Der Rosenkavalier, Semperoper Dresden, 3 April 2023

Die Feldmarschallin, Fürstin Werdenberg – Camilla Nylund
Der Baron Ochs auf Lerchenau – Peter Rose
Octavian – Sophie Koch
Herr von Faninal – Markus Eiche
Sophie – Nikola Hillebrand
Jungfer Marianne Leitmetzerin – Daniela Köhler
Valzacchi – Aaron Pegram
Annina – Christa Mayer
Police Officer – Tilmann Rönnebeck
The Marschallin’s Major-domo – Florian Hoffmann
Faninal’s Major-domo – Jürgen Müller
House Servant – Holger Steinert
A Notary – Matthias Henneberg
A Landlord – Kevin Conners
A Singer – Pavol Breslik
A Milliner – Katerina von Benningsen
A Vendor of Pets – Andreas Sauerzapf
Leopold – Yevgen Bondarenko
Lackeys – Jun Seok Bang, Norbert Klasse, Ingolf Stollberg-da Silva, Matthias Beutlich
Waiters – Markus Hansel, Max Hebeis, Andreas Heinze, Thomas Müller
Three noble orphans – Ofeliya Pogosyan, Mariya Taniguchi, Justyna Olów
Lerchenauschen – Alexander Födisch, Wooram Lim, Thomas Müller, Mirko Tuma, Werner Harke, Holger Steinert
Hairdresser – Mario Kretschmer
Mohammed – Ricardo Garcia Heine

Uwe Eric Laufenberg (director)
Christoph Schubiger (designs)
Jessica Karge (costumes)
Torsten Schäfer, Jan Seeger (lighting)
Hella Bartnig (dramaturgy)  

Children’s Choir of the Semperoper Dresden

Dresden State Opera Chorus (chorus director: André Kellinghaus)

Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden

Cornelius Meister (conductor)

Images: © Semperoper Dresden/Klaus Gigga

One more step back towards operatic ‘normality’, at least in Germany for me: a performance of Der Rosenkavalier with its large cast, no sign of (anti-)social distancing, and as yet no sign of a Covid-themed staging. (We know they are coming: the masks, the ventilators, the Tristan love-duet via Microsoft Teams, the Downing Street ‘Abba parties’; let us enjoy their absence while we can.) My reunion with characters one fancies one knows so well they might be personal acquaintances took place in Dresden, at the Semperoper, in a production by Uwe Eric Laufenberg I saw previously in 2014. It does not seem so long, as the Marschallin would understand all too well. 

First seen in 2000, it is, like most of us after the last few years, somewhat looking its age. In 2014, I thought it had belied its years. Whether that says more about me or the production, I do not know: perhaps a bit of both. Updating a century-and-a-half or so does no harm, though it perhaps makes no particular point either other than visualising the distances and anachronisms in which Strauss and Hofmmansthal deal. There are puzzling details, for instance: why does Octavian wear a black tie with evening tails? And there are, I think, a few changes, with some overlap. The peculiar treatment of Mohammed is no more, though he remains unusually evident, only not to appear at all at the close, Ochs’s ‘children’ taking his place. None of that is of particular importance, though, and issues not only of the male gaze – complicated, of course, in a world of cross-dressing – but also of publicity remain strong. The Marschallin’s relation to the latter world is, appropriately, more old-fashioned, her levée remaining much as it ‘should’, whereas chez Faninal, with its touch of Hollywood new money, the Presentation of the Rose is a choreographed photoshoot. Paparazzi or their equivalent even scale the building to gain an ‘exclusive’ picture of Octavian and Sophie ‘in private’. The Italians straddle both worlds. 

A notable change this time was the conductor. Christian Thielemann was due to have conducted the performance once more, but withdrew, replaced with Cornelius Meister. If the performance were less razor-sharp than last time, I suspect that was more down to rehearsal time and the vagaries of standing in than anything else. The first act seemed at times to drag, but the second two were well proportioned and full of incident. Moreover, the first-act Prelude can rarely, if ever, have made its intentions, here frankly post-Tannhäuser, more immediately apparent. If you did not feel the earth move, you must not have been listening. Indeed, Meister’s somewhat Wagnerian way with much of the score, gently yet tellingly contradicting lazy assumptions of a volte face after Elektra, brought ready human warmth and motivic integrity in equal measure. The Staatskapelle Dresden, effortlessly at home in this music since its premiere, brought a multitude of colours born of, yet never bogged down in, tradition.

 

Camilla Nylund’s warmth as the Marschallin, especially in the first act, sounded similarly inspired, or at least in sympathy. She became steelier in the third act, often thrillingly so, in triumphant, only part-tragic, reassertion of her authority. She, after all, may and probably should be understood to direct her own opera—and certainly did so here. Sophie Koch, also Octavian in 2014, seemed a little more out of sorts. In many ways, it was a very good performance, yet it was one that left one thinking this may be a role she, like Octavian with his recent past, should now leave behind, her voice having changed considerably in the meantime. Nikola Hillebrand made for a highly impressive Sophie: not only less unsympathetic than often, but more multi-dimensional, on the cusp in so many ways. Peter Rose, another 2014 veteran, gave another highly accomplished performance as Ochs. He knows the role inside out and can play with it, the language in particular assimilated as if he were speaking it spontaneously, yet he takes nothing for granted. His boredom with the Italian singer, here in an utterly outstanding cameo by none other than Pavol Breslik, was as much a joy to watch as last time. Casting was throughout from depth, everyone contributing something. Christa Mayer’s Annina was a class act indeed, having one wish for more. Markus Eiche’s Faninal was similarly, if differently, well observed. Yes, something approaching normality was back, though not without regard to the special quality of the operatic moment.

Bayreuth Festival (4): Götterdämmerung, 5 August 2022

Festspielhaus

Siegfried – Clay Hilley
Gunther – Michael Kupfer-Radecky
Alberich – Olafur Sigurdarson
Hagen – Albert Dohmen
Brünnhilde – Iréne Theorin
Gutrune – Elisabeth Teige
Waltraute – Christa Meyer
First Norn – Okka von der Damerau
Second Norn – Stéphanie Müther
Third Norn – Kelly God
Woglinde – Lee-an Dunbar
Wellgunde – Stephanie Houtzeel
Flosshilde – Katie Stevenson
Grane – Igor Schwab

Valentin Schwarz (director)
Andrea Cozzi (designs)
Andy Besuch (costumes)
Konrad Kuhn (dramaturgy)
Reinhard Traub (lighting)
Luis August Krawen (video)

Bayreuth Festival Chorus (chorus master: Eberhard Friedrich)
Bayreuth Festival Orchestra
Cornelius Meister (conductor)

Valentin Schwarz’s Ring ends more or less where it began, bar curtain-calls in which the long-awaited appearance of Schwarz and his team was greeted by the most intensive booing I have ever heard. I suppose a ‘cyclical’ turn will appeal to some who insist on referring to the Ring as a ‘cycle’, when it is nothing of the sort. Even those, however, who discern some kind of return at the close will have wanted a little more for their money than a hasty, borderline-cynical return of dual umbilical chord babies on video, and, prior to that, of a swimming pool for the Rhine.

