Rock solid in every way : Strauss Salomé, Salzburg

Strauss Salomé : Asmik Grigorian (photo Ruth Walz)

Richard Strauss Salomé from the Salzburg Festival, conducted by Franz Welser-Möst, a powerful interpretation of an opera which defies easy answers, performed and produced with such distinction thast it suceeds on every level.  The words "Te saxa Loquuntur" (The stones are speaking to you) are projected onto the stage.  Salzburg regulars will recognize this as a reference to the rock foundations on which part of the city is built, and the traditions the Festival represents. In this opera, the characters talk at cross-purposes, hearing without understanding. The phrase suggests that what might not be explicitly spoken might have much to reveal.

 Behind a gauze sceen, a madonna figure with lace veil and golden crown materializes, laying down her veil.  Dark figures appear, crushing the veil and crown underfoot.   Princess Salomé ( a sensational Asmik Grigorian) enters. "Wie schön ist die Prinzessin Salome heute Nacht!" sings Narraboth (Julien Prégardien, vocally recognizable even beneath the makeup), his lines repeating in different  patterns.   Dark swelling chords surge from the orchestra, Salomé puts on the veil and crown. Like the Madonna she's worshipped (by Narraboth) but later treated as a whore (by Herodes - John Daszak). Horns and trombones call from the pit, heralding the voice of Jochanaan (Gábor Bretz).

This staging (by Romeo Castellucci) manages to depict  the multiple levels in the opera as a coherent whole. Instead of depicting the dungeon as an underground cavern, it uses the simple device of a black hole projected onto the stage, from which Jochanaan emerges, first garbed as a mythic beast hardly visible against the blackness behind him.  The hole is nearly always present, breaking into the marble and mirror glass neatness of the palace. Later it will serve as a technical device disguising quick scene changes.  This is perceptive since the opera itself deals with the way Jochanaan's presence unsettles Salomé, and the way the subconcious intrudes into consciousness. Bretz holds aloft a circular object, like an opaque mirror.

Mirror images abound. Salomé speaks at Jochanaan with images of beauty proliferating in nearly every line, swiftly changing and moving, Grigorian singing with good rhythmic deliberation, almost as though she was already singing the dance of veils. As Salomé moves in on Jochanaan to kiss him, the orchestra wails in horror. "Du bist verflucht." sings Bretz, with malevolent force "Du bist verflucht, Salomé!"  Welser-Möst brings out the strident dissonace, brasses blaring and exhaling - not unlike over-excited human screams.  Then Grigorian dances, slowly, in time to the music, her legs exposed. It's explicitly erotic, though chaste.  Tubas and baleful bassoons announce the entry of Herodes and Herodias (Anna Maria Chiuri) and their retinue, stepping over Narraboth’s corpse, unperturbed. More characters at cross-purposes. "Hört ihr es nicht?" "Ich höre nichts"   Clarity in the singing makes the exchanges bristle with tension. This was particularly effective in the interaction between Herodes and the Jews and Nazarenes.  They too are "dancing" games of non-communication. When the voice of Jochanaan blasts through again, Bretz cuts through, firm and direct.

A monolith marked "Saxa" is shifted, revealing Grigorian, now in a silk shift, looking vulnerable.  But something has changed in her.  Her lines are now fierce, almost monotone, rising to maniacal savagery. Now she's seen in a circle, surounded by white liquid. No whitewash, not milk so much as the symbolism of the moon of which she sang before she encountered Jochannan "Ja, wie die Schönheit einer Jungfrau, die rein geblieben ist." Herodes grows more insistent, and the red paint, covering Daszak’s face like a mask, melts away, staining his clean white shirt.  "Ich will den Kopf des Jochanaan" sings Grigorian, her vouce rising to wild crescendo. Still, Herodes prevaricates, his lines disintegrated into horrified fragments.  Welser-Möst hold nothing back, defining the turbulence with its sharp brass alarums and thunderclaps of percussion.  Grigorian alternates between ferocity and tenderness,  searching lines reaching out, then receding into regret. A tour de force performance, made even more moving by the sensitive filming which picks up the emotion in her expressive face.  The dancing here is in the voice part and the music swirling around it: Grigorian embraces the headless corpse of the prophet, seated like a Babylonian statue, carved in stone.  "Ich habe ihn geküsst, deinen Mund", she sings against a luminous orchestral background which rises to strange, unsettling valediction.  And so Salomé dies, her head poking from a hole in the ground, as if on a silver platter.

This is a production of surreal, esoteric beauty, so full of subtle detail that it will, in time, reveal even more depths.  Kudos to the dramaturge Piersandra Di Matteo.  But it also reveals extremely high levels of musicianship, both in the singing and orchestral playing. Since it is co-sponsored by ORF, 3sat and UNITEL in co-operation with Wiener Philharmoniker and the Salzburg Festival, no doubt a DVD will be forthcoming. In which case grab it. 

Puppets? Yes! Wozzeck Matthias Goerne Salzburg

Alban Berg's Wozzeck  at Salzburg, with Matthias Goerne, with Vladimir Jurowski conducting the Vienna Philharmoniuc Orchestra, at last on medici.tv.  Goerne's done the role many times in the last 20 years or so, so his approach is authoritative, with searing intensity, so expressive that you almost flinch.  But flinch you should, since that's what makes for a good Wozzeck. When my son went to his first Wozzeck, he heard some in the audience chuckling. "What!" he gasped in exasperation, "If you can come out of this opera without feeling  disturbed, there's something wrong with you". For Berg's Wozzeck is the epitome of Expressionist Angst, a psychodrama that unfurls in multi-level complexity.  It is a howling scream of outrage against a system that dehumanizes and destroys all involved.  Not just Wozzeck, or Marie, but the regimented (in every way) world around them.   Everyone in this opera is a puppet of some kind,  manipulated by some unseen, invisible force beyond their control.

William Kentridge's production was created for the Haus für Mozart, a relatively small, performing space, which must magnify the impact.  On film, however, the physical darkness overwhelms. It's not easy to watch, but well worth the effort because Kentridge's reading is highly perceptive.  The abstraction of the set is disconcerting. It's as if we were within an infernal machine, where things are regulated by clockwork: odd angular planes, horizontals and diagonals, myriad tools and mechanisms.  The Captain is seen, taunting Wozzeck from above.  He's wearing a ceremonial hat and red uniform, his arms waving like a wound-up toy. Gerhard Siegel spat out the words "Haha! Haha!" with maniacal savagery.  So he's not being shaved?  Wozzeck (Matthias Goerne)  is seen bent over, grinding away.  Then you realize why the Captain's cloak is blood red.  Parallel realities, psychological truth.

Berg was writing at a time when psychological theories entranced the public imagination, and cinema was quick to capitalize on its ability to present multiple-level visual and emotional effects.  Berg, a keen movie goer,  incorporated new ideas into his score. The orchestral interludes operate like curtain changes, keeping the action swift even when drastic changes of scene are taking place.  Wozzeck exits whatever room he's been in with the Captain, into a maze of shadows, the path ahead of him narrow and skewed in zig zag form - an image which could come straight from a 20's silent movie.   Suddenly we're in the surreal world of the reed beds, where Wozzeck and Andres (Mauro Peter) are collecting reeds for fuel. The contraptions on their backs are the kind of baskets used by woodcutters in the past, which incidentally resemble straitjackets. Though we don't see the reedbeds, we sense they're there on either side of the narrow path, waiting to suck the men in and drown them. The orchestra growls ominous menace, timpani pounding, the gloom lit by will o' the wisps of high woodwind, suggesting surreal spirits.  Goerne's voice rises spookily from the darkness "Still, alles still, als wäre die Welt tot!"

