When God and Man Collide Music & Vision 19 agosto

When God and Man Collide
GIUSEPPE PENNISI visits
the Salzburg Festival to investigate
'the downfall of the myth and the spirit of the music'

This year the Salzburg Festival celebrates its ninetieth birthday: it started on 22 August 1920, on the Dom Platz, with Hugo von Hofmannsthal's religious morality play Jedermann ('The Life and Death of Every One of Us'). Since then, Jedermann has become a standard staple of the Festival: this season, there are twelve performances of the original text in the Dom Platz and an additional ten performances of a 'modernized' version in a different venue (the stadium). With its religious undertones, Jedermann is a good fit for this Festival -- the last to be managed by Jürgen Flimm who has been appointed artistic director of the Berlin Staatsoper Unter den Linden and will be replaced by Markus Hinterhaüser and Alexander Pereira. Flimm has selected the theme for the 2010 Festival a sentence from a Michael Köhlmeier's essay: When God and Man Collide: The Downfall of the Myth from the Spirit of the Music. This theme creates a thread connecting over two hundred performances in six weeks -- opera, concerts and plays. In the opera section, specifically, the Festival features the world première of Wolfgang Rihm's Dionysus, Richard Strauss' Elektra, Bellini's Norma, Gluck's Orpheus, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette and Berg's Lulu. Among the plays are Racine's Pheadra and Sophocles' Oedipus at Colon.

A scene from 'Jedermann' at the Salzburg Festival. Photo © 2010 Hermann und Clärchen Baus
Your reviewer spent the mid-August week-end in Salzburg and saw Lulu (14 August 2010), Prokofiev's oratorio Ivan the Terrible (15 August) and Strauss' Elektra (16 August). I have discussed Elektra and Lulu extensively in Music and Vision over the last few months when Strauss' tragedy was presented in Modena, Piacenza and Ferrara in a production of the Tiroler Festival at Erl, and when Berg's masterpiece had a successful return at La Scala after several years of absence. Thus, in this report, I will focus on Ivan the Terrible and review only the Salzburg productions of Elektra and Lulu. Readers interested in the general background to both operas are referred to the articles published by Music and Vision in February and April, respectively. [Sheer Tension: The first performance of the unabridged 'Elekra', and Seldom Performed: 'Lulu' lands at La Scala.] Salzburg's new Elektra production is a joint venture with the Vienna Staatsoper, Lulu's a co-production with Geneva and Barcelona; thus there are plenty of opportunities to see and to listen to, them in other countries and in other theatres in the not too distant future.
Ivan The Terrible (a more correct translation would be 'Ivan the Awesome') was initially conceived as music for a three part film by Sergei Eisenstein; the first two parts were indeed produced in the Alma Ata studios during World War II, but only the first part was released because the Board of Censorship did not appreciate how, in the second part, Ivan was shown powerful with the Bojards (the feudal aristocrats) but humble before God. The second part of the film was released only in 1958; roughly at the same time, two of Prokofiev's students assembled the material into a dramatic oratorio, for large orchestra, two choruses, an alto, a tenor and two actors -- Ivan and a narrator.

