{"id":3070,"date":"2018-06-21T14:44:43","date_gmt":"2018-06-21T12:44:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/atorod.pl\/?p=3070"},"modified":"2018-07-11T00:03:55","modified_gmt":"2018-07-10T22:03:55","slug":"two-tales-of-transfiguration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/?p=3070","title":{"rendered":"Two Tales of Transfiguration"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018And his raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow; so as no fuller on earth can white them,\u2019 we read in Mark\u2019s Gospel. The Transfiguration on Mount Tabor was a real Verkl\u00e4rung<\/em>. A terrifying brightness blinded Jesus\u2019 three disciples and filled them with fear mixed with awe. It took them into another dimension, the brilliance of which icon painters have brought out via contrast, juxtaposing it with an image of a black sun. Wagner\u2019s Tristan arrives from the world of night. And Wagner\u2019s Dutchman, from the mists of the past, on a ship with black masts and sails as red as blood. Neither of them will find happiness in the human world of daylight. Both will unite with their loved ones through death and transfiguration, thanks to the redeeming power of love. In the finale of Der fliegende Holl\u00e4nder <\/em>\u2013 amended by the composer in 1860, a year after finishing work on Tristan \u2013 <\/em>we shall hear a luminous cadence bringing to mind inevitable associations with the final bars of Isolde\u2019s Liebesverkl\u00e4rung<\/em>. The darkness recedes, the music pulsates with a blinding brilliance, the audience freezes in silent awe. At least that is how it should be.<\/p>\n

This time, I decided to combine my annual pilgrimage to Longborough \u2013 that is, the \u2018English Bayreuth\u2019 \u2013 with a visit to the \u2018Bayreuth on the Danube\u2019. The Budapest Wagner Days \u2013 initiated in 2006 by \u00c1d\u00e1m Fischer at the newly-opened Palace of the Arts, the design of which alluded loosely to the premises of the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris \u2013 have over the ensuing years built themselves a reputation as one of the major festivals of the German master\u2019s music. From the beginning, Fischer set himself the goal of competing with the Wagnerian theatre on the Green Hill. At the Palace of Arts, since 2014 called M\u00fcpa Budapest, he has at his disposal the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra (excellent, though not as good as the Budapest Festival Orchestra conducted by his younger brother Iv\u00e1n) and the B\u00e9la Bart\u00f3k Concert Hall \u2013 with a concert stage that can be transformed into a quite expansive opera stage with orchestra pit, which permits Wagner\u2019s works to be presented almost as if in a \u2018real\u2019 theatre. The big attraction for the audience is, above all, the names of the singers, which Fischer can take his sweet time choosing \u2013 though it is hard to call him an experimenter. Budapest is thus visited by often no-longer-young performers who have associated with this repertoire for years. This was also the case with this year\u2019s Tristan<\/em>, in which the title role was entrusted to Peter Seiffert, and the character of King Marke was portrayed by Matti Salminen. Anja Kampe (Isolde), announced in the original program, was replaced at the last minute by American soprano Allison Oakes, who among other things is preparing to appear in the dual role of Elisabeth and Venus in Tannh\u00e4user <\/em>next season on the stage of Deutsche Oper Berlin.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Tristan und Isolde <\/em>at the M\u00fcpa. Allison Oakes (Isolde). Photo: Zs\u00f3fia P\u00e1lyi. <\/span><\/p>\n

