Strauss - Die Frau ohne Schatten (Vienna, 2019)

Richard Strauss - Die Frau ohne Schatten

Wiener Staatsoper, 2019

Christian Thielemann, Vincent Huguet, Camilla Nylund, Nina Stemme, Evelyn Herlitzius, Wolfgang Koch, Stephen Gould, Wolfgang Bankl

Wiener Staatsoper Live at Home - 25 May 2019

It's not difficult to see what is attractive about the Vienna State Opera's production of Die Frau ohne Schatten. Of course any performance of Richard Strauss's glorious epic masterwork is alone reason enough, but in this case there is also the chance to hear it conducted by Christian Thielemann who you can be sure will provide at the very least a precise, detailed and soaring interpretation of the work. The opportunity of to see Evelyn Herlitzius, Nina Stemme and Camilla Nylund working together, three of the leading ladies of Strauss (and Wagner) of the moment, is also to die for. That's not to mention Stephen Gould and Wolfgang Koch in the other significant roles. Evidently you can expect this to deliver the musical goods, but unfortunately it turns out that the only thing missing in the Vienna production is any shadow of an idea from the director Vincent Huguet how to to make the most of what is available here.

What is most disappointing is that Huguet doesn't find any way to approach a work that is rich in symbolism and ideas, much less find any way to illuminate its mysteries. The subject of a flawed Utopia that runs through the fantastical German opera of this period in the lush seductive creations of Korngold, Schreker and many other post-Wagnerians, reveals a fin de siècle fascination with history and humanity reaching a turning point. There is a magical quality in such works that shows that humanity has the capacity to aspire to be better and change the world, but perhaps with a recognition that inherent weaknesses in human nature will result in a flawed creation. That would at least be the case in later works that may also have had an eye on the direction that Germany was heading in under a regime that would ban their works as 'degenerate', but in 1919, Strauss and Hoffmansthal - taking a lead from Mozart (it's hard to do better) - still had a cautiously optimistic outlook.

There's huge potential for growth exploring this idea on any number of levels within Die Frau ohne Schatten. In the worlds of the Kaiser and Kaiserin and that of the dyer Barak and his wife there are all kinds of contrasts between the high and the low, between the spiritual needs and the physical needs of humanity that could be brought out, but this production doesn't even really succeed in differentiating between these contrasting planes of reality. There is an argument to be made that they are just different facets of the same thing. On one side there's the dyer's wife and her dreams of a more comfortable life fantasising about a love that is perhaps no deeper than physical lust, but her marriage to Barak is lacking more than that. On the other side, in the elevated symbolism of Deer and Falcons, the Emperor and Empress have a deeper spiritual and emotional attachment, but their relationship lacks substance; the Empress has no shadow.

More than just reductively being about fertility, the woman without shadow is woman without an essential part of herself, a woman of no substance. The Empress is admired and adored by the Emperor for a being a magical creature, not a being of substance. The nurse knows where people have shadows and it's down in the misery of the human world. The poor dyer and his wife in fact have rather too much 'substance' and it prevents them from being able to truly love each other on a higher spiritual level. Perhaps that comes through more clearly when it's presented, as it is here, shorn of most of its fantasy elements and symbolism, letting the power of Strauss's music speak for itself. Certainly by the end of Act 1 the chorus that meaning comes across that it's the love of a married couple that can be the bridge that spans the chasm "which the dead cross to return to life". What gives substance is the understanding and acceptance that we are all part of something bigger, physical and spiritual, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, all family, all connected to the past and to a better future.

Perhaps striving more for mood and downplaying any distracting attempt at extravagant fairy-tale imagery, there's consequently a darkness to Vincent Huguet's production as a whole, a shadow hanging over it if you like, the characters each struggling to not be enveloped by it, a dark curtain falling at the end of each scene. Projections are used for effects of rocky outcrops and grottoes, and Act III is set in an impressive causeway of stone columns, all of which brings a real-world earthiness. It feels a little generic in that respect, very much like a leftover set from Elektra or Pelléas et Mélisande, but you can get a sense of the deep underlying forces at work striving to connect it all together. Too much of the opera remains obscure however and it's meaning impenetrable. There's nothing wrong with Die Frau ohne Schatten retaining some or much of its enigma - you can say much the same about the model it aspires to Mozart's Die Zauberflöte - but the opera's huge message of the unifying force of love and brotherhood should be made more explicit.

On a musical level the Wiener Staatsoper production certainly delivers on any prior expectations you might have here. Christian Thielemann's conducting reminds us that beneath the lushness of the extravagant large-scale orchestration lies the same Strauss capable of unleashing the thundering dissonant chords effectively employed in Salome, combining it with the expressive colouration of his tone poems and the elegance and depth of sentiment that is there in the deceptive lightness of Der Rosenkavalier. The performance of the Vienna State Opera orchestra is just amazing, and Thielemann puts them to work harnessing those immense resources to expose all the beauty, detail of the "higher powers" that are expressed in the music.

You really need an all-star cast of tested singers to even think about taking on Die Frau ohne Schatten and they all measure up here. If there are any minor reservations about performance and interpretation, they are likely to be in relation to Evelyn Herlitzius, who has a tendency to head towards shrill and shriek. This is compensated for, as it often is, by her usual committed and charismatic performance. That's in spite of a seeming lack of acting direction that often leaves the performers to their own devices in reactions and interaction, occasionally leaving them standing not knowing what to do. With much of the heavy work being done in the music and in the vocal performances, these are by no means critical issues, but you sense a wasted opportunity.

