STRAUSS “WOMAN” ON THE ANALIST’S COACH in Music and Vision 15 marzo

STRAUSS “WOMAN” ON THE ANALIST’S COACH La Scala and the Royal Opera House join forces to set Hofmannsthal and Strauss masterpiece in Freud’s studio - Giuseppe Pennisi reviews it Hofmannsthal and Strauss masterpiece Die Frau ohne Schatten is a very special fairy tale or apologue rarely performed in Italy. In the last thirty years, it was on stage in Milan twice with a production by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle imported from Köln (and conducted by Wolfgang Sawallisch and Giuseppe Sinopoli) and twice in Florence. One of the two Florence staging was the Milan - Köln production. The other was a Yannis Kokkos-Zubin Mehta extravaganza which inaugurated the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Festival on 29 April 2010 but due to strikes had only two performances (‘Difficult to Forget’ in M&V 2 May 2010). It was also a bad blow on the theatre finances which, after such an effort, was on the brink of bankruptcy and had to rescued by a special Government commissioner. There are several reasons for this neglect: on the one hand, Zauberopern (eg fantastic opera based on fairy tales and allegories) has seldom been popular in Italy; on an another hand, Die Frau ohne Schatten requires a huge orchestra, five splendid but very difficult voices (and a host of secondary soloists) and a very complex staging with ten different scenes. Way back in the past, when opera audiences were not accustomed to constructed sets and to projections, staging was handled with painted drops. I recall a perfectly acceptable Die Frau ohne Schatten in Frankfurt in 1967 with simple but effective painted scenes. Nowadays, either the staging is so elaborate to break the theatre finances (as in the case of Kokkos’ Florence 2010 production) or the whole plot is set in a different time and context than those provided for in the libretto with the objective of containing production costs. Jean-Pierre Ponnelle made use of Chinese theatre stylized approach (and, of course, the setting was China). In the recent Salzburg Festival Vienna Staatsoper production, the stage director Christof Loy had a rather innovative idea that ruffled quite a few traditional feathers. He did away with all the Asian (mostly Indian) fairy tale mythology and special effects. The plot was set in or around 1955 in the Sofiensaal where under the musical direction of Karl Böhm and with a stellar cast, Die Frau ohne Schatten was being recorded. As the recording sessions proceeded, the singers entered the psychology and the drama of the characters; thus, the emphasis was not on the complex and elaborate tale, costly to stage, but on a human, maybe too human progression to childbearing, happiness and compassion for others (see ‘Faith and the Devil’ in M&V 22 August 2011). For this joint venture between La Scala and the Royal Opera House, Claus Guth has a different concept: the plot is set around 1919 (when Die Frau ohne Schatten had its premiere in Vienna) but the location is a mental hospital where the protagonist is taken by her husband; she is emotionally disturbed and needs psychiatrist’s attention. Thus, the complicated plot becomes a dream with nightmare touches. There is no need for ten different sets with Palaces, gardens, poor people’s dwellings and even waterfalls. Just a single set – a hospital room – , a revolving stage and projections. The choice does not lack logics; the opera was conceived in Freud’s times and other Hofmannsthal – Strauss’ works (eg Elektra, Die ägyptische Helena) are deeply embedded in Freud or even Jung thinking. It is fair to say that the opening night 11 March part of the audience and several Italian opera critics did not appreciate Guth’s approach to Die Frau ohne Schatten. A few orchestra rows and a couple of boxes where empty 14 March (the evening on which this review is based) but an exceptional success was tributed to the whole performance- viz. staging, orchestra and singers. Nonetheless, the approach was not so daring; eg in 1999 in Florence Lev Dodin staged Tchaikovsky’s Pique Dame in a mad house as a nightmare of the protagonist; in 1986 David Pourtney had set Dvorak’s Rusalka in an asylum for a ENO production that toured the world for nearly twenty years; for years , in Berlin a Staasoper-unter-the-Linden standard fare has been Verdi’s La Traviata conceived by Peter Mussbach as Lady Diana’s last dream before dying in the Pont de l’ Alma tunnel in Paris right bank. More fundamentally, in the dream there are all the elements of the plot including the animals (eg the falcon, the stag, the gazelle) both singing and acting, the rocks, the palace and poor workers’ dwellings. Guth’s approach may very well fit the score better than the colossal/special