Bach’s Kantate BWV 128, J.S. Bach-Stiftung, St. Gallen (at the Kirche Trogen), 26.04.2024

On listening to Bach’s choral cantatas, one has to believe that he was a man who believed in first impressions. He never spared resources in the opening chorus, offering extravagant choral counterpoint framed by the the cantus firmus of a church hymn over colourful orchestration. In other words, musical fireworks. Being a master in musical rhetoric, this posed an extra challenge for him as a composer. If you think that a composer like Vivaldi had the task of writing music to the Latin text of the catholic mass and could have an entire choral number based on three words like “Hosanna in excelsis”, you will realize how much freedom this means in creative terms. Bach, instead, had to make musical sense of texts with far more complex content. One can only imagine how fortunate he must have felt to have verses such as those written by poet Mariane von Ziegler for the Cantata BWV 128: they almost demand Bach’s music. The opening sentence “On the example of Christ’s ascension alone I base my own journey heavenward”, for instance. Is there any better image to represent the way Bach structured this number? We have our lesson – the church hymn Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr (All glory be to God on high) – providing material for all the voices around it, either the counterpoint established by altos, tenors and basses or the orchestral music carried by the violins and than the two horns. The atmosphere couldn’t be more brilliant with the brass instruments, the oboes, the vivid rhythms. One feel almost compelled to move feet, shoulders and head to this music, you can almost feel the enthusiasm the congregation in Leipzig in 1725 felt on hearing it: “all doubt, anguish and pain is hereby overcome”.

After an expressive recitative for the tenor, the festive atmosphere is reprised in the bass aria with an exciting virtuosistic trumpet solo, florid writing for the bass and a dramatic transition to recitative to reflect the text’s more meditative turn. A second aria – actually a duet for alto and tenor joined by an oboe d’amore – follows in entirely different mood, the harmony is a bit tenser, the voices intertwine in almost sensuous way. The text tells us that the omnipotence of the saviour is beyond human understanding and you can have a glimpse of it if you refrain from talking. It is something that cannot be expressed by words, just like… music, and maybe this is why Bach chose to set these verses with exquisite melody, before the cantata ends in the last chorale in which the congregation expresses it wishes to be able to see his glory for all eternity.

Although conductor Rudolf Lutz did not fail to create an atmosphere of animation in the opening chorus, natural horns in such demanding music can be tricky and create a messy impression in music that requires precision. In any case, the J. S. Bach-Stiftung’s chorus shone in its usual clarity, balance and flexibility. The soloists this evening left absolutely nothing to be desired. Countertenor Jan Börner sang with absolute purity of tone, tenor Raphael Höhn phrased with exemplary sense of style, finesse of interpretation and tonal smoothness and Andreas Wolf offered a tour de force in his forceful, rock-solid and flexible bass. In his aria, the difficult trumpet solo was also competently dispatched, especially in the second performance.

Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea, Theater Basel, 21.04.2023

I rarely leave the theatre during the intermission. I might have done it four times in my life — and last time it was Christoph Marthaler’s Freischütz in Basel. This is why it took a while before I convinced myself of purchasing my ticket to his new production of Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea for the same company. After some consideration, I decided that I would not leave no matter how much I disliked it. After all, this time I was willingly taking the risk. Yet in the end, I cannot really say there was some unforeseen danger here, for what awaited me could have as well been the same staging seen in the Freischütz. A single set realistically depicting a vintage-looking public hall — check. Cuts in the score to make room for music and texts from other works — check. Unwritten pauses mid-number in annoying levels — check. Depressingly not funny gags in serious scenes — check. Underplaying of any emotion — check. Efficient but nonsensical Personenregie — check.  All that said, the libretto of L’Incoronazione di Poppea is altogether more solid than the one in Weber’s Der Freischütz. Therefore, even if the story was reduced to the shallowness of “they’re all 100% evil”, it still survived the overload of pointless creativity. 

If conductor Laurence Cummings proved to be very complacent with the trimming of the score (the whole prologue to start with) and the disfiguring pauses, he seemed rather conservative in his approach to Monteverdi’s score, going for the concept of a deluxe continuo throughout the opera, resorting with economy to his string ensemble. As it was, the cast — even the actors with fallible voices — had all leeway to use notes and words to unfurl their interpretation wrapped by warm, light yet very much present accompaniment.  Mr. Cummings sings well too (don’t ask).

