Der Rosenkavalier, Semperoper Dresden, 3 April 2023

Die Feldmarschallin, Fürstin Werdenberg – Camilla Nylund
Der Baron Ochs auf Lerchenau – Peter Rose
Octavian – Sophie Koch
Herr von Faninal – Markus Eiche
Sophie – Nikola Hillebrand
Jungfer Marianne Leitmetzerin – Daniela Köhler
Valzacchi – Aaron Pegram
Annina – Christa Mayer
Police Officer – Tilmann Rönnebeck
The Marschallin’s Major-domo – Florian Hoffmann
Faninal’s Major-domo – Jürgen Müller
House Servant – Holger Steinert
A Notary – Matthias Henneberg
A Landlord – Kevin Conners
A Singer – Pavol Breslik
A Milliner – Katerina von Benningsen
A Vendor of Pets – Andreas Sauerzapf
Leopold – Yevgen Bondarenko
Lackeys – Jun Seok Bang, Norbert Klasse, Ingolf Stollberg-da Silva, Matthias Beutlich
Waiters – Markus Hansel, Max Hebeis, Andreas Heinze, Thomas Müller
Three noble orphans – Ofeliya Pogosyan, Mariya Taniguchi, Justyna Olów
Lerchenauschen – Alexander Födisch, Wooram Lim, Thomas Müller, Mirko Tuma, Werner Harke, Holger Steinert
Hairdresser – Mario Kretschmer
Mohammed – Ricardo Garcia Heine

Uwe Eric Laufenberg (director)
Christoph Schubiger (designs)
Jessica Karge (costumes)
Torsten Schäfer, Jan Seeger (lighting)
Hella Bartnig (dramaturgy)  

Children’s Choir of the Semperoper Dresden

Dresden State Opera Chorus (chorus director: André Kellinghaus)

Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden

Cornelius Meister (conductor)

Images: © Semperoper Dresden/Klaus Gigga

One more step back towards operatic ‘normality’, at least in Germany for me: a performance of Der Rosenkavalier with its large cast, no sign of (anti-)social distancing, and as yet no sign of a Covid-themed staging. (We know they are coming: the masks, the ventilators, the Tristan love-duet via Microsoft Teams, the Downing Street ‘Abba parties’; let us enjoy their absence while we can.) My reunion with characters one fancies one knows so well they might be personal acquaintances took place in Dresden, at the Semperoper, in a production by Uwe Eric Laufenberg I saw previously in 2014. It does not seem so long, as the Marschallin would understand all too well. 

First seen in 2000, it is, like most of us after the last few years, somewhat looking its age. In 2014, I thought it had belied its years. Whether that says more about me or the production, I do not know: perhaps a bit of both. Updating a century-and-a-half or so does no harm, though it perhaps makes no particular point either other than visualising the distances and anachronisms in which Strauss and Hofmmansthal deal. There are puzzling details, for instance: why does Octavian wear a black tie with evening tails? And there are, I think, a few changes, with some overlap. The peculiar treatment of Mohammed is no more, though he remains unusually evident, only not to appear at all at the close, Ochs’s ‘children’ taking his place. None of that is of particular importance, though, and issues not only of the male gaze – complicated, of course, in a world of cross-dressing – but also of publicity remain strong. The Marschallin’s relation to the latter world is, appropriately, more old-fashioned, her levée remaining much as it ‘should’, whereas chez Faninal, with its touch of Hollywood new money, the Presentation of the Rose is a choreographed photoshoot. Paparazzi or their equivalent even scale the building to gain an ‘exclusive’ picture of Octavian and Sophie ‘in private’. The Italians straddle both worlds. 

A notable change this time was the conductor. Christian Thielemann was due to have conducted the performance once more, but withdrew, replaced with Cornelius Meister. If the performance were less razor-sharp than last time, I suspect that was more down to rehearsal time and the vagaries of standing in than anything else. The first act seemed at times to drag, but the second two were well proportioned and full of incident. Moreover, the first-act Prelude can rarely, if ever, have made its intentions, here frankly post-Tannhäuser, more immediately apparent. If you did not feel the earth move, you must not have been listening. Indeed, Meister’s somewhat Wagnerian way with much of the score, gently yet tellingly contradicting lazy assumptions of a volte face after Elektra, brought ready human warmth and motivic integrity in equal measure. The Staatskapelle Dresden, effortlessly at home in this music since its premiere, brought a multitude of colours born of, yet never bogged down in, tradition.

 

Camilla Nylund’s warmth as the Marschallin, especially in the first act, sounded similarly inspired, or at least in sympathy. She became steelier in the third act, often thrillingly so, in triumphant, only part-tragic, reassertion of her authority. She, after all, may and probably should be understood to direct her own opera—and certainly did so here. Sophie Koch, also Octavian in 2014, seemed a little more out of sorts. In many ways, it was a very good performance, yet it was one that left one thinking this may be a role she, like Octavian with his recent past, should now leave behind, her voice having changed considerably in the meantime. Nikola Hillebrand made for a highly impressive Sophie: not only less unsympathetic than often, but more multi-dimensional, on the cusp in so many ways. Peter Rose, another 2014 veteran, gave another highly accomplished performance as Ochs. He knows the role inside out and can play with it, the language in particular assimilated as if he were speaking it spontaneously, yet he takes nothing for granted. His boredom with the Italian singer, here in an utterly outstanding cameo by none other than Pavol Breslik, was as much a joy to watch as last time. Casting was throughout from depth, everyone contributing something. Christa Mayer’s Annina was a class act indeed, having one wish for more. Markus Eiche’s Faninal was similarly, if differently, well observed. Yes, something approaching normality was back, though not without regard to the special quality of the operatic moment.

