Bayreuth Festival (4) - Lohengrin, 31 July 2014

 

 

Bayreuth Festspielhaus

King Henry the Fowler – Wilhelm Schwinghammer

Lohengrin – Klaus Florian Vogt

Elsa – Edith Haller

Friedrich von Telramund – Thomas Johannes Mayer

Ortrud – Petra Lang

King’s Herald – Samuel Youn

Brabantian Nobles – Stefan Heibach, Willem van der Heyden, Rainer Zaun, Christian Tschelebiew                                       

Hans Neuenfels (director)

Reinhard von der Thannen (designs)

Franck Evin (lighting)

Björn Verloh (video)

Henry Arnold (dramaturgy)

Bayreuth Festival Chorus (chorus master: Eberhard Friedrich)

Bayreuth Festival Orchestra

Andris Nelsons (conductor)

 

 

What a relief amidst the debris of the Castorf Ring! Hans Neuenfels’s Lohengrin is now widely acclaimed as a classic staging: not, of course, the only way to do it, for there is no single way, but a consistent, brilliantly-executed production, whose run has now been extended for another year. (Sebastian Baumgartner’s Tannhäuser is, by contrast, saying farewell a year earlier than originally envisaged; I cannot imagine why…) Having given accounts of the staging in 2011 and 2012, I do not have a great amount to add to description of what happens, but shall add a few remarks concerning particular aspects that struck me. There was perhaps a sense – born of a first-night performance? – of slight comparative slackness, especially in the first act, but that is really to quibble excessively; certainly the third act was at least as gripping as before, partly because Andris Nelsons’s focus had greatly improved by that stage too. (Again, that is comparative; it was in no way bad beforehand.)

 

 

 

The concept at the heart of the production is a mysterious experiment. (Are not all experiments in a sense mysterious, whatever the claims to the contrary?) During the first act Prelude – though not immediately: Neuenfels permits the music to speak first – Lohengrin seems to be trying to gain entrance to wherever it is that the action is taking place. That initial failure signals that whoever is running the show, it is not Lohengrin; indeed, judged by his record over the evening – and this is Wagner’s doing as much as it is Neuenfels’s – he is a singularly unsuccessful hero, very much in line with most of Wagner’s heroes, Parsifal and Walther excepted. Nor is anyone else we see in charge, least of all the flawed, Fisher-King-like Henry the Fowler, his stooping reminiscent of many an Amfortas. The rats are certainly not free agents, though there are instances of what might just be such free agency, just as there are with Ortud and Telramund, arguably at least as much so as with Lohengrin and Elsa. They are moments, though, and the inevitable victory comes, be it on the part of Fate or a higher earthly power.  It is, of course, to speculate concerning who – if anyone – is running the experiment, but we seem invited to do so, if only to realise the futility of the attempt. Much like late capitalism and its scientific handmaidens more generally, one might say. At any rate, the tragedy is clear, as is our voyeuristic status as observers. A leader at the end has been born or created, but his embryonic status tells the true story, or at least part of it. ‘Reality’ will prevail, which is to say a mystified claim upon scientism’s part will prevail. ‘Objectivity’ is deconstructed, as of course it has been many times before, but when will the powers that be listen?

 

 

Nelsons’s leadership grew in stature as the evening progressed. I suspect that it will do so still further as the festival continues. Flexibility and line were rarely in competition, but generally revealed to be two sides of the same coin, just as they should be. If there were a few moments when the score did seem to meander a little, even when the orchestra sounded slightly subdued, they were readily forgotten in a blaze of orchestral glory for the third act. Daniel Barenboim, amongst present conductors, may find greater metaphysical depth, broader terms of reference, in the score, but few others will. Eberhard Friedrich’s chorus gave a superlative performance: one could have taken verbal as well as musical dictation. And that, let us remember, was at the same time as having to perform highly intricate individual stage manoeuvres, often whilst dressed in rat costumes. There remains no greater opera chorus on earth.