Regardless of individual performances there's just a lovely contrast between the sound of the voices and expression of Nina Stemme, Camilla Nylund and Evelyn Herlitzius, each distinctive, each well matched to their respective roles, each impressive in meeting the demands of what are extraordinarily challenging roles. Stephen Gould looks like he is starting to feel the strain but he still can carry punishing roles like the Kaiser impressively and Wolfgang Koch is practically synonymous with Barak the dyer in recent years. When it comes to his Act III duet with Stemme and the subsequent healing forces that resolve the opera, it's glorious and emotional, touching on all those gorgeous complex Straussian (and Hoffmansthal-ian) sentiments of love and regret, nostalgia for the past and cautious hopeful optimism for the future.

Links: Wiener Staatsoper Live at Home

Wagner - Lohengrin (Dresden, 2016)

Richard Wagner - Lohengrin

Semperoper, Dresden - 2016

Christian Thielemann, Christine Mielitz, Georg Zeppenfeld, Piotr Beczala, Anna Netrebko, Tomasz Konieczny, Evelyn Herlitzius, Derek Welton, Tom Martinsen, Simeon Esper, Matthias Henneberg, Tilmann Rönnebeck 

ARTE Concert 

Although there are many more interesting ways of exploring the themes within them, you can probably get away with presenting Der fliegende Holländer or Tannhäuser in straightforward traditional productions and trust that Wagner's compositions will speak for themselves. The composer's more mature works on the other hand have philosophical content and personal with complex and competing layers and levels that merit the deeper exploration and elaboration of a strong directorial vision. And then you have the problem of Lohengrin.

Lohengrin remains a tricky and a controversial work to approach on account of its nationalistic sentiments and the later appropriation of them by Hitler and the Nazis, who twisted those ideals to appeal to their own ideology of national and racial purity. Wagner's own view is rather more nuanced - although perhaps not quite so much in this work where the composer was just beginning to formulate a view of art, culture, tradition and mythology (to which he was making a not entirely modest contribution) as the founding common values that define a nation, a banner under which to put one's faith and trust as much as in any ruler or religion.

Those values espoused in Lohengrin are perhaps not the same values that persist today, so either the work has to be considered in the context of the time it was written or it must be re-evaluated for its relevance to the present day. Wagner, as a composer, is far too important for his works to remain stagnant relics of a past time. To play the opera straight and ignore the historical legacy of the work however is surely negligent and potentially troubling, but if there is a place where those somewhat conservative values can still have meaning and resonance, it's Dresden.

Christine Mielitz's production of Lohengrin for the Dresden Semperoper in May 2016 is resolutely period and traditional, the treatment serious and respectful, with not a trace of irony or a whiff of modernism. The sets and costumes are lavish, the inhabitants of Brabant all dressed as wealthy burghers and nobles, with even the common people who stray into the dispute over the Duchy that King Heinrich has been called to resolve - and who will no doubt be called upon to fight in his God-ordained war with Hungary - also seemingly dressed in neatly cleaned and pressed rags.

The direction holds to a straight representation of the original stage directions and a broad view of the characterisation. There's no exploration for any deeper or more nuanced characterisation: good and evil hold to their strict Manichean divisions. There's no experimentation or commentary on the work's themes, no rats in a Hans Neuenfels' Bayreuth laboratory, just complete adherence and blind faith in the ability of Wagner's music to speak for itself, just as the work appears to advocate putting one's faith and trust in God and King Heinrich to point the way towards keeping a nation pure. And with a music director like Christian Thielemann at the helm at the Semper that faith isn't entirely misplaced.

Having established (at some length) that there's not a lot to grasp onto here in terms of concept or direction, the Dresden production has more to offer in terms of actual performance. Thielemann captures the full extent of the warm lush Romantic strains of the score, and the choruses are just glorious. Wagner's music for Lohengrin practically glows here. It's in the division of the singing roles however that the interest is likely to be focussed, with seasoned traditional Wagnerians on one side of the divide and a somewhat less conventional line-up on the other side. All perform very well indeed, if not quite in the way you would expect, but the contrasting styles do bring an interesting dimension to the work that isn't otherwise there in the stage production and the direction.

On the Wagnerian 'dark side' (if I may also include Heinrich in there), I have to get Georg Zeppenfeld out of the way first, since his performance as Heinrich is every bit as reliably brilliant as you might expect, particularly if you've seen him sing this role faultlessly and with considerable character several times already. Although he can sing with more colour and expression in Strauss, I find that Tomasz Konieczny's baritone singing for Wagner sounds rather harsh and steely. It's perhaps a little better suited to the villainous Telramund here than Wotan however. Evelyn Herlitzius can also be variable in her Wagner roles, and her high pitch and delivery sounded a little too close to toppling right over the edge, but again that can work within the context of the characterisation for Ortrud, and Herlitzius, as she often does, certainly makes an impression.

The Wagner virgins (if I may be permitted to describe them as such) are nonetheless two of the finest singers in the world today, better known for their performances in the very different Italian and principally Verdi repertoire. Who wouldn't be fascinated to hear Anna Netrebko and Piotr Beczala sing the roles of Elsa von Brabant and Lohengrin? Netrebko had at least road-tested the role of Elsa just prior to her performances in Dresden with a run at the Mariinsky in Moscow, and she's typically assiduous in her preparation and technique, demonstrating here that she is well up to the demands of the role. Her German diction leaves something to be desired however, her enunciation rather woolly and almost completely indecipherable.