Bayreuth Festival (3) - Parsifal, 25 August 2017

Festspielhaus

Amfortas – Ryan McKinny

Titurel – Karl-Heinz Lehner
Gurnemanz – Georg Zeppenfeld
Parsifal – Andreas Schager
Klingsor – Derek Welton
Kundry – Elena Pankratova
First Knight of the Grail – Tansel Akzeybek
Second Knight of the Grail – Timo Riihonen
Squires – Alexandra Steiner, Mareike Morr, Paul Kaufmann Stefan Heibach
Flowermaidens – Netta Or, Katharina Persicke, Mareike Morr, Alexandra Steiner, Bele Kumberger, Sophie Rennert
Contralto solo – Wiebke Lehmkuhl

Uwe Eric Laufenberg (director)

Gisbert Jäkel (set designs)
Jessica Karge (costumes)
Reinhard Traub (lighting)
Gérard Naziri (video)
Richard Lorber (dramaturgy)

Bayreuth Festival Chorus (chorus master: Eberhard Friedrich)

Bayreuth Festival Orchestra
Hartmut Haenchen (conductor)

 

One of the great advantages of the Bayreuth Festival is its Werkstatt principle. Not only do production planning and rehearsal take place in something at least approaching what a festival should be; there is also, crucially, opportunity to revisit, to rethink a staging the following year. Alas, I could see no sign whatsoever of Uwe Eric Laufenberg having done so. That his production of Parsifal is here at all is in itself rather contrary to the principles of the festival. It was brought in, almost off the peg, a production originally intended for Cologne yet never staged there (lucky Cologne!), following the summary dismissal of Jonathan Meese, supposedly over budgetary issues. Who knows what Meese might have come up with? I find it difficult to imagine that it would have been boring, at least, certainly not when compared with this.

 

For if the shock value of Laufenberg’s Islamophobia has somewhat dissipated, it has left in its wake still more grinding tedium and banality. The production, should one stay awake, remains offensive, but it is so ill thought through – what on earth was Laufenberg’s dramaturge doing, or why on earth was he not listened to? – that it is difficult to imagine anyone offering more of a gesture to jihad than a shrug of the shoulders and a series of mighty yawns. Were it not a dereliction of duty that might, at a pinch, court comparison with the production itself, I should be tempted merely to cut and paste what I said last year and then add something about the performances. As it is, I hope I shall be forgiving by quoting myself here, before moving on to attempt to say something slightly different: ‘Indeed, this may well be the most boring staging of the work I have seen in the theatre; take away its attempt at contemporary “relevance”, it might as well have been by Wolfgang Wagner or Otto Schenk. Its premise – seemingly contrived by a nightmare team of Richard Dawkins and Stephen Fry, “introducing” George W. Bush as dramaturge – would have been more offensive still, had it been presented with some degree of coherence; one should, I suppose, be grateful for small mercies.’

 

Monsalvat seems to be some sort of Christian community in Iraq, in which some refugees – patronisingly presented as quite without agency themselves – have taken refuge, pursued, or worse, ‘protected’ by Western soldiers. Good for the community, one might say, even if one did not hold with its beliefs. Indeed one might, but Laufenberg is made of sterner stuff. These people are cretins, who deserve only to be mocked, even pilloried. (Perhaps they like Wagner too, or would, given half a chance! Who knows? They might even have taken the trouble to read his writings on religion. Losers!) Why? Because – drum roll – they are ‘religious’. I use the word deliberately, since it is not a word anyone with any real interest in religion, let alone theology, would be likely to use in such a context. It is the bastard offspring of ‘superstitious’ to a third-rate philosophe. And so, in a reframing of the ritual at the end of the act, which might be interesting if it laid claim to anything other than the merely arbitrary, Amfortas is himself crucified and these ghastly, non-liberal people drink his blood. Christians, eh? Presumably Amfortas’s weird nappy is intended to convey quite how infantile this savagery is. Not the sort of thing our dinner-party crowd would do. You mean these people are not centrists? Golly: how outré! Well, we were quite right to invade, then, as Tony said… As for the misunderstanding – a schoolboy would have made a far better stab at it – of Kant and Schopenhauer, as in ‘Zum Raum wird hier die Zeit’: the first Transformation Music glories in a filmic zooming out from Mesopotamia to outer space. It would almost be funny, except again, it is merely tedious – and mind-numbingly stupid.

 

We then shift to the real enemy in the second act. Let us follow in the footsteps of Danish cartoonists and rail at a ridiculous caricature of Islam. It is a ‘religion’, after all, and probably even worse than Christianity. Indeed, definitely worse: there may be no women at Monsalvat, save, perhaps, for the odd refugee, but have you seen these poor Muslim women? Burkini types, no doubt. And indeed, the Flowermaidens, initially dressed ‘modestly’, can reveal their true selves, when, liberated by Parsifal as Western soldier, they reinvent themselves as ‘exotic’ belly dancers. Now our Western hero is interested: what sort of self-respecting woman would not want to display herself to the first passing colonial soldier? Strange, but at least those silly souls – oops: forgive the quaint theology! – have learned their lesson. When things get a little more heated with Kundry, Klingsor the ‘religious’ hypocrite self-flagellates in front of his collection of crucifixes. Amfortas has joined proceedings to give Kundry what she needs – very briefly: very, very briefly. (Or is it just a crass – sorry: ‘provocative’ – visualisation of her recollections? Who cares?) I had almost forgotten: above Klingsor, above the rest of the ‘action’ for both of the first two acts, sits a weird blue mannequin in blue PVC. He does nothing; maybe he cannot. No explanation is given as to who he is, or why he is there. I fear he might be God, or rather those whom the credulous worship as such. Have they not heard? He is dead! Christopher Hitchens told us so. He wanted to invade Iraq too.

 

The mannequin disappears at the beginning of the third act. Has something changed? Yes, the West has won. Parsifal returns to Gurnemanz and Kundry, who share a wheelchair, yet seem perfectly capable of walking when it is the other one’s turn. (What, after all, is an opera production without a wheelchair? No suitcase? Now that is brave!) The Flowermaidens can now do what they were itching to do all along: take all their clothes off and take a soft-porn ‘lesbian for straight men’ shower together. Islam is over, thank God (if you will pardon the expression!) So is Christianity – Judaism too. The final scene – the mannequin ‘mysteriously’ returns: perhaps there is a remnant now of ‘belief’ still to be eradicated – shows members of the three ‘faiths’ shed their differences, eradicate the barbaric ritual, and just get on together after all. Imagine: there are still some diehards who think the invasion of Iraq was not a good thing. There are some, even, who still read Aquinas…! And yet, I fear I have made all of that sound far too interesting. In between, for most of the time, are long stretches of nothingness, designs shamelessly ripped off from other stagings, other images. If only I could believe that were a knowing commentary on nihilism. Confronted with a choice between Laufenberg and Parsifal, Nietzsche, I am confident, would have had no hesitation whatsoever in choosing the work he so despised.

