Salzburg Festival (1) - Melnikov/Mozarteum/Bolton - Mozart, 21 August 2022

Grosser Saal, Mozarteum

Symphony no.31 in D major, ‘Paris’, KV 297/300a
Piano Concerto no.17 in G major, KV 453
Serenade for orchestra no.9 in D major, KV 320, ‘Posthorn’

Alexander Melnikov (piano)

Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra

Ivor Bolton (conductor)

‘Mozart, more intimate [than Beethoven], more touching, between the melancholy of the past and the serene expectation of the future, Mozart, who is neither a child, nor an androgyne nor an angel, but a little of all these, Mozart, always loving, always confident, Mozart smiled, even before death…’ It is difficult to take issue with many, if any, of these claims, save perhaps for the particular comparison with Beethoven, from the fourth volume of Messiaen’s Traité de rythme, de couleur, et d’ornithologie. Messiaen’s insistence that Mozart smiled was repeated in his final commissioned work, Un sourire, written in 1989 for the 1991 bicentenary. If I were to offer a single criticism of the Mozart revealed, or obscured, by Ivor Bolton in this Mozart Matinée, it was that the music all too rarely smiled.

In the Paris Symphony, indeed, the decidedly un-Mozartian quality of the grimace was more to the fore. The Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra offered a welcome, full sound, enhanced by the size of the hall, only slightly marred in the ‘Parisian’ opening by the incongruous sound of rasping ‘period’ brass with a ‘modern’ orchestra, albeit one with regrettably little in the way of string vibrato. Bolton’s tempo, however, was well chosen, probably somewhat on the slow side for today’s fashions—allegedly ‘period’, yet rarely anything of the sort. A hallmark of this performance was the elemental sense imparted by certain basic musical figures. Not always did they fully develop into larger lines beyond that, though, having excellent playing (whether to one’s taste or no) give the impression of dragging rather than fizzing. The slow movement—the 3/4 Andante rather than the 6/8 Andantino—was not entirely without such doggedness but flowed better. I was left regretting its brevity, but then why say more than need be said? Bolton seems not to have mastered the (admittedly difficult) trick of playing as fast as the closing Allegro demands without sounding hard-driven. It was here, above all, that I regretted the lack of a smile, the presence of all too many grimaces. Counterpoint, however, was clear, adding a welcome ‘learned’ depth.

That inability to sustain a long Mozart line, or maybe unwillingness (could it be that he actually does not want to?) was again apparent in the opening of the G major Piano Concerto, KV 453. Lovely woodwind playing could not entirely disguise the lack of vibrato from violins in particular. More, though, than in the symphony, Bolton carried the music forward, although only after pianist Alexander Melnikov’s entry was it clear how this might be done more readily. Strange ritardandi were Bolton’s doing; Melnikov could generally be relied upon to put them right, though he was not without a certain brusqueness either. The cadenza, Mozart’s own (as in the second movement) melted beautifully where called for; a little more of that earlier on would surely have been preferable. Messiaen, at least, would have thought so. The opening phrasing of the Andante was much better. Melnikov’s fashionable decision to play piano continuo before his first solo entry struck me as unnecessary, but it did no great harm. The sense of hushed mystery he brought to the minor mode was beautiful indeed; for that, one could have forgiven much. It was the finale, though, that fell most readily into place, its ‘rightness’ of tempo and phrasing leaving space, well taken, for something closer to the magic Mozart requires. Mozart’s changes of tempo were well handled, characterful and consequential; those imposed on final exchanges between piano and orchestral less so, their rhetoric decidedly uncertain, even arbitrary.

The Posthorn Serenade’s first movement offered another grand, if slightly astringent, introduction. Apparent confusion over dynamics at one point aside, the rest was generally well shaped and benefited from a stronger sense of forward momentum than the Paris Symphony had. Bolton’s rhetorical broadening for the onset of the recapitulation worked in context. The second movement was on the swift side, but far from excessively so. I did not care much for the agogic accents employed, but I have heard far worse mannerism. It was otherwise well shaped and projected, though the Trio, taken by solo instruments, relaxed too much to the extent of sounding sluggish. Whether it was strictly necessary for flutes and oboes (not bassoons) to stand for the beginning of the third movement, the practice drew visual attention to aural delights to be savoured from all in the section. Third and fourth movements were beautifully played, at well chosen tempi; there were even a few smiles. The fifth emerged, intelligently and convincingly, as its predecessor’s successor bathed in darker shadows, that characterisation having us value all the more the passages of sunlight. Here was the dramatic highpoint of the morning, seeming already to point toward the world of the Da Ponte operas. A robust opening to the Menuetto was taken with just the right amount of swing. The considerably faster tempo taken for the first Trio sounded unsettled, even bizarre, but moderate slowing for the second worked well, its solo wonderfully played on what looked to me like a genuine posthorn. The finale offered a rousing close, full of incident and variety. It was a pity, I felt, that some of these insights could not have been fed back into the first part of the concert, to show us the truth of Messiaen’s further claim that Mozart’s form ‘is always perfect and constantly renewed’.

 

Munich Opera Festival (3) - Agrippina, 28 July 2019

Prinzregententheater

Images: Wilfried Hösl

Claudio – Gianluca Buratto

Agrippina – Alice Coote

Nerone – Franco Fagioli

Poppea – Elsa Benoît

Ottone – Iestyn Davies

Pallante – Andrea Mastroni

Narciso – Eric Jurenas

Lesbo – Markus Suihkonen

Barrie Kosky (director)

Rebecca Ringst (set designs)

Klaus Bruns (costumes)

Joachim Klein (lighting)

Nikolaus Stenitzer (dramaturgy)

Bavarian State Orchestra

Ivor Bolton (conductor)

And still they come. The opera world’s obsession with Handel’s operas shows no sign of abating. The Bavarian State Opera has, since Peter Jonas’s Intendancy, stood at the forefront of Handel staging; this new production of Agrippina was dedicated to him. As ever, I was pleased to see one of these operas for the first time in the theatre – how could I not be pleased to see almost anything in Munich’s wonderful Prinzregententheater – but again, as ever, I was left unable ever quite to put to one side the dramaturgical difficulties/problems/flaws/inadequacies. (Call them what you will.)

