September 2010 – Likely Impossibilities

Ich kann nicht sitzen: Standing Room at the Musikverein and Philharmoniker

September 26, 2010 1 Comment

Vienna’s Musikverein is famous for its golden-ness, its acoustics, and one of its home orchestras, the sexist bastards known as the Wiener Philharmoniker. Indeed, the place sure is shiny and sounds pretty. The Wiener Symphoniker, ORF RSO Wien, Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich, and lots of touring orchestras play there too, as well as many recitalists and chamber music groups.

The Musikverein, located just south of the Ring off Karlsplatz, is an unmissable stop on the tourist trail, but is hardly a model of institutional innovation. Individual programs can be good, but tend towards the conservative. The season as a whole lacks variety (something we will look at more shortly in my Duplicate Programming Watch), there are few reduced-price ticket programs, and their website is a bit on the primitive side (though it nicely identifies the encores performed at past concerts). However, if you’re in Vienna and haven’t seen and heard it, you really have to go.

Their standing room isn’t the best and sometimes resembles a contact sport, but it gets the job done, after a fashion. Also, if you were thinking of going to the New Year’s Concert, you should probably forget about it. I can’t help you with that, anyways.

1. Basics
The Musikverein has two main spaces: the Großer Saal (big hall) and Brahms-Saal (a recital hall). The Brahms-Saal doesn’t have standing room, but you can get restricted-view seats for around 5 Euros. The Großer Saal is where you will hear orchestras and a few bigger-deal recitals and chamber groups. Both are rectangular “shoebox” theaters with one balcony; the standing room in the Großer Saal is located in the back of the ground level, under the balcony.

Tickets are bought in advance on the Musikverein website or at the ticket office, located on the north side of the building (look for signs for the Konzertkassa). They go on sale at the same time seats do (two months minus one week before the concert) and cost 6 Euros. You can buy as many as you want. They are usually easy to get even the day of the concert with the exception of Wiener Philharmoniker concerts, which often sell out.

2. Wiener Philharmoniker standing room tickets
Standing tickets for many Philharmoniker concerts at the Musikverein are sold by the Philharmoniker directly. You can see the orchestra’s schedule here. The tickets for concerts in the first two categories, “Abonnementkonzerte” and “Soiréen”, are sold at the Philharmoniker’s ticket office according to their (totally different) policies. The Philharmoniker’s office is a five-minute walk north from the Musikverein on the Ring (Kärtnerring, just counter-clockwise from the Oper, the “outer” side). They sell the standing tickets for each Abonnementkonzert and Soirée starting the Monday morning before the concert, in person only. You can try later in the week too but don’t count on anything.

The Musikverein’s printed program says “ausverkauft” for all the Abonnementkonzerte and Soiréen, but that doesn’t mean the standing room is sold out, just that the seats are. Which they always are. (What’s the difference between an Abonnementkonzert and a Soirée? Unless you are a subscriber or aspire to become one [good luck with that], the only difference is Soiréen are always on weekdays, Abonnementkonzerte on weekends.)

Tickets for the Philharmoniker concerts listed under “Zusätzliche Konzerte” are available at the box office of whatever venue or organization is producing the concert following that presenter’s policies–the Musikverein, the Konzerthaus, etc. For example, the October 19 Philharmoniker concert with Mahler 6 is already on sale at the Musikverein box office, but standing tickets for the previous weekend’s Bruckner Abonnementkonzert won’t be on sale until Monday, October 11 at the Philharmoniker box office.

Don’t ask me why it’s like this, I’m guessing it has something to do with a contract signed in approximately 1893. Things don’t change very fast here–just look at these groups’ websites.

3. The evening of the concert
Once you have your ticket, no matter where you bought it, show up an hour or so before the concert and get in line for the hall to open. If it’s a big concert and you want to be able to see anything at all, show up earlier. If you don’t care if you can see, show up whenever. Check your coat and large bags downstairs beforehand, you can’t bring them into the hall. There are two lines, one for house left and one right. When it’s time to claim spots the ushers let everyone in and there is a rapid free-for-all into the big open space that constitutes standing room. The first row of spots disappear in the blink of an eye, go as fast as you possibly can. The people in the front can lean on the bar marking off the space and see stuff, as long as they aren’t behind a pillar (which always happens to me). Everyone else is just standing in the big open area, craning their necks. The big disadvantage is that you don’t have anything to lean on unless you are in the front. It’s pretty uncomfortable.

If an usher appears in standing room 10-15 minutes before the performance, run towards him or her as fast as you can, because he or she might have free extra tickets and will give you a seat. It only happens occasionally, though.

Not the best way to experience a concert, if you ask me, but seats at the Musikverein can be pricey and hard to get. The Staatsoper standing room is an excruciating process for a big reward, this is an easy process for a less awesome prize. But it works.

Review

Ich kann nicht sitzen: Standing Room at the Vienna State Opera

September 24, 2010 16 Comments

So, you’re visiting Vienna and you want to go to the opera. Your guidebook suggests that you avail yourself of the many cheap standing room (Stehplatz) tickets sold on the day of each performance, but that’s just about all it says. If you want to know waaaay more than is necessary about the mechanics of the ritual that is the Wiener Staatsoper’s standing room, here’s your guide.

