Le nozze di Figaro, Deutsche Oper, 20 February 2024

Count Almaviva – Thomas Lehman

Countess Almaviva – Maria Motolygina
Susanna – Lilit Daviyan
Figaro – Artur Garbas
Cherubino – Meechot Marrero
Marcellina – Michaela Kaune
Don Basilio – Burkhard Ulrich
Don Curzio – Chance Jonas-O’Toole
Bartolo – Padraic Rowan
Antonio – Patrick Guetti
Barbarina – Ketevan Chuntishvili
Two Bridesmaids – Yuuki Tamai, Asaha Wada

Director – Götz Friedrich
Set designs – Herbert Wernicke
Costumes – Herbert Wernicke, Ogün Wernicke
Revival director – Gerlinde Pelkowski

Chorus (chorus director: Thomas Richter) of the Deutsche Oper
Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper

Giulio Cilona (conductor)

DIE HOCHZEIT DES FIGARO von Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart,
Deutsche Oper Berlin,copyright: Bettina Stöß
Count Almaviva (Thomas Lehman), Susanna (Lilit Dayivan), Don Basilio (Burkhard Ulrich)

Next stop on my tour of Berlin’s ‘vintage’ opera productions: Götz Friedrich’s Deutsche Oper Marriage of Figaro, a joy to encounter in itself and a nice sequel to Ruth Berghaus’s Barber of Seville across town at the Staatsoper. Friedrich’s productions are gradually making their way to the great opera house in the sky. When I first came to Berlin, a number of his Wagner stagings, for instance, were still in the repertoire; now there are none. This, from 1978, with designs by Herbert Wernicke – like Berghaus’s designer, Achim Freyer, going on to become a notable director in his own right – is certainly worth catching whilst it is still around. 

For once, I admit it was a relief to see an eighteenth-century society of orders portrayed as it ‘should be’. It is not the case that the drama cannot be reimagined in different settings, nor even that the complexity and hierarchy of such a society need in every case be reproduced (though one loses something if it is not). Yet too often, one gains the impression that a director has simply not bothered; or worse, has not even realised what is at stake. Such is the pathway to vulgar farce. Here, instead, almost everything seemed to fall into place. Not that that necessarily ‘happens’ without a good deal of thought and work, but the impression is important; the world created on stage worked, helped by being in accordance with that created by its librettist and composer, but also enabled to work by them. Even at this remove, there seemed to me no doubt that Friedrich had been involved at every level of this production, had made decisions founded upon musical and historical as well as stage understanding, and that characters and their relationships had been properly considered.

Costumes and their changes were never arbitrary or simply on account of a ‘look’, or even a concept. They had historical meaning and often looked handsome – Cheubino’s uniform, for instance – without being a fetishistic recreation, in which similarly the ‘look’ rather than the drama was the thing. Cherubino’s hiding from the Count actually worked for once; the number of times directors simply mess that up is, alas, all too numerous for comfort. I liked the touch of having the Count assert his manorial authority in front of the house’s customary picture of his ancestors. Likewise the audience room in which the last two scenes of that third act were set. Such attention to detail would chime with many people’s experience of visiting such houses and their estates and would therefore help bring to life the historical record, as well more straightforwardly as making sense of what was said, sung, and done. 

Perhaps more important, the choreography made sense, listening to the music rather than simply disregarding it in the usual ‘modern silly dance’ routines unmusical directors or their associates foist upon opera. (By all means offer something in counterpoint to it, however that may be understood, but at least do the score and its historical context the decency of listening to them first rather than simply skim-reading a libretto.) Scene changes were more frequent than will often be the case now: not only between but sometimes within acts. Current directors would do it differently, no doubt, but different is sometimes just different, not necessarily better or worse. 

Cherubino (Meechot Marrero), Countess Almaviva (Maria Motolygina), Count Almaviva

To questions concerning the opera are to what extent knowledge of the play and indeed of its sequel are expected. At one level, none: many of us saw and loved it before proceeding to Beaumarchais in either incarnation. Did Da Ponte and/or Mozart, though, expect any such knowledge, in the first instance by not having to show something that might have caused trouble with the censor; or, milder still, does one gain further insight from having done so? Here, rightly, the question was left open. No one was compelled to have extra knowledge, but we had both a sense of difference from the corresponding play that suggested purpose rather than mere accident, and one could certainly read aspects of the characters to suggest their lives had developed from the first instalment (even from Rossini after the fact; Paisiello too, I think). Thus when confrontations between Figaro and the Count were less studies in contemporary masculinity than will often, quite reasonably the case, one was led to think of their history together—and, as Friedrich noted in a fascinating programme interview, the fact that the Count is not an idiot, indeed most likely he is a man of the Enlightenment himself, entrusted as he will shortly be to represent his country as the ambassador in London. This, one might say, is him regretting the passing of certain aspects of something he knows to be wrong and attempting to recover them through guile, not through neofeudal reaction pushed to the level of absurdist tyranny. That, after all, is the story being told in the opera, though often one would not know it. The director may or may not have good reason for taking a slightly different line, just as (s)he might for failing to recognise what once had passed between the Count and Rosina, as once we knew here, but it is good to know, and to have suggested to us, that such matters have at least been considered.

And so, if I have been more thrilled by portrayals of Figaro and the Count, I came to appreciate a subtle more placing of them and the rest of the household within a greater social whole. Thomas Lehman and Artur Garbas did not seem to be presenting a modern portrayal and falling short; they were doing something different, as was Friedrich. Lilit Daviyan’s Susanna was not so different from what one might expect, though that is not to say she took anything for granted. Maria Motolygina’s Countess truly came into her own in ‘Dove sono’, a finely yet not fussily coloured account, in which musical means conveyed dramatic ends. Meechot Marrero’s Cherubino was not only dramatically alert but perhaps uncommonly beautifully sung. Michaela Kaune’s Marcellina offered a surprising star drunken turn in her fourth-act aria, for once retained. It was a pity still to be missing Don Basilio’s, but Burkhard Ulrich made a fine impression elsewhere: for once, a reading (Friedrich’s too, of course) that presented him as music master rather than a bizarrely camp caricature as has been recently fashionable. Everyone made a mark as required without overshadowing the rest of the company, down to Chance Jonas-O’Toole’s Don Curzio, whom one actually noticed in the sextet as well as before it, simply (or so it seemed) by virtue of Friedrich having given matters due consideration, as well as excellent singing. 