That Agrippina tells us next to nothing about ancient Rome is neither here nor there. One might say the same of La clemenza di Tito (in whichever version one cares to take it). It benefits also, I think, from being one of Handel’s earliest works. The freshness of his Italian writing is often very much apparent, even though some of the music he recycles – his own, that is, though Reinhard Keiser puts in guest ‘borrowed’ appearances too – perhaps breathes more easily in its earlier manifestations. There is certainly wit in Cardinal Vincenzo Grimani’s libretto; that seems to have appealed to Barrie Kosky, who somewhat oddly speculates in the programme on the cardinal’s sexual orientation on the basis of in-jokes, as he sees them. Again, that is really neither here nor there, but Kosky, for all the intelligence with which he writes otherwise in that programme, seems unable or at least unwilling to prevent himself from inflicting acts of arbitrary silliness. They do little to clarify or to further the action, and serve instead to suggest that it is not to be taken seriously. (If not, then what is the point at all? It is certainly not an intrinsically amusing work.) Silly dancing, that plague of so much vaguely ‘modern’ opera staging, recurs with wearying regularity; likewise gratuitous over-acting, which serves, it seems, only to dare one ‘humourlessly’ to decry it. As for the bizarre transformation at one point of Agrippina into nightclub singer, the less said the better.

Agrippina (Alice Coote)

There is, moreover, little or no sense of what might actually be at stake in the plot, most notably the very real danger in which Ottone, fallen foul of imperial favour, finds himself. The work’s dramaturgical difficulties are thus heightened rather than addressed, let alone resolved. Deferring an interval until the middle of the second act does not really help. The three-act structure is clear and meaningful; there is no obvious reason to present us with one-and-a-half acts at a time, other perhaps than cost-cutting. The descent of Juno to bless the final arrangement is – somewhat oddly, given the length of the evening – omitted. So too is the ballet that would follow; instead, we have an aria from L’Allegro, Il Penseroso ed Il Moderato. That all does no harm, I suppose; presumably divine intervention stood at odds with whatever the production’s prevailing sensibility of the production is held to be. (Apart from vaguely modernised silliness, I remain at a loss.) Its inclusion might well, though, have offered opportunity for more of a critical, reflective stance than ever emerges.

Ivor Bolton’s tempi were sensible enough, at least for a while. It was not long, though, before one realised that the conductor had little or no sense of harmonic rhythm, and was simply treating the score as recitative-aria-recitative-aria, ad infinitum. Given some arbitrary pulling around of certain numbers, others remaining unpleasantly hard-driven, the work’s longueurs were again heightened rather than addressed. Orchestral playing was generally excellent, the Bavarian State Orchestra’s woodwind especially delectable. If strings would have benefited from warmer tone at time, that was clearly a consequence of Bolton’s allegedly ‘period’ style. Continuo exhibitionism was largely absent, for which, in the present climate, we should all be grateful, even though what remained was often somewhat staid.

There was much to admire in the singing, save for Franco Fagioli’s dreadful squawkathon as Nerone. His bizarre facial expressions were certainly matched by grotesque vocal production. Why anyone should wish to experience either is quite beyond me. The best that could be said was that his display was less atrocious than as Covent Garden’s Idamante a few years ago; at least he sang a few more of the right notes in Munich. Alice Coote offered a generous, beautifully shaded performance in the title role, coloratura a dramatic tool, rather than, as in Fagioli’s case, a mere object of (fallible) display. Elsa Benoît’s Poppea proved finely contrasted in tendency – Kosky’s more girlish conception of her was perhaps a little much – but possessing many of the same musical virtues. Oddly, the one aria in which accuracy of intonation left much to be desired was the one vigorously applauded by a sadly undiscerning audience. (It lapped up Fagioli too.) Iestyn Davies put Fagioli to shame in his unfailingly musical performance as Ottone. ‘Ti vuo’ giusta e non pietosa,’ which here came immediately before the interval, offered all the musical sensitivity and verbal acuity so conspicuously absent chez Nerone. There were otherwise no weak links, Gianluca Buratto’s Claudio perhaps especially impressive in his matching of style and temperament.

Claudio (Gianluca Buratto) and Elsa Benoît

Ultimately, though, none of the problems seemingly inherent in performance of Handelian opera seria were solved; a good few were not even acknowledged. Handel is unquestionably a fine composer. Is it too much, though, to ask that we look more to the music – and indeed to the musical dramas – in which he stands at his greatest? Most of the oratorios – pretty much any of them, other than Messiah – remain bizarrely neglected. They offer thoughtful singers, as well as audiences, considerably greater nourishment, on the whole. And can we not at least rid ourselves of this fad with vocal exhibitionism, especially when it fails so manifestly even on its own terms? There is room for Handel and Gluck; a surfeit of the former, however, tends only to have one longing for the ‘noble simplicity’ of the latter.

