{"id":2593,"date":"2017-12-13T20:23:30","date_gmt":"2017-12-13T19:23:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/atorod.pl\/?p=2593"},"modified":"2017-12-13T21:46:59","modified_gmt":"2017-12-13T20:46:59","slug":"a-prophet-by-no-means-false","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/?p=2593","title":{"rendered":"A Prophet By No Means False"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have already wrung my hands so many times over the fate of composers wronged by history and of their operas \u2013 unjustly eliminated from the repertoire and returning with difficulty to the world\u2019s stages \u2013 that I have no words left for Meyerbeer. This Jew born in Germany, educated in Italy, scoring triumphs in Paris in the heyday of grand op\u00e9ra<\/em>\u2019s glory, became the victim of a tangle of exceptionally unfortunate circumstances. Meyerbeer\u2019s downfall was caused by, among others, Wagner \u2013 his one-time prot\u00e9g\u00e9 who at first declared that he owed his mind, heart and lifelong gratitude to him for pointing his creative work in a salutary direction, but after the premi\u00e8re of Le Proph\u00e8te<\/em> made an abrupt about-turn expressed in, among other things, the infamous pamphlet Das Judenthum in der Musik.<\/em> And here he had drawn upon this music in fistfuls, not only in Rienzi<\/em> and Der fliegende Holl\u00e4nder<\/em>: without Meyerbeer\u2019s Les Huguenots<\/em>, there would have been no Act\u00a0II of Die Meistersinger von N\u00fcrnberg<\/em>. Chopin proclaimed Robert le diable<\/em> a masterpiece right after its Paris world premi\u00e8re; a year later, he composed the Grand Duo concertant<\/em> for piano and \u2019cello, one of the few chamber pieces in his \u0153uvre,<\/em> based on motifs from a Meyerbeer opera. Shortly after the success of Le Proph\u00e8te<\/em>, Liszt wrote the monumental Fantasy and Fugue <\/em>on \u2018Ad nos, ad salutarem undam\u2019 \u2013 the chilling chorale stylization sung by the Anabaptists. Meyerbeer \u2013 the father of full-blooded music drama, a peerless master of orchestration, a phenomenal melodist who squeezed the last drop of sweat out of the singers, while never fighting against the natural capabilities of the human voice \u2013 fell into oblivion together with the twilight of grand historical opera; and since he had taken that genre to the limits of perfection, with the passage of successive decades, hopes for the resurrection of his \u0153uvre<\/em> grew dimmer. Meyerbeer\u2019s operas disappeared from stages even before World War\u00a0I. The last Polish production of Les Huguenots<\/em> took place in 1903 in Lw\u00f3w [modern-day Lviv, Ukraine].<\/p>\n

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Noel Bouley (Mathisen), Andrew Dickinson (Jonas) and Derek Welton (Zacharie) among the members of the Chorus of the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Photo: Bettina St\u00f6\u00df
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Le Proph\u00e8te<\/em>, which once triggered a veritable paroxysm of composer\u2019s envy in Wagner, is today mentioned above all anecdotally: as the work whose 1849 world premi\u00e8re featured the Paris Opera stage lit for the first time in history with electric lamps, as well as dancers on roller skates in the ballet on the frozen lake at the beginning of Act\u00a0III. The fact that Meyerbeer wrote the mezzo-soprano role of Fid\u00e8s for Pauline Viardot, a distinguished singer and pianist, a student of Liszt and Anton Reicha, the latter of whom introduced her to the mysteries of composition, a polyglot and writer, a friend of Turgenev and Clara Schumann; that the creator of the libretto was Eug\u00e8ne Scribe, one of the most prolific and sought-after authors of the time, who also contributed to the successes of Robert le diable <\/em>and Les Huguenots<\/em>; that the subject matter of the opera fit ideally into the atmosphere of moods after the February Revolution and the bloodily suppressed June Days uprising of 1848, the failure of which put an end to the Spring of Nations in France \u2013 these things are mentioned, as it were, less often. The story of Jean de Leyde [John of Leiden], the Anabaptist leader who \u2013 after the imprisonment of Melchior Hofmann, who had proclaimed the coming of the Kingdom of God in 1533 \u2013 decided to take matters in his own hands and institute the Parousia by force, brought to mind inevitable associations with the views espoused by Utopian communists who demanded recognition of the role of the proletariat and the establishment of a classless society. The libretto of Le Proph\u00e8te<\/em> is gloomy; the love thread, pushed into the background; the motif of a mother loving her wayward son despite all circumstances, highlighted beyond normal measure; and the character of the protagonist, boiled down to an anti-hero role bringing to mind associations with the considerably later operas of the great Russians: Mussorgsky and Tchaikovsky. Le Proph\u00e8te<\/em> poses a multitude of performance problems and, at the same time, is hellishly complex in dramaturgical terms. It is no wonder that it has only sporadically returned to contemporary stages and then quickly disappeared. There is no way to modernize it, nor to produce it with its original splendour \u2013 not to mention the difficulties of finding appropriate singers.<\/p>\n

