NDR Chorus/Konzerthausorchester Berlin/Spering - Bach and Schubert, 3 April 2015

Großer Saal, Konzerthaus

Bach – Cantata: ‘Lass, Fürstin, lass noch einen Strahl’, BWV 198 (Trauerode)

Schubert – Mass in A-flat major, D 678

Marlis Petersen (soprano)

Katrin Wundsam (mezzo-soprano)

Colin Balzer (tenor)

Michael Nagy (bass)
 

NDR Chorus (chorus master: Michael Gläser)

Konzerthausorchester Berlin

Andreas Spering (conductor)

 

Mourning for the Saxon Electress, Christiane Eberhardine, ‘die Betsäule Sachsens’ (Saxony’s pillar of prayer), was deeply felt by her husband’s subjects, although neither he, nor their son, attended the funeral. Unlike Augustus the Strong, who had converted to Roman Catholicism to ascend the Polish throne, she had remained faithful to Protestantism. Protestantism thus remained faithful to her, not least in the guise of  Bach’s Trauerode, the text by Johann Christoph Gottsched, first performed in St Paul’s Church, Leipzig, in 1727. One of the touching aspects of the text is the sense of place: references to city, river, residence, and so on. Even in the Prussian capital, with a North German chorus, I could imagine myself back in Leipzig – not least since I tend always to think of that city on Good Friday, even when not attending a Passion or Parsifal.

In performance, Bach was not badly done by, although Christoph Spering might have offered greater ‘heart’ to a somewhat chilly account. The opening chorus, ‘Lass, Fürstin, lass noch einen Strahl,’ was taken very fast, bur rhythms were well pointed. Here and throughout, the clarity of the NDR Chorus was beyond reproach. ‘An dir, du Fürbild großer Frauen,’ the chorus closing the first of the two parts, proved tumultuous, redolent of one of the turba choruses in the Passions. (Flutes struggled a little there, though.) The final chorus did not entirely dispel the suspicion that Spering had a train to catch, and phrasing might have been less choppy, but again, counterpoint was communicated clearly, even as the weight of harmonic meaning was lessened.

The extraordinary orchestra Bach employs made its mark, as it always does: visually as well as aurally transitional, two gambas (to the fore in ‘Wie starb die Heldin so vergnügt!’) and lutes placed in the centre, the ‘modern’ orchestra surrounding them. (Hermann Scherchen’s recording is a typically provocative exploration.) The alto recitative, ‘Der Glocken bebenes Getön,’ sounded wonderful orchestrally, flutes against pizzicato violins and violas.  Flute and oboe obbligati sounded splendid in the tenor aria with which the second part opens. Once again, I was reminded of Bach’s almost modernistic exploration of instrumentation, a feature of his music to which Boulez has, perhaps unsurprisingly, drawn attention. Marlis Petersen offered a keenly dramatic account of her recitatives and arias, harking back to Bach’s seventeenth-century forebears. Some might have cavilled at the evident difference of approach to vibrato, she largely eschewing it, the strings warmer, but it did not especially bother me. Katrin  Wundsam’s aria (that one with the gambas) exposed the differences in tone between different registers in her voice, but again, that was not unduly distracting, and it is partly a consequence of the particularities of Bach’s vocal writing. Colin Balzer proved the weakest of the soloists, intonation variable, and coloratura less than perfect. (The writing is difficult, but even so.) Michael Nagy navigated with great success the transitions between recitative and arioso, likewise achieving an excellent balance between declamation and the longer line.

Schubert’s choral works are, by contrast, cheerfully South German: nominally Catholic, without any obvious evidence of great belief. (Nor is there any evidence of Beethovenian struggle, despite the similarities with, and perhaps influence of, the Missa solemnis.) As one might have expected, this was not the most ‘symphonic’ of readings, but so long as one could, at least for a few minutes, put Wolfgang Sawallisch from one’s mind, a good enough account was given of the work in, the Berlin Konzerthaus notwithstanding, more church-like fashion. Strangely, given Spering’s lack of what we might call ‘Romanticism’, I was nevertheless put in mind of Bruckner and indeed twentieth-century writing. Perhaps that was in part testament to the long-lasting influence of Caecilianism. Quite why a chamber organ was used I am not entirely sure, but such seems almost to be de rigueur in ‘early music’ performances, even when a perfectly decent instrument is present in the hall.

The opening ‘Kyrie’ set the tone for much of the performance, in its strong contrast between passages for solo voices (whether individually or in ensemble) and those for chorus. The dramatic quality of the imploring ‘Christe’ solos was rather winning. Spering’s way with the ‘Gloria’ I found unduly fast and brutal, rather as if Toscanini were back with us; others will doubtless have felt differently. There were times when a greater body of strings too would have been of benefit. Spering’s conducting of the concluding fugue proved wooden too, leading to loss of much of its dynamism, though matters improved as it progressed. Again, at the opening of the ‘Credo’, although the performers (chorus and orchestra) were excellent, the conducting was four-square. The strings, however, dug in nicely upon the word ‘crucifixus’, especially important on this of all days. The closing ‘Amen’ sounded glorious – from all concerned. A well-shaped ‘Sanctus’ followed: lyrical, yet with a strong sense of underlying power. Phrasing was a bit odd in the ‘Osanna’ section, for no evident reason. The ‘Benedictus’, perhaps predictably, was taken very fast. It flowed nicely enough, but I remained unmoved. The ‘Agnus Dei’, though on the swift side, was imbued with greater feeling than earlier, although the contrast between choral and solo passages was perhaps excessive. Still, there was no doubting the prowess of the excellent chorus.