Munich Opera Festival (2) - Orlando Paladino, 29 July 2018

Prinzregententheater

Angelica – Adela Zaharia

Rodomonte – Edwin Crossley-Mercer

Orlando – Mathias Vidal

Medoro – Dovlet Nurgeldiyev

Licone – Guy de Mey

Eurilla – Elena Sancho Pereg

Pasquale – David Portillo

Alcina – Tara Erraught

Caronte – François Lis

Gabi and Heiko Herz – Heiko Pinkowski, Gabi Herz

Axel Ranisch (director)

Falko Herold (designs)
Magdalena Padros Celada (choreography)

Michael Bauer (lighting)

Rainer Karlitschek (dramaturgy)

Munich Chamber Orchestra

Statisterie and Opera Ballet of the Bavarian State Opera

Ivor Bolton (conductor)

Gabi and Heiko Herz (Heiko Pinkowski, Gabi Herz), Angelica (Adela Zaharia)
Images: © Wilfried Hösl

Should you not like eighteenth-century opera very much, if at all, and should you have no or little interest in Haydn either, this may have been the production for you. The fundamental premise of Axel Ranisch’s staging of Orlando Paladino seems to have been that this was a work of little fundamental merit, or at least a work in a genre of little such merit, and that it needed the help of a modern medium – perhaps, it might even be claimed, an equivalent medium – to speak to a contemporary audience. Speak to the audience in Munich’s Prinzregententheater it certainly seemed to – rightly or wrongly. I could only wish that both the work and those of us in the audience who thought otherwise had not been treated with such condescension. That may sound reactionary. Perhaps indeed it is; perhaps all that matters is that those many people who enjoyed such an ‘entertainment’, to use a properly eighteenth-century word, did indeed enjoy it. Perhaps. Let me, however, try to explain why I found this, much fine singing notwithstanding, a somewhat dispiriting experience.

Alcina (Tara Erraught) and Pasquale (David Portillo)

No one, I think, would claim Nunziata Porta to be one of opera’s greatest librettists; this is not a Da Ponte, a Wagner, or a Hofmannsthal. Nor indeed a Metastasio. However, his libretto here is, by the same token, likely to be underestimated, precisely because of where his talents lay. His principal occupation at Esterháza was to adapt texts, including provision of insertion arias. (If you do not know any of Haydn’s, for obvious reasons far less widely known than Mozart’s, then they are well worth discovering.) And that is what he did here, on a larger scale, with Orlando Paladino, helping Haydn create a rather extraordinary work, a dramma eroicomico after Ariosto. Its skill lies not just in parodying Ariosto, indeed not primarily in that at all, but in permitting Haydn to do so and indeed to parody much else besides: often wryly, subtly, sometimes more overtly – here, at least in one particular instance, in Pasquale’s ‘Ecco spanio’, Ranisch worked highly successfully with libretto and music. Otherwise, I am afraid, far too little of that came through – which was surely something a skilled production might have seen as its purpose or at least a good part of it.

Alcina and Angelica

Yes, one might respond, but what if an audience does not understand the conventions of late-ish eighteenth-century opera seria? Do we not need to find a way of leading many listeners in? We probably do, or at least in certain circumstances it might be a good idea. (Heaven forfend we might actually expect some work from an audience; nevertheless, if I do not read Russian, I do not claim the problem to lie in Pushkin.) A similar problem, after all, seems often to be experienced with Così fan tutte, which very few seem to understand – or, more to the point, take the trouble to try to understand. (Sometimes it is not ‘all about you’.) By all means, though, lead us in, show us what the opera is or might be about. Ranisch, however, seemed to have no interest whatsoever in doing so. Not unlike Christof Loy in his unforgivable Salzburg Frau ohne Schatten, albeit less aggressively, the message seemed to be: ‘forget about this; I do not like this story very much, so here is another one’.

Alas, Ranisch’s new story seems to me only slightly less banal than Loy’s. For all the filmic creativity – undeniable in its way, if hardly groundbreaking – what we have ultimately is a new, less than captivating, tale of a married couple who own a cinema. One of them is at least partly gay and fantasises about the handsome Rodomonte (or perhaps the actor/singer who plays him). When technical problems cause an explosion in the cinema, he takes the opportunity to wander into the scenes on screen to learn a bit more about himself. A huge amount of silly running around, pulling faces, and so on, detracts entirely from the opera and at best has one wonder what on earth is going on. Now there may well have been a way, even within this particular metatheatrical framework, to engage with the work, to do more of what I have suggested it might. It really does not seem, though, to happen here. A pair of actors, ‘Gabi and Heiko Herz’, seem the most honoured here. Ironically, however, the banality of their story, the striking Cinema Paradiso homage in Falko Herold’s designs notwithstanding, throws one’s attention back towards the singing, if only out of desperation. We end up with another tired old cliché, that eighteenth-century opera other than Mozart’s is ‘really’ only about singing. Orlando Paladino and Haydn thus found themselves doubly damned.

Medoro (Dovlet Nurgeldiyev) and Angelica

Such might have been less the case, had it not been for Ivor Bolton’s rigid, often hard-driven conducting, which paid little attention, if any, to Haydn’s harmonic rhythm, living if indeed it lived at all only in the moment – perhaps not so ill-suited a complement to the production. The playing of the Munich Chamber Orchestra was in itself excellent, however. One longed for it to be let off its leash, though, not least for the strings to be permitted greater vibrato. There seemed little doubt that they longed for that too. Nevertheless theirs was fine playing, woodwind solos especially joyous. For the real thing, though, turn on record to Antal Doráti – or even, should this be your real thing and you can somehow stand the weird perversities, to Nikolaus Harnoncourt. Those perversities may eclipse formal understanding, or at least the communication thereof, but at least they seem less generated on auto-pilot.

