Salzburg Mozartwoche (3) - Die Zauberflöte, 23 January 2026

 

Haus für Mozart

Images: Werner Kmetitsch

Sarastro – Franz-Josef Selig
Queen of the Night – Kathryn Lewek
Tamino – Magnus Dietrich
Pamina – Emily Pogorelc
Papageno – Theodore Platt
Papagena – Tamara Ivaniš
Three Ladies – Alice Rossi, Štěpánka Pučálkova, Noa Beinert
Monostatos – Paul Schweinester
Speaker, First Priest – Rupert Grössinger
Priests and Armoured Men – Maximilian Müller, Maximilian Anger
Three Boys – Frederick Derwein, David Platzer, Laurenz Oberfichtner
Mozart – Vitus Denifl
Constanze – Victoria D’Agostino
Carl Thomas Mozart – Paul Tanzer

Director – Rolando Villazón
Set designs – Harold Thor
Costumes – Tanja Hofmann
Choreography – Ramses Sigl
Lighting – Stefan Bolliger
Video – Roland Horvath/rocafilm
Dramaturgy – Ulrich Leisinger
Assistant director – Bettina Gayer
Theatre manager – Kirsten Kimmig

Philharmonia Chor Wien (chorus director: Walter Zeh)
Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra
Roberto González-Monjas (conductor)

It has been a while since Salzburg’s Mozartwoche gave a fully staged version of a mature Mozart opera. The choice of The Magic Flute, directed by Intendant Rolando Villazón, was not arbitrary, but rather a centrepiece to the 70^th anniversary festival’s focus on Mozart’s last year. The opera could hardly be more emblematic of 1791; it was the last, barring fragments, to be completed and first performed, although most of the score was composed before La clemenza di Tito. Moreover, Villazón’s staging is set in that year, on the final night of Mozart’s life, presenting on stage the broader concept of his final-year focus and its motto ‘Lux Aeterna’: that on his death, Mozart was for us truly born. 

In that, we saw the production’s most arresting image, shortly after having heard its most arresting, if doubtless controversial, musical surprise. The Queen of the Night and Monostatos (here spelled ‘Manostatos’ after Mozart’s autograph) having threatened to destroy the temple and so on, Mozart finally expires, having been with us all along (on which more anon); the orchestra cuts to the Requiem’s ‘Lacrimosa’. I could have done without a man behind me loudly exclaiming ‘Requiem! Requiem! Requiem!’ (Thank you for your musicological input; we should never have known otherwise.) Nevertheless, the assembled company joining to sing the composer’s final music, beyond the point at which the autograph stops yet not until its close, proved surprisingly moving. The lurch back to Sarastro’s announcement of victory initially jarred, yet such musical difficulties on my part were more or less effaced by the composer’s apotheosis. In a likeable, post-Amadeus portrayal by Vitus Denifl he was transformed into a Kugel-version of Mozart, laughing and somersaulting above. Like the best of those chocolates – hint: buy them only from Fürst – it was an unexpected delight, not least to serious clowning on Denifl’s part and a strong musical account. 

How we got there, scenically, had its moments. The idea of presenting Mozart’s hallucinations from his last days  unable to attend a performance at the Freihaus-Theater an der Wieden, yet imagining it in his head, was a good one, especially in this specific setting, part commemorating and part celebrating Mozart having become ‘Mozart’. It combines two accounts: the first from Stendhal via the 1798 Allgemeine Zeitung (possibly from Constanze herself) following the performances at home, looking at the clock and imagining what must be on stage; the other from an 1840 letter from the composer Ignaz von Seyfried to the theatre director Georg Friedrich Treitschke telling of Mozart on the evening of 4 December 1791 hearing his sister-in-law sing the Queen of the Night’s aria in the theatre. And so, the clock bore a particular role in demarcating certain moments—rather brightly, I could not help but think, although I suppose that was the point. It also offered a place to hide; indeed, Harold Thor’s set designs proved resourceful throughout in use and reuse. 

That, I think, was to be applauded, not least since a notable,  welcome feature of the Mozartwoche as a whole is its grounding in Mozart scholarship: not a Beckmesserish (at best) school of ‘performance practice’, perhaps now at last waning, that loves nothing more than to condemn something as ‘inauthentic’, but rather respect for far broader and more interesting historical grounding that will enable and enrich modern performance of various kinds. Some of that one might like, some one might not, but it enters into dialogue rather than assertion of either fundamentalist domination or lazy solipsism. The problem more was that it did not become much more than a frame for what otherwise was a rather conventional portrayal of the actual dramatic action. Mozart interacted a little with the characters. He also instructed his son a little. More tenuously, Constanze became enraged at the misogyny of the priests, hitting them and her husband, suggesting their remarks were to be taken seriously, Mozart’s own music suggesting otherwise. In terms of a view about what the work ‘itself’ might be, what it might have to offer, and indeed how it might thus have ultimately come to participate in the creation of ‘Mozart’, I struggled to divine anything very much. 

Moreover, further character references seemed to me obscure. Without reading in the programme that Villazón intended the Three Ladies as three female artists – a poet, sculptor, and painter – I am not sure I should have noticed. Even if I had, nothing much was done with the idea. Presenting Tamino as a musician was fair enough; he plays the flute after all. Beyond that, it seemed another missed opportunity, soon more or less forgotten; likewise Monostatos/Manostatos as commercialisation of art, and so on. In encounters between multiple concepts, some fared better than others, though those of Mozart and Emanuel Schikaneder rarely so well.

To return, though, to what made that final scene – and much else – worthwhile, Roberto González-Monjas’s conducting of the Mozarteum Orchestra marked him out as that rarest of things, a musician who could draw from an orchestra a true sense of the breadth and depth of Mozart’s score, without imposing himself on it and subjecting it to strange eccentricities. One will almost always find differences between what one hears in one’s head – watching the clock, like Mozart, or otherwise – but what matters is whether one can make sense of what is put before one, whether it animates the drama, whether it enables the singers and actors to flourish. In all of those respects and more, González-Monjas’s account scored. So too did the warm, sympathetic playing of the orchestra. This ought not to be so rare as it is, but the demands of Mozart and ‘Mozart’ alike are never to be underestimated.

