Röschmann/VSO/Hahn - Schoenberg and Zemlinsky, 5 June 2024

Musikverein

Schoenberg: Erwartung, op.17
Zemlinsky: Die Seejungfrau

Dorothea Röschmann (soprano)

Vienna Symphony Orchestra

Patrick Hahn (conductor)

What is Schoenberg’s single greatest work? It is a silly question, at least as silly as asking the same of Mahler, of Webern, or of Boulez. Sometimes we ask ourselves silly questions, though; I suspect that Erwartung would come pretty close to the top of any aggregate list for Schoenbergians. Written over an extraordinarily short period of time – Schoenberg was often, though not always, like that – the monodrama comes from his Wunderjahr of 1909. However, it had to wait until 1924 for its first performance, in Prague on 6 June, conducted by the composer’s great friend, advocate, and brother-in-law (I think we can still count him as such, though Mathilde Schönberg had died the previous year) Alexander von Zemlinsky. This Musikverein performance, by Dorothea Röschmann, the Vienna Symphony, and Patrick Hahn, must surely therefore have been the last of its first century-in-performance, coming as it did on 5 June 2024. Aptly enough for so prophetic yet historically rooted a work, its successor the following evening would inaugurate a new performing century.

This, at any rate, made for a glorious finale that could also look forward, surely the equal of any performance I have heard and the superior of many, whether live or on record. In his 150^th year, Schoenberg’s place as the single most important – not necessarily ‘greatest’, whatever that may mean, though certainly a serious contender for that too – composer of the twentieth century is assured. It always was; that, however, has still not translated into broader acceptance from a frankly doltish public. (That his rejection is often, even usually, laced with antisemitism, unconscious as much as conscious, makes it worse; but let us leave that aside for now.) 

First and far from least, it was beautifully sung by Röschmann: beauty, song, and beauty of singing all being involved there. It was astonishingly accurate too, and not only in the vocal part, though one could have taken dictation from it had, somehow, one not been swept away by the experience. Hahn’s expert balancing of the lines – always a tricky, in another sense unsung, business in the music of the Second Viennese School – was such that one almost did not realise he was doing it. That was also, naturally, the accomplishment of the golden-toned VSO, here moreover sounding every bit as ‘Viennese’ as their Philharmonic cousins (to whom I am sure they are rightly fed up of being compared). Structure, moreover, was as at least clear as I can recall, Schoenberg’s scenic division of the work, the fourth and final scene far longer than the others, uncommonly apparent and dramatically meaningful, without making the performance seem anything but a convincing whole. Climaxes were, well, as climactic as one could hope, and then some; yet always something was shifting, conclusion or, as we might now say, ‘closure’, never on the horizon. 

Music arose from drama, and vice versa. Schoenberg never points in merely one direction; nor did he here. The whirlwind third scene in particular seemed but a stone’s throw, if that, from the later Schoenberg of, say, the almost-never-performed op.22 Four Orchestral Songs, yet there was always much of earlier writing too: for instance, the op.8 Six Orchestral Songs and, indeed, Gurrelieder. As we entered the final scene, Röschmann edged closer at times to Sprechgesang, yet only at times. Later, the opera – for let us never forget it is one – we seemed to come close to Wozzeck’s Marie, at least in the voice, for the orchestral writing rightly sounded very different. The chill of the strings following ‘Ich will das nicht … nein, ich will nicht …’ offered aftershock that was terrible, even terrifying, indeed, initiating certain intimations, so it seemed, of Pierrot lunaire. There was great tenderness too; how could one not sympathise with this protagonist? One truly felt, moreover, the transformation of the ‘Dämmerung’ to which she referred toward the end, in a musical breeze that testified to Schoenberg’s mastery of orchestration as well as masterly orchestral playing. And the musical upward spiral with which the score came to a close, if not closure, was just the thing: tantalisingly brief, yet saying all that could be said or played. 

What, then, is Zemlinsky’s single greatest work? I am not sure it is quite so silly a question; the Lyric Symphony would probably have no serious rival in any survey, though it might still beg the question, ‘why are you asking?’ One possible answer might be to help understand why other works by the composer have never quite lived up to its renown, though the operas again seem to be experiencing some of a revival. The symphonic poem – his only one – Die Seejungfrau is also faring better now, though its chequered genesis will probably always count against it. Zemlinsky withdrew the score after only three performances, and suppressed it. The unpublished score was divided, the first movement given to Zemlinsky’s friend Marie Pappenheim, also Schoenberg’s librettist for Erwartung. Zemlinsky retained the second and third movements, taking them with him when leaving Europe for the United States in 1938. Only in the early 1980s did scholars come to realise that the three movements belonged together. Die Seejungfrau was finally published, receiving its first ‘modern’ performance, conducted by one of those scholars, Peter Gülke, only in 1984. It may not be a masterpiece – it can, to be brutally honest, be a little repetitive at times and would, unsurprisingly, have benefited from revision – but it is still very well worth hearing, especially in a performance such as this.

Zemlinsky’s method of motivic transformation came very much to the fore, Hahn showing himself as accomplished a Zemlinskian as a Schoenbergian, building tension here, especially in the first movement, as expertly as he had in Erwartung. In some respects, the work came to resemble a wordless, voiceless opera. Its sepulchral (subaquatic) opening here had something in common with Strauss, without ever reducing itself to imitation or ‘likeness’; any similarities, throughout the score, were just that, no more. Perhaps the closest kinship – this has struck me before – was with Mahler’s Das klagende Lied. Maybe there is some influence there – its first performance came in 1901 – but it was actually the first, long unperformed part of Mahler’s score that more often came to mind, so let us banish any thought of derivation and celebrate commonality. Pacing and balance were equally impressive here, and how the orchestra shimmered, glowed, and glistened, as if the waters were first awaiting and then celebrating the arrival of the mermaid and her subjectivity. Opposing and complementary material were deftly shaped, again with a keen ear for drama, in the second movement. The twin return to darkness and progress to something approaching transfiguration of the third both offered an intriguing echo of Tannhäuser and built to a grand climax and further shadows of its own. For both Schoenberg and Zemlinsky, it was not a case of either/or.

