Rudi Stephan - Die ersten Menchen
Dutch National Opera, Amsterdam - 2021
François-Xavier Roth, Calixto Bieito, Kyle Ketelsen, Leigh Melrose, Annette Dasch, John Osborn
ARTE Concert
Many German and Austrian composers of the late Romantic period had their careers cut short by the wars that scarred the first half of the 20th century, but unlike the composers who fell foul of the Nazi regime, antisemitism and opposition to decadent subject matters in their opera compositions, Rudi Stephan's promising career was brought to an abrupt and tragic end at the age of 28, shot after only 16 days as a conscripted soldier on the Russian front in 1915. His only opera Die ersten Menchen (The First Humans), completed in 1914 at the start of the war and performed for the first time five years after his death, is one of the great 'lost' major works of this period, Stephan's untimely death consequently representing another great loss to the opera world suffered during these years.
It might sound like it has a Biblical subject, but subtitled 'An Erotic Mystery', Die ersten Menchen's story of Adam and Eve taps into the similarly controversial subject of taboo lusts and violent desires that Richard Strauss had recently explored in his extension of the musical language of Salome and Elektra. And since we're effectively dealing with the Garden of Eden, with references to creation and procreation of the human race, with gardens of lush fruits and rising sap, blooming flowers and forbidden fruit, we're evidently dealing with similar archetypal forces and images, likewise brought to vivid and colourful expression in Stephan's music score for the opera.
And indeed the woman, Chawa (Eve) sees the role of procreation and populating the earth as the primary purpose of her nature and being, identifying with the Spring season. Adahm (Adam) on the other hand identifies with Autumn, seeing his work as having ripened and come to fruition, at a stage in a cycle that needs nurturing and renewal. Their sons Kajin (Cain) and Chabel (Abel) each have their own urges and differing natures. It's too much for Kajin to handle, and his mind gets twisted, his head filled with tormenting desires that he is unable to control, lusting for a wild woman, for pleasure and gratification. Chabel on the other hand seeks a higher spiritual purpose in his contemplation of the universe, the infinite and the eternal God.
Adahm and Chawa are swayed by the beauty of Chabel's vision, expressed as much in the soft soaring lyricism of his voice as it is in the beauty of the imagery he evokes. His visions are persuasive, but in their own way as demented as Kajin's, whose lusts eventually drive him towards his own mother. Like any work that deals in archetypes - and they don't come much more significant than Adam and Eve - there are degrees of emphasis and interpretation. Stephan, and the original work, all suggest that there are disturbing elements to any fanaticism, to a singular vision, and that a balance is necessary - and evidently, this reflects to some extent the world in which Stephan was living at the beginning of another war that would engulf Europe and so quickly bring about his own death.
The director Calixto Bieito doesn't need to set this in the Garden of Eden to highlight or give emphasis to the Biblical association of the work or Stephan's treatment of playwright Otto Borngräber's controversial play and libretto. Some of it might seem silly, such as Chabel sacrificing a cuddly toy that spurts blood, but there is something disturbing in this and it is no less effective for its refusal to conform to hackneyed imagery that may no longer hold impact and meaning. Nor, since the strength of the work lies in archetypes, in the psychology, in the pathology, in the music - does it need elaborate set designs and high directorial concepts to make it come alive and speak directly to an audience.
The reconfiguration of the Amsterdam opera house for social distancing presents Bieito with new ways of staging the work. Since this opera calls for a large orchestra that could hardly effectively distance in an orchestra pit, the orchestra are spread out in tiers at the back of the stage behind a transparent screen. The director makes good use - not overuse - of the screen by projecting overhead camera angles and other imagery that works with and intensifies the drama, such as it is. The family unit is suggested by a house-shaped lightbox and a dining table bearing a colourful array of ripened, rotting and crushed fruit juices and seeds. If the intention - borne out by the over-ripe music - is to show an orgiastic descent into decadence and murder, the director gets the messy madness of the first family across, and it doesn't say much for the origins of the whole human race.
Whether - like Wilde's 'Salome' - the libretto actually says anything subversive and meaningful about a corrupt society with violent dangerous lusts that hides behind a facade of respectability, or whether it just strives for similar poetic colour and controversy, Stephan matches the tone of the libretto as successfully as Strauss adapts Wilde with necessary overstatement. What it does clearly get across with some measure of success is the enormity of the very first experience of death, matching that significant first death of a human, slain by his brother with the true horror of the death of so many others to come at a time when war has just broken out, a war that will very soon kill see the composer also killed by his "brother".
Human bones float in it, doleful skulls, a quivering heart
The future blood of future humanity!
The thousands of men slain by their human brothers!
The music lives up to the grandeur of the language (exclamation marks aplenty!) as well as the indescribable horror of the setting. François-Xavier Roth conducts the orchestra through the glorious dramatic sweep of Stephan's score, which is truly ravishing. If the significance of the characters and the text of the libretto is a little obscure in places, the musical setting of the voices by Stephan is also impressive, pushing the performers to full expression. John Osborn gets a plum role as the lyrically soaring Chabel, which he delivers superbly, as always. Kyle Ketelsen's Adahm and Leigh Melrose's deeper conflicted Kajin are just as impressive in their respective roles.
Comparisons to Strauss's Elektra are most felt at the start of the second act of Die ersten Menchen, where Chawa feels the isolation of her position, the loss of a family turned inward against itself and lets out her frustrations in a howl of rage. It's consequently similarly challenging on a dramatic soprano vocal level to cut through the vast orchestral forces and Annette Dasch plays it well, certainly pushed at the higher range, but retaining that fine measure of lyrical expression that is characteristic of her voice.
Links: Dutch National Opera, ARTE Concert
