Rienzi, Deutsche Oper, 18 April 2019

Deutsche Oper

RIENZI, DER LETZE DER TRIBUNEN von Richard Wagner, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Premiere am 24. Januar 2010, copyright: Bettina Stöß

Rienzi – Torsten Kerl

Irene – Elisabeth Teige

Steffano Colonna – Andrew Harris

Adriano – Annika Schlicht

Paolo Orsini – Dong-Hwan Lee

Cardinal Orvieto – Derek Welton

Baroncelli – Clemens Bieber

Cecco del Vecchio – Stephen Bronk

Rienzi double – Gernot Frischling

Philipp Stölzl (director, set designs)

Mara Kurotschka (assistant director)

Ulrike Siegrist (set designs)

Kathi Maurer, Ursula Kudrna (costumes)

Lorenzo Nencini (revival director)

fettFilm (video)

Chorus and Extra Chorus of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin (chorus director: Jeremy Bines)

Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin

Evan Rogister (conductor)

At last, an opportunity for me to see Rienzi, the only Wagner opera I had yet to see in the theatre. A long-held ambition fulfilled, then? Yes, just about. Alas, that was about it, though. There were two major, frankly insurmountable problems: first, the miserable conducting of Evan Rogister; second, the butchered version employed, so extreme as to render what we heard musically and dramatically nonsensical. Rarely in the theatre and never in the Deutsche Oper have I heard such a sustained display of incompetence in the pit as Rogister’s. The number of times the Overture came close – or more than close – to falling apart did not bode well. Singers, solo and chorus, often proved alarmingly out of sync with the orchestra; there was, moreover, no sign of the conductor so much as noticing, let alone putting things right. Occasionally, the music came into focus; it was bound to eventually, I suppose, though never for long. Interpretation? Forget it. It was hardly surprising that, for long stretches, this great Wagner orchestra seemed to have given up. Was this in fact Covent Garden’s dread Daniel Oren working under a pseudonym? A dark thought indeed. One to avoid with equal vigour, I fear.

However, even a Daniel Barenboim – if only he would consider one day conducting Wagner’s Cinderella – would have struggled with the version of the score handed to him. The composer struggled with its unintentional length, of course. His witness in Mein Leben is instructive and entertaining. Quite what it would mean to present a ‘complete’ Rienzi is unclear; the closest we may come is the version conducted by Edward Downes for a BBC radio recording, and even that falls short according to some understandings. Whilst there is something to be said for glorying in its length, for rendering its problems a virtue, that is unlikely to be an option any time soon. Cuts are, in principle, not the end of the world – and may, for many, prove the opera’s redemption. This, however, was something else, not only in the savagery of its cuts but in there seemingly arbitrary nature, as if someone had attempted to present a ‘children’s version’, but had not really tried, and had succeeded only in cutting it down to whatever the specified size had been. The number and nature of non sequiturs, musical just as much as dramatic, straightforwardly defied comprehension.

Of the work’s roots in Meyerbeerian grand opéra, there was well-nigh nothing remaining in structure, and merely the odd procession (usually truncated) as meaningless evidential detail. It is difficult to imagine someone making anything of the nobles’ role, let alone identity, nor indeed of anyone else’s. Of the seeds of what was to come, often overlooked, the little that remained ironically resembled, apparently more by accident than design, Wagner’s notorious demolition of Meyerbeer in Opera and Drama: an ‘outrageously coloured, historico-romantic, devilish-religious, sanctimonious-lascivious, risqué-sacred, saucy-mysterious, sentimental-swindling, dramatic farrago’, albeit hacked away at a bargain-basement cut-price quite at odds with anything might could have imparted meaning to the experience. Poetic justice? Perhaps, but to what end?

That the work’s promise – more than promise, as any of us who knows it will attest – nonetheless shone through is testimony not only to intrinsic merit, but also to some fine singing and, to a lesser extent, to Philipp Stölzl’s 2010 production. The latter is doubtless one-sided. In other circumstances, I might have been more inclined to complain about its too-ready association of Rienzi with fascism and, in the case of the Overture, with Hitler himself. The vision, in more than one sense, is at least memorable there: a Rienzi body-double looking out over the Alps from Berchtesgaden, listening to the music, conducting along, and resolving to rule the world. Use of video – great credit should go here to fettFILM – is unnervingly effective, permitting Rienzi as silent film speaker to address the masses, to turn them, even as we see and hear something else. A fascist design aesthetic in dress, colour, and architecture heightens the unsubtle line; at least, though, it is a line. In any case, is subtlety really what we are looking for in Rienzi? The chorus in particular might nonetheless have been better directed. Stölzl’s trademark tableaux vivants are one thing; they work more meaningfully in his Deutsche Oper Parsifal, I think, even though that came later. Too often, though, one had the impression poor chorus members were merely being left to fend for themselves.

In the title role, Torsten Kerl had his moments, although too often he proved vocally stretched. There could be no faulting his enthusiasm, though, nor his skills as a film propagandist. (His Overture body double, Gernot Frischling, deserves credit too.) Annika Schlicht, however, in the Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient role of Adriano, proved the star of the show: clear as a bell, bright and subtle as a speaking clarinet, and very much a breeches mezzo on stage. (Schröder-Devrient seems to have struggled to learn the part: there were clearly no such difficulties here.) I hope to hear – and see – more from her. Insofar as the cuts permitted, Elisabeth Teige also impressed as Irene, as did those assuming what were now less smaller than miniscule roles. Rienzi, though, deserved so much better. On the positive side, I stand all the more determined to see a production and to hear a performance – preferably in tandem – that in some sense do justice to this singular work. And if someone would kindly return the manuscript from Russia, that would be nice too.