Le nozze di Figaro, Royal Opera, 8 July 2023

Royal Opera House

Figaro – Mattia Olivieri
Susanna – Siobhan Stagg
Bartolo – Maurizio Muraro
Marcellina – Dorothea Röschmann
Cherubino – Anna Stéphany
Count Almaviva – Stéphane Degout
Don Basilio – Krystian Adam
Countess Almaviva – Hrachuhí Bassénz
Antonio – Jeremy White
Don Curzio – Peter Bronder
Barbarina – Sarah Dufresne
Two Bridesmaids – Helen Withers, Miranda Westcott

David McVicar (director)
Tanya McCallin (designs)
Paule Constable (lighting)
Leah Hausman (movement)

Royal Opera Chorus (chorus director: William Spaulding)

Orchestra of the Royal Opera House

Joana Mallwitz (conductor)

Images: Clive Barda
Cherubino (Anna Stéphany), Figaro (Mattia Olivieri), Susanna (Siobhan Stagg)

‘Figaro is the opera that a critic sees most often, and it is right that it should be.’ An opera critic I greatly admire wrote those words concerning a relatively early outing for this production in 2008. Michael Tanner proceeded to commend Charles Mackerras’s conducting of that revival of David McVicar’s staging, first seen in the Mozart Year of 2006, comparing it favourably even to that of his fellow knight of the realm, (Sir) Colin Davis. He even found that what had previously irritated him in McVicar’s staging, bar the intrusive ‘action’ that drowned out the Overture, did no longer, seemingly preferring Leah Hausman’s revival direction to the original. Seeing and hearing the same thing, I was notably cooler, in some ways downright hostile, though we certainly agreed on the distinction of the cast. I am not sure I should have expected still to be seeing the same production fifteen years later, but here we are. And though I am not certain, I think I may have seen Figaro more often than any other opera. Surely only Don Giovanni or perhaps The Magic Flute would rival its frequency, though I am well aware how often Covent Garden presents La traviata for those less impervious to its charms than I.

Marcellina (Dorothea Röschmann

I cannot claim to like McVicar’s staging any more than I did, and with the best will in the world, it looks tired and – partly a function of its mysterious updating to the nineteenth century – heavy, for all its playing-to-the-gallery silliness and strangely inconsequential Upstairs, Downstairs busyness from an additional troupe of actors. There could doubtless be a host of reasons to shift the action to what seems from the costumes to be at least the 1830s, but none comes through here, other than a liking for its fashions. That a class-based society, as that increasingly was, needs to be distinguished from one still largely founded on social orders seems not to have occurred to the director. If we want 1780s-themed anachronism, we can turn to Der Rosenkavalier. There seems, though, to be no message here, no justification for its move from where it ‘should’ be. A large part audience, though, seems enamoured of both the designs and the additional activity; there is little accounting for taste, it seems, let alone for judgement. 

That Mozart’s music is phenomenally difficult to conduct, or more generally to perform, ought to go without saying, though it seems to bear repeating. I never cared for Mackerras’s Mozart, though many did, and I admired him greatly in a good deal of other repertoire. Having heard Sir Colin in this music spoils one forever, though it also offers the instructive that one does not need to ‘do’ much. (See also Bernard Haitink.) There was doubtless a great amount of accumulated wisdom behind that ability to do little, as there was on the numerous occasions I saw Daniel Barenboim cease conducting his orchestras altogether, trusting in them and they in him. Joana Mallwitz did not get in the way and set largely sensible tempi: that already distinguishes her from far too many conductors, some of them ‘period’-inclined, some not. There was little of the former to her performance, at least overtly; her performance had, in the best sense, something of the Kapellmeisterin to it. That is to say, it was not about her; she was supportive, reasonable, and largely drew good playing from the orchestra. If there were a few disjunctures between pit and stage, that often happens, especially on an opening night, and she dealt with them with minimum fuss. Why the fortepiano rather than the harpsichord – it is certainly not historically 'correct' – I do not know, but the affectation is now commonplace.

I cannot get used to the ‘Moberly-Raeburn’ reordering of the third act, which places the sextet before ‘Dove sono’, nor do I find arguments for it remotely convincing, but I think it has generally been adopted in this production; it was unlikely, at any rate, to have been solely Mallwitz’s idea. (If I remember correctly, Davis and Mackerras used it too.) Likewise the ‘traditional’ excision of two arias in the fourth act, said to ‘hold up the action’, but in reality (and good performance) doing nothing of the kind.

The production has had its fair share, perhaps more than that, of excellent casts. Those who have attended a few times over the years will have our favourites. Comparison would be odious and, more to the point, unrevealing. It speaks well of the Royal Opera that it granted role debuts to two fine singers as Figaro and Susanna: Mattia Olivieri and Siobhan Stagg. I am reluctant to speak of the advantages of having ‘native’ Italian speakers in the cast; the last thing this international art form needs is any form of nativism. But Olivieri’s ‘natural’, readily communicative way with the language seemed to act as an energising presence to all around him, as well as to enable him to present a myriad of different ways of singing: from parlando to ardent lyricism. He has a splendid stage presence too, balancing the necessarily cocksure with hints, and sometimes more than that, of something more wounded and vulnerable. That he looks good in livery certainly does no harm either. Stagg sounded just ‘right’ in her role, at least for me. ‘Soubrette’ can sound dismissive; I certainly do not intend it that way, when I say that it formed the basis of her approach, tonally and otherwise, permitting growth in stature as she revealed more of the character to her. It is, we should always remind ourselves, a lengthy and difficult role; Stagg navigated its challenge with winning ease. 

Susanna

Stéphane Degout is more of a known quantity on London stages. He offered a duly commanding Count Almaviva, complemented and put properly to shame by Hrachuhí Bassénz’s Countess, whose ‘Dove sono’, audience disturbance notwithstanding, brought tears to the eyes. So did their final moment, beseeching and granting forgiveness. Anna Stéphany’s was a classic Cherubino: very much what would one expect, and certainly none the worse for that. It does not seem so long ago that I saw Dorothea Röschmann on this stage as Pamina for McVicar (and Davis). Now she is Marcellina, and what a wonderful job she made of it, a more fully drawn portrait than I can recall: a woman in her prime, no mere has-been, with feelings of her own that demand to be heard. Krystian Adam’s sharply observed Don Basilio marked him out as one to watch, as did Sarah Dufresne’s Barbarina. 

Figaro

Opera is, of course, theatre, and that, for better or worse, entails theatre audiences. Sadly, last night’s offered behaviour that seriously detracted from the ability to appreciate, even to hear, what was going on. The uproarious laughter – do they really find these things quite so funny? – was one thing, at least until the unforgivable (ironically) disturbance following ‘Contessa perdono’. Anyone listening to Mozart, or indeed simply to Degout’s Count, would have known there is nothing remotely amusing to this infinitely touching moment. But if one could, by and large, deal with that, what of applause within numbers, ‘Dove sono’ included, widespread use of mobile telephones, and the stench of goodness knows what foodstuff somewhere in the Balcony? There is no real ‘etiquette’ to this, merely an imperative to show consideration for others; or at least there should be. A great pity.

