Ernest Chausson Le roi Arthus Hampson Alagna Koch

Ernest Chausson's only opera, Le roi Arthus, at the Opéra Bastille, Paris, has long ceased to be a rarity.  But is it truly understood in the context of Chausson's other music, or its place in the era in which it was created?   Part of the problem is that everyone thinks they know the subject matter - King Arthur, Queen Guinevere and Lancelot - when, in truth every re-telling of the legend is unique. 

Chausson and Debussy were very close friends. They're pictured together here, Debussy at the keyboard, Chausson turning the pages. Both were influenced by the artistic currents of their time, Impressionist painters, for example, found new ways to capture light through small disconnected brushstrokes. Japanese art also had a huge influence in opening out western concepts of art and design. Debussy collected Japanese art, responding to the way Japanese artists integrated outlines and supposedly blank space. This was an era of progress, when the Third |Republic was prosperous, developing international trade and colonies. Debussy was almost certainly aware of non-western music since Japanese and Indonesian musicians appeared at various Paris Expositions.
From this cultural regrowth sprang   fin de siècle fascination with psychology, dreams and the exotic, heading towards new possibilities of form. Chausson knew Maeterlinck's poetry well, so it's a pity he wrote his own libretto for Le roi Arthus, but in a sense, Le roi Arthus is a predecessor to Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande (1902) in that they both inhabit the same rarified Symbolist ethos.
  
 Le roi Athus was written between 1886 and 1895, contemporary with Chausson's Poème de l'amour et de la mer, his famous sets of Mélodies and even  Poème where the human voice is replaced by solo violin.  Like Chausson's other works, Le roi Arthur is lush, with beautifully chromatic harmonies. But aesthetically, Chausson , like Debussy, operates in a different realm to Verdi or Wagner, and even to Massenet.  The narrative in this opera is simple.  King Arthur is successful in battle, but his wife and favourite Knight fall in love with each other.  The relative inaction in the plot  is compensated for by elaborate monologues in which the main protagonists sing at length about their emotions. so the quality of the singing matters.

In this production at the Opéra Bastille, Sophie Koch sang Genièvre. Much of Chausson's work suits high soprano, but Koch negotiates the texture well, adding richness to a part defined by chastity and female virtue.  Not for nothing Genièvre, commits suicide by strangling herself with her own hair, for Symbolists associated long hair with sexuality and female power. Cue Mélisande in her tower.  I would have thought that technically improbable, but that's opera!  Koch's acting was plausible enough, though those who want gory realism might want blood and swollen features.

Roberto Alagna sang Lancelot. Surprisngly, the dynamic between boy-like Koch and a more solid Alagna worked well. The part doesn't stretch his voice, so he can put his efforts into rounding depth, singing character rather than notes. He's even convincing in his death scene, where seemingly dead, he suddenly starts singing with full voice, inspiring his King to think again on the purpose of life.  Thomas Hampson's King Arthur was impressive too. He delivered with grace and authority, while managing to suggest the tortured soul that lies behind the King's surface.  He loves, forgives and learns to live.  The heroism in  Chausson's Le roi Arthus is inward, not outward. Alexandre Duhamel sang Mordred and  Peter Sidhom sang Merlin.

While the vocal parts provided narrative, the orchestral parts provided dramatic depth.  Indeed, one might even suggest that the orchestra acts as main protagonist. Philippe Jordan conducted with exceptional grace and elegance, which suits this music, and its symbolist elusiveness extremely well. Years ago Leon Botstein conducted this opera with so little understanding of idiom that he killed it for me for a long time. There';s a reason why some people can only conduct things for which there's little comparison.  Much better that a true specialist like Jordan creates the music as it should sound. Perhaps he's grown up with Le roi Arthus. His father, Armin Jordan, made one of the first recordings. Jordan's mother is a dancer: perhaps that's why he moves with the spring of a dancer, which translates beautifully into agile, intelligent interpretation. 

The staging, by Graham Vick will enrage anyone who expects no more than TV costume drama. But Le roi Arthus is symbolist poetry, it's not meant to be comic-book grotesque. It's enough that appearances are hinted at rather than grotesquely exaggerated. So Arthur and his best mates wear fancy silver cable knitwear instead if chaiin mail? So what  they can sing better if they're comfortable.  The empty stage in Act Two reflects the situation Genièvre and Lancelot find themselves in. They're isolated. So much for the trappings oif wealth when your hearts are broken. hence the tacky sofa.  Desolation runs through this story : men are killed for no obvious reason apart from the idea that that's what Knights do.  Above the stage, a shot of a tower on a hill, suggesting Cornwall or Glastonbury or other places of Arthurian legend. So much for glory when it doesn't bring happiness to the King. It's not a "pretty" staging, but then, the opera isn't "pretty" either.  Rather, we should be listening to the cool elegance in the orchestra, providing the shimmer of polished steel, the invisible ideal which Excalibur symbolizes, which, ultimately, the Knights of the Round Table don't live up to.

