Wagner’s Parsifal, Bayreuther Festspiele, 19.08.2019

The current production of Parsifal from the Bayreuther Festspiele is not new to me and I have written about it two years ago. Even if I see tiny adjustments to make it (marginally) more coherent, my opinion about it remains the same and I’ll refrain from adding any comments in what regards the staging.

The musical aspect of the performance, however, has novelties. First, we have a new conductor, Semyon Bychkov, who offered pretty much the opposite Hartmut Haenchen proposed last time. Now we are dealing with some sort of Klangkultur approach, in which rich, warm and transparent sonorities ooze in the auditorium. For a while, after an absence of two years in the green hill, this seemed a viable option for this score, but around the end of the act, one couldn’t help noticing the lack of pulse that would ruin the second act. Phrasing was so slack, accents were so flaccid that all notes seemed to be dragged into a black hole of pointlessness. I cannot really say if act 3 was indeed a bit better of if by then we had already abandoned all hope. Not everything was lost. There was a good cast and fabulous choral singing (as always in the festival).

Last time, I wrote that I would need to see Elena Pankratova as Kundry to say anything. Well, I can see she was not in good voice two years ago. Today, she sounded in good shape, provided some big acuti and her low register is warm and appealing. And yet I remain hesitant to join the high praise bestowed on her. First, although her Kundry is very properly sung, I don’t see true meaning behind her delivery of the text, but rather pencil markings on her score under the advice of a coach or a conductor. And this is not a role that works if the expression does not come from within. Second, I find her middle register in this role rather colorless, what is explainable by the fact that she is a not a mezzo soprano, but this takes me to “third”. Third, for a soprano, her dealing with the big high notes in the end of the second act is rather underwhelming. I have seen mezzos offer something more solid and with more impact there. I know, it is cruel to add a third item because of five minutes of music, but I was spoiled by Gwyneth Jones in Pierre Boulez’s recording. If there is a soprano, I want extra panache there. Even Marianne Schech – a quite bored-sounding Marschallin in Karl Böhm’s recording of Der Rosenkavalier – generates some thrill there. So I guess it’s reasonable to expect something similar of someone who sings Elektra.

Andreas Schager’s Parsifal is not a complex psychological impersonation, but if you believe that the keywords are “reiner Tor” than he is particularly convincing in his fresh-eyed and rather blunt take on the role. And he also emits some excitingly loud Spitzentöne whenever he feels like it. If I find Ryan McKinny’s Amfortas grainier and throatier than last time, Derek Welton’s Klingsor is perfectly consistent with what he offered two years ago. And there is Günther Groissböck’s Gurnemanz. Mr. Groissböck has been announced as Bayreuth’s next Wotan – and one could hear that in his voice today. I was always afraid that, in the next moment, he would call Loge to help him steal back the holy spear from Alberi… I mean, from Klingsor. I don’t mean that this very talented Austrian bass is not capable of singing Gurnemanz – he has the voice and the intelligence for it, but he has not found the spiritual disposition for the part yet. His heart and his mind are on Wotan – as he should. That role is closer to his personality and attitude and it is great that he will be able to try it in his prime. I can’t wait to hear it!

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Wagner’s Das Rheingold, Bayreuther Festspiele, 23.08.2017

Having seen Frank Castorf’s staging of the Ring for the Bayreuth Festival in its second season , I cannot help comparing the experience of watching it again in its final run with my impressions from 2014. “Puzzling” is a word I could use to describe the whole affair back then: the staging seemed incoherent and the musical performance was extremely disappointing, especially in what regarded Kyrill Petrenko’s conducting. Today, when my neighbor asked me why on Earth Marek Janowski was being booed (by a small group of people, truth be said), I answered him “These people definitely weren’t here in 2014”.

