Salzburg Festival (5) - Don Giovanni, 15 August 2014

Images: © Salzburger Festspiele / Michael Pöhn

 

 

Haus für Mozart

Donna Anna – Lenneke Ruiten

Donna Elvira – Anett Fritsch
Zerlina – Valentina Nafornita
Don Giovanni – Ildebrando d’Arcangelo
Leporello – Luca Pisaroni
Commendatore – Tomasz Konieczny
Don Ottavio – Andrew Staples
Masetto – Alessio Arduini

Sven-Eric Bechtolf (director)

Rolf Glittenberg (set designs)
Marianne Glittenberg (costumes)
Friedrich Rorn (lighting)
Ronny Dietrich (dramaturgy)

Philharmonia Chorus Vienna (chorus master: Walter Zeh)

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Christoph Eschenbach (conductor)

Why, o why, is it apparently so difficult for directors to come up with a vaguely coherent staging of Don Giovanni? Why, moreover, do so many of them seem so uninterested in, even contemptuous of, the work? It is an opera of such overflowing richness that one would have expected directors to be spoilt for choice when it came to options for staging. Instead, we find ourselves almost always faced with an incoherent mess.

Such is certainly what was served up by Sven-Erich Bechtolf. Bechtholf’s production is probably not quite so bad as London’s twin nadirs of Francesca Zambello and Rufus Norris, but it is difficult to say anything much more positive than that. This year’s Salzburg Festival’s Great War theme – are we not all fed up with such commemorations already? – seems to receive a nod in the updating, but to what end beyond that I cannot say. Similarly the bizarre hotel setting, which makes a nonsense of so much in the work. The closest attention to Da Ponte, let alone to Mozart, seems to be in retaining some vestige of class distinction in presenting Zerlina and Masetto as hotel staff. Beyond that, the opera seems of little interest to Bechtolf. Of religion, let alone of sin, there is nothing – unless one counts the occasional and, in context, quite nonsensical reapparances of the Commendatore as a porcine devil. People dart in and out of hotel rooms and occasionally strip to their underwear in the reception area. Whether comedy be intended is unclear; it certainly is not achieved. Still less is anything approaching tragedy. As for the ending, in which Don Giovanni is still there, chasing after another maid, what is supposed to have happened? Nothing, apparently – which actually is not so very far off the mark. An existentialist conception of Don Giovanni, if that be what this is, is fine in principle, if somewhat partial; but, like any other conception, it needs pursuing coherently. It really is not worth saying any more. Bechtolf’s Così fan tutte, whilst far from perfect, was much better than this; we await next year’s Figaro with trepidation.  

 

Musically, matters were much better. If Christoph Eschenbach did not rise to the heights of Daniel Barenboim in Berlin – by far the best conducted performance of this work I have ever heard – then he nevertheless rose above the rank incompetence and/or sheer perversity we are generally fated to hear. (I really cannot be bothered to compile a list; it would rival Leporello’s in length, if not in excitement.) There was not a single instance in which tempi were objectionable. They were generally well related to one another. And crucially, Eschenbach knew how to draw a fine sound from the Mozart orchestra non pareil, the Vienna Philharmonic, which in turn deigned to play as it can and should. There was not the Furtwänglerian intensity that Barenboim brought to the drama, but there was plenty of light and shade and, that rare thing, an impression that it was being permitted to speak more or less for itself.  Interventionist continuo playing may not be to everyone’s taste, but it did little harm, and indeed livened up a good number of the more hapless moments of stage direction.

