Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Die Zauberflöte
Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, 2014
Pablo Heras-Casado, Simon McBurney, Stanislas de Barbeyrac, Mari Eriksmoen, Kathryn Lewek, Josef Wagner, Regula Mühlemann, Christof Fischesser, Andreas Conrad, Ana-Maria Labin, Silvia de La Muela, Claudia Huckle, Maarten Koningsberger, Krzysztof Baczyk, Elmar Gilbertsson
ARTE Concert - Live Streaming, July 2014
Simon McBurney's idea of using a live video feed that shows hand-drawn backgrounds and the employment of live foley effects is, I presume, a way of making Mozart's Die Zauberflöte a little more spontaneous and interactive. It's a way of connecting to the same live impulse as the performance of the music itself, and since music is all-important in the conception and execution of this particular work, that's not a bad idea. In theory anyway. In practice, it doesn't really contribute a great deal during this performance of the production filmed at the 2014 Aix-en-Provence festival.
There's more to the direction of the production than this - and not all of which works terribly successfully either - but essentially, the visual impression of the stage design sets the primary tone of the work and it seems to run contrary to the intent. There's considerable effort put into making the work light, playful and noble, but the stage remains dark and in shadows throughout. The stage makes extensive and good use of a platform which is raised and tilted throughout the journey and the trials, the underside meaningfully and practically revealing a lighting rig. Clothes are everyday casual, Papageno looking like a mountain-hiker with no bird-like characteristics at all. The three ladies wear combat patterned canvas clothing. None of it however looks terribly 'magic kingdom'.
In fact, the overriding impression given is that there's an awful lot of effort put into achieving very little effective results at all. An artist draws background lines and scribbles with chalk on a blackboard (which eventually coalesce into words and phrases by the end of the journey into enlightenment), some shadow puppets are used, and numerous extras are required to wave around folded pages to represent birds. Some of the projections are "traditional", showing a swirling serpent, using a row of books to indicate the way into Sarastro's kingdom, but mostly it feels a very laboured way to achieve immediacy, simplicity and spontaneity. At its worst - in a scene like Papageno's playing around with bottles that fail to synchronise with the live sound-effects created in an on-stage booth - it actually works against the idea of spontaneity and simplicity and just kills the lightness and humour of the situation.
At least the intention is clear here, whereas the purpose of some of McBurney's other directorial choices are less evident. The Queen of the Night's account of Pamina's abduction works well and achieves an immediacy when you see it enacted in the shadows of the stage, but why is the Queen of the Night depicted as an old lady who hobbles onto the stage with a walking stick and is carted off in a wheelchair at the end of her energetic coloratura aria? Why are the three boys likewise skeletal old men? All of the characters undergo a transformation over the course of the work, but neither of these points really fit with the characterisation or the essential purpose of the work.
McBurney, in interviews and in the Aix Festival Programme, seems nonetheless to have a reasonable concept here that does come through at stages. The multimedia approach matches the multifaceted range of Mozart's work, and in regards to Die Zauberflöte it also manages to touch on the magic of simplicity, of understanding the world and achieving wisdom by seeing it through a child's eyes. The veneration of music, as a magical means of reaching that level of purity and as a resolution to all conflicts, is covered well in the ceremonial aspects of the staging and in the reverential handling of the flute. Music is at the centre of this Magic Flute and is instrumental in bringing about this new and better society, "through friendship and love".
If the staging is a bit laboured and ultimately indifferent in as far as the impact it has upon the work, the actual performance of Mozart's score by the Freiburger Barockorchester is just wonderful. Pablo Heras-Casado marshals the rhythms and pace of the work brilliantly and with delicacy, achieving that necessary playful lightness, spontaneity and the magical simplicity that the stage production aims for but never quite achieves. The singing too is just beautiful right across the range - on note, with a sense of really enjoying and feeling the work. Christof Fischesser is one of the best Sarastros around, and he's matched against a strong Königin der Nacht in Kathryn Lewek. Stanislas de Barbeyrac and Mari Eriksmoen sing purely as Tamino and Pamina as well as giving the roles some personality. There's no lack of that either from Josef Wagner's Papageno or Regula Mühlemann's Papagena.
