{"id":2763,"date":"2018-02-09T18:51:53","date_gmt":"2018-02-09T17:51:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/atorod.pl\/?p=2763"},"modified":"2018-02-15T23:53:28","modified_gmt":"2018-02-15T22:53:28","slug":"love-and-freedom-with-death-in-the-background","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/?p=2763","title":{"rendered":"Love and Freedom with Death in the Background"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of them was born in Brno; the other spent most of his life there. Aside from that, they differed in every respect. Die tote Stadt<\/em> \u2013 an opera by the 23-year-old Erich Korngold, the compositional Wunderkind whose ballet Der Schneemann<\/em> had scored triumphs ten years earlier at the Vienna Hofoper \u2013 was sought out by two theatres at once. The world premi\u00e8re took place on 4\u00a0December 1920, simultaneously in Hamburg and K\u00f6ln. The K\u00f6ln production was conducted by Otto Klemperer himself, and the roles of Marie\/Marietta and Juliette were played by his wife, Johanna Geisler. For the next several years, the work scored an uninterrupted series of triumphs all over the world. Despite its enthusiastically-received premi\u00e8re at the N\u00e1rodn\u00ed divadlo in Brno (23\u00a0November 1921), K\u00e1t\u2019a Kabanov\u00e1<\/em> \u2013 a mature masterpiece by the 67-year-old Jan\u00e1\u010dek \u2013 suffered disaster a year later in Prague; and a week later, at the same Theater in der Glockengasse in K\u00f6ln under the baton of the same Klemperer, an even worse one \u2013 so ignominious that the second showing never came to pass. Die tote Stadt<\/em> appeared at the right time \u2013 it helped people to overcome their mourning of sons, husbands and fianc\u00e9s killed during the Great War, as well as the victims of the deadly Spanish flu epidemic that had moved from the front and the POW camps to the civil population. K\u00e1t\u2019a <\/em>was a record of Jan\u00e1\u010dek\u2019s personal tragedy \u2013 his obsessive, unrequited love for Kamila St\u00f6sslov\u00e1, the young married woman who also stood behind every note of The Cunning Little Vixen<\/em>, the Glagolitic Mass <\/em>and String Quartet no.\u00a02.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

I had been gearing up for the new staging of K\u00e1t\u2019a Kabanov\u00e1 <\/em>at the Op\u00e9ra National de Lorraine for a long time. I had let someone drag me to a showing of Korngold\u2019s opera at Semperoper Dresden a week before the premi\u00e8re in Nancy, above all hoping to erase my bad impressions from the production at Warsaw\u2019s Teatr Wielki \u2013 Polish National Opera: the horrifically-cast role of Paul, the orchestra playing without the faintest idea of the youthful Austrian Jew\u2019s sources of inspiration, not to mention Mariusz Treli\u0144ski\u2019s directorial perspective, which was as spectacular as it was nonsensical. Unfortunately, David B\u00f6sch did not resist the temptation to \u2018literalize\u2019 the libretto, which is loosely based on threads from Georges Rodenbach\u2019s Symbolist novel Bruges-la-Morte<\/em>. The gloomy Bruges, covered by a network of slimy canals, is above all a metaphor for possessive femininity \u2013 both in the literary prototype and in the somewhat trivialized text of Die tote Stadt<\/em>. It manipulates the mind of the widower in deep mourning, \u2018returns\u2019 his beloved Maria to him in the form of an imperfect double, pushes him to commit a crime \u2013 in Rodenbach\u2019s work, a real one; and in Erich and his father Julius\u2019 libretto, playing out in Paul\u2019s tormented imagination. For all of this to strike an equally tender chord in the viewer as nearly 100\u00a0years ago, this tale needs to be left in a sphere of ambiguity. Meanwhile, B\u00f6sch lays out for the audience in the simplest possible terms that everything is taking place in the protagonist\u2019s head. Instead of leaving us eye to eye with the monster-city, he treats us to a Freudian psychoanalysis with elements of Gestalt therapy. In his vision, there is no place for any contrast: everything is tainted by decay. Paul is stuck in his neglected petit bourgeois <\/em>apartment, staring at a hideously ugly portrait of Maria, finding no comfort either in the words of his faithful servant Brigitta, who is more like a slovenly cleaning lady, or in the tirades of Frank, who is as broken as he himself is, and imprisoned in a wheelchair. He sees his dead wife in a woman too vulgar: oddly angular in motion for a dancer, clothed in a tacky-looking dress, behaving like a juvenile nymphomaniac. The production takes on a bit of colour in Act\u00a0II, when Paul wanders in the night among the canals of Bruges \u2013 subtly suggested by Patrick Bannwart\u2019s stage design \u2013 ending up among parades of nuns and commedia dell\u2019arte <\/em>characters, mixed in with figures of omnipresent death. It culminates in a procession scene illustrated with spectacular projections in Act\u00a0III, after which it again sinks into the stuffily disordered apartment of Paul, who in desperation commits the supposed murder of Marietta. In the finale, there is no hope: the \u2018resurrected\u2019 dancer returns for her umbrella and leaves; the widower \u2013 after a final conversation with his friend \u2013 curls up in a ball in the dirty floor, cradling a curl of Marie\u2019s golden hair. The mourning continues \u2013 contrary to the composer\u2019s intentions and the sounds of the celesta dissolving into nothingness.<\/p>\n