I cannot be so enthusiastic about Giulio Cilona’s conducting, though on the whole it seemed preferable to what I had heard last month in The Magic Flute. The Overture, hard-driven and with little audible at times other than rasping brass, brought us close in the wrong way to Rossini, as did too much of the first act. If there was little depth to what followed and a few too many disjunctions between pit and stage, especially during ensembles, at least it showed greater flexibility. And it certainly improved, the third and fourth acts more all-purpose ‘light’ rather than motoric. That Friedrich’s production survived and shone is all the more testament to its virtues—and to the cast that brought them back to life.

La bohème, Deutsche Oper, 29 December 2017

Deutsche Oper, Berlin

Image, Bettina Stöß (2015 revival)

 

Rodolfo – Lisparit Avetisyan

Schaunard – Dean Murphy
Marcello – Noel Bouley
Colline – Ievgen Orlov
Benoit – Jörg Schörner
Mimì – Dinara Alieva
Musetta – Alexandra Hutton
Parpignol – Ya-Chung Huang
Alcindoro – Peter Maus
Customs Officer – Sam Roberts-Smith 

Götz Friedrich (director)

Gerlinde Pelkowski (revival director)
Peter Sykora (designs)

Children's Chorus (chorus master: Christian Lindhorst) and Chorus of the Deutsche Oper (chorus master: Thomas Richter), Berlin

Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin

Nicholas Carter (conductor)

 

It was with considerable surprise that I found myself making one final visit of 2017 to the Deutsche Oper. On Christmas Eve, a malfunctioning sprinkler system had flooded the stage, leading to the cancellation of that day’s Nutcracker and a number of subsequent performances. Nevertheless, having clearly worked very hard, the company was able to announce that, from 28 December, performances would resume, albeit ‘halbszenisch,’ which seemed to mean in costume, but without full staging (scenery and so on). When Intendant, Dietmar Schwarz came on to the stage before the performance, it was difficult not to wonder ‘what now?’ However, it was with good news: the scenery would be there; the only real problem now lay with lighting, which would have to be provided by different methods (hence my lack of a lighting credit above).

 

In the circumstances – goodness knows what, if anything, happened by way of rehearsal – a detailed review would seem beside the point. What I will say is that, insofar as I could tell, the great Götz Friedrich’s 1988 production, here receiving its 118^th performance, did not seem especially tired. The cast seemed well directed by revival director, Gerlinde Pelkowski; interaction between the characters on stage proved detailed and convincing, within an overall realist framework. One did not expect the experience of Stefan Herheim’s Oslo staging – still the only one I have seen to offer profound, even life-changing insights – nor the bizarre yet inviting sounding lunar antics of Claus Guth recently in Paris. (How keen I am to see that at some stage!) Herheim’s shadow falls over everything I have seen thereafter, in any case; one does not need to have it in front of one, whether on stage or on screen, to experience again what it tells of death and its agonies.

 

A good cast offered plenty of opportunity, well taken, for solo and ensemble excellence. Liparit Avetisyan and Dinara Alieva proved a likeable Rodolfo and Mimì. As so often, the Musetta glittered especially bright: this time courtesy of Alexandra Hutton. Dean Murphy’s Schaunard stood out vocally, far from the easiest of tasks in that role. Choral singing was excellent, no allowances needing to be made for ‘circumstances’. And Nicholas Carter’s conducting of the ever excellent Deutsche Oper Orchestra steered a generally judicious balance between what one might broadly term the score’s Wagnerian and Stravinskian tendencies. Above all, though, and without abdicating one’s critical faculties, this was an evening for gratitude to all concerned. It was also an evening for especial gratitude from me, both to the Deutsche Oper and to Berlin. Sad to say, work compels me now to return to the United (sic) Kingdom. I intend to be back as often as possible, and shall be grateful for the rest of my life to the city that offered me refuge from (some of) the worst of British society and politics. London awaits.

Der Ring des Nibelungen, Deutsche Oper, 13-17 April 2017



Images: Bettina Stöß

Deutsche Oper, Berlin

Wotan/The Wanderer – Derek Welton (Rheingold), Iain Paterson (Walküre), Samuel Youn (Siegfried)

Donner – Noel Bouley
Froh – Attilio Glaser
Loge – Burkhard Ulrich
Alberich – Werner Van Mechelen
Mime – Paul Kaufmann (Rheingold), Burkhard Ulrich (Siegfried)
Fasolt, Hagen – Albert Pesendorfer
Fafner – Andrew Harris
Fricka, Second Norn (sung: played on stage by Anna Klöhs), Waltraute (Götterdämmerung) – Daniela Sindram
Freia – Martina Weischenbach
Erda, Grimgerde, First Norn – Ronnita Miller
Woglinde – Meechot Marrero (Rheingold), Martina Welschenbach (Götterdämmerung)
Wellgunde, Rossweiße – Christina Sidak
Floßhilde, Siegrune – Annika Schlicht
Siegmund – Stuart Skelton
Hunding – Tobias Kehrer
Sieglinde – Eva-Maria Westbroek
Brünnhilde – Evelyn Herlitzius (Walküre, Götterdämmerung), Ricarda Merbeth (Siegfried)
Helmwige – Martina Welschenbach
Gerhilde, Third Norn – Seyoung Park
Ortlinde – Sunyoung Seo
Waltraute (Walküre) – Michaela Selinger
Schwetleite – Rebecca Raffell
Siegfried – Stefan Vinke
Woodbird – Elbenita Kajtazi
Gunther – Seth Carico
Gutrune – Ricarda Merbeth

 

Götz Friedrich (director)
Peter Sykora (designs)
Jasmin Solfaghari (Rhiengold, Siegfried), Gerlinde Pelkowski (Walküre and Götterdämmerung) (revival directors)


Chorus of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin (chorus master: Raymond Hughes)
Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin

Donald Runnicles (conductor)

 