The orchestra heralds another change of scene:  Marie is glimpsed, alone with her child, here seen as a puppet. And why not? Berg portrayed the child as nameless, unformed without a voice of his own, an observer of horrors who will quite possibly grow up to act out the dehumanization around him all over again.  The puppet wears a gas mask, and the puppeteer the uniform of a field nurse.  It's utterly relevant, since Berg experienced horrors in a military hospital during the First World War. The system was sick, the hospital palliative, not focused on cure.   There are many who object to the employment of a real child in the part, but there's something wrong with the kind of viewer who doesn't want a kid to witness sex.   Why not get angry about the fact that millions of kids grow up abused and neglected in reality all round us?  Perhaps Wozzeck grew up in such conditions. The cyclical nature of Berg's idiom makes it clear that cycles go on, unbroken, like the palindromes in the music.

The Drum Major (John Daszak) fascinated Marie (Asmik Grigorian) and Margret (Frances Pappas) because he seems to embody another, more glamorous world than their own. Yet he, too, is a puppet, strutting and marching in formation.  Though Marie loves her child and tries to amuse him with songs, she can't break out of the pattern of inept parenting she probably experienced herself.   Goerne's voice with its rich depth suggests more warmth and basic decency than the role strictly speaking provides, but this household isn't Happy Families.

Kentridge's staging suggests how Wozzeck seems to live his life struggling between one box and another.  Goerne sits passively while the Doctor ( Jens Larsen) prods and pokes him in the name of crackpot science. "Ah....." sings  Goerne, his voice almost rising to falsetto, suggesting pain and muffled protest.  Interestingly, Marie cries almost as shrilly before she succumbs to the Drum Major.  Moments later, she's singing fairy tales, as if nothing's happened.  The puppet, however, expresses pathos, crumpling into immobility, like a child shutting out trauma.  The Doctor and the Captain converse, but they, too, are in a psychic hell of delusion. Officers, but still puppets acting out roles they can't otherwise fill.  In comparison, Wozzeck is sane. "Man könnte Lust bekommen, sich aufzuhängen! Dann wüsste man, woran man ist!" sings Goerne, but the Captain and doctor think it's a joke.

A momentary glimpse of another puppet-child, dressed in white like the Drum Major, marching while the men in the barracks carouse.  Yet again, Berg contrasts horror with mindless banality: boozy drinking songs and the cry of the Madman  (Heinz Göhrig) the first to sense blood.   Fabulous ensemble singing - Goerne's voice rising above the ghostly sounds in the chorus.  The confrontation between the Drum Major and Wozzeck is brutal, trumpets blazing, staccato percussion, like gunfire. 
Grigorian's tiny, her voice more shrill than most Maries, so in comparison with Goerne, she's like a fragile child.  He towers over her, like a father figure, a chilling image, suggestingb that both of them were brutalized, too, in the past.  Two tiny figures in a vast landscape oif abstract black and grey with flashes of red light, like thunder (in recognition of Berg's original stage directions). The "curtain" falls in a cataclysmic scream in the orchestra, horns ablaze.   But Goerne dominates, in every way, singing with exceptional character, better even than in the past.  "Das Wassser ist Blut ! Blut!"  The Doctor and Captain, yet again, retreat in denial.

Atmosopheric playing from the Vienna Philharmonic, decidedly "more" than a Strauss orchestra. Jurowski's years of experience as an opera conductor pay off well. The harsh dissonance and swirling strings scream horror, yet also elegy.  At last we see some semblance of scenery, but it's not natural. The pool shines, but it's surrounded by broken uprights. Is it a bomb crater filled with rain and mud?  Magnificent, malevolent video projections to match the intensity in the music. One screen shows a figure - neither male nor female - relentlessly walking.  Thus Berg ends with the song "Ringel, Ringel, Rosenkranz, Ringelreih'n!"  It is a round, yet another typically Bergian palindrome. The children's voices sound innocent but the message is sinister.  The puppet child rides a hobby horse, as mentioned in the libretto, but this time, it's made from a crutch.  The children's voices are heard from offstage. "Du ! Deinn Mutter ist tod!" they cry, cruelly. The puppet is truly alone trapped in his own dimension.  He listens, then bends his little head desolate and crestfallen.,  He may be made of wood, but he has more humanity than most of the other characters in this bleakest of operas.
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William Kentridge | Stage director, Luc De Wit | Co-stage director,Sabine Theunissen | Stage sets,
Greta Goiris | Costumes, Catherine Meyburgh | Video editor, Urs Schönebaum | Lighting, Kim Gunning | Video operator

Matthias Goerne | Wozzeck, John Daszak | Drum Major, Mauro Peter | Andres, Gerhard Siegel | Captain, Jens Larsen | Doctor, Tobias Schabel | First Apprentice, Huw Montague Rendall | Second Apprentice, Heinz Göhrig | Madman, Asmik Grigorian | Marie, Frances Pappas | Margret
Salzburger Festspiele und Theater Kinderchor, Wolfgang Götz | Chorus director, Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus, Ernst Raffelsberger | Chorus director

 Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Vladimir Jurowski | Conductor

Fidelio Salzburg : depressing, provocative but not wrong

Beethoven's  Fidelio is an opera designed to provoke outrage. Any production that doesn't provoke is a betrayal of the composer. Salzburg's new Fidelio is provocative, but that's exactly how it should be. Fidelio is an opera about ideas.  Like it or not, Claus Guth's production does engage with the ideas and ideals central to any genuine engagement with the opera. He presents an unusual take on the piece, but nonetheless one which is valid and thoughtful.  If we dismiss ideas because they don't fit our own, we're no better than the Don Pizarros of this world.

Leonore (Adrianna Pieczonka) is ogled by Marzelline  (Olga Beszmertna)   Perhaps the scene was written to show that Leonore's impersonation of a man can convince a woman. But one wonders just how much Leonore is a symbol rather than a character. Beethoven related to concepts, rather than to real women.  Thus the minimalist set, where the singers cast huge shadows that take on a life of their own, depending on the angle of lighting and shadow. The dynamic between Rocco (Hans-Peter Kõnig), Jaquino (Norbert Ernst) and the two female roles is interesting. Kõnig's a big man, who literally overshadows Jacquino: even at this stage one wonders if Marzelline could ever commit to marriage the way Leonore commits to Florestan. The music in these scenes is charming, in Singspiele style, but one wonders about the irony.  Like The Magic Flute, charm masks darker undertones.

Guth dispenses with bantering dialogue. Audiences know (or should know) the story well enough to follow the action as drama for its own sake. I liked the shadows, and the costumes of the choruses because they reminded me of Scherenschnitte, so popular in Beethoven's time - black silhouettes against white backgrounds that depict figures in stylized relief, deliberately evading realism.  Period detail does exist in this production, you just have to look closely.  Leonore and Don Pizarro have non-singing "shadows" acting behind them. There's a kind of rationale to this but it confuses things.

Instead of dialogue,  Guth employs strange sound effects. When I first heard this, audio-only, the sounds seemed disruptive because there weren't any visuals to explain what was going on. The sounds made more sense on stage because they suggested whirring and the movement of vast, cumbersome equipment.  Indeed, during the all-important Leonore Overture, we see stage hands changing the scenery. At first I couldn't understand, but then it occurred to me that we were seeing depicted before us the Deus ex machina resolution. Without the sudden appearance of Don Fernando (Sebastien Holecek) how might the story end ?  Hence the Overture which separates the main part of the opera with the elegantly-written postlude, like the Moral in Don Giovanni. But in Fidelio, the loose ends aren't tidied up.  We hear the music, but do we really know what happens next?  In real life political oppression, the bad guys usually win.  Happy endings don't happen unless there are major "scene changes" in society. 