Prom 16: Lewis/CBSO/Nelsons - Wagner, Beethoven, and Dvořák, 29 July 2010

Royal Albert Hall

Wagner – Overture: Rienzi
Beethoven – Piano Concerto no.2 in B-flat major, op.19
Dvořák – Symphony no.9 in E minor, ‘From the New World’, Op.95, B.178

Paul Lewis (piano)
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Andris Nelsons (conductor)

To my shame, it is many years since the last time I heard the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra; indeed, I think it was probably under Simon Rattle. On the basis of this concert, I shall hasten to do so again, since the orchestra sounds finer still if anything, certainly more continental, under its (relatively) new Music Director, Andris Nelsons. I shall also hasten to hear Nelsons wherever he may be conducting. If only I had been able to go to Bayreuth this year to hear his Lohengrin, with Jonas Kaufmann no less. Still, there was a taste of Wagner in the Overture to Rienzi. Nelsons dared – and won – a magnificently slow opening, the orchestra sounding gorgeous, the nobility of the Prayer theme fully and quite naturally brought out. There was at this stage an almost Klemperer-like deliberateness that truly paid off – which can only be the case if accompanied, as here, by profound musical understanding of rhythmic and harmonic progression. Then came the contrast of excitement: the external world opposed to Rienzi’s internal conflict. The CBSO’s brass choir proved it an equal to pretty much any other. Finally, enhanced Meyerbeer – just as it should be.

Though Beethoven was already Wagner’s greatest musical hero at this stage in his career, one would not necessarily have guessed it from Rienzi. The contrast with Beethoven’s ‘second’ piano concerto was therefore starker than it might have been with later Wagner. Paul Lewis, who has recently recorded all five concertos, joined Nelsons and the CBSO for a fine performance of an oft-slighted work, the success of which was at least as much to be attributed to conductor as pianist. For the opening bars alerted one to an uncommon Beethovenian talent too – and this is perhaps an even rarer thing. There was a true sense of life communicated: the music articulated, but never fussy, and Mozartian colours, especially darker hues, beautifully painted. (I thought above all of the E-flat concerto, KV 482.) These virtues were echoed, responded to, when the pianist entered, suggesting something of his great mentor, Alfred Brendel. There were occasions when I wished that Lewis would let himself go a little more, but there could be no gainsaying his command of the score. A rare (minor) cavil was a certain brusqueness to some sections of the development, which did not quite convince. Lewis employed an unusual degree of ornamentation in the recapitulation, but it worked. My only other real criticism was a plodding start to the cadenza. (Whatever Daniel Barenboim’s occasional shortcomings at the Royal Festival Hall earlier this year, he could not be accused of that.) By the time of its climax, this was no longer the case, however. Thereafter I do not think I have a single reservation. From the outset of the Adagio, Nelsons showed command of that long line Beethovenian line, which defeats so many; the maturity of Lewis’s contribution was equally striking. Nelsons continued to emphasise the darker side of Beethoven’s Mozartian inheritance. I should be eager to hear him in Mozart himself – and I cannot remember the last time I thought that of anyone. There was a ravishing oboe solo (Rainer Gibbons), whilst the final bars exuded ineffable magic, verging at least upon greatness (coughing notwithstanding). The rondo sounded just as a rondo should: fun, lively, gently insistent, never driven too hard. Nelsons’s command of Beethoven’s rhythms was notable, once again matched by Lewis. A distinguished performance: I cannot help but wish that Lewis had recorded the Beethoven concertos with Nelsons instead.

Coughing again marred the opening bars of Dvořák’s New World Symphony, though the intrusion of at least four mobile telephone calls – three to the same person! – was greater still. The beauty of the CBSO’s woodwind section could not be entirely obliterated, however. Nelsons proceeded to attack the Allegro molto with great urgency, yet still more spellbinding was the stillness as the flute announced the movement’s second group. True defiance, terror even, characterised its closing pages. And – a sign of charisma this! – keeping his hands in the air miraculously forestalled gloomily expected minority applause, setting a precedent thereafter adhered to. That solo, or rather those solos, were beautifully taken in the slow movement, Alan Garner drawing on seemingly endless reserves of breath. Nelsons’s tempo seemed so right that one only really noticed it in retrospect. The combination of woodwind soloists and double bass pizzicato in the movement’s middle section was simply ravishing, as were the violins when they took over the theme. Once again, I thought this might have been a great continental orchestra. Perhaps the most delicate pianissimo playing I have heard in the Royal Albert Hall was blighted by yet another telephone call. (Can nothing be done about these miscreants?) The scherzo married Beethovenian muscularity to delightful local colour and lilt: Dvořák has nothing to fear from comparisons with Smetana, even in this respect, and certainly not with Nelsons and the CBSO on his case. Always the long line again – marking out Nelsons as so much more the real thing than many of his touted contemporaries. The opening bars of the finale sent shivers down the spine, thanks to the CBSO brass. Even during more tender moments – an exquisite oboe solo, for instance – Nelsons maintained and increased the underlying tension to the movement. If I am to be ultra-critical, there were perhaps occasions on which he drove a little hard, but truly I am straining to find anything ambivalent, let alone negative, to say. More importantly, I heard orchestral detail that I cannot recall previously having heard – and without any of the point-scoring perversity one associates with conductors such as Nikolaus Harnoncourt. The orchestral unisons just before the close gave Bruckner a run for his money. This was a wonderful performance indeed.