Passion and Religion

GIUSEPPE PENNISI vists the 2012 Tyrol Festival
for new productions of 'Lohengrin' and 'Tosca'

The 2012 program of the Tyrol Festival was anticipated here a few weeks ago [read Two Celebrations, 30 June 2012] and a full report was provided on the 2011 edition [read Wagner in the Alps, 20 July 2011]. There was a special reason to visit the festival and the small rural village of Erl this year: the Vienna daily Standard music critic rated the inaugural production, Wagner's Lohengrin, as the best performance of this masterpiece in the last twenty years, both musically and dramaturgically.
Before discussing the 20 July 2012 performance of Lohengrin, it is useful to underline a few features of the festival. It extends through the full month of July with five operas (Lohengrin, Tristan und Isolde, Parsifal, Tannhäuser and Tosca -- all rather important stuff); six orchestral concerts; six chamber music concerts; and six lieder concerts). The opera and the symphony concerts are played in Erl Passionsspielhaus (originally designed for sacred passion plays, and with a capacity of one thousand five hundred comfortable seats). The chamber music concerts are performed in the local baroque Parish Church (one hundred and ninety seats) and the lieder concerts in the main hall of a well-known hotel (one hundred and thirty seats). The schedule is so arranged that every week-end, a visitor can enjoy two operas (Friday and Saturday night) and a symphonic concert (on Sunday at 11am) in the Passionsspielhaus, whilst each Monday to Thursday night, local population and holidaymakers in the Tyrol can have a chamber music or a lieder concert. Erl is strategically located 80km South of Munich and 75km West of Salzburg, so it has a large catchment area.
I was in Erl from 20-22 July 2012 and, in addition to Lohengrin, I had the opportunity to see a new production of Tosca and a concert given by the Haydn Orchestra of Bolzano and Trento conducted by Rinaldo Alessandrini. Along with Bach, Haydn and Mozart, the program included the world premiere of a new composition by Giorgio Battistelli, especially commissioned by the festival.
Another salient element is to marry low cost with high quality. The festival's budget is 3.5 million euros, with a State and Local Government contribution of 900,000 euros. The rest comes from local sponsors and the box office. The average subsidy is 49 euros for each ticket -- as compared to nearly 500 euros for the Rome Opera House or La Scala. Quality must be high to compete with the Munich and Salzburg Festivals (even though at much lower ticket prices). The creator and general director of the Festival, Gustav Kuhn, uses young singers (thanks to the perfect acoustics of the Passionsspielhaus) and modern low cost sets. Due to the special architecture of the Passionsspielhaus, the orchestra is fully visible on big steps at the back of the stage; the action is at the front of the stage. Only a few props were sufficient to show the various locations where Lohengrin's plot evolves; the props were minimal for Tosca. Great attention was paid to the dramaturgy and acting, and this made the action very engrossing and compelling.
Musically, the important characteristics of this Lohengrin (which may travel to various Italian houses next year for the Wagner bicentenary celebrations) is that Gustav Kuhn achieved a good balance between the three main elements of the opera. Firstly there was the historical context and the national unification movement of the German peoples against a threatened foreign invasion (as diatonic as one could guess). Secondly, the contrast between the various forms of Christian denominations, on the one hand, and the former (and then reviving) German paganism (with several chromatic forebodings), on the other. Finally, there's the love story, with Elsa's incapacity to fully understand Lohengrin (very close to Spontini's Prussian grand imperial operas). Passion and religion are the main determinants of this 'great romantic opera in three acts', as Wagner called it. Kuhn makes the audience sense these different elements, even though they are unified by the symphonic flow (especially of the strings). He also uses the harps and brass to provide stereophonic effects. The orchestra has nearly one hundred and forty players (all quite young), and the chorus is very effectively supported by the children of the local church.

Among the soloists, the two women excel -- Susanne Geb (as the innocent Elsa) and Mona Somm (as the nasty Ortrud).

Ferdinand von Bothmer (Lohengrin) has a good clear timbre, and he held the very taxing third act quite well. Thomas Gazheli and Andrea Silvestrelli were effective as Telramund and the King.

There were only a very few props for Tosca, where the only sets were black staircases. Everyone wore black (with the exception of the protagonist in a very pure white long dress in the first act). The late Paul Hume, longtime music reviewer for the Washington Post, called Tosca 'a blood and guts drama', and such a drama was fully acted out here on stage with a huge orchestra in the background. Also in Tosca there is a conflict between passion and religion. The protagonist is quite a religious woman, albeit passionately in love. Scarpia, the head of the police, must pretend to be religious, but is in reality a sadistic maniac. Only Mario Cavaradossi is clearly an atheist; he even declines the spiritual support of a priest before being executed. He is full of passion too (for Tosca, for the Roman republic, and for freedom). Tosca is a 'breaking opera' in that it is the very first Italian opera of the twentieth century. A strong point of the production is the orchestra: seldom is Tosca considered merely an opera for 'voices', whereas Puccini provided a very elaborate orchestration with even some atonal moments and a skillful use of leitmotifs. Also, we discovered an excellent young Portuguese tenor, Bruno Ribeiro, ready to take up difficult roles with emphasis on the central register. Rossana Potenza, the protagonist, is young and promising, but her voice is not yet thick enough for the title role of this opera.

Peteris Eglitis is accustomed to Wagner and Strauss; furthermore, on 21 July, his volume was low whilst the orchestra showed its full power.

I have only a few comments on the Sunday morning concerts. The Haydn Orchestra of Bolzano and Trento is one of the finest regional symphonic complexes in Italy. Rinaldo Alessandrini is a very well-known conductor specializing in baroque and eighteenth century repertory. Both the orchestra and the conductor were fully at home with two short Bach symphonies for Cantatas BWV 52 and 147, with Händel's concerto in F, HWV 333, and with Mozart's symphony No 39, K 543. The real surprise was Giorgio Battistelli's newly composed tone poem Sciliar on the might of the Dolomite mountains. A short but impressive score, reminding me of Richard Strauss' Alpen Symphonie. The conductor and the orchestra handled it very well.
In short, ovations for Lohengrin, applause for Tosca, and warm applause for the concert.
A surprise is rumored for 2013: the festival will take a pause from its Wagner and Strauss programmes, and may focus on Giuseppe Verdi's bicentenary.

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

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