Do you remember last year’s Salzburg Festival? It was a Mozart extravaganza, celebrating the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth. All twenty-two of his stage works were presented. It was a Mozart blowout to end all Mozart blowouts. This year—that is to say, in July and August of 2007—things were far more normal. Mozart was to be found, of course, as is only right in his hometown, and at the festival that exists in part to honor him. But he was in the company of many other composers as well.
Amid the many concerts and recitals were six opera productions. We will explore some of them, and, while we’re at it, some of the men and women who participated in them.
Haydn’s Armida was staged, and it was a treat to see, if only because one sees a Haydn opera so rarely. He wrote fifteen of them, and they are not insubstantial. But, for some reason, we know this composer much better for his symphonies, chamber works, piano sonatas, and even oratorios. Armida is based on Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata, a tale of the Crusades. Once upon a time, everyone wrote an opera on this work: Lully, Handel, Gluck, Rossini … It must be one of the most opera-ized literary works in history.
The best thing about Salzburg’s Armida was its cast, and, indeed, the performance I heard was one of the best sung in my memory. The cast featured not one, but two lyric tenors: and they are two of the outstanding singers of our times. Michael Schade and Richard Croft sing creamily and beautifully, intelligently and movingly. I have described them both as “Wunderlichian.” (This, as you know, is in reference to Fritz Wunderlich, the German tenor who died in 1966, at thirty-five.) In Armida, Schade and Croft sometimes sang together, their voices playing off each other. And, I swear, you might have been listening to one voice, mysteriously split.
Not often do two lyric tenors have significant roles in the same opera. But Armida affords such an opportunity. And, on the night in question, both Schade and Croft were at the top of their games. Croft’s achievement was all the more impressive because the stage director had him confined to a wheelchair (motorized).
That stage director was Christof Loy, and, true to Salzburg’s tradition, his production was both “updated” and bizarre. Armies sprinted around in what looked like bike-messenger outfits. Models pouted carefully in their black. Characters dangled from ropes on a giant, slanted board—a ramp. So, this was typical Euro-trash, right? No. Though individual elements were maddening, the production as a whole was sincere, involving, and defensible. I remarked to companions, “By the end, I found I couldn’t hate it.” This may not strike you as high praise, but one grades on a curve almost as steep as that ramp.
Interspersed with performances were public interviews, sponsored by the Salzburg Festival Society, and conducted by yours truly. And one of our guests was Schade, who talked about singing and singers. About Wunderlich, he simply shakes his head. “When I listen to him,” he said, “it is so beautiful, I almost get depressed.” In all probability, future tenors will say the same about Schade himself. As far as he’s concerned, “all singing should be lyrical, all singing should sound like it comes from Mozart.” Even Wagner tenors, Schade said, should be lyrical. (I might add that Wagner singers have a special duty to be lyrical!) He cited Ben Heppner as a Wagner tenor with a lyric voice—a big lyric voice.
If Schade has a tenorial hero or model, it is Anton Dermota, the Slovenian-born singer who lived from 1910 to 1989. In a long career that he managed well, Dermota sang some eighty roles, ranging from the lightest ones to (almost) the heaviest. Will Schade himself go that route? He may well do so, although such things are unpredictable, depending on a variety of factors, physical and otherwise.
His bread and butter, he noted, is Bach, Mozart, and Schubert—a trio with which he is perfectly content. If he had to go to a desert island and could take only three composers, he would take these three. And his view of Bach is somewhat peculiar: He hears in him an opera composer struggling to get out, a native opera composer who was not allowed to be one. A peculiar view, yes, but certainly not unheard of, and worth pondering.
We should not get hung up on size of voice, Schade cautioned. There are many more important things about a voice, including its carrying power: its focus, its penetration. And this, of course, is a matter of technique. Schade cited Kathleen Battle, which interested and pleased me. The soprano is well past her prime, and the subject of many, many barbs (some of them deserved)—but the lady could well and truly sing. For example, her light voice could drill through the largest orchestra. And, when she was singing pianissimo, you could hear it in the next county.
