Die tote Stadt, English National Opera, 25 March 2023

Coliseum

Paul – Ralf Romei
Marietta, Voice of Marie – Allison Oakes
Brigitta – Sarah Connolly
Franz – Audun Iversen
Juliette – Rhian Lois
Lucienne – Clare Presland
Gastone – Innocent Masuku
Victorin – William Morgan
Count Albert – Hubert Francis
Marie – Lauren Bridle

Anniliese Miskimmon (director)
Miriam Buether (set designs)
Nicky Gillibrand (costumes)
James Farncombe (lighting)
Imogen Knight (movement, intimacy)

Members of the Finchley Children’s Music Group (chorus director: Grace Rossiter)

English National Opera Chorus (chorus director: Avishka Edirisinghe) 

Orchestra of the English National Opera

Kirill Karabits (conductor)

Images: Helen Murray
Brigitta (Sarah Connolly), Paul (Ralf Romei), Franz (Audun Iversen)

A few years ago, I should have said it was a problem with the work itself. Having seen Die tote Stadt for the first time, in a performance and a production that had both seemed very good, I had emerged finding it somewhat laboured and ridiculous: more than a curiosity, perhaps, yet not something whose appeal for others I could share. In the meantime, a concert performance of another Korngold opera, Das Wunder der Heliane, did little to change my mind. Then I decided to test my initial judgement by seeing Die tote Stadt again in Munich, when the Bavarian State Opera put on a new production, staged by Simon Stone, conducted by Kirill Petrenko, with Jonas Kaufmann and Marlis Petersen in the two central roles. And I was won over. So I know that it can work very well, or at least that it did for me once and there is no reason to think it could not do so again. Quite why this new production from ENO did not, I found hard to put my finger on, since there seemed to be much that was admirable and little or nothing that was not, reviving my doubts concerning the work itself.

The key, I think, may have lain in the production, which seems unfair, since there was nothing really to object to in what Anniliese Miskimmon and her team presented. But whereas I have often disliked Stone’s reductionist way with drama—his Medée for Salzburg and a recent Phaedra in London cases in point—in this case, it seemed to be just what the work, which can readily seem overblown to no particular end, needed. Without Stone’s stronger interpretative stance and strategy and however attractive Miriam Buether’s sets and Nicky Gillibrand’s costumes (with one unfortunate exception), drama lagged behind ambition. It was difficult not to feel that something smaller in scale, perhaps a one-act chamber opera, might have come close to hitting the spot, thus again returning one to the problem of the work ‘itself’. 

The dream world, in which Paul meets Marietta and works through his morbid attachment to his deceased wife, Marie, seemed confused—but not in an especially dream-like way. It seemed to imply that either Paul had actually entered a hospital or sanatorium, or he had been in one along; but no, it was only a dream. Marietta’s troupe invited unflattering comparisons with Ariadne auf Naxos. The 'dead' city of Bruges, or some substitute, did not get much of a look in – partly Korngold’s fault – and the strange religious procession came unfortunately close to the world of Carry On films, even for those of us who know the cited Robert le Diable. Certain other ‘religious’ details gestured in another, potentially more fruitful direction, though no more than Strauss does Korngold seem able to take religion seriously.

Juliette (Rhian Lois), Lucienne (Clare Presland), Count Albert (Hugh Francis), Marietta (Allison Oakes), Victorian (William Morgan), Innocent Masuku (Gastone), Franz

 

Singing, though, was mostly good, if sometimes hampered by a clunky English translation (‘based on’ Kelly Rourke) of a libretto that is in any case far from exemplary. Korngold and his dreadful father were no composite Hofmannsthal, to put it mildly. Though struggling with illness, Ralf Romei put on an impressive performance as Paul, only noticeably tiring some way through the third act—which is something that could happen to anyone. It is a cruel role, and Romei’s artistry proved something of a revelation. Allison Oakes was a nicely Wagnerian Marietta, with welcome echoes of Brünnhilde, though it was not always the most subtle of portrayals. Sarah Connolly left one wishing there was more to the role of Brigitta in a typically human, beautifully sung performance. Audun Iversen’s Franz was similarly first-class, offering fine attention to detail. Kirill Karabits knew exactly how to draw the best out of the ENO Orchestra, ensuring – rightly, I think – that the score sounded closer to Puccini than to any of Korngold’s Austro-German colleagues. But there were times when something sharper – and Puccini can be as sharp as anyone – seemed required, just as on stage. I imagine this might tighten over the run, but a greater dose of chamber-like intimacy might also be a good thing. 

I recognise also that much of the scepticism I voice concerning the opera others might with respect to Die Frau ohne Schatten, but there not only do we have Strauss and Hofmannsthal, even in mutual misunderstanding, at the very height of their powers; we also have a symbolism that attempts to elevate us to some sort of ‘higher’ ideas and even, more controversially, a message. Pronatalism is a deeply unfashionable message, one with which many of us would take issue, but drama is not there primarily for us to agree with it—and the message becomes more readily understandable in the face of the loss of life occasioned by the First World War. How to get on with one’s life in the face of more strictly personal loss is a perfectly reasonable subject for a drama; part, of what Die Meistersinger – another opera interested, albeit pre-Freud, in the interpretation of dreams – is about is how to cope with the sufferings of life and love in the actual, phenomenal world. Perhaps the problem is that the intermittent attempts at symbolism and, above all, the ‘it was only a dream’ idea are a convoluted and contrived way to get there. Even viewed psychoanalytically, it seems to be making a mountain out of a molehill; not, of course, that grief is nothing, but it seems less here than it might. The dream sequence comes across more as an idea for an opera than a dramatic necessity. That, at least, was what I emerged feeling, though I had felt more positively in Munich.

Paul, Brigitta, Chorus

Whatever my doubts, though, this was a justly ambitious, laudable project from ENO: a reasonably well-known twentieth-century opera, only staged twice previously in this country and never by this company, deserved its debut and clearly won new converts. Perhaps the fairest thing is to view the opera as a fragile flower, in need of great care and good fortune in cultivation; or, to turn it back on myself, to say that it may not ultimately be an opera for me.

Die tote Stadt, Bavarian State Opera, 22 November 2019

Nationaltheater

Images: © Wilfried Hösl

Paul – Jonas Kaufmann

Marietta, Marie’s Apparition – Marlis Petersen

Frank, Fritz – Andrzej Filończyk

Brigitta – Jennifer Johnston

Juliette – Mirjam Mesak

Lucienne – Corinna Scheurle

Gaston, Victorin – Manuel Günther

Count Albert – Dean Power

Simon Stone (director)

Maria-Magdalena Kwaschik (assistant director)

Ralph Myers (set designs)

Mel Page (costumes)

Roland Edrich (lighting)

Lukas Leipfinger (dramaturgy)

Chorus and Children’s Chorus of the Bavarian State Opera (chorus director: Stellario Fagone)

Bavarian State Orchestra

Kirill Petrenko (conductor)

I approached this evening as something of a sceptic regarding work and director. My sole prior encounter with Simon Stone’s work had not been, to put it mildly, a happy one. Nor do I count myself a subscriber or even affiliate to the Korngold fan club, considerable in number and still more considerable in fervency. Some of Korngold's music I have responded to warmly, some less so. (It would still take some persuasion, though now less than before, to drag me to another performance of Das Wunder der Heliane.) My experience with Die tote Stadt has been mixed too. That, however, is bye the bye, for this new production and still more the performances within it, superlatively conducted by Kirill Petrenko, made for a splendid evening that more or less had me forget reservations hitherto entertained.

Petrenko’s conducting and the playing of the Bavarian State Orchestra could hardly have been bettered. There was no doubting the care taken in his preparation, nor his ability vividly and meaningfully to communicate understanding of the score in the theatre. Once the harmony becomes more interesting, during the second and third scenes, Petrenko showed himself equally alert to its shorter-term expressive potential and, score permitting, longer-term tonal implications. There is greater progress in such terms here than in, say, Schreker’s more harmonically—and dramaturgically—adventurous Die Gezeichneten, which ends up going round and round in circles, having one thank God for Schoenberg and Stravinsky. Petrenko likewise showed skill surpassing that of any conductor I have heard in communicating Korngold’s motivic working as dramatic past, present, and future. The orchestra, moreover, offered a far more variegated sound than I heard from the Vienna Philharmonic in Salzburg in 2005; if that calorific frenzy impressed in its own way, this was ultimately a more revealing sound as part of an overall dramatic conception. Where some performances of what we may broadly call ‘late Romantic’ music—a term I generally avoid on account of chronological absurdity and levelling generalisation—all too readily become congested, here was a panoply of orchestral colour that shifted before our ears so as to suggest, at least during the most skilfully composed passages, ready understanding of Straussian phantasmagoria.