After last year\u2019s Tristan<\/em> with the Longborough Festival Opera, which will long \u2013 and perhaps forever \u2013 remain the model production for me, I traveled to Budapest full of anxiety. Some of them turned out to be justified, most of them turned out to be baseless, but most importantly: what awaited me was a short, unexpected and shocking experience on the order of my impressions from the little Bayreuth in the Cotswolds. I shall begin with the disappointments to put them behind me: the six creators of the staging (director Cesare Lievi, stage designer Maurizio Bal\u00f2, costume designer Marina Luxardo and the three people responsible for the lighting and video projections) managed to litter the stage of the M\u00fcpa with a ton of distracting objects and images, while the singers were basically left to their own devices, at times indeed making it difficult for them to build dramatic tension. As a result, Tristan\u2019s acting was limited to sitting and lying on an enormous purple sofa taken, as it were, straight from a Turkish lounge furniture catalogue (furthermore, the sofa gradually disintegrated: in Act\u00a0II, it began to tip dangerously; and in Act\u00a0III, all that was left of it was the frame), and the rest of the singers \u2013 though somewhat more mobile \u2013 did not enter into any relationships with each other. Furthermore, it would be tough to find that surprising, given that the protagonists had to perform their great duet against a background of colorful projections with jellyfish and seaweed, and Tristan\u2019s death scene was dominated by a thicket of leafless trees undulating on the screen. Another thing that would have looked even worse in a real theatre, so I really shouldn\u2019t complain.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Tristan und Isolde, <\/em>the final scene. Boaz Daniel (Kurwenal), Peter Seiffert (Tristan), Allison Oakes, Atala Sch\u00f6ck (Brang\u00e4ne), Matti Salminen (King Marke). Photo: Zs\u00f3fia P\u00e1lyi. <\/span><\/p>\n

The playing of the Hungarian Philharmonic largely made up for the deficiencies in the staging. \u00c1d\u00e1m Fischer treats Wagner\u2019s material completely differently from Krauss, B\u00f6hm or Negus \u2013 in terms of both the shaping of the architecture, and the building of the narrative as a whole. Instead of diversifying the colours, he consciously unifies them, avoids drastic expressive contrasts, \u2018smooths\u2019 the edges, doesn\u2019t pour out the tale in a broad stream, but rather divides it up into smaller, self-contained mini-stories. But he has under his baton an ensemble sufficiently alert that such an interpretation is not disturbing to the ears, especially since the music flows forward quite fast, without getting bogged down in musical verbiage. In purely vocal terms, Fischer chose a dream cast: every role, even the most episodic, was assigned to a stylish performer with flawless technique. However, I would have preferred that Seiffert \u2013 astounding in the freshness of his tenor and very convincing in Act\u00a0I \u2013 have taken more of an interest during Act\u00a0III in his character\u2019s inhuman suffering; and that Oakes \u2013 gifted with a dense and dark soprano \u2013 have really let us feel that she was experiencing a luminous transfiguration over the dead body of her beloved. I don\u2019t know in what measure this is the stage director\u2019s fault, and in what measure the conductor\u2019s, because all of the soloists in the production struggled with similar problems in drawing their characters. With the sole, riveting exception of Matti Salminen, who managed to combine everything in King Marke\u2019s monologue: imperious dignity, crushing disappointment and a desperate desire to understand something to which he has no access. The venerable Finnish bass gave us a creation complete in every inch which will long \u2013 if not forever \u2013 remain in my memory as an unattainable model of deep interpretation marked by the wisdom of age.<\/p>\n

Two days after the Budapest Tristan<\/em>, I landed in the bucolic scenery of the Longborough Festival Opera, which presented Der fliegende Holl\u00e4nder<\/em>, the first of the season\u2019s four productions, on an incomparably smaller budget. In all Wagnerian endeavours under Anthony Negus\u2019 baton, one senses an extremely different approach to the matter: the music director of the LFO chooses the cast of his shows from among singers less well-known yet completely fitting into his vision of the work. And he works with them until they drop \u2013 as with the orchestra \u2013 polishing every phrase, bringing out all of the \u2018peculiarities\u2019 from the score, without trying to tailor them to the contemporary listener\u2019s tastes. What I could expect from a Holl\u00e4nder <\/em>in Negus\u2019 interpretation, I already more or less knew after his appearance last year on the podium of the Philharmonisches Orchester der Hansestadt L\u00fcbeck. I got the same, but with interest. An overture in which \u2013 despite sporadic slip-ups in the brass \u2013 the wind basically smacked one in the face, the sails flapped, and the keel creaked under pressure from the water. The score\u2019s Weberisms and Marschnerisms, highlighted with charm and all the more distinctly showing the contrast between the conventional world of ordinary mortals and the lushly Romantic, extremely individual musical language of the two protagonists. The superbly-prepared choral scenes, especially the beginning of Act\u00a0III, in which Negus several times juxtaposed a deadly silence with a desperate fortissimo<\/em> \u2013 thereby obtaining an effect worthy of the best horror films.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Der fliegende Holl\u00e4nder<\/em> at the LFO. The Sailors’ Chorus. Photo: Matthew Williams-Ellis.<\/p>\n