It's quite possible that  the opera is happening in Florestan's head. Can he really only escape the dungeon through ideas and ideals? It's a provocative concept, but certainly not invalid.  In the opera, Florestan does nothing heroic, though we know he's been a hero in the past. Leonore is the protagonist,  the action man/woman who can defy the entire prison system and do what Florestan, trapped in prison, cannot do.  Florestan is an intellectual, a man who uses his mind, so why shouldn't he use his mind to contemplate his dilemma? Florestan (Jonas Kaufmann) doesn't even appear until the Seciond Act, but when he does, it's significant that he's alone, without hope, singing his amazing monologue. 

Thus Pieczonka "sings" without sound during the Prisoners Chorus and gesticulates frantically without saying a word, towards the conclusion.  The giant chandelier hangs oppressively over the stage. The prisoners have glimpsed artificial light but they have not been released.  The minimalism in this staging (designs by Christian Schmidt) support the idea that the drama is happening in Florestan's head, but like the strange mechanical sound effects, the scenes don't translate well audio-only.  In the radio broadcast, Kaufmann had to sing across a vast, empty void, which placed his voice under unnatural strain. Perhaps that's logical, given that he's been starved and deprived of light for two years, but I'd rather hear him do what he does best.  Fortunately, he sang gloriously in his dialogues with Pieczonka and the rest of the ensemble. Then, basking in the illumination of his imagination, Kaufmann's Florestan become a true hero, liberated by his art. 

Franz Welser-Möst conducted. Twenty-five years ago, in London, he dared to upset some entrenched interests, and was given the nickname "Worse than Most".  That was a vicious act of bullying and unfair, yet the abuse continues, perpetuated by many who don't know the original circumstances but repeat things on autopilot. Welser-Möst isn't worse than most and a lot better than many. So he's not demonstrative and doesn't court popularity, but he's a solid musician, who deserves respect. In Fidelio, clear-sighted commitment and dignity are more important than flamboyance.  Furthermore, he has guts.  Last September he quit the Vienna State Opera right at the start of  the season, discreetly not giving reasons. It was a job he loved, and filled for longer than most, but he wasn't alone in being discomforted by Dominique Meyer and the likes of  Sven-Erik Bertolf. 

Please also read my pieces on Claus Guth's soulless  Salzburg Don Giovanni and on his Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten at the Royal Opera House which everyone seemed to love but I hated. Read Follow the Falcon here. In Fidelio, the action might conceivably be in Florestan's mind, but the action in DFoSch almost certainly isn't.  For a really good Die Frau Ohne Schatten, go to the Salzburg production directed by Christof  Loy. Read my analysis here.  That did seem provocative, but it was infinitely more profound and musically sensitive. Guth's Fidelio works, but it's depressing and doesn't have the ferocious, hard-hitting bite of Calixto Bieito's Fidelio which really engaged with the issues - and the politics of the opera (read my analysis here). Now THAT was so provocative that it was met with near hysteria. But it was a lot closer to Beethoven's intentions than its detractors realized.

Salzburg Schubert Fierrabras Knights in white satin

Knights in white sarin - Schubert's opera Fierrabras at the Salzburg Festival, conducted by Ingo Metzmacher. Fierrabras is an opera with no performance tradition, whatsoever. The only performances between 1835 and the 1980's were concert performances, some in greatly shortened versions. Arguably, there's little Beidermeier about Fierrabras.  It didn't catch the popular mood.  In an era when opera audiences fell in love with Rossini, Fierrabras might have seemed a throwback. On the other hand, for modern audiences it's an insight into Schubert's ideas on music drama,  inspired as it was by his imagination and by Germanic Singspiel.

In Peter Stein's production,Charlemagne's Knights are clothed in white satin and shining silver chain mail. Later they'll carry palm branches, like Christians on Palm Sunday. The stark black-and-white colour scheme is perfectly apt. When the knights are imprisoned in darkness, their costumes pick up just enough light to remind us that they're the good guys and that they will, eventually, be saved.  Visually, this is a very beautiful production, but it's also intelligently thought through. No mawkish kitsch here. The Knights represent an idealized dream, not reality.

The elegance of this setting (designed by Ferdinand Wögerbauer and Annamaria Heinreich) is utterly magical.  Lovely as this production is to look at, it's also a lot more intelligent than the sort of mindless fodder that pleases so-called "traditionalists". The backdrops are black-and-white too, scored and cross-hatched like engravings in antique story books. Stein  reminds us that Schubert got his ideas from books. He was a Romantic, in every sense of the word, using medieval images as a language his contemporaries would have recognized as artistic licence. In  Claus Guth's Fierrabras for Opernhaus Zürich in 2005,  Schubert himself appeared, a silent figure scribbling away seated at a giant desk, the singing roles got up like characters in 1820's Singspiele. Peter Stein develops the same idea but in an infinitely less confusing manner.

In many ways,  Fierrabras is almost unstageable. The libtretto (Josef Kupelweieser) is obtuse and pure fiction.  Emma (Julia Kleiter) daughter of Karl der Große (Georg Zeppenfield) is secretly  in love with Eginhard (Benjamin Bernheim)  Fierrabras (Michael Schade) the son of the Moorish King Boland (Peter Kálmán) has been captured by Roland (Markus Werba),  Eginhard is captured by Boland and Roland has to save him.To complicate matters, Fierrabras and his sister Florinda (Dorothea Röschmann) met Emma and Eginhard in Rome, which explains why all ends neatly. .If only Christians and Muslims solved things so easily!

Faced with multiple sets of would-be lovers, Schubert employs similar voice types and a lot more spoken dialogue than might appeal to non-German speakers or modern audiences. There are some lovely choruses and individual arias, all well performed.   Röschmann's monologue was specially effective, since her face materialized out of the gloom. As a plot device, Florina is a deus ex machina, but Röschmann makes her feel real.  As music drama, Fierrabras is as clumsy as the story books Schubert and his contemporaries would have read. But its charms work  as long as you don't expect anything on the lines of opera after 1830.  There are many passages (especially the choruses) which are recognizably Schubert, to those familiar with his part songs and larger pieces like the longer ballads. For me, anyway, three hours passed like a flash and I watched all over again.  Stein's Fierrabras is an excellent introduction to the opera and to the style.  Enjoy it here on medici tv and hope it makes it to DVD.

Anna Netrebko Il trovatore Salzburg

Interviewed by Austrian TV just before her performnac as Leonora in Verdi Il Trovatore at Salzburg, Anna Netrebko says "Leave me alone!" She's made up and costumed just before curtain call and the interviewer asks her auf Deutsch about the difficulties of the role. "That's why I need to concentrate in this hour, I don't need lots of people around." But she's gracious and smiles and gives the guy something for the camera.

Singing Leonora "is difficult because it needs such a range, and several styles, over two octaves, from a light coloratura to almost mezzo soprano. So it's better that I can concentrate  and be careful with my vocal technique."  In this production she plays two roles, a woman in a  museum and Leonora. "This is a good idea. It has a modern twist and it looks very beautiful aesthetically and it doesn't disturb the music, which is the most important thing of all."