From left to right, Gérard Depardieu, Riccardo Muti and Olga Borodina, with members of the Vienna State Opera Chorus and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, performing Prokofiev's 'Ivan the Terrible' at the Salzburg Festival. Photo © 2010 Silvia Lelli
The final product has a strong unity: in nearly eighty minutes, it depicts Ivan's rise to power, the aristocrats' plot to unseat him, the wars with the Tartars, the Czar's final victory against his foreign and domestic adversares, and especially his doubts about whether his actions are in line with the Will of the Almighty. (Stalin and his entourage certainly did not like that.) The Festival's production (three performances) was sumptuous, with Riccardo Muti at the baton of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Thomas Lang directing the Vienna State Opera Chorus, Wolfgang Götz directing the Salzburg Festival Childrens' Choir, Olga Borodina and Ildar Abdrazakov as the vocal soloists, Jan Joseph Liefers as the narrator and the well known French stage and film actor Gérard Depardieu (in perfect Russian) as Ivan. The orchestral and choral sound was rounded, the soloists filled the huge Grand Festival Hall with their powerful and perfectly emitted voices, and Deperdieu was effective as the tormented Czar. At the end of the performance, the audience erupted in accolades and with a ten minute standing ovation.
There are three main differences between the Salzburg Lulu production and that seen and listened to in April and reviewed in Music & Vision. Firstly, from a musical standpoint, Marc Albrecht had a swifter baton than Daniele Gatti: under both of them, the orchestra had the right balance between the symphonic approach, the twelve note serial system and support for the singers (whilst never covering their voices), but Albrecht emphasized the 'jazzy' part (the Upper Austrian Jazz Orchestra was added to the Vienna Philharmonic) more than Gatti. Secondly, the stage direction, the costumes and the lighting clearly set the drama in the 1930s with elegant interiors (although the final scene is in a London attic where Lulu, now a street prostitute, brings her clients and is killed). In the Salzburg production (Vera Nemirova was the stage director, Daniel Richter the creator of the stage sets and Klauss Noak of the costumes), staging was nearly a-temporal, the sex scenes more explicit and the audience directly involved in the action, especially in the first scene of Act III, played in the orchestra seats, not on stage. The plot became more engrossing. With Nemoriva as stage director, the modern tragedy was seen from a woman's viewpoint. Thirdly, the protagonist was not a dramatic soprano (as in Milan) but a younger coloratura soprano (Patricia Petibon); she was superb, both singing and acting. Thomas Piffka was an effective Alwa, as in Milan. Pavol Breslik wasa good Paintor. Michael Volle and Tanja Ariane Baumgartner were both very good as Schon and Geschwitz, respectively.

Patricia Petibon in the title role of Berg's 'Lulu' at the Salzburg Festival. Photo © 2010 Monika Rittershaus
From the musicological standpoint, the Salzburg production of the Strauss-Hofmannsthal Elektra was presented unabridged -- a comparatively new development started at the 2008 Tyroler Festival. In 1909, at its première in Dresden, a few verses of the text (and the relevant music) were cut because their explicit sexual references were considered unbecoming. Indeed as late as 1968, in the Golden Encyclopedia of Music, Norman Lloyd calls even the 'abridged' text 'too lurid'. Although the sense of what is or is not prude has changed over the decades, it was only two years ago, at a small Austrian festival at Erl, that Elektra was performed unabridged for the first time. Although the unabridged version is far from lurid, its sexually explicit text is essential to fully understand the Freudian overtones of the tragedy, and the dazzling excitement of musical forces that goes beyond Wagnerian lines. However, the main dramaturgic aspect of the production is that the Freudian tone is not the dominant feature: both Hofmannstahl and Strauss were Roman Catholic -- Hoftmannsthal was very rigorous in his religious practice; thus the stage director, Nicolaus Lehnhoff, places emphasis on an often forgotten theme of Elektra: the value of forgiveness. Elektra wants revenge and has no time for forgiveness, but Chrysothemis wants to forgive, and Clytemnestra asks for forgiveness. Indeed, forgiveness is the key argument of the two central dialogues of the opera: those between Elektra and Chrysothemis and between Elektra and Clytemnestra. The stage set (by Raimund Bauer) is a dilapidated social tenement. The costumes (by Andrea Schmidt-Futterer) are modern.

René Pape as Orest with Waltraud Meier as Clytemnestra in Richard Strauss' 'Elektra' at the Salzburg Festival. Photo © 2010 Hermann und Clärchen Baus
Daniele Gatti struck an excellent balance between the rounded but still tremendous sound of the one-hundred-and-twenty players in the orchestra pit and the voices on stage. He gave a lyrical emphasis to the score and, thanks to the skills of the Vienna Philharmonic, underlined its solo and chamber music aspects. I was in box five, and could hear and understand every single word. On 16 August 2010, Iréne Theorin, scheduled to sing the role of Elektra in all six performances, was sick; thus, she was replaced by Janice Baird, a veteran of the role, who jumped onto the stage without any previous rehearsal; due to her mastering of the technique, she deserved, and received, accolades (even though her voice is no longer what it was twenty years ago). Waltraud Meier was an imposing Clytemnestra, Eva-Marie Westbroek a sweet Chrysothemis, Renée Pape an effective Orestes, and Robert Gambill a strong Aegisthus. Elektra is in Salzburg until 28 August 2010; it will also be a feature of Vienna State Opera's program over the next few years.
Copyright © 19 August 2010 Giuseppe Pennisi,
Rome, Italy