 

There was, moreover, a good sense of a troupe more than the sum of its parts among those singers and actors. Magnus Dietrich’s Tamino and Emily Pogorelc’s an alluring young pair vocally. Their arias touched and ennobled without contrivance. Franz-Josef Selig’s Sarastro is a known quantity to many of us, yet proved no less welcome in reasoned compassion for that. Kathryn Lewek’s Queen of the Night offered accuracy and bite, also reminding us that a flesh-and-blood woman lay behind the costume and coloratura. Hearing more dialogue than often one does – especially outside German lands gave a more proper sense of Papagena, as did a spirited performance by Tamara Ivaniš. Theodore Platt’s Papageno stole the show, as many do, and deservedly so, sheer theatrical presence married to innate musicality, a winning tribute to Schikaneder. Indeed, the thought occurred to me that that might have been an obvious personification for the production. But there will be other Flutes, and this offered magic enough, heightened by the experience of an afternoon visit to an exhibition at the Rupertinum, showing materials from earlier stagings, including that of Oskar Kokoschka, invited by Furtwängler, who alas died before they could collaborate. As Villazón’s concept for the festival as a whole reminds us, birth and death have always stood in a complex relationship, not least in the case of Mozart.

Salzburg Festival (8) - Mozarteum Orchestra/Emelyanchev: Mozart, 25 August 2024

Grosser Saal, Mozarteum

Serenade in D major, KV 239, ‘Serenata notturna’
Quintet for piano, oboe, clarinet, horn, and bassoon in E-flat major, KV 452
Symphony no.38 in D major, KV 504, ‘Prague’

Isabelle Unterer (oboe)

Bernhard Mitmesser (clarinet)

Àlvaro Canales Albert (bassoon)

Paul Pitzek (horn)

Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra

Maxim Emelyanchev (fortepiano, conductor)

Image: SF/Marco Borrelli

Making his debut with the Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra, Maxim Emelyanchev offered three works by Mozart, each in three movements, appearing as conductor from the harpsichord, fortepianist, and conductor without keyboard. Not everyone can offer such versatility, nor indeed would wish to, but the results were generally enjoyable, although the combination of period piano and modern wind instruments in the E-flat Quintet, KV 452, proved ill-advised. Adding further complication to a slightly confusing postmodern mélange, Emelyanchev offered various performing styles within the concert, moving from a more ‘period’ approach in the Serenata notturna to a more ‘traditional’ Prague Symphony, the intervening Quintet at times strangely improvisatory. Much of the audience seemed to love it; the orchestra seemed enthused too. It at least offered something for all the family. 

The March that opens the serenade was certainly martial, though it lost something in the longer line and was arguably more unrelentingly four-square than it need have been. Some of the colours were a delight, string pizzicato offering only one such example, though the sheer aggression of tutti passages, especially those with timpani, seemed to me out of keeping. A rigorous, bracing minuet was given cultivated contrast in the sweet-toned trio, which relaxed without actual relaxation of tempo. The finale similarly offered excellent playing, the brief central ‘Adagio’ section at least avoiding undue astringency, and the final ‘Allegro’ a fine sense of release. 

Following a self-absorbed piano lead-in, the first movement of the Quintet set the scene, both for good and less good, for what would follow. It emerged as ‘interesting’ rather than great music, the lack of harmonic rhythm a serious problem, and strange balance helping neither underpowered keyboard, sometimes compelled to forcing of tone to be heard, nor wind who, in such company and despite excellent playing, tended to sound overly bright. The ‘Larghetto’ was at least more long-breathed, but likewise suffered from the lack of a fundamental pulse. Maybe it was a case of my ears having adjusted, but the third movement proved the most convincing of the three, a concerto finale in not-so-miniature, harmony and counterpoint allied to more purposeful direction.    

Returning to D major, the Prague Symphony received what was in many ways a surprisingly unmannered performance, mutual sympathy rewarded in both directions. Natural brass (horns and trumpets) were used, which contributed to the overall sense of pick-and-mix, especially in combination with noticeably more modern-sounding timpani than had been employed for the Serenata notturna, but a few rasping noises aside, they did not distract. A broad introduction – certainly when compared with performers coming from a similar standpoint – set the scene for a first movement with a considerably stronger sense of harmonic rhythm than anything heard previously. Emelyanchev’s tendency to wave his arms around too much might visually irritate, but it did not necessarily transfer into what we heard. When he slowed in preparation for the second group, it was an ‘interventionist’ moment no one listening could have missed, but it made sense, irrespective of whether one happened to approve. Doing precisely the same thing for the repeat arguably detracted from the effect, but even Daniel Barenboim has been known to repeat a little too obviously an agogic adjustment or tempo variation, so I think we can readily forgive that. 

The Andante flowed nicely without being fashionably harried and/or divested of its profound, emotional content. Indeed, its darkness came to the surface with apparent naturalness, as opposed to being imposed from without. Again, that can only be the case through harmony, which, if it not key to Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven, it is not key to anyone at all. (The number of fashionable conductors today who fail to appreciate that is, sadly, at an all-time high.) Woodwind once more shone, but in an unassuming – one might say quintessentially Bohemian – way, as if inheriting the mantle of the players for whom the work was written. The finale was taken fast, very fast: to my ears, too fast, more Prestissimo rather than Presto, as if the point were to take it as fast as possible. It is not a matter of speed as such, but rather of giving the music space to breathe; Mozart rarely if ever calls for speed in the way that Haydn (or Mendelssohn) does. A strong sense of harmonic rhythm was here diminished, although the music was not arbitrarily pulled around as some might. The Mozarteum Orchestra’s playing was excellent throughout.

Salzburg Festival (2) - Il re pastore (concert performance), 19 August 2023

Grosser Saal, Mozarteum

Alessandro – Daniel Behle
Aminta - Emőke Baráth
Elisa – Nikola Hillebrand
Tamiri – Julie Roset
Agenore – David Fischer

Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra
Ádám Fischer (conductor)

Images: SF/Marco Borrelli

It is not every day I get to hear a Mozart opera live for the first time. That in itself would be enough to welcome the Salzburg Festival’s concert performances of Il re pastore, part of its venerable Mozart-Matinee series. But this proved an outstanding performance, which would still greatly have impressed, were Mozart’s Salzburg serenata the repertoire work it should be. Quite why Mozart’s ‘early’ operas, with the arguable exception of La finta giardiniera, are so neglected is beyond me, but then so is an operatic world in which Donizetti is wildly more popular than Dallapiccola. The important thing is how many ears will have been opened by this performance, conducted with theatrical flair and palpable belief in every bar by Ádám Fischer. 

