claus guth – Likely Impossibilities

Don Giovanni in the Trees

October 26, 2011 3 Comments

A forest is a dangerous place: a symbol for the unknown and the unconscious, both the embrace and the threats of nature and a natural state. In fairy tales, characters enter the forest to find themselves, but they inevitably find peril as well.

In this 2008 Salzburg Festival production on DVD (Amazon), Claus Guth stages Don Giovanni in just such a forest, a group of pines that rotate on a turntable to disorienting effect. Is there a world outside of it? Sometimes mist rises threateningly in the background. But despite the presence of a bus stop and Don Ottavio’s car, there’s no exit. Don Giovanni and Leporello are a mortally wounded and drug-addled Vladimir and Estragon who are waiting for… something.

I needed an antidote to the Met’s empty Don Giovanni of a few weeks ago, and this production was perfect. I don’t agree with all of it, but it’s fascinating and very smartly done. The Commendatore seems to escape the duel OK, but Don Giovanni is mortally wounded and spends the rest of the opera dying; it’s never clear whether the rest of the events are actually happening or just his fervid memories or delusions. This twist plus the surreal setting mean there’s a fair amount of the plot that is not staged literally (the Serenade is sung out to the audience as a memory of seductions gone by, almost a mad scene), but this actually makes the episodic second act work unusually smoothly. The characters are modernized: Donna Anna is repressed housewife engaged to the useless yuppie Ottavio (yeah, this problem), Donna Elvira is a repressed businesswoman who is actually sex-crazed (kind of an ugly characterization, but I can see how it comes out of the text). It’s dark and spooky–literally in terms of darkness–and the sextet at the end gets the axe. (It’s the Vienna version of the score, which means there’s the little Leporello-Zerlina duet but no Il mio tesoro and no final sextet. The cans of Pilsner Urquell may be an allusion to the opera’s Prague premiere, though.)

The main disappointment of the production is Bertrand de Billy’s bland conducting. He goes with HIP fleetness, but the Wiener Philharmoniker plays with so much vibrato that the pitch in the overture actually doesn’t seem quite stable somehow. Fortunately the cast can both sing really well and carry off the complex production convincingly. Christopher Maltman gives an intense performance in the title role, with the kind of magnetism required of a Don Giovanni and a beautiful, fairly light voice. Other vocal highlights are Dorothea Röschmann’s powerhouse Donna Elvira and Ekaterina Siurina’s impeccable Zerlina. Theatrically, Erwin Schrott’s Leporello carries the show. I’ve seen Schrott as the Don in several different productions (I’m not a particular fan but there were a few years when you basically couldn’t see a Don Giovanni without him in the title role), but I wonder if he isn’t actually better as Leporello. It suits his low voice better, and also his wit and comic timing (his Don was sometimes too funny). Anyway, here Leporello is going through some drug issues and it isn’t going well. The cast’s only major weakness is Annette Dasch as Donna Anna, whose squally tone and iffy intonation are tough on the ears, though she acts well. Matthew Polenzani is a well-sung but rather faceless Ottavio.

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Review

Tristan und Isolde in Zürich: Neither mild nor leise

October 12, 2010 3 Comments

Claus Guth’s Opernhaus Zürich production of Tristan und Isolde is inspired by the events that inspired the opera: Wagner’s 1850s affair with Mathilde Wesendonck, which happened in, you guessed it, Zürich. The result is a twisty journey through fantasy and memory, all wound up with 19th-century morality, and a worthy companion piece to Guth’s great Vienna Tannhäuser. It’s totally fascinating, and a very different experience than your usual dreamy abstract Gesamtkunstwerk.

Bernard Haitink was also apparently inspired by Zürich for his conducting. Apparently he took one walk around, decided it was too damn quiet, and what the city needed was a Tristan that was excellent and yet most notable for being tremendously loud.

Wagner, Tristan und Isolde. Opernhaus Zürich, 10/10/10. Production by Claus Guth (revival), sets and costumes by Christian Schmidt, lighting by Jürgen Hoffmann. Conducted by Bernard Haitink with Barbara Schneider-Hofstetter (Isolde), Peter Seiffert (Tristan), Michelle Breedt (Brangäne), Martin Gantner (Kurwenal), Matti Salminen (König Marke)

Claus Guth’s production is set in a seemingly concrete 19th-century bourgeois world, its elegant furnishings and garden modeled on those of Zürich’s Villa Wesendonck (today an art museum), its situation loosely analogous to that of Mathilde Wesendonck’s affair with Wagner with her banker husband Otto in the König Marke role. But Guth doesn’t push this parallel too far (and the premiere cast, pictured above, bears a much closer resemblance to the historical figures than the current one, pictured elsewhere in this post–though no photos involving Isolde have surfaced), and besides, he has other things on his mind as well.

It becomes apparent that this tidy world is not as literally realistic as it appears. Brangäne and Isolde are visual doubles, with Brangäne seeming to represent the socially acceptable half of Isolde’s self, while the soprano half escapes into another world with Tristan. In Act 1, as Isolde describes healing Tristan, Brangäne physically relives it, in the second act Brangäne wears a black dress to Isolde’s identical white one, and at the very end of the opera, Marke slowly takes Brangäne’s hand, as if Isolde had not just expired in front of them. The characters wander through mirror-image and double rooms on a relatively simple turntable set used to effectively dizzying effect.

