I HEAR VOICES

Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle is an opera I knew from audio and video recordings, and this is not because I lacked the wish to see it live. I only had bad luck. Every time I tried to, something happened. Once I was supposed to watch it with the Berliner Philharmonic only to arrive at the Philharmonie and discover that the program has been mysteriously changed for a program featuring Weber’s Overture to Oberon plus music by Grieg and Brahms. But it seems that the spell has been broken, for this evening’s concert with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra had no surprises. The orchestra was there, the conductor and the singers too – and they performed Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle, in an intriguing paring with the prelude to act 3 of Dukas’s Ariane et Barbe-bleue and Nuages and Fêtes from Debussy’s Nocturnes.

Susanna Mälkki is a conductor I had seen only once, conducting a very transparent and objective performance of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde. She does not seem to be someone interest in effects. This is a work she has already recorded with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, and her approach this evening is very similar to what one hears on disc. If one has Antal Dorati’s CDs in mind, Ms. Mälkki’s conducting sounds immediately smoother in the way she more consistently wraps the remaining sections of the orchestra in strings and keeps a less excitable beat, steady in a somewhat continuous and subtle increase in tension to the scene of the fifth door and then naturally simmers down to the subdued ending. In a way, it matched the first part of the program, and also the nature of the voices chosen for this performance. The Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra was in great shape and proved to be an ideal vehicle to this conductor, offering gleaming yet never edgy nor heavy sonorities.

Hungarian mezzo Szilvia Vörös, whom I had seen as Suzuki in a Butterfly in the Vienna State Opera, is also the Judith in Ms Mälkki’s recording, and a very fine one in her youthful, bright and well-focused tone that pierces effortlessly through the orchestra even in the more outspoken passages. She is a vivid actress with an expressive face and handles the text in her native language very spontaneously. There is something clear-eyed in her characterization that makes a figure a bit one the one-dimensional side a bit more believable in her enthusiasm, impetuosity and final shock. John Relyea too recorded the title role with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra under Edward Gardner. His bass has always had a splash of the cavernous, but it has developed a lot in terms of volume since the days I first saw him at the Met. His singing in this role faintly reminds me of Robert Lloyd in terms of color. I don’t speak Hungarian and cannot say how convincing his pronunciation is, and yet he has an ideal attitude for the part. His singing sounds at once a tad sinister and imbued with a profound sadness, what more or less summarizes all the role is about. Watching both him and Ms. Vörös made me feel that a staging was entirely unnecessary.

A professor of Philosophy could use R. Strauss’s Elektra as a case study in Ontology. As much as he or she would mention the “chair-ness” of a chair, one could discuss of the Elektra-ness of a performance of Elektra. I mean, yes, there is Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s text, R. Strauss’s score and their concept of how both of them should be staged, but considering the practicality of making that happen, one could legitimately asking how much of the essence of Elektra the audience is getting when they sit through one random performance in the theatre.

An opera like Elektra involves so many challenges for all involved that the actual experience of interpreting it often ends up being more about the mechanics of performing it than about what it ultimately is supposed to mean. The most immediate effect for the audience is that more often than not one leaves the theatre talking about everything everybody _tried to_ do rather than what they effectively did. After all, what you’re supposed to get is so unrealistic that you would find it only in — and here I am again talking about Solti, Böhm and Karajan — a recording conducted by, say, Solti, Böhm or Karajan with the likes of Birgit Nilsson, Inge Borkh et al.

This afternoon in Tokyo’s New National Theatre, I have tried to keep my mind free of preconception. I was taking friends who had never seen the opera before and I kept imagining how they would be perceiving it, and in the end I wondered if they got any Elektra-ness in this afternoon’s Elektra. My guess is that they got very little or nothing. There was very little impact, edge, madness, power there for someone who would not know the idea of Elektra. Those who do, on the other hand, might have had some fun gauging how close these artists got in everything they tried.

Let’s start with Johannes Erath’s new staging for the New National Theatre. When one goes to an opera house to see this work, you generally know beforehand what you’re going to find: either some ruins or an industrial installation or a combination of both representing the outside of the palace in Mycenae. It is very rare to find any production of Elektra with any scene inside, although many references are made to what goes on in there. This makes sense because we see everything from Elektra’s viewpoint, and she insists that she has nothing to do with what goes inside. This is Chrysothemis’s business. And effectively the latter’s function in the play is mostly informing Elektra about that. This is why I have found Mr. Erath’s idea of bringing Elektra inside most intriguing, as this is after all a hard sell. There is something dark about Elektra’s locus outside in contrast with the courtly atmosphere indoors. So when you take the title role out of her element and place her in a brightly lit, white set with coffee tables, chandeliers, swing seats and characters dressed as the non-scary versions of a clown, you really need very powerful acting and singing if you want the audience to guess that there is something dark going on there. And this is exactly what is very difficult to find for a performance of Elektra. So I guess fortune does not always favor the bold. Anyway, one of the main ideas of Elektra (and of the concept of “hysteria”) is being trapped in a certain moment of time and refusing to grow out of it. Even if Elektra was no child when Agamemnon died (as we are supposed to infer from classical sources), ok, one can live with the director’s decision to portray the interior of the palace as a place of regression to this memory of a childhood before everything went south. However, Heike Scheele’s sets look so clean, so new, so normal that the atmosphere can’t help seeming plain and lackadaisical. Even if we actually saw someone being murdered in a place like that, we would believe it was a practical joke. There is nothing screaming “tragedy” there. And this makes the job for the singing actresses even more difficult; one has a hard time believing anything Elektra or Chrysothemis say in such an Ikea display.

