Richard Strauss' 'Die Frau ohne Schatten' Music and Vision 2 maggio

Difficult to Forget Richard Strauss' 'Die Frau ohne Schatten', enjoyed by GIUSEPPE PENNISI Italians do not like fairy tales. Hofmannsthal and Strauss' masterpiece Die Frau ohne Schatten is a very special fairy tale rarely performed in Italy. It was chosen to open the 73rd Maggio Musicale Fiorentino on 29 April 2010. This review is based on that performance. The Maggio Musicale festival extends until 22 June and includes operas, concerts, ballets and plays. Written and composed during the First World War, this three act, two hundred minute opera is based on a host of sources, firstly The Thousand and One Nights and other oriental literature. The plot may appear so complex and so dense with early nineteenth century symbolism that it's difficult to grasp: Hofmannsthal himself wrote a summary and explanation for the audience before the first performance. Is it really so hard to grasp why a young and beautiful but shadowless Empress has to try all kind of tricks to defraud a poor woman of her shadow in order to become pregnant within one year from her wedding? This would prevent her much beloved husband, a young and attractive Emperor, from being doomed to transformation into a mountain of stone. Is it really so difficult to understand that the Almighty Kekobab forgives everyone when he sees their suffering? Then, the unborn children (the chorus at the end of the first act) can come to life at the end of the opera.
Adrianne Pieczonka as the Empress and Liona Braun as the nurse in Act 1 of 'Die Frau ohne Schatten' at Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Photo © 2010 Gianluca Moggi At a first sight, the main, and (according to many authors) only meaning of the opera is the fulfillment of anyone's personality through childbirth and, thus, a celebration of marital bliss. There are other themes, however, as in many German operas, intertwined with this main element. Firstly, initiation to joy through suffering. Secondly, the true nature of love: the Emperor and Empress appear very happy, but pretty soon we understand that they are linked more by obsession than by love: he makes love to her every night and goes hunting every day -- 'for the rest, nothing'. They are tired of only sex and hunting. For the shadowless Empress, to acquire a shadow means to have more than sex and ennui in the palace while the Emperor is out hunting. The other couple, the dyer Barak and his wife (the 'Frau' of the title) are not happy either: she is in a secondary subordinate position (as many German women were at that time) and, at the end of each day, they are too tired to make love and have children.
Elena Pankratova as 'Die Frau' and Albert Dohmen as Barak in Act 1 of 'Die Frau ohne Schatten' at Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Photo © 2010 Gianluca Moggi A Mephistophelic nurse tries to solve this host of psychological problems by arranging for the woman's shadow to be acquired by the Empress. But this creates more hurdles; the deadline is past and the Emperor is transformed into a mask of stone. Also, the marital difficulties between Barak and his wife are aggravated, and it's only when the mask of the Emperor cries and the Empress both empathizes with Barak and his wife and attempts to make good of her past deeds, that the plot can unwind in a conclusion full of hope. Thus, along with the main theme on marital love and childbearing, there are much broader components: the power of self-sacrificing love, the recognition of the individual's responsibility to humanity (present and future), the preparedness to confront death in order to live a full life. Just remember: when the work was thought, written and composed, Europe was covered by the blood of World War I; Hofmanmsthal and Strauss had produced, within that very context, Ariadne auf Naxos -- the epos of the victory of Eros over Tanathos.
Liona Braun as the nurse and Elena Pankratova as 'Die Frau' in Act 2 of 'Die Frau ohne Schatten' at Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Photo © 2010 Gianluca Moggi The political messages are as equally valid today as they were in 1919 when the opera was first performed (because, although completed in 1917, Hofmannsthall and Strauss had expressed the wish that it should be staged only when peace came). The musical aspects are extremely modern. The score has a contrasting combination of both chamber music and full orchestral styles. There is a lot a chamber music (including magic interludes for a few instruments, even one with just a violin) but also big symphonic scenes (with an orchestra of a hundred and twenty musicians) such as at the end of the second act when the conductor should reduce the volume of sound. It's very difficult to keep a balance between the orchestra and the terrifically hard vocal score. Just an example, the quarter where Barak and the woman sing simultaneously on stage and the spirit-messenger and the nurse off-stage. Yet every word of this poetic text must be heard and understood.