 

Berlin Festtage (6) - Tannhäuser, Staatsoper Berlin, 2 April 2015



Tannhäuser (Peter Seiffert) and dancers in the Venusberg

 

 

Schiller Theater

Hermann, Landgrave of Thuringia – Kwangchul Youn

Tannhäuser – Peter Seiffert
Wolfram von Eschenbach – Christian Gerhaher
Walther von der Wogelweide – Peter Soon
Biterolf – Tobias Schabel
Heinrich der Schreiber – Florian Hoffmann
Reinmar von Zweter – Jan Martiník
Elisabeth – Ann Petersen
Venus – Marina Prudenskaya
Young Shepherd – Sónia Grané
Four Pages – Julia Mencke, Regina Köstler-Motz, Antje Bahr-Molitor, Verena Allertz

Sasha Waltz (director, choreography, designs)

Pia-Maier-Schreier (designs)
Bernd Skodzig (costumes)
David Finn (lighting)

Jens Schroth, Jochen Sandig (dramaturgy)

Staatsopernchor Berlin (chorus master: Martin Wright)

Staatskapelle Berlin

Daniel Barenboim (conductor)

 

First, the bad news. Sasha Waltz’s production – if one can call it that – of Tannhäuser has not improved over the year since it was first staged. Last time around, I wrote, with undue hesitation, that I ‘could not help but wonder whether she would have been better engaged simply as choreographer’. The idea that, because an opera contains a ballet, it might be better staged by a choreographer is a very odd one. That is not, of course, to say that someone cannot do both, likewise a film director, or indeed anyone else. However, the mania of some opera houses to enlist almost anyone but an experienced opera director is odd, to say the least, and more often than not, misguided. A year ago, I wrote: Insofar as there is a concept, it seems to be to present some sort of dialogue between opera house and opera, the designs for the song contest mirroring, subtly rather than gaudily, aspects of the Schiller Theater: for instance, the seats and the colour of the wood. Unfortunately, little is done with an idea of not inconsiderable metatheatrical promise.’ That is to perhaps to have put it mildly. Now, whether on account of modification, or the loss even of anticipation, dance – needless to say, far too readily present – seems all the more invasive. It is all well done on its own terms, and I mean no disrespect to the dancers, but I found myself wishing they would leave the singers alone. (Apologies if that makes me sound like an operatic reactionary, but here I stand…) As so often, attempts to mix the two troupes – Ariadne, anyone? – do not come off happily. It is perfectly clear who is who, and the singers’ moves inevitably appear for the most part leaden by comparison. Moreover, we really do not need the end of the first act to be danced by all concerned; still less, do we need male dancers exaggeratedly to shape their female partners’ breasts during the Song Contest. It is again more or less impossible to suppress a smile as Peter Seiffert’s less than balletic Tannhäuser awkwardly slides down to join the Bacchanale dancers. The Benny Hill shows unintentionally evoked, at least our hero seems to be having a good time. Seriously though, if dance and opera are to be combined or indeed placed in context, it needs to be done with greater thought than this.

The other news, however, is unambiguously good. If Daniel Barenboim’s conducting and the orchestral playing did not perhaps quite reach the heights of last year’s superlative performance – this was, after all, a revival, and more time will have been allocated to Parsifal, to Boulez, etc. – then this remained a performance that would have done enormous credit to any house. (Whether it meshed so well with the dance is another matter, but in the circumstances, that would have been an impossible dream to chase.) I wrote in some detail on Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin last year; suffice it to say that, save for Barenboim’s unaccountable favouring of the Dresden version with Paris Bacchanale, no one would have been disappointed if he or she closed his eyes. This remains one of the world’s greatest Wagner orchestras – and, it hardly needs to be said, perhaps the world’s greatest Wagner conductor. Line never deserted him, but nor did the ‘French’ ear for colour on which I have often had cause to remark. Debussyan and indeed Boulezian lessons have long been learned and internalised. What we hear is a Wagner full of possibilities: the Wagner so hated by those who claim to ‘protect’ him from indecent, ‘modern’ influences.

Bar a certain, perfectly understandable tiredness at the end of the second act, Seiffert offered a triumphant sung portrayal of Tannhäuser. His sheer volume often astounded, but that is not to say that his singing was crude. Yet again, we can only be thankful that there is someone who can sing this cruel role. Ann Petersen offered a beautifully sung, properly human Elisabeth; we seem, let us be thankful, to have moved decisively away from the days of the blandly virginal. Moreover, her way with Wagner's words delved far deeper than anything we saw on stage. Last year, I wrote: ‘Having heard Christian Gerhaher at Covent Garden, I feared that every subsequent Wolfram would disappoint. I am not sure that Peter Mattei’s performance did not prove Gerhaher’s equal.’ This year, I am not sure that Gerhaher did not even improve upon himself. The sheer beauty of his voice is something truly to be treasured; so too is the ability to combine the best of both Lieder and operatic worlds. Kwangchul Youn’s Landgrave was no match for 2014’s René Pape in terms of vocal beauty, but his was a thoughtful reading, clearly springing from the poem. The dramatic commitment of Marina Prudenskaya’s Venus was undimmed, her lower range especially rich. Once again, the chorus proved the equal of any starrier participant – well, perhaps with the exception of Gerhaher. Chorus master, Martin Wright has accomplished his task very well; if only our director had approached him, let alone Barenboim.

 

Berlin Festtage (5) - Kremer/Kozhukhin: Weinberg, Brahms, and Franck, 1 April 2015

Philharmonie, Berlin

Weinberg – Sonata no.2 for solo violin, op.95

Brahms – Fantasies, op.116

Weinberg – Sonata no.3 for solo violin, op.126

Franck – Sonata in A major, for violin and piano

Gidon Kremer (violin)

Denis Kozhukhin (piano)

 

1 April: I suppose the date should have given it away. Perhaps I am being unduly cynical, but this was the fifth time I had booked to hear Martha Argerich, and the fifth time she had cancelled. At any rate, a ‘feverish flu’ led to her replacement with Denis Kozhukhin and consequent rearrangement of the programme. Out went a Beethoven sonata (op.30 no.3) and one of Mieczysław Weinberg’s sonatas for violin and piano; in came Brahms’s op.116 Fantasien and a second of Weinberg’s sonatas for solo violin.