When we speak of Kazushi Ono’s conducting, things are more circunstancial than conceptual. When you have a cast of singers almost entirely overparted in a score like Elektra, there is only one thing you can do, which is keeping the orchestra under leash. As much as you can strive to produce the edge with accent, tempo or color, there is a limit of how effective this is going to be and for how long. In that sense, Mr. Ono did a terrific job: he did help his singers, there was nothing to fault in the Tokyo Philharmonic’s playing, we even heard enough color in the restricted dynamic range and harmonic clarity proved to be a strong feature here. The scene with Klytämnestra, probably the best moment in the performance from the orchestral point of view, featured tonal ambiguity in a way that even someone who knows nothing about harmony would get. And yet “gutsy”, “”raw”, “visceral” or even “emotional” are not words I would use for this performance.

As much as this could not be called an ideal cast — how often does this happen in Elektra? — it was an interesting one. Aile Asszonyi is a singer I had seen only once before today, as Gutrune in Bayreuth, and there was nothing there that made me imagine she would end up singing Elektra. As it is, she manages by virtue of adaptation. Whenever the music screams for Hochdramatisch, she darkens the tone and muscles up. In those moments, anything above a high can be approximative. Her stamina is endless, and the gimmick does not tire her at all. In conversational passages, however, she keeps the natural color of her soprano, which is bright enough to pierce through. Then she proves to be capable of textual clarity and some dynamic variety. All that said, she knows what the role is about and even if you would prefer a voice more in keeping with what Strauss had in mind, this Estonian soprano builds somehow a vivid and even individual portrayal of the title role. Her Elektra is everything but deranged. In her interpretation, this woman is very much on top of her game and knows exactly what she is doing there. In a way, there is a “political” element in the way she is determined to end Klytämnestra and Ägysth’s regime and ready to use whatever weapon available to get this done. With word pointing and some tonal coloring, the irony, the manipulation, the insincerity, it is all made clear to the audience. It is almost a Iago-esque take on the role. This Elektra learned with the enemy and became like them. And maybe this is why she cannot survive their demise. She is too much of a part of it all. No need to say that the acting – including the vocal acting – was commendable.

Even if Hedvig Hagerud too finds the part of Chrysothemis heavy for her voice, she could not sound more contrasted to her Elektra, as this Norwegian soprano stood out in the cast by the naturalness of her singing. It is a voice on the tubular side, and this meant that the tone could get hooty, pinched and sometimes downright strained in more exposed passages, but she projects well. The directorial choices made for the role, which came across something infantile and clueless, made it sink in the background, though. Maybe a bit more tonal variety and freedom in the upper reaches would have filled in the blanks left by the Personenregie.

I was looking forward to seeing Mihoko Fujimura, the celebrated Japanese mezzo soprano famous from her appearances in Bayreuth and elsewhere. If her accuracy in some tricky passages and a still pleasant tonal quality in the middle register are praiseworthy, at this stage in her career she simply lacks volume for the part of Klytämnestra, especially in both ends of the tessitura. Egils Silins (Orest) looks way older than his “sisters”, and yet his voice remains in very good shape. Kazuma Kudo’s tenor is a bit warmer than what one usually hears in the part of Ägysth, and he deserves praise for really singing his notes during the off-stage assassination scene. Among the minor roles, Kasumi Shimizu should be mentioned as a firm-toned, incisive Third Maid.