Britten War Requiem Pappano Bostridge Hampson Netrebko

The new EMI  recording of Britten's War Requiem with Antonio Pappano, Ian Bostridge, Thomas Hampson and Anna Netrebko could re-shape the way the piece is heard. That's not necessarily a bad thing as we get into lazy habits if we expect to hear the same thing done the same way all the time. All too often, performance practice smothers music under a fire blanket of false familiarity. Instead of listening to the music, we end up listening to what we think the music "ought" to be, which is not at all the same thing.

Britten's War Requiem is specially prone to that kind of non-listening. It's dangerous. With so many performances of the piece coming up, it's high time to ditch the baggage that's accrued to the piece and listen to it on its own terms.  What IS the War Requiem ? Everyone knows it was written to mark the rebuilding of Coventry Cathedral, but what does it really mean?

First piece of baggage to ditch: it's not part of the British choral tradition, unless we assume all choral music is "British" and traditional. Britten uses the Requiem Mass format, just ass hundreds of composers have done before and since. But is he using it in a traditional, religious way? Yes, in the sense that the piece concludes with virtues Christianity espouses, in theory. The Mass gives the piece structure but it's a starting point, not an end in itself. Far more original is the way Britten creates the piece as a paean to Wilfred Owen.

Wilfred Owen came from a family who had aspirations far greater than their actual income. He couldn't afford public school or university so his route to education was to enter the church. It wasn't a vocation. He suffered what seems like a massive breakdown and went to France - before the war. Joining the army came later. Not at all a steady career progression. Owern was middle class, "new" Britain, gay and an outsider, who made his own way. A lot like Britten himself. So approaching the War Requiem as music, and through Owen, suggests very different interpretations from than conventional performance practice - a "tradition" of only 50 years.

Antonio Pappano's Britten War Requiem is electrifying. He approaches the piece as drama, ditching the baggage of piety. Pappano understands the violent climaxes and sudden, shattering cut-offs into silence. This is "modern" music, just as Coventry Cathedral was rebuilt as modern architecture. Angularity, strength, unsettling discordance - much closer to meaning. Ditch Abraham's willingness to sacrifice, and Isaac's meek subservience. If people break the cycle of blind obedience, they can stand up to society's dependence on war as a means of resolving conflict. Pappano conducts the Choir and Orchestra of the Academia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Rome, who aren't subservient to British and Brittenish baggage. This orchestral playing and choral singing is exceptionally intense, so the piece re-emerges vividly and violently anew. I'm reeling from the impact. I don't know where this was recorded, but it puts paid to the myth that the War Requiem "needs"church acoustics. Packaging doesn't make a piece work. Performance (and intelligent listening) does.

Soloists are Ian Bostridge, Thomas Hampson and Anna Netrebko. Bostridge is the ne plus ultra of Britten performance. His voice evokes the elusive qualities that make Britten so unique - qualities so disturbing that society in his time might not have been able to cope with. Britten's a hard nut to crack because he's oblique, evading easy scrutiny, even perhaps to himself. Now perhaps times have changed and we can begin to grasp his true originality. Bostridge's Agnus Dei suggests a terrifying image, glowing with surreal, apocalyptic light.

Hampson's anti-war credentials run very deeply indeed, and here he sings with sincere commitment, striking even in a career full of intense, passionate performances. He's too honest to attempt to sound German though he probably could since he sometimes slips into the accent when he's not singing, since he speaks German all the time. For Wilfred Owen, "war" meant the Somme. First World War propaganda was crudely racist. By connecting to The Boche as human beings rather than as barbarians, Owen was making a powerful statement. What Coventry suffered was minimal compared with what was happening elsewhere, but it was symbolic. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's presence at the premiere was essential. This is a performance practice worth respecting because it embeds meaning on a very deep level. On the other hand, it's not easy to sing, so if top German soloists like DFD or Goerne aren't available, it's better to use a good non-German, and Hampson is as German as any native English speaker could be.

Anna Netrebko, a Britten specialist?  I wouldn't expect her to sing The Governess or Les Illuminations but here's she's excellent. Britten's championship of Shostakovich and Rostopovich gave them an international profile that protected them from the full force of Soviet repression. A Russian soloist is also valid performance practice, though the text is in Latin. The soloists doesn't have to sound "Russian" whatever that might be, as long as she can create the part musically. It functions at the pinnacle of the choir, surrounded by other voices, much in the way the Archangel St Michael stands out from other angels. St Michael is a warrior who, in the Book of Revelation, defeats Satan and heralds the End of Time when the dead shall be raised. He's also one of the few angels in the Old Testament. The part brings Russia and the Holocaust into the War Requiem, otherwise so much a memorial to the Western Front. Netrebko sings with fiery, operatic intensity, absolutely in keeping with what the part may mean.  One reason why the War Requiem is often misunderstood is because listeners are more attuned to conventional big displays rather than to the real narrative of the piece which pivots around the quirky, surreal settings of Owen's poems and on the two male protagonists. The female soloist and the choir(s) serve as illuminating backdrop. The female soloists shouldn't dominate, but Netrebko' projects such strong personality that she makes you want to cheer.