I’m assuming you’ve already decided to go to the Vienna State Opera (Wiener Staatsoper). If they’re not your thing for some reason but you still want to go to a performance in Vienna, you should also consider the Theater an der Wien, Musikverein, Konzerthaus (no standing room), or Volksoper. I will write about these venues’ ticket policies later.

And: if you have any aspiration to see actual art onstage, absolutely never buy a concert ticket from anyone dressed as Mozart. Read on for something way better.

1. Should you do standing room?
Standing room’s great advantages are its low price (3-4 Euros), nonrequirement of advance planning, and, from the orchestra level standing room, fantastic sight lines. The seats for many performances sell out well in advance, particularly in the cheaper price categories, but almost all standing room tickets are sold the day of the show, and the view can be better than from seats costing over a hundred Euros. But you are, you know, standing for the whole opera. If you think you can easily grab an empty seat, think again. If you have problematic knees or any other health issues that could interfere this is probably not a good idea. Make sure you’re going to be able to enjoy it. I still hold a grudge against Manon Lescaut from an uncomfortable standing room experience.

The view from the first row of Parterre standing room

Also, pick your opera carefully. The Staatsoper schedule, available in the lobby and on their website, includes the length of each opera. Consider your operatic experience and general interests before going to anything long and/or that you think you may find dull. E.g., unless you are a Wagner fan, Parsifal is probably a bad idea. It might convert you but that long on your feet listening to grass grow might also make you want to shoot yourself. The Staatsoper plays one or two shortish golden oldies every week (Magic Flute, Barber of Seville, etc.) that are suitable for just about everybody. (But realize that these ones often get some combination of the least starry casts, most ramshackle productions, and most indifferent orchestra, if you care about that.)

2. When should I get in line?
Tickets go on sale 80 minutes before the opera starts. If you want a prime spot, you’re going to have to wait at least a little before that. There are three sections: Parterre (just above orchestra level) , Balkon (balcony), and Galerie (gallery). Parterre gets great views, but unless you are in the first two or three rows the sound is mediocre due to the overhang. Galerie sounds great and while it’s the top level of the house, it is not a big theater by American standards and from the center the view is still good (the side Galerie spaces have very bad sight lines). The upper level is less claustrophobic; the back half of Parterre can get very warm and crowded. You also don’t have to wait as long for Galerie spots because most of the early people take Parterre. I don’t recommend Balkon, it’s got all the drawbacks of Galerie with few of the advantages.

There’s no exact science of timing. Show up earlier if it’s a weekend or holiday or if there are any big names in the cast. If you are not informed in these matters but want to plan ahead, then Google the leading singers and see if they seem to have recording deals, fashion spreads, or personal cults of fanatics who have a nickname for themselves. Put their name into YouTube and if many videos appear factor in some extra time, particularly if lots of them look like they came from cell phones, because the people who make those videos will be in line and they show up insanely early.

A long line outside in spring

If you’re shooting for a good Parterre spot and there are no superstars in the cast, it’s safest to just check out the line at around 3:30 or 4:00 (for a 7:30 curtain), earlier if you are very keen, see that there are only five people there, go do something else and come back later. If there are big names then adjust forward, if you aren’t aiming for front Parterre adjust backwards. If Anna Netrebko is involved budget much of the day, I am not kidding here. Rare operas, particularly twentieth-century ones, are invariably less popular than well-known ones.

But never count on getting even a crappy spot without waiting, because X baritone you’ve never heard of might happen to be an old Vienna favorite and everyone turned out in force and there are also three busloads of Japanese tourists in line. You never know, is what I’m saying. However, most cancellations/casting changes happen before noon, so you can cross that fear off your list.*

You can only buy one ticket each, so make sure your whole group is in line.

3. So I’m going to get in line.

Shorts are very much frowned upon and by some of the stricter ushers banned altogether. Wear comfortable shoes. Don’t even think about heels, fellow ladies. If you’re showing up early, dress for waiting outside (though the line is under an overhang). But be advised that the auditorium itself gets warm and the dense Parterre standing area warmer. Regulars bring folding chairs or stools for the line (see the pictures). You also will need to bring a scarf or string to mark your spot in the auditorium. Snacks and books are also advisable. If it’s a Wagner opera other than Dutchman or Rheingold, bring a sandwich to eat between Acts 2 and 3. You will be glad you did this! Standing tires you out more than sitting.

The line forms on the Operngasse side of the opera house. This is the west side, near the Albertina, parallel to Kärtnerstrasse and to the left when you’re facing the building from the Ring but behind the fountain. There’s a small sign reading “Stehplätze/Standing Area.” (“Stehplätze” actually translates as “Standing Places,” but whatevs.) Depending on when you get there, the line is either outside under the overhang or inside behind this door. Also, get to know your line-mates! Austrians can be hard to start a conversation with but they’re usually friendly once you break the ice. As long as you explain to your line-mates, you can leave the line to get coffee or food or go to the bathroom or even, on a long wait, to get a quick lunch. Once you’re inside the opera house, though, the ushers are watching and you should mostly stay in line. There’s a bathroom in the hall just to the right of the ticket window.

