Follow that Falcon ! Die Frau ohne Schatten ROH

Like all good nightmares, Richard Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten is bizarre and perceptive, at the same time. And like all good dreams, what you get from them equates to what you put in. In  the Royal Opera House's new Die Frau ohne Schatten, at the Royal Opera House London, previously at the Teatro alla Scala Milan, Claus Guth gives us a simplified cartoon-like version of one of the most surreal fantasies in the whole repertoire.  There are many different levels in Die Frau ohne Schatten, but primarily it involves a search for a shadow. What does this shadow mean? How is a shadow attained? Guth doesn't engage with human or mythical personalities, but on the animals. It's very Walt Disney. "Ignore the ideas", the show seems to say, "Follow the Falcon".

In principle, there's no reason why a single point of entry can't penetrate mysteries. Alice in Wonderland followed a rabbit down a hole. Of course, the Falcon dominates the music. It pops up over and over, at critical points in the drama, invisibly leading the protagonists forward. It's perfectly reasonable for a staging to depict it in physical form, and certainly easier for some audiences than more metaphysical productions. But what does this Falcon mean ? A Falcon is a hunting bird. Diana, the Goddess of the Moon and thus of dreams, is also the Goddess of the Hunt, and of virginal sterility. We don't need to know how Keikobad fathered the Empress with falcon and gazelle DNA, suffice to understand that there is something mysterious and unnatural about her predicament. Until she finds a shadow, by fair means or foul, .she and/or the Emperor are doomed.

In this production, shadows are everywhere right from the start, simple tricks of light. That's fine, but as the drama unfolds, they aren't  replaced by greater substance, symbolic or otherwise. Instead, dancers with falcon and gazelle costumes  dominate the stage. They're lovely to look at, and the Falcon dances like a moth, but  the over-use of these figures turns the opera into quasi-ballet, distracting from the drama in the singing and in the orchestra. But what do these animals really mean? And why are the unborn children shown as beasts of the kill? On a Disney level, they look cute, but in terms of the opera, that throws meaning  out of line. Fortunately, in the last scene, they become "real" children again.

The stage is decorated with pseudo-psychological symbols, like a bed. Purity, sleep, sickness, death and sex - get it ?  In principle, that would be fine, but the clues stop there, and aren['t integrated into the development of the personalities of the protagonists. In von Hofmannsthal's text, The Nurse, for example, is not just a "Nurse" but an anti-nurturing figure who tries to keep her charge infantilized.  The Empress has to banish her if she is to grow. Michaela Schuster can be wonderful in this part as she was in  Salzburg (more here).  She is an asset, technically far more secure  than Emily Magee's Empress, but here she is wasted. Guth relegates her to one-dimensional hospital nurse, whatever the words she is singing might say.

At the end, The Empress is seen in bed again, as if nothing has happened and the whole drama has been no more than a bad dream. Perhaps. But that sums up Claus Guth's approach to the opera, turning it into fairy tale.  So much for the quest for a shadow, "Mother Knows Best". Except this mother figure is malevolent. Indeed, so is Keikobad, depicted as a gazelle with a walking stick. So much for the savage protest of Hugo von Hofmannsthal and the satire Strauss builds into the music. If Die Frau ohne Schatten can be summed up in one phrase (and it probably can't) that phrase might be : challenge authority., find your own way.

Johan Botha lifts the production onto an altogether more elevated plane. His singing is flawless, his voice rings with gleaming lucidity, each note "crystalline" yet tinged with deeper, more complex nuance. When he appears, it's as if he's descended from the Gods. He simply outclasses everyone and everything around him. For a moment, the trivia of the production fades away. We are hearing perhaps the finest Emperor in the business today. Botha is phenomenal. It's worth catching the show for him alone. Fortunately, the staging focuses on him alone, and at this point is vividly dramatic.

Semyon Bychkov is rarely less than good,  and the Royal Opera House orchestra plays with verve and just the right amount of sour dissonance. Bassons and low winds snarl, commenting on meanings not borne through in the staging. Bychkov, who is usually more refined,  goes for volume when more sublety might be more effective. I longed for Christian Thielemann in Salzburg (more here) , who made the orchestra sing, so orchestra, voice and meaning were fully integrated. In a Big Bang production like Guth's, noisiness is perhaps a virtue.

