Salzburg Festival (3) – VPO/Barenboim: Saint-Saëns and Wagner, 22 August 2022

Grosses Festspielhaus

Saint-Saëns: Samson et Dalila, op.47: Act II
Wagner: Parsifal: Act II

Elina Garanča (soprano)

Brandon Jovanovich (tenor)

Michael Volle (baritone)

Members of the Young Singers Project

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

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

Daniel Barenboim (conductor)

This was, alas, very much a concert of two halves, disturbingly so. For reasons that I hope will be obvious, I shall concentrate on what was best; there is neither critical nor broader human need to hammer home the shortcomings.

Programming was unusual, yet revealing: an excellent case of using a cast to think what might conceptually as well as musically be possible. Consider what these two acts, premiered within five years of one another, have in common or in meaningful contrast, and the answer is quite a lot. Samson et Dalila is not, I think, a theological work; formal affinities to oratorio notwithstanding, it treats with religion, as do many nineteenth-century operas, as an engine of drama and colour. Parsifal most certainly is a theological work; we should probably not get too hung up on whether to call it an opera at all, but its dissociation from common operatic practice is undeniable, even extreme. Both acts, however, deal with seduction of a quasi-consecrated hero with a religious (and political) mission, by an exotic temptress with whom, at least in part, it is difficult not to feel some degree of sympathy. Indeed, as John Snelson remarks in his programme note, hearing these two acts divorced from their predecessors (however much we may still bear them in mind) enables us to observe the action more ‘from the perspective of the women’, even arguably intensifying ‘the hypnotic force they exert as they propel the dramas to contrasting climaxes’. Saint-Saëns’s ambiguous musical debt to Wagner was certainly in evidence here too, perhaps unsurprisingly given the conductor was Daniel Barenboim.

What was surprising was that Saint-Saëns fared so much better overall than Wagner. The initial orchestral sound we heard from the Vienna Philharmonic was, to my ears, perfect in balance, colour, and harmonic grounding, its darkness seemingly transposed from Siegfried’s forest. It was inviting, intensely so, with promise—not least of danger. On entry, Elina Garanča could likewise hardly have been improved upon: flawless in delivery, dignified and rich of tone, her (Dalila’s) made mind up, her lines despatched with duly operatic grandeur, even hauteur. The orchestra spoke and commented upon the action, much as in Wagner, though rightly also with reference to a long French history of orchestral recitative dating back at least to Rameau. There was certainly more than a little Berlioz to be heard; I soon found myself wishing for a Troyens from these forces, whilst knowing in my heart of hearts that it was already too late. Barenboim’s ear for motivic unity extended over sections of the score, but also across the entire act, imparting a unity necessary yet sadly all too rare in this repertoire. Michael Volle made for a commanding High Priest of Dagon, his typical sensitivity to words and music married to extraordinary dynamic and colouristic range. Brandon Jovanovich, our Siegmund-on-Seine, was as ardent a Samson as one could have imagined, playing nonetheless on a fine ambiguity between hero unmediated and a character compelled (or choosing) to play that role. The climactic duet between Samson and Dalila was, quite simply, a privilege to see (such acting too!) and hear, all the while knowing Dalila ultimately was in control.

The Parsifal Prelude was more deliberate, at its best evincing the spirit of a Klemperer, certainly oozing Tristan-esque malevolence. I listened for as long as I could in that vein and, to be fair, there was much in the orchestral cauldron still to admire, at least in the first scene or two. The first, orchestral intimation of Klingsor’s magic garden, for instance, appeared before our ears’ eyes with all the freshness of continually renewed experience. Whether that were the VPO’s or Barenboim’s, however, soon became a moot point. Samson et Dalila certainly does not play itself; the talk I heard from some about the conductor’s disengagement at this stage was just that, talk. It was, sadly, shown all the more to be so by much of what we heard of Parsifal, in which a disaffected orchestra at times seemed more or less to have given up, kept together (just about) only by the extraordinary commitment of three outstanding soloists. One made what one could of it; at least I did. Concentrating on the poem, I heard all the more in this context just how much of Wagner’s language is steeped in Lutheran theology. So many of the words could have stepped straight out of Bach; in a sense, they had. The luminosity of the orchestral grail, here with a distinctly Viennese tinge, beguiled as ever. Ultimately, though, this was difficult to listen to, as well as to watch.