I first found the idea of Kerstin Avemo as Poppea a bit adventurous and compelling at the same time. She is a charismatic actress, but I wondered how fluent she could be in the style of baroque opera from the 17th century. As it was, even if there are Poppeas with more idiomatic Italian or more dexterous with fioriture, she musically established her character’s personality from note one. The sound has something sexy, she phrased with imagination, the text was clear enough and she could color the tone in all registers. For some reason at some point she suddenly sang Schoenberg (Herzgewächse) and surprised the audience by shifting to the very high tessitura and challenging harmony without flinching. Last time I saw L’Incoronazione (in Aix), Jake Arditti was Nerone. I remember finding him then understandably strained on occasions yet with no lack of stamina. This evening he sounded more comfortable in the part, singing richly throughout. The text lacked some crispness, though, and his Italian is accented. The Ottavia in John Eliot Gardiner’s 1995 recording, Anne Sofie von Otter offered a masterly performance as the Roman Empress. She was in very good voice, only an occasionally abrupt gear change on the passaggio showed she is no longer at her freshest. Other than this, the tone was rich, the interpretation was to the point at all moments and she exuded glamour. Brava. Owen Willets(Ottone) was well contrasted to Mr. Arditti in his warmer tone and Alfheidur Gudmundsdottir sounded aptly quicksilvery as Drusilla. Andrew Murphy brought a firm, rich tone and refinement of expression to the role of Seneca, but this evening’s littore Jasin Rammal-Rykala’s darker and deeper bass made me think that maybe he should have been given a chance in this part . Stuart Jackson was a refreshingly unexaggerated Arnalta who sang his lullaby in honeyed tone. 

Telemann’s Orchestral pieces and cantatas, Musikkollegium Winterthur (at the Stadthaus Winterthur), 20.04.2024

Although no one doubts Georg Philipp Telemann’s importance among late baroque composers, one tends prefer Bach, Handel and Vivaldi first when buying concert tickets or recordings. It is difficult to explain why. Telemann had no lack of imagination, but my guess is that his melodic invention is not as persuasive as Bach’s, Handel’s or Vivaldi’s. In other words, his music needs a little bit more help from performers. If I am to be honest, the reason for me to attend this concert was the fact that I had never seen conductor Reinhard Goebel, whose radical Bach recordings were central to my CD collection back in the 90’s and I wanted to check if he had grown soft or still kept his mojo. Fortunately, option “b”. Definitely.

Mr. Goebel leaves nothing to chance and makes sure that every note attain its discursive purpose. During this concert, I often remembered Nikolaus Harnoncourt’s famous essay about baroque music as Klangrede. Every movement of the Orchestral Suite “Hamburger Ebb und Fluth” has a title; the sarabanda, “The sleeping Thetis”, the gavotte “The playful Nayades”, the menuet “the pleasant zephyrs”, and under Mr. Goebel’s baton you didn’t need to read them to know what was what. Everything bursted into life and spoke to the audience. The second orchestral item of the program, the “Cricket Symphony” (the title of which has more to do with the whimsical writing with piccolo and two double bass solos than with insects) had the audience smiling at Telemann’s sophisticated sense of humor and surprised by how the composer absorbed the novelties that would lead to what we call today “classical style”. It is admirable how the Musikkollegium Winterthur can sound like an entirely different orchestra depending on the conductor on duty. Here these musicians offered music of excitingly precise articulation in very fast tempi and responded to the conductor’s unrelenting demand for panache and virtuoso quality. Bravi.

The two cantatas performed this evening couldn’t be more different. The 1730 rather red-tape “Sey tausenmal willkomen, o auserwählter Tag” is all glitter and coloratura, while the 1765 “Ino” almost sounds as if Gluck composed it instead. While Ino was famously recorded by Gundula Janowitz, Sey tausenmal wilkommen is something of a rarity. I only know it from a 2017 recording with Robin Johannsen, who shares with this evening’s soloist, soprano Elisabeth Breuer, the technical abandon with trills, staccato, very long runs, but lacks a little bit juice in her middle register, what made her occasionally hard to hear. The tessitura in Ino is far more congenial to Ms. Breuer’s voice, whose high register shines freely and brightly. Before this concert, I have listened to Michael Schneider’s recording with Ana Maria Labin, a singer you’d see cast rather as a prima donna in operas like Ariodante or Alcina. As the text and music are extremely dramatic (“Here I totter beneath the beloved burden/That seized my lacerated arm” etc etc), the impact of a richer voice does make a difference. Ms. Breuer’s instrument goes rather for the seconda donna shelf, and yet she sang with great intensity, very clear diction, admirable precision and amazing stamina (Telemann can be a bit stingy with breath pauses sometimes).

Ponchielli’s La Gioconda, Teatro di San Carlo, Napoli, 13.04.2024

If you have in mind that Ponchielli‘s La Gioconda is nobody’s favorite opera, it has been receiving significant attention short of its 150th anniversary. First, it was surprisingly chosen as the central item in Salzburg’s Easter Festival with the Santa Cecília Orchestra and a glamorous cast under Antonio Pappano. Then after some decades of absence in Naples, it has been scheduled for a new production in Naples with almost the same cast seen at the Grosses Festspielhaus. 