 

Don Giovanni (Ildebrando d'Arcangelo)

 

Ildebrando d’Arcangelo made for a brilliant Don Giovanni, insofar as he was permitted to do so. (Why, at one point, did he suddenly have to dress up in the guise of a 1970s gameshow host? At any rate, the Jimmy Savile hint, doubtless coincidental, was not pursued.) Characteristically dark and flexible of tone, d’Arcangelo’s was a smouldering portrayal, which captured to an unusual degree his character’s quicksilver changes of mood and circumstance. Luca Pisaroni’s Leporello was an excellent sidekick, possessing agency in his own right, yet subordinate (again, insofar as Bechtolf’s direction permitted, etc., etc.). Both showed great facility with words, music, and their alchemy. Lenneke Ruiten and Anett Fritsch had their moments as Donna Anna and Donna Elvira, though intonational difficulties were not entirely absent. Andrew Staples sounded a little out of sorts as Don Ottavio; perhaps it was simply an off-night. In any case, despite some less than mellifluous sounds, his dramatic intelligence shone through. Valentina Nafornita and Alessio Arduini made for a characterful, indeed sexy, couple as Zerlina and Masetto. Only Tomasz Konieczny’s surprising unsteady Commendatore really disappointed. The cast, then, mostly did what it could, as did Eschenbach and the orchestra; the fault lay squarely with Bechtolf.

Salzburg Festival (8) - Così fan tutte, 25 August 2013

Haus für Mozart

Fiordiligi – Malin Hartelius

Dorabella – Marie-Claude Chappius
Despina – Martina Janková
Ferrando – Martin Mitterrutzner
Guglielmo – Luca Pisaroni
Don Alfonso – Gerald Finley

Sven-Erik Bechtolf (director)

Rolf Glittenberg (set designs)
Marianne Glittenberg (costumes)
Jürgen Hofmann (lighting)
Ronny Dietrich (dramaturgy)

Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus (chorus master: Ernst Raffelsberger)

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

Christoph Eschenbach (conductor)

 

Images © Michael Pöhn
Ferrando (Martin Mitterrutzner), Gerald Finley (Don Alfonso), Guglielmo (Luca Pisaroni)

I have scrupulously avoided reviews of the opening night of Salzburg’s new Così fan tutte before writing this review (of the second night: well, afternoon, the performance beginning at the very odd time of 1 p.m.). However, news filtered through to me that it was universally execrated – perhaps an exaggeration, but we shall see – and indeed that Christoph Eschenbach had been booed. I have never held the highest opinion of newspaper journalists, though there are many honourable exceptions; ‘some of my best friends...’ etc. In this case, however, all I can say that either I have been misinformed, or the second night was entirely different from the first (possible), or journalists deserve to sink lower still in our imagination. Whilst this was not the finest Cosi I have heard, or indeed seen, it was superior to many others, and such a reaction, especially when apparently universal – which should perhaps always make one suspicious, were the idea of a Franz Welser-Möst claque not so inherently ridiculous – seems straightforwardly incomprehensible.

 

Let us start with the conductor and orchestra, then. Welser-Möst had made a great song and dance about withdrawing not only from this production, but the projected Da Ponte cycle (Don Giovanni next year, Figaro and the cycle as a whole in 2015), allegedly on behalf of the Vienna Philharmonic, yet the claims of unacceptable rehearsal schedules lose all credibility when any comparison is made with the typical state of affairs ‘at home’, at the Vienna State Opera. Eschenbach’s appointment as replacement seemed at the time to me an interesting and indeed hopeful sign, indicative of Alexander Pereira’s laudable determination, voiced in a press conference I attended in London, that Mozart should not now fall victim to what he all too accurately, if all too tragically, termed the ‘Bach problem’, namely that Mozart should not also fall victim to capture by the ‘authenticke’ brigade and its fellow-travellers. (Having Nikolaus Harnoncourt conduct The Magic Flute last year with the Concentus musicus Wien may sit oddly with that, but may simply betoken genuine open-mindedness. Stranger things have happened. Allegedly.) If this were not a performance with the depth of insight, and indeed of life-long immersion, of the late Sir Colin Davis, or Karl Böhm (how glorious the years in which Salzburg effectively designated Così as his province must have been!), it was far more than efficient. Tempi were convincingly if not always conventionally chosen; even if there were a few occasions when pit and stage lost touch – for some reason, a surprisingly common occurrence in this opera – they were swiftly corrected. Most impressive was Eschenbach’s sense of chiaroscuro, for which the VPO must also of course share praise. There was not a single ugly sound – perhaps the critics were longing for some of Harnoncourt’s ‘abrasiveness’, the most diplomatic term I can offer – but this was not bland. Lightness of touch did not preclude emotional and, on a few occasions, sonorous profundity. I had expected Eschenbach that would use a larger orchestra; the VPO was essentially reduced to a chamber band, yet that reduction did not entail the clattering of Meissen china. Eschenbach, to my surprise, opted for a fortepiano continuo. It is strange how conductors – and indeed pianists – who would never consider using the period instrument for solo work opt for it as continuo instrument; Riccardo Muti is another example. Quite what the problem with a modern piano is held to be I am not sure, but Enrico Maria Cacciari’s playing was alert and stylish, without exhibitionism, much like the orchestra as a whole.