Barenboim does not need critics, even those who are long-term admirers, to tell him what to do. I hope, though, that those close to him will counsel caution, for his recovery is clearly far from complete. If, for now, that entails fewer, shorter concerts, then for his sake I hope he will consider that path.

 

Garanča/Staatskapelle Berlin/Barenboim - Schumann, Elgar, and Debussy, 16 December 2019

Staatsoper Unter den Linden

Schumann: Symphony no.3 in E-flat major, op.97, ‘Rhenish’

Elgar: Sea Pictures, op.37

Debussy: La Mer

Elina Garanča (mezzo-soprano)

Staatskapelle Berlin

Daniel Barenboim (conductor)

Three composers in whose music Daniel Barenboim has long excelled, with the Staatskapelle Berlin on outstanding form: what could go wrong? Nothing, I am delighted to report. This proved a wonderful concert, opening with the finest live performance I have been privileged to hear of a Schumann symphony, in this case the ‘Rhenish’. Eschewing fashionable notions of small orchestras—if you cannot achieve requisite balance with a symphony orchestra, you probably should not be conducting one at all—Barenboim offered a full-sized Staatskapelle, from eight double basses to sixteen first violins. It sounded magnificent: dark and golden, blazing and intimate as required. Attention to finest detail did not preclude voicing of longer line; nor did forward drive hamper infinite flexibility. The first movement developed with a purpose born in Beethoven: throughout, not only in that section conventionally known as the development. It headed, convincingly, unanswerably, to and from a point of Mendelssohnian exhaustion, the difference being that that point here comes significantly later than the onset of the recapitulation. In a nutshell, Romantic style and idea and their formal realisation in time were as one.

The second movement brought a similar, yet different, combination of warmth of familiarity and freshness of rediscovery: like a sunlit riverside walk along a favourite path, once the skies have cleared. A contrapuntal bed, on which further melodies were lovingly sung and shaped, afforded great joy. The movement’s climax, looking forward already to La mer, felt like a great tidal wave. Its subsiding and Barenboim’s expert handling of that subsiding were, however, every bit as important. As Romantically beautiful, and all the more innig, the central movement proved truly the heart of symphony and performance: led, so it seemed, from the very heart of the Staatskapelle, its dark-hued violas. Trombones in the fourth movement were as tender as they were sacerdotal, as solemn as they were luminous, setting the scene for this great ‘Cologne Cathedral’ processional. Barenboim and his orchestra captured to a tee the necessity of sentiment without sentimentality: somewhere between Beethoven and Mahler. Ultimately, we were awestruck. Thereafter we could depart in peace, cheered and edified by a final movement that took a different route from earlier, one that was yet equally fresh, equally invigorating: Rhenish balm, then, for a bruised soul.

Elgar’s Sea Pictures, with Elina Garanča as soloist, followed the interval. How to rid one’s memory of Janet Baker? Is that even possible? Garanča faced an unenviable task, but life goes on. She took a little while, I think—maybe I was the one taking a little while—to settle in. These are not easy English words to sing, set as they are, even for a native speaker. There was, however, even during the first song, something winningly, intriguingly instrumental to her tone: not that she did not pay attention to the words, far from it, but that there was an emphasis more on line. One could readily overlook the odd mispronunciation, such as ‘vile’ for ‘veil’, especially once communication of syntax and scansion improved. I loved, for instance, the truly Elgarian pride, hinting at wounds beneath the surface, of ‘The new sight, the new wondrous sight!’ in ‘Sabbath morning at sea’. Likewise the nobility—inevitable, if hackneyed, word in this context—of ‘Where corals lie’, enigmatic, intimate, and inviting; and also of ‘The Swimmer’, Garanča truly riding the waves in response to the heady, not un-malevolent steam built up by Barenboim and the orchestra, her cries of ‘love’ achingly tender. Throughout, one could not have wished for more skilful, understanding orchestral playing and overall direction. One felt the proximity to Wagner and, less so yet still present, Strauss: the latter, for instance, in the final chord of ‘Sea slumber song’. Barenboim’s pointing of instrumental entries could hardly have been bettered, even by the likes of Barbirolli. And dare I say it, the orchestra sounded more variegated, as well as more darkly dramatic, than any English orchestra I have heard in this music. Wagner, rightly, was the abiding musical presence—that is, after Elgar himself.