Today’s was hardly unforgettable, but was quite satisfying. At least today there was a sonorous orchestra on duty. It has not started very well, though. The prelude was a bit imprecise and the opening scene was rather messy, but it would gradually gain purpose. It was very occasionally exciting and it would invariably offer more satisfaction when lyricism was called for. This would steadily develop into a noble sounding, well-balanced and clear closing scene, when one could hear the hallmark full-toned yet not aggressive echter Bayreuther Klang. This was actually my first Rheingold with Maestro Janowski. Although I had seen all the non-Ring operas (but for the Holländer) in his cycle at the Philharmonie with the Berlin RSO, the only installment of the Ring under his baton I could see was the Walküre at the Tokyo Harusai , a performance where forward-movement and clarity seemed to be the priority (qualities that could be used to describe his studio recording with the Staatskapelle Dresden). I cannot say that today’s Rhinegold is consistent with these words, but I am curious to hear the Walküre tomorrow before I say anything else.

Now that I know what is going to happen next in Mr. Castorf’s production, I confess that I have just watched his Rhinegold without any intent of finding meaning in it, but let myself follow it and ultimately find it more satisfying (even if still incoherent and eventually pointless). It is very well directed in terms of Personenregie and the Fassbinder-ian atmosphere adds some dimension (not a truly Wagnerian one, but anyway…) to these characters. Also, three years later, blocking looks sharper, many ineffective details have been deleted and there is more a sense of ensemble. I would only say that the episodes involving Alberich are marginally less satisfying, but that involves the choice of a veteran singer in this key role.

Although Albert Dohmen (whom I saw as Wotan in Bayreuth in Tankred Dorst’s production) is still in resonant and firm voice, his stage persona just lack the drive and the intensity necessary for this force-of-nature role. In 2014, Oleg Bryjak sounded far less polished, but the rawness and the drive were there. This evening’s Wotan, however, offered something more focused than Wolfgang Koch three years ago. Iain Paterson’s bass baritone is less incisive than Koch’s, but nobler in tone and richer in its middle register. While Koch’s Wotan was vulgar-and-loving-it, Paterson was cynical and self-involved and even funnier in Castorf’s dark screwball approach. I am not so enthusiastic about this year’s tenors, however. Daniel Behle was ill-at-ease as Froh, unsure about his lines and constricted of tone, and Roberto Saccà’s squally and grainy Loge lacked variety and projection. Among male singers, none was as exciting as the basses cast as the giants – a powerful, intense Günther Groissböck (Fasolt) and a firm-, dark-toned Karl-Heinz Lehner as Fafner.

Tanja Ariane Baumgartner was a light, fruity Fricka, a bit upstaged by Nadine Weissmann, whose Erda developed a lot since 2014. It is now deeper in tone, smoother in legato and even more expressive.

 

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R. Strauss’s Elektra, Bayerische Staatsoper, 16.07.2015

In the season in which Richard Strauss’s 150th birth anniversary is celebrated, the opera house in his birth city offers a treat for Straussians with three of his operas: Die schweigesame Frau, Arabella and Elektra. This first collaboration with Hugo von Hofmannsthal is a reprise of Herbert Wernicke’s 1997 production (as seen on video in Christian Thielemann’s DVD from Baden-Baden). As the director himself says, this staging eschews any attempt of characterization other than acting: the stage is practically empty, costumes are basic and there are two stage props (a royal robe in the style of the Bavarian State Opera curtain and, of course, the axe). As it is, with very little to see, one truly pays attention to what the singers are doing. This evening they were basically trying to guess which part of the stage the followspot would light and then jump onto it. Most singers seemed a bit at a loss figuring out what to do, the more gifted in the acting department doing their thing. The various examples of poor blocking suggest that there were not enough rehearsals for the cast to understand what they should do and – more important – why they were doing it. The closing scene looked almost unintentionally comic with all surviving members of Agamemnon’s family raising their arms for no particular reason while trying to make a tragedy face.

In terms of conducting, the performance seemed to be as reticent as it staging. Although the Bavarian State Orchestra produced rich and transparent sounds throughout, the conductor showed himself particularly reluctant in terms of pulse and forward movement. This libretto and this score abound in text and music that should simply erupt into sound. This evening, however, no firework in Strauss’s powerful score caught you by surprise: one could see the gunpowder being lighted, then count one, two and three to finally see the effect actually happen. On saying this, I do not mean that every performance of Elektra should sound like Georg Solti’s recording with the Vienna Philharmonic. On the contrary, by saying this, I mean the understanding of the musical-dramatic structural coherence that focus all recurrence of motives in their appropriate theatrical purpose. As it was, at some point, when the proceedings actually required some impact, Maestro Fisch finally forced his hand and brought about a brassy, unsubtle but not truly expressive sound in his otherwise excellent orchestra. To be honest, this performance’s best moment were invariably the more lyric passages (such as the Recognition Scene), when the beauty of the orchestral sound and the conductor’s consideration to his cast invariably paid off.