‘Mark well my new poem — it contains the beginning of the world and its destruction!’ Wagner’s words to Liszt, in a letter of 1853 have often been quoted. Less often quoted, yet equally important for these particular performances are the almost preposterously theatrical words with which he prefaced them. (Nietzsche’s charge that Wagner was above all an actor was not entirely without force, although not necessarily in the way he intended it.) ‘Yes, I should like to perish in Valhalla’s flames!’ Wagner also told his great friend and supporter, perhaps one of the very few who began to understand the scale of his achievement in the Ring. For here, Götz Friedrich’s production, first seen in 1984 and 1985, has reached its own Götterdammerung. One of the many lessons of the Ring is that nothing must be set in stone, or in the runes of Wotan’s spear; everything has its time. It seems to me that the Deutsche Oper has judged this about right, retiring it whilst there is some life in it, and giving it a proud immolation scene of its own, preparing the way for what must be the most eagerly awaited new production since – well, since 1876: that of arguably the greatest opera director at work today, unquestionably the greatest Wagner director, Stefan Herheim. All the Valkyries’ horses and all of Wotan’s host of heroes will not keep me from seeing that, but I am very glad to have had the opportunity to see, for the first and last time, its predecessor (however much what we now see may well differ from what Friedrich himself put on the stage). Many thanks indeed, then, to the Deutsche Oper for the tickets that enabled me to do so.

 

Different members of the audience would have experienced this in many different ways. Some many have been there for the first performances; some may even have been there for each cycle. Wagnerians are, after all, fanatical souls; it is safer to think oneself a Wagnerite. Some even came in coach parties, collected from the door each night. (Imagine that happening in Britain for something that was not a West End musical!) I mention that since many would have built up attachments that I did not have – just as I might for a favourite pianist whom I flattered myself I ‘understood’ and could therefore happily forget a few wrong notes. As stagecraft, what I saw was more mixed than was suggested by much of the reaction around me. It was mixed, though, and had enough going on conceptually and in detail to set me thinking more than in some new productions I have written about.

 

In that respect, for me, Das Rheingold fares best of all. If nothing can approach Patrice Chéreau’s evergreen Bayreuth staging for somehow surviving the ravages of time, this does not do badly at all. The story is told clearly, with a fine balance between ideas and characters. It is always difficult – indeed it should be difficult – to tell what is the work of the original director and what of the revival director, but it seemed to me that Jasmin Solfaghari had inspired her forces with considerable success. Perhaps she was also helped by the conceptual richness of the work, which does, as it were, so much of the work itself. If any one work of Wagner’s is a ‘drama of ideas’, it is surely this. At any rate, Peter Sykora’s fabled time tunnel, here and elsewhere, makes quite the visual – and conceptual – impression.  It was intended by Friedrich to convey something of Gurnemanz’s most celebrated line, ‘Du siehst, mein Sohn, zum Raum wird hier die Zeit’ (You see, my won, here space becomes time), thus reading back that strikingly Schopenhauerian and more generally post-Kantian idea back into the abidingly Hegelian, historical cosmogony of the Ring, or perhaps rather taking its shell and filling it with Hegelian content. Such, at least, is my predictably more Hegelian, historical reading, for a Ring without history is inconceivable to me – and, I should argue, to Wagner, the eager student (however much he might later have played this down) of Hegel’s Philosophy of History.

 

The setting for Nibelheim comes across as surprisingly undated. Its emphasis on the marriage between technology and barbarism marries well-nigh perfectly with Wagner’s own premonitions, or presentiments as he would have called them, of a darker age in German history. Adorno would surely have admired that more, had he been able to overcome his lack of sympathy earlier. Alberich’s appearance behind something akin to a shop window captures the avarice, the pretence, and the capital. His ability to control events is real, though. Mime’s pain is clearly no act, and the first ring transformation in particular is as convincingly handled as I have seen: sometimes lighting, or rather darkening, is all you need. In the second and final scenes, Loge’s availability to all – he is, after all, amongst other things, the incarnation of instrumental reason – is clearer than I can recall elsewhere. Fricka consults him and he proffers advice; he even wanders off with Fafner, following his murder of Fasolt, before returning to the scene of the crime. Valhalla is clearly another place, distinguished from wherever it is the assembled company is, and the rainbow lighting of the tunnel makes a lasting impression. Dr Who, eat your heart out, I thought. In a telling touch, what I have written of as the ‘limping aspirant waltz’ of the entry into Valhalla is splendidly choreographed: two steps forward, one back. Writing of Chéreau’s production, Günter Metken likened the entry of the gods into Valhalla to a tableau vivant of Bruegel’s Parable of the blind. There is something of that spirit here too.

 

One might have thought the ‘purely human’ – to use Wagner’s term – contrast in the world, at least partly, of Die Walküre would have fared better, but here I had the sense – it could only be a sense, given my lack of experience – that there was too much of the singers being left to their own devices, leading to somewhat generalised musico-dramatic performances. Whatever the reasons – and there may have been too little in the way of rehearsal time – strong Personenregie seemed lacking. Nevertheless, there are many points to commend, even if some of the designs here looked (to these perhaps jaded eyes) a little tired. Miniature ruins of old civilisations in the time tunnel are suggestive – rather than prescriptive. The Valkyries, true Hell’s Angels in appearance, intriguingly put up at least a gesture of a fight when Wotan advances, his spear having to command them to desist. Here, though, and in much of the remainder of the cycle, I felt that the lighting was often too dark, or more to the point, dingy. Whilst there is clearly a conceptual case for darkening of the light, one hears it in the music in any case, and more importantly, it often makes it a little too difficult to see what is going on onstage. On the other hand, it certainly made the real fire – praise Loge – at the close stand in great relief, in more than one sense.

 

Siegfried and Götterdämmerung fell somewhere in between, I think. I was rather charmed by the naïveté of the forest designs, and the contrast with the excellent functioning of Mime’s smithy, bellows and all, proved instructive. In Wagner’s dramatization between artist (Siegfried) and craftsman (Mime), there is more to glean than mere opposition, for the work is more complex than even this creator. I have seen far worse dragons too. The revival direction (Solfaghari again) seemed to me to possess a good sense of the epic, which is surely the key to what in many ways remains the most difficult of the Ring dramas to bring off. Many think it does not work, or even speak of the second act as tedious; they either do not understand, or have been let down by poor stagings. If the 2016 revision (essentially directed by Patric Seibert), although certainly not my first experience (how I recanted!) of Frank Castorf’s Bayreuth Ring evinced a more extraordinary epic character than any other I have seen, and has probably changed my view of Siegfried forever, then a staging three decades old did not hold up too badly. It can hardly be held responsible for failing to match up to the spectacular set designs of Aleksandar Denić.

