Amfortas – Gerald Finley Gurnemanz – Franz-Josef Selig Parsifal – Klaus Florian Vogt Klingsor – Werner van Mechelen Kundry – Jennifer Holloway Titurel – Matheus França Younger Parsifal – Nikolay Sidorenko Squires – Florentina Serles, Daria Sushkova, Andrew Turner, Adrian Autard First Knight of the Grail – Carlo Osuna Second Knight of the Grail – Alex Ilvakhin Flowermaidens – Ileana Tonca, Mariia Zherebiateva, Anna Bondarenko, Ilia Staple, Jenni Hietala, Isabel Signoret
Director, designs, costumes – Kirill Serebrennikov Lighting – Franck Evin Assistant director – Evgeny Kulagin Assistant designer – Olga Pavliuk Assistant costume designer – Tatina Dolmatovskaya Video and photography – Aleksey Fokin, Yurii Karih Fight coordinator – Ran Arthur Braun Dramaturgy – Sergio Morabito Actors
Vienna State Opera Chorus (chorus master: Thomas Lang) Vienna State Opera Orchestra Axel Kober (conductor)
More by happy accident than design, my
Easter Monday Rheingold in Salzburg was followed only two evenings later
in Vienna by Parsifal from the same director, Kirill Serebrennikov. Whilst
the former marked the first instalment, if the third performance, of a new Ring,
the latter was the final performance in a revival of a production first seen in
2021 and reviewed here
at its first revival last year. My thoughts on the production largely remain
similar to 2025, though there will doubtless have been small changes, given a
largely new cast, Klaus Florian Vogt the only singer to reprise a principal
role. I shall doubtless also have seen different things and reacted differently
to what I saw, so I shall recapitulate, without reading my former review,
before proceeding to those performances. Conductor Axel Kober remained in the pit,
as of course did the Vienna State Opera Orchestra, although how many players
will have been the same I do not know.
Serebrennikov’s role as a film as well as
stage director is, as in Das Rheingold, apparent throughout. In this
vision of Monsalvat correctional facility (the ‘l’ given by a cross) we are
made to think and feel, if not quite as Wagner would have had us do – how can we
ever know? – then in a way certainly preferable to any moribund attempt to
imitate, the threadbare letter mistaken for the spirit, just as the ‘l’ Cross
has almost vanished when we (and the characters) return for the third act to a
building and institution that remains even after its initial purpose has died.
So far, so Wagnerian one, might say, penetrating in historical decay at least
to the essence of this Grail community tale. In some ways, this is Kundry’s
tale: she as photojournalist documents the regime and its hardships, writing a
lengthy investigative (exploitative?) story for the glossy magazine ‘Schloss’ managed by
Klingsor, which may or may not contribute to institutional demise.
The question of gaze is interesting: there
is clearly something strongly homoerotic to the film visions not only of the
young Parsifal (Nikolay Sidorenko) revisited or remembered by his later self
(Vogt also on stage, a ghost who sings). ‘Er ist schön, der Knabe!’ as Klingsor
cannot help but admit. Whether the prison activities, physical training, ‘play’
wrestling and all, themselves partake in such homoeroticism will partly be a
matter for the beholder. There is, however, no question in the case of the swan,
another young inmate who approaches the inexperienced Parsifal on film, only
swiftly to be felled, his body taken away by guards whose relationship to the
prisoners, not least old lag and tattoist Gurnemanz, is anthropologically
fascinating if occasionally narratively tricky. Lingering shower shots as the
pure fool cleanses himself tell one tale, which may or may not be concluded by
filmic resurrection for the swan (a prison nickname perhaps?) at the close.
But we should not forget that, if Gurnemanz
is Wagner’s narrator, Kundry is in many ways Serebrennikov’s. Not only do
prisoners act up for her, young Parsifal learning to flex his biceps in
imitation of others by the time of his release from what seems to have been a
week-long sentence, days recorded on the film, at the close of the first act.
But she is photographer and writer, clearly a more serious as well as
successful figure than fashionista Flowermaidens who get nowhere with their lust,
when young Parsifal comes to the office, ritually stripped and bashful, to be
reclothed in tighty whitie Calvin Kleins and still tighter black leather
trousers. Kundry has her way beyond Wagner’s kiss, if not the whole way, whilst
the older Parsifal, powerless to intervene in a past that is past, attempts to
save his younger self. So the gaze represented, arguably embodied too, extends
beyond the homoerotic, even beyond the queer, to the female too. Whatever names
we may wish to accord this or these, such orientations and identities stand(s)
in opposition to singular, heteronormative patriarchy, here a quasi-monastic prison
in itself. Notably, there is no Voice from Above at the end: it is Kundry
herself, less released by death than released by life.
Kober’s conducting was largely brisk and no-nonsense.
It was less overtly an ‘interpretation’ than many might conductors might give,
though in so complex a score there is unquestionable art in giving the
impression of letting it and the wonderful Vienna orchestra speak for
themselves. If there were times when greater variation in tempo on both micro-
and macro-levels might have been desirable or at least interesting, there were great
dynamic range and considerable timbral variety – if not that of, say, a
Barenboim – to the orchestra doing what it does best. The chorus was
outstanding – surely outstandingly trained too – throughout; it would be
tempting to take that for granted, but its marriage of precision and heft was
not the least of the evening’s achievements.