More on Britten here than on any non dedicated site

Thomas Hampson Mahler Wigmore Hall

Thomas Hampson "lives" Mahler. He's the greatest Mahler singer of our time, and a serious Mahler scholar as well. You could almost say that what Hampson doesn't know about Mahler might not be worth knowing, but he still finds something fresh and new. So, even after all these years, it was good to hear Hampson and Wolfram Rieger perform Mahler at the Wigmore Hall.

Hampson and long-term collaborator Rieger began at the beginning, with some of Mahler's earliest songs such as Scheiden und Meiden and Aus! Aus! from around 1888. They are significant because they represent Mahler's earliest engagement with Des Knaben Wunderhorn, the collection of folk-derived poems published by Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano in 1806/8.  Their appeal to Mahler is obvious. He grew up in a small town with a military garrison. From childhood, he would have recognized the sound of marches and military bands and connected emotionally to the lives of soldiers, and to the simple townsfolk and huntsmen around him. Death was no stranger to Mahler even as a child. Indeed, his fascination with marches, funeral marches and resurrection stemmed from very deep sources in his psyche

Hampson has spoken out against war and gave a remarkable recital in which the Wunderhorn songs were perceptively presented by theme rather than as they appear in publication. Hampson called the Wunderhorn songs "negative love songs" for their protagonists retain sturdy defiance in adverse situations. Lied des Verfolgten im Turm (1898) refers to the picture by Moritz von Schwind. A man is imprisoned in a tower. Meanwhile a row of elves are busily trying to saw down the bars on the window to help him escape. "Gedanken sind Frei", Hampson cries. Thoughts are free. As long as we can dream, we cannot be suppressed. Even now, that's a revolutionary concept.
 
Zu Strassburg auf der Schanz, with its march rhythm just slightly off-beat, resolves in an evocation of trumpets and drums. The symphonist in Mahler was never far away, even when he was writing piano song. Revelge, that most nightmarish of songs is a masterpiece. If Hampson's voice wasn't, on this occasion, as rich and fluid as it can be, Rieger's playing was manic, horrific. Rieger's staccato ripped like a volley of machine-gun fire. As Hampson notes, the music evokes"Drang", the Grim Reaper gone mad. With our modern ears, it's like a forewarning of the slaughter of the trenches, and worse.."Tralali, tralaley, tralalera" is no lullaby here, but a bitter protest.

Although Alma would ridicule Alexander von Zemlinsky in her memoirs, the truth is more complex.  Zemlinsky knew Alma's songs years before they reached publication. Even though he was infatuated, he told her that her music was, like herself, "a warm, feminine sensitive opening but then of doodles, flourishes, unstylish passage work. Olbrich [a publisher] should have your songs performed by an artiste from the Barnum and Bailey (circus) company, wearing the customary black tails, and on his head, a dunce's cap". It is significant that Alma's songs are orchestrated frequently by other composers, who want them to be more than they are.

The connections between Mahler, Zemlinsky, Strauss, Dehmel, Schoenberg and Webern are so well known they don't need explanation. Hampson sang Zemlinksy's Enbeitung, Alma's Die stille Nacht.and three settings of Dehmel, two by Webern (Aufblick and Tief von fern, both 1901-4) and one by Strauss (Befreit, op 39/4 1898). In Befreit, the round vowel sounds resonated with warmth. "O Glück !" he sang, rising to a glowing crescendo. His family and friends were in the audience. Hampson's feelings were touchingly sincere, though the poem itself is more equivocal.

The highlight of the evening was Schoenberg's Erwartung op 2/1 1899), which pre-dates the monodrama op 17 (1909), and even Schoenberg's meeting with Marie Pappenheim. The dedicatee was Zemlinsky, and the text by Richard Dehmel. It's a cryptic poem where images are reversed. "Aus der meergrünen Tieche....schient der Mond". A woman's face appears under the water. A man throws a ring into the pond. Three opals sparkle. He kisses them, and in the sea-green depths "Ein Fenster tut sich auf". Hampson sang, floating the words with eerie stillness. Then the punchline: "Aus der roten Villa neben den der toten Eiche" with which the poem began, a woman's pale hand waves. Rieger played the circular figures so they felt obsessive, as if trapped in an endless mad dance. The similarities with the later Erwartung are obvious, but the song is fin-de- siècle symbolism and very early Expressionism rather than psychosis. In retrospect, it might seem eerily prophetic of the relationships between Mathilde Zemlinsky and Richard Gerstl, or indeed, Alma and Gropius.