Schwarz’s unwillingness or inability to formulate any kind of concept, let alone to present it successfully, has long since had hopes for drama run out of steam. Unwillingness—let us be charitable—to carry though any coherent correspondence between objects, themes, even often characters, leaves us with an incoherence that does not register as an aesthetic challenge, but simply as a careless mess. Siegfried apparently forgot to take Notung with him—or rather, the director forgot that he should. It was there, but Brünnhilde kept it, storing up various trouble for a final scene to the first act. This is not a matter of highlighting contradictions, already existing or even newly created. It is not freely associating; indeed, it is barely associating at all. It seems to speak more than anything of lack of acquaintance with Wagner’s work and—which may or may not be fair—sheer laziness. Like a child with an extremely limited attention span, Schwarz presents something, tires of it, presents a new thing without bothering to connect it to the previous thing, and continues. Occasionally, some older things return, yet neither with dramatic reason nor insight. To list them is almost the only thing one can do, given such absence of the conceptual; but it quickly becomes tedious, so I shall try to remain (relatively) selective.

The dark-haired boy we first saw in Das Rheingold shooting others with a water-pistol at the swimming pool seems in some sense to have become the gold, the ring, young Hagen, and now—oddly, having aged far faster than everyone else—‘old’ Hagen. A girl, who may or may not be the same as one also marked out at the swimming pool, who in turn may or may not be the same as the one Erda a little later seemed keen to protect, seems at times to take on the mantle of the ring, although there is also from time to time a ring too (which, given generally dim lighting, most of us can barely see). What we are supposed to make of that girl’s disappearance during the final scene, or indeed anything much in a scene that sadly had many in the audience laughing at its sheer ineptitude, I have no idea. Hagen’s return right at the end, stumbling on to shout ‘Zurück vom Ring’ (is he advising people to stay away from himself?) and then stumbling back off again, was not the least embarrassing episode in a renewed, though hardly rejuvenated, string of scenic non sequiturs.

Personal assistant Grane is still around too. It is hardly unusual for the gods to have nothing god-like to them at any stage whatsoever, though such is at best a one-sided view. Rarely if ever before, though, can they have been so recklessly divested of all character, even much in the way of motivation, and for that to have been the fate of dwarves, giants, heroes, and humans too. Turning a horse into a man in a suit does not seem much compensation, or even relevant. Anyway, Grane goes with Siegfried into the world (actually, back to part of Fafner’s house, I think) to encounter a Gunther who slightly resembles Peter Stringfellow or even Jimmy Savile, but whose inspiration a German friend tells me is a trashy television series called Die Geissens – eine schrecklich glamouröse Familie. Gunther wears a sparkly top that asks ‘Who the fuck is Grane?’ Quite, though one might ask that about anyone here, really. Grane is later beaten to something not a million miles from horsemeat. Gunther leaves the carrier bag with pieces of his body by the pool for Brünnhilde in pink dressing gown eventually to pick up Grane’s head to sing to. The unfortunate image resembles Golden Girl Rose Nylund doing a turn as Salome on her way to collect midnight cheesecake, albeit with none of the fun or interest that might entail.

 

But poor Brünnhilde (seriously). She too has been subjected to pretty horrific, all too casual abuse, seemingly to no end other than as something else to do (and not in a Clockwork Orange sort of way either). How much, if at all, violence towards women should be depicted on stage (or screen), especially by men, is of course very much a live topic at the moment. There may be no definitive answer, yet it is hardly a question simply to be ignored or, worse, trivialised. So many important questions, moreover, are treated similarly. Alberich’s alleged inability to father Hagen—‘it is not entirely clear’, writes dramaturge Konrad Kuhn in the programme, ‘how he could have conceived a son’—is at best problematical. ‘How,’ asks Kuhn, ‘did this “nasty”, this “hairy and hideous imp” … beget a child with the proud Queen Grimhild?’ Perhaps using the power he has amassed by foreswearing love? There is not much of a mystery, here, really, let alone inconsistency, though what form of power is of course open to speculation and interpretation. Instead, though, we end up with something that trivially disrupts the very parallelism the production seems to wish to construct between Wotan and Alberich, and arguably has more than a pinch of ableism to it. (Some might argue racism too; let us leave that for another day.)

Even Cornelius Meister’s conducting, a solid highlight of the previous three evenings, proved more mixed here. There is no shame in that; many conductors, at the best of times, are more successful in some parts of the Ring than others. That the prologue and first act in particular dragged, often seeming to lie behind whatever notional basic tempo had been set, was nonetheless unfortunate as nonsense upon nonsense unfolded onstage. That episodic quality continued into the second act, received with unusual rapture by the audience, but which to me lunged and lurched too often, making all too little musical sense. The third act, though, was much better, a sense of form as living structure once again imparted. There is no reason to think that the rest of the work will not follow in time. The Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, doubtless understandably, sounded at times tired. As an audience member, one could certainly relate. There were some splendid passages too, but this was not a vintage night for Wagner musically.

If vocal performances did not always reach the heights, nor did they ever fall below a reasonable level. Olafur Sigurdarson’s Alberich and Albert Dohmen’s were typically intelligent portrayals, founded in the poem and employing its musical marriage to considerable effect. Insofar as one could avoid Schwarz’s weird conception of Gunther—was he supposed to be high, or just very, very peculiar?—the same could be said of Michael Kupfer-Radecky in that role. If quality of diction came and went, there was much to appreciate in Iréne Theorin’s Brünnhilde, who managed to maintain a considerable degree of dignity, events around here notwithstanding. Fullness and bloom of voice were often as impressive as her sheer resolve to get on with it. Clay Hilley, a very late substitute as Siegfried, did more than could reasonably be asked of him. Not once did his voice tire; he committed himself with apparently equally enthusiasm to what was going on dramatically. Elisabeth Teige’s Gutrune was not helped by the production—who was?—but was a convincing vocal performance. Waltraute did not suit Christa Mayer quite so much as Fricka, but there was little doubting the quality of verbal response. The Rhinemaidens and Norns were all very good. If the chorus was far from overwhelming in the Vassals’ Scene, perhaps Covid restrictions were still in play; it looked as well as sounded smaller than usual.

It made for a long and dispiriting evening, though. I am only too aware of precedents, of how, say, Patrice Chéreau’s first run met with uproar and incomprehension, proceeding to become perhaps the best loved (and esteemed) Ring of all time. Not having been there, I can only speculate, but many have said it improved radically during its stint, a tribute to Bayreuth’s Werkstatt principle. Perhaps this might too, then; or perhaps I might change my mind and come to recant, as I did with Frank Castorf (parts of whose production I had, though, always admired). No one would be happier than I to admit he was wrong if so. It is far from the case that every idea advanced is unworthy of consideration; the problem more is that the production itself barely deigns to extend that consideration, already having jumped on something else. I think there would have to be a greater willingness, indeed any at all, to extend the frame of reference beyond a rich, unlikeable family. Why should we care, if that is all there is? Characterisation would help, to put it mildly, but so would a sense of the political and indeed the religious—of context whether broadly, specifically, or both (ideally). There is, it seems, no getting around that—and it is unclear why Schwarz, Kuhn, and company are so determined to try.