Leading a small yet, in the acoustic, warm and expansive Mozarteum Orchestra (strings 6.6.5.4.3), Fischer unsurprisingly drove harder at times, for instance during the Overture, than Leopold Hager in his classic Philips recording with the same band from what is now half a century ago, but there was always good and discernible reason for his choices, with none of the arbitrary distortion so favoured by a good number of post-Harnoncourt conductors. Such was the sense of a greater whole, style and ideas as one, I could even for once enjoy the rasping of natural brass. The Overture’s twin characters, presaging those of the drama – regal and pastoral – were presented with beguiling brilliance. Trumpets, drums, and key associations rang as true for Alessandro (Alexander the Great) as for the House of Habsburg, the occasion of Mozart’s Metastasio setting being the visit of Archduke Maximilian Francis to Salzburg. Truth, integrity, love, and other qualities and emotions resonated and moved one similarly. Tempi were nicely varied, seemingly suited to the needs of character and singer, and yet always making made sense in terms of the work as a whole.

A cast as fresh as it was faultless, its movement directed by recitative-pruner Birgit Kajtna, was of course central to this success. Emőke Baráth took on the (original) castrato role of Aminta, the shepherd called to be king. Baráth’s chalumeau-like voice was just the ticket, as was her splendidly natural way with sung words. As early as the first two arias, fine complement and contrast were set up with Aminta’s lover, the nymph Elisa. Nikola Hillebrand’s coloratura in that second aria, ‘Alla selva, al prato, al fonte’, was as great and dramatically meaningful a delight as the Mozarteum woodwind’s interjections. As the two grew in stature, even at the end of the first act encompassing grander orchestral recitative, they never forgot their origins, again key to the dramatic trajectory as well as to the Mozartian enchantment. Aminta’s reluctance to accede to the throne, thanking the gods yet admitting the price (loss of his beloved) was too high, proved moving indeed.

Clad in properly imperial coat, Alessandro joined us with the nobleman Agenore first from the balcony above. In the former role, Daniel Behle exhibited similarly impressive control and dramatic command of the often extremely demanding coloratura. (Mozart took no prisoners at this stage of his career.) David Fischer searingly conveyed the sincerity of his love for the dispossessed princess Tamiri, now destined for Aminta as king rather than him, and, in his second-act aria ‘Sol può dir come si trova,’ the utter desperation of his plight. Julie Roset’s silvery soprano deepened throughout the performance: another well-judged and well-executed trajectory. The final ‘chorus’ of resolution brought home the closeness, especially for Mozart, of symphonic and operatic finale, in form, function, and character. House lights came on as stars shone in the firmament and love smiled more sweetly than ever. Here were all the glories of one of the Mozart’s Salzburg’s liturgical music and not a little of its implicit theology too.

Salzburg Festival (1) - Melnikov/Mozarteum/Bolton - Mozart, 21 August 2022

Grosser Saal, Mozarteum

Symphony no.31 in D major, ‘Paris’, KV 297/300a
Piano Concerto no.17 in G major, KV 453
Serenade for orchestra no.9 in D major, KV 320, ‘Posthorn’

Alexander Melnikov (piano)

Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra

Ivor Bolton (conductor)

‘Mozart, more intimate [than Beethoven], more touching, between the melancholy of the past and the serene expectation of the future, Mozart, who is neither a child, nor an androgyne nor an angel, but a little of all these, Mozart, always loving, always confident, Mozart smiled, even before death…’ It is difficult to take issue with many, if any, of these claims, save perhaps for the particular comparison with Beethoven, from the fourth volume of Messiaen’s Traité de rythme, de couleur, et d’ornithologie. Messiaen’s insistence that Mozart smiled was repeated in his final commissioned work, Un sourire, written in 1989 for the 1991 bicentenary. If I were to offer a single criticism of the Mozart revealed, or obscured, by Ivor Bolton in this Mozart Matinée, it was that the music all too rarely smiled.

In the Paris Symphony, indeed, the decidedly un-Mozartian quality of the grimace was more to the fore. The Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra offered a welcome, full sound, enhanced by the size of the hall, only slightly marred in the ‘Parisian’ opening by the incongruous sound of rasping ‘period’ brass with a ‘modern’ orchestra, albeit one with regrettably little in the way of string vibrato. Bolton’s tempo, however, was well chosen, probably somewhat on the slow side for today’s fashions—allegedly ‘period’, yet rarely anything of the sort. A hallmark of this performance was the elemental sense imparted by certain basic musical figures. Not always did they fully develop into larger lines beyond that, though, having excellent playing (whether to one’s taste or no) give the impression of dragging rather than fizzing. The slow movement—the 3/4 Andante rather than the 6/8 Andantino—was not entirely without such doggedness but flowed better. I was left regretting its brevity, but then why say more than need be said? Bolton seems not to have mastered the (admittedly difficult) trick of playing as fast as the closing Allegro demands without sounding hard-driven. It was here, above all, that I regretted the lack of a smile, the presence of all too many grimaces. Counterpoint, however, was clear, adding a welcome ‘learned’ depth.

That inability to sustain a long Mozart line, or maybe unwillingness (could it be that he actually does not want to?) was again apparent in the opening of the G major Piano Concerto, KV 453. Lovely woodwind playing could not entirely disguise the lack of vibrato from violins in particular. More, though, than in the symphony, Bolton carried the music forward, although only after pianist Alexander Melnikov’s entry was it clear how this might be done more readily. Strange ritardandi were Bolton’s doing; Melnikov could generally be relied upon to put them right, though he was not without a certain brusqueness either. The cadenza, Mozart’s own (as in the second movement) melted beautifully where called for; a little more of that earlier on would surely have been preferable. Messiaen, at least, would have thought so. The opening phrasing of the Andante was much better. Melnikov’s fashionable decision to play piano continuo before his first solo entry struck me as unnecessary, but it did no great harm. The sense of hushed mystery he brought to the minor mode was beautiful indeed; for that, one could have forgiven much. It was the finale, though, that fell most readily into place, its ‘rightness’ of tempo and phrasing leaving space, well taken, for something closer to the magic Mozart requires. Mozart’s changes of tempo were well handled, characterful and consequential; those imposed on final exchanges between piano and orchestral less so, their rhetoric decidedly uncertain, even arbitrary.