Dorabella (Marie-Claude Chappuis), Fiordiligi (Malin Hartelius), Don Alfonso, Despina (Martina Janková), Guglielmo

 

 

The cast on the whole impressed too, though there was some unevenness. Gerald Finley though was a masterly and masterful – for once the oft-confused words both apply here – Don Alfonso, making his mark through authority and quicksilver response to text and situation, a worthy successor to Sir Thomas Allen, whom I heard more than once in that role here in Salzburg. Luca Pisaroni proved just as distinguished a Guglielmo as he had a Figaro in Claus Guth’s excellent Salzburg staging. Suavely and darkly attractive of voice and presence, his attentiveness to the text was every bit the equal of Finley’s, suggesting the truth of Stanley Sadie’s oft-repeated remark that the presence of an Italian native speaker in a Mozart cast lifted the general level of responsiveness to the libretto. Both singers can act too – and did. Martin Mitterrutzner often sang attractively as Ferrando, but sounded parted by the role a little too often; whether this were just an off-day, or a more general problem, I cannot say. He is certainly an eager stage animal. Malin Hartelius sometimes experienced problems with her coloratura, but by the same token, there was much to enjoy, and her performance improved as it progressed. Mozart, the cruellest of musical masters, if the most necessary for vocal (and instrumental) health and flexibility, of course offers nowhere to hide. Marie-Claude Chappuis offered proper vocal contrast, attractively despatched in vocal and stage terms, as Dorabella, and Martina Janková offered a more musical, less caricatured Despina than most we endure. Choral singing was of a notably high standard, even though there is not that much of it.

 

Bechtolf’s staging may not have been the most radical the work has experienced; I retain fond memories of Hans Neuenfels’s 2000 Salzburg staging, the first time I saw the work in the theatre, though sometimes I seem to be the only one who does. But Bechtolf’s staging makes a strong, rather than lazy, case for setting the work in a contemporary setting – contemporary, that is, to Mozart and Da Ponte, as – at the time – it was ‘intended’. It is not set in Naples, but then it is in no sense whatsoever ‘about’ Naples. Indeed, its siting there was probably a matter of evading the censor, who may have disapproved of the work’s ‘immorality’ being set too close to home, as in the alleged ‘true story’ from the Wiener Neustadt – ‘Nea polis’. At any rate, a handsome eighteenth-century setting, with a fine sense of the cusp between Enlightenment reason and proto-Romantic sensibility, was not there to flatter audience members who simply wished to sigh at pretty frocks; it served a dramatic purpose. Sometimes the conflict between those two opposing, or at least not identical, forces is more convincing than at other points. The spa/hot-house setting works well, I think, and put me in mind – though I doubt that this were the intention – of the relationship I have long pondered between Così  and the Treibhaus of Tristan. However, the drunkenness of the sisters at the beginning of the second act seems a mistake, exaggerated for effect, and trespassing upon the music, even if it were ‘only’ recitative. There is nothing other, though, that I should describe as un-musical, which again marks a refreshing contrast with many opera stagings, of whatever hue. Don Alfonso’s drinking of poison at the end is surprising, though again it made me consider complement and contradiction to Tristan. Perhaps Bechtolf was suggesting that Così is not quite so clear-eyed and unflinching with regard to the illusions and delusions of ‘romantic’ and ‘Romantic’ love, or perhaps he was saying the opposite; at the very least, it made me think.

