Richard Wagner - Lohengrin
La Monnaie-De Munt, 2018
Alain
Altinoglu, Olivier Py, Gabor Bretz, Eric Cutler, Ingela Brimberg,
Andrew Foster-Williams, Elena Pankratova, Werner van Mechelen
ARTE Concert - April 2018
When
it comes to Lohengrin, a more cautious director would seek to downplay
rather than actually highlight any associations that might be made
between Richard Wagner and the Nazis. It's an issue however that is hard
to avoid, since the question of German nationalism lies very much at
the core of the opera and, regardless of its intentions it certainly formed a view of nationalism that Hitler and his adherents took in another direction. Olivier Py,
directing for La Monnaie in Brussels, however tackles the issue head-on ...in a roundabout sort of way.
In fact, Py even takes to
the stage before the start of the opera to explain why he sets his
production in 1945 at the end of the war when Berlin and much of Germany
was lying in ruins. Mainly it's because he believes that Wagner's
Lohengrin is not just a nationalist display, but a warning of where such
sentiments can lead. Wagner can't be entirely exonerated for his
antisemitism, for a sense of jingoism in his works or for their and his
family's later association with the Nazis, but there is certainly a
case that Lohengrin is a work of artistic and cultural expression that
does consider the disastrous future impact of nationalistic sentiments
that can take art and culture and twist it toward personal and political
interests.
Certainly Olivier Py and his regular stage designer
Pierre-André Weitz's touch is all over the La Monnaie Lohengrin. It
works in contrasts of black and white with little of shading in between.
On one side we have Elsa and Lohengrin in pale blue, Lohengrin even
associated with angels, while Ortrud and Friedrich von Telramund are all
in black. King Heinrich incidentally (and somewhat negligibly) is
dressed in grey. Py's Catholic or Christian faith may well play a part
in reducing Lohengrin to such stark divisions, but it's perhaps more a
case of emphasis as they are already there in Wagner's work. Ortrud
certainly appeals to the pagan gods Wotan and Freia in a way that
"allows evil to enter this house" as Telramund describes it. Is it a
lack of 'faith' that leads to the ideal of the German nation being
destroyed from within? And is this inevitable corruption of a pure ideal
not indeed what Wagner's opera is all about?
Well, it's
perhaps a little more complicated than that and it's certainly not as
'black and white' as it looks in the La Monnaie production. Firstly,
there's the setting of Lohengrin, which as Py indicated, appears to take
place in the ruins of the Third Reich, in a burnt-out theatre that has a
platform at the front and the rotating ruin of the building behind.
It's hard to imagine a 'straight' playing out of the legend then, and
indeed the early indications point to a little bit of reinterpretation
with the suggestion being that it is Ortrud who has choked the child
Gottfried, the future ruler that would have taken Brabant to glory. Py,
as he often does, introduces other obscure quotes, symbols and messages;
"Der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland" (Death is a master from
Germany) on a wall, Ortrud painting a thick black cross, Elsa a white
cross in chalk. Lohengrin's duel with Telramund in on a chessboard
(black and white) rather than with swords, although a battle between
factions takes place in the background.
It's hard to see
any real connect between Py's 1945 setting of the work and Wagner's
setting of the medieval legend, but that could well be intentional,
showing a disconnect between a glorifying vision of Germanic culture
(contrast this with the rather ideologically vacuous 2016 Dresden production)
and the reality of the inglorious conclusion that awaits when it
appropriated towards what Py describes as "the aesthetisation of
politics". That kind of reading is certainly heavily supported by the
rather meta-theatrical set of Act 3, Scene 1. The pastoral idyll
behind the massed chorus of the people of Brabant in this burnt-out
theatre is nothing but a rolled-out backdrop that the stagehands lift,
the set rotating to reveal a sentiment that is built on a framework of
German romanticism and idealism, represented by dusty statues, busts and
monuments to Schiller, Holderin, Casper David Friedrich, Goethe,
Novalis, Schlegel, Grimm, Heine, Carl Maria von Weber and Beethoven,
with even what might be a Nothung buried in the stump of a dead tree.
