{"id":2507,"date":"2017-10-29T15:44:50","date_gmt":"2017-10-29T14:44:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/atorod.pl\/?p=2507"},"modified":"2017-11-04T12:57:42","modified_gmt":"2017-11-04T11:57:42","slug":"angelology-and-the-wild-blue-yonder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/?p=2507","title":{"rendered":"Angelology and the Wild Blue Yonder"},"content":{"rendered":"

The narrator of Richard Wagner\u2019s novella A Pilgrimage to Beethoven<\/em> mentions a performance by Wilhelmine Schr\u00f6der-Devrient with an admiration bordering on rapture. Her interpretation of the part of Leonore in Fidelio<\/em> opens up the heavens before him. It frees him from the bondage of the night and brings him out into the light of day \u2013 like Beethoven\u2019s Florestan. And no wonder: the comely singer turned out to be the first real German dramatic soprano, an artist who breathed the spirit into this oddly fractured masterpiece of Beethoven\u2019s, and gave the wonderful tradition of Wagnerian and Straussian voices its beginnings. Did the youthful Wagner really see her onstage in this role? Highly doubtful. However, he certainly did have to do with her later, as a conductor and composer, and twelve years after the soprano\u2019s death, he dedicated his sketch Actors and Singers<\/em> to her. Schr\u00f6der-Devrient also created several characters in his own works. In 1843, the memorable Leonore sang Senta at the Dresden premi\u00e8re of Der fliegende Holl\u00e4nder<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Seeking out affinities between Fidelio<\/em> and the earliest of Wagner\u2019s operas to enter into the canon of his \u0153uvre<\/em> is a task as fascinating as it is dangerous. Fidelio<\/em> was Beethoven\u2019s only excursion into the world of the opera form, a work corrected many times by the dissatisfied composer and, if only for this reason, considered by many to be an unsuccessful experiment. In turn, Holl\u00e4nder<\/em> is considered to be the vanguard of all of the wonderful things that appear in Wagner\u2019s mature dramas. There is a bit of truth in this, and a bit of tall tale. I am more interested in the coincidences, chief among them the \u2018instrumental\u2019 treatment of the human voice, which in both operas must struggle with resistant material, carry over a dense orchestral texture, avoid the traps of an uncomfortable tessitura. There is a similar idea behind this procedure: Fidelio<\/em> and Holl\u00e4nder<\/em> mark successive stages in the departure from number-based opera in favour of continuous and coherent musical narrative. What is more interesting, however \u2013 especially from the viewpoint of contemporary stage directors \u2013 is that these are two operas about angels. Determined angels of deliverance in the form of women who put a stop to the torment of men. In Wagner\u2019s \u0153uvre<\/em>, this motif later underwent a lengthy evolution. In Beethoven\u2019s legacy, it appeared only once. It turned out to be so suggestive, however, as to give Wagner\u2019s Senta a clear outline of Leonore moving towards the goal in spite of the outside world\u2019s oppression, despite the doubts of her beloved chosen one.<\/p>\n

I decided to leave myself the Wroc\u0142aw Fidelio<\/em> for later. On premi\u00e8re day, I settled comfortably into my seat in the auditorium of a completely different house: the Art Nouveau-style Theater L\u00fcbeck, erected in 1908 according to the design of Martin D\u00fclfer of Dresden \u2013 in place of the previous 18th<\/sup>-century building in which Thomas Mann experienced his first operatic rapture at a performance of Lohengrin<\/em>. My choice had fallen upon Der fliegende Holl\u00e4nder<\/em>, which returned to the L\u00fcbeck theatre in June, in a new staging by Aniara Amos. I had planned the expedition well in advance. It had been difficult to resist the temptation to see Wagner\u2019s \u2018marine\u2019 opera by the Baltic coast, in the main port of the Hanseatic League \u2013 on top of that, under the baton of Anthony Negus, who had led two shows there in October, before the production of Holl\u00e4nder<\/em> planned for the next season at his home house, the Longborough Festival Opera \u2013 with the forces of the same team that prepared this year\u2019s performances of Die Zauberfl\u00f6te<\/em>.<\/p>\n

