Berlin Festtage (4) - Orfeo ed Euridice, Staatsoper Berlin, 27 March 2016

Images: Matthias Baus

 

 

 

Schiller Theater

Orfeo – Bejun Mehta

Euridice – Anna Prohaska
Amore – Nadine Sierra
Jupiter – Wolfgang Stiebritz

Jürgen Flimm (director)

Gehry Partners (set designs)
Florence von Gerkan (costumes)
Gail Skrela (choreography)
Olaf Freese (lighting)
Roman Reeger (dramaturgy)

Dancers

Staatsopernchor Berlin (chorus master: Martin Wright)

Staatskapelle Berlin

Daniel Barenboim (conductor)

 

That Daniel Barenboim is not shying away from new challenges must now be abundantly clear. Last season, he conducted his first opera by Puccini (Tosca); in this, he has not only turned to his first by Gluck, but to his first pre-Mozart opera. It is perhaps not a coincidence that he chose Orfeo ed Euridice, so associated with Furtwängler’s magnificent live recording. Furtwänglerian tendencies became more evident during the third act; indeed, there were times when Barenboim perhaps (wonderfully) sounded a little more royaliste que le roi. Tempo variations always made sense, rubato supremely well judged and seemingly spontaneous. If the first two acts were more conventional, than there was no harm in that. It is a rare thing indeed to have Gluck performed not only on modern instruments, but by a great conductor. Whilst I might have longed for a larger orchestra, Barenboim’s relatively small band offered splendidly variegated, sensitive playing. We need to hear more, much more Gluck, from orchestras of this stature! If I did not feel that the interpretation were always quite so embedded as that of Riccardo Muti in Salzburg in 2010, then that is hardly surprising; Muti has championed Gluck throughout his career, most bravely at La Scala, whereas Barenboim is travelling where his apparently insatiable curiosity takes him. What both have in common is, rightly or wrongly, a preference for the Vienna ‘original’. There is no arguing with its dramatic integrity, although part of me would have been keen to hear, say, Berlioz’s edition.

 

 

Bejun Mehta – who would have predicted that Barenboim would opt for a countertenor rather than a mezzo? – gave a superlative performance in the title role (well, one of the title roles). Barenboim’s sensitive, never too-sensitive, conducting always permitted Mehta to be heard, and so varied were the sounds and their intensity, so perfectly matched were words and music, that one could readily believe this to be Orpheus himself. Being seated very close to the stage was perhaps not an unmixed blessing acoustically for me, but to see Mehta’s face, his agonies, the depth of his grief, and to hear that matched with his vocal artistry was more than enough compensation. His chemistry with Anna Prohaska as Euridice was unmistakeable. Hers was perhaps a more Mozartian performance, equally welcome, achieving the near-impossible of putting the two characters on an almost equal footing. Again, words and music sounded as an indissoluble whole; not for nothing was Wagner so ardent an admirer (of Gluck, that is, not that I have any reason to think he would not have admired Prohaska!) There was indeed an almost Elvira-like longing to Prohaska's performance. I find Amore a somewhat thankless role, at least vocally, but Nadine Sierra held the stage in her crucial interactions, interventions, and, perhaps most important of all, non-interventions. Choral singing suffered a little from the acoustic, but I have no reason to doubt its quality.

Jürgen Flimm’s staging is stylish and direct, certainly one of the best, perhaps the best, I have seen from him. I could not help but wonder whether he had been handed a difficult task of having to conform to Frank Gehry’s ‘headlining’ set designs rather than the other way round. If so, Flimm did a still more impressive job. Monochrome first-act obsequies allow plenty of space for Mehta’s outpouring, as heartbreaking in its way as Janet Baker’s in hers. The inhuman – in every sense – cruelty of the gods is underlined not only by Amore’s refusal to make life, or death, easier for the lovers, but also by the Wanderer-like Jupiter, apparently unseen, apparently unconcerned. How tempting it must have been to make him ‘do’ something; how wise it was to refrain. Nevertheless, brute force takes Orfeo where he must go. Whatever the multi-coloured apparatus of second-act Hades might ‘be’, Gehry’s design is undeniably arresting in visual terms. The boutique hotel room of the third act seems, alas, to be a failure, at least on its own terms. I learned afterwards that it was intended as the grottiest of accommodation; perhaps that says more about Gehry’s lifestyle than anything else. At any rate, the claustrophobia within which Flimm, Mehta, and Prohaska have to work offers results of high dramatic intensity. Frustration can boil over with nature and import that are subtle (Orfeo’s overwhelming need for a beer from the minibar) or catastrophic (the backward glance). Whether such psychological realism really always works with Gluck may be debated; Flimm made a fine attempt to have it do so.