When Netrebko was younger she used to draw and paint. She would still do so if she could but she's just too busy. "No time, no inspiration - if you have no inspiration, then it's mmmmmmm" she smiles.  Watch the production on medici TV here.

Salzburg's soulless Don Giovanni

A new Mozart Don Giovanni at the Salzburg Festival with a superb cast and a good conductor. So what went wrong? Excellent singers - Lenneke Ruiten (Donna Anna), Anett Fritsch (Donna Elvira), Valentina Nafornita (Zerlina), Ildebrando D’Arcangelo (Don Giovanni), Luca Pisaroni (Leporello), Tomasz Konieczny (Il Commendatore,) Andrew Staples (Don Ottavio), Alessio Arduini (Masetto), Conductor Christoph Eschenbach. Maybe I was expecting too much, but surely good Mozart in the Haus für Mozart should not be too much to hope for ?

Joyce DiDonato has said  "People need to understand that great performances are aided by great direction." She knows what shes talking about. Good direction isn't about costumes, or props, or physical things, but about drama.  An opera is "about" something. Performers are there to express what the story and music might mean. Every performance, even a 100th revival, should engage with the dynamic of  human relationships. Singers of this calibre can't go wrong. But what were they singing about? They seemed oddly disengaged, almost as if they were bored.

Setting Don Giovanni in a stylish hotel is a good idea, because it allows quick scene changes that don't hold up the pace. Donna Anna might be in a fancy suite, while Masetto and Zerlina's wedding takes place in the ballroom. This solves the problem of fitting in parties and dinner guests. A hotel is also anonymous: a metaphor for Don Giovanni's  soulless pursuits. But there's more to good directing than a set.  Sven-Erik Bechtolf's production unfortunately dwells so much on the impersonal and anonymous that there's almost no insight as to why Don Giovanni does what he does, or why women fall for him. Or, for that matter, why the audience should care.

Luca Pisaroni's Leporello looks bemused the whole time. The look of incomprehension on his face may be the director's take on the drama. Pisaroni has done the part so many times that he knows how much more there is to Leporello than this. Very good singing, but he can, and has, been much more emotionally involved.  When will he sing Don Giovanni himself ? In a production that makes full use of his exceptional skills for characterization, one hopes.

Ildebrando D’Arcangelo sings Don Giovanni well, but the lack of direction lets him down.  He appears in a snakeskin coat, which is a nice touch, since the character is a snake, who slips his skin off when he wants. His many costume changes aren't in themselves a problem, but there's much more to drama than what one wears. Who is Don Giovanni? What drives him? Why does he defy death itself? He's a lot more than a serial seducer. D’Arcangelo falls to the ground when the Commendatore grabs his hand. But at the end he gets up, runs off and chases yet another anonymous woman.  Quite probably, men like Don Giovanni don't learn a thing, but Mozart makes it pretty clear that Don Giovanni is wrong. In this production, so much for the Moral, and for the intensity of its expression.

There are lots of extraneous details, like waiters in devil masks and a rather good scene where D’Arcangelo licks the icing off Zerlina's wedding cake, but these details amount to nothing, if there's no engagement with the deeper ideas in the drama.  There are people who sneer at "Konzept",as if they're being clever. But all the word means is joined-up thinking. It's all very well to have bits of this and bits of that, but without an overall conceptual understanding of what makes a drama work. Maybe some audiences like productions that are purposeless but pretty. But Mozart and da Ponte deserve a whole lot more. How can anyone not engage with music and ideas as powerful as those in Don Giovanni ?  There's no such thing as affect-neutral listening.

Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten Salzburg - exceptionally musically sensitive

Richard Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten opens at the Royal Opera House. (read my review here). This opera fascinates because "Shadows" occlude its meaning on many levels. Yet, just as the Kaiserin has to engage with feelings rather than steal a shadow, so should we engage with the opera.  Every interpretation should reveal something. The one thing to beware, I think, in an opera which predicates on oblique contradiction,  is anything too literal.  That's why I love the Salzburg production from 2011, directed by Christof Loy.   It overthrows the whole notion of staging.  Its paramount focus is the opera itself.
 
It's ironic that those who hate "modern"stagings cannot recognize a production where the music comes first and above all else. Christian Thielemann's conducting is magnificent: crystalline clarity, austere yet passionately, painfully sensual. In this production, the orchestra truly sings along with the voices: there are few distractions to the inherent drama in the music. Indeed, this production underlines an important theme implicit in so much of Richard Strauss's music: the idea of art replicating the making of art.

At first, the production seems like a concert performance. For that the patrons of the Salzburger Festspielhaus have paid a fortune?  that alone says something about the way culture is consumed.  The set references Karl Böhm's historic first recording. The sophistcated Salzburg audience is looking onto a simpler, spartan world that no longer exists. More irony. The cast wear coats because Böhm conducted in an unheated room, but the "coldness" also reflects the situation. In this strange kingdom, the moon controls destiny. The images of falconry, deer and hunting suggest death, not life. This coldness can't continue. The singers are wearing coats because they're embarking on journeys toward change.

Beware the literal. Just as the opera operates on two planes, so does the production. This staging works on a disconcerting metaphysical level, but it's deceptive (rather like the opera). Notice the detail in the direction: the singers interact like singers would, rather than "characters" playing parts, The Nurse (Michaela Schuster) darts spiteful glances at the Kaiserin (Anne Schwanewilms) as if there's form between them. As the opera evolves, we realize that there is some deeply repressed rivalry. Only when the Kaiserin rids herself of this malign mother-figure can she grow. Schwanewilms, who owns the part these days, is superb.  She can concentrate on her singing, capturing the nuanced detail of a concert performance.  Loy's direction is singer-oriented, and the entire cast rises to the challenge. Musically, this production is a revelation - as things should be.

The First Act unfolds in a place and time that defines definition. "Updating" is an utterly irrelevant concept. Just as in many Wagner operas, by the time the opera s begins, tjere's a whole history we piece together through clues in the text. Falcon heads and deer are perfectly reasonable ways to depict this strange world with its images of the moon and hunting. Falcon cries haunt the music, calling out even when they're not mentioned in the text.  Perhaps we even hear gazelles in the fleeting, energetic twists in the strings.  But it's far more disturbing, I feel, to see it staged in this much more metaphysical, abstract way. The singers are seen clutching copies of the score.  Factotums appear on the margins and in corridors, even when they sing. Nothing here is quite what it seems, for very good reason.  Living without a shadow is unnatural. The Kaiserin needs to come down from the lands of the Moon and live among mortals.

Gradually, imperceptibly, the singers enter "acting" mode, their movements becoming more naturalistic as they begin to engage with their innermost feelings.  The set gets busier and more animated: we see action take place in rooms above and to the side of the stage. As the action warms up, so does the lighting, and the possibility of shadow. The sterility of the staging is significant, for the "moon" is sterile, and the Dyer's Wife (Evelyn Herlitizius) has no children. The lushness in the orchestration serves to emphasize the alienation in the Dyer's Wife and the Kaiserin. In the lushness of the orchestra we hear what they are missing out on. Here there are no visual barriers to deaden the sadness.