My concept of the theatrical career and achievements to date of Amos, a Chilean resident in Germany, was quite vague: aside from having started as a dancer, she studied operatic stage directing with Achim Freyer and Peter Konwitschny; after that, she did a dozen or more shows in Austria, Denmark and Berlin, as well as at smaller German houses. They were received quite coolly by the critics. And no wonder: the ambitions of Amos, who had taken the entire weight of staging the L\u00fcbeck Holl\u00e4nder<\/em> on her shoulders, did not translate into artistic success. In a chaotically planned-out and predictably-lit space, a veritable pandemonium of Regieoper played out. Instead of a tale of a wandering sailor\u2019s sins being redeemed by Gottes Engel<\/em> in the person of Senta, Amos proposed the story of an (up to a point) passive woman who falls victim to mass violence. Senta (to whom the director assigned three alter egos \u2013 a little girl, a teenager and a live figurehead on the prow of the ghost ship) is abused by everyone: the paedophile Daland, the Dutchman manipulated by him, the possessive Erik, the beastly spinners and the lecherous sailors. The grotesquely-clothed characters gleefully squeeze all of the Sentas into the two bathtubs placed on the stage, representing not only the element of water, but also a symbolism drawn from homegrown psychoanalysis (white bathtub \u2013 innocence; red bathtub \u2013 lust; several people in the tub \u2013 sexual act). Just in case, Amos provided the men with phallic attributes, from a shotgun, a red paddle, telescopes dangling from the sailors\u2019 belts, to a gigantic lobster attached to the crotch of an apparition from the Dutchman\u2019s ship. To make things even worse, she made the Steersman the prime mover of the entire narrative, characterizing him half as Death, half as Klaus Nomi \u2013 the androgynous icon of 1980s pop culture. In the finale, Senta tears the weapon out of Erik\u2019s hands, rids herself of her persecutors, takes her alter egos by the hand and goes off into the wild blue yonder. To hell with angelology.<\/p>\n

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Der fliegende Holl\u00e4nder<\/em> in L\u00fcbeck. Oliver Zwarg (Dutchman) and\u00a0Miina-Liisa V\u00e4rel\u00e4, Senta from the premiere’s cast. Photo: Olaf Malzahn.<\/p>\n

Nothing left to do but close one\u2019s eyes and listen. And there was plenty to hear. The strongest point of the cast turned out to be Maida Hundeling in the part of Senta \u2013 a beautiful, dark soprano of powerful volume, with a wonderfully open top register and broad legato<\/em>. Paling a bit against that background was Oliver Zwarg (Dutchman), a very musical singer with superb technique, but not sufficiently expressive in the role of the gloomy sailor condemned to eternal wandering. On the other hand, it had been a long time since I had heard such a good Daland (Taras Konoshchenko), gifted with a bass of extraordinary beauty, but at the same time flexible and deployed fluidly enough to bring out all of the expected and less-expected \u2018Weberisms\u2019 from this part. Bravos for Wioletta Hebrowska, who was able to restore at least a bit of believability to the character of Mary with her excellent vocal craft. A solid performance was turned in by Daniel Jenz, a tenor perhaps too light for the part of the Steersman, which he paid for at the beginning with a few flaws of intonation, but still: his tone was cultured and nicely rounded in the top register. The only disappointment among the soloists was Zurab Zurabishvili \u2013 a shrill Erik with a heavy tone and forced vocal production. I was also not thrilled with the chorus \u2013 while the ladies more or less handled \u2018Summ und brumm\u2019, the gentlemen were thoroughly disappointing in \u2018Steuermann, lass die Wacht\u2019, singing with an ugly sound, without conviction and often dragging behind the orchestra. A pity, because Negus \u2013 after barely a few days of rehearsals with the local philharmonic \u2013 put the whole thing together into an extraordinarily convincing narrative, captivating in its energy and rhythm from the first measures of the overture. The sharp staccati<\/em> of the strings, the \u2018wind\u2019 of the flutes blowing up a storm in the rigging, the thundering tympani, juxtaposed a moment later with the heartbreaking lyricism of the redemption motif \u2013 all of this confirmed yet again the class of this extraordinary conductor, who reads every score like a novel, not as a collection of musical sentences masterfully composed but empty in expression. Let us add that Negus\u2019 reading of Holl\u00e4nder<\/em> had a surprisingly large dose of Meyerbeerian horror, accentuated by skillful diversification of the orchestral textures and colours.<\/p>\n

I returned to Poland with my heart in my mouth \u2013 the dissonance between the opinions of musician and music-lover friends on the one hand, and the first press reports after the premi\u00e8re of Fidelio <\/em>on the other, knocked me solidly off balance. The greatest blows were taken by the creators of the staging: costume designer Belinda Radulovi\u0107, and artistic director Rocc of the Slovenian National Opera \u2013 which prepared the show in co-production with the Wroc\u0142aw Opera \u2013 who was responsible for the concept as a whole. In one respect, I must agree with the critics: in removing the spoken dialogues, the directing team did violence to the substance of the work. All the more difficult to forgive in that it disturbed the already convoluted narrative, which for many listeners not familiar with the work became completely incomprehensible. It was not much help to substitute them with fragments from Beethoven\u2019s letters to the \u2018Unsterbliche Geliebte\u2019, which introduced greater confusion and were justified only in the context of this staging\u2019s general message. To my amazement, however, that message turned out to be surprisingly innovative, depicted clearly and perhaps even getting to the heart of the composer\u2019s intentions. Rocc decided to turn Fidelio<\/em> into a metaphorical parable about the angel of salvation. Realized in a gorgeous minimalist stage design, superbly accentuated by the stage lighting, against the background of which played out a tale bringing to mind associations with the world of mysteries and miracles of ages past, full of references to Christian pictorial symbolism. Leonore appeared in two forms \u2013 as a woman-angel and as her mysterious emissary who descends into the dungeon in order to free Florestan. The golden emissary (in the person of actress Karolina Micu\u0142a) brings to mind Renaissance portrayals of the angel who came to give succour to St.\u00a0Peter, arrested by Herod. Don Pizarro \u2013 like the Biblical Herod \u2013 is evil incarnate, a person rotten to the core, a soulless brute to whom all concept of morality is foreign. The story told by Rocc sounds like an ending to the episode from the Acts of the Apostles which is basically the last report from the life of Christ\u2019s companion. St.\u00a0Peter did not go free, but rather entered another dimension, from that time on teaching in the form of an angel. Florestan died, and with him, Leonore and all the other characters of Fidelio<\/em>. The finale is a plebeian image of Paradise, in which the once-degraded prisoners, deprived by Pizarro of gender, identity \u2013 and finally, life \u2013 dance about in colourful raiment, gifted with white lilies symbolizing innocence and resurrection. This entire miracle was performed by \u2018Ein Engel Leonore\u2019 and Florestan, whom she had saved \u2013 they were clothed in gold, the splendour of paradisiacal light, a colour accepting no shadow, divorced from all that is earthly. \u2018My Angel, my All, my own self,\u2019 as Beethoven wrote in his letter to the Immortal Beloved.<\/p>\n