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When God and Man Collide
GIUSEPPE PENNISI visits
the Salzburg Festival to investigate
'the downfall of the myth and the spirit of the music'

This year the Salzburg Festival celebrates its ninetieth birthday: it started on 22 August 1920, on the Dom Platz, with Hugo von Hofmannsthal's religious morality play Jedermann ('The Life and Death of Every One of Us'). Since then, Jedermann has become a standard staple of the Festival: this season, there are twelve performances of the original text in the Dom Platz and an additional ten performances of a 'modernized' version in a different venue (the stadium). With its religious undertones, Jedermann is a good fit for this Festival -- the last to be managed by Jürgen Flimm who has been appointed artistic director of the Berlin Staatsoper Unter den Linden and will be replaced by Markus Hinterhaüser and Alexander Pereira. Flimm has selected the theme for the 2010 Festival a sentence from a Michael Köhlmeier's essay: When God and Man Collide: The Downfall of the Myth from the Spirit of the Music. This theme creates a thread connecting over two hundred performances in six weeks -- opera, concerts and plays. In the opera section, specifically, the Festival features the world première of Wolfgang Rihm's Dionysus, Richard Strauss' Elektra, Bellini's Norma, Gluck's Orpheus, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette and Berg's Lulu. Among the plays are Racine's Pheadra and Sophocles' Oedipus at Colon.

A scene from 'Jedermann' at the Salzburg Festival. Photo © 2010 Hermann und Clärchen Baus
Your reviewer spent the mid-August week-end in Salzburg and saw Lulu (14 August 2010), Prokofiev's oratorio Ivan the Terrible (15 August) and Strauss' Elektra (16 August). I have discussed Elektra and Lulu extensively in Music and Vision over the last few months when Strauss' tragedy was presented in Modena, Piacenza and Ferrara in a production of the Tiroler Festival at Erl, and when Berg's masterpiece had a successful return at La Scala after several years of absence. Thus, in this report, I will focus on Ivan the Terrible and review only the Salzburg productions of Elektra and Lulu. Readers interested in the general background to both operas are referred to the articles published by Music and Vision in February and April, respectively. [Sheer Tension: The first performance of the unabridged 'Elekra', and Seldom Performed: 'Lulu' lands at La Scala.] Salzburg's new Elektra production is a joint venture with the Vienna Staatsoper, Lulu's a co-production with Geneva and Barcelona; thus there are plenty of opportunities to see and to listen to, them in other countries and in other theatres in the not too distant future.
Ivan The Terrible (a more correct translation would be 'Ivan the Awesome') was initially conceived as music for a three part film by Sergei Eisenstein; the first two parts were indeed produced in the Alma Ata studios during World War II, but only the first part was released because the Board of Censorship did not appreciate how, in the second part, Ivan was shown powerful with the Bojards (the feudal aristocrats) but humble before God. The second part of the film was released only in 1958; roughly at the same time, two of Prokofiev's students assembled the material into a dramatic oratorio, for large orchestra, two choruses, an alto, a tenor and two actors -- Ivan and a narrator.

