Intermezzo

Verdi's Requiem reconfigured - Salzburg Easter Festival part 2

Berliner Philharmoniker / Jansons - Grosses Festspielhaus Salzburg, 2 April 2010

Soloists - Krassimira Stoyanova, Marina Prudenskaja, Jonas Kaufmann, Stephen Milling; Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks

 
I'm sure Mariss Jansons wouldn't agree that practice makes perfect. Always in search of further refinements to his interpretations, he continues to study even the most familiar works, confident of gaining fresh insight each time he does so. Nevertheless, three performances in Berlin a couple of weeks ago, plus another one here in Salzburg earlier in the week, not to mention his long history with the work must all add something to the technical quality of the performance, which was almost inevitably unimpeachable.

And yet he still managed to add something new. It's often trotted out that there are two ways to tackle the Requiem, operatic or ecclesiastical. But Jansons has uncovered a third, the symphonic, where all the disparate 'numbers' are integrated into the whole in a way I've never heard before. A seamless narrative unfolded, punctured only by bold silences, held to the limit. Within this overarching structure, Jansons explored every dramatic extreme, from the fire-and-brimstone Dies Irae to the tender vocal pianissimos. However sudden the shifts, they always seemed musical and inevitable, never just vulgar attention-seeking effects.

Jonas Kaufmann sounded perhaps the best I've ever heard him, his dynamics perfectly calibrated and every word weighted with meaning. Just two words - a thrilling kyrie eleison - and he had me. The rest of the soloists came close to matching him. Stephen Milling wobbled a little in his first few bars, but soon settled into a steady and rounded performance. The Requiem ideally needs a rich, creamy mezzo, and Marina Prudenskaja (who impressed me as Octavian in Stuttgart recently) was more skimmed soy, but she sang with tremendous expression attention to text. Krassimira Stoyanova began well, with rich, radiant tone, but flagged towards the end, falling behind the beat here and there and not always intoning correctly.

Still, it was an enthralling and tremendously powerful performance, fully deserving of the unanimous standing ovation it received.

*****   photos and more overleaf   *****

Don Carlos in Copenhagen *UPDATED with pics*

Don Carlos - Operaen Copenhagen, 23 November 2007

Anyone who imagined Denmark was an operatic backwater would have to revise their opinions if they caught this stunning performance. Performed in the four-act Italian version, musically and visually, it was as good as it gets. Any shortcomings were mostly down to Kasper Bech Holten's production concept, which sets the drama 'in the near future in a totalitarian state' in an apparent attempt to emphasise the political aspect of Verdi's opera and in doing so bring it closer to its source, Schiller's play Don Karlos. The idea is not a bad one, but the execution is in places clumsy and unsophisticated. It reduces the delicate examination of power politics to the brute level of gun-waving physical force and in doing so, critically, diminishes the threat of clerical authority.

It does give the opportunity for some eye-poppingly gorgeous sets, like the one pictured above for the Act 2 scene 2 auto-da-fe (which thanks to the lame-o production concept is turned into a cocktail party punctuated by war movies and Flemish suicide bombers -- yes I groaned too). The shiny walls, lit red here, were elsewhere left grey and moved to the sides, or inverted to make an exterior wall. Around the stage was a wire fence, usefully deployed to delineate Carlos's prison, an irritatingly inappropriate Guantanamo-style compound packed with orange-suited inmates. But whatever its infidelities to Verdi, the production did look good throughout. And (in marked contrast to most Royal Opera House productions) all the action is considerately positioned and unobstructed -- even from my top-deck side seat, I could see the whole thing perfectly.

But on to the best thing about the production, the singing, which was without exception superb. I doubt if I will ever get to hear a Philip better than Stephen Milling's. Formidable, charismatic, he effortlessly dominated his every scene, the dark core of the whole opera.

Austrian tenor Nikolai Schukoff, the only non-Scandinavian in the cast, was for me the big discovery of the night, retaining his dignity despite being required to play Don Carlos as a crazy mixed-up teenager. A fantastic actor with a bright and distinctive voice - even the slight strain at the top was curiously appealing - his resilience and conviction quite overcame the silliness with which he was surrounded. And he's coming to London! - on December 1, he joins the LPO at the Royal Festival Hall for Beethoven 9 (his London debut?), and returns on April 14 for a more substantial runout, in Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde.

One of the evening's highlights was Schukoff's perfectly-judged duet, Dio, che nell'alma infondere, with John Lundgren (Rodrigo), here a bespectacled (=brainy) 'freedom fighter' of cryptic motivations, but a creditable vocal performance.

Tina Kiberg made an affecting Elisabetta, especially in her final aria Tu che le vanità . Resistant to any hint of intimacy to the last, Holten set this in an airport lounge, complete with the nowadays-obligatory gratuitous canine intervention in the form of a sniffer dog. Kiberg triumphed over the distractions of her surroundings with melting sincerity. Oh, and she had the added disadvantage of being suited up like Mrs Thatcher c.1985, so all the more credit to her.

Randi Stene (Eboli) struggled at the top end of Nel giardin del bello, but was otherwise assured and convincing. Even when she was 'disguised' as Elisabetta without the customary mask -- or indeed, for some obscure reason, any actual disguise at all. Like all the cast though, with the exception of Stephen Milling, her Italian diction lacked clarity.

The orchestra weren't particularly Italianate either, though in every other respect Michael Schønwandt drew an outstanding performance from them, marked by clarity, balance and precision. His measured pace and heavy textures were at least a suitable match for Holten's concept, and he was sensitive to the needs of the singers, never overwhelming them.

Here's hoping Hytner and Pappano can pull together something this convincing for the Royal Opera House's forthcoming Don Carlo (tickets on sale 5 December and likely to sell out rapidly).

***UPDATE***

Here are some curtain call pics from Don Carlos. The star of the show, with handler:

Conductor Michael Schønwandt:

Nikolai Schukoff and Tina Kiberg:

John Lundgren and 'a lady':

Sten Byriel, Randi Stene, and the great Stephen Milling: