Berthold Goldschmidt - Beatrice Cenci
Bregenz Festival, 2018
Johannes Debus, Johannes Erath, Christoph Pohl, Dshamilja Kaiser, Gal James, Christina Bock, Per Bach Nissen, Michael Laurenz, Wolfgang Stefan Schwaiger, Sebastian Soules, Peter Marsh
C-Major - Blu-ray
One of the complaints that is often made about German and Austrian composers in the immediate post-Wagner era of the first half of the 20th century, is that the music and subject matter had lost any kind of bearing or connection with the reality on the ground. The bizarre decadent fantasies of Franz Schreker's Irrelohe and Die Gezeichneten, Strauss's Die Frau ohne Schatten or Korngold's Das Wunder der Heliane all take place in fantasy worlds with seductive extravagant orchestra arrangements that seemed to bear little relation to what was happening in the world outside, but perhaps in some way they do have relevance, even if it was just an escapist reaction against the growing influence of the National Socialists.
Berthold Goldschmidt, like many other German Jewish composers of this period had to do more than retreat into fantasy worlds but were forced into exile, their works soon banned by the Nazis as Entartete "degenerate music". Like those other composers, one wonders what music was subsequently lost and how it might have developed, Goldschmidt having composed only one opera Der gewaltige Hahnrei (1932) when he fled Germany in 1935 to come to England where he worked as a music director for the BBC. Beatrice Cenci, belatedly coming in 1950 while in exile gives some indication of the kind of opera work Goldschmidt might have developed, and what might otherwise have been lost.
Beatrice Cenci however might well have also been lost, the prize-winning work rejected by Covent Garden in 1950, the music of the such composers (Goldschmidt having studied under Franz Schreker) no longer fashionable at that time. The opera only received its first concert performance in 1988 and its first fully staged performance in 1994. With a renewed interest in rediscovering work from the Entartete school of composition and DVD releases giving them a wider audience (like the recent Naxos release of Korngold's extraordinary Das Wunder der Heliane), it's clear that there still are many fascinating and worthwhile discoveries to be made.
The striking Bregenz Festival production of Beatrice Cenci is certainly something of a revelation in terms of presentation and performance of this rare work. The opera itself takes something of its character from Schreker's Die Gezeichneten in terms of how it presents the decadent court of Count Francesco Cenci like the island of depravity of Alviano Salvago. Cenci likewise enjoys the favour of the Pope, with notable members of the clergy taking part in his outrageous orgies, protecting him from any censure. When Cenci's own daughter Beatrice becomes the innocent victim of his depravity, she asks Orsino, a young novice priest that she is in love with, to intercede on her behalf. Orsino arranges for the murder of Francesco Cenci.
Based on a notorious real-life historical event, Beatrice and her stepmother Lucrezia were condemned to death in 1599 for the murder of Count Cenci - Beatrice's execution by beheading in Rome incidentally witnessed by Caravaggio who may well have relied on the imagery for his gruesome painting Judith Beheading Holofernes. The legend of Beatrice Cenci however has influenced many writers and composers, notably Percy Bysshe Shelley, whose 1819 verse drama The Cenci was adapted by Goldschmidt for the opera.
Johannes Erath's 2018 production for the Bregenz Festival respects the musical approach the Goldschmidt employs, crafting a colourful and stylised drama to match the extravagant Mahler-like orchestration and the bel canto like flourishes that Goldschmidt was striving to achieve. It consequently does come across as a strange blend between Schreker's Die Gezeichneten and Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia, which only highlights the delirious dreamlike quality of the chromatically untethered music, a swirling madness gradually enveloping proceedings, whether describing the decadence of Francesco Cenci, or the disturbed mindset of his abused daughter.
In contrast however to other elegant fantasies of the so-called Entartete degenerate composers, Goldschmidt's Beatrice Cenci has a foot in the real-world at the same time as it pays tribute to the beatification of the legend of Beatrice. It's about innocents having to stand up to evil and become victims in order to achieve some kind of redemption later for their sacrifice, and Erath's production also emphasises the tragedy this represents for the powers and institutions, with only a glimmer of fragile light at the end that might prevail. If we can see that in Beatrice Cenci perhaps then we can begin to see similar qualities in other such works from this school of rejected/lost opera that has been too easily dismissed and forgotten.
