A Belated "Leb Wohl" to Hildegard Behrens
During our vacation in Spain, the dramatic soprano Hildegard Behrens died unexpectedly from an aortic aneurysm.
Behrens wasn’t merely one of the most fearless-yet-expressive Brunnhildes — you’ll find links to her other roles below. But she’ll always be the “home” Brunnhilde for me. I was in the upper reaches of the Met audience on the opening night of the Otto Schenck Goetterdammerung in 1989. In a typical “youth is wasted on the young” scenario, I had no idea at the time how fortunate I was (the cast also featured Matti Salminen at his frightening finest and Christa Ludwig in one of her last Waltrautes). I was a music major in my last year of college, but hadn’t gotten around to Wagner yet. (I was buried in Prokofiev’s War and Peace, racing to complete my senior thesis on that work somewhere near on time.) I had only listened once to the just-out-on-CD Solti Ring with some other students in preparation for the college trip that landed me in the audience that night. The friend sitting next to me (also a Wanger newbit) commented approvingly “Brunnhilde is being sung by a lady named Hildegard — that’s promising.”
This was a few years before the Met finally caved to supertitles, so that single preparatory hearing was my only guide. It was up to Hildegard Behrens to communicate the range of human experience Brunnhilde encompasses in those three heartbreaking acts. I’ve seen and heard Brunnhildes who are better, in various moments and in various ways, but the moral authority and raw vulnerability of Behrens remains unmatched for me. In Act Two I was “lost” in terms of the libretto, but riveted on her presence in the middle of the stage. It’s not just her visuals, either — it’s there on the Levine recording on DG, where the vocally friendlier studio conditions highlight her expressive phrasing and (yes, I’m saying it) beautiful, sometimes radiant voice. (Note to the Hildegard hatas: just how hoarse would YOU be at the end of a four-night Ring?)
Germaine Greer says it better:
There is no chance that I will see a Brünnhilde so utterly destroyed, so uncompromisingly tragic ever again. I would have thought it impossible to show such a depth of devastation and helplessness in music, but Behrens did it. How she did it – whether by her utter absorption, her rapt earnestness or her lack of self-consciousness – I shall never know. Never to have seen her do it would be never to have understood how a preposterous musical drama, with absurdly affected DIY verse for a libretto, could be transmuted into the highest of high art.
Behrens is well represented on YouTube as Tosca, Isolde, Fidelio, Elektra (and Elettra), Elisabeth (Tannhauser), the Kaiserin (from Frau), etc.
The Met has a photo gallery tribute. But let’s give the last word to James Morris’s Wotan. This clip begins as Brunnhilde is silenced forever — at least to the ears of this “unhappy immortal.”
Today’s post is by Bonnie Gibbons.
Wolfgang Wagner Decides Not to Decide
Among other blogs, I checked The Rest Is Noise to see if Alex Ross had any thoughts on the appointment of Riccardo Muti as CSO Director, but he was too busy covering the announcement from Bayreuth that Wolfgang Wagner will step down on August 31, leaving Bayreuth in the hands of BOTH his daughters, Eva and Katharina.
The backstory: The festival is run by a joint government/private foundation these days. Wagners get dibs on the director’s job, provided there’s a qualified family member available. There are several family members with relevant experience:
Katharina Wagner (Wolfgang’s youngest daughter, and his choice for successor)
Eva Wagner-Pasquier (Wolfgang’s older daughter by first marriage; was chosen by the foundation but Wolfgang refused to step down unless they picked Katharina instead)
Nike Wagner (Wolfgang’s niece, Wieland Wagner’s daughter)
Gottfried Wagner (Wolfgang’s son; estranged from the family after mentioning the Nazi elephant in the room)
BUT, the foundation has veto power, and it selected Eva a few years ago. On the other hand, Wolfgang has had a lifetime directorship, allowing him, in turn, to veto the foundation’s choice by promising to hang in there till he got his choice: Katharina. According to the news items, the two sisters decided to end the standoff by collaborating, but officially it is an interim arrangement.
Recommended Book:
Bayreuth: A History of the Wagner Festival
by Frederic Spotts
A very gossipy history of the goings-on on the Green Hill from a detailed explanation of the unique acoustics and architecture of Bayreuth almost to the modern-day family dynastic squabbles.
Twilight of the Wagners: The Unveiling of a Family’s Legacy
by Gottfried Wagner, Della Couling
A highly personal insight from a black sheep of the Wagner clan, the musicologist and director Gottfried Wagner (Wolfgang’s son).