With a libretto with all things Venetian, curses, accusations of witchcraft, blessings, rosaries and a ballet scene, a director would have to be exceptionally creative if he or she wanted to go for anything but a traditional staging. And that’s ok – especially with Christian Lacroix’s glamouroso costumes. The problem lies rather in the complete lack of Personenregie. I mean, I understand it is impossible to really direct a cast of stars, and I don’t envy Romain Gilbert’s job at all here. And yet there was so much nonsense going on, poor blocking, poor timing, empty gesturing that it felt like a staging right from the comedy by the Marx Brothers. As it was, it felt a bit like a pageant in which you could guess what everybody would do before they did it (the prima donna would chew the scenery in a generic way, the tenor would look bored etc). 

One could say that the conductor might have faced the same problem, but Pinchas Steinberg is such an experienced maestro that at this point he could conduct this on his sleep. He relished the Italian orchestra’s bright sonorities to make it all clear, fizzy, animated and transparent enough for this non Italianate cast to pierce through without any loss in presence.

When you listen to Italian recordings from the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s, the first thing you’d notice was that all voices had a hallmark squillo, even the low voices had this buzzy, focused, upfront sound that just flashed in the auditorium. And yet the title role in La Gioconda is a hard fit for a “bright” soprano. It is mostly central in tessitura and often low, until it’s not. It’s a bit like Fiordiligi on drugs. This is probably why Maria Callas’s first studio recording is considered by many a reference. It’s very much a soprano voice, furthermore on the metallic side. Yet the middle and low register were famously incisive, her diction exemplary and we don’t even have to mention that the interpretation was vivid. I obviously never heard Callas live, and the only singer I had ever seen in this role was Violeta Urmana, who was rather taken for granted — and that was unfair. It’s a tough part and she sang it really efficiently in a classy albeit not truly gripping way. I can’t say if Anna Netrebko was on a bad-voice day, but the last performances I’ve heard from her show that her upper register has lost a bit of its former core. Never so evidently as this evening. Her high notes sounded breathy and puffy, there was some instability and intonation was perfectible. She felt more comfortable with softer dynamics in her upper range and offered beautiful mezza voce throughout. On the other hand, her low notes were almost massive, more than those from the mezzo and the contralto in the cast. And this is an undeniable advantage in this role, even if some could say that there was too much of this advantage. I can’t say her Suicidio! was something for the ages —the important contrasting lighter phrases in E un di leggiadre rather awkward and imprecise — and yet she shone whenever Gioconda is being naughty, especially in the scene when she is ready to ruin Laura’s life until she changes her mind. In moments like that, all her instincts would br invariably right, musically and scenically. 

The fact that Eve-Maud Hubeaux’s mezzo is very different from Luciana d’Intino’s or Fedora Barbieri’s is not a disadvantage per se. This Laura sounded young, vulnerable and tender just like the character is supposed to be. When she tried to beef up the sound like an Italian dramatic soprano, then the voice would lose focus and grate a bit. La Cieca is a difficult part — low for mezzos and high for contraltos — and Ksenia Nikolaev’s was at least firmer in tone than most singers I’ve heard in it. 

At this point in his career, Jonas Kaufmann’s tenor is so dark that his high notes actually sound smaller than the rest of his voice, and that’s something you’d rarely see in an Italian tenor. There were moments when the tone sounded on the verge of breaking and there was all kind of glottal attacks and releases and a prevailing throatiness, but he seemed a tad more plugged in than in the last times I heard him. He sang some often abused phrases with good taste and affection. While some may say he often took refuge in piano in high lying passages, I’d argue that he did it adeptly and convincingly. This is the first time I’ve seen Alexander Kópeczi and all I can say is that I’d like to hear more from him. His is a beautiful noble bass voice, a bit too noble for the part of Alvise Badoero, which he sang with commendable sense of line and finish. I leave the best for last . With his deluxe baritone, tasteful phrasing and intelligent use of the text, Ludovic Tézier, in a way, stole the show, making a one-dimensional bad guy something more complex that one could have imagined. Bravo. 

