Richard Strauss - Elektra
Wiener Staatsoper, 2015
Mikko Franck, Uwe Eric Laufenberg, Nina Stemme, Anna Larsson, Gun-Brit Barkmin, Monika Bohinec, Norbert Ernst, Falk Struckmann, Wolfgang Bankl, Simina Ivan, Aura Twarowski, Thomas Ebenstein, Marcus Pelz, Donna Ellen, Ilseyar Khayrullova, Ulrike Helzel, Caroline Wenborne, Ildikó Raimondi
Wiener Staatsoper Live at Home - 11 April 2015
The Vienna State Opera's new production of Richard Strauss's Elektra opens in silence at the rise of the curtain. A group of naked women cower in the corner of a filthy shower, are manhandled and hosed down by the maids of the royal house of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. It's a stark image, the women presumably slaves of the household, the maids dressed like prison camp attendants, merely following orders. They even brutally beat one of their own, the fifth maid who dares challenge their authority, authority they believe they have even above the Princess Elektra whose increasingly unstable behaviour they maliciously mock.
It's a powerful and effective scene that establishes the situation that Elektra finds herself in, and communicates it well to an audience. It's much more effective, for example, than a setting in Greek antiquity that would likely have less of the recognisable imagery of a brutal and hated regime. It's also a more objective look than we often find in productions of Elektra, the director Uwe Eric Laufenberg avoiding the more familiar subjective expressionistic depiction of the world from the view of Elektra's deranged mindset. It's set in a townhouse in Vienna, but the basement does indeed resemble "a dungeon" as Chrysothemis describes it, a dark place with a pile of coal in the background and wall-barrier slabs of concrete.
Visually, it's highly effective, particularly when a series of lifts are revealed coming up and down from the palace like a dumb-waiter. One of the lifts conveys Clytemnestra, worn down by her dreams and nightmares, fearful and paranoid. The stage for the one-act performance is well divided then, providing ambience and space for each of the characters to envelop themselves in the varying moods (increasingly tense and desperate) of the score and the expression of the singing. The space is well used, and the singing is superb, but dramatically it remains inert, and in this work, the main part of the dramatic intensity must be carried by Elektra.
It's true that the nature of the opera doesn't allow for great drama, at least not up until the final explosion of violence and its sense of cathartic release. A singer of great stamina and force is needed to carry a role like Elektra, and ther's no question that Nina Stemme is well qualified in that respect, her voice deep, resonant, and well-balanced across the range. The role however needs rather more drive and personality and Stemme can't quite fill out that aspect in her acting. She hits all the notes, but doesn't seem to be alert to the minute detail of Strauss's score, and it's hard to get the sense that she is driven, deranged, vengeful and truly despairing as the nature of her predicament and the conflicting news of the fate of Orestes swing her mind from one extreme to the next.
If Stemme isn't able to fully inhabit the character (and I don't blame anyone for not wanting to go to those very dark places that Strauss has scored in one of the most disturbing characters of any opera), the characterisation as far as the direction and the other members of the cast go is clearly well established and brilliantly performed. Gun-Brit Barkmin in particular is an outstanding Chrysothemis. This is a character who can be a little wishy-washy in comparison to the more powerful women all around her, but here Chyrsothemis seems even more driven than Elektra. Or if perhaps not driven, since she can't be spurred into action, at least much more conflicted and disturbed by the situation she and her sister find themselves in. Barkmin's singing is also wonderfully expressive, cutting clear and bright, bringing out the qualities of how her character is scored better than anyone else I've heard in the role and making it really count.
Anna Larsson likewise also brings detail and nuance to Clytemnestra. She's not imperious here or a monster, but a rather broken figure, destroyed by her own actions, hounded by nightmares, a true figure from a Greek tragedy. That's expressed as much in her appearance, in her gestures as in her singing. There's defiance here in her confrontation with Elektra that still holds the daughter at bay, but the fraying at the edges is starting to show. Elektra might sometimes appear to be a one-woman show, but the contributions of Larsson and Barkmin show how important it is to have strongly defined characters in those other key roles. Orestes and Aegisthus have lesser roles to play certainly - though they can also be developed further - and they are taken well here by Falk Struckmann and Norbert Ernst.
