Ground-breaking The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny Royal Opera House

Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny at the Royal Opera Hall absolutely breaks new ground, revealing the sophisticated layers of meaning inherent in the opera. Yes, it's political, yes it's about capitalism, consumerism, greed, materialism and false values and the way such things wreak havoc, like the typhoon that flattens Benares. Why Benares, the "Holy City",and not wicked Mahagonny ?

For the first time I realized this had deeper meaning than simply irony.  In a world where "you choose to kick or be kicked", Jenny Smith chickens out and kicks Jimmy McIntyre. Yet he bears no resentment. When Kurt Streit sang Jimmy's death cell soliloquy,  I thought of Billy Budd, redeemed because he dies without rancour.. Some will scream in rage at the execution, where Jimmy hangs as if crucified, but it's  a perfectly valid reading of the score. Brecht and Weill lived in a supposedly Christian society which didn't practice the principal tenets of the faith. Three years after the opera was completed, Weimar descended into the Third Reich. Untrammeled excess and its counterpart of evil. It's not for nothing Weill writes hymn-like tunes into the music. The people of Mahagonny worship Mammon. It's also not for nothing that the three founders of the city pull the strings. As the man behind me perceptively said "The un-Holy Trinity", one of whom is actually called Trinity Moses, a dig at other religions, too.  This Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny is not only true to Brecht and Weill but confronts the very evil that makes societies corrupt. Far more danderous than just another parable about greed.

The un-Holy Trinity jump out of a truck, itself a metaphor for consumerism, a machine that keeps moving but that's hollow and can be filled by anything, including fugitives.   The truck is in Brecht's original libretto but lends itself to modern imagery. The backdrop of multi-coloured boxes looks like a container park. Think Sangatte, in Calais, where illegal immigrants hide, smuggling themselves into trucks in the hope of a better life. Wetbacks have usually paid bribes to escape, and often end up worse than whence they came. So Jimmy and his friends from Alaska arrive in Mahagonny with briefcases as shiny as their dreams.

This production also makes far more of Alaska than usual, and for good reason. Alaska stands for pure, unspoiled Nature, where hardship leads to rewards, not only in terms of money but in terms of the true riches of friendship. Sparkly objects flutter down from the ROH ceiling: images of fool's gold, snowfall, and the cleansing nature of the typhoon rainstorm.  We see glimpses of Alaska in the background, pristine in black and white, in contrast the feverish, unnatural neon of Mahagonny, where night and day merge in a drunken haze.There's plenty of colour in Mahagonny.  This set can be a visual feast for the eyes, but, like gluttony, this feast is poisoned. The men watch the girls dance  in a box lit in lurid hues, with fake palm trees and a Liberace pianist who "tickles the ivories" rather than plays. It's all a con to separate men from their money. The woman make money, but pay an even more savage price, invisibly. But all that matters to the crowd is delusion. "Ah ! that's what I call Eternal Art".Unfortunately, some audiences prefer tack to real art.

In Mahagonny, even the Seven Deadly Sins are shortchanged. Like crap commercial advertising, the guiding principles are reduced to four, gluttony, lust, fighting and alcoholic stupor, each neatly vignetted. A particularly vivid Fatty from Peter Hoare in a fat suit. Alaska Wolf Joe is a comically puny-looking  Neal Davies. His moment doesn't last long. He's wiped out in seconds by Trinity Moses (Willard White), who wields a big red punching glove. The game is rigged. Besides, the real fight is not fisticuffs, but the Trial, equally rigged. Killing people is a lesser crime than not paying for three bottles of whiskey. And so Jimmy must die.

This production, directed by John Fulljames and his team, Es Devlin, Christina Cunningham, Bruno Poet , Finn Ross and Arthur Pita, operates on so many different levels., and so radically that it puts to shame the appallingly superficial Los Angeles production which seems to treat the opera as some kind of LA in-joke.  The La Fura dels Baus production, from Madrid five years ago, at least had an edge, and is definitely the better choice. Calixto Bieito, with his political acuiity, could do something really disturbing.  But for ROH audiences, John Fulljames delivers an intelligent interpretation which shows genuine understanding of Brecht and  Weill and their insistence that opera should deal with real issues even though the setting is fantasy.  This is a Rise and fall of Mahagonny which anyone seriously interested in Brecht and Weill could learn a lot from.

Musically, though, this was a bumpy ride.  Mark Wigglesworth's conducting veered from very good to less clearly defined. Weill uses a variety of genres to illustrate the universal relevance of the story, just as Brecht mixes Mahagonny with Benares, Alabama and Havana, Katmandu and Pensacola.

