Munich Opera Festival (2) - Pénélope, 21 July 2025

Prinzregententheater

Images: Bernd Uhlig
Pénélope (Victoria Karkacheva)

 

Pénélope – Victoria Karkacheva
Ulysse – Brandon Jovanovich
Euryclée – Rinat Shaham
Eumée – Thomas Mole
Cléone – Valeria Eickhoff
Mélantho – Seonwoo Lee
Alkandre – Martina Myskohild
Phylo – Ena Pongrac
Lydie – Eirin Rognerud
Eurynome – Elene Gvritishvili
Antinoüs – Loïc Félix
Eurymaque – Leigh Melrose
Léodés – Joel Williams
Ctésippe – Zachary Rioux
Pisandre – Dafydd Jones
Shepherd – Nicolas Bader
Ulysse double – Stefan Lorch
Pénélope double – Teresa Sperling
Archer – Daniela Maier

Director – Andrea Breth
Designs – Raimund Orfeo Voigt
Costumes – Ursula Renzenbrink
Lighting – Alexander Koppelmann
Dramaturgy – Lukas Leipfinger, Klaus Bertisch

Vocalensemble ‘LauschWerk’ (chorus director: Sonja Lachenmayr)
Bayerisches Staatsorchester
Susanna Mälkki (conductor)

 

Pénélope, Ulysse (Brandon Jovanovich and Stefan Lorch)

Fauré’s only opera Pénélope was premiered at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo in March 1913, moving to the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées only two months later. It has fared incommensurably less well with posterity than the Stravinsky ballet that had its premiere there later that month. The opera is no Rite of Spring, of course, yet what is? In an excellent new production for Munich directed by Andrea Breth and conducted by Susanna Mälkki, Pénélope emerged as an opera quite undeserving of its neglect, intrinsically and by comparison with more than a few ‘repertoire works’, especially from the previous century. What we heard should also have confounded some lazy preconceptions about the composer. 

Breth’s production is a typically serious piece of theatre, which grapples with the highly untheatrical nature of the work and, to my mind, largely succeeds. A fellow musicologist friend I met at the performance pointed to its place in a specifically French conception of drama dating back at least as far as Corneille and Racine, in which little happens onstage in terms of stage action, almost all unfolding through words, I am sure he is right. The classical unities are also certainly observed. I thought also, inevitably, of Pelléas et Mélisande, though the relationship between Fauré and Debussy was not an easy one. They certainly shared contexts and influences and neither cared for operatic display, to put it mildly, but ultimately this was probably more correspondence than anything else. 

In any case, Breth’s mixture of realism and ritual, the latter founded in doubles for characters, but also ways of acting (in more than one sense), proved compelling and fitting, removing any doubts that this might be an oratorio or something else masquerading in operatic guise. Characters processed, imitated, took their time, and just occasionally acted hurriedly—in keeping with the work yet not bound by it. Opening action during the Prélude presented an elderly man guiding a woman in wheelchair to view museum exhibits, stark yet broken. This Pénélope and Ulysse framed the action and in some sense presaged it, three suitors, ready for action, later removing their shirts and adopting the poses of those statues. There was, then, a circularity that came into conflict with yet also helped form the drama literary and staged. What we saw and heard played with time and involved characters and audience in reception of myth and opera alike. 

When revenge came, economic presentation unmistakeably evoking the rural hinterland of Ithaca, before closing in once again on the palace, it lacked nothing in brutality, suitors treated as replacement pieces of meat for those they would have served at the banquet. It was clear and direct, like the work itself, meaningfully adding to rather than merely doubling or indeed contradicting it. If the conclusion struggled to convince – two people in front of me talking through the closing bars did not help – then that is more a problem with the work. A hymn to Zeus is one way of rounding things off, I suppose, but something a little more ambiguous or indeed human might have worked better. That is not what we have, of course. One might sense Breth undercutting things with the frozen, tableau dimension to what we see at the close, or one might not. Perhaps that was the point. 

Susanna Mälkki’s direction of excellent orchestra, chorus, and cast was similarly sympathetic and comprehending, with work and staging alike. One sensed, rightly or wrongly, that musical and stage interpretation had developed in tandem. Where there was a light sense of Götterdämmerung’s Gibichung decay onstage, perhaps even a stylised Gallic return for Salome/Salomé, so was there in the music, Mälkki knowing what was and was not Wagnerian in Fauré’s method and soundworld, the latter more than one might expect, though far from all. Likewise with Debussy. Orchestral lines developed differently, of course, at times not unlike Fauré’s chamber music; vocal lines emerged woven like Pénelope’s shroud, again showing consciousness that, whilst there were unsurprisingly aspects in common with the composer’s songs, this was not a song cycle writ large but an opera.    

Victoria Karkacheva and Brandon Jovanovich made for a compelling central pair, musically and dramatically conceived in utmost sympathy with work and staging. There was a deep connection between the two expressed in words, music, and gesture, that did not shy away from darker aspects of fate and revenge, without being merely consumed by them. Rinat Shaham’s nurse Euryclée offered an exquisite, chalumeau-like voice of wisdom and recognition. The similarly faithful shepherd Eumée received compelling characterisation from Thomas Mole. A duly nasty yet individual set of suitors received what it deserved yet offered much vocal pleasure in the meantime. Loïc Félix’s ringing Antinoüs, Leigh Melrose’s typically compelling Eurymaque, and Joel Williams’s subtle Léodés especially noteworthy (to me). But there was no weak link in the cast. The evening’s success relied throughout on collaboration—acted as well as sung, for which Stefan Lorch and Teresa Sperling as doubles for Pénélope and Ulysse and Daniela Maier gymnastically stringing the latter’s bow must also be credited. 

Comparisons with Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria are near inevitable for the opera-goer, yet are not especially helpful. What would not pale slightly at least in its shadow? If only we lived in a world in which comparisons with Dallapiccola’s Ulisse were meaningful. Perhaps one day. In the meantime, this excellent staging and these equally excellent performances can well stand for themselves. They may just prove a milestone in this opera’s unlucky reception history.

