New Directions in Music and Vision 31 August

New Directions

GIUSEPPE PENNISI reports on
Mozart, Verdi and Wagner operas
from the Salzburg's summer festival

I spent about a week (19-26 August 2013) at the Salzburg Summer Festival. Here I'm reporting on three new opera productions (Don Carlo, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and Così fan tutte). They provide a good sample of Salzburg staple (Mozart) and of the composers (Verdi and Wagner) whose birth bicentenaries are being celebrated all over the world. In a later report, I will discuss the symphonic and chamber music I attended as well as a marionette production of Wagner's Ring; the production is scheduled for a three month tour in ten US States between October and Christmas 2013.

The three opera productions are also and more significantly a signal of the 'new' direction Salzburg is taking under the current management: 'People are tired of seeing machine guns, and the tiredness has led to a new direction and to the freedom of directors', Alexander Pereira, Festival General Director and Artistic Director says in an interview. Pereira will stay in his current positions until Fall 2014 when he will take the same positions at La Scala. Thus, most likely the next Festival will follow the same path. However, this does not necessarily imply a return to traditional stage sets (ie painted drops) and acting. The 2013 Festival makes great use of technology, not merely computerized projections but also in conceiving productions for a world-wide television audience so as to increase fruition and to increment ticket sales and sponsorship with advertising -- public subsidies cover some twenty percent of the budget.

Don Carlo, which I saw and heard on 25 August, is co-produced not with other theatres but with a number of major television networks (Unitel, Classica, NHK, ZDF and Arte). They plan to telecast the opera at least four times every year for the next five years. As they are co-producers, they have been involved from the very beginning in planning the staging and musical aspects; a process quite different from the purchase of television rights to a show which appears to appeal to television audiences.

Antonio Pappano (musical director and conductor) and Peter Stein (stage director, quite well known for his innovative and quite audacious staging in the Grosses Festspielhaus in the past) -- with support from Wögerbauer (scenery), Annamaria Heinreich (costumes), an extraordinary cast (including Matti Salminen, Jonas Kaufmann, Anja Harteros, Thomas Hampson, Ekaterina Semenchuk, Eric Halfvarson, Robert Lloyd, just to quote the protagonists), the Wiener Philharmoniker and the Wiener Staatsopernchor -- have worked for months with television 'aims' in their minds. Thus, the musical edition is an interpolation of the three main versions of the opera Verdi composed over a time span of nearly thirty years [see A Complex Plot, 17 April 2013]. Pappano had carried out a similar operation in a Châtelet production some fourteen years ago with Luc Bondy as director; the 'live DVD' is no longer in the main catalogues and the overall rendering was not as effective as in the current Salzburg production where the political and historical contest -- the decaying Hapsburg Empire in Spain -- is the framework for the complex plot of love and friendship.

Anja Harteros and the Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus in Verdi's 'Don Carlo' at the Salzburg Summer Festival. Photo © 2013 Monika Rittershaus. Click on the image for higher resolution

Although the performance lasts more than five hours (with two twenty minute intermissions), the action moves swiftly. The colors of the sets and costumes fit the television screens quite well: the Spaniards wear black, the French either beige (the populace) or flashy colors, the Fontainebleau park is covered by snow, the water in the pond in the Royal Palace is greenish. There is also emphasis on intimate moments that may show better on a small screen than on the huge Grosses Festspielhaus stage. Musically, this is a Don Carlo full of nuances both in the tints of the orchestra and in the singing of all the excellent principals. Anja Harteros gave a gripping portrayal of the Queen. Jonas Kaufmann was a sterling infant in the title role. Matti Salminen and Eric Halfvarson a tormented King and a powerful Inquisitor. Thomas Hampson was a steadfast noble Marquis of Posa, Ekaterina Semenchuk a devilish Princess Eboli. A ten minute standing ovation completed the evening.

Thomas Hampson as Rodrigo, Marchese di Posa and Jonas Kaufmann in the title role of Verdi's 'Don Carlo' at the Salzburg Summer Festival. Photo © 2013 Monika Rittershaus. Click on the image for higher resolution

On 24 August, I attended a matinee performance of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Wisely, it started at 11am and allowed an hour for lunch during the intermission between the first and the second acts. Here the production did not have to allow for television, but it did have to account for a long time spell. This was the first Salzburg summer production since 1938; during 1936-38, the stage direction by Herbert Graf and Eric von Wymetal had given a Nazi slant to the opera; the National Socialist Party anthem was even played after the magnificent final concertato. There was nothing of that in this production. Stefan Herheim (stage director), Heike Scheele (stage sets) and Gesine Völlm (costumes) move the action from around the fifteenth century to the Biedermeier period, when Wagner was growing up and in parallel with the establishment of the foundations of the German Empire. In a single set, Hans Sachs' desk becomes St Katherine's Church (first act), his cupboards the house bordering the small lanes of the town (second act), his laboratory (first scene of the third act) and a main square (second scene of the third act).

A scene from Wagner's 'Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg' at the Salzburg Summer Festival. Photo © 2013 Monika Rittershaus. Click on the image for higher resolution

In his conducting, Daniele Gatti emphasized the diatonic and polyphonic aspects of the score and kept a good balance between the pit and the stage -- always a problem when performing Die Meistersinger [see Wagner in the Alps, 20 July 2011]. Once more the Wiener Philharmoniker and the Wiener Staatsopernchor proved to be excellent. The cast was top-notch. As the opera requires nearly twenty soloists, due to space constraint, it is impossible to comment on most of them. Nonetheless, Michael Volle was an impressive Hans Sachs, Markus Werba a right Beckmesser 'too clever by a half', Anna Gabler a delightful Eva, Peter Sonn and Monika Bohinec a sensual David and Magdalene. Roberto Saccà deserves special mention: he started as a Mozart lyric tenor and I remember him as David in Die Meistersinger in Trieste in 1992 and then as Rinuccio in Puccini's Gianni Schicchi in Florence a few years later. He was a special Walther with a very clear register and plenty of volume (which he saved for the taxing third act). A great success.

Roberto Saccà as Walther von Stolzing and Peter Sonn as David in Wagner's 'Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg' at the Salzburg Summer Festival. Photo © 2013 Monika Rittershaus. Click on the image for higher resolution

There were some boos at Così fan tutte in the Haus für Mozart on 22 August. This was a quite traditional staging (Sven-Eric Bechtolf), especially after the gloomy and nearly cruel productions by the Hermann brothers and Claus Guth in 2011 and in 2009. The sets (Rolf Glittenberg) and the costumes (Marianne Glittenberg) clearly placed the dramma giocoso at the end of the eighteenth century.

From left to right: Marie-Claude Chappuis as Dorabella, Malin Hartelius as Fiordiligi, Gerald Finlay as Don Alfonso, Martina Janková as Despina and Luca Pisaroni as Guglielmo in Mozart's 'Così fan tutte' at the Salzburg Summer Festival. Photo © 2013 Monika Rittershaus. Click on the image for higher resolution

The action was swift. The six main singers were fine (Malin Hartelius, Marie-Claude Chappuis, Martina Janková, Martin Mitterrutzern, Luca Pisaroni and Gerald Finley), even though the men, especially Luca Pisaroni, were a span above the ladies. But Christoph Eschenbach's conducting was quite lukewarm.

Copyright © 31 August 2013 Giuseppe Pennisi,
Rome, Italy