Lohengrin, Royal Opera, 7 June 2018

Royal Opera House

Images: Clive Barda

King Henry the Fowler – Georg Zeppenfeld

Lohengrin – Klaus Florian Vogt

Elsa – Jennifer Davis

Friedrich von Telramund – Thomas Johannes Mayer

Ortrud – Christine Goerke

King’s Herald – Kostas Smoriginas

Brabantian Nobles – Konu Kim, Thomas Atkins, Gyula Nagy, Simon Shibambu

Pages – Katy Batho, Deborah Peake-Jones, Dervla Ramsay, Louise Armit

Gottfried – Michael Curtis

                                        

David Alden (director)

Paul Steinberg (set designs)

Gideon Davey (costumes)

Adam Silverman (lighting)

Tal Rosner (video)

Maxine Braham (movement)

Royal Opera Chorus and Extra Chorus (chorus director: William Spaulding)

Orchestra of the Royal Opera House

Andris Nelsons (conductor)

Elsa (Jennifer Davis) at her wedding

Since returning to London in January, I have been heartened by much of what I have seen – and indeed heard – from the Royal Opera. If Barrie Kosky’s Carmen proved something of a flop, there has been much to ponder and indeed to inspire from Krzysztof Warlikowski’s From the House of the Dead, superlatively conducted by Mark Wigglesworth, and most recently, George Benjamin’s new operatic masterpiece, Lessons in Love and Violence. David Alden is perhaps not the most obvious directorial choice for Wagner, though his ENO Tristan – the first I saw – certainly had its merits. He pretty much had the field to himself, though, given that Covent Garden’s previous staging was the lamentable fancy-dress pageant served up by Elijah Moshinsky, its final reheating coming as late as 2009. On the face of it, Alden’s move to the 1930s must have come to a shock to the more reactionary elements always present in a Wagner audience. That it does not seem to have done so suggests either a welcome opening of minds or something – at least, according to one reading, like Lohengrin – rather less substantial than one might have initially presumed.

I wish it had been the former but Alden’s production ultimately proved conventional, all too conventional: more a potential shell for something more interesting than a remotely finished – even ready – production in itself. Designs and some stage direction, notably that of the chorus, are suggestive, but where is the dramatic grit? To offer a Lohengrin come as redeemer to a society broken by war is of course to follow Wagner precisely; to shift the actual war to something closer to our modern concerns is no bad thing at all. He unifies a people in disarray through his charismatic authority, yet ultimately cannot fulfil his duty and rejects his people.

Lohengrin (Klaus Florian Vogt) and Telramund (Thomas Johannes Mayer)

Ortrud (Christine Goerke) and Telramund

Nazi parallels, or rather premonitions – like Marx, Wagner is often at his very strongest in pointing to where the twentieth and twenty-first centuries would go wrong – are obvious, yet none the worse for that. Even that level of critique will, after all, stand as a rebuke to those who follow that disingenuous old Nazi, Curt von Westernhagen, railing against the fresh theatrical wind of the 1970s: ‘Directors who deem themselves progressive when they transform the Ring back into a drama with a “message” have no idea how regressive this approach is in relation to the genesis of the work itself.’ Westernhagen’s scholarly methods are now as discredited as his ideology. Disciples remain, though, and few things get them so hot under the collar as Nazis on stage. Clue: they like it, really.

That said, simply to update is never enough. Indeed, it is to adopt the Westernhagen fraternity’s strange delusion that a production more or less is its designs (here, handsome indeed, for which great credit should be accorded to Paul Steinberg in particular). In many ways, when and where something is set, or is not, is the least interesting thing of all; at best, it is a starting-point. Save for that arresting, almost cinematic (Riefenstahl at a push) direction of crowd movement, its dramatic import obvious yet undeniably powerful, there is not much to get one’s teeth into. If the setting remains largely undeveloped, too much also seems awkwardly reminiscent of other productions. Had you never seen a German Lohengrin, you might remain, often literally, in the dark; Wagner and indeed many in his audiences surely deserve greater credit than that.