The Posthorn Serenade’s first movement offered another grand, if slightly astringent, introduction. Apparent confusion over dynamics at one point aside, the rest was generally well shaped and benefited from a stronger sense of forward momentum than the Paris Symphony had. Bolton’s rhetorical broadening for the onset of the recapitulation worked in context. The second movement was on the swift side, but far from excessively so. I did not care much for the agogic accents employed, but I have heard far worse mannerism. It was otherwise well shaped and projected, though the Trio, taken by solo instruments, relaxed too much to the extent of sounding sluggish. Whether it was strictly necessary for flutes and oboes (not bassoons) to stand for the beginning of the third movement, the practice drew visual attention to aural delights to be savoured from all in the section. Third and fourth movements were beautifully played, at well chosen tempi; there were even a few smiles. The fifth emerged, intelligently and convincingly, as its predecessor’s successor bathed in darker shadows, that characterisation having us value all the more the passages of sunlight. Here was the dramatic highpoint of the morning, seeming already to point toward the world of the Da Ponte operas. A robust opening to the Menuetto was taken with just the right amount of swing. The considerably faster tempo taken for the first Trio sounded unsettled, even bizarre, but moderate slowing for the second worked well, its solo wonderfully played on what looked to me like a genuine posthorn. The finale offered a rousing close, full of incident and variety. It was a pity, I felt, that some of these insights could not have been fed back into the first part of the concert, to show us the truth of Messiaen’s further claim that Mozart’s form ‘is always perfect and constantly renewed’.

 

Salzburg Festival (5) - Soloists/Mozarteum/Pichon: Mozart, Paisiello, Salieri, and Martín y Soler, 18 August 2019

Grosser Saal

La folle giornata

Mozart: Lo sposo deluso, KV 430/424a: Overture, Quartet, ‘Ah che ridere!’, and Aria, ‘Dove mai trovar quel ciglio?’

Paisiello: Il barbiere di Sivilgia: Cavatina, ‘Saper bramate’

Mozart: Recitative and aria, ‘Bella mia fiamma, addio’ – ‘Resta, oh cara’, KV 528; Insertion aria, ‘Chi sà, chi sà, qual sia,’ for Vincente Martín y Soler’s Il burbero di buon cuore, KV 582; L’oca del Cairo: Aria, ‘Ogni momento dicon le donne’; Canzonetta, ‘Ridente la calma,’ KV 152/210a; Nocturne (trio), ‘Se lontan, ben mio, tu sei,’ KV 438

La scuola degli amanti

Mozart: Der Schauspieldirektor, KV 486: Overture; Aria, ‘Männer suchen stets zu naschen’, KV 433/416c; Aria, ‘Io ti lascio, oh cara, addio’, KV Anh.245/621a; Der Schauspieldirektor: Arietta: ‘Da schlägt die Abschiedsstunde’

Salieri: La scuola de’ gelosi: Sextet, ‘Son le donne sopraffine’

Mozart: Lo sposo deluso: ‘Che accidenti! Che tragedia!’; Canzonetta, ‘Più non si trovano,’ KV 549

Il dissoluto punito

Mozart: Thamos, König in Ägypten: Entr’acte: Maestoso-Allegro

Vicente Martín y Soler: Una cosa rara: Sextet, ‘O quanto un sì bel giubilo’

Mozart: Recitative and aria, ‘Così dunque tradisci’ – ‘Aspri rimorsi atroci’, KV 432/421a; Aria, ‘Vado ma dove? oh Dei!’, KV 583; Aria, ‘Per pietà, non ricercate’; L’oca del Cairo: Sextet, ‘Corpo di Satanasso!’; Thamos, König in Ägypten: Chorus, ‘Ne pulvis et cinis superbe te geras’, and final music to the fifth act of the play

Claire de Sévigné, Siobhan Stagg (sopranos)

Lea Desandre (mezzo-soprano)

Mauro Peter (tenor)

Huw Montague Rendall (baritone)

Robert Gleadow (bass)

Choir of Soloists from the Young Artists’ Project

Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra

Raphaël Pichon (conductor)

Image: Salzburger Festspiele / Marco Borrelli

Now this is just what the Salzburg Festival should be doing in its longstanding Mozart-Matinee series: one of the most delightful and thought-provoking I have yet to attend. Divided into three ‘scenes’, each accorded as title the subtitle of one of the Da Ponte operas, this concert, from an excellent cast of young singers, the Mozarteum Orchestra, and Raphaël Pichon, offered suggestions as to inspirations, sources, context, and sometimes just affinities between music for a number of principal characters in each opera from other works by Mozart and contemporaries. So, for ‘La folle giornate’, we welcomed to the stage the Count, Countess, Figaro, Susanna, Cherubino, and Dr Bartolo; for ‘La scuola degli amanti’, the full Così sextet; and for ‘Il dissoluto punito’, its entire cast too. Arrangements, where necessary, were credited to Pierre-Henri Dutron and Vincent Manac’h. One may sometimes have quibbled about the programme attribution of certain parts to certain others, but that was part of the fun and enlightenment. We all approach these greatest of operas in different ways, with different ears, with different memories, at different times. One of the great losses of recent years in the Festival has been that of a core Mozart ensemble of singers, often singing the major operas for several years in succession. This concert not only hinted at that time-honoured practice, but also brought many thoughts to mind of Mozart’s own work with particular singers on particular operas.