Anne Sofie von Otter has long specialized in singing cabaret, as well as classical, and her Weill songs are highly regarded.  Deservedly, she landed the part of Leocadia, Widow Begbick. She does the spikey, spider-like body language perfectly. But like Leocadia, her voice isn't what it used to be. Sometimes she sings extremely well, getting the slime in the legato. She saved her best work for the ending when the character's venality is at last revealed.  Willard White has been singing Trinity Moses probably more than anyone else in the business now, but his voice,too, is a shadow of what it once was. Neither Brecht nor Weill were bothered about showpiece singing, so it doesn't matter all that much. Suffice that we were  again able to hear and see von Otter and White and respect them for what they could do.

Kurt Streit's Jimmy varied, too, but for good reason. He was superb in his transcendent last soliloquy, rather less forceful earlier on. Yet that, too, is part of Jimmy's personality. He seems like a wimp at first but reveals his true colours when everything's against him. It's not the butch who are strong, but the meek.  I was also impressed with Christine Rice, normally a bit too upper class to be playing a whore. Yet her froideur worked extremely well for Jenny, who does sex for a living, not for pleasure. She could save Jimmy, but like Judas Iscariot, betrays him in his hour of need.

Darren Jeffery sang Bank Account Bill, Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts sang Jack O'Brien, Robert Clark was the piano player, Hubert Francis was Toby, and the booming voiceover was Paterson Joseph. The Girls were Anna Burford, Lauren Fagan, Anush Hovhannisyan, Stephanie Marshall, Meeta Raval and Harriet Williams.

Coming up in June - multiple Bizet

June is one of the busiest months in the year for live music in England.  It's also the most beautiful month, when gardens burst with peonies, poppies, delphiniums, clematis and roses!  Everything comes into bloom at once before the drought that can come in summer, musically as well as horticulturally.

In London this first week in June is Bizet Immersion - two Carmens and The Pearl Fishers at the ENO. I'm really looking forward to the latter, because it's completely different to the cliché of "pink, glitter and kitsch".

In Bizet's time, the East was an exotic amalgam of fantasy, which served a deeper purpose. People then needed "The East" to disguise their longings onto. At long as something is set in unreality, be it fake-orientalism or fairy tale, it's easier to deal with troubling things like sex and the subconcious. Composers used it as a cloak for musical experiment. Listen carefully to Bizet, how adventurous he is, playing around with ideas, made palatable because he coats them with "other".

Tonight, I will do a full preview of the ENO Pearl Fishers production. Last week, I went behind the scenes of the production, met the people, saw the sets, etc  A lot of work goes into bringing productions to life, and it's team work, moreover. The myth of director's whim doesn't exist very often in reality. Please see my interview with the director, Penny Woolcock HERE.

Today, I'm off to the dress rehearsal of Carmen at Opera Holland Park and on Saturday Carmen at the Royal Opera House. Should be interesting! It is so much a part of modern culture. Everyone's Carmened since they were about three years old, they just didn't realize it was "classical music". Here's a link to a film clip in Mandarin, brilliant take off by the ultimate Modern Girl, Grace Chang.

Combine gardens and music and head for the English Song Weekend in Ludlow,  Shropshire. It's unique, and held only every 3 years. Fantastic ambiance, perfect setting, good music, good talks and excellent company. This is the best season ever and I was seriously planning to go but so much else gets in the way. I know I shall regret.

Glyndebourne continues, it's magnificent, an incredible achievement because it was founded from one man's vision. It's Britain's Bayreuth but with a wider focus. Garsington, too, mixes opera with gardens and picnic. I'll be at Rossini Armida, but also Britten Midsummer Night's Dream, which will be wonderful in the Garsington open-air setting, as night falls outside. Stars courtesy of the Universe.

Then, there's Aldeburgh. Aldeburgh has always been "European" in outlook, because Britten identified with European composers like Shostakovich, Mahler and so on, much more so than the Cotswolds crowd.  That's part of what makes Britten unique, he's English but "not" English at the same time, in a creative way. With Pierre-Laurent Aimard as Artistic Director, this distinctiveness will grow. Read my analysis of Aldeburgh 2010.here. Pierre Boulez is coming, in person, to talk.He doesn't turn up at any old "local" festival, but he does for Aldeburgh, and for Aimard. Great countryside, beaches, food and gardens too.

Another really important mini-festival, if you can call it that, will be the Theresienstadt Terezin Weekend at the Wigmore Hall. Curated by the Nash Ensemble, it features music from composers who were in the camp, but it will also be a kind of remembrance as they'll be doing films, talks and something on Hans Krasa's children's opera Brundibar. Some of the people who performed the original, in Theresienstadt, as children, may be there. Reunions like these can be quite poignant, you almost feel you shouldn't be intruding on privacy, but Theresienstadt music means a lot and must not be forgotten.