For whereas in Salzburg, Willy Decker’s staging (later seen at Covent Garden too) was very much in ‘period’ keeping not only with Korngold but also with George Rodenbach’s Bruges la morte, Fernand Khnopff, et al.—and as such will I suspect greatly have appealed to enthusiasts—Stone’s production offered a welcome contemporary—to us—alternative for those who, like me, find the opera’s laboured symbolism both stifling and a little empty (as well as curiously dated for 1920). Here, Paul’s house (no.37: no evident symbolism to me, though you may know otherwise) is the focus for a cancer bereavement—as we learn when we later behold Marie’s apparition—from which he shows no sign of recovering. One room’s every wall is covered with pictures of her; he hangs her hair in his bedroom; some of the house, furniture covered, goes unused; and so on. His housekeeper, Brigitta, and friend, Frank, are clearly, justifiably concerned. However, a psychonalytical dream sequence appears to offer the route to recovery. Having at least begun to work out some of his issues with Marie/Marietta in a dream in which all manner of strange things can happen and do—the dead town comes into its own, multiplying Doppelgänger, Pierrot-troupes, accusations thrown as freely as underwear, etc.—there is perhaps some hope for the future in what uncannily looks and sounds like the morning of a fresh start. Ralph Myers’s revolving set permits the house to transform itself, almost as if it were turning itself inside out, as do the characters, their acts, and their neuroses. ‘It was all a dream’ may or may not be a satisfactory solution; if not, that remains a problem with the work itself. Stone’s production makes uncommon, if arguably reductive, sense of a text that can readily seem somewhat silly.

Vocally, this was unquestionably an evening to savour. Jonas Kaufmann’s voice is a very different instrument from that of a few years ago. Sounding more baritonal than ever, Kaufmann had lost nothing, however, of his ability to float and turn a long line, nor to forge from word and tone that particular, peculiar alchemy of song. In opera, further alchemy is required, of course, with the art of gesture; this was as compelling a stage performance—and I have seen a few—as I have seen from him. Kaufmann’s Paul remembered, lived in, and came close to final suffocation from times past, but in its final freshness, shared in the hope suggested, if only suggested, by Petrenko and Stone alike. Marlis Petersen’s Marietta proved the perfect foil, a high-spirited heir to Strauss’s Zerbinetta, albeit with the vocal reserves and finely spun line of something more Wagnerian. Her acting skills proved just as impressive, as did those of other partners onstage. Jennifer Johnston’s no-nonsense yet compassionate Brigitta, Andrzej Filończyk’s sympathetic and beautifully sung Frank, the rest of an excellent supporting cast, estimable choral forces: all contributed to a dream performance in every sense. In the intelligence of its accomplishment of values both musical and theatrical, I suspect this Munich Tote Stadt will set a gold standard to successors.

Storm Large/Hudson Shad/BBC SO/Gaffigan - Korngold, Weill, et al., 23 November 2016

Barbican Hall


Korngold – Symphony in F-sharp
Walter Jurmann – Veronika, der Lenz ist da
Dimitri Tiomkin – High Noon: ‘Do not forsake me, O my darlin’’
Weill – A Touch of Venus: ‘Speak Low’
Weill – Klopslied
Jurmann/Bronisław Kaper – A Day at the Races: ‘All God’s Children Got Rhythm’
Weill – The Seven Deadly Sins

Storm Large (singer)

Hudson Shad

BBC Symphony Orchestra

James Gaffigan (conductor)

In the world’s present parlous state, Brecht (Weill too, perhaps) speaks to us more clearly, more sharply than most. Donald Trump could pretty much have sprung from the pages of Mahagonny, or indeed The Seven Deadly Sins. The fine performance of that masterly ballet chanté which was the necessary performance in this BBC Symphony Orchestra performance. The rest I could pretty much take or leave, although there were clearly admirers in the audience.

 

When first hearing Korngold’s Symphony in F-sharp (in the BBC Philharmonic recording with Edward Downes), I rather liked it. It must have been years since I had last heard the piece; I cannot say that I had missed it greatly, and indeed found it something of a bore on this occasion. It was a well-enough upholstered bore, yet I did not find the material justified the length. In the first movement, it took a while for the orchestra to achieve a good balance, although the Barbican acoustic should probably take some blame for that. (Thanks to the Government, by the way, for scuppering the plan for a decent concert hall in London!) James Gaffigan went to considerable extremes of tempo, but held the movement together pretty well. A certain cinematic quality to its progress was not inappropriate, nor was a certain sonic similarity to the ‘heroic’ Prokofiev of the Fifth Symphony. Transitions were well handled in the scherzo, though ensemble was not always so precise as it might have been. I liked the languorous quality to its trio; Gaffigan’s tempo, however, sometimes brought the music to near-standstill. A Brucknerian quality was apparent in the slow movement, which received a warmly neo-Romantic reading, not lacking in necessary malice. The finale proved colourful, but a well-paced performance could not disguise its excess of repetitions.

