Schreker - Irrelohe (Lyon, 2022)

Franz Schreker - Irrelohe

Opéra de Lyon - 2022

Bernhard Kontarsky, David Bösch, Tobias Hächler, Piotr Micinski, Ambur Braid, Lioba Braun, Julian Orlishausen, Michaël Gniffke, Peter Kirk, Romanas Kudriašovas, Barnaby Rea, Kwang Soun Kim, Paul-Henry Vila, Antoine Saint-Espès, Didier Roussel

Opéra de Lyon - 25th March 2022

It's tempting to consider Franz Schrecker as a product of his time, a brief period of post-Wagnerian bliss between the wars in the first half of the 20th century when music was still able to wallow in extravagant orchestration and decadent subject matter with dubious psychological underpinnings. For some it would be easy to dismiss that as having no place in the modern world of music, still less in the harsh times of the present day. All the more so since those ideas come to fruition and fullest expression in Schreker's 1924 opera Irrelohe, a work that has come to be seen as the natural conclusion of this style of music, which subsequently fell rapidly out of fashion, burning like the castle of Irrelohe in the opera itself in some kind of self-fulfilling prophesy.

In reality, the subject of the opera is timeless. Maybe not much in that it has universal application and relevance, although I'm sure some imaginative director could put such a complexion on it. Rather its universal qualities lie within its wildly Romantic storytelling on the level of... well, maybe not the grand mythology of Wagner or the turn of the century reflection on man's relationship with mythology in the works of Richard Strauss, but perhaps with less ambitiously and with less grandiosity drawing from the classic genre of horror filled folk tales.

No, a mere glance at the synopsis of the plot of Irrelohe reveals that it is not filled with meaning and subtle suggestion, as the composer himself would admit in the face of his critics, but it does deal nonetheless with dark human impulses and history. If a director wished to see it in the context of Schreker's time it could be seen as a reflection on the madness of war, of violent masculine urges that can't be suppressed, resulting in a cycle of horror that can only be redeemed though a cleansing by fire. There are certainly modern equivalences for that, but I'm not sure any of them would add anything to the work.

Schreker however was indeed working to an area of philosophical thought, drawing from the works of Otto Weininger, relating those violent urges to sexual impulses and the roles that men and women play working in dialectic opposition to one another. It was just one of many strange philosophical ideas floating around at this time. Irrelohe wears its subtext openly, borne aloft by the over-heated music, just in case you fail to catch it or be persuaded by the limitations of the libretto. That's hard to imagine however, as it's expressed as a full-blooded Gothic horror, one that nonetheless revels beautifully in the mood of the situation.

Irrelohe immediately establishes that mood of a dark foreboding with a population living in fear of the mysterious castle perched on a hill over the village of Irrelohe. Lola tells her son Peter the story of how the lords of the castle and village live under a curse that drives them to venture forth, ravage young women in the locality and die young. She herself has been a victim to Count Heinrich, and Peter is to discover that he is the fruit of that illicit union. One young woman however, Eva, braves the danger and resolves to marry the current young lord, leaving Peter infuriated. There are however others keen to bring about the downfall of the rotten dynasty of Irrelohe by burning it to the ground.

David Bösch, who previously directed another Schreker opera Die Gezeichneten for Lyon that I was fortunate to see in person in 2015, is happy to play to those qualities in the work and recognise the cinematic qualities in Schreker's score. The opening titles are emblazoned across the screen as if it were a classic black and white horror B-movie, a silent one as it later appears (not that any early silent movie would enjoy such a rich orchestral accompaniment). The movie inserts effectively extend the drama beyond the limitations of the stage sets, if not quite bring any greater depth out of the work.

Not that anything else is needed with Schreker's score sweeping you along in the ludicrous drama of Eva's strange attraction/submission to the quite clearly deranged and dangerous Count Heinrich. They are not the only ones whose behaviour is strange and borderline deranged. Lola's folk-song refrain and devotion to her rapist seems to be slowly pushing her over the edge. Christobald, who once loved Lola, has enlisted a group of minstrels to burn the place to the ground. Peter, with the blood of the Count of Irrelohe in his veins is tortured with deep Freudian complexes that also appear ready to be unleashed in sexual violence.

Falko Herold - who also worked on the sets for this year's Festival Rigoletto for Lyon - again manages to find suitable locations for this drama to play out. Act I has a small tavern for Lola and Peter with the castle ever-present, looming over the village of Irrelohe. Act II, opening with an obligatory lost in the dark woods film sequence, reveals a stage of war-torn burnt-out remains of trees before taking us into the decaying Suddenly Last Summer-like glasshouse that juts from the side of the castle overlooking the village. Act III brings a conflagration to the miniature of the castle that extends its cleansing out over the land.