Frankly, one would have been more than enough, not least given the sometimes shocking performance offered by Gidon Kremer of Weinberg’s op.95. It took until the sixth of its seven movements for the performance to sound like a performance at all; a friend commented that Kremer had often sounded as if he were someone practising in his bedroom, and it was difficult to dissent. Maybe he had been as irritated by the rearrangement of the programme as many others. The poverty of Weinberg’s invention nevertheless came through, the first movement, ‘Monody’, made of the sort of banal figuration with occasional wrong notes Shostakovich would offer with (in a generous reading) irony. With this piece, however, irony was difficult to discern. Likewise, the third movement seemed characterised by sub-Shostakovich impotent anger. Kremer’s somewhat fuller tone – before, only thinness had been striking – was welcome in the final two movements, but that did not, most likely could not, disguise the sense of straining and failing to achieve profundity.

The one-movement Third Sonata, with which the second half started, was much more of a performance, certainly more urgent. Indeed, it was in this that Kremer sounded at his best. Weinberg, perhaps, shows at times a slightly less reactionary language and, more to the point, a stronger sense of development. At best, at least at the beginning, there are some mildly attractive ideas, whose development was over-extended. That, I am afraid, is the greatest enthusiasm I can muster. I think it is time to say that, as with some of the Entartete Musik composers and, more often than not, Shostakovich that an undeniably moving personal story and political persecution do not guarantee convincing, let alone compelling, music.

Denis Kozhukhin’s contributions proved to be stronger than Kremer’s. Kozhukhin’s Brahms is not for me the most appealing; I simply – or perhaps not simply – hear and understand the music differently. However, on its own, Romantic, ‘grand manner’ terms, it worked very well. It is perhaps too easy to describe it as ‘Russian’ Brahms, but there was more than a hint of that. The opening Capriccio showed a great dynamic range: ‘big’ tone, which can certainly be scaled down. If the following Intermezzo might have been intimate in conception, especially to begin with, it was admirably flexible; this remained, however, very ‘public’ Brahms. (One might well argue that a large hall such as the Philharmonie invites such a conception.) A stormy third movement had little sense of Brahms as progenitor of Webern, but certainly held the attention. The succeeding Intermezzo was slower than is perhaps fashionable, but none the worse for that. It was played beautifully, if at times the sound edged a little close to Rachmaninov. Moreover, the central section achieved a beautiful sense of half-lighting. The next Intermezzo, the fifth movement, was meaningfully voiced, though not in a modernist fashion. Its successor was bracingly fast, at least according to pianistic ‘tradition’, but arguably – just about – an ‘Andantino’ nevertheless. Such a reading is preferable to a sentimental one, but was the piece’s heart perhaps lost? The final movement needs to be fast, and it was; it was certainly ‘agitato’ too. Voicing again was a particular strength. And how the poverty of Weinberg’s inspiration was shown up!

As for the Franck Sonata, the only piece in which violinist and pianist appeared together, it was Kozhukhin’s playing that proved by far the more compelling. Even relative understatement, as at the beginning of the first movement, drew one in. Kremer’s wiry tone was disappointing, his poor intonation rather more than that. The performance did not conceal the truth of Debussy’s jibe about Franck as a ‘modulating machine’; the best can. In the second movement, Kozhukhin’s tone, recognisable from his Brahms, offered much to admire, Kremer’s only rarely. Much the same could be said of the very different third movement. Kozhukhin’s legato was pleasing, but in itself could not paper over the cracks of the composer’s vaunted cyclic method. More of the same in the finale – with some breathtaking pianism from Kozhukhin. In replacing Argerich, he saved the day in more than one sense.

 

Berlin Festtage (4) - Wendeberg: Boulez complete (published) piano solo works, 30 March 2015

Schiller Theater

Notations

Sonatas nos 1-3
Incises
Une page d’éphéméride

Michael Wendeberg (piano)

Image: (C) Isabelle Meister

This concert was, by any standards, an extraordinary achievement. Simply to play Boulez’s complete published piano solo œuvre in a single recital is worthy of praise; to do so so convincingly, with all the excitement of an all-Liszt recital from a great Lisztian is worthy of still greater praise. This may have been the first time I had heard Michael Wendeberg – although it is possible that I heard him during his time as a pianist for the Ensemble Intercontemporain – but I hope that it will not be the last.

First come the twelve Notations, played as the classics – if not quite ‘classic Boulez’ – they have become, although with all the freshness of discovery too. The first was caressed; the second, whilst furious, still benefited from Wendeberg’s beautiful tone. In general, this was very much a post-Second Viennese School sound. The fourth was taken at what seems a more appropriate speed than Daniel Barenboim had done the morning before, whilst Wenderberg’s leaning into phrases in the fifth had me thinking, not inappropriately, of Chopin. The mini-toccata of no.6, a proper moto perpetuo, contrasted with the post-Debussy Prélude quality of no.8. If the ninth did what it said on the tin – ‘Lointain – Calme’, so equally did its successor, ‘Mécanique et très sec,’ without those markings substituting for interpretation. Throughout, musical process and pianism were as one.

The First Sonata then opened as if a continuation, an intensification (subtler, certainly), a deepening. In the first movement, Webern sounded all the more present – this is clearly a pianist who would make an excellent job of the Austrian composer’s piano music – in a performance possessed of a properly dynamic conception of form. The second movement offered sinuous serial process, not only as work but as performance. ‘Bergian’ would be an exaggeration, but perhaps some of the roots of Boulez’s later attraction for Berg’s music might be discerned here. And how the piano sang! This was a piano recital, not a completist duty.