In the end, Simon McBurney's production of the Magic Flute for Aix-en-Provence gets there and finds the beauty at the heart of the work, but if it succeeds and proves enjoyable, it's more to do with the expression of Mozart's incredible musical talent. Under Pablo Heras-Casado's musical direction, with the wondrous performance of the work by the Freiburger Barockorchester and with some very fine singing, this is one of the best accounts of this opera I've heard in a long time. And even if Simon McBurney's stage direction doesn't bring all that much to it, this is still a very impressive Die Zauberflöte.
Links: ARTE Concert, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence
Christoph Willibald Gluck - Orfeo ed Euridice
Český Krumlov Castle, 2013
Václav Luks, Ondřej Havelka, Bejun Mehta, Eva Liebau, Regula Mühlemann
Arthaus Musik - Blu-ray
They don't often put on opera in Český Krumlov Castle, which has one of the oldest working Baroque theatres in the world and is a UNESCO World Heritage site. The restoration of the theatre was celebrated in 2011 with a performance and subsequent DVD/BD release of Domenico Scarlatti's Dove è Amore è Gelosia. Hardly an important or great work, it was an entertaining opera buffa, more notable for its historical and rarity interest as the first work written to be performed in the original theatre, but it gained considerably from the authentic Baroque presentation in its original setting.
I don't know if Gluck has any historical connection with Český Krumlov castle, but in the 300th year of the composer's birth, it's a fine place to re-examine one of the most important works in the entire opera repertoire in hopefully a more authentic light. With Václav Luks conducting the period Collegium 1704 orchestra, a traditionally-informed stage production lit only by wax candles and countertenor Bejun Mehta as Orpheus, an alto-castrato role more often performed by a mezzo-soprano, this Orfeo ed Euridice is undoubtedly closer to the original than most other productions. There are however a few caveats that can be given about the nature of the film itself.
Primarily, this production of Orfeo ed Euridice is shot as a film rather than a concert, which does take away somewhat from the charm of seeing it performed in a Baroque theatre. It's not filmed in the traditional manner of a live theatre performance, but it is nonetheless clearly a live performance, shot in seven days over a number of takes, with perhaps a small amount of overdubs. That's fine, and it's a good account of the work that matches the stripped-back reformist nature of the work with a reduced period orchestra. The casting is also good with Bejun Mehta's sweet countertenor giving this Orpheus a suitably lyrical quality, Eva Liebau a strong Eurydice and Regula Mühlemann a bright Amore.
This works wonderfully when its performed in Act I on the stage of the Baroque theatre where Orpheus mourns the death of Eurydice who is laid out on a marble catafalque. It's old-style theatre, with painted forests to the wings and a sea at the back with old-fashioned pulley-operated rolling sea effects. Amore too descends in an authentically shaky manner on a mechanical cloud to give Orpheus a chance to bring his beloved back to the land of the living. Unfortunately, once Orpheus descends through the trapdoor to the Underworld, much of the remainder of the performance takes place in the wider setting of the backstage of the theatre and the castle caverns and - other than the Elysium scene - not on the stage at all.
The locations backstage and in the wings are at least well used in this respect, retaining the candlelight illuminations, giving the underworld a suitably eerie and otherworldly appearance. Even here, with wooden beams and stone staircases there are no anachronisms, although you would suspect that the Furies here might be familiar with the "zombie shuffle" choreography of Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' video. There are some clever touches like the play of shadows embracing and holding hands as Orpheus leads Eurydice out of the underworld that don't need to rely on special effects. The idea is nice, playing on the magic of the theatre experience and how it extends beyond the stage and takes on a life of its own, but I did find that the 'film' concept and editing distracted from the power of the work itself.