 

Klaus Florian Vogt likewise retains his standing – at least for many of us – as the world’s premier ranking Lohengrin. The nay-sayers will not be convinced; they do not care for his tenor, light but extraordinarily powerful, and they are perfectly within their rights not to do so. The unearthly quality of his voice seems just right to me, its purity as chilling as it is alluring. Again, it is not, of course, the only way, but it is a uniquely compelling way. He looks and acts the part too. Edith Haller replaced Annette Dasch. She had a few uncertain moments, not least concerning intonation in the first act, but her performance grew in conviction, peaking like that of many others in the final act. Thomas Johannes Mayer offered an outstanding Telramund, his perfect marriage of poem and musical line having one wish he were singing Wotan. (But then he might be wasted in the Castorf Ring.) Petra Lang was likewise a truly world-class Ortrud; I can only think of Waltraud Meier in the same breath. Her stage malevolence and vocal magnificence were truly as one. Wilhelm Schwinghammer’s subtle portrayal of King Henry made him a far more interesting character than one often hears: partly Neuenfels’s doing, no doubt, but also the consequence of a thoughtful approach to musical dramatisation on stage, in which weakness and power (both relative) found themselves in fruitful contradiction. Samuel Youn had one notable slip with tuning, but otherwise made for a characterful Herald. Above all, the characters increasingly worked together – and with the chorus and orchestra. A wonderful, much-needed tonic, however disturbing!

Bayreuth Festival (3) - Lohengrin, 13 August 2012

Bayreuth Festspielhaus

King Henry the Fowler – Wilhelm Schwinghammer

Lohengrin – Klaus Florian Vogt
Elsa – Annette Dasch
Friedrich von Telramund – Thomas Johannes Mayer
Ortrud – Susan Maclean
King’s Herald – Samuel Youn
Brabantian Nobles – Stefan Heibach, Willem van der Heyden, Rainer Zaun, Christian Tschelebiew

Hans Neuenfels (director)

Reinhard von der Thannen (designs)
Franck Evin (lighting)
Björn Verloh (video)
Henry Arnold (dramaturgy)

Bayreuth Festival Chorus (chorus master: Eberhard Friedrich)

Bayreuth Festival Orchestra
Andris Nelsons (conductor)

I found much to admire last year in Hans Neuenfels’s production of Lohengrin, though equally voiced a few reservations. This time around, perhaps having overcome my initial surprise at the now-celebrated infestation of rats, I found little to quibble about at all. Indeed, the production seemed elevated almost to the level of a companionable yet still provocative classic. Direction appeared still tighter, and I did not feel there were many, if any, instances of working against Wagner’s score; indeed, subtle distinctions of movement, which I am not convinced were necessarily there last year, suggested commendable consonance. Where there was simply too much confusion in the previous evening’s Flying Dutchman, there could be little doubt that we were seeing what we were meant to see. At the heart of Neuenfels’s production, or at least my understanding of it, remains the experiment, into which Lohengrin first, unsuccessfully, tries to break, towards the end of the First Act Prelude. He eventually gains access, yet that initial failure is noteworthy: whoever is in control, it is not Lohengrin. Nor is it King Henry, who is dragged off-stage by the mysterious attendants – redolent perhaps of those enigmatic ‘authorities’ to whom Don Ottavio refers in Don Giovanni. Indeed, the king is clearly a flawed, even wounded, perhaps Amfortas-like character: an intriguing and utterly convincing conception. Interestingly, two instances of characters throwing off the shackles of supervision are Ortrud and Lohengrin, arguably when both are at the height of their powers during the second act. So no authority is absolute, perhaps, though whatever this is – Fate? The near-omnipotent surveillance of late capitalism? The illusion of the Gesamtkunstwerk? – manages to reassert itself, before bringing forth the fragile infant figure of Gottfried from within an egg. (Incidentally, I cannot now imagine why I found that problematical last year, so it is time to recant.)  One of the most telling aspects of the staging is the impatience, at moments shading from frustration into anger, that Lohengrin experiences with respect to Elsa. Neither of these characters is a saint.