A decent-sized orchestra for a small hall (strings 8.7.6.4.3) played with verve, vigour, and great sensitivity, all on show in a warm account of the Overture to the operatic fragment, Lo sposo deluso, its second, Andante section winningly prayerful – reminding us that Mozart, like any good man (or woman) of the Enlightenment, made little or no distinction between sacred and secular. (Such, in broadest outline, will be the starting point for my next book.) I may have preferred more string vibrato there, but such was Pichon’s style, and my ears soon adjusted. Moaning that this was not Colin Davis would rather have missed the point on this very particular occasion. Pichon handled very well the transition to the quartet, ‘Ah che ridere!’ from our reassigned Count, Countess, Figaro, and Cherubino, all of whom excelled in concert-ish-performance acting too: the knowing glance, the perfection of timing, and so on. Mozart’s prophetic progression to full vocal ensemble: well, we know very well where that was heading. Huw Montague Rendall’s following aria marked him out as perhaps first among equals for me, though I had no complaints from any of the singers. It was, in any case, an absorbingly full, characterful performance, quite as vivid as any on stage. Mauro Peter’s aria from the ‘other’ Barber of Seville, Giovanni Paisiello’s, was beautifully sung, capturing the sense that this was far more straightforwardly Italian a serenade than anything Mozart would have written – and more seductive than anything Rossini would. Paisiello’s lovely writing for pizzicato strings (as well as mandolin) and clarinet was relished by players and conductor alike. Siobhan Stagg’s concert aria suffered a little from unduly ascetic violins, especially during the recitative, but my goodness, she knew how to use recitative – as, of course, did Mozart, in accompagnato of extraordinary musico-dramatic riches. As for his chromaticism in the aria itself, we were but a stone’s throw already from Wagner and Schoenberg. Lea Desandre’s coloratura was sometimes a little shaky in the insertion aria Mozart wrote for Vicente Martín y Soler’s Il burbero di buon cuore, but her tone was nicely suggestive of Cherubino. A vigorous contribution from Robert Gleadow, a palpably sincere – if a little too ‘white’ for my taste – early canzonetta from Claire de Sévigné, and a refreshing choice for ‘finale’, the delectable Metastasian ‘Se lontan, ben mio, tu sei’, rounded off a first scene that, like Figaro itself, had one straining for more.

On then, after the interval, to ‘La scuola degli amanti’ and ‘Il dissoluto punito’. If Pichon, here as elsewhere, never quite managed to hear, or at least to communicate, the Schauspieldirektor Overture in a single breath, it had pleasing weight and vigour. Gleadow, who, it was revealed was suffering from excruciating back pain, offered a lovely Don Alfonso-ish aria, to which Montague Rendall responded with a poignancy that threatened almost to eclipse his own Guglielmo and touch the (allegedly) more sensitive Ferrando. If I thought the ‘Fiordiligi’ Schauspieldirektor number closer to Pamina, that opera was not on offer here – and the final coloratura made its own point. Salieri’s sextet from his strikingly similar (in plot) 1778 La scuola de’ gelosi, to a libretto by Caterino Mazzolà (librettist for Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito, after Metastasio), was, like the Paisiello number, more straightforwardly Italian, less contrapuntal – but then, it would be, and not only because it was written for Venice. Mozart, upon a return to Lo sposo deluso, followed on seamlessly, almost immediately demonstrating who was the greater composer and dramatist, but then, he would. A Metastasian closing number, again written for quartet and three basset horns, offered prayerful continuity with the first scene as well as a degree of contrast in the same respect. What could be more apt?

We stepped back slightly in time for the final scene, to the second of the three Da Ponte operas, or rather to music in its orbit. For ‘Il dissoluto punito’, we opened and indeed closed with some of the astonishing incidental music for Thamos, King of Egypt. Here was the full-bloodedly Romantic Mozart we knew from the piano concertos as well as from Don Giovanni, the Mozart ETA Hoffmann had no doubt was of his party. On hearing the sextet from Martín y Soler’s Una cosa rara, we might well by now have replied, like Leporello on hearing a snatch of ‘Non più andrai’, ‘Questa poi la conosco pur troppo’, so often have we heard its quotation in Don Giovanni. But why? What a lovely opportunity, not least in so compelling a rendition, to hear the original, genuinely admired, it would seem, by Mozart. Its move to the minor was perhaps especially interesting – and quite differently accomplished from any instance I could immediately recall in Mozart. Gleadow’s aria, once again, spoke wonderfully on its own terms; no one would surely have known the conditions under which he was having to sing. Desandre’s, which followed, displayed here absolute control of her instrument and clarity of line, was well as a wonderful way with Italian. Peter (or ‘Don Ottavio’) offered typical sincerity in his preceding a splendid clarion call (Montague Rendall) and full ensemble from the unfinished L’oca del Cairo. I do not think I have ever heard the music leap from the page with such joy. That, in a sense, was the ‘finale’; but, in an inversion of the practice of Don Giovanni, we returned to the tragic, minor mode, Montague Rendall leading his colleagues, an additional quartet of vocalists included, in a magnificent, Gluck-haunted ‘Ne pulvis et cinis superbe te geras’. If this were not sacred music in the fullest sense, I do not know what would be.

Salzburg Festival (3) - Mozarteum Orchestra/Luks: Mozart, 13 August 2017

Grosser Saal, Mozarteum

String Divertimento in F major, KV 138/125c

Idomeneo: Ballet Music, KV 367

Symphony no.41 in C major, ‘Jupiter’, KV 551

Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra

Václav Luks (conductor)

How difficult – I have not yet lost my English bent for understatement – it is today to find a conductor capable of directing a fine Mozart performance, or at least willing to do so. Perhaps it was always so; not everyone was Colin Davis or Karl Böhm. The perversities of the authenticke brigade, though, have done serious damage. Here, the Mozarteum Orchestra sounded wonderful; when permitted to play, rather than harried or micromanaged, there was much to enjoy. Alas, Václav Luks, who appears very much to have an ‘early music’ background and ‘name’, permitted that far too little.

The F major Divertimento, KV 138/125c, started most promisingly. Had the rest of the performance proceeded similarly, that would have been a very good thing indeed. A small string section (5.4.3.2.1), all standing save for the cellos, offered a bright, cultivated sound, their playing cultivated and quite without pedantry. The first movement’s roots in earlier music were apparent, quite rightly, without over-emphasis, its structure clearly, meaningfully presented. Luks, alas, made something of a meal of the Andante, its ease lost or at least obscured. I could have done, moreover, without that slight astringency he seemed determined to inflict upon the string. At its best, though, the movement evinced a hushed intimacy that compelled one to listen. The finale fizzed with energy. If it might have smiled a little more, counterpoint was admirably clear. The playing itself was, as ever, excellent.