Vogt and Sidorenko gave tireless,
complementary performances as Parsifal, their interaction and non-interaction
moving as well as suggestive. Hearing Vogt in this role almost inevitably summons
memories – for those who have heard it anyway – of his Lohengrin, an historico-genealogical
layering that is fruitful if not necessary. This Parsifal must play the game we
play yet retain freshness on the way to experience, far from the only instance
of work and production gaining in turn from their interaction. Some dislike
Vogt’s voice – excessively, I cannot help but think – but that is surely
neither here nor there. He reminds us that he is justly a major artist in this
repertoire, has been for many years, and shows no sign of going anywhere yet. Jennifer
Holloway will sing Adriano in the Bayreuth Festspielhaus’s
first ever Rienzi this summer. Her Kundry was well acted, well sung, increasing
in overt confidence in fine parallel with Serebrennikov’s concept. Franz-Josef
Selig could not reasonably be faulted as Gurnemanz, marriage of words and music
an object lesson. The greater ambiguity, even occasional malevolence, of the
character in this production was subtly suggested without caricature. Gerald
Finley’s Amfortas made a similarly intelligent impression, unquestionably founded
in and at ease with Wagner’s words and their changing meaning. Werner van
Mechelen made his mark not only as Klingsor but as this Klingsor,
Smaller roles were all well taken, often illuminatingly so. Like Kundry,
probably Parsifal too, Wagner’s Bühnenweihfestspiel again found itself released
by the new life staging and performances can and did impart.
Sarastro – Franz-Josef Selig Queen of the Night – Kathryn Lewek Tamino – Magnus Dietrich Pamina – Emily Pogorelc Papageno – Theodore Platt Papagena – Tamara Ivaniš Three Ladies – Alice Rossi, Štěpánka Pučálkova, Noa Beinert Monostatos – Paul Schweinester Speaker, First Priest – Rupert Grössinger Priests and Armoured Men – Maximilian Müller, Maximilian Anger Three Boys – Frederick Derwein, David Platzer, Laurenz Oberfichtner Mozart – Vitus Denifl Constanze – Victoria D’Agostino Carl Thomas Mozart – Paul Tanzer
Director – Rolando Villazón Set designs – Harold Thor Costumes – Tanja Hofmann Choreography – Ramses Sigl Lighting – Stefan Bolliger Video – Roland Horvath/rocafilm Dramaturgy – Ulrich Leisinger Assistant director – Bettina Gayer Theatre manager – Kirsten Kimmig
Philharmonia Chor Wien (chorus director: Walter Zeh) Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra Roberto González-Monjas (conductor)
It has been a while since Salzburg’s
Mozartwoche gave a fully staged version of a mature Mozart opera. The choice of
The Magic Flute, directed by Intendant Rolando Villazón, was not
arbitrary, but rather a centrepiece to the 70th anniversary
festival’s focus on Mozart’s last year. The opera could hardly be more
emblematic of 1791; it was the last, barring fragments, to be completed and
first performed, although most of the score was composed before La clemenza
di Tito. Moreover, Villazón’s staging is set in that year, on the final
night of Mozart’s life, presenting on stage the broader concept of his
final-year focus and its motto ‘Lux Aeterna’: that on his death, Mozart was for
us truly born.
In that, we saw the production’s most arresting
image, shortly after having heard its most arresting, if doubtless
controversial, musical surprise. The Queen of the Night and Monostatos (here
spelled ‘Manostatos’ after Mozart’s autograph) having threatened to destroy the
temple and so on, Mozart finally expires, having been with us all along (on
which more anon); the orchestra cuts to the Requiem’s ‘Lacrimosa’. I could have
done without a man behind me loudly exclaiming ‘Requiem! Requiem! Requiem!’
(Thank you for your musicological input; we should never have known otherwise.)
Nevertheless, the assembled company joining to sing the composer’s final music,
beyond the point at which the autograph stops yet not until its close, proved
surprisingly moving. The lurch back to Sarastro’s announcement of victory
initially jarred, yet such musical difficulties on my part were more or less
effaced by the composer’s apotheosis. In a likeable, post-Amadeus portrayal by Vitus
Denifl he was transformed into a Kugel-version of Mozart, laughing and
somersaulting above. Like the best of those chocolates – hint: buy them only
from Fürst – it was an unexpected delight, not least to serious clowning on
Denifl’s part and a strong musical account.
How we got there, scenically, had its
moments. The idea of presenting Mozart’s hallucinations from his last days unable to attend a performance at the Freihaus-Theater
an der Wieden, yet imagining it in his head, was a good one, especially in this
specific setting, part commemorating and part celebrating Mozart having become ‘Mozart’.
It combines two accounts: the first from Stendhal via the 1798 Allgemeine
Zeitung (possibly from Constanze herself) following the performances at
home, looking at the clock and imagining what must be on stage;the
other from an 1840 letter from the composer Ignaz von Seyfried to the theatre
director Georg Friedrich Treitschke telling of Mozart on the evening of 4
December 1791 hearing his sister-in-law sing the Queen of the Night’s aria in
the theatre. And so, the clock bore a particular role in demarcating certain moments—rather
brightly, I could not help but think, although I suppose that was the point. It
also offered a place to hide; indeed, Harold Thor’s set designs proved resourceful
throughout in use and reuse.
That, I think, was to be applauded, not
least since a notable, welcome feature of the Mozartwoche as a whole is
its grounding in Mozart scholarship: not a Beckmesserish (at best) school of
‘performance practice’, perhaps now at last waning, that loves nothing more
than to condemn something as ‘inauthentic’, but rather respect for far broader
and more interesting historical grounding that will enable and enrich modern
performance of various kinds. Some of that one might like, some one might not,
but it enters into dialogue rather than assertion of either fundamentalist
domination or lazy solipsism. The problem more was that it did not become much
more than a frame for what otherwise was a rather conventional portrayal of the
actual dramatic action. Mozart interacted a little with the characters. He also
instructed his son a little. More tenuously, Constanze became enraged at the
misogyny of the priests, hitting them and her husband, suggesting their remarks
were to be taken seriously, Mozart’s own music suggesting otherwise. In terms
of a view about what the work ‘itself’ might be, what it might have to offer,
and indeed how it might thus have ultimately come to participate in the creation
of ‘Mozart’, I struggled to divine anything very much.