Bayreuth Festival (3): Siegfried, 3 August 2022

Festspielhaus

Siegfried – Andreas Schager
Mime – Arnold Bezuyen
Wanderer – Tomasz Koniezcny
Alberich – Olafur Sigurdarson
Fafner – Wilhelm Schwinghammer
Erda – Okka von der Damerau
Brünnhilde – Daniela Köhler
Woodbird – Alexandra Steiner
Young Hagen – Branko Buchberger
Grane – Igor Schwab

Valentin Schwarz (director)
Andrea Cozzi (designs)
Andy Besuch (costumes)
Konrad Kuhn (dramaturgy)
Reinhard Traub (lighting)

Bayreuth Festival Orchestra
Cornelius Meister (conductor)

This Siegfried made for pretty miserable music drama, I am afraid, the considerable qualities of the music ‘half’ notwithstanding. In a peculiar way, Wagner’s vision was vindicated. His works are not operas, nor are they intended to be. They may well impress in concert performances or in audio-only experiences at home—phenomena worthy of greater attention—but they need to impress musically and dramatically in the theatre, the whole so much more than the sum of its parts. One never knows what might be pulled out of the hat for Götterdämmerung, but it is difficult to imagine that it can truly redeem the incoherent, often tedious parade Valentin Schwarz has set before us so far. 

Incoherence may be the root problem, or at least a problem that takes us closer to the root. Some of the ideas set forth—some, rather than all—may well have merit, yet rarely do Schwarz and his team seem to have the persistence or even the attention-span necessary to pursue them. A claim might be put forward, I suppose, for an aesthetic of incoherence. Dramaturge Konrad Kuhn makes the claim in a programme note that ‘time and again, we encounter inconsistencies and contradictions in the Ring’. I am tempted to reply ‘speak for yourself’, but to an extent, it may well depend what one means. Rarely if ever are they straightforwardly ‘inconsistencies and contradictions’. The different standpoints presented, the dramatic and intellectual antagonisms put forward, the questions presented that are bigger than any possible attempt at answering them: these are part of what makes the Ring so extraordinary, so powerful, so life-changing a work. They are not signs of ineptitude, of carelessness, or some other shortcoming. This frankly slapdash attitude, however, does seem to inform what is set before us. It is not a matter of taking Wagner to task, of seeing how far a line may be pushed, but apparently of becoming bored with him and the challenges he sets us. It is a point of view, I suppose, or better an attitude or malaise; unsurprisingly, it offers little support for even a one-sided attempt to stage his most ambitious work. 

Siegfried opens in the same house in which we encountered Siegmund and Sieglinde, neither the first nor the last time when we return to the same location yet seek in vain a reason for having done so. Mime has done it up for Siegfried’s birthday party, ready to present a puppet show. If, like me, you are always intrigued by the possibilities of puppets and puppetry, you might have thought this augured well, I suspect you would soon have lost interest, when they were barely used—though perhaps not quite as quickly as the director. Having resolved to do without a sword in Die Walküre, or indeed Das Rheingold, Schwarz has Siegfried find one here concealed within Mime’s walking frame (which he does not appear to need). Since it is already there, never having been broken, the not inconsiderable time in words and music taken to reforge the sword requires something else on stage. Alas, none is forthcoming.

The second act takes place in Fafner’s expensive looking residence, irrespective of the changes in location required. Again, the starting idea does not seem unpromising. Various claimants to his wealth come to visit the giant-dragon (neither, in fact) to persuade him to leave it to them. Wotan, Alberich, Mime, Siegfried (in his way) all pay their house calls. Fafner’s carers do what needs to be done, the theme of abuse continuing to play out in his treatment of a female nurse who turns out to be the Woodbird. The other carer seems to be an adolescent version of the dark-haired boy from Das Rheingold. My speculation that he might turn out to be Hagen has been vindicated, though the symbolic identification Schwarz made between him and either the gold or the ring appears to have been dropped entirely. Siegfried has his sword but cannot be bothered to use it to kill Fafner; instead he throws him out of his chair and has Hagen strangle him to finish him off. Siegfried does use it on Mime, though. It looks at one point as if Siegfried and the Woodbird might go off together to further one part of his education, but instead he and Hagen run out together into the world, whilst the Woodbird returns to drop an item of clothing on top of her abuser as the curtain falls.

 

What should probably be the most decisive scene in the entire Ring, Wotan’s abandonment of Fate, quasi-identified with Erda, went for almost nothing, at least scenically. Another character, female, was present: a Valkyrie, a Norn, the girl Erda was chaperoning in Das Rheingold? Who knows? Increasingly, I was tempted also to ask: who cares? Hagen mostly sticks with Siegfried, who bullies the poor boy semi-insistently; until he does not, that is, disappearing at some point—I did not notice when—following the ascent to the mountain-top, which confusingly appears to be an adapted Valhalla. Nothing much else happens thereafter, though Grane-as-PA returns to compliment Brünnhilde on her new hat. Eventually, the work comes to a close.

Again, Cornelius Meister and the Festival Orchestra impressed. Meister’s discernment of the Ring’s architecture comes through unfailingly yet unobtrusively. If only some of this could have rubbed off on the production team. (I think as much of the dramaturge’s silly claim about inconsistency as in the inconsistencies and non sequiturs that play out visually. How well do they actually know the work?) Dynamic range was considerable, always with good reason, and never to the detriment of the singers. The theatre and covered pit help, of course, but they can only do so much. 

Andreas Schager’s Siegfried is for many of us a known quantity. On first hearing, it seems miraculous: at last someone who can sing this well-nigh impossible role and draw on seemingly infinite vocal resources to do so. None of that has changed—and we should all be thankful that we need no longer endure performances from singers who are simply not up to the job. Is it unfair to wish for something a little more, some greater verbal subtlety? Probably, yet in the absence of anything compelling from the production, I found myself doing so. Almost certainly, in fact, given the onstage chemistry shown with Arnold Bezuyen’s intelligent, wheedling Mime—who, for once, one never started wishing would emerge victorious.  Tomasz Koniezcny and Olafur Sigurdarson continued to prove themselves as the Wanderer and Alberich, the latter in particular never putting a dramatic foot wrong. This is fine singing, by any standards. 

I initially thought Wilhelm Schwinghammer’s Fafner a bit underpowered, but then realised that was not his fault; the lack of a cave and thus of any sort of projection just leaves him to himself. It is a perfectly intelligent performance on its own terms, let down by the staging. Okka von der Damerau’s Erda likewise deserved better, much better, yet could not be faulted on vocal terms. Likewise Alexandra Steiner’s Woodbird and Daniela Köhler’s Brünnhilde, whose gleaming tone and sheer relish for what promised to be new life offered both succour and inspiration. 