LPO/Nézet-Séguin - Haydn and Strauss, 24 November 2012

Royal Festival Hall

Haydn – Missa in Angustiis, ‘Nelson Mass’, Hob. XXII:11

Strauss – Ein Heldenleben, op.40

Sarah-Jane Brandon (soprano)

Sarah Connolly (mezzo-soprano)
Robin Tritschler (tenor)
Luca Pisaroni (bass-baritone)

London Philharmonic Choir (chorus master: Neville Creed)
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Yannick Nézet-Séguin (conductor)
 

Haydn’s settings of the Mass ought to be heard incessantly, in churches and in the concert hall. For reasons that elude me, they are not, even this, the so-called Nelson Mass, arguably the most celebrated of all, if only on account of his nickname. Indeed classical sacred music in general, Mozart’s included, with a very few obvious exceptions, is unaccountably neglected by most concert programmers. (When did you last hear Beethoven’s Mass in C major, op.86, any of Gluck’s sacred music, anything that was not a Mass setting from the Salzburg Mozart, or indeed any of the shorter liturgical works by Schubert?) Perhaps performers, audiences, bureaucrats alike still have the Whiggish canard that the Enlightenment was somehow concerned with secularisation seared into their incurious minds; if so, send them away with a copy of Ernst Cassirer’s venerable Philosophy of the Enlightenment in one hand and a good few scores or recordings in the other. In any case, let us hope that the London Philharmonic will programme more of this wonderful repertoire, especially if performed with such success as it was here, under Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

 

The ‘Kyrie’ plunged us immediately into a world of high liturgical, symphonic, well-nigh operatic, drama, the D minor tonality of Don Giovanni ringing in our ears. It was driven, but not too much; Nézet-Séguin knew where to yield too. The London Philharmonic Choir, here as elsewhere, shone, fullness of tone and precision in no sense antithetical. Sarah-Jane Brandon imparted the necessary note of wartime terror to the return of the ‘Kyrie’ material, form sharply delineated by Nézet-Séguin. A propulsive opening to the ‘Gloria’ shared that marriage of choral weight and transparency. It struck me, perhaps for the first time, how much Haydn’s writing for soprano against choir prefigures the ‘Hymn’ in The Creation, which lay, after all, just around the corner. The setting of the words ‘miserere nobis’ seemed to evoke Mozart – which of course in many senses it does, Haydn always keen to learn at the hands of the younger genius.

 

A particularly Haydnesque combination of Baroque sturdy figured bass, such as one always finds in his setting of the Creed (‘Tu es Petrus’) and Beethovenian symphonism characterised the opening section of the ‘Credo’. It was nicely shaded too, without fussiness. The cult of alte Musik furthered by Gottfried van Swieten, Viennese patron to Mozart and Haydn, as well as librettist (of sorts) for Haydn’s oratorios, was heard here for the inspirational influence it was: none of today’s mere antiquarianism (at best), but a vital force, informing performance and composition alike. Just listen to the words ‘et homo factus est’, Handel channelled via Haydn’s loving yet vigorous offices. The final section, like much of the rest of the faster material, was taken at a challenging tempo, or at least a tempo that would have proved challenging, had it not been for the excellence of orchestral and choral execution.