 

If Götterdammerung somehow fails to impress, there will have been ‘the wrong sort of catastrophe’, as Network Rail, or whatever it now calls itself, might put it. That was certainly not the case here, although again I felt the Personenregie was sometimes a little lacking. Intelligent singing actors can do a great deal, and did, but in a work such as this, more is ideally required. The settings vary between an intriguing, distorting Gibichung hall, revealed with cunning metaphor to be partly of mirrors, to almost school-play-like bathos in the Rhine at the close (although see the end of this paragraph). The drama survives, though, even if lighting might have helped it further. The time tunnel at the close, which I had expected, whether ‘historically’ or melodramatically, or both, to suffer devastation, pays testament to a cyclical view. And so, yes, the Schopenhauerian view suggested by Gurnemanz’s words prevails, if not entirely, at the close – just as he does, not entirely, at the close of the work. It was only afterwards that I read Friedrich’s words – and I am glad that I left it until then, so that they would not colour my anticipation – ‘When at the ending of Götterdämmerung everything has been burnt and destroyed, when the Rhine in the shape of a gigantic white cloth covers all of it, they [the gods] have gone back to sitting there, as in the beginning, ready to play their parts in the play once again, perhaps ever and again. Are we, while they are doing this, while they continue to do this, are we getting any wiser, any richer? The director leaves the reply to his question to you.’

 

Cast as these performances were over for just five days, there was some degree of sharing out recurring roles. I have no objection to that at all. Theatre is not ‘real life’, and there can be advantage not only to different standpoints at different stages of characters’ development, but to being reminded that this is theatre – especially, I might add, for Wagnerians as opposed to mere Wagnerites. (The problem is that the former are likely to be most resistant to such realisation.) All three Wotans had sterling qualities to their portrayals. Derek Welton’s Rheingold god matched youthfulness to power and strength, his turn to thoughtfulness in the final scene, ably picked up by Iain Paterson’s Walküre successor: very much an heir to the sagas, reminiscent in some respects of a young(er) John Tomlinson. Samuel Youn performed a valuable task in reminding us that there is life in the old god yet, brutality especially evident, but in context, I felt this was a little too much Dutchman, somewhat too less resigned Wanderer. Perhaps, though, I am falling into the Wagnerian trap I mention above.

 

Standing out for me amongst the other gods was Daniela Sindram’s Fricka: almost yet not quite sympathetic, at least in the day-to-day, straightforward sense. Wagner’s Hera should fascinate, yet to some degree repel. His description of her as embodying ‘custom’ was not in any sense intended as a compliment – as the drama makes abundantly clear. Attilio Glaser’s foppish way with Froh trod with ease the difficult line between portrayal of an almost cipher-like character and mere inconsequentiality. Burkhard Ulrich’s subtly calibrated Loge reinforced the production’s understanding of the demi-god as the Ring’s sole intellectual; Ulrich would prove just as impressive in the very different role of Mime (although they are often sung by the same artist), never, as Wagner insisted the singer must not, turning to caricature without falling into the common, understandable trap of making the dwarf unduly sympathetic. (Siegfried does enough of that as it is.) Ronnita Miller’s Erda showed great presence, in stage and vocal terms, although she veered somewhat out of tune for some of her Rheingold stint.

 

Stuart Skelton’s Siegmund was as well sung and humanly portrayed as we have now come to expect. (Why, o why, does Covent Garden continue to ignore him?) The relative weakness, so it seemed, of the Personenregie did little, though, to ignite a real sense of passion between him and Sieglinde. In that role, Eva-Maria Westbroek certainly wowed the audience, which awarded her the greatest cheers of the evening. I, however, found myself less involved. Her portrayal seemed to me at times as generalised as the direction, and I could not help but suspect that the clamour was as much a response to the volume as anything else; it can hardly have been a response to her way with the poem. Tobias Kehrer’s darkly dangerous – yet not simply relying on darkness of voice, as in some ‘great’ portrayals of the past – Hunding made me wish we had more to hear from him. As the Volsung twins’ heir, Stefan Vinke proved tireless (save for one forgivable moment in the final act of Siegfried). He had his moments with tuning, and it cannot be said to have been the most subtle of assumptions – but would a subtle Siegfried be missing the point? – yet he did much more than get through the cruel demands placed upon him by Wagner, much more than I have usually heard.

 

There was quite a contrast between our two Brünnhildes. Evelyn Herlitzius, as is her wont, gave utterly committed performances. One has to take the rough – sometimes, I have to admit, the very rough – with the smooth, but one can forgive almost everything when the commitment is such as here. Her turn as the woman scorned in the second act of Götterdämmerung was noteworthy for something that is all too often missed; that is very much part of her ‘elevation’ to humanity. I should not have minded hearing more of the words, though, especially in the grand denouement. Ricarda Merbeth had far less to do in terms of acting – or singing, for that matter. I suspect she might have been parted by the demands of the Walküre and Götterdammerung incarnation, but there were vocal thrills of a perhaps more conventionally ‘operatic’ kind, not unreasonably, to be had in her duet. Michaela Selinger contributed a moving Waltraute, attentive to the text throughout: the greater part of the trick, if we may call it that, here. The other Valkyries were a characterful bunch, more varied in tone than any ensemble I recall.

 

Werner Van Mechelen’s Alberich shifted, as if with the aid of a vocal Tarnhelm, between appearances – until his final, almost Beckettian appearance in that well-nigh incredible scene with Hagen (of which Boulez, no less, spoke with awe). Albert Pesendorfer showed great versatility in shifting in rather different fashion, from a truly sympathetic Fasolt (contrasting with Andrew Harris darker portrayal of the giant’s gangster turned rentier brother, Fafner) to a subtly manipulative Hagen: again offering far more than ‘mere’ darkness of tone. Seth Carico proved an accomplished Gunther. It is a difficult role, since playing ineffectuality should not become ineffectual in its sense. Carico’s acting skills helped greatly here, his fear palpable, without unduly informing smoothness of vocal line – or indeed enunciation of the text. His Gutrune, Merbeth again, with whom there was suggested an all-too-close relationship (perhaps more mother substitute than anything else), could sometimes be a little blowsy and again ‘operatic’; I am not sure that it was really her role.

