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.

Thomanerchor/Gewandhaus/Schwarz - St John Passion (1749 version), 21 April 2011

St Thomas's Church, Leipzig

Sibylla Rubens (soprano)
Marie-Claude Chappuis (contralto)
Johannes Chum (Evangelist and tenor arias)
Stephan Loges (Christ)
Hans-Christoph Begemann (bass arias)

Choir of St Thomas’s, Leipzig
Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra
Gotthold Schwarz (conductor)


The Thomanerchor’s Maundy Thursday and Good Friday Passion performances alternate annually between the St John and the St Matthew. This year, for a little variety, Bach’s 1749 (fourth) version of the former was presented. I do not recall hearing it before; there is little, however, about which to become excited, the most noteworthy changes being a matter of alterations to three aria texts. ‘Ich folge dir gleichfalls’ has some changes, arguably reflecting a less Baroque or Pietistic pictorial sensibility, likewise ‘Betrachte, meine Seel’. The text for ‘Erwäge, wie sein blutgefärbter Rücken’ is entirely replaced, the following words providing the new text:

Mein Jesu, ach! Dein schmerzhaft bitter Leiden
bringt tausend Freuden,
es tilgt der Sünden Not.
Ich sehe zwar mit vielen Schrecken
den heiligen Leib mit Blute decken;
doch muss mir dies auch Lust erwecken,
es macht mich frei von Höll und Tod.

Georg Christoph Biller, the Thomaskantor, had been due to conduct; illness led to his replacement by Gotthold Schwarz. Schwarz’s approach was clearly ‘period’-informed, but not oppressively so, and was capable of variation. For instance, the great opening chorus was taking at a fast-ish though not absurd tempo; more importantly, the choir’s cries of ‘Herr’ pierced to the core against a properly turbulent backdrop as furnished by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. I feared the worst when the ‘B’ section was terminated quite abruptly – always, to be fair, a difficult return to bring off convincingly – but other phrase- and section-endings were rounded off more naturally, for instance Christ’s recitative at the end of no.2. Likewise, chorales sounded unhurried – at least by today’s preposterous standards – and pauses were usually employed at ends of phrases. I was certainly impressed at the way Bach’s myriad of harmonic subtleties shone through – though one might well ask, how could it not? – in a chorale such as ‘Wer hat dich so geschlagen…?’ I did wonder, however, at the precedence of words over line in the penultimate line of ‘Christus, der uns selig macht’. Certainly the meaning of ‘verlacht, verhöhnt, und verspielt’ came across vividly, but the effect was arguably disruptive. The climactic chorus, ‘Ruht wohl,’ maintained its noble dignity, even if Schwarz’s imagination was somewhat less all-encompassing than that of a conductor such as Eugen Jochum (still my first choice for a recording).

An undeniable ‘rightness’ to the sound of boys’ voices was illustrated throughout. I do not mean to imply that mixed voices should not sing the work; I am happy to leave such fundamentalism to the ‘authenticke’ brigade, though commercial self-interest tends to render its practitioners oddly reluctant to employ what should surely be the ‘historically informed’ voices. Nevertheless, it is something very special to hear Bach’s own choir and – more or less – orchestra in his own church on Maundy Thursday, not least whilst beholding, as I did, Bach’s own countenance immediately opposite in one of St Thomas’s beautiful stained-glass windows – and that of Mendelssohn a little closer to the organ loft, in which the performances take place. It would, moreover, be ludicrous to claim that women’s voices sound the same as boys’, or indeed that a more mature chorus sounds as fresh as a youthful choir. Different choirs are possessed of different qualities. There was, moreover, no wanting of vigour in the turba choruses, Bach’s searing chromaticism proving as terrifying as anything in Tristan or Parsifal, the bloodlust if anything all the more chilling when expressed by young voices. ‘Sei gegrüßet, lieber Jüdenkönig!’ was, I am happy to report, taken at a relatively sedate tempo, allowing the words their full force. Bach’s writing, the Gospel itself, and the choral singing combined to impart an almost overwhelming sense of predestination as the performance progressed.