There
are a lot of ideas and ideals here that never quite seem to gel
together into something entirely coherent in a way that works
hand-in-hand with the opera itself, but the essential points are valid
and well made. The lack of faith in the ideal even by as pure a spirit
as Elsa (who Py aligns with a view of Wagner that Elsa represents the
'volk') who has fallen under the corrupting influence of the likes of
Ortrud and Telramund, means that Lohengrin refuses to be the figurehead
that leads the forces of King Henry the Fowler into battle against
Hungary. Ortrud certainly hammers home the point of ideals being
corrupted in her final words: "Erfahrt, wie sich die Götter rächen, von
deren Huld ihr euch gewandt!" (Learn how the gods take vengeance on you
who no longer worship them!). In case that message isn't delivered
forcefully enough by Elena Pankratova, the fact that it is uttered
amidst the ruins of 1945 makes it hard to ignore the implication that
you could also see Lohengrin as a substitute for Wagner foreseeing and
denying responsibility for the misuse of his art that the Nazis would
put it towards.
Pankratova, as it happens, gets that
across with absolute conviction in one of the strongest performances
among the cast here, but even if not everyone is up to her level, there
are no weak performances or anyone who lets the side down. Andrew Foster-Williams might not have the same strength of personality or
voice, but that suits a dominated, wheedling portrayal of Telramund and
it's an effective performance. Ingela Brimberg mostly meets the
challenges of the role of Elsa and her voice likewise complements that
of Eric Cutler as Lohengrin. Cutler is almost Italianate in his phrasing
and lyricism, if not quite to the extent of Piotr Beczala (at Dresden).
With Klaus Florian Vogt's monopolisation of the role in recent years
however, we know that a lighter higher voice can work well, but it's a
romantic-heroic role that allows a wide range of interpretation, and
it's always interesting to see what a new voice can bring to it.
It
felt like it was more Alain Altinoglu's conducting of the La Monnaie
orchestra that was a little stiff, not really succeeding in capturing
the romantic lyricism of the opera or finding a way to connect it with
the perhaps harder edged tone of the production - but as ever it's hard
to give a fair assessment of that from the compressed audio reproduction
of a live streamed broadcast. There are moments however that capture
the more militaristic and Germanic side of the work well, and some fine
contrasting moments of warmth and sentiment, as in the lovely warm low
brass of Lohengrin's regret in having to reveal his identity. It's an
interesting production, one that does try to engage with the issues
surrounding Lohengrin and its subsequent history, and indeed even look
at it as an opera that looks towards the future, but inevitably in those
circumstances - much like Hans Neuenfel's recent Bayreuth production - it
doesn't feel like it gives a true sense of the opera as Wagner may have
intended it.
Links: La Monnaie, ARTE Concert
Richard Wagner - Tannhäuser
Bayerische Staatsoper, 2017
Kirill Petrenko, Romeo Castellucci, Klaus Florian Vogt, Christian Gerhaher, Anja Harteros, Elena Pankratova, Georg Zeppenfeld, Dean Power, Peter Lobert, Ulrich Reß, Ralf Lukas, Elsa Benoit
ARTE Concert - 9th July 2017
There's a stunning display of imagery and evidence of a unique perspective in Romeo Castellucci's Munich opera festival production of Tannhäuser. Musically too the performance of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester conducted by Kirill Petrenko is lushly gorgeous and the singing from an impressive cast is jaw-droppingly good. It's everything we've come to expect from the Bavarian State Opera over the course of this current season. If there was something missing from the Tannhäuser production however, it's that indefinable quality that can be described broadly as coherence.
And perhaps it's not so difficult to pinpoint where the lack of coherence comes from, since that's the job really of the director. Romeo Castellucci's account of Wagner's opera however doesn't strictly hold to its traditional imagery or themes, but tends to revisit them from a more abstract perspective. As is often the case with Castellucci it's probably a mistake to try and think too deeply about the imagery or try to connect up all the dots and references into a coherent whole. On its own terms his visual representation of the opera is quite striking and unexpected. This is definitely not a case of a director nailing his ideas firmly to a single recognisable concept, but rather one that opens it up for the audience to apply their own interpretation.