Again, the first movement of the Second Sonata imparted a sense of continuation, deepening, and so on. This was infinitely surer, more well-shaped, than a performance I had heard just more than a week earlier at the Barbican. Wendeberg seduced, without loss of clarity and bite. Aspiration to – or should that be denial of? – Messiaenesque melody was integrated into a structure of disintegrating Beethovenian sonata form. Freedom and mechanism: a dialectic apparent between Notations here was present in, indeed propelled, the progress of a single movement. The close came both as confirmation and as surprise. Line was impressively present in the second movement, likewise pianistic eloquence. Outbursts and eruptions made their point, but in context, the radicalism of the final notes reinforced. The third movement was just as inexorable, just as characterful; so was the fourth. In the latter, colours were drawn just as they might be in Liszt, not least in the bass. An almost Bergian synthesis seemed within reach, although, quite rightly, it was never achieved. This extraordinary movement sounded as if a post-Debussyan piano fantasy, shaped by a drama that was very much of the other side of the Rhine. Boulez as we know and love him was indubitably here. If the final ‘Lent’ section could not reconcile, it spoke, even sang, as if the witness following some unspeakable catastrophe: the song of aftershock.

Wendeberg’s Third Sonata, following the interval, again offered a voice that was the same, yet different. Harmonies were sometimes familiar, yet the context was different. Form and structure are of course here entirely different – and would be different again in another performance. (This is in no sense meant as an adverse criticism, but it is a pity we could not hear another reading, immediately afterwards, or even at the end.) There was, in any case, a genuine sense of openness, which would surely have been discerned by those knowing nothing of Boulez’s post-Mallarmé formal conception. Yet even that openness faced dialectical assault, from what we might call a tendency towards post-pontillism. The early 1950s were, after all, not so very distant when Boulez began work on this sonata. All the while, the warm crystallisation of work and performance alike were dramatically apparent. ‘Trope’ seemed somehow more ‘completed’, or at least it did to begin with. Later, the music once again seemed to open up: dialectics aplenty, then, but dialectics with undeniable sonorous allure, even charm.

 

Incises seemed haunted by the ghost of Ravel: Scarbo? It was less haunted by, then bathed in, the refinement of later Boulez. There was a clear toccata-like quality as much in performance as in the work itself. Subtle, anything but pedantic, Wendeberg offered a wealth of dynamic gradations, which again would have graced a ‘Romantic’ piano recital, not least with respect to repeated notes. The work, then, emerged more strongly than ever as a reconciliation with, but not reversion to, pianistic and more broadly musical ‘tradition’. This was certainly the most accomplished performance I have heard. Likewise a mordant yet affectionate ‘programmed encore’ of Une page d’éphéméride: both (temporary) summation and tantalising hint at a new path. A ‘true’ and truly generous encore, the Sarabande from the E minor Partita, suggested that we need to hear Wendeberg in Bach too.

 

Just in case, you were not feeling envious (enough), Michael Wendeberg conducts too…

Madama Butterfly, Deutsche Oper, 29 March 2015

Deutsche Oper, Berlin

Cio-Cio San – Hui He

Suzuki – Jana Kurucová

Kate Pinkerton – Stephanie Lauricella

Pinkerton – Fabio Sartori

Sharpless – Elia Fabbian

Goro – Gideon Poppe

Prince Yamadori – Jörg Schörner

The Bonze – Marko Mimica

Imperial Commissiner – Carlton Ford

Official Registrar – Thomas Lehman

Mother – Martina Metzler

Cousin – Saskia Meusel

Aunt – Keum-Shin Kwon

Child – Birte Weigelt

Pier Luigi Samaritani (director, designs)

Gerlinde Pelkowski (revival director)

Chorus of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin (chorus master: William Spaulding)

Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper

Yves Abel (conductor)

For an evening off from the Staatsoper’s Festtage, I walked a little further up Bismarkstrasse to the Deutsche Oper, to see a revival of Pier Luigi Samritani’s Madama Butterfly. There is obviously no point in comparing the first night of a new Parsifal with such an instalment of the Deutsche Oper’s ‘Puccini weeks’, but by any standards, this very different evening did not do badly at all. There is not a great deal to say about the production; it looks very much like the other two productions I have seen of the work. (How I should love to see something different: say, Calixto Bieito’s staging for the Komische Oper!) But it does its job well in ‘traditional’ terms, and on this occasion, its 137^th performance (!) since the premiere, benefits from keen revival direction by Gerlinde Pelkowski. Lovers of what might be called ‘conventionally beautiful’ Puccini stagings will be delighted, and doubtless will have been already. I am less sure about the use of sheets – often a device in such productions – which tends a little towards the bathetic, but it is not difficult to live with, even so.

Attention, then, is focused firmly on the musical performance, and especially on the singers. Yves Abel conducted the orchestra ably, without making any particular points. It was not the most symphonic Puccini I have heard, and certainly not the most modernistic, but by the same token, continuity was achieved. The orchestra could hardly be faulted, and I have no desire to try. When really given their head, the strings sounded gorgeous, the perfect compliment to a decidedly ‘traditional’ starring couple.

By that, I mean that these were big voices, employed to general audience delight. Hui He’s Cio-Cio San offered enormous dynamic range, sensitively deployed, although in the spirit of charity, I shall pass over her diction. Fabio Sartori’s Pinkerton was similarly ‘old school’, perhaps still more so. He will certainly win no prizes for his acting, but he showed that, in such repertoire, he would not be shamed by comparison with the starriest of Italian tenors. The first-act duet was, in musical terms, close to everything one might reasonably have hoped for. Jana Kurucová’s Suzuki was subtler, offering welcoming relief: a credible, indeed sympathetic character portrayal in its own right. Elia Fabbian’s Sharpless presented equivocation through musical strength: not the easiest achievement to bring off. Gideon Poppe’s Goro showed an alert stage as well as musical animal. I suspect we shall hear more from Stephanie Lauricella, the Kate Pinkerton. (I know she has little to sing, yet always find myself surprised by quite how little!) A highly creditable evening, then, for all concerned. I only wish the opera itself were a little less offensive and a little more ambiguous…