 

The ‘Sanctus’ was properly imploring, taken at a magnificently slow tempo, without the slightest hint of dragging. ‘Pleni sunt cœli...’ came as a thunderbolt of joy. A flowing contrast to both parts of that preceding movement was offered by a flowing ‘Benedicturs’. Militarism made its point, chillingly, yet commendably without the exaggeration one would most likely have endured from latter-day ‘authenticke’ freak-shows. Textures were clear and weighty (where necessary). Nézet-Séguin handled the ‘Agnus Dei’ with loving tenderness. Sarah Connolly offered excellent solo work at the opening, soon joined by her equally fine colleagues, Brandon, Robin Tritschler, and Luca Pisaroni. ‘Dona nobis pacem’ brought a wonderful, elating feeling of choral and orchestral release. Was anyone a more joyful contrapuntist – or homophonist! – than Haydn? As he is alleged to have said to a (slightly dubious) biographer, Giuseppe Carpani, ‘At the thought of God my heart leaps for joy, and I cannot help my music doing the same.’

 

Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben followed the interval. It is difficult to think of anything meaningful to connect the two works, so it was better approached simply as a contrast – which indeed it was. Nézet-Séguin and the LPO revelled in the opening kaleidoscope of colour, which sometimes, quite rightly, tended a little towards the phantasmagorically nauseous.  The LPO’s cellos shone particularly, horns (led by David Pyatt) here and elsewhere quite glorious. Strauss’s critics were properly carping; Pieter Schoeman’s violin solo offered a delectable ‘feminine’ contrast, clean but not clinical, sinuous but not cloying. It was an interesting reading taken as a whole: not overtly symphonic, yet by the same token certainly not without form. Rather, the latter seemed to emerge from the material, which is doubtless as it should be. (Not that there is just one way of that happening, of course.) Battle was instrumental in more than one sense, a battery of brass and percussion both impressing and amusing: Strauss the inveterate ironist. It was brutal, but in a toy soldiers’ sort of way. There were a few occasions when I thought Nézet-Séguin might have relaxed a little more, but that was certainly preferable to meandering, always a danger in this score. The difficulty of shooting’s one bolt too early – I am not even convinced that Karajan always showed himself innocent of that all-too-seductive mistake – was avoided completely: quite an achievement.

 

Pisaroni/Rieger - Schubert, Rossini, and Liszt, 6 March 2011

Wigmore Hall

Schubert – Il modo di prender moglie, D902/3
L’incanto degli occhi, D902/1
Il traditor deluso D902/2
Rossini – La promessa
L’esule
L’orgia
Liszt – Im Rhein, im schönen Strome, S.272 (second version)
Vergiftet sind meine Lieder, S.289
O lieb, so lang du lieben kannst, S.298
Die Vätergruft
Tre sonetti de Petrarca, S.270 (first version)

Luca Pisaroni (baritone)
Wolfram Rieger (piano)

(Image: Marco Borggreve)

I was surprised to discover that this was Luca Pisaroni’s Wigmore Hall debut. On the basis of this splendidly planned recital, he should return very soon indeed. I admired him enormously as Salzburg’s 2007 Figaro and he has recently been garnering plaudits in the same role in Vienna’s somewhat more ‘traditional’ production. It is therefore a delight to report that Pisaroni is just as much at home in the recital room, and every bit as comfortable with German as Italian song.

Schubert opened the recital, but in the guise of his three Metastasio songs, D 902, dedicated to the Italian bass, Luigi Lablache. (They were also published with a German translation.) Pisaroni made something very particular out of them, turning their mixed German-Italian nature into a point of interest rather than a mere compromise. The opening Il modo di render moglie, in which the narrator asks why he might not choose a wife for money, had something of the opera too it: Mozart in the third stanza, moving to Rossini at climax, but Pisaroni was always careful to present these songs as songs; they never overstepped the boundary into aspirant opera, despite the tumult one could only really describe as ‘operatic’ in the recitative of Il traditor deluso and the subsequent portrayal of Metastasian furies. The central L’incanto degli occhi sounded closer to German Romanticism, and were blessed by a beautiful richness of tone especially apparent upon the deeper bass notes. It was a pity that pianist Wolfram Rieger could sometimes, especially in the outer pair, prove a little plodding, but that did not detract from Pisaroni’s artistry.