The performance at Bregenz is fantastic, particularly Gal James who does indeed adopt an otherworldly-like character through her lyrical and dramatic singing and performance as Beatrice, combining bel canto agility with a robust delivery. There are good performances here too from Christoph Pohl as Francesco Cenci and Dshamilja Kaiser as Lucrezia. Johannes Debus conducts the Wiener Symphoniker with a measured delivery that suggests a nightmarish dreamlike quality that is gradually spiralling into madness. Similar visual references can be found in Katrin Connan's impressive set designs.
The colourful production comes across with crisp clarity on the HD Blu-ray release from C-Major. The High Resolution soundtracks in LPCM 2.0 and DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1 present a powerful and detailed recording of the music and singing performances. Although initially composed with an English libretto, the Bregenz production uses the German version that the composer prepared. There are no extras other than booklet notes and a synopsis. The Blu-ray disc is all-region and has subtitles in English, German, Korean and Japanese.
Detlev Glanert - Oceane
Deutsche Oper Berlin, 2019
Donald Runnicles, Robert Carsen, Maria Bengtsson, Nikolai Schukoff, Nicole Haslett, Christoph Pohl, Albert Pesendorfer, Stephen Brook, Doris Soffel
Deutsche Oper Berlin - 3rd May 2019
Composed for the bicentenary of the birth of celebrated German poet Theodor Fontane, the intention of composer Detlev Glanert for Oceane would seem to be principally to do justice to the original author's work. That in itself is a challenge however because the opera is based on only a fragment of a novella left by Fontane, Oceane von Parceval written in the 1880s, that was left unfinished. With a sympathetic production by Robert Carsen it has to be said that Glanert largely succeeds in meeting those intentions, but whether the opera seeks to find any wider application or breaks any new ground as far as contemporary opera is concerned, that's not immediately evident.
Whether the fragment is unfinished or only a sketch, the basic underlying plot of Oceane van Parceval is a familiar one and not greatly substantial. It's another telling of the Melusine legend that can be seen in various incarnations in Rusalka, Undine and even the movies Splash and The Little Mermaid. For Fontane the consideration of a child of nature out of step with the ways of the modern world, or indeed the modern world's detachment from its true essential nature, could have been related to political events in the imperfect foundations of the German Empire at the time of its writing (something Wagner might also have had in mind during the writing of the Der Ring des Nibelungen, a feature of the Leipzig Ring Cycle seen around this performance), but the subject is still something that we can surely still relate to today.
With only a fragment to work with, Glanert has little else to go on. As far the story goes, it's set in a seaside town hotel that has seen better days. Madame Louise welcomes her guests for the new summer season with some optimism that a wealthy benefactor might help restore the hotel's fortunes. She's counting on the landowner Martin von Dircksen, but she also has set some hopes on Oceane von Parceval, who is something of an unknown factor.
Oceane's mysterious manner and behaviour also intrigue Martin von Dircksen, the young man so bewitched by this magical creature that he is blind to the scandal she is causing among the guests. It's not just that she dances lasciviously and with no inhibitions, to the horror of the pastor staying at the hotel, but her outbursts and silences are also enigmatic. Most strangely of all, she doesn't seem to react to the discovery of a dead fisherman found on the beach. Martin however is oblivious to her failings to fit in with the expectations of the rest of the world.
It's all very straightforward and there's nothing complicated or surprising about the developments in Oceane when Martin determines that he will marry this strange creature only to find that they are not at all compatible. Glanert makes this incompatibility apparent through conventional musical means, using only high and low notes to express the wild character dynamic of Oceane, while Martin is all middle-register, safe and comfortable, unimaginative and unexciting, with no depth of character. Glanert also looks back at his previous opera Solaris for the otherworldly choruses that open the opera, communicating in a language that is beyond human understanding.
Glanert complicates matters for the listener however by mixing these character details with traditional musical forms, the little band at the hotel playing a series of dances, a polka, a waltz, a galop, which the characters sing over. Mostly however this is confined to Martin's friend, Dr Albert Felgentrau a tutor in science, and Oceane's chaperone Kristina as the two of them also pair up as a couple on the holiday. With a priest, a landowner, a businesswoman and a scientist, all of them contrary to the nature of Oceane, there's a lot of character detail and conflict to take in in the first three scenes.
In the second half of the work however, the opera takes shape and establishes its own character. The flow of the sea and the stirring up of waves in a storm becomes an important musical as well as visual reference for the power of nature and the danger of any attempts to master it, control it, or deny it. Martin's declaration to Oceane on the beach is beautiful, making it all the more tragic that he doesn't understand what he is dealing with and is completely blind to the reality of who Oceane is.