Although Evelyn Herlitzius took some time to warm up and, even then, she understandably shortened the difficult high c’s, she remains unparalleled in clarity of diction, understanding of the libretto and stamina. Although my memory of her 2011 performances in Berlin shows her then in more exuberant vocal health, I found that this industrious soprano proved to have never ceased to improve her singing in this role. This evening, I found her less prone to squalling than I would expect. Many high notes were roundly and goldenly sung and, to her own risk, she tried to produce softer dynamics in some dangerous passage, not always very successfully, truth be said. Her Chrysothemis was Adrianne Pierczonka, who was occasionally fazed by long high-lying phrases. The Canadian soprano, however, sang with fine projection, crispy delivery of the text and animation. Compared to her performances in Berlin under Marek Janowski, Waltraud Meier’s Klytämnestra sounded marginally more comfortable in her low notes, but still uncongenial in a role that requires an entirely different voice, I am afraid. Even her intelligence and insight cannot hide the contre-emploi (as the French would say). As much as I respect her artistry, I still believe Strauss wrote the low-lying part for a reason. Günther Groissböck was a dark, firm-toned Orest, somewhat stiff at times, but it seems that thi is what the production expected from him. Among the minor roles, Okka von der Damerau (as always) called attention with her finally focused and powerful singing.

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R. Strauss’s Elektra, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin (at the Philarmonie Berlin), 07.05.2015

The second item in the RSB’s Strauss opera program this week, a concert performance of Elektra, showed Marek Janowski in his element: absolute structural clarity, understanding of the score’s graphic orchestral effects, a forward-moving approach to tempo that avoided unnecessary ponderousness and the right decision making in what regarded balance between singers and orchestra. This could only work because of the RBS’s extreme affinity with this piece: all musicians were fully integrated in the dramatic action and were ready to try different sounds, not to mention that the harsh and aggressive sound picture of Elektra comes more readily to this orchestra than the crystalline kaleidoscope in Daphne.

Casting too proved to be very effective, even when it was not ideal. Catherine Foster’s performance in the title role has to be considered with the fact that she has agreed to sing her part having an orchestra on stage and without cuts usually adopted to help singers in the most demanding passages. There has only been one perfect Elektra – and that was Birgit Nilsson – all the other singers fall in two groups: those who manage to get to the end of the opera singing something similar to what Strauss wrote and those who don’t. Ms. Foster fits in the first group. She has clear advantages: her basic tone is clear, youthful and spontaneous, she can lighten her voice for curvier phrases and to float mezza voce now and then and she proved capable of producing some very loud acuti in climactic passages. Although she manages her resources relatively well, there are moments when she is understandably tired, most notably in the final scene. Then she can sound fluttery, strained and brittle. But there is never the feeling that she “is not going to make it”. Her performance has strong irony, intelligence, vulnerability and a certain provocativeness. When this Elektra shows her soft side (as in the Recognition Scene), this sounds like a natural consequence. The problem remains that Hofmannsthal’s Elektra is doomed from the start – there cannot be a sense that she is going to survive this. And Catherine Foster is somehow too self-possessed and too ready to soften to ultimately deal with the escalating paroxysms leading to the final exhaustion in the end of the opera. If I had to point out a drawback in this performance, however, this would be less than crispy declamation, making some of Elektra’s vituperation generalized and unvaried.

Camilla Nylund’s velvety soprano offered a nice contrast for Chrysothemis. She dealt with the testingly high tessitura without saturating the picture with strident high notes and blended well with her Elektra towards the end of the opera. A beautiful performance. I have never warmed to Waltraud Meier’s Klytämnestra and hearing her live only confirmed my impression that she lacks resonance in this lower role, often resorts to speaking voice and is sometimes inaudible. Her understanding of the psychology of this role is very keen and more believable than the caricature put on by some exponents of this part. Günther Groissöck was a dark-toned, resonant Orest, and the role of Ägysth was glamorously cast with Stephen Gould, who could sing all his notes over a loud orchestra. Small roles were all of them well taken, but Gala El Hadidi (Second Maid) and Eve-Maud Hubeaux (Third Maid) deserve special mention.