Mahler's Rückert-Lieder are so well known now that it's sometimes forgotten - though not by Hampson - that they were originally published together with the Wunderhorn songs Revelge and Der Tambourg'sell. which weren't included with the first Wunderhorn collections. In 1993, Hampson recorded an interesting collection of Wunderhorn-themed songs with Geoffrey Parsons, which included piano song versions of Urlicht and Es Sungen drei Engeln. This time, with Rieger at the Wigmore Hall, he separated the first four Rückert-Lieder with a Wunderhorn song (Erinnerung) and sang Liebst du um Schönheit as a finale, intensifying the underlying theme of the recital. "It's a postcard", said Hampson, "a message of love". "If you love for beauty, youth or riches" runs the poem, "Do not love me. But if you love for the sake of love, Dich lieb' ich immerdar". The most beautiful, most tender song of the evening, straight from the heart.

A full version of this appears in Opera Today

Salzburg Don Carlo Kaufmann Hampson Harteros

Verdi Don Carlo live from Salzburg. Vocally, it's ace. With a cast like this, it couldn't be otherwise. Visually, it's  much better than you'd guess from some sections of the press. "Sumptuous emptiness"? Only in the eye of the beholder. Peter Stein's production focuses on the underlying drama, allowing the music and singing to tell the story. Stein is now nearly 80, but his background was  cutting-edge theatre, and he's musically aware. So there's no way this Don Carlo would be retro banality. Sure, the costumes are "historic" but the way they're used is part of the overall concept. Like the drama, the set is stark and unyielding, like the situation Don Carlo and Elisabetta are up against. The costumes serve as contrast, making the point that luxurious trappings conceal barbaric cruelty. Glory and power are nothing if they result in mindless killing. The sumptuous colours here are in the lighting. They are illusion, just as in the drama. Verdi's anti-clericalism is in some ways even more radical than Schiller's original text. Anyone who thinks Don Carlo is costume drama needs to pay attention. Tu che la vanità conoscesti del mondo e godi nell'avel il riposo profond

etc etc, as Verdi makes perfectly clear.

 Jonas Kaufmann and Anja Harteros sang  the leads as they did a few weeks ago at the Royal Opera House in London, (reviewed here) but the contrast between the Salzburg and London productions could hardly be greater. Nicholas Hytner's production decorated the stage with silly Legoland images, trivializing the opera. So grotesque was the auto-da-fé scene that one might assume Hytner thought being burned at the stake was fancy floorshow. Stein's staging emphasizes the fundamental conflict. Church and State are depicted in sinister darkness, the monks dehumanized and robotic. Those who are to be burned alive are seen in extreme light, skies and clouds behind them. On film (very well directed) you can see details like bloodstains which probably weren't visible on the wide stage at Salzburg.

 In the final confrontation in the tomb of Charles V, Stein again emphasizes the unyielding coldness of stone, formality and death. Hytner's tomb was comic book with the words "CARLO" on the side so you wouldn't miss them. Like the Commendatore in Don Giovanni, the Old King drags the Young Prince into the grave. Hytner's approach is embarrassing. Stein, instead, shows a sinister figure slowly emerge, embracing his grandson. It's altogether more subtle and complex. Kaufmann expresses a range of emotions and smiles as he dies. Stein knew what Charles V represented in the Counter-Reformation, and also what generational power struggles represent in Verdi. If you want intellectual and musically informed, go for Stein at Salzburg, any day.

Kaufmann sang even better at Salzburg than he did in London. "Fontainebleau! Foresta immensa e solitaria!" he sings, immediately showing what the freedom of the forest means to the cloistered Prince. He commands the stage with energy and authority: no wonder Elisabetta falls in love. She's dressed in a truly hideous costume which looks like an accident in the curtain section of a thrift shop. At first I groaned, but seeing her elegantly dressed in later scenes, I wondered if the designer was trying to say something?  Elisabetta's tragedy happened because her father placed politics above love. She and Don Carlo have lots in common.

Harteros was impressive because she is good and very experienced in the role. Kaufmann dominated this time for the most part, but Harteros truly came into her own as she showed how Elisabetta develops as a personality during the course of the opera. In her private confrontation with Phillip II, her voice shows how the young Queen is becoming a mature adult. In the final tomb scene, Harteros characterizes with such depth and power that you hardly dare breathe and lose the moment.  Harteros's majesty comes from the strength of her portrayal. As she finds resolution, youthful freshness returns to her voice. It's as if she's being reborn, purged by suffering.

Thomas Hampson's Rodrigo, Marchese di Posa, was outstanding for much the same reason. Hampson's Rodrigo is fully-fleshed in personality, the edges that are creeping into his voice used intelligently to enhance portrayal. Hampson's Rodrigo is a strong father figure, a counterbalance to Philip II, even perhaps a ghost of Charles V. This is a characterization to be reckoned with, immensely enhancing the meaning of the opera.