The line inside

There are many intricate little steps in the process. Just follow the people in front of you. 80 minutes before the opera starts you’ll buy your ticket, try to have exact change. Tell the ticket-seller which section you want. The places aren’t assigned, and after buying your ticket you jog down the hallway behind the ticket booth, past the coat check, and left into the main part of the opera house. You then go left again and up one short flight of steps. If you’re in the gallery, continue upstairs until you hit the line, if you’re in the parterre you wait on this level in two lines, one at each entrance into the orchestra section of the house. Around 50-60 minutes before the opera starts, the ushers open the doors and lead the lines into the auditorium itself and everyone rapidly claims their spot (each marked by a single title viewer) as directed by the ushers. Tie your scarf around the bar below the titles to mark your place. Make sure you put your ticket somewhere you will be able to find it again.

If you’re not devoted, you can skip this part after buying your ticket and have more time for dinner, but realize that everyone else is tying their scarf somewhere and when you show up later after the crowds have cleared only the least desirable spots will be left. Some of these are, shall we say, a little short on personal space. Also on sight lines, if we’re talking Galerie sides.

If you waited to get a place, you now have 45 minutes or so to eat dinner. I usually bring something with me, but there’s also a Würst stand near the line and some Turkish food stands that also have pizza on the Ring. There’s a big Anker bakery with sandwiches in the passage under the Ring. Also, try to sit down for a while. Check your bag and/or coat when you get back to the house, it’s required and you want as much space in standing room as you can get.

Go back to your marked spot before the opera starts and enjoy the show! Note that moving someone else’s scarf is NOT DONE. Like, seriously, seriously not done. If an apparently clueless tourist has taken your spot, kick their ass out.

Final Notes
If you want a program you’ll have to buy one from an usher. These are elaborate books with lots of pictures of the production’s premiere cast and articles in German and stuff, there’s a plot summary in English at the very back. You can also just get the pamphlet with the evening’s cast and forgo the book, ask for “nur die Liste.”

I consider the Wiener Staatsoper standing room one of the best opera experiences you can get anywhere. The house itself is maddeningly inconsistent, but as well as an unbelievable bargain the standing room is a fascinating sociological experience and has an energy quite different from seeing an opera from a seat. It’s not for everyone, but I think it’s one of the best things Vienna has to offer its visitors. So do not fear the ritual, revel in it!

*Useful vocabulary: erkrankt (fallen ill), abgesagt (canceled), Umbesetzung (casting change), springt ein (substitutes). If the opera is obscure, cancellations can prompt dramatically short-notice changes of opera.

Review

The Queen of Spades: The long dark tea-time of the soul

September 23, 2010 No Comments

You got a rotting old pile of a palace, you invite the young people in to spruce it up, and before you know it they’re lighting it up in rainbow colors. Such is the Old Countess’s problem in Vera Nemirova’s production of The Queen of Spades. As Russian history it’s dubious and as Chaikovsky opera it’s graceless, but between Anja Silja in full-on Madame Armfeldt mode, Angela Denoke’s dynamite Lisa, and the efforts of Neil Shicoff as Hermann, it works anyways.

Chaikovsky, The Queen of Spades (Pique Dame) Wiener Staatsoper, 22 September 2010. Conducted by Tugan Sokhiev, production by Vera Nemirova, with Neil Shicoff (Hermann), Angela Denoke (Lisa), Anja Silja (Countess), Boaz Daniel (Yeletsky), Albert Dohmen (Tomsky), Zoryana Kushpler (Polina).

Nemirova’s production is set in the world of the Russia’s post-Cold War nouveau riche (riches noveaux?). Everything happens on a unit set, the stately entryway of a dusty, run-down palace. It is less a literal location than a way-station for all the characters and their various activities–this is not an opera you can put on a unit set and be realistic–but it’s atmospheric and has a nice faded grandeur and well-observed details. The non-Old Countess characters plot remodeling, stage a tasteless burlesque of an intermezzo on the grand staircase, and finally bring in slot machines and the multi-colored lighting plot of the damned (ugliest lighting ever, intentionally). It’s a simplification of the many layers of past and present found in the score, here crushed into a dusty gothic tangle, but I don’t think it’s exactly a distortion.

Intermezzo

When I tried to make sense of the concept as a historical setting I got a bit of a headache. The Old Countess laments the younger generation’s lack of style, skill, forethought, etc., and when you see the slot machines you have got to agree with her. But this is modern Russia and what came before that i.e. Communism wasn’t exactly known for its ravishing glamor. The opening scene seems to feature a just-barely-post-Communist wasteland, from there we move into ever-increasing decadence. But the Old Countess appears in the place of Catherine at the end of Act 2 and still is wearing the imperial-style dress in Act 3, which makes me think that the people are trying to dust off their grand palace and recover the imperial period but end up with tacky modernity instead? Of course this means the Old Countess is very old indeed, perhaps her initials are E.M.?

But I didn’t even try to work this out until afterwards, and maybe shouldn’t have bothered, because despite this Nemirova does a good job telling the story, without special effects except a few flapping windows. Anja Silja pretty much IS the Old Countess. Her voice can’t do much more than audibly carry a tune, but she has unstoppable charisma, and this role seems made for her, from her first entrance to the moment she spots Hermann behind her in her makeup mirror to her brief revival (unnecessarily put through a distorting speaker).