Moreover, further character
references seemed to me obscure. Without reading in the programme that Villazón
intended the Three Ladies as three female artists – a poet, sculptor, and
painter – I am not sure I should have noticed. Even if I had, nothing much was
done with the idea. Presenting Tamino as a musician was fair enough; he plays
the flute after all. Beyond that, it seemed another missed opportunity, soon more
or less forgotten; likewise Monostatos/Manostatos as commercialisation of art, and so on.In encounters
between multiple concepts, some fared better than others, though those of
Mozart and Emanuel Schikaneder rarely so well.
To return, though, to what made that final
scene – and much else – worthwhile, Roberto González-Monjas’s conducting of the
Mozarteum Orchestra marked him out as that rarest of things, a musician who
could draw from an orchestra a true sense of the breadth and depth of Mozart’s
score, without imposing himself on it and subjecting it to strange eccentricities.
One will almost always find differences between what one hears in one’s head – watching
the clock, like Mozart, or otherwise – but what matters is whether one can make
sense of what is put before one, whether it animates the drama, whether it
enables the singers and actors to flourish. In all of those respects and more, González-Monjas’s
account scored. So too did the warm, sympathetic playing of the orchestra. This
ought not to be so rare as it is, but the demands of Mozart and ‘Mozart’ alike are
never to be underestimated.
There was, moreover, a good sense of a
troupe more than the sum of its parts among those singers and actors. Magnus
Dietrich’s Tamino and Emily Pogorelc’s an alluring young pair vocally. Their arias
touched and ennobled without contrivance. Franz-Josef Selig’s Sarastro is a
known quantity to many of us, yet proved no less welcome in reasoned compassion
for that. Kathryn Lewek’s Queen of the Night offered accuracy and bite, also
reminding us that a flesh-and-blood woman lay behind the costume and
coloratura. Hearing more dialogue than often one does – especially outside
German lands gave a more proper sense of Papagena, as did a spirited
performance by Tamara Ivaniš. Theodore Platt’s Papageno stole the show, as many
do, and deservedly so, sheer theatrical presence married to innate musicality,
a winning tribute to Schikaneder. Indeed, the thought occurred to me
that that might have been an obvious personification for the production. But
there will be other Flutes, and this offered magic enough, heightened by
the experience of an afternoon visit to an exhibition at the Rupertinum, showing
materials from earlier stagings, including that of Oskar Kokoschka, invited by
Furtwängler, who alas died before they could collaborate. As Villazón’s concept
for the festival as a whole reminds us, birth and death have always stood in a
complex relationship, not least in the case of Mozart.
Pelléas – Ben Bliss Mélisande – Sabine Devieilhe Golaud – Christian Gerhaher Arkel – Franz-Josef Selig Geneviève – Sophie Koch Yniold – Felix Hofbauer Doctor – Martin Snell Shepherd – Pawel Horodyski
Director – Jetske Mijnssen Set design – Ben Baur Lighting – Bernd Purkrabek Choreography – Dustin Klein Dramaturgy – Ariane Bliss
Projektchor der Bayerischen Staatsoper (director: Franz Obermair) Bayerisches Staatsorchester Hannu Lintu (conductor)
Nine years ago, in this same theatre at this same festival, I saw Munich’s previous Pelléas et Mélisande: a staging by Christiane Pohle which I greatly admired, but everyone else seemed to loathe. I am tempted to say ‘failed to understand’, but let us move on—to its successor, directed by Jetske Mijnssen. Perhaps it was not the best time to see this, only a fortnight after encountering Katie Mitchell’s feminist rethinking of the work in Aix, in its first revival. For me, there is nothing especially wrong with Mijnssen’s staging. It does pretty much what one would expect of a Pelléas, save perhaps for presenting a greater realism in place of its Symbolism.
In that lay my doubts. Not that there is anything wrong with that in principle; far from it. Yet without a change of perspective, or some other such idea, the point remained elusive: not in the sense that Pelléas can, must remain elusive, but rather suggesting an extended bourgeois parody of Tristan und Isolde, with which it of course has much in common. That would be a point of view, though not necessarily one I should be inclined to pursue (imagining nonetheless with a wry smile what Nietzsche, in Case of Wagner mode, would have made of Pelléas). What I think Mijnssen is getting at, suggested by her final act – in which the castle, whose rooms whether in the forest, by the stagnant pool, or elsewhere have provided the setting for all that has gone before, is stripped to its foundations – is a psychological claim that we are all ultimately like Mélisande, not least in our inability to know one another. Presumably the wooden boards relate also to the forest we never really see.
Following a realistic if sparing portrayal of early-twentieth-century costumes, furniture, and so on, Arkel’s words ‘C’est un pauvre petit être mystérieux comme tout le monde’ offer the backdrop for the entirety of this act. Having moved from a (beautifully danced) ball for the first scene, to this hospital bed for the close, often viewing Pelléas’s sick father in his bed, the tragedy encompasses all of us in a metaphysical sense far from untrue to the work. The observation – and execution – of Golaud’s chess game with his son Yniold, and Yniold’s resort to playing with his toys, perhaps as a way of trying to understanding what is happening, including a similar sweeping of the board and pieces, are suggestive and accomplished. Golaud’s striking of Yniold likewise offers a powerful moment.
Much else, especially with water – seen as rainfall as we enter the theatre, yet otherwise relegated until the close to a long, thin ‘pool’ at the front of the stage – seems to sit a little awkwardly between two stools. That the pools are more evident in the final scene, presumably closing in on the very foundations – in more than one sense – of castle and family is another good idea. But Pelléas’s reappearance – a ghost, a dream, or an actual reappearance? – to show Mélisande her child seems to come less from an alternative dimension than from an alternative production or concept. Perhaps I am missing something, given what seems in many ways an intelligent attempt to construct a whole from what is viewed, curtain falling after every scene, as a quasi-filmic succession of dramatic fragments.