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R. Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, Salzburger Festspiele, 17.08.2014

Der Rosenkavalier is an opera intimately related to the Salzburger Festspiele – not only has it seen some of the key names perform on its stage (from Lotte Lehmann to Kurt Moll, by way of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Tatiana Troyanos and Lucia Popp…), but some absolute standards have been established here (especially Karajan 1960 and Böhm 1969). In this Straussian 150th anniversary, it is only fitting that this work has been chosen to be performed in the Großes Festspielhaus. In the old days, however, you would see the crème de la crème of the operatic world in a Strauss performance in Salzburg – I don’t know if I could say that the audience had something like that this evening.

Franz Welser-Möst does have indisputable Straussian credentials – his performances in Vienna and Zurich have met with critical acclaim and, with the help of the Vienna Philharmonic, one can expect nothing but perfection. The high expectations might have something to do with the disappointment, but a serious attempt to be objective makes me say that this was a lukewarm performance, graced by an orchestra capable of producing exquisite sounds but often poorly balanced, unsubtle brass throughout. Although one could hear vertical clarity, there was not really the sense of a presiding intelligence that makes every element in the score live up to a coherent and meaningful “arch” in every act, let alone through the whole opera. The fact that the cast was vocally underpowered posed a serious challenge to the conductor, who deserves praises for trying to accommodate his soloists, by keeping the orchestral sound light and transparent. Nevertheless, the final effect seemed ill-at-ease, meager and sometimes awkward. In any case, purely orchestral moments too had variable results – the introduction to act I sounded a bit rough-edged and humorless, for instance. On the other hand, act III opened in the grand manner, an example of structural transparency.

Krassimira Stoyanova’s lyric soprano has seen better days – a consistent diet of heavy roles has robbed her voice of focus in its upper register. The most immediate result is that it is often difficult to hear her, unless when Strauss requires chamber-size sounds from his orchestra. Until her act I monologue, this was a very frustrating experience, but once she reached that key moment, she soon redeemed herself by offering a stylish, musicianly and elegant account of the part of the Marschallin. She masters the art of expressive mezza voce and uses portamento tastefully. More than that: her approach is truly personal, freshly conceived and inspired by none of her famous predecessors. As performed by Ms. Stoyanova, the Marschallin is a savvy woman who sees her glass half-full. Although she knows that this won’t last forever, she will enjoy it until then. Sophie Koch is one of the best Octavians in the market these days. She too could be hard to hear in her middle and low registers this evening, but consistently produced rich and full top notes. Mojca Erdmann struggled with the part of Sophie during the whole evening – her voice sounds microscopic in this music, comes in one only saccharine color and she cannot float high mezza voce to save her life. Also, she seems clueless about what to do with the role. Fortunately, Günther Groissböck is a vivacious, fully idiomatic Ochs, a young man in the role for a change. He sang his long act I scene uncut and produced his showpiece low notes securely. There could be a little bit more volume and tonal variety and he lost steam at some point in act III, but still it was a refreshingly convincing take on this role so prone to exaggeration and musical imprecision. As much as his Maschallin, he would have been better appreciated in a less large auditorium. Adrian Eröd’s Faninal too seemed to resent the acoustics and sounded on the grey-toned side during the whole evening. Curiously, given the Festival’s tradition, all minor roles have been unspectacularly cast, Annina and Valzacchi barely noticeable and the Italian tenor labored and hard on the ear. Exceptions should be made to a forceful Leitmetzerin of Silvana Dussmann and a powerful and rich-toned Polizeikomissar of Tobias Kehrer.

Harry Kupfer’s insight-free production is inoffensive to a fault and staged Hofmannsthal’s libretto in an almost exclusively design approach – the sets were dominated by projection of photographs from Vienna, props reduced to a minimum and costumes in a strict chromatic palette. It could have been a concert version, but I guess that these singers would rather have the orchestra in the pit.