This evening’s concert with the Promusica Baroque Academy involves an ambitious program with three cantatas for the first Sunday after Trinity (which may be celebrated either in May or June) in different years of Bach’s tenure as Kantor in Leipzig. The Cantata BWV 75, Die Elenden sollen essen (“The miserable shall eat”) happens to be the first work of this genre ever presented by the composer in Leipzig. Its first performance (at the Nikolaikirche) on May 30th 1723 was very well received by the congregation, as reported in a local newspaper at the time. Maybe because he was his debut in his new duties, Bach probably opted for a larger scale, as the cantata has two parts, both seven movements long. The first part was performed before the sermon, and the second thereafter. For some reason, Bach was in a French mood when he decided to compose this work on the theme of the uselessness of wealth as a means of gaining access to heaven. In his 1707 cantata Il Delirio Amoroso, Handel did use French style to portray the Elysium (in contrast to the Italian style of the passages in the underworld), but here Bach adds a Gallic taste both to characterize richness and poverty. The first part opens to a chorus in a structure similar to an overture: the open line is sung over an orchestra accompaniment with dotted rhythms, while the last line – Euer Herz sol1 ewiglich leben (“Your hearts will live forever”) – is set in the manner of a fugue. Also, all arias follow the pattern of a suite of French dances (a polonaise, a minuet, a passepied and a gigue). Both parts end with the chorale, Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan (“What God does is well done), here surprisingly arranged with a fully composed orchestral part, the melody of which is the base for the opening sinfonia for the second part of the cantata, in the structure of a choral fantasia.

As much as the BWV 75, the Cantata BWV 20, O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort (“O eternity, word of thunder”) has two parts and open to a chorus in the style of a French overture. This work was first heard in Leipzig on June 11th 1724, and it dwells on the subject of eternal damnation and employs many aural effects to illustrate its theme to the congregation – the long ascending notes for the word Ewigkeit in the cantus firmus, the moaning sound on the word bange (fearing) in the tenor aria, the bass exhorts the faithful to wake up with trumpets calls, tenor and alto team for a duet with rhythmic and harmonic irregularities to depict the routine of fear and anxiety that await those who have lived in richness and pleasure.

The Cantata BWV 39, Brich dem Hungrigen dein Brot (“Break with the hungry thy bread”) is the single item in the program that I have previously heard with the J. S. Bach Stiftung in Trogen. It was first performed in 1726, and it is famous for its complex opening chorus, highly sophisticated in terms of musical rhetorics. And the alto aria alone is worth the detour.

The choral works by Johann Sebastian Bach are extremely sensitive to the concert venue’s acoustics, not only because they often have complex polyphony, but also because they are meant to speak to the congregation. In other words, textual clarity is of utmost importance. My previous experience of hearing Bach in a big Catholic cathedral (at St. Gallen) was extremely disappointing, for the reverberant acoustics made it sound really like a chaotic mesh of sound. This is why I had many misgivings of hearing these cantata’s at St. Mary’s Cathedral, a cavernous structure in concrete by famous architect Tadao Ando. Maybe expectations are to blame, but the results were less problematic than in my imagination. The reverberation time was undeniably higher than ideal, but not so high as to make things tangled. Paradoxically, if the orchestra seemed clear enough, it sounded a tad dim if you were not seated just facing it, while the voices sounded drained of color, and it was hard to follow the text at all. In circumstances like those, conductors tend to play safe and go for more considerate tempi, but maestro Toshiki Tsumuraya seems to like challenge, by keeping it on the buoyant side, with dance rhythms to the fore and accents theatrical and intense. His choral forces – 4-3-3-3 – proved to be just on the right size for the space, and if the words were a bit hard to understand, the notes could be heard clearly enough. However, if the performances seemed right in atmosphere, style and faithfulness to the score, the venue had an alienating effect in its sheer size, lack of immediacy and impossibility of true nuance. It almost felt like hearing Bach in a place like Epidaurus or Orange (wind included, for the structure has a pleasing natural ventilation). To be honest, the overall impression was more of an event rather than a concert… until the opening chorus of the BWV 39, when everything somehow felt into place, especially the way the high register of the sopranos suddenly seemed to float above all other sounds for a chilling effect.

All that said, the vocal soloists (who also performed within the chorus) were probably the main victims of the peculiar acoustics. Among them, only Yuki Kuroda, who recently sang Dr. Schön with the Nikikai Opera at the New National Theatre, managed to really project into the hall in various dynamic levels and in all registers in his finely focused bass-baritone. The other bass in the program, the valuable Yusuke Koike had a tougher job with the lower tessitura in the BWV 20, and yet he managed through natural volume and some muscle. The lovely alto aria in the BWV 39 requires stronger low notes than what we heard this evening, and I wonder if the other countertenor featured as soloist, Toshiyuki Muramatsu would not have managed it more comfortably, as his low register is more solid and his tone has a metallic quality à la René Jacobs that helped him pierce through to the last seat. The instrumental soloists in the orchestra had an easier time and offered alert playing throughout, but trumpeter Hidenori Saito deserves praise for his bravura in the bass aria in the BWV 75.

As usual in the Promusica Baroque Academy series, a new piece is performed along with the Bach item. We had again a work by Kae Hirakawa, this time a choral piece, inspired by the hymn Allein Gott in der Höh’ sei Ehr by Nikolaus Decius in contrast to the choral melody with the Latin text of the Catholic mass for the Gloria. As much as in her orchestral concerto, it is all very cleverly crafted if not truly catchy (and a bit harmonically square), with the exception of the fourth movement for the orchestra alone, in which her ability to make something emotional of slow movements shows her at her best.