Four Nights, Three Tristans
Every winter it seems like “something’s going around at work” but this is ridiculous! Six singers have made unscheduled Met debuts in the past two weeks, and one, the American tenor Robert Dean Smith, offered a Tristan that ought to go down as one of those “Were you there?” moments.
It’s a recruiter’s nightmare: a last-minute and mission critical job opening, a non-negotiable deadline, and just ten qualified temps to choose from — worldwide. It happened at the Metropolitan Opera last week: as the clock ticked toward a live broadcast of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde to cinemas around the world, the leading tenor and two understudies had called in sick.
For most operas, replacement tenors would still be plentiful in New York. But the role of Tristan calls for an atypical genre (or “fach”) of tenor voice, plus a level of stamina that’s hard to convey to Wagner newbies. That’s just to survive the “sing.” An effective performance requires vocal beauty, emotional presence and gravitas. “Ten men in the world can do this — and I know exactly where each guy is right now,” said the Met casting director in an intermission interview.
But thanks to some logistical heroics, the American tenor Robert Dean Smith was in town to introduce a vast, new audience to the Tristan that German audiences have savored for years.
Robert Dean Smith as Tristan. Photo: Marty Sohl
How the Met Went Through Every Tristan in the Western Hemisphere
This Tristan run was intended as the long-awaited pairing of Canadian tenor Ben Heppner with American soprano Deborah Voight’s Isolde. John Mac Master (backup Tristan #1) opened for an ailing Heppner, but not entirely successfully, as he, too, was announced as ill. Gary Lehmann (Backup Tristan #2) got good reviews for the second night, but Voight fled the stage with a stomach ailment during the Act 2 love duet. Janice Baird finished the performance as Isolde after a 15-minute delay. To add injury to illness, Lehman fell into the prompter’s box during the next performance, stopping the show again while doctors checked him over.
Two Weeks. Six Surprise Met Debuts. One Great Case for the Flu Shot.
The jinx wasn't limited to Tristan. In the same fortnight, newly minted National Council Auditions winner Angela Meade made an unscheduled Met debut in Ernani — her very first professional performance on any stage. (The casualty in that case: Sondra Rodvanovsky.) Meanwhile, Ruth Ann Swenson was replaced by Ermonela Jaho as Violetta in La Traviata. The final roster changes: six surprise Met debuts in thirteen days.
Where Have They Been Hiding This Tenor?
In Europe, basically. The American tenor is based in Switzerland. Smith flew on Thursday to New York from Berlin (where he's currently preparing the Berlin Tannhauser), leaving him only Friday to learn the staging. Onstage Saturday, he gave every appearance of knowing the production intimately – though he could be seen reviewing blocking backstage during intermission, and was spared the distraction of backstage interview.
Smith’s voice is youthful and flexible, and his delivery has that combination of dignity and emotional presence that this genre of Wagner roles needs. His poignant singing and expressive face he had me in his corner from the beginning, and his final “Isolde!” had my eyes unexpectedly wet. At this point, Smith gave every impression that he had enough juice left in him, after completing one of opera’s most lengthy and demanding roles under these difficult circumstances, to have sung a Liebestod of his own.
Surely that stamina came in handy on next day’s return flight to Germany to resume the other formidable Wagner tenor role he was already doing.
“It Makes the Love Scenes Interesting”
When the curtain closed on Saturday, Deborah Voight had sung four performances with three Tristans -- none of whom she’d been able to rehearse with, and two of whom she’d never even met. “It makes the love scenes interesting,” she noted during a backstage interview confirming these details. Up close, I was struck with her commanding presence, but it never detracted from the vulnerability that I’ve always enjoyed about her. Based on this Tristan and the Chicago Frau (in which Smith played her husband just a few months ago) and Salome, I agree with the critics who notice that her voice has become brighter recently.
Update
On Friday, March 28, the Met’s “Dream Team” Tristan run came to its scheduled conclusion with the “dream team” of Ben Heppner and Deborah Voight taking the stage together for the first time. Voight had again called in sick for the fifth performance (three days after her broadcast with Robert Dean Smith). So here’s the Cliff’s Notes version of the run:
Performance 1: Deborah Voight and John Mac Master
Performance 2: Deborah Voight (replaced midway with Janice Baird) and Gary Lehman
Performance 3: Deborah Voight and Gary Lehman (who fell into the prompter’s box but completed the performance)
Performance 4: Deborah Voight and Robert Dean Smith
Performance 5: Janice Baird and Ben Heppner
Performance 6: At last! Deborah Voight and Ben Heppner!!!