In his Staatsoper debut, Tugan Sokhiev led a well-paced account of the score with good attention to the changing moods–more variety than Nemirova, really. The climaxes all happened effectively enough, though the performance as a whole lacked the kind of explosive propulsion and wildness you get with Gergiev. In the central role of Hermann, Neil Shicoff was a compelling actor, though so clearly bonkers from the opening he didn’t take us on much of a journey. His voice is worn and not capable of much lyricism, and his rhythms were approximate, but his considerable commitment helped in the most intense moments of the score.

Lighting plot of the damned

Angela Denoke was the most convincing Lisa I have seen (I’m at four and counting). It’s not an easy part, you always wonder why Lisa doesn’t choose Yeletsky, but Denoke’s Lisa was every bit Hermann’s match in insanity and isolation even though the libretto never fills out her character’s motivations. Her voice is bright, almost white, very big in the upper reaches. She and Shicoff were impressive together, I’m not sure if they’ve done this opera together before but there was more interaction than you usually see at the Staatsoper.

Smaller roles were uneven: while Yeletsky can walk off with the opera with his fantastic aria, Boaz Daniel sounded under the weather and weak on the high notes. Albert Dohmen as Tomsky lacked top notes and resonance as well. One surprise highlight was Zoryana Kushpler’s beautiful dark mezzo and musicality in Polina’s brief aria.

This is the third production of this opera I’ve seen in the last two years. Like Elijah Moshinsky’s (gorgeous) Met production, it has a strange obsession with umbrellas (??). Thilo Reinhardt’s Komische Oper production is also set in modern Russia, but with less dust and more mobsters, it is vivid and exciting but more of a psycho-thriller take on the story. Nemirova’s production is less striking than either, but this performance was a worthy effort none the less.

Also, the Staatsoper shop has abandoned their usual soundtrack of crossover crap for the new Jonas Kaufmann CD, which first made me wonder who the hell thought screaming tenor verismo arias as background music was a good idea, but more on point made me wonder if he will ever sing Hermann. Which is to say he should, because that would be awesome. (Give me a few weeks, er, days to get over the fact that CDs cost 20 Euros here and I might write about this one.)

Next: Budapest Festival Orchestra with András Schiff on Tuesday.

Blurry Bows:

All photos except for the last one by the Wiener Staatsoper.

Review

Booming canons: Duplicate programming watch

September 20, 2010 2 Comments

There’s a hell of a lot of music out there. But it seems like I’m always hearing the same Mendelssohn overture over and over. A look at concert schedules proves that this is because I actually am. Duplicate programming happens. A lot.

While hearing pieces performed by different groups in a short period of time can be fascinating, can’t we be more creative and get to know a wider variety of music? Here is a list of works that have been programed more than once by different groups solely over the course of September and October at five major venues in Vienna (the Musikverein, the Konzerthaus, the Staatsoper, the Volksoper, and the Theater an der Wien). Granted, Vienna has a larger musical output than most cities, but, seriously, guys. I cede the two performances of a Szymanowski violin sonata as a delightful coincidence but can’t we give poor Tosca a rest for a month or two?

The winner is Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, performed by three different orchestras. Daaaa duh-duh daa da.

The list:

Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra (Budapest Festival Orchestra, ORF RSO Wien)
Beethoven, Sonata op. 27/2, “Moonlight” (Mitsuko Uchida, Gottlieb Wallisch)
Beethoven, Symphony No. 6 (Orchestre National de France, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen)
Beethoven, Symphony No. 7 (Wiener Philharmoniker, Tallin Philharmonics, Camerata Salzburg)
Brahms, Symphony No. 4 (as my favorite symphony, nothing bad shall be said about this.) (Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Wiener Symphoniker)
Brahms, Piano Concerto No. 1 (Budapest Festival Orchestra, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich)
Chaikovsky, Piano Concerto No. 1 (Wiener Symphoniker, Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich [both Musikverein, same week!])
Mozart, Die Zauberflöte (Staatsoper, Volksoper)
Puccini, Tosca (Staatsoper, Volksoper)
Szymanowski, Violin Sonata op. 9 (Leonidas Kavakos/Elisabeth Leonskaja, Lidia Baich/Matthias Fletzberger)

Enjoy your galloping warhorses, folks! And your Szymanowski.

Sources: Published programs
The photo

Review

Semele: Cecilia Bartoli we shall adore

September 18, 2010 1 Comment

Staging an oratorio like Semele is itself a questionable endeavor. The music is wonderful, but dramatically it does more telling than showing and there are many static stretches. Except for a few moments of wit and visual beauty, Robert Carsen’s elegantly restrained production is nothing more or less than unobtrusive. However, tearing through all that dull dignity is Cecilia Bartoli, an irresistible one-woman hurricane of something or other. Oh, and William Christie!

Handel-Congreve, Semele. Theater an der Wien, September 17, 2010. Les Arts Florissants conducted by William Christie with Cecilia Bartoli (Semele), Charles Workman (Jupiter/Apollo), Birgit Remmert (Juno), Malena Ernman (Ino), David Pittsinger (Cadmus/Somnus), Arnold Schoenberg Chor. Production by Robert Carsen, choreography and staging by Elaine Tyler-Hall.