effects style (eg Kokkos, Florence 2010 and several Metropolitan Opera House staging of this masterpiece). Indeed, Die Frau ohne Schatten has a huge expressionistic orchestral canvas (including grandiose scenic descriptions) but few lyrical set pieces (there are some marvellous duets, though, and enthralling arioso). Instead, like in Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande, very intimate dialogues, strung upon a rich orchestral chain, are linked by elaborate recitative and even ‘chit-chat conversation pieces’ that do anticipate Strauss’ further developments (most notably, Capriccio). Thus, the musical director has a very difficult task, especially at the end of the second act when the orchestral richness may cover the voices in a major outburst during a concertato. All these elements are very much in line with Freud’s and Jung’s period. Written and composed during the World War I, this three act, two hundred minutes opera is based on a host of sources, firstly The Thousand and One Nights and other Eastern literature. The plot may appear so complicated and so dense with early nineteenth century symbolism to be difficult to grasp: Hofmannsthal himself wrote a summary and explanation before the Vienna premiere. 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 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. And ,in the La Scala- Covent Garden production, when the woman wakes up and the dream is over, Kekobab disappears too. At a first sight, the main, and (according to many authors) only meaning of the opera is the fullfillment of anyone's personality through childbirth and, thus, a celebration of marital bliss (like in Die ägyptische Helena or Intermezzo). There and 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. 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; Hofmannsthal and Strauss had produced, within that very context, Ariadne auf Naxos -- the epos of the victory of Eros over Tanathos. 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 . 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. This review starts with the orchestral part because the still comparatively young conductors Marc Albrecht had to step in almost at the last moment due to a illness of Seymon Bychkov . As compared to recent performances of the opera I reviewed for ‘Music and Vision’ , he kept a careful balance between the various sections of the score (eg chamber music, full symphony) similar to that of Solti and Böhm, both excellent interpreters of this sumptuous yet tender and dense orchestral writing as well as of its molding with an equally terrific and terrifying vocal score. In short, he was less late romantic than Mehta in Florence in 2010 and less calligraphic than Thielemann in Salzburg in 2011. After four and a half hours of performance (with two twenty five minute intermissions), the audience exploded with nearly twenty minutes of accolades. He was especially good in getting (when required) chamber music orchestra from one hundred and twenty elements in the pit and in providing excellent sonority in the most intensive and most emotional passages. Even the bass (often a weak point of La Scala orchestra were terrific. Albrecht gave a lot of attention to the orchestral counterpoint to the voices. Albrecht had, no doubt, worked very closely with the entire team, especially with Claus Guth, Ronny Dietrich (dramaturgy), Christian Schimdt (sets and costumes), Andi A. Mueller (video) and Olaf Winter (lighting) as well as with the singers. In the vocal cast, there several old acquaintances of music lovers who consider Die Frau ohne Schatten among the masterpieces of the twentieth century music theatre. First of all Elena Pankratova is almost unknown in the major European and American opera houses until 29 April 2010 when at the Maggio Musicale in Florece, she had been invited by Mehta to replace Jeanne-Michélle Charbonnet who was scheduled to be 'Die Frau' but had cancelled. She confirms to be an outstanding acute dramatic soprano both in her arioso and in the taxing duet with Barack (a superb Falk Struckmann) , full of erotic tension. The Nurse was Michaela Schuster (the dramatic mezzo recently appreciated in Salzburg but Guth asked for quite a different acting than that required by Loy). The Imperial couple were Emily Magee (as beautiful and as great an acute dramatic soprano) and Johan Botha (a true heldtenor with stern and clear voice, but too many pounds to look as a strenuous lover every night of the year and courageous hunter every day). Too many to mentions all the others. Just a minor point; in this La Scala- Covent Garden production a young but accomplished singer like Maria Radner has the comparatively minor role of ‘the voice from Heaven’. In summary, a tremendous production.