Bizet’s Carmen, Opernhaus Zürich, 10.04.2024

I cannot think of any other work in the operatic repertoire as paradoxical as Bizet’s Carmen. It is the most popular opera in the repertoire, and yet Nietzsche chose it as a positive example in his critique of Richard Wagner’s work. It is also an opéra comique, with light music, dance, local color, castanets, and yet it ends like a full Romantic tragedy. It is the no. 1 example of a character in an opera libretto who does not correspond to sexist standards of woman behaviour and yet she dies a victim of gender violence for refusing to correspond to those very standards. This is maybe why no performance of Carmen can really respond to every requirement made by music and text. No singer, conductor – and maybe orchestra and chorus – would be able to be so Protean in order to be alternately serious and comic, French and non-French, elegant and earthy, flexible and punchy in such a consistent way. So, yes, performing Carmen requires an angle – and this also means it is going to please only part of the audience. And the tourists, of course.

In his new production for the Opernhaus Zürich, Andreas Homoki seems to be fully aware of that, and chose a point of view so specific that I wonder who he wanted to please. Or if he wanted to please no-one, but – for my own surprise – I realised that I can be counted among those who enjoyed the experience. First, it does not look like a variation of what he usually does. Here we don’t have the impression that the creative process started from “get the revolving stage for we’re producing… what again?…. ah, Carmen!”. Second, while Carmen obviously still speaks to contemporary audiences, it is very much a 19th century work which has been reinterpreted in many and many ways. The single thing about operas that concretely remain from the days their creators were alive is (in most cases) the opera houses where they were created. You can walk inside these buildings the same way Verdi or Wagner did. Being there is no second-hand experience. Even if few genres are so intrinsically related to a specific opera house as the opéra comique, the building where Carmen was premièred in 1875 does not exist anymore. It burnt down in 1887, and the current Salle Favart was only opened in 1898. And yet this is just a side comment. You might have seen many Carmens and they remain in your memory, but every time you see it, the opera house is there, be it the new Salle Favart, the Opernhaus Zürich or the Teatro alla Scala. It is the real thing behind the fantasy, it is the fantasy’s skeleton.

In Mr. Homoki’s production, we see the backstage of a theatre as the opera starts. During the overture, a guy in present day clothes walks in and finds the score of Carmen on the floor. Suddenly there is a red and gold curtain and Carmen, Micaela, Escamillo make themselves visible. Other characters appear, grab him and dress him as a soldier. Suddenly, he is Don José. The audience is also forced to “take part”: all lights in the auditorium are turned on, and we are the “funny-looking people” the other soldiers like to observe while they have nothing to do. In act 3, we notice that costumes and props have changed in style. We are no longer in the 19th century. It is snowing, people dress as in the 1930’s, Micaela appears to be a military nurse. Act 4 takes place in our days. Everybody follows the bullfight in a TV brought on stage and plugged in an extension handed by the prompter. Other than this, the story follows its course without any manipulation.

The director, however, wants us to understand that the sets are actually the Opéra Comique in the time of the first performance, than during WW2 and then in the current days, but this is something you can only learn by reading the program. As it is, we do realize it is _a_ theatre in three different moments in history. In any case, I wouldn’t say that this is problematic at all. Even if you had never seen Carmen, you’d know what is going on and understand what this staging is about. The main scenic elements here are curtains that establish contrasts in mood, in space, in time, but mainly between reality and fantasy. Although this is rarely striking in visual terms, it is always efficient in an almost predictable way, what seems to be the point in a staging where you are being reminded that “this is not real life”. What is real is the fact that you’re there and the role that you have been assigned is: Don José. So, as much as the audience would like to identify with Carmen or even Micaela, statistically a member of the audience is probably Don José. You just need to read the news to realize that. The building where Carmen was first performed may not exist anymore, but violence against women is sadly very much here.

Gianandrea Noseda’s task is comparatively simpler, and he did not seem keen on complicating it either. He too had an angle, and it wasn’t making it a grand Romantic opera (as Karajan used to do), but rather a piece of 19th century exotica, with strong rhythms, kaleidoscopic sound picture, with prominent woodwind and an integrated rather than dominating string section. I was tempted to write that this was an “opéra comique”-approach, but the way the orchestral sound was often imposed on singers made me think twice, especially when one had a light-voiced cast as the one this evening.