Bayreuth Festival (2): Die Walküre, 1 August 2022

Festspielhaus

Siegmund – Klaus Florian Vogt
Hunding – Georg Zeppenfeld
Wotan – Tomasz Konieczny, Michael Kupfer-Radecky
Sieglinde – Lise Davidsen
Brünnhilde – Iréne Theorin
Fricka, Schwertleite – Christa Mayer
Gerhilde – Kelly God
Ortlinde – Brit-Tone Müllertz
Waltraute – Stéphanie Müther
Helmwige – Daniela Köhler
Siegrune – Stephanie Houtzeel
Grimgerde – Marie Henriette Reinhold
Rossweiße – Katie Stevenson
Grane – Igor Schwab

Valentin Schwarz (director)
Andrea Cozzi (designs)
Andy Besuch (costumes)
Konrad Kuhn (dramaturgy)
Reinhard Traub (lighting)

Bayreuth Festival Orchestra
Cornelius Meister (conductor)

The boos are getting louder: not, I think, for the musicians, but for the production of Valentin Schwarz, who has yet to appear for a curtain-call. That need be no bad thing artistically, though the practice itself is fascistic; should a bourgeois audience feel satisfied with what it has consumed, it will be a disturbing outcome for art. Here, though, the open mind I am endeavouring to keep concerning Schwarz’s production is struggling a little. As a distinguished Wagner scholar said to me when I met him afterwards, ‘It is getting worse.’ On the basis of what I saw in Die Walküre, I had little choice but to agree.

Short of the framing of the action as a saga of twins, which here seems more assumed to continue from Das Rheingold than illustrated, there is little at all to point to other than strange departures from Wagner’s drama, which taken separately or together fail to amount to anything very much. Siegmund and Sieglinde are, I think, taken back by their self-discovery to their childhood, joined by ‘symbolic’ star-children. (Either that, or they fantasise about the children they will have, but I think it is the former.) There is nothing wrong with that; it makes sense. But for it to have taken place in Wotan’s godly quarters seems peculiar—imagine Fricka’s thoughts on that—as well as quite at odds with what they have just sung, without obvious reason.

 It is later implied that Sieglinde, heavily pregnant throughout the first two acts, is carrying Wotan’s baby. At least I think that is why he ‘comforts’ her, whilst Siegmund and Hunding seek one another, pulling down her tights and apparently attempting to deliver the child. If not, it is a straightforward case of sexual assault, although I suppose it must have been anyway earlier. My guess would be that this is intended to enhance the parallelism between Wotan and Alberich, that both will be found to have produced children, Siegfried and Hagen, through rape. But where that leaves Siegmund, goodness knows: St Joseph with a twist, it would seem. Where, though, does that leave Hunding? He must surely have noticed. It is difficult not to conclude that Wagner’s plot would have been better left as it was.

In between, Freia’s funeral, or at least her lying in rest, had taken place. There were some germs of decent, if ultimately rather incidental ideas, here. Assuming we are still to take her as goddess of love, her death would have obvious implications (although its timing is arguably strange, given that Siegmund and Sieglinde have just met). In a Mafia-film-style mise-en-scène, a few people come to pay their respects, whilst Wotan and Fricka have their decisive confrontation. (Brünnhilde spends some of that scene in what appears to be a greenhouse. I don’t know either.) Hunding petitions the gods in person, an interesting touch. That Fricka returns at the end of the third act, after Wotan has put Brünnhilde to sleep (and made, you guessed it, his incestuous urges all too clear), suggests that she is confident in her triumph. She even wheels on a drinks trolley and offers Wotan a celebratory glass. He declines, though, so in the absence of a spear—just nothing at all, throughout—Fricka clinks together the glasses to make the requisite noise.

 

I am afraid I have no idea at all what happens in the Ride of the Valkyries. It veered all over the place—at least the BBC light entertainment place—from Dr Who to The Benny Hill Show to Casualty, with an apparently accidental turn for Diana Dors’s gender-reversal ‘The Worm that Turned’ series for The Two Ronnies. Sometimes the Valkyries were in charge, sometimes Wotan’s guards. There was a great deal of mobile telephone use. Perhaps it is time to call for a moratorium on those devices onstage, unless the director has a clear idea what they are for. As things stand, they seem to have become the new suitcases.

Lack of objects when called for and introduction of obscure alternatives does little to help. I have already mentioned the lack of a spear or any substitute.   Just as the role of Das Rheingold’s dark-haired boy is more unclear than ambiguous, so is that of the strange pyramid-in-a-box, earlier seen and quasi-worshipped upon the gods’ entry into Valhalla as if a grail-refugee from a production of Parsifal. It now reappears as a repository for a pistol. Sometimes a pistol is a Notung equivalent, sometimes not; sometimes there are several. None of it makes any sense, really, and try as I might to try to piece together some sort of explanation, I am really on the verge of giving up.

As for Grane’s reincarnation as Brünnhilde’s male, suited personal assistant, it makes even less sense when there have been a few apparently arbitrary visual references to actual horses elsewhere. Finally, there is a strong impression that the strongest acting is brought by the singers themselves to their roles. Personenregie is intermittent at best and sometimes disappears altogether in longer exchanges between characters. I suppose some of these things, minus the lack of Personenregie, might add up to something in retrospect, but I do not feel especially hopeful.

Musically, things are better, often much better. Cornelius Meister continues to impress greatly with his command of structure and detail, conveying and expressing a Wagner melos from the pit that drives and, in many respects, is the action. The sound he drew from the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra—and, I assume, to an extent, the sound its players wished to conjure too—was in some ways distant from that we might recall from old Bayreuth recordings, closer to those of other opera orchestras. Choices seem well justified to me, though, and there is no point merely trying to imitate Karl Böhm—or anyone else, for that matter. There is considerable emotional and conceptual range as the cauldron of Wagner’s Greek Chorus bubbles: quite a difference, alas, from what we see onstage.

Not, however, from what we hear onstage. Lise Davidsen’s Sieglinde was at least the equal of any I have heard. No one seems to have a bad word to say about this extraordinary soprano, and so far there seems no reason for anyone to do so. Her final peroration here, ‘O hehrstes Wunder!...’ was as vocally magnificent, riding the orchestral wave almost like no other, as it was clearly heartfelt, the culmination of a dramatic journey that now must end. Klaus Florian Vogt’s tenor will always divide opinion. Much of that is simply down to taste. Whether one liked his performance or not—and there is no getting away from the fact that its sound is very different from the baritonal Siegmunds we have come to expect—his was certainly a committed and, I think, highly likeable performance. Georg Zeppenfeld’s Hunding offered a masterclass in the role, everything present and correct, both considered and alert to the moment.

Tomasz Konieczny and Michael Kupfer-Radecky shared the role of Wotan, the former having become unable to continue during the second interval. Both gave strong performances, deeply rooted in Wagner’s text; if the ear took a little while to adjust to new sound and delivery, that was a tiny price to pay for so crucial, short-notice a substitution. Christa Mayer’s Fricka was once again first-class, fuller-throated than often one hears, and all the better for it. Iréne Theorin impressed as head Valkyrie, youthfully impetuous and headstrong, yet clearly transformed by what she had witnessed. The rest of her team was cast from depth, including a return for Mayer as Schwertleite. Had this been a concert performance, I suspect it would have moved more than it did in the theatre. This Ring, however, will continue in Wagner’s own theatre.