Munich Opera Festival (1) - Die Liebe der Danae, 19 July 2025

 

Nationaltheater

Image: © Geoffroy Schied

Jupiter – Christopher Maltman
Merkur – Ya-Chung Huang
Pollux – Vincent Wolfsteiner
Danae – Malin Byström
Xanthe – Erika Baikoff
Midas – Andreas Schager
Four Kings – Martin Snell, Bálint Szabó, Paul Kaufmann, Kevin Conners
Semele – Sarah Dufresne
Europa – Evgeniya Sotnikova
Alkmene – Emily Sierra
Leda – Avery Amereau
Four Watchers – Bruno Khouri, Yosif Slavov, Daniel Noyola, Vitor Bispo
A Voice – Elene Gvitishvili

Director, choreography – Claus Guth
Set designs – Michael Levine
Costumes – Ursula Kudrna
Lighting – Alessandro Carletti
Video – rocafilm
Dramaturgy – Yvonne Gebauer, Ariane Bliss

Bavarian State Opera Chorus (chorus director: Christoph Heil)
Bavarian State Orchestra
Sebastian Weigle (conductor)

© Monika Rittershaus

For what continues to be considered an ill-fated rarity, Die Liebe der Danae has had several outings over the past couple of decades or so. I have seen three productions before this, two admittedly at its Salzburg Festival ‘home’ and none in Britain, though Garsington staged it a little before my time in 1999. (A recording, under the late Elgar Howarth, remains available.) Claus Guth’s Munich production, first seen earlier this season in February, is the Bavarian State Opera’s fourth. Rudolf Hartmann directed it twice; his first, 1953 version travelling on a company visit to the Royal Opera House, which has neglected to present it since. Hartmann’s 1967 production was designed by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, no less, whilst 1988 saw a new version from Giancarlo del Monaco. With Rudolf Kempe, Joseph Keilberth, and Wolfgang Sawallisch conducting respectively, some of those occasions will surely have been fondly recalled by some in the Munich audience this time around. Nearly forty years on, though, it was time for something new. Perhaps ironically for an opera concerned in part with the baleful influence of gold, little expense would seem to have been spared. I wish, then, I could have felt greater enthusiasm, especially prior to the third act, for what I saw—and to some extent heard. 

Guth’s production opeened before the work with Danae posing for a photo shoot. Following a number of poses and loud clicks, the music could begin. The action played out exclusively in a penthouse with views of skyscrapers and the odd helicopter (as when Midas arrives). Pollux was dressed as a caricatured Donald Trump, silly hair, red tie, and overweight. His first appearance was enough to elicit laughter, which is fair enough: it was, for once, an amusing joke, but that was it really. Nothing was done with the identity beyond a love (common to all characters, it would seem) for the crass vulgarity of dictator-chic gold. That may have been a cause for relief given the impending shower of gold and indeed the question of Pollux’s relationship with his daughter Danae, but it ultimately seemed a bit cheap. (Perhaps that was the point.) And so, it continues, golden appearance clearly a sham, although the particularly trashy get-up of Jupiter as Midas is not without unfortunate connotations of Jimmy Savile, at least to a British viewer. 

© Geoffroy Schied

For the third act, everything changed—as, in a way, it should. The bubble had burst, though the physical devastation suggested war rather than a ‘mere’ credit crunch. (One might well argue that the two cannot be so readily separated. Indeed. But that probably needs to be shown rather than merely assumed or elided.) The drama that apparently truly interested Guth – up to a point, one cannot blame him – could commence in these new circumstances and one could actually begin to relate to the characters. In that, Guth’s conception was seemingly matched by a more committed performance from conductor Sebastian Weigle. They were doubtless following prevailing opinion; faced with the proverbial revolver to the head, who would not preserve the final act over the preceding two? But we are not—and perceived or actual imbalance is surely all the more reason to ask how we might elevate the latter. I am sure no one intended to reinforce (relative) critical opprobrium, but the first act in particular came across as often merely expository and, worse, expository of things that did not appear to have much in the way of consequence later on. If there was in Guth’s case unquestionably a guiding intelligence to the whole, contrast of ‘before’ and ‘after’ very much the thing, a little more sense of why we might care about these people and the situation they were in would have done no harm. 

Did we need, though, Juno to wander around above the stage without doing anything of obvious import? Having that higher level was not a bad way of emphasising difference between gods and humans—and of showing in which guise Jupiter should be understood at which time. Yet beyond that, I ended up regretting Strauss had not written a part for the goddess, perhaps in wry homage to Handel’s Semele, which, given his profound knowledge of all manner of musical history, he must have known. Merkur’s dancing above – that of everyone else too – is best forgotten, suffice to say that, having tried his hand at choreography, Guth would be well advised to stick to the day job. 

© Monika Rittershaus

If it was interesting and in itself moving to see at the close film of old Munich and of Strauss walking in his garden, presumably at Garmisch, they nonetheless suggested a certain abdication of responsibility. Danae was written for Salzburg, not Munich, and never received its full premiere in Strauss’s lifetime precisely because he wished it to take place across the reinstated border. Whilst we can look for traces of the composer in the work, it is also not obviously ‘about’ him, even a fictionalised him. It is not Intermezzo and it is not obviously laced with one of Strauss’s greatest musicodramatic gifts: irony. In the end, though, the story had been clearly enough told, as it has been on all occasions I have seen the work—and this was in every way preferable to the unconcealed racism of Alvis Hermanis for Salzburg in 2016. 

To my surprise, Weigle proved less flexible than he had in an excellent reading at Berlin’s Deutsche Oper in 2016. If orchestral playing was more or less beyond criticism in itself – and the conductor doubtless merits some credit for that, but it was difficult to avoid the Bayerische Staatsorchester would have played with exemplary clarity, balance, and heft no matter what. The problem, rather, lay with Weigle’s reluctance or inability to let the score flow. Especially earlier on, too much emerged as unrelentingly loud. There is extraordinary variegation in the score, much of which had been more successfully presented in Berlin—and it needs a helping hand or two to draw it out. The difference may have been in part a matter of acoustics, but it is surely part of the conductor’s job to deal with that. I cannot recall feeling quite so bludgeoned in the Nationaltheater before. The third act, like Guth’s, was considerably more successful. Earlier on, lack of Straussian sweep tended to draw attention to the infelicities of Joseph Gregor’s libretto: something a fine performance can readily have one forget. 