Henry the Fowler (Georg Zeppenfeld)

A King Henry whose hunched body language was a little too close to comfort to that of Hans Neuenfels’s Bayreuth production is one thing, but a falling of banners for war that aped the close of the second act of Stefan Herheim’s Parsifal is another again. If some point had been made about Wagner, the Nazis, and Bayreuth, it might have worked, I suppose; here, it seemed gratuitous and frankly derivative. What the point of describing the pages as ‘four women at the wedding’ may have been I do not know: if you like that sort of thing, then that will doubtless be the sort of thing you like. A sudden design apparition from Neuschwanstein seems merely a change of scene. Again, one can see why such an image might have a point in a fascist, even Nazi, setting, but it needs at some level to be made, not merely assumed. Dramatic motivation, then, largely eluded me. Such irritations pointed to a greater problem: a conceptual weakness at the heart. I suspect it can be remedied: if a shell, it is a fine shell. It will not, however, remedy itself.

Perhaps the same once had been true of Moshinsky. At any rate, this evening shared something else important with that final outing of 2009: musical excellence. Andris Nelsons, who conducted Neuenfels’s production at Bayreuth, was not at his strongest here, especially in the first act. Indeed, there both Nelsons and Alden seemed intent, consciously or otherwise, to underline what can often seem to be its rather static nature rather than to enliven the drama. However, Nelsons drew increasingly lovely playing from the orchestra, lower strings and woodwind in particular, and made often quite extreme second-act rubato – not to be confused with tempo variation – work, rather than seem merely mannered. His command of the architecture in the second and third acts impressed. Still more so did the outstanding singing from the chorus and extra chorus. William Spaulding’s work here is clearly reaping rewards, just as it did at Berlin’s Deutsche Oper.

Klaus Florian Vogt’s Lohengrin is a known quantity: known also, of course, to Nelsons from Bayreuth. I am less enthusiastic than once I was: the purity is less consistently apparent, the blandness more so. (Or maybe I am just tired of it.) However, it remains impressive on its own terms; one’s response to his singing will perhaps be more than usually personal. Replacing the originally advertised Kristine Opolais, Jennifer Davis impressed greatly as Elsa. This was by any standards a high-profile debut. Vocal and dramatic sincerity were matched by a security one had little right to expect. Thomas Johannes Mayer, also of recent Bayreuth fame, more than hinted at a properly complex Telramund, even if his artistry received little help from the staging. Christine Goerke’s Ortrud climaxed in properly blood curdling cries at the close, although again I had the impression a deeper production would have brought out something – well, deeper. Georg Zeppenfeld did what he could with the Neuenfels King-redux; that again was impressive indeed. Only Kostas Smoriginas, as his Herald, disappointed: often uncertain of verbal and musical line alike.

 

Ortrud waiting

The audience, part of one’s experience whether we like it or not – unless one happens to be Ludwig II, and even then… – proved something of a trial. Someone’s telephone vibrated throughout the first minute or so of the first-act Prelude, the culprit eventually shouting ‘Yes! I’m going to turn it off’. A friend heard someone else announce upon Lohengrin’s arrival: ‘I prefer it when he wears golden armour.’ Coughing, electronic terrorism, and inanity aside, they seemed to like the production: rarely a good sign. Given what they will boo… Still, there is, I am sure, room for something more to take shape within its framework; perhaps they will do so then. Moreover, there is, I assure you, a genuinely exciting prospect for the new Lohengrin at Bayreuth this year. At least on this occasion, my lips must remain better sealed than Elsa’s. The world, however, is likely to see a worthy successor to Neuenfels from Yuval Sharon, in a production that penetrates more deeply to the work’s essence and grapples with its implications.