Something similar might be said of La mer, only substituting Debussy for Elgar. ‘De l’aube à midi sur la mer’ took us from a dawn with all the ambiguity of Allemonde, and still greater orchestral mastery. The path taken was as finely detailed as it was sure in retrospect, as sea-deep as it was translucent of surface. Even the ‘vagueness’ was not vague. It was difficult not to conclude that Pierre Boulez would have nodded his head approvingly. The glorious climax was truly something aurally to behold. ‘Jeux de vagues’ proved more forward-looking: looking forward, indeed, to the composer’s own Jeux. There was melody in the myriad of colours, so perfectly balanced, that we heard; and vice versa. Ultimately, quite rightly, nothing could be pinned down, for these were waves and their games. ‘Dialogue du vent et de la mer’ seemed to unite varying tendencies and take them first: these are, after all, ‘symphonic sketches’. We heard at its opening a deeply complex, well-nigh Boulezian malevolence—harking back in a sense to Elgar’s, yet very much looking forward to the later twentieth century and even to the twenty-first. The mystery of Debussy’s combination of clear and shimmering, brazen and submerged, was rendered immanent. What does it mean? Why ask? It was—and is. And how!

Samson et Dalila, Staatsoper Unter den Linden, 27 November 2019

Images: Matthias Baus

Dalila – Elina Garanča

Samson – Brandon Jovanovich

High Priest of Dagon – Michael Volle

Abimelech – Kwangchul Youn

Old Hebrew – Wolfgang Schöne

First Philistine – Andrés Moreno Garcia

Second Philistine – Jaka Mihelač

Philistine Messenger – Javier Bernando

Samson Double (Dancer) – Nikos Fragkou

Dalila Double (Dancer) - Lisa Schramm

Damián Szifron (director)

Étienne Pluss (set designs)

Gesine Völlm (costumes)

Olaf Freese (lighting)

Tomasz Kajdański (choreography)

Romain Gilbert, Heide Stock (assistant directors)

Jana Beckmann (dramaturgy)

Staatsopernchor Berlin (chorus director: Martin Wright)

Staatskapelle Berlin

Daniel Barenboim (conductor)

Hand on heart, I have never seen anything quite like this. From curtain rise to reveal a dog running across stage—accompanied by palpable audience bewilderment and highly audible laughter—to a bizarrely offensive final act seemingly co-directed by David McVicar and ‘Mad’ Melanie Phillips, film director Damián Szifron’s first foray into opera afforded the very definition of a car-crash. Much as one may have wished to avert one’s eyes, such was alas never an option. There was, to be fair, unwitting entertainment along the way. Yet seeing—and hearing—outstanding artists such as Elina Garanča, Brandon Jovanovich, and Michael Volle wading and occasionally, Dagon help us, dancing through the non-ironic polystyrene debris of a scenic cross between Cecil B De Mille, Franco Zeffirelli, mid-budget 70s science fiction, and the day’s n^th Spectator columnist endorsement of Boris Johnson, was ultimately the stuff of nightmares—or at least of end-of-term revues.

Let us start with the good, musical news. All three of those soloists were on fine musical form. I have never heard anything other than an excellent performance from Jovanovich; this was to be no exception. Tireless, committed to words and music, heroism and humanity, in equal measure, his Samson could hardly be bettered. That neither he nor Garanča could be visually recognised beneath their extraordinary costumes was doubtless no bad thing for either. Garanča brought all the virtues one might have expected to her Dalila: similar precision and professionalism, with a mezzo as rich as it was even of tone. Volle, to whom my heart especially went out when in a ‘religious’ bathrobe, proved vocally intelligent and inviting as ever. Save for unfortunate appearances from Kwangchul Youn and Wolfgang Schöne, the rest of the cast, chorus included also impressed. The latter’s slightly rocky start did not preclude performances of welcome heft and dramatic direction.

At least as impressive as the central trio were Daniel Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin. The promise held out by their all-Saint Saëns subscription concert a couple of weeks earlier was fulfilled in a performance suggesting, however great the illusion, this to be music they played almost as regularly as Wagner. (To be fair, Barenboim has a recording of the opera to his name, but even so.) As ever with Barenboim’s performances, it was founded upon harmony, making fine sense of Saint-Saëns’s medium- and longer-term tonal plans, yet without sacrifice to detail. Not for the first time, his handling of neo-Bachian elements had one long for him to conduct more of the real thing one day. If the opera’s conclusion remains strangely perfunctory and the preceding Bacchanale problematic in its orientalism, there is little that can be done about that. An array of gorgeous orchestral playing, transparent and weighty as required—not infrequently, both—offered more than ample compensation for shortcomings in the score. At least, it would have done, had it not been for the unfolding catastrophe on stage.