© Monika Rittershaus

Volume issues extended to some singing too; again, this was surely at least in part Weigle’s task to moderate. As Midas, Andreas Schager was particularly in need of some restraint. Schager is, of course, an extraordinary Heldentenor. It seems churlish to cavil, given long years we endured when no one could sing Siegfried and few if any could master other Wagner roles. Here, he proved indefatigable as ever and also showed himself perfectly capable of softer, more sensitive singing in the third act. A little more shading elsewhere would nonetheless have been welcome. Another near-impossible role, arguably more so, is that of Jupiter, in which Christopher Maltman’s recent forays into heavier roles, Wotan included, fully justified themselves. Maltman despatched the lower, darker reaches of the role, movingly indeed and with echoes of the latter god’s farewell to Brünnhilde, whilst attaining rich and ringing clarity at the top, to suggest an almost Kaufmann-like tenor. In the title role, Malin Byström proved agile, fearless, and – important, this – rather likeable. Hers may not be the largest of voices, but she knew what to do with it and did it well. Smaller roles were all well taken, as were the choruses. Special mention should go to the quartet of ‘elder’ ladies, amusingly portrayed in sex-and-shopping mode and beautifully sung by Sarah Dufresne, Evgeniya Sotnikova, Emily Sierra, and Avery Amereau. 

As for my reservations, perhaps it is time to accept that this is a very difficult work to bring off. Not every attempt will be entirely successful, any more than it is with, say, Der Rosenkavalier or Salome. Passing slowly yet surely into the repertoire would not be the worst of things, far from it.

Munich Opera Festival (3) - Pelléas et Mélisande, 22 July 2024

Prinzregententheater

Images: © Wilfried Hösl

Pelléas – Ben Bliss
Mélisande – Sabine Devieilhe
Golaud – Christian Gerhaher
Arkel – Franz-Josef Selig
Geneviève – Sophie Koch
Yniold – Felix Hofbauer
Doctor – Martin Snell
Shepherd – Pawel Horodyski

Director – Jetske Mijnssen
Set design – Ben Baur
Lighting – Bernd Purkrabek
Choreography – Dustin Klein
Dramaturgy – Ariane Bliss

Projektchor der Bayerischen Staatsoper (director: Franz Obermair)
Bayerisches Staatsorchester
Hannu Lintu (conductor)

Nine years ago, in this same theatre at this same festival, I saw Munich’s previous Pelléas et Mélisande: a staging by Christiane Pohle which I greatly admired, but  everyone else seemed to loathe. I am tempted to say ‘failed to understand’, but let us move on—to its successor, directed by Jetske Mijnssen. Perhaps it was not the best time to see this, only a fortnight after encountering Katie Mitchell’s feminist rethinking of the work in Aix, in its first revival. For me, there is nothing especially wrong with Mijnssen’s staging. It does pretty much what one would expect of a Pelléas, save perhaps for presenting a greater realism in place of its Symbolism.

In that lay my doubts. Not that there is anything wrong with that in principle; far from it. Yet without a change of perspective, or some other such idea, the point remained elusive: not in the sense that Pelléas can, must remain elusive, but rather suggesting an extended bourgeois parody of Tristan und Isolde, with which it of course has much in common. That would be a point of view, though not necessarily one I should be inclined to pursue (imagining nonetheless with a wry smile what Nietzsche, in Case of Wagner mode, would have made of Pelléas). What I think Mijnssen is getting at, suggested by her final act – in which the castle, whose rooms whether in the forest, by the stagnant pool, or elsewhere have provided the setting for all that has gone before, is stripped to its foundations – is a psychological claim that we are all ultimately like Mélisande, not least in our inability to know one another. Presumably the wooden boards relate also to the forest we never really see.

Following a realistic if sparing portrayal of early-twentieth-century costumes, furniture, and so on, Arkel’s words ‘C’est un pauvre petit être mystérieux comme tout le monde’ offer the backdrop for the entirety of this act. Having moved from a (beautifully danced) ball for the first scene, to this hospital bed for the close, often viewing Pelléas’s sick father in his bed, the tragedy encompasses all of us in a metaphysical sense far from untrue to the work. The observation – and execution – of Golaud’s chess game with his son Yniold, and Yniold’s resort to playing with his toys, perhaps as a way of trying to understanding what is happening, including a similar sweeping of the board and pieces, are suggestive and accomplished. Golaud’s striking of Yniold likewise offers a powerful moment.

Much else, especially with water – seen as rainfall as we enter the theatre, yet otherwise relegated until the close to a long, thin ‘pool’ at the front of the stage – seems to sit a little awkwardly between two stools. That the pools are more evident in the final scene, presumably closing in on the very foundations – in more than one sense – of castle and family is another good idea. But Pelléas’s reappearance – a ghost, a dream, or an actual reappearance? – to show Mélisande her child seems to come less from an alternative dimension than from an alternative production or concept. Perhaps I am missing something, given what seems in many ways an intelligent attempt to construct a whole from what is viewed, curtain falling after every scene, as a quasi-filmic succession of dramatic fragments.

An effort to construct a greater whole in theatrical time from quasi-modernist fragments, as opposed to starting with a whole and carving detail from it, seemed also to characterise Hannu Lintu’s way with Debussy’s score. At its best, Lintu’s direction conjured a wonderful translucency from the Munich orchestra; it did not want for dark malevolence when called for, either. My principal reservation related to what seemed – I am unsure whether it actually was – for scenes, perhaps acts too, to slow during their course. No one wants to rush through Pelléas, of course, quite the contrary; yet there were occasions when I felt momentum was in danger of being lost. This may, however, have been as much a matter of pauses between scenes on account of scene rearrangement, especially before the fifth and final act. By the same token, losing oneself in the forest is surely part of the musical experience, perhaps all the more so when we never really see it.

There are doubtless many ways to sing Mélisande, yet during her performance, Sabine Devieilhe had me convinced hers was, if not quite the only one, then the best. Her ease of communication, not only in the French language but in Debussy’s musical style, was effortlessly communicated for all to hear; it was simply as if she were speaking, and as clear as if that were the case too. Moreover, Devieilhe’s delivery of the text seemed indivisible from dramatic situation and imperative. French is a notoriously difficult language to sing; it would be difficult, unsurprisingly, to claim that all in the cast managed with such ease. Sophie Koch’s excellent Geneviève was of course an exception, leaving us to long for more.