 

Bayreuth Festival (1): Das Rheingold, 31 July 2022

Festspielhaus

 

Wotan – Egils Silins
Donner – Raimund Nolte
Froh – Attilio Glaser
Loge – Daniel Kirch
Fricka – Christa Mayer
Freia – Elisabeth Teige
Erda – Okka von der Damerau
Alberich – Olafur Sigurdarson
Mime – Arnold Bezuyen
Fasolt – Jens-Erik Aasbø
Fafner – Wilhelm Schwinghammer
Woglinde – Lea-ann Dunbar
Wellgunde – Stephanie Houtzeel
Flosshilde – Katie Stevenson

Valentin Schwarz (director)
Andrea Cozzi (designs)
Andy Besuch (costumes)
Konrad Kuhn (dramaturgy)
Reinhard Traub (lighting)
Luis August Krawen (video)

Bayreuth Festival Orchestra
Cornelius Meister (conductor)

In der Erde Tiefe
tagen die Nibelungen:
Nibelheim ist ihr Land.
Schwarzalben sind sie;
Schwarz Alberich hütet’ als Herrscher sie einst!

So begins the Wanderer’s answer to the first of Mime’s three riddles, in which notoriously the dwarf asks his unwelcome visitor questions he hopes will catch him out—they do not—thereby wasting the opportunity to ask the chief of the gods what he, Mime, actually needs to know. Mime has asked which Geschlecht may be found in the earth’s depths. Wotan/the Wanderer tells him: the Nibelungs, that is Mime’s own kin. In response to the third riddle, when Mime asks him which Geschlecht lives in the cloud-hidden heights, the Wanderer, disguised chief of the gods, tells his interlocutor that it is those very gods, continuing, ‘Lichtalben sind sie; Licht-Alberich, Wotan, waltet der Schar.’

If I understand correctly—I should stress that I am writing this immediately after Das Rheingold, with much yet to be revealed—those points in that exchange point to something crucial in understanding Valentin Schwarz’s new Bayreuth production of Wagner’s Ring. That dialectical opposition between Wotan and Alberich, ‘white’ and ‘black’ Alberich—which is certainly the meat of the Rheingold drama, and in many ways underpins all that is to come—is taken a little more literally, rendering them twins. The Rheingold prologue is perhaps as close as we shall come to a musical presentation of the ‘spontaneous generation’ Wagner’s contemporary Karl Marx hymned in his long unpublished, Feuerbachian Paris Manuscripts: ‘Generatio æquivoca is the only practical refutation’ of the theological ‘theory of creation,’ The ‘abstraction’ of the old way of thinking of oneself as apart from Nature overcome, ‘for you too are Nature and man’.  (Wagner would have read Arthur Schopenhauer’s description ‘spontaneity of the world of Nature’ in Parerga and Paralipomena when working on the score, but the roots of this idea unquestionably extend back to the Young Hegelian inheritance he and Marx—‘black’ and ‘white’ Marx?—found in Ludwig Feuerbach and other writers of the 1840s.)

Luis August Krawen’s opening video projection makes it very clear that we were in the waters (‘in the river Rhine’, as Anna Russell would have reminded us, ‘in it!’) so as to fit any number of creation or non-creation myths. What proceeds differently here is the vision of twin umbilical chords, leading us to twin babies—who, as the saga develops, we associate with Wotan and Alberich. At any rate, there are birth, kinship, and rivalry: a reminder that Mime’s ‘Geschlecht’, often translated as ‘race’, has here more to do with genealogy, with family, house, and lineage. Schwarz not only takes Wagner’s three lineages—dwarves, giants, and gods—as the basis of the drama to come, but takes Wagner further than himself by rendering at least two of them estranged branches of the same clan: Cain and Abel, Esau and Isaac, Wotan and Alberich…

Inheritance, therefore, is fundamental. In an underlining of the family saga element (which, at one level, surely no one could deny) Schwarz has Alberich steal and turn a child from the swimming pool over which the Rhinemaidens (glorified au pairs?) watch over a group of children. Notably, that child is black-haired, as opposed to the blond of the others. One can go down the route of trying to work out precisely what the ‘dark’ child symbolises: the gold, what it is turned into, inheritance? I am not sure that is really the way to go, though. There is a struggle between Black and White Alberich both for that boy and, intermittently, for a blonde girl, which perhaps represents—if at times, a little confusingly—the overall power struggle. Alberich is certainly an outsider and remains so, presumably at some stage cast out. Wotan’s crew is the ‘legitimate’ branch, with a ghastly family (shades of Murdoch, or even Dynasty?) in competition over the spoils and succession. I worry somewhat that the ‘racial’ element of Geschlecht may come to be seen as the point, rather than a metaphor, but perhaps the claim—it certainly has been claimed, if far from convincingly—is that race is the point here. As with much else, we shall see.

There are intriguing elements, for instance the ongoing element of the children ‘leaders’ educating and abusing other children, struggle and oppression already echoing down the ages. Wotan’s ecstasy in his own apparent victory at the close is compelling: high, it would seem, on his own ideology, or at least his own misdeeds. There are others I have yet to understand: why does Erda put in several appearances before her scheduled arrival, just to watch, and why does she walk off with the blonde girl in her care at the end? Is this in some sense a presentiment of Brünnhilde, as the boy might be of Hagen? Again, we shall see. It would be odd to understand everything, or even have much of a developed idea about at this stage. This, after all, is only the Vorabend, the preliminary evening. Something more strongly political might not be a bad thing, but one might argue much attention, from Patrice Chéreau onwards, has been devoted to that already; perhaps it is time for a shift of emphasis. Again, we shall see.

Conducting anything at all at Bayreuth is a difficult task indeed, even when familiar with the set-up, let alone when not—likewise even when it is a single evening’s work, rather than that of four. Cornelius Meister, who was due to conduct Tristan but now substitutes for Pietari Inkinen, made a better job of Das Rheingold than I have previously heard here (Sinopoli, Petrenko, Janowski). Balance was excellent; so too was pacing. If there were a few orchestral fluffs—a couple of brass wrong entries, for instance—nothing was too grievous. The orchestra itself likewise sounded on good form. In both cases, more will surely come, but this was an impressive start.

So too was it for the cast. Olafur Sigurdarson garnered the greatest cheers from the audience as Alberich, probably rightly so. His was certainly an outstanding performance, seemingly instinctively alert to the dramatic reality and implications of Wagner’s particularly dialectical blend of verse, music, and gesture. A blond Egils Silins—that dark/light antagonism again—offered a proper battle as his principal antagonist. Christa Mayer’s Fricka was thoughtful, considered, and personal in tone and delivery. Much the same, albeit far from the same, might be said of Okka von der Damerau’s Erda. Arnold Bezuyen and Daniel Kirch made much of their tenor roles, verbally and physically, as Mime and Loge respectively. Elisabeth Teige’s Freia offered proper beauty of tone, well echoed by that forlorn violin solo of ‘love’ in the orchestra. Jens-Erik Aasbø and Wilhelm Schwinghammer contrasted actions and motivations well in the giants’ roles. It was an impressive trio of Rhinemaidens we heard too, their ensemble warning in the final scene fatally apparent. As for what is to come, we shall see (and hear).