An effort to construct a greater whole in theatrical time from quasi-modernist fragments, as opposed to starting with a whole and carving detail from it, seemed also to characterise Hannu Lintu’s way with Debussy’s score. At its best, Lintu’s direction conjured a wonderful translucency from the Munich orchestra; it did not want for dark malevolence when called for, either. My principal reservation related to what seemed – I am unsure whether it actually was – for scenes, perhaps acts too, to slow during their course. No one wants to rush through Pelléas, of course, quite the contrary; yet there were occasions when I felt momentum was in danger of being lost. This may, however, have been as much a matter of pauses between scenes on account of scene rearrangement, especially before the fifth and final act. By the same token, losing oneself in the forest is surely part of the musical experience, perhaps all the more so when we never really see it.
There are doubtless many ways to sing Mélisande, yet during her performance, Sabine Devieilhe had me convinced hers was, if not quite the only one, then the best. Her ease of communication, not only in the French language but in Debussy’s musical style, was effortlessly communicated for all to hear; it was simply as if she were speaking, and as clear as if that were the case too. Moreover, Devieilhe’s delivery of the text seemed indivisible from dramatic situation and imperative. French is a notoriously difficult language to sing; it would be difficult, unsurprisingly, to claim that all in the cast managed with such ease. Sophie Koch’s excellent Geneviève was of course an exception, leaving us to long for more.
That said, no one made a bad job of it either, and an age of ‘international casts’ brings advantages and disadvantages. Christian Gerhaher’s Golaud was unquestionably a fine, brutal character study. Some will doubtless have taken more to his hectoring way (at times), but it was rooted in his conception of Golaud’s sadism. Gerhaher showed the courage not to try to endear his character to anyone, without in any sense rendering him one-dimensional. To that, Ben Bliss’s boyish, mellifluous Pelléas proved an excellent foil, vocal and scenic communication offering ample justification for Mélisande’s preference. The dark ambiguity of Franz-Josef Selig’s Arkel cast due shadow over all. Last but far from least, Felix Hofbauer gave an outstanding performance as Yniold: not ‘for a boy’, but for anyone. As impressively acted as it was sung, this treble’s performance offered yet another feather in the cap for the ever-lauded Tölz Boys’ Choir. So in many respects, the fragments did add up to more.
One of the joys of writing
regularly – sometimes, just sometimes, I think too regularly – about performance has been the transformation, both
conscious and unconscious, of my scholarship. My most recent published book, After Wagner,
would have been and was originally intended to be quite a different endeavour, had
the example of Stefan
Herheim’s production of Parsifal
and many other performances and productions not intruded and helped shape it
otherwise. Not only did a concluding chapter on staging and performance turn
into a fully fledged third part (of three chapters); perhaps more importantly,
I began to read back such concerns into more ‘work-based’ writing too. Indeed,
the idea for the first chapter, on
Parsifal ‘itself’, initially intended as a self-standing article, arose
from my reflections on another
production of that work: in many ways, a very bad production, however
wonderfully performed, yet one that still had me think about the role of
history and historical thinking in Parsifal.
And so it was with this Prom
concert too. Hearing Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Philharmonia in Webern’s Five Orchestral Pieces, the opening Adagio to Mahler’s unfinished Tenth
Symphony, and the first act of Die
Walküre had me scribble in my programme booklet, lest I forget, not only
that I should add a specific reference to Webern and Wagner’s unendliche Melodie (‘endless melody’) in
what I am currently writing. I should also explain more clearly, I realised, in
the section I had drafted that afternoon, how the legacy of that idea for so
much twentieth-century music, Mahler’s included, was predicated on a
qualitatively different understanding of ‘melody’ from that which previously had
held sway – and still, in certain quarters, does:
The term
has often been misunderstood; it has little to do, even in Tristan,with the long
phrases of Italian bel canto opera, but
rather refers to the need for each and every note to be expressive, significant
within the whole. Therein surely lies one of Wagner’s most important legacies
to Schoenberg, his pupils Alban Berg and (especially) Anton Webern, and beyond,
to Boulez, Stockhausen, et al. It is
as much a way of understanding the greatest music of the past – usually, yet
not necessarily Austro-German – and of placing works, here the Ring,within that lineage as it is of offering prescriptions for the ‘music of
the future’ (a term Wagner endowed with often unacknowledged irony).
Whether that thought will make
it into the final cut remains to be seen – my co-editor may be cursing yet
another round of Wagnerian expansion on my part – but it can remain here, at
least, with thanks to the performers and indeed to the Proms.
For, as Carl Dahlhaus pointed
out, when Wagner coined the term, he did so with respect to Beethoven, divining
in the Eroica Symphony the unfolding
and development of a single coherent melody – perhaps not so very different
from what Schoenberg, defying interpreters ever since to make final sense of
his term, called the Idea of a musical work – an idea of an Idea that was
unquestionably familiar and congenial to Webern, if not necessarily to be
identified with his.‘According to
Wagner,’ Dahlhaus continued, ‘music is “melodic” when every note is eloquent
and expressive; and in contrast to a “narrow melody,” in which the melodic
element is continually interrupted in order to make room for vacuous formulae …
avoidance of cadences is not the nature of the principle, but one of its
consequences.’ Such was what we heard in Salonen’s – and the Philharmonia’s –
Webern and Mahler, at least insofar
as audience bronchial activism and telephone calls permitted. Salonen’s
principal revelation here, at least for me, was Webern’s build-up of harmonic
tension, owing much to Wagner, and in Webern’s case at least to Brahms too, on
the (relatively!) micro- and macro-levels. Not that that was at the expense of
other parameters (as Webern’s fruitfully unfaithful successors would soon term
them), nor at the expense of ‘character’, but rather underlying them.