That said, no one made a bad job of it either, and an age of ‘international casts’ brings advantages and disadvantages. Christian Gerhaher’s Golaud was unquestionably a fine, brutal character study. Some will doubtless have taken more to his hectoring way (at times), but it was rooted in his conception of Golaud’s sadism. Gerhaher showed the courage not to try to endear his character to anyone, without in any sense rendering him one-dimensional. To that, Ben Bliss’s boyish, mellifluous Pelléas proved an excellent foil, vocal and scenic communication offering ample justification for Mélisande’s preference. The dark ambiguity of Franz-Josef Selig’s Arkel cast due shadow over all. Last but far from least, Felix Hofbauer gave an outstanding performance as Yniold: not ‘for a boy’, but for anyone. As impressively acted as it was sung, this treble’s performance offered yet another feather in the cap for the ever-lauded Tölz Boys’ Choir. So in many respects, the fragments did add up to more.

Munich Opera Festival (2) - Idomeneo, 5 July 2024

Nationaltheater

Images © Wilfried Hösl

  

Idomeneo – Pavol Breslik
Idamante – Emily D’Angelo
Ilia – Olga Kulchynska
Elettra – Hanna-Elisabeth Müller
Arbace – Jonas Hacker
High Priest of Neptune – Liam Bonthrone
The Voice (Oracle) – Alexander Köpeczi

Antú Romero Nunes (director)
Dustin Klein (choreography)
Phyllida Barlow, Nina Schöttl (set designs)
Victoria Behr (costumes)
Michael Bauer (lighting)
Rainer Karlitschek (dramaturgy)
Catharina von Bülow (revival director)

Bavarian State Opera Chorus (director: Christoph Heil)
Bavarian State Orchestra
Ivor Bolton (conductor)

Take a stroll around central Munich and you may come upon a plaque on Altenhofstrasse indicating the spot where Mozart lived in the winter of 1780-81 whilst at work on Idomeneo. The opera was written for the Residenztheater, now generally known as the Cuvilliés-Theater, although now we saw it at the Nationaltheater, home since its 1818 opening to most of the Bavarian Court – latterly the State – Opera’s activities. Both theatres were eventually rebuilt after Allied bombing, although Mozart’s apartment building was destroyed for good in 1944.  A different staging of Idomeneo would have been required to go ‘home’, for Antú Romero Nunes’s 2021 production certainly makes use of the larger stage and space, but that did not entirely negate a sense of homecoming, not least given memories of a fine concert encircling and presaging the work at last year’s Munich Opera Festival, in the ‘original’ venue. 

Why inverted commas? Perhaps they represent a fussiness too far, given how much any old building will have been rebuilt over the years, although the old theatre did have to be rebuilt from scratch, finally reopening in 1958, not with Idomeneo but with Le nozze di Figaro. Idomeneo was still then a great rarity and remains, to many of us bafflingly so, less popular than any other of Mozart’s seven ‘mature’, full-scale operas. (Many of us may be inclined to soften the distinction drawn there, but it continues to hold for opera companies and their general public.) Given the total break in its performance history – unlike that of, say, Figaro – we might say that any performance becomes more of a reconstruction too, irrespective of intention. The work is often cut and if, at least in a good performance, one feels the loss, it can also work in truncated form within reason. This version – and I think one can go so far as to use that word – had, however, some highly unusual, even unprecedented textual features, some to my mind more justifiable than others. Old and new, fidelity and reimagination, text and performance, music and drama: these do not necessarily stand opposed, but their relationships have also never been without friction. If part of the interest lies in that friction, difficulties may also lie therein. On this occasion, it would be fair to say that we experienced both. 

Action prior to the overture is now a commonly accepted, albeit perhaps now all too common, theatrical strategy. It is more unusual to open with stage music interpolated from elsewhere, a feature throughout the production. What we saw and heard, though, intrigued, largely due, I think, to Phyllida Barlow’s arresting set designs, verging on an installation in themselves. Here, at the beginning, in a dark and dangerous port, musicians and dancers set the scene in several ways, solo- and ensemble-human fragility contrasting with the elemental sea implied scenically and musically, as the Overture proper came upon us. Quite why Nunes felt the need to project ‘titles’ as it unfolded, I am not sure. I suppose it let people know who the characters were and who was singing their parts, but beyond that it achieved little. In retrospect, the lack of dramatic motivation, in spite of a lot ‘going on’, proved too prophetic. Beyond the striking, meaningful ‘look’ – one could read much into Barlow’s structures, above all the sheer mysteriousness of the realm of the gods – Nunes seemed to have little to say. The performance progressed, but that was about it, save for a strange marriage of interpolations and cuts, recitative predictably suffering most. Of politics there was little sign, but nor did the lack of drama and sense of installation seem to be an overt aesthetic, as in the case of Romeo Castellucci. 

Idomeneo (Pavol Breslik) and Arbace (Jonas Hacker)

Perhaps most indefensible – not the first time it has reared its head in a Mozart opera – was a fortepiano rendition of the D minor Fantasia, KV 397/385g, shorn of its turn to the major mode (by whomever), which provided the opportunity for further ballet music, probably suggestive of the relationship between Idamante and Ilia, though I was not always clear whether dance were intended as pantomime or in the older, ‘Italian’ tradition. ‘Perhaps’, because it was run close by the surprise arrival of the aria, ‘Ch’io mi scordi di te … Non temer, amato bene’, KV 505, for Idamante and, you guessed it, obbligato fortepiano. Emily D’Angelo sang it very well, but neither its tenuous connection with the opera nor dramatic momentum was well served. 

The worst decision, though, was to fade out ‘Torna la pace’, musicians onstage imitating Haydn’s Farewell Symphony. What could the director have been thinking of? And what could any conductor – presumably not Ivor Bolton, who did not conduct the premiere – have been thinking of, permitting such a radical step without any discernible motivation? Pity poor Pavol Breslik as Idomeneo, who then had to set though the concluding ballet music eating a sandwich, as dancers, more furries than Furies, did their thing. Martin Kušej’s 2014 production for Covent Garden, much misunderstood at the time and sadly unrevived, showed quite how this extraordinary music can grip as drama (and despite an indifferent musical performance). This, alas, simply became tedious. 