Rodomonte (Edwin Crossley-Mercer)
and Heiko Herz

It was, then, to recapitulate – more of such formal understanding from the conductor, please! – from the singers that considerable pleasure and insight was to be gleaned. Mathias Vidal as Orlando trod a fine line, sensitively and stylishly, between bravado and acknowledged weakness. So indeed did all the male singers; such, not without a pinch of what we might anachronistically think feminism, is indeed the point. Edwin Crossley-Mercer’s diction was not always clear as it might have been, especially in so small a theatre; however, his dark tone proved full of allure – increasingly compromised allure. Dovlet Nurgeldiyev, for me one of the true discoveries of the evening, offered almost heartbreaking tonal beauty, whilst also making as much of the words as the production permitted. Likewise his intended, Adela Zaharia. David Portillo, a supremely versatile singer, finely attuned both to line and style, impressed greatly as Pasquale; his aforementioned aria was probably the highpoint of the entire evening. Elena Sancho Pereg, as Eurilla, proved very much his equal: a fine foil, but also a spirited character in her own right. Tara Erraught’s rich mezzo Alcina left one longing for more. It was she, above all, who brought moments of true drama to proceedings. Perhaps she, instead, should have been directing and/or conducting.

Munich Opera Festival (3) - Les Indes galantes, 24 July 2016

Prinzregententheater

Images © Wilfried Hösl
Elsa Benoit (Emilie) and Dancers of the Eastman Company

Hébé, Zima – Lisette Oropesa

Bellone – Goran Jurić
L’Amour/Zaïre – Ana Quintans
Osman, Ali – Tareq Nazmi
Emilie – Elsa Benoit
Valère, Tacmas – Cyril Auvity
Huascar, Alvar – François Lis
Phani, Fatime – Anna Prohaska
Carlos, Damon – Mathias Vidal
Adario – John Moore
Dancers – Navala ‘Niku’ Chaudhari, Kazutomi ‘Tzuki’ Kozuki, Jason Kittelberger, Denis ‘Kouné’ Kuhnert, Elias Lazaridis, Nicola Leahey, Shintaro Oue, James Vu Anh Pham, Acacia Schachte, Patrick Williams ‘Twoface’ Seebacher’, Jennifer White, Ema Yuasa

Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui (director, choreography)

Anna Viebbrock (sets)
Greta Goiris (costumes)
Michael Bauer (lighting)
Antonio Cuenca Ruiz, Miron Hakenbeck (dramaturgy)
Jason Kittelberger (choreographic assistance)

Balthasar-Neumann-Chor, Freiburg (chorus master: Detlef Bratschke)

Munich Festival Orchestra
Ivor Bolton (conductor)





Hébé/Zima (Lisette Oropesa), Damon (Mathias Vidal), Kinderstatisterie

Baroque opera has long been an important part of the Bavarian State Opera’s programming. And beyond the company itself, Munich’s tradition stretches back many years indeed: Kubelík’s Handel with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, for instance. Yet, whilst there has been much Handel, Monteverdi, Cavalli, et al., in recent years, the French Baroque in general and Rameau’s music in particular seem to have been a closed book – as so often in the world outside France. Let us leave aside for the moment debates concerning whether ‘Baroque’ should be a suitable designation, merely noting that Rameau’s music seems to have provoked the word’s first artistic usage. An anonymous letter to the Mercure de France, occasioned by the 1733 Paris premiere of the composer’s first opera, Hippolyte et Aricie, printed in the Mercure de France, dismissed the opera’s novelty as ‘du barocque’; its melody was incoherent, its harmony unduly dissonant, and its metre chaotic.

 

That was certainly not how Rameau sounded on this occasion, quite the contrary. Indeed, I should not have minded a little more truculence – if not incoherence! – from Ivor Bolton’s conducting. Its fluency was admirable, but I could not help notice – and, at times, become a little tired by – a tendency remarked upon by a friend beforehand: namely the conductor’s penchant for turning everything into a dance. There is much dance music, of course, in this opéra-ballet, but that is not to say that everything must be. I know that many ‘authenticke’ musicians will argue to the contrary, even, God help us, in Gluck and Mozart, but the declamatory French of Rameau’s recitatives – here, admirably, indeed often thrillingly, supported by a continuo group involving Luke Green (harpsichord), Fred Jacobs and Michael Fremiuth (theorbo), and Werner Matzke (cello) – is not necessarily to be confined to them. The ravishing airs, duets, and above all, ensembles, would have benefited, at least to my ears, from greater – dare I say, quoting the writer to the Mercure de France, more ‘chaotic’? – variation.

 

That said, and that said perhaps at too great a length, there was otherwise much to relish from the Munich Festival Orchestra. Even I did not find myself missing modern instruments. (This is, I learned afterwards, the Dresden Festival Orchestra on location.) Indeed, the woodwind in particular very much offered their own, splendidly Gallic justification. Moreover, strings (twelve violins, five violas, seven cellos, two bass viols, one violone) were certainly not parsimonious with their vibrato, quite from it; this was an enlightened as well as an Enlightened performance from all concerned. Rameau’s love of orchestral sound, its implications for Gluck and, via him, for Mozart too (think of Idomeneo!) was vividly and, above all, dramatically, communicated.

 

Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s direction, choreography included, treads a judicious line between various competing elements. If I were a little surprised that Munich chose this Rameau work as its first – for me, a tragédie lyrique, such as Hippolyte, would have been a more obviously compelling choice – then the voguish (for the 1730s, that is!) amalgam of opera and ballet offered opportunities to ravish other of the senses too. Cherkaoui’s dancers never disappointed, their movements – do these people have no bones in their bodies? – not merely responsive to the music, to the drama, but intensifying its possibilities, above all visual-dramatic tension at points of decision. If one wished to visualise a Rameau flute line, for instance, one could have done far worse than watch the movement on stage.