 

Wien Modern (1): Montalvo/ORF SO/Meister - Boulez, 5 November 2015

Grosser Saal, Konzerthaus

Boulez – Pli selon pli

Marisol Montalvo (soprano)

ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra

Cornelius Meister (conductor)

 

The twenty-eighth season of Wien Modern, my first (at least in person), opened, as seems proper, with a contribution to the ninetieth anniversary celebrations for Pierre Boulez. It was with a disc from the Vienna Philharmonic and Claudio Abbado, who founded the festival in 1988, that, as a student, I was first made aware of Wien Modern. That recording offered works by Rihm, Ligeti, Nono, and Boulez, so it seemed especially fitting that my first visit should begin with a work by the composer the festival aptly describes as ‘the Grand Master of new music’. Pli selon pli, as sure a candidate for Boulezian masterpiece as any, also readily permits consideration of this season’s guiding theme. To quote its website, ‘One of the characteristics of contemporary music is the multiplicity of forms and genres and the means and forms of expression. Starting from the premise that all music is characterised by the cultural, historical and social parameters of the time in which it was written, WIEN MODERN will this season set out to explore the artistic intentions that shape the dominant fields of expression and composition today. As the motto Pop.Song.Voice suggests, the voice as instrument will act as mediator between the “masterpieces” of new music and advanced pop music.’

And, to that end, we listened first to an opening speech from Susanne Kirchmayr, which made a welcome change from the typical introductory address by a politician or bureaucrat. (I remember, as a child, enduring an introduction to a youth orchestra concert in which a local councillor regaled us for what seemed like hours on his alleged ‘discovery’ that the word ‘euphonious’, clearly a new word to him, was derived from the word, ‘euphonium’, thereby demonstrating the primacy of brass band music. Especially charming for those of us in other sections of the orchestra, this interminable address ended with the declaration that it did not matter whether what we did were any good, since we should all end up doing ‘proper jobs’ anyway, although music might remain a ‘nice hobby’.) Kirchmayr, who performs as a DJ under the name Electric Indigo, spoke interestingly about what New Music – I remain old-fashioned enough to use capitals from time to time – of all sorts might have in common, not least in its resistance to neo-liberal demands of the market. Stockhausen, Jimi Hendrix, Adorno, and others put in appearances, not for their own sake, but as part of an argument that would surely have had much to say to those who had not really considered such matters, as well as questioning those who had. A new Electric Indigo work will be performed on 26 November, during a concert entitled ‘No.1: A Phenomenology of Pop’.

Marisol Montalvo, the ORF Symphony Orchestra and Cornelius Meister then took the stage for Boulez’s Mallarmé ‘portrait’. A celebrated trick of eighteenth-century French orchestras was le premier coup d’archet; Mozart used the device in his ‘Paris’ Symphony. Boulez’s opening orchestral coup is just as impressive – and so it was in performance, followed by necessary, yet perhaps just as shocking, sultriness from voice and orchestra. Meister imparted a strong expository sense to this first movement, ‘Don’, allowing the material and its deployment in their turn to impart a strong sense of musical creation, not unlike, say depictions by Haydn or Berg. In this movement, stately orchestral progress worked very well, offering plenty of space for glances aside from the main procession. (I often thought in that connection of the later Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna.) The performance from Montalvo, especially once she reached the section, ‘…basalte… …y… …échos… [etc.]’, had something of an intervention to it, if not from another culture, then of a different way of considering that dramatised, if that be the right word, here. She seemed engaged in a dramatic delivery of (self-)discovery against Messieanic harmonies which, for once, moved slowly yet surely. Less hieratic, wilder, even frenzied at times: hers was a performance seemingly in conflict, even fruitifully so, with the more careful – perhaps on occasion in subsequent movements, too careful – path mapped out by the orchestra. Instrumental development again brought Messiaen, not always the most ‘developmental’ of composers, to mind, leavened by the Second Viennese School; or perhaps that should have been the other way around. Musical fertility abounded – and resounded.

‘Improvisation I’ offered what one might think of as a more conventionally ‘vocal’ performance, bearing in mind the mediating role of the voice proposed by the festival as a whole. It was recognisably the same ‘voice’, the same portrayal, whether in work or vocal performance, yet seemed also to hark back to earlier vocal and choral works, such as Le Visage nuptial and Le Soleil des eaux. And then, a different, Berg-like voice spoke from the orchestra, sounding or, perhaps better, suggesting catastrophe. Words and language clearly related to music and sound, yet, as in, say, Tristan und Isolde, the relationship, whatever the historical priority, appeared to manifest itself in both directions.

The opening éclat – so often an apt word for Boulez’s music – of ‘Improvisation II’ made its point; so did Montalvo’s vocal melismata, again offering points of departure for consideration of the voice and its mediating, or perhaps leading, role. The apparent naïveté of Montalvo’s performance at this point intrigued, especially when set against a more motoric instrumental performance. The idea of magic has perhaps been trivialized beyond repair in a disenchanted world; yet perhaps, ‘magical’ was not a silly description in this case. The allure of the impenetrable, in more than one sense, was rendered in ecstatic tones, both vocal and instrumental. Montalvo’s bright, bell-like delivery, stronger at the top of her range, was very different from Barbara Hannigan’s in her unforgettable 2011 performance with Boulez. If less overtly sensual a performance all around, this Wien Modern account had its own strengths, its own possibilities.

I loved the way, in ‘Improvisation III’, in which Montalvo’s voice melded with that of the flute. A new instrument, or a duet? Why need it be either/or? At times, and this was, I think, one of the greatest strengths of Montalvo’s performance, it was as if she were singing one of Messiaen’s (actual or camouflaged) alleluias. Tuned percussion responded in kind, yet interestingly, sounded, whether by design or by wordless default, more secular in concern: not the least intriguing of the dialectics set up here in performance. The near-identity between voice, flute, and sometimes other instruments continued to ravish and to perplex when we returned to the opening ‘A la nue accablante…’.

Finally, ‘Tombeau’. Boulez’s opening, seemingly doom-laden Klangfarbenmelodie sounded – a touch of Austrian orchestral colour, or something more? – as if spun from the same cloth as Webern’s op.6. There was a similar sense, moreover, of muffled procession as heard in the funeral march from Webern’s work. Grief was perhaps more abstract, although that is not to say less powerful. Mahler seemed present – and yet, composition of course preceded Boulez’s immersion in that composer’s work. Perhaps it Pli selon pli would actually inform his conducting of Mahler; ‘influence’, at least interesting influence, never runs in a single direction. At any rate, it did not seem a great step either to or from the world of Wozzeck. Vocal qualities of instruments were again readily apparent. A French horn might have been a soprano. And when the horn cried against the long-delayed soprano entry, echoes, musical and historical alike, resounded from the Nachtmusik of Mahler’s Seventh Symphony. The final ‘mort’ and orchestral coup might have been too theatrical for some – I heard a similar criticism made at the recent Barbican performance from Yeree Suh, the BBC SO, and Thierry Fischer – but for me they worked very well indeed. Theatricality is not foreign to Boulez, and we are only just beginning to discover the multiplicity of performing possibilities his music offers. At the risk of sounding like a stuck record, it is vital that we continue to perform his music and do not restrict it to anniversary outings. Audiences are there; performers are there; there is no excuse.