The idea of a Swiss Carmen was something I had to get used to, but I have decided to be open-minded. Furthermore, Marina Viotti has an advantage: she was born in Lausanne and French is her native language. As such, not only did she deliver all dialogues famously in a fruity, warm voice, but also she sang the text with admirable clarity. Her tonal coloring, word-pointing – allied to solid musicianship and imagination – made her interpretation fascinating. You would get the irony, the seduction, the impatience, the irreverence, it was all there in the way she handled notes and words. But then we get to the point – does she have the mojo for it? Well, yes and no. She comes across as rather stiff in her swing and she is not a very supple dancer either. So, no, her Carmen is a bit lacking in the the usual hip-shaking sultriness seen in singers in this role. That said, I personally prefer unsmiling and non-seductive Carmens. In my opinion, she is not trying to ingratiating herself to anyone or to convince anyone of anything. So, any staging gains a lot from having Frasquita and Mercedès as the seductive ones, while Carmen is just doing her thing. In this sense, I believe Ms. Viotti would gain more from a production in which she were relieved of her twerking duties. In any case, even if she often sounds charming, the part is on the heavy size for her voice, and when hard-pressed, her mezzo may lose focus and projection, sounding a tad harsh too. In moments like Non, tu ne m’aime pas or in the card scene, she was often overshadowed by her colleagues, and she worked really hard for her money in the closing scene. Her Don José, Saimir Pirgu is similarly light-toned for the part of Don José. His middle register lacked color and was produced with some tremulousness, and the contrast with a forceful high register where he did not seem afraid to push stood in the way of real legato. He managed the mezza voce in the duet with Micaela rather adeptly, but curiously less so in his aria. In the acting department, he has the right attitude for the role, and gave the last scene all he’s got, including vocally, flashing some big acuti in the hall. Natalia Tanasii’s shimmering, creamy soprano is the kind of sound one expects in the role of Micaela, which she sang with great affection. The role of Escamillo ideally requires some vocal glamour and personal appeal. It is true that one rarely sees a singer who does full justice to the role of Escamillo, and this evening Lucasz Golinski’s baritone sounded quite curdled, and he did not seem really at ease playing the alpha male either.

Wagner’s Lohengrin, Opéra National du Rhin (at La Filature, Mulhouse), 07.04.2024

Less than an year after the unveiling of the Opéra de Paris’s latest production of Wagner’s Lohengrin, the Opéra du Rhin is presenting its brand new staging of the same work around American tenor Michael Sypres’ debut in the title role. In a text in the program, director Florent Siaud makes references to the philosophical discussion around the idea of community and its decline, about the influence of classical theatre on Wagner as a catalyst for a national project and even to Margaret Atwood, but you don’t need to know any of this, for I am afraid all ideas remained in the program. What one can actually see looks as if the theatre had planned a run of Spontini’s La Vestale and changed it mind after the sets had been built. The costumes are nonsensical, the Personenregie is mostly stand-and-deliver with stock gestures galore and it all looks terribly kitsch. I mean, I wish someone had read that text in the program and really staged what was proposed there, for the ideas were worth staging. 

The musical side of the performance was not entirely consistent, but far superior in quality. Aziz Shokhakimov offered a rather schizophrenic approach to the score. At moments, it felt rather kapellmeisterlich as if the sole purpose of his conducting was keeping everything in place. This has occasionally paid off in an unusually clean account of the chorus announcing Lohengrin’s arrival, for instance. The cast too might add that the maestro tended to help them by keeping the orchestra in a manageable volume in difficult passages. But then Mr. Shokhakimov would turn into Mr. Hyde and abruptly press forward (at the risk of synchrony with the chorus at times) and unleash the orchestra. This has also paid off, especially in the scenes where Ortrud and Telramund were involved. At other times, you just felt that the orchestra would have preferred more considerate tempi — I have seen their string section offer juicier sounds and its woodwinds less hazardous in other occasions. There were also moments when you wished things were a little bit wilder rather than just well-placed. Anyway, it felt like a box of chocolates, and you were kept curious about what you would get next. 

Although Johanni van Oostrum’s Elsa sounded more secure in exposed high notes last year in Munich, she remains a remarkably sweet- and warm-toned Elsa who sculpts her phrase with poise and sensitivity. And she is also a good actress. I have recently listened to a broadcast from Amsterdam in which Martina Serafin took the role of Ortrud and I cannot say I was looking forward to seeing her after the news she would replace French mezzo Anaïk Morel in Strasbourg and Mulhouse. Well, I am glad to report that she proved my expectations wrong. If scenically she was a bit all over the place, her singing was probably the most exciting feature of this performance. At this point of her career, if her voice can no longer be described as a thing of beauty — especially the piercing and overvibrant high notes — it has undeniable presence in the hall in all registers, and still allows dynamic and tonal variety. Moreover, not only does she deliver the text with clarity but also with intelligent word-pointing and feeling for drama. If the interpretation turned around “Ortrud the witch”, this witch had remarkable sense of humor too while convincing Elsa of her repentance and then eating all her rival’s argument for breakfast in their confrontation.