 

Last but certainly not least, the Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper under Donald Runnicles did a sterling job. One almost always hears a few too many slips in Götterdämmerung, especially from the brass, and such was the case here, but to dwell on that would be to parody Beckmesser. Throughout, the string tone was dark yet commendably clear, not so transparent as that of some bands, but different orchestras have different characters, and long may that remain the case. No one, however often (s)he might have heard the Ring, could have come away from the performances having failed to learn a good deal from Wagner’s modern Greek Chorus. The actual chorus, a hangover but what a hangover from Wagner’s immersion in grand opéra, showed typical excellence in Götterdämmerung. Runnicles was an excellent guide, first amongst equals: supportive of singers without deferring to them. Structure was admirably clear, even if form lacked the last few inches of dynamism one would hear from, say, Daniel Barenboim. Art is not a competition, though, and if I felt a little shortchanged at the end of the first act of Die Walküre, I also recalled that the Staatsoper’s recent (Guy Cassiers) production made a considerably lesser impression than when I heard Barenboim’s concert performance at the Proms.  There is much to be said for such an unshowy way with Wagner, not least when one compares it with what London audiences have had to endure since the departure of Bernard Haitink. Runnicles’s wisdom was ultimately not so different from Brünnhilde’s. We ‘saw’ and heard ‘the world end’ – in words of hers Wagner never set, but never needed to; the orchestra sometimes says it all.

 

To celebrate 1500 blog posts: Deutsche Oper Strauss-Wochen (5) - Der Rosenkavalier, 10 April 2016



Der Rosenkavalier © 2008, Bettina Stöß
(Images are indicative of the production, not of the present cast.)

Deutsche Oper, Berlin

Die Feldmarschallin, Fürstin Werdenberg – Michaela Kaune

Der Baron Ochs auf Lerchenau – Albert Pesendorfer
Octavian – Daniela Sindram
Herr von Faninal – Michael Kupfer-Radecky
Sophie – Siobhan Stagg
Jungfer Marianne Leitmetzerin – Fionnuala McCarthy
Valzacchi – Patrick Vogel
Annina – Stephanie Lauricella
Police Officer – Seth Carico
The Marschallin’s Major-domo – Peter Maus
Faninal’s Major-domo – Jörg Schorner
Singer – Matthew Newlin
Flautist – Djordje Papke
Servant – Thomas Lehman
Milliner – Alexandra Hutton
Landlord, Vendor of Pets – Matthew Peña
Three noble orphans – Sabine Dicekcmann, Gabriele Goebbels, Christa Werron
Their mother – Satu Louhi
Hairdresser – Younes Laraki
His assistant – Sandra Meyer
Marschallin’s Lackeys – Haico Apal, Ulrich George, Tadeusz Milewski, Rüdiger Scheibl
Mohammed – Jason Boateng
Almonier – Frank Sufalko
Leopold – Olli Rantaseppä
Doctor – Carsten Meyer
Pair of Dancers – Silke Sense, Christopher Matt
Four Waiters – Ralph Eschrig, Mike Fischer, Heine Boßmeyer, Imma Nagne Jun
Children – Children’s Choir and Children Extras
Leopold – Dirk Wolter
Lackeys – Ingolf Stollberg, Andreas Keinze, Jun-Seok Bang, Matthias Beutlich
Waiters – Rafael Harnisch, Torsten Schäpan Norbert Klesse, Thomas Müller
Three noble orphans – Jennifer Porto, Emily Dorn, Christel Loetzsch

Götz Friedrich (director)

Gottfried Pilz, Isabel Ines Glathar (designs)
Duane Schuler (lighting)
Gerlinde Pelkowski (Spielleitung)

 

What a splendid way to finish, with Götz Friedrich’s Rosenkavalier. Few opera productions have a productively long life; I do not mean that as an insult, for by their very nature, successful stagings tend to respond to the concerns of their time, which will not necessarily be ours. There are exceptions, of course; have you ever met someone who has tired of the Chéreau Ring? (Perhaps there remain, somewhere on a reserve, a few choice creatures who still angrily reject it, ‘in the name of all that is winged in helmets’, but let us leave them to their webpages.) Friedrich’s 1993 production, doubtless in conjunction with (very) successful revival direction, still has a great deal to offer. Unlike, say, Otto Schenk’s ideas-free, drama-free, totally-missing-the-point-of-the-opera bad-taste-Rococo-fest, Friedrich’s staging, surely the inspiration for almost all interesting productions thereafter, might have been imagined yesterday, or even tomorrow; comparison with Chéreau is far from exaggerated. Its seventy-fifth performance had me think more than a little; it also had me cry more than a little. It can therefore be said to have done its work very well indeed.

Anachronism is the opera’s thing, or rather it is part of the opera’s most profound concern: the passing of time. Die Zeit, die ist ein sonderbar Ding. (Or ‘sonderbares’?) It is too in Friedrich’s staging: it is about playing roles, wearing masks, navigating the æsthetic and historical disjunctures with tragic wit and comedic fate. That is done out of love, out of necessity; as a game, as a way of life; as a Viennese, both rooted and cosmopolitan, of ‘then’ and of ‘now’. The point is, of course, that the Vienna of Der Rosenkavalier never existed; it is not ‘really’ the ‘Jesuit Baroque’ of Maria Theresa, to which Hofmannsthal referred in a letter to Strauss (24 April 1909). Yet if there is both truth and untruth – more a matter of dialectical drama than of dishonesty – in Hofmannsthal’s claim, there is likewise both truth and untruth in another Hofmannsthal letter (to Harry Graf Kessler, 20 May 1909) that the Marschallin is not intended in a ‘voltairianisch’ way. Again, there is reference to the ‘Austrian Jesuit Baroque’, but there is something that both encompasses and transcends, or perhaps transgresses, the Austrian, even the Viennese, setting. There was never really a Vienna of Voltaire in the first place; the Austrian Enlightenment was richer – and poorer – than that. Joseph II, whilst co-Regent, pointedly passed by Voltaire’s château rather than visit him. But the artwork has a cosmopolitanism to it too that should not be ignored; the Marschallin’s French may not be intended in that way, at least not entirely, but she is not so far from the salons of Paris – or of Capriccio. There is something of the historico-æsthetic need to recreate in all of that, as there is in what we see.