Musically however, it sounds wonderful, the theatre creating a natural acoustic reverb rather than an amplified sound. It's not the clean, precise HD audio you might be used to, but there's no big orchestra here and neither should there be. There is rather a harder edged gut string pluck and rhythm that isn't quite so smooth, and heard this way it does present the opera in a new light. The original 1762 Vienna edition of the work has however been cut back slightly with most of the ballets shortened or excised entirely. The Act III, Scene 3 dances, for example, are all missing here. I suspect that the decision was made for artistic reasons (Bejun Mehta is credited also as Artistic Advisor here), since they get in the way of the clear narrative flow that is needed more for the film than a stage production, but such cuts aren't unusual.
On Blu-ray, this looks very fine indeed. There's a slightly softer edge to the image on account of it being filmed by candlelight, but it's clear and detailed with lovely tones and textures. The audio mixes are PCM stereo and DTS HD-master Audio 5.0. The mix is bright but there's a pleasant naturalness to the sound. The balance between the voices and the orchestra is different in the two mixes, the surround track seeming to make more use of reverb and give prominence to the voices, while the stereo track is more direct and evenly balanced. There are no extras on the BD25 region-free disc, but the booklet gives some background on how the film was made and the history of the Baroque theatre. There's no synopsis provided, but the plot of Orfeo ed Euridice is simplicity itself. Subtitles are in Italian, English, German, French, Spanish and Korean.
Carl Maria von Weber - Hunter's Bride
A Film Opera by Jens Neubert
Jens Neubert, Daniel Harding, Simon Halsey, Michael König, Juliane Banse, Michael Volle, Regula Mühlemann, René Pape, Franz Grundheber, Benno Schollum, Olaf Bär
Arthaus Musik - Blu-ray
Considering the amount of pitfalls and difficulties inherent in making an opera film as opposed to making a recording of a live theatrical performance, it's not surprising that there are very few good films of this kind around. Jens Neubert's film opera Hunter's Bride is therefore a pleasant surprise, the director bringing to the screen a work that is not as popular and well-known as Carmen, Tosca or La Bohème, but one that is nonetheless one of the most important works in German opera - Carl Maria von Weber's Der Freischütz. What's even better, and even more rare, is that it proves to be satisfying just as much as a film in its own right as it does as an opera.
There are several crucial elements that it is essential to get right in order for this to work on the screen. Firstly, it's essential that the work doesn't look stagey and theatrical. Despite the supernatural content of the opera's Gothic ghost story origins, Jens Neubert has a very clear focus that he successfully translates into a meaningful real-world context. Recognising that the nature and outlook of the characters in Der Freischütz is shaped and determined very much by what was happening in the world in Weber's own time, Neubert updates the opera from the just after the Thirty Years War (1648) to the time of the composition of the work itself close to the end of the Napoleonic Wars, setting it in Dresden in 1813.
Max and Kasper then are here both soldiers in the army of King Friedrich August I of Saxony just after Napoleon's defeat in Russia around the time of the break-up of his alliance with Austria and Saxony. The nature of the times lends a little more weight then to Max's desire to prove himself a master huntsman, to the importance of his being worthy of Agathe's love and to his bleak pronouncements that "Dark forces that gather round me. I am seized by despair. Does fate rule blind? Is there no God?". If the relationship to those sentiments and the war isn't clear enough, it's emphasised brilliantly in the Wolf's Gorge scene. Here, when Kasper summons Zamiel the Black Hunter to forge a "free bullet" that will ensure Max's victory in the hunting contest, the rocky gorge is filled with the bodies of dead soldiers, some of them dragged over to form a grim pentagram. The supernatural element consequently takes on a very real and sinister aspect.
The other vitally important element that will determine the success or otherwise of a filmed opera story is the performance of the cast. Jens Neubert, in his notes on the production, is very proud that the cast assembled here are world-class singers, and rightly so. With Michael König, Juliane Banse, Michael Volle, René Pape and fresh talent in Regula Mühlemann, it's an outstanding cast that is not only well-suited to this type of German Classical/Romantic-era opera, but they all have good screen presence and can act. It's a very different kind of acting skill that is required here where there is singing involved and it's not so easy to achieve either within the context of this work's supernatural elements. There are however no theatrical mannerisms here whatsoever, every performance pitched perfectly for the requirements of the camera close-up and in terms of the very real historical setting of the work.