The manner in which the three women are developed however pays dividends at the conclusion of this Elektra. In contrast to the enhanced realism established in the earlier scenes, the set starts to reflect the horror of the madness and the violence that has been built-up and finally unleashed. The imagery has something of the Overlook Hotel in Stanley Kubrick's 'The Shining', the implications similarly that of a household where all the accumulated abuse and horrors that have taken place within its walls starts to seep out. The dumb waiter starts to bring down a sequence of horrors from the upper levels of the palace, mostly unidentified, but among them certainly the executed Clytemnestra. Elektra leads an exultant dance in which she is joined by a team of dancers dressed like something out of a 50s' prom (like the ball in 'The Shining'), and is swallowed up in the celebration, leaving a shocked Chrysothemis to contemplate the horror of it all.
Elektra was broadcast
from the Vienna State Opera as part of their Live at Home programme. The
next broadcast is DON PASQUALE on 8 May with Juan
Diego Flórez. Also in May, Plácido Domingo stars in NABUCCO on 14 May and Sven-Eric Bechtolf's production of DER RING DES
NIBELUNGEN, conducted by Simon Rattle begins with DAS RHEINGOLD on 30 May and DIE WALKURE on 31 May. Details of how to view these
productions live at home can be found in the links below.
Links: Wiener Staatsoper Live Streaming programme; Staatsoper Live at Home video
Ludwig van Beethoven - Fidelio
Teatro alla Scala, Milan, 2014
Daniel Barenboim, Deborah Warner, Klaus Florian Vogt, Anja Kampe, Peter Mattei, Falk Struckmann, Mojca Erdmann, Kwangchul Youn, Florian Hoffmann
ARTE Concert - 7 December 2014
The choice of Beethoven's only opera Fidelio for the La Scala's 2014 showcase opening night production was, as it often is in Milan, as much a political statement as a musical one. While the anti-austerity protests took place outside and the ever-looming threat of cuts to arts funding continues to hang over the famous theatre, there were times when you got the impression that the trouble had spilled over into the theatre. Thankfully however, it wasn't the loutish bad behaviour of the logginisti this year - they were kept very happy indeed by a magnificent account of the work conducted by Daniel Barenboim in his valedictory performances for the house - but on the stage itself in Deborah Warner's production.
Beethoven's Fidelio itself doesn't make a political statement as such. It's more interested in basic human moral questions, but as generalised as the politics of the libretto are, the moral questions can't be entirely removed from the revolutionary age in which the work was written. If there's one area where Deborah Warner's production brings out the meaning and significance of Fidelio - and it is possibly the only worthwhile and discernible point about the stage concept - it's that it helps distinguish the class and social order that is an important aspect of the work, and one that too often gets lost in the lack of specificity and in the generic period setting of some productions. It's not that Fidelio is about class as much as it represents and exalts the capacity of human nature to show decency, love and respect for others - even in the face of tyranny - by relating it to the degree to which people place their faith in the most basic human values such as love, compassion and freedom.
If you didn't know that Fidelio was set in a state prison outside Seville, you would think that Deborah Warner's production takes place below an underpass at the back of a factory or a homeless shelter. There's a small office-booth and a table to take care of practicalities, but the dress of Rocco and his Marzelline is rather more casual than you would expect for a prison jailer and his daughter. The costumes appear to be significant, Rocco's assistant Fidelio looking like a binman, Don Pizarro, the Governor (or Guv'nor) wearing an ill-fitting suit that marks him out as a step above, albeit somewhat let down by the rather faded polo-shirt he wears underneath it. The Minister Don Fernando, when he arrives late in the day, is rather more smartly dressed in a shirt and a tie.
The prisoners themselves are all very much working class, Warner going as far as showing many of them wearing hard-hats, but there are lower orders still. In the deepest pit of the darkest dungeon is Florestan, a political prisoner of conscience, a 'desaparecido', cut off from the world because of his dangerous views on freedom, starved almost to death, his life about to be extinguished forever on the orders of Don Pizarro, who is holding him there illegally. Someone however hasn't given up hope. Florestan's wife Leonore, disguised as the prison jailor's assistant Fidelio believes her husband is still alive and hopes to rescue him by securing the confidence of Rocco, even going so far as to become 'engaged' to his daughter Marzelline.