Die Frau ohne Schatten often gets a bad press because the relationship between Barak (Wolfgang Koch) and his wife is misunderstood in a superficial Kinder, Küche, Kirche manner. Everything we know about Strauss's relationship with his wife suggests the opposite. No way was Pauline de Ahna a woman to be pushed around. If anyone did the pushing in that household, it was she. The Strausses imbibed the ideas of the Munich Secession, and its liberated attitude to women. In its own way, Die Frau ohne Scahtten is fairly explicit about sexual repression. The fantasy scene is witty: figures in feathers dance around the Dyer's Wife - flamingos, not falcons!  The shadows are getting sharper now she's coming to terms with her needs.   Much in this opera is alluded to rather than explicit, but the text is reasonably clear what having children really means: the continuation of life. Keikobad is dead, and the Nurse is banished. Barak and his wife will start their own family. We see the minor characters in the staging reappear as child versions of themselves : children everywhere, re-enacting the process of growing up. It's not about "self" but the continuum of life.

As the Kaiserin faces judgement, there's a wonderful moment when Schwanewilms looks upwards at the empty office. We hear the sounds of the falcon and see the falcon's colours in Schwanewilm's red  hair. When the Kaiser (Stephen Gould) appears in the upstairs office, warmth suffuses her features, though she moves with nervous gestures, like a bird.  The confrontations between The Kaiserin and the Nurse are also particularly intense, like a duel between Ortrud and Elsa von Brabant.  "Higher forces are at work" spits a demonic Michaela Schuster, blazing with violence, draped in black. When all thye principals join in, singing at each other, but together, the turbulence in the orchestra suggests transition : sweeping, soaring discords as if the sky were exploding and the oceans rising. The stage goes black - the music is speaking. Schwanewilms appears in a corner.  As the poignant solo violin plays, she walks, alone, spotlit on the dark emptiness of the stage. It's like seeing pure music come alive. In the orchestra, we hear the invisible "water " motif. sparkle around her. Wonderful connection between meaning, visuals and music. Stephen Gould's voice rings out clarion like as he sings the Kaiser. The Kaiserin has struggled with herself and won. Only now,, we see a Karl Böhm figure smiling down from above.

In the darkness, the stage is transformed. It's Christmas, when a Child is given to the World as Saviour.  The barren frame  set finds fulfilment and becomes a proper performing space. The "Cherubim" wear blue sailor suits, like the Vienna Boys Choir. The Austrian colours of red and white hang from the balconies. The soloists appear in elegant evening dress. Again, the music "speaks". The singers's long, high lines cross and interact, and the orchestra adds richness and grandeur. Even the on stage "audience" joins in, waving rhythmically.  Look ! There's The Nurse forced to spend her life among mortals and fidgety little kids whom she hates ! Schwanewilms turns away, and sees the young couple who had been extras on the set embrace. 

Christof Loy's production is exceptionally sensitive to music and meaning, and it has inspired exceptionally good singing and playing. Performers like Thielemann and Schwanewilms aren't going to give this much if they don't believe in what they're doing.  The booing mob think "Regie" means regimentation, but in the real world directors have to motivate performers who know their music well. Co-operation and harmony - the very message of the opera. Strauss knew first hand how the business worked. Maybe there are those who know better than performers of this calibre, but I'm prepared to respect their taste and artistry.
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Herheim's perceptive Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg Salzburg

Stefan Herheim's Wagner Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg in Salzburg will transfer to the Met. Will audiences collapse in hysteria? Not if they know and care about the opera or about Wagner. Herheim focuses on Hans Sachs himself, as individual and artist, not the "public" displays of civic pride. This Meistersinger is exceptionally werktreue and perceptive. It engages with Wagner's ideas on creativity and the purpose of art.  Herheim deals with the true meaning of "die heil'ge deutsche Kunst" and with Wagner in the context of German tradition.

The Overture unfolds showing Sachs (Michael Volle) in nightcap and gown, surrounded by relics of his long dead family.  Herheim shows us Sachs the man who was once happy with a wife and children. Perhaps that's why he acts as father figure to others. But it also shows how "Wahn, Wahn, überall Wahn" grows from deep emotional scars. Life is short, and unfair. It shouldn't be wasted on things that don't really count. There's nothing silly about seeing Sachs playing with toys. This gives depth to Sachs's personality, and also connects to the idea that creativity is instinctive. References to youth and renewal run throughout the opera. The congregation in church are witnessing a baptism. Herheim's toys remind us to play with our imagination. Beckmesser thinks art comes from rigidly following rules. Sachs doesn't. Do we approach Herheim's Meistersinger as Beckmessers or as Sachs?


Throughout the opera, there are references to craftmanship and the process of creation. "Schuhmacherei und Poeterei", as David says.  Understanding Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg  as a work about art and the making of art can't surely be too difficult a concept to grasp. So there's no need to sneer when the set turns into a giant desk.  So the characters in the narrative spring to life on Sachs's workstation. The Meistersingers make much fuss about proper seating. Herheim has them sit on upturned giant thimbles, which are later revealed as empty buckets. When Walther (Marcus Werba) sings his first "Fanget an!", the Meistersingers collapse like skittles. It's funny but also very apt.

By defining the concept of art as imagination, Herheim is able to release much more esoteric levels. The imagery of sleep is important, too. By day, Sachs is busy making shoes. At night he's alone. Sleep releases the unconscious, creative mind. Sachs solves the dilemmas in his art as a craftsman, just as he fixes shoes so they function properly. In Act Two, the desk is shrouded in darkness. We catch a brief glimpse of the lilac tree through Sach's window, but we don't need to see it again on the desktop "stage". Its fragrance perfumes the music. Johannistag coincides with Mid Summer Night's Eve, the shortest night in the year when magical things can happen. When the townsfolk awake, they're literally surrounded by "Gespenstern und Spuk". Fairy tales, as Bruno Bettlelheim said, mask subconcious fears under a guise of comic figures. Ghosts and spooks would be hard to depict in a more literal staging. We laugh, but take the point. There's even a group of trolls! Herheim's wry sense of humour is deliciously wicked.

These images also bring together several periods of German culture. Herheim's costumes suggest the Early Romantic period, when German intellectuals like the Brothers Grimm, Brentano and von Arnim and Gottfried Herder were rediscovering premodern tradition. Without the Romantics, we might not have the modern world with its interest in the darker side of life, and in creative freedom. Nor would we have Richard Wagner. He knew very well what he was doing when he chose Sachs for his subject, since Sachs lived robustly in the Reformation, another important flowering period of German culture and identity. At Glyndebourne in 2011,  David McVicar's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (review here) was set in the period of Wagner's youth but to little effect. It romanticized without connecting to the savage spirit of the Romantiker.There's a huge difference.

Herheim's staging is much more literate, and intelligently thought through. The Romantiker fascination with Nature was often seen through the prism of the drawing room, so Herheim's indoor setting is wittily ironic.Things seen through the imagination are often hyper real. When David sings of "der rote, blau' und grüne Ton" we see wild flowers held aloft. The final scene on the banks of the Pegnitz isn't shown literally. But there's a train! This isn't director whimsy. Without railways, industrialization and the rise of the middle class, modern Europe wouldn't have developed. Trains represent change, just as aristocratic Walther represents change when he joins the good folk of Nuremberg.

The townsfolk are draped in flowers: if these were real their scent would fill the hall. The women wear white aprons, so dazzlingly bright they light the stage. Herheim's having a merry little dig at the idea that costumes "make" an opera. Although there's a lot of detail to reward repeated viewings, the visuals aren't there for their own sake but to intensify the fundemental drama in the music. The critical moments, like the quintet and the Prize Song are shown with simple clarity. Those who hate modern productions on principle often claim that directors should "respect the work". But that argument can be turned completely on its head. A really good opera is strong enough to withstand multiple interpretations, and perceptive interpretations like Herheim's show us how much there is yet to discover. "Verachtet mir die Meister nicht, und ehrt mir ihre Kunst!".