It's hard for example to understand just what kind of statement the director is making upfront when a legion of topless Amazonian archers take to the stage during the overture and embark upon a synchronised ritual of target practice onto the projected image of a eye, which then becomes an ear. In Castellucci's mind, they are cupids, straight out of the libretto's description of Venusberg, their arrows representing love and the wounds it creates, but there's more of a Leni Riefenstahl Olympia character here and in other imagery that is reminiscent of propaganda art of the Third Reich. It could also be seen to relate to the ancient mythology of Diana, goddess of the hunt and nature.
It's an idealised image of perfection however that is ultimately shown to be corrupting to Heinrich, and Castellucci finds equally extreme imagery to represent this with the goddess Venus bubbling out of a mound of heaving forms melded together in pool of rippling flesh. As unconventional as the imagery is, it can be related to or seen as a response to the broad character of Tannhäuser, albeit with a little more sinister edge to it. That's certainly the character also of Wartburg when Heinrich returns there, with the Landgrave and his entourage shown out hunting in red robes, ritually washing themselves in the blood of a felled deer rather like a cult to Diana.
Thus far you can relate the imagery, albeit tenuously, to themes in Tannhäuser. Heinrich, having seen more of the world, is reluctant to rejoin Hermann's order, which can be seen to be a perversion of nature - a slaughter and a circle of blood that is regarded with horror by the young shepherd boy. Elisabeth - Anja Harteros wearing a nude-print dress - represents a vision of purity that the singers aspire to but which is too unworldly to be capable of attaining. The imagery turns ever more bizarre in an attempt perhaps to relate this to the ideal of a pure kingdom or nation, with flawless bodies moving behind a white veil in perfect synchronisation, suggesting some kind of body fascism that is just as disturbing as the fleshy imagery of Venusberg.
Sequence after sequence moves ever more distant not only from any conventional symbolism but any kind of consistent rationale that you could apply. Disembodied feet litter the stage; a lightbox that presents the themes of the singers is obliterated from the inside by frenzied spraying of black paint; pilgrims carry a huge gold boulder and return with smaller sized gold rocks; monumental bases hold the rotting, disintegrating corpses of Heinrich and Elisabeth, as hundreds of thousands of millions of years pass and they turn to ash, but they are emblazoned with the names of 'Klaus' and 'Anja'. The image of the arrow is present throughout, but its symbolism changes according to the scene, representing wounding love one moment, the hunting of Tannhäuser the next, but primarily and significantly as the final image seen on the stage, it represents the flight of time.
It all looks beautiful and is visually engaging, but without extensive programme notes and explanations it would be hard to follow just what the director is reading from Tannhäuser. According to Castellucci, Heinrich is a figure who is doomed to never attain the perfection he seeks in either realm (Venusberg/Wartburg), but rather the quasi-religious perfection represented by Elisabeth/Maria can only be found in a dimension outside space and time. Even with that explanation it's a very unique perspective that hardly illuminates nor illustrates the opera in any conventional fashion. And, despite the apparent desecration of the work's high-minded ideals, it doesn't entirely overcome the sanctimonious tone that you sometimes find at the work's conclusion.
There are however rare pleasures to be found elsewhere. In terms of singing, Christian Gerhaher's warm, lyrical Wolfram steals the show and it's not often you can say that in Tannhäuser, and that's no mean feat either when up against singers of the class of Vogt, Harteros, Zeppenfeld and Pankratova in the major roles. It does make for an odd but interesting imbalance, since it makes Wolfram's ode to Grace ('Anmut') in the singing competition a persuasive and appealing vision against which Heinrich's reaction seem churlish. That's through no fault of Klaus Florian Vogt, who sings as purely and beautifully as ever here, although not quite with the same commanding conviction for this role as he can provide as Lohengrin, von Stolzing or even as Parsifal.
I had some minor reservations about Anja Harteros when she sang Elsa in the Salzburg Easter Festival Die Walküre but she is very impressive as Elisabeth here with some absolutely gorgeous singing, holding her line beautifully with a smooth legato. She seems at a bit of a loss what to make of Elisabeth and I suspect Castellucci didn't really give her a lot of direction here. It's a pity because Harteros is a fine singer/actor and could do a lot more, but her singing performance alone is good enough. Castellucci doesn't do Elena Pankratova any favours by burying her in a mound of prosthetic flesh, but the Russian soprano didn't let that deter her either from an excellent performance.