Ekaterina Semenchuk's Princess Eboli also extended the role from relative sideline. In real life, as far as we know, the princess was ugly and blind, so the plot is rather cruel. Semenchuk, however, is beautiful in a fulsome way, and as elegant as the Queen, but the warmth in Semenchuks's timbre adds an interesting twist. She creates Eboli as a sympathetic person, driven to extremes by the frustrations of her place at court. She's a parallel Elisabeth, just as Hampson is a parallel Philip II. Singing of this exceptional quality brings out levels of exceptional interpretation. At Salzburg the singers were admirably supported by Antonio Pappano's impassioned, vivid conducting, inspiring the Wiener Philharmoniker to the high standards they should always aspire to. Like Stein's staging, Pappano's approach highlights the inner tension in the drama, with its interplay of luxurious excess and ascetic self-denial.

In real life, Philip II wasn't the villain he's depicted as in English history books. Like Charles V, who retired to a monastery and gave up ruling the world, Philip II wasn't fooled by the trappings of power. In his own way, curiously, he was a man of the counter-Reformation though he was too devout to lose faith. He chose a kind of "inner exile", letting the Church have its way for political reasons. In London, Ferrucio Furlanetto was outstanding. In Salzburg, Matti Salminen was less effective, though adequate.  He's only four years older than Furlanetto, but his voice isn't what it was in his glory days.  But then, neither  was Philip II. HERE is a link to the broadcast.and HERE is a link to my review of Stefan Herheim's perceptive Wagner Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg.

Opera elite? Hampson trounces troll

This letter has gone viral  PLEASE take the trouble to read it in full, because it's the most succint rebuttal ever of the myth that opera is "elitist". Artistically elitist, maybe, but not socially elitist per se. Significantly, the programme the writer (Alexander Robinson) is referring to wasn't on BBC Radio 3 but on a lesser channel.  But why did the BBC let a superstar like Thomas Hampson get mauled in this way ? Really nasty PR somewhere down the line. Fortunately Hampson's exceptionally articulate and intelligent and can fend off trolls.here's a link to the original interview. But don't forget ! read the Open Letter to the BBC  !

Thomas Hampson Simon Boccanegra Royal Opera House

Thomas Hampson's first Simon Boccanegra at the Royal Opera House makes this revival of Verdi's great opera worthwhile. It's a role which suits a singer of Hampson's intelligence. Boccanegra has been Doge of Genoa  for many years. Boccanegra has survived because he thinks before he acts, and hides his feelings.
Verdi doesn't write the part with florid, crowd-pleasing arias : it's not Boccanegra's style. He’s a shrewd politician who lives on constant alert, surrounded by danger. Hence the austere vocal colour, cold steel and granite. Boccanegra reveals himself in declamation, not decoration, and in ensemble where he’s not exposed..Despite his power and wealth,  Boccanegra is isolated. Hampson's Boccanegra is a strong personality. He sings with dignified reserve, suggesting  a man weary of the world and its intrigues. ”When he finds Amelia, the voice suddenly warms. "Figlia!" sings Hampson with genuine tenderness. You can hear the years falling away, and imagine Boccanegra as a young corsair, throwing caution aside for love. His monologue “Ah! ch’io respiri l’aura beata del libero cielo!” is created with such feeling that we realize that power has brought Boccanegra no peace. Thus he can hand the future to Amelia and Adorno without regret.

Three years ago, Plácido Domingo shrewdly chose the role as his debut as baritone because the technical demands are not great. The challenge is in the acting. Hampson doesn't have to worry about the fach, which fits him naturally. He creates the part with sensitivity, showing the Doge as man and father behind the stoic exterior.

When Hampson and Ferruccio Furlanetto sing together, the balance is superb, better than when Furlanetto sang the part with Domingo.  Furlanetto sounds less youthful than he did before, which is more in keeping with the role,  but remains forceful.  The relationship between Boccanegra and Fiesco is perhaps even more significant than that between father and daughter. The two men have been struggling for decades. One is patrician, the other plebeian. Old authority is pitted against a new order. The  power struggle gives the opera dramatic tension. Thus when Boccanegra and Fiesco are finally reconciled and sing together, the impact is profound. Hampson and Furlanetto are two titans, confronting one another and finding equilibrium.

Russell Thomas was an impressive Gabriele Adorno. Adorno is young and hot headed, as Boccanegra once was. Verdi gives him several showpiece arias, and Thomas rose to the occasion, and was heartily applauded. The audience seemed almost entirely comprised of first-time opera goers, which is heartening.  He was last heard in London in March in John Adams' The Gospel according to the other Mary and in Donizetti's Belisario last October. He's no match for Joseph Calleja who sang Adorno with Domingo in 2010, but he's still young and promising.

Hibla Gerzmava made a pleasant role debut as Amelia, her voice particularly effective as the more mature Amelia in Acts II and III. Dimitri Platanias was a good Paolo Albiani, more relaxed and spontaneous than when he sang Rigoletto in 2012. Jihoon Kim made Pietro feel more than a minor character.