And that's what is important about Fidelio. It's not class, it's not politics, it's hope. It's faith and belief (which is perhaps why Beethoven settled on the title Fidelio in the revised work rather than the original Leonore), of refusing to believe that the better nature of man can be completely extinguished. The same spirit can be found to differing degrees in Marzelline and Jaquino, in Rocco's act of kindness towards the political prisoners, allowing them to see the light of day in that stirring scene ('O welche Lust, in freier Luft'). It's significant that this concession is made on the occasion of the king's birthday, the degree to which freedom is granted or demanded dependent upon how much one defers one's freedoms to higher powers. Those who have to fight for their freedom with their lives inevitably have a greater sense of what true liberty means, but not exclusively. Clemency on the part of the 'nobility' (Don Fernando wears a tie but he also has a loose jacket) is also recognised for the greater good it can achieve.
If you didn't know all that was there in Fidelio - and even as it recognises these characteristics Warner's often confusing production isn't the most enlightening - you could tell it from the music alone, and in this production you can hear it in the singing as well. Recognising that Fidelio looks ahead even as it rests on the foundations of the old model of German opera, Barenboim conducts with an anticipatory eye on where Fidelio is to have influence later, giving Wagnerian force and character to the nobility and lyricism of Mozart. The casting for Fidelio is also typically Wagnerian, but this production finds that there are certain types of Wagnerian voices that suit Beethoven's opera better than others. Chiefly, this can be heard in the beautiful lyricism of Klaus Florian Vogt's Florestan. His voice is first heard ringing out from the darkness of Act II and his 'In des Lebens Frühlingstagen' aria really does suggest a pure spirit undefeated, his faith keeping him alive. I don't think I've seen or heard Vogt perform better than he does here.
Just as impressive is Anja Kampe's soaring Leonore. In her we get not just Leonore's anguish and fear for the fate of her husband, but her strength, determination and the beauty of her spirit in the lyrical flights of her singing. Strength and lyricism is there elsewhere towards different ends in Kwangchul Youn's Rocco and in Peter Mattei's Don Pizarro. Mojca Erdmann's and Florian Hoffmann bring out the brighter, youthful nature of Marzelline and Jaquino, while Falk Struckmann's Don Fernando is firm of purpose, directing the work towards its uplifting conclusion. Perfect casting all around in other words, each role bringing out the beauty and character of Beethoven's writing for the value it adds to the dramatic purpose of the opera. Whether there was recognition for Deborah Warner's contribution to how those characters are defined is hard to say, but on every other level the impact of the work clearly carried across to the audience on the night as much as Daniel Barenboim's significant part in it all.
Links: ARTE Concert, Teatro alla Scala
Hans Pfitzner - Palestrina
Bayerische Staatsoper, 2009
Simone Young, Christian Stückl, Christopher Ventris, Peter Rose, Michael Volle, John Daszak, Roland Bracht, Falk Struckmann, Christiane Karg, Stephen Humes, Kenneth Robertson, Christian Rieger, Wolfgang Köch, Ulrich Reß, Kevin Conners, Alfred Kuhn, Claudia Mahnke
EuroArts - Blu-ray
Although its setting is in the sixteenth century, Hans Pfitzner's Palestrina is a work that is very much defined by the time of its own creation. It's consequently something of a curiosity in that it celebrates the spirit of creativity and progression of music as an artform through one of its earliest innovators, yet in many ways its a very conservative work that attempts to preserve the turn-of the 20th century post-Wagernian Romantic style in the face of the threat of what Pfitzner saw as the decadent experiments of Schoenberg, Strauss (in Salome and Elektra), Berg and Hindemith. Time and history haven't been kind then to Pfitzner with his legacy being associated with Nazi sympathising and anti-semitism, but the scale and force of the work itself - a grand epic that seems to attempt to steamroller over and crush all dissenting voices - is impressive nonetheless.
Impressive perhaps, beautifully orchestrated and quite unlike anything else out there (with the exception perhaps of some thematic connections with Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg), but Palestrina could also be considered rather long-winded, dramatically limited and somewhat esoteric in its subject matter. It's set in 1563, around the time that the Council of Trent is being brought to a conclusion in Rome, where archbishops and cardinals from all around the world have been gathered together to hammer out the finer details of reform of the Catholic Church. One of the many important questions to be considered is the nature of the music to be used in Masses and whether it should adhere to the Gregorian model or embrace polyphony.
