Posts Tagged ‘Staatskapelle Berlin’

Martha Argerich at the Musikfest

Friday, September 20th, 2013

By Rebecca Schmid

The Musikfest, Berlin’s 20th-century music festival, took a welcome occasion to revisit the opus of Lutosławski upon his centenary this year. Following the appearances of guest ensembles such as the Royal Concertgebouw, Philharmonia Orchestra and Bavarian Radio Symphony, the Staatskapelle Berlin performed his Mi-Parti (1976) under Music Director Daniel Barenboim alongside works by Beethoven and Verdi at the Philharmonie on September 15. The main event, however, was the appearance of Martha Argerich as soloist. The pianist is famous for her last-minute cancellations; health problems in recent years have further diminished public performances. She seemed in high spirits, however, as she and Barenboim took the stage. It is not to any pianist that he would cede the bench, having made the Beethoven Concertos something of a signature in performances which he has conducted from the piano with both his own orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic.

Argerich’s touch can be feather-light or bold and spontaneous, much like Barenboim, but never sloppy. She created a playful atmosphere in the opening movement of Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto, in C-major, which reflects the composer’s high spirits shortly after arriving in Vienna. The orchestra responded with a hefty but elegant sound. In the following Largo, Argerich’s pianissimo was uncanny in its gentle quality that nevertheless carried to back of the hall. The strings of the Staatskapelle in fact struggled to match its beauty until the end of the movement, while solo clarinet passages were sensitively phrased. The musicians’ energy exploded in the Rondo. Barenboim revealed one of his main strengths as he leaned back and let the orchestra go, only to dig in unexpectedly to create powerful climaxes. At times he was clearly following Argerich’s lead as she swept through the galloping chords with a tremendous freedom but immaculate articulation.

In the wake of thunderous applause, Barenboim had to grab her elbow and force her to bow a second time. He also coaxed her to give an encore before joining for a four-hand work by Schubert. Their rapport was evident in the easy coordination between registers and homogenous phrasing, although Barenboim seemed to enjoy the spotlight more than Argerich. Mi-Parti, one of the most important works from Lutosławski’s middle period, opened the program in a finely-wrought execution which speaks to the care Barenboim has invested in every section of the orchestra over nearly two decades. The strings created a transparent, glassy backdrop for the fragmented entrances of individual wind instruments, a tapestry which recurs in a rigorous structure emulating medieval fabric that is colored differently on either side.

The coda evokes a spiritual realm, moving from a celeste and harp rhythms that are picked up by the timpani until the harp is plucked over muted but screeching strings. Verdi’s Quattro pezzi sacri (Four sacred songs), alternating devotional a-cappella with fully scored operatic drama, were more uneven in performance. The first sopranos of the Rundfunkchor Berlin sounded uncharacteristically under the weather in numbers such as Ave Maria and Laudi alle Vergine Maria, while the brass section in numbers such as Stabat Mater was slightly too Wagnerian for this listener. Nevertheless, it was impossible to resist the dramatic power of the final Te Deum as a male a-capella ensemble cedes to full chorus and orchestra, a direct expression of the personal faith Verdi managed to sublimate in his art.

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Requiem aeternam

Thursday, April 4th, 2013

By Rebecca Schmid
The Festtage of the Staatsoper Berlin, founded by Daniel Barenboim in 1996, is not officially an Easter Festival. But while the Berlin Philharmonic left the Philharmonie for some mountain air (taking up residence for the first time this year in Baden-Baden), the maestro— between conducting the first full cycle of the Cassiers/Bagnoli Ring production, which has unfolded between the German capital and Milan since 2010—presided over ensembles of both the Staatsoper and La Scala in two different Requiem masses.

The pianist and conductor, currently music director of both opera houses, opened Mozart’s Requiem on April 1 with W.A.’s last piano concerto, KV 595. The Staatskapelle’s rich warm, strings lent the music great strength—particularly in forte passages—while gentler nuances could have been more florid and secretive. Still, the balance with the piano was ideal in the opening Allegro. Barenboim brings a wonderful spontaneity to his performances—even if there were a couple of smudges on the keyboard—and he masters the Staatskapelle’s full-bodied sound with a firm but giving hand. The final Allegro movement, which opens deceptively with a variation of the chirping song Komm, lieber Mai, attained a mysterious quality that provided a captivating bridge to the Requiem, where Mozart could no longer take refuge in the childlike playfulness that masks a complex spectrum of emotions in other late works.