Yes, this evening was very much the Cecilia Bartoli Show. Stage appearances by the rumored new Salzburg Whitsun intendant are rare, and she is extremely popular in Vienna. Despite the fine playing of Les Arts Florissants and some excellent performances from the rest of the cast, the audience and production’s attention was pretty much in one place.

Carsen’s minimalist production (originally created in Zürich and staged here by Elaine Tayler-Hall) is fairly strong in the Personenregie and does a good job of telling the story and developing the characters in a straightforward way without ever coming up with anything particularly interesting. The look is generically classy mid-century British. The spare settings amount to virtual visual quotations if you’ve seen a lot of Carsen.* I wish that Carsen’s impeccably coiffed and gowned ladies and tuxedoed or khaki-suited men would find clothes with a little more individual flair, but it looks pretty without getting in the way, which in this case is the salient point.

Getting in the way of Cecilia Bartoli, that is, who is anything but generic. She brings a kind of personal energy and charm that is hard to describe but bulldozes over most of the dullness in her path. Her voice is small and seemingly takes a while to warm up, however she was always perfectly audible and sings with a palpable joy that I think you have to be a true grump not to appreciate. She bubbles through all sorts of ornamentation with glee, she floats through slower stuff, and can even suggest, in “Endless pleasure,” endless smugness, in voice alone.

I know Bartoli has many detractors, but I found the usual complaints inapplicable. Aspirated coloratura? Slightly, but we’re not talking Deutekom here. Unsupported tone and obtrusive breaths? Nope. Her “Myself I shall adore” was taken slowly, which made me suspect that we were going to get some really crazy shit in the da capo. Indeed we did, and in the da capo she stumbled and did a full face-plant onto the stage. Then there was an audible gasp–I’m not sure if it was her or costar Remmert–and she got right up and started singing again, having missed only about a bar of music. Brava.

Also, “Myself I shall adore”? “Endless pleasure”? “You’ve undone me”? Does any opera (er, oratorio) have more suggestive aria incipits?

Charles Workman sang beautifully as Jupiter with a smallish but well-projected and refined lyric tenor. Neither Malena Ernman as Ino nor Birgit Remmert as Ino and Juno are contralto boomers and both seemed slightly miscast vocally, though Ernman had some impressive very low notes and Remmert indeed boomed in a few Wagnerian mezzo upper-register bits. Yes, that Malena Ernman. The tessiatura, though, seemed off for both of them. But Ernman acted her somewhat thankless role with striking emotional poignancy and Remmert, dressed as Elizabeth II look-alike and given the most comic business in the cast (along with Kerstin Erkman as Iris), showed fine comic timing.

The production has some lovely visuals: Sommus (sung with authority by Met regular David Pittsinger, who also sang Cadmus) rising from an evenly spaced sea of sleepers, Juno surrounded by a majestic cape, the stiff but beautifully coordinated choral masses (who occasionally, to indicate amorous moments, break up their statuesque observation to start making out with each other, could have done without that). It also has a few funny ones, best of all the staging of “Iris, hence, away,” with formidable Juno finally proffering a British Airways ticket. The Arnold Schoenberg Choir sounded excellent but I couldn’t understand a damn word they were saying. The principals’ English diction was excellent.

William Christie and Les Arts Florissants sounded fantastic, as usual, and the quiet moments of the score had intimacy and delicacy that would have been impossible in a larger theater, though a few experiments in really quiet singing barely made it up to me in the third ring. A few tempos in interludes seemed almost gratuitously fast, but the orchestral virtuosity is as thrilling as all the vocal doodads found elsewhere, and since this isn’t a piece with a ton for the orchestra to do it was nice to hear a group this good get to show off what it can do, if briefly.

Not exactly your average opera, but a great night out. This production is available on DVD in its Zürich iteration with some of the same cast.

All photos copyright Armin Bardel (from the Theater an der Wien’s excellent press site)

Video of this production, “Myself I shall adore”

*Dude has an aesthetic, at least. Though Cavaradossi’s painting is nowhere to be seen, the opening church looks a lot like his Tosca, and the giant diagonally placed bed with billowing sheets… well, that’s a general kind of setting, but it’s exactly the same as his Poppea. Something was also ringing bells from his Capriccio, but it’s been too long since I’ve seen that one to remember exactly what.

Review

La forza del destino: Showdown at the Staatsoper corral

September 15, 2010 8 Comments

Preziosilla is onto Carlos’s game.
(Note: picture is a different cast, though same Preziosilla.)
(Photo: Opera Chic)

Of all the caves in the world, you had to walk into mine. La forza del destino might not be the most outwardly coherent of operas, but Verdi didn’t call it an “opera of ideas” for nothing, and it has an agenda under all that shaggy discursiveness. Unfortunately David Pountney’s Wiener Staatsoper production, shorn of almost half an hour of music, has the ideas underlined and highlighted and little of the dark chaos. This messily-staged revival and Philippe Auguin’s conducting went unstoppably forward like the plot’s bullet fired by mistake, and despite four strong singers it all felt rather off. And the cowboys, well, they were a mistake too. Giddyap, pardner.