Bolton’s musical direction did not help in that respect. It certainly had its moments over the evening as a whole, but the problem was that they were mostly moments. It cannot have been helped by the ‘version’ with which he was presumably presented, but a greater sense of dramatic pulse could readily have been achieved, as could more generous vibrato for the strings and less ‘period’ rasping from the brass. Trombones, though, sounded splendidly otherworldly for the Oracle. Occasional discrepancies between stage and pit, especially during choruses, were swiftly and tidily resolved. The array of continuo instruments was odd, as well as choices made as when to use them; however well played, the presence of a theorbo made little sense. A wind machine, though, offered a nod both to older stagecraft and to onstage atmosphere. 

The greatest satisfaction for me was to be had from the singing. For me, a highlight was the beginning of the third act, Olga Kulchynska’s ‘Zeffiretti lusinghieri’ and the quartet the other side of KV 505 vocally breathtaking and dramatically very much on point. The four singers’ coming together could not have spelled  fear and fate more clearly. Breslik’s assumption of the title role was beyond reproach, ringing in musical security yet permitting of doubt and nuance in character. Hanna-Elisabeth Müller’s Elettra was very good too, though there was a strange moment in her final aria in which she seemed to pause; it was unclear to me whether this were a demand of the production, an interpretative strategy, or something else. Indeed, throughout, her character seemed strangely minimised by the production. Jonas Hacker’s Arbace made the most of both his arias, as did Liam Bonthrone and Alexander Köpeczi in their smaller roles. The chorus likewise made a fine impression, hinting at a greater meaning that seemingly eluded the director.

Munich Opera Festival (1) - Le grand macabre, 4 July 2023

Nationaltheater

Images: © Wilfried Hösl

  

Gepopo, Venus – Sarah Aristidou
Amanda – Seonwoo Lee
Amando – Avery Amereau
Prince Go-Go – John Holiday
Astradamors – Sam Carl
Mescalina – Lindsay Ammann
Piet vom Fass – Benjamin Bruns
Nekrotzar – Michael Nagy
Ruffiack – Andrew Hamilton
Schobiack – Thomas Mole
Schabernack – Nikita Volkov
White Minister – Kevin Conners
Black Minister: Bálint Szabó
Refugees – Isabel Becker, Sabine Heckmann, Saeyong Park, Sang-Eun Shim

Director – Krzysztof Warlikowski
Set designs – Małgorzata Szczęśniak
Lighting – Felice Ross
Video – Kamil Polak
Choreography – Claude Bardouil
Dramaturgy - Christian Longchamp, Olaf Roth

Chorus of the Bavarian State Opera (director: Christoph Heil)
Bavarian State Orchestra

Kent Nagano (conductor)

The Fourth of July has obvious political meaning in the United States. This year, it also offered the date of the long-awaited British General Election: a curious event, strangely without drama given the near-certainty of its result, in strong contrast to others over the past two decades, yet with deeply ominous hints at what might be come, as well as the occasional moment of hope. Ligeti’s apocalyptic anti-anti-opera Le grand macabre could add a little piquancy to the date, its activity, and its commemoration—and certainly did, in what, perhaps surprisingly, is its Munich premiere production. The end of the world, after all, seems no less nigh than it will have done at the 1978 Stockholm world premiere and, rightly or wrongly, rather more so than at the first performance of Ligeti’s 1996 revision, at the Salzburg Festival in 1997 (from whose post-Chernobyl production, by Peter Sellars, the composer angrily dissociated himself). 

Many now appear to find it dated, at least dramatically. Hand on heart, much of its humour – post-Dadaist if you will, but often plain silly – is not mine, though it arguably comes closer to that strange beast ‘German humour’. I can see how the ‘naughty schoolboy’ shouting of ‘rude’ words, the fart jokes, and so on would irritate, but for me it is probably better to see this as part and parcel of an absurdism that may well be the only way we can face the incomprehensible insanity of an impending nuclear holocaust. Beckett’s – and Kurtág’s – Fin de partie may come closer to our taste, but taste is at best a matter purely for the individual, and Ligeti’s work is rightly admired to the skies by Kurtág, as by many of the rest of us. The Haydnesque riot of musical invention is at least as much the thing, if one cares to listen—and why on earth, or, as at the close, beyond it, would one not? 

Leading the Bayerische Staatsorchester, Kent Nagano offered a worthy conspectus of the array of musical strategies on offer, from the brilliant car-horn reinvention of the opening Toccata to Monteverdi’s Orfeo (surely a nod to Agon there too) to the inevitable – in dramaturgy and musical nature – closing passacaglia. The orchestra was on outstanding form, keenly responding to Nagano’s direction. I did wonder at times whether he might have opened things up a little, both in terms of greater dramatic sweep, but would I then have complained that too little attention was paid to the character of individual, closed forms? And if the silliness was not underlined, surely that is in any case the last thing it needs. Again, this is probably more a matter of taste than of anything else. I found it for the most part engrossing, and a salutary reminder of where the work’s greatest merits lie, as well as the (productive) aesthetic crisis that followed. In more than one way, this is an end-of-the-road work. 

Astradamors (Sam Carl), Mescalina (Lindsay Ammann)

In this sort of work, it is rare for vocal performances to disappoint. You do not really sing (nor, for that matter, play) Ligeti if you are not well equipped to do so, though there are always exceptions. Moreover, the sort of singers who do are unlikely to put ‘star’ behaviour over the needs of the ensemble. The work in any case gives them plenty of character behaviour in which to shine, which pretty much everyone did. Benjamin Bruns’s Piet vom Fass proved an excellent everyman, framing and participating our visit to Breughelland as required; he worked well with Sam Carl’s Astradamors, much in the same vein, albeit properly different too. Michael Nagy’s rich-toned Nekrotzar suggested a very human weakness at the heart of his caprice. Sarah Aristidou’s Venus, perhaps surprisingly, grabbed my attention more than her Gepopo; not that I could put my finger on why, so that was perhaps just me (or the production). John Holiday’s Prince Go-Go and Lindsay Ammann's Mescalina were very well drawn, dramatically and vocally. The soldiers, post-apocalypse, made a fine impression. I even found the copulating duo Amanda (Seonwoo Lee) and Amando (Avery Amereau) relatively non-irritating. 