Without pressing his point too far, Cherkaoui probes what might hold this prologue and four entrées – as in Rameau’s definitive version – together. Opening in a classroom, the teacher, Hébé, leading her children in conjugation of French verbs, the unified drama takes them – and us – on a tour of different civilisations, and shows them, not the war personified by Bellone, often to have as much to teach us as we have to teach them. That is not to say that Rameau’s work, still less Louis Fuzelier’s libretto, can or should be understood in twenty-first century terms; however, its ambiguity, its insistence upon asking ‘who actually is the barbarian here?’ reminds us that we – and, looking at the world around us, how could we doubt this? – have no monopoly on multicultural virtue.

Phani (Anna Prohaska), Huescar (François Lis)

 

Yet there are differences too. The homosexual love denied by the Incan Huescar (here in European clerical carb) in Cherbaouki’s funeral-turned-wedding setting for the second entrée also finds its fulfilment; L’Amour, for us today, does not discriminate, heterosexual and homosexual love are, ultimately, after a struggle, equally valued. Moreover, for an English visitor, more than unusually embarrassed by his nationality at the moment, Munich’s ecumenism offered hope that Europe and indeed the world beyond it will survive. National flags, favoured by Bellone and a visiting American President, are not banished, but there is a vision of something greater to be glimpsed, in the European flags – and, indeed, in the exquisite blue and yellow of many of the children’s outfits. (The Kinderstaterie of the Bavarian State Opera were well trained and delightful in their roles.) And so, the young men who forsake Hébé and Europe for the ‘Indies’ (an all-purpose, ‘exotic’ Orientalism or Occidentalism!), learn through experience that conflict is not the way to prosper; the realisation of the peace-pipe ceremony at the close strikingly fulfils the work’s strikingly internationalist sentiment, dancers and vocalists as one.

 

Adario (John Moore), Dancers

The singing was, without exception, wonderful. Words were as clear as Rameau’s lines, whether in solo, duet, ensemble, or choral numbers. The Balthasar-Neumann Chor was certainly not the least impressive aspect of the performance. Lisette Oropesa and Ana Quintans set the scene splendidly in the Prologue, Hébé and L’Amour carefully differentiated, with Goran Jurić a strikingly successful general-in-drag. Tareq Nazmi’s sensitive bass offered wisdom and humanity; Cherbaouki’s skilful comparison between the roles of Osman and Ali was given sympathetic life, as were other such doublings of roles (more than mere doublings). Mathias Vidal and Anna Prohaska shone likewise as Carlos/Damon and Phani/Fatime. Both imparted depth in lightness, and lightness in depth, as graceful on stage as of voice. Cyril Auvity’s unerringly stylish tenor, François Lis’s deep yet never bluff bass, and Elsa Benoit’s sparkling yet variegated soprano offered other highlights; so too did the highly attractive chiaroscuro of John Moore’s baritone. Above all, there was a true sense of collaboration, rendering the performance as well as the work substantially more than the sum of its parts. As we once hoped – and perhaps may one day hope again – for a Europe too often divided, indeed torn apart, by Bellone…

 

Munich Opera Festival (3) - L'Orfeo, 20 July 2014

Images: © Wilfried Hösl

 

 

Prinzregententheater, Munich

Orfeo – Christian Gerhaher

Euridice – Anna Virovlansky
Messenger, Proserpina – Anna Bonatibus
Caronte – Andrea Mastroni
Hope, La Musica – Angela Brower
Plutone – Andrew Harris
Apollo – Mauro Peter
Shepherd I, Spirit I – Mathias Vidal
Shepherd II, Spirit III, Echo – Jeroen de Vaal
Shepherd III – Gabriel Jublin
Shepherd IV, Spirit II Thomas Faulkner
Nymph – Lucy Knight

David Bösch (director)

Patrick Bannwart (set designs)
Falko Herold (costumes, videos)
Michael Bauer (lighting)
Daniel Menne, Rainer Karlitschek (dramaturgy)

Zürcher Sing-Akademie (chorus master: Tim Brown)

Monteverdi-Continuo-Ensemble
Members of the Bavarian State Orchestra
Ivor Bolton (conductor)

 

Orfeo (Christian Gerhaher) and Euridice
(Anna Virovlavsky) returning to him

Monteverdi’s Orfeo may take after Jacopo Peri’s Euridice but there is a gulf in terms of quality between the two works. Renaissance opera though Orfeo may be – it really is very different from Ulisse or Poppea – it stands head and shoulders above any preceding essay in the genre, so much as to mark a ‘qualitative leap’ in the history of music. (Monteverdi’s dramatic madrigals are, without question, equally worthy of respect and connected in some respects of style, but they remain something of a different matter.) I knew all that, of course; ‘everyone’ does. However, I think it took this excellent Munich performance not only to make me realise quite how true it is, but truly to feel the greatness of Orfeo as dramma per musica. Perhaps that is not so surprising; it was, after all, my first Orfeo in the theatre – and what a wonderful theatre Munich’s Prinzregententheater is! But it could not have happened without such committed performances, and a largely convincing staging. Even Ivor Bolton, a conductor for whom I have rarely felt any enthusiasm, seemed at his best, certainly far more at ease than in later music, be that later Monteverdi or Handel, let alone Classical or Romantic music.