Michael Spyres is a trouble-free Lohengrin. His German is clear, the style is irreproachable, he finds no note too low or too high, he phrases with variety, it’s all there, but for spontaneity. As often in roles on the heavy size for his tenor, he goes for a complex, dark and slightly nasal tonal quality that robs high high notes of radiance and makes his mezza voce grate a bit. But again: the high notes and the mezza voce were unproblematically there and this already places him above most singers in this part. Josef Wagner too has a rather dark voice and also a bit grainy in the role of Telramund. During act 1, one had the feeling that his high register was a bit recessed, but maybe he was saving for act 2, when he proved to have stamina and sustain the competition with the orchestra with a voice a bit short in projection. Timo Riihonen may not be the noblest-sounding King Henry, and yet his big tightly focused bass filled the hall famously throughout the opera. Last but not least, Edwin Fardini was a forceful, rich-toned herald and with clear diction too. 

Bach’s Johannes-Passion, Orchestra of the 18th Century (at the Tonhalle Zürich), 25.03.2024

After a highly theatrical account of the Matthäus-Passion in Winterthur , Daniel Reuss’s almost abstract account of the Johannes-Passion proved that sometimes a performance exclusively based on musical values can be surprisingly effective in creating a “spiritual” atmosphere in Bach’s large-scale choral works. Especially in the Johannes-Passion, which is less exuberant and more meditative in nature. From the opening chorus on, these musicians showed that they did not have any intent of standing between Bach and the audience. The usually heavily accented phrases played by the strings flowed with unusual poise – and yet the accents were still there. Although the chorus’s repeated calls “Herr” carried no urgency or despair, they felt fervent enough in their understatement. The Orchestra of the 18th Century, which I knew exclusively from recordings with its founder Frans Brüggen, played smoothly with a warm glow, no sharp angles, no discursive effects, but clarity never failed. Similarly, if the Cappella Amsterdam never tried to characterize the sneering crowds or point words to highlight anything, it delivered the choräle with absolute balance and beauty of sound and delved into the contrapuntal choruses with complete transparence. This reserve seemed to efface any sense of simulacrum, of artists trying to sell you their interpretation, allowing the sensorial power of music speak to the audience in a way far beyond the power of words, or thoughts and even feelings. This musicians – under the guidance of their conductor – took a leap of faith here and more than met the challenge.

This was no starry group of soloists, but they were all of them effective and stylish, pride of place going to the vocally immaculate Evangelist of Thomas Walker. Peter Harvey seemed to be fighting some allergy, but sang nonetheless the part of Jesus with firmness of tone and verbal clarity. Although James Newby’s baritone is a bit on the high side for these arias, he sang with an appealing tonal quality, admirable flexibility and a fancy for interpretation that maybe jarred a bit with the “abstract” nature of this performance. I leave the best for last. Norwegian soprano Berit Norbakken was born to sing Bach. Her crystalline voice finds no difficulties in this music, shining with complete purity and absolute naturalness throughout her whole range. Brava.

R. Strauss’s Elektra, Osterfestspiele Baden-Baden, 23.03.2024

There is no simple answer to the question of how a conductor should lead a performance of Richard Strauss’s Elektra. I myself have often mentioned the composer’s own advice about avoiding excess, and yet Strauss himself famously said “when a mother is slain onstage, does anyone expect a violin concerto?” Last time I saw Elektra, one year ago in Berlin, conductor Alexander Soddy unleashed all the furies from hell with the musicians of the Deutsche Oper orchestra. If his singers had a very hard job to do that afternoon, the audience had the time of their lives. Maybe this is why it found it so disappointing to hear it conduced like Mendelssohn’s violin concerto this evening in the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden. I understand that the stage directors (and Strauss himself) wanted the audience to hear the words in the text, and keeping the orchestra under leash is part of it. In this department, the Berlin Philharmonic did not hang fire and offered colorful and balanced sounds throughout. The problem lies rather in the decision of handling the tempo as squarely as Kirill Petrenko did this evening, the accents flaccid, the phrasing a tad impressionistic. “Boredom” was a word that often came to my mind during this performance, which just occasionally came to life, invariably in more lyrical passages, such as the recognition scene. 

When it comes to directors Philipp Stölzl and Philipp M. Krenn, this new staging on paper might have seemed too good to fail. The stage is structured as a concrete staircase the massive steps of which move to form a single wall, sometimes interrupted by niches where singers often had to crouch due to restricted space (I wonder how happy they were to sing demanding music without being able to properly stand). Over these steps/wall, the audience could see the complete text of the opera being projected as long as it was being sung. Judith Selenko’s sophisticated use of graphic design made the experience very compelling by the way words were placed on scenic elements. I only disliked the crawling text during the recognition scene because I don’t believe I should  think of “Star Wars” at that moment. In any case, while the staging succeeded in creating the impression of claustrophobia, the cast seemed at a loss for what to do in it. Elektra twirled in her claims for revenge, Chrysothemis had a ridiculous schoolgirl outfit and opened her mouth as if someone had told her to pretend to be screaming and a Klytämnestra dressed as the pigeon lady wrapped in a duvet moved like Theda Bara. If the plan was to make it all seem like a graphic novel, than the lifeless pageant could be considered a success. 