Links: Bayerische Staatsoper, ARTE Concert
Richard Wagner - Parsifal
Dutch National Opera, 2016
Marc Albrecht, Pierre Audi, Anish Kapoor, Ryan McKinny, Bjarni Thor Kristinsson, Günther Groissböck, Christopher Ventris, Bastiaan Everink, Alexandra Petersamer, Elena Pankratova, Marcel Reijans, Roger Smeets, Lisette Bolle, Rosanne van Sandwijk, Erik Slik, Jeroen de Vaal, Maartje Rammeloo, Lisette Bolle, Inez Hafkamp, Tomoko Makuuchi, Caroline Cartens, Rosanne van Sandwijk, Eva Kroon
Amsterdam - 9th December 2016
Parsifal is such a unique piece of music drama that it permits many ways of presenting it; there's no right way and there's no wrong way. It has little of the dramatic action that you would more commonly find in opera and is limited in the stage directions it needs to put its message across, so it's surprising how versatile and open to exploration Parsifal remains. The conceptual, symbolic or abstract approach however seems more like its natural medium, rather than say a production that explores character or one that attempts to provide an interpretation of the meaning of the work. Other approaches are valid however, which of course is a measure of its greatness as a supreme work of art, which seems to me to be something that is indisputable.
That was my impression anyway coming out of the Pierre Audi's production of the work at the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam, which suggests that they must have got something right. Just quite how they did it is, as is often the case with this opera, somewhat more difficult to define, but surely it is at least by remaining true to the spirit of Wagner's intentions for his final masterpiece. That doesn't mean that you have to be slavishly literal however, and Pierre Audi's direction and Anish Kapoor's sets are firmly in the conceptual mode. By which I mean that they attempt to create a visual representation of the deeper meaning of the work rather than holding to its surface representation. And by which I mean there is scarcely any overt religious iconography, but plenty to allude to the work's spiritual and transcendent content.
That very much depends on how much you want to read into it, but obviously when it comes to such an approach, the onus must be placed on the individual member of the audience. For me, the representation of Montsalvat as a solid mass of jagged rocks bathed in blood-red light gave it the appearance of a raw open wound. That is evidently a key image in relation to this opera, and in fact it's also the image of a bleeding wound that is projected onto the screen during the overture. The pain and suffering endured by Amfortas, an eternal wound from the spear that that pierced Christ on the cross, is so great that it can't simply be confined to a single body; it engulfs the whole of Montsalvat. Everyone there feels the pain, and if you can't hear that in the music, you aren't listening closely enough.
Arguably that is what the staging should be striving to represent by whatever means necessary. It's more important to sense that than it is to see medieval knights and the Holy Grail on the stage. The second scene of Act I, the transubstantiation scene, literally builds on the first scene. The configuration is slightly altered and wooden scaffolding around it bears the faithful. There's a sense here of the need to build the world anew, build upon the pain, putting it to use. The wooden beams picked up by the reinvigorated knights are not crosses then, but crossbeams that symbolise or serve as building blocks.
Anish Kapoor's designs for Klingsor's castle and gardens in Act II are even more abstract, consisting only of a large circular mirror of uneven distorted clarity hanging above the stage, the background of the set merely a curved black wall. Again, it's a representation of the tone of this Act, the world seen through a glass darkly (a Biblical reference without the religious iconography). Reflected in this mirror the flower maidens are indeed a dazzling kaleidoscopic display that holds Parsifal back from what it is he must do. Kundry attempts to bring some light to Parsifal's quest for enlightenment, but it still represents a distortion of the truth. It is only when Parsifal recalls the suffering of Amfortas that his eyes are opened and he is able to recognise the truth for himself.
