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Financial Time, 25 October 2007 |
By Shirley Apthorp |
Humperdinck: Königskinder, Zürich, 21 October 2007
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Something wonderful unearthed
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The current fad for unearthing forgotten operas
has turned up some duds. Justly neglected flops are diligently dusted and
polished so that they can flop again.
But every now and then, something wonderful is disinterred. And then it
stays. Humperdinck’s Königskinder , one of the latter kind, is enjoying a
comeback.
Zurich’s new staging comes just two years after lavish productions in
Montpellier and Munich, which themselves were preceded by a modest but
definitive premiere in Cottbus. Gera will follow suit next month.
Humperdinck must be cheering in his grave. During his lifetime this disciple
of Wagner was blighted by the outrageous success of his children’s opera
Hänsel und Gretel. Even today, it is one of the world’s most-performed
operas, quite eclipsing Humperdinck’s other efforts. But Humperdinck always
had more serious things in mind.
Königskinder, which went down very well at its 1910 New York premiere, is a
weird and wonderful hybrid of fairytale and tragedy. Its librettist, “Ernst
Rosmer”, was actually Elsa Bernstein, Jewish daughter of Wagner’s
choirmaster, Heinrich Porges. Though she wrote other acclaimed plays and
poems, it was chiefly the text of Königskinder that saved her from
transportation to Auschwitz when she was later locked up in the
Theresienstadt concentration camp. She had become famous enough to survive.
At a time when the opera world was struggling to define itself beyond
Wagner, the modern fairytale was a popular genre. Bernstein’s libretto uses
folkloric elements to tell a contemporary tale. The King’s son has disguised
himself as a commoner in order to prove himself truly worthy of his crown.
He falls in love with the goose-girl, who is ensnared by an evil witch. By
the time the minstrel has helped her to escape, the King has died and the
prince is working as a swineherd in the village.
The witch predicts that the new King will march into the town at noon the
next day. Noon strikes, and the swineherd appears with the goose-girl. The
townsfolk refuse to recognise the pair. The witch is murdered, the minstrel
beaten, and the people fall into a state of war and anarchy. Only the
children believe in the young royal pair. Together with the minstrel, they
set out to find them. Too late; the king’s son and the goose-girl, starving
and freezing, have sold their golden crown in return for the loaf of
poisoned bread, which the witch once made the goose-girl bake. They eat it
and die.
Cottbus intendant Martin Schüler astutely identified Königskinder , as not
“a” German fairytale, but “the” German fairytale. This is a society that
falls victim to its own brutality. It is their children, today’s “1968
generation”, who call their parents to account – though not before a great
deal of damage has been done. Somehow, Bernstein had seen the future.
Humperdinck’s music follows the libretto’s bizarre course, from innocent
fairytale hop-sa-sa to a Liebestod worthy of Tristan und Isolde. Its blend
of ingenuous melody with late romanticism and its trajectory from purity
through scorching pain to transcendent acceptance make it irresistibly
compelling listening.
Zurich has wisely spared no expense to bring Königskinder even more firmly
back into the repertoire. Jens-Daniel Herzog’s staging is a simple but
eloquent updating, devoid of political point-scoring but starkly effective.
Mathis Neidhardt’s single-room set develops from classroom (the witch is a
drug-peddling chemistry teacher) through village hall to bombed-out ruin.
Herzog concentrates his efforts on vivid portraits of individual characters,
and the results are strong.
Jonas Kaufmann, in spite of indisposition, is the fairytale prince of
most opera-goers’ dreams, young, reckless, beautiful, with charisma to spare
and a voice that combines lyricism and heroic heights with little sign of
strain. His goose-girl Isabel Rey errs on the lighter side of dramatic
soprano, which is fair enough. She is utterly convincing as the innocent
child who grows through suffering into a passionate and anguished woman. The
smaller roles are well cast, from Oliver Widmer’s warm-toned minstrel to
Liliana Nikiteanu’s darkly scheming witch.
In the pit, Ingo Metzmacher puts his case for the open chief conductor
position, with a strong sense of structure and clear textures. He pitches
the piece midway between Richard Strauss and Lorzing, opting neither for
romantic opulence nor for analytical astringency, and there are times when a
little more decisive character would help. |
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