Glanert succeeds very much in fleshing out the characters with this kind of musical detail, and Robert Carsen's simple but elegant black-and-white designs with projections of the sea catch the mood of the piece well, but the period costumes and moral outlook remain confined very much to a specific time and place. If the conclusion builds up forcefully to a dramatic conclusion where society cruelly denounces Oceane, who would seem to have done little to offend anyone by today's standards, it is nonetheless a reflection of a deeper truth, and - even if it's not made explicit - we can recognise how much greater a distance we are from respecting nature today.
The world premiere performances of Oceane at the Deutsche Oper Berlin were conducted by Donald Runnicles, capturing the mood and dynamic arc of the work from conflicting tones of the first half, though the flowing romanticism of the second half to the thundering conclusion. Soprano Maria Bengtsson impressively handled the difficult challenge of expressing the inhuman or uncivilised side of Oceane, but all the roles were exceptionally well taken. Nikolai Schukoff was so good he was surely too sympathetic to be Martin, but there is actually nothing wrong with the landowner other than his shallowness and incompatibility for Oceane.
There were notable performances also from Nicole Haslett as the bubbly Kristina and Christoph Pohl as the serious Albert. Again there was perhaps more character detail than was strictly necessary for the other representatives of society that react against Oceane, but they were well sung by Albert Pesendorfer as the Pastor and Stephen Brook as George, the maitre d'. I'm not sure that Doris Soffel is still up to the demands of Wagner and Strauss, but is still a force to be reckoned with in a role like Madame Louise, and was warmly received by the Berlin audience at the curtain call.
Links: Deutsche Oper Berlin
Richard Warner - Parsifal
Opera Vlaanderen, 2017
Cornelius Meister, Tatjana Gürbaca, Christoph Pohl, Markus Suihkonen, Stefan Kocan, Erin Caves, Kay Stiefermann, Tanja Ariane Baumgartner
OperaVision - April 2018
At first sight, and probably for much of the long first Act, the stripped back, minimal production and reduced orchestration of Opera Vlaanderen's Parsifal doesn't look like it has what it takes to really do justice to the epic vision of Wagner's final masterpiece. It has almost nothing of the religious imagery of the work's Good Friday death and rebirth celebrations and it hardly seems to engage with the deeper, sacred mystery and transcendental themes of its wider philosophical influences and references (Buddhism, Schopenhauer). The treatment however remains connected to the work and more tightly focussed on the nature of Kundry, and it's through this focus that the Vlaanderen production does successfully elevate at least one of the themes and meanings of this complex work.
The opening of the opera on a bare stage with a curved wall to the background and a spot of light at the centre of the stage, does give the impression that director Tatjana Gürbaca is settling for representing Parsifal in the abstract, and indeed the opera certainly exists more in the theoretical plane than a physical or geographical one. The colours of the stage and the costumes when the Knights of the Grail take to the stage in modern dress, remain neutral, beige, grey and pale green. Standing out against them, but only slightly, Gurnemanz wears brown corduroy and sits in a wheelchair, while the young boys dressed only in white undergarments, tended by acolytes, turn out to be 'swans'.
Gürbaca's more direct engagement with the work and Kundry's place at the centre of it has however already been laid-out in the Vorspiel in a scene that shows Kundry in a passionate clinch with Amfortas, the incident that leads to his downfall and suffering. The question of suffering and the Christian implications of it are then taken up in thin lines of blood that trickle down the walls at the back, their progress watched more with fascination than reverence by the knights. Parsifal, when he arrives soon breaks this mood carrying a bucket of the blood that he has gathered from this stream and 'shoots' one of the 'swans' by throwing its contents at one of the boys being tended by the knights.
That still remains all very vague and abstract, far from the sombre, reverential tone that we expect from Parsifal, and there is none of the usual ceremonial aspect in the subsequent 'time becomes space' mystery, nor in the transubstantiation scene of the unveiling of the Grail. During this scene, Gurnemanz leads Parsifal around the circle of the stage, their positions frozen in time and echoed in mirrored arrangements by the knights, creating a visual echo of their progress. Other figures wander randomly within the circle of light and look upwards, hands clasped in prayer, as more trickles of blood rain down the back wall and a pregnant Kundry hands out blessings.