Act III is the exact opposite of how this Act is usually represented. Instead of a post-apocalyptic Montsalvat, with Titurel dead, Amfortas surely unable to endure further pain, and the faith of Gurnemanz and the knights in tatters, Kapoor depicts a clean, open, ordered scene. It's all pale blue, with geometric shapes on a bare minimal stage, the figures all wearing futuristic robes like a scene from a Robert Wilson opera production (incidentally, I haven't seen his Parsifal, but Robert Wilson doing any Wagner and preferably a Ring Cycle would be my ultimate dream production - could someone ask him, please?). The third act however is about redemption, and that is followed through with the associated Christian rituals of feet-washing and baptism, as well as consideration of death and the afterlife.
If it was difficult to pin the production down to a definitive statement, concept or interpretation, there was no mistaking what the music was telling you, and it's there that the 'truth' of Parsifal is there to be revealed. Marc Albrecht conducted with a measured pace, never allowing the work to float or drift, keeping instead a consistent drive - although I might have liked a slower more contemplative Good Friday scene. It was the 'shaping' of the orchestra that counted for more here, lifting the sweeps of strings, emphasising the plaintive tone of the cellos and the spiritual uplift of the brass, with the percussion hammering home the truth. It was an utterly exhilarating performance that demonstrated the beauty and the brilliance of Wagner's orchestration for Parsifal, as well as its ability to reach deeper places.
The performance of the 9th December was slightly delayed while the DNO flew in a replacement for an indisposed Petra Lang. The disappointment of not seeing Lang sing and perform the role of Kundry was however alleviated by the promise of the replacement being Elena Pankratova, who most recently sang the role (impressively) at Bayreuth this year. Delays however prevented Pankratove from getting to the house in time so the first Act was sung very capably by Alexandra Petersamer from the side of the stage while the role was mimed out by the assistant director Astrid van den Akker. The circumstances were not ideal, but in practice it didn't have an adverse impact on the quality of the performance, with Pankratova at the side of the stage for Act II and III demonstrating every ounce of the power that marked her performance at Bayreuth. If anything, a mimed Kundry just gave her and the work an additional sense of otherworldliness.
Also seen at Bayreuth 2016, Ryan McKinny likewise gave another intense, agonised performance as Amfortas. There might not have been as much blood-letting as at Bayreuth, the 'Grail' here being a flow of blood onto a strip of cloth held in front of him for the followers, but the sacrificial nature of gesture counted. I was initially uncertain that Günther Groissböck would have the necessary gravitas for Gurnemanz, but he was more than capable for the role, his voice carrying even over the full force of the orchestra, and he had good stage presence.
Christopher Ventris didn't make the same kind of impression, but it's undoubtedly a challenge for singer and director to give Parsifal any real depth of character. He is a cipher, a symbol, a saviour who will lead the way through pain to redemption in compassion. There was no faulting his singing performance, which was nothing less than lyrical and beautifully articulated. Bastiaan Everink's Klingsor was similarly a cipher, but again well sung. The brilliance of the DNO chorus was truly astounding and deeply moving - reducing the lady beside me to tears at the end of Act I - and the flower maidens here were also exceptionally lyrical and beguiling.
Links: De Nationale Opera
Richard Wagner - Parsifal
Bayreuth, 2016
Hartmut Haenchen, Uwe Eric Laufenberg, Klaus Florian Vogt, Ryan McKinny, Karl-Heinz Lehner, Georg Zeppenfeld, Gerd Grochowski, Elena Pankratova, Tansel Akzeybek, Timo Riihonen, Alexandra Steiner, Mareike Morr, Charles Kim, Stefan Heibach
BR-Klassik - 25 July 2016
The scene where Amfortas sheds his blood in transubstantiation and reveals the mystery of the Grail is an extraordinary moment and usually the key scene in the first Act of Parsifal. It largely determines the nature of the production as a whole, the moment where, famously in the words of Gurnemanz, time becomes space, where the act of pain and suffering of Christ on the cross is shown, his blood given in communion to his followers as a symbol of the mystery of faith. For the knights of the Grail, it's spiritual nourishment of their belief that Christ's death and suffering will lead to human redemption. It's where Parsifal's eyes are open to the truth of this message of the Redeemer, even if he (and we the audience) don't fully understand it, wrapped up as Wagner makes it in Buddhism, religious mysticism and the philosophical writings of Schopenhauer.