Emily Magee sang The Empress and Elena Pankratova sang the Dyer's Wife. Magee is popular, but in this production, the role was so ill-defined that she was eclipsed by the goings-on around her. It didn't help that she and Pankratova were costumed alike. The roles are mirror images of each other  but the staging was confusing. Pankratova rang out with passionate intensity, creating the desolation in the character by voice alone. In Warlikowski's Die Frau ohne Schatten for Munich (read more here) she smouldered with sexual frustration. Guth downplays her abilities, just as the Nurse suffocates the Empress.  Johan Reuter sang Barak, with many good moments and a few lost notes, but effective enough. I wonder how much effort went into rehearsing the singers in character, when so much attention was paid to the animals ? In theory,this is a great cast, all well experienced.What wonders might there have been ?

photos : copyright ROH Clive Barda 2014

Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten Salzburg - exceptionally musically sensitive

Richard Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten opens at the Royal Opera House. (read my review here). This opera fascinates because "Shadows" occlude its meaning on many levels. Yet, just as the Kaiserin has to engage with feelings rather than steal a shadow, so should we engage with the opera.  Every interpretation should reveal something. The one thing to beware, I think, in an opera which predicates on oblique contradiction,  is anything too literal.  That's why I love the Salzburg production from 2011, directed by Christof Loy.   It overthrows the whole notion of staging.  Its paramount focus is the opera itself.
 
It's ironic that those who hate "modern"stagings cannot recognize a production where the music comes first and above all else. Christian Thielemann's conducting is magnificent: crystalline clarity, austere yet passionately, painfully sensual. In this production, the orchestra truly sings along with the voices: there are few distractions to the inherent drama in the music. Indeed, this production underlines an important theme implicit in so much of Richard Strauss's music: the idea of art replicating the making of art.

At first, the production seems like a concert performance. For that the patrons of the Salzburger Festspielhaus have paid a fortune?  that alone says something about the way culture is consumed.  The set references Karl Böhm's historic first recording. The sophistcated Salzburg audience is looking onto a simpler, spartan world that no longer exists. More irony. The cast wear coats because Böhm conducted in an unheated room, but the "coldness" also reflects the situation. In this strange kingdom, the moon controls destiny. The images of falconry, deer and hunting suggest death, not life. This coldness can't continue. The singers are wearing coats because they're embarking on journeys toward change.

Beware the literal. Just as the opera operates on two planes, so does the production. This staging works on a disconcerting metaphysical level, but it's deceptive (rather like the opera). Notice the detail in the direction: the singers interact like singers would, rather than "characters" playing parts, The Nurse (Michaela Schuster) darts spiteful glances at the Kaiserin (Anne Schwanewilms) as if there's form between them. As the opera evolves, we realize that there is some deeply repressed rivalry. Only when the Kaiserin rids herself of this malign mother-figure can she grow. Schwanewilms, who owns the part these days, is superb.  She can concentrate on her singing, capturing the nuanced detail of a concert performance.  Loy's direction is singer-oriented, and the entire cast rises to the challenge. Musically, this production is a revelation - as things should be.

The First Act unfolds in a place and time that defines definition. "Updating" is an utterly irrelevant concept. Just as in many Wagner operas, by the time the opera s begins, tjere's a whole history we piece together through clues in the text. Falcon heads and deer are perfectly reasonable ways to depict this strange world with its images of the moon and hunting. Falcon cries haunt the music, calling out even when they're not mentioned in the text.  Perhaps we even hear gazelles in the fleeting, energetic twists in the strings.  But it's far more disturbing, I feel, to see it staged in this much more metaphysical, abstract way. The singers are seen clutching copies of the score.  Factotums appear on the margins and in corridors, even when they sing. Nothing here is quite what it seems, for very good reason.  Living without a shadow is unnatural. The Kaiserin needs to come down from the lands of the Moon and live among mortals.

Gradually, imperceptibly, the singers enter "acting" mode, their movements becoming more naturalistic as they begin to engage with their innermost feelings.  The set gets busier and more animated: we see action take place in rooms above and to the side of the stage. As the action warms up, so does the lighting, and the possibility of shadow. The sterility of the staging is significant, for the "moon" is sterile, and the Dyer's Wife (Evelyn Herlitizius) has no children. The lushness in the orchestration serves to emphasize the alienation in the Dyer's Wife and the Kaiserin. In the lushness of the orchestra we hear what they are missing out on. Here there are no visual barriers to deaden the sadness.