Michael Volle's Hans Sachs is excellent. It helps that he looks like the historic Sachs, and that he himself grew up in the Lutheran tradition. Volle gives the character grit and gravity, mixed with a genuinely warm humanity. Volle's diction highlights the couplets and phrasings so typical of German tradition. When  he sings "ehrt eure deutschen Meister! Dann bannt ihr gute Geister" he infuses the words with positive feelings, banishing  memories of wartime Bayreuth.

Markus Werba's Sixtus Beckmesser quivered with nervous energy. He sings with more colour and charm than we'd expect from Beckmesser, but that enhances his portrayal. Beckmesser's weak rather than evil. He wouldn't be a Meistersinger in the first place if he was incomptent. He just doesn't get it, that true art comes from being original. Werba makes the part sympathetic. This Beckmesser is deluded rather than a troll. Peter Sonn's David is delivered with strength and conviction. This David is no ingénu, and justifies his master's faith in him. Herheim's blocking of ensemble also shows how the apprentices connect to David.

Rather less rewarding were Roberto Saccà's Walther and Anna Gabler's Eva. Saccà's voice finally did him justice in the Prize Song but it was a little late. As for the orchestra ? What was Daniele Gatti doing? The pace kept slackening. Sachs is a cobbler, not a carpenter. Wooden playing like this just doesn't work. When Herheim's  Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg transfers to the Met, with a different cast and conductor, it should be a success.

Salzburg Don Carlo Kaufmann Hampson Harteros

Verdi Don Carlo live from Salzburg. Vocally, it's ace. With a cast like this, it couldn't be otherwise. Visually, it's  much better than you'd guess from some sections of the press. "Sumptuous emptiness"? Only in the eye of the beholder. Peter Stein's production focuses on the underlying drama, allowing the music and singing to tell the story. Stein is now nearly 80, but his background was  cutting-edge theatre, and he's musically aware. So there's no way this Don Carlo would be retro banality. Sure, the costumes are "historic" but the way they're used is part of the overall concept. Like the drama, the set is stark and unyielding, like the situation Don Carlo and Elisabetta are up against. The costumes serve as contrast, making the point that luxurious trappings conceal barbaric cruelty. Glory and power are nothing if they result in mindless killing. The sumptuous colours here are in the lighting. They are illusion, just as in the drama. Verdi's anti-clericalism is in some ways even more radical than Schiller's original text. Anyone who thinks Don Carlo is costume drama needs to pay attention. Tu che la vanità conoscesti del mondo e godi nell'avel il riposo profond

etc etc, as Verdi makes perfectly clear.

 Jonas Kaufmann and Anja Harteros sang  the leads as they did a few weeks ago at the Royal Opera House in London, (reviewed here) but the contrast between the Salzburg and London productions could hardly be greater. Nicholas Hytner's production decorated the stage with silly Legoland images, trivializing the opera. So grotesque was the auto-da-fé scene that one might assume Hytner thought being burned at the stake was fancy floorshow. Stein's staging emphasizes the fundamental conflict. Church and State are depicted in sinister darkness, the monks dehumanized and robotic. Those who are to be burned alive are seen in extreme light, skies and clouds behind them. On film (very well directed) you can see details like bloodstains which probably weren't visible on the wide stage at Salzburg.

 In the final confrontation in the tomb of Charles V, Stein again emphasizes the unyielding coldness of stone, formality and death. Hytner's tomb was comic book with the words "CARLO" on the side so you wouldn't miss them. Like the Commendatore in Don Giovanni, the Old King drags the Young Prince into the grave. Hytner's approach is embarrassing. Stein, instead, shows a sinister figure slowly emerge, embracing his grandson. It's altogether more subtle and complex. Kaufmann expresses a range of emotions and smiles as he dies. Stein knew what Charles V represented in the Counter-Reformation, and also what generational power struggles represent in Verdi. If you want intellectual and musically informed, go for Stein at Salzburg, any day.

Kaufmann sang even better at Salzburg than he did in London. "Fontainebleau! Foresta immensa e solitaria!" he sings, immediately showing what the freedom of the forest means to the cloistered Prince. He commands the stage with energy and authority: no wonder Elisabetta falls in love. She's dressed in a truly hideous costume which looks like an accident in the curtain section of a thrift shop. At first I groaned, but seeing her elegantly dressed in later scenes, I wondered if the designer was trying to say something?  Elisabetta's tragedy happened because her father placed politics above love. She and Don Carlo have lots in common.

Harteros was impressive because she is good and very experienced in the role. Kaufmann dominated this time for the most part, but Harteros truly came into her own as she showed how Elisabetta develops as a personality during the course of the opera. In her private confrontation with Phillip II, her voice shows how the young Queen is becoming a mature adult. In the final tomb scene, Harteros characterizes with such depth and power that you hardly dare breathe and lose the moment.  Harteros's majesty comes from the strength of her portrayal. As she finds resolution, youthful freshness returns to her voice. It's as if she's being reborn, purged by suffering.

Thomas Hampson's Rodrigo, Marchese di Posa, was outstanding for much the same reason. Hampson's Rodrigo is fully-fleshed in personality, the edges that are creeping into his voice used intelligently to enhance portrayal. Hampson's Rodrigo is a strong father figure, a counterbalance to Philip II, even perhaps a ghost of Charles V. This is a characterization to be reckoned with, immensely enhancing the meaning of the opera.

Ekaterina Semenchuk's Princess Eboli also extended the role from relative sideline. In real life, as far as we know, the princess was ugly and blind, so the plot is rather cruel. Semenchuk, however, is beautiful in a fulsome way, and as elegant as the Queen, but the warmth in Semenchuks's timbre adds an interesting twist. She creates Eboli as a sympathetic person, driven to extremes by the frustrations of her place at court. She's a parallel Elisabeth, just as Hampson is a parallel Philip II. Singing of this exceptional quality brings out levels of exceptional interpretation. At Salzburg the singers were admirably supported by Antonio Pappano's impassioned, vivid conducting, inspiring the Wiener Philharmoniker to the high standards they should always aspire to. Like Stein's staging, Pappano's approach highlights the inner tension in the drama, with its interplay of luxurious excess and ascetic self-denial.

In real life, Philip II wasn't the villain he's depicted as in English history books. Like Charles V, who retired to a monastery and gave up ruling the world, Philip II wasn't fooled by the trappings of power. In his own way, curiously, he was a man of the counter-Reformation though he was too devout to lose faith. He chose a kind of "inner exile", letting the Church have its way for political reasons. In London, Ferrucio Furlanetto was outstanding. In Salzburg, Matti Salminen was less effective, though adequate.  He's only four years older than Furlanetto, but his voice isn't what it was in his glory days.  But then, neither  was Philip II. HERE is a link to the broadcast.and HERE is a link to my review of Stefan Herheim's perceptive Wagner Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg.

What's rumbling under Salzburg ?

Ahead of the Verdi Don Carlo broadcast live from Salzburg this afternoon (link here), musings on what's happening in Salzburg. It's hardly news that Alexander Pereira is leaving after a year, though he spent 20 years in Zurich. Shirley Apthorp in the Financial Times writes that this Don Carlo is "conclusive proof of the artistic bankruptcy of Pereira's brief leadership". (read the whole article here). "Sumptuous emptiness", though, is no crime in itself. It would go down well with audiences who like status symbols rather than artistic integrity. Much more worrying, long term, is the news that the Vienna Philharmonic threatened to leave the Festival altogether if they weren't more involved with the artistic content. If they were more involved, it might raise standards, as long as that doesn't mean more Lorin Maazel.