The question of soloists might be thought vexed, though only really if one adopts a fundamentalist approach: better to have professional soloists drawn from outside the choir than to have boys struggle, though it would be interesting on occasion to hear the soprano and alto arias taken by trebles. (Members of the choir did take smaller parts, such as the Maid and Peter.) Johannes Chum was an excellent Evangelist. Neither words nor music were unduly privileged; instead, one not only noted but experienced the miracle of Bach’s alchemic combination. Occasional strain with respect to the higher notes in his range was put to expressive use rather than jarring. Rainer Trost was listed in the programme booklet as the soloist for the tenor arias, but they were also sung by Chum. Though I should have been interested to hear the former, Chum proved an able replacement. It was not his fault, for instance, that a warmer, more Romantic string sound was not forthcoming in ‘Ach, mein Sinn’; nor, I am sure, was it the fault of the Gewandhaus Orchestra. The same could be said of the somewhat underpowered violin sound in ‘Mein Jesu, ach!’ Some ‘period’ practices die hard, alas. The entire continuo group proved distinguished throughout, however, not least David Petersen’s fruity bassoon.

Stephan Loges was a richly toned, expressive yet dignified Christ. Bach’s writing here lacks the celebrated string halo of Christ’s words in the St Matthew Passion, yet Loges ensured that one never felt the loss. Sibylla Rubens did not have a great deal to do as the soprano soloist. (What a contrast with the St Matthew!) Nevertheless, she proved radiantly beautiful in the pain of ‘Zerfließe, mein Herze’. Marie-Claude Chappuis was warmly expressive as contralto soloist. ‘Von deinen Stricken’ was more urgent than reflective, but that was doubtless Schwarz’s decision. Chappuis employed considerable ornamentation upon her da capo. Excellent cello and woodwind playing should also be noted. She navigated well the terrible contrasts of ‘Es ist vollbracht!’, aided by splendid solo gamba playing from Thomas Fritzsch. It seemed heartbreakingly apt that, by this hour, darkness had fallen in Leipzig too, Bach’s window image no longer visible. Hans-Christoph Begemann generally sounded more comfortable as Pilate than in the bass arias, where his tone tended towards the cloudy, in unfortunate contrast with Loges.

This was, however, not only an impressive but a moving performance. I can conceive of no better Holy Week observance.

St Matthew Passion, Leipzig Gewandhaus/Chailly, 3 April 2009

Gewandhaus, Leipzig

Bach – St Matthew Passion, BWV 244

Christina Landshamer (soprano)
Marie-Claude Chappuis (contralto)
Johannes Chum (tenor: Evangelist)
Maximilian Schmitt (tenor: arias)
Thomas Quasthoff (bass: arias)
Hanno Müller-Brachmann (bass: Christus)
Klaus Häger (bass: Pilate, Peter, Judas)

Choir of St Thomas’s Church, Leipzig (choirmaster: Georg Christoph Biller)
Tölzer Knabenchor (choirmaster: Gerhard Schmidt-Gaden)
Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra
Riccardo Chailly (conductor)

Admittedly, I set myself up. Having listened, whilst on the train to Leipzig earlier in the day, to part of Klemperer’s recording of the St Matthew Passion, the opening chorus was bound to seem fast. However, I think Riccardo Chailly’s tempo for ‘Kommt, ihr Töchter, helft mir klagen,’ would be considered speedy even by contemporary – that is, ‘authentic’, in our Alice-in-Wonderland world of Bach performance – standards. What shone through, however, was an urgency born not just of tempo but of a highly dramatic view of Bach’s passion setting. Now there can, at least for some of us, be no doubt that the St Matthew Passion qualifies as music drama, in a contemporary – post-Romantic, non-authentic! – sense; but I am not sure that it lends itself so well as the St John Passion might to being driven by ‘action’ in a more or less conventional sense. Of course, there is a narrative, for some the greatest story ever told, but there is also contemplation, above all in the arias and chorales, but not only there. I worried during the opening chorus whether its almost breakneck urgency would be maintained throughout the work. Not quite, perhaps, but too much nevertheless. Sometimes this was warranted, for instance when Christ quotes Scripture on the Mount of Olives: ‘I will smite the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered abroad.’ Sometimes it might have worked, for instance in the tenor recitative (with chorale), ‘O Schmerz! hier zittert das gequälte Herz!’ but did not because the tempo was simply so fast that singer and orchestra were not always quite together. And on other occasions, for instance the chorale closing the first part, ‘O Mensch, bewein’ dein’ Sünde groß,’ which was taken at an almost unbelievably fast tempo, the sense of detachment was such that it is difficult to believe that it could ever have been warranted. A geometrical exercise, over in what seemed like record time, here supplanted a true response to the music, let alone the words. In this context, the considerable ritardando at the end of the chorus and, still more so, the extremely prolonged final bass note sounded like arbitrary ‘effects’, at odds with the general vision, flawed or otherwise.