It's no small order to get that across on stage, but its important for any successful production of Parsifal and Bayreuth's new production does that with all the necessary stage-consecrating pomp and ceremony, with all its associated imagery of religious transfiguration, but most importantly, with a sense of the real pain of suffering that approaches true agony. Here in Uwe Eric Laufenberg's production, Amfortas, stripped down to a loin-cloth and a crown of thorns like Christ about to be nailed to the cross, reveals the scars of the blood-letting that has sustained his followers, the Knights of Monsalvat, as he is painfully reveals his open wound and bleeds for them once again. The blood simultaneously pours out from other cuts and openings and pools at his feet, rolling down onto the round altar to a tap where the knights partake of it, and Titurel is able to look again upon the Holy Grail.
Along with Wagner's extraordinary score, it's a powerful and unforgettable moment where the Good Friday meaning and implications of it are made explicit, one where you can feel the audience - in reverence at Bayreuth - collectively hold their breath and almost wince at how real the pain is made to feel. It's the high point of the Act, but it's also an indication of how the rest of the opera is to be played out, setting the tone for the more globally important moment (in perhaps the whole of opera) when we and Parsifal return to the same scene in Act III. Unusually for Bayreuth, the first Act is played out with close attention to the directions in the libretto, showing very little of the interpretation, modernising and deconstruction of the composer's work that has been the hallmark of the festival in recent years, and certainly a feature of the last Parsifal produced there directed by Stefan Herheim.
Here, Monsalvat is a semi-ruined temple in the Middle-East. We know this because, in practically the only other moment of visual and dramatic licence in the first Act, we zoom out at this significant moment through time into space in a projected scene that locates Monsalvat's place in the wider universe. Elsewhere, the acolytes are dressed in monk's cassocks, with knights dressed in army combats, none of them seeming to have any other purpose than to look on at the suffering of Amfortas, prepare his bath and move a huge crucifix around, taking off a plaster figure of a naked Christ down from it. Kundry's role is not only mocked by the young squires, but it's somewhat downplayed in Laufenberg's production, the mysterious figure remaining in the background for most of the first Act. In the only real suggestion of a contemporary agenda, there is a reference made to refugees of different faiths taking shelter there. If that feels like a little tacked on, it does however provide a rather more powerful message at the end of the opera.
Act II doesn't stray too far either from the familiar template, but again there are a few contemporary Middle Eastern references that feel shoehorned in. The most bewildering is Klingsor being a keen collector of crucifixes who likes to indulge in a bit of self-flagellation in front of them. Some of the crucifixes he puts to fairly profane uses in the absence of any "equipment" of his own. He also has a bound and gagged Amfortas held captive, his presence meaning that he doesn't so much taunt Kundry over her past as encourage her to act it out again, at least until she can turn her attentions to Parsifal. Elsewhere it's fairly straightforward. We're in the same temple structure, but one that is somewhere between an Arabian temple and a harem. The flower maidens share the same duality, dressed in hajibs when first appearing, before stripping down to colourful Arabian Nights costumes and veils.
None of these touches, much less the presence of Amfortas on the stage, make the action any more real, and again there is a failure to address the nature of Kundry (and women) in this work where they are either playthings or pawns in the power games of men. It's an inconsistent, literal and very old-fashioned reading of the role and of the place of women in Parsifal. Again, this is partly made up for by Act III in this production, but it's achieved more through Wagner's score and the musical performance than anything that the director is able to bring out of it. It doesn't help that Laufenberg's direction is also lacking as far as acting performances are concerned, not that the nature of this unusual music-drama makes this an easy obstacle to overcome. Everyone however seems to be enacting Parsifal or ritualising it with great reverence (Wagner himself even making a death mask appearance in the of the projections) rather than living the work or making its concerns real.