The Cantata BWV 174, Ich liebe den Höchsten von ganzem Gemüte (“I love the Highest with all my spirit”) is unique among Bach sacred works by the fact that the congregation during the service of Pentecost Monday in June, 6th, 1729 in Leipzig was probably surprised to hear, instead of an opening chorus, a whole concerto movement. Actually, an arrangement of the first part of what we call today the third Brandenburg Concerto including French horns (corni da caccia) and oboes. Music historians relate to the fact that the composer had been appointed director of the Collegium Musicum, an association of skilled amateur players who would volunteer for the church service as well. It is, ultimately, a puzzling work, in which every movement has its own atmosphere, what makes it rather a collection of ideas rather than a coherent statement.

The cantata takes its name from its first aria for alto and two oboes, a gentle piece of music with intertwining imitation in the obligato woodwind, what is a clever way of showing the idea of a spirit fully concentrated in faith. It is followed by an expressive recitativo accompagnato for the tenor, which makes way for a second aria, for the bass and a strings, Greifet zu (“Take hold”), dance-like and marked by a sequence of repeated notes has the effect of a musical finger snapping: “hey, this is your salvation we’re talking about!”. It ends by a chorale in which the congregation once more states its love for God.

As one would expect of Rudolf Lutz and the orchestra of the J.S. Bach-Stiftung, the conductor’s animated but never driven  beat, the warm orchestral playing and the embracing acoustics of the Kirche Trogen made it all a little bit more integrated. The strings in the opening number sounded full and flexible, the alto aria with singer and oboes in equal standing and a final chorus sung by soloists alone, well-balanced and coated in the orchestral sound. 

Even in a tricky tessitura, contralto Elvira Bill sang with homogeneity of tone and was not afraid of offering rich low notes, not to mention rhythmic precision. Bernhardt Bechthold sang his recitative expressively in a bright and light tenor. Sebastian Noack’s bass has a velvety, soft-textured quality that fits the spirit of his aria, which he sang with more focus in the second performance (after the intervention of writer Olivia El Sayed).  

When I first saw Stefan Herheim’s production of Wagner’s Ring for the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the circumstances were tense — in order to be admitted in the theatre, you had to produce a negative COVID test from the same day — and in the end I wondered if all that had some effect of my unfavorable opinion. This is why I thought it would be interesting to see it again (even if one single opera) to know how it would feel. Well, the virus is innocent. When I reread my impressions from four years ago, they are exactly the same from my experience this evening. There are new singers in the cast, though, and this changes the dynamic of interaction between everyone on stage. In this sense, I would say that the new cast has better chemistry. 

Trine Møller is the Brünnhilde I saw in the very special Ring from the Theater Basel. There she sang with refreshing lyricism, but I wondered how she would fare in this role in a bigger theatre. As it is, it is a voice that neither fills an auditorium in its medium-size volume nor flashes to the last row in its warm and round quality. So she needed some time to get the audience on her side. To be honest, she started on the right foot with an easy and ringing Ho-jo-to-ho. The scene with Siegmund, however, felt a bit-small scaled. It was on the third act that she worked her magic in her poised phrasing, sensitive rendition of the text, appealing tonal color and a quality difficult to describe, but I”ll try. Ms. Møller sings with disarming directness and true feeling. It is a rather subtle art, and one may legitimately expect something else in a dramatic soprano emplois. However, what she offers is unique in a way, and it is definitely worth the detour, even if for a change. I definitely prefer her acting here to Nina Stemme’s in the premiere, as she is more alert on stage and brings a youthful frisson to the part that fits the vulnerability she evokes in her singing. 

Elisabeth Teige was the Sieglinde last time, and her singing and acting remain expressive and appealing. Her voice has become softer in core, and exposed dramatic passages took her to her limits, what involved many a high note cut short of its written value and some flatness. One would not guess that she was someone singing roles like Turandot not long ago. She has now a very different figure too, and sometimes singers need a while to adjust their breath support in cases like that. 

Annika Schlicht’s Fricka has become a little bit more underlined in interpretation, her low register now fuller, but her high notes a bit edgier too. She remains a highly intelligent singer, with an original handling of the text and a strong stage presence. Another repeater of the first season is Tobias Kehrer, ideally cast as Hunding. I would even say that he seems now more comfortable in the role too. 

Matthew Newlin, whose parade role used to be Tamino until not long ago, has been developing toward heavier roles. He has a solid technique and the voice has enough volume and good projection too. Unlike most lyric tenors in heroic roles, he is very careful with the darkening of his passaggio in exposed moments. The long cries for “Wälse!” in act one, for instance, were very efficiently done, while the end of the act tested him a tad more. He sang with a clean line, clear diction and animation. His performance, in all aspects, was an improvement on what I heard four years ago. 