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Wagner’s Lohengrin, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, 12.11.2011

In an interview for Gramophone, Marek Janowski said that his idea for his Wagner’s opera omnia series with the RSB was his dissatisfaction with contemporary German opera directors, who don’t understand the master’s work. Thus, in concert version, his operas could shine at their brightest without any “interference” from the theatrical überall Wahn. Curiously, the conductor did not explain what kind of theatrical direction would be, in his opinion, ideal for Wagner operas. This introduction might seem irrelevant, but it made me remember that one of my eight or nine readers, Stefan, on explaining why he did not stay for the second act of Janowski’s Meistersinger because “the conductor obviously did not care about the drama of the piece”. I wonder what Wagner himself would think of this dichotomy between music and drama in the context of Musikdrama – is it legitimate to say that a performance of a Wagner opera gains in musical values for not being disturbed by being staged? One might said that it depends of the director. I would add then that the advantage of a concert performance depends of the conductor as well.

I have seen staged performances of Wagner operas that were musically uninteresting but theatrically compelling, staged performances who were dull in terms of theatre but musically illuminating – and Wagner operas performed in concert version that were actually “dramatic” and some that were neither dramatic nor musically interesting. In other words, although there is no golden rule here, in view of Maestro Janowski’s opinions, I was ready to be overwhelmed by something revelatory in terms of conducting this evening. I haven’t – Daniel Barenboim “accompanying” either Harry Kupfer’s or Stefan Herheim’s stagings actually offered me something far more overwhelming. I do not mean that this evening’s was a bad performance – it was certainly not – but it hadn’t been special either. If one has in mind that it has been organized with the purpose of being recorded, it was supposed to be memorable – otherwise why release a CD of it, isn’t it? As it was, this was an outstandingly clear reading of the score with rhythmically accurate ensembles. If there is one opera the prelude of which is supposed to set the mood for what lies ahead, this is Lohengrin – not this evening, I am afraid: violins lacked floating quality in their pianissimo playing and the climax was so deliberately built that it actually hang fire. To tell the truth, strings lacked volume throughout, violins sounding particularly thin. Since brass were in healthy shape, this could be often problematic. Act II had a better start, the dark side of the opera apparently has more appeal to the conductor – the Ortrud/Telramund scene displayed superior structural coherence and the orchestra commented with some passion, when not reined in to spare singers in difficulty. The Rundfunkchor Berlin proved to be the trump card of today’s Lohengrin – no wonder that the ensembles were invariably the most exciting moments this evening. Lohengrin’s arrival in act I was particularly praiseworthy, one of the best I have heard either live or in recordings. By the third act, things seemed to gain somewhat in interest – the prelude to act III is one of Janowski’s specialties, but I have heard him conduct it more excitingly with this same orchestra in other occasion (here again strings lacked volume). In all honesty, one cannot blame the conductor alone for the lack of excitement. It is very generous of these singers to perform pro bono and I respect all of them for that, but this was no dream team for this opera – and one could see that Janowski had to make them many concessions that ended on impairing some key dramatic moments. A good example was Ortrud’s last intervention – the orchestra, for once, was ready to give it all, but the conductor had to scale things down and he deserves high praise for being able to keep some excitement there through articulation and accent alone.

Pregnancy seems to become Annette Dasch – although the role of Elsa requires a larger voice than hers, she sang it this evening really better than when I saw her in Bayreuth. Today I found her middle and low register particularly fruity and appealing and her attempts to produce pianissimo more effective. Her interpretation has deepened too and, even if her Elsa has more than a splash of “Gossip Girl”, it is also theatrically alert and attentive to the text. Susanne Resmark too knows everything she should know about Ortrud, but the role is impossibly high for her voice, making her sound hooty, breathy and sometimes off-pitch. I have seen Klaus Florian Vogt as Lohengrin in various occasions and so far this has been his best performance in this role and I am glad that it has been recorded. His strangely ethereal yet forceful tenor fits the “role description” and he sang it particularly mellifluously this evening, while almost avoiding the abrupt ending of phrases that sometimes disfigure his singing. Gerd Grochowski masters the crispy declamation necessary to sing Telramund but, as his Ortrud, finds the role high for his voice, sounding often gray toned and limited in volume in the higher reaches. Together with this evening’s tenor and the chorus, the shining features of this performance are the outstanding Günther Groissböck, an exemplary Wagnerian voice, as King Henry and Markus Brück’s powerful Herald.