If there is one element however that makes up for the lack of dramatic stage direction in this new Bayreuth production, it's the quality of the singing and the musical direction. I've seen nothing but the highest praise for Hartmut Haenchen's conducting of the work, and undoubtedly you had to be there in the Festspielhaus to really get the impact, but it sounded a little sober and subdued to me in the broadcast version, at least in the first Act, not really carrying the huge emotional sweep of the work. There is some good dramatic underscoring of moments in Act II however and Act III is every bit as extraordinarily beautiful and transformative and it ought to be. While I personally have some questions about the conducting, the singing is beyond reproach. Klaus Florian Vogt gives us his light, lyrical and deeply sensitive Parsifal; Elena Pankratova is one of the most secure and powerful Kundrys I have heard recently, with great dramatic delivery; and Georg Zeppenfeld is consistently brilliant, his bright timbre and perfect enunciation making Gurnemanz's pronouncements nothing less than a sheer joy that compels you to listen.
It's Vogt however who ensures that Act III is nothing less than the magnificent conclusion it ought to be. The soft-voiced tenor makes it a time for quiet reflection, but with a steely sense of purpose and unwavering belief in his deliverance of purification, redemption and a return to the paradise/innocence. It's a stunningly good performance. Keeping the Monsalvat temple as a constant, it is now in ruins, with huge vines and reeds breaking through the cracks. Following Parsifal's lead, having actually broken the Holy Spear in Act II in what seems like a terrible act of religious vandalism in order to make it into a cross, the refugees also come together to abandon their little bits of religious iconography, throwing it into the sand-filled coffin of Titurel. The stage empties to be filled with the light of Redemption, and the magic that is Wagner's Parsifal resounds to fill the hall and the heart of the listener.
Links: Bayreuth Festival, BR-Klassik
Richard Strauss - Die Frau ohne Schatten
Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich - 2013
Kirill Petrenko, Krzysztof Warlikowski, Johan Botha, Adrianne Pieczonka, Deborah Polaski, Elena Pankratova, Wolfgang Koch, Sebastian Holecek, Eri Nakamura, Hanna-Elisabeth Müller, Dean Power, Okka von der Damerau, Tim Kuypers, Christian Rieger, Matthew Peña, Laura Tatulescu, Tara Erraught, Heike Grötzinger, Andrea Borghini, RafaI Pawnuk, Leonard Bernad, Iulia Maria Dan
Staatsoper.TV Live Internet Streaming - 1st December 2013
Die Frau ohne Schatten is notoriously one of the most difficult works to stage, the fairytale setting having some directions that are near-impossible to depict conventionally, including frying fish that lament with the Voices of Unborn Children, earthquakes and magically appearing fountains. Even the most basic idea behind the opera - a woman who doesn't cast a shadow - is not an easy thing to achieve credibly on a lighted stage. Inevitably then, directors are required to be somewhat creative in their approach, without losing the necessary otherworldly quality of the work.
Directing Richard Strauss's epic work for the Bavarian State Opera, Krzysztof Warlikowski is not a director short of ideas, one who can always be relied upon for creative and unconventional approaches to opera staging, particularly for a work as rich in imagery and ideas as Die Frau ohne Schatten. Considering that much of the work's fairytale symbolism is based on Strauss and Hofmannsthal's interest in the Freudian theories and psychoanalysis it's not uncommon for productions to use a similar method to explore the underlying meanings and subtexts to be found in the opera, so it's not surprising that a director like Warlikowski finds the work to be fertile ground for a number of ideas.
The Munich production of Die Frau ohne Schatten then, unsurprisingly, doesn't take place in a fairytale world, but rather in a more modern setting that relates to the mindset of the Empress, daughter of Keikobad, the Woman without a Shadow. When they descend from the Spirit Realm down to Earth then in search of a shadow, the Nurse and the Empress seem to take an elevator from the upper level of a luxury apartment building into the basement where Barak the dyer and his wife do the laundry. It's not a literal descent however - it's certainly not enough to make the fairytale storyline "real" - but rather there's a suggestion that the Nurse is using her powers (hypnosis? psychoanalysis?) to force the Empress (who is often seen lying on a couch) to confront her deepest fears and get in touch with her inner self.
