Schumann - Genoveva

Robert Schumann - Genoveva

Opernhaus Zürich, 2008

Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Martin Kušej, Juliane Banse, Shawn Mathey, Martin Gantner, Cornelia Kallisch, Alfred Muff, Ruben Drole, Tomasz Slawinski, Matthew Leigh

Arthaus Musik

Genoveva (1850), Robert Schumann’s only opera, was composed around the same time that Richard Wagner was working on material for Lohengrin and the Ring of the Niebelungen and it represents an interesting alternative view of how folklore, mythology and legends could be used as an expression of essential Germanic characteristics elevated through the art of the opera or music drama. Genoveva however was regarded as a failure when it was first produced, and Schumann would consequently never compose another opera, so it’s the Wagnerian model that has succeeded as the dominant influence, but Schumann’s approach would appear to be more deeply rooted in relating these characteristics elevated in mythology back down to the nature of the individual, and that consequently makes the story of Genoveva rather an interesting one.

Ostensibly, the work is an account of the medieval legend of the martyrdom of St Genevieve, the story promoting the virtues of truth and purity when Genoveva, the Countess of Brabant, is unjustly accused of infidelity, imprisoned and (in the original legend) executed only for her innocence later to be discovered. Schumann’s approach to the work is rather more complicated in its focus and in its unconventional depiction of the varied characters. In the story, Genoveva rejects the advances of her head servant Golo while her husband Siegfried is away fighting in Charles Martel’s crusade against the Saracen army of Abdur Rahman that is threatening to invade Europe. Consumed by desire for the Count’s wife and smarting from her rejection, Golo conspires to have Genoveva denounced for adultery by arranging for another servant, an old man, Drago, to be found in her bedroom. While one should expect sympathy to lie with the unjustly maligned Genoveva and with the husband whose trust has been abused by his servant, a large part of the opera is given over to consideration of the “lower orders”, giving depth to Golo, Margaretha and Drago, and it’s there that we find, perhaps, more interesting facets of human nature and German character.

That approach is emphasised very much in Martin Kušej’s staging of the rarely performed work for the Zurich Opernhaus in 2008. As with his De Nederlandse productions of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and Der Fliegende Höllander, and perhaps even in his Bayerische Staatsoper production of Rusalka, there’s a sense of class conflict within the consuming passions that is emphasised also in Kušej’s Genoveva. Using a boxed-in set of pure white walls (although they don’t stay that way for long), the set design bears little resemblance to the medieval period setting of the work. Within this space, the four figures of the central drama are often present, even if they aren’t required to be on the stage. In the case of Siegfried, for example, even though we know he’s gone to fight in the crusades in Act II, he’s physically still present there on the stage while the drama unfolds between Golo and Genoveva, even if he doesn’t take part in the action. It’s a rather avant-garde Brechtian theatrical device, but it serves to keep the focus on the drama and the overheated emotions between each of the characters – other action usually takes place off to the sides of the boxed area – showing that the influence or “presence” of the key players is important, even if they aren’t actually there.

Kušej also makes use of his now trademark shock tactics of minor nudity and plenty of blood also to tremendous effect. Distancing techniques – the characters laughing uncontrollably during the overture, squashing invisible insects and wrestling with a slippery dead fish – are used to suggest that the libretto shouldn’t be taken entirely literally when Siegfried refers to Genoveva as “a woman of true German stock”, while she for her part observes that it’s “a blessing to be the wife of a hero”, and Schumann’s score would tend to suggest that this indeed shouldn’t be taken entirely at face value. While such aspirations are noble, and one would be accustomed to accepting them as such in a Wagner opera, there are characters of lower orders present in Schumann’s opera with genuine grievances about their treatment and station, even if their means of wresting back some kind of justice can only be achieved through violence and subversion. Without taking anything away from the noble characteristics of Genoveva then (Siegfried is shown in a less heroic light by Schumann and certainly in Kušej’s staging, enjoying the pleasures of the witch Margaretha at the opening of Act III), the suggestion is perhaps that these figures have a voice that needs to be heard if such actions are to be avoided.

Kušej accordingly sets the opera in Schumann’s own period to reflect the social and political climate as he would have known it around 1848. Whether you buy into the devices and techniques employed by the director, the staging nonetheless has a striking, distinctive look that commands attention where the drama as it is outlined in the libretto ordinarily might not. Genoveva is not considered to be a dramatically strong work, and the criticism is often levelled against it that it’s a failed work because of this, so it’s even more to the credit of Kušej’s staging that it better reveals the distinctions of the characterisation that are clearly there. It is perhaps true that, musically at least, Schumann doesn’t manage to find a distinct voice for each of the characters – musically, it’s restrained, with few grand gestures and only some gentle choruses to punctuate the long monologues – but considerable impact can be drawn from the subject with commitment from the performers and a conductor who is keen to get to the heart of an important but underrated work in the history of German opera.