And with that, with the opera I may have seen more often than any other, it is time to say au revoir to London stages and halls. I shall be spending the next academic year on research leave in Berlin and hope to be writing regularly of the musical riches on offer there. There is nothing about poor audience behaviour that is exclusive to London or the United Kingdom; I have experienced as bad in Berlin, Paris, Vienna, and elsewhere. But without, I hope, being unduly pious, perhaps we might all try a little harder to refrain from impinging upon the appreciation of others in the audience. Anyone can fall victim to a fit of coughing, but (almost) no one need chatter, look at telephones, and the rest. Theatres and concert halls are places of precious experience not to be readily be recreated elsewhere. Without undue gatekeeping, let us try to keep them that way. They and we, in all our fallen humanity, are worth it.

‘A New Divan’: WEDO/Barenboim and friends – Schumann, Wolf, Mendelssohn, Palomar, and Brahms, 20 November 2019

Pierre Boulez Saal

Schumann: Myrthen, op.25: ‘Talismane’, ‘Lied der Suleika’

Wolf: Erschaffung und Beleben, Phänomen
Mendelssohn: Suleika, op.34 no.4
Wolf: Hochgeglückt in deiner Liebe
Guillem Palomar: Im Ocean der Sterne (world premiere)
Brahms: String Sextet in B-flat major, op.18

Dorothea Röschmann (soprano)

Waltraud Meier (mezzo-soprano)

Michael Volle (baritone)

Members of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra

Daniel Barenboim (piano)

Ben Goldscheider (horn)

Michael Barenboim, Mohamed Biber (violins)
Miriam Manasherov, Sindy Mohamed (violas)
Astrig Siranossian, Assif Binness (cellos)

Two hundred years since Goethe published his West-Eastern Divan and twenty years since Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said, among others, founded the orchestra that bears its name, we heard in this concert a celebration that, rightly, looked forward as well as back, the culmination of three days of events at the Barenboim-Said Akademie and Pierre Boulez Saal. It did not disappoint; indeed, it inspired hopes for the future of these projects, an anthological ‘New Divan’ from twenty-four poets included, that they should be anything but a creative culmination. To quote from Homero Aridjis’s poem for that collection, itself quoted in Mena Mark Hanna’s valuable welcome note in the programme booklet: ‘And life is re-created every day.’  

First, rightly, we looked to the past and present: to Goethe and his scandalously uncredited (by him, that is) co-author, Marianne von Willemer; also to Barenboim, a prince among Lieder-pianists, with three regular musical collaborators: Waltraud Meier, Michael Volle, and Dorothea Röschmann. Meier and Barenboim opened with two Schumann songs, one a setting of Goethe, the other of Willemer, both part of the Myrthen collection written as a wedding gift for Clara Wieck. Meier was declamatory yet variegated in ‘Talismane’, the ‘Lied der Suleika’ a confiding complement, just as communicative. Barenboim’s structural understanding proved just as enlightening as in any work for solo piano, likewise in all songs to come. Volle’s pair of songs were declamatory in different ways, his way with words—their sound, their meaning, their possibilities—a veritable master-class. The metaphysical intimacy of Wolf’s Phänomen was just the foil for the celebratory Erschaffen und Beleben. A different compositional as well as performative voice announced itself in Mendelssohn’s Suleika from Röschmann (Willemer again, of course). Line and sentiment were beautifully judged, neither performer remotely condescending to Mendelssohn, who rightly emerged as a full-blooded Romantic. A supremely vivid Wolf Hochbeglückt in deiner Liebe provided, in the best senses, a breathless conclusion to this section, Barenboim’s Lisztian exploits a reminder that his days as pianist may just be beginning.

We moved then to the evening’s premiere, Guillem Palomar’s Divan-setting, Im Ocean der Sterne. This was the first time I had heard music by Palomar, who studies at the Akademie with Jörg Widmann; I am sure it will not be the last. This was not only a strikingly accomplished song-cum-scena—why choose?—but an involving, affecting, and, much in the spirit of the evening as a whole, enquiring one too. Solo voice first—and in Volle, what a voice!—for the opening stanza: ‘Wo hast du das genommen? Wie konnt’ es zu dir kommen? Wie aus dem Lebensplunder erwarbst du diesen Zuner? Der Funken letzte Gluten von frischen zu ermuten?’ If one wanted a nutshell example of the difference between Goethe’s humanism and that of Schiller, familiar to musicians from, yes, that ode, one could do worse than start here. The music works up to the first line: first ‘wo, wo…’, and so on, and then up to the whole stanza, working with letter sounds as well as words, neither obscurely nor even enigmatically, but with a meaningful sense of joy in exploration. On ‘ermuten’ the instruments enter: first cello and horn, then piano. Performances from Ben Goldscheider, Astrig Siranossian, and Barenboim—mostly playing as a chamber musician, but just occasionally signalling an entry as primus inter pares—were not only excellent and tonally alluring, but spoke of understanding and the fondest of advocacy. Palomar’s setting showed as keen an ear for harmony as melody and word-setting, a surprising, post-Schoenbergian sense of tonality suspended rather than necessarily vanquished painting, even floating in an ocean of stars: captivating and enveloping in its instrumental as well as verbal drama. This was music, aptly enough, that seemed both to speak from a German tradition, not necessarily reducible to that, yet to look outward from that. Voice, piano, horn, and cello might not be the most usual of combinations, yet it sounded—however great the illusion—as the most ‘natural’ thing in the world. The closing horizon of illusory seas (‘Der Streif erlogner Meere’) edged us forward, so it seemed, even if we did not know to what. As Nietzsche put it: ‘We philosophers and “free spirits” feel, when we hear the news that “the old god is dead,” as if a new dawn shone upon us; … At long last the horizon appears free to us again, even if it should not be bright; at long last our ships may venture out again, venture out to face any danger; all the daring of the lover of knowledge is permitted again; the sea, our sea, lies open again; perhaps there has never yet been such an “open sea”.’

Following the interval, we were offered the opportunity to sail once again in that sea, with a repeat performance: a lovely idea, which certainly furthered our acquaintance. Soloists all then took their seats in the audience, evincing the collegiality at the heart of this enterprise, for the final work on the programme. Something old, something new: what could fit that bill better than Brahms, in this case his B-flat major String Sextet, op.18? Six members of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra demonstrated why chamber music should stand at the heart of any larger ensemble’s life and work. The Sextet’s movements proved varied yet coherent as a whole, the first flowing in Schubertian fashion, themes connected and characterised, structure ably yet undemonstratively delineated. The Hauptstimme, if one may call it that with hindsight, was especially noteworthy for its threading through different instrumental voices, Schoenberg meeting Schubert—which, after all, is not a bad approximation at all for Brahms. The recapitulation was a case in point: very much a second development, yet with no need to prove itself as such.