The Levine 1997 Gotterdammerung -A "Holde-Review" -With a Few Comments Pertaining to Same
Many readers got a chuckle out of the Holde-Quiz and the Holde-Interview, so I plan on having those types of essays as occasionally recurring features. Sober and prudent readers should just skip ‘em, as they cause the risk of a specific birth defect. Also, those with certain types of kidney disease should probably give ‘em a pass as well, just to be on the safe side. Below is the first Holde-Review.
Wagner’s Gotterdammerung, conducted by James Levine at the 1997 Bayreuth Festival, with Deborah Polaski as Brunnhilde, Wolfgang Schmidt as Siegfried, Eric Halfarson as Hagen, and Hanna Schwartz as Waltraute. Staged by Alfred Kirchner, with sets and costume design by Rosalie. (what the heck is this one name pretentiousness all about? Perhaps it’s an incognito, as the sets were not a factor and the costumes were laughable). On DVD.
(The YouTube video above shows most of the Immolation Scene, and provides a taste of the “Costumes by Rosalie. The subtitles are in Spanish.)
Almost every review I read, in “Opera News”, “BBC Music Magazine”, NY Times, etc. is functionally at least somewhat useful, but deadly boring as literature. Some critics (Alex Ross, Charles Rosen, Michael Steinberg, the crew at Opera News) know music, and know how to write. Many do not. With occasional exceptions, you will learn nothing from customer reviews on Amazon, or from most newspapers, whose reviewers were apparently assigned to the Classical Music beat when they were deemed inadequate to cover seventh grade soccer scrimmages. Here in Chicago, we have a reasonably intelligent and affable critic who just guesses at what the performance was like. He has absolutely no clue, so he guesses, and is right every now and then, purely by accident. Still, he constitutes an improvement on the totally ignorant and vilely venomous Claudia Cassidy, who besmirched the reputation of critics everywhere, and who flaunted a total lack of integrity, and indeed, decency. You can’t put a trained musician with a professional point of view on the review page nowadays; he might be tempted to tell the truth. (which, actually, much of the time would mean that he is more laudatory then condemnatory; he would sympathise with the special difficulties horn players face, he would understand why singers can’t sing properly when the tempo is too slow, etc.)
My Solemn Vow: Never will you hear about “silky legato” or “pearly tones” here; I will attempt to write in English, not Newsparperese.
8 Comments on the disc:
1. The modestly “Regietheatre” orientation of the production neither adds nor detracts from the totality of the experience. There are no egregious violations of decency standards, but there are no original thoughts about the piece, either. Apparently Kirchner saw the effectiveness of lighting effects in Wieland Wagner’s productions and the (disputable) effectiveness of totemic symbolic props in Wolfgang Wagner’s productions, and designed a production in which the rich Bavarian beer of the Wagner brothers has been magically transformed into a can of O’Douls. Close your eyes, keep em’ open, dealer’s choice.
2. Levine’s conducting turns one of the richest, most complex and dramatic orchestrations in history into a work of absorbing tragedy, and beyond tragedy, of unnerving sadness. The sounds coming from the pit are acutely poignant. Levine’s knowledge of the score is stupendous; stuff like accent marks in a second clarinet are treated with the respect they deserve. There is absolutely no playing to the galleries, as some might accuse Solti of doing, so to speak, on his uncommonly dramatic recording, or of disengagement and superficiality, as some might accuse Boulez of purveying. And the orchestra plays at an inestimably higher level then on the great recordings of Furtwangler, Knappertsbusch, Krauss or Bohm.
3. Technically the DVD is great, both visually and aurally. And it’s a steal, retailing for 40 bucks, and easy to find even cheaper. Opera DVDs are incredible values; for less than the price of a single ticket, you can have the piece forever, in a reasonably reliable format.
4. Deborah Polaski underplays (but doesn’t undersing) Brunnhilde. A real woman, a grown up with her eyes open, caught in the inexorability of a tragedy she cannot control, this portrayal projects an inward awareness that is hugely moving.
5. Wolfgang Schmidt’s Siegfried is merely adequate. He certainly doesn’t mar the work like John Treleaven or Reiner Goldberg do, for instance. But he has neither the power of a Windgassen nor the eloquence of a Siegfried Jerusalem, and he doesn’t have the tonal beauty of a Rene Kollo, either. He is overhadowed by Brunnhilde, which actually makes considerable plot sense.
