Intermezzo

Die Dreigroschenoper at the Barbican

Die Dreigroschenoper - Barbican, 13 June 2009


Ian Bostridge and Cora Burggraaf

The original performers of Weill and Brecht's Die Dreigroschenoper were singing actors, not trained opera singers. And a seven-man band rather than an orchestra supplied the music. The name of course suggests it's an opera, but it has elements that owe more to musical theatre. Lengthy spoken sections (here replaced by a spoken narration that Brecht wrote specifically for concert performances) largely drive the action. And the vocal line is often simply doubled by an instrument.

It's not surprising a variety of performing traditions have arisen, with a mannered cabaret style at one end, a traditional operatic rendition at the other, and the more successful attempts generally falling somewhere in the middle.

Some time ago conductor HK Gruber recorded a version which approaches the spirit if not the specific textures of the original, incorporating his own chansonnier vocals, nostalgia singer Max Raabe, the frankly shouty punk legend Nina Hagen and the crack contemporary music ensemble Klangforum Wien. He brought them to the Barbican, and he again played Peachum in his own inimitable style, but this time he roped in opera stars for the rest.

Dorothea Röschmann, Angelika Kirchschlager and Hannah Schwarz

Some took to it better than others. Angelika Kirchschlager for one. She threw out the rulebook and played Jenny with her tongue in her cheek and a dollop of sauce. Polly Peachum's essential vulgarity was subdued beneath Dorothea Röschmann's elegant lieder technique but she displayed wit and superb comic timing in her spat with Cora Burggraaf's equally sophisticated Lucy Brown.

Ian Bostridge's Macheath was simply bizarre. London's most ruthless, dangerous criminal?  More like Basil Fawlty finding a fly in his soup. Angelika Kirchschlager looked as if she could eat him for breakfast, and in an encore of the Tango Ballad, proved she could.

Other parts were well taken. Hannah Schwarz's powerful Wagnerian mezzo gave her Mrs Peachum some heft, and Florian Boesch's Tiger Brown was idiomatic without being over the top.

HK Gruber himself was the least technically accomplished singer by far, but the one who seemed most at home in his role. He even managed to conduct Klangforum Wien after a fashion while he sang. I'm not sure I'd want to hear the whole thing sung HK style, but with the bandoneon, banjo and saxophones behind him, it made perfect sense.

 

 

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Herheim's Berlin Lohengrin - more photos, more thoughts

Here are a few photos from Die Welt's review of Saturday night's Lohengrin premiere in Berlin (summary - Manuel Brug found the production confused and generally disappointing) and some more Staatsoper rehearsal shots. (Some earlier ones here).

Below those are a whole load more that I took at the curtain call.

The end of the Vorspiel - a silent Elsa (Dorothea Roschmann) appears with a dove projected behind. It flies up and away - a Parsifal reference:

Act I - the workers of the three Berlin opera companies unite:

Lohengrin (Klaus Florian Vogt) appears. Elsa whips off her clothes to reveal, like the rest of the cast, she's wearing a wood-grained body stocking. "I love you" sings Lohengrin before swiftly covering her with his cloak. The chorus shiver jealously: 

Ortrud and Telramund (Michaela Schuster and Gerd Grochowski):

I yam the White Goddess!  Ortrud (MIchaela Schuster) plots her revenge in Act II. A shadowy tree grows behind her:

 

Act II - Richard Wagner lookalikes control human marionettes:

The puppets turn the tables and the sticks become weapons of jeebus. A bit of a Ken Russell moment:

 

The second act sees the chorus all dressed as Richard Wagner. But without pants:

The bridal bed. Elsa is clearly up for it, but Lohengrin keeps going on about the perfumed night, etc. The conflict is subtly drawn:

Elsa regrets her impertinent question but it's too late:

The final curtain - Klaus Florian Vogt and Daniel Barenboim:

 

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Lohengrin in Berlin - first night - first report

Lohengrin - Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Berlin, 4 April 2009

Well, it turns out the uber-traditional rehearsal photos were a decoy. Or to be more accurate, they only tell part of the story. Stefan Herheim's new production is as subtly allusive and ultimately impenetrable as the music itself. There are so many ideas there - I'm not sure I even noticed, let alone understood everything - but then I don't know whether I really needed to.

Daniel Barenboim didn't carry out his threat to play the overture twice, though it sounded as if the extra rehearsal might have been useful - the overture was just the first instance of recurrently scrappy playing.