Jordan Shanahan was not the Wotan originally announced for this revival, and it was quite brave of him to appear in a role that requires both voice and physique a bit larger than his. As it was, he is probably the shortest Wotan I have ever seen! In vocal terms, if the voice is lighter and less voluminous than the part needs, it is admirable how he keeps it focused and full throughout his whole range. Moreover, he knows exactly what Wagner expects from the bass-baritone and provided plausible solutions in every occasion, even when he was noticeably fatigued during the third act. 

After having just heard Kent Nagano’s HIP Götterdämmerung only yesterday, I took some time to adjust to Donald Runnicles’ more “traditional” approach with the most Wagnerian of all orchestras. In the first act, his very regular beat made it all lack a bit passion, but from the second act on, the richness of the orchestral sound, the firmness of accent started to pay off in a grand scale. Act 3 was a tour de force, the Valkyries riding over a huge orchestra where you could still hear woodwind and violins and culminating on a powerful closing scene with large-scale flexible playing from the strings as we hear in old recordings from Bayreuth. 

The project of the Dresdner Musikfestspiele around historically informed concert performances of Wagner’s Ring meets its final stage in the current tour with the last item of the tetralogy, Götterdämmerung, presented today in Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie. 

I have seen both Das Rheingold and Siegfried in Lucerne and Die Walküre in Dresden, and maybe because of the size of the stage and its vineyard format, unlike in the other concerts singers  performed from a platform behind the orchestra. I had been in the Elbphilharmonie only once before for a piano recital, and therefore I cannot say for sure that the acoustics had the effect of making this Gotterdämmerung the richest in orchestral volume in the series, but that was my impression, and the combination of these two factors made it a bit harder for singers. 

This is not the first time I see Kent Nagano conduct this work. Actually, when he conducted the Ring in Munich, my impression too was that the conductor elicited from the orchestra a larger sound here than in the previous installments in the cycle. I would hear him  conduct Götterdämmerung once again, in Hamburg too, albeit in the Staatsoper, a performance that felt at the time fast in pace but short in drama and clarity. As much as in the other concerts in the project with the combined forces of the Dresdner Festspielorchester and the Concerto Köln, my impression couldn’t be more different this time. Mr. Nagano led an animated performance, the orchestra very much in the center of the dramatic action under a very flexible beat, what made moments like the infamously elusive scene at the Gibichungenhalle particularly effective. The reduced use of vibrato and a more balanced blend between sections also meant not only a gain in tonal variety, but also in clarity, especially horizontal clarity. I mean, phrases that often sound impressionistic sounded perfectly articulated for revelatory results. At moments – the prologue, for instance – one might miss the atmospheric effect of a deluxe German symphonic orchestra, but that’s a small price to pay for the experiment. 

In terms of singing, if the encouragement of the use of portamento (in the orchestra too) delivers immediate results in terms of legato, the replacement of everything too high for the tenor or too low for the soprano for a kind of parlando just seems like cheating. I personally consider it – whether this is authentic or not – more distracting than expressive. Other characteristic of this series is a preference for light voices, with variable results. For instance, Daniel Schmutzhard makes his Alberich cone to life by his incisive delivery of the text, tight focus and unfailing breath support. At first, Olivia Vermeulen (whom I last saw as Cherubino in Tokyo not long ago ) first seemed small-scaled as Waltraute, but grew during her scene, offering spacious low notes and a strong final high note (something many a famous Wagnerian mezzo sometimes miss). However, Johannes Kammler’s Gunther was sonetimes hard to hear and he sounded increasingly tired with the effort of singing at his 100%. 

Åsa Jäger has many advantages for this repertoire.  Her soprano is naturally voluminous, full-toned and warm, with exciting big acuti. She is still finding her way through the role of Brünnhilde, being the single member of the cast reading from the score. In the Immolation Scene, her nerves got the better of her. She missed some entries and looked unwell (and a tad upset during the final applause), but I dont think anyone in the hall found her performance less praiseworthy because of that. She is the real deal in terms of Wagnerian singing, and it is exciting to know she is going to be even better with time and experience. 

Young Woo Kim, a name entirely new to me, brought an intriguing combination of a warm sound and forceful projection to the role of Siegfried. When he mustered his resources and produced some beefy, dark heroic notes, the effect was Golden age impressive, but he would often go for an open-toned, Charaktertenor-like sound when things became high and/or fast, with a touch-and-go approach to extreme high notes. He has extraordinary stamina, exceptional diction and attitude to spare. I wonder what he would do in a role like Tristan or Parsifal. 

I saw Patrick Zielke as Hagen in Basel two years ago. Back then, I thought that his voice was bit noble for the role and that he had to distort it to sound mean. His voice has developed since then, and I believe that he could now deliver his notes straight and produce the right impression, and yet he seems to rely more in the bad-guy little effects that sound added upon rather than echt. Yes, a bass like Matti Salminen would sing the role of Hagen like that, but there was something naturally raw in his voice and stage persona that made the audience believe it couldn’t be otherwise. In any case, regardless of your impression of this evening’s take on the role as either mannered or characterful, it was intelligently crafted and everything but boring. 