For the production opens not in the ‘Jesuit Baroque’, not really; nor even in the Vienna of 1911, not really. It seems, and semblance is surely the important thing here, a way in rather than an endpoint, to have more of the 1920s of it, albeit an ‘interwar period’ as we now know it, looking back: fondly, nostalgically, maybe even a little desperately. That is not just Friedrich’s doing, of course; his production, aided enormously by the excellent designs of Gottfried Pilz, Isabel Ines Glathar and by Duane Schuler’s clever lighting, has lived on too, now in the Spielleitung of Gerlinde Pelkowski. The work’s over-ripeness – a part, but only a part of it – has been historically anticipated, almost as if it were aware of Walter Benjamin, which in a sense, of course, it is. It and its after-history are certainly aware of the Marschallin’s hopeless desire to stop the clocks; the poignancy is, if anything, added to, by the extension of the ‘too late’ quality, but also by the Marschallin and Octavian dressing up, recreating, with some of the greatest eroticism I have seen in this work, that never-was dix-huitième we know and love. (Not the Rococo: are you listening, friends of Otto Schenk? Listen to Hofmannsthal… Listen to Strauss: even Johann, via Richard!) The Personenregie unfolds with deceptive, unsparing realism and non-realism; we feel on the one hand it is real, and on the other, that it is artifice. Such is the work; such is the production; such is musical performance. We cannot stop the clocks, although everyone of us would help the Marschallin do so.

 

Perhaps the greatest victory against the ‘Against Modern Opera Productions’ tendency, though, is the beginning of the second act. It looks magnificent, on a first glance; it does on a second, too, although not in the way they think it does.  Some of them actually applauded, presumably thinking they were in Schenkstadt. But they were not; the joke was on them. They do it with mirrors, as the Marschallin would have told them, if only they listened, or cared. Faninal’s Palais actually resembles a smart hotel; it is all a little too functional. It even resembles the smartness of the Salzburg Festival, a Straussian, Hofmannsthalian, strenuously ‘Austrian’ invention itself. We love it; our lives are enriched by it. But it is an invention; an imposter, even, claiming Mozart, in no meaningful sense whatsoever an ‘Austrian’, just as it claims his Salzburg, his Vienna.

 

The third act is perhaps the greatest triumph of all. The pretension – and I use the word deliberately – of a created Beisl is revealed for what it is: again, this is true criticism. The exaggerations of this ‘old Vienna’, presumably ‘suburban’ in the old sense – think, perhaps of Mozart’s Theater auf der Wieden, or of any other example that takes your fancy – are revealed and, just perhaps, explained. If it is an old Viennese ‘farce’, then it is also old Viennese Fasching; Faschingsschwank aus Wien, as Schumann might have had it. The commedia dell’arte hints (the lovers’ dressing up) of the first act find their destiny here, the Pantomime ‘real’ and the events ‘proper’ theatre; or is it vice versa? The splitting of the stage and the interaction between the two ‘halves’ show us that it is not either-or, but also that a sense of either-or is necessary to appreciation of the delights of the metatheatrical constructions, both Werktreu and otherwise. Valzacchi’s photography is spot on. He draws us into his world, makes us voyeurs, foreigners, consumers, anachronisms, participants. The scandal sheets, the situation, the carnival would be nothing without us. And none of this detracts from our being moved at the end; quite the contrary, it enhances, it necessitates that.

 

And how we were moved at the end – and not just then. The three women – well, two women and a ‘man’ – complemented and contrasted with each other splendidly. Michaela Kaune’s dignity was unanswerable; it grew, as time went on. She became more beautiful in every way, the more her fate and her mastery of the situation were sealed. Daniela Sindram’s Octavian, stuck in the middle, was unsparingly portrayed: quite right, there should be no sentimentalism here. The character’s youth might seem attractive, but it is not, neither for him, nor for us. Siobhan Stagg’s spirited Sophie was just the thing: horrifyingly little-girlish at the start – the schoolgirl dress was also just the thing – and developing, little by little, not too far but far enough. Albert Pesendorfer’s Ochs was not merely boorish; there was an element of charm, as there should be, at least at times. His pretensions to being a Kavalier were satirised, but not too much, as much in performance as in the silly reddishness of his wig. It was intriguing to encounter a Faninal with real charm too, as well as undeniable arriviste qualities. In Michael Kupfer-Radecky’s portrayal, we were treated to vocal as well as stage suavity, no mere caricature; he knew how to turn it on too. The Italians were uncommonly fine in vocal terms, and more complex character than one generally sees; Patrick Vogel’s quicksilver Valzacchi was complimented by Stephanie Lauricella’s glamorous Annina. Nothing else, I am sure, would have done in this ’20s-ish world.

 

So it went on, everyone playing his or her part, and the quality of the ensemble playing the greatest part of all. Except, perhaps, for the Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper, whose praises I have sung in every one of these reviews, and which I shall sing again here. ‘In its blood’ is perhaps an unfortunate, if not entirely inappropriately unfortunate, metaphor here, but it really, doubtless unsurprisingly, seems to speak Strauss like few other orchestras. Ulf Schirmer, in one of the finest performances I have heard from him – self-effacing, not faceless – was first among equals; one had the sense that the orchestra’s waltzing coaxed him, just as he coaxed it. Moments of stillness were such that a pin could have been heard to drop; moments of commotion were so finely balanced that this might have been a second Meistersinger. There was direction, but there was time to linger. Rubato might not stop the clock, but it might increase our desire to do so. Strauss’s Wagnerism – leitmotif here unusually apparent, without overbalance – and his worship of Mozart were as carefully held in check, as productively drawn into conflict and, perhaps, even reconciliation, as they were on stage. As I said, I thought – and I cried.