With the first notes, on came the first of the promised string puppets, a near-lifesize Richard Wagner, standing on a tree-stump 'conducting' the orchestra with a giant feather. Was that what really riled Barenboim?

The puppet disappeared, hauled slowly upwards through a giant shower curtain, lit blood-red. I mention all these details because just like the Wagner's musical themes, they reappeared later - the puppets throughout, the feather as Lohengrin's swan, the red curtain as the grail. Even puppet-Wagner's skyward exit was mirrored by Lohengrin's at the very end. The light changed to white, and a flying dove was projected. Parsifal ends, Lohengrin begins.

I'm generally with Barenboim on staged preludes. Usually they're dramatically redundant - servants scrubbing the steps and so on. Distracting and irrelevant. But this one was perfect and vital. Barenboim's complaint on principle alone seems to confirm Herheim's claim about his lack of interest in the staging and his reluctance to change any customary viewpoint. It would be impossible to make the parallel criticism of Herheim, who seemed to have absorbed, digested and reflected the musical themes and underlying structure to an extent I've never seen before in any opera production.

The spat at least underlined the foresight of Herheim's main setting - the Berlin Opera Wars circa 2009. The Saxons and Brabantines are replaced by opera workers, each wielding an alter-ego string puppet. Elsa is one of them, and she literally creates Lohengrin, who appears amongst the modern masses as a medieval knight - or at least a traditional opera producer's idea of one, in swan helmet and silver tights.

The modern characters turn into their traditionally-costumed puppet counterparts - all the chorus are Richard Wagners, Being John Malkovich style. They drop their trousers and everything else to reveal wood-grained body stockings, figleaf critically placed, like Cranach's Adam and Eve, and oddly asexual. There's even a Garden of Eden in the second act, where Elsa offers Ortrud one of the handily-fallen apples.

The marionettes pop up again and again, their cross-stick controls raised here and there like swords, or more often like vampire-repelling crosses. As a shadowy projection of a tree grows behind the scheming Ortrud, we are reminded even more forcibly that Lohengrin is a parable for the victory of Christianity over nature-worshipping heathens.

But the finale, where the new king Gottfried is presented as a puppet Lohengrin shows us that in Brabant, as in the paralysed, self-destructive world of Berlin opera, that nothing ever really changes.

The only part that didn't really work was the first scene of the second act, where Ortrud and Telramund quarrel. Herheim seemed to have run out of ideas here, so we got an interminable argument punctuated by - o noes not again - a chair flung across the stage. Then a drag queen appeared with a live spaniel and water rained down from the flies. No it didn't, but you know what I mean.

The chorus, like the orchestra, seemed under-rehearsed. Too many lapses of ensemble and simple errors. Barenboim clearly managed to communicate what he wanted, though, and tempo and dynamics were superbly judged throughout.

And the individual performances could hardly be bettered.

Klaus Florian Vogt's bearded Viking Lohengrin was a perfect blend of spirituality and belligerence. What always amazes about his voice live - it's something recordings just don't pick up - is its sheer size, almost alarmingly beautiful in so delicate an instrument.

This was Dorothea Roschmann's first Elsa, and in the first act at least, it showed. But she improved, losing vibrato and gaining confidence. Although she never asserted herself quite as strongly as the production concept seemed to demand, at least she sang beautifully, never screeching or grabbing for notes at the top.

Michaela Schuster's panto Ortrud was a little over-the-top for my tastes, but again, it was hard to fault the sound she made. Late sub Kwangchul Youn flagged a little towards the end, but his Heinrich was powerful and authoritative, and I really didn't miss Rene Pape. Gerd Grochowski and Arttu Kataja as Telramund and Herald made less of an impact, but were fine too.

There was not much of the usual Berlin booing. Each act was greeted with massive applause, and at the end there was a standing ovation for Daniel Barenboim and the orchestra. Stefan Herheim was less warmly greeted, but the cheers far outweighed the negatives.

The crowned heads of opera were out in force, and not just the Royal Opera House representatives. Sitting next to Stefan Herheim in the centre of the stalls was the best-dressed man in the house, Rufus Wainwright, wearing black pants with mariachi-style sequinned musical symbols down each leg and (in the 70' heat) sweater and scarf beneath his jacket. I felt positively dowdy in comparison. He bravely stood to applaud Stefan Herheim at the end, the only one who did.