By removing the epic grandeur of the traditional imagery and mystique of this scene, what stands out as more significant here is Parsifal's reaction. He might be a holy fool, but rather than be overawed by it all he is instead shocked by the attitude and behaviour of the others. The suffering of Amfortas is largely ignored by everyone else and it's only Parsifal who shows compassion and sympathy. This simple idea is a good interpretation that goes to the heart of what the work is about - one interpretation of many valid possibilities that this work inspires. Looking upward, caught up in their own sense of being special and chosen, they are prepared to offer "thoughts and prayers" to the suffering of Amfortas, but are actually horrified by his punishment and don't really want to acknowledge it.
The interpretation of the work then becomes one where Parsifal's journey is to put us all back in touch with true feelings of compassion, of learning to achieve true enlightenment though the suffering we experience and witness in the world. In order to do that however, Parsifal has to reconnect the division that exists between men and women, between knowledge and compassion. The indications are there in how Kundry is treated by the knights, and the pregnant vision of Kundry in Act I implies that there is a necessity for a rebirth. It's in Parsifal's subsequent encounter with Kundry in Act II that he has to face up to the conflict between what he has been learned from Gurnemanz and what he feels with Kundry. It's a struggle that is much greater than the actual fight that takes place with Klingsor, which is by comparison rather rapidly dispatched at the conclusion of the second Act.
If you're going to put so much importance on the role of Kundry as the path to salvation, then Act II is going to be much more important than the transubstantiation scene of Act I, which is more traditionally the turning point of the opera. Act II however gives considerable room for interpretation and director Tatjana Gürbaca takes full advantage of its possibilities - again not so much for the traditional spectacle as much as for how it can add to her interpretation of Parsifal. Here the Flower Maidens are not as threatening as they might be in other productions, but bewitching creatures that Parsifal finds fascinating, discovering in them something new about beauty and otherness that women represent.
That is only one aspect however and it's not all that Parsifal needs. Complete knowledge - or the true beginning of a path towards completeness - can only be gained though his encounter with Kundry and the kiss of enlightenment. Gürbaca's direction of Tanja Ariane Baumgartner's Kundry doesn't neglect to set the scene for this, realising how important it is for Parsifal to reach this awareness through knowledge of love in the relationship between his father and mother. Parsifal's recollection of Amfortas then at the moment of the kiss is a recognition then of how he came by his wound in the arms of Kundry, not seduced as the Knights' tradition has led him to believe. The mission of healing the wound then becomes one of healing the wound between men and women. Parsifal still resists, but without Kundry, without love, he is warned that he cannot find a way back to Amfortas.
Act III follows through on these ideas, but beautifully manages to retain some of the mystery and ambiguity of the work. Living only with pain, suffering and death, the Knights have become even more detached from their true humanity, from compassion. Their view of the world has consequently become corrupted over time, a never healing wound that needs someone to lead the way towards renewal, rebirth and redemption. "Only the spear that caused the wound can heal it" and Kundry is the spear who necessarily must make the self-sacrifice, who rejects the baptism of Parsifal and cuts deeply into her forearms, smearing the wall with her blood. While the knights gather around in worship of Parsifal, who becomes the Grail for them, it's left to Gurnemanz to recognise the truth, and he lies down between the dead forms of Amfortas and Kundry, reuniting them in death. It's a supremely beautiful ending that works with the complex sentiments of the conclusion, ecstatic and yet melancholic. The way has been opened but not everyone will find or take the path.
It's in these moments that the performance of the orchestra under the direction of Cornelius Meister rises to the occasion. Elsewhere, in the moments of dramatic expression, the performance feels underpowered and inadequate, but then there is a deliberate effort on the stage to also underplay these moments, particularly in Act I. In the moments where the production needs the support of the music to support its interpretation - in the Flower Maidens scene and the Parsifal/Kundry scene of Act II, in the final shimmering, unsettling notes of the opera - it comes through with remarkable feeling for the sentiments and beauty of the work. The singing is also strong in those areas where it counts, particularly in Tanja Ariane Baumgartner's performance of Kundry throughout. Erin Caves delivers a lyrical and dramatically attuned Parsifal. Symbolically confined to a wheelchair for most of the work, Štefan Kocán has a challenge interpreting the role of Gurnemanz, but his singing is strong, resonant and heartfelt. Christoph Pohl isn't the strongest Amfortas and is occasionally overwhelmed by the music, but his role is vital and he brings it fully to life.