In the second movement, we heard a richer tone, something more defiant, fiercely compelling. Here were six Romantic voices coming together in the service of a greater whole, ethical implications abundantly clear for those who cared to consider them. Arresting sharing of lines alla Webern both harked back to the first movement and ventured forth to the unknown—in whichever way one cared to conceive of that. A good humoured scherzo wore neither its simplicity nor its complexity too light or heavy, even in the trio, which emerged as an heir to the simultaneous dances of Don Giovanni. For the grace of the finale, ‘Poco allegretto e grazioso’ after all, seemed to nod as much to Mozart as to Schubert, yet with an equally unmistakeable sense that those days were past. There were sterner, more passionate moments too, of course, all unfolding as it ‘should’ in a musical cosmos that encapsulated and unified the many strands not only of the evening’s concert but of the Divan project as a whole. Long may its voyage continue.

Röschmann/Martineau - Schumann, Wolf, and Brahms, 10 September 2018

Wigmore Hall

Schumann: Gedichte der Königin Maria Stuart, op.135

Wolf: Mörike-Lieder: ‘An eine Äolsharfe’, ‘Das verlassene Mägdlein’, ‘Erstes Liebeslied eines Mädchens’, ‘Begegnung’, ‘Denk es, o Seele!’, ‘Auf ein altes Bild’, ‘Verborgenheit’

Brahms: Alte Liebe, op.72 no.1, Auf dem Kirchhofe, op.105 no.4, Der Tod, das ist die kühle Nacht, op.96 no.1, Unbewegte laue Luft, op.57 no.8, Liebestreu, op.3 no.1, Meine Liebe ist grün, op.63 no.5, Wir wandelten, op.96 no.2, Nachtigall, op.97 no.1, Von ewiger Liebe, op.43 no.1

Dorothea Röschmann (soprano)

Malcolm Martineau (piano)

One should not judge a performance by its audience, but spying Mitsuko Uchida in the audience is unlikely ever to prove a negative sign. It certainly did not here, in a wonderfully involving recital of songs by Schumannn, Wolf, and Brahms from Dorothea Röschmann and Malcolm Martineau. The patent sincerity of Röschmann’s singing – not to imply anything other than sincerity about Martineau’s! – was evident from the very first of the late Gedichte der Königin Maria Stuart, ‘Abschied von Frankreich’. Its deceptive simplicity was not exactly mirrored but perhaps paralleled in the figures almost, yet never quite, remembered from the piano music in Martineau’s part. These are not quite fragments, late though they may be; nor are they anything like so disturbing as the Gesänge der Frühe, op.133, for piano solo, which I find almost impossible to listen to. There is certainly something suggestive of the fragment too them, though, not least as a reaction to a bare-bones simplicity (sometimes) that itself proves suggestive of a (mis)remembered Bach as chorale writer. Certainly the tension evoked between ritual and expression in ‘Nach der Geburt ihres Sohnes’ brought Schumann’s Leipzig predecessor to mind, as did the rock-solid, continiuo-like piano part to the closing ‘Gebet’. If that were the church as rock of St Peter, Röschmann suggested a more emotional disciple: imploring, trustful, and in the last place visibly, audibly moved, just as she had been in the preceding ‘Abschied von der Welt’. Wagner, the only one of these three to have been born in Leipzig, came to mind not only in the vocal line, but also in the arioso-like piano writing – at least in this performance – of ‘An die Königin Elisabeth’, the colour of Röschmann’s lower range both lacerating and comforting; ‘Doch des Schicksals Walten zerriesst das Segel oft, dem wir vertraut.’

An expansive, almost Straussian vocal account of ‘An eine Äolsharfe’ opened the selection from Wolf’s Mörike-Lieder. Repetitions of the words ‘wie süss’ were operatic in the best sense, at least so far as Lieder-singing is concerned: alert to a drama that needed no stage. Ghosts of Schubert and Wagner – composers far too little considered together – haunted ‘Das verlassene Mägdlein’; indeed, Schoenberg, in one of his many synthetic not-quite-reconciliations came to mind too. Intervals proved properly generative, Webern within an aural stone’s throw. Relief and instability characterised ‘Erstes Liebeslied eines Mädchens’. Each song was unquestionably considered on its own terms, yet formed part of a programme too: following on, contrasting, questioning. And so, when the opening of ‘Denk es, o Seele!’ seemed reminiscent of ‘Das verlassene Mägdlein’, it was equally important for it to proceed as it did, very much in its own way, albeit mediated by the experience so far. ‘Verborgenheit’ offered a dark, almost operatic climax to the set that yet offered something of necessary or at least anticipated reconciliation: again not entirely unlike Schoenberg.

The second half was given to Brahms. Alte Liebe’s simplicity was apparent – until one listened to the piano harmony: never exaggerated, yet ever so telling. A noticeably later (1888 to 1876) Auf dem Kirchhofe suggested that special vehemence one often hears in the late piano pieces, its Bach allusion poignant on many levels; we were reminded once again just how much the entire German musical tradition owes to the Lutheran chorale. Röschmann’s evocation of life surging through the veins as the moment of transformation in Unbewegte laue Luft suggested, not inappropriately, the ‘namenlose Freude’ of Fidelio, whilst the early Liebestreu (1853) sounded intriguingly close to a recollection of Senta’s Ballad that yet ended in soft-spoken (sung) tragedy. Meine Liebe ist grün and Wir wandelten both did – and expanded upon – what their titles and poems suggested, both seemingly preparing for the moments of frozen time experienced in Nachtigall. A final Von ewiger Liebe seemed to want to return to the earlier world of Schumann, yet could not, exploring instead its own, beautifully judged melancholic passion: echt-Brahms. And yet, was that just a hint of proto-Mahlerian irony? Or was that just me? We were left to wonder – and indeed to desire more, which we received in two finely contrasted encores: Schumann’s Die Lotosblume, in which a similar tension between the ironic (Heine) and the sincere (Schumann) was to be heard, and reconciliatory Liszt, in the guise of Es muss ein Wunderbares sein.