Rather than the cleansing fire allowing Eva and Heinrich the opportunity to look ahead to a better new world in Schreker's unlikely optimistic conclusion, Bösch sees no redemption, allowing Eva to also perish at her own hand. The ending needs some big statement, but I'm not sure this one works either, but it's hard to make anything about this drama work convincingly. The music is much less of an issue and the veteran conductor Bernhard Kontarsky allowed the whole wondrous beauty of Schreker's musical vision to weave its own magic of fluctuating moods and sinuous lines. No excuses need be made for that and it was truly a long-awaited joy to experience this particular Franz Schreker opera performed on stage. It didn't disappoint.

If anyone could bring a level of conviction to the characters beyond those dubious psychological archetypes, it was Canadian soprano Ambur Braid as Eva. There are limits to what you can do make any of these characters relatable, but in terms of singing this was a standout performance that impressed with the sheer force of her commitment that reflected her character's single-minded determination to see through her belief in bringing about change. I enjoyed Julian Orlishausen's Peter similarly for throwing himself into a character who because of the difficult circumstances of his origin has little redeeming qualities, or perhaps just less hope of redemption. 

Tobias Hächler's gently lyrical Count Heinrich showed, by way of contrast, another slightly effete side to "the masculine curse" or whatever you want to call it. It's in Heinrich that you are tempted to seek that deeper, perhaps subconscious or unwittingly premonitory self-destructive impulse that would see Schreker and many other composers working within this musical idiom or school labelled as degenerate 'Entartete' composers and banned by the Nazis. The subsequent conflagration initiated by the Third Reich would almost erase their music from history in its wake, but with productions like this, the revelatory Opera Vlaanderen production of Der Schmied Von Gent and surely more revivals of Die Gezeichneten and Der Schatzgräber to come, we can't discount the possibility that these works might still have deeper truths to reveal to us yet.

Links: Opéra de Lyon

Hindemith - Sancta Susanna (Lyon, 2012)

Paul Hindemith - Sancta Susanna (Lyon)

Opéra de Lyon, 2012

Bernhard Kontarsky, John Fulljames, Agnes Selma Weiland, Magdalena Anna Hofmann, Joanna Curelaru Kata, Zoé Micha, Hervé Dez Martinez

Opera Platform

Less than half an hour long, it seems that Paul Hindemith's early one-act opera Sancta Susanna is designed to pack as much shock impact into its short running time as possible, and it's true that Hindemith intended to shake up the musical establishment in the early 1920s. It certainly had the desired effect when it was refused at Stuttgart for its blasphemous content, receiving its premiere in 1922 in Frankfurt. As short as it is and as long ago now as it was composed, the work still has the potential to court controversy when it is performed.

It was chosen by the Opéra de Lyon in 2012 as one of the companion pieces for their Puccini + season, offering a contrasting or complementary work to be played alongside each of the three one-act dramas of Puccini's Il Trittico. Sancta Susanna was evidently chosen to be performed with Suor Angelica, another story of a nun who faces a great internal conflict between her spiritual duties and her own human needs and female desires. Although they are very nearly contemporary, there is very little that is common in the treatment of these themes or in terms of musical approach, but it's a contrast that works well and in favour of both works.

Based on a German expressionist short story by August Albert Berhard Stramm, Sancta Susanna is however rather more abstract in its approach to the drama. Hindemith's equally expressionist score is suggestive of mood and of powerful barely repressed forces on the verge of spilling over into shocking revelations. The setting of Hindemith's work consequently takes place in an enclosed space of closed-up people, in a convent with nuns in protective clothing that separates them from the people of world outside. What is kept inside however is bursting to escape and it doesn't take much for those passions to overflow.

For Sister Susanna, praying before the status of Christ, the conflict reaches unbearable proportions when on a Spring evening the sound of lovers outside reaches her ears, Hindemith's music pushing the pitch of an organ note to almost unbearable intensity. Susanna's self-possession disappears when she is told by Sister Klementia of another nun forty years ago who abandoned herself to her passions, stripping naked and wrapping herself around a statue of Christ. Walled up in a cell for her actions, Susanna is convinced she can hear sounds the nun's tomb.

The call of the flesh and its conflict with the spirit lead Susanna to also strip off her garments, an action that infects Klementia also, the situation building into a musical frenzy before the other nuns attempt to intervene and attempt to call a halt to this satanic display. Their anger is directed towards Klementia, but Susanna offers herself up to their displeasure. More than just abandoning herself to illicit desires, Susanna blasphemously proposes a union of the soul and the flesh.

Director John Fulljames makes the most of the opportunity or indeed the necessity for this scene to be as outrageous and shocking as possible in the 2012 Lyon production, the soprano Agnes Selma Weiland left completely naked but for satanic writing tattooed across her body. The darkness of the convent and Susanna are illuminated in blinding light as the naked woman offers herself to the descending figure of Christ on the cross. It's highly effective and still startling to see it staged in this way.

From a singing and musical perspective it's also highly effective. Bernhard Kontarsky conducts here, as with the Puccini + production of Schoenberg's Von Heute auf Morgen, to bring out all the power of the work alongside its more suggestive tones and moods. Mezzo-soprano Magdalena Anna Hofmann also shows the range of her abilities here, which even in such a short piece is just if not even more demanding than either of her other Lyon appearances in Von Heuten auf Morgen and Franz Schreker's Die Gezeichneten. Agnes Selma Weiland surpasses the greatest challenges of the work, physically and musically stripping soul and body bare in a way that a work like this demands if it is to have any impact or meaning at all.