Carmen, Royal Opera, 6 February 2018

Royal Opera House

Carmen (Anna Goryachova)
Images: Bill Cooper

Moralès – Gyula Nagy

Micaëla – Kristina Mkhitaryan
Don José – Francesco Meli
Zuniga – David Soar
Carmen – Anna Goryachova
Frasquita – Jacquelyn Stucker
Mercédès – Aigul Akhmetshina
Escamillo – Kostas Smoriginas
Dancaïro – Pierre Doyen
Remendada – Jean-Paul Fouchécourt
Voice of Carmen – Claude de Demo
 

Barrie Kosky (director)

Katrin Lea Tag (designs)
Joachim Klein (lighting)
Otto Pichler (choreography)
Zsolt Horpácsy (dramaturgy)
Alan Barnes (assistant director)


Royal Opera Chorus (chorus director: William Spaulding)

Orchestra of the Royal Opera House

Jakub Hrůsá (conductor)

At least Francesca Zambello and her donkey are gone. The Royal Opera’s previous production of Carmen worked in its way – not entirely unlike Meyerbeer at less than his best – yet it offered neither ambition nor insight; indeed, it appeared not even to try. Barrie Kosky rarely lacks ambition; insight is often more hit or miss, though. Kosky is a frustratingly inconsistent director: he is capable of outstanding work and something not far from its opposite. This Carmen is neither. First seen in Frankfurt in 2016, it offers an apparently arbitrary mixture of abstract grand opéra – surely the Intendant of Berlin’s Komische Oper should have a little more respect for, or at least understanding of opéra comique – and the irritating silliness of ‘look at us’ variety show routines. A few visually arresting moments, courtesy of Katrin Lea Tag’s designs, notwithstanding, it amounts to substantially less than the sum of its parts, not least on account of its perverse apparent lack of interest in characterisation.



I am not at all opposed to the idea of something adventurous being done with, even to, Carmen. It will always survive. Dmitri Tcherniakov’s recent, superlative Aix staging showed what can be done with a fundamental rethinking of the work. Not the least of its interesting insights was how, if we decentre Carmen, look at the action, in this case already very much in the realm of metatheatre, from the standpoint of, say, Don José, Carmen might actually become a far more interesting character. Kosky seems at times to inch towards the metatheatrical. ‘Don’t we all?’ one might well ask. However, it is only, ultimately, with the insight, if one can call it that, that Carmen is a show, all singing, all dancing – except when, occasionally, it is not. And so, the steps, certainly a fine edifice in themselves, and suggestive both of an amphitheatre and a bullring – are they not often the same thing in any case? – offer a way for the action to look at us, and for the characters not to look at each other. That is pretty much it, though. The loss, moreover, in never really knowing who anyone is – or rather knowing, but not on account of anything the production is showing or suggesting – is great. One can imagine the pseudish Christof Loy doing something like this; indeed, he did in his dreadful Lulu. Kosky is capable of much better than that, though.

 

The lack of realism – as an æsthetic: I am certainly not insisting that one ‘must’ see a romanticised Seville – inevitably hampers the musical performances too. In this weird abstraction, especially when punctuated by lengthy, breathy, soft-porn-style readings from the ‘Voice of Carmen’, over loudspeakers, we lose sight, aural sight too, of connections in the score as much as on stage. Again, it is not that I have a problem in principle with attempting an alternative to the dialogue, ‘edited by Barrie Kosky’ or not. However, the loss of a true sense, whether ‘then’ or ‘now’, of opéra comique, is not compensated for by any other gain. Further misguided performing choices, ‘after the critical edition by Michael Rot, adapted by Constantinos Carydis for Frankfurt Opera, 2016)’, conspire to the general ‘effect without cause’ of making heavy weather indeed out of so ‘Mediterranean’ a work.