Berlin Festtage (3) - Staatskapelle Berlin/Barenboim, et al., Boulez, 29 March 2015

Philharmonie

Le Visage nuptial

Anthèmes 2
Notations I, III, IV, VII, II (piano and orchestral versions)

Mojca Erdmann (soprano)

Anna Lapkovskaja (mezzo-soprano)

Ladies of the MDR Choir and NDR Choir (chorus masters: James Wood and Bernhard Epstein)

Michael Barenboim (violin)

Carlo Laurenzi and Jérémie Henriot (sound and live electronics, developed and realised at IRCAM)

Staatskapelle Berlin

Daniel Barenboim (piano, conductor)

Boulez’s Le Visage nuptial remains a rare feast in every sense. It can certainly rarely have received a more ravishing performance, even when conducted by the composer. Mojca Edrmann, Anna Lapkovskaja, and the ladies of the MDR and NDR choruses, under Daniel Barenboim gave a first-class account, which must surely have won new converts both to work and composer. There can be few more inviting examples of Boulez’s Klee-inspired heterophony, geometrical (yet fantastical) surrounding of an ‘orginal’ line with others, even this relatively early work, revisions notwithstanding, paving the way for later masterpieces such as sur Incises. Perhaps the opening of the first movement, ‘Conduite’, acts as a primer in miniature for such method; so, at least, did it seem here, following the opening orchestral éclat, and the entry of ecstatic female solo voices, Erdmann very much the daring high soprano, Lapkovskaia’s rich mezzo often suggestive of a true(r) contralto. Shimmering strings after René Char’s words, ‘O ma Fourche, ma Soif anxieuse’ inevitably suggested the (post-)coital. Not the least aspect of this work is Boulez’s remarkably insightful exploration of female sexuality. Brief flowering of Messiaenesque rhythm in the final stanza both nodded to and expressed distance from Boulez’s teacher. Post-Debussyan languor was the order of the day in the beautifully-ordered – how could it be otherwise?! – after-glow of ‘Gravité’. Barenboim’s shaping and balancing was spot on throughout, the chorus almost sounding as if a (pre-)electronic halo for solo voices, offering a presentiment of Anthèmes 2, following the interval. Messiaen again sprang to mind, again distanced, in the choral writing of the central ‘Le Visage nuptial’ itself. But soon, Bergian intensity – partly a matter of the composer’s revisions, partly something that was always there, even whilst he doubted late Berg’s taste for ‘reconciliation’, partly a matter of the particular orchestra and conductor – supplemented and questioned that. Controlled frenzy from the superlative percussion, and the rest of the orchestra, made for a truly thrilling ride, the sweetness of the Staatskapelle Berlin violins not the least of these heavenly, yet earthly, delights. After Parsifal the night before, it was as if Kundry had truly returned – and turned the tables. The subsiding of the movement prior to its final ecstatic burst was, again, expertly shaped by Barenboim. ‘Evadné’ offered psalmodic choral chanting as response, with the final ‘Post-Scriptum’ framing the narrative, such as it is, very nicely with the return of the excellent soloists. The fragility of the close once again proved suggestive in every sense.

The Philharmonie proved in many ways a splendid venue for Anthèmes 2, the live electronic shadowing of Michael Barenboim’s violin (expertly provided by Carlo Laurenzi and Jérémie Henriot) a showcase for a crucial aspect of Boulez’s later style. The kinship between earlier celestial choir and this proved striking, although Mephistophelian sniping (Liszt’s shadow?) was not to be denied either. Sweet post-Messiaenesque lines enhanced and were enhanced by occasional nods to an older, almost viol-like string tradition. This was a performance of which Barenboim fils could justly be proud – infinitely superior to the sorry state of Gidon Kremer’s violin technique three nights later (more on that in a subsequent review).

Barenboim père returned to the podium, with piano, for Notations. First, he offered a spoken introduction to the pieces (with piano and orchestral examples), the idea of Veränderung rightly to the fore. (Again, I thought of Liszt, still more of Wagner.) Each piano version preceded its orchestral child. If the piano versions were not always the most polished, and would in themselves be superseded by Michael Wenderberg’s superlative performances the following night, they did what they were supposed to, in spiritedly showing whence the orchestral versions had originated. Berg again came to mind in III (Très modéré); indeed, it was a (putative) brand of Klangfarbenmelodie related to him, perhaps, rather than to Schoenberg and Webern, that seemed the hallmark of that intriguing performance. There was, moreover, more than a soupçon of Debussyan awakening, in all its rich ambiguity. The Seventh, marked ‘Hiératique’, proved on a different scale in every sense to its predecessors, almost musico-dramatic in a Wagnerian and/or Mahlerian sense. Air from Debussy’s and Bartók’s planets vied with that of more Germanic ‘tradition’. For Boulez’s later serialism, this seemed an equivalent to Schoenberg’s Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielszene. As usual, the closing (for now) Second Notation offered a riotous conclusion – to an immaculately planned concert.

 

Berlin Festtage (2) - Parsifal, Staatsoper Berlin, 28 March 2015

 

Images: Ruth Walz

Schillertheater

 

Amfortas – Wolfgang Koch

Gurnemanz – René Pape

Parsifal – Andreas Schager

Klingsor – Tómas Tómasson

Kundry – Anja Kampe

Titurel – Matthias Hölle

Squires – Sónia Grané, Annika Schlicht, Stephen Chambers, Jonathan Winell

First Knight of the Grail – Paul O’Neill

Second Knight of the Grail – Grigory Shkarupa

Flowermaidens – Julia Novikova, Adriane Queiroz, Sónia Gráne, Narine Yeghiyan, Annika Schicht, Anja Schlosser

Voice from Above – Annika Schlicht

 

Dmitri Tcherniakov (director, set designs)

Elena Zaysteva (costumes)

Gleb Filshtinsky (lighting)

Jens Schroth (dramaturgy)

 

Staatsopernchor Berlin (chorus master: Martin Wright)

Staatskapelle Berlin

Daniel Barenboim (conductor)

 

The Berlin State Opera’s new production of Parsifal could hardly have been burdened by greater expectations with respect to conductor, orchestra, cast, and director, let alone their combination, yet reality did not disappoint. Parsifal-stagings must now be considered post-Stefan Herheim, just as much as an earlier era thought of pre- and post-Wieland Wagner. (We still do too, of course, even those who never saw Wieland’s legendary Bayreuth staging.) Dmitri Tcherniakov proves, unsurprisingly, very much his own man; it would be as absurd to imitate Herheim as it would his predecessor. But perhaps, consciously or otherwise, he may be understood to continue some of the psychological explorations which seemed increasingly to come to the fore in the final two years of Herheim’s production.