Wolfgang Holzmair will be singing. Read about his recording of Theresienstadt music HERE and about Anne Sofie von Otter's concerts and CD. There is a lot on this kind of music on this site, because it means a lot to me.  I'll be writing more about the music at this particular weekend later, so keep coming back.  If the only thing I can do is to make this site a resource for suppressed music of all kinds, it's small recompense.

Also, the Spitalfields Music Festival in London, a gritty part of the East End now trendy: Rumplestiltskin from Birmingham Contemporary Music Group. And the City of London Festival, held in private Guildhouses, real medieval Guilds but members don't ply their trade in the same way now.

At the Barbican this first week, two important concerts - Daniel Harding and Thomas Adès, and Kabuki at Sadler's Wells. That's just week one, lots else elsewhere.

Laci Boldemann, von Otter, Swedish discoveries

This is the recording which features Laci Boldemann's 4 Epitaphs, which so stunned audiences at Anne Sofie von Otter's recital at the Wigmore Hall in 2003. The 4 Epitaphs are based on Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology (1915). That too is a remarkable work. Masters writes fictional epitaphs, each of which tells the story of the person supposedly buried beneath. Ollie McGee denounces her abusive husband. "In death, I am avenged". Sarah Brown tells her lover to tell her husband "There is no marriage in Heaven. But there is love".

Each of these miniatures is so intense that the "personalities" come alive. Laci Boldemann's settings are similarly terse and direct. He gets straight to the point, expressing the "person" by inflections in phrasing and syntax, rather than through ornamentation. The songs feel like speech, just as you'd expect from gritty pioneer folk who don't mince words. The songs are scored for string orchestra, with textures clean and free, evoking wide open spaces perhaps, or the other plane that is death. Amazing songs! A pity we had to wait til 2009 for their release. Anne Sofie von Otter's delivery is perfectly judged, dignified and unsentimental.

A pity, too, that Boldemann set only four of Masters's 244 vignettes. But in a way that clarity illuminates them. Boldemann was an interesting man. His parents were relatives of Aino Sibelius, and they hung out in artistic and music circles in Finland, Germany and Sweden. Nonetheless, Boldemann (1921-69) was drafted into the German Army but luckily became a POW, and spent time in the US. One day perhaps we'll hear programmes with his chamber music and these wonderful songs. I've found THIS but no other details.

Another discovery on this CD ( from DG) is Hans Gefors (b 1952) Lydias sånger. (rev 2003) It's an ambitious cycle, giving von Otter no respite : she has to sing against the Gothenberg Symphony Orchestra for half and hour without a break. Fortunately Kent Nagano conducts with sparse elegance. This is a saga-like dramatic narrative, so the range is demanding, too. The piece is loosely based on Hjalmar Söderberg's novel A Serious Game recounting an affair between a married woman and a music critic, so references to music and literature abound. Texts include Heine, Michelangelo and Bizet's Carmen. Gefors's setting are free enough that his work doesn't feel like an adaptation, but rather a series of mood pieces that create an ambience that may reflect the feelings in the novel rather than literal events. Some gems here, like The Sphinx , an unusual Heine poem that's defied most composers. Gefors captures the enigma. O schöne Sphinx! O löse mir Das Rätsel, das wunderbare!

Another world premiere starts the CD : Anders Hillborg, .....lontana in sonno....(2003) It's atmospheric, and von Otter sings the discursive phrases with sensitivity, matched by Nagano's restraint.

The Gefors and Hillborg pieces were commissioned for Anne Sofie von Otter. She's a wonderful singer, but eventually all singers retire. Hopefully, she'll be with us a long, long time. But she has done so much for unusual and new repertoire, and for Scandinavian music in particular, that her legacy will be greater and more lasting even than her singing. Twenty years ago, there were people who didn't know the songs of Grieg or Sibelius, far less Petersen-Berger or Stenhammer or Boldemann, and big names like Fischer-Dieskau didn't sing them. (Schwarzkopf did, and loved Luonnotar) Partly this is because an inordinate number of these songs are written for female voice - I don't know why. But von Otter has brought them out into the mainstream, where they belong, alongside the great German and French classics.

Theodora multiplies - Salzburg broadcast

Theodora took a vow of chastity, choosing martyrdom to marriage. Fortunately for us, Handel appreciated her steadfast virtue, and performances of his oratorio multiply and are fruitful. Even after a year when we've had Handel every single day, Theodora is interesting because it's quite "inward" and austere, like Theodora herself may have been.