Fortunately, it has that not only with Nikolaus Harnoncourt at the helm and a fine performance of the orchestra of the Opernhaus Zürich, but in the singing of an exceptionally fine and committed cast who are often called upon to sing in difficult positions and occasionally perform somewhat undignified or just plain bizarre actions. Juliane Banse in particular is outstanding in the rather demanding role of Genoveva, but Shawn Mathey is a committed Golo and Martin Gantner a fine Siegfried. Cornelia Kallish and Alfred Muff also make a strong impression in the roles of Margaretha and Drago. This is far from bel canto however, and if the singing appears unexceptional in some parts, the acting and commitment to the roles proves just as important. The booklet included with the BD includes a fine thought-provoking essay on the work by Ronny Dietrich, the principal dramatic advisor of the Zurich Opera. It may take some persuading to accept Kušej’s belief that Golo is the central figure of the work and not Genoveva, but it is worth considering that the composer would have probably identified with Golo in his troubled relationship with Clara Schumann’s father.

The quality of the Blu-ray presentation itself is good, and the image is relatively clear. Some minor blue-edges and a little bit of vertical shimmer could have been avoided with a BD50 disc instead of a BD25 for the two-and-a-half-hour opera. It in no way however detracts from the overall quality or sharpness of the image or the fine high quality audio tracks in DTS HD-Master Audio 7.1 and PCM 2.0, where there is only a slight dullness in the voices at times due to the boxed-in stage set.

Mozart - Don Giovanni (Paris, 2007)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Il Dissoluto Punito ossia il Don Giovanni

Opéra National de Paris, 2007

Michael Güttler, Michael Haneke, Peter Mattei, Mikhail Petrenko, Carmela Remigio, Shawn Mathey, Arpiné Rahdjian, Luca Pisaroni, David Bizic, Aleksandra Zamojska

Opéra Bastille, Paris - 2nd February 2007

There has always been a strong link between cinema and opera with several directors - Losey, Visconti, Zeffirelli, Chéreau and even Tarkovsky – working successfully in both disciplines. In recent years, the Paris Opera have been particularly experimental in their productions, exploiting this connection with cinema and commissioning work from the avant garde Catalan group La Fura dels Baus (Fausto 5.0), and a forthcoming punk opera in June directed by Emir Kusturica featuring his No Smoking Orchestra based on his film Time of the Gypsies. For their 2006 celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the birth of Mozart, the Paris Opera invited the controversial Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke to direct one of his operas.

As Haneke’s roots are in theatre the move to opera is not such a great leap, but even so it’s difficult to see how the film director’s particular austere, minimal approach could be reconciled with the grandeur usually witnessed at the Palais Garnier and the Opéra Bastille. There could only be one Mozart opera that lies within Haneke’s range and remit. Idomeneo and La Clemenza di Tito, at either ends of Mozart’s mature career, are too classical in origin, their dramatic structure mired in the long-winded demands of the opera seria. While there are certainly intriguing themes in The Marriage of Figaro, Così Fan Tutte and Die Entführung aus dem Serail, they have perhaps too many farcical elements for Haneke’s seriousness of purpose. The Magic Flute is more notable for its lyricism than its themes, which are perhaps too esoteric and removed from everyday concerns for the Austrian director – not to mention that the La Fura dels Baus’ recent ludicrous ‘Mozart on Bouncy Castles’ re-conceptualisation of the opera for the Bastille is perhaps too fresh in the memory for it to undergo yet another modernisation. Don Giovanni on the other hand is certainly Mozart’s darkest opera. Tense, dramatic and bipolar, it reflects the full range of Mozart’s extraordinary personality, flipping between outrageous exuberant irreverence and bleak meditations on death, grief, guilt and revenge. It’s perfect material for a director like Haneke to work with, particularly as its story of serial seduction, murder and revenge makes its subject the one most amenable to modern-day reinterpretation.