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Die tote Stadt. <\/em>Burkhard Fritz (Paul). Photo: David Baltzer.<\/p>\n

In musical terms, on the other hand, the Dresden production took me to seventh heaven. The Staatskapelle, under the baton of Dmitri Jurowski, probably managed to convince all undecided parties that Korngold\u2019s score is closer to the works of Zemlinsky and Mahler than to the hits of the Viennese operetta. In its transparent textures, swinging rhythms and subtly-shaded colours of individual orchestra sections lurked evil and salvation, longing for times past and sadness overcome by hope for a better tomorrow. In the rendition of Burkhard Fritz \u2013 possessed of an intonationally secure, not too expansive in terms of volume but surprisingly warm-sounding Heldentenor \u2013 Paul turned out to be a fragile but at the same time mature man, able \u2013 the director\u2019s concept notwithstanding \u2013 to face his own emotions. In vocal terms, he surpassed Manuela Uhl (Marie\/Marietta), a big dramatic soprano tainted by quite stentorian vocal production and horrific diction, though I must admit that in \u2018Gl\u00fcck das mir verblieb\u2019 from Act\u00a0I, she came out surprisingly well in her duet with Fritz, trying rather to melt into the lyrical phrasing of her partner than to outshout him. Beautiful creations of Frank and Fritz were produced by Chistoph Pohl, who sings with a round, superbly-placed, though in terms of dynamics not-too-nuanced baritone. Among the players of the supporting roles, worthy of mention is the deep contralto Tichina Vaught, perfect in terms of character in the role of Brigitta.<\/p>\n

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Christoph Pohl (Fritz) and Manuela Uhl (Marietta). Photo: David Baltzer.<\/p>\n

My trip to Dresden confirmed me in my conviction that their musicians are masters, while the Warsaw production wasted the potential of Korngold\u2019s youthful score \u2013 which, while perhaps not too innovative, is technically superb and very well planned-out in dramaturgical terms. I went to Nancy with the Teatr Wielki \u2013 Polish National Opera\u2019s shocking production of K\u00e1t\u2019a Kabanov\u00e1 <\/em>from nearly eight years ago (directed by David Alden with Expressionist stage design by Charles Edwards) in my memory. In the capital of Lorraine, Jan\u00e1\u010dek\u2019s masterpiece was to take on a form proposed by David Himmelmann \u2013 a German known to Polish music lovers above all for a fragment from a Bregenz production of Tosca <\/em>that played a prominent role in the James Bond film Quantum of Solace<\/em>. His most recent staging, from a bit under a year ago, a Tosca <\/em>at the Osterfestspiele Baden-Baden, did not inspire any great enthusiasm among critics; however, it must be admitted that Himmelmann is an experienced stage director with a solid musical education, which is perhaps why he felt justified in picking a bit at the material of the work.<\/p>\n

However, one must also bear in mind that picking at Jan\u00e1\u010dek\u2019s ideally-constructed operas can turn out to be of disastrous effect. K\u00e1t\u2019a Kabanov\u00e1<\/em> superficially gives the impression of an older and more bitter sister of Jen\u016ffa<\/em>. Kabanicha appears to be a ghostly caricature of Kostelni\u010dka; the title character, the hounded victim of a narrow-minded community that will finally drive her to suicide; her two men, Tichon and Boris, distorted emanations of the characters of \u0160teva and Laca, the two perpetrators of the misfortune of the dishonoured girl from a Moravian village. This is not the way to go. As I wrote some time ago now, the key to understanding both K\u00e1t\u2019a<\/em> and its literary prototype, i.e. Alexander Ostrovsky\u2019s The Tempest<\/em>, is knowledge of the social history of Russia. Into this precise analysis of the conditions lying at the foundations of Russian despotism, into this commendation of passive resistance and painful hymn to freedom regained by death, Jan\u00e1\u010dek wove the experience of his own unhappy feelings for Kamila St\u00f6sslov\u00e1. K\u00e1t\u2019a Kabanov\u00e1 <\/em>is, however, a perversely optimistic opera: it is not Jen\u016ffa, but the unfaithful wife of Tichon who shatters the found order of things. She overcomes fear, shame and moral scruples to admit with reckless courage to her guilt. K\u00e1t\u2019a knows that the truth is going to come out regardless, so she takes matters into her own hands. She throws off the yoke imposed upon her and sets off on a journey. It is a pity that in her case, it will be at once her first and last \u2013 into the dark current of the Volga \u2013 but after all, one has to begin somewhere.<\/p>\n

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K\u00e1t\u2019a Kabanov\u00e1. <\/em>Trystan Ll\u0177r Griffiths (Kudrja\u0161) and Peter Wedd (Boris). Photo: Op\u00e9ra National de Lorraine<\/span>.<\/p>\n