Hearing
op.10 and the Adagio together, the
one emerging from the other, was a masterstroke: a familiar enough idea in
itself now, largely thanks to fellow composer-conductors such as Michael Gielen
and Pierre Boulez, but not always endowed with such immanent meaning. We heard
what was different too, of course, the particular quality of Webern’s iridescent
sweetness, his dancing: so much more echt-Viennese,
for better or worse, than the ever-alienated Mahler, who perhaps speaks in more
familiar tones yet to us and our condition. (Assuming, that is, we are not all Austro-German
nationalists!) Yet the overwhelming quality of the climaxes, musically
prepared, never appliqué, had much in
common – provided, that is, one listened. How keenly, moreover, one listened to
the intervals and their import at the close of the Mahler, having been led to
do so by Webern – and how keenly would one therefore be led to do so in the
first act of Die Walküre, following
the interval.
Wagner’s storm cleared the Mahlerian
air – just as was happening outside the Albert Hall in ‘real’ life too. Robert
Dean Smith as Siegmund sounded in better voice than I have heard him for quite
some time. Certainly his opening phrase was such as one could have taken
dictation from it, verbal and musical: an implied caesura both from the
expressionism of the first half and from the inhuman dialectics of Das Rheingold, whose precedent was
implied to many of us. Anja Kampe’s Sieglinde answered with almost instrumental
colour – a modern chalumeau, perhaps – which yet did not preclude the keenest
verbal response to Wagner’s text too. As so often in Wagner, as in Mahler and
Webern, emphasis upon one element and excellence therein heighten rather than
detract from other elements. It was clear, very soon, that this woman was damaged
(are not all the characters here?) but also that she was emphatically a human
being and a woman. Philharmonia chamber music – as with Liszt, most of Wagner’s
chamber music is to be found in his orchestral writing – both beguiled and
underlined dramatic tension: Hunding was already present in absentia. The sadness of cellos en masse commented on and extended the message of that
unforgettable cello solo at the beginning of the scene. Wind anticipated the
springtime (Lenz) with which
Sieglinde would later identify Siegmund.
Enter Hunding. Franz-Josef Selig, in one of the greatest performances I have
heard from him – which is saying quite something! – endowed Wagner’s Stabreim with all the significance it
needs, and which yet it does not always receive. Selig realised and
communicated how those consonants interact with the vocal line and indeed with
the orchestra. So too, clearly, did Salonen. Unendliche Melodie! The febrile, almost Erwartung-like orchestral cauldron Salonen stirred drew attention
to how anti-melodic, in the bel canto sense,
these vocal lines can sometimes be – even
in this, one of the most lyrical of the Ring
acts. Occasionally, Dean Smith sounded a bit tired here, but he recovered – and
really made the most of his role as saga narrator, as did Selig. One could
almost see the ghostly horses of past, invisible dramas; one certainly heard
them. Gurrelieder
seemed but a stone’s throw away. Whilst Sieglinde was silent, one could not
help but notice that she was. Hunding’s venom – not a quality I have usually
associated with the often kindly Selig – was such as to draw still greater attention
to the lack of a female voice. Timpani upon his departure, likewise brass
response, further darkened the scene.
One of the few doubts I
entertained about the entire performance was the excessive – to me, at any rate
– holding of Dean Smith’s second ‘Wälse’. Still, if that is all I have to say
on the negative side, there should be much rejoicing in Valhalla. Kampe’s
return incited that turn to the vernal at which she had previously hinted,
Philharmonia woodwind especially responsive – and generative. How she spun her
line, verbally and musically: she
might almost have been taking lessons from Wagner in Opera and Drama on the poetic-musical period. Perhaps, indeed, she
had. It certainly was not long before her delivery sent shivers down this
particular spine. That identification of Siegmund, as yet with ‘Lenz’ took
place in more of a hothouse setting than often one hears, testament doubtless
not only to Salonen’s long experience with Tristan,
but also to the re-examined standpoint from which he is now addressing the Ring. Release when she named him
Siegmund was as much musical as – well, whatever else you want to call it.
Preparation had proved just as assured as in Mahler and Webern, and had
doubtless, quite rightly, been coloured by Wagner’s posthumous history in their
work.This, then, proved to be
a performance both magnificent and fruitful. Salonen would seem to have come to
the Ring in earnest at just the
right, or at least a right, time –
for him, for me, and, I hope, for you too. We shall see, or rather hear, over
the next few years as his Ring
gathers pace both in concert and in the opera house.
Berlin Radio Choir (chorus master: Philipp Ahmann)
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Christian Thielemann (conductor)
There are musical works at
which, in awe, one strain’s one’s aural neck – and then there is the Missa solemnis (no need, just like the
Ninth Symphony, to say whose). It has its detractors; so does Fidelio. However, their accusations, in
both cases, seem founded on gross misunderstandings of what Beethoven was
doing. Ultimately, they perhaps even add to the works’ stature: almost
unquestionably so, I think, in the case of the Missa solemnis. Its extreme difficulty is both the point and not
the point. As with all late Beethoven, indeed pretty much all Beethoven,
dialectics ensure that difficulty and simplicity, rupture and wholeness, so on
and so forth, are not just banally ‘connected’, but inconceivable, conceptually
let alone performatively, with one another.
Performance: there’s the rub,
or perhaps the greatest rub. I have noticed that, with many honourable
exceptions, it is singers who are most likely to condemn those works of
Beethoven that include voices. (It is surely an error to name them ‘vocal works’,
a mistake that gets close to the heart of the matter.) If you want concessions,
to your personal taste, to your ease of performance or listening, concessions to
anything really: Beethoven could hardly be less your man. It is not ‘about you’,
as the modern slogan has it. And yes, I know very well that I am drawing upon, thinking
and writing within, the Romantic myth of Beethoven, of the towering, glowering
genius. Such knowledge, whether we like it or no, is the essence of our modern
and/or post-modern predicament. Guess what, though? The myth happens to be
true. The enigmatic quality and the extreme difficulty are integral to the
work; in the complexity of its attempted, impossible mediation between subject
and object, they are, just as in Hegel (well, more or less ‘just as’), doing
the work of Geist (Spirit), of God,
of history, of whatever we want to call it, or It. Calling the Missa solemnis a ‘concert work’ is at
best misleading, despite its actual – as opposed to envisaged – performance history.