 

I have never heard a poor performance from Jakub Hrůsá, a conductor I admire greatly. Here he certainly proved suggestive, in an admirably anti-Nietzschean way, of a ‘symphonic’ Carmen, Beethoven and even Wagner often coming to mind. Whether that really might be what Carmen needs, let us leave on one side; I had my doubts, but there are possibilities here worth exploring. In this context, however, it seemed more another confusing strand. Whilst Hrůsá often drew fine playing from the orchestra, in terms of colour, precision, even harmonic motion, there were perhaps a few too many slips, not least from the brass. Likewise, whilst choral singing was generally good, there were also passages in which stage and pit fell noticeably, disconcertingly out of sync. Such problems I can well imagine being ironed out in subsequent performances.

 

Escamillo (Kostas Smoriginas)

Anna Goryachova sang well enough in the title role, with clean command of line. I could often make little sense of her French, however, without the titles. Moreover, I had the strong sense she would have made more of an impression, if not in a smaller theatre, then at least in a more intimate production. The same could be said of most of the cast: hardly their fault. Francesco Meli’s all-purpose Italianate style had its moments, and in some senses might have been better suited to the staging. One surely wants something a little more idiomatic for Don José, though, and surely less coarse on top. Kristina Mkhitaryan’s Micaëla sounded curiously undifferentiated from Carmen, but again that was not necessarily the fault of either singer. The production offered her little opportunity to show who she was, but again she sang well enough. Quite why Escamillo was turned into a figure of mere camp is anyone’s guess; Kostas Smoriginas did what he could in the circumstances, and yes, you have guess it, did that well enough. Indeed, there were no causes for complaint amongst any of the cast. Ultimately, however, for all the production’s increasingly attempts, somehow both desperate and smug, to ‘entertain’, proceedings quickly became more tedious than anything else. That is an achievement of sorts for Carmen, but a sad one. Carmen’s shrug at the end – it had all been just a very protracted game – said it all really.

Boris Godunov, Royal Opera, 14 March 2016

Royal Opera House

Boris Godunov – Bryn Terfel

Andrey Schchelkalov – Kostas Smoriginas
Nikitch – Jeremy White
Mityukha – Adrian Clarke
Prince Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky – John Graham-Hall
Pimen – Ain Anger
Grigory Otrepiev – David Butt Philip
Hostess of the Inn – Rebecca de Pont Davies
Varlaam – John Tomlinson
Missail – Harry Nicoll
Frontier Guard – James Platt
Xenia – Vlada Borovko
Xenia’s Nurse – Sarah Pring
Fyodor – Ben Knight
Boyar – Nicholas Sales
Holy Fool – Andrew Tortise

Richard Jones (director)

Miriam Buethner (set designs)
Nicky Gillibrand (costumes)
Mimi Jordan Sherin (lighting)
Ben Wright (movement)
Elaine Kidd (associate director)

Royal Opera Chorus (chorus master: Renato Balsadonna)

Orchestra of the Royal Opera House

Antonio Pappano (conductor)

 

I really only have one grumble, so I shall get it out of the way first. Why the original, 1869 version of Boris Godunov? Yes, it was a Royal Opera, although not a Royal Opera House, first? Yes, it has its particular fascinations; one might even argue it more radical or at the very least still less beholden to operatic convention than Mussorgsky’s revised version, first performed long before the original was exhumed. Yes, there is the very real advantage in the theatre of not having the action broken by an interval. But does anyone seriously think we are better off without the Polish act, without Marina? Does anyone seriously think that Mussorgsky’s sometimes drastic reworking of Pushkin is not more successful operatically (however we understand the term)? Does anyone seriously think the grander scale of the opera as a whole and the (still) greater opposition between tsar and people are not more or less unambiguously to the dramatic good? For seasoned opera-goers, one might argue that that is all less of a problem; we shall know the revision anyway. We might even know the Rimsky-Korsakov reorchestration. Indeed, we do, although I have yet, alas, to hear a performance of Rimskyfied Boris, and should like the opportunity to do so before I die. That said, I should hesitate before staging either 1869 or Rimsky in this country, at least, given that performances of any version have been bizarrely infrequent. I cannot imagine anyone would dispute the standing of the work as the greatest of all Russian operas. Perhaps it seemed less so on account of the version to the first-night audience; I cannot be sure. At any rate, I was surprised by the muted reception: quite undeserved. Maybe these were just people who thought they were in for Russian Donizetti.