Yet opwra productions are planned five or more years in advance, so it's not completely fair to blame Pereira. Stefan Herheim's  Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg would have been in genesis for years before. Stein's Don Carlo gets dissed for "sumptuous emptinesss" and Herheim's Meistersinger gets dissed for being anything but! Predictably, Rupert Christiansen hated it, which often means it must be good. Here's a link to his review but SCROLL DOWN to the comments which are infinitely more interesting. Read what Michael Wolfson has to say. This is the sort of really well informed, thoughtful analysis we really should be getting more often. I've been given a link to the Salzburg Meistersinger so will review it soon. Please come back !

photo : Thomas Pintaric

Salzburg Braunfels Medievalism as Modernity

How I wish I could be in Salzburg next week - Birtwistle Gawain and the Green Knight (coming unstaged to the Barbican next year) and Walter Braunfels's Jeanne d'Arc, Szenen aus dem Leben der Heiligen Johanna. Manfred Honeck conducts. He made the only recording, released in 2012.  Juliane Banse sings Joan, as she did on the recording but look who else is in the cast!  Bryan Hymel singing the Archangel Michael, Pavol Breslik singing Charles de Valois, Thomas E Bauer the Archbishop and Johan Reuter as Gilles des Rais.  This is luxury casting indeed, infinitely better than the recording (though Banse is superb). There was also a staged production (Schlingensief director, conductor ULf Schirmer) in Berlin in 2010, also with Juliane Banse. Braunfels is at last getting megastar billing.

Braunfels' Jeanne d'Arc, Szenen aus dem Leben der Heiligen Johanna.is eclipsed by the fame of Die Vögel, but it's a masterpiece, tighter, more concise and conceptual. The piece is mock medieval, but like Hindemith's Mathis der Maler, Hartmann's Simplicius Simplicissimuss, (more HERE) Orff's Carmina Burana and indeed Braunfel's  Die Verkündigung. (more HERE)  and  Honegger's Joan of Arc at the Stake (more HERE). It happened not only in music but in the visual arts, architecture and film. Clean lines, stark drama, stylized symbolism. All keynotes of the period. Think also of films like Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc or Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky (with music by Prokofiev).

Medievalism was a way towards modernism. There's nothing retro or escapist in these pieces. Far too much is made of the fact that fashion changed after the war, and this music didn't get performed. After the trauma of the Second World War, people were hardly in the mood to deal with reminders of the period, especially when, up to 1989, much of central and eastern Europe was still controlled by the Soviet Union, in direct consequence of the war. Similarly, the "jazz age" and modernity of the 1920;s was a reaction against the trauma of the First World War and the forces that shaped it. It's nonsense to blame Schoenberg or modern music for the eclipse of composers like Braunfels. Every decent composer creates something personal and original. Cultures survive because they adapt.

Braunfels fought at the front during the First World War. The trauma completely changed his perspectives. Die Vögel is is an early stage in Braunfel's's engagement with the issues of the 20th century. Jeanne d'Arc is in many ways its culmination, politically, spritually and musically.
 
Braunfels started writing Jeanne d'Arc in 1938. He'd been proscribed by the Nazis, and made an unemployable non-person whose music could not be performed in public. Hitler was threatening war, staved off by British appeasement. By the time Braunfels completed the opera in 1943, war had broken out all over again on an even wider scale than the war he'd known. This time his sons were at the front.. The madness was happening all over again."We are like castaways on a desert island, around which the hurricane continues to rage", he wrote.

Braunfels' choice of subject was deliberate. Joan of Arc rallied the French against English invaders. This time France was invaded by Germans. Joan was a powerless girl who stood up to overwhelming forces. Throughout Europe in the 1920's, 30's  and 40's, Joan was a symbol  explored in plays, movies, and music. Braunfels' most direct inspiration was Paul Hindemith's Mathis der Maler, which he heard in Zurich in 1938. By connecting to medieval Christian Europe, Braunfels eschews both totalitarian anti-religion and the kind of nationalism that causes war.

Braunfels' libretto, which he wrote himself after reading about Joan's trial, places the context firmly in  a time of crisis. A chorus of villagers cry in panic, Hilfe, Hilfe! As Joan's father later says "An Himmel lohnt drer Brand von tausend Höfen". Johanna, however, is sitting by a tree from which a strange light is shining. Voices tell her that she has a mission. She';s so child-like that she sings a ditty, complete with tra la las. "Denn ein Kreiger, ein Kreiger, soll ich werden".

Braunfels' music is pointedly pure and simple. Single instrumental groups, often solo instruments, swathes of strings and winds suggest flowing movement not decoration for its own sake. Even in the scenes in the royal court, textures are clean, texts conversational. King and knights, portrayed as ordinary men. When Saint Michael appears, he's almost one of their own. For the faithful like Johanna, (and Braunfels), saints are as natural as normal people.

Braunfels uses a formal structure to frame the narrative, like a  medieval painting. Three main sections, Der Berufung (the summons) Der Triumph and Das Leiden, (Sufferings) unfold. Der Triumph, of course, lasts but a few minutes. It's preceded by a bizarre interlude, after the first Act. The Herzog de la Trémouille steps in front of the theatre curtain and sings a monologue. "When God created the Fool, he, the wisest of all, could be sure that scum (Abschaum) would arise from it". The Duke thinks Johanna is scum, for she leads "Die dumpfe Masse" (stupid masses) "From every hole there now crawls all who were poor, and who, deeply humiliated, long for a 1000 year Reich - troopers, roughnecks, greedy wastrels!". (Landsknechte, Raufbolde, geldsücht'ge Habenichste). Ferocious dark chords, skeletal discords, smoky woodwinds. The vocal part is set with angular extremes. "And I alone" sings the bass, "should be wrong because I don't follow deception and don't give in to urges". Perhaps Braunfels is referring to non-believers who distrust faith and miracles. But the references to the rise of the Brownshirts are so obvious that they can't be ignored.  Anyone who thinks Braunfels was a mindless, dreamy Romantic needs to hear this, and wonder what its upside-down morality might mean.

The moment of Johanna's triumph at Rheims with fanfares. At last the music soars as one would expect, but this is no cinematic glory. Braunfels keeps his colours clear, the text simple. "Johanna! Johanna!" the townsfolk cry, but there's a chill, which prepares us for the next scene, where at dawn, Johanna is communing alone with her voices. This minor-key stillness seems the true heart of Braunfels' meditation,   We're spared the details of Johanna's first imprisonment. Each scene is preceded by a Vorspeil that creates mood, but the one that begins the third act expresses the passage of time. Johanna has been confessed and recanted, yet she's still in prison. Dark rhythms, blasting timpani, trumpets blasting, Johanna's voice ascending shooting up the scale, all sudden, tense moments cut off in their prime.  Distant kin of the jerky bird rhythms of Die Vögel and Die Verkündigung. The Vicar Inquisitor condemns Johanna in a mix of speech and stylized chant. The king and nobles call Johanna  a fraud : their music vaguely like medieval march. Then St Michael appears, a Lohengrin whom no-one can see.

Long, keening lines in the orchestra. We're now at the stake in the marketplace at Rouen. Joan is calm for Saint Michael has told her why she must die. Significantly, now, Braunfels gives Gilles des Rais (Bluebeard) an interesting aria. "Nien, niemals, nein, niemals, so endet das nicht"  He can't believe that the real miracle is Johanna's death, not her escape. Braunfels shows des Rais as sensitive, confused and desperate for certainty, "Gewissheit! Gewissheit! Gewissheit!". Perhaps it was that crisis of faith that drove the historic des Rais into madness and turned him into a mass murderer of innocent children? This is an aspect of the story few explore, but Braunfels does it by implication,  and shows it as.a very 20th century anguish.