Among the singers in minor roles, Jasmin Etminan (First Norn) deserves mention for her rock-solid, spacious mezzo. 

Premiered in Berlin in 1954 at the Komiache Oper in a staging by Walter Fesenstein with Hans Reinmar, Richard Strauss’s Die schweigsame Frau was first presented in the Lindenoper only last year, and the production with more or less the same cast and conductor is being currently revived. It is by no means a “repertoire opera”, as it requires a great deal of rehearsal, not only because the score is very complex, with many big ensembles, but also because the stage action is not very simple in its comedy scenes with lots of physical interaction involving the whole cast. 

Christian Thielemann is very much considered a reference in the music of Richard Strauss, and his conducting in Salzburg both in Die Frau ohne Schatten and Capriccio are among the most memorable nights at the opera in my experience. However, after one of his performance of Ariadne auf Naxos in Dresden, my impression of the comedy scenes was that they required a conductor capable of relaxing. At the time, the idea of seeing him in a slapstick comedy such as Die schweigsame Frau would have struck me as improbable. And here we are, taking note of how Strauss’s and Stefan Zweig’s partnership finally made Mr. Thielemann let the hair down and go with the flow. 

I have previously seen 1 1/3 performances of this work – first in Munich, when Stefan Soltesz’s death mid first act cut tragically short the proceedings and then Mariame Clement’s staging in Karlsruhe. Both times, the maestros in charge opted for an extremely transparent approach, with chamber-music-like orchestral sound and very precise ensembles, more or less in the spirit of Wolfgang Sawallisch’s video from the Bavarian State Opera with Reri Grist’s and Kurt Moll’s irreplaceable performances as Aminta and Morosus. This is why it was so fascinating to discover Mr. Thielemann’s large gestures, expansive orchestral playing, bold tempi and a very much big-picture take on this score, with pretty much enough leeway for his singers to savor the text and respond to the stage action. I mean, it was clear that the cast was really having fun (in spite of all inherent difficulties in their roles), what is essencial for comedy. And all purely orchestral pages and more lyrical moments shone in Schwung and beauty of sound. Many members of the audience could not repress their “grossartig” or “Wahnsinn!” at the end of each act. 

If Jan Philipp Gloger’s production superimposes to the plot a discussion about old age, loneliness and house shortage these days in Berlin in a rather heavy-handed manner, this is a relevant theme of discussion that ultimately did not stood in the way of a funny and detailed Personenregie with appealing sets and costumes and creative touches. I mean, everybody laughed in every moment when we were supposed to. 

Although Peter Rose’s bass has now some rusty patches and the extreme low notes do not come as easily as in the past, he plunged in the role of Sir Morosus with all he’s got, what ultimately made the occasional liabilities in terms of intonation and precision assets from the standpoint of interpretation and naturalness. He was extremely well partnered by Samuel Hasselhorn’s hilarious Schneidebart, pleasant of tone and crispy in textual delivery. Siyabonga Maqungo sang the part of Henry Morosus with admirable naturalness, cantabile and juicy top notes. Brenda Rae’s soprano is a tad unfocused in the middle register — and one misses some of her lines therefore — and yet her high notes are easy and never piercing and she has some reserves of power for the moments when Tímida becomes a virago. She is also a terrific comedy actress. It is difficult to speak of small roles, as everyone was very well cast both in the vocal and acting departments. So I’ll mention the whole team  Serafina Starke (Isotta), Rebecca Wallroth (Carlotta), Dionysios Avgerinos (Morbio), Manuel Winckhler (Vanuzzi) and Friedrich Hamel (Farfallo), but Evelyn Herlitzius’s presence onstage as the housekeeper made this evening even more special. 

One fascinating page in the history of the Cold War in Berlin involves the oldest coral association in the world, the Singakademie zu Berlin, which famously appeared in Mendelssohn’s performances of Bach’s Matthäus-Passion. As their old home at Unter den Linden was destroyed in WW2, rehearsals had to took place somewhere in West Berlin at as the association reassumed their activities in the 1950’s. When the Berlin Wall was finally built, the members who lived on the east side could no longer cross. As it was, conductor Helmut Koch decided to found in 1963 in East Berlin a new association in the spirit of the old one called “Berliner Singakademie”. With the reunification, both associations remained separated to this day. In 1975, Mr. Koch was replaced by Dietrich Knothe, who was himself replaced in 1989 by Achim Zimmerman. This evening, Mr. Zimmerman conducted his farewell concert for reason of his retirement. As it couldn’t be otherwise, the program features the music of Johann Sebastian Bach: the Mass in B minor. 