 

ORF SO/Meister - Bruckner and Messiaen, 23 June 2015

(with apologies for having fallen a little behind...)


Konzerthaus

Bruckner – Mass no.3 in F minor

Messiaen – L’Ascension

Ruth Ziesak (soprano)

Janina Baechle (mezzo-soprano)

Benjamin Bruns (tenor)

Günther Groissböck (baritone)

Wiener Singakademie

ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra

Cornelius Meister (conductor)

 

I have long thought that Bruckner and Messiaen would do well to be programmed together – at least when the length of their works permits it. Roman Catholic devotion in an increasingly secularised world, not least in musical terms, is of course an important point in common, but their frequent eschewal of conventional thematic development in favour of repetition of blocks of material suggests something more, and perhaps more surprising too. Ten out of ten for programming, then, and I am pleased to report that the performance turned out to be highly impressive too.

The very opening bars of Bruckner’s F minor Mass – grander, perhaps more grandiloquent, than its predecessors, perhaps trying a little too hard to attempt an impossible reckoning with Beethoven’s Missa solemnis – showed that we were in excellent Bruckner hands with respect to conductor and orchestra alike. This might have been the opening of the first movement of a symphony, Bruckner’s preoccupying building-blocks as ever to the fore from the outset. Intriguingly, the drooping phrase-ends ends seemed to hint at Elgar, whose music would surely benefit from more Viennese outings (not that I have forgotten the forthcoming VPO/Rattle Gerontius at the Proms). Choral ‘Kyries’ following continued, intensified, and yet also brought major-mode hope, the Wiener Singakademie on as fine form as the ORF SO and Cornelius Meister. Günther Groissböck ‘s resounding first ‘Christe’ seemed to issue almost from Beethoven’s world, whatever the problems of Bruckner’s would-be emulation later on. This movement’s a cappella passages sounded flawless, deeply felt, before the musi sank back into darkness.

The ‘Gloria’ proved equally impressive, starting out as if bells were ringing in Heaven itself. Meister’s command of rhythm and harmony seemed to me every bit the equal of celebrated past recordings, even Jochum’s. Contrast with imploring intoning of the word ‘peccata’ was telling, as again were Beethovenian parallels, not least from a gorgeous woodwind section. With that in mind, there were an appropriate sense and scale of struggle towards the close. The ‘Credo’ responded in properly titanic – symphonic – fashion, again with splendid contrast, not least in the sweetness of the violin, viola, and tenor (Benjamin Bruns) solos upon reaching ‘Et incarnatus est…’.  ‘Et resurrexit…’ sounded as a veritable earthquake, almost Bachian: certainly as powerful, if simpler, and of course with well-nigh Wagnerian means. No easy route was taken thereafter, ensuring that the victory upon ‘Et exspecto…’ inspired as if that to one of the greatest Bruckner symphonies.

 

The ‘Sanctus’ was grand, turning to exultance, whilst the ‘Benedictus’ exuded tenderness and warmth, especially from the outstanding string section. It had the depth of one of the composer’s symphonic Adagio movements – just as it should. Groissböck’s tonal richness was especially welcome here; alas, the shrillness of Ruth Ziesak, here and elsewhere, offered a rare blemish to the performance as a whole. Nevertheless, it was a minor blemish upon the leisurely but always-directed progress shaped by Meister. The poignant falling lines of the ‘Agnus Dei’, echoing the opening, proved equally moving, prior to a triumphant close, to which even the most hardened of Bruckner-sceptics would surely have submitted.

 

L’Ascension sounded different immediately, a ‘French’ soundworld – however much of a construct that might be – announcing itself unquestionably. This was also a different sort of slowness as Messiaen’s ecstatic voice began its progress, harmonies still more gorgeous, devotion still more intense. ‘No room at the inn for doubt!’ composer and performance appeared to be telling us. For me, as a sometime organist, the orchestral version still sounds as a transcription – but who cares? I certainly did not, and indeed listened with new, or at least refreshed, ears. ‘Alléluias sereins d’une âme qui désire le ciel’ offered opening material that was sinuous yet implacable, melismatic orchestras alleluias inveighing, perhaps even seducing. And then, awestruck, we seemed to approach and yet to remain hopelessly distant from Whomever it might be in Heaven Himself. Echoes of Ravel hinted at something sultry, although, needless to say, Messiaen’s eroticism remained of a very different nature. This, I know is the Messiaen some find difficult or impossible to take, but not I. Swooning Alleluias were heard from the next movement’s ‘trompette … [et] cymbale’. Orchestra and conductor kept rhythms tight, without precluding occasional relaxation. Again, the sonority sounded convincingly Gallic. More importantly, there was a true sense of cosmic drama, perhaps even of an unintentionally comic variety when the cymbals clashed in almost Hollywood-like climax. Ensuing counterpoint issued forth with genuine panache. The final ‘Prière du Christ montant vers son Père – the first piece of Messiaen I played, all too many years ago – was taken very slowly, as it must be. Soaked in ecstatic vibrato, this really seemed to capture something of the almost-beyond. Moulded exquisitely, the movement nevertheless retained surprising, refreshing simplicity in a model account.

 

Die Zauberflöte, Royal Opera, 23 February 2015

Royal Opera House

Tamino – Toby Spence

Three Ladies – Sinéad Mulhern, Nadezhda Karyazina, Claudia Huckle
Papageno – Markus Werba
Queen of the Night – Anna Siminska
Monostatos – Colin Judson
Pamina – Jania Brugger
Three Boys – Michael Clayton-Jolly, Matthew Price, Alessio D’Andrea
Speaker – Benjamin Bevan
Sarastro – Georg Zeppenfeld
Priests – Harry Nicoll, Donald Maxwell
Papagena – Rhian Lois
Two Armoured Men – Samuel Sakker, James Platt

Sir David McVicar (director)

John Macfarlane (designs)
Paule Constable (lighting)
Leah Hausman (movement)

Royal Opera Chorus (chorus master: Renato Balsadonna)

Orchestra of the Royal Opera House

Cornelius Meister (conductor)

 

When, a couple of years ago, I last saw David McVicar’s production of The Magic Flute, I was pleased to note that Leah Hausman’s revival direction had brought new life to a staging which, at its previous revival in 2011, had begun to seem tired. In terms of staging, it seems to have perked up further in 2015. Part of the reason, I suspect, must be McVicar’s having returned to direct the revival himself: something I did not pick up on until after the event, but which, in retrospect, certainly told. Not only did the cast members appear perfectly clear what they were and what they should be doing; a considerable amount of movement (typically well planned by Leah Hausman) had been rethought, reinvented. I can be very touchy – many would doubtless say too touchy, but here I stand… – when it comes to Mozart, and regret what seemed to me a shift towards the merely comic. However, if my memory serves me correctly, and this is a production I have watched regularly on DVD too, it was a shift rather than a wrench. Many, in any case, will feel differently, should the widespread enthusiasm for Nicholas Hytner’s old ENO staging, an enthusiasm I never felt in the slightest, be anything to go by. There remains delight to be had in John Macfarlane’s designs; a visual, if less an intellectual, sense of eighteenth-century Enlightenment remains happily present too. At any rate, it is pleasing to see a twelve-year-old production – I shall never forget Sir Colin Davis’s conducting during its initial run – refreshed and reinvigorated.