Die Frau ohne Schatten often gets a bad press because the relationship between Barak (Wolfgang Koch) and his wife is misunderstood in a superficial Kinder, Küche, Kirche manner. Everything we know about Strauss's relationship with his wife suggests the opposite. No way was Pauline de Ahna a woman to be pushed around. If anyone did the pushing in that household, it was she. The Strausses imbibed the ideas of the Munich Secession, and its liberated attitude to women. In its own way, Die Frau ohne Scahtten is fairly explicit about sexual repression. The fantasy scene is witty: figures in feathers dance around the Dyer's Wife - flamingos, not falcons!  The shadows are getting sharper now she's coming to terms with her needs.   Much in this opera is alluded to rather than explicit, but the text is reasonably clear what having children really means: the continuation of life. Keikobad is dead, and the Nurse is banished. Barak and his wife will start their own family. We see the minor characters in the staging reappear as child versions of themselves : children everywhere, re-enacting the process of growing up. It's not about "self" but the continuum of life.

As the Kaiserin faces judgement, there's a wonderful moment when Schwanewilms looks upwards at the empty office. We hear the sounds of the falcon and see the falcon's colours in Schwanewilm's red  hair. When the Kaiser (Stephen Gould) appears in the upstairs office, warmth suffuses her features, though she moves with nervous gestures, like a bird.  The confrontations between The Kaiserin and the Nurse are also particularly intense, like a duel between Ortrud and Elsa von Brabant.  "Higher forces are at work" spits a demonic Michaela Schuster, blazing with violence, draped in black. When all thye principals join in, singing at each other, but together, the turbulence in the orchestra suggests transition : sweeping, soaring discords as if the sky were exploding and the oceans rising. The stage goes black - the music is speaking. Schwanewilms appears in a corner.  As the poignant solo violin plays, she walks, alone, spotlit on the dark emptiness of the stage. It's like seeing pure music come alive. In the orchestra, we hear the invisible "water " motif. sparkle around her. Wonderful connection between meaning, visuals and music. Stephen Gould's voice rings out clarion like as he sings the Kaiser. The Kaiserin has struggled with herself and won. Only now,, we see a Karl Böhm figure smiling down from above.

In the darkness, the stage is transformed. It's Christmas, when a Child is given to the World as Saviour.  The barren frame  set finds fulfilment and becomes a proper performing space. The "Cherubim" wear blue sailor suits, like the Vienna Boys Choir. The Austrian colours of red and white hang from the balconies. The soloists appear in elegant evening dress. Again, the music "speaks". The singers's long, high lines cross and interact, and the orchestra adds richness and grandeur. Even the on stage "audience" joins in, waving rhythmically.  Look ! There's The Nurse forced to spend her life among mortals and fidgety little kids whom she hates ! Schwanewilms turns away, and sees the young couple who had been extras on the set embrace. 

Christof Loy's production is exceptionally sensitive to music and meaning, and it has inspired exceptionally good singing and playing. Performers like Thielemann and Schwanewilms aren't going to give this much if they don't believe in what they're doing.  The booing mob think "Regie" means regimentation, but in the real world directors have to motivate performers who know their music well. Co-operation and harmony - the very message of the opera. Strauss knew first hand how the business worked. Maybe there are those who know better than performers of this calibre, but I'm prepared to respect their taste and artistry.
.

Richard Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten Munich Warlikowski

The Bayerische Staatsoper broadcast Richard Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten live from Munich. This was an important occasion because Munich and Strauss were so closely associated. Moreover, audiences there understand the social and cultural context of the opera. Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal were fully aware of the Munich Seccession which long predated the overhyped, over-commercialized Vienna Seccession. In Munich painters like Franz von Stucken created images of erotic symbolism. Wedekind wrote plays which would influence Alban Berg and Bertolt Brecht. Thomas Mann wrote novels. In Munich there was huge interest in psychology, and in early expressionist film. Franciska von Reventlow championed women's rights. Without Munich, Weimar Berlin might not have taken off.

What does Die Frau ohne Schatten  mean? Its bizarre mix of surreal symbols, sexuality and disease connect modern psychodrama with Classical myth. Krzysztof Warlikowski's production is exceptionally well informed.  In this dreamscape, logic simply doesn't apply. The secret, I think, is to understand Munich. and the intense cultural ferment of the period. 