 

The masterstroke, however, is the undoing of the wretched lieito fine, in which convention threatens to undo so much of Gluck’s – and Calzabigi’s – reforming work. After choral and balletic rejoicing, we hear the Parisian number we have missed most of all: the Dance of the Blessed Spirits. Not for Barenboim Muti’s purism; not for Flimm something in which I suspect he could not bring himself to believe. Euridice is vanished once again; indeed, Orfeo’s fevered, grieving imagination, rather than the gods’, whoever they may be, seems to have offered and now withdrawn hope. The beauty, aural as well as visual, of this final twist is the most devastating thing of all. Fire and its heat, emptiness, and loneliness return. Perhaps now only the Maenads or Jupiter await.

 

 

 

For Furtwängler's birthday and Gluck's tercentenary

What dramatic tension from the Overture onwards! No mere curtain-raiser, but as Gluck/Calzabigi demanded in the Preface to Alceste, an integral part of the drama. And then the noble, heartrending simplicity of the obsequies, already looking towards Les Troyens...

Orfeo ed Euridice, English Pocket Opera Company, 21 January 2014

(sung in English, as Orpheus and Eurydice)

 

Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design

 

Orfeo – Paul Featherstone

Euridice – Pamela Hay
Amor – Joanna Foote

Mark Tinkler (director)

Alex Hopkins, Fridthjofur Thorsteinsson (lighting)
Maddy Rita Faye, Denisa Dumitrescu, Vivian Lu, Anastasia Glazova, Lucia Riley, Isabella van Bracekel, Eimear Monaghan, Mathias Krajewski, Robin Soutar (set designs)
Robin Soutar, Denisa Dumitrescu, Lucia Riley, Isabella van Braeckel, Eimear Monaghan (costumes)

Sivan Traub (violin)

Orpheus and Eurydice Chorus (chorus master: Matthew Watts)
Philip Voldman (musical director)

 

No sooner had I bewailed the lack of Gluck this tercentenary year than I discovered an off-the-beaten track offering from English Pocket Opera Company. Doubtless our idiotic public relations companies would describe Orfeo as ‘iconic’ or some such nonsense; we might be better sticking with ‘one of the most important operas ever written’. But these performances at Central Saint Martins are better considered in the light of a four-phase project for children and young people at primary, secondary, and tertiary levels of education. The first phase has been and gone: EPOC performed Opera Blocks (a one-hour introduction to opera and to Orfeo) to over 10,000 children in Camden schools. This second is a ‘promenade’ version open to schools and to the public, in which we walked through the new Central Saint Martins building in King’s Cross, the eight scenes in different locations, with designs – both sets and costumes – from members of the college.  Phases three and four will be a performance at the Royal Albert Hall, involving choirs from 55 (!) Camden schools and their orchestras, aided by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and then finally work with schools to compose and produce their own versions.

 

Schoolchildren performed in the matinée performances; I attended an evening performance so did not have opportunity to hear them. However, there was a good deal to enjoy in what I heard. The heroic pianist/musical director Philip Voldman, assisted by violinist Sivan Traub, really brought those sections of the score performed to life. Some orchestral passages were to be heard via loudspeaker; there were some luscious strings to be heard there. However, the way in which these performances transcended the limitations of the upright pianos was creditable indeed. Pamela Hay’s Euridice was often touching, with a good sense of style. Joanna Foote’s Amor was finer still; I should be keen to hear more from her. Unfortunately, Paul Featherstone struggled stylistically and indeed intonationally as Orfeo. Nevertheless, Mark Tinkler’s direction of the characters, Furies included, held the attention throughout the various scenes. Perhaps an especial highlight was the use of claustrophobic theatre pit for Hades. Elysium, simply yet imaginatively designed upon the theatre stage itself, had a distinct sense of ‘place’ too: quite different from what had gone before and what was come. Excerpts from Die Zauberflöte and Orphée aux enfers framed the action, the former for the lovers’ wedding party at the start, the latter for curtain calls in the bar. Camden Music Service, Central Saint Martins, and EPOC deserve our praise for offering both reintroduction to and reminder of one of opera’s very greatest musical dramatists.