At this point of her career, Nina Stemme finds the role of Elektra a bit on the high side. One could feel she had to push almost every high note, both high c’s could be described as shrieking and the “-ha-“ in erhabenes Gesicht” was left to imagination. That said, the voice sounded otherwise full, rich and warm. She still sings it with more feeling for her lines than many a younger soprano in her prime, often scaling down to piano whenever she could while pouring voluminous climactic notes in the auditorium. She was well contrasted to Elza van de Heever, whose rather cold, piercing soprano flashed freely in the auditorium. In this contralto part, Michaela  Schuster sounds rather recessed and monochrome. Both men sang solidly, Johan Reuter firm and noble in tone, Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke incisive and characterful. Among the minor roles, Katharina Magiera, Alexandra Ionia and Lauren Fagan deserve mention as the odd-numbered maids. 

Bach’s Kantate BWV 6, J.S. Bach-Stiftung (at the Kirche Trogen), 22.03.2024

One of the most famous episodes in the gospels is Luke’s description of the appearance of Jesus in the way to Emmaus. It has been considered one of the best-built scenes in the new testament by the Hitchcock-ian way it lets us know from the beginning that the mysterious travel companion is the resurrected Christ, allowing us to follow the subsequent discussion about his own death from a detached point of view only to be surprised by the way he reveals himself (or rather lets himself be recognized) after the two travellers show him hospitality by inviting him to supper and stay with them during the night. It is now wonder that the whole focus of this cantata is the invitation, which appears verbatim from Luke 24:29 in the opening chorus of Bach’s 1725 Cantata BWV 6: Bleib bei uns, denn es will Abend werden, und der Tag hat sich geneiget (“Stay with us, for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over”). As much as the biblical passage, the cantata has a certain mystery to it. It is structurally unbalanced by its imposing, almost solemn opening chorus that almost feels operatic in its slow-fast-slow scheme very similar from an overture. After that, it settles in an almost charming atmosphere of feel-good arias – in spite of their texts – with elaborate solos for oboe da caccia in the aria for the alto and violoncello piccolo in the ensuing recitative and finally a rather dialogal dynamic between the tenor and the string section in the last aria before a perfunctory chorale. In a way, the imbalance lies very much in the core of the story itself. It is getting dark, the travellers feel that it is unsafe to go further and worry about the unknown companion and offer him shelter. However, on offering protection to their own protector, they realize that there should be nothing to fear (because he had always been with them during the journey). So, yes, the text of the arias and the recitatives is about asking for protection, but these words are actually unnecessary (and maybe that is why that the instrumental parts are give such prominence here). Everything that had to be said has already been said in the opening number, which only have the very words spoken to Jesus in Emmaus. In a nutshell, do good and you’ll be fine.

In this evening’s performance, conductor Rudolf Lutz eschewed all solemnity and theatricality in the opening chorus and created in his usual preference for warm orchestral sound a rather intimate impression, which actually fits the scene. More important than this is the fact that he managed with his excellent chorus extraordinary structural clarity there. Yes, I have been praising Mr. Lutz and his forces for the extraordinary level of clarity of their performances for two years, but this evening they really outdid themselves. It felt as if you had the score in front of you; the double fugue sounded almost obvious in the way you could hear the subjects bouncing back and forth between the voices and also with the orchestra. Bravi. The transition to the arias in this cantata can be tricky, and I would guess the maestro intended to bring them to the atmosphere of the opening chorus by the way he tried to avoid any sense of sprightliness. This had the effect of made them a little bit square, and the oboe da caccia solo had its bumpy moments. Annekathrin Laabs sang the first aria in the grand manner; the voice is firm, bright, forward and she manages the bottom register with impressive focus. She handled the curves and twists of Bach’s tricky writing with absolute poise and charm too. If Georg Poplutz was evidently not in a good-voice day (in the first performance, the middle register had very little color), he still managed to offer a commendable performance of his aria, his high notes firm and the melisme clear and elegant. Lia Andres sang the chorale with boyish tone and absolute artlessness, and Jonathan Sells gave an eloquent account of the recitative, his low notes distinctive, his diction exemplary.