Andris Nelsons’s conducting had progressed by leaps and bounds; it certainly proved more coherent than either Philippe Jordan’s account of Parsifal or, perhaps more surprisingly, Christian Thielemann’s sometimes brilliant yet sometimes flawed conducting of The Flying Dutchman. The orchestral sound was aptly golden, more redolent of Vienna than anywhere further north. Ebb and flow were splendidly judged throughout, with none of the mannerisms that intruded from time to time in 2011. At the risk of sounding like a stuck record, Eberhard Friedrich’s chorus was magnificent: absolutely crucial in this work, of course; the chorus members’ acting as part of the pliable, threatening mass was equally exemplary.

Klaus Florian Vogt would seem to have been born to play Lohengrin. The unheimlich quality of his voice meshes perfectly both with role and production. What a relief it is not to have to endure a strained or downright unpleasant tenor in this repertoire, even if I thought there were just a few occasions this year when he might have been guilty of coasting towards slight blandness. That said, there were many instances not only of unearthly beauty but of fine dynamic shading and phrasing. Moreover, Vogt looks the part, which one can hardly say of Johan Botha, the most recent Lohengrin at Covent Garden. Annette Dasch may not have been the most memorable of Elsas, but she offered an attentive, varied assumption, far more secure than Astrid Weber, whom I heard as a late replacement for Dasch last year. Thomas Johannes Mayer was an excellent Telramund, both forthright and sensitive. If Susan Maclean paled somewhat in comparison with Petra Lang’s Ortrud in 2011, Maclean’s tone lacking refulgence, she nevertheless did as much to compensate with stage presence as she could. (The final scene seemed overdone, though that may well have been a matter of direction: here, Ortrud seemed less drunk with power than merely drunk.) Samuel Youn was on better form as the Herald than he had been as the Dutchman the night before, though intonational problems reared their head again. The splendidly named Wilhelm Schwinghammer was an excellent King Henry; it is a fine achievement to sing strongly and yet convincingly play the role of a weak man, as opposed to acting weakly.

This production is now available on DVD, filmed last year. Though I have not actually seen the DVD, my experiences this year and in 2011 render me reasonably certain that I can, indeed should, offer a firm recommendation.

Bayreuth Festival (2) - Der fliegende Holländer, 12 August 2012

Bayreuth Festspielhaus

Daland – Franz-Josef Selig
Senta – Adrienne Pieczonka
Erik – Michael König
Mary – Christa Mayer
Steersman – Benjamin Bruns
The Dutchman – Samuel Youn

Jan Philipp Gloger (director)
Christof Hetzer (set designs)
Karin Jud (costumes)
Urs Schönebaum (lighting)
Martin Eidenberger (video)
Sophie Becker (dramaturgy)

Bayreuth Festival Chorus (chorus master: Eberhard Friedrich)
Bayreuth Festival Orchestra
Christian Thielemann (conductor)

Assuming that Rienzi and Wagner’s two earlier operas will not enter the regular Festival repertory, and discounting Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, The Flying Dutchman was my final work from the Wagner canon to hear at Bayreuth. Unusually, early controversy was elicited not by the production, but by casting. Evgeny Nikitin, as the whole world must now be aware, was forced to withdraw, or ‘asked to resign’, owing to an absurd over-reaction to a tattoo claimed to be a swastika but which was not. Bayreuth’s nervousness concerning the slightest possible connection to its darkest period is understandable, but the Festival would be far better advised to confront its past head on, as Katharina Wagner seems commendably determined to do, rather than to resort to such quick-fix public relations gimmicks, which will always backfire.

Nikitin is a fine artist and was sorely missed, his replacement Samuel Youn to be lauded for acting as a last-minute replacement but hardly for his performance. Whilst he started off resoundingly dark and clear of tone, he did not reach the end of his monologue before intonational problems set in. Alarmingly, there were entire phrases during his performance when he was as much as a quarter-tone off-pitch; it was not a matter of odd notes. Perhaps the audience was being indulgent on account of the special situation, but this was some way by now from the first night; I could not help but think that the warm reaction Youn received signalled an audience for the most part unable to discern his tuning, even if one were to put aside a rather dour stage presence.