Links: Opera Vlaanderen, OperaVision
Richard Wagner - Tannhäuser
Teatro la Fenice, Venice - 2017
Omer Meir Wellber, Calixto Bieito, Paul McNamara, Liene Kinča, Ausrine Stundyte, Christoph Pohl, Pavlo Balakin, Cameron Becker, Alessio Cacciamani, Paolo Antognetti, Mattia Denti, Chiara Cattelan
Culturebox - January 2017
There are a number of thoughts that come to mind as you try to figure out what the director Calixto Bieito is getting at in his 2017 production of Tannhäuser for La Fenice in Venice; few of them the kind of thing that usually comes to mind when watching this opera or even a Calixto Bieito production. As a director who usually takes a rather extreme reinterpretation of works, the minimalist expression of this Tannhäuser suggests either that he is seeking to strip back the work to its fundamental essence to see whether there's a deeper emotional truth to be found in it or else he is just lazy and running out of ideas.
And, as far as Tannhäuser is concerned, you wouldn't blame a director for thinking that everything that is to be said about the work has probably already been said. It's an early Wagner opera, one that was originally written in 1845 for Dresden, and continually revised by the composer through to its notorious performances at the Paris Opera in 1861. Wagner was never fully satisfied with the work and indeed some of the themes that run through it are revisited with considerably more insight, nuance, experience and ability in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Perhaps trying to find a coherent vision to work with, the Venice production takes Act I from the 1861 Paris version and Act II and III from the original revised Dresden version.
In comparison to Meistersinger, Tannhäuser is indeed somewhat heavy-handed in its treatment of the role of the artist in society, in the struggle between sacred and profane love, in the idea of the suffering artist achieving redemption for himself and furthering the progress of society. It certainly helps if you can find a way to express these ideas on the stage without all the high-flown poetic veneer that comes with the literal approach of Götz Friedrich. Robert Carsen, for example, would put the emphasis on the role of the conflicted artist by showing him as a painter rather than a singer in a Paris production. Claus Guth explored the idea of Wagner as Tannhäuser in Vienna, contrasting idealism with the reality. More recently, Sebastian Baumgarten's art-installation Bayreuth production explored art and the artist as the vital lifeblood of a fully functioning society.
The imperfection within the composition which lies partly within Wagner's blending of several different historical and mythological sources and a developing philosophy of his own, should nonetheless provide plenty of material for a director to work with. If nothing else, the viewpoints that Wagner expresses on the role of the artist within society can surely be tested for validity when exposed and contrasted with the present day. Calixto Bieito of course ditches the historical veneration of Wartburg, stripping it of any period costumes and elaborate realistic set designs and brings it into a more modern world setting. This time however he doesn't seem to impose any specific modern reading or context, but rather reduces it to its essence to see if it stands up and holds any truth or validity on its ideas alone.
Bieito's production of Tannhäuser then has more in common with his production of Halevy's La Juive for the Bayerische Staatsoper. There is something of a Grand Opéra aspect in common in the two works; a tendency towards overblown melodrama and musical overstatement that needs to be counteracted or viewed in a more modern light. There is also a religious sentiment in common in both works that Bieito seems to wish to avoid, at least in terms of conventional iconography, but still wishes to explore in terms of what it reveals about national character, fundamentalism and intolerance. As with La Juive however, it's debatable whether such an approach works or whether in fact it isn't actually missing the whole point of the works where the form is as much a part of the meaning as the content.
Still, it isn't too difficult to establish the contrasts between the three acts in fairly broad terms. Act I is hedonistic indulgence of the pleasures of the flesh; Act II is seeking to find an equivalent spiritual experience that serves a higher purpose; Act III is where the artist is able to reconcile the physical and spiritual sides of human nature and through them redeem society. Bieito's Venusberg in Act I, in contrast to the traditional idea of sinfulness and hedonistic indulgence, is seen rather more in terms of nature, with Venus wrapping herself sensuously in the hanging greenery that is just about the total extent of the scenery. The Wartburg of Act II and the singing contest is seen in a rather more rigid, structured form of frames. Act III's set is a combination of the previous two, but it's not a natural blend and rather seems to have destroyed society rather than united it. Perhaps the destruction of that society is necessary in order to rebuild.