Bach’s Matthäus-Passion, Musikkollegium Winterthur (at the Stadtkirche Winterthur), 21.03.2024

If it is not accurate to say that the music of Johann Sebastian Bach has become chasse gardée of “period orchestras”, one rarely finds it played these days by a “modern orchestra”, unless it is conducted by a specialist in historically informed practices. As it is, I have no memory of the last time I’ve heard Bach played with modern instruments under an “all-purpose” conductor. At this age, “authentic” performances have become so influential that musicians in an orchestra like the Berliner Philharmoniker instinctively know the no-no’s and how to adapt to the style. And yet, it can all feel somewhat “stiff” when the conductor is not really fully immerse in the aesthetics of baroque music, where nothing is measured by kilometers. Even in church music, the devil is always in the detail.

This evening, nobody could say that conductor Roberto Gonzáles-Monjas did not grasp the big picture: tempi were all of them right and clarity was almost always there. Even the church offered acceptable acoustics, surprisingly dryish, even if the chorus sounded a tad recessed. And yet the orchestral sound tended to feel on the “deluxe” side: round, homogeneous, regular, smooth, enveloping. This is good, but it can be too good, when the music needs the irregularity to speak. This does not mean either that the performance failed to establish a channel of communication with the audience. It most certainly did, albeit in the way the “deluxe” sound allows it, i.e., grandly, theatrically, emotionally. When Victoria de los Angeles sang the part of Elisabeth in Bayreuth – and she sang it excellently as she used to sing everything – German reviewers had to find something to fault. And, being German, they did not fail: her interpretation, if intelligent and elegant, sounded “sentimental” to their ears. I couldn’t help thinking of these snobbish (and prejudiced) reviewers this evening, while listening to the sustained “accompaniment”, the wow-inducing accents, the atmospheric rather than narrative approach to phrasing, but I’ve decided to embrace this performance as it was. And it had its charm. A much repeated cliché is that the Matthäus-Passion is Bach’s most operatic work, and, well, it doesn’t hurt trying that angle, especially if you have the right singers for it.

I have a certain fascination for Ian Bostridge. To be honest, I find his approach to singing a bit overcomplicated in a way that looks a bit exhausting both physically and mentally. Most singers who sing like that are so occupied with the process that the results are hardly interesting, but never Mr. Bostridge, who use the convolution to create interpretations of unusual complexity. The part of the Evangelist is to a singer what a marathon is to an athlete, and this English tenor is understandably no longer in his freshest voice. At first you would not feel it, for it still sounds dulcet and projects famously. Nevertheless, it sounds hard-pressed when Bach requires too much frequentation of the upper end of the range. There were sometimes grating, strained and not truly dead on pitch sounds, often disguised in “acting with the voice” and falsetto. All that said, I have never heard anyone sings the Evangelist the way he did. As we understand from the very word “evangelist”, he is supposed to be a narrator, and Bach wrote lines that are extremely descriptive in nature, what requires from the singer an ability of story-telling. Mr. Bostridge, on the other hand, does not sing the music as an observer, but rather as if he were reliving a story he had experienced first-hand. At moments, it feels rather expressionistic and, with the increasing fatigue during the evening, a tad over the top, but he never failed to command you attention. Even in vocal terms, there is something unique in the way he sings it. Almost every tenor goes to a very light, heady vocal production, a tad nasal and the second-half of the tessitura in voix mixte. Mr. Bostridge produces a darker, often more covered sound, the first octave sometimes almost baritonal and he employs a lot of floating mezza voce. The tenor arias were sung by Benjamin Bruns, who has recently added the role of Lohengrin to his repertoire. Predictably, he sang them à la Fritz Wunderlich, full-toned, open-throated and really securely. His technical control is truly admirable, and the sound is healthy and pleasant. If Simon Keenlyside sang the bass arias (plus the recitatives both as Petrus and Pilatus) on a large-scale and with admirable flexibility, the sound itself now lacks some nobility and there was very little nuance.

Joanne Lunn and Ann Hallenberg are names associated with the HIP scene, and yet they could blend naturally into the scale of this performance. Ms. Lunn sang her arias with an extra dose of energy, flashing some forceful bell-toned high notes and delivery the text with admirable intensity. Most singers sound a bit cautious and discreet in Aus Liebe, but that was not the case this evening. She sang it with absolute abandon and with great emotion. Ms. Hallenberg finds no difficulties in this music. She knows how to use her registers, uses vibrato (or the absence of) for expressive purposes and sings with disarming naturalness. Last but not least, the Zürcher Sing-Akademie offered a very solid contribution. One could say that the choral singing somehow seemed a bit disconnected to the prevailing emotionalism, and this was a wise decision in terms of balance and clarity, not to mention that it somehow framed the more flamboyant elements of this performance. The boys and girls from the Konservatorium Winterthur were an endearing presence in the ripieno chorus, singing it with the kind of bouncing attitude one rarely sees in a child chorus, what must have been a challenge for the chorus master. In any case, a challenge that paid off in its spontaneity.