A larger, though still relatively small, band of strings (8.6.5.4.3) was of course joined by wind and drums for the Idomeneo ballet music. Luks’s way with the music, announced immediately in the Chaconne, was unduly aggressive. More damagingly, he seemed unable to communicate a longer line, proceeding bar by bar, sometimes beat by beat. (O for Sir Colin from Munich!) Playing was unfailingly alert; if only Luks had been able to relax a little, to let the music speak ‘for itself’. The Pas seul was warmer, if often hard driven; its corners were well handled, however, and there was no doubting its symphonic nature. Why we had to endure ‘natural’ brass rasping, though, with a modern orchestra, is anyone’s guess. The Passepied was well shaped, if on the fast side, the Gavotte better still, not pushed too far. It was a great pity that the transition to the finale emerged as an arbitrary collection of notes, and that that Passacaille itself proved fierce and, again, quite unsmiling. Messiaen’s charming observation that Mozart’s music ‘smiles’ may or may not be trite; it is undoubtedly true, though, or should be.

The ‘authenticke’ brigade and their camp followers seem unable to avoid ‘rhetorical’ gestures – usually an attempt, conscious or otherwise, to conceal an inability to phrase – in the Jupiter Symphony, especially in its outer movements. When allied to an apparent inability to establish a basic pulse, the result tends, as here, towards dragging, irrespective of speed. Trumpet and drum interventions were unfailingly, tediously underlined, as if there were any need. Structure was generally clear enough, but formal dynamism quite lacking. The recapitulation merely hectored. Once again, the playing itself was excellent. The slow movement was less pulled around, flowing well enough; it, bizarrely, sounded somewhat inconsequential: pleasant rather than unpleasant, but if that is the best one can say concerning a conductor’s view… The Minuet, needless to say, was taken fashionably, one beat to a bar, but was otherwise played reasonably straight, and emerged all the better for it. Alas, its Trio reverted to type, presumably as ‘contrast’. A weird hiatus prior to the reprise of the Minuet did not help either. The finale was fierce, again, rather than joyful, its counterpoint admirably clear. I could not help but think how much better it would have been had the Salzburg players not been saddled with a conductor whose sub-Bernstein podium antics were now really beginning to grate, not least since they seemingly bore no relation to either score or performance. I do not think I have heard the coda pass by with such little wonder: quintuple invertible counterpoint is nothing, apparently, in Luks’s world.

Salzburg Festival (2) - Così fan tutte, 6 August 2016

Felsenreitschule

 

Images Ruth Walz/Salzburger Festspiele
Alessio Arduini (Guglielmo), Julia Kleiter (Fiordiligi), Michael Volle (Don Alfonso),
Dorabella (Angela Brower), Ferrando (Mauro Peter)

Fiordiligi – Julia Kleiter

Dorabella – Angela Brower
Despina – Martina Janková
Ferrando – Mauro Peter
Guglielmo – Alessio Arduini
Don Alfonso – Michael Volle

Sven-Eric Bechtolf (director, set designs)

Mark Bouman (costumes)
Friedrich Rom (lighting)

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

Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra
Ottavio Dantone (conductor)

 

I saw Sven-Eric Bechtolf’s production of Così fan tutte three years ago in the Haus für Mozart. It seemed initially to have been heavily revised for its new venue in the Felsenreitschule, until I realised that it was indeed a new production. Quite why, I am not sure, for his first Così seems to have been the most successful part of his Da Ponte trilogy for Salzburg. (The Don Giovanni was, in a fiercely contested field, one of the worst I have ever seen. I could not face seeing the Figaro after that, but nothing I have heard about it has had me regret that decision.)

Bechtolf here retains the eighteenth-century setting: ‘beautiful’ frocks and all, for those who care about such things. There are hints at good ideas, but rarely, if ever, are they seriously followed through. For instance, we see something we might associate with the subtitle’s school for lovers (‘La scuola degli amanti’) at the opening, although it seems to have more of a medical bent than one might expect. No harm done: there is, after all, a strong current of Mesmerism and other strange ‘natural philosophy’ to the plot. However, apart from occasionally seeing frock-coated members of that school hanging around the stage, that is more or less it. Likewise, the nod to the work’s artificiality in having painted backdrops, such as a ‘beautiful’ Bay of Naples, mounted and dismantled during the action; again, however, we really need more than that. Making use of the extraordinary Felsenreitschule setting is of course a good thing, but it needs to be more than simply having characters run around above the stage for the sake of it. Otherwise, we have a thoroughly ‘traditional’, even regressive, staging, interrupted in utterly philistine fashion by deeds of slapstick, which have no place whatsoever in Mozart – however much they might delight certain cretinous members of the audience. (They laughed, moreover, at the most peculiar times. Do they not realise this is the most agonising, heart-rending of all Mozart’s operas? Do they react similarly to Mahler’s Sixth Symphony or the St Matthew Passion? One can only assume they do not listen to the music at all.) I could go on at greater length about the production but see little point: half-baked to a – well, to whatever soggy point things that are half-baked are half-baked to…

 

Musically, things were much better. I had worried that Ottavio Dantone might bring a self-consciously ‘authenticist’ reading to the work, but there was little of that. His tempi were varied, judicious, and flexible: always sounding as if they were reached in cooperation with the singers. And the Mozarteum Orchestra was able to sound like itself, warm of string tone, with woodwind both fruity and aristocratic, with no absurd prohibitions on vibrato or other such mannerisms. The sweet sado-masochism of Mozart’s score was able to tell in all its cruel glory.

