By Sedgwick Clark
That’s a deliberately provocative question, of course. But when the best one can say about Carnegie Hall’s Opening Night Gala is that the scaffolding has been removed after three years, there’s a problem. The building’s elegant façade, glistening proudly in its new exterior lighting, looks simply gorgeous. It’s a necessary reminder that the beleaguered classical-music industry can still hold its head high. Lord knows such architectural stature is rapidly disappearing from 57th Street, what with that monstrous tin-foil phallus already erected across the street and more to come to the east and west.
In his review, the New York Times’s Anthony Tommasini referred to the Berlin Philharmonic, the evening’s band, as “great.” Who am I to disagree? But I have been hearing the Berliners for 35 years in this hall under the likes of Karajan, Abbado, Haitink, and its current music director, Simon Rattle, and I was shocked at the current state of the orchestra. The violas, cellos, and, to a lesser tonal extent, double basses—placed to the right of the conductor—had all the strength and projection of the BPO of yore, with total unanimity and purpose. But the rest of the stage was swimming in indirection. The violins were not obviously out of sync, but they rarely projected as a body, which is the same thing. The woodwinds played with character but rarely as an ensemble, and except for their biggest moments the brass may as well have not been playing. The Berlin timpanist used to be brutal, but the young fellow back there now mirrors the conductor’s indistinct beat.
For this opening week of October, the British conductor served up Schumann’s four symphonies, Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances, Anne-Sophie Mutter in Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1, Stravinsky’s complete Firebird, and a new work by Georg Friedrich Haas.
Opening night began with the Rachmaninoff, and I smiled in anticipation as the strings briskly invested their pp staccato eighth notes with wit and buoyancy. And then—and then—OMIGOD!—Rattle sat down on the first ff chords with elephantine emphasis, proceeding to eviscerate the outer movements’ rhythmic drive and hobble through the insinuating central waltz. The 1961 Kondrashin recording most successfully captures the demonic Romanticism of the composer’s nostalgic final masterwork. Rattle’s spongy accompaniment in the ensuing Bruch concerto was little help to Mutter, but she herself seemed unwilling to confront the music’s impassioned ardor. Gala programs are short these days, and Rattle led an abbreviated Firebird, beginning with a colorless Infernal Dance. One thing though: The Berliners can still play extraordinary pianissimos when asked, and Rattle asked for—and got—ridiculously ppppp strings leading into the horn solo that begins the finale. Ostentatious.
I also heard the concert that paired Schumann’s Third and Fourth with Haas’s dark dreams. To take the Berlin Philharmonic on tour and then reduce the strings to 12-10-8-6-5 takes a lot of nerve, and I found few moments to justify the dare. Rattle chose to play the original edition of the Fourth, which seemed in this performance, at least, more repetitive, structurally awkward, and amateurishly orchestrated than the version we know well. The Haas piece, commissioned by the orchestra and Carnegie Hall for this tour and placed on the program between the two symphonies, required the full BPO and could barely fit on the stage. It sounded fabulous, and Rattle, for a change, conducted with decisive gestures. What a difference!
And now, after all that, I was pleased to find Rattle’s leadership and the Berlin instrumentalists and vocalists exceptionally expressive in Peter Sellars’s controversial staging of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion at the Park Avenue Armory, Lincoln Center’s initial White Light Festival presentation.
Tune in next week to read about an orchestra I heard the evening following the BPO Gala—an ensemble that played a truly “great” concert.
Salzburg Coda
Friday, October 31st, 2014By ANDREW POWELL
Published: October 31, 2014
SALZBURG — Alexander Pereira is now gone from the main festival here, and two tenuous summers are in the offing before Markus Hinterhäuser replaces him as Intendant in 2017. His exit, under a cloud, ends a budget tempest but threatens reversals of worthy initiatives he took: lengthening the schedule to six weeks, deepening the commitment to sacred music, insisting on fresh stagings for opera. Pereira did not adapt to the old-boy (and old-girl) Salzburg bureaucracy but he restored an element of decisiveness that had been lacking since Karajan and later Mortier ran things. And despite fiscal overages and gripes about casting, his programs were a Karajanesque blend of tradition and vetted novelty, exemplified on three August days in the paired artistry of Vilde Frang and Michail Lifits; concerts by the Mozarteum-Orchester and the Academy of St Martin In the Fields; and new productions of Fierrabras and La Cenerentola.
Peter Stein, wise yet out of fashion, told Schubert’s 1823 Carolingian tale straight, using monochrome flats and simple lighting tricks to paint and speed between differentiated, handsome scenes (Aug. 22, Haus für Mozart). His target: the seated theater audience, not roving DVD cameras. He stressed Christian values of compassion and peace, contrasting the vehemence of the Moors; Fierrabras was Fierrabras, destined for conversion, not an impersonation of the composer. But coarse horn playing marred the presentation of a score much dependent on that instrument, and conductor Ingo Metzmacher tended to allow the Vienna Philharmonic winds to swamp the luscious strings, the orchestra to swamp the singers. Of the six principal roles, Julia Kleiter’s silvery-voiced Emma did the music fullest justice. The Vienna State Opera Chorus sang magnificently, also magically.