 

The second half opened with a number of close-harmony pieces from the American group, Hudson Shad. I am not convinced that concert-hall listening is really quite right for such music: perhaps they would be better off in a bar, with drinks and chatter. (But then, I was never able to understand Cambridge choirs’ enthusiasm for them; I longed to hear more Byrd instead…) My patience for Kurt Jurmann’s hit Veronika, der Lenz its da was limited indeed, but others seemed to enjoy its ever-so-mild camp. Likewise the other Jurmann song, and the two contributions from Dimitri Tiomkin. ‘Speak Low’ from A Touch of Venus served to reinforce my prejudice that Weill’s music lost almost all interest upon emigration across the Atlantic. The short Klopslied, however, was recognisably the work of Busoni’s pupil, albeit with a healthy dose of surrealism thrown in. The gentlemen did not overplay it, thereby letting its anarchic wit speak for itself. It was a real find (for me, that is).

 

For The Seven Deadly Sins, Gaffigan and the orchestra returned, joined by Storm Large, a singer with real presence, indeed real star quality. For a performance in English (the translation by Auden and Kallman), one is better putting out of one’s mind the world of Lotte Lenya. That was surprisingly easy, for Large, ably accompanied, made the work very much her own, in a subtle, sharply observed, finely enunciated performance. She could act, but did not need to draw attention to the fact, just as she could sing and dance, again without any need for underlining. The shedding of her overcoat spoke volumes; so did the chill of those spoken Anna II statements: ‘Right, Anna’. With a wind-heavy band that sounded just right, with Gaffigan unfailingly adopting tempi that sounded equally right, and with just the proper sense, from time to time, of a little rhythmic drag, Weill permitted Brecht to speak. Dance rhythms pointed to Weill as ironic heir to Mahler. Much orchestral material reminded us that this was the composer of that magnificent Second Symphony. (What a pity we had not heard that in the first half instead! Or indeed the Violin Concerto.) Hudson Shad were on excellent form too, their ‘Family’ often sounding very much of a Neue Sachlichkeit world, the bite of Brecht’s text – ‘Shameless hoarders earn themselves a bad name’ – drawing blood. The exploration of sins had a properly cumulative effect as far as ‘Envy’, after which the Epilogue proved a further study in alienation. They were going home to Louisana, to that little home beside the Mississippi. ‘Right, Anna!’

Dasch/Deutsch - Mahler, Zemlinsky, Schoenberg, and Korngold, 9 July 2013

 

Wigmore Hall

Mahler – Des Knaben Wunderhorn: selection

Zemlinsky – Altdeutsches Minnelied, op.2
Das bucklichte Männlein, op.22 no.6
Entbietung, op.7 no.2
Meeraugen, op.7 no.3
Schoenberg – Wie Georg von Frundsberg von sich selber sang, op.3 no.1
Warnung, op.3 no.3
Mädchenlied, op.6 no.3
Der Wanderer, op.6 no.8
Korngold – Schneeglöckchen, op.9 no.1
Die Sperlinge, op.5 no.7
Was Du mir bist?, op.22 no.1
Mit Dir zu schweigen, op.22 no.2
Welt ist stille eingeschlafen, op.22 no.3

Annette Dasch (soprano)

Helmut Deutsch (piano)

 

This was an excellent recital: committed performances from both artists, and a fascinating programme. Annette Dasch, whom I last heard as Elsa in Bayreuth’s Lohengrin last year, proved an equally captivating recitalist; Helmut Deutsch may need no introduction as a collaborative pianist, but his artistry should not be taken for granted either.