 

 

After two somewhat depressingly routine evenings of Mozart, this new production premiere certainly reinvigorated the Munich Opera Festival. I wondered at first whether David Bösch’s production would prove irritating. However, the flower-power setting of the first act does not get in the way thereafter and a band of musicians is, after all, far from entirely inappropriate to a telling of the Orphic myth. (Who, in any case, has a decided ‘idea’ of archaic Thrace, and on what could it conceivably be founded, even if it were appropriate for a twenty-first-century performance of an early-seventeenth-century opera?) There is an excellent sense of nuptial delight before the trials to come, in which music – on which more below – and production seem very much to be at one. As the plot thickens and darkens, so in any case does the staging. The story is told well; it is perfectly clear who everyone is, and what the characters’ relationship to each other would be. The underworld is properly like the underworld, Charon’s (or Caronte’s) gruesome throng transforming the tone, whilst there is humour without undue exaggeration in the domestic yet divine relationship between Proserpina and Plutone. A post-catastrophic setting for the final act is just the ticket, though some may cavil at Apollo’s decidedly mortal appearance as something akin to a war veteran.

 

The Messenger (Anna Bonatibus) arrives

If Bolton occasionally let the dance music run away with itself, it was a failing of the right kind, both bowing to and leading a properly infectious account of festivities. Otherwise, I really have nothing to grumble about at all with respect to his direction. Monteverdi’s extraordinary scoring – nowhere is the difference between Orfeo and the ‘Baroque’ operas clearer than here – does a great deal of the work of course, but the delineation of place, character, and mood were instantiated with great dramatic flair. A large continuo group offered a ravishing variety of sound, and, just as important, guided not only the harmony but also everything that unfolded above. What a treat to hear the regal organ of Hades; what a delight to hear the celebratory percussion! The Zürcher Sing-Akademie sometimes sounded oddly churchy: was that a matter of having had an English choral conductor, Tim Brown, train them? The sound was beautiful, but seemed more akin to Choral Evensong than to court at Mantua – or Munich. At other times, however, a more properly madrigalian instinct kicked in, and their musicality was beyond reproach.

 

Christian Gerhaher made for a magnificent Orfeo. Without in any sense abandoning the beauty of tone and verbal attentiveness that characterise his Lieder performances, he managed yet to seem perfectly at home in this quite different repertoire. Stylistically, he was spot on: neither too heavy with vibrato nor parsimonious in a largely-discredited old ‘Early Musicke’ sense. Perhaps most telling, however, was the realisation that it was in many cases the very virtues of his performances in later repertoire that made this also an outstanding performance; after all, if ever musical performance required equal attention to words and music it is in Monteverdi and Wolf. (And if you ever harboured a desire to see Gerhaher in the somewhat unlikely guise of ageing pop-star, first a little reluctant, then throwing physical caution to the wind, this may well be your only chance!) Anna Bonitatibus made a huge impression as Proserpina, ‘operatic’ in the best sense: opening a new era for the fledgling form. Her Messenger also tugged at the heartstrings, sentiment never tipping over into mere sentimentality. Angela Brower’s Hope (Speranza) and Music were distinguished in a similar fashion. Andrea Mastroni and Andrew Harris  cultivated distinct roles as Caronte and Plutone, whilst Anna Virovlansky’s immensely likeable Euridice had one wishing to hear more. Mauro Peter's Apollo offered on a smaller scale the textual and musical virtues of Gerhaher's Orfeo. All of the smaller roles were well taken. Here was casting in depth and in style: a credit both to the singers listed above and to the Bavarian State Opera.

Monteverdi, then, lived in the present, as he always magnificently does, putting to shame many of his Baroque successors. It would, however, be a shame to forget some of the other versions of this extraordinary work. How about an outing somewhere not only for Orff’s Orfeo – the first Munich performance in 1929, in the Cuvilliés-Theater, was given in one of his versions too – but for Berio’s too…?

Salzburg Festival (5) - Capuçon/Mozarteum/Bolton, 18 August 2012

Mozarteum

Mozart – Divertimento in F major, KV 247, ‘First Lodron Night Music’

Mozart – Violin Concerto no.4 in D major, KV 218
Mozart – Rondo for violin and orchestra in B-flat major, KV 269
Haydn – Symphony no.103 in E-flat major, ‘Drum Roll’

Renaud Capuçon (violin)

Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra
Ivor Bolton (conductor)
 

An attractive enough programme, this, even if it looked a little as if it had been thrown together rather than considered conceptually. The Mozarteum Orchestra for the most part played very well, less hampered than one might have expected by the use of natural brass (though there were exceptions). Likewise Renaud Capuçon was on splendid form. One could have had worse than Ivor Bolton – for instance, most of his ‘authenticke’ confreres – but it was difficult to find anything that would not have been better done by a good number of other conductors, or indeed by none.

Playing the First Lodron Night Music one-to-a-part is a perfectly justifiable decision, though arguably a little perverse when one has an orchestra to hand. Whether, played in this matter, it benefits from having a conductor is another matter. Often the players seemed to be managing perfectly well without Bolton, whose sub-Bernstein flailing around appeared out of all proportion to discernible results. After a slightly worrying start, the solo strings showed themselves sensible with respect to vibrato; it would only really be when Capuçon  joined them that one realised what one had been missing. (I am not at all sure, however, why the programme claimed that the divertimento would be prefaced by the March, KV 248;  I find it difficult to believe that I somehow missed it in performance.)  Speeds were generally unexceptionable: one should give Bolton credit for that in an age when the general practice is anything but. The exception to the unexceptionable was the second minuet, taken at absurdly breackneck speed, almost overshooting the scherzo level. The two slow movements were nicely differentiated between Andante grazioso and Adagio, even if both might in other hands profitably have been taken a little more slowly. Harmonic motion, however, was conveyed far more successfully by the players when listening to each other than when observing Bolton’s direction. His conception seemed to be entirely sectional; indeed, it proceeded for the most part phrase to phrase.