It is not only a sacred work, but a resanctification of, through serious
reckoning with, the Mass itself – and not only its text. Reactionaries will not
like that, but so what? Nor does Geist.
Performance, however, is not, as it were, the only rub. The business of
aesthetics, of reflection upon art, almost immediately, even immanently, arises
with this work. Such is modernity – and is this not most likely Beethoven’s
most modern work of all? I have long entertained the fantasy – and who knows:
sometimes fantasies are realised – that the Missa
solemnis in particular and perhaps Beethoven in general would be my
retirement job. (Let us leave aside the sad reflection that retirement itself
will doubtless remain a mere fantasy for those of us betrayed and destroyed by
the ‘Brexit’ generation.) I certainly do not feel remotely prepared to tackle
it yet. In that respect, I both take heart and become ever more fearful from
Furtwängler’s decision no longer to perform it. Like Beethoven himself – and surely
we ought to afford his view a little respect, Wellington’s Victory notwithstanding – Furtwängler thought it
Beethoven’s single greatest work, yet considered its challenges too great for
him or indeed anyone else ever to be able to realise. And if Furtwängler,
surely the greatest recorded Beethovenian of all, thought so…
Furtwängler’s view has
overwhelmingly, tragically, been proved correct. I cannot, of course, claim to
know all recorded performances of the Missa
solemnis, let alone all other performances. Of the recordings as such (as
opposed to performances that have survived on recording) only Klemperer’s 1966
version for me really confronts its challenges head on and emerges with credit.
(One can hardly say ‘surmounts’ them; no one surmounts Beethoven’s challenges,
or if (s)he does, that is perhaps the most lamentable fate of all.) And,
perhaps perversely, although I should like to think in some sense dialectically
– well I would, wouldn’t I? – I had, before this performance from Christian
Thielemann and Berlin forces, attended only one performance in the concert
hall. True, they do not necessarily come along so very often, but nor are they
so rare as that might imply. I had not wanted to risk a mediocre, let alone a
poor, performance: bad enough in symphonic Beethoven – what is more
soul-destroying than thinking ‘pointless’ and-or ‘meaningless’ to a performance
of the Fifth Symphony? – but somehow even worse here, for it might end up
sounding like what its detractors think it does. I had chosen my single
performance well: Colin Davis, shortly before his death, and with mortality
seemingly, even at the time, hanging over Beethoven’s grand reckoning not only
with the Mass but with God Himself. It
was a performance I shall never forget – and again, like Klemperer, that is
part of the problem for whatever comes after. It may, it would seem, also be (re)listened to on YouTube, but I have never felt the desire to try – and doubtless
to fail – to repeat an unrepeatable experience. (Indeed, although I have
offered a link to the review, I do not yet even wish to re-read it.) And the
thoughts it gave rise to, seemingly spanning the entirety of musical and
theological history, or doubtless I flatter myself…
Apologies for having spent so
long, relatively speaking, concerning my own thoughts, or attempts at thoughts,
about the work rather than the performance. (Believe me, I could have gone on
for much, much longer; I almost thought myself retired.) They seemed necessary,
though, not even merely advisable, to explain how I heard Thielemann’s
performance – or perhaps, to those who gained far more from it, how I did not
hear it. Or perhaps I too was avoiding a confrontation. It seems somehow almost
unforgivably banal to move to saying ‘it had much to admire, yet…’. And yet,
that is what I must do; for, despite many very real virtues, the sheer excellence
of all performing forces the greatest among them, I was left almost entirely
cold. Was that another turn, as it were, of the Adornian dialectical screw? I
thought I had truly grasped the work, however fleetingly, and then had not?
Maybe a little, but not really, I think.
Thielemann clearly knew the
work, or the notes, and what he wanted from it, or them. He was conducting from
memory. Moreover, he clearly knew exactly how to get what he wanted from those
uniformly excellent performers. Any criticisms I shall make are in no sense
criticisms of them. One might have thought that a musician who, not
unaggressively, positions himself as a standard bearer of the great German
tradition would have been in a good position to communicate the mysteries of
this work. There is, of course, no single tradition, though. And whilst I have
in the past admired Thielemann’s Beethoven greatly – his recordings with the
Philharmonia, for instance – his more recent Beethoven, still more so his
Wagner, seems to have been filtered through a materialist conception that might
work for Strauss, and often does work for him, magnificently, but which cannot
really cope with the meaning(s) of works by Beethoven and Wagner. We can
certainly applaud the need not to say the same thing over and over again, or
indeed merely to imitate the past; but that does not mean that an alternative,
simply by virtue of being an alternative, has any of the answers.
The full, warm sound of the
Berlin Philharmonic at the opening of the Kyrie
augured well: not entirely unlike Thielemann’s Philharmonia Beethoven; perhaps
also with a certain kinship to the Klang of
Leonard Bernstein’s Concertgebouw recording; not much at all in common with the
sound of any of Herbert von Karajan’s intriguing multiple attempts at reckoning
with the work (see, for instance, here
and here),
although perhaps at another level – deeper or shallower? perhaps both? – not so
distant conceptually from Karajan’s approach. Militant authenticists would not have
liked it, but who cares? And the bounds of the movement – perhaps the only one
that has recognisable bounds – were well chosen; I was put in mind of an
observation from Joseph Kerman to the effect that this was the only part of
Beethoven’s setting that had no hyperbole. (I cannot recall his precise words,
and do not have them here with me to check, so I hope that I shall be forgiven for
distortion, misattribution, or even downright invention!) Moreover, whilst,
from observing Thielemann, one might have feared an overly moulded performance,
it did not – at least not here – sound like
one. And if one had a problem with what it looked
like, one could also, as with Bernstein, close one’s eyes. (Even Karajan did
not, of course, do that for works with chorus when conducting them.) There was,
moreover, a fine sense of a ‘natural’ – however constructed that might have
been – tread to the movement’s progress. Beethoven, quite rightly, was not to
be hurried; nor was he to be static. Individual soloists versus the ‘mass’ of
the chorus sounded in balance, and dramatically rather than banally so. It did
not ‘sound like’ Haydn, but perhaps still belonged in a similar conception to
his. Beethoven as (sort of) Haydn? That is hardly unreasonable, especially
here.