This is certainly a valid interpretation of Die Frau ohne Schatten, if somewhat unimaginative for a director like Krzysztof Warlikowski. We already know the Empress has an inner life - she's a gazelle in the form of a woman - while her lack of a shadow moreover is clearly a description of her inability to bear children. Here, as elsewhere, Warlikowski's production emphasises greatly the deep female desires and anxieties related to sexuality, childbearing and motherhood that can be read from the work. The Dyer's wife in particular, granted fulfilment of a life of luxury by the Nurse in exchange for her shadow (and thus liberated from the ability to conceive), can be seen indulging her wildest fantasies with semi-naked handsome young men, some of them wearing falcon heads.
The men in Die Frau ohne Schatten are depicted as being well-meaning but essentially one-note - the childless Emperor caught up in his obsession with his red falcon and with hunting (which you could interpret as a desire for 'death'), Barak with rather more basic urges, frustrated by the inattention of his wife and his banishment from the marital bed once the Wife has agreed to the Nurse's terms in trade for her shadow. The male perspective is an under-explored avenue of the work, but it's not one that interests Warlikowski. The director certainly finds imaginative imagery that rivals Hofmannsthal's to depict the situation of men who are unable to find fulfilment in their female partners, but the men are still mostly sidelined here.
Perhaps more surprisingly for this director is the fall-back onto one of the old familiar tricks that are commonly used when a dramatic situation appears too exaggerated to depict literally. You can either create the necessary distance by making it a play-within-a-play, or you can set it as the deranged imaginings of a character in an asylum for the insane. As becomes clear in the later part of the production - and in keeping with the psychologist's couch origin - Warlikowski goes for the asylum option, with the Nurse eventually being the one put into a straight-jacket. It's a disappointing reading of the work, particularly when we have recently had such a radical interpretation of this opera from Christoph Loy at Salzburg, seeing the 1919 work as a lament for Unborn Children of the Dead during the Great War, with those feelings reawakened through its setting during the post-WWII Karl Bohm recording sessions of the opera.
If Warlikowski's interpretation doesn't engage the mind and the imagination quite as much, the Munich production nonetheless is at least a feast for the eyes and the ears, and it's not without some bizarrely surreal imagery and a few characteristically clever touches. The sets are extravagant in terms of their being so much going on. There's a gazelle on the stage which 'gives birth' to a young child in red, all of which opens out other impressions of the nature of the Empress. Lights, colour and projections also define the divisions between reality and fantasy, with plenty of objects that serve literal and symbolic purposes - a bed, an elevator, a fish tank - and supernumeraries wearing animal and falcon heads. The director's response to the challenges of the stage directions is occasionally inspired, such as when an asylum nurse places a glass of water in front of the Empress rather than a Fountain of Life appearing.
Much of imagery can be nearly unfathomable other than for setting mood and tone (a five minute prelude of scenes from Alain Resnais' 'Last Year at Marienbad' precedes the opening and the ending has projections of Batman, Marilyn Monroe and Gandhi), but the use of the stage is nonetheless magnificent. Die Frau ohne Schatten is an extravagant work - over-indulgent perhaps, confused and confusing even - but it demands this kind of imaginative and impressive response. There is consequently never a dull moment here, always something of interest going on somewhere on the stage, in the lighting, in the projections, in the colour, in the props, in the movements. As the debut for the new house music director, Kirill Petrenko, this was also a case of rising to the occasion. There's little shimmering delicacy for Strauss's lush arrangements here, rather an emphasis on the dark undercurrents that are powerfully drawn out from the immense orchestration.
Most importantly however, the characters are well-defined in terms of personalities and the performers are well-coached by the director to respond to the situations and to each other. Warlikowski gives them context to bring these elusive characters to life, but the singers still have a considerable amount to bring to the production as well. Die Frau ohne Schatten has a (deserved) reputation for being difficult to cast five strong singers in the exceptionally demanding main roles, and the cast assembled here are terrific. As a complete performance and in how she is such a vital component of this particular production as the arch-manipulator, Deborah Polaski's Nurse injects real personality here and sings marvellously as well. Adrianne Pieczonka's Empress is luxuriously voiced and Elena Pankratova is impressive as the Dyer's Wife. Wolfgang Koch doesn't have a big voice, but again is very capable in this role. Johan Botha is also in fine voice as the Emperor. It's perhaps not as rich in timbre as it once was and he doesn't make as much of an impact here when strong acting is required, but Botha can still sing this role with ease.