Although the orchestra seemed somewhat restrained at the beginning of the Prologue, it ignited, perhaps appropriately, when the citizens of Genoa proclaimed Boccanegra as Doge. Antonio Pappano is particularly good in this repertoire, capturing the fiery crowd scenes with great gusto. His command of subtle detail was even more perceptive. When Amelia sings the cavatina "come in quest'ora bruna" the childlike nature of her song is contradicted by the turbulence in the orchestra, as if Verdi is hinting of hard times ahead. When Boccanegra sings  “Oh refrigerio!... la marina brezza!”, the strings oscillate eerily. Boccanegra remembers his youth, but this breeze is sinister, foretelling death.  Pappano’s feel for the hidden depths in this opera manifested itself in the way he brought out the strange, wavering textures in the orchestration. Tragedy hangs on this opera like a shroud. Boccanegra's brief period of happiness with his daughter precipitates his death.  Yet Verdi writes with cool-headed stoicism. Sparse textures, solo melodies, intense restraint, as strong -minded and unsentimental as the Doge himself.  In Act III, the juxtaposition of wedding chorus and execution march is strikingly destabilizing.  Happiness is a brief illusion, inevitably doomed.

Since this production has been revived over 100 times, it’s almost superfluous to comment, but theatre is as much part of an opera as singing. Otherwise we’d stick to concert performances. The sets, designed by Michael Yeargan are beautiful, but also astute. The marble floor resembles a chessboard. Marble is cold and unyielding, like fate, and power politics in a troubled city state is a game of strategy. Immense doors and marble columns loom over the protagonists. Special mention should be made of the lighting design, by John Harrison, where the same set can be transformed to create different scenes and moods.

This is a very painterly production, inspired by Renaissance painting and architecture. Written words appear on upright surfaces : sometimes in gold and fresco-like in Latin, sometimes roughly scrawled graffiti in Italian.  Literally, “The writing is on the wall”.Yet beauty alone isn’t enough, as Verdi himself was to say of this opera. Fundamentally this isn’t a decorative opera, but an opera about extreme but repressed emotion.. The weakness lies in the direction. Physical action seems oddly lethargic and stilted. as if the parts are stepping out from a painting. It works, if you think of the production as a scene in a frame on a wall in a marble hall. When Amelia and  Boccanegra recognize who they are to each other,  the orchestra wells up, but the encounter is suprisingly matter of fact. Fortunately, the cast is so experienced that they can create their roles almost by instinct.

A full version of this review plus cast list is on Opera Today
photos Clive Barda, courtesy Royal Opera House

Berliner Blockbuster Straussfest Hampson Fleming

Dream concert - Berliner Philharmoniker, Thomas Hampson, Renée Fleming, lesser known Strauss songs and Strauss orchestral party pieces.  Live online Saturday on the Berliner Philharmoniker Digital Concert Hall. Might be busy live, but next week it goes into archive for easy access. If this clip is anything to go by, both La Renée and Hampson are in good form. And the Berliners are always something special!

Thomas Hampson NEW Mahler Des Knaben Wunderhorn

Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn changed my life. Back in 1968, I heard the Fischer-Dieskau and Schwarzkopf version. I knew nothing about composer, genre, language or even western culture but I knew it was something I could not shake. Thomas Hampson's lived with Mahler and DKW just as long. Although he's grown older, if anything it's enhanced his depth of emotional engagement. He is the foremost Mahler singer of our time. This new recording is special because it reflects geunine Mahler scholarship, which Hampson has supported all his life.

The Fischer-Dieskau/Schwarzkopf recording was popular because it treated the songs like an extended  duet between two "characters". I've still got nostalgic feelings for it, but forty years of reasoned research into Mahler's practices have restored the songs to their original function, as commentaries on different and more universal human situations. Not an "act".  Even Das himmlische Leben and Urlicht, marked for female voice in their repective symphonies, can be transposed for baritone, as Hampson demonstrates. Hampson brings an extraordinary new depth to these songs. His voice may not be as lithe as it was when he was singing with Bernstein, but he's developed so much  that there really isn't any competition with the past. There's also no comparson with the  recording of Wunderhorn songs with Geoffrey Parsons. This more mature Hampson is singing with  the emotional power that comes from having fully experienced life. Incredibly well-judged phrasing, well-defined nuances, elegance, dignity and committment.

It helps greatly that Hampson is supported by the Wiener Virtuosen who play with exquisite clarity, so they create the "Kammermusikton" Mahler was so desperate to achieve.  As Hampson and Renate Stark-Voit (who's dedicated her life to Mahler research) say in their notes, Mahler wanted to create "a contrast between the lean-toned, chamber-like textures of the strings and the relatively lavish scoring for the winds and percussion....in this way the relative weightings of the instruments grouped around the singer achieve an altogether merciless transparency".

Merciless is the operative work. Bucolic as the Wunderhorn source poems may seem, emotionally they're sophisticated, not sentimental. Mahler had no qualms about changing the texts to sharpen meaning. He's not "setting" text but using it as a tool. Hence the unfussy, musically alert assertiveness of Hampson's singing, which works with the orchestra in equal dialogue. These songs aren't "voice with accompaniment" so much as miniature symphonies, where voice and instruments operate together. "A Kaleidoscope" as Hampson says in his Youtube promotion.