Among Schade’s gifts is mimicry, and he gave us a few tastes of that gift. He did Riccardo Muti, the Italian conductor; Herbert von Karajan, the late Austrian conductor, and lord of Salzburg; Alfredo Kraus, the late Spanish tenor. All hilarious, and all dead-on. Schade is a performer in multiple senses, and he is an outstanding talker.
Also in the Salzburg operatic lineup was Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, and the best thing about it was its Tatiana. She was Anna Samuil, a young Russian soprano who has appeared in the big houses of the world: the Met, La Scala. But I doubt she had ever had an experience quite like this: Here she was, in the signature soprano role of her native repertory, at the most prestigious music festival in the world, with the international press gathered—and she was triumphing. This was, in fact, a star-making moment.
She has a most interesting voice, Samuil: It is darkish, as you can expect from the East, but it is also changeable, adaptable, and beautiful. Even more than beautiful, it is interesting (as I’ve said). And it is alive, always alive. As for technique, that was 100 percent secure, on the night I attended. And Samuil’s musical and dramatic instincts were faultless—faultless. This is a mightily intelligent singer. You can go five, ten, fifteen seasons without hearing a Tatiana so right.
The production was in the care of Andrea Berth, like Christof Loy, a German. And this production was by turns engaging, perplexing, and disgusting. Berth set Tchaikovsky’s, and Pushkin’s, drama in the 1970s Soviet Union. Accordingly, drabness ruled the day. The production was dotted with what appeared to me film-noir touches: trenchcoats and the like. Tatiana composed her letter on a typewriter. A dignified and indignant Belgian lady said to me, “What young girl would compose her first love letter on a typewriter?” A good question.
At the name-day party, a Red Army officer physically attacked Triquet (the Larinas’ French neighbor). And there was a violent sexual episode, violent sexual episodes being de rigueur in Continental opera productions. I do not say that the Berth Onegin was without merit. But I wonder whether it was the Tchaikovsky/Pushkin Onegin—not that those Dead White Males (or Almost White) have anything to do with anything.
Portraying Prince Gremin in this production was Ferruccio Furlanetto, the veteran Italian bass. And he was one of the guests in the Salzburg Festival Society interview series. He said that, in his view, Gremin is the “best small role for bass in opera.” How so? “You arrive at the opera house during the second intermission, you change into your costume, you go out and sing a little recitative, you then sing the best aria in the opera, you sing a little more recitative, you bow, and then you go home.” Moreover, “Gremin is a thoroughly admirable character, and he gets to keep the girl—she stays with him. That is a rare thing for a bass.” (They are always losing the girl to tenors.)
Furlanetto is a basso cantabile—a “singing bass,” or a lyric one—and for many years Mozart was his bread and butter. He said, “For me, the fourth act of Figaro was the height of happiness—pure happiness. Now it is pure fatigue.” Currently, the height of happiness for Furlanetto is Act IV of Verdi’s Don Carlo—Furlanetto is one of the great King Philips in history. He is known as a “consummate singing actor,” and that is a fair designation.
Then there are the Russian roles—chiefly Boris (in Mussorgsky’s archetypal opera). Just as every violinist is a bit of a gypsy, and every guitarist is a Spaniard, every bass is somewhat Russian: For some reason, basses stand out in that repertory, and in that tradition. Furlanetto has worked to learn his Russian, and it is obviously an important tongue to him. But he is also lucky to have been born into Italian—a fact that Furlanetto admits, with gratitude. I asked, “Can a foreigner ever get it exactly right, this Italian language?” He answered yes—citing just one example: Kathleen Battle. So that made two positive—very positive—references to this embattled soprano in a week.
Last, a word from Furlanetto about stage direction. Early in his career, he worked with some fine directors, none finer than Jean-Pierre Ponnelle. But now he has decidedly lesser goods to work with, and he feels the difference—the contrast—acutely. In our discussion, Furlanetto remembered a recent Don Carlo. The director “didn’t know the language, didn’t know the piece, didn’t know anything”—it was a “travesty.” Thanks to his status in the opera world, Furlanetto can walk away from a production (or refuse to take part in the first place). But younger, or less established, singers don’t have the luxury. “They cannot afford to leave,” says Furlanetto. And that is another travesty.
