Hangar 4, Tempelhof Airport
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| Images: Jan Windszus Photography |
Soprano – Julia Grüter
Mezzo-soprano – Rachael Wilson
Tenor – Julian Behr
Bass – Tijl Faveyts
Woman – Anouk Elias
Director – Damiano Michieletto
Set designs – Paolo Fantin
Costumes – Klaus Bruns
Choreography, co-director – Thomas Wilhelm
Dramaturgy – Mattia Palma, Daniel Andrés Eberhard
Choral Soloists and Project Chorus of the Komische Oper (chorus director: David Cavelius)
Many of Handel’s dramatic oratorios seem to
cry out for staging, although they present certain difficulties in doing so,
above all regarding how to direct the chorus. Messiah is, of course, a
different beast: contemplative rather than dramatic, without real characters,
and so on. It also needs little ‘help’, so familiar is it both to audiences and
performers, even in an age that has long since turned away from choral society
performance for much Handel. It does receive stagings from time to time,
though. ENO’s
2009 effort, unintentionally comical at times – film of people running up
and down a Liverpool Street escalator for ‘All we, like sheep’ – did not augur
well. That, however, need not damn other attempts, and given the success of the
Komische Oper’s season-opening staging of Henze’s Raft
of the Medusa last year at Tempelhof, I was keen to see what similarly
augmented forces, including a community choir, might make of Messias, as
it was billed, albeit sung in English.
Musically and from the standpoint of the occasion, there was indeed much to admire. The community chorus and extras all did very well; there was little, if anything, to hear that would have suggested these were not professional singers. It was moreover, a welcome and excellent thing, in these days of Messiah parsimony, to see and hear a performance that built on rather than childlishly rejected the great oratorio tradition of the later-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, without going to Crystal Palace extremes (fascinating though that would have doubtless have been to experience). The point is not, of course, that any one way is ‘correct’ and other ways ‘incorrect’; such categories have nothing to do with performance, let alone with humanity. But that there should be room for all, or at least for many, is a good thing to be celebrated, and the experience ‘on location’ at Tempelhof was a splendid one, which will likewise surely have attracted many more in the audience than would have attended an opera house performance. This first night appeared to be sold out; there is no reason to think that others will not be.
The soloists too were excellent, the
presence of a variety of light accents (yet perfect English) only a reminder of
the universality of the work and, of course, of Handel’s own ‘dual nationality’,
as we now might call it. (That his English naturalisation required an Act of
Parliament should offer a standing rebuke to all those who have put, and continue
to put, barriers in the way of free movement of fellow human beings. Musicians
and academics know this as well as many.) The quartet worked well together, vocally
and on ‘stage’, whether singing alone or (occasionally) duetting. Julia Grüters
finely spun soprano line and Rachael Wilson’s richly coloured mezzo offered
character (in the non-dramatic sense) and contrast, as well as much textual illumination.
So too did the effortlessly stylish tenor Julian Behr, imploring and resolute
as required, and bass Tijl Faveyts, warmly compassionate yet precise. Joined by
the astonishingly athletic actor Anouk Elias – more than one lap of the vast
performing space accomplished with ease – cast and choral collaborators made
for a fine team. In such a space, one simply has to tolerate the use of
microphones; it is, as they say, what it is.
The Orchestra of the Komische Oper offered
warm, stylish playing too. I could not help but feel that conductor George
Petrou missed at least a couple of tricks in not using larger forces. The very
small ensemble (even by contemporary standards) was vastly outnumbered by the
singers: a practice with little, if any, historical warrant and which made
little sense in an airport hangar. He might even have gone for ‘additional
accompaniments’, be they Mozart, Prout, or (one can dream) Beecham. Moreover,
some choral tempi went simply too fast for the assembled forces, 400 in choral sum, causing
noticeable, avoidable discrepancy. That said, despite an Overture that
suggested Petrou wished the performance to be over before it had begun, other tempo
decisions were more sensible, permitting creditable variety, without becoming
sluggish. There is no single text for the work; here, Petrou (I presume) offered
a winning combination of familiar and (slightly) less familiar numbers. The
great closing choruses to the second and third parts evinced proper Handelian
grandeur and uplift, although not of the physical variety in the ‘Hallelujah’
chorus, which this Englishman abroad rather missed. And we were spared, thank
goodness, the ‘B’ section of ‘The Trumpet shall sound’.
Damiano Michieletto’s production concept was doubtless well intentioned. In a sense, that was the problem. I am not sure it ultimately worked any better than Deborah Warner’s hazy notion of ‘community’ for ENO, but Michieletto’s choice was one of those frustrating things that almost puts itself beyond criticism on account of sensitive content. Meshing Messiah with the story of Brittany Maynard, an American campaigner for assisted suicide, did not for me accomplish anything much either for her story – doubtless worthy of dramatic treatment in its own right – or for that of the Son of God. It made me aware of Maynard’s plight, but beyond that sentimental voiceovers, scenes of hospital scans, and perhaps worst, ‘Christian’ campaigners (no others, be it noted) against her cause seemed straightforwardly out of place.
Messiah may not be a dramatic oratorio but it certainly has a narrative; paying at least some attention to that would not seem an unreasonable place to start in staging it. Moreover, the relative latitudinarianism of its theology stands miles away from the heartless fundamentalism of the American ‘religious right’, which in any case has little influence here in Europe. Adopting so hostile an attitude towards Christianity, as if it were not as multivalent as humanity itself, is not only all too easy a path in a secular, liberal society; it also sells Handel, Charles Jennens, and the extraordinarily rich performing history of their work miserably short. Quite why it began to rain at the end, the chorus having changed into plant-like green, I do not know, though the message of resurrection in general sat oddly with Michieletto’s concept. Such is the strength of Messiah, though, that many proper and possible messages could nonetheless be heard and felt.
