A Double Farewell Henze and Mahler in Rome, Music & Vision 14 gennaio

A Double Farewell
Henze and Mahler in Rome,
reported by GIUSEPPE PENNISI


On 10 January 2010, in its huge 2,832 seat main auditorium in Rome, the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia offered an exceptional evening: Hans Werner Henze's latest work and one of the last works by Gustav Mahler. Despite a hundred years separating the two compositions, the connection is quite strong. Henze is eighty three; we wish him many more years of productive life. In 2010 and 2011, the one hundred and fifty years since Mahler's birth and the one hundred years since his death will be celebrated: the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia plans to present all his orchestral works and has started from the last. At the end of the concert, the audience erupted in real accolades. The triumph was repeated on 11 and 12 January 2010. Antonio Pappano conducted the symphonic orchestra of the Accademia. The principal singers were Ian Bostridge and Sir John Tomlinson for Henze's concert opera; Anna Larsson and Simon O'Neill for Mahler's Lied.



Hans Werner Henze. Photo © 2009 Riccardo Musacchio



Between Henze's Opfergang (Immolazione in the official Italian translation, but Sacrifice would be more correct), his latest concert opera and Mahler's Das Lied von Der Erde, the first performance of which took place several months after the composer's death, the link is manifold. They are both a reflection of life and death. Henze was very ill in 2004-2005: a five month coma and the general belief that he was about to pass away. Mahler knew he had a serious heart disease when he started to compose Das Lied von Der Erde, after a book of Chinese poems.



Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia with conductor Antonio Pappano. Photo © 2010 Riccardo Musacchio



Opfergang is a dramatic vision about existence, after an expressionist poem by Franz Werfel, a close friend of Franz Kafka and -- coincidentally -- the last of Alma Mahler's three husbands. Das Lied von Der Erde is a serene Zen vision of life by a man who was going through various severe personal and professional problems when he was composing it. Both Opfergang and Das Lied von Der Erde combine the human voice with a large orchestral ensemble -- an oversized chamber orchestra for the former and a huge symphonic orchestra for the latter. Rightly, Henze's disquieting fifty minute music drama preceded Mahler's serene farewell (Das Abschied is the last song of Das Lied von Der Erde). Pappano (also the pianist for Opfergang) conducted Henze's concert opera with emphasis on the drama, but provided a terse baton for Das Lied von Der Erde.



Antonio Pappano conducting the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. Photo © 2005 Riccardo Musacchio



Henze's works are very widely performed in the English speaking world. Thus our readers are likely to be especially interested in Opfergang. Like in El Cimarron, Pheadra and Das Floss der Medusa, as a concert opera, the composition maintains Henze's very strong flair for dramatic action, but it is conceived for a concert hall: a few solo singers and a chamber orchestra with no need for elaborate stage sets or costumes.



Hans Werner Henze. Photo © 2009 Riccardo Musacchio



The plot is simple. In the suburbs of a large European town, a man is on the run; in a monologue, he tells us about his life, but never reveals what he is running away from. A small white and well-cared-for dog befriends him; also the dog is on the run, from the upper class villa where he was the pet of a young girl. The man is violent, the dog kind. Their attempt to communicate fails when the police are getting at the man. In a moment of insane rage, man kills dog. The man is Violence; the dog Innocence. There is a clear link to Benjamin Britten's Billy Budd, even though in Opfergang the man is not the sadistic Glaggart but has the traits of the protagonist of Albert Camus' L'Etranger: a foreigner, a stranger. Also, as in Camus, the end is full of unresolved questions about the meaning of life itself.



Ian Bostridge



The twelve-tone scale is used both horizontally and vertically as a frame to an eclectic score with melodies and melismas. After an agitato introduction, the score is dominated by ethereal string measures, a long melody played on the heckelphone (a baritone oboe), a piano solo to accompany the recitatives, a vague accordion dance movement and a Wagnerian leitmotiv in F sharp major and C major. Declamation by the protagonists slides into ariosos as well as two duets, with the counterpoint of the quartet. Ian Bostridge is a Schubertian lieder singer at his best, and John Tomlinson is a Wagnerian baritone, perfect as the suffering stranger.



From left to right: Anna Larsson, Antonio Pappano and Simon O'Neill, with members of the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Rome. Photo © 2010 Riccardo Musacchio



Das Lied von Der Erde is too well known to require an introduction. Thus, this review focuses on the execution. Pappano reads the score like Pierre Boulez and, before him, Bruno Walter did: very transparent but unemotional conducting. As a result, the sense of suffering and the serene Zen acceptance of Das Abschied are more acute.



Anna Larsson and Simon O'Neill. Photos © 2010 Riccardo Musacchio



Anna Larsson previously sang Das Lied von Der Erde in Rome in 1994 with Myung-Whun Chung. In 2010 she provided renewed evidence of being one of the best altos in the business. The same is true of Simon O'Neill as heldentenor.


Copyright © 14 January 2010 Giuseppe Pennisi,
Rome, Italy




HANS WERNER HENZE

GUSTAV MAHLER

IAN BOSTRIDGE

JOHN TOMLINSON

ROME

ITALY

GERMANY