The mass, which lay unfinished on the composer’s deathbed, conveys a God-fearing sense of his own mortality. It is not until the bright E-flat major triad of the Sanctus movement, completed largely by Mozart’s contemporary Frank Xaver Süßmayer, that the light of day shines. There is nothing operatic about the work—one of several masses Mozart wrote between 1768 and 1791. As penetrating as the voices of the Staatsoper chorus were, one almost wished for a more penitent approach. Of the soloists, it was René Pape and Bernarda Fink—respectively the lower male and female voices—who captured the music’s demands for internal spirituality.

Rollando Villazòn seemed to vie for attention with his hystrionic facial expressions, so it was all the more excruciating when he switched suddenly from head to chest voice mid-entrance in Tuba Mirum. He managed to push above the ensemble later but it seems unlikely his timbre will ever recover the luster it bore pre-vocal crisis. Soprano Maria Bengtsson lent every line a pretty, creamy sound, but her inflections were often mannered. The Staatskapelle performed with increasing intensity, investing Domine Jesu Christe with an incision that drove to the heart of the music. Barenboim brought the final Lux Aeterna to a spaciously paced close.

Verdi’s Requiem, performed March 30 with the orchestra and chorus of La Scala, is unarguably the more theatrical of the two masses, emerging in the 1870s when the composer wrote no new operas. Verdi, moved to complete the work upon the death of his literary hero Alessandro Manzoni in 1873, nevertheless commented modestly that with so many Requiem Masses “there’s no point to writing one more.” He was wrong. His Dies Irae is one of the most petrifying moments in musical history, the chorus descending into a fiery pit of swirling strings and brass so demonic that even Wagner looks tame. The effect was nearly ear-numbing from my seat on the balcony above the stage, but I couldn’t miss the chorus’ homogeneity of tone and commitment to every syllable.

Daniela Barcellona gave a lesson in rich shading, carrying effortlessly across the hall in her solo of the second Dies movement. Soprano Maria Segreta, stepping in last minute for Anja Harteros, has a sweet timbre that sometimes struggled to hold its own alongside the voluminous mezzo, although it’s impossible for me to judge properly given the acoustics from my seat. They struck a placid balance in Agnus Dei. Pape was his usual serene self, and tenorissimo Fabio Sartori rounded out the ensemble with a penetrating but unpretentious tone. The musicians of La Scala made clear how deeply this music flows in their veins, phrasing with an unforced fluidity worthy of the highest Kunstreligion.

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Where does the Concertgebouw Stand?

Thursday, February 21st, 2013

by Sedgwick Clark

NOTE: BEGINNING THIS WEEK, I’LL BE POSTING MY BLOG ON THURSDAYS AT NOON RATHER THAN WEDNESDAYS.

Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and its current music director, Mariss Jansons, stopped by Carnegie Hall last week (2/13 and 14) for a pair of concerts to celebrate the ensemble’s 125th anniversary. They were a great success, as always, with everyone on my aisle burbling over its glorious sound and virtuosity.

No doubt whatsoever, it is a great orchestra, and for many of my over-40 years of hearing it in concert it was my favorite European orchestra. But the dark, burnished sonority of yore, cultivated to such full-toned splendor during Bernard Haitink’s tenure (1963-1988), was eviscerated by Riccardo Chailly’s superficial musicianship (1988-2004). And the turnover of orchestral musicians that occurred internationally in the last two decades of the 20th century brought forth a new generation of players who pride clarity over rich, bass-oriented textures. The only orchestra I know that has managed to retain its early-1970s persona resides in Philadelphia, and it remains to be seen what effect its new music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, will have.

So what effect has Jansons had on the RCO? While one can’t deny his expertise on the podium, I don’t find much personality in his conducting—of the Austro-German repertoire anyway. He was at his best in the first concert, in his accompaniment to Leonidas Kavakos’s kaleidoscopic brilliance in Bartók’s Violin Concerto No. 2. Still, it was little more than an expert rendering of the score. Listen to soloist Zoltán Székely and the Concertgebouw in the live world premiere recording under Willem Mengelberg in 1939 for those little nudges of temperament I missed with Jansons or the 1958 Stern/Bernstein/New York Philharmonic studio recording (in its judiciously remixed Prince Charles Edition reissue) for no-holds-barred emotional drama.