His colleagues, save for a rather nondescript Mary – why does this role seem so difficult to cast? – provided a good deal of vocal compensation. Adrienne Pieczonka had a few moments in which her tuning too left a little to be desired, also on occasion her diction, but for the most part, hers was an impressive, unusually womanly, performance. This Senta was no girl and seemed, which fitted well with the production, to know very much what she was doing. Her Erik, Michael König, showed himself possessed of a fine, mellifluous tenor, even if he were a little stiff on stage. Benjamin Bruns was quite a revelation as the Steersman. His is a still more mellifluous, at times ravishingly beautiful, voice; I wished that more had been written for him. Perhaps best of all was Franz-Josef Selig’s Daland, unerringly centred with respect to pitch and words, and just as unerring when it came to tonal warmth. Perhaps he ultimately sounds a little too kindly for the role, but that is really to nit-pick.

Christian Thielemann drew an echt-Bayreuth sound from the Festival Orchestra. He certainly knows how to work both orchestra and Festspielhaus acoustic. Not that this reading was undifferentiated in its darkness; there were splendidly light, almost fairy-like, Mendelssohnian textures to be enjoyed too. However, there were problems with Thielemann’s performance – at least for me, though the audience again reacted almost ecstatically at the endless curtain calls. A recurring trait in some, though far from all, of his performances is a tendency to pull around the music arbitrarily, almost because he can. Whilst it can occasionally prove refreshing, if only as a counterblast to unimaginative or doctrinaire-metronomic performances, here there were too many occasions, as in his Philharmonia recording of Schumann’s Second Symphony, in which it sounded merely contrived and interrupted the flow. There was a wonderfully pregnant slowing at the end of Senta’s ballad, fully justified by the anticipation it engendered. Balanced against that were frankly bizarre gear-changes such as a sudden slowing during the transition to the third act. (The opera was performed in an unbroken span, and in Wagner’s later version.) I was also a little surprised to hear the old operatic forms so clearly delineated; yes, Wagner marks them in the score, but I have yet to hear a performance of the ‘number-opera’ as opposed to the ‘music-drama’ variety that has proved entirely convincing. More than once I longed for Klemperer’s level-headed yet visceral communication of the score. Choral singing was first-rate throughout.

I was left somewhat nonplussed by Jan Phillip Gloger’s production, new this year. It has some excellent visual touches, not least thanks to Christof Hetzer’s striking set designs and Urs Schönebaum’s evocative and equally striking lighting. I liked the use of red to denote Senta’s realm of adventure, drawing together her dress, the red with which she daubs boxes to bring about her own modest Dutchman installation – the equivalent to the painting – and the sometimes shocking use of blood. And the way silhouetting is imaginatively employed to make the fantasy of not only a boat but a liberating cityscape is impressive indeed. The modernity of Daland’s factory is chillingly conveyed, but it is not entirely clear to me that it is enough for a production of this work to indict contemporary capitalism – contemporary to us, that is. I have no particular problem with the setting being an electric fan factory: spinning of a sort, I suppose. Yet it did not seem to add anything very much, save for the very end, when, courtesy of an opportunistic mobile telephone picture taken by the Steersman, Wagnerian redemption is splendidly undercut by transformation of the fan design into a memento of the suicide of Senta and the Dutchman. That was by far the most savage indictment of the evening of our sick and sickening system of production.

The presentation of the Dutchman as a weird, android-like figure, presumably a product thereof, seemed more odd than anything else. At his entrance, wheeling in – yes, you have guessed it – a suitcase, he appeared to me to be injecting himself with a syringe. He did not seem very practised at it, for a great deal of blood was spilled. Apparently that was the point, cutting himself to show that he was human after all, but I was not the only person to have missed that in the theatre, having instead to resort to a programme interview. There were, indeed, too many instances where the action, especially for a relatively small theatre, was on too small a scale properly to understand, or was simply, at least to me, obscure. I had the sense that there was a better production waiting to break out; let us hope that the Werkstatt principle will enable refinements in years to come.