Le nozze di Figaro, Staatsoper Berlin, 25 April 2017

Schillertheater

Count Almaviva – Ildebrando d’Arcangelo

Countess Almaviva – Dorothea Röschmann
Susanna – Anna Prohaska
Figaro – Lauri Vasar
Cherubino – Marianne Crebassa
Marcellina – Katharina Kammerloher
Basilio – Florian Hoffmann
Don Curzio – Peter Maus
Bartolo – Otto Katzameier
Antonio – Olaf Bär
Barbarina – Sónia Grané)

Jürgen Flimm (director)

Gudrun Hartmann (assistant director)
Magdalena Gut (set designs)
Ursula Kudrna (costumes)
Olaf Freese (lighting)

Staatsopernchor Berlin (chorus master: Frank Flade)

Staatskapelle Berlin (conductor)

Pablo Heras-Casado (conductor)

Countess (Dorothea Röschmann) and Count
(Ildebrando d'Arcangelo)
Images: Hermann und Clärchen Baus

 

‘Figaro is by far the best work ever devised for the stage; it combines everything that moves the human heart and mind: forlorn hope, pleasantry, satire, profound significance, also much ado about bagatelles and vain amours.’ Thus is Jürgen Flimm quoted – oddly, in English, but not in the German version – on the website of the Berlin State Opera. Leaving aside the silly if pardonably hyperbole – how on earth does one say it is ‘by far’ better than Così fan tutte or Don Giovanni, let alone Hamlet, Tristan, or Agamemnon? – the only printable response I can summon to that would be: ‘you have a funny way of showing it.’ Flimm’s Bayreuth Ring was noteworthy for – well, nothing at all, save for irritating displays of dramatic hyperactivity. His Fidelio for Covent Garden likewise seemed to be about nothing at all: imagine that, for Fidelio, or indeed for the Ring! This, however, is significantly worse. All the ludicrous hyperactivity is there, in order to present a Marriage of Figaro that reduced Mozart and Da Ponte to the level of a silly, vulgar farce: a farce, moreover, that does not work even on its own terms. It used to be the case, not so long ago, that, even if they fell some way short of revelatory, productions of this opera would at least cohere dramatically; now that hope seems at least as forlorn as it would be, perhaps more so than, in a production of Don Giovanni. David McVicar’s Covent Garden ‘prettiness’ looks almost distinguished by comparison; here we languish at the level of Michael Grandage (Glyndebourne) and perhaps even the dread Jean-Louis Martinoty (Vienna).

‘Updating’ is generally an unhelpful time. In many ways, the least interesting thing – although the thing dull people will often become most exercised about – is when and where something is (re-)set. As Schoenberg remarked in a different context: ‘A Chinese poet speaks Chinese, but what is it that he says?’ ‘Updating’ is, perhaps, the mot juste here, however, for as with McVicar, Grandage, and quite a few others, it seems done for the sake of it. The intricacies of Da Ponte’s libretto pose some difficulties for such a change of scenario; yet, by the same token, the droit de seigneur was at best highly exaggerated, at least in theory, for the eighteenth century, even in Andalusia, let alone Beaumarchais’s France. A pre-revolutionary situation elsewhere can work very well, as in Janet Suzman’s Cuban setting for the Royal Academy’s superlative 2015 performances; Martin Lloyd-Evans at the Guildhall (yes, another conservatory, which is where London audiences will find much of their best opera) took more of a risk, which mostly paid off, in looking to the world of modern American politics and its sexual harassment. (I wonder how prescient that would seem now, in the Age of Trump.) Flimm, however, simply moves everything to the 1920s, presenting the characters as holiday-makers (as does Grandage), and then proceeds not to deconstruct the characters and the action, but seriously to misunderstand them and to have them drown in a sludge of silliness.

Pointlessness – can you think of a worse reproach for a staging of Figaro than that? – reigns supreme, and certainly not in a Beckettian way. Even the incessant use of a strip in front of the pit for stage action seems to serve no purpose whatsoever. Mindless seekers after novelty would doubtless praise it as imaginative; perhaps they would also hail breaking the fourth wall as a pioneering development. And yes, we do have that at some points too, not least in some irritating business at the beginning of the third act, when poor Count Almaviva must do both, wandering around behind and in front of the pit, waiting for the continuo player to begin and eventually having to prod him into action. The guffawing was of almost post-interval Glyndebourne proportions. Nowhere indeed is this staging more catastrophically flawed than in its treatment of the Count. I can see that it would be interesting to deconstruct his masculinity. Here, however, he is portrayed – with awe-inspiring professionalism by Ildebrando d’Arcangelo – as a gibbering idiot, who cannot even hold a rifle. He is more a sitcom cross between Frank Spencer of Some Mothers do ’ave ’em and Manuel from Fawlty Towers – would that the dramaturgy had a fraction of that series’ skill and wit – than anything words, music, or just a little thought might suggest. And nothing is done with that bizarre ‘reinterpretation’: the audience simply laughs at him dropping things and injuring himself. He is a coward with trembling hands: yes, we get it. Is that all you have to say about him?

 

In what approaches a parody of reactionaries’ charges against ‘updating’ and ‘modern opera productions’, Barbarina appears all over the place for no apparent reason. In what struck me as a deeply, or shallowly, misogynistic portrayal, she again provokes hysterical mirth from some patrons as she is forced to play the part – presumably because she is not of noble birth – of a ‘common tart’. Quite why Antonio, who also appears far too often, is wearing a black tail coat, when everyone else is in ‘summer wear’ is unclear. Nor is there any evident justification for him and his daughter running around ‘hilariously’ with wheelbarrows full of plants, which they proceed to tip over the stage, whilst the second act proceeds. Having earlier simply walked out of a door and then pushed it across the stage, as opposed to jumping out of a window, Cherubino is nonsensically discovered at the end of that act, ‘bonking’ – as would seem to be the appropriate post-seaside postcard language for the production – yes, you have guessed it, Barbarina, in the wardrobe (whose function is repeatedly confused with a trunk of luggage). The intricate business of the second act is not only coarsened but rendered incoherent, almost to the level of Martinoty in Vienna.

At the end, there is not even a hint of revolution, or revolt, of Figaro as sans-culotte (unless that were, highly obliquely, to be from bizarre penchant for rolling up his trousers throughout the evening, even during his betrothal ceremony). There is no sense that anything has actually taken place. They all just collect their luggage and head home. If that is your idea of this folle journée, then either you or I have completely misunderstood.

Figaro (Lauri Vasar) and Susanna (Anna Prohaska)

 

There seems little point in going on further about what one sees; it is not worth the effort. Matters were not helped by Pablo Heras-Casado’s conducting. It improved as the night went on, yet remained markedly at odds with the rich, noble Klang of the Staatskapelle Berlin, let alone the rich, noble score of Mozart. The Overture was perhaps more harried than I have heard it, and much of the first act suffered from strange, seemingly arbitrary tempo decisions, then pursued quite without flexibility. Too often, the score could not breathe; there was, I suppose, at least a parallel with much of what was, alas, going on onstage.