Recalling Jansons’ devastating Mahler Sixth Symphony a few years ago on LSO LIVE, I looked forward to the Mahler First, which followed intermission. But despite the orchestra’s powerful, pinpoint playing, the Wayfarer themes didn’t sing, the third movement’s Parodie sections were poker-faced, and in general the slow music was impatient and tempo changes were exaggerated. A disappointment.

Little need be said about the next evening’s Strauss Death and Transfiguration and Bruckner Seventh. Over the weekend I pulled out my recordings of Strauss’s own 1926 Staatskapelle Berlin recording, the 1942 Philadelphia and 1952 NBC Toscaninis, 1960 Monteux/San Francisco, and 1983 Haitink/Concertgebouw of the former, and the 1951Furtwängler and 1974 Karajan, both with Berlin, of the latter. All were different, all sublime in their individual ways. Jansons sped up where Strauss marks Sehr breit (“Very broad”) for the transfiguration theme and sailed through the Wagner tuba threnody after the Bruckner’s second-movement climax. Inexplicable.

David Hamilton (1935-2013)

Another of my heroes is gone. David Hamilton, 78, died at home on February 19 after a long illness. He reviewed records and wrote occasional features for High Fidelity when I began building my record collection in college, and I relied on his insights into 20th-century music, especially that of Stravinsky. His initials at the end of a review meant “must read,” even if I had never heard of the composer.

David was a Princeton grad (A.B., 1956; M.F.A., music history, 1960), where he was the music and recording librarian, 1961-65. He was assistant music editor and then music editor at W.W. Norton, 1965-74, then became music critic of the Nation in 1968 and wrote for many publications during his lifetime. I had the pleasure of editing (if that’s the word, for his copy was immaculate) articles of his at Keynote and Musical America. His Metropolitan Opera Encyclopedia (1987) is one of my most frequently used reference books. For many years, he was producer of historical Met Opera broadcasts and wrote notes for the company’s program booklet.

One of the benefits of working in the classical division of Philips and Mercury Records in the early 1970s was that I got to know many writers who were formative in my musical taste. It’s easy to remember my first lunch with David: We were each going to hear Boulez conduct the Philharmonic that evening in what turned out to be one of the great Mahler Sixths I ever heard, and with a grin he pulled out the Mahler Critical Edition score from his briefcase.

We often saw each other at Boulez concerts. The conductor’s Rug Concerts were nearly always sold out, and long lines of the converted would form to get the best seats on the floor. I always arrived early and when the doors opened would storm up the escalator as the ushers shouted, “No running allowed.” (Shades of elementary school!) When David was there, I would save him room. But one night, an all-Schoenberg Rug Concert was only about half full. I remarked after a striking performance of Pierrot Lunaire that it was too bad it hadn’t sold out. “Well, look at it this way,” he replied. “Have you ever seen so many people at a Schoenberg concert?”

David succumbed to Alzheimer’s disease, one of those ironies that we who remain find so baffling in those of such extraordinary intellects. His long-time friend Sheila Porter was with him the afternoon before he died and told me that she and his nurse chose James Levine’s Met recording of Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro for him to hear.

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‘The Magic Flute’ regains its Classical Garb

Friday, November 16th, 2012

By Rebecca Schmid

As Regietheater becomes the norm on opera stages in Germany, it is a pleasant, if not shocking, surprise to see a production of Die Zauberflöte that looks like a throwback to the time of its world premiere. The Staatsoper Berlin has revived a 1994 staging modelled after designs by the nineteenth-century Prussian architect and landscape painter Karl Friedrich Schinkel, primarily remembered for his Royal Theater (now rebuilt as the Konzerthaus) on Berlin’s Gendarmenmarkt. Schinkel’s sets were commissioned to commemorate the crowning of Friedrich Wilhelm I on January 18, 1816, 115 years after the inauguration of Friedrich Wilhelm I. In contrast to the production’s huge success with the audience, the prince was reportedly not pleased with the results of this investment of royal funds. “In the future I won’t mix my opinion into administration affairs,” he wrote to the General Intendant of the Royal Theater.