 

 

 

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Deutsche Oper, 14 February 2010

Deutsche Oper, Berlin

Hans Sachs – James Johnson
Veit Pogner – Kristinn Sigmundsson
Kunz Vogelgsang – Thomas Blondelle
Konrad Nachtigall – Simon Pauly
Sixtus Beckmesser – Markus Brück
Fritz Kothner – Stephen Bronk
Balthasar Zorn – Jörg Schörner
Ulrich Eißlinger – Peter Maus
Augustin Moser – Burkhard Ulrich
Hermann Ortel – Klaus Lang
Hans Schwarz – Jörn Schümann
Hans Foltz – Hyung-Wook Lee
Walther von Stolzing – Klaus Florian Vogt
David – Paul Kaufmann
Eva – Michaela Kaune
Magdalena – Ulrike Helzel
Night-watchman – Krzysztof Szumanski

Götz Friedrich (director)
Peter Sykora (stage designs)
Kirsten Dephoff and Peter Sykora (costumes)
Gerlinde Pelkowski (revival director)

Chorus and Supplementary Chorus of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin (chorus master: William Spaulding)
Movement Chorus, Actors, Acrobats (choreography: Charlotte Butler and Carsten Meyer)
Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin
Donald Runnicles (conductor)

And so, my brief sojourn in Charlottenburg drew to a close with a performance of the greatest of all comedies. From the host of idiocies one hears repeated about Wagner, the claims of a lack of humour must be amongst most preposterous. Whilst I missed out on the new Rienzi, an intriguing-sounding Flying Dutchman, and of course the Ring, at least I could be reminded of just what a magnificent work of art The Mastersingers of Nuremberg is: most welcome, since I still shudder when considering the sheer directorial ineptitude of my most recent stage encounter with the work, when Katharina Wagner presented it at Bayreuth.

Götz Friedrich was a far wiser director and his 1993 production holds up pretty well almost seventeen years on. It will doubtless be well known to many readers from the DVD recording, but this was my first acquaintance. Nuremberg is recognisably Nuremberg, but the costumes suggest the nineteenth century: the time of composition, I suppose. A vision of old Nuremberg and, more, briefly of the devastation of its twentieth successor, may be glimpsed during the opening prelude, thus framing the production’s terms of reference. We can never quite forget – especially when a Star of David is seen on stage with the Mastersingers’ guild: same symbol, different meaning, but the possibility of consequences? (By the way, obsessive purveyors of anti-Semitic interpretations of Wagner may care to ask themselves why the composer chose to mention King David. It would hardly have been beyond him to have chosen a different symbol.) This set me thinking that, in some respects at least, a city such as Nuremberg might well have been recognisably the same city, at least during the earlier nineteenth century. The guilds were breaking down, but not broken. They had their defenders, from Hegel to Wagner. And they presented their own solutions to the ‘social question’, represented their own version of community to an increasingly disenchanted world of liberal ‘free competition’. Not the least of the consequences of the 1848-9 revolutions was the boost given to ‘free trade’ and onslaught on impediments thereto: such sops to the bourgeoisie kept them on side with the restored order, far preferable to the red threat, from Wagner and his ilk, they had glimpsed during the uprisings.

Lest this sound one-sided – and I should emphasise that the thoughts are largely mine, sparked by the production, but not necessarily to be ‘found’ therein – the humour of Friedrich’s staging should certainly be mentioned. To take one example, I have never before found the reappearance of the Nightwatchman amusing. Here, the haplessness of his arrival once the riot is over was just that. The Malvolio-like quality of Beckmesser was emphasised throughout; there may or may not be uncomfortable questions to ask here, but the brilliance of Wagner’s humour is too often overlooked. Other nice touches include Walther threatening physical violence when impertinently asked whether he is frei und ehrlich geboren. Would not any self-respecting Junker do the same? Schopenhauer, however, barely registers.

Prior commitments meant that Donald Runnicles, who has recently become Music Director of the Deutsche Oper, was unable to lead a new production during this Wagner festival. We found him in the pit, however, for Meistersinger. He encourages a good, indeed an excellent, sound from the orchestra – which, during my three performances, I found on as good form as I can recall, perhaps better. The Viennese glint on which I have remarked in earlier reviews remained very much a characteristic of the strings. Warm and full of sound, this was an orchestra fully worthy of expressing the sentiments of heil’ge deutsche Kunst. On the negative side, to be mentioned though not exaggerated, Runnicles could sometimes drive the music too hard, veering occasionally towards the metronomic, the very antithesis of Wagner’s ever-varying melos. Moreover, there were too many disjunctions between stage and pit. Perhaps there was limited rehearsal time, but the excellent chorus was too often left adrift. It is worth here, however, commending chorus master William Spaulding for his work with the chorus, which once but no longer seemed a poor relation to its counterpart at the Linden opera.

Fortunes were somewhat mixed on stage. James Johnson was a likeable Hans Sachs, who grew in character as the performance progressed. He could sometimes, however, be overwhelmed by the orchestra and lacked the degree of personality – think Sir John Tomlinson! – that makes a true Sachs. The real fly in the ointment, however, was Michaela Kaune’s Eva. Her voice lacks beauty, even steadiness, and simply sounds ‘wrong’, too mezzo-like, for the role. The radiant lyricism that should flow so freely from this evocation of the Goethian Ewig-Weibliche was nowhere to be heard. I had wondered whether a different production from Bayreuth (!) might set her off to better advantage – sadly not. Indeed, I found myself wishing that she would swap roles with Ulrike Helzel, an artist new to me but a quite outstanding Magdalena. Here was beauty of tone, and a character in whom one could believe as an object of David’s love. Davids tend to be winning – what a gift of a role it is! – but Paul Kaufmann’s refusal to be an exception should nevertheless be cited approvingly. Kristinn Sigmundsson’s Pogner sounded tired – he had sung King Henry the night before – and Stephen Bronk’s Kothner simply sounded old. However, Markus Brück’s Beckmesser was a joy. If Sir Thomas Allen remains my gold standard in this role, this was an excellent assumption of the part, fully alive to the Shakespearean humour I mentioned above, unwilling to descend into even the slightest suspicion of caricature.

