Salzburg Festival (2) - Il re pastore (concert performance), 19 August 2023

Grosser Saal, Mozarteum

Alessandro – Daniel Behle
Aminta - Emőke Baráth
Elisa – Nikola Hillebrand
Tamiri – Julie Roset
Agenore – David Fischer

Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra
Ádám Fischer (conductor)

Images: SF/Marco Borrelli

It is not every day I get to hear a Mozart opera live for the first time. That in itself would be enough to welcome the Salzburg Festival’s concert performances of Il re pastore, part of its venerable Mozart-Matinee series. But this proved an outstanding performance, which would still greatly have impressed, were Mozart’s Salzburg serenata the repertoire work it should be. Quite why Mozart’s ‘early’ operas, with the arguable exception of La finta giardiniera, are so neglected is beyond me, but then so is an operatic world in which Donizetti is wildly more popular than Dallapiccola. The important thing is how many ears will have been opened by this performance, conducted with theatrical flair and palpable belief in every bar by Ádám Fischer. 

Leading a small yet, in the acoustic, warm and expansive Mozarteum Orchestra (strings 6.6.5.4.3), Fischer unsurprisingly drove harder at times, for instance during the Overture, than Leopold Hager in his classic Philips recording with the same band from what is now half a century ago, but there was always good and discernible reason for his choices, with none of the arbitrary distortion so favoured by a good number of post-Harnoncourt conductors. Such was the sense of a greater whole, style and ideas as one, I could even for once enjoy the rasping of natural brass. The Overture’s twin characters, presaging those of the drama – regal and pastoral – were presented with beguiling brilliance. Trumpets, drums, and key associations rang as true for Alessandro (Alexander the Great) as for the House of Habsburg, the occasion of Mozart’s Metastasio setting being the visit of Archduke Maximilian Francis to Salzburg. Truth, integrity, love, and other qualities and emotions resonated and moved one similarly. Tempi were nicely varied, seemingly suited to the needs of character and singer, and yet always making made sense in terms of the work as a whole.

A cast as fresh as it was faultless, its movement directed by recitative-pruner Birgit Kajtna, was of course central to this success. Emőke Baráth took on the (original) castrato role of Aminta, the shepherd called to be king. Baráth’s chalumeau-like voice was just the ticket, as was her splendidly natural way with sung words. As early as the first two arias, fine complement and contrast were set up with Aminta’s lover, the nymph Elisa. Nikola Hillebrand’s coloratura in that second aria, ‘Alla selva, al prato, al fonte’, was as great and dramatically meaningful a delight as the Mozarteum woodwind’s interjections. As the two grew in stature, even at the end of the first act encompassing grander orchestral recitative, they never forgot their origins, again key to the dramatic trajectory as well as to the Mozartian enchantment. Aminta’s reluctance to accede to the throne, thanking the gods yet admitting the price (loss of his beloved) was too high, proved moving indeed.

Clad in properly imperial coat, Alessandro joined us with the nobleman Agenore first from the balcony above. In the former role, Daniel Behle exhibited similarly impressive control and dramatic command of the often extremely demanding coloratura. (Mozart took no prisoners at this stage of his career.) David Fischer searingly conveyed the sincerity of his love for the dispossessed princess Tamiri, now destined for Aminta as king rather than him, and, in his second-act aria ‘Sol può dir come si trova,’ the utter desperation of his plight. Julie Roset’s silvery soprano deepened throughout the performance: another well-judged and well-executed trajectory. The final ‘chorus’ of resolution brought home the closeness, especially for Mozart, of symphonic and operatic finale, in form, function, and character. House lights came on as stars shone in the firmament and love smiled more sweetly than ever. Here were all the glories of one of the Mozart’s Salzburg’s liturgical music and not a little of its implicit theology too.

Salzburg Festival (6) – Mozart, Die Zauberflöte, 27 August 2022

Grosses Festspielhaus

Images: SF / Sandra Then

 
Sarastro – Tareq Nazmi
Tamino – David Fischer, Mauro Peter
Queen of the Night – Brenda Rae
Pamina – Regula Mühlemann
Three Ladies – Ilse Eerens, Sophie Rennert, Noa Beinart
Papageno – Michael Nagl
Papagena – Maria Nazarova
Monostatos – Peter Tantsits
Speaker, First Priest, Second Armoured Man – Henning von Schulman
Second Priest, First Armoured Man – Simon Bode
Grandfather – Roland Koch
Three Boys – Stanislas Koromyslov, Yvo Otelli, Raphael Andreas Chiang
Old Papagena/Cook – Stefan Vitu
Third Priest – Valérie Junker