Cornelius Meister’s conducting had its moments; comparisons with Davis would be pointless. Meister sometimes seemed hamstrung by the (presumably self-inflicted) size of his orchestra, nowhere more so than in an often scrawny account of the Overture. When will conductors recognise the crucial matter of the size of a house in suggesting the necessary, or at least desirable, number of strings? There was sometimes a tendency to rush, too, an especially noteworthy occasion being the merely glib conclusion to the first act; here, Mozart should sound at his most Beethovenian. However, there was orchestral beauty, albeit of a Fricsay-Abbado ‘light’, almost free-floating variety, worlds away from Klemperer, Böhm, or Davis, let alone Furtwängler. Harmony, then, might have been given more of its due. Some of the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House’s woodwind playing was truly ravishing; I recall a particularly fruity bassoon line, but there were many other instances. If there were a few disjunctures between pit and stage, there was little that was grievous, and little, moreover, that seemed unlikely to be rectified in the progress of this run of performances.

Toby Spence proved an ardent Tamino, a little darker-hued than we often hear, and certainly none the worse for that. This was the first time I had heard his Pamina, Jania Brugger, but I very much hope that it will not be the last. Her performance balanced dignity and beauty of tone in properly Mozartian manner, her second-act aria an object lesson in pathos without exaggeration. ‘Bei Männern’ was an especial delight, given the participation of Markus Werba as Papageno. I do not think I have ever heard a less than excellent performance from him, and this was no exception. His Viennese way with the dialogue came as balm to the ears; but there was sadness too, as there must be beneath any clowning. Rhian Lois made the most of her role as his intended: an impressive Royal Opera debut. Anna Siminska’s Queen of the Night had the occasional slip, but this is a well-nigh impossible role; there was much nevertheless to admire. Georg Zeppenfeld’s Sarastro presented gravitas leavened by humanity, as did Benjamin Bevan’s Speaker. If the Three Ladies were not always ideally blended, the Three Boys proved delightfully aethereal, Mozart’s tricky chromaticism holding no fears for them. Colin Judson offered character that was more than mere caricature with his Monostatos. (Really, though, there should be a better solution to Sarastro’s line concerning the Moor’s blackness than stopping half-way through, pausing, and resuming later on!)

 

 

La bohème, Royal Opera, 9 July 2014

Royal Opera House

Marcello – Markus Werba

Rodolfo – Charles Castronovo

Colline – Jongmin Park

Schaunard – Daniel Grice

Benoît – Jeremy White

Mimì – Ermonela Jaho

Parpignol – Luke Price

Musetta – Simona Mihai

Alcindoro – Donald Maxwell

Customs Officer – Christopher Lackner

Sergeant – Bryan Secombe

John Copley (director)

Julia Trevelyan Oman (designs)

John Charlton (lighting)

Extra Chorus
Members of Tiffin Children’s Chorus
Royal Opera Chorus (chorus master: Renato Balsadonna)
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Cornelius Meister (conductor)

Perhaps I have made life too difficult for myself; it would not necessarily be the first time. At any rate, since the last time I saw John Copley’s production of La bohème – it had actually been my first, something that certainly was not the case for much of the Royal Opera House’s audience – I have seen on DVD Stefan Herheim’s brilliant staging of the work for the Norwegian National Opera. A typically musical production which transforms one’s understanding of the work, or at least of the possibilities it offers, resolutely avoiding the slightest hint of sentimentality and instead tackling head on difficult realities of life, death, and memory, Herheim’s Bohème is perhaps bound to have many others suffer by comparison. That is not, of course, to say that every production should be like it, or indeed that any production should attempt to imitate it, but that it marks a turning-point in the reception of La bohème, and that as venerable a staging as this, even when revived in lively fashion by the original director, is perhaps more likely than before to have one feel that something is missing. Or at least that it is going to require especially outstanding performances to make it live as once it might have done.

 

The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House offered a predictable trump card, rarely if ever putting a foot – or bow – wrong, playing Puccini’s score with an assuredness that never toppled over into over-familiarity. Cornelius Meister’s conducting of the orchestra receives more of a mixed report. In its favour, there was a great deal of care taken to characterise individual scenes, moods, even lines. This was certainly not a routine reading. However, a longer line often proved elusive, partly because it was not clear how individual sections fitted together. Contrast is good but still more important is underlying unity. An opening scene took almost anti-Romantic jauntiness to excess, whilst declarations of affection – or their approach – often became a spur to indulgence.  Perhaps Meister’s is a conception that will tighten as the run proceeds; there was an undoubted intelligence to be heard. A few shaky moments of ensemble aside, he seemed eminently capable of drawing from the orchestra and his cast what he wanted.

Ermonela Jaho’s Mimì was beautifully, often passionately sung, drawing upon a splendid array of vocal colours, generally – if perhaps not always – with a dramatic point in mind. Alas, her acting abilities lagged behind; there was far too much of the stock gesture, which might have worked better in certain other Puccini operas, but which seemed both over the top and non-specific in this would-be Bohemian milieu. Bar an uncertain top – at one point in the first act, quite alarmingly so – Charles Castronovo showed himself to be an adept Puccini singer and actor. When I have heard him in Mozart, I have thought his style perilously close to Puccini; here, he seemed very much at home. Markus Werba offered a typically intelligent reading of Marcello, attentive to the words in a way that not all of his colleagues were. Simona Mihai’s Musetta was somewhat generalised in scope, not assisted by Copley’s insistence upon comedy in the second act. Jongmin Park’s deep bass Colline was beautifully sung, though it sounded at times a little close to the world of Boris Godunov. Luke Price’s Parpignol struggled a little too much in vocal terms. However, the choral singing was excellent.

 

Back, then, to staging, in conclusion. Copley’s production, perhaps above all Julia Trevelyan Oman evocative period designs, has done sterling service. However, I could not help but wonder whether the endless ‘activity’, especially during the second act, spoke a little too much of trying to breathe new life into something that has already had a very good innings. It has endured and delighted far longer than any production could possibly expect to do so. But now, as the Royal Opera has apparently realised, its era is drawing to a close. It will be back next year, but then, at last, there will be a new staging. What a pity, though, that, if only for a season in between, we could not have had Herheim’s probing, transformative drama brought to London. Maybe a thought for ENO…?