Dear reader, it is to the tale—or tail—initiated by that mysterious, never-to-be-seen live stage hound, lodged indelibly in the visual memory, that we must return. Poor Rover, we knew him all too little, yet he deserved our gratitude for running across the stage—not unlike the equally mysterious ENO nude lady of yore, presumably awarded a block booking—and thus briefly distracting us from Étienne Pluss’s still more risible ‘Biblical’ landscape. It matched, I suppose, Gesine Völlm’s ‘Biblical’ costumeswere one in the market for a Life of Brian sequel without the (intentional) jokes. And it provided a space—someone had to—for breathtakingly amateurish blocking and choreography. Such was leavened-or, according to that rarest of commodities here, taste, further depressed—by hapless acts such as having Samson appear on stage dragging, with mixed success, a slaughtered bull, from which he would extract a horn to gorge a few passing Philistines.

A ballet scene, in which Samson and Dalila doubles danced their inexplicable desires, Dalila at one point wandering offstage to emerge with child—cue, yes, much rubbing of her ovular miracle—was bewilderingly accompanied by a sun/moon that moved ever so fitfully in various directions. A technical hitch, perhaps? More likely trying to escape this cosmos from embarrassment. And so it went on, not so much as an idea, let alone a Konzept, in sight. Dalilla’s cave, seemingly located on a stage simplification of a set for a spin-off from Peter Davison-era Dr Who, offered a location for what, in this ‘aesthetic’, we should probably call ‘lovemaking’. That was certainly, in the pejorative sense, what it looked like; thank goodness it was cut short; one could sympathise with Philistine desire to arrest at least one of its participant.

Following a visit to Samson’s Gaza dungeon, its abattoir ‘look’ weirdly out of kilter with what we had seen previously, we moved to a Temple of Dagon in whose representation Szifron appeared to be trying to outdo Uwe Eric Laufenberg’s execrable Bayreuth Parsifal for Offensively Orientalist Staging of the Year (bonus points for implied Islamophobia). I say ‘appeared’ because I suspect much of it was not even intended and instead the product—as with so much that had preceded of it—of having enlisted a director without knowledge or experience of opera, or even a cursory interest in the genre. Toe-curlingly un-erotic orgies are in keeping with actually existing opera’s history on stage: not for nothing did Schoenberg touchingly prescribe the events around his Golden Calf as an explicitly ‘erotic’ orgy. However, youthful executioners’ bewilderment at ongoing proceedings, as witnessed by their vacantly staring at female breasts, came across as anything but knowing. Bloodsoaked assassins – Assassins with a capital ‘a’, I fear—did what ‘exotic’, ‘Eastern’ people would. Could not Barenboim have introduced Szifron to the work of Edward Said? All the while, Volle as High Priest wandered around quizzically in bath robe and staff topped with not un-crescent-like 'symbol'. If Jehovah were unwilling to draw such proceedings to a close, He would have been a crueller, more vengeful God than even Voltaire would have charged. As it was, the Great Director in the Sky took His time: understandable on musical grounds, yet otherwise…

Cavalleria rusticana/Sancta Susanna, Opéra national de Paris, 3 December 2016

Opéra Bastille

Images: Julien Benhamou /OnP

Santuzza – Elina Garanča

Turiddu – Yonghoon Lee
Lucia – Elena Zaremba
Alfio – Vitaliy Bilyy
Lola – Antoinette Dennefeld

Susanna – Anna Caterina Antonacci

Klementia – Renée Morloc
Old Nun – Sylvie Brunet-Grupposo
Maid – Katharina Crespo
Knight – Jeff Esperanza

Mario Martone (director)

Sergio Tramonti (set designs)
Ursula Patzak (costumes)
Pasquale Mari (lighting)
Daniela Schiavone (assistant director, Cavalleria rusticana)
Raffaella Giordana (choreography, Sancta Susanna)


Chorus of the Opéra national de Paris (chorus master: José Luis Basso)
Orchestra of the Opéra national de Paris

Carlo Rizzi (conductor)