 

 

The outer acts, in their different but similar ways, suggest a Russian thinker approaching Wagner. Crowds, their detailed yet certainly never pedantic direction long a Tcherniakov speciality, offer ample possibility for comparison. (That word ‘possibility’ is crucial here; like Herheim and indeed many of the most interesting contemporary opera directors, Tcherniakov seems more concerned to open up possibilities than to present definitive verdicts.) Modern, relatively indistinct dress does not distract, but suggests sameness and indeed an ossified dedication to something that no longer pertains: a lesson for ‘traditional’ staging fetishists, among others. (Kinder, macht neues!) But Tcherniakov does not disregard religion as religion; it is not a proxy for political or æsthetic concerns. As in Wagner, the relationship is complex, indeed provocative.

 

There is here a (once) Christian theology gone wrong, as Wagner’s conception of Monsalvat demands. Just as in the second act of Götterdämmerung, when increasingly desperate pleas are made to gods who have already departed the stage, so in Parsifal, the crowd continues to believe and to act out of desperation from that belief, or at least to act as if it still believed. A world of Russian holy men, perhaps allied to the mendicants of Boris Godunov, or indeed to the anti-Wagnerian challenges of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, reacts with that of Wagner’s still-live (and later, Tcherniakov’s still-life) contest between Feuerbach and Schopenhauer. These are old believers and, perhaps, Old Believers; certainly the final outward turn of the community on stage, magnificently presented as if a revivification of an Old Master painting, suggests Khovanschina with a Goya-like twist. Will the new rule, political or monastic, of Parsifal bring more of the same – Gurnemanz, after his shocking stabbing in the back of Kundry, seems effortlessly to have transferred his loyalty to the new regime – or something different? We do not know; nor do they. Who or what, if anything, has been redeemed? What we do know is that Gurnemanz has swiftly put paid to the 'purely human' - as the younger, Feuerbachian Wagner would have had it - rekindling of sexual relations between Kundry, or Woman, and Amfortas, or Christ, or at least Jesus of Nazareth.

 

 

There are certainly clues. Amfortas is identified more with Christ than I can previously recall. He is carried by the knights so as to make him, however unhappily and unwillingly, a visual if perhaps not spiritual reincarnation. More disturbingly still, we see during the final scene of the first act, a re-enactment not only of Amfortas’s wounding but also of some form of transubstantiation, or perhaps mere vampirism, of his own blood. The sustenance drawn may well be nothing – a negative reading of Feuerbach – or it may even be primarily vengeful. There is no doubt, however, that this sick community requires it, and, most intriguingly of all, it is commanded by Titurel, whom we see walk on stage and enter his coffin. Is he a fraud or a thaumaturge? The knights are desperate for him to touch them. He certainly appears to be pulling the theological strings of a cult that has become nasty indeed.

 

The sameness of the first act – the scene does not shift during the Transformation Music, and indeed the production here burns as slowly and yet as brightly as the work – receives its response in what to begin with seems the unconnected action of the second. Here, Tcherniakov offers a brave, challenging exploration of sexuality, above all of those paedophiliac tendencies our society would desperately wish away as aberration, as the misdeeds of individual ‘monsters’. Klingsor, the very image of a tabloid newspaper’s ‘paedophile monster’, has built a home with his daughters, the Flowermaidens. Some are young; some are older; all are dressed as ‘pretty girls’. Such is clearly what has proved the undoing of Monsalvat’s knights. He clearly repels Kundry, not least when he paws her, but she of course remains in his power. (Perhaps because he has put himself beyond the ‘moral’ pale? Very Nietzschean. Or perhaps we might think of Crime and Punishment.)

 

 

When in Klingsor’s power, she is certainly willing to learn from his example, or from what it might suggest. Her kissing him already suggests an inconvenient truth concerning the complexity of abuse. Wagner’s proto-Freudian path of realisation is given shocking realisation in Kundry’s education of Parsifal, partly visualised in the staging of his memories. He and Herzeleide were close, perhaps too close. She is furious when she sees his adolescent first exploration with a girl-next-door, or perhaps even his sister. The emotional fall-out kills her, just as Kundry tells him – and us. Kundry, however, attempts to play upon those complex feelings, to reignite them, reintroducing him to the miniature rocking horse with which once, under Herzeleide’s spell, he had played. Quite what happens remains unclear, since the moment of the ‘kiss’ – is it perhaps more than that? – takes place off stage. The transformation it effects, when undressed, Parsifal, followed by Kundry, runs back on stage, is, however, never in doubt. The would-be sign of the Cross in this dark world is Parsifal’s piercing of Klingsor with the spear.

 

A crucial feature of the production that has tied both acts together is the circular seating and action of the respective crowds: knights and Flowermaidens. Sickness pervades both; they may well be more closely connected. The third act continues the work of drawing the two together, though again, suggestively rather than didactically. Ritual to drama – to ritual aufgehoben by drama. But was it the wrong drama? When, in the third act, Amfortas opens his father’s tomb and has the body fall to the ground, is that simply revenge for the inhuman treatment – the abuse – our Christ-like, yet ultimately not-so-very-Christ-like, victim has suffered? Or is it also perhaps a hint at the death of God, Titurel being his father? Nietzsche as well as those Russian writers seems hinted at, or at least available. Nihilism or theological rescue mission? As when one reads Nietzsche, perspectivism demands and yet obscures the answers.