Taking for La Cenerentola the opposite but these days routine path, Damiano Michieletto deployed hard-surface, camera-friendly sets and updated Perrault’s story (Aug. 23 matinee, same venue). His homey cafeteria, “Buffet Don Magnifico,” buzzed with credible characters and tightly calibrated action; a startling scenic transformation added depth. Angelina, in her middle years, found love at first sight while busing tables, and goodness triumphed at the close through gifts to her wedding guests: rubber gloves, buckets and soap; as those guests were put to work, she blew bubbles. In a probable farewell to this signature role, Cecilia Bartoli (48) exerted feisty charm, her sound opulent, the vocal ornaments expressive and fresh as ever. Mirroring her comedic sincerity, Javier Camarena sang a stylish Ramiro and a modest one, too, until Sì, ritrovarla io giuro. This he peppered with loud highs and a long last C brightened in a timbral arc. The basso roles were contrasted: Enzo Capuano a bully of a Magnifico with lucid patter and smooth legato, Ugo Guagliardo a cupid-magician Alidoro of rich tones but somewhat graceless phrasing, and Nicola Alaimo a robust Dandini who overplayed his comic hand. Jean-Christophe Spinosi and the Brest-based Ensemble Matheus rose to the witty occasion.
Tour appearances by the 55-year-old London orchestra (same day, at the Felsenreitschule) haven’t always validated the high standards of its early records. This one did. Tomo Keller’s work as guest concertmaster blazed with virtuosity and seemed to ignite all desks. Although uncredited by the festival, he led Mendelssohn’s D-Minor Sinfonia (1822) by himself, finding elegance and mature ideas as well as precision in the four movements. Seven winds and conductor Murray Perahia then joined the 24 strings for an exceptionally refined reading of Haydn’s Symphony No. 77 (1782) filled with neat contrasts and fresh turns of phrase; the airy Andante sostenuto could have spun for an hour without losing appeal. After the break, Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto (1809) emerged in fluid streams of sound, the rhetoric measured, the attacks vivid. Perahia deftly balanced poetry and drama, piano and orchestra, signaling with his arms when not occupied at the keyboard.
Ivor Bolton, beloved Chefdirigent of the Mozarteum-Orchester, sandwiched ardent arias of Gluck and Mozart between G-Minor Sturm und Drang symphonies (Aug. 24 matinee, Mozarteum), packing quite a punch. Resilient rhythms, vigorous angular themes and tidy dynamic shifts enlivened Haydn’s Symphony No. 39 (1765), capped by an Allegro di molto that expertly whirred along. In Mozart’s Symphony No. 25, written eight years later and inspired by the Haydn, Bolton elicited equal cohesion and propulsion, favoring tautness over repose, but the volume of sound pushed the limits of the 800-seat hall. Rolando Villazón brought astounding degrees of verbal expression and ample vocal luster to his three Mozart arias — Per pietà, non ricercate (1783), Or che il dover (1766) and, as vehicle for clowning, Con ossequio, con rispetto (1775) — buoyed and gamely resisted by Bolton and the orchestra. In Gluck’s Unis dès la plus tendre enfance, from Iphigénie en Tauride (1779), the tenor delivered the French words with operatic flair.
After the recital by Frang and Lifits (same day, same venue), one woman asserted aloud that Frang couldn’t possibly play the violin to full potential for lack of flow in her body movements, while another attendee bemoaned pianist Lifits’s gum-chewing facial mannerisms. What was certain was that two unique personalities had made music. They combined best in the pieces that opened and closed their program, Brahms’s Scherzo for the Frei aber einsam Sonata (1853) and Strauss’s similarly confident and classically formed E-flat Sonata (1888). Results: clear lines, passionate phrasing, ideal balances, a definite sense of structure. Lifits could be heavy in the left hand and seemed not always aware of his partner, but she proved able to enlarge her tone when she chose, adding volatility. The stylistic jump from Brahms to Mozart’s Violin Sonata in E-flat, K481 (1785), had the effect of Frang receding: Tashkent-born Lifits played as if on solid ground and the Oslo violinist looked happy to let him dominate, especially in the crisply articulated Allegretto. Beethoven’s A-Major Sonata, Op. 30/1 (1802), after the Pause, suffered slow tempos and a lack of drama.
Where the Salzburg Festival goes now, post Pereira, will be partly evident next month when the 2015 summer plans are announced. In all likelihood there will be cost-cutting to counter past overages, such as for 2013 when a reported $5 million went out the door beyond the approved $76 million. Once Hinterhäuser fills the Intendant void, the danger is of a well-bookkept but artistically dithering institution — a return, in effect, to qualities of the ten summers preceding Pereira’s 2012 arrival; Hinterhäuser, a pianist, participated in management for some of those years and is not known as a forceful character. The compass at present is with Sven-Eric Bechtolf, grandly styled “Artistic Master Planner 2015 and 2016” (a promotion from heading just the theater programming), and the festival’s indomitable Cost-Cutter-in-Chief, a.k.a. Präsidentin, Helga Rabl-Stadler.
Photo © Silvia Lelli
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Tags:Academy of St Martin In the Fields, Alexander Pereira, Bartoli, Beethoven, Brahms, Commentary, Damiano Michieletto, Ensemble Matheus, Enzo Capuano, Felsenreitschule, Fierrabras, Gluck, Haus für Mozart, Haydn, Helga Rabl-Stadler, Ingo Metzmacher, Ivor Bolton, Javier Camarena, Jean-Christophe Spinosi, Julia Kleiter, La Cenerentola, Markus Hinterhäuser, Mendelssohn, Michail Lifits, Mozarteum, Mozarteumorchester, Murray Perahia, Nicola Alaimo, Peter Stein, Review, Richard Strauss, Rolando Villazón, Rossini, Salzburg, Salzburg Festival, Salzburger Festspiele, Schubert, Sven-Eric Bechtolf, Tomo Keller, Ugo Guagliardo, Vienna Philharmonic, Vienna State Opera Chorus, Vilde Frang, Wiener Philharmoniker, Wiener Staatsopernchor, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
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