Krzysztof Warlikowski’s production for the most part did its job, but at times seemed a bit ‘phoned in’. One had the impression the singers were providing their own Personenregie, the production simply offering a chance to wander around the large stage. Warlikowski’s ideas were promising enough: refugees watching the events from a bureaucratic reception centre (probably a converted school gymnasium). Computer activity doubtless made decisions that hastened the end, whilst properly banal in immediate nature. Animal masks added an air of mystery later on, though it was somewhat unclear what, beyond the general kink scene, motivated their appearance. One might, I suppose, argue that wider issues were suggested rather than hammered home; that would perhaps, though, be unduly charitable, for what ultimately came across as a half-hearted engagement. 

Piet vom Fass (Benjamin Bruns), Nekrotzar (Michael Nagy)

As now seems to be his wont, Warlikowski showed us some silent film clips (David Wark Griffith’s Intolerance and Abel Gance’s Napoléon). In the case of historical collapse of civilisations, the association was reasonably obvious, even if the reasoning remained a little obscure. Most of us at least think we oppose intolerance; outside France, few of us are fervent Bonapartists either. The contribution made by pictures of Ligeti, both as a child and in more familiar guise, along with quotations such as one outlining his belief that he would grow up to be a prize-winning scientist, was less clear: more suited to the programme book, perhaps, or a pre-performance talk? The music, though, was undoubtedly the thing—and that, perhaps, is not the worst message for an anti-anti-opera.

Munich Opera Festival (3) - Mozart and the Munich Hofkapelle, 19 July 2023

Cuvilliés-Theater

Johann Christian Cannabich: Quintet for two flutes, violin, viola, and cello in F major, op.7 no.1
Mozart: Quartet for oboe, violin, viola, and cello, in F major, KV 370/368b
Mozart, arr. Rafaela Seywald: Concert Arias: ‘Ma, che vi fece … Sperai vicino il lido,’ KV 368; ‘Misera, dove son … Ah, non son’ io che parlo,’ KV 369
Mozart: String Quartet no.14 in G major, KV 387

Jasmin Delfs, Talia Or (sopranos)
Vera Becker-Öttl, Edoardo Silvi (flutes)
Heike Steinbrecher (oboe)
Pascal Deuber, Stefan Böhning (horns)
Matjaž Bogataj, Immanuel Drißner (violins)
Adrian Mustea (viola)
Benedikt Don Strohmeier (cello)

To the Munich Residenz’s Rococo Cuvilliés-Theater, once simply the Residenztheater, for a fascinating concert entitled ‘Mozart and the Munich Hofkapelle’. It was here, on 29 January 1781, that Idomeneo received its first performance; this programme encircled without including that wonder of the operatic world. 

First, we heard a quintet for two flutes, violin, from Johann Christian Cannabich, since 1774 leader of the celebrated Mannheim orchestra, and who had moved to Munich in 1778 shortly after his prince, the Elector Palatine Charles Theodore, succeeded as Elector and Duke of Bavaria. Violinist, composer, and Kapellmeister, Cannabich conducted that Idomeneo premiere. His quintet, given a warm, cultivated, even Mozartian performance by members of the Bavarian State Orchestra, the Hofkapelle’s post-Wittelsbach incarnation, proved to be a typically pleasant galant work, if a little short-breathed and regular at times for those of us with ears accustomed to Mozart and Haydn. The first two movements proceeded as one would expect and never outstayed their welcome; the third, one of those strangely lengthy minuet final movements, might, again at least for modern ears, have benefited from an editor. But then, Cannabich was not writing for twenty-first-century ears and would never have imagined his chamber music being performed for an audience in such a setting the best part of 250 years on. The scoring inevitably had one hear the two flutes as soloists, with the violin, Cannabich’s own instrument, and viola as inner voices, often interestingly and always gratefully conceived. Benedikt Don Strohmeier provided here, as throughout, exemplary playing for the cello bass line. 

Another work for Munich, Mozart’s own Oboe Quartet, followed. Flautists Vera Becker-Öttl and Edoardo Silvi were replaced with the equally mellifluous Heike Steinbrecher, today’s incarnation of Friedrich Ramm, whose playing so impressed Mozart and inspired him to stretch the instrument’s (newly acquired) range to its near limits.  This is a work of greater magnitude in every sense, treasured by oboists, string players, and of course audiences the world over. Here the oboist is at best first among equals, a chamber musician like the rest. Interest is dispersed throughout each part and, above all, in their harmonic and contrapuntal combination; that, moreover, was how it sounded here, in a performance that seemed to delight in the liberation afforded. It probably does not last much longer than Cannabich’s piece, yet seems to take in so much more, whilst also sounding over far too soon. All movements emphasised the proximity, indeed mutual fertilisation, of Mozart’s instrumental and operatic writing, the Adagio here a grave central aria, flanked by ensembles as full of character in every sense as their counterparts not only in Idomeneo but the operas to come. 

The parts of Ilia and Elettra were first taken by Dorothea and Elisabeth Wendling respectively, sisters-in-law and two out of four Idomeneo participants from the Wendling family, also from Mannheim and whom the Mozarts had known there first. (Johann Baptist Wendling, Dorothea’s husband, was a flautist in the orchestra—and may therefore have played Cannabich’s quintet. He certainly played in Idomeneo.) Introduced by Cannabich to Elisabeth, ‘Lisl’, née Sarselli, Mozart seems to have been equally taken by her looks and her artistry. At any rate, he wrote the concert aria, : ‘Ma, che vi fece … Sperai vicino il lido,’ for her, here performed in one of two arrangements for instrumental ensemble by Rafaela Seywald, with soprano Jasmin Delfs the exemplary soprano soloist. Brilliantly supported by Munich musicians from a different vintage, Delfs showed herself fully in control of the technical and expressive requirements, turning them to thrilling ends. Listeners, as well as composers, would doubtless have had personal favourites then as now. If I found myself favouring Delfs’s cleanness of gleaming line over the more generous vibrato of Talia Or in Dorothea’s concert aria, ‘Misera, dove son … Ah, non son’ io che parlo’, hers was also an excellent performance of a nicely complementary piece, heading in different, sometimes surprising directions, and similarly conceived and nurtured in the Metastasian text and Mozart’s response. 