That's not to say that the director neglects what are after all the essential Gothic qualities of the work, using special visual effects where necessary and mixing in sound effects. The use of natural sounds means that you don't always get a traditional performance where the emphasis is totally on the opera, but rather a balanced account between the music, the singing and the use of sound effects and natural sounds that would normally be considered intrusive. The director however seems to strike exactly the right balance, giving the score and singing centre stage, but not being afraid to let more natural sounds and dialogue take prominence when it is in service of the dramatic requirements of the story and the naturalistic setting of the film.
By using the title The Hunter's Bride (in English for the international market), it might appear that the filmmakers are attempting to distance the film or mark it as distinct from the opera Der Freischütz, but this is not the case. The title is taken from Weber's intended title for the opera Die Jägersbraut, and Neubert hopes that reverting to the composer's original title will bring the emphasis of the work back to Agathe rather than shifting the focus, as it is traditionally held, from Max (Der Freischütz means The Marksman). This is just one of the careful considerations that has gone into making sure that this is as fine and authentic an account of Weber's masterwork as the filmmakers are capable of presenting. With this kind of cast, that's even more apparent and when combined with the setting in authentic Saxony locations, this Der Freischütz actually feels more at home on film than it does on the modern opera stage.
On Blu-ray, presenting the film at its aspect ratio of 2.35:1, the film looks marvellous in High Definition. The DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1 track is also well worth mentioning, the director going to great length to create what he calls a kind of "3-D" presence that incorporates and balances the music and the natural sound effects. A PCM stereo option is also available. The audio is of course necessarily studio recorded and then lip-synced for filming, but this works very well, and the performance is superb. There are numerous extra features, including a 'Making Of' that is almost an hour long, a full-length Director's Commentary, Interviews and a Synopsis. Further information on the production and a Q&A with the director is also printed on the booklet attached to the inside cover of the digipak case. Subtitles are provided in German, English, French, Spanish, Italian and Korean. These can only be selected from the pop-up menu when the film is playing, or from the BD player's remote control.
Peter von Winter - Das Labyrinth
Residenzhof, Salzburg, 2012
Ivor Bolton, Alexandra Liedtke, Christof Fischesser, Julia Novikova, Malin Hartelius, Michael Schade, Thomas Tatzl, Regula Mühlemann, Anton Scharinger, Ute Gfrerer, Nina Bernsteiner, Christina Daletska, Monika Bohinec, Klaus Kuttler, Clemens Unterreiner
Arthaus Musik
Such is the supremacy and brilliance of Mozart's The Magic Flute that it's tempting to think of Peter von Winter's sequel as something of a novelty. Written in 1798, only seven years after the original, both librettos were however the work of the same man, Emanuel Schikaneder, so in reality there's no reason why Das Labyrinth shouldn't be seen as a legitimate work on its own terms. Rossini's Barber of Seville after all is a worthy prequel to Mozart's Marriage of Figaro since both works are drawn from the same source in the plays of Beaumarchais. De Winter's opera is no novelty then but rather a fascinating work that has languished in obscurity for far too long. It's still nowhere near on a par with The Magic Flute, but then what is?
Well, it has to be said that unfortunately Das Labyrinth does indeed try too hard to be The Magic Flute, and on that level it can't help but struggle. Schikaneder's approach to writing a sequel for an immensely popular success is much the same as the one usually employed by movie studios today. He and de Winter simply repeat the formula of the original with emphasis on the bits that the audience enjoyed the most. As an entertainment this is a foolproof method and there is consequently much to enjoy in seeing these wonderful characters revived and put through new situations. On the other hand, without Mozart to bring his unique vision to the work and dignify the libretto with some internal musical consistency and his deep humanism, the plot of Das Labyrinth more often feels like a lot of random incidents haphazardly strung together with little in the way of originality.