That aside - and it will be a bigger deal for some to dismiss so easily - her dramatic performance is good and it really is fascinating just to hear that type of voice and the sheer quality of Netrebko's voice in this role. The same goes almost exactly for Piotr Beczala, particularly when Klaus Florian-Vogt's distinctive light lyrical tone has more or less monopolised the role of Lohengrin in recent years. It's not exactly a Heldentenor voice, but there is a heroic delivery and brightness here, Beczala taking on the role with the kind of confidence and charisma that it requires. If Mielitz's direction doesn't have anything new to bring to Lohengrin, Netrebko luxurious tones and Beczala's warm brightness blend gorgeously with the golden glow of Thielemann's conducting in a way that suggests a whole new way of hearing the work.

Links: Dresden Semperoper, ARTE Concert

Wagner - Tristan und Isolde (Bayreuth, 2015 - Webcast)

Richard Wagner - Tristan und Isolde

Bayreuther Festspiele, 2015

Christian Thielemann, Katharina Wagner, Stephen Gould, Georg Zeppenfeld, Evelyn Herlitzius, Iain Paterson, Raimund Nolte, Christa Mayer

BR-Klassik Internet Streaming

Leaving aside for a moment the extraordinary musical and singing challenges that are required to perform Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, the staging of the work is just as vital to the overall impact of the work, and can be just as difficult to conceptualise. What matters more in the setting of this work is not naturalistic locations and dramatic representation but rather establishing mood and an environment that can get across the innumerable and interweaving layers of hatred and love, light and dark, love and death, male and female desire, physical and spiritual fulfilment, all the while respecting the philosophical and psychological context of the work. No easy matter.

Katharina Wagner's production for the 2015 Bayreuth Festival is surprisingly then one of the more accessible reworkings of the composer's work there in recent years, and it's also (coincidentally or not) one of the most successful. It's perhaps because this is one Wagner work where real-world naturalism is least essential to its purpose. This is opera or music-drama on a whole other level, one the doesn't need superfluous commentary or revisions. That's not to say that the composer's great-granddaughter plays it entirely 'straight'; there are a few twists and touches applied, but in almost every respect they serve to enhance the otherworldly power and greatness of the work.

The first thing you notice is that this is an unusually dark staging. Bayreuth of recent years has tended to go for clean, bright, boldly coloured productions. Tristan und Isolde is of course a work where darkness in opposition to the light plays a major part, but even the last Bayreuth Tristan und Isolde, eccentrically directed by Christoph Marthaler, was bright and boldly coloured and not unsuccessful in its presentation of the work either. Instead of a ship in Act I then the set consists of a maze of staircases, platforms and risers; Act II take place not on a tower but in a pitch black dungeon; and Act III's island of Kareol is really just a void, where the dying Tristan lies surround by members of his crew while he experiences nightmares and hallucinations.

That is fine as far as mood goes, but more important is how Katharina Wagner uses it to draw something more out of the characterisation and psychology of the characters in relation to one another. It's clear from earlier on than usual that there's a history between Isolde and Tristan and that it goes deeper than the story that Isolde relates to Brangäne about Morold's death and her nursing the wounded Tristan back to health. There's certainly a sense of betrayal there in her being abducted to be brought from Ireland to Cornwall to be the wife of King Marke, but here it's clear that Isolde is more angry at his betrayal of the deep feelings she knows that he has for her, feelings that she also shares.

That doesn't really need to be emphasised, as it does become very evident by the end of Act I, but the director's little nudges are useful and meaningful and do lead towards a slight spin on events in the critical moment of the imbibing of the love potion. The little hints are there in the distance between them on the platforms that they strive to bridge, lingering desperate embraces, and unrestrained greedy kisses in those grasped moments let us know that the passion is already there between them and doesn't need a magic potion to unleash it. Kurwenal and Brangäne can barely hold them apart. Accepting their condition, they don't even drink the potion at the key moment, the director accordingly using the music of revelation more of a means of hesitance to accept the enormity of the truth, and it seems Wagner's music can really be used effectively in this way. The truth acknowledged, they pour the potion over their joined hands and then attempt to throttle each other as the ship arrives in Cornwall.

It's a bit of a variation on the traditional interpretation, but it by no means invalidates the essential truth of Tristan and Isolde uniting their love and accepting that it can only be consummated in death. If on paper that sounds an unnecessary distortion, the proof of its effectiveness in simply there in the performance and the impact it has at the fall of the curtain. That of course is not entirely down to choices made in the direction, but in collaboration with the musical forces that Christian Thielemann handles with his customary attention to detail, with intelligence in the reading of the score, and in the management of its intent and its dynamic. It's also evidently much to do with how convincingly the singers can get across the complex relationship that Wagner has weaved into the score and the philosophy of the work. Quite simply, everything comes together to incredible effect.

I wasn't entirely convinced by Evelyn Herlitzius as Isolde when I heard this Bayreuth production in the earlier radio broadcast of the première performance. Herlitzius can be phenomenal in some Wagner roles, but I didn't think her voice was suitable for Brünnhilde in the Vienna State Opera 2015 Der Ring des Nibelungen, and I had doubts when I heard her Isolde. She's strong and capable of such roles, there's a fullness in her voice and the volume is there, but the vibrato takes her high notes into a not entirely pleasant area. I remained sceptical that her slight build suited the role either at the beginning of the streamed broadcast, but it soon became apparent - as I've witnessed elsewhere (most recently her Elektra in Zurich) - that Herlitzius's greatest strength is her ability as a stage performer. She commands and holds attention, and it's her whole performance and commitment that ultimately convinces. She's pretty much phenomenal here.

