Hans Werner Henze Phaedra - I was at the world premiere!

Henze Phaedra, Berlin 2007 photo by Ruth Walz

Hans Werner Henze Phaedra at the Linbury, Royal Opera House, with the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme. On 10th September 2007,  I was at the world premiere in Berlin at the unrefurbished Staatsoper unter den Linden.  Then, Michael Boder conducted Ensemble