 

If the 1869 version will always seem more akin to a fascinating draft to me, what a draft it is! This was a strong performance all around. Antonio Pappano sounded far more at home here than he ever has in German repertory. There were some oddities, not least the over-emphatic phrasing of the very opening bars. Even that, though, served to underline its Janáček-like vocal prophecy. More concerning, at times, was a tendency towards smoothing away some of Mussorgsky’s sparest, uncompromising writing, rather at odds with the version but, more importantly, occasionally suggesting a kinship with more conventional, even Italianate, operatic practice which, to my ears at least, should not be there. (Whatever Richard Taruskin might claim, I really do not hear a rapprochement with Verdi in the revised version.) That said, however, there was splendid playing from the orchestra, on as fine form as I have heard in some time. Pappano, moreover, should surely take some, at least, of the credit for the force with which particular musical moments stood out: not like a sore thumb, but with an underlining of a telling shift, harmonically, timbrally, or both. Pacing was sure, too: perhaps still more important in this succession of scenes, whose own formal radicalism – sorry to keep using that word, but it seems so apt in this case! – was enabled thereby truly to make its mark.

 

Bryn Terfel gave one of the finest performances I have seen from him. Truly, he embodied the role; and, in an opera so concerned with succession, it was truly unnerving to witness him grasp John Tomlinson’s mantle, as the latter gave an inimitable performance in the role of Varlaam. Not that Terfel sounded remotely like Tomlinson, of course; if one were expecting, and insisting upon, a ‘traditional’, deep, ‘Russian’, performance, one would doubtless have been disappointed. There is no more reason, though, to insist upon one correct way to perform Mussorgsky than there is with Elgar. Terfel’s care with the text – musical, as well as verbal – was striking; so was its visual incarnation. I had no doubt that this was Boris. As for Tomlinson, his larger-than-life assumption of Varlaam was spot on; the extraordinary double act, spoons and all, with Harry Nicoll’s Missail proved a joy, its grim humour well-nigh Shakespearean. Let us hope we shall one day see Tomlinson’s Lear.

 

David Butt Philip’s intelligent portrayal of the growth of a false Dmitri had one, rightly, both sympathise – why not have a go, in such a world? – with and suspect Grigory. Vocally as well as dramatically, this was a fine performance, which had one all the more regret the loss of the Polish Act. Ain Anger’s Pimen was something no one present is likely to forget, a world-weary yet canny chronicler more in control (perhaps!) than any other of these tormented – and tormenting – characters. This was, surprisingly, his Royal Opera debut; it will surely not be long before we see him at Covent Garden again. Ben Knight gave an astonishingly mature performance as Fyodor; this was the real thing, no doubt. The extraordinary versatility of John Graham-Hall took another turn with his Shuisky: wheedling, yes, but ultimately a sad figure, a more rounded assumption than one generally sees (and hears). Schchelkalov assumed greater, more chilling stature in Kostas Smoriginas’s performance than I can recall. Andrew Tortise’s Fool was, again, the Shakespearean thing; this talented singer deserves greater exposure on our opera stages. Were I to continue, and perhaps I ought to, I should simply be listing the cast and saying ‘well done!’ to each of them, for there was no weak link; there was, indeed, an abundance of fine character-singing and acting from all concerned.

 

Choral singing was excellent, as were Richard Jones’s direction of the chorus and Ben Wright’s movement direction. Here, although there are of course losses with respect to the version, there is arguably considerable gain too. The truly extraordinary prose recitative of the Coronation Scene shocked as it should. In 1869, and indeed in 2016, we stood as distant from Rimskian Technicolor and, so it seemed, not so far from a mix of Monteverdi with Schoenberg – in Russian. It is here, ironically, that one is probably better off either with the original or with Rimsky. Renato Balsadonna will be leaving a chorus in very good shape for his successor, William Spaulding. (As any operagoer knows, Spaulding’s work at the Deutsche Oper, Berlin, augurs extremely well for London.)