While stage director August Everding and his team emphasize in program notes that it would be impossible to recreate Schinkel’s vision, as we cannot travel back in time to witness certain conventions in mimic and gesture, they hope to have shed new light on Mozart’s opera in the very city that is home to Schinkel’s neo-Classical creations. The Staatsoper’s current home in the Schiller does not benefit from the 18th-century splendour of the company’s headquarters on the Boulevard unter den Linden, which are currently under renovation, but painted sets by Fred Berndt and costumes by Dorothée Uhrmacher (seen November 9) immerse the audience in an aesthetic that faithfully evoke the mythic realms of the Queen of the Night and Sarastro.

The Queen descends for her first aria on a crescent moon against a starry sky while sets representing the rocky terrain on which Prince Tamino arrives part seamlessly to the side. Sarastro’s priestdom emerges with trompe l’oeil paintings of the Egyptian-inspired architecture indicated by Mozart’s librettist, Emmanuel Schikaneder, with expert lighting by Franz Peter David to give the sets depth. In what could easily offend modern viewers, Monostatos and his gang are represented with blackface as a group of violent thugs, while the three boys first emerge with a unicorn. Surreal animals ushered in by the magic flute bring a further touch of childish charm. The feathered Papageno and the family he joins at the end of the opera also made for humorous moments, even when the libretto was doctored with contemporary gags, such as the bird catcher’s response to Tamino that they are in the Schiller Theater.

In a strange twist to the usual constellation, the evening was not as even musically as it was theatrically. The conductor Julien Salemkour, an assistant to Music Director Daniel Barenboim, gave a somewhat perfunctory performance with the Staatskapelle, often hammering out notes without enough dynamic nuance and rushing the ends of phrases. On a few occasions he also did not coordinate smoothly with the singers. The performance gained intensity and authenticity starting with the more subdued, neo-Bachian passages that usher in Tamino and Pamina’s trials through fire and water toward the end of the second act, but could have used more elasticity in the final chorus “Heil sie euch Geweihten.” Having heard the orchestra in Don Giovanni and Le Nozze di Figaro under Barenboim last season, I know the musicians are capable of better.

The visceral, legato singing of René Pape in the role of Sarastro only emphasized how much more attention to line this deceptively simple score deserves, particularly in his aria “In diesen heiligen Hallen.” Pape is surely one of the best Sarastros of his generation, if not the past century, grounding the role with solemn spirituality. The Slovakian tenor Pavol Breslik also gave a beautifully sung performance in the role of Tamino. The streetwise mannerisms of Adriane Queiroz may not have always evoked the innocence of Princess Pamina, but her lush soprano colored ensemble numbers with reliable warmth. She was also affecting in the scene in which Sarastro forbids her from taking the vengeful orders of her mother. As the Queen, Anna Siminska reliably hit the stratospheric staccato notes of her arias but struggled with intonation as she prepared for the climax of “Der Hölle Rache” and did not capture the character’s menacing seduction.

Roman Trekel animated the show with well-sculpted tones as Papageno and a keen sense of comic timing. He found a fine match in his Papagena, Narine Yeghiyan. In the role of Monostatos, Michael Smallwood was equally convincing with a clear, high lying tenor and humorous presence. The Three Women (Carola Höhn, Rowan Hellier and Anna Lapkovskaja) formed a compelling ensemble, as did the Three Boys (of the Aurelius Sängerknaben) despite difficulty following the conductor in their last scene. The guards of the pyramid (Kyungho Kim and Alina Anca) stood out among the male comprimario roles of the priestdom, and the chorus provided well-balanced singing, particularly in the second act. As mythical animals waved at the audience during the final bars, one had the feeling that Mozart and Schikaneder might approve of a production so respectful of the artistic principles that have proved their popularity with audiences time and again.

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Festtage 2012 as Barenboim Fiesta

Friday, April 13th, 2012

By Rebecca Schmid

The Staatsoper’s annual spring Festtage has become an even more distinguished event now that Daniel Barenboim serves as music director to La Scala in addition to his Berlin opera house. The festival, originally launched by the maestro in 1996 with Harry Kupfer’s Ring, features coveted soloists and premiere productions, as well as correspondingly pricey tickets. The past two seasons have revolved around the first two installments of Guy Cassiers’ new staging of Wagner’s epic cycle (a co-production with La Scala).