Any doubts about whether Stephen Gould is capable of singing Tristan well were already put to rest by his excellent performance as Siegfried in this year's Vienna Ring. He is really finding his Wagner voice, and if there are a few areas in Act I where he doesn't quite sustain the notes, his Act II performance is more authoritative and his Act III outstanding. Again it's a question of completeness, not viewing his performance in isolation. Katharina Wagner's slight reworking of the Liebestrank scene allows more tenderness to creep into the scene than an outburst or release of tension, and Gould and Herlitzius's delivery of this tender moment is simply beautiful. It ties in also with Thielemann's conducting, measuring the pace and drive of the work to culminate in this moment of beauty, finding the Romantic flourishes the staging needs and unwaveringly holding it.

That comes through just as effectively in Gould's wonderful delivery of 'So starben wir, um ungetrennt' in Act II, but it's as much a matter of pace, measured delivery and presentation as just great singing. Katharina Wagner's exploration of Tristan and Isolde's Love/Death pact with the Night is explored hanging little lighted stars in the intimacy of an improvised tent in their dungeon. The realisation that there is no room for their love on this plane of existence is bound in a cylindrical cage and expanded outward by projections of the figures walking (reminiscent of Bill Viola's video installations for the Paris Opera Tristan) and transforming into children. Floating though this is a gorgeous 'O sink hernieder, Nacht der Liebe', with Christa Mayer's Brangäne voice of warning to the sleeping dreamers utterly haunting. Thielemann suspends the moment of blissful revelation and acceptance in the most extraordinarily beautiful way.

The production however never lets the work get carried away in blissful reverie, as the presence of King Marke soon brings us back to earth. Marke is characterised sympathetically for the pain of betrayal he bears - and it's beautifully sung as such by Georg Zeppenfeld - but there is an edge of threat and danger there too. Wearing a long overcoat and a fedora, wielding a flick-knife and kneeing Tristan in the stomach, there is a gangland thuggish quality to a Marke who has been denied his trophy wife. The characterisation works, and doesn't jar with what has come before other that where it is indeed meant to be jarring. It conveys without over-emphasis that sense of gangland honour and bonds of blood, arguably in a more meaningful way than were it between a king and his knight.

It's all about balance and application of emphasis in the right places, and as far I am concerned, Katharina Wagner doesn't put a foot wrong, at least up until the end of the Liebestod. The performance ends with Isolde led away by Marke rather than expiring on the spot, but even that gives rise to interesting questions and implications around the Romantic nature of their love. Act III finds other means of sustaining attention during the often interminable wait for Isolde and at the same time finds good visual ways to explore the depths of Tristan's pathology (if you want to view it as such). Here Tristan is tormented by nightmarish visions of Isolde trapped in a pyramid of Light suffering terrible torments, unable to join him in Darkness, in Death. All attention remains focussed on the aching longing in Tristan's words, and the climax consequently can't help but be immensely moving. It's one of the best third Acts of Tristan und Isolde I've seen for a long time in an overall very impressive production.

Links: BR-Klassik, Bayreuther Festspiele

Strauss - Elektra (Zurich, 2015 - Zurich)

Richard Strauss - Elektra

Opernhaus Zürich, 2015

Lothar Koenigs, Martin Kušej, Hanna Schwarz, Evelyn Herlitzius, Emily Magee, Michael Laurenz, Christof Fischesser, Reinhard Mayr, Hamida Kristoffersen, Alexandra Tarniceru, Iain Milne, Marion Ammann, Judit Kutasi, Julia Riley, Irène Friedli, Sen Guo, Ivana Rusko

Zurich - 3 July 2015

I had already seen Martin Kušej's production of Elektra for the Zurich Opera House on BD, and I've heard Evelyn Herlitzius sing the leading role impressively in Patrice Chereau's production for Aix-en-Provence in 2013, so I thought I had a good indication of what to expect viewing from this performance at the 2015 Festspiele Zurich. The introduction of Herlitzius into the production, some minor adjustments to the direction, and Lothar Koenigs' conducting of the Zurich orchestra however changed everything.

Well, perhaps not everything, but there was a considerable adjustment of emphasis that changed the whole tone and mood of the production. What I recall principally from the BD recording of the Zurich Elektra in 2005 is Eva Johansson's characterisation of Electra as a moody teenager. She might be slight in stature, but that kind of characterisation was never going to work with the rather more intense kind of performance that Evelyn Herlitzius brings to this role. The moody teenager in the yellow hoodie is replaced by a more sinister edge of dark violence in the 2015 revival of the production.

I've seen Elektra performed many times and have often been struck by the sheer force of the score, particularly in a live environment, but until now I don't think I realised just how dark a work it can really be. In Elektra, Richard Strauss has surely composed some of the most violent music ever written. Other than Reimann's Lear, I can't think of anything else that compares. That wasn't what I expected from this particular production, but under Lothar Koenigs' direction, you could feel it reverberate right through to the bone. What is there in the music and in its performance however has to be matched on the stage in order for that kind of impact to be fully felt.

I've seen Herlitzius sing Elektra before and I've heard Herlitzius sing live before, but I've never heard her sing Electra before in live performance. I've never noticed her vibrato so pronounced as it appeared when she sings her first lines in the opera. It's not so noticeable when it's more fully enveloped in Strauss's score, and when it is the combination of her voice with the score creates an extraordinarily powerful, chilling and almost terrifying expression of potential violence.

Expressionistic it might be, but Elektra is far from abstract in its violent intent, and that needs to be reflected in the direction. In this revival, Martin Kušej's direction becomes one that sheds a light on the pervading madness. That's there in the set design to some extent, in the undulating ground, in the masses of semi-naked figures twitching like inmates of an asylum, and in the padded doors that open to let the light flood into those dark corners. Padded on the outside however, this is not just a representation of the inner mind of Electra. What comes out more clearly in this revival is that the madness extends to her murderous, tormented family.