Capuçon’s tone was as bright as his phrasing was sensitive. (And I certainly do not mean that as a backhanded compliment.) To all intents and purposes these seemed to be his readings, and were all the better for it, Bolton actually proving quite a supportive accompanist. Occasionally, I might have longed for a little more in the way of darkness, though especially during the slow movement of the fourth violin concerto, that was not absent. Cleanness of tone was never clinical; it was simply an indication that the soloist was able to play the notes – rarer than one might expect. That direction lacking in parts of the divertimento was certainly present here. Moreover, Capuçon’s singing tone imparted more of a sense of the serenade than had generally been afforded earlier. What a joy it was to hear the Rondeau played at a sensible tempo – it is marked Andante grazioso – thereby permitting passagework to sound brilliant without being garbled. Following the interval, the B-flat Rondo, KV 269, offered a lively, equally lovable pendant.  Capuçon has mastered that necessary quality of making Mozart performance sound like the easiest thing in the world when, as anyone who has ever attempted it knows, it is actually the most difficult. Rhythmic and harmonic understanding were as one, even – arguably, especially – during the cadenzas.

Haydn’s ‘Drum Roll’ Symphony would doubtless have been mauled far more by more exhibitionistic ‘period’ practitioners. (Though if the best one can say is ‘not very good’, as opposed to charlatan, the situation is far from rosy.) It is, by the same token, not difficult to imagine more absurd, attention-seeking interpretations of the drum roll itself, but again that is not in itself a commendation. Once again, the score, the first movement in particular, proceeded in sectional fashion. How I longed for the harmonic understanding Daniel Barenboim recently showed in his Proms Beethoven cycle. The slow movement, though taken fast, was acceptable enough, save for the perverse rasping noise inflicted by ‘period’ brass at high volume. There was still little sense, however, of how the movement might be considered as a whole, nor indeed of the sophistication of Haydn’s variation form. Somehow the minuet contrived both to be taken one-to-a-bar and yet also to sound sluggish; again, harmony is, or should be the key, here. The finale simply galloped along. Haydn is so very much more interesting than this strange quasi-reversion to ‘Papa Haydn’-type suggested. At least we can return to Jochum, Davis, et al. ...

Salzburg Festival (1) - Le Rossignol and Iolanta (concert performances), 20 August 2011

Grosses Festspielhaus

Nightingale – Julia Novikohova
Cook – Julia Lezhneva
Fisherman – Antonio Poli
Emperor of China – Andrei Bondarenko
Chamberlain – Andrè Schuen
Bonze – Yuri Vorobiev
Death – Maria Radner
Soprano solo – Claudio Galli
Contralto solo – Theresa Holzhauser
Tenor solo, First Japanese Emissary – Andrew Owens
Second Japanese Emissary – Derek Welton
Third Japanese Emissary – Elliot Madore

Iolanta – Anna Netrebko
Count Vaudémont – Piotr Beczala
King René – John Relyea
Ibn-Hakia – Evgeny Nikitin
Robert, Duke of Burgundy – Alxey Markov
Alméric – Antonio Poli
Bertrand – Yuri Vorobiev
Martha – Maria Radner
Julia Lezhneva – Brigitta
Rachel Frankel – Laura

Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus (chorus master: Jörn H Andresen)
Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra
Ivor Bolton (conductor)


I first heard The Nightingale as a schoolboy, watching a BBC television broadcast conducted by Boulez. Though I instantly fell in love with the work, and have remained fond of it, opportunities to hear it seem bewilderingly infrequent: this indeed was my first live performance, and even then only in concert. Though the singing was often very good, I am afraid to say it was let down by the listless direction of Ivor Bolton. I had not thought of him previously in terms of Russian music, and shall certainly not do so now. Colours that should sound beautiful, ravishing even, were here merely nondescript. If one strained, there might be a little Debussy to be heard here and there, but one should not have to strain. The Wagnerisms – and there are many more than one might expect – were nowhere to be heard at all. As for post-Rimsky orientalism, of whatever persuasion, this was by comparison as grey as a slab of concrete. That extraordinary opening to the second act, in which St Petersburg telegraph wire should meet a Franco-Russian Orient fell utterly flat, given the lack of harmonic urgency. God forbid that Bolton should be let loose – and this conducting was loose indeed – upon The Rite of Spring. Nor was there any real sense of harmonic progression. That the singing still registered must be accounted a compliment to the cast. Julia Novikhova naturally stood out as the Nightingale: hers is a beautiful, clean, agile voice, ideally suited to the role. Maria Radner’s Death chilled yet somehow also exuded beguiling warmth, whilst Andrè Schuen impressed in the small yet far from insignificant role of the Chamberlain. They deserved better, though, much better. What generally seems to fly by seemed to last forever.

If anything, Bolton’s conducting of Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta began in still worse fashion, though it would improve. The orchestral introduction sounded – and looked – as if it were conducted by a band master, beat to beat, laborious and with no sense of what might connect one note to another, let alone one phrase or period to another. This certainly was not pointillistic – that might have been interesting – but merely dull and inept. Forget the idea that Tchaikovsky’s melodies might soar: or at least rely entirely upon the singers for them to do so. The Mozarteum Orchestra did what it could; indeed, its sound was often gorgeous, if a little on the small side. But it and the singers were more often than not constricted. When, later on, Bolton seemed to attempt something a little more unbuttoned and idiomatic, his flailing around was both visually off-putting and seemingly disconnected from the results. Again, the singers provided a great deal of compensation. Anna Netrebko was simply outstanding in the title role, whose style and character she inhabited as completely as I could imagine (in the circumstances). It is a long time since I have heard a soprano soar so effortlessly and brilliantly above a Romantic orchestra, though her intimacy was equally affecting. Netrebko clearly itched to portray the blind princess on stage, but nevertheless succeeded both in moving and in exhilarating. Indeed, it was in her duet with Piotr Beczala as Vaudémont that the best was brought out of him: thrillingly operatic in a (mostly) good sense, though the audience’s philistine applause impeded what dramatic flow they had managed to impart. Bolton should have driven the music on regardless, but simply stopped and then started again. Earlier on, Beczala sounded unduly Italianate: more a ‘star tenor’, albeit with sometimes alarmingly wide vibrato, than the embodiment of a character, his persistent vocal sob a poor parody of late Pavarotti, minus the personality. John Relyea, however, proved a splendidly sonorous King René, who yet somehow managed to be outshone by the stunning, virile Duke Robert of Alexey Markov. His aria is perhaps a little too much dramatically, but it impressed tremendously on its own terms. Let us hope for a staging soon, but from a conductor with some feeling, and preferably more than that, for Tchaikovsky – and either a more appropriate coupling or none at all.