The 2009 Salzburg Theodora can be heard online on demand for the next week HERE. This is the one with Christine Schäfer, Bejun Mehta and the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra which alone should indicate something special. Theodora is "...a product of (Handel's) late maturity, that ultimately determines one’s enjoyment of a work that avoids spectacular flights and fancies but shines with inner radiance" said the Financial Times (full review HERE)

Theodora didn't sell out, and neither did Handel. Though there are cross-dressing hijinks, this story isn't "fun". The organ dominates, for the vow Theodora has made is stern and uncompromising, and the dark sound of the organ symbolizes the depth of her integrity. The orchestration is spare, closer perhaps to the spirit of Bach than to High Baroque ostentation. Schäfer sounds girlish and fragile, which makes the strength of her resolve all the more intense. Her steeliness is more convincing than ostensibly more "beautiful" and luscious voices.

Lorraine Hunt Lieberson's singing is glorious, but I couldn't stand the Glyndebourne production. Peter Sellars turned the oratorio into a Star Wars caricature. The Romans became futuristic androids in plastic suits, while the Christians languished in Grecian robes. Sellar's sci-fi setting was popular because people could relate to the story in simplistic terms, but it completely overwhelmed the music and the "real" story, which is infinitely more human and moving. In any case the Christians turned out to be the "future" not the Romans. More destructively, Sellars shifts the focus away from the spirituality in the music to the cartoon-like overlay. Pointless and destructive. The Salzburg production at least recognised the role of the music, placing the organ at the centre of the action on stage, as it is in the oratorio, and by extension, in the whole narrative. Less is definitely more, particularly in a work like Theodora which is predicated on ascetic austerity.

Another Theodora, this time from Paris in 2006. Listen to this performance (streamed online) from Opera Today. Emmanuelle Haϊm conducts the Orchestre et chor du Concert d'Astrée. Anne Sofie von Otter is Theodora, fitting in well with Haϊm's clean, unfussy approach. Theodora isn't a flight of gorgeous fantasy, but a story of strong human beliefs. The Glyndebourne elaboration perhaps made it easy on the eye rather than the mind, but why not set it in other periods where high-minded people like Theodora stand up to high-living corruption? The spartan Salzburg setting seems to have acknowledged this, and alluded to the point that there are plenty of Theodoras around, even now.

More Terezin Theresienstadt music - Von Otter

For obvious reasons, music from Terezin (Theresienstadt) wasn't heard outside the camp. In the immediate post-war years, people were still too traumatized to deal with the music. Now, though, the music is enjoying a renaissance, as lost materials are collated, transcribed and performed more regularly, including by big-name professional musicians.

Recently I praised Wolfgang Holzmair's CD on Bridge Records (see HERE) and was asked about other recordings. So here's a bit about another recent issue. It's Terezin/Theresienstadt with Anne Sofie von Otter, Daniel Hope and Christian Gerhaher, issued by Deutsche Grammophon. Huge label with plenty of money behind and megastar performers so you'd assume it might be a "first choice"? But in musical terms, Holzmair on Bridge is infinitely the better buy.

Anne Sofie von Otter came relatively late to Terezin music though she's an excellent singer and champion of unusual repertoire. She'll be doing a concert of Terezin songs at the South Bank on 30 September, so it's worth finding out about her 2007 recording. pictured here.

The advantage of the DG CD is that it includes material not available elsewhere, such as the songs of Ilse Weber, who was a mother who became a camp nurse and sang to the children. Her poem Ich wandledurch Theresienstadt is good as a poem, particularly recited with the force Holzmair gives it on the Bridge recording. Von Otter sings it as a song, together with four others. Weber was heroic: she sacrificed her life to accompany the children when they were shipped to Auschwitz. Her husband survived. But as music the songs are charming rather than impressive. Which is utterly appropriate. She wrote them to keep the children happy. They were never meant to be great art. So they're worth listening to as a record of human goodness.

Similarly, there are songs here from Karel Švenk, Adolf Strauss, Carlo Sigmund Taube, Martin Roman and one poignantly "anonymous". Its remarkable that anything survives at all, so each fragment means a lot. But most of these are minor work as music, preserved as a testimony to history.

Terezin did hold top-rank composers, so the DG set includes Viktor Ullmann, Pavel Haas, Hans Krása and Erwin Schulhoff. Both sets have Pavel Haas's Four Songs on Chinese Poetry. so it's a question of whether you like Gerhaer or Holzmair. Both singers have a similar light, soft grained timbre, Holzmair having the edge with a shading of melancholy. The Ullman songs on the DG are from his op 34, rather than the striking op 37 (with Der Schweiz) that Holzmair does with such vigour. On the other hand, the DG set goes beyond piano and voice, and includes Daniel Hope , playing Schulhoff's Sonata for Solo Violin. In many ways, this is the main draw of the recording. Hope will be playing at von Otter's QEH concert. Devotees of this genre will of course have the ancient multi CD set of Ullmann songs with Christine Schafer and Axel Bauni. Schafer's excellent, Holzmair again has the edge on the songs he shares with Bauni.