 

Tcherniakov has staged a number of operas in Berlin with Daniel Barenboim, but this is the first Wagner drama, and indeed Tcherniakov’s first Wagner outside Russia. Barenboim has, of course, considerably longer experience, and put it to great use. The expected long line both complemented and, in its dialectic with tonal and timbral variegation below and/or above, questioned the ‘sameness’ and ‘difference’ of what we saw on stage. The extraordinary world-weariness, which must yet go on, of the Prelude to the third act would have been worth the price of admission alone, not least on account of the superlative playing of the Staatskapelle Berlin, for whose dark-hued contribution throughout, occasionally disrupted by woodwind screams so vivid that they seemed the timbral instantiation of Kundry’s chromaticism, no praise could be high enough. Indeed, the road to Schoenberg, Webern, and to Boulez – his ninetieth birthday honoured in these Staatsoper Festtage – became apparently clear, in all its Boulezian complexity. Stage action may not have been subject to serial procedures, but in some sense its interlocking with the score through such close musico-dramatic collaboration, suggested such an analogy. Certainly, Boulez's proliferative technique is worth considering not just as having roots in Wagner, but as one potential tool in our quest to understand him.

 

Much the same might be said of the work of this excellent cast. Andreas Schager cemented his reputation as the finest Heldentenor alive, indeed the finest I have heard in the flesh. His tone beguiled yet remained at the service of the text. Moreover, his movements on stage offered a well-nigh perfect portrayal of the awkwardness of an adolescent discovering his sexuality. His reluctance to show himself, hiding himself under his hood, pulled down by Herzeleide and Kundry alike, finds its counterpart in his persistent changing of clothes: seemingly a desire to be clean that can never be fulfilled. Anja Kampe triumphantly overcame illness so as fully to inhabit her role. She seemed less to play Kundry than simply to be Kundry, tireless in fulfilling the demands placed upon her by Wagner and Tcherniakov alike. René Pape’s sonorous Gurnemanz, perhaps more beautifully sung than any I have heard, was chillingly brought into question by that final act of slaughter. Tómas Tómasson’s Klingsor and Matthias Hölle’s Titurel both impressed greatly too, like Kampe loyal servants to composer, to director, and most crucially of all, to the fusion of the two. Wolfgang Koch's Amfortas entered into that musico-dramatic realm with exemplary marriage of Wort und Ton: Sachs turned (very) sour. Choral singing and acting were likewise of the highest standard throughout, a credit to Tcherniakov, to Barenboim, and to chorus master, Martin Wright.

 

Why, then, was there such appalling booing to be heard at the end, including, incomprehensibly, some apparently levelled at Barenboim? The answer, alas, is all too readily apparent. If there is anything an unthinking audience cannot stand it is to be made to think; if there is anything an abusive society cannot stand it is to be shown that it is abusive. Such fascistic behaviour of course confirms the need for the very productions it so threateningly excoriates.

 

Berlin Festtage (1) - Schütz/VPO/Barenboim - Boulez and Schubert

Philharmonie

Boulez – Livre pour cordes

Mémoriale
Originel
Schubert – Symphony no.9 in C major, ‘Great’, D 944

Karl-Heinz Schütz (flute)

Christina Bauer, Noid Haberl (electronics)

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

Daniel Barenboim (conductor)

 

No encore, although the audience would clearly have liked one; more to the point, there was a non-advertised late addition to the programme at the beginning. Daniel Barenboim came to the podium and announced that the concert would begin with the Air from Bach’s Orchestral Suite in D major, BWV 1068. Beautiful without affectation, it was a more eloquent mark of respect to those who had lost their lives in the German Wings aeroplane crash than any words. It was not a performance to be ‘reviewed’, but it should be noted.

 

The Vienna Philharmonic strings then launched more or less immediately – though not without unwanted applause, dealt with admirably by Barenboim – into Boulez’s Livre pour cordes. Barenboim’s reading proved, like his Wagner and much else, both spacious and keenly dramatic. I was struck how close the music sounded at times to Bartók. The players, coaxed into playing ‘New Music’, offered crucial subtlety in dynamic gradation and transition; to give an example, the eight double basses’ pizzicato playing was not only admirable in its unanimity but in its acceleration of impetus, driving the music forward just as it might in Beethoven. The piece emerged almost as if a tone poem (of ‘absolute music’).

Mémoriale benefited from another performance of what one might call warm precision: very much akin with much of Boulez’s own later conducting work. Perfect coordination between the magnificent flautist, Karl-Heinz Schütz, and the Vienna strings – interplay and counterpoint, echoes and collision – led us into a beguiling labyrinth indeed. The subtle yet crucial contribution of the horns should also be noted, not least at the end, fading exquisitely into nothingness. Those horns – and their players, or their instruments, according to one’s understanding! – then moved to the other side of the stage, quickly joined by other wind instruments. Two more flautists stood on either side, awaiting the return of Schütz and Barenboim for Originel. But first, Barenboim said a few words, explaining that we should now hear the same material in another Besetzung, referring to Boulez’s love for complexity and kinship both with Mahler and the orchestral Notations. (Difficult to argue with any of that!) The pairing proved genuinely rewarding, both for the mind and the senses. From the presence of clarinets at the opening, soon joined by electronics (Christina Bauer and Noid Haberl, developed and realised at IRCAM), and then the first of the two additional flute Kinder (Barenboim’s term), similarity and difference not only presented themselves but ravished. I wished I could have heard it all again, and that we might have heard any number of other potential versions.