 

What a waste, then, of such excellent singers. Andreas Schager’s Parsifal is by now, for many of us, a known quantity, but that does not make his true, thoughtful Heldentenor any the less worthy of praise. He did what he could dramatically, but it was impossible not to wish one were seeing him again in Dmitri Tcherniakov’s brilliant Berlin staging. Tirelessly committed, ‘what he could’ remained impressive indeed: in a different league from last year’s Klaus Florian Vogt. ‘What Elena Pankratova could’ was likewise deeply impressive, as alert as she could be to the changing requirements and possibilities of her role. It would be a wonderful thing to hear her Kundry elsewhere, I am sure. Georg Zeppenfeld’s Gurnemanz is deeply considered in its blend of words and music; if only Gurnemanz could have offered some words of wisdom on an anti-theology so out of its depth that it could not even reach Wagner’s shallows. That Zeppenfeld continued to command attention tells us much of what we need to know concerning the quality of his performance. Ryan McKinny gave another fine performance as Amfortas, keenly aware of the transformation of the character – staging aside – between first and third acts. Derek Welton’s Klingsor was one of the best sung I have heard: no mere caricature, deeply musical in its malevolence. The smaller roles were all very well taken, knights and squires in particular far more than near-anonymous ‘extras’. And the choral contribution was truly outstanding. Every word could be heard – an achievement in itself – yet never at the expense of musical values. Translucent and weighty as required, even simultaneously, the Bayreuth Festival Chorus, clearly well prepared by Eberhard Friedrich, did everything that could have been expected of it – indeed more.

Hartmut Haenchen kept the score going, but had little insight to offer. He prides himself, apparently, on being fast, indeed as fast as possible. He probably achieved that, although a quick featureless performance will seem to last far longer than a considered, dramatically fruitful reading. There were times when his speeds reached levels of absurdity, not least since they were not in proportion to other sections. (That is a good part of the secret to good, let alone Wagner, conducting, as the Master’s essay, Über das Dirigieren, ‘On Conducting’, would have made clear. Boulez often lauded it, rightly so.) The orchestra ‘itself’ sounded wonderful; this is, after all, its acoustic par excellence. One could even imagine it, in Debussy’s celebrated phrase, ‘lit from behind’, even if Haenchen seemed more concerned to switch the lights off as quickly as possible, and rarely, if ever, to let the orchestra have its luminous head. To think, such a Kapellmeister-ish despatch stands as an heir (if not quite the immediate successor) to the revelatory performances of Daniele Gatti – or indeed, in a very different mould, to Boulez. And alas, to think: Laufenberg is likewise Bayreuth’s ‘successor’ to Stefan Herheim.

 

Elektra, Vienna State Opera, 26 June 2017

Vienna State Opera

Elektra – Nina Stemme

Chrysothemis – Regine Hangler

Klytämnestra – Waltraud Meier

Orest – Alan Held

Aegisth – Herbert Lippert

First Maid – Monika Bohinec

Second Maid – Ilsyear Khayrullova

Third Maid – Ulrike Helzel

Fourth Maid – Lauren Michelle

Fifth Maid – Ildikó Raimondi

Overseer – Donna Ellen

Young Servant – Benedikt Kobel

Old Servant – Dan Paul Dumitrescu

Orest’s tutor – Wolfgang Bankl

Confidante – Simina Ivan

Trainbearer – Zoryana Kushpler

Uwe Eric Laufenberg (director)

Karin Voykowitsch (revival director)

Rolf Glittenberg (set designs)

Marianne Glittenberg (costumes)

Andreas Grüter (lighting)

Chorus and Orchestra of the Vienna State Opera

Michael Boder (conductor)

I first saw Uwe Eric Laufenberg’s production of Elektra in 2014; two-and-a-half years on, it still impresses, although much seemed at least a degree less sharp – not in pitch, well not always...! – than first time around. Perhaps that is simply a reflection of available rehearsal time and the travails of a repertory house. It had the consequence, to my mind somewhat regrettable, of throwing the focus more upon the musical performances as such – not, of course, that they are not greatly important – and less upon the sum of the parts, or, if one must, the Gesamtkunstwerk.

As I observed last time, Laufenberg’s production is intelligent throughout and, for the work, intriguingly different, although not for the sake of ‘difference’. It is certainly infinitely preferable to his truly dreadful Bayreuth Parsifal, which manages somehow to be deathly boring and downright offensive at the same time. (Let us hope, against hope, for major revisions this summer!) Rolf Glittenberg’s set designs remain in keeping with the general ‘look’ of Elektra: does any major opera seem to lend itself less to a radical change of scenery? Accentuating the domesticity is in line with the Strauss-Hofmannsthal psychoanalytical approach to the myth. It is not that there is anything small-scale about this, but we are reminded that this is a home, a home of sadness, of ‘perversion’, whatever that might be, and far less a political setting. That said, I thought the interwar – Nazi-ish – overtones of the costumes, of the characters’ look, came across more strongly than last time. This is not simply a place of death, but a place death has visited and will not release for particular reasons. One need not worry too much about that context if one does not wish, but the uniforms and dogs are suggestive.

The lift connecting the palace proper to the courtyard remains a crucial cabinet of movement, of display, a cabinet of curiosities taken to its deadly extreme. Klytämnestra descends, twice (the second time dead) in it, and Aegisth never reaches the top. Behind the glass, the characters, above all Klytämnestra already seems encased, entombed: a taxidermist’s objet d’art, as I thought of it last time. Again, I can imagine that some might be irritated by the cliché of her wheelchair. But it is put to good, if relatively straightforward, use. Once her retinue is out of the way, she can put it to one side, actually engage with Elektra ‘as a mother’ – as Andrea Leadsom might put it. The overtly ‘beautiful’ dancers and dancing at the close, in counterpoint to Elektra’s own plight, continue to make an interesting, not un-Adornian point concerning Strauss’s score. That Adorno was, I think, quite wrong to condemn Strauss as he did is neither here nor there; we can argue about that. There is something, though, to the hollowness of the ending that merits exploration – and it receives that here.