Redemption came, when permitted, from the cast. I mentioned D’Arcangelo’s professionalism; that goes for them all, without exception. They clearly did what had been asked of them and did it far better than anyone would have any right to expect; moreover, they did it without sacrifice to their vocal and indeed more broadly considered dramatic performances. Insofar as one could dissociate them from the ridiculous stage business – and it is quite a testament to the artistry on show that one generally could – they were, without exception, distinguished indeed. D’Arcangelo’s dark, virile tone told the truth concerning his character. Dorothea Röschmann’s Countess offered Mozart on the very grandest scale, even beyond Jessye Norman. The climax of ‘Dove sono’ was well-nigh Wagnerian, although alas, the audience ruined the end of the aria by applauding for several bars before it had finished. Anna Prohaska’s rich-toned yet quicksilver Susanna, clearly a victim of unwelcome harassment (something very much to think about), did everything one could ask of the character and more. Her Figaro, Lauri Vasar, proved just as adept in this role as he had earlier this month as Amfortas. Both servants’ way with words, music, and dramatic sincerity offered an object lesson. Marianne Crebassa’s Cherubino suffered at least as much as anyone (with the exception of Barbarina, for whose cavatina Sónia Grané showed us, seemingly effortlessly, what it all should have been about) from Flimm’s production, but lacked nothing otherwise. The strange portrayal of Marcellina as glamorous siren – if an attempt to avoid or to address misogyny, it seemed quite unmotivated in practice – did not prevent Katharina Kammerloher from offering much to savour, not least in her fourth act aria (mercifully present). Florian Hoffmann may not have had much to do as Basilio, but subtle pointing of his words nevertheless made an impression. If only they, and the rest of the company, had had something just a little better to work with…

Munich Opera Festival (2) - Don Giovanni, 23 July 2016

Nationaltheater, Munich

Don Giovanni – Erwin Schrott

Commendatore – Ain Anger
Donna Anna – Albina Shagimuratova
Don Ottavio – Pavol Breslik
Donna Elvira – Dorothea Röschmann
Leporello – Alex Esposito
Zerlina – Eri Nakamura
Masetto – Brandon Cedel
Old Man – Ekkehard Bartsch

Stephan Kimmig (director)

Katja Haß (set designs)
Anja Rabes (costumes)
Benjamin Krieg (video)
Reinhard Traub (lighting)
Miron Hakenbeck (dramaturgy)

Chorus of the Bavarian State Opera (chorus master: Stellario Fagone)

Bavarian State Orchestra
James Gaffigan (conductor)

All told, this was probably the best Don Giovanni I have seen and heard. Judging opera performances – perhaps we should not be ‘judging’ at all, but let us leave that on one side – is a difficult task: there are so many variables, at least as many as in a play and a concert combined, but then there is the issue of that ‘combination’ too. At any rate, whilst not every aspect might have been the ‘very best ever’ – how could it be? – all was of a very high standard, and much was truly outstanding. I even began to think that the wretched ‘traditional’ Prague-Vienna composite version might for once be welcome; it was not, yet, given the distinction of the performances, the dramatic loss was less grievous than on almost any other occasion I have experienced.

 

If Daniel Barenboim’s Furtwänglerian reading in Berlin in 2007 remains the best conducted of my life, there was nothing whatsoever to complain about in James Gaffigan’s direction of the score. It was certainly a far more impressive performance than a Vienna Figaro last year, which led me to wonder how much was to be ascribed to other factors, not least the truly dreadful production; perhaps, on the other hand, Don Giovanni is just more Gaffigan’s piece. The depth and variegation of the orchestral sound was second, if not quite to none, than only to Barenboim’s Staatskapelle Berlin. This was far and away the best Mozart playing I have heard in Munich. Even if the alla breve opening to the Overture were not taken as I might have preferred, and certain rather rasping brass concerned me at the opening, I find it difficult to recall anything much to complain about after that; nor do I have any reason to wish to try. Tempi were varied, well thought out, and above all considered in relation to one another. Terror and balm were equal partners: on that night in Munich, we certainly needed them to be.

 

This was, I think, Stephan Kimmig’s first opera staging, first seen in 2009. I shall happily be corrected, but I am not aware of anything since. If so, that is a great pity, for the intelligence of which I have heard tell in his ‘straight’ theatre productions – alas, I have yet to see any of them – is certainly manifest here. There are, above all, two things without which an opera staging cannot survive: a strong sense of theatre and a strong sense of intellectual and dramatic coherence. Equally desirable is, of course, at least something of an ear for music, and coordination between pit, voices, and stage action seemed to me splendidly realised too.

 

A perennial lament of mine concerning Don Giovanni productions concerns refusal or inability to understand it as a thoroughly religious work. Here, there is certainly some sense of sin; its relationship to atheistic heroism is, just as it should be, complex. And the reappearance of the Commendatore and (excellent) chorus at the end, some, including the Stone Guest himself, in clerical garb, reminded us, without pushing the matter, that authority is at least partly religious here. There are other forms of authority too – Don Ottavio’s ever-mysterious reference to the authorities perhaps intrigues us more than it should, or perhaps not – and they are also represented: military berets, business suits, and so forth. A libertine offends far more than the Church; and of course, the Church as an institution has always been many things in addition to Christian (to put it politely).

 

Katja Haß’s set designs powerfully, searchingly evoke the liminality of Da Ponte’s, still more Mozart’s Seville. The drama is not merely historical, although it certainly contains important historical elements. But above all, there is a labyrinth – one I am tempted to think of as looking forward to operas by Berg, even Birtwistle, perhaps even the opera that Boulez never wrote – in which all manner of masquerading may take place. Social slippage and dissolution – above all the chameleon-like abilities of the (anti-)hero – need such possibilities, which are present here, in abundance, in a setting that both respects traditional dramatic unities and renders them properly open to development. A warehouse, containers revolving, opening and closing, changing and remaining the same, provides the frame. Yet we are never quite sure what will be revealed, languages of graffiti transforming, never quite cohering, Leporello’s catalogue – and, more to the point, its implications – foreseen, shadowed, recalled. There is butchery – literally – to be seen in the carcasses from which the Commendatore emerges. There is glitzy – too glitzy – glamour in the show Giovanni puts on to dazzle the peasantfolk; but it does its trick, coloured hair and all.

 

And there is an Old Man, observer and participant, sometimes there, sometimes not. Everyman? The nobleman, had he outstayed his welcome, not accepted the invitation? He is clearly disdained, even humiliated (what a contrast, we are made to think, almost despite ourselves, between his naked body and the raunchy coupling – or more – around him). That is, when he is seen at all: and that is, quite rightly, as much an indictment of the audience as of the characters onstage. Part of what we are told, it seems, is that this is a drama of the young, who have no need of the elderly. Not for nothing, or so I thought, did Alex Esposito’s Leporello exaggerate his caricatured sung response to Giovanni’s elderly women.