The rest of the Mass does not,
of course, and rarely if ever did Thielemann seem quite to know – not that I
think he was not trying – to portray, to dramatise that. The breakneck speed of
the opening of the Gloria was surely
an attempt, far from unreasonable, to do that – but what does reason, at least
Enlightenment reason, have to do with this work? Superlative playing from the
orchestra and superlative singing from the chorus impressed, as did the
extraordinary clarity of what one heard: bassoons beneath the chorus, for
instance. It ‘worked’, I think, but something was missing. The beating Larghetto heart of the movement arguably
did not, Thielemann seemingly struggling to establish a basic pulse, although
the woodwind solos predictably ravished in a materialist fashion. Even once the
pulse had settled, though, it all sounded a little too glamorous. There was,
though, a welcome sense of decision to follow: there can be no argument with
either Beethoven or Whoever Stands Above Him; or alternatively, there can, but
it will fail. Such good work, very sadly, was largely undone by a
preposterously indulgent Luftpause
before ‘in glora Dei Patris’. What might work – might – in Thielemann’s Meistersinger
‘Wach auf!’ does not work here; it came across as mere egotism. Just because
you can do something, it does not follow that you should. Following that,
perhaps not inappropriately in situ,
came weirdly operatic ‘Amens’. Beethoven as Verdi? No thank you.
Still more is at stake in Beethoven’s
Credo, both statement of and struggle
to believe. Here, alas, there was far too little sense of struggle. Tension was
built up admirably in the first section, very controlled, even controlling, but
that is not to be disdained; we hardly want a free-for-all. It was, again,
mightily impressive. ‘Et incarnatus est’ brought Palestrina, increasingly
adorned, to the stage, not unlike an aural representation of a Gothic church,
decorated by Rococo successors. Egotism once again, however, brought a bizarrely
prolonged silence between the ‘Crucifixus’ and ‘Et resurrexit’ sections.
Perhaps this is unfair, but it was almost as if Thielemann wanted to dare the
audience not to fidget, or even to applaud. What followed was highly theatrical
– one may argue about whether it should be, but it is not an outrageous
conception – without ever conveying any real sense of theological, or other,
meaning. Neutrality as opposed to neutralising tendencies doing batter with
subjectivity in the material and its development? Beethoven as sewing pattern?
Again, no thank you.
That tendency to draw out ‘preparations’
– not in a liturgical sense – was again to be heard in the Sanctus as we approached the ‘Pleni sunt coeli’ section. Alas, it
sounded more like a trick of the trade than a reading or communication of the
text. There was no gainsaying, though, the outstanding level of execution.
Warmly cultivated playing from concertmaster, Daniel Stabrawa – I wish
violinists would not stand as if concerto soloists for this – was greatly to be
admired, but did this feel in context as if it represented, even embodied, the
descent of the Holy Ghost? Oddly, the music of the ‘Benedictus’ section sounded
closer than I could recall hearing before to Die Zauberflöte. Beethoven as Mozart? Well, we can argue about
that.
Darkness, even if again of a
somewhat materialist conception, rightly haunted the opening of the Agnus Dei. Franz-Josef Selig’s solo
seemed to speak with something close to perfection of both that darkness and
the humanity that might emerge de
profundis. A comparison with Sarastro would be indicative, but only if it
involved contrast too: there is nothing of a noble yet flawed character to the
music here. (The flaws obviously, I hope, refer to Sarastro, not to Mozart!)
Once more, although Thielemann often looked as if he were about to pull the
music around, he did not do so unduly; indeed, the sternness with which he
conducted the Berlin strings was greatly to be admired in terms of potential
meaning as well as executive accomplishment. There was no doubt that we were
all, worthless sinners, to be on our knees here. The longed for unambiguous major
chord, when it came, was treated to what I thought of as ‘fleeting length’: not
indulgent, now, but provocative in a better, productive sense. What never quite
materialised, though, was the cosmic scale to the later sounds of this
movement. It was as if we had returned to the world of the Kyrie; even the terror of war sounded as if heard a little too much
from afar, or even as a near-visual, ‘beautiful’ representation.
I was not overwhelmed, then,
either by this microcosm, or by Thielemann’s
Missa cosmogony. I do not doubt, and certainly do not mean to call into
question, that he had considered what he was doing. Perhaps it was just not for
me. I am not sure, though, that it was for Beethoven – whatever we mean by that
– either. Still, it made me think, if more afterwards than at the time. I was
led to think even about what it meant not to have been made to think. And then
I returned to Adorno, and with the unquestionable egotism of a mere fallen
human being, to something I had written in my first book (on Wagner’s Ring), towards its close:
Adorno was quite justified to claim that serious consideration
of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis – perhaps the most enduringly enigmatic musical
work yet written – could only result in its Brechtian alienation, in rupturing
‘the aura of unfocused veneration protectively surrounding it’. One of the
greatest problems with respect to the Ring is that such rupture has
become well-nigh impossible. To be aware of this is only a beginning, but
better than nothing. We should remain grateful that the enigma of the Ring
pales besides that of Beethoven’s work. If we could understand why Beethoven
set the Mass, we should, Adorno claimed, understand the Missa Solemnis.
Understanding why Wagner wrote the Ring and beginning to understand the
work itself suddenly seem less forbidding prospects.