 

Guglielmo, Don Alfonso, Dorabella, Fiordiligi, Despina (Martina Janková), Ferrando

It was an excellent cast too. Despite a few intonational issues in ‘Come scoglio’ notwithstanding, Julia Kleiter gave a commanding performance as Fiordiligi. She was certainly alert to the cruel parody in Mozart’s mock-seria writing; if only her director had been. Angela Brower made for an excellent Dorabella, very much her own, freer character: silkier, perhaps, when compared with Kleiter’s fine Egyptian cotton. If I have heard a sweeter-, more seductively-toned Ferrando than Mauro Peter I have forgotten – which seems unlikely. Alessio Arduini’s Guglielmo was proud, assertive, flawed: just as he should be, whether vocally or in stage manner (Bechtolf’s absurd interpolated dances notwithstanding). Martina Janková, the sole survivor, from 2013, again impressed as Despina, hers a thoroughly musical rendition, rendering no quarter for caricature. Michael Volle’s Don Alfonso was simply outstanding: what presence vocally he has, and how it is matched with command of the stage! There was much, then, musically to delight, enabling this truly extraordinary opera’s message of existential despair to register as it should.

Salzburg Festival (3) - Charlotte Salomon, 14 August 2014

Images; Ruth Walz/Salzburger Festspiele
Charlotte Kahn (Marianne Crebassa), Charlotte Salomon (Johanna Wokalek)

 

Felsenreitschule

Charlotte Salomon – Johanna Wokalek

Charlotte Kahn – Marianne Crebassa

Paulinka Bimbam – Anaïk Morel

Amadeus Daberlohn – Frédéric Antoun

Herr Knarre, Fourth Nazi – Vincent Le Texier

Frau Knarre – Cornelia Kallisch

Franziska Kahn, A Woman – Géraldine Chauvet

Dr Kahn, First Emigrant – Jean-Sébastien Bou

Professor Klingklang, Art Student, Second Nazi, Policeman – Michal Partyka

Art Professor, Propaganda Minister, First Nazi, Man, Second Emigrant – Eric Huchet

Tyrolese Art Student, Hostel Landlady – Annika Schlicht

Third Nazi – Wolfgang Resch 

Luc Bondy (director)

Johannes Schütz (set designs)

Moidele Bickel (costumes)

Bertrand Couderc (lighting)

Marie-Louise Bischofsberger (choreography)

Konrad Kuhn (dramaturgy)

Choral ‘Stürmer’

Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra

Marc-André Dalbavie (conductor)

 

I wish I could write more enthusiastically about this. What, given the delay over Kurtág’s Endgame, still promised for next year, has turned out to be the first-staged of the Salzburg Festival’s four operatic commissions comes from the pen of a highly-regarded composer, and treats with a subject that sounds, on paper at least, not only worthy but interesting. The story of Charlotte Salomon, a German Jewish artist, who created from her gouaches an autobiographical work, Leben? oder Theater? Ein Singespiel, completed in French exile, prior to her unspeakable end in Auschwitz (not featured here) would seem to propose many possibilities not only for plot and character portrayal and development, but also for contemplation upon the artist’s construction of her life, œuvre, and legacy. (I am not sure why Singespiel rather than Singspiel, although Dalbavie claims in an interview with Konrad Kuhn that the distinction allowed him to avoid the classical Singspiel fate of ‘music … interrupted by spoken scenes of “straight” theatre,’ in favour of ‘recited texts … woven into the music’.) Alas, Marc-André Dalbavie’s Charlotte Salomon proved, if not a failure, then simply rather forgettable, the concept offering more than the reality.

 

What, then, was the problem? Part of it seems to have lain in a somewhat troubled genesis. An original libretto by Richard Millet, with whom Dalbavie had already collaborated on his earlier opera, Gesualdo, was rejected, Dalbavie finding that ‘Millet’s text doesn’t give one enough of an impression of the person Charlotte Salomon and of her work.’ Millet’s libretto has apparently since been published separately in book form. Barbara Honigmann was suggested by Luc Bondy – who had emboldened Dalbavie to reject Millet’s version – and prepared, reasonably enough, a German libretto, translated into French. However, Charlotte Salomon (as opposed to her fictitious alter ego, ‘Charlotte Kahn’) retains her spoken dialogue in German. Much was made in the programme about the ‘chemical reaction’ between French and German, and so on; in reality, such claims come across as special pleading for slight awkwardness. Moreover, Honigmann’s Epilogue underwent radical revision by Bondy and Marie-Louise Bischofsberger at what seems to have been quite a late – too late? – stage. This can only be speculation, given that I do not know what Honigmann provided, but the sketchy nature of the dénouement suggests that either more or less should have been done. Moreover, whilst this is not an opera ‘about’ National Socialism, the almost-walk-on roles for a group of brownshirts, however admirably sung, veer dangerously close to a touch of brief, added ‘colour’.  

 

Dr Kann (Jean-Sébastien Bou), Paulinka Bimbam (Anaïk Morel), Amadeus Daberlohn (Frédéric Antoun), Charlotte Kahn, Frau Knarre (Cornelia Kallisch), Vincent Le Texier (Herr Knarre)

 

The opera also, I think, tries to do too much. There is nothing wrong with ambition, of course, but to write the Ring, you have to be Wagner, and so on. Salomon’s project was of course in part to encapsulate her reimagined life in art, but to present what attempts to be almost an autobiography in operatic form proves too tall an order. The dramatic material actually comes across, metatheatrical intentions notwithstanding, as more suitable for a television mini-series, albeit necessarily condensed, than for a viable opera. ‘The movement of the music and drama,’ Dalbavie claims, ‘does not follow the model of a linear narrative,’ but that actually is very much how it came across to me. As long as Das Rheingold, and likewise presented without an interval – though I do not think a break would have done any violence here to the ‘two acts with a prelude and an epilogue’ – the experience is not tedious, nor indeed unpleasant, but nor does it, or rather in my case did it, inspire, move, or even really engage. Such thoughts and emotions as I experienced tended to be reflections upon either the idea of the work or the story that had inspired it.

 

Dalbavie’s score must also bear responsibility here. I admit to being no expert on his work, though I have heard some and generally found it interesting. I was a little surprised to find it spread so thin, almost as ‘background’. The strongest impressions, arguably too strong in context, come from the music quoted – Carmen, Der Freischütz, Bist du bei mir, and so on – and refracted than from the rest, which often just washes over us. Whilst it is perfectly understandable that Dalbavie, or anyone else, might wish to go beyond spectral music, as generally understood, there might be more compelling ways to do so. The writing is undoubtedly refined, in a manner that almost obliges one to resort to national stereotype, but too often lacks dramatic or indeed even musical interest. Did the troubles over the libretto lead to too much of a rush here? Again, such thoughts can only be speculation, and one can only deal with the results. However, those results, whilst again they could not be described as either tedious or unpleasant, made surprisingly little impression.