And then – there was Klaus Florian Vogt. Regular readers will know of my esteem for his near-miraculous voice. I almost tire of praising him, but not quite. Once again, he displayed his instrument’s strange, yet wonderful mixture of lyric tenor quality with the power of the heroic tenor: an ideal combination. The Prize Song was so beautiful as to bring one to tears, almost as if Fritz Wunderlich had turned Heldentenor. How could anyone resist? Vogt can act, too, as I had to admit even at Bayreuth…

Lohengrin, Deutsche Oper, 13 February 2010

Deutsche Oper, Berlin

King Henry the Fowler – Kristinn Sigmundsson
Lohengrin – Ben Heppner
Elsa – Ricarda Merbeth
Friedrich von Telramund – Eike Wilm Schulte
Ortrud – Waltraud Meier
King’s Herald – Markus Brück
Brabantian Nobles – Gregory Warren, Thomas Blondelle, Nathen De’shon Myers, Ben Wager
Bridesmaids – Rosemarie Arzt, Constance Gärtner, Brigitte Höcht, Antje Obenaus, Gabriele Goebbels, Christa Werron, Brigitte Bergmann, Martina Metzler

Götz Friedrich (director)
Peter Sykora (designs)
Gerlinde Pelkowski (revival director)

Chorus and Supplementary Chorus of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin (chorus master: William Spaulding)
Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin
Michael Schønwandt (conductor)

The late Götz Friedrich’s 1990 production of Lohengrin is by now quite venerable, but on this showing, it could have a few years in it yet. It certainly compared favourably with both the previous instalment from the Deutsche Oper’s Wagner-Wochen, Kirsten Harms’s Tannhäuser, and with Covent Garden’s recent Lohengrin exhumation. In a repertoire production such as this, one is unlikely to experience the theatrical thrills and challenges experienced in recent offerings from Stefan Herheim (truly outstanding, across the city at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden) or Peter Konwitschny (Leipzig). Nevertheless, one has a relatively straightforward, yet coherent telling of the story, attentive to the music as well as the words, and possessed of a clear sense of what works in the theatre. The sets and other designs perhaps veer towards the old-fashioned – fashions change so quickly – but there is no fetishisation, whether of costumes or stage directions. I was puzzled to hear some members of the audience complain of the lack of a swan; it was perfectly clear to me – and rather on the large side too. It would be better to retain Friedrich’s production for a while longer than to err by rushing into replacing it.

The emphasis, then, tended to fall upon the musical side of the performance – which, as a rule of thumb, is not so bad an idea. Michael Schønwandt conducted well, with a clear sense of musico-dramatic structure, and a fine command of the orchestra. As in Tannhäuser, the golden, almost Viennese glow of the strings impressed, whilst the brass packed quite a punch, especially when it came to the thrilling surround sound effect of the third act fanfares. There were occasions, especially during the first act, when relatively slow tempi, unobjectionable in themselves, could not quite be sustained with the requisite sense of line. (Semyon Bychkov at Covent Garden last year was exemplary, and probably slower, in this respect; but sage advice might have been not to try that at home.) On the whole, however, there was little with which to quibble, and much to savour. The chorus once again proved a major asset, especially as the performance went on. Occasional discrepancies between pit and stage were swiftly resolved.

What of the soloists? Let me get the major, if not unanticipated, disappointment out of the way. Ben Heppner has clearly been experiencing difficulties for some time. The first time I recall hearing him was on Wolfgang Sawallisch’s Munich recording of Die Meistersinger, which revealed a Heldentenor of considerable accomplishment: not the most thrilling in operatic history, perhaps, but with great sustaining power and, that rare thing in this repertoire, someone who could be depended upon to sing the part accurately and securely. Some time later, a Peter Grimes for the Royal Opera was all over the place intonationally. His recent Tristan (Covent Garden again) showed worrying signs of disrepair, and seems to have deteriorated as the production’s run proceeded. (I was fortunate to hear Lars Cleveman on my second visit.) I was nonetheless surprised by the weakness of his Lohengrin. It offered symmetry, in that his closing ‘Mein Lieber Schwan’ was just as wildly out of tune as its first act counterpart. But even when making the notes, he was too often unable to project his voice, at times resorting to crooning. It sounded to me as though he really ought to have withdrawn. The house might not have been able at such notice to secure the services of a Jonas Kaufmann or a Klaus Florian Vogt (the latter was in any case to sing Meistersinger the following evening), but there are other, less celebrated tenors who might have answered the call, such as Cleveman or Stefan Vinke, whose Leipzig rendition in December impressed me greatly.

There is no avoiding the fact that this left a hole at the centre of the performance. However, the other parts were much better taken, above all by Waltraud Meier, who was, astonishingly, making her house debut. Ortrud has always been one of her finest roles, the tessitura fitting her voice extremely well, and the dramatic demands bringing the best out of her on stage. She can hold an audience in the palm of her hand even when silent. So it proved here. The malevolence in Ortrud’s character – Wagner spoke with disgust of her as a ‘female politician’ – is offset by a clear sense of conviction in the justice of her cause. Moreover, there is, in Friedrich’s production, an interesting possible twist at the end; it is perhaps suggested that the new Führer, Gottfried, may have fallen under her spell. With Meier in the role, one should certainly not write off Ortrud. Ricarda Merbeth’s Elsa was certainly not in this class, though it had its moments. Whether it were the dictates of the production or her own conception, this Elsa seemed a less pure, more sexually aware character than is usually the case. I missed the pure beauty of tone of an artist such as Gundula Janowitz, but I can see that this interpretation, intonational difficulties aside, would have its followers. Try not to look too close though: the facial expressions are a trial, and bear no evident relationship to the drama. Kristinn Sigmundsson was generally a stentorian King Henry, though his vowels sometimes sounded a bit odd, in a fashion I have noticed a few times amongst Scandinavian and Icelandic singers. There were moments during the first act when I wondered whether Eike Wilm Schulte’s Telramund would falter. It is a difficult role to bring off: to portray insecurity, leavened by Ortrud’s Lady Macbeth-like determination, without simply seeming like a weak singer. Schulte, however, presented an eminently credible portrayal, commendably attentive to music and text. I find it difficult at the best of times not to sympathise with this pair; on the present occasion, there was no contest. Perhaps, though, that bias has been present in the music all along.