Gluck's Orfeo from Glyndebourne: Dame Janet bids 'Addio, addio'

After Nigel Lowery's dreadful assault upon Gluck, I felt the need of something more wholesome. Of course the staging would be unlikely to be carried out in quite the same way now; I am sure that Peter Hall would do it differently, were he to return to the work. Not that there is anything wrong with it, but fashions change more quickly in this respect than perhaps any other. It is certainly a hundred times preferable to Lowery's puerile effort. The glories of the audio recording (heartily recommended, with links below) originating from this production were always Dame Janet Baker's astonishingly intense, truly heartfelt farewell to the stage and the London Philharmonic's playing under Raymond Leppard; so they are here, though there is little cause for complaint here, and the chorus, trained by Jane Glover, acquits itself beautifully. 'Purists' will doubtless moan about the composite version of the work, let alone the aria ending the first act, a guilty pleasure if ever there were one; even my own favourite Gluck conductor, Riccardo Muti, disdains anything but 'pure' Vienna. The rest of us can sit back and enjoy...

R.I.P. Rita Gorr, 1926-2012

Orpheus Remasked?

Buoyed by the victory, at least so far, of Birtwistle's masterpiece, The Mask of Orpheus in the Fantasy Opera poll (please vote here if you have not yet done so), I tried to find a clip on YouTube. Nothing alas was immediately forthcoming. However, I came across something rather surprising during my search, namely a clip from another great retelling of the Orpheus legend, that by Gluck. So far, so unsurprising. Yet, in the face of the great reformer's Iphigénie en Aulide failing so far to register a single vote, it was heartening to hear his music being presented in so unexpected a fashion:



The Lydians also have an interesting way with Handel's Messiah. This performance might not be the last word in accuracy, but seems to me a hundred times preferable to anaemic authenticism. The visual element helps too...



For anyone wondering about the less-favoured of Gluck's two Iphigénie operas, here are extracts from a Rome performance conducted by the composer's greatest living interpreter, Riccardo Muti:



And finally, here is the greatest (recorded) conductor of them all, performing the overture in properly Wagnerian fashion (audio only, but who needs to see anything when hearing a performance of this intensity?)

Salzburg Festival (1) - Orfeo ed Euridice, 13 August 2010

Grosses Festspielhaus

Images: © Hermann und Clärchen Baus

Orfeo – Elisabeth Kulman
Euridice – Genia Kühmeier
Amore – Christiane Karg

Dieter Dorn (director)
Jürgen Rose (designs)
Tobias Löffler (lighting)
Ramses Sigl (choreography)
Hans-Joachim Ruckhäberle (dramaturgy)

Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus (chorus master: Thomas Lang)
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Riccardo Muti (conductor)


I have occasionally debated with myself which work would open my fantasy new regime at Covent Garden: the one where Donizetti and Verdi are banished for ever more, where the demands for ‘star’ singers are simply ignored, where ‘corporate hospitality’ is banished still further away than L’elisir d’amore, where we have some modern equivalent to the eminently sensible proposals presented by Wagner to the King of Saxony. Busoni’s Doktor Faust perhaps? Still a front runner, not least on account of its continued absence from so many stages, London included. An Orfeo would have to be a serious contender, too, though, not least on account of its foundational myth of the power of music. The question is which – and despite various other fine works (later in the opening season?), it would have to come down to Monteverdi or Gluck. The former’s Orfeo, the first great opera, has as pressing a claim as any, but so does Gluck’s astonishing reform opera: a statement of intent not unlike that with which the new regime would begin. Moreover, Gluck seems barely more popular than Busoni with those who hold the reins of programming power.