More and hopefully better photos in a few days, but here are a few to be going on with (the one at the top btw is a statue behind the LIndenoper - the bear being the symbol of Berlin. Are the teddies shagging or scrapping? Or is it all - just play?): 

 

New best mates:

Dorothea Röschmann at Wigmore Hall

Dorothea Röschmann / Graham Johnson - Wigmore Hall, 20 November 2008

Schumann Gedichte der Königin Maria Stuart
Wolf Nimmersatte Liebe; An eine Äolsharfe; Erstes Liebeslied eines Mädchens; Denk' es, o Seele!; Im Frühling; Gesang Weylas; Begegnung
Mahler Rheinlegendchen, Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen, Wer hat dies Liedlein erdacht, Lob des hohen Verstandes and Verlorne Müh from 'Des Knaben Wunderhorn'
Brahms 8 Zigeunerlieder

Encores: Schubert Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt; Wolf In der Frühe; Mahler Selbstgefühl from 'Des Knaben Wunderhorn'

Dorothea Röschmann's pearly top notes still emerge effortlessly, but her voice seems to be in a process of transition. It's gaining weight, the centre is dropping, but it's not quite there yet. To speculate how much of this is natural evolution and how much is being hurried along by Röschmann's acceptance of some meatier roles recently and in the near future is probably fruitless (but nevertheless 'interesting'). 

Schumann's Mary Stuart settings are low-lying for a soprano, and Röschmann never sounded quite at ease in the range. It was not a promising start. But the rest of her programme rarely dipped quite as low, and she seemed more comfortable vocally and more freely expressive.

Her recital art is all about nuance and inflection. Although she's capable of grand gesture and bold dramatic expression in the opera house, she wisely leaves that behind in the concert hall.

We saw a small, solid woman in a black lace strapless sheath and matching bolero, her sensible brown bob uncombed, her face makeup-free, like a librarian trying on a party frock. Her comportment has a stillness born of inner calm. Her facial expression is more conversational then stagey. There are none of the diva flourishes employed by the less wise, so distancing in the intimate atmosphere of the Wigmore Hall. Röschmann's effects are achieved more subtly, almost by voice alone.

She explored some of Wolf's most erotically-charged Mörike settings, traversing seamlessly from the sly innuendo of Erstes Liebeslied eines Mädchens to the nostalgic Im Frühling, always conscious of both the words and their meaning.

She was equally at home in the rustic idiom of the second half and its folk song texts drawn by Mahler and Brahms. Here, as if to compensate for the lack of lyrical subtlety, she employed a much broader range of vocal characterisation, peaking with the animal farm of Mahler's Lob des hohen Verstandes, its donkey, cuckoo and nightingale all brilliantly evoked. If the Zigeuner Lieder all had a rather samey feel, despite their stirring rhythms, this is as much Brahms's fault as Röschmann's. The contrast with the first of her three encores, where she completely inhabited the tormented teenager of Schubert's plaintive Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt, showed this only too clearly.

The concert was recorded for broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 25 November 2008 at 7 p.m (that's today!) and available for a week afterwards on the IPlayer.

Bostridge Bostridge Bostridge

Ian Bostridge / Dorothea Röschmann / Thomas Quasthoff / Julius Drake - Barbican
and
Ian Bostridge / Sophie Daneman / Julius Drake - St Luke's, 14 January 2008

Aller guten Dinge sind drei

This was an interesting idea I'd like to see the Barbican repeat more often. One evening, two concerts, a short walk apart, and just enough time in between to grab some of London's finest sushi. The common link - Ian Bostridge - both were part of his year-long series of concerts at the Barbican.

For the first, an all-Schubert affair, he was joined by Dorothea Röschmann and Thomas Quasthoff. Schubert's duets and trios are not his strongest work, and the programme wisely majored on solo settings, mostly of Goethe.

It's probably true to say that there aren't that many people in London who attend lieder recitals on a regular basis, so with a 2,000-ish audience in the Barbican, there must have been a fair number of newcomers present. So it was a brave decision to begin with the heavy stuff, as Bostridge took on the three rarely-heard Gesänge des Harfners, the desolate outpourings of a blind and destitute old harper. Though his awkward twitching and lurching was barely watchable, hands fighting to levitate from pockets, the voice in contrast was pure and immaculately controlled, the tone simply beautiful.