 

Jones’s production is honest, straightforward, direct, with some of the tell-tale designs we expect, but nothing irritating. The upper, silent level of action in which assassins meet – a disturbingly Orientalist image here, I am afraid, although I doubt it was intended that way, nor is it necessarily intrinsically so – plotters scheme, and, above all, a child meets his cruel death is the realm of memory. We see as well as hear it haunt Boris; we sympathise, as we should, although, as with his would-be usurper, we do not only sympathise. Whether what we see be ‘true’ or no, we cannot know. The more disturbing question, or rather the implicit answer to that question, is: who cares?  Such is a crucial question in the work, and it is vividly, almost ritualistically instantiated here. Otherwise, below, a story is clearly and indeed colourfully told; it is difficult to imagine even the most ‘traditionalist’ of operagoers having any quarrel with Jones’s staging or – and, sadly, this is what such operagoers exclusively seem to mean by ‘productions’ – with the designs by Miriam Buethner and Nicky Gillibrand, all well thought out and finely executed.

I cannot help but wish that the production were a little more daring in its political terms of reference. If ever an opera cried out for a little contemporary or near-contemporary signposting, it is surely Boris. Is there a Russian regime to which the work could not be updated? Gorbachev’s might be trickier than most, although even then, Boris the reformer might intriguingly come into play. By the same token, however, we are free to draw our own comparisons, and anyone with half a brain cell will do so. In some ways, it is not unwelcome to have a construction – and Jones is too clever to approach the opera unmediated, whatever first impressions might suggest – of old Muscovy placed before us; if some silly souls take that as ‘fact’ or, God forbid, as ‘beautiful’, then that ultimately is their problem. At any rate, the evening offered a convincing, powerful musico-dramatic whole.

 

The performance on 21 March will be broadcast live to cinemas worldwide.

 

 

 

Prom 4 - CBSO/Nelsons: Beethoven and Woolrich, 19 July 2015

Royal Albert Hall

Beethoven –The Creatures of Prometheus, op.43: Overture

Woolrich – Falling Down (London premiere)
Beethoven – Symphony no.9 in D minor, op.125

Margaret Cookhorn (contrabassoon)

Lucy Crowe (soprano)

Gerhild Romberger (mezzo-soprano)
Pavel Černoch (tenor)
Kostas Smoriginas (bass-baritone)

CBSO Chorus (chorus master: Simon Halsey)

City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Andris Nelsons (conductor)

The precision of attack in the opening to Beethoven’s Creatures of Prometheus Overture signalled thoroughgoing excellence in the contribution of the CBSO to this concert. I could really find nothing about which to cavil at the orchestral performance. Andris Nelsons’s conducting, however, remained distinctly mixed in quality. He eschewed fashionable ideas concerning tempo and offered a refreshingly slow introduction. The main body of the Overture started intriguingly post-Mozartian fashion, seeming – surprisingly – to hint at The Marriage of Figaro. However, Rossini soon, bizarrely, seemed to supplant Mozart, and we found ourselves in the world of Toscanini. The Beethovenian weight of Klemperer was nowhere to be heard. If ‘Italianate’ Beethoven were your thing, you would probably have liked it more than I did.

John Woolrich’s Falling Down, ‘a capricho for double bassoon and orchestra’, followed. The solo part was taken by Margaret Cookhorn, the dedicatee of this piece, first performed by the same forces in 2009 as a CBSO commission. They all seemed to play it very well indeed; I wish I could have thought more of the work itself. A colourful, spiky, somewhat Stravinskian opening augured well, its material reappearing throughout the quarter of an hour or so. Some harmonies put me in mind a little of Prokofiev, and there was indeed, something of a balletic quality. Antiphonally placed timpani had an important role, well taken. But once one is past the interesting ‘experience’ of a concertante piece for contrabassoon, Falling Down seems, at best, over-extended. There is only so much it can do as a solo instrument but, more to the point, what soloist and orchestra do soon seems repetitive. I have responded much more readily to the composer’s Monteverdi reworkings.