Verdi, La forza del destino. Production by David Pountney, conducted by Philippe Auguin. With Eva-Maria Westbroek (Leonora), Fabio Armiliato (Alvaro), Zeljko Lucic (Don Carlos), Ferruccio Furlanetto (Padre Guardiano), Tomasz Konieczny (Fra Melitone), Nadia Krasteva (Preziosilla)

If you’ve ever met me, I’ve probably told you how you have to read War and Peace. (Because you do. It’s wonderful in every way. It’s my favorite novel.) La forza del destino is kind of like War and Peace. Shit happens, some personal and some global-historical, and sometimes there’s little the characters can do to control it. They wander through things that are larger then themselves. Some glory in the chaos (Preziosilla) , others try to hide from it (Leonora, eventually Alvaro). In the opera, you don’t have Tolstoy’s narrative voice telling you all the fateful stuff. But if you’re at the Staatsoper, you have David Pountney, who’s even more pedantic.

As suggested by the opening video of a butterfly starting an enormous wheel, the production is about coincidences and unintended consequences (I was sadly distracted through the whole overture). Christianity provides a kind of anchor for these characters adrift, who finally all end up assailing the monastery for help and guidance. The inn is a place of momentary respite, where many Bibles seem to provide a veneer of security. The period is sometime during the twentieth century, but only vaguely so (there are still swords for dueling). As an interpretation it makes sense, but it hits you over the head a few times too often. Moreover, its extreme minimalism and attendant demurral to create a world outside the principal characters undermine the portrayal of larger forces (of DESTINY) at work. When we’re suddenly at war in Act 3 the means are not great enough to give us any real atmosphere, just some halfhearted projections. Destiny’s force never seems adequately cataclysmic.

Crosses, crosses everywhere (Photo: Wiener Staatsoper)

The sets are simple and OK enough, but the chorus in the inn scene is a somewhat inexplicable band of sexy dancing cowboys, including also sexy dancing cowgirls, and later at war we gets sexy dancing nurse nuns. I think most opera suffers from an excess of good taste but I’m going to make an exception here. We have lost any opportunity to establish who these people are in favor of sexy dancing cowgirls. If the dancing had been fun or meaningful, it would have been alright, but it was just awkwardly bad. The execution as a whole was so messy that I really can’t say how good or bad the production as originally conceived was. The buttons in particular were hopelessly off, with some awkward silences and interruptions–the audience had no clue when they should clap and it made the reception feel tepid just because it was unclear. (The lights, blocking, and conductor should always signal when we should applaud.)

The score suffered from some major cuts, particularly in the choral and minor character material of Act 3. Not that I really miss Preziosilla’s “Al suon del tamburo” and Trabuco’s aria as such, but they give this opera its texture, its wildly incoherent patchwork of random events and moments that confuses the characters as much as it does me. Making Forza neater seems to go against its spirit. And the one major rearrangement–reordering some scenes in Act 3 so the tenor and baritone get a break between their duets and then cutting directly to the Rataplan–destroys the wonderful sequence of the Act 3 finale entirely.

Opening scene (Photo: Wiener Staatsoper)

Conductor Philippe Auguin favored a fast and loud account of the score that, while sometimes exciting, similarly allowed for few excursions into anything. We’re getting this sucker done in under three hours or else, he seemed to say (my recording [Levine] is two hours fifty-six minutes total and the intermission was 20-25 minutes). By the time Leonora pled for pace, pace, I was thinking, you and me both, sister.

The singing was mostly very good, though not transcendental enough to overrule these production and conductor-ly deficiencies. Fabio Armiliato offered solid and admirable Italian tenoring with good phrasing and intonation, fine coloring and very loud and rich high notes, faulted by a muscley and dry tone at the passaggio and below. I feel kind of bad for never warming to him, but he failed to grab me somehow. His acting is generic but he does manage to look impressively Jesus-like in Act 4 in a long white robe with his short beard and longish hair. I think this was unintentional. If it wasn’t, I have no idea what it was supposed to signify.

Act 3. Several of the upper parts of this set were MIA last night.
Photo: Der Standard

Eva-Maria Westbroek has a fabulous soprano, lush and creamy and even right up to the top of the staff. Above that it gets steelier, but not unpleasantly so (that is to say, her first two “malediziones” were better than the last one). I would liked to have heard more rhythmic flexibility and Italianate phrasing from her, but Augiun was conducting like he would slow down for no woman or man, so I’m not going to say she couldn’t do it elsewhere. She did some marvelous acting when onstage alone. And as for her future role as Anna-Nicole Smith, well, if Anna-Nicole had had better taste she would have wished she could look that good in a pantsuit.

Zeljko Lucic has plenty of volume for Don Carlos and sang his aria with real beauty and musicality, but he seems too fundamentally decent and his voice too lyrically gentle for a villain who kills his own sister. I would love to hear him as Boccanegra, but am not convinced of his Verdi-villain status. Tomasz Konieczny, as Melitone, had a metallic edge to his voice that made me think he would have been more suitable, if less opulent. Ferruccio Furlanetto is not the type to be confined to near-last in a cast list and I’m rather surprised to see him singing such a small role as Padre Guardiano. It was lovely, and his duet with Westbroek had, along with Lucic’s aria, the best singing of the night, but, still. It’s minor. Nadia Krasteva as Preziosilla had the misfortune to get totally lost in Auguin’s manical tempo for the Rataplan, but otherwise didn’t sound bad and, hey, she can do both a split and a backbend.