 

The first half was devoted to ten of Mahler’s Wunderhorn songs. Deutsch offered a wonderfully slow, teasing introduction to ‘Rheinlegendchen’, its lilt and indeed harmonies looking forward to Schoenberg’s Brettl-Lieder. Dasch set out her stall from the outset, making a great deal of the words, especially during the stanza in which we hear of the little gold ring being swallowed by a fish, to be served ‘at the King’s own table’. There followed a splendidly militaristic ‘Trost im Unglück’, prior to relaxation. Dasch presented two quite different ‘voices’ for the hussar and the girl; the latter’s ‘away with you; I have had my fill’ (‘Und geh’ du nur hin, Ich had mein Teil’) delivered through audibly clenched teeth. ‘Zu Straßburd auf der Schanz’ benefited from a highly atmospheric piano introduction, the Alphorn sounding through pedalled melancholy. Dissonances throughout the song, and again, noticeably in the later ‘Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen,’ sounded all the more biting in the sparseness of a piano ‘accompaniment’ than when heard in their more familiar orchestral guise. ‘Lied des Verfolgten im Turm’ offered another opportunity, well taken, for Dasch to distinguish between ‘characters’. The almost paradoxical phantasmagorical clarity of the piano part sounded verily Debussyan. A deeply felt ‘centre’ to the first half was afforded by both ‘Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen’ and the following ‘Urlicht’. The warmest of futile consolation was communicated in the former: ‘Willkommen, lieber Knabe mein, So long hast du gestanden.’ We knew that it would not last, long before its ghostly conclusion. ‘Urlicht’ offered a quite extraordinary sense of ‘revelation’, largely through that elusive ability to permit words and music to speak ‘for themselves’. Its ecstatic progress whetted the appetite for the rest of the Second Symphony, but instead it was to be followed by a sardonic, though occasionally shrill, account of ‘Wer hast dies Liedlein erdacht?’ The journey of ‘Ich ging mit Lust’ was lovingly and knowingly traced, that sense of knowingness certainly present also in the ensuing ‘Verlorne Müh’. Mahler’s inveterate sophistication showed through, as it should, even when the surface might seem ‘simple’. ‘Scheiden und Meiden’ rounded off the Wunderhorn selection, a properly ambivalent Mahlerian climax.

 

Zemlinsky’s songs made a welcome appearance at the beginning of the second half. His ‘Altdeutsches Minnelied’ proved more direct than Mahler’s songs, both in work and performance, though the piano part was certainly not without its subtle surprises. ‘Das bucklichte Männlein,’ a Wunderhorn song, comes harmonically from quite a different world, reflecting the chronological gap between the two songs: 1895-6 and 1934, respectively. The extraordinary latter song sounds as post-Schoenbergian as anything I have heard from Zemlinsky: a true discovery (at any rate for me). Dasch and Deutsch offered a superlatively animated performance, every note and every word being made to count. Dasch’s extraordinary vocal production for the final two lines, hushed and grotesque, truly chilled: ‘“Liebes Kindlien, ach, ich bitt, Bet’ für’s bucklicht Männlein mit!’” The hunchback – shades of Zemlinsky’s famed ugliness? – petitioned the child, as best he could, to pray for him too.  ‘Entbietung’ and ‘Meeraugen’ are both Richard Dehmel settings from 1898. Both took us back to a Tristan-esque world, in which Dasch allowed her gifts as a hochdramatisch soprano full rein, the impulsive eroticism of the former leading into an exquisite account of the latter, seemingly well along the way, at least at times, toward suspension of tonality.

 

Such talk inevitably has one think of Schoenberg, to whom we turned for the next group. Another Wunderhorn song was to be heard with ‘Wie Georg von Frundsberg von sich selber sang’. It offered another apparent return to relative straightforwardness, but the piano part, especially in Deutsch’s hands, soon showed otherwise, its Brahmsian ‘involved’ quality so utterly characteristic of the composer. Dasch’s performance again drew upon her operatic experience, whilst remaining true to the tradition of Lieder-singing. It would be an excellent thing to hear more Schoenberg from these artists, preferably on disc too. ‘Warnung’ is another Dehmel song. It proved properly disquieting, its musical violence mirroring, furthering  that of the text with its dog and ‘blood-red carnations’. ‘Mädchenlied’ proved as erotic as anything in Berg, its musical complexity both as work and performance drawing one similarly into a sinful labyrinth. ‘Der Wanderer’ showed itself to be the most overtly Tristan­-esque of the Schoenberg songs, recalling Zemlinsky’s ‘Meeraaugen’, and yet going further, in its approach toward the air of another planet.