I wrote at length on Nina Stemme’s performance last time. She is a very great singer, of course, one who pays a near ideal blend of attention – attention, moreover, that is fully achieved – between words and vocal line. That said, her performance did not grab me quite as it did in 2014, let alone as it did in the unforgettable Patrice Chéreau production (which I saw on the Met cinema broadcast last year: much better, incidentally, than when it came to Berlin that autumn). Like much else on this occasion, there seemed to be a relative disengagement. Waltraud Meier’s Klytämnestra likewise suffered from that same comparison with New York. I yield to none in my admiration for her as a singing actress, but the ‘singing’ part was unquestionably lesser on this occasion. Regine Hangler was a highly variable Chrysothemis: sometimes wildly out of tune, on other occasions – alas, too few – thrillingly able to ride the orchestral wave. Her acting skills, though, proved rudimentary: a pity. Alan Held’s Orest offered an estimable blend of musical values and subtle dramatic psychopathy. Herbert Lippert’s Aegisth was, sadly, no better than last time. The orchestra did not fail to impress; it would be a sad day indeed if this of all orchestras did not in Strauss. However, it did not impress as it had done under (the surprisingly good) Peter Schneider in 2014. Michael Boder knew how the score went, but there was a touch of fuzziness around the edges by comparison. Certain passages came a little too close to dragging. As for Esa-Pekka Salonen in New York – or indeed, Daniele Gatti in Salzburg a few years ago – that was conducting in a different league altogether.

Bayreuth Festival (5) - Parsifal, 24 August 2016

Bayreuth Festspielhaus

Amfortas – Ryan McKinny

Titurel – Karl-Heinz Lehner
Gurnemanz – Georg Zeppenfeld
Parsifal – Klaus Florian Vogt
Klingsor – Gerd Grochowski
Kundry – Elena Pankratova
First Knight of the Grail – Tansel Akzeybek
Second Knight of the Grail – Timo Riihonen
Squires – Alexandra Steiner, Mareike Morr, Charles Kim, Stefan Heibach
Flowermaidens – Anna Siminska, Katharina Persicke, Mareike Morr, Alexandra Steiner, Bele Kumberger, Ingeborg Gillebo
Contralto solo – Wiebke Lehmkuhl

Uwe Eric Laufenberg (director)

Gisbert Jäkel (set designs)
Jessica Karge (costumes)
Reinhard Traub (lighting)
Gérard Naziri (video)
Richard Lorber (dramaturgy)

Bayreuth Festival Chorus (chorus master: Eberhard Friedrich)

Bayreuth Festival Orchestra
Hartmut Haenchen (conductor)

 

Stefan Herheim’s Bayreuth Parsifal – perhaps the greatest staging of any opera I have ever seen (reviewed here, here, and here) – was always going to be a difficult act to follow. Katharina Wagner showed considerable boldness, to put it mildly, in planning to have Herheim’s production succeeded by one from the performance artist and painter, Jonathan Meese, entirely untested as an opera director, although he had designed the sets for Wolfgang Rihm’s Dionysus in Salzburg, in 2010. The plug was pulled on that plan for financial reasons; or so it was said. Goodness knows what Meese’s Parsifal might have been; I tend to agree with Tom Service that it was ‘a shame … whatever else, it sure wouldn’t have been stultifying or conventional’. All is not entirely lost on that front, though, for a ‘new Parsifal opera’, seemingly deconstructionist yet nevertheless mythological, by Bernhard Lang will be directed by Meese next year in Vienna (at the Festwochen, I hasten to add, not at the State Opera!)

 

By contrast, I am afraid to say that all has been lost on the Bayreuth front with this new production by Uwe Erich Laufenberg. (And lest excuses be made about shortness of preparation time, it is actually a production originally intended for Cologne, which never materialised there.) Whilst I cannot say that earlier productions of Laufenberg’s I have seen, a Dresden Rosenkavalier and a Vienna Elektra, had proved earth-shattering, they were both intelligently put together, coherent, and with plenty of theatrical interest. None of that could be claimed of a production which is, to return to what Service said Meese would not have been, above all stultifying. Indeed, this may well be the most boring staging of the work I have seen in the theatre; take away its attempt at contemporary ‘relevance’, it might as well have been by Wolfgang Wagner or Otto Schenk. Its premise – seemingly contrived by a nightmare team of Richard Dawkins and Stephen Fry, ‘introducing’ George W. Bush as dramaturge – would have been more offensive still, had it been presented with some degree of coherence; one should, I suppose, be grateful for small mercies.

 

As it is, I can do no better than quote the opening Terry Eagleton’s magisterial LRB review of a book by the preposterous Dawkins (the review is more than well worth reading in its entirety):

Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology. Card-carrying rationalists like Dawkins, who is the nearest thing to a professional atheist we have had since Bertrand Russell, are in one sense the least well-equipped to understand what they castigate, since they don’t believe there is anything there to be understood, or at least anything worth understanding. This is why they invariably come up with vulgar caricatures of religious faith that would make a first-year theology student wince. The more they detest religion, the more ill-informed their criticisms of it tend to be. If they were asked to pass judgment on phenomenology or the geopolitics of South Asia, they would no doubt bone up on the question as assiduously as they could. When it comes to theology, however, any shoddy old travesty will pass muster. These days, theology is the queen of the sciences in a rather less august sense of the word than in its medieval heyday.