Fortunately, Riccardo Muti, following a period of dissatisfaction with Salzburg opera under Gérard Mortier’s regime, is once again a fixture at the Festival, and Muti has long been an ardent advocate of Gluck. His live recording of Iphigénie en Tauride from La Scala is certainly the finest of the work in question and perhaps the finest of any Gluck opera. Muti now conducts his first Gluck opera in Salzburg, the first staged Orfeo ed Euridice since Karajan's more than half a century ago, in 1959. (John Eliot Gardiner conducted concert performances in 1990.) Though Muti’s Gluck remains blissfully, even defiantly, free of modish ‘period’ concerns, there was nothing routine to this reading: quite different from either his Milanese performances or indeed his New Philharmonia recording.

This must be ascribed in part to the presence of the Vienna Philharmonic in the pit. Its golden sweetness is quite unlike that of any other orchestra, especially when playing for a favoured conductor, as here. This was a more Mozartian Gluck than one often hears, or indeed has heard from this particular conductor: tender and seductive, as Orpheus should be. The VPO’s fabled strings were of course crucial in this respect, but likewise its Orphic harp, those melting horns – sterner when necessary – and, not least, its truly magic flutes. The size of the orchestra was neither small nor especially large, but seemed just right for the Grosses Festspielhaus. (Another, especially cretinous, aspect of fundamentalist criticism is furious insistence upon particular sized forces, irrespective of the venue and acoustic.) The harpsichord (Speranda Spaccucci), contrary to reports I had read, was audible throughout. I am unconvinced that this is necessary, but it was interesting to note that some writers must have decided beforehand that they would not be able to hear the continuo, and therefore did not – or so they claimed. Muti’s tempi obeyed no particular pattern, taking their cue instead from the requirements of the drama: on occasion, though only on occasion, daringly slow, especially during heightened sections of recitative, but the music never dragged. The overture had me slightly worried: rather hard-driven, à la Toscanini¸ but that was a single exception.

This performance was fortunate too in its singers. The Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus sang excellently throughout: intelligible, implacable, imploring. Genia Kühmeier was a beautifully toned Euridice and Christiane Karg a winning Amore: not at all irritating, which it is sadly necessary to note. It was, however, quite rightly Elisabeth Kulman’s Orfeo, along with the orchestra, who was the true star here. Kulman’s richly instrumental tone, redolent of the chalumeaux Muti perhaps surprisingly elected to use, acted both as Orpheus’s voice and his lyre. Detailed attention to words heightened rather than detracted from her often heartrending delivery of the vocal line. Che farò senza Euridice?’ sounded not as if it were merely that aria, but as a crucial part of the drama, prepared by recitative; though the voices are very different, the performance that most readily sprang to mind was that of Dame Janet Baker. (Her recording under Raymond Leppard remains the safest first choice, though there is always Furtwängler…)

Dieter Dorn’s production is often attractive, not least when it comes to Jürgen Rose’s costumes and the arresting images of Hades, with which the second act opens. It is difficult, however, to discern any especial view of the work: fine, up to a point, since it is perfectly capable of speaking for itself, but a little disappointing. Where the production really falls down is in the ballet scenes. They present a potential problem, but there is no need for them to fall as flat as the final one in particular does. A ballet would have done fine; one might have considered it the obvious option for ballet music… Instead, we have a tedious working out of what seems to be ‘how the story just told is relevant today’. It is not suggested that the power of music might be at work, but rather that we should all work through our problems and live with each other as best we can. The tedious ‘movement’ resembles the sort of thing one might see in primary schools: a pity.

Muti being Muti, we certainly do not hear the bravura aria that often closes the first act (stage-stopping, but perhaps not even by Gluck at all, and out of keeping with the reformist ethos), nor even the Dance of the Blessed Spirits. It is the Vienna version we hear. I see no problem in principle with performing a wisely assembled composite edition, but there is an integrity to Gluck’s first version that is justification enough. It was a brave and good decision to perform the work without an interval. We did not even hear applause until the end.

Please do not take as written the a priori criticisms of Muti’s Gluck from ‘period’ fanatics; they could have composed – and perhaps did – their fatwas before hearing the performances, as tiresomely predictable as a newspaper column from a Polly Toynbee or a Simon Heffer. These critics will never be satisfied until any semblance of humanity has been extracted from Baroque, Classical, and even much later music. To treat this foundational musical drama as music, and not as an exercise in pseudo-archaeology has become, astonishingly enough, a rare thing indeed. Only a conductor of Muti’s standing would dare do so today. The rewards reaped are rich indeed.