Liona Braun as the nurse, Elena Pankratova as 'Die Frau' and Adrianne Pieczonka as the Empress in Act 2 of 'Die Frau ohne Schatten' at Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Photo © 2010 Gianluca Moggi This review starts with the orchestral part because on 20 March 2010 in Music & Vision, I expressed serious reservations about Zubin Mehta's conducting of Tannhäuser in the new production at La Scala. On 29 April (which is also Mehta's birthday), he had the right touch to both the chamber music and the symphonic parts of this difficult but marvelous score. He was far superior to other conductors I've heard at the helm of Die Frau ohne Schatten, such as Levine and the late Argiris and Sinopoli. He had a balance similar to that of Solti and Böhm, both excellent interpreters of this sumptuous yet tender and dense orchestral writing and of its molding with an equally terrific and terrifying vocal score. After four and a half hours of performance (with two twenty minute intermissions), the audience exploded with nearly twenty minutes of accolades. Liona Braun as the nurse and Elena Pankratova as 'Die Frau' in Act 2 of 'Die Frau ohne Schatten' at Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Photo © 2010 Gianluca Moggi Mehta had, no doubt, worked very closely with the entire team, especially with Yannis Kokkos (responsible for stage directions, sets and costumes), Anne Blanchard (dramaturgy), Marco Berriel (choreography), Eric Duranteau (video) and Gianni Mantovani (lighting).
A scene from Act 2 of 'Die Frau ohne Schatten' at Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Photo © 2010 Gianluca Moggi Kokkos and his collaborators provided a rather traditional staging while taking full account of technology. The action was placed in an Oriental Empire with Persian overtones, and the indications of the text were followed quite closely. There was no attempt to change place or time, or to provide a highly stylized presentation as Ponnelle did in a production seen in many European theatres in the 1990s. (Die Frau ohne Schatten was then staged as an ancient Chinese play.) A few constructed elements were supported by computerized projections to make changes of place possible, and the many 'transformations' required by the plot (eg the Emperor becoming a stone statue, the sudden appearance of a major waterfall, the river with the Empress and Nurse's boat, etc). The main colors were blue and gold, with shades of green -- a very classy combination. The choreography was also elegant. A scene from Act 2 of 'Die Frau ohne Schatten' at Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.
Photo © 2010 Gianluca Moggi There were some stunning surprises among the singers. Elena Pankratova is almost unknown in the major European and American opera houses: she had been invited by Mehta to replace Jeanne-Michélle Charbonnet who was scheduled to be 'Die Frau' but had cancelled. An acute dramatic soprano, and making her début in the role, Pankratova enthralled the theatre not only when she reached high Cs but for the gentle manner in which she ascended and descended, and for her volume. A scene from Act 3 of 'Die Frau ohne Schatten' at Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Photo © 2010 Gianluca Moggi The Canadian Adrianne Pieczonka gave her début performance as the Empress; she was just a jewel, both vocally and acting, and she is very attractive too. Lioba Braun is a well-known German mezzo who sings often in Italy and has performed the part of the Nurse many times. Her acute was excellent, but her grave tonalities were not sufficiently deep. The Emperor was the well known and experienced Torsten Kerl. It's well known that Richard Strauss did not like the tenor voice and wrote very difficult parts for his tenors. Kerl did well, even though his timbre is no longer what used to be. Albert Dohmen was a perfect Barak, both scenically and vocally. The rest of the cast was too numerous to name individually, but was a very good group. After the performance, the full company and a number of guests moved to Harry's Bar for a birthday dinner for Zubin Mehta. The evening had begun at 7pm, and by the time that we walked back to the hotel under a full moon on the Arno River, it was nearly 4am. A start to this Maggio Musicale 2010 that will
be difficult to forget. Copyright © 2 May 2010 Giuseppe Pennisi, Rome, Italy RICHARD STRAUSS FLORENCE ITALY GERMANY << M&V home Concert reviews Stephen Foster >>