As Tristan and Isolde narrate Isolde’s earlier healing, Tristan relives it, lying bloody on Isolde’s bed, a position he will return to near the end of the opera. Their dream life is recursive and ill-defined, an attempt to leave reality that inevitably fails. The second act explores further alternate and parallel realities, as Tristan and Isolde chase each other through Isolde’s house, seemingly in the midst of a dinner party. They sweep the place settings off a formal dining table, to collapse on top of it. It is unclear what really happens and what is imagined as they wander through crowded rooms, unconscious of others, but then something breaks, and they are exposed, and Tristan forces Melot to stab him. In Act 3, Tristan languishes with Kurwenal in a desolate, deserted streetscape, eventually managing to return to the dream world with Isolde.

It’s an immensely interesting and remarkably exciting production. “Exciting” as in you genuinely can’t wait to see what is going to happen next. Suspenseful, even. This isn’t really a concept you often associate with Tristan stagings, I know. They are supposed to help you submerge yourself in the well of the music, to forget the boundaries of sound and vision. This one doesn’t do that, or at least it didn’t for me. It isn’t a Gesamtkunstwerk, it’s an intricate reading of a text we already know. There is friction between the text and the production; you can’t get upset because Act 1 doesn’t take place on a boat. But Guth makes you rethink things you’ve seen many times before, possibly a textbook example of Regietheater. As a Tristan I don’t think it’s for everyone. But that’s the beauty of Regietheater, isn’t it? It doesn’t presume to be for everyone, or for all time.

The focus of this performance was on an absence, that of erstwhile star Waltraud Meier, who walked out after a dispute with Bernard Haitink. I can see why. I thought that the tiny Zürich opera house would be a great place to hear an intimate account of the score (and excellent for Meier, whose voice is not of Nilssonian dimensions). But I forgot to send the management an email about this and Haitink did just about the exact opposite, leading a very loud, exciting, yet fantastically detailed interpretation with this top-notch orchestra. I’m not sure if he looked up at the stage once over the whole course of the evening. He often drowned out the singers and was clearly more interested in making sure the viola arpeggios were sufficiently turbulent than anything to do with the dramatic action. (Considering his number of vocal cues, I suspect the invisible prompter had a busy night.) It sounded great, the orchestra did at least, but it isn’t my preferred style.

Barbara Hofstetter-Schneider was Meier’s short-notice replacement as Isolde, and a very good Isolde she was, too.* She bravely took on Haitink’s super-orchestra and, most of the time, won, with an excellent dark-hued middle voice, somewhat less luxuriant top notes, and super diction at consistently high volume. At the beginning of Act 1, I thought, she can’t do this all night. But she did, with amazing stamina, right up to an on-pitch if short final note. It was not subtle but that we wouldn’t have been able to hear that. Her Isolde doesn’t have Meier’s charisma or heartbreaking intensity, but it was wonderfully sung and acted with honesty and dignity. If this is what Wagner singing is like at regional German houses (her usual haunts), we’re missing out in the US. (Zürich is a very small house, though, presenting different challenges.)

Peter Seiffert was announced as ill but sang anyways. This was my second time around with his Tristan. The first, at the Met under Barenboim in 2008, was a shaky experience (I believe it was his role debut). For the first act in Zürich, I thought he his interpretation had greatly grown. While not the Heldentenor of one’s dreams his tone is alright, he fit into the production well enough and sang with confidence and expression, as much as he could under the orchestral circumstances. In Act 2, his pitch and support began to falter and I began to dread Act 3. With good reason, because sick or not, no one should be onstage sounding like that. His vocal death preceded his character’s death by about 15 uncomfortable minutes and I hope he didn’t do any damage.

The supporting cast was uniformly strong. Matti Salminen is as old as dirt and nothing needs to be said about his wise König Marke other than he sounded as amazing as ever. Martin Gantner was almost unfair luxury casting as Kurwenal, terrifically sung and touchingly acted (during the opening of Act 3, he spent a long time despondently throwing beer caps into a boot). Michelle Breedt was a lyrical but lovely Brangäne, sometimes covered by the mighty Haitink but floating her “Habet acht” perfectly. The English horn player deserves specific mention here as well for a great solo, but the program did not identify him or her by name.

So not a definitive Tristan, but an awesome one, even without the reason I bought my ticket. I do hope a tenor other than Seiffert will be singing the next time I see this opera, though. And I think we should hope for a WWI Parsifal from Guth next.

All photos copyright Suzanne Schwiertz/Opernhaus Zürich

*Doesn’t the Isolde from this production premiere, Nina Stemme, currently have some time on her hands? I know she does because I have a ticket for the Rusalka she canceled. ‘Tis a shame we didn’t get her. Not a spot on excellent Schneider-Hofstetter, but Stemme and Meier are together currently the last word in Isoldes as far as I’m concerned.

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):