Conducting non-professional singers in baroque choral music is extremely challenging. Even if Bach himself terrorized the malnourished young people in his chorus into reaching acceptable levels of accomplishment, I doubt that the results were anything near, say, John Eliot Gardiner’s Monteverdi Choir. In other words, there is something “authentic” in hearing “natural” voices in this repertoire, in spite of all the risks involved. For instance, they blend more naturally, as tenors and basses, as much as sopranos and altos, tend to be a little closer in color in these circumstances. 

Mr. Zimmerman, being a master of his art, took the challenge a step further by using a very large chorus of nearly 100 hundred singers. As it was, this concert was a lesson in finding the optimal level of balance between objectives and the means at hand. In terms of choral singing, this meant finding the tempo closest to ideal in which articulation and clarity were still manageable. When a pace a tad slower had to be chosen, accent would invariably make for the loss in animation. And the vital, spirited playing of the Lautten Compagney Berlin proved to be the secret ingredient for this concert’s success. Mr. Zimmerman’s lifelong experience with this score meant that he knows exactly what the listener needs to hear at exactly the right time to find his or her way through Bach’s complex concoctions. You’d find the entrance of every fugal subject highlighted just for you, every key element of the structures sharply defined. In other words, it almost felt like reading the score, albeit in all naturalness and expressive power. If all instrumental solos were played with great finesse, the trumpeters deserve special mention for their paramount level of technical finish. To make things better, the Berlin Konzerhaus’s acoustics proved to be instrumental to the success of the evening, as they made for absolute transparency without an impression of dryness. 

Excellent solo singing crowned this fascinating performance. Marie Luise Werneburg, whom I have often seen in concerts with the J.S. Bach Stiftung, St. Gallen, sang with a refreshing boy-soprano-ish purity and accuracy of articulation. Henriette Gödde’s mezzo is rich in color and voluminous enough to sail through the passaggio with minimal tonal manipulation. Shimon Yoshida, a regular with the Bach Collegium Japan, sang the tenor solos in the grand manner, his voice a tad brighter in the tone than one year ago at the Suntory Hall. Last but not least, Tobias Berndt has an ideal voice for Bach, his bass clear and flexible with surprising reserves of color and depth in the lower reaches. 

Before I went to the theatre to see the fourth performance of Bizet’s Les Pêcheurs de Perles ever to take place in the Vienna State Opera (yes, the house premiere was only 10 days ago), I have run in my mind my memories of seeng this opera live in the theatre, which made me gradually change my feelings about it. After having seen it in concert in Berlin with an ideal cast, I wrote that the work’s beautiful moments compensate a bad libretto and formulaic numbers. Twelve years later, my impressions of Jens-Daniel Herzog’s production for the Opernhaus Zürich involved a comment in which the plot was described as “relatable”, the orchestration as “imaginative” and its melodies as “exquisite”. 

To be honest, I was influenced by the fact that I had given an extra ticket to a co-worker who had never been to an opera house, and she was so overwhelmed by the experience that she has been returning ever since. This evening’s performance, however, made me think if I would still say something on those lines. And the answer is “yes and no”.  The plot is obviously absurd, and yet it turns around the very relatable sensation of keep living past one’s own frustrated expectations and dreams. And if Bizet understandably indulged in following convention and trends, he did manage to compose music filled with melancholy and longing. I wonder if this evening performance would convert anyone to this work’s charms, though. 

Yes, kitsch is a strong element of Les Pêcheurs de Perles, in the context of the artificiality and incoherence behind orientalism. Therefore, one should not blame the pronounced kitsch for the ultimate inefficiency of Ersan Mondtag’s staging, but rather the director’s decision to stage his _opinion_ of the libretto rather than the libretto itself. As it is, we are shown his criticism of the exploration of poorly paid workforce in “exotic” countries by the fashion industry, but Leila, Nadir and Zurga (and the chorus) just stand and deliver throughout with the occasional stock gesture. In terms of structure, the staging also looks unbalanced with the first scene alone set in a dyehouse, while all remaining scenes take place in a shopping mall. Costumes and sceneries tawdry here and there. 

Daniele Rustioni’s forward-moving tempi and transparent orchestral sounds did create a dreamlike atmosphere that fits the spirit of this work on paper, but had the side effect of playing down its emotional voltage. As it is, the performance only started to take off in the third act. As the role of Leila requires a voice of immediate charm, I took a while to adjust to Kristina Mikhitaryan’s grainy and squally soprano. I would say she also took a while to warm, but from Je frémis, je chancelle she reached her optimal point, proving capable of admirable expansion in exposed high notes, beside the floating pianissimo she displayed since her entrance. In the present condition of his tenor, Juan Diego Flórez’s high notes lack the impetuosity of his prime, and without the resource of voix mixte his Je crois entendre encore felt a bit earthbound (and shorn of the unwritten ending with the high c). His French is very clear and he avoids Italian opera mannerisms. Ludovic Tezier’s Zurga was in altogether another level in terms of volume, color and slancio. If he did not sound young enough to be a childhood friend of Nadir or a plausible suitor to Leila (and he seemed to be on autopilot at moments), his singing was very much the raison d’être of this performance. If the orchestra offered its hallmark light touch, the choral singing lacked clarity. 