 

It would be tempting to leave matters there, but alas, I should say something about the production myself, not least to attempt to justify the strong words above. Laufenberg takes us, with as much insensitivity as it would generally be possible, to Iraq. When the curtain opens, part way through the first Prelude, we see what appear to be refugees taking shelter in Monsalvat, which turns out to be a Christian community in war-torn territory. Running across the stage from time to time are some oldiers, presumably American, although I suppose they could be Blairite. Lest we feel unduly sympathetic, however, to people whose country has been invaded and their temple trashed, we learn that they are ‘fanatics’. If only they did not have such silly beliefs – no musician would ever consider the transcendent, would (s)he? – no one would ever have thought of destroying their lives; after all, Iraq was not about oil, was it? And so, in the sole powerful theatrical moment – however dubious – of the whole production, Amfortas is put on to the Cross himself, actually crucified for a while, and made to contribute blood himself to feed the community. Because that is what Iraqi Christians do, is it not? How good of a rational European to point that out to them and to us. The pornographic treatment of Ryan McKinny’s wounded, muscled body, naked, save, bizarrely, for what seems to be a nappy (!), suggests an object of devotion in itself. That might, in other circumstances, have led somewhere; Monsalvat is, after all, a dying community (cf. Dmitri Tcherniakov). Here, one can only presume, we are merely meant to appreciate that these simple folk are not only hopelessly deluded; they are sick perverts too. The rest is vapid nothingness – never more so than in what seems to be a bizarre misunderstanding of ‘Zum Raum wird hier Zeit’, the Transformation Music set to an expensive-looking video that takes us out into space, for an aerial view of the world, prior to homing in on our ‘conflict zone’. Religion, eh: what a terrible thing it is; how stupid it must seem to Martians and to enlightened earth-dwellers.

 

What to do for the second act? Let us be really brave, speak truth to power, spurn Western imperialism and racism, and have a go at Islam. Klingsor’s Magic Garden seems to be in ISIS-lite-land. Muslims, you see: they are both savages and hypocrites. Klingsor keeps a stash of crucifixes, perhaps stolen from the foolish Christian knights: perhaps he is ‘really’ a Christian himself, or perhaps it is just loot. Who cares? Later on, he flagellates himself (with his clothes on), excited by Kundry’s attempts at seducing Parsifal. There is worse, though, much worse. Soldiers again run across the stage from time to time; Parsifal, it turns out, is one of them. Being an American soldier of course means that he must be in the right. The Flowermaidens come onstage, hijab- or niqab-clad. (I do not think there was anyone with a full burka, but could not bring myself to look too closely.) Parsifal is not interested. They come back, having shed their modesty; interested he most certainly now is, and the Arab world is what it should be, an ‘exotic’ fantasy playground for white heterosexual men. So, having essentialised women’s bodies, reminded us  what they are really for, and having shown us what Islam is really about (probably even worse than Christianity, and equally lacking in subtlety, depth, or difference), we can sit back and endure a theatrically inert seduction. Amfortas – has the poor soul not suffered enough? – joins as a spectator, because otherwise we should not understand that he has some connection with what is unfolding. For anyone who might care, Parsifal makes no sign of the Cross at the end; I genuinely have no opinion whether that were a good or bad thing in context.

 

If there were at least some ‘offence interest’, however trivial, in the first two acts, the third commits, pretty much without exception, the ultimate sin of inducing boredom. Members of three faiths, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, get together, realise that they are all the same really, sing Kum ba yah (well not actually, but they may as well have done), and all is well; perhaps they will no longer even be refugees. En route to that revelation and revolution, we see some liberated (that is, naked) erstwhile Islamic Flowermaidens; relieved of their Islam, they are now able to show kindness to an elderly Kundry. Charity, of course, begins outside ‘religion’. Kundry and Gurnemanz take turns in a wheelchair, although the former seems quite sprightly the rest of the time: what a fraud! The final scene continues the eradication of theology: would it not be a grand thing indeed if we were to follow suit?

 

Musically, things were much better, although not good enough to offer ample compensation; that may, in any case, have been too much to ask. Hartmut Haenchen’s conducting was efficient; he clearly knew the score, but offered little beyond that. His briskness was, perhaps, in these particular circumstances, no bad thing; would we really have wished to linger? In the lead up to the Good Friday Music, however, the tempo was so absurdly fast that even that potential virtue was lost. Speeds in themselves are of little interest here; both Pierre Boulez and Daniele Gatti have had much to tell us about the work. But being fast is not a good in itself, any more than being slow might be. Far too often, the score seemed merely to be skated over. The Bayreuth Festival Orchestra played, as one might have expected, very well indeed, but was too often subdued and harried by its conductor. Although much better in the third act, and impressive in heft throughout, the chorus, to my surprise, proved somewhat erratic of intonation during the first act.

 

At least the singing was good, in two cases outstanding, those two cases being McKinny’s Amfortas and Georg Zeppenfeld’s Gurnemanz. Both showed something very close to the ideal musico-dramatic alchemy between words and music, heightening the meaning and impact of both. Zeppenfeld’s heroic stint at Bayreuth – I have seen him in the Ring, Tristan, and Parsifal! – must be regarded as one of this year’s great successes at the Festival. Reactions to Klaus Florian Vogt tend to focus on whether people like or dislike his highly controversial voice. It seems to me considerably better suited to Lohengrin than to Parsifal, but, on its own terms, Vogt’s performance was highly commendable. If the results were sometimes bland, at least to my ears, it is always a relief simple to hear a tenor capable of singing a Wagner role. Like McKinny and Zeppenfeld, Vogt can act too; so can Elena Pankratova, as one really noticed in the third act, when she has next to nothing to sing. If only the acting skills of all could have been put to better use. Whilst Pankratova’s vocal performance was sometimes a little wayward, it was nevertheless capable of thrilling beyond the more obviously histrionic passages, and often drew one with considerable subtlety to listen. Karl-Heinz Lehner and Gerd Grochowski offered laudable performances as Titurel and Klingsor respectively; so did a fine bunch, as it were, of Flowermaidens, likewise our Knights and Squires.