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Wagner’s Tannhäuser, Bayreuther Festspiele, 19.08.2011

Jim Davis’s Garfield once said “if you want to look thinner, hang around people fatter than you”. Now I understand Katharina Wagner’s smirk while being booed after yesterday’s performance of her production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. This evening, deafened by the thunderous Boo-fest reserved to Sebastian Baumgarten for his production of Wagner’s Tannhäuser, I could not help thinking that you can go far worse than Miss Wagner. At least, she had a couple of insights about the libretto and staged them. Well, she did not stage it very well – but she tried. Baumgarten believes he has had an insight too. Let’s read it: “The question we are faced with on a daily basis is: how are we to reconcile our pre-subjective drives and impulses, the asocial, with our subjective plans and dreams (in social and communicative contexts)? And time after time the answer is: quite simply we can’t. That is because this antithesis lies at the very heart of life. Only in art and especially in music is this antithesis abolished*. Is it only me or this is the most obvious observation one could make about Tannhäuser’s libretto?! But there is also set designer Joep van Lieshout’s take on the story “The battle of Tannhäuser is about choosing between the Apollonian and the Dionysian. At the end Tannhäuser is not able to find either of them.

If you are not dazzled by the profoundness of this analysis, you will probably be curious about how these platitudes have been staged. Here is my serious but not very enthusiastic attempt of making sense of what I have just seen: the concept of sublimation lies in the core of this staging, understood as the struggle for converting bodily impulses into nobler/spiritual values. This is macrocosmically represented by an installation called “The Technocrat”, an industrial plant that transforms human excrement into fuel gas and (most surprisingly, if my Chemistry classes are still valid) spirit (i.e., alcohol). In the social level, this is shown as an Orwellian group of workers who are cued by an invisible administration through motivational slogans. From the spiritual (i.e., mental) point-of-view, this takes place through channeling erotic impulse into art. During the overture, a film is shown in which one can see sonograms and x-rays depicting a rib-cage,  a heart, a stomach superposed with images of machines. Tannhäuser is held in a cage with ape-like creatures, someone in a leopard-costume and two rays (as in stingray). Venus is a pregnant hag without any allure. Tannhäuser gets sick of all that and presses a button: the cage named Venusberg slides into the floor and he then finds a drunk young man (the shepherd) and some people in red robes. He is delighted, especially when a bunch of guys dressed as members of a Scottish Glam rock band show up (the Landgraf and the other singer knights).

In act II, we see Elisabeth in a red robe excited about Tannhäuser’s imminent arrival while trying ugly jewelry. Wolfram is jealous, but understands that two is company and, once alone with her, Tannhaüser gives her a brief incursion into the Venusberg (remember: it is just one floor down). She is flushed, he disappears. Then the Landgraf invites the people with robes, some girls with swimsuits and swords and a bunch of women in bridesmaids’ frocks and a priest to the little singing competition in the facilities. Venus takes the ladder to the gathering place and joins the group, although the priest does not seem happy to see her. Everybody sings, but Tannhäuser sings and pour water on his rivals from the second floor. Then he grabs Venus from the audience and sings her hymn to her. The very colourful group of factory workers who convert feces into biogas is shocked and try to kill him with some knives that happened to be hanging nearby. Elisabeth threatens to kill herself and they let her have her way. But she is not convinced of the effect and gets some red paint and makes her little scene a little bit bloodier. She assures Tannhäuser that Heaven will forgive him, but he seems either too stupid to understand or unwilling to do so, but it is too late to change thngs and he goes inside a container with the words “Rome 4501”.

Provided you forget that there is an industrial plant etc etc, act III is actually quite conventional almost until the very end. Elisabeth is sad – check; Wolfram is melancholic – check; Elisabeth dies away (here with a little help from Wolfram); Tannhäuser gets out of the container bald and beardless and explains how the Pope was mean to him (if you really believed the whole gas plant thing, you probably asked yourself ‘Pope?!” at this moment); Venus (who was basically there all the time) appears and then disappears – check; Elisabeth is shown as a saint – check. Then Venusberg is lifted to the ground, the ape-like figures bounce a lot, the rays contort themselves and….ah, Venus has her baby. Curtains.