The successful production revived in 2007 for the Paris Opera at the Bastille, Michael Haneke’s Don Giovanni - reverting back to its original title of Il Dissoluto Punito ossia il Don Giovanni ('The Dissolute Punished or Don Giovanni') – takes the world of business executives in a modern high-rise office complex as its setting, its large windows affording a view of a built-up downtown business district. Working late one night, Junior Director Donna Anna is sexually assaulted by a dark figure who enters her office. Her father, the Chief Executive, Il Commendatore, hears the commotion and tries to intervene, but is brutally murdered by the unknown assailant, who makes his escape pursued by Anna’s fiancé Ottavio. The killer is a young Junior Executive, Don Giovanni, a notorious womaniser who, with the assistance of his PA, Leporello – a personal poodle to support him in his crimes and deceits – continues his attempts at serial seduction undeterred by recent events, even trying to get off with Zerlina, a cleaning lady who is just celebrating her marriage to Masetto. With thousands of similar seductions enacted by the high-flying jet-setter across the globe (one thousand and three conquests in Spain alone!), Don Giovanni has quite a history, but his past is about to catch up with him. Donna Elvira, a Senior Executive at a firm where Don Giovanni once worked, is looking for him and when she meets Anna and Ottavio hunting for the killer of the Commendatore, she believes she recognises the modus operandi of her former husband who has deserted her. Masked, they make their appearance at one of the young executive’s orgiastic office parties, seeking retribution.

While it may still be difficult to recognise any familiar Haneke themes from what sounds like a fairly typical modern updating of an opera or drama into the world of corporate affairs, power-dressing and designer suits, the director nevertheless perceptively draws out the essence of the characters – already powerfully and lyrically expressed by Mozart and Da Ponte, but given a characteristically darker twist by Haneke. The Don Giovanni of this production is less of an adventurer and seducer than an aggressor and a rapist - a pumped-up young executive full of his own self-importance and confident in his charms, but unable to handle rejection, reacting violently to any challenges to his authority. Underlying this behaviour there is a strong sense of guilt, fuelled not so much by his avoidance of commitment as an unwillingness to accept that his actions have consequences on other people. Along with the use of masks throughout the opera, the theme of keeping one’s true nature hidden, a refusal to accept personal responsibility for violence enacted on other people, self-destructive behaviour and a generalised subtext that can be read as an oblique critique of corporate globalisation or US foreign policy, you have fairly familiar material for Michael Haneke to get his teeth into.

What is not seen so often in Haneke’s own work is the counterpart of this sickness in society and the individual – the more laudable aspects of human behaviour, their ability to deal with adversity, their capacity for forgiveness and their desire to do good. It’s an aspect that is perhaps only really notable in Haneke’s film The Time of the Wolf - which is consequently one of the director’s best films - and from the way that he handles the character of Donna Elvira, it’s a pity that this strength is not explored by him more often. Elvira sees through his mask and recognises the true darkness in Don Giovanni’s nature ("Da quel ceffo si dovria/ La ner’alma giudicar"), but is convinced that she can reach out to his better nature. It’s one of the strengths of the opera that she is of course wrong – Don Giovanni is too far gone. Consumed by guilt, ashamed of his actions and weighed down by his past, and with perhaps some sense of his own self-importance, he willingly accepts the dramatic nature of his fate.

Haneke, of course makes the most of this in his direction - the single unchanging low-lit stage set sterile and bleak, neutrally coloured and shrouded almost permanently in shadows. The modern setting and updating of the characters is fairly easy to accept, remaining open enough to allow personal identification and interpretation. By the second act, any novelty in the office setting sinks into the background and the sheer strength of Mozart and Da Ponte’s arias, the performance of the Paris orchestra and the exceptional cast regains ground. It’s to the credit of the direction that it doesn’t over-impose itself in this way, working with the dramatic, lyrical and thematic strengths of piece and the performers. That is not to say that Haneke’s hand remains invisible, but reasserts itself exactly where required and with the force you would expect from this director. The characteristic shocking flash of violence that he does so well in his films of course has its counterpart here in the first scene of the opera with the senseless killing of Il Commendatore, but Haneke even manages to shock the audience with another unexpected killing at the end. While Don Giovanni’s demise at the end of the opera is never in doubt, the manner in which Haneke brings it about is quite stunning.

I have seen many spectacular representations on the stage of Don Giovanni being dragged down to the fiery depths of Hell, but none are quite as powerfully violent as Haneke’s staging. There is no place in Haneke’s modern rationalist vision for ghosts, demons or animated statues – strapped to an office chair, the bloody corpse of the Commendatore is wheeled on by the masked figures of Elvira, Anna and Ottavio. The other masked figures of the revellers at the party (bizarrely, the masks are all Mickey Mouse faces – a symbol perhaps of the worldwide economic and cultural rape by corporate America?), also represent the other nameless, faceless victims of the Junior Executive’s lying, his rapes and his conquests. Together the victims confront the Don with the real-life consequences of his actions and enact a more immediate and earthly vengeance. Anna plunges a knife into Don Giovanni’s black heart, the exploited masses propel his screaming form from the office windows where he plunges to a violent and spectacular death. As well as being symmetrical in dramatic terms, it’s a death that moreover makes the moralising epilogue that he who lives by the sword dies by the sword just that little bit darker, more menacing and perhaps more politically pointed.

This review was first published in DVD Times/The Digital Fix in 2007