Finally, a Great Moment in Opera Titles: “The bullet in his chest worries me.” (“La palla che ha nel petto mi spaventa.”) (Even in Italian it is somewhat dry, but “mi spaventa” is more properly “scares me.”)

Bows, another lousy in-house photo from me:

Next: The Semele prima is tomorrow but I need a break and think I’ll go on Friday.

Review

Riccardo Chailly and the case of the missing violas

September 11, 2010 No Comments

(I would first like to welcome all of you who followed Franz Welser-Möst’s Facebook and Twitter links. Danke schön for the link, Maestro, or rather thanks to whoever writes the maestro’s tweets and Facebook.)

The bows on the center-right side of the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig were moving furiously, but I couldn’t hear a thing. Herein I consider whether Schumann really was a crappy orchestrator after all, an obscure Mendelssohn piece that perhaps should stay that way, and some much more rewarding things about Friday night’s Musikverein concert, including some fine violin-playing from Frank Peter Zimmermann.

But first let’s talk anniversaries. Haul out your coffin full of poetry, because this year marks the 200th anniversary of Schumann’s birth. It seems like we just had a Schumann year. Because we did–2006 was the 150th anniversary of his death. But like Prokofiev’s proximity in death to Stalin, Schumann had to share that anniversary with Mozart, and didn’t really get much attention outside pianists and a few lieder-singers. This time he gets to share with both Chopin and Mahler. So, yeah, screwed again, in Vienna at least. Even the pianists and lieder-singers have other events to celebrate this time.

But his hometown orchestra, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, didn’t forget, even if their Vienna celebration was not always spotless. They managed to sneak birthday boy Mahler in there too.

Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Riccardo Chailly; Sept. 10, 2010, Musikverein. Mendelssohn: Trompeten-Ouvertüre, op. 101; Schumann, Violin Concerto in d minor, WoO 23; Overtüre zu Lord Byrons “Manfred,” op. 115; Symphony No. 4, op. 120 (Mahler edition).

I don’t think Mendelssohn wrote any bad pieces of music, but the Trumpet Overture is not one of his more memorable. Lots of contrapuntal business plus endless sequences means it always seems to be purposefully headed somewhere, but it never arrives at any good themes. The orchestra was tight and precise, but the small string sections were frequently overpowered by the winds and the inner voices of the strings seemed inaudible, even in the dream acoustics of the Musikverein. Eponymous trumpets sounded fine, but I would have traded this one in for a good Hebrides or Midsummer any day.

The Schumann Violin Concerto is a problem work, suppressed for decades after the composer’s death because it supposedly contained signs of his incipient madness. There have been several rehabilitation attempts that claim the concerto’s strangeness is really great innovation. Either way, the piece has some interesting moments but they don’t really hang together. Frank Peter Zimmermann dispatched the awkward violin writing with effortless clarity and elegance and virtuosity in the last movement. The already-quiet orchestra seemed to recede entirely at most points. The many piano-like arpeggios sound like a warm-up for the Brahms Violin Concerto, Zimmermann put some good lyricism in them but I’m still not convinced.

The second half of the concert was much better. Both the Manfred Overture and the Symphony No. 4 were performed in Mahler’s pared-down editions (I wondered if the man near me with an Urtext symphony score had brought it for comparison or was very confused). Two anniversaries for the price of one! Maybe it was the Mahlerization but the balance between strings and winds was considerably better, though I still had trouble with the strings’ inner voices. I’m not sure what the tempo marking on the Romazne movement is (sorry, didn’t shell out for a program), but it sounded fast, almost an allegretto. Lovely wind solos, though. Chailly proved a master of pacing in both, particularly the symphony’s dramatic transition into the final movement, and the last few minutes of the symphony were fantastic, a great end to an uneven concert.

I know using Mahler or other touched-up editions is outré these days, but maybe Schumann does need it. Chailly defends Mahler’s edition in an interview in the Musikverein magazine, saying that Schumann’s orchestration really was too thick and Mahler gets closer to what Schumann wanted to do. I’m not even going there. Not today, at least. Municipal elections are in a few weeks and four political parties are parked on the four corners of the intersection nearest my apartment, and I’m finding the steady pffffts of Die Grünen blowing up balloons distracting. Those better be biodegradable balloons, guys.

Review

Tannhäuser: Crazy in love

September 9, 2010 1 Comment

This looks familiar, I’m not sure why.

Dich, teure Halle, grüss’ ich wieder! After four years with no Wiener Staatsoper in my life, I returned last night, and if this Tannhäuser is any kind of omen I’m glad I did, because it was awesome. Welser-Möst is doing great things with the orchestra, there’s some fantastic singing, and well, if the virgin-whore complex is getting you down (it certainly gets old for me), Claus Guth has a production for you.

Wagner, Tannhäuser (Dresden version). Wiener Staatsoper, 8.9.2010. Conducted by Franz Welser-Möst with Johan Botha (Tanhäuser), Anja Kampe (Elisabeth), Matthias Goerne (Wolfram von Eschenbach), Michaela Schuster (Venus), Ain Anger (Hermann). Production by Claus Guth.