Yes, I’ve got that Baumgarten probably wanted to show that, although basic instincts are considered vile and spiritual values noble, the only miracle of everyday life – birth – is produced by the body and its impulses: no spirit produces flesh, but flesh does produce spirit. You will find many passages of James Joyce’s Ulysses about the classic discussion of transcendence/immanence, especially related to the body and Catholic values. But there is a big difference there: Joyce is a genius, while Baumgarten doesn’t go beyond Friedrichshain’s Weltanschauung: The Werkstatt Bayreuth should not therefore content itself with simply serving up Tannhäuser as a refined entertainment for festival audiences or We wanted to make one very dense continuous peformance of two and a half hour instead of the traditional one but the caterer forced us to keep the pauses… I really wonder if Mr. Baumgarten does have the moral stature out of his heavily subsidized professional activity to sneer at people like me who have to work to pay for expensive festival tickets. When he chooses, for example, to engage in a social project of integration for children of foreign descent in working-class neighborhoods of Berlin instead of collecting his fee for making poor stagings of an art form he himself considers decadent, maybe he would be able to start pointing fingers around him. Until then, he should study a bit more and give up trying to shock people with extras dressed in costumes from Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Cats for his view of Venusberg. We read newspapers, we watch CNN, BBC, Al-Jazeera – we are well-informed about the REALLY shocking things in the world. Only a very ignorant person would try to enlighten anyone well-informed (as the audience of Wagner operas tend to be) with subpar, pseudo-intellectual stagings.

But there is always Wagner’s music. Tannhäuser is something of an uncompleted opera, in the sense that the composer never found a final edition for it. This evening, the usually called Dresden version was used, even if I have the impression that something different happened between the end of the overture and Venus’s first line, but I cannot really say it. There might have been some unusual cuts in the closing scenes of act II, but I would need a score to say something more precise about that. Maestro Thomas Hengelbrock would have liked to follow some cuts made by Wagner himself after the premiere in Dresden, but it seems that the Festival did not subscribe to the idea. In any case, Hengelbrock can be counted as the responsible for the interest of this evening’s performance. Some might find his Tannhäuser too unconventional in its fast pace, clean-cut phrasing and taste for orchestral effects (with the occasional sudden accelerando or ritardando), but the fact is that it sheds a new light on the score. He is a conductor new to the Festival pit and could be found wanting in sound (especially when the chorus was singing) and I am sure that, in a regular opera house, with an orchestra as good as this one, he could have been even more eloquent. Although singers sometimes found it hard to follow his beat, ensembles were generally clear and consequent – and the orchestra never failed in clarity and played with animation.

Camilla Nylund was a reliable Elisabeth in her warm, round and homogeneous soprano. She sang with good taste and sensitivity, but lacks the necessary radiance to pierce through thick orchestration in roles like this. Stephanie Friede has the elements of an important dramatic soprano voice in her – but they are so chaotically handled that the results are generally disappointing, especially in what regards intonation. I know I have been spoiled by Stephen Gould’s and Johan Botha’s Tannhäusers and I had to remind myself that generally the tenor in the title role sings like Lars Cleveman. As it is, the part lies very close to his limits and he pushes a lot in order to get through. As a consequence, there is not really much legato to speak of. Forcing high notes and beefing-up the tone rarely work for long and the result is that the effort became more and more evident as the opera goes on. By the third act, he was exhausted and just trying to survive. Michael Nagy could be a very good Wolfram – he knows exactly what kind of singing this role requires, but his voice is too often on the verge of throatiness for comfort. Günther Groissböck was a very positive Landgraf, singing firmly and incisively. Considering the general shortcomings, it wouldn’t be correct to call him “the best in the cast”, for he was far superior from his colleagues this evening. Katja Stuber deserves mention for her cleanly sung Shepherd too. Last but not least, the Festival should be praised by a strong group of singers for the competitors at the Wartburg.

*Hegemann, Carl. A fearful misdeed has been committed. Notes on the Bayreuth Tannhäuser 2011. In: 100. Bayreuther Festspiele (187202911): Richard Wagner: Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg. Program to the performance of the opera.

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