced but the blend may be enhanced.) Indeed, there was a far stronger modernistic bent to the sounds and blends being produced - almost Boulezian at times. (What we lost when Wieland Wagner died prematurely, not least since he and Boulez had plans to perform Salome, Elektra, and Ariadne auf Naxos!) Yet there was also a lightness of touch that no longer seemed underplayed, but part of a long-term strategic, symphonic plan. The oft-quoted line from Strauss as to how one should hear Mendelssohnian fairy-music made as much sense as I can recall. This was a truly marvellous performance!

Elektra, Royal Opera, 8 November 2008

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden

Elektra – Susan Bullock
Chrysothemis – Anne Schwanewilms
Klytemnestra – Jane Henschel
Orest – Johan Reuter
First Maid – Frances McCafferty
Second Maid – Monika-Evelin Liiv
Third Maid – Kathleen Wilkinson
Fourth Maid – Elizabeth Woolett
Fifth Maid – Eri Nakamura
Overseer – Miriam Murphy
Young Servant – Alfie Boe
Confidante – Louise Armit
Trainbearer – Dervla Ramsy
Orest’s tutor – Vuyani Mlinde
Aegisth – Frank von Aken
Old servant – Jeremy White

Charles Edwards (director, set designer, and lighting)
Brigitte Reiffenstuel (costumes)
Leah Hausman (choreography)

The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera Chorus (chorus master: Renata Balsadonna)
Sir Mark Elder (conductor)

This is my third Elektra within a year, having also seen productions in Berlin and in Munich. To think that I once worried about the effect that too much Mahler might have upon me! As with Mahler, albeit unnervingly without the catharsis, deepening knowledge of the work has served only to heighten my fascination and admiration. The Royal Opera’s revisiting of Charles Edwards’s production – Edwards rightly dislikes the term ‘revival’, although in some cases, it can sadly be all too appropriate – has much to commend it, as did the two German performances.

Edwards’s sets give an excellent impression of the corruption and depravity of Mycenae. It is not excessive, which must be a temptation, and is therefore all the more powerful. Antiquity and the early twentieth century – a little after the time of composition – are both suggested without being fetishised. Whatever Elektra is ‘about’, it is certainly not about historical ‘accuracy’; indeed, given how closely Hofmannsthal follows Sophocles, it is remarkable how little of the latter’s politics remain. And although the activity of archaeology is perhaps suggested by the bust of Agamemnon – chillingly kissed by Elektra – and by signs of digging, there is no dry archaeological positivism to the scene, which stands dialectically related to the dancing on a volcano of the 1920s. Had they not learned from the War (whether Trojan or Great)? Of course not. Violence is endemic though not unduly exaggerated. (David McVicar could have learned a great deal from this before his sensationalist Salome, as he could have done from Edwards’s intelligent rather than arbitrary suggestions of the interwar years.) The treatment of the Fifth Maid – a fine portrayal from Eri Nakamura, a Jette Parker Young Artist – by the other maids and Miriam Murphy’s splendidly horrifying Overseer really sets the scene for what is to come. The degrading – fatal? – punishment that follows horrifies still more. What helps to make this so powerful is the partial restoration of the political that Edwards so successfully achieves. He reminds us throughout that this is not simply a madhouse but the palace of Mycenae. We see from time to time other members of the household and the effect that the degeneration of the ruling house has upon the ruled, most crucially of all in the final bloodbath, in which the palace wall is lifted to reveal the carnage that has been unleashed, the latest – and, we must hope, the last – instalment of Thyestes’s curse upon the house of Atreus. This is not of course the only way to present Elektra but it is an interesting and valid route to take.

Sir Mark Elder’s reading stood distant from the blood-and-gore, priapism-a-minute approach of Sir Georg Solti. We heard a great deal of detail in the score, including some delectable woodwind lines, impeccably played by an orchestra on top form. The baleful Wagnerian brass sounded, rightly, as if it had originated in Fafner’s lair. Dance rhythms surfaced throughout, reminding us that Elektra is not only the high watermark of Strauss’s expressionism but also paves the way for Der Rosenkavalier (which is, in turn, a far nastier opera than nostalgics could ever understand.) There were times, however, when I thought that a little more menace, violence even, would not have gone amiss. One can tend towards the analytical without the occasional loss to the dramatic that we heard here. In Strauss, Christoph von Dohnányi is an example in this and so many respects, although Semyon Bychkov also impressed during the production’s initial run. In a generally well-paced account, the crucial Recognition Scene dragged somewhat, lessening the dramatic release upon the realisation of Orest and Elektra that they have finally been reunited. That said, it was a treat to hear the final scene develop rather than scream throughout. Even necrophiliac orgies of destruction need to gather pace. Moreover, the musical echoes here of the final scene of Tristan can rarely have registered so clearly.

The cast was impressive, not least in the smaller roles, all of which were well characterised, as well as well directed. Johan Reuter started somewhat anonymously as Orest – although, I suppose, he is anonymous to Elektra at this point – but his portrayal acquired greater strength. Frank von Aken was no Siegfried Jerusalem, to whose cameo we were treated last time; by the same token, he was no mere caricature in the role of Aegisth and he acted well, disturbingly well. Jane Henschel not only spitted malevolence and terrifying, jubilant hysteria, the latter upon the news of Orest’s death. She also imparted a sense of vulnerability, of the humanity that must at one time have existed in Klytämnestra. This made the sheer evil displayed at her last both shocking and credible. Anne Schwanewilms made a sympathetic Chrysothemis, as she had previously. One could forgive the occasional occlusion of the words – inevitable to some extent – given her beauty of tone and security of line. And Susan Bullock was a fine Elektra. She fully inhabited the role musically and dramatically, her fine diction and intonation permitting a more sophisticated portrayal than the screaming harpy of caricature. Desperation and damage, resilience and revenge: one understood how all of these feelings and more arose from the murder of her father, and beyond that from the terrible feud between the two sons of Pelops. In this, as in so much else, Bullock’s Elektra and Edwards’s Elektra were at one: at the service of Strauss and Hofmannsthal, yet nevertheless, and indeed consequently, engaged in imaginative recreation.