 

Though I find Korngold’s operas difficult to take – wild horses would not drag me back to another performance of Das Wunder der Heliane – there is real craftsmanship to enjoy in his songs. ‘Schneeglöckchen’ opened the group with an apt change of performative register: late Romanticism, or whatever we want to call it, yet thankfully not overheated. Deutsch in particular offered a fine sense of harmonic understanding and surprise. ‘Die Sperlinge’, another Eichendorff song, appeared in context almost as if a scherzo, albeit with a duly radiant conclusion, a true impression of ‘opening out’. The latter quality was present also in the following ‘Was Du mir bist’, though by now there was perhaps a little overheating: more a matter of work than performance. Likewise, by the end of ‘Mit Dir zu schweigen’, there was something of a sense of too much Jugendstil; something a little more Bauhaus-like would have been a good antidote. That said, performances were excellent; the final ‘Welt ist stille eingeschlafen’ offered musical as well as verbal consummation. As an encore we heard the Shakespeare setting, ‘My mistress’ eyes’ (Sonnet 130), whose ambivalent harmonic progress put me in mind both of the earlier Abschiedslieder and even the late F-sharp major Symphony. (Both of these pieces, incidentally, may be found on an excellent CD from the late Edward Downes.)

 

Korngold, Das Wunder der Heliane, 21 November 2007

Royal Festival Hall

Patricia Racette - Heliane
Michael Hendrick - Stranger
Andreas Schmidt - Ruler
Ursula Hesse von den Steinen - Messenger
Sir Willard White - Porter
Robert Tear - Blind Judge
Andrew Kennedy - Young Man

EuropaChorAkademie
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Vladimir Jurowski (conductor)

This concert performance was the British premiere of Das Wunder der Heliane. As such, it was to be welcomed, but frankly I cannot say that I am flabbergasted at the work's absence from British stages. My reaction was that it was a still more unfocused sibling to Korngold's Die tote Stadt. The latter work has its cultish admirers, and it has some interesting sections; yet, as a whole, it seems somewhat ridiculous. For Heliane, delete the 'somewhat'. I am not sure that I can bear to delineate its absurd plot: merely absurd, not surrealist in any sense that I should understand. Various people - I hesitate to use the word characters, for there appeared to be no musical characterisation whatsoever - persist in killing each other and bringing themselves or others back to life, to no particular end. Or sometimes they just come close to doing this, or consider doing it. In between they have sex, come close to having sex, or consider having sex. It is not at all clear, or even interesting, whether these things are symbolic or real. The programme notes made a stab at proclaiming a long-running Korngold interest in 'resurrection'; 'clutching at straws' was the most charitable phrase that came to mind.

Everything seemed bathed in all-purpose film music, irrespective of what was supposed to be going on dramatically. This may have been middle-ranking Hollywood avant la lettre, but middle-ranking Hollywood it remained. Such structure as there was seemed superbly delineated by Vladimir Jurowski, but this was a thankless task. Everything was overheated from the word go, and little changed. The second act was perhaps a little more successful than the first, but the bar had been set low indeed. The relentless use of the xylophone irritated, since it seemed to be to no particular end. (Think, by way of contrast, of Jenůfa.) Granted, Korngold had a certain facility with the orchestra, but Strauss even at his most overblown is infinitely more subtle, not to mention easy on the ears. Much of the work sounded closer to Puccini, or rather to a Turandot that consisted of nothing but massed repetitions of sub-'Nessun dorma' music from all concerned. The great difference, of course, is that, whatever his shallowness, Puccini could write a tune.

The orchestra sounded good, if somewhat generalised in its approach, but I suspect this was as much to do with the music itself as anything else. Jurowski was duly fired up, and clearly had the score's measure: he gave the work his all, intellectually and emotionally. I only wish this effort had been better directed. The soloists were not an impressive bunch and had been misguidedly placed on a platform behind the orchestra. Andreas Schmidt displayed some serious tuning problems, whilst Patricia Racette seemed to veer in and out of focus. There was perhaps more of the latter, but who could entirely blame her? Michael Hendrick, in the principal tenor role, was profoundly disappointing, struggling to make himself heard over the orchestra. What we heard from the text of his great beauty was sharply at odds with what we heard from him. Even Robert Tear sounded lacklustre. On the other hand, the German choir produced rounded yet precise tone throughout. Its diction was decidedly superior to that of many of the soloists.

This was doubtless worth mounting - once. But there are many neglected works from this period which might merit attention before a resurrection. How long, for instance, is it since Busoni's Doktor Faust was performed in London? Where is Dukas's Ariane et Barbe-Bleue? There is also, most shamefully of all, the glaring absence from London, even in concert, of Moses und Aron. I could go on, but shall desist. The programme notes quoted an anonymous 'well-known German musicologist' as having declared Das Wunder der Heliane to be 'the most important operatic score of the 20th century'. More important than Wozzeck?! I am not at all sure that it was more important than Hugh the Drover.