Lydia Steier (director)
Katharina Schlipf (set designs)
Ursula Kudrna (costumes)
Olaf Freese (lighting)
Momme Hinrichs (video)
Ina Karr, Maurice Lenhard (dramaturgy)

Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera (chorus director: Jörn Hinnerk Andresen)

Angelika-Prokopp-Summer Academy of the Vienna Philharmonic (stage music)

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

Joana Mallwitz (conductor)

When Lydia Steier first presented her Salzburg Magic Flute in 2018, the world was, as they say, a very different place. The trials of the intervening years have left their mark on this wholesale revision. So, I think, has more general experience. Perhaps it is also a matter of my being more receptive; it is always difficult to know about oneself. (These are all, by the way, surely themes of the opera, as well as of this production and its way into the world.) At any rate, where I was far from convinced by its earlier, circus incarnation—not on principle, Achim Freyer’s enchanting, classic production remaining one of my favourites—I found myself intrigued and involved by many aspects of this Neueinstudierung.

It takes place in an upper-class household shortly before the outbreak of the Great War. Parallels, sadly, speak all too well for themselves here. Following an argument over dinner—staged as an overture pantomime—the three boys are sent to their room, and their grandfather reads them a story, his narration largely though not entirely replacing Schikaneder’s dialogue. (It is a pity, but Steier in the programme makes a good case that, given the realities of theatre and rehearsal, even at a Festival such as this, despatch of the dialogue by an international cast will often leave a good deal to be desired.) A fairytale unfolds, in words (by Steier and dramaturge Ina Karr, paying homage to venerable collections such as those of the Brothers Grimm), the imagination of grandfather and boys alike, and thus also in gesture and music. Members of the household—family, servants, and visitors—furnish the cast of the Singspiel. Tragedy from the grandfather’s past informs the action, when, in a magical feat fully worthy of the opera, his late wife, who took her own life, steps out of the painting on the wall. Will Tamino and Pamina fare better? Perhaps that hope, that intent, informs the story the captivating Roland Koch continues to tell.

Steier captures well many of the work's ambiguities, rightly saying (in a programme interview) that ‘there is no black or white in this opera, only grey’. Or rather a multitude of colours, but perhaps that amounts to the same thing ethically. In the second act, it becomes clear that a male-dominated society, Sarastro’s, will lead the boys—and the world—to war. There is a degree of excitement to that for the boys, of course, but we, quite rightly, fear. The sermonising of Sarastro and his order should not be taken at face value. Perhaps ‘wisdom’ is not always what it seems, and Papageno (the butcher’s boy) might have a better idea. Pamina’s boldness, quite different from that of the mute, veiled women we see elsewhere, permits her entry. But perhaps there was no right path after all; that will most likely be a story for another day.

Joana Mallwitz’s conducting was to my ears considerably more successful than that of her 1998 predecessor (Constantinos Carydis). It is fresh, almost modest, certainly worlds away from a Klemperer or a Böhm (or a Colin Davis, for that matter). But the production teaches us to beware male authority figures. In any case, this is clearly how Mallwitz hears the music; she and the Vienna Philharmonic communicate well its inner life, its sheer variety and, ultimately, many aspects of its miraculous unity.

Tareq Nazmi’s Sarastro was in something of a similar vein: less stolid than sometimes one hears, though with enough pomposity to fit role and production. Brenda Rae’s Queen of the Night startled in offering much more than mere set pieces; within the confines of the role, she hinted at greater humanity, more of a back story, and she acted as well as sang. An indisposed Mauro Peter’s last replacement, David Fischer—Peter continuing to act the role onstage—impressed greatly as Tamino. He would have done regardless of the circumstances. Ardent, sweet-toned, and well able to shape a clean yet infinitely touching line, Fischer offered Mozart singing of the first rank. Regula Mühlemann’s Pamina, possessed of clear inner resolve, likewise touched the heart-strings, not least in a well-judged ‘Ach, ich fühl’s, which resisted the unaccountable fashion of taking it as fast as possible. Michael Nagl’s lively Papageno chose to look on the brighter side of life, but hinted, sometimes more than that, at a broader emotional hinterland too. The chorus, unseen (Covid-safe, perhaps), impressed throughout.

Special mention, though, should go to the three members of the Vienna Boys’ Choir, Stanislas Koromyslov, Yvo Otelli, and Raphael Andreas Chiang: on stage pretty much the whole time, now with important speaking and acting roles, in addition to their singing, all of which was accomplished with convincing, indeed outstanding results. Maybe there is, after all, hope for a European future, whether in musical terms or beyond.