Bondy’s staging is perfectly decent, stylishly presenting the action, with a degree of simultaneity of action in the different rooms offered by the long stage of the Felsenreitschule. (Alvis Hermanis made more of a concerted effort in that respect for Die Soldaten, two years previously, but there we are dealing with a towering masterpiece which absolutely requires such treatment.) However, I wondered whether a more forthright metatheatrical treatment might have drawn out the latent aspiration of the work. Katie Mitchell, for instance, would seem to have been made for such themes.

 

 

 

Musical performances were the strongest aspect of the evening. Dalbavie, insofar as I could tell for a new work, drew assured, refined, even committed playing from the Mozarteum Orchestra: a far more versatile ensemble than its reputation, or rather lazy reception thereof, might suggest. Marianna Crebassa and Johanna Wokalek did as much as they could to make one believe in the two Charlottes. Anaïk Morel offered heartfelt and richly-toned singing as Paulinka Bimbam (Charlotte’s stepmother, the singer, Paula Lindberg, one of her roles the aforementioned Carmen). Cornelia Kallisch’s appearance as Charlotte’s grandmother was laudably strong on musico-dramatic commitment; I longed to hear more from her. Frédéric Antoun also made a fine impression, especially attentive to words and their dramatic implications, as Amadeus Daberlohn, the vocal teacher who, in love with Paulinka, spurns the heroine. Indeed, there was no weak list amongst a hard-working cast. Its members could not, however, achieve the seemingly impossible. Salomon’s work, seen here briefly, tantalisingly, remains far more intriguing than this recreation.  

Salzburg Festival (5) - Capuçon/Mozarteum/Bolton, 18 August 2012

Mozarteum

Mozart – Divertimento in F major, KV 247, ‘First Lodron Night Music’

Mozart – Violin Concerto no.4 in D major, KV 218
Mozart – Rondo for violin and orchestra in B-flat major, KV 269
Haydn – Symphony no.103 in E-flat major, ‘Drum Roll’

Renaud Capuçon (violin)

Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra
Ivor Bolton (conductor)
 

An attractive enough programme, this, even if it looked a little as if it had been thrown together rather than considered conceptually. The Mozarteum Orchestra for the most part played very well, less hampered than one might have expected by the use of natural brass (though there were exceptions). Likewise Renaud Capuçon was on splendid form. One could have had worse than Ivor Bolton – for instance, most of his ‘authenticke’ confreres – but it was difficult to find anything that would not have been better done by a good number of other conductors, or indeed by none.

Playing the First Lodron Night Music one-to-a-part is a perfectly justifiable decision, though arguably a little perverse when one has an orchestra to hand. Whether, played in this matter, it benefits from having a conductor is another matter. Often the players seemed to be managing perfectly well without Bolton, whose sub-Bernstein flailing around appeared out of all proportion to discernible results. After a slightly worrying start, the solo strings showed themselves sensible with respect to vibrato; it would only really be when Capuçon  joined them that one realised what one had been missing. (I am not at all sure, however, why the programme claimed that the divertimento would be prefaced by the March, KV 248;  I find it difficult to believe that I somehow missed it in performance.)  Speeds were generally unexceptionable: one should give Bolton credit for that in an age when the general practice is anything but. The exception to the unexceptionable was the second minuet, taken at absurdly breackneck speed, almost overshooting the scherzo level. The two slow movements were nicely differentiated between Andante grazioso and Adagio, even if both might in other hands profitably have been taken a little more slowly. Harmonic motion, however, was conveyed far more successfully by the players when listening to each other than when observing Bolton’s direction. His conception seemed to be entirely sectional; indeed, it proceeded for the most part phrase to phrase.

Capuçon’s tone was as bright as his phrasing was sensitive. (And I certainly do not mean that as a backhanded compliment.) To all intents and purposes these seemed to be his readings, and were all the better for it, Bolton actually proving quite a supportive accompanist. Occasionally, I might have longed for a little more in the way of darkness, though especially during the slow movement of the fourth violin concerto, that was not absent. Cleanness of tone was never clinical; it was simply an indication that the soloist was able to play the notes – rarer than one might expect. That direction lacking in parts of the divertimento was certainly present here. Moreover, Capuçon’s singing tone imparted more of a sense of the serenade than had generally been afforded earlier. What a joy it was to hear the Rondeau played at a sensible tempo – it is marked Andante grazioso – thereby permitting passagework to sound brilliant without being garbled. Following the interval, the B-flat Rondo, KV 269, offered a lively, equally lovable pendant.  Capuçon has mastered that necessary quality of making Mozart performance sound like the easiest thing in the world when, as anyone who has ever attempted it knows, it is actually the most difficult. Rhythmic and harmonic understanding were as one, even – arguably, especially – during the cadenzas.

Haydn’s ‘Drum Roll’ Symphony would doubtless have been mauled far more by more exhibitionistic ‘period’ practitioners. (Though if the best one can say is ‘not very good’, as opposed to charlatan, the situation is far from rosy.) It is, by the same token, not difficult to imagine more absurd, attention-seeking interpretations of the drum roll itself, but again that is not in itself a commendation. Once again, the score, the first movement in particular, proceeded in sectional fashion. How I longed for the harmonic understanding Daniel Barenboim recently showed in his Proms Beethoven cycle. The slow movement, though taken fast, was acceptable enough, save for the perverse rasping noise inflicted by ‘period’ brass at high volume. There was still little sense, however, of how the movement might be considered as a whole, nor indeed of the sophistication of Haydn’s variation form. Somehow the minuet contrived both to be taken one-to-a-bar and yet also to sound sluggish; again, harmony is, or should be the key, here. The finale simply galloped along. Haydn is so very much more interesting than this strange quasi-reversion to ‘Papa Haydn’-type suggested. At least we can return to Jochum, Davis, et al. ...