For the final item on the programme, we looked to the following year, when Mozart had moved to Vienna and was learning if not quite a new craft, then one in which Haydn was so far unquestionably his superior. With the G major Quartet, KV 387, Mozart opened his celebrated set of six dedicated to Haydn—and over which he struggled, if not quite in Beethovenian style, then more so than was his custom (Romantic semi-myths of divine ease notwithstanding). Again, we heard cultivated playing, and there was much to admire and note, not least in the seriousness with which Mozart approached and eventually crowned his task. I did not always feel, though, that the players were inside the music as they had been earlier. There were a few cases of tentative openings and I struggled to discern the line in the finale. Perhaps that was my fault; it was a very hot evening and had naturally become more so as time in the theatre had progressed. This is also incredibly unsparing music, regularly performed by the world’s leading permanent quartets and perhaps lending itself to odious comparisons. I nonetheless wondered whether programming something else from 1780-1 might have proved more persuasive: an arrangement or two from Idomeneo, perhaps. No matter: there was more than enough to enjoy and by which to be enlightened for one evening.

Munich Opera Festival (2) - Semele, 18 July 2023

Prinzregententheater

Semele – Brenda Rae
Jupiter – Michael Spyres
Apollo – Jonas Hacker
Athamas – Jakub Józef Orliński
Juno – Emily D’Angelo
Ino – Nadezhda Karyazina
Iris – Jessica Niles
Cadmus, Somnus – Philippe Sly
High Priest – Milan Siljanov

Claus Guth (director)
Michael Levine (designs)
Gesine Völlm (costumes)
Michael Bauer (lighting)
rocafilm (video)
Ramses Sigl (choreography)
Yvonne Gebauer, Christopher Warmuth (dramaturgy)

Bavarian State Orchestra
LauschWerk (chorus director: Sonja Lachenmayr)
Gianluca Capuano (conductor)

 

Images: Monika Rittershaus

I was sceptical, I admit, for the first two acts of Claus Guth’s new production of Semele, but it came together and offered an anthropological and psychoanalytical interpretation of Handel’s opera such as I have not encountered before. It is not really my way of thinking, but that is neither here nor there. And what I had initially seen as a disappointingly ‘stylish’ (that is, stylish, but not much more) production, rather in the manner of Christof Loy, albeit with suggestions of something closer to Romeo Castellucci, proved considerably more than that, demanding that the end be read back into the beginning, the work very much treated as a whole. Semele meets Die Frau ohne Schatten? Not quite, yet not so far off either. And if my initial response to ‘why not?’ might have been ‘why?’, a good case was made. 

At the centre of Guth’s production – and this is, of course, shorthand for the production team as a whole – is a wedding, that of Semele and Athamas. That is how the work begins in any case, but here it extends over the entire three acts. Not only is the closing, alternative wedding, in which Ino takes Semele’s place, very much the same thing; no one has actually gone away, and time seems to have stood still. During that standing – should that make any sense – and partly superimposed upon it, is the action that leads to that replacement and Semele’s displacement. Guth’s reckoning seems to be that the apparently empty ritual of the modern, secular wedding is anything but. Indeed, its importance may in some respects actually have grown as people endlessly reproduce their ‘experience’ for the world to see. Depressingly or otherwise, marriage and its status are here to stay. After all, the promise of female and subsequently queer liberation from the deadly institution has largely been replaced with that of ‘equality’ within.

Semele and her doubts thus become all the more interesting. We have seen her and her vanity as manifestations of celebrity culture, whether ‘then’ or now. But what if she is actually right, even if not for entirely the right reasons? Has she seen a truth – withdrawn, if you like, the Schopenhauerian veil – and been traumatised so that her immortality is that of a ghost, albeit one who will bear Bacchus? To some of us, it makes more sense to use the Greek Dionysus. In a sense, then, The Bassarids, Dionysus’s revenge, awaits: Handel and Henze rather than Handel and Hofmannsthal. Apollo’s prophecy is brought to instant life as Semele sits, no longer ecstatic (screams of delight at the end of the first act), terrified (screams of fear at the end of the second), but numb save for her cradling role, to quote Andrea Leadsom, ‘as a mother’. The festivities continue without her, though Ino’s sisterly concern seems genuine. Perhaps, notwithstanding a greater love than what had essentially been an arranged marriage, she even fears amidst the rejoicing that she will make the error Semele managed, however catastrophically, to avert. There is much to disentangle, to consider, even to deconstruct here, but that broadly is what I took from the production. 

Not that it is all sober and serious. There is a crucial element of display which might initially seem superficial but proves rather more than that. Dance is employed, not only as ‘movement’ but as entertainment within an entertainment. In between – wherever that may be and whatever that may mean – the bored Semele finds herself unmoved by whatever show the increasingly desperate Jupiter puts on for her. In a stroke of luck, though, Guth has in Jakub Józef Orliński a breakdancer as well as singer at his disposal. When brought to life by Jupiter, suddenly the faltering Athamas can sweep Semele off her feet. That, intriguingly, is the dreamed (?) entertainment that fulfils her wishes. When the spell is cancelled, Athamas returns to earth, presumably remembering none of what had happened, if indeed it had. (It is a pity Guth resorts to having him take off his glasses to gain confidence and attraction, but there we are.) 

In the title role, Brenda Rae proved fully equal to the role’s challenges and added a few more of her own in the ornamentation stakes. Her performance was always tailored to the qualities of her voice, rather than sopranos who might have taken it on in the past, and it showed. Coloratura was spot on and, more to the point, a tool of the drama. Michael Spyres’s Jupiter proved strangely likeable – in a good way – and again musically outstanding. Orliński’s display of various kinds was typically excellent; he likewise offered a vividly human portrayal, as did Nadezhda Karyazina’s Ino. Emily D’Angelo’s Juno offered a decidedly class act, and all the smaller parts were well taken.