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Elena Tsallagova (Berthe) and Cl\u00e9mentine Margaine (Fid\u00e8s). Photo: Bettina St\u00f6\u00df<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Almost everyone has now forgotten the first resurrection of Le Proph\u00e8te<\/em> on the stage of Deutsche Oper Berlin in 1966, with Sandra Warfield as Fid\u00e8s and James McCracken in the role of Jean. The staging of the opera\u2019s most recent premi\u00e8re was entrusted to Olivier Py, a French director known for religiosity as well as for a tendency to introduce contemporary political allusions into his productions. In his famous Paris Aida<\/em> of four years ago \u2013 to the horror of some critics and audience members \u2013 there appeared Ku Klux Klan fighters, Holocaust victims, immigrants, as well as an impressive-looking, camouflage-painted tank. His concept of Le Proph\u00e8te<\/em>, though equally over-simplified, turned out to be considerably more coherent: Py set the opera\u2019s action in the realities of an indeterminate metropolis shaken by unrest, in which all of the pathologies of revolution are concentrated: physical and psychological violence, debauched sex and equally frisky religious fanaticism. It is not at all bad to watch \u2013 even, wonder of wonders, in the famous skaters\u2019 ballet scene, played out in the form of a brutal pantomime on a rotary stage spinning at a frenzied tempo. Certain details, however, are a bit offensive \u2013 above all, the forcible introduction of the stage director\u2019s \u2018signatures\u2019 (a half-naked angel taken, as it were, straight out of Mathis der Maler <\/em>at Op\u00e9ra Bastille; the final orgy in bordello red lighting; anal sex on the hood of a car \u2013 a hackneyed idea, though at least automobile lovers had the pleasure of admiring a black Mercedes W115, known in Poland by the pet name of puchacz<\/em> [\u2018eagle owl\u2019]). I must admit, however, that the action played out fluidly, the stage movement did not disturb the singers, and in the healing of the sick scene \u2013 accompanying Jean\u2019s coronation in Act\u00a0IV \u2013 the wheelchairs finally found proper use.<\/p>\n

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Gregory Kunde (Jean de Leyde). Photo: Bettina St\u00f6\u00df<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

But never mind Olivier Py\u2019s controversial concept \u2013 we got a show so superbly prepared in musical terms that Wagner probably had apoplexy yet again, this time in the hereafter. Enrique Mazzola, an Italian bel canto <\/em>specialist, brought every possible treat out of the score: wonderfully transparent textures, surprising details of orchestration, deep dynamic contrasts. He took Le Proph\u00e8te<\/em> at lively tempi, without even for a moment losing the pulse of the work as a whole, deftly highlighting Meyerbeer\u2019s thematic play (the phenomenal entrance of the three Anabaptists with a pseudo-chorale that appears in distorted form in Act\u00a0II, when Jean tells about his dream, rolls through the chorus part like a storm in Act\u00a0III, and then returns as an ominous memento<\/em> during the coronation scene). What turned out to be the second, collective hero of the evening was the chorus, prepared by Jeremy Bines, which sang with alertness, as well as beautiful, fluent phrasing and superbly rendered text. The third, perhaps brightest star of the show was Cl\u00e9mentine Margaine: her mezzo-soprano, thick as tar and velvety in sound, flowed forth with such freedom that everyone in the audience forgot about the legendary reefs and shoals in the extremely difficult role of Fid\u00e8s. The light and bright soprano of Berthe (Elena Tsallagova) blended quite well with it, though in the duets, especially \u2018<\/em>Pour garder \u00e0 ton fils le serment\u2019, the young Russian did have a few slip-ups in intonation. Gregory Kunde (Jean) took a long time to warm up, to the detriment of my favorite aria \u2018Pour Berthe, moi je soupire\u2019, but in the triumphal hymn from the finale of Act\u00a0III (\u2018Roi du ciel et des anges\u2019), I felt like getting up from my seat and accompanying the false prophet. Kunde has superb technique; nonetheless, his top register lacks freedom and the spinto<\/em> brilliance essential for this part \u2013 another matter that I\u2019m not sure if anyone besides him today would be in a position to sing this role even decently. Of the three sinister Anabaptists \u2013 superbly chosen in every way \u2013 Derek Walton (Zacharie) stood out. Walton has at his disposal a beautiful, round bass-baritone, though unfortunately not sufficiently resonant at the bottom of his range. The only disappointment was Seth Carico in the role of Le Comte d\u2019Oberthal \u2013 perhaps because a few months ago, he was so enchanting in Death in Venice<\/em>. This time he too often fell into a caricature that concealed deficiencies in the musical preparation of his part.<\/p>\n

A production of any Meyerbeer opera at such a level requires enormous financial expenditures and tons of solid work. The occasion to obtain the former was no doubt the riotously celebrated 500th<\/sup>\u00a0birthday of the Reformation. The zeal and professionalism of the musicians, however, cannot be overestimated. There is hope. A pity that not here in Poland, where even musicology professors are afraid to reveal their love for the composer in whose work \u2013 as Chopin wrote in a letter to Tytus Wojciechowski \u2013 \u2018through the tuba sings the devil, souls from graves rise up to revel\u2019.<\/p>\n

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

I have already wrung my hands so many times over the fate of composers wronged by history and of their operas \u2013 unjustly eliminated from the repertoire and returning with difficulty to the world\u2019s stages \u2013 that I have no words left for Meyerbeer. This Jew born in Germany, educated in Italy, scoring triumphs in … [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-2593","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\/2593","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=2593"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2599,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2593\/revisions\/2599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}