Links: Opéra de Lyon, Opera Platform

Schoenberg - Von Heute auf Morgen (Lyon, 2012)

Arnold Schoenberg - Von Heute auf Morgen

Opéra de Lyon, 2012

Bernhard Kontarsky, John Fulljames, Magdalena Anna Hofmann, Ivi Karnezi, Rui Dos Santos, Wolfgang Newerla, Marin Bisson, Pierre Lucat

Opera Platform

Schoenberg's one act opera Von Heute auf Morgen might have been chosen by Opera Lyon as one of the works to accompany each of the three parts of Puccini's Il Trittico in their Puccini + production of 2012 but it's by no means a 'filler' work. It was partnered with Il Tabarro (Hindemith's Sancta Susanna was performed alongside Suor Angelica and Zemlinsky's A Florentine Tragedy alongside Gianni Schicchi) presumably for its depiction of marriage problems and questions of infidelity, but there are hints - suggested in this production directed by John Fulljames - that Von Heute auf Morgen is more than a middle-class relationship drama.

It does however initially appear very much like one of Richard Strauss's marital dramas such as Intermezzo. A husband and wife return after an evening dinner party, musing on the events and the people they have met. The husband is open in his admiration for a seductive lady he met there, an old friend of his wife's who appears to be much more modern in her ways. The wife agrees that she has transformed into something beautiful, unrecognisable from the person she was before. The wife has likewise taken a fancy to the Singer, finding something in his voice that speaks to her, makes her feel alive, fresh in a way that she doesn't feel any longer with her husband.

Having a young child, who is woken up by their loud discussions and disagreements, both the husband and the wife are clearly looking for something that has gone missing from their marriage. The husband is attracted to a free spirit who seems to be a woman of the world, while he claims his wife has become a Hausfrau. The wife has lost the edge of excitement that lies in flirtation, becoming mired in habit, feeling detached and alone by her husband's seeming indifference to her now. The short opera develops then into a fantasy imagination of the other people they could have been or could be with other people.

So yes, on the surface certainly Von Heute auf Morgen appears to be a fairly straightforward and commonplace domestic dispute that has been played out countless times. On the other hand, one of the most significant points about the work is the time it was written and the fact that it is written entirely in the 12-tone method developed by Schoenberg. This puts a different spin on matters. In many ways, the opera is about imagining how music - mired in habit and custom - can regain its edge of freshness, newness and excitement. Von Heute auf Morgen can be seen as Schoenberg's attempt to consider how modern music could shake up old stuffy traditions.

But - as you often find with Strauss - Schoenberg's Von Heute auf Morgen acknowledges that it's by no means easy to shake off the attractions of music's past. Traces of Romanticism, of the composer's former thrall to the influence of Wagner, can be heard in the arrangements that seek to express the conflict between the old and the new. It's even explicitly stated in the Singer's use of Romantic identification with Siegfried and quotes from Das Rheingold that seduce the Wife, but how can one resist the attraction? How can one be truly modern? How can one be true to oneself?

Schoenberg seems to take comfort or inspiration from the words of the couple in the libretto as justification for his new approach. "We live with ideas. They live with past hopes". Schoenberg's couple would appear to decide to put their differences aside and settle for the comfort of the familiar when they reject the attractions of the other free and easy couple and settle for family domestic conformity, but there are different ways you can view this. John Fulljames's direction helps emphasise the point that it's not about following fashion as much as following one's own inner calling, but at the same time not he finds a welcome measure of lightness and humour in the one-act opera that serves it well.

The set designs for the production presents a number of apparently attractive alternatives to the 1920s period bourgeois idea of modernity that the couple inhabit (Von Heute auf Morgen was first performed in 1930). The period and the paintings on the wall change from hard-edge modernism to lush soft-lighted decadence, through to the Pop-Art of the 60s and the psychedelic 70s, as the couple flirt with the idea of embracing change and novelty as an alternative to conformity and habit. Eventually they reject each of these possibilities - and the lure of the attractive other couple - and instead recognise the value of what they have. Fashions change, but love remains; living it from day to day is what matters and is what it means to be truly modern.

Schoenberg's 12-tone serialism also points to another way of being modern; of music not merely being just for dramatic accompaniment or illustration, but a means rather to explore interior lives that lie outside the conventional measurements of space and time. Conducted here at Lyon by Bernhard Kontarsky, the intricacies of the arrangements are managed beautifully, giving a sense of all those possibilities that Schoenberg suggested. The production flows with impressive performances from Magdalena Anna Hofmann and Wolfgang Newerla as the Husband and Wife couple, but Ivi Karnezi and Rui Dos Santos are also fine, offering persuasive alternatives as the Friend and the Singer.

Links: Opéra de Lyon, Opera Platform