The revelation of the production turned out to be New Zealand\u2019s Kirstin Sharpin in the role of Senta \u2013 a prizewinner at the Internationaler Wettbewerb f\u00fcr Wagnerstimmen in Karlsruhe and holder of a scholarship from the British Wagner Society, gifted with a sonorous soprano, of extraordinarily gorgeous timbre and beautifully open in the upper register. Simon Thorpe (Dutchman), phenomenal in terms of character, took a long time to warm up, to the detriment of the monologue \u2018Die Frist ist um\u2019 from Act\u00a0I \u2013 nevertheless, in the ecstatic duet \u2018Wie aus der Ferne\u2019, he and Sharpin both reached the heights of vocal expression. A clear contrast with Thorpe\u2019s gorgeous baritone was created by the deep and slightly gravelly bass of Richard Wiegold (Daland), set in the Singspiel convention. The indisposed Eric Stoughton had a few difficult moments in Act\u00a0III: that said, it has been a long time since I have heard such a convincing Erik, telling his prophetic dream about the mysterious visitor (\u2018Auf hohem Felsen\u2019) with such sensitivity and musicality. Separate words of praise are due to Carolyn Dobbin in the role of Mary, and especially to William Wallace, whose youthful, heartbreakingly lyrical Steersman brought to mind the Dutchman back in the days before he was cursed to wander eternally.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Simon Thorpe (The Dutchman) and Kirstin Sharpin (Senta). Photo: Matthew Williams-Ellis.<\/p>\n

All of these musical miracles played out in an intimate space developed by stage director Thomas Guthrie, stage designer Ruth Patton and the inestimable Ben Ormerod, responsible for the stage lighting. Yet again, I have the impression that the creators of the Longborough productions are paying homage to the visionary ideas of Wieland Wagner from the golden seasons in Bayreuth. On a nearly empty stage painted with lighting, what reigns is theatrical illusion. Daland\u2019s non-existent ship arrives on a non-existent coast, but despite this, we follow with suspense the sailors\u2019 manoeuvres suggested by a slow parade of extras floating across the back of the stage, carrying the entire port city in their hands: miniature models of houses, a church, a lighthouse. The ghostly voices of the Dutchman\u2019s sailors in Act\u00a0III waft in on a primitive Bush transistor radio. Just before Senta\u2019s ballad, when the musical narrative freezes in unbearable suspense, Mary nervously winds thread onto a spool \u2013 in the rhythm of the clearly accented, ostinato<\/em> figures in the strings.<\/p>\n

\u2018This is theatre. \/ And theatre exists \/ so that all will be different from before,\u2019 wrote the recently-deceased Joanna Kulmowa in one of her poems. So that we will see in a ladder \u2013 a stairway to heaven; and in a bowl under the stairs \u2013 the moon. So that we will all experience transfiguration and rise above the earth in a dazzling blaze of rapture. Success again in Longborough. I have a feeling there will be success next year in Budapest too.<\/p>\n

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

\u2018And his raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow; so as no fuller on earth can white them,\u2019 we read in Mark\u2019s Gospel. The Transfiguration on Mount Tabor was a real Verkl\u00e4rung. A terrifying brightness blinded Jesus\u2019 three disciples and filled them with fear mixed with awe. It took them into another dimension, the brilliance … [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":["entry","post","publish","author-mangusta","post-3070","format-standard","category-posts-in-english","category-wedrowki-operowe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3070","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=3070"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3070\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3122,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3070\/revisions\/3122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}