It may not seem like an important matter, but the patronage of the Church was undoubtedly important in the commissioning of new music in these early years, and it would exert great influence over its form and construction. In Pfitzner's opera, the charge of this matter has been given over to Cardinal Borromeo, who is convinced that the composer Pierluigi Palestrina, currently the Choirmaster at the Santa Maria Maggiore, is capable of providing the kind of polyphonic Mass music that Pope Pius IV hopes will win over the Council and "give meaning to the age". Palestrina however has long been out of favour since he married and thereby lost the papal patronage, but he's also a broken man who hasn't been able to write a note of music since the death of his wife. Inspired by past masters and angels, Palestrina composes his Mass in a single feverish night.
Much of what Pfitzner has to say about the nature of music, creativity, inspiration and composition (he also wrote the libretto for the opera himself) is all there in Palestrina's remarkable first Act. Through contrasting Palestrina with Silla, a pupil of the old composer who wants to go to Florence to write "experimental" music, Pfitzner considers the nature of the composer as an artist who stands above the people and follows his own muse, or as one who writes music for the public, for the people, for it to contribute to and be part of "the universal whole". Aside from academic matters, the weight of history and divine inspiration, Pfitzner is also content to fictionalise elements of Palestrina's life (his wife had not died at the time of the composition of his Mass for the Council of Trent in 1563), in order to consider the question of the human input and the heavy burdens of the composer.
All the marvel of the work, its intent and brilliance of expression, is there in this first Act which culminates with the marvellous ensemble of the Past Masters and choirs of angels that drive and herald the composition of a masterpiece, and it's brought spectacularly to life in this rare 2009 production of the work at the Nationaltheater in Munich by the Bavarian State Opera. Pfitzner was a Munich composer and it's apparent that no-one knows better how to deal with the complexity, contradictions, controversy and conservatism of Pfitzner than the Bayerische Staatsoper. With roots in the theatre and in the Passion plays at Oberammergau rather than in opera, Christian Stückl is a bit of a gamble as a director, but he finds some marvellous ways to illustrate and illuminates the work without straying too far into either literalism or symbolism.
The stage looks highly stylised though the bold use of bright, striking, almost luminous colours - black and white, cardinal pink and angel green - but in reality it's a relatively simple reflection and representation of the subject on an earthly level as well as on a spiritual level. With such bold simple statements, it makes the dramatic monotony of Act II's nit-picking disputes and rivalries between the cardinals and archbishops still look staggeringly impressive simply through the sheer population of the stage by the singers in these fine, bright costumes, and, of course, through the force of the singing and the writing for a cast of almost entirely male Wagnerian singers. The third Act, where Palestrina's music is accepted and praised, ensuring his release from prison, would be almost anti-climatic after all this were the use of colours and lighting not likewise complementary to the work.
In terms of performance, Simone Young's conducting of the orchestra might not have the grand Romantic sweep that the music of Palestrina calls for, but there's a recognition of the human character in the music here with its sorrowful undercurrents, and it's brought out well with good attention to individual instruments and expression. The large cast assembled here contain some of the best German Wagner and Strauss singers around at the moment - Christopher Ventris and Michael Volle in particular standing out in the demanding roles of Palestrina and Morone - all of them combining that necessary heft with lyrical beauty with all the necessary stamina required. Falk Struckmann is also notable for his Borromeo and Christiane Karg is impressive in range and lyrical expression as Palestrina's son Ighino.
Palestrina may not be the be-all-and-end-all that Pfitzner aspired it to be - other than perhaps inadvertently turning out to be one of the final words on a dying operatic legacy left by Wagner - but it's a fascinating and extraordinary work nonetheless, particularly in this fine production. It's looks every bit as impressive as it should in the Blu-ray's HD transfer and it sounds marvellous also in the high-resolution PCM Stereo and DTS HD-Master Audio 5.0 audio tracks. The Blu-ray also includes a 10-minute 'Making of', which consists of interviews and behind-the-scenes rehearsal footage.