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Fidelio <\/em>in Wroc\u0142aw. Sa\u0161a \u010cano (Rocco), Jacek Jasku\u0142a (Don Pizarro), Peter Wedd (Florestan), and the two Leonores: Karolina Micu\u0142a and Sandra Trattnigg. Photo: Marek Grotowski.<\/p>\n

It is astounding that in the case of Fidelio<\/em>, director\u2019s theatre fans \u2013 of whom there are not a few in Poland \u2013 demanded an unshaven Florestan in rags, chained to the wall of the dungeon. I am also amazed that the expectations of some critics did not coincide with the musical interpretation of Beethoven\u2019s only opera. While joining in the praise for Maria Rozynek-Banaszak (Marzelline) and Aleksander Zuchowicz (Jaquino), I shall also take the liberty of pointing out the superb performance of Jacek Jasku\u0142a in the part of Don Pizarro and the two superb episodes of the Prisoners (Piotr Bunzler and Miros\u0142aw Gotfryd). I hasten to report that Jakub Michalski, a recent graduate of the Voice and Opera Faculty at the Academy of Music in Wroc\u0142aw, turned out considerably better in the role of Don Fernando than most of his counterparts familiar from recent performances of this opera. I will admit without duress that I do not share in the admiration for Sa\u0161a \u010cano (Rocco), who has at his disposal a bass of quite \u2018well-like\u2019 vocal production, to make matters worse rhythmically insecure. Sandra Trattnigg (Leonore) is captivating with a gorgeously-coloured voice that is slowly evolving in the direction of a true dramatic soprano \u2013 for this reason, I will forgive her slight fluctuations in intonation and not completely open top register. I heard nothing reprehensible in the singing of Peter Wedd, who presented a somewhat different vision of Florestan \u2013 more youthful and ecstatic \u2013 a year ago in Paris. This time, he was a broken prisoner, whose coming out into the light was lengthier and more arduous \u2013 but fully in harmony with the vision of the stage director and of conductor Marcin Na\u0142\u0119cz-Niesio\u0142owski, who led his Fidelio<\/em> at sensible tempi pulsating with energy, at moments considerably slower than those to which such conductors as Fricsay have accustomed us, at moments as exuberant as those familiar from the best performances of Beethoven\u2019s masterpiece. This applies in particular to the finale, in which the Wroc\u0142aw Opera chorus displayed not only a full sound and balanced vocal production, but also superb diction and understanding of the text.<\/p>\n

During the intermission after Act\u00a0I, I allowed friends to talk me into moving downstairs from the balcony to the ground floor. Thanks to this, I had the opportunity to hear all of the details of the deeply thought-out, dynamically and expressively nuanced interpretation of Florestan\u2019s aria, but also to fully appreciate the acting artistry of Wedd, who realized one of Rocc\u2019s most interesting directing concepts in a riveting manner. His Florestan sings \u2018Gott! Welch\u2019 Dunkel hier!\u2019 in a full light that he does not see \u2013 blind after his long stay in the dungeon. The moment when the blind prisoner regains his sight, when Leonore kisses his eyes, is a picture worth a thousand words. I myself no longer had any words \u2013 perhaps out of amazement that the effort of the Wroc\u0142aw Opera\u2019s ensembles slipped by so sadly unnoticed \u2013 as if everyone had gone deaf and blind.<\/p>\n

Translated by: Karol Thornton-Remiszewski<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The narrator of Richard Wagner\u2019s novella A Pilgrimage to Beethoven mentions a performance by Wilhelmine Schr\u00f6der-Devrient with an admiration bordering on rapture. Her interpretation of the part of Leonore in Fidelio opens up the heavens before him. It frees him from the bondage of the night and brings him out into the light of day … [Read more…]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,7],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"entry","1":"post","2":"publish","3":"author-mangusta","4":"post-2507","6":"format-standard","7":"category-posts-in-english","8":"category-wedrowki-operowe"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2507"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2517,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2507\/revisions\/2517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}