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Seen and Heard International, 23/01/2017 |
Mark Berry |
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Wagner: Lohengrin, Paris, Opera Bastille, Januar 2017 |
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Jonas Kaufmann Returns from Illness in a Perplexing Production of Lohengrin
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Claus Guth seems to me a frustratingly uneven director: much better than
being a bad or mediocre director, of course, but even so. This Lohengrin,
first seen at La Scala (although not by me) under Daniel Barenboim four
years ago, now replaces Robert Carsen’s Paris production. I am afraid I was
left bemused, even baffled, by much of what I saw. There is nothing
especially objectionable to it – unlike, say, Guth’s Salzburg Fidelio, also
starring Jonas Kaufmann – yet nor does it, for me at least, reach anything
approaching the heights of Guth’s Salzburg Figaro (preserved on DVD) or his
recent Berlin Salome. Sad to say, I found it rather dull, reliant entirely
upon the music for any dramatic effect, although I did wonder whether there
was a point I was missing.
As is fashionable, the staging is updated
to the time of composition: the mid-nineteenth century, albeit with no
obvious indication of the revolutionary upheavals in which Wagner so
celebratedly immersed himself. Whoever this Lohengrin may be, he does not
seem to be Bakunin, or Feuerbach. There is something insistently
restorationist – whether post-1815 or post-1848/9 – to the impeccable dress
uniform of King Henry. The costumes more generally, especially the women’s
chorus black (why are they apparently in mourning at a wedding?), perhaps
speak of the 1850s and social reaction, but I am not sure that it especially
matters. Christian Schmidt, designer of both sets and costumes, certainly
provides a handsome frame for the action (although something decidedly
peculiar happens in the first half of the final act). Is there something of
the contemporary ‘absolute artist’ to whom Wagner referred with reference to
this hero in particular? Perhaps. Lohengrin when he arrives, is in a
somewhat ‘arty’ state of (relative) dishevelment, frilly shirt hanging out,
waistcoat, yet no coat. There is a very nineteenth-century-looking upright
piano on stage (upturned, presumably significantly, in the third act), but
that seems to be more Elsa’s province than his. His arrival, suddenly
revealed by the parting of the crowd, is very odd, foetal position adopted;
indeed, his damaged progress throughout, at times unable to walk in even the
most tentative of straight lines, seems to continue from that, although
again, I cannot even really hazard a serious guess as to why. Great play is
made of his archaic (earlier-century?) silver horn too.
The girl Elsa
and her brother, Gottfried, appear on stage from time to time. Is she
dreaming this? It seems unlikely: Lohengrin and Lohengrin are hardly the
stuff of girls’ dreams. Is the woman recollecting something from her
childhood, perhaps even feelings of incestuous love for her brother?
Perhaps, but if so, it seemed very unclear to me, and had little obvious
relationship to anything else we were seeing. The setting for the opening of
the third act is an enlarged version of some fauna we have previously seen
near the piano, in what had then seemed to be a palace courtyard. Now it has
become a kitsch (I presume deliberately so) creation of Nature, replete with
a pool in which Lohengrin, having taken his shoes and socks off (they were
also off when he arrived), can walk around and delicately splash his bride.
The colours resemble those of a woodland scene in which the photographic
colour filters have been increased to eighty per cent or so. I presume it is
some sort of dream sequence, at least in part, and that there is some sort
of Freudian concept at work more broadly, but I am afraid to say that I
remain largely at a loss.
The actual music, then, rather than the
scattered musical hints onstage, was the thing. There was some occasional
string scrappiness in the first act, but otherwise some wonderful orchestral
playing, a rather unusual oboe sound (putting me in mind of Lothar Koch)
notwithstanding. Gold rather than white was the colour that came to mind
from the violins, but that was fine with me. Ebullient brass nevertheless
managed to blend. Philippe Jordan mostly had the measure of the work’s
structure. If he did not manage to build and convey neo-Furtwänglerian arcs
in the way Daniel Barenboim does in this music, there is to a certain
extent, and Jordan rarely overstepped this, a case for bringing to the fore
the derivations (which Wagner admitted to Schumann, albeit concerning the
libretto) from earlier operatic forms too.
Ears were of course
focused on Kaufmann, not least given his recent illness. His opening phrase
was unfortunate, almost grey in hue, but that, I think, was a consequence of
the director’s placing him in that foetal position, on the ground, turned
away from the audience. Maybe it was even part of the directorial Konzept,
although it would have made more sense (to me, anyway) as Florestan. If he
sounded a little careful at times, that was understandable, and there were
no real grounds for complaint, even at the sternest level of criticism. The
Grail Narration was where it all came together: rapt, indeed spellbinding,
of delivery, as if searching for an answer not to be found (which, one might
say, is very much part of what Lohengrin is doing here).
Martina
Serafin’s Elsa was something of a trial when on trial. Squally and uncertain
of intonation, she improved considerably in the second and third acts,
convincing in her kindness to Ortrud. Evelyn Herlitzius’s account of that
role was in the class of Waltraud Meier, perhaps vocally still wilder,
although never unacceptably so. Her anger at the close was the stuff of
nightmares – in the best sense. (What Guth had in mind of her visually here
seemed more odd than anything else, slow-motion agony coming across more as
‘stagey’ than tragic.) René Pape’s Henry the Fowler was typically beautiful
of tone, which is to say very beautiful indeed, lest that sound complacent
or a faint compliment. Wolfgang Koch, Bayreuth’s recent Rheingold Wotan,
gave a demonic performance of Telramund; he may ultimately have been led by
Ortrud, but he was anything but a cipher, and clearly had his own inner
battles to fight. Egils Silins impressed with clean, intelligent delivery as
the King’s Herald, his tone of no little beauty too. Choral singing, of
great importance to this opera, was mostly excellent, indeed pretty much
entirely so following some occasional, quite forgivable slips in the first
act. José Luis Basso is clearly doing a good job in training his Paris
chorus.
Well worth hearing then, perhaps even seeing. You might even
be able to explain what you see to me.
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