Such is the intensity of Electra's desire for revenge on the murder of Agamemnon that you almost think that the arrival of her brother Orestes is a necessary delusion, one that comes as she topples over the edge into her dance of madness. You soon realise however that there's just as much dysfunction between Chrysothemis and Electra, between Clytemnestra and Aegisthus and between Electra and Orestes. They way they behave with each other is all wrong, there's something dark and twisted in each of them that is emphasised and brought out strongly in the score. You look at this production and it really brings it home. What a family!

Evelyn Herlitzius is utterly convincing. The way she pushes the pitch and climbs to those high notes isn't the prettiest, but the torment of Electra's condition isn't the prettiest either. A measure of that, and of the emphasis that it is given to the family relationships in the production, is with the intensity of how she cries out the names of Agamemnon and Orestes. You can almost feel her cries pinning the audience back in their seats. She sustains that performance consistently in line with the intent of the production throughout, and it's just gripping.

Hanna Schwarz shows that there is some vulnerability in the domineering Clytemnestra, and Emily Magee sings Chrysothemis in a way that indicates that she is no voice of reason. With equally intense, disturbing interpretations by Christof Fischesser as Orestes and Michael Laurenz as Aegisthus, this was a very strong cast that played to Lothar Koenigs' conduction with maximum impact, with not even the Brazilian dance troupe lessening the crushing inevitability of all of them heading to their destruction.

Links: Opernhaus Zürich

Strauss - Elektra

Richard Strauss - Elektra

Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, 2013

Esa-Pekka Salonen, Patrice Chéreau, Evelyn Herlitzius, Waltraud Meier, Adrianne Pieczonka, Mikhail Petrenko, Tom Randle, Franz Mazura, Florian Hoffmann, Sir Donald McIntyre, Renate Behle, Bonita Hyman, Andrea Hill, Silvia Hablowetz, Marie-Eve Munger, Roberta Alexander

ARTE Live Web Internet Streaming - 19 July 2013

In terms of theatrical expression, Strauss's Elektra has minimal but nonetheless very specific requirements. What everyone remembers about any production of this extraordinary work is how it handles the final scene of violent release from all of the tension, bitterness and threats of dire vengeance that has led up to it. The build-up to that finale meanwhile is best expressed through the performance of the singer in the role of Electra. In the case of the 2013 Aix-en-Provence production the appropriate tone is achieved by Patrice Chéreau in one of his all-too-infrequent returns to opera directing, and through a stunning performance of Evelyn Herlitzius.

The set design at Aix is fairly straightforward and classical in design, reminding one of Chéreau's staging of Janacek's From The House of the Dead at Aix in 2007. There's some correlation in these two very different works, since Mycenae is effectively a prison for Electra and for the servants who work alongside her at the palace of her mother Clytemnestra and her step-father Aegisthus. The impression given here is very much that of a women's prison and it's a particularly bleak one. It's grey, bare, dark and ominous with surrounding high walls at the back that create an oppressive ambience, the only outstanding feature a small ditch in the ground where Electra dwells and expresses her grief in tirades of hatred against the murderers of her father Agamemnon and her despair that her brother Orestes isn't there to exact revenge.

In a single act opera, with very little dramatic action or scene changes, the stage is often used to reflect the inner mind of Electra's soul in torment. If that's the case here - and Elektra is very much a psychological drama - then it's a typically bleak and unrelenting depiction of psychopathy. There are no soft edges here in Richard Peduzzi's sets, and other than the surround to the door leading to Clytemnestra's chambers, there are no curves either. It's all blocky with harsh angles - not even expressionist, but composed entirely of sharp right-angles that suggest not so much a fractured mindstate as one of solid determination of purpose. There is as little variation in this appearance as there is little variation in the overall tone of the work, the only set movement occurring when a platform is extended at the climax to reveal the murdered Clytemnestra to Aegisthus.

Chéreau's strengths as a director however extend much further than merely establishing a suitable mood or moving the performers across the stage. In the case of Elektra, where the work is so perfectly written and meticulously composed (is there any work that is so musically expressive of the slightest variations of mood, action, drama and internalised sentiments than this one?), it's more of a challenge not to interfere too much and Chéreau clearly recognises this. The director's duty in Elektra, more so than perhaps in any other work, is to serve the music and the libretto and find a way to transfer the incredibly strong emotions credibly and meaningfully into actions. Esa-Pekka Salonen's conducting is accordingly attentive to detail, weaving, sweeping and driving without ever being overly forceful. For his part, Chéreau recognises the archetypal female psychologies expressed in Electra, Clytemnestra and Chrysothemis, as well as parallels that exist between Electra and Hamlet and all these references feed into the character development even if they don't need to be made explicit in the production itself.

The greater part of the force of Elektra however is expressed through the singing of the highly challenging role of Electra herself, and Evelyn Herlitzius proves to be well up to the task.  Having seen Herlitzius recently as Kundry in Parsifal, the German soprano is increasingly proving to be a singer of real dramatic power and substance in the most challenging Wagnerian and Strauss roles. All the force that is required is here in a committed performance that is as unwavering and unyielding as Electra's personality and madness is concentrated into her singleminded desire for revenge. Evidently, there's a lot of writhing around in torment and a dance of death to deal with as well (which doesn't actually end in Electra's death here), but Herlitzius deals with the physical demands of the role tremendously well and is fully deserving of the huge acclaim that greets her at her curtain call.