Meaning, too, is a Hampson speciality. Not for him the published order of the songs, which reflect nothing as the songs were composed separately over ten years. Instead he orders them by theme, linking Das irdische Leben with Das himmlische Leben and ending with Urlicht. The sequence brings out deep meaning. A child is starved and dies. Another child has reached heaven where no-one will starve because they believe. (Please read my post Why greedy kids in Mahler 4)  Starvation is a metaphor for faith, fortitude in times of struggle. It could be an image of an artist who doesn't get recognition on earth, but might in future. "My time will come" as Mahler said. But Urlicht anchors the theme firmly on a spiritual plane. The believer is so certain of what he needs that even an angel cannot change his path. Ich bin von Goot,  underr weider zu Gott! And listen to the punchline, where Mahler refers to light, illuminating the way to another state of life. Light and darkness, directional thrust, all ideas that pervade Mahler's work throughout.With this superb recording, you'll hear why the fashion for Mahlerkugeln isn't Mahler. (see also my post on Hampson's DKW DVD)

Thomas Hampson Mahler Des Knaben Wunderhorn DVD

Without knowing Thomas Hampson's Mahler, you can't really know Mahler. Hampson's just recorded a new version of Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn with the  Wiener Virtuosen. It's very good and I'll review it later. But to put the new CD in context,  remember Hampson's DVD version from 2002.  It's based around a live performance in Paris, but what lifts it beyond the league of yet another recital is that Hampson and Wolfram Rieger, his pianist, talk about what the songs mean. This DVD is a masterclass in what Lieder (and Mahler) is all about.

Hampson goes straight to the heart of the Wunderhorn ethos. The poems were collected from oral folk sources by Clemens Brentano and Achim von Arnim. Folk origins, but shockingly deep. Their almost revolutionary impact is hard to appreciate today. These were songs of ordinary people, not church and state. They express a feisty, almost subversive, individualism. They explore psychological issues and magic, long before the concept of the subconscious was formulated. What we take for granted today as "modern" in many ways stems from the Wunderhorn spirit with its irreverent independence and psychological depth. As Hampson says "we must never question the beauty, value and indigenous right of human beings to think and to hold their own beliefs". "Song literature", he says "would be infinitely less rich without these songs, which have so many musical possibilities."

Hampson groups his recital into themes and talks about each in turn. The first part refers to "Fables and Parables of Nature and Man". The poems make mordant comment on human nature, disguised as the actions of birds and animals. Lob des hohen Verstanden has a competition between a cuckoo (who keeps time but isn't inventive) and a nightingale (whose song is complex though elusive). A donkey decides on a whim who'll win. Hampson spits out the donkey's hee-haw with bitter irony. Again the wilfulness of nature (and other people) comes through in Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt. The saint preaches to some fish, who make a show of listening, but immediately go back to their own ways. Mahler's notes indicate "with humour" on the piano part but satire was not lost on him. "This piece is really as if nature were pulling faces and sticking its tongue out at you" (said Mahler)  "But it contains such a spine-chilling panic-like humour that one is overcome more by dismay than laughter". 
 

War, loss and death are recurring themes in the Wunderhorn saga. Hampson calls some of these "negative love songs" for they are neither optimistic nor sentimental. Zu Strassburg auf der Schanz, with its march rhythm just slightly off-beat, resolves in the evocation of trumpets and drums, the tragedy understated. Hampson and Rieger immediately launch into Revelge, that most nightmarish of songs, where a lad's serenade to his love is a parade of skeletons, marching in formation in the dead of night. Rieger's playing is manic, horrific, the moments of glorious melody sounding even more grotesque in context. Hampson spits out the words, like a protest at the barbarism of war and its toll on human life. "Tra la lee. Tra la ree" is no lullaby here, but a mocking protest. Fischer-Dieskau didn't do it like this: in comparison he sounds almost too accepting. Rieger's staccato playing is almost like a volley of machine-gun fire. As Hampson notes, the music evokes a mad "Drang", of Stravinsky-like fervour, the Grim Reaper gone mad. With our modern ears, it's like a forewarning of the slaughter of the trenches. Der Tambourg'sell, which follows, seems all the more tragic in its surrender to death. 

The last part of the recital is sub-titled "Transcendence of Life". Hampson's vivid description of Lied des Verfolgten im Turm is brilliant. He refers to the picture by Moritz von Schwind, showing a huntsman imprisoned in a tower. Meanwhile a row of elves are busily trying to saw down the bars on the window to help him escape. "Gedanken sind Frei" is the dominant phrase in this song, thoughts are free, ideas and imagination empower us to break out from circumstances. A revolutionary concept, even now. The "female" voice urges conformity to enable survival. The "male" voice, perhaps the voice of the artist, seeks triumph in the purity of ideas. There is another dialogue in Wo der schönen Trompeten blasen, a mysterious equivocal encounter between the living and the dead. Hampson and Rieger also pair Das irdische Leben and Das himmlische Leben – earthly and heavenly life. For Hampson, the mother and starving child are both victims of the brutal process of life that chews people up, not so different from the soldiers mown down like wheat in the battlefield.

