Pfitzner's Palestrina in Munich

Palestrina - Bayerische Staatsoper, Nationaltheater, Munich, 14 July 2009 

Pfitzner's Palestrina has a Munich connection - it was premiered here in 1917. Though it's rarely performed nowadays there were plenty of empty seats for this reprise of the January 2009 production. It would appear that even here a slow-moving three hour examination of the role of art in society set around the composition of a papal mass is a hard sell.

The harmonies are ear-friendly but the tunes are few. Though Wagner is the main influence and Strauss an obvious point of comparison, conductor Simone Young also draws an interesting parallel with Delius and Vaughan Williams in a programme note - nostalgia for an idealised past was not confined to Little England. 

Pfitzner, who wrote his own libretto, didn't have Wagner's instinctive flair for drama, and the unevenly-paced story plods forward in grim sequence like a police statement.  Entertainment is not its goal. The hundred minute first act is prefaced by an irrelevant sub plot and ends with an angelic visitation - like Fafner's dragon, hard to swallow however it's staged.  The second act is an over-ambitious recreation of a session of the Council of Trent - bishops and cardinals in an hour of religious chat. Even Shakespeare couldn't have made that riveting. Only in the third act - so brief it's more like a coda - does the action attain a human scale, as the elderly Palestrina is praised for saving the music of the Church from a reversion to Gregorian chant by composing his own splendid polyphonic mass.

Director Christian Stückl has grasped the nature and limitations of the work well, and sets it as a series of stylised, iconographic, largely static tableaux. He does his best to liven it up - he updates the libretto here and there, and the servants' brawl written into Act Two becomes a punch-up between the religious dignitaries (where Michael Volle as cardinal legate Giovanni Morone bashes the bishop live on stage). Unfortunately the main effect is to introduce humour where none was intended.

The main beneficiary of this revival is the music itself. Simone Young drew some splendidly light and translucent playing from the oversized orchestra, picking out lines carefully and underlining details.

It's a demanding opera to cast, a major obstacle to more frequent productions. The 25-odd named parts were inevitably filled to varying effect, but none let the side down. Munich doesn't always have the big star names, but it does have strength in depth, a handful of reliable regulars, and some canny imports. Christopher Ventris imbued Palestrina with warmth and humanity, in pointed contrast to the formality of the Church's representatives in their stylised robes and panda face paint. Falk Struckmann's blustering Borromeo and Michael Volle's sinister Morone stood out amongst the huge cast, and I was also impressed by the rich baritone of Wolfgang Koch as Luna and the crystalline soprano of Christiane Karg as Ighino.

For those who missed out, this very performance was being captured for future DVD release:

Here's Palestrina in pictures:

Christiane Karg as Palestrina's son Ighino and  Claudia Mahnke as his pupil Silla. They debate whether the individual performer should be subordinated to the overall concept in music:

The ghosts of dead composers visit Palestrina to persuade him that he is a great artist, and has a duty to enlighten his generation by composing a mass:

Palestrina's not convinced, but then angels appear singing a mass, followed by the spirit of his dead wife (sporting an unintentionally humorous giant head):

Palestrina (Christopher Ventris) is inspired. He begins writing music feverishly, eventually falling asleep at his desk. In the morning, the mass is complete.

On to Act II. Dignitaries assemble for the Council of Trent: 

  

Morone arrives in a cardboard-cutout stretch limo:

 

 

A dispute over precedence breaks out. Morone is angry:

 

A fight erupts - it ends with a fatal shooting:

The final act. Palestrina is alone. His son Ighino handed over the divinely-inspired mass behind his back, and now it is being sung before the Pope. Offstage, singers praise Palestrina as the saviour of music. Palestrina cheers up a bit:

The Pope himself comes to praise Palestrina. His dignity is somewhat compromised by his giant noddy head:

 Bavarian State Opera's video trailer for Palestrina:

 

 

 

 

production photos by Wilfried Hoesl for Bavarian State Opera, curtain call photos intermezzo.typepad.com

Comments

[John]

Empty seats? Not from where I was sitting in the parterre. An inspiring performance but then I am a Palestrina fanatic. How about and ROH revival with Ventris?

[inter mezzo]

You obviously didn't look up - that picture of the cameraman above was taken before the audience were let out! The upper levels were less than half full (German audiences are not shy about migrating to better seats, even where it's explicitly prohibited). There was a mass shuffle forwards, downwards and back at the start of each act :)

I can't see the ROH reviving it any time soon because of the expense, but at least the DVD of this performance should be an improvement on the recordings I've heard.

[dolcevita]

This revival was quite unnecessary. This opera should RIP.