This, despite superlative choral singing throughout from the combined forces of the choir of Bach’s own church, St Thomas’s, Leipzig and the Tölz Boys’ Choir. The choirs certainly lent a terrifying vehemence, on account both of their strength in numbers but also their agility, to the celebrated ‘Sind Blitze, sind Donner’ chorus, the anger fairly spitting, to the choral interjections in the previous number, and to the subsequent cries of crucifixion. The boys’ presence in two out of the three final numbers helped ensure a conclusion of promise not always born out by aspects of the performance beforehand.

Another baleful aspect of ‘period’ practice Chailly adopted wholesale was the virtual elimination of vibrato from the violins – and to a lesser extent, which in itself is perhaps a little surprising, from the lower strings. This seems to be quite the thing for conductors who, whilst using modern instruments, fancy themselves to be acting ‘authentically’. Even on its own dubious terms, the practice seems fatally flawed, however, not least given the ‘modern’ style of the rest of the orchestra, which therefore outshone the strings throughout. The bizarre exception was the viola da gamba, with considerable vibrato applied by Thomas Fritzsch, and all the better for it. Obbligato parts were generally taken very well by the respective soloists from the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. I was especially taken with the oboe part in the tenor aria (with chorus), ‘Ich will bei meinem Jesu wachen’.

The vocal soloists were of mixed quality. Hanno Müller-Brachmann was straightforwardly excellent as Christus. His nobility and warmth of tone were matched by superlative diction and response to the text. It is a pity his string ‘halo’ could not have been warmer. Johannes Chum was a good Evangelist, again to be admired in his projection of the text, although I felt he could be a little fond of employing his head voice, the repeated effect bordering dangerously upon the sentimental and apparently contributing to occasional intonational difficulties. Chum’s rhetorical pauses seemed to be Chailly’s doing – all the recitatives were conducted – but were overdone, if not the singer’s fault. (They also seemed strangely at odds with the hectic nature of so much of the rest of the performance.) Marie-Claude Chappuis impressed by the instrumental quality of her voice, her line seemingly one of chamber music, first amongst equals rather than a ‘soloist’ as such. ‘Erbarme dich’ therefore acquired a sense of imploring from within, despite the lack of string vibrato. Klaus Häger did a considerable amount with his relatively small part. Christina Landshamer did nothing wrong but brought little out of the ordinary to her soprano numbers, which was a pity. Ironically, Chailly slowed the music down to great effect for her ‘Aus Liebe will mein Heiland sterben,’ imparting just the right sense of deliberate tread to the music. In the difficult tenor arias, Maximilian Schmitt sometimes sounded a little parted, although this was far from always the case. Thomas Quasthoff started off sounding somewhat out of sorts, especially in his first aria. He improved considerably, although he was certainly not helped by a tempo for ‘Gebt mir meinem Jesum wieder!’ so fast that I thought he would be impelled to grab Christ back for himself. That said, there were nice touches, such as a subtle emphasis on ‘Geld’, underlining the role of blood money in the Saviour’s betrayal. ‘Mache dich, mein Herze, rein,’ was undoubtedly heartfelt, although again the tempo was simply too fast.

And yet, the final chorus did not fail to move. Having veered between born-again ‘authenticism’ and strange neo-Romantic touches – surely the wonderfully slow tempo for the chorale immediately prior to the earthquake was inconsistent with so much else – Chailly settled upon a tempo which, if hardly slow, was perfectly reasonable. Once again, the choral singing was excellent and the orchestral sound was fuller than one might have expected. Enough of a sacred atmosphere was restored, or perhaps created, to render the ensuing applause an unholy intrusion.