 

It is, then, an open staging: suggestive rather than overtly didactic. In a drama overflowing with ideas, that is no bad thing at all. Coherence is, whatever I might have implied above, always relative; the truest of consistency will often if not always come close to the dead hand of the Commendatore. For this was a staging that had me question my initial assumptions: again, something close to a necessity for intelligent theatre. (I assume that the bovine reactions from a few in the stalls were indicative of a desire for anything but.)

 

If religion lies at the heart of the opera, too little acknowledged, perhaps at least a little too little here too, then so does sex. Sorry, ‘Against Modern Opera Productions’, but there you have it; this really is not an opera for you, but then what is? Don Giovanni and Don Giovanni ooze – well, almost anything and everything you want and do not want them to. They certainly did here, which is in good part testament to this superlative cast. Erwin Schrott’s Giovanni may be a known quantity – I have certainly raved about it before, more than once – but it was no less welcome and no less impressive for that. ‘Acting’ and singing were as one. He held the stage as strongly as I have ever seen – which means very strongly indeed – and his powers of seduction were as strong as I have ever seen – which means, as I said… His partnership with Esposito’s Leporello was both unique and yet typical of the dynamically drawn relationships between so many of the characters on stage. Leporello was clearly admiring, even envious of his master; their changing, yet not quite, of clothes and identities was almost endlessly absorbing its erotic, yet disconcerting charge. Esposito brought as wide a range of expressive means to his delivery of the text as any Leporello, Schrott included, I remember. Their farewell was truly shocking, Giovanni picking up his quivering servant from the floor, kissing him for several spellbinding seconds, then wiping his mouth clean on his sleeve and spitting contemptuously on the floor. It was time finally to accept the Commendatore’s invitation, issued with grave, deep musicality by the flawless Ain Anger.

 

I had seen Pavol Breslik as Don Ottavio before. There could have been no doubting the distinction of his performance in Berlin, under Barenboim, although neither artist was helped by the non-production of Peter Mussbach. Here, however, Breslik presented, in collaboration with the production, perhaps the most fascinating Ottavio I have seen – and no, that is not intended as faint praise. This was a smouldering counterpart to Giovanni, unable to keep his hands off Donna Anna, and frankly all over her during her second-act aria. Their pill-popping – he supplied the pills – opened up all manner of possibilities, not least given the frank sexuality of their, and particularly his, reactions. The beauty of Breslik’s tone, silken-smooth in his arias, added an almost Così fan tutte-like agony to the violent proceedings. In Albina Shagimuratova, we heard a Donna Anna of the old school: big-boned, yet infinitely subtle, her coloratura a thing of wonder. Combined with the uncertainty of her character’s development – again, most intriguingly so – this was again a performance both physically to savour and intellectually to relish.

 

So too was that the case with Dorothea Röschmann’s Donna Elvira. Her portrayal – Kimmig’s portrayal – would certainly not have pleased, at least initially, those for whom this is in large part a misogynistic work. (It seems to me that they misunderstand some, at least, of what is going on, but that is an argument for another time, and I am only too well aware that it is not necessarily a claim that I, as a man, should be advancing anything other than tentatively.) Downtrodden, yet beautifully sung, in the first act, she nevertheless came into her defiant own in the second, above all through the most traditionally operatic of means: sheer vocal splendour. What a ‘Mi tradì’ that was!

 

Eri Nakamura gave the finest performance I have heard from her as Zerlina, seemingly far more at home in Mozart than when I heard her at Covent Garden. This was a Zerlina who both knew and did not know what she was doing – as a character, of course, not as a performance. And finally, Brandon Cedel’s portrait in wounded, affronted, unconscious yet responsive masculinity proved quite a revelation: I do not think any Masetto has made me think so much about his role in the drama. Nor can I think, offhand, of any Masetto so dangerously attractive – again, like Ottavio, in some sense an aspirant Giovanni, but one still more incapable of being so. Morally, of course, that is to the character’s credit – but in this most ambiguous of operas, and in this most fruitfully ambiguous of productions, one was never quite sure.  

Salzburg Mozartwoche (3) - VPO/Heras-Casado: Mendelssohn, 30 January 2016

Grosses Festspielhaus

Das Märchen von der schönen Melusine: op.32: Overture

42^nd Psalm: ‘Wie der Hirsch schreit’, op.42
Symphony no.3 in A minor, ‘Scottish’, op.56

Dorothea Röschmann (soprano),

Werner Güra, Dániel Aŕva (tenors),

Matthias Winckhler, Marcell Attila Krovokay (basses)

Arnold Schoenberg Chor (chorus master: Erwin Ortner)

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

Pablo Heras-Casado (conductor)

 

 

Conductor and soprano receive applause
Image: Salzburg Mozartwoche

 

Nikolaus Harnoncourt was to have conducted this concert. The recently-retired conductor has many admirers, indeed clearly inspires great affection and loyalty, but, although it would not have done me any harm to have heard him once ‘in the flesh’, I, being not so close to him æsthetically, was probably less distraught than many to be deprived of that particular opportunity. I looked forward, however, to hearing another conductor for the first time ‘live’, and was not disappointed. Pablo Heras-Casado, who has recently been recording Mendelssohn on period instruments – you see, I am not quite so narrow-minded as I might sometimes like to pretend – here performed the composer’s music with a very different beast, the Vienna Philharmonic, also of course an orchestra with long-standing affection for Harnoncourt.

The Overture to Die schöne Melusine opened with delightfully bubbly woodwind, responded to by featherlight – yet grounded! – strings. Then came full orchestral vehemence, with a quite wondrous precision, not always the VPO’s stock in trade, and so on, quicksilver changes of mood beautifully handled. This was the most alert playing from an orchestra which, especially recently, has not been without its slapdash moments. That, I think, must indicate that what can be a somewhat recalcitrant beast likes Heras-Casado, who certainly seemed to have the measure of this score.