Certainly, the central element that drives the plot doesn't initially appear to differ greatly from the original. Picking up straight after the events in The Magic Flute, the Queen of the Night - who is apparently called Luna, we discover here - is plotting to get her daughter back. You didn't think she would give up that easily, did you? With the help of the Three Ladies and Monostatos, who evidently holds a grudge against Sarastro for his treatment in the earlier work, the forces of darkness intend to disrupt the wedding of Tamino and Pamina, wrest the young woman away and marry her instead to the despicable Tipheus, King of Paphos. For some not entirely explained reason, Sarastro also requires Tamino and Pamina to undergo a further trial and find their way through the labyrinth. It's there that Tipheus and his men, the Three Ladies having failed in their previous attempt to carry out the abduction, capture Pamina and take her to the Queen's hideaway on the Moon.
In addition to the main plot, there are evidently other random exploits for Papageno and Papagena, whose marriage is also put on hold until Pamina is recovered and their relationship is likewise challenged. This involves many of the same kind of "trials" that were in The Magic Flute, with the Three Ladies appealing to Papageno's baser instincts and Monostatos also getting in on the act to lead him astray. He disguises himself as Papageno and his blackamoor origins played upon in a way that makes him the butt of some dubious jokes. To get her own back on Papageno however for flirting with ladies of darker skin colour, Papagena runs away with Monostatos. This means that Papageno must be involved in the rescue of Pamina if he wants to ensure his own happiness is restored.
There are just as many musical references to match the familiar plot elements, with plenty of glockenspiel playing, Papageno bird whistles and acres of pseudo-Mozart arrangements. The music is consequently often quite light and charming, even if has none of the memorable melodies of Mozart and little of the composer's carefree imagination, grace and dignity to elevate the pomposity and the silliness of much of the plot. Ivor Bolton however conducts this work with just as much respect, affording Von Winter's compositions the same loving care and attention that he would Die Zauberflöte. This certainly contributes towards making Das Labyrinth feel truly Mozartian and consequently a more interesting work than it might otherwise have been. At the very least it makes this a delightful curiosity that's hard to resist.
The production at the Salzburg Festival isn't quite so compelling. The costumes are lovely, but the sets are not the most suitable for the work. These are limited to some extent by the venue, which is the open-air courtyard of the Residenzhof, meaning that there is only room for a few narrow platforms and an all-purpose backdrop. The backdrop consists in the main of a wall of lights, which is nonetheless versatile enough to represent the canopy of stars of the domain of Königin der Nacht, flicker with storm effects, and break up into columns to represent the labyrinth. It comes into play more as the evening darkens, and there are a few nice additional mechanical effects such as Pamino seated on a crescent moon, but it is otherwise quite limiting.
Christof Fischesser is a wonderful Sarastro, his warm and comforting tones assuring you that this is a character who is powerful and can be trusted. Michael Schade's lovely lyrical tenor similarly presents a warmer and more sympathetic Tamino than is often found in The Magic Flute, and that's all to the benefit of Das Labyrinth. Julia Novikova cuts a suitably impressive figure as Luna, Queen of the Night, but she struggles a little with the challenging coloratura that has been written for the character's extended role in this work. As Pamina, Malin Hartelius often finds that the tessitura of the role is beyond her comfort zone and the timbre of her voice isn't always the most pleasant at those heights. She seems to gain in confidence in Act II however and handles her individual arias quite well. Thomas Tatzl is an excellent Papageno and Regula Mühlemann a charming Papagena.
The Blu-ray release of Das Labyrinth is region-free with subtitles in German, English, French, Spanish, Italian and Korean. The filming isn't as polished as it might be, but undoubtedly there are difficulties presented by the unconventional location. The video looks reasonably good even though it only uses a BD25 disc. The audio tracks however are excellent, with good wide use of the surrounds on the DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1 mix.