The Bishop of Beauvais insists "Mein System war der richtiges!", but the part is written to show the strain on the tenor's voice. Yet again, we hear the bird rhythms of  Die Vögel , and how they function as exclamation points breaking up the vocal line. Not comfortable, soothing or Romantic at all.  In contrast, the deeper, more lugubrious timbre of the Vicar Inquisitor, who shows more sympathy with Johanna. The chorus howls like a mob and in a sudden crescendo, we can hear the flames ignite. Screams and  eerie"smoke" like cadences from the orchestra. Gilles des Rais appears again, his last aria tinged with extreme grief. He sees Johanna as Christ-like, but still can't understand what her death means "Satan, du hast geseigt". Only when the mob discovers that Johanna's heart did not burn do they realize a miracle has taken place. "Wir haben eine Heilige gebrannt" cries the Vicar Inquisitor. By then, though, it's too late.


A recording of this Salzburg performance (one only) opera will be broadcast by ORF on Saturday, August 3, at 7.30 pm on the Ö1 channel.

Mozart Marathon, BBC

Mozart Marathon on the BBC has yielded some good moments, amid mindless chatter. Some of the talk shows are informative, but much is filler. The BBC has to aim at the generalist, not specialist market,  but "too" general is tricky. Presenters who know and genuinely know the subject, please, not just pretty faces (male and female) But still, musically there are good things.

I was surprised how much I enjoyed the oratorio Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots (available online til Sunday), written when the composer was only eleven. Some good ideas there like sudden flourishes, especially in the soprano part that make you jump til you remember it's a small boy's idea of high jinks. Often it's very studied, which is hardly surprising since Mozart (and his Dad) are showing how clever they are but it's lighthearted and charming. Not bad for a depiction of the First Commandment! Hans-Peter Blochwitz, Aldo Baldin, Margaret Marshall, Inge Neilsen, Ann Murray, Sir Neville Marriner, Stuttgart. Naturally, in this BBC Marathon, it's paired with Apollo et Hyacinthus  in the well known recording with Arleen Auger and Anthony Rolfe Johnson.

Other rarities are hidden in "Through the Night" broadcasts. Ascanio in Alba K 111 on 5/1, Il sogno  di Scipione K 126 on 6/1, and late tonight Il re pastore.  I've been hunting for Mozart song, but searching is difficult. Because there's so much, it's  a good idea to be selective, choosing things that aren't easily available on the market. On the other hand, who could resist Nikolas Harnoncourt, Concertus Musica Wien, La finta Giardiniera with Moser, Gruberova et al?  More historic Harnoncourt tomorrow (Fri 7/1) Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail.  Peter Schreier in 1988, my hero, always full of character. 

Saturday Night is a double bill Le Nozze di Figaro and La Clemenza di Tito. First, Andrew Davis, Chicago Lyric Opera and second, René Jacobs, Freiburg Baroque Orchestra., Two very different approaches, which makes for a good contrast. Mark Padmore, Bernarda Fink, Pendatchanska and Marie-Claude Chappuis in  the latter make Jacobs/Freiburg the one for me.

One extra anecdote which proves why exposing kids to Mozart pays off.  I took my kids to Mozart's Birthplace in Salzburg when they were tiny. Paintings on the walls,  little furniture, and thankfully not re-designed for "kid appeal".  One of my kids walked around, confidently identifying the portraits. "That's Mozart's sister", "That's Mozart's Dad". Really impressive, other tourists turned round. "How did you know" I asked. "Saw it in a book you were reading" says preschool pipsqueak.

Before Die Gezeichneten - Franz Schreker - Der Geburtstag der Infantin

Franz Schreker's masterpiece, Die Gezeichneten opens this weekend in Los Angeles, under the name "The Stigmatized". It's worth preparing for, because the plot's complicated and quite unsavoury (child abduction and rape). Much isn't "revealed", but rather intimated, which to me is one of its strengths. Please read what I've written about the  2005 Salzburg production. Orchestrally, it's outstanding, Nagano is intense, wonderful transparent textures despite the density of the score. Moreover, he doesn't over-romaticize the grimmer depths. See HERE, too, for my original piece with video clips from the DVD

Another way to prepare for Die Gezeichneten (it's not such a difficult word to learn) is to listen to Schreker's much earlier Der Geburtstag der Infantin. .It's based on the Oscar Wilde story, The Birthday of the Infanta (read full story here)

The Infanta is privileged, but there's tragedy in her past. Her mother died after her birth, her father's still distraught. She lives in ultimate luxury, because her dad's the King of Spain and rules the world. As a birthday gift, some noblemen buy a boy from the forest to amuse her. He's utterly guileless, talks to birds etc, completely the opposite to the claustrophobic artifice in the palace.The boy entertains the Infanta who tosses him a white rose. Later he walks into a secret room of mirrors and sees a monster. He's terrified. His heart breaks when he realizes that the "monster" is himself, an ugly dwarf. "Huh," sneers the Infanta, "I don't want anyone with a heart near me". Who's the real beauty here, the princess or the dwarf?

So the parallels with Die Gezeichneten are clear. Why didn't Schreker make anything more of it then, in 1908?  Perhaps it's because it was written to showcase the talents of the three Wiesenthal sisters who, like Schreker himself, moved on to other things.The original manuscript was lost til the 1980's though there's an arrangement in Schreker's hand dedicated to Willem Mengelberg in Amsterdam.

Der Geburtstag der Infantin.is pretty straightforward scene setting (Schreker was only 30), but the music's gorgeously rich and luscious. That's the life the Infanta leads, where everything's grand luxe, and, like her palace it's meant to be stunning. But Schreker wasn't a Romantic escapist. The point of the story is that the Dwarf is the purer soul. The Infanta's music is beautiful, but that's an illusion. Schreker, whose mother was an aristocrat, and grew up in privileged circles, wasn't unaware that the rich use people like toys. Die Gezeichneten, written with the collapse of the Austrian empire, allowed him to explore these ideas much further.

The critical point in Der Geburtstag is the final scene where the boy enters the hall of mirrors and is destroyed by self-knowledge. Sudden, strident strings that break off, tiny tentative figures, overwhelmed by violent trumpets, percussion, basses. The boy's melody tries to surface but it's smashed. Schreker is moving away from music for dance, even though the Weisenthal sisters weren't "ballet dancers" but avant garde modern dance pioneers.

Further music to explore: Schreker's Der Wind (see clip below) which was written for Grete Wiesenthal the year after Der Geburtstag der Infantin, and has some of the strange, not-quite-Romantic ambienceof Zemlinsky's Der Zwerg, a one act opera which, if paired with Der Geburtstag would make an interesting programme. And of course Die Gezeichneten, or "The Stigmatized" as I hope it will not come to be known.

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.

MOZART and Luigi Nono at Salzburg

Luigi Nono meets "After Dido"? Mark Berry's back from Salzburg where he caught Luigi Nono's Al gran sole di carico d'amore. Strange thing about this production was that it didn't involve many of the usual Nono regulars. In theory that's not a problem at all: Nono believed in reinvention. But Katie Mitchell and a mainly British cast, of whom only Susan Bickley is is really experienced in new music? Would it work? Read what Mark says HERE.

Now the Mozarts are up now - Cosi and more !