 

Whether I should have liked Harnoncourt’s way with Mendelssohn’s setting of the forty-second Psalm, who knows? I certainly like – very much – his having programmed it. We almost never hear Mendelssohn’s shorter choral works; indeed, although Elijah has the reputation of being a warhorse, I have only heard it once in the concert hall, under Kurt Masur. This was a performance in general as beautifully crafted as the work itself. (If you do not know it, please give it a try! Likewise the extraordinary Die erste Walpurgisnacht and a very fine Kyrie setting, both on a highly recommendable disc from Michel Corboz. For Harnoncourt fans amongst you, I feel bound to remark that he also recorded the former, although I have not heard that recording.) The opening chorus was often amiable – have I used up my store of Mendelssohn clichés yet? – without that being a term of mild abuse; its sterner moments told too. It sounded midway between Mozart and Brahms, which is probably just about where Mendelssohn tends to stand. The oboe solo was utterly ravishing, putting me in mind of a Bach obbligato. Dorothea Röschmann, who had the only real vocal solos in the work, proved imploring yet, as one would suspect, possessed of a thrillingly ‘big’ voice. Her aria with female chorus brought similarities not only with the inevitable Midsummer Night’s Dream but also the Second Symphony. After that, the male-voice opening to the chorus, ‘Was betrübst du dich, meine Seele’, offered imposing contrast, without sounding merely grandiose. Röschmann’s recitative, ‘Mein Gott, betrübt ist meine Seele an mir’, sounded veritably Elsa-like; following that, there was fine work from her and the male quartet (two from the Arnold Schönberg Chor). The choir provided an echt-Romantic choral sound, perfectly blended, in the final number, the orchestra producing playing of quite amazing clarity. It may have been the only time I have heard this work in the concert hall, but I doubt I should have had many, if any, opportunities to hear it performed better.

The Scottish Symphony – I do not think we are supposed to call it his ‘Scotch’ any more! – receives many more performances, of course, but perhaps not so many as one might expect. At least in my experience, its Italian brother seems to crop up far more often. The opening to the first movement was grave yet sweet of tone; indeed, the whole introduction sounded full of potentiality, not unlike Haydn in that respect. Heras-Casado imparted a fine sense of momentum; he clearly knew, and knew how to communicate, its contours. The Allegro un poco agitato soon developed a fine head of steam, as it were. As earlier, there was a fine sense of intimacy too; indeed, that was really one of the hallmarks of this performance, which seemed conceived very much in chamber-music style. There was certainly little that was Wagnerian about Heras-Casado’s Mendelssohn; not that there is anything wrong with such an approach, which I remember well from Sir Colin Davis conducting this symphony, but there is rarely one ‘correct’ way. And, although Heras-Casado could drive quite hard, the second group yielded in lovely – yes, I must have used up my store by now – fashion, the development of its material seeming here of particular interest (subtleties brought out without underlining). There was brilliantly virtuosic playing to be heard in the scherzo; essentially, it sounded as a Mendelssohn scherzo should (whatever I might have said about there not being one way). Clarity of counterpoint was admirable; so, crucially, was its direction. The opening to the Adagio was infused with sweet Viennese longing, which, under Heras-Casado’s wise leadership, did not neglect the particular twists that mark this music as Mendelssohn’s, close though it rightly might have sounded at times to Schumann. The sterner, majestic passages were given their full due too, and, again, there was a fine sense of how the movement cohered as a whole. There followed as spirited and, in general, precise an account as one might hope for of the finale, tension maintained throughout. My only real cavil was a slightly hesitant moment or two at the turn to the minor, but after that, the music grew to a splendid final peroration.

 

 

 

Röschmann/Uchida - Schumann and Berg, 5 May 2015

Wigmore Hall

Schumann – Liederkreis, op.39

Berg – Seven Early Songs

Schumann – Frauenliebe und –leben, op.42

Dorothea Röschmann (soprano)

Dame Mitsuko Uchida (piano) 

 

The Eichendorff Liederkreis seems to become still more wonderful with every hearing. That is in large part, of course, a measure of its stature; however, in this case, I think it was also a measure of its performance. Dorothea Röschmann and Mitsuko Uchida gave a wonderful performance, as heart-rending as I have heard and probably more so than any I have heard with respect to the piano part. Uchida is universally recognised as a great Schumann pianist, yet even so, I was taken aback at how newly minted the music sounded. Every note had a purpose, yes, but the longer line, both within songs and with respect to the cycle as a whole was unerring. That was never at the expense of character, of incident; indeed, the relationship between moment and work could hardly have been better projected. Thus, for instance, the Bachian counterpoint of ‘Auf einer Burg’ offered up all manner of possibilities: pictorial (the castle and the ‘alte Ritter’), musico-historical, and connections with other Schumann works (the Arabeske, the Schumann works for pedal piano). Yet this was not in any sense a one-woman show. Dorothea Röschmann’s dramatic soprano ensured there was nothing of the drawing room to the performance. All manner of colours were employed, at the service of the text, yet in no sense hidebound thereby. Eeriness, sorrow, even occasional joy and ecstasy: all were present, all were vividly communicated. The sheer beauty of ‘Mondnacht’ had to be heard to be believed: I am tempted to say that Röschmann and Uchida more than gave Jonas Kaufmann and Helmut Deutsch a run for their money, although the comparison is doubtless meaningless. As Mahler’s early songs seemed to draw ever nearer in spirit, the concluding ‘Frülingsnacht’ reminded us that we remained in an earlier Romantic age, with concerns and rapture very much its own.

Moving to Berg in the second half, it was striking how much one heard of Schumann and Brahms, although these ‘early songs’ are by no means mere juvenilia. In the hands of such artists, though, such was context rather than overweaning influence; there was no doubt that this was the ‘real thing’, nowhere more so than in the extraordinary, opening ‘Nacht’. Uchida’s treatment of Berg’s harmonies and their interaction with formal concerns – at this stage, he was almost entirely a song composer, perhaps presenting the prospect of a new Hugo Wolf – captured perfectly both their early twentieth-century ‘moment’ and the prospects of a Bergian future some at least of these gems genuinely offer. The use of the whole-tone scale in that first song, for instance, had it sound as radically voluptuous – or voluptuously radical – as I can recall. And twelve-note writing seemed not so very far away by the end. Röschmann expanded further the vocal palette on which she drew, or perhaps from which she could paint. Again, the balance struck between almost, but not quite, ‘operatic’ lines and detailed response to the words was admirable. I should love to hear her in more Berg.

It is doubtless too easy a claim to say that Frauenliebe und –leben benefited from two female artists; it benefited from excellent performances. And yet, gendered concerns can hardly be banished completely, given Adelbert von Chamisso’s text. What I can say is that the falling of the veil, the self-withdrawal of the closing ‘Nun hast du mir den ersten Schmerz getan’ pierced my heart more than I can recall. Uchida’s exquisite handling of the postlude was the final blow, of course, with abundant resonances from across the cycle and indeed beyond it. But that would have been nothing without earlier preparation, both in that final song and throughout the cycle. Röschmann conveyed excitement, contentment (a difficult task), joy, really everything for which she was asked. Once again, there was little distinction to make between the two parts: this was a true partnership, one I felt privileged to have heard. Yet, if only as a just consequence of the greater importance Schumann allotted to the piano part, not least structurally, it seemed that Uchida’s formal grip – and fantasy – led the way.