Valery Gergiev, the Russian conductor, was in Salzburg, conducting Benvenuto Cellini, the Berlioz opera. He was an interviewee, too, and I questioned him about Cellini: “Is it a great opera, a good opera, an okay opera?” Gergiev’s answer demonstrated his integrity, certainly his honesty: “It is an interesting opera, an unusual opera, an imaginative opera.” Furthermore, Berlioz laid the foundation for much music to come, notably Wagner. Gergiev said that he could not imagine Tannhäuser and Lohengrin without Berlioz.
On the night I attended, Gergiev led a spirited and stylish performance of Cellini, exhibiting his wizardly gifts. The overture told the tale of the whole performance (as an overture is, in part, designed to do): It was colorful, precise, and rousing. The Vienna Philharmonic was playing like a bunch of inspired Bohemians.
But musical matters were just about overshadowed by the production, which was just about the flashiest, busiest, and gaudiest production in opera history. It had all the bells and whistles. Then it had more bells and whistles. I would say that it had everything but the kitchen sink, but, given everything else that was going on onstage, I might have missed a kitchen sink.
The director was Philipp Stölzl, another German. He served up planes, trains, and automobiles—also helicopters: Cellini made his entrance on one. Berlioz’s opera includes Carnival, and Stölzl’s Carnival was even more flamboyant than this event has a right to be. Elsewhere, robots made for household servants, reminding me of The Jetsons, the old futuristic cartoon. Clement VII and his entourage were a bunch of Vegas-style swingers, clad in pastel. Really, this was over-the-top.
Opinion about this production was very sharply divided, with some patrons outraged, departing at intermission. The production completely distracted from the music, they said. And they had a point. Another way of making this point is, “Stölzl upstaged Berlioz.” But I am not entirely sure Berlioz would have objected. Maybe my standards were lax that night, but I found the production, on the whole, entertaining, different, and justified (barely). Frankly, it was fun.
But understand the mindset at work here—namely mine: When a production has no sexual depravity, no gratuitous violence, and no political agenda—and Stölzl’s Cellini had none of these—I consider that a victory of sorts.
In his Salzburg Festival Society interview, Gergiev talked about many subjects, including today’s composers—or at least one of them. I’d asked him, in effect, whether he had heard anything good lately. He named The Enchanted Wanderer, an opera by the Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin. In the past, Gergiev gently suggested, Shchedrin might have written in an intellectual, even “scientific” way. This might have appealed to academics and theoreticians, but not to audiences. But The Enchanted Wanderer, said Gergiev, can speak to all, or at least to many—and there is nothing wrong with appealing to an audience.
Speaking of audience appeal: Some days later in the interviewee’s chair was Diana Damrau. She is the starry and glittery soprano from Germany. Damrau was in Salzburg to sing Susanna in Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro. And, in her interview, she was as delightful as she typically is onstage.
She was joyously candid when discussing modern opera productions. “We singers ought to stage a revolution,” she said—a revolution against stage directors, and the opera administrators who enable them. Over and over it has happened: “You’re excited by the role you’re singing, you’re excited by the opera house you’re going to sing it in, you’re excited about the orchestra, and the conductor, and your colleagues”—then you get to the first rehearsal and find that the production is abominable. The stage director has soured the experience.
Damrau also had what I regard as a brilliant suggestion: If you’re going to subvert and transform an opera, why not give it a different title, too? This would at least make the endeavor a little more honest.
Renée Fleming, when her turn came, was candid, too. She said she was tired of productions in which “musical values are suppressed.” What makes opera opera, if not the music? “Frankly,” said Fleming, “I’d rather go to the theater,” than see an opera hijacked by the stage director. “I mean, why not see a play instead?” Ah, but directors can subvert playwrights, too.