Russian libertarians understood Ostrovsky\u2019s message, as did Jan\u00e1\u010dek \u2013 giving K\u00e1t\u2019a perhaps the most expansive and internally-nuanced role in his entire operatic \u0153uvre<\/em>. Most stage directors, even if they don\u2019t have a thorough knowledge of this text\u2019s conditions, do instinctively distribute the accents in accordance with the composer\u2019s will. Himmelmann decided to do otherwise. He placed the entire action of the opera in an enclosed space \u2013 otherwise phenomenally arranged on a two-level stage and, thanks to the masterful work of the technicians, maintained in continual silent motion \u2013 probably with the intent of emphasizing the atmosphere of growing oppression (stage design by David Hohmann). As a result, he weakened the tension contained in the libretto and the score, for it is not without reason that Jan\u00e1\u010dek shifts the action back and forth between the banks of the Volga and the stuffy interiors of the merchant\u2019s home. The German stage director shifted the action into the unspecified realities of Eastern Europe and equally indeterminate contemporary times (judging from Lili Wanner\u2019s costumes, the 1980s). He shut his protagonists up in a two-floor hotel-boarding house clearly run by Kabanicha. When there was no more reason for the protagonists to be present onstage, he packed them into the elevator, closed the hotel room doors behind them, or threw them into the wings. He turned all of the characters into one-dimensional caricatures. Kabanicha is a truly farcical hag; Tichon, a pitiful mama\u2019s boy; Boris, a common coward; Varvara and Kudrja\u0161, a pair of thoughtless egoists who will flee to Moscow at the first opportunity; and K\u00e1t\u2019a, a neurotic, sexually frustrated woman overtaken by guilt feelings. This interpretation of the main protagonist was emphatically highlighted by Himmelmann in the finale: when the scenery had finally disappeared from the stage, revealing the black abyss of the Volga (actually a very good idea), the farewell with Boris turned out to be a hallucination of K\u00e1t\u2019a, who was obliged to dialogue with a partner hidden in the wings.<\/p>\n

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Helena Juntunen (K\u00e1t\u2019a). Photo: Op\u00e9ra National de Lorraine<\/span>.<\/p>\n

It is amazing that with this kind of stage direction, the soloists did not get lost in their roles, and put on a masterful display of singing in accordance with Jan\u00e1\u010dek\u2019s idiom. Helena Juntunen \u2013 a technically superb Finnish soprano gifted with a dark and deep voice, but surprisingly girlish in expression \u2013 created a well thought-out interpretation of the character of K\u00e1t\u2019a, highlighted by a perfect understanding of the text and skill in picking out its characteristic micro-motifs (with phenomenally \u2018torn\u2019 sentences in the scene preceding the suicide). Superbly blended with her dense soprano was the metallic tenor of Peter Wedd (Boris), who \u2013\u00a0 thanks to abundant experience in the Wagner repertoire \u2013 did not fall into falsetto even once, and in several places showed a today-rare ability to sing a sonorous piano<\/em> on a long, beautifully-closed phrase (for example, the brilliant \u2018Jste to vy, Katerino Petrovno?\u2019). In vocal terms, \u00c9ric Huchet fully equaled him as Tichon \u2013 brighter in tone, superb in articulation, convincing as an actor in the completely unconvincing role imposed upon him by the stage director. Leah-Marian Jones, who too often replaced singing with noisy melo-recitation, did not do as well. I don\u2019t know, however, if anyone would be able to adapt the role of Kabanicha to such a concept for the interpretation of this character. An excellent performance was turned in by El\u00e9onore Pancrazi and Trystan Ll\u0177r Griffiths in the roles of Varvara and Kudrja\u0161. Aleksander Teliga once again successfully portrayed Dik\u00f3j, though his Czech sounds as enigmatic as the Polish of Mestwin in the recent Pozna\u0144 staging of Legend of the Baltic<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The real hero of the evening, however, turned out to be the conductor. Mark Shanahan brought out of this score the entire essence of Jan\u00e1\u010dek\u2019s late style: the contrasts of textures and motifs; utilization of instruments in unusual registers and, accordingly, surprising colouristic effects; polyrhythmic linking of measures; sudden changes of tempo. Most importantly, however, he did not try to forcibly \u2018prettify\u2019 K\u00e1t\u2019a<\/em> or smooth out its rough edges. Where necessary, he told the instruments to scream; elsewhere, to sob; yet elsewhere, to flow in waves like the Volga. And when the narrative required silence, he masterfully played silence in the orchestra. I do not doubt that he worked with equally meticulous care on the shape of every vocal phrase.<\/p>\n

What I ought to do now is wrap both of these shows up with a metaphorical ribbon and carefully place them in the treasury of my memory. I shall not hear such intelligently and solidly prepared performances any time soon. With all certainty \u2013 and that, soon \u2013 I shall see less intelligent stagings.<\/p>\n

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

One of them was born in Brno; the other spent most of his life there. Aside from that, they differed in every respect. Die tote Stadt \u2013 an opera by the 23-year-old Erich Korngold, the compositional Wunderkind whose ballet Der Schneemann had scored triumphs ten years earlier at the Vienna Hofoper \u2013 was sought out … [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-2763","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\/2763","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=2763"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2763\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2810,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2763\/revisions\/2810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}