Having established an understanding of the concept in broad terms, Bieito doesn't seem particularly concerned with imposing any other reading or emphasis on the work. Tannhäuser is no gentle work however and there is already emphasis aplenty within the conflicts of opposing natures and ideologies. It's here that Bieito lets the emphasis rest, rather than in some manufactured situation or in some elaborate scenery. Venus's sensual passions are seductively exaggerated by Ausrine Stundyte, Elizabeth's goodness and suffering is expressed fervently by Liene Kinča, leading to Wolfram inexplicably almost choking her in the third act, but primarily all of the conflict and passions and suffering have to be collectively absorbed and then transformed by Paul McNamara's intense Heinrich.
Tannhäuser takes his pleasures and his duties seriously throughout the opera. He indulges in physical love in Venusberg in Act I to such an extent that his willingness to submit to the demands placed on him by his minstrels of Wartburg is equally and wholeheartedly enthusiastic. There are no half-measures in Heinrich's world. In Bieito's direction, there is very much a sense that Heinrich believes that his self-mortification is a necessary stage that the artist must endure. He must suffer for his art just as he reveled in pleasure if he wants to fully explore the limits of being human and use the knowledge gained to question society and challenge its rules. These extreme views are not tolerated willingly by society when Tannhäuser expresses what he has learned in the singing contest of Act II. Nor are they tolerated by religion, as he finds when he submits to another 'trial' and undertakes his pilgrimage to Rome.
Act III then, following all the ferocious clashes of firmly held beliefs and ideologies, has wrought destruction on the once solid foundations of society, and Elizabeth's innocence is the price that has to be paid for it. With Wolfram and Elizabeth making wild empty gestures like they are in death throes, there's a post-apocalyptic feel then to this Act III of Tannhäuser that is less celebratory of the religious mysticism that is more commonly found there. Played this way, with the musical direction under Omer Meir Wellber slowing things down to an almost funereal pace, the tone felt closer to the final Act of Parsifal, emphasising similarities in the redemptive conclusions between the two works that I had never noticed before.
If that's the only revelation produced by Calixto Bieito's production then I suppose there is some method to the direction, even as it seems to work against the nature of Wagner's intent, if not so much the word. I think it might have been more successful an endeavour if it had singers of greater force of delivery than those cast for the La Fenice performances. It's not the kind of full-power singing you normally associate with the work, but the expression is nonetheless all there. Paul McNamara is mostly up to the challenge of the main role, performing with intensity and clarity. Liene Kinča's is equally as intense and gives an impassioned performance as Elizabeth. Ausrine Stundyte isn't quite up to the demands of Venus and struggles noticeably in her Act III scene. I thought I detected some murmuring of discontent from the audience at the proceedings of the first two acts (which wouldn't be unusual for this director), the production and performers are well received at the conclusion, so there's a sense that the power of Bieito's direction hit its mark.
Links: La Fenice, Culturebox
Georg Friedrich Haas - Morgen und Abend
Royal Opera House, 2015
Michael Boder, Graham Vick, Klaus Maria Brandauer, Christoph Pohl, Sarah Wegener, Will Hartmann, Helena Rasker
Royal Opera House - 28 November 2015
There must have been some kind of communication breakdown between the stage and the audience on the first night of Georg Friedrich Haas's new opera Morgen und Abend when it opened at the Royal Opera House on 13th November. When I caught the work at the last of its five world premiere performances at Covent Garden, I saw little that corresponded with some of the indifferent to outright dismissive reviews of the work in the press. On the contrary, this was a spellbinding piece that held the audience rapt over its 90 minute running time, was warmly received and even enthusiastically applauded at the curtain call.
Undoubtedly however, the subject and the musical approach of the work are very different from what one is accustomed to hearing on the main stage at Covent Garden. The meaning or progress of the work would be difficult to grasp simply because it is about something that isn't capable of being easily defined and for which there are is no familiar musical accompaniment. By which I mean that the subject is Death, and it's not accompanied here by either by the dramatic build-up and crescendos that usually accompany an on-stage expiration, nor by mournful laments that follow. Rather in his adaptation of Jon Fosse's drama 'Morgon og Kveld', G. F. Haas's Morgen und Abend (Morning and Evening) explores the moment of transition between those two more familiar states - the moment of death itself.