Instead of the mannered enrobement of each and every syllable which has detracted from some of Bostridge's previous performances, there was a real sense of poetry asthe lines flowed, with consonants accented selectively and judiciously. OK, some of his technique, the flicked notes, the portamento, wasn't technically 'correct', but they were choices that worked. I was riveted; some other audience members weren't, but the coughing was boldly and effectively reduced by Thomas Quasthoff with a loud shush and an angry look.

The logical follow up was a little light relief, the lovely if slight duet Mignon und der Harfner, which introduced Dorothea Röschmann. Her presence is direct and assured, her tone bell-like and lyrical, and she complements Bostridge perfectly. Going it alone in the three following Mignon Lieder and Kennst du das Land, her artless simplicity transformed her into the sad child of the songs.

Thomas Quasthoff lightened the tone with the rollicking Normans Gesang and the familiar Ganymed. Grenzen der Menschheit rather overstayed its welcome, but the compensation of a very subtly characterised Erlkönig followed. Quasthoff has enormous warmth and a very easy delivery, but there were many moments when he seemed imperfectly focussed, his naturalness sliding into a less than thoughtful delivery. Not enough of the material was in his satisfyingly rich and resonant bass register either, and he strained on the higher notes.

The trio Kantate zum Geburtstag des Sangers Johann Michael Vogl which closed the lengthy first half at least takes singing as its subject matter, and of course as a rare Schubert trio was appropriate for this particular line up of performers. But a good eight of its ten minutes seemed excessive - at least it was delivered with humour and energy.

The shorter second half of the concert was dominated in every sense by Dorothea Röschmann's three Faust songs, a spectral Der König in Thule, an intense Gretchen am Spinnrade and a moving Gretchen’s Bitte. There is a simple authenticity to everything she sings, an ease which makes every word sound fresh-minted and completely honest - though she wasn't best served by Julius Drake's idiosyncratically languorous accompaniment here, to a lesser extent an issue all evening.

The Szene im Dom which followed, another Faust setting and effectively a duet for Röschmann and Quasthoff, gave Quasthoff the opportunity to play to his strengths as the darkly evil spirit chastising the desperate Gretchen.

After the charming Bostridge/Röschmann duet Licht und Liebe the concert closed with the rather silly but at this stage enjoyable Der Hochzeitsbraten, complete with hunting calls and yodelling effects, where a pair of hare-poaching lovers are caught by a gamekeeper.

And then, at least for the lucky few, it was off up the road to the much smaller St Lukes, where Ian Bostridge and Julius Drake were joined by Sophie Daneman for what was billed as 'Late Night Cabaret', a set of songs by Coward, Porter and Weill. Bostridge's Schubert credentials are impeccable, his popular music less so. The stage was set with a starry night sky backdrop, a champagne bucket and a haze of filtered lights. (No smoking allowed tho).

Opening with Coward's I Travel Alone, Bostridge showed a much less mannered touch than his recording, now a few years old, would suggest. He hardly has the insouciant ease of a Sinatra, but in the songs he connected with, like this one, the performance was at least credible, and considerably less physically awkward than his earlier Barbican showing. The dismissal of considerations of technique which to some ears flaw his classical performances give him a head start here, where the centred voice and the clipped note are not always what works. In others, like Twentieth-Century Blues, he seemed to be offering more of a commentary than a performance, and it didn't come over nearly as well.

He has a terrific rapport with Sophie Daneman, who brought a relaxed charm to the evening. Her high, silvery, vibrato-free voice is just as well suited to musical theatre as to the baroque opera she's more usually associated with. There was never any sense of pain behind her perpetual smile though. As she translated the quiet despair which should underline If Love Were All into a cheerily game resignation, I longed for the raw simplicity of a Judy Garland.

Surprisingly, the least effective songs were the six from Weill's Die Dreigroschenoper, for which Drake's loosely phrased piano work was partially to blame. It's an unfortunate reflection on the art of accompaniment that the audience tends only to notice what the pianist is doing when it's not quite right, but that's the way it goes. A bit more rhythmic impetus would certainly have helped here. And Bostridge's tendency to spit out every other line like a curse grossly distorted the text.

It was a smart idea to end with a group of Cole Porter songs, their supercilious wit ideally matched to the performers' strengths. I don't think this is an experiment I'd want to see repeated any time soon, but as classical crossover goes, it was at least not entirely witless or excruciating, a rarity in itself.