6. The Bayreuth Chorus? Do you have to even ask?
7. The star of the show is Eric Halferson. Dietrich Fisher-Dieskau famously called Gotterdammerung a “family tragedy”; whose family tragedy? Sieg. and Brunn’s, and by extension, Wotan’s, of course. Gunther and Gutrune’s? Yes, of course. But how about Alberich and Hagen? It is about time that “Schwarz-Alberich”, the anti-Wotan, and Hagen, the anti-Siegfried get their just due not as the villains of the piece, but as complementary heroes to Siegfried et al. Hagen’s watch is known to be dark, depressing, and frightening music, as well as beautiful music. But what kind of beautiful is it? Maybe its beauty has a noble, despairing, piquaint sadness. Halfvarson and Levine seem to think so. This passage was uncanny.
8. The greatest single feature of this performance is that while nothing was minimized or attenuated, The work’s tragic grandiosity was complemented by a desperately sad inwardness.
A brief comment on an unrelated topic: Many people have asked me why, as a pianist, none of these essays (so far) has been about piano music, and why there are so many essays on opera. Firstly, I anticipate that there will be many essays on the piano repertory, but for the most part I write about things that are new discoveries of mine, or about things which are topical for my classes. So for instance, despite learning and performing the large opus Davidsbundlertanze for my Romanticism course, I didn’t write about this magnificent score on these pages. The reason being that I have little to add to Charles Rosen’s magisterial comments in his The Romantic Generation, except technically. Rosen adequately discusses the structure, rhetoric, and rhythmical profiles of the work. Of course, I could recapitulate his ideas for these pages, or look in depth at the individual pieces, or compare the work to others. All of which would have been useful, but I didn’t feel like it. As for opera? Opera is like golf; those who like it at all are obsessed by it. Oh my, there will be more essays on opera.
Pilgrim's Music By Berlioz and Wagner
There are at least two moments of indisputable greatness in Wagner’s Tannhauser: The act 2 intervention by Elizabeth to save Tannhauser’s life from the likes of Biterolf and his cruel and cowardly cohorts, and Tannhauser’s act 1 epiphany in the valley of the Wartburg, with the unforgettable, immortal counterpoint of the shepherd boy’s lovely melody, fresh as May: “Der Mai! Der Mai!”- (Wagner pretended that he was quoting an authentic tune but this is not so. He made his own melody. Can you even conceive of some folk ditty being anywhere near as beautiful as what Wagner could contrive?) and the dolorous, guilt-laden strains of the pilgrims.
Only Henry Tannhauser doesn’t know who he is. The pilgrims know who they are, the shepherd boy knows who he is, but Tannhauser is lost. This stunning passage is the existential heart of this profound opera (a much deeper work, by the way, than Lohengrin, which aside from its incredible prelude is merely the greatest German Romantic opera).
Wagner created some of history’s greatest music for his pilgrims. This music’s chromaticism is a perfectly calculated expedient for representing the pressures of guilt, the opening rising octave is the very epitome of yearning, and the orchestration, essentially restricted to a “walking bass” in pizzicato violas and cellos proves that less can be more. Wagner, one of the most disciplined artists in history, frequently finds simple and elegant devices like this splendid pizzicato.
I had to retrieve the score of Berlioz’s Harold en Italie to recall his pilgrim tune, for the purpose of humming it while writing this essay. I couldn’t forget Wagner’s tune if I tried. And I sure ain’t gonna try.
Some points about Berlioz’s score:
1. Rey Longyear, in his mediocre survey, “Nineteenth Century Romanticism in Music” says that Harold is neither a symphony nor a concerto, but a little bit of both. He further claims that Berlioz has only one symphony really deserving the title. He’s wrong, I think. My immediately previous entry deals, albeit superficially, with this issue. David Cairns has it right. Harold is not a concerto. No way. It’s not even close to being a concerto, especially when you consider what a concerto was in 1834 (consider works by Mendelssohn, Paganini, Liszt, and Chopin). Want a viola concerto? Hindemith wrote a great one (I mean the Schwanendreher), and Bartok and Walton wrote good ones. Berlioz composed a work that is obviously a symphony, with a viola obbligato that simply represents the voice of Byron’s Harold in propria persona.
2. Berlioz copies the scheme of recollections of previous movements coined in the finale of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. But Beethoven’s finale leads to an affirmation of universal brotherhood, and Berlioz introduces a riotous orgy. Both Harold and the Fantastique end with orgies, by the way. My feeling is that if you’re gonna ironically turn Beethoven on his head, you better have better music up your sleeve than Berlioz had for his noisy finale.
3. The middle movements are salon pieces for orchestra, if there can be said to be such a thing. The pilgrim’s march and the Abbruzian serenade are every bit as relevant and necessary as the flute and harp serenade to the Christ child in L’Enfance Du Christ or the Rakoczi march in Damnation of Faust, if you take my meaning.