Dimitri Tcherniakov is a director whose contortionistic stagings of Italian and German opera have always seemed to me very Russian in his attempt of making sense of the Western European Weltanschauung. And this is why I was so curious about how would be his approach in the repertoire of his own country, especially an opera like Tchaikovsky’s Evgeny Onegin. During a tour in the Bolshoi, I asked my guide – a woman in her early 20’s – if she liked opera. She said “no”. “Not even Onegin?” And her answer was: everybody in Russia likes Evgeny Onegin. 

The current Vienna State Opera production of this work was first seen in the Bolshoi, and it seems that the audience in Moscow too was curious about what Tcherniakov would do with this revered work in the most traditional stage in Russia. As it is, this could be said to be this director’s most conservative staging. He does not need to reread it to understand a story that comes naturally to him. So there is no subplot, no play in the play. The story is told more or less as it is. More “less” than “more”, as the staging is on the minimalistic side. All scenes are told in a dining room. First, a white one just like those we see in paintings by Hammershøi, which is the one of the Larin family. Then it is transformed in a red salon for the scenes in Moscow. 

The first thing one notices is how Russian everybody behaves. The limits between comedy and tragedy, sincerity and hypocrisy, sense and sensibility are not very clear, and many of the ambiguities in Pushkin’s novel end up replaced by a certain pragmatism more relatable to a post-USSR Russia mindset. Maybe that explains the fact that sets and costumes do not make clear when the action takes place. It could be anything between 1870 and 1970. For instance, Olga here has clearly lost her patience with Lensky’s immaturity. This relationship would not last long even if he had survived the duel. Also, Onegin has no intention of killing his friend, accidentally shot when he tries to take the weapon out of the distraught young man’s hands. Most importantly, Gremin is not fantasizing that his wife is the most honest person he knows, as she here confesses that she loves Onegin and informs her husband she is receiving him in their salon (with the purpose of dismissing him). She even leaves the room on the Prince’s arm, what makes Onegin’s humiliation even more bitter. 

As usual with this director, the Personenregie is extremely detailed, all characters shown under a complex light, but I would have preferred less bouts of laughing while someone is singing, even more so for the laughing sounded terribly artificial after a while. 

The combination of Mr. Tcherniakov’s direction and Timur Zangiev’s conducting deserves some consideration. Last time I saw Onegin at the Vienna State Opera, we also had a Russian conductor (Kirill Petrenko), whose forward-moving tempi allied to the Viennese transparent orchestral sound made for an agitated but ultimately superficial impression. Mr. Zangiev’s reading could not be more different in his considerate pace, smooth orchestral sound with all corners rounded off, what made for a rather bittersweet atmosphere, almost cinematographic in its unexaggerated angle. In it, Tatiana writes her letter in a manner touching rather than heroic and Lensky goes to his death in a melancholic rather than depressive mood. The problem remains the last scene, which requires something far more intense and dramatic. No wonder the audience’s response was less immediate towards the end of the opera.  Little by little, one could hear people coughing, talking and getting fidgety in their seats. 

The final scene eluded not only the conductor, but also the singers in this cast. Predictably, Asmik Grigorian’s Tatyana was the main source of interest in the musical side of the show. Every phrase and line in her part was delivered with obvious careful consideration of its musical and theatrical effect. While the basic sound of her soprano was warm and clear, what suggested youth and affection, she also floated exquisite mezza voce throughout and sang with spontaneous sense of line. If this means that she shone whenever Tchaikovsky requires a lyric quality from the soprano, her voice shied away whenever the writing required a more “spinto” attitude, most notably in the final scene, when her acuti lacked core and remained on stage rather than flash into the auditorium. All that said, her very personal account of the role offered endless fascination during the whole evening. 

Boris Pinkhasovich too sang the part of Onegin with subtlety and good taste in a velvety baritone. His voice and stage presence, though, seemed more fatherly than leading man-ish, and again the closing scene requires more punch than he could offer. Provided that you were ready to accept a Lensky in Mozartian format and volume, Bogdan Volkov sang with great finesse and musicianship. He also acted in the grand manner, looking very convincing as the oversensitive poet. Here he got to sing the couplets intended to Monsieur Triquet too. Daria Sushkova brought a voice of enviable substance and firmness to the role of Olga, but managed to resist the temptation of oversinging. Dmitry Ulyanov is a singer I had previously heard only in character roles, and it was curious to hear him as a less than patrician Gremin. Last but not least, it was endearing to see Elena Zaremba as congenial Filipevna.