Elektra is largely a one-person opera, but the singing and the characterisation elsewhere needs to be up to the mark and most of the other main performances are strong here. Canadian soprano Adrianne Pieczonka comes across most impressively with an outstanding performance as Chrysothemis that provides the necessary contrast and counterbalance to the darkness of Electra's position. Waltraud Meier on the other hand seems to be holding back a little here, but she comes alive powerfully in her scenes with Evelyn Herlitzius. Mikhail Petrenko is a fine Orestes, but even though it's a small role Tom Randle doesn't have the right kind of voice or the necessary force to sing Aegisthus.

Elektra at the Aix-en-Provence Festival is available for viewing on-line (with French subtitles) from the ARTE Live Web site. There appear however to be region restrictions preventing viewing outside of France and Germany.

Wagner - Parsifal

Richard Wagner - Parsifal

Deutsche Oper, Berlin 2012

Donald Runnicles, Philipp Stölzl, Mara Kurotschka, Alejandro Marco-Buhrmester, Albert Pesendorfer, Matti Salminen, Klaus Florian Vogt, Thomas Jesatko, Evelyn Herlitzius, Burkhard Ulrich, Andrew Harris, Kim-Lilian Strebel, Annie Rosen, Paul Kaufmann, Matthew Pena, Hulkar Sabirova, Martina Welschenbach, Rachel Hauge, Hila Fahima, Annie Rosen, Dana Beth Miller

25 October 2012

Director Philipp Stölzl’s approach to the Deutsche Oper’s new 2012/13 production of Parsifal in Berlin is immediately and firmly established by the extraordinary setting for the work’s Overture. On a rocky recreation of Golgotha, Christ hangs from a cross in a meticulously detailed tableau vivant representation of the Crucifixion. Surrounded by onlookers freeze-framed in various states of anguish and despair, with Roman soldiers guarding the area, one significantly (as far as this opera is concerned) with a lance, the figures move in slow motion as Christ dies on the cross during the length of the overture, his side is pierced by the soldier’s spear and the blood that runs from it is caught in the chalice and respectfully coveted by his followers. It’s a powerful way to start a performance of this work, and when you have as beautiful a piece of music as the Overture to Parsifal, why waste it on something less than monumental? Solemn, respectful and dignified, the scene is however also completely relevant to the opera’s Passion play exploration of suffering and redemption through death and rebirth and appropriate in how those concepts are tied up by Wagner into the symbolic images of the Lance and the Holy Grail.

Any performance of Wagner’s remarkable final work should indeed be something of a spiritual experience over the course of its four and a half hour length, but there was a sense that Philipp Stölzl’s production here (co-directed by Mara Kurotschka) was perhaps a little too solemn and reverential - or perhaps somewhat too grandiose - to really touch on the transcendental elements of the work. If there’s a touch of kitsch to the production - something characteristic of this director - it’s appropriate to one where the iconography and glorification of Christ’s passion adheres to a certain Catholic tradition. You don’t need to look too far beyond the condition of Amfortas - the Knight of the Holy Grail in agony from a perpetual wound caused by the lance, his suffering deepened by each display of the Holy Grail that gives sustenance and renewed vigour to its followers - to recognise that it’s the question of suffering that is central to the work in how it can be a redemptive force. There was certainly plenty of pain on display in the Deutsche Oper’s new production - the opera house celebrating its 100th anniversary - but little sense of it leading to any kind of transcendental enlightenment.

Despite the prettification of the visuals, every ounce of the earth-shattering, curtain-tearing pain depicted in Christ’s Crucifixion and the despair in the faces of his followers (most notably in one Mary Magdalene/Kundry figure at the margins) is there in the opening scene and retained to be built upon by the events recounted by Gurnemanz and enacted in Parsifal’s journey to recover the Holy Spear from the hands of Klingsor. Stölzl recognises that all that suffering shown in the opening scene is going to be caught up in the musical themes established by Wagner in the Overture, and it consequently becomes impossible to disassociate the suffering of Christ himself every time those leitmotifs swirl and swell throughout the remainder of the work. And just in case the musical expression isn’t powerful enough (and under the baton of Donald Runnicles it often was, even if lacked any real character or vision), the director also uses every visual element to emphasise and add to the near overwhelming display of agony and despair.

That can be as simple as the Monsalvat set design sharing many of the rocky structures and contours of the opening Golgotha scene, but the subsequent scenes also reflect the opening, being mostly static in arrangement, each scene like a 3-dimensional engraving of one of the Stations of the Cross, a single image frieze set in slow motion movement. The set designs by Conrad Moritz Reinhardt and Stölzl moreover allow every element of the work to be examined in detail and every character to be explored for their own personal suffering that contributes to the collective pain. Even every element of the backstory narrated at length by Gurnemanz is depicted visually in mini scenes, as beautifully arranged and brutal as a Caravaggio painting, that are played out in the background on the tops of rocky outcrops. This production of Parsifal is as visually striking as previous Stölzl productions I’ve seen (Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini and most notably his production of Wagner’s Rienzi, also for the Deutsche Oper), beautifully arranged, lit and coloured, more than a little kitsch but - within its own designs - it’s also much more respectfully faithful here to the tone of the work in question.