Salzburg Festival: Armida, 18 August 2007

Joseph Haydn: Armida

Annette Dasch - Armida
Michael Schade - Rinaldo
Mocja Erdmann - Zelmira
Vito Priante - Idreno
Richard Croft - Ubaldo
Bernard Richter - Clotarco

Christof Loy (director)

Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra
Ivor Bolton (director)

Armida was perhaps the most important Salzburg production of 2007. This is not necessarily to say that it was the best; I am not qualified to say, only having seen four of the eight operas presented this year. But to stage with such justified confidence an opera by Haydn, arguably his finest, is a laudable thing indeed. Haydn's operas have been ignored for far too long, especially when one considers some of the highly dubious works from which the opera-goer can hardly escape. Haydn is not Mozart, of course, but then who is? His operas are full of musical interest and, whilst they lack Mozart's genius for characterisation, they are far from undramatic. Armida is certainly a superior work to any of Handel's bafflingly ubiquitous operas, which, whatever their intermittent musical finery, remain, with the possible exception of Giulio Cesare in Egitto, inherently undramatic. (Handel's great oratorios are another matter entirely.) But even Haydn's other music rarely draws in the crowds. It was something of a risk, then, for Jürgen Flimm to launch his tenure as Intendant with Armida, which had opened the Festival on 28 July. I am delighted to report from the final performance that the risk paid off handsomely. Flimm was clearly delighted too, since he ran onto the stage to present flowers not only to the singers but also to a good number of the Bewegungschor.

Ivor Bolton directed a strong musical performance. One might have wanted more tenderness at times, but Bolton knew where he was going, and took orchestra and singers with him. Structures were clearly and dramatically perceptible, and rhythms were securely pointed. I could not help but wonder, however, what magic a great Haydn conductor might have worked; still, we always have the old Dorati recording, with Jessye Norman et al. The woodwind of the Mozarteum Orchestra sounded as delectable as ever, and the strings for the most part avoided the harshness that has sometimes affected their tone in recent years. The one great mistake was to have the 'military' music played as if it were being heard on the radio, through loudspeakers. It simply sounded tame: more 'Listen with Mother' than a janissary threat. Perhaps it was Christof Loy's idea; from wherever the idea sprang, it should have been rejected.

Annette Dasch was most impressive in the title role. Not only was her line absolutely secure, she also proved herself a fine stage acrobat. Michael Schade was, if anything, even better as Rinaldo. (I must confess that I do not understand why the opera is not named after him; he seems the central character in every way.) Sweetness of tone was allied to the vacillating virility that is the character's dramatic hallmark. Not for a minute did he flag; the promise of his first, virtuosically militaristic aria, 'Vado a pugnar contento', was upheld and developed throughout the work.

Casting of the opera's three tenors had been conducted imaginatively. As revealed in the programme, three generations of singers had been chosen, so as to suggest Clotarco as the young Rinaldo, and Ubaldo as what he would become. This worked very well on stage, without hammering home the point. Richard Croft ably depicted the ambiguities of the commander Ubaldo, whilst the young Bernard Richter shone as Clotarco. He combined great beauty of tone with great strength, which he used sparingly to all the greater effect. I rather wished he had had more to sing, for his aria, 'Ah si plachi il fiero Nume' was a definite musical highlight. He looked every inch the brave yet sensitive soldier too. Mojca Erdmann employed a wealth of seductive wiles to tempt him from the Crusaders. Faced with a voice such as hers, one could well understand Clotarco's desertion, if indeed desertion it be: positive choice of love over war might be the apter description. And real love it did seem to be, from their heartfelt portrayal. In a very real sense, theirs was the more impressive tale. Vito Priante convincingly presented Idreno as the equally ambiguous counterpart to the 'Christian' Ubaldo.

Christof Loy's production was rather as one might have expected. Everything was very stylish, perhaps sometimes a little too much so. Trench coats were rather tiresomely in evidence; is it possible for a self-respecting piece of Regietheater to eschew them? And Ubaldo, as one might have predicted, sported Pinochet-like dark glasses and was confined to a wheelchair. Otherwise, abstraction was the general order of the day, with Armida's forest of enchantment represented by planks of wood rather than anything specifically magical. This did not really matter, since music can evoke far better than naturalistic scenery. The movement of the principals was well managed, as was Jochen Heckmann's choreography of the athletic Bewegungschor, who gave a very strong sense of the military world impinging upon the psychological. Good use was made of the wonderful space of the Felsenreitschule, which really drew the audience into the drama, whilst at the same time preserving a necessary distance.

This, as I said, was an extremely important production. It would be a splendid thing were it now to be seen elsewhere; it would be an even more splendid thing were it to lead to further productions. The world needs to know what a fine opera Armida is, and to allow itself to be further beguiled by more of Haydn's operatic riches.