Whilst the connection with Schubert was not overt, the care that Barenboim took to make ‘New’ Music classical and ‘old’ music new was once again clear; so was the superlative playing of the VPO. The introduction to the first movement sounded simply glorious, but more than that, it proved in spirit quite the most Furtwänglerian account I have heard in concert. There was, needless to say, none of that absurd ‘same tempo as the exposition’ nonsense. This was an experience that was mystical in the best sense. The Vienna horns, the oboe, pretty much everything – all sounded to die for. Even the depth of the violas’ sound could not help but strike, could not help but draw one in to the incipient, inexorable drama. But there was no more wallowing in beauty for its own sake than there had been in Boulez. Dark menace was a hallmark of the strings throughout the movement, always in alliance with harmonic motion; indeed, as time went on, the ghost of Klemperer sounded almost as present as that of Furtwängler, just as in much of Barenboim’s recent Beethoven. And indeed there was an almost Beethovenian purpose to the course of the movement, tension between and beneath the notes inescapable. What struck me at the end of the coda was not ‘heavenly length’ but apparent concision.

The Andante con moto was perfectly judged, both parts of the tempo marking honoured. If the oboe solo was undoubtedly exquisite, so were contributions from all of the woodwind. So too was the string playing, sounding new in the light of the Boulez works. Barenboim’s build up to the great climax was both Brucknerian and not, never uncharacteristic. I was left feeling bereft and yet, in the light of the cellos’ song in aftershock, also (potentially) reconciled. The Scherzo’s opening material was played with rustic swagger: more than the odd reminiscence of Haydn. Line, orchestral balance, and, not least, grace were equal partners in crime here. Grace certainly suffused the lovely, yet never too lovely, Trio. It relaxed – out of symphonic necessity. And yet, the harmony ever pushed us forward. There could be no arguing with the heft of the finale, nor, more importantly, with its tension and release. This was a finale truly worthy of the name. It was not only that its thrills were both visceral and intellectual; the performance showed that the two could not be separated. Likewise motivic life in inner parts and the grinding harmonic motion in the bass. If there has been a greater performance of this symphony since Colin Davis in Dresden, maybe even since Karl Böhm, I have not heard it.

 

Happy Birthday, Pierre!

I do not intend to say very much, if only on account of time, but I thought it would be remiss to offer an unduly Cagean tribute to Pierre Boulez on his ninetieth birthday. I shall shortly be reporting back from Daniel Barenboim's latest homage in Berlin; the rest of the year will bring performances in London, Salzburg, and maybe elsewhere, from which I hope to say something. Let me just say now that, of any living musician, this is the one who has most inspired me. Hearing his music for the first time (Pollini's recording of the Second Sonata), hearing him conduct for the first time, whether on CD (Mahler's Sixth Symphony), or 'live' (Notations, Bartók, Ravel, and, perhaps inevitably, The Rite of Spring): those and so many subsequent encounters are not only experiences I shall never forget, but also experiences that remain with me, experiences that continue to shape me.

I am certainly not the first to call him the conscience of what I still - quaintly? - call New Music; I doubt that I shall be the last. This, however, was the man, and still is, who, by his example, whether as composer, conductor, thinker, or polemicist, showed me why we desperately needed such a conscience - and why we still do. Our Conservative Secretary State of Culture (not that a Labour politician would be any better) tweeted last night about his sadness concerning the departure of someone from the pop group, One Direction; what are the odds of his giving some thoughts upon Pli selon pli today?  As Augusta Read Thomas reminded us in a Barbican programme tribute at the weekend, Boulez has been 'a true ambassador in the belief that the history of civilisation is written in art'. Resistance to barbarous late capitalism will not be found in Mr Javid's latest alleged enthusiasm; let us remember that he considers ticket touts to be worthy 'entrepreneurs'. It may just, however, be discerned in the bloody-minded refusal to bend to what is easy, to what is commercially advantageous, to what might offer false reconciliation, which brought us IRCAM and Le Marteau sans maître.  That is one of the many reasons why we need Pierre Boulez and his example more than ever.

The following, however, remain just a few of the numerous more compelling reasons for that need and, more to the point. for our gratitude. We need a realm for the free proliferation of artistic fantasy, because we are human.

Berlin calls...

I have often made a Holy Week pilgrimage to one of the most atheistic cities in Europe: not out of religious perversity, indeed I have sometimes caught the odd Passion and/or Parsifal in Leipzig too, but on account of the Berlin State Opera's Festtage. It was with an account of the Barenboim/Boulez Mahler cycle that I began this blog. Both Daniel Barenboim and Pierre Boulez will feature strongly in this year's events, the latter as part of his ninetieth birthday celebrations. Tomorrow, I shall leave for Berlin, musical performances beginning on Friday. I shall, God or whoever it is one should evoke in Berlin willing, report back on the following:


27 March - VPO/Barenboim: Boulez Livre pour cordes, Mémoriale, Originel, and Schubert 'Great' C major Symphony
28 March - first night of new Parsifal production: directed by Dmitri Tcherniakov; conducted by Barenboim; cast including René Pape, Wolfgang Koch, Andreas Schager, Anja Kampe.
29 March a.m. - Erdmann/Lapkovskaya/Michael Barenboim/Women from the NDR and MDR Radio Choirs/Staatskapelle Berlin/Barenboim: Boulez - Le Visage nuptial, Anthèmes 2, Notations (piano and orchestral)
29 March p.m. - Deutsche Oper: Madama Butterfly
30 March - Michael Wendeberg: Boulez piano works
1 April - Kremer/Argerich: works by Weinberg, Beethoven, and Franck
2 April - Staatsoper Tannhäuser (as also seen last year)
3 April - NDR Choir/Konzerthaus Orchestra/Spering: Bach Trauerode and Schubert Mass in A-flat major
4 April - West-Eastern Divan Orchestra/Barenboim: Debussy, Boulez (Dérive 2), Ravel
5 April - Komische Oper: double-bill of Gianni Schicchi and Bluebeard's Castle, dir. Calixto Bieito