The festival has also briefly switched its focus to Berg, with new productions of Lulu this year and a Wozzeck last season as staged by Andrea Breth. The stage director’s cuts to Lulu compelled Barenboim, conducting the opera for the first time, to commission a new third act (more here). He admitted in a press conference that if he were a few years younger he might do the whole thing again with the Paris scene which Breth decided to scratch.

This year’s iteration, which took place from March 30-April 8, also featured the Filarmonica della Scala in concert. The maestro appeared on the podium or at the piano during every evening of the festival’s nine-day run after stepping for an ailing Maurizio Pollini to accompany René Pape in recital (medical testing has since revealed that there is no cause for alarm, and the pianist is scheduled to perform his Perspectives Pollini next season).

Barenboim revisited historically significant territory by conducting Alisa Weilerstein in Elgar’s Cello Concerto with the Staatskapelle at the Philharmonie, one of few times he has performed the work since the passing of his late ex-wife, Jacqueline Du Pré. Weilerstein made her debut under Barenboim in the concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic two seasons ago after only six months’ notice, subsequently traveling with the orchestra to Oxford for a performance that was broadcast live. The visceral intuition which the 30-year-old brings to this work made itself clear as she dug into Elgar’s opening chords, later producing pianissimi that floated like mist.

The Elgar was paired with Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony, an emotionally apt choice. While Elgar was lamenting the necessity of the First World War in his last completed large-scale work, Bruckner added direct references to Wagner in his grief over the composer’s death, “to commemorate my unattainable ideal in such a bitter time of mourning,” as he wrote. Yet Barenboim did not emphasize the heavy, Wagnerian qualities of the symphony, instead allowing its endless melodies to flow in elegiac rivulets.

Barenboim returned to the Philharmonie the following evening in an all-Spanish, or Spanish-inspired, program with the Filarmonica della Scala. He opened the program performing and conducting De Falla’s dusky Noches en los jardines España from the bench. The rapid, cascading arpeggios of the opening En el Generalife testified to an unblemished virtuosity, and he could have hardly found a better match than with the woodwinds of this orchestra—the warmest, most caressing section of its kind that I have ever heard in the Philharmonie. The strings also have a gleaming tone that vividly served De Falla’s tremoli, yet the mood could have loosened in intensity and become dreamier.

Ravel’s brief but richly orchestrated Rapsodie Espagnole, which inspired De Falla’s idealized portraits of his native Spain, followed as a mirage-like vision through the flamenco rhythms of the castanets, celeste, harp, and the clean brass section of the Filarmonica. The program continued with orchestral versions of pieces from Ravel’s cycle Mirroirs. Barenboim struck an ideal balance between the majestic and the ephemeral in Pavane pour une infante défunte, its wistful melodies once again emphasizing the elegance of the orchestra’s woodwinds. A spirited Alborado del gracioso yielded to a leisurely reading of Ravel’s Boléro, in which Barenboim intermittently leaned against the podium and simply nodded his head in rhythm, but the fiesta did not end there.

As an encore, he led the orchestra through excerpts from Bizet’s Carmen Suite and, upon receiving a standing ovation (a rare event in Berlin), the opera’s overture. At this point, the maestro walked serenely offstage while the audience clapped in rhythm, only to emerge gesturing toward the upper aisles behind a double-bassist. The Filarmonica captured every nuance of Bizet’s score with infectious energy. This was also a more lively crowd than the typical Berlin gathering. The Staatsoper has estimated that one-third of the Festtage audience comes from outside Germany, and there was a conspicuous representation of well-heeled Milanese. Sitting to my left was an Israeli couple on vacation in the German capital.

Next year will be even more momentous with the bicentenaries of Wagner and Verdi in the pipeline. The Festtage 2013 includes the first full performance of Cassiers’ Ring as well as Verdi’s Requiem with the orchestra and chorus of La Scala and soloists including the celebrated Italian mezzo Daniela Barcellona, Anja Harteros, René Pape, and Fabio Sartori.

Stay tuned for a review of the Berlin Philharmonic’s new DVD of Bach’s Matthäus-Passion in a semi-staging by Peter Sellars

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