The Staatsoper Unter den Linden
is now reopen for good. That re-reopening,
as it were, has taken place with two new productions of two favourite works of
mine: Hänsel und Gretel (which I
shall also review shortly) and L’incoronazione
di Poppea. I wish I could offer a wholehearted welcome to this production
of Poppea, not least as my final
instalment in rather a wonderful Monteverdi year, the highlight of which was
surely an RIAS Kammerchor Vespers, conducted by
Justin Doyle (see also interview here). Eva-Maria Höckmayr’s production offers, alas, little in itself,
almost a non-production, whilst the musical performances were somewhat mixed.
Let us start, however, with the good news, which was very good news indeed. In
what I believe was her first role in a Monteverdi opera – madrigal performances
and much other early music notwithstanding – Anna Prohaska truly shone in the
title role. She can certainly act, and did, called on, like much of the cast,
to be onstage for an almost absurd proportion of the evening. There was, then,
no doubting her stage presence; but nor was there any doubting her vocal
presence. Never forced, ever audible, increasingly imbued with darker, richer
tones than I recall when first hearing her, without any sacrifice to clarity
and cleanness of line and words, Prohaska surely offered a performance that
would have made anyone wish to hear her again, whether in Monteverdi, Nono,
or somewhere in between. Her Poppea, moreover, was no one-dimensional schemer,
no mere sex-kitten, although she certainly offered plenty in the way of allure
and manipulation; this was a woman reclaiming a woman’s role, certainly not
apologetic, yet unwilling simply to have as a male projection – be that
Monteverdi’s, Giovanni Francesco Busenello’s, ours – might have her act.
Seneca (Franz-Josef Selig), Nerone
Her leading men, as it were,
also offered intelligent, multi-dimensional performances. Max Emanuel Cencic’s
Nerone was occasionally a little on the squawky side, yet only occasionally. Otherwise
he judiciously, even provocatively, balanced the character’s vanity and sexual
allure, for if Poppea is to be more than merely a male projection, then surely
the other characters, male and female, need to come more into their own. Ottone
is, more often than not, a thankless role – almost a Don Ottavio for the
seventeenth century. Xavier Sabata, though, gave him depth and greater ambition
and nastiness of his own than one often encounters – without that diminishing
his helplessness in the arms of Fate. Jochen Kowalski, who has had a long,
distinguished career not only as a countertenor, but as a countertenor in
Berlin, tended, alas, to suggest that that career should probably draw to a
close. Perhaps it was just an off-night, but here he was barely capable of
singing countertenor at all, proving more successful when giving up that good
fight to sing instead as tenor. He still had stage presence; for the most part,
that was all.
Rather to my surprise,
Katharina Kammerloher’s Ottavia proved variable, less sure – or indeed
beautiful – of line than most performances I have heard from her. Franz-Josef
Selig, as ever, offered a thoughtful performance as Seneca, alert to the
character’s irritating side – not only as seen through the eyes, or heard
through the ears, of Nerone and Poppea. Evelin Novak’s Drusilla impressed too,
as did Mark Milhofer’s deliciously camp – yet crucially, eminently musical –
Arnalta. Gyula Orendt rose above his announced ailment to give notable
performances, which doubtless could have been finer still, as Liberto and
Lucano. Most of the smaller roles were well taken, often by members of the
company. Quite why children were engaged to double the gods in the Prologue I
have no idea; moreover, whilst it is certainly a tall order to ask children to
sing Monteverdi at all, let alone on stage, the audience probably deserves to
hear voices that are vaguely capable of remaining in tune.
Diego Fasolis made heavy,
unvaried weather of the score. Many current ‘Early Music’ clichés were present,
including the irritating addition of ‘colourful’ percussion. It was a relatively
large band for Monteverdi in all: nothing wrong with that in principle, but it
did have me wonder why we were hearing period instruments. I do not think I
have heard a more dully conducted account, closer to a failed attempt to copy Nikolaus
Harnoncourt than to something livelier, whether at the ‘period’ or – one can
but hope – the Leppard end of the spectrum. Might it not, moreover, have been
an occasion to look to a composer’s realisation of the score, say Krenek’s or Dallapiccola’s, or to commission a new one? The Staatskapelle Berlin
would certainly have been a vocal sight for sore ears, much of what we heard resembling
– although it certainly is not – acres of dullish recitative. Why, moreover, in
this version credited to Fasolis and Andrea Marchiol, did we hear material
interpolated from elsewhere, such as L’Orfeo?
It was hardly ‘authentic’, in any sense, offering little more than a longer
evening. Poppea is not a short opera;
here it felt far longer than it should.
As for Hockmayr’s production, I
struggled for the most part to find one, beyond a cursory nod to a threadbare metatheatricality that has degenerated into mere fashion. From Jens Kilian, a single, undeniably
impressive golden set, with intriguing geometrical possibilities – circular and
otherwise – promises much, as does Julia Rösler’s ‘punkish Renaissance-Baroque’
costumes, Nerone and Poppea perhaps more, yet not entirely, contemporary (to
us). I had the sneaking impression, though, however erroneous, that the singers
had largely been left by Hockmayr to get on with it. There is, at least for me,
no obvious concept, other than the characters being all as bad as each other:
hardly original, and actually rather dull. Yes, they all have their flaws;
neither Ottone nor Ottavia is a paragon. There is surely room for greater
differentiation, though, differentiation which need not lead to moral
judgement. And so, in the final scene, Poppea’s sudden trauma at her elevation,
unforgettably portrayed by Prohaska, seems to come out of nowhere. Likewise the
frankly silly twist that has Nerone wander off with Lucano. Yes, of course the
two are close, and will remain so, sexually and otherwise: the orgy has shown
us that. But surely to have Nerone already opt so obviously for another rather
than to remain omnivorous seems little more than an unprepared cop out. Perhaps
Hockmayr had thought this all out and either it did not come across very clearly,
or I was missing something. Perhaps.