The great American soprano was in town to sing Strauss’s Four Last Songs with the Vienna Philharmonic and Daniel Harding. The first time she heard those songs, she said, she was sitting in the far reaches of a hall, listening to Julia Varady. (Varady is the retired Hungarian soprano who is married to Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.) And what did Fleming think of the songs? “I didn’t like them very much; they didn’t speak to me.” Only later did they capture her. So, said Fleming, “when I look out at an audience and find that they’re not understanding, or bored, or distracted—I’m actually sympathetic.”
Fleming was typically refreshing on the subject of “the death of classical music”—a death that has been misreported year after year, generation after generation, century after century, really. As far as she can see, enthusiasm for the art is high, Fleming said. And she very definitely found this enthusiasm in China, where she had been performing and teaching. Besides which, the internet has done remarkable things. Believe it or not, there are some people who think of YouTube as primarily a treasure trove for opera.
Ladies and gentlemen, I’m afraid I have saved something very ugly for last—Falk Richter’s production of Der Freischütz. This is an opera by Weber, but Richter seized it and made it something else altogether. The original Freischütz is about a man—the title character, Max, the Marksman—who sells, or almost sells, his soul to the devil. At the end, he is saved by the overwhelming force of good. This is a Faustian tale, and a Christian one. But how do you handle a Christian opera on a continent whose elite culture is decidedly post-Christian? That is a thorny question.
The Richter Freischütz opened curiously: with the townspeople as a bunch of fatties. They were dressed in vulgar shorts, jerseys, sweatshirts, and T-shirts. They also had cameras or binoculars around their necks. Their shirts bore the names of American sports teams and universities. And one fat lady’s shirt simply displayed the American flag. European stage directors are many things, but they are not subtle.
After a while, the townspeople sat down, simultaneously, and took out bags of greasy snack foods, which they proceeded to eat noisily. Again, subtlety is not a strong suit.
In the final scene of Der Freischütz, the Hermit is supposed to appear, and declare redemption for Max (and everybody else). But Richter elected to make the Hermit something else: a kind of televangelist, a huckster, decked out in gaudy, greedy silver and gold. While he strutted around, the acolytes of Samiel, the devil figure, took blood from sacramental chalices and daubed a slogan on the wall: “In God We Trust.”
What, in English? Oh, yes. Der Freischütz is a singspiel, meaning that it combines spoken dialogue with sung. And it is of course in German—the language in which the Salzburg cast performed the opera. But Richter had the characters break into English now and then, to convey his special messages. For example, “Time is money—and money is everything.” And one of Samiel’s acolytes declared, “Destruction, death, corruption, rape, war, invasion, burnt children, low taxes, and religion—that is what we would kill for; that is what our hearts yearn for.”
Did you read that right? Low taxes, to go with rape, invasion, burned children, and the rest of it? Indeed.
Ladies and gentlemen, this was the most vile thing I have ever seen on a stage. This was so, not because of the production’s screwiness and perversion—and it abounded in those qualities—but because of its hatefulness. Take the Hermit: In the real opera, he is a figure of rescue and mercy; in the Richter opera, he was a figure of mockery and obscenity. We can all understand that not everyone wants to put on a Christian opera. But that is what Der Freischütz is. And if you don’t want to put on a Christian opera—pick another of the thousands of operas extant. Why take it out on Weber?
And why should singers—and orchestras and conductors—participate in such productions? Are they so helpless and desperate? John F. Kennedy famously said, “Sometimes party loyalty asks too much.” Singers and others—no matter what their status in life—may want to ask themselves whether they really and truly have to take the gig.
A sad truth is, Falk Richter is a talented and skillful guy. It’s just that he has been raised in an environment in which he had no chance—no chance to peer beyond ideology and prejudice. That is my guess, at least. In all likelihood, he and his fellows have been taught that America, a free economy, and Judeo-Christian civilization itself are the enemy, and that’s that. As I have been saying in the weeks since Salzburg, wearily and too cutely, I’m sure: One can only wish them luck under sharia.