 

Who on earth (or beyond it?) the man seated above the stage, his back turned to us, may have been we never did find out. God? Wagner? Jonathan Meese? One had long since ceased to care. Perhaps we should let Meese have the next-to-last words: ‘Richard Wagner ist, wie Meese, ein Kunstfanatiker mit dem Tunnelblick K.U.N.S.T. Richard Wagner ist keine Ersatzreligion, Richard Wagner ersetzt alle Religionen. Richard Wagner ist die Machterzergreifung KUNST, Meese's Parsifal ist Kunstherrschaft. Meese dient dem Richard Wagner ohne Falsch.’ One does not have to agree, or even to understand, to sense that Meese might have offered something more engaging, perhaps even something more sympathetic towards Wagner’s complex relationships with theology and religion. Nach Wien, then…

Elektra, Vienna State Opera, 13 November 2015

Images: Wiener Staatsoper/Michael Pöhn

Vienna State Opera

Elektra – Nina Stemme

Chrysothemis – Gun-Brit Barkmin
Klytämnestra – Anna Larsson
Orest – Matthias Goerne
Aegisth – Herbert Lippert
First Maid – Monika Bohinec
Second Maid – Ilsyear Khayrullova
Third Maid – Ulrike Helzel
Fourth Maid – Caroline Wenborne
Fifth Maid – Ildikó Raimondi
Overseer – Donna Ellen
Young Servant – Thomas Ebenstein
Old Servant – Hans Peter Kammerer
Orest’s tutor – Il Hong
Confidante – Simina Ivan
Trainbearer – Aura Twarowska

Uwe Eric Laufenberg (director)

Rolf Glittenberg (set designs)
Marianne Glittenberg (costumes)
Andreas Grüter (lighting)

Chorus of the Vienna State Opera

Orchestra of the Vienna State Opera

Peter Schneider (conductor)

 

It almost seems wrong to be thinking and writing about a visit to the opera in the wake of the Paris attacks last night. Yet, beyond the justified claim that we should not be deterred from going about our business – there are, I think, some exceptions, but let us leave them on one side for now – we should also remember that art speaks of the human condition. It enables us to deal with what goes on around us: not, I hope, as mere escape, but as an exploration of some of the most fundamental issues with which we grapple. Strauss’s æstheticism continues to challenge us – and so it should. It will do so in different ways at different times, and that is all to the good.

 

Whilst Elektra is far too important a work to be simply, or even mostly, ‘about’ one particular character or artist, Nina Stemme was clearly a principal attraction in a very strong cast. She might not be how we all ‘imagine’ Elektra, but such a situation can often present a justified challenge to our preconceptions. Stemme proved tireless, constantly musical and, just as important, constantly communicative with Hofmannsthal’s words, and a fine actress. It was interesting to note, and I do not think this was simply a matter of acclimatisation on my part, that she looked more ‘like’ the Stemme we know from other performances as the evening went on. To start with, Marianne Glittenberg’s costume cunningly doing its work here, I am not sure that I should have recognised her with my eyes alone. A Lieder-like approach to text as music and words, though, marked out her artistry. And the accuracy, volume, and tonal quality of her climaxes – there are many! – would have given Birgit Nilsson a run for her money, although the sound is of course quite different. Indeed, Stemme struck an excellent balance between strength of character and necessary – for survival – ability to adapt, wheedling herself, if only temporarily, back into the affections of her mother and detested stepfather.

 

With the exception of a weakly-sung Aegisth, a part often given to former Siegfrieds – surely Vienna could have done better than this! – the cast was excellent. All of the ‘smaller’ roles were very well taken, attesting to the casting in depth that a great company can offer. For me, Thomas Ebenstein’s lyric tenor, as agile as the singer on stage, and the warm humanity of Ildikó Raimondi’s Fifth Maid – what a gift of a role! – stood out, but this is definitely a case of almost all deserving prizes.

 

Gun-Brit Barkmin grasped what I assume to have been Uwe Eric Laufenberg’s concept – and of course, the work’s concept, at least implicitly – of Chrysothemis as a young woman repressing, somewhat kinkily, her adulthood, Marianne Glittenberg’s over-sized, little-girl costume again making the point strongly in visual terms. Barkmin grasped it and ran with it, helpless, but perhaps – we could never quite tell – knowingly so, again as a survival mechanism in impossible times, domestically and politically, whilst maintaining as impressive control over Strauss’s musical lines as she had Berg’s in Wozzeck last month. Barkmin was impressive in Semyon Bychkov’s magnificent Proms performance of Elektra in 2014; here she was more so still and, crucially, offering a different reading according to context.

 

Anna Larsson’s portrayal of Klyämnestra was also in its way a revelation. I have grown so accustomed to thinking of this wonderful contralto voice ‘simply’ as the earth-voice of sincerity and truth in the Ring and in Mahler, that it came as quite a jolt to hear and indeed to see her in so different a role. Again, visually I should not have recognised her. I am not sure I have heard a true contralto sing the part before; it is, of course, rare nowadays to hear a true contralto at all. Yet, not only was the musical result beautiful, although not too beautiful, Larsson’s stage presence matched her vocal artistry, again in a way that confounded narrow expectations based solely upon narrow, personal experience.

 

Matthias Goerne proved a chilling, psychopathic Orest. When I had heard him previously, his approach had been, for want of a better word, more ‘intellectual’. Here, again apparently grasping the needs of the moment, this undoubtedly intelligent artist sounded splendidly instinctive. (It is not that the two are polar opposites, or in any sense exclusive, but they are often treated as if they are such.) He sounded and looked – the costume initially concealed him more than Elektra’s had her – like a voice from beyond: almost a male Erda, perhaps a Charon or a Pluto. We could not but doubt that he brought death, nor that he was deeply damaged by experience. The culmination of the Recognition Scene, in which brother and sister relied as much upon their sense of touch as their sense of sight – perhaps they have seen far too much truly to be able to see any more – proved both moving and provocative in the expectation of something incestuous, only to be thwarted, not the least intelligent of Laufenberg’s double moves.