The performance of the Ninth Symphony grew in stature, but I am afraid this was not – for me, although the audience in general seemed wildly enthusiastic – that elusive, compelling modern performance we all crave. Daniel Barenboim’s Proms performance in 2012 was nowhere challenged – not least since there was no doubt whatsoever in Barenboim’s performance that the work meant something, and something of crucial, undying importance at that. There was good news in the first movement. First, it was not taken absurdly fast; nor was it metronomic in its progress. And yet, despite the undoubted excellence of the CBSO’s playing, I found myself at a loss as to what the music in performance might actually mean. Too often, extreme dynamic contrasts – somewhat smoothed over by the notorious Albert Hall acoustic – seemed just that; why was a phrase played quite so softly? There was wonderful clarity, enabling woodwind lines not just to be heard, but to sing. What, however, were they singing about? There was real menace, though, in the coda, even if it seemed somewhat to have come from nowhere. Applause: really?!

 

The Scherzo was taken fast, very fast: nothing wrong with that. My chief reservation remained, however, and ultimately this was a smoothly ‘reliable’ performance rather than a revelation. Where were the anger, the vehemence, the human obstreperousness of Beethoven? Applause proves still less welcome here. The slow movement was taken at a convincing tempo, its hushed nobility, with especial thanks to euphonious woodwind, greatly welcome. I was less convinced that the metaphysical dots were joined up, or even, sometimes, noticed. Whatever my doubts, though, there was no denying the beauty of the playing (an intervention from an audience glass towards the close notwithstanding).

Nelsons forestalled applause, thank goodness, by moving immediately to the finale. He and the orchestra fairly sprung into and through its opening: very impressive on its own terms, although it would surely have hit home harder, had it been properly prepared by what had gone before. The cellos really dug into their strings too. Nelsons had them and the double basses paly deliciously softly for their recitative; now, a true sense of drama announced itself, expectant rather than merely soft. Bass-baritone Kostas Smoriginas delivered his ‘proper’ recitative, ‘O Freunde …’, with almost Sarastro-like sincerity and deliberation. I liked the way the rejection of such ‘Töne’ was no easy decision. The soloists as a whole did a good job; that there remains a multiplicity of options, and dare, I suggest, a residual insufficiency to any one quartet, says more about Beethoven’s strenuousness of vision and humility before his God than performance as such. The CBSO Chorus, singing from memory, was quite simply outstanding. Weight and clarity reinforced each other rather than proving, as so often, contradictory imperatives. Nelsons imparted an unusual sense of narrative propulsion, almost as if this were an opera, or at least an oratorio: I am not sure what I think of such a conception, but it was interesting to hear it, and there was no doubting now the conviction with which it was instantiated. The almost superhuman clarity of the chorus’s words – ‘Und der Cherub steht vor Gott!’ a fitting climax to that first section – certainly helped. It was fun, moreover, to be reminded of the contrabassoon immediately afterwards. (Was that the tenuous connection with the Woolrich piece?) The infectious quality to the ‘Turkish March’ brought with it welcome reminiscences of Die Entführung aus dem Serail. And the return to ‘Freude, schöner Götterfunken’ proved exultant in that deeply moving way that is Beethoven’s own. (If only the abuse of this work by the European Union had not had me think of the poor Greeks at this point – but, on second thoughts, that was probably a good thing too.) If only Nelsons could have started again, and reworked the meaning he seemed to find here into the earlier movements, especially the first two, we might have had a great performance. As it stood, there remained a good deal later on to have us think.