4. The idee fixe is a remarkable and expressive melody, the best part of this flawed score; melancholy, haunting, lyrical…but it only superficially unifies the piece, it doesn’t function in a symphonically developmental manner. In other words, Berlioz just throws it the heck in there when he wants Harold to comment on the action.
5. Just about every page of the Fantastique has some creative, surprising, or emotionally stimulating passage or at least detail; Harold frequently offers tired cliches, even in the orchestration.
I’m surprised at the critical and public sympathy for this piece. I revere the Requiem and Les Troyens and really want to like this piece as well, but perhaps just don’t get it. Oh, well, vive le differance!
Ernest Newman said that this piece is “Perhaps the best orchestral work through which to approach the study of Berlioz, for it reveals everywhere the individual nature of his musical mind…Harold himself is not a character undergoing psychological or circumstantial mutations like the Don Quixote of Strauss or the Faust, Gretchen and Mephistopheles of Liszt and Wagner, but simply a mood, a melancholy mood and nothing more.” Maybe so. Not every piece can be “fantastique”!
Reviews of Katharina Wagner's "Meistersinger" at Bayreuth
Since John has brought up the latest directorial excesses from Bayreuth I thought I’d provide some links for those who want to read more. See John’s take on the situation, and his list of operas that shouldn’t be messed with. You will see that Die Meistersinger is certainly one of them.
Since John has brought up the latest directorial excesses from Bayreuth I thought I’d provide some links for those who want to read more. See John’s take on the situation, and his list of operas that shouldn’t be messed with.
Jeers, Cheers as Bayreuth `Meistersinger’ Mixes Hitler, Nudity
By Shirley Apthorp
July 26 (Bloomberg)
Hitler is briefly back in Bayreuth as Katharina’s confused staging reaches its apotheosis. Her Hans Sachs sets out as the bare-footed, chain-smoking rebel of the singers’ guild, yet he becomes increasingly conservative as the evening proceeds. He warms his hands on the flames as conductor and stage-director doubles are burned. By the end, in time for his speech on “holy German art,” he is Adolf himself, flanked by statues in the style of Nazi sculptor Arno Breker.
At Beyreuth, ‘Die Meistersinger,’ unsettles a Wagner legacy
George Loomis
July 31 (International Herald Tribune)
Picking up on an idea advanced by scholars that the gibberish of Beckmesser’s contest song anticipates Dadaism and hence is actually forward-looking, she has him undergo an epiphany after the street riot. A strong minority of the populace applauds Beckmesser’s song, and he departs, disgusted, only when Sachs starts talking about German art.
Fascinating though the ideas of Wagner and her collaborator Robert Sollich may be, the result is more a critique of “Meistersinger” - and a negative one - than a production. Nor did she achieve the kind of absorbing interaction between characters typical of the best concept-oriented directors. Of the opera’s warmly expansive spirit there was little trace. You left thinking you hadn’t really seen the opera.
Tradition, revolution and reaction in Bayreuth
Marianne Zelger-Vogt
July 30 (sightandsound)
This article originally appeared in German.
Stolzing has become part of the mainstream, and is led around by an historically dressed opera singer. He receives a golden stag as a prize and poses, surrounded by the “leading team,” with the check of an imaginary sponsor bank. But between these two applause scenes there is also the appearance of Beckmesser: the turbulent happening of a reactionary who has discovered his creative potential in the fight scene and now outs himself as a performance artist.
Sachs resigns, Stolzing conforms, Beckmesser becomes an action artist giving a new twist to the art scene - a commentary on today’s opera in general and the Bayreuth Festival in particular? Perhaps. Yet it all remains too intellectual, on the one hand filled to overflowing with ideas and props, on the other hand a void - the entire history of the ideological reception of the “Mastersingers” as “Nazi opera” is blended out, for example, while Katharina Wagner remains focussed on the performance aesthetic.
Ms Wagner jeered as great-grandad’s opera flops at Bayreuth
Kate Connolly
July 27, 2007 (The Guardian)
It was the most eagerly anticipated event in this year’s German cultural calendar, set to make or break a young woman’s career.But following a cascade of boos and the comparison of her production of Die Meistersinger to a “top-heavy pizza with a thick topping on a thin base”, things were not looking too rosy yesterday for Katharina Wagner.
Her interpretation, which turned the original plot on its head - Richard Wagner danced in his underpants and topless dancers took to the stage - proved too much for the traditionalists, who made up the bulk of the audience, at the same time as irritating the iconoclasts.