This DVD is a superb introduction to Mahler, to Des Knaben Wunderhorn and to Lieder in general.   Listen to how impassioned Hampson is when he speaks of human rights and dignity, and of the need to stand up against oppression.  The year after this DVD was made, Iraq was invaded. Thomas Hampson  had the courage and integrity to protest. Real Lieder singing is about meaning, however painful,  not about singing quietly or prettily as some believe.

Mahler in Kalište on TV Thomas Hampson

Mahler left Kalište when he was only six months old, so he didn't have any real connections with his birthplace. But 150 years later, Kalište hosted a big gala celebration. Thomas Hampson and Wolfram Reiger gave a song recital in a tiny performance room in the renovated farmhouse. As he quips to the audience "We're sitting where Mahler slept". Mahler in diapers, that's a thought. Bet he cried a lot. Weh! O Weh!

The broadcast is now available on Medici TV. Hampson starts cautiously. He struggles with the high passages and visibly beams with relief when he traverses them, but don't worry, after the first few songs, he's fine. I think the July heat must have been oppressive, and it's a small  room, lit by arc lights for TV. You can see Hampson sweat and drink a lot of water. Such things affect voice, so no discredit to him.

He manages Das himmlische Leben Mahler 4/IV) fine, even though it was written for high soprano . Transposed down for piano song it works well as Lieder. He pairs it with Das irdische Leben, too, so the connection's clear. But this wasn't any ordinary recital because it was at Kalište. Look see who's in the audience!  Hampson of course is inner-circle Mahler because he's contributed so much to Mahler scholarship and performance.

Get his DVD Voices of Our Time - exceptionally good commentary by Hampson, who shows how Der Tambourg'sell and other war songs speak to a world that's seen the invasion of Iraq and the suppression of civil liberties. It's a classic introduction to Lieder as well as to Mahler song.

Later that evening Manfred Hineck led the Gustav Mahler Chamber Orchestra in an open air concert which featured Totenfeier and the finale of Mahler Second, plus a selection of songs with Hampson, Ann Sofie von Otter and Marita Selberg. (that's not on TV)

For a hundred years after Mahler left, Kalište didn't mark him. Indeed, the original building burned down twice. About 15 years ago, a brass plaque was placed on the wall.  However, sacred sites have commercial potential, and the place was renovated into a hotel resort. The Mahler moved out, now tourists can move in. As the publicity says "Now you can wake to birdsong, just like Maher did".

Faust - Ferruccio Busoni Thomas Hampson Goethe

Ferruccio Busoni is a strange figure who doesn't fit into neat boxes. He was a child prodigy, whose virtuostic displays astounded Europe. Privately, he was a polymath, exceptionally well read and thoughtful. Indeed, his real legacy may lie in his ideas, and the way they inspired men whose music in no way resembles his own. No less than Edgard Varėse called him “a figure out of the Renaissance”, who “crystallised my half formed ideas, stimulated my imagination, and determined, I believe, the future development of my music”. Busoni believed that “music was born free and to win freedom is its destiny”, and that it was just in its infancy as an art form.

Busoni deserves a lot more attention than he gets. So read this review of his opera, Doktor Faust, by Jim Zychowicz. This is an excellent performance, as you'd expect with Thomas Hampson in the leading role. Recordings are not thick on the ground. There are two recordings with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Much as I love DFD as a father figure, he's never been the most convincing of opera singers. He doesn't let go enough, he's always DFD singing a role rather than inhabiting the character. Both recordings (Leitner and Nagano) come from the tail end of his career, when he's not quite as unwooden as he might be. So Hampson really is the way to go. He can act, too, wonderfully and is in top form vocally. The staging is very good, and the conductor is Philippe Jordan, son of Armin. Jordan fils is definitely a conductor whose work is worth hearing. He's very clear, precise yet animated and lyrical. He is still barely 40, so will go a long way.

Busoni's Faust is one of the "need to know" operas of the 20th century. This DVD is so good it's also one you want to know. Sadly, this isn't based on the new edition prepared by Anthony Beaumont but instead uses the rushed completion made in 1925 immediately after the composer's death. Busoni did, however, leave enough material to allow a less hurried completion by Anthony Beaumont, based on Busoni's own notes. Beaumont wrote the book, Busoni and his music, still the basic text after 30 years years. He's also the Zemlinsky expert, who cleaned up Zemlinsky scores for new editions. The wonderful, ecstatic score of Zemlinsky's Lyric Symphony is his. See a review of the Eschenbach recording : it's outstanding, nothing else comes remotely close.