It’s actually perhaps a little too literal and respectful for a work that should also have a life in a spiritual dimension. (That might sound like a pretentious statement for any other work, but not for this one). There’s no doubt that this production - musically as well as visually and conceptually - is completely faithful to the spirit of the work, but it never seems to get beyond it to illuminate or elevate the underlying meaning. That’s evidently a tall order for a work that is wrapped up in Wagner’s complex and contradictory ideas and philosophies, but while Stölzl’s production is not without its own personal touches in its examination of these concepts, they don’t really amount to much and don’t resolve into any kind of satisfactory conclusion. The confusion is best exemplified within the role of Amfortas - the Christ figure of the work - who is not healed by the lance at the end here, but allowed to escape from his pain through death at its touch. This perhaps relates to the very specific Good Friday notions of death and rebirth in a work that the composer described as a Bühnenweihfestspiel - “A Festival Play for the Consecration of the Stage” - but quite where the necessary rebirth/transcendence is supposed to come from is less than clear. There is a suggestion however that the key to this interpretation could lie within the figure of Kundry.

More so than Parsifal or Amfortas, or even Gurnemanz, the focus in this production is very much on that contradictory element of Kundry, whose role is one of the ambiguities that the work principally revolves around - the saint and the sinner, the serpent and the agent of salvation. In this production she’s there at the crucifixion in the guise of Mary Magdalene, and is therefore the single element of continuity (other than the Grail and the Lance) that runs through the whole work, appearing in Gurnemanz’s backstory, being instrumental in bringing about Parsifal’s self-enlightenment, and in the end recognising her role to serve the new protector of the Grail. Here however, in the very final scene of the production, she seems to become terrified of the prospect of the worship and power that this inspires in Parsifal and the Grail’s followers, and where such Christian fervour might lead - a reference perhaps to future religious conflicts or perhaps, since it now seems almost obligatory to acknowledge in a Wagner opera, a premonitory vision of the rise of Nazism. As depicted by Evelyn Herlitzius in the role, Kundry remains a (female) figure of considerable interest and ambiguity, but quite how it all ties together must - perhaps necessarily considering the nature of the work - remain a mystery.

If the work never comes together musically or conceptually in a way that entirely lives up to the proposal put forward in the audacious opening scene, it’s through no fault of the singing performances. Now 67, Matti Salminen was simply superb, fulfilling everything that is required of a Gurnemanz, his deep, beautifully weighted sonorous tones providing the solid basis and solemn gravity that anchors the work in the real world while simultaneously hinting at timeless mysteries. One would think that Klaus Florian Vogt’s light lyrical tenor voice would not be as well suited to the Heldentenor role of Parsifal as it is to his angelic Lohengrin (even though the two characters are mythologically related), but yet again he brings another vocal dimension to a familiar role, demonstrating a capability of pulling those deeper resonant chest sounds out where necessary - such as in his cry of ‘Amfortas!’ at the recognition scene of the meaning of pain, suffering and love - and filling them with an expressive lightness and sensitivity. Dramatically however and in expression of his character, he was given little to work with by the director. Evelyn Herlitzius on the other hand had a rather more substantial personality as this production’s Kundry and rose to the challenge exceptionally well, emoting and projecting the sentiments of the work through some fine singing. Alejandro Marco-Buhrmester (Amfortas), Albert Pesendorfer (Titurel) and Thomas Jesatko (Klingsor) were more than adequate if they didn’t make quite as much of an impression as the principal roles, but there was also some lovely singing from the three Flowermaidens.

Strauss - Die Frau ohne Schatten

Richard Strauss - Die Frau ohne Schatten

Grosses Festspielhaus, Salzburg 2011

Christian Thielemann, Christof Loy, Stephen Gould, Anne Schwanewilms, Michaela Schuster, Evelyn Herlitzius, Wolfgang Koch, Marius Brück, Steven Humes, Andreas Conrad, Thomas Johannes Mayer, Rachel Frenkel, Peter Sonn, Maria Radner 

Opus Arte

Die Frau ohne Schatten has long been considered one of the Strauss’s most challenging works to perform, and it’s such a magnum opus that one attends a performance of the opera – rare though they are – with a sense of high expectation. If you’re going to undertake such a work, it’s reasonable to expect that the production is going to pull out all the stops. The fairytale nature of Die Frau ohne Schatten however presents some challenges for the more experimental stage director used to modernising works, so it was always going to be interesting to see how Christof Loy was going to rework the story for the 2011 Salzburg Festival. Even by Loy’s standards for courting controversy through a very personal conceptual approach, the Salzburg Festpiele Die Frau ohne Schatten must be one of the strangest conceits ever applied to any opera production.

Not unsurprisingly, Loy dispenses with the fairytale setting entirely, ignores the stage directions, would appear to pay scant heed to the libretto, and instead sets Die Frau ohne Schatten in a recording studio in Vienna in 1955. Now, the idea of making the performance the performance, so to speak, isn’t anything new by the standards of Loy’s minimalist semi-staged productions, but this really takes the idea to another level altogether. The set is built to resemble, in meticulous reconstructed detail, the legendary Viennese concert hall, the Sofiensaal (destroyed in a fire in 2001), where, dressed in frumpy 1950s clothing, the singers here appear to recreate the studio sessions for the first recording of Die Frau ohne Schatten by Karl Böhm in 1955.

The theory behind the concept is considered in the booklet enclosed with this DVD/BD release, but I’m not sure how helpful that will be to anyone. I can’t make head or tail of it myself, and I’m used to and quite enjoy trying to figure out the often bizarre theories applied to modern opera productions. Are we supposed to be interested in the historical performers of the work and relate the tensions of the drama in the opera in some way to their lives? Or is it supposed to operate on a deeper philosophical level on the nature of art and performance? Whatever the rationale, there seems to be little justification for having singers stand at a podium and sing out to the audience in a work as rich and wonderful as Die Frau ohne Schatten.