That, admittedly, leaves the listener not quite sure where they are or how they should be responding to the lack of dramatic narrative. In the long prologue, an old fisherman called Olai (Klaus Maria Brandauer) sits in a grey sterile landscape, unsure himself where he is or what he is supposed to be doing. In Graham Vick's production design, there's a door, but it stands alone, there are chairs and a bed, but also an abandoned fishing boat. Everything slowly revolves, time operating in a circular fashion, where the ending is also the beginning. Gradually, the old man comes to realise that he is dead, but paradoxically, he is reliving the moment when his son Johannes was born. Johannes is no sooner born than Olai makes his exit through the door, and Johannes is no sooner born than he too makes his way onto the grey stage of his death.
What has happened in between is ...well, life - and Morgen und Abend isn't particularly concerned with that. A few articles have suggested that the lack of familiarity in the English speaking world with Jon Fosse's work, in contrast to his high literary standing in Europe, could have further alienated the UK audience, but the question of passing over is common in literature, and even in mainstream cinema (in 'Ghost' or 'The Sixth Sense'). While deaths frequently occur in many operas, it's true however that exploration of death itself is not at all common. The dead may have a voice in opera, going right back 400 years to the earliest works by Peri and Monteverdi's on the Orpheus myth 400 years ago, but even though the state of death is considered in Orpheus' journey to the underworld, and it is particularly the main focus in Gluck's version of the myth - opera's treatment of death (even in the martyrdom of Donizetti's Poliuto or Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites) is almost always qualified by desire to live.
Life is not entirely absent from Fosse and Haas's Morgen und Abend, but it's a shadow world that is far beyond reach. That fishing boat has already sailed. Johannes, still unable to comprehend where he is and what has happened, is confused by the appearance of his dead wife and his living daughter, but also by the need he feels to visit his old friend Peter, help him cut his hair and go out fishing with him once again. As the appearance of Olai on the stage just before Johannes appears, this (Death) is a place where time no longer follows familiar rules. Everyone exists here simultaneously, but they are also alone. It's not a place either for contemplation of one's life or weighing up the balance of one's achievements - it just is.
If there is any justification for there being a communication breakdown between the opera and the audience then, it's hardly due to the content of the libretto, as "difficult" and uncommon as the subject it deals with might be. The synopsis is summarised in a single line in the Royal Opera House programme - "Morgen und Abend (Morning and Evening) is the struggle of Johannes into and out of life". There's not much you have to 'get' here. A more valid concern appears to be the inability on the first night to hear Klaus Maria Brandauer's Olai's spoken monologue over the orchestra and percussion. This criticism seems to have been taken on board at Covent Garden, and when performed at the final performance on the 28th November, Brandauer had evidently been hitched up to a radio microphone and could be clearly heard in the mix.
I would also find it difficult to accept that anyone would find the music of Georg Friedrich Haas difficult to grasp either. It's true that the Austrian composer has a much higher profile elsewhere in Europe, and his work is not as well known in the UK. It's also true that Haas works experimentally in improvisation and microtonalites, as well as with works that have directions to be performed in pitch darkness, but his music is not inaccessible or only of interest to music scientists. Nor is it cold and theoretical, but as Morgen und Abend and the composer's other works in the lyric medium testify, Haas is very much interested in transitional human states, as uncommon and indefinable as some of those might appear to be.
In Morgen und Abend, the music is beautiful, haunting and fully connected to the interim nature of the state of non-existence, of being neither here nor there. Notes hypnotically slip and slide, the pitch is bent, stretched and altered, wavering between one state and another with percussive jolts thundering and echoing moments of confusion, recognition and realisation. There's a hypnotic flow here that finds a musical equivalent for Jon Fosse's unpunctuated flow of words, but Haas also writes beautifully for the voice, with variety of expression (in spoken dialogue and singing) and in the blending together of voices and the music, sections of which are underpinned with the ahhhh-ah hum of a rather more musically conventional heavenly chorus. A strong cast provided all the necessary colour.
Morgen und Abend is a modern opera in the truest sense. It's musically progressive and experimental, seeking to find the truest musical expression for its subject in an inventive way, not falling back on familiar operatic models or musical conventions but not destroying them either. There are no grand ambitions here to satisfy public or critical tastes by making grand musical or dramatic gestures, but rather Georg Friedrich Haas follows the artistic imperative of exploring the subject through his own musical language, and Morgen und Abend quietly impresses.
BBC Radio 3 will broadcast a recording of Morgen und Abend at the Royal Opera House on Saturday 5th December. It will be available for listening on the BBC iPlayer for four weeks after this date.
Links: Royal Opera House, BBC Radio 3