Two operas: one rather better known to the operatic public, but neither to me personally. I tried (perhaps that was the problem?) with Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana, yet felt rather nonplussed. There was nothing especially to ‘mind’, but the work left little impression beyond its strange pacing (dragging almost interminably, then abruptly concluding, or at least finishing). Somehow, it came across both as crude and bland. I heard dashes of undigested Wagner, devoid of context, washed up amongst mildly Verdian debris. Every so often, Mascagni seemed to aspire towards Puccini, yet barely left the starting block, falling time and time again on mere cliché, and failing to achieve anything of interest melodically, harmonically, orchestrally. Characterisation seemed minimal, the drama, such as it was, situational. As for the story, such as it was, would it not have embarrassed a 1980s television mini-series? I had been curious to discover what the fuss was all about; in a sense, I am all the more curious now, since I really did not ‘get it’. ‘Some of my best friends’, but not, alas, me…

 

If Mascagni’s opera would have seemed more suited to a ten or fifteen minutes scena, Hindemith’s Sancta Susanna left me wanting more: always a good sign. The final part of his Expressionist triptych (Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen, and Das Nusch-Nuschi come first), it is much more my sort of thing, I suppose. Musically, it comes perhaps as close to ‘atonal’ Schoenberg as Hindemith would ever do: more than once, I was put in mind of Die glückliche Hand, even Bluebeard’s Castle, especially in terms of orchestral colour, but perhaps harmonically too. Subject matter – a convent riven by sexual frenzy and demonic possession – has certain points of contact with Erwartung, perhaps, and more generally with other contemporaneous musical explorations (mostly, of course by men) of female sexuality, but more obviously with Prokofiev’s later Fiery Angel. Hindemith certainly has no aspirations to the so-called athematicism of Erwartung, though, quasi-autonomous musical form already gesturing, from within its Expressionist cloak, to the Neue Sachlichkeit future.

 

What do the two works have in common? Very little, I think, although I suppose one might make some generic ‘religious’ claim. Mario Montane, perhaps mistakenly, made little or no effort to link them. An awkward five minutes or so (following curtain calls!) in between, house lights still off, did not help, audience members not unreasonably uncertain what to do (apart, that is, from some Hindemith foes who made a dash for it). It was not entirely clear to me whether the Cross seen in his Sicilian Church was supposed to be in some sense the same as that witnessed so strikingly in Sergio Tramonti’s design for the crypt or other underworld beneath the convent. At first, Montane’s Cavalleria rusticana seems highly conventional, but there is a greater degree of abstraction than one might first guess, much done with comparatively little, rescuing the work somewhat from its vulgar realism. A definite emphasis upon the menacing power of the village crowd, seated in judgement, is welcome too. (I thought of Peter Grimes.) The fun is really had to be had, though, in Sancta Susanna. The action initially takes place in a ‘window’, securely embedded, or so it seems, within a larger structure, which begins to fall to pieces – as, well, Susanna’s defences do. Nightmarish giant crucifixes, a huge insect (made up of a highly skilled movement team, well choreographed by Raffaella Giordana), and the past and present of nuns writhing on the Cross, tread with delicious ambiguity the line between sympathy and Gothic horror.



The orchestra of the Paris Opéra sounded sumptuous, with a splendid sheen but plenty of depth in the Hindemith too. Carlo Rizzi seemed perhaps more at home in Mascagni; I should not have minded a little more formal delineation in the Hindemith. Nevertheless, his exploration of orchestral colour there was greatly to be welcomed, and the climactic moments were viscerally exciting. Choral singing and blocking were well handled throughout.

 

Elina Garanča sang beautifully as Santuzza in the Mascagni, line impeccable, although there was a certain coldness to her performance that perhaps militated against the possibility of much emotional involvement. Yonghoon Lee’s excellent Turiddu was quite the peacock, also quite the mummy’s boy: just, I presume, as he should have been. Dramatic toing and froing between Anna Caterina Antonacci, every inch the queen of her stage, and Renée Morloc was gripping, reminding us that there is much to be pieced together from Hindemith’s vocal lines, not nearly so fragmentary as they might initially seem. Controlled frenzy was the order of the day, but never too controlled. All other parts were well taken. If only, though, Sancta Susanna had been presented with a more appropriate companion piece or pieces, though, whether Hindemith’s own or something more tellingly related or contrasted. Next time…