Jupiter (Michael Spyres), Semele (Brenda Rae)

If the first scene had a few too many disjunctures between chorus and pit, such difficulties were resolved thereafter. (It is perhaps worth recalling at this point that Handel’s oratorio writing, which is what it is, was never intended to be staged and presents very particular challenges for such a performance.) The young singers of LauschWerk acquitted themselves very well, both as singers and actors, Munich’s Statisterie also contributing considerably to the greater good. Gianluca Capuano’s direction of the Bavarian State Orchestra was, especially once past those initial teething difficulties, estimable and refreshingly non-doctrinaire. There were moments of real power and grandeur, sadly so often lacking in modern Handel performances. There was intimacy too, of course, as there were fireworks. Indeed, the range of Capuano’s interpretation, seemingly very much in sympathy with Guth’s, was not the least quality to a fine evening in the theatre.

Semele, Athamas (Jakub Józef Orliński)

Munich Opera Festival (4) - Members of the Bavarian State Orchestra: Bach, Reincken, and Telemann, 29 July 2019

Alte Pinakothek

Bach: Art of Fugue, BWV 1080: Contrapunctus I and II

Johann Adam Reincken: Hortus Musicus: Partita no.1 in A minor

Bach: Art of Fugue: Contrapunctus XII and XIIb

Telemann: Pyrmonter Kurwoche (Scherzi melodichi per divertimento di colore, che prendono le Acque minerali in Pirmonte, con Ariette semplice e facili): ‘Venerdi’, TWV 24:e4

Bach: Art of Fugue: Contrapunctus VI; Sonata in G major for viola da gamba and harpsichord, BWV 1027; Art of Fugue: Contrapunctus IX; Trio Sonata in D minor, BWV 527, arranged for two violins and basso continuo; Art of Fugue: Contrapunctus XI

Barbara Burgdorf, Corinna Desch (violins)

Christiane Arnold (viola)

Friederike Heumann (viola da gamba)

Dirk Börner (harpsichord)

There could hardly be a more delightful venue for a concert of Baroque – or any –chamber music than one of the rooms of Munich’s Alte Pinakothek. Here, under the watchful eye(s) of Rubens’s Last Judgement, we heard from members of the Bavarian State Orchestra music by Bach, Telemann, and, from the previous generation, Johann Adam Reincken.

We started with Contrapunctus I and Contrapunctus II from the Art of Fugue: two violins, viola, and viola da gamba, no harpsichord. It was a ‘period’ sound, but not aggressively so, and mercifully not entirely without vibrato. More importantly, the music flowed, Barbara Burgdorf, Corinna Desch (violins), Christiane Arnold (viola), and Friederike Heumann (gamba) permitting Bach’s counterpoint to speak – and with it, his harmony. Dynamic contrasts were nicely variegated, and the two fugues were properly distinguished, the rhythmic lilt of the second’s subject informing its course, no mere add-on. You might say, ‘it would, wouldn’t it?’ but you might be sorely surprised. The music’s complexity grew, Schoenberg-like. All of us at heart know that Bach is the greatest of all. That need only be shown, not argued.

A modulatory harpsichord improvisation, the first of several from Dirk Börner, took us to A minor for Reincken’s Partita (as would be transcribed by Bach for keyboard, in his BWV 965). The musicians’ manner – minus viola – was now freer, which perhaps make sense in less complex music. There was certainly recognition that melody and harmony were very different. The different tempi of the first movement offered winning contrast, yet also sounded consequent. Burgdorf took her solo at quite a lick, without harrying it, Heumann hers with dignity and then, moving from ‘Adagio’ to ‘Allegro’, with a fine sense of release. A reflective ‘Allemand’ and related, yet distinct ‘Courant’ followed, the ensuing ‘Saraband’ perhaps somewhat hamstrung by ‘period’ manners. Still, the closing ‘Gigue’ made for a lively and highly musical conclusion, the musicians bringing form to life. This is not, by any stretch, great music, but it was interesting and worthwhile to hear.

Returning to Bach (XII a and b), the music sounded graver, deeper than still before. Then a further improvisatory passage led us southward, to Telemann in Italianate divertimento vein, here losing one of the violins. The ‘Introduzione’ seemed also to suggest a more Classical, or at least galant, voice, arguably bringing Bach’s distinctive qualities into greater relief (at least in retrospect). Each of the short movements was well characterised, without exaggeration. The ‘Largo’ was graceful, that grace founded on a delightful change of colour (gamba pizzicato): not unlike a brief number from an opera or ballet. The closing ‘Accelerando Allegro’ did what it suggested in equally delightful fashion. Even to this relative Telemann-sceptic, here were music and music-making that did not outstay their welcome.

Following an interval stroll among the visual Old Masters, we were well fortified for the ‘Stile francese’ from the Art of Fugue, its beating heart as German as ever, whatever the stylistic casing. We heard and felt both. If only the G major sonata for gamba and harpsichord, BWV 1027, had proceeded with such distinction. Heumann offered considerable grace, but Börner’s playing tended towards the unrelenting, even in the second movement, the sewing machine. The ‘Andante’ that followed sounded so effortful as often to lose its sense, although the finale offered a degree of vigour. Balance, moreover, proved a considerable problem, at least where I was seated, harpsichord often cruelly obscuring the gamba line. Even the ensuing Contrapunctus IX was hard-driven and scratchy, although the notes, for the most part, shone through.

Another of the by now all-too-predictable improvisations took us to the Trio Sonata for organ, BWV 527, here played by two violins and continuo. It can be done – but at least on this evidence, I should much rather hear it on the organ. At any rate, greater space to breathe would have been welcome, especially in the first movement. Desch’s playing on second violin proved more often than not the most pleasing, richer toned than that of her companions. Alas, Börner on harpsichord proved all too prosaic throughout. At least he was silent for Contrapunctus XI, which emerged, not coincidentally, with greater intimacy and gravity. Bach’s darkly expressive chromaticism worked its wonders in a performance of chiaroscuro that seemed at least to aspire to match the painterly examples surrounding it. A fugal gigue by Johann Gottlieb Goldberg made for a fine surprise as encore: as focused and as evidently relished as Telemann’s ‘Venerdi’. If Bach’s fortunes proved mixed in performance, he will always remain with us. This was a concert perhaps especially noteworthy for the opportunity it afforded to hear music from some of his contemporaries.