Guth sets the opera in fin-de-siècle Vienna in the early days of Freud and Schnitzler. Venus is a figment of Tannhäuser’s imagination, his attempt to live with emotional truth and unearth his unconscious mind rather than the live with social hypocrisy of his comrades (who keep their sex lives more neatly compartmentalized). Unfortunately, this obsession results in ostracism and (socially induced?) mental illness. The self-harming pilgrims are, post-pardon, confined to a psych ward, Tannhäuser’s voyage to Rome seems to be in the mind only, and Elisabeth kills herself with an overdose of Tannhäuser’s pills.

We open to see… not the usual orgy but another curtain, exactly like the one that just parted (no ballet, it’s the Dresden version). For a second I thought I had stepped into a Robert Carsen production by mistake. But no, it is the stage on which Tannhäuser imagines a double of himself cavorting with Venus, a fantasy he finally leaves. But even afterwards, the oddly stopping and starting action, rooms that fall apart, and surreal moments suggest that large sections of what we see are through Tannhäuser’s unstable eyes.

I liked this production a lot. It’s arguably an indirect interpretation, avoiding much of what Wagner would have thought the opera is about (the artist-opera aspects are solely metaphoric), but Guth wants to show that Wagner’s good woman/bad woman and redemption thing aren’t unearthly matters at all, they are just means of social control (we’re still in pre-Tristan land, remember). Virtue and Christianity are all social constructions, ones which Tannhäuser attempts to defy at his peril. In Act 3, this gets a little on the convoluted side–I was not always sure where Tannhäuser’s social outcast status stops and his apparent actual madness starts–but it mostly works. The program claims this is the Dresden version, but Venus does come back at the end so I think it’s a Paris-Dresden combo.

The production speaks largely through images and tableux rather than acting. Much of the blocking is stylized and static. Maybe this is because it’s an underrehearsed revival, maybe it’s because many of the singers don’t seem to be able to act, but it seems like it’s a part of the production. (According to a woman I spoke with during intermission, the June premiere of this production was a lot more detailed on the Personenregie end.) The sets are gorgeous, the prologue and pilgrims wandering through a mostly-empty stage (the shepherd is a junior-sized Tannhäuser double), the more concrete places all reproductions of actual places in Vienna.

Tannhäuser reenters the world via the seedy, faux-exotic Hotel Oriental (which still exists), where his comrades relieve their unconsciouses by discreetly renting by the hour, unlike Tannhäuser’s more prolonged and indiscreet escapades. The hall of song is nothing other than part of the Staatsoper itself (the room with the composer’s busts that faces the balcony looking out over the Ring). Setting the opera in the opera house itself is kind of an overused trick but it never stops working. This room is a Baroque imitation and social space, here representing a stiff and self-conscious society with the outdated custom of the song contest. Finally, Act 3 takes place in Otto Wagner’s asylum in Steinhof, this era’s attempt to deal more rationally with its outcasts. The costumes are all realistic fin-de-siècle, and it looks very good as well as being functional and unfussy.

The Staatsoper’s orchestra was in excellent form. Franz Welser-Möst’s conducting was grand, losing a bit of impetuosity but making up for it with nobility. Tempos were moderately quick but never rushed (though the violins came to grief on one or two of those many long downward runs). Ensembles were mostly clear and balanced. At the loudest moments the orchestra occasionally overpowered the soloists, but for Wagner this was very singer-friendly conducting. The chorus sounded super.

Johan Botha sang Tannhäuser with astonishing ease, beauty, and tireless power. After what usually passes for Heldentenor singing to hear something like this is balm for the ears. But with that amazing ease seemed to come a lack of dramatic involvement, musical shaping, and variations of color for most of the score. You felt he might as well be reading the phone book, and while him reading the phone book would be pretty and loud it would not be interesting. His singing is impressive, but rarely affecting. And the man cannot act his way out of a paper bag (it must be said, a very large paper bag). So an incredible and memorable performance in some ways, but lacking in others.

At the end, Tannhäuser finally sees Venus in the guise of Elisabeth.

Anja Kampe as Elisabeth was new to me, and I thought she was fantastic. She’s got a big, silvery, bright voice that seems destined for bigger and less lyrical roles than this one, but did a good job with the delicate parts of the score as well as raising the roof with the loud ones. She was also the best actor in the production, making the cardboard Saint Elisabeth close to a real and confused young woman. (If the ticket gods of Bavaria are generous, I should be seeing her as Leonore in Fidelio in Munich later this season, and I really hope I will.)

Michaela Schuster sounded shrill as Venus, but put everything into it and vamped convincingly. Matthias Goerne sang Wolfram von Eschenbach with velvety tone (excluding some weak top notes) and great musicality, but was quite stiff onstage. His Evening Star song was lovely, but, staged as a contemplation of suicide, rarely has someone pointing a gun at their own head been so dull. The action’s all vocal here.

A great start to the season, I hope this is representative. Forza del Destino and possibly also Semele next week.

Bows (sorry, hopefully my in-house photography will improve soon, the one with flash was even worse):