Schubert, as we hear in his Sixth Symphony, was far from immune to the Rossini craze that swept Vienna, even though he would always remain much closer to Beethoven. It was time to hear from Rossini himself: again, not in aria, but in song, and Pisaroni was every bit as successful in ensuring that the three Rossini songs were heard just as that. One could certainly hear that he would make a fine Rossini singer in the theatre, not least from his beautifully sustained line, but that was not the point on the present occasion. Indeed, we heard, especially in La promessa (Metastasio again), a more Romantic and songlike Rossini than would generally be the case, without stepping too far from the classical poise of the text. Rieger imparted a nice, if slightly Germanic, spring to the piano part for L’orgia, but it was Pisaroni who stole the show, his naughtily confiding ‘Gulliva ravviva / Rinnova ogni cor’ an especial joy, on account of a subtlety one does not necessarily expect to hear applied to Rossini.

Then, a true mark of intelligent programming, we moved to Liszt: German, but not quite, closer to Italian music than, say, Wagner or Brahms. Pisaroni’s diction and sense of style had been predictably yet still creditably fine in the Italian songs; they were no less so when it came to Heine, Freiligrath, and Uhland. Im Rhein, im schönen Strome, announces the first song (‘In the Rhine, the beautiful river’), and that is very much what we heard, but beauty heightened the rapt response to Heine’s verse rather than drawing attention from the words. Rieger seemed more at home in Liszt than during the Italian songs, though it took him a couple of songs or so to get going here. The second Heine setting, Vergiftet sind meine Lieder, was more impassioned than the first, yet stood some way from abandon. One was doubly thankful, then, for the Romantically ardent baritone whose songs, were they poisoned (vergiftet), could not but tempt one to taste of his poison. O lieb, so lang du lieben kannst! would become the celebrated Liebesträume no.3. In Pisaroni’s rendition, its Italianate vocal line blended perfectly with German verse and harmonic direction: Lisztian alchemy indeed. Die Vätergruft emerged in ghostly fashion: an old man, clad in armour, entered an ancient chapel, and, floored by a song of exhortation, fell to his final rest. Midway between Schubert and Wagner (perhaps even Mahler’s Das klagende Lied), it retained the twin Italian and German virtues of the previous Liszt songs. I can honestly say that, had I not known the nationality of the singer, I should never have guessed from his German that he was not a native speaker. Matched with rare beauty of tone and unerring control of line, this made for something special indeed.

Finally came the Petrarch Sonnets. Those very virtues of tone and line, married once again to fine diction, permitted the beauty of Petrarch’s verse to emerge afresh. Expectation upon no.104’s ‘E temo e spero, ed ardo e son un ghiaccio’ (‘I fear, yet hope; I burn, yet am turned to ice’) turned dramatically yet naturally to soaring in the heavens for ‘E volo sopra ‘l cielo’. No.47 was perhaps a little less impressive, opening in comparatively casual fashion; there were, moreover, a few moments when intonation wavered, though when it did not, which was most of the time, there was much to savour. Such was the clarity of diction that one readily detected typographical errors in the printed text, such as ‘primo’ for ‘promo’. And when Pisaroni concluded Sonnet no.123 with the words ‘Tanta dolcezza avea pien l’aere e l’vento’ (‘Such sweetness had filled the air and winds’), one could only concur. If one is to hear a lower voice rather than a tenor in these songs, I cannot think of anyone I should rather hear. Rieger too had seemed incited by the poetry and produced some magically Lisztian beauty, not least in the final postlude. As an encore, we were treated to Es muss ein wunderbares sein, S.314, Pisaroni’s treatment as rapt as the Heine setting with which the Liszt selection had opened. One Thomas Hampson, seated with his partner immediately behind me, apparently unbeknown to his son-in-law on stage, was impressed too...