The Moon Mountains are isolated, cut off from the world of humans by dark waters (a symbol of life). Bavaria hadn't become part of the German Reich until forced into submission. Like the mythical creatures of the kingdom, and indeed everyone else, they had to find a way of dealing with the issues of the world. Warlikowski's staging emphasizes moonlight colours and images of sleep.  The kingdom was created by Keikobad, who controls events like the Moon controls the tides and the night. Keikobad engendered the Kaiserin through a falcon and gazelle: hunter and hunted. Warlikowski's falcon head images resemble paintings of the period.  But the unnatural union has made the woman "without a shadow". The Kaiser is powerless and will be turned to stone by the curse. So the Kaiserin and her Nurse venture to the world of humans to find a soul (a  shadow).

Significantly, Barak the Dyer can change the colour of cloth. Act Two comes alive with jewel colours, red, green, blue, glowing against clinical industrial backgrounds that suggest judgement and tough decisions. Kyril Petrenko conducts the interludes to gorgeous effec : we feel as exhilarated by the music as the Kaiserin might feel in the presence of something so new and so alien. Throughout the opera, images of fertility and sterility, youth and age abound  Off stage and unseen voices constantly intrude on the action. This is no accident. The text keeps referring to "powers beyond us" who control destiny. Magical video images of humanoid shadows floating in space, or perhaps cosmic amniotic fluid.  

Modern people may be uncomfortable with the idea that women need babies to be fulfilled, but the concept connects to something much more fundamental.  Parenthood is a kind of mystic channel through which the dead return, replenishing the world. The Dyer's Wife fights her desires, transmuting them into meaningless sex. There's nothing titillating in the gang bang scene, even though we see hunky pecs. The music suggests futility and sorrow. Marital love will triumph in the end, because it represents a committment to the continuum of human existence. Thus, the offstage voices come into focus as the opera continues. We see children who come gradually closer and are at last integrated with the principals. Even Old Keikobad comes back. He doesn't sing but he has been a presence all along.  When the Kaiserin calls upon him, perhaps she is summoning him to return to the world, reborn.

Adrianna Pieczonka created an astonishingly vivid Kaiserin. Her Chrysothemis in Elektra at the Royal Opera House (more here) was mpressive. She brings similar authority, and more, to her Kaiserin. She tackles tricky high tessitura effortlessly, and her phrasing is assured and mature, suggesting the character's intelligence and self possession. Her timbre is warm and golden, suggesting the woman she will blossom into when the curse is lifted. Pieczonka's Kaiserin is strong, and knows that her power lies in being a whole person, complete with shadow,

Johan Botha sang the Kaiser: exquisitely beautiful timbre, pitiful yet heroic at the same time. He's more expressive than he gets credit for, entranced as we are by his voice, and he makes the role feel sympathetic. Like Barak, he's no macho figure of authority, but believably human.  John Lundgren sang Barak the Dyer. He sings with matter-of-fact solidity, creating Barak as a good-hearted man of responsibility who may not be flashy but who cares for other people. 

Significantly, Strauss and von Hoffmansthal did not give the Dyer's Wife a functional name. Elena Pankratova convincingly creates the numerous changes in the character's personality. This is a demanding role because the voice has to adapt to extremes of emotion, some counterintuitive.  Like the Kaiserin, the Dyer's Wife finds her true "shadow"when she comes to terms with her deepest feelings. Deborah Polaski made the Nurse something of a star turn. Once, perhaps, the nurse was a Diva, for the part calls for sudden switches up and down the register, which Polaski negotiates well. She can act, too. When she raises an eyebrow and looks querulous, she expresses volumes. Like Keikobad, she doesn't stay dead but returns as a glamourous new nurse. 

Whatever Die Frau ohne Schatten might mean, Warlikowski engages with the different levels and themes. He finds a way into the characters as complex human beings rather than stereotypes.  We really don't need to know much about Secession Munich to appreciate this production, but if we refuse to engage with the symbols and dismiss this staging, we're the losers. "Konzept" may be a swear word to some  - it's racist - but all it means is "joined up thinking". 

Please also see my review "Sensation but no Scandal, Eugene Onegin", also Munich, also Warlikowski.  Every production, every performances involves a degree of interpretation. Whatever we see is going to be a perspective other than our own. It's not rocket science.