First of all, it’s a little bit misleading to say that the singers just stand at a pedestal with the score in front of them and sing out to the audience. Replicating the activity in a recording studio, the performers stop to have coffee from a flask, drink a glass of water, take a smoke break, take off their coats, and walk in and out of the concert hall when not required on the sound stage that is marked by a red light during recording. Technicians meanwhile run around and adjust settings or place the singers into position, and there are numerous other extras and choruses filling the stage. Still, there’s not much there to suggest that the production connects in any way with the opera itself. Over the course of the performance however, while the action never moves outside the Sofiensaal concert hall, the story seems to take over the characters, possessing them, drawing them into the powerful emotions expressed in the drama and the score, and the distinction between the singers and what they are singing becomes blurred. It’s bizarrely fascinating to watch, but clearly not everyone will think so.

There does seem to be some parallel drawn, perhaps, between the post-WWII setting of the recording of the opera and the time of its composition during the First World War. It seems no less extravagant to be recording such a work at a time of great privations (the concert hall is clearly unheated and there are no luxuries in the conditions or the sandwiches laid on for them), but like Strauss and Hofmannstahl’s intentions (whether you judge them misguided or not, since the work was not well initially received), Die Frau ohne Schatten is an attempt to reconnect through art with the finer qualities of human nature in response to the horror going on in the world at that time. It’s perhaps – and this is entirely my response to the work – the same recognition on the part of the performers in the post-war years of that deeper element in the work that hits the characters so hard, no more so than the confused Empress who is longing to regain a sense of humanity through the acquisition of a shadow, and the horror of the price that has to be paid for it.

Whatever the reason may be, Loy’s production does in some way achieve a strong connection with the intent of a work whose purpose and meaning has always been elusive and enigmatic. In the way that it mixes musical references, asks self-reflexive questions on the nature of art and dramatic representation and has definite philosophical and humanitarian leanings, I can’t help but think that the composer and librettist of such works as Ariadne auf Naxos, Der Rosenkavalier and even Capriccio (based on an idea by Hofmannstahl) would approve of such an approach. The model for Die Frau ohne Schatten according to the composer and librettist was Mozart’s The Magic Flute, but to all intents and purposes the approach is Wagnerian and it’s specifically Parsifal-like in its spiritual dimension and its theme of sacrifice and redemption. “There are higher powers at work” .

Those higher powers are there of course in the music, which, as Strauss intended, takes over where words cannot adequately express. It’s Wagner rather than Mozart that also influences Christian Thielemann’s conducting of the orchestra and the singing performances. Scored for an orchestra of one hundred and seven, Thielemann controls every element of the huge sound that is created by the astonishing performance of the Wiener Philharmoniker, sweeping and powerful at times, and yet full of incredibly intricate, virtuoso touches and more sensitivity and heartfelt emotion than you would expect to find in the strange fairytale nature of the work. It is utterly, utterly beautiful – as fine an account of Strauss’s most extravagant work as you could imagine. And as complete an account as well, the entire three and a half hours of the work presented here in full and uncut. Act III benefits most from this fuller presentation, particularly in relation to the roles of the Nurse and the Empress, restoring a balance to the work as a whole.

This is not an opera for discussing the individual qualities of the singing voices. You don’t put on this particular opera unless you have singers capable of meeting its extreme demands, and you certainly don’t put them in front of Thielemann when he is doing Strauss. You could question the casting and singing that is also more Wagnerian than Mozart, but that seems to me to be appropriate for this work, regardless of what Strauss may have claimed were his intentions for it. All of singers are exceptionally good. Anne Schwanewilms and Michaela Schuster, as mentioned above, bring new depths out of the fuller roles of the Empress and the Nurse, but I was particularly impressed by Evelyn Herlitzius as Barak’s wife, who sings the role with extraordinary conviction and power. Along with Wolfgang Koch’s Barak the Dyer, the two of them manage to create that all-important sense of humanity in their relationship that lies at the heart of the piece. That’s evident also in Stephen Gould’s magnificent Emperor, the emotional depth of his 'Falke du Wiedergefundener' almost unbearable, forging a connection directly with the music score in a way that makes the intent comprehensible even if the fairytale context of the work does not.

As does Christof Loy’s staging, even if likewise it isn’t immediately apparent how or why. Either it works for the audience or it doesn’t (and clearly it doesn’t for a large proportion of the audience in Salzburg judging by the booing that greeted the production team at the curtain call here), but personally, I found it extraordinarily powerful and moving. It certainly won’t work for everyone and may prove to be a distraction while you try and figure out what point he is trying to make with its 1950s concert staging, but whether you think it works or not, it operates hand-in-hand with Strauss, Hofmannstahl, Thielemann, the Wiener Philharmoniker and with the singers to create the right kind of environment that draws the majesty and mystery out of the work and the music-drama experience. It’s all there and if you don’t feel the full force of it in this production, then you must indeed have been turned to stone.

While this must have been extraordinary to experience live in the Salzburger Grosses Festspielhaus back in July 2011, it’s to the credit of the recording that it’s also an incredible experience in High Definition on the Blu-ray from Opus Arte. The image quality is impressive, but not clinical, with a slight softness that suits it. With a full four hours compressed onto the BD50 disc, there are a few instances of minor wavering and fluctuation in lines, but only if you are looking for them. The audio tracks are PCM Stereo and DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1 and both are resolutely clear and powerful, with a gorgeous tone to the orchestration. There’s a certain amount of reverb evident in the acoustics of the stage, which seems to be more pronounced in the stereo option, the surround mix spreading the sound a little better, I found. Extras on the disc include a Cast Gallery and Thielemann in Rehearsal, an interesting 25 minute look at the preparations for the production with interviews. Subtitles are in English, French, German and Spanish.