Peter Schneider seemed almost a different conductor from when I had heard him conduct the work, disappointingly, in Dresden almost a year ago. Everything was much sharper, and the Vienna orchestra was in far better shape than its Straussian rival. (Perhaps, last December, that was something to do with Christian Thielemann having had the pick of the bunch the previous evening, but such variation remains difficult to account for entirely.) Strauss’s score danced with exuberance and with sickly longing; it lingered only too long early in what seemed almost an interminable Recognition Scene, a rare lapse. The phantasmagorical array of colours, harmonic as well as instrumental, which the composer conjures up was well served by the Vienna orchestra. If it were not quite at the level of inspiration of Daniele Gatti with these players in Salzburg in 2010, it was still a very fine orchestral performance, that golden Vienna string tone unmistakeable. There were, moreover, a good few passages which seemed, tantalisingly, to reach out towards Erwartung.

Laufenberg’s production is intelligent throughout and, for the work, intriguingly different, although not for the sake of ‘difference’. I say ‘for the work’, since most Elektra sets seem to end up looking more or less the same. There is an element of the familiarly granitic and fascistic in Rolf Glittenberg’s designs, but they do not overwhelm as often they do. (Not that I am arguing such designs should not; it is not, however, the only way.) Accentuating the domesticity, as it were, seems very much in line with the Strauss-Hofmannsthal Freudian approach to the myth. And death hangs over the piece with a visual stench that would pack quite a punch, could I bring myself to mix metaphors quite so flagrantly. (If I am shamelessly having my cake and eating it in the preceding sentence, so, in many respects does the work itself.)

 

A lift connects the palace proper to the courtyard, although we do not necessarily notice it to begin with, the action very much taking charge of itself. (I am not sure that I had previously noticed quite so strong a kinship between the opening scene and its sister in Maeterlinck’s, though not Debussy’s, Pelléas.) It is in that that Klytämnestra descends (and Aegisth never manages to ascend). Behind the glass, she already seems encased: almost a taxidermist’s objet d’art. Her entrance – with that music, she simply has to make an entrance – thus proved, if one can have such a thing, a slightly understated coup de théâtre. If I mention her having a wheelchair and Elektra a suitcase, cries of ‘cliché’ will doubtless issue forth – and often, I should sympathise. But Elektra prevaricating over packing her bags is hardly an inappropriate idea here and, more importantly, the specific use of the wheelchair offers an interesting and indeed surprising commentary not only upon Klytämnestra, but also on her relationship with her daughter, which after all lies at the heart of the drama. The queen does not need it at all, or at least she sometimes realises that she does not. She is in many respects keeping up appearances, although for whom? Her retinue? Which way might they turn, if the going gets tough? Their indecision later on subtly underlines the point. Is there an ‘outside’ the palace and its environs? Is the queen’s act for them? We are not sure, and that seems to me quite an interesting reading of Strauss and Hofmannsthal on Sophocles: extending their seeming lack of interest in the political and turning it in – or should that be ‘out’? – upon itself. Her confidant and trainbearer inject her with something. Who is controlling whom? And yet, when they are out of the way, when finally she can settle herself to speak with her daughter as something approaching – at least in House of Atreus terms – her mother, Klytämnestra can walk freely: discuss, perhaps even take some agency for the self-interpretation of, her dreams. Elektra at one point takes her place in the wheelchair. Is that not in a sense right, given all she has suffered? And yet, she cannot of course remain there, or all would fail.

I have dwelled upon that particular scene, since it seemed to me unusually central to interpretation of the work and production on this evening. Its presentation is also typical of Laufenberg’s impressively text-based approach to the work. He is not necessarily a director to set off music against words – often a fruitful approach with Strauss – but not everyone can offer the layered approach, at least all the time, of a Stefan Herheim. (This is yet another work in which I should love to see what he might accomplish.) Laufenberg’s, however, is a thoughtful, faithful, yet far from subservient reading, to which I should readily return. The treatment of Elektra’s Dance is a case in point, and here there was perhaps a deeper engagement with the music too. I still think that, as I wrote when discussing that Proms performance, to speak, as Adorno did, of the discontinuity ‘between the wildness of most of Strauss’s music in Elektra and its blissfully triadic conclusion’ is wilful. However, there is an element of (false?) relapse here; the emergence of strikingly beautiful, untarnished, unreal (?) young waltzers, offering the banal hope of a utopian future amidst Mycenaean devastation, knocked sidewise by the unexpected turn of the music and carrying Elektra off with them, makes a point I thought not un-Adornian, although perhaps more fruitful. What, then, are we to make of the shell-shocked Chrysothemis, who remains?

 

Der Rosenkavalier, Semperoper Dresden, 14 December 2014

Semperoper

Die Feldmarschallin, Fürstin Werdenberg – Anja Harteros

Der Baron Ochs auf Lerchenau – Peter Rose
Octavian – Sophie Koch
Herr von Faninal – Adrian Erőd
Sophie – Christiane Karg
Jungfer Marianne Leitmetzerin – Christiane Kohl
Valzacchi – Thomas Ebenstein
Annina – Christa Mayer
Police Officer – Peter Lobert
The Marschallin’s Major-domo – Simeon Esper
Faninal’s Major-domo – Tom Martinsen
A Notary – Matthias Henneberg
A Landlord – Dan Karlström
A Singer – Yosep Kang
A Milliner – Nadja Mchantaf
A Vendor of Pets – Mert Süngü
Leopold – Dirk Wolter
Lackeys – Ingolf Stollberg, Andreas Keinze, Jun-Seok Bang, Matthias Beutlich
Waiters – Rafael Harnisch, Torsten Schäpan Norbert Klesse, Thomas Müller
Three noble orphans – Jennifer Porto, Emily Dorn, Christel Loetzsch
Lerchenauschen – Alexander Födisch, Michael Wettin, Thomas Müller, Mirko Tuma, Werner Harke, Holger Steinert
Mohammed (‘The little Moor’) – Amala Boashie

Uwe Eric Laufenberg (director)

Christoph Schubiger (set designs)

Jessica Karge (costumes)

Chorus of the Saxon State Opera (chorus master: Wolfram Tetzner)

Members of the Children’s Chorus of the Saxon State Opera

Staatskapelle Dresden

Christian Thielemann (conductor) 

 

A superlative evening! Above all on the musical side, Christian Thielemann’s conducting having been the initial attraction for me in the first place, but with an intelligent staging too, which quite belied its years. Uwe Eric Laufenberg was announced as director of the new Bayreuth Parsifal after I had arranged to attend this performance, but since I was unfamiliar with his work, this proved a subsequent attraction. What, if anything, this 2000 staging might tell us about a 2015 Parsifal remains to be seen, but, quite in contrast to reports I had heard (‘boring’, ‘conventional’, etc.), this proved, if not the equal of Harry Kupfer’s Salzburg production this summer, then a more than acceptable alternative. When one recalls in horror Munich’s perpetual ‘revival’, if only in name, of an Otto Schenk production long past its sell-by-date, now at long last set to be pensioned off, Laufenberg offers almost the height of radicalism.