From left to right, Gérard Depardieu, Riccardo Muti and Olga Borodina, with members of the Vienna State Opera Chorus and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, performing Prokofiev's 'Ivan the Terrible' at the Salzburg Festival. Photo © 2010 Silvia Lelli
The final product has a strong unity: in nearly eighty minutes, it depicts Ivan's rise to power, the aristocrats' plot to unseat him, the wars with the Tartars, the Czar's final victory against his foreign and domestic adversares, and especially his doubts about whether his actions are in line with the Will of the Almighty. (Stalin and his entourage certainly did not like that.) The Festival's production (three performances) was sumptuous, with Riccardo Muti at the baton of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Thomas Lang directing the Vienna State Opera Chorus, Wolfgang Götz directing the Salzburg Festival Childrens' Choir, Olga Borodina and Ildar Abdrazakov as the vocal soloists, Jan Joseph Liefers as the narrator and the well known French stage and film actor Gérard Depardieu (in perfect Russian) as Ivan. The orchestral and choral sound was rounded, the soloists filled the huge Grand Festival Hall with their powerful and perfectly emitted voices, and Deperdieu was effective as the tormented Czar. At the end of the performance, the audience erupted in accolades and with a ten minute standing ovation.
There are three main differences between the Salzburg Lulu production and that seen and listened to in April and reviewed in Music & Vision. Firstly, from a musical standpoint, Marc Albrecht had a swifter baton than Daniele Gatti: under both of them, the orchestra had the right balance between the symphonic approach, the twelve note serial system and support for the singers (whilst never covering their voices), but Albrecht emphasized the 'jazzy' part (the Upper Austrian Jazz Orchestra was added to the Vienna Philharmonic) more than Gatti. Secondly, the stage direction, the costumes and the lighting clearly set the drama in the 1930s with elegant interiors (although the final scene is in a London attic where Lulu, now a street prostitute, brings her clients and is killed). In the Salzburg production (Vera Nemirova was the stage director, Daniel Richter the creator of the stage sets and Klauss Noak of the costumes), staging was nearly a-temporal, the sex scenes more explicit and the audience directly involved in the action, especially in the first scene of Act III, played in the orchestra seats, not on stage. The plot became more engrossing. With Nemoriva as stage director, the modern tragedy was seen from a woman's viewpoint. Thirdly, the protagonist was not a dramatic soprano (as in Milan) but a younger coloratura soprano (Patricia Petibon); she was superb, both singing and acting. Thomas Piffka was an effective Alwa, as in Milan. Pavol Breslik wasa good Paintor. Michael Volle and Tanja Ariane Baumgartner were both very good as Schon and Geschwitz, respectively.

Patricia Petibon in the title role of Berg's 'Lulu' at the Salzburg Festival. Photo © 2010 Monika Rittershaus
From the musicological standpoint, the Salzburg production of the Strauss-Hofmannsthal Elektra was presented unabridged -- a comparatively new development started at the 2008 Tyroler Festival. In 1909, at its première in Dresden, a few verses of the text (and the relevant music) were cut because their explicit sexual references were considered unbecoming. Indeed as late as 1968, in the Golden Encyclopedia of Music, Norman Lloyd calls even the 'abridged' text 'too lurid'. Although the sense of what is or is not prude has changed over the decades, it was only two years ago, at a small Austrian festival at Erl, that Elektra was performed unabridged for the first time. Although the unabridged version is far from lurid, its sexually explicit text is essential to fully understand the Freudian overtones of the tragedy, and the dazzling excitement of musical forces that goes beyond Wagnerian lines. However, the main dramaturgic aspect of the production is that the Freudian tone is not the dominant feature: both Hofmannstahl and Strauss were Roman Catholic -- Hoftmannsthal was very rigorous in his religious practice; thus the stage director, Nicolaus Lehnhoff, places emphasis on an often forgotten theme of Elektra: the value of forgiveness. Elektra wants revenge and has no time for forgiveness, but Chrysothemis wants to forgive, and Clytemnestra asks for forgiveness. Indeed, forgiveness is the key argument of the two central dialogues of the opera: those between Elektra and Chrysothemis and between Elektra and Clytemnestra. The stage set (by Raimund Bauer) is a dilapidated social tenement. The costumes (by Andrea Schmidt-Futterer) are modern.

René Pape as Orest with Waltraud Meier as Clytemnestra in Richard Strauss' 'Elektra' at the Salzburg Festival. Photo © 2010 Hermann und Clärchen Baus
Daniele Gatti struck an excellent balance between the rounded but still tremendous sound of the one-hundred-and-twenty players in the orchestra pit and the voices on stage. He gave a lyrical emphasis to the score and, thanks to the skills of the Vienna Philharmonic, underlined its solo and chamber music aspects. I was in box five, and could hear and understand every single word. On 16 August 2010, Iréne Theorin, scheduled to sing the role of Elektra in all six performances, was sick; thus, she was replaced by Janice Baird, a veteran of the role, who jumped onto the stage without any previous rehearsal; due to her mastering of the technique, she deserved, and received, accolades (even though her voice is no longer what it was twenty years ago). Waltraud Meier was an imposing Clytemnestra, Eva-Marie Westbroek a sweet Chrysothemis, Renée Pape an effective Orestes, and Robert Gambill a strong Aegisthus. Elektra is in Salzburg until 28 August 2010; it will also be a feature of Vienna State Opera's program over the next few years.
Copyright © 19 August 2010 Giuseppe Pennisi,
Rome, Italy

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