 

The staging of the Prelude seems to me a miscalculation, and an embarrassing one at that. Strauss makes it perfectly clear the sort of thing that is going on. We have little need to see the Marschallin and Octavian gingerly undressing each other (though not very far) and disappearing under the sheets. It certainly is not raunchy; instead, we appear stranded in a no-man’s-land – literally, I suppose – between ‘tastefulness’ and The Benny Hill Show. Things improve thereafter, however. Perhaps the most impressive developmental aspect is the way in which the sense of time, or better of times, creeps upon us, becomes more complicated – just as in the work itself. The Marschallin and Octavian might well be where they ‘should’ be, in Maria Theresa’s Vienna, or rather in Hofmannsthal’s intricate construction thereof, which is not to be confused, nor is it intended to be, with the ‘real thing’, or Ranke’s wie es eigentlich gewesen. As the first act progresses, however, it gradually becomes clearer that we are, or have progressed, some time later than we had suspected. Is it the nineteenth century, the period of those Johann Strauss waltzes Richard sublimated? It seems as though it might be, and then, through costumes and actions, we realise that we are actually a little later. The time of composition? Yes, perhaps. Ah no, in the second act, in Faninal’s strenuously ‘beautiful’, up-to-date palace, we realise that we are probably a little later still. The Marschallin, of course, lives in a more well-worn establishment, with truer, or at least more ancient, pedigree, still living, more or less, though perhaps not entirely, the life she imagines, we imagine, her eighteenth-century self having lived. At least when at home; the third act deepens historical understanding further. Octavian seems to understand his life similarly when with her, but proves more likely, aristocratic pride notwithstanding, to be influenced by his surroundings; after all, he is young and easily swayed.

 

The latest – that is, for the interwar years – ‘media’ techniques are employed in Faninal’s Faustian bargain: cameramen record the event, but have to be prevented, with limited success, by his Major-domo, the characterful Tom Martinsen. It is not as if the years have actually passed; this is not Stefan Herheim’s Parsifal. However, we appreciate the construction of past and present, so long as we pay attention both to the general and the specifically scenic. Moreover, we are certainly made aware, without having the point unduly hammered home, that the media attention paid to Sophie is very much an aspect of that heterosexual male gaze which excites itself with the cavorting of three women in the first place. That is not, of course, to say that others cannot find much to interest them too in those relationships, but rather to remind ourselves of the ‘norm’ on which both work and production seem predicated. The special prominence granted Mohammed, listed in the programme as ‘der kleine Mohr’ seems odd, though. He is kept as something akin to the Marschallin’s pet, and the racial overtones – especially when all the other children were so clearly of ‘Germanic’ appearance – unsettle without evident reason.

 

It is an impressive but far from obtrusive frame, then, in which the specific action unfolds. The success of that action is doubtless, especially at this remove from the original production, to be attributed more to the efforts of those on stage than to the production ‘itself’, but the latter does no harm. Anja Harteros proved well-nigh perfect as the Marschallin. Her grace and conviction were married to an alluring tone that yet did not preclude subtle verbal nuance. One believed in her – and felt with her. Sophie Koch’s Octavian is of course a very well-known quantity, but seemed reinvented for the occasion, keenly responsive to others on stage, eminently plausible in his/her various guises. Christiane Karg’s Sophie was a far more interesting character than one generally encounters; normally, my reaction is likely to tend towards irritation at least at her vacuity. Not so in Karg’s case; there was clearly ambition here, on the part of both singer and character. There was also clearly instant attraction – perhaps the production overdoes this? – between her and the rose-bearing count. Adrian Erőd’s Faninal was dry-toned to start with, but gained in vocal lustre thereafter, offering throughout a detailed portrayal, whether musically, verbally, or on stage. Peter Rose’s Ochs was simply wonderful: a buffo portrayal, yes, but a portrayal born of deep musico-dramatic intelligence, evidently gauging and creating the moment as it presented itself. His way with Hofmannsthal’s text lay beyond reproach. His impatience during the resumption of the Italian Singer’s aria offered a masterclass in silent stage presence. No one disappointed and most of the ‘minor’ roles strongly impressed, not least Yosep Kang’s ardent Singer and Thomas Ebenstein and Christa Mayer as the other ‘Italians’, both more obviously characters than caricatures.

 

Thielemann’s conducting was perhaps the finest I have ever heard in this work; so was the playing of that great Strauss ensemble, the Staatskapelle Dresden. The openings to the first two acts were perhaps surprisingly, though far from inappropriately, vigorous, Octavian’s – and Sophie’s – youthful impetuosity to the fore. But the flexibility with which Thielemann held and developed Strauss’s line was something truly to savour. Likewise the colour, depth, and allure of the orchestra, which Thielemann played with virtuosity and understanding that respected the score and yet beyond it into the truest of performative ‘interpretation’. Caesuras that might on paper sound as if they would disrupt instead increased our anticipation, the longer line somehow maintained. There was doubtless an element of theatricality, even of showmanship, but born of a deep knowledge of ‘what works’; to steal from Strauss’s operatic future, La Roche himself might have approved. Strauss’s materialistic development-cum-rejection of Wagner’s orchestral metaphysics was demonstrated, experienced far better than words could ever hope to do. This was a Greek Chorus that answered, perhaps after Goethe as much as Nietzsche, to no gods above. Our life, as the opera and its performance made clear, was here on earth, in the present – and yet it was also somewhere else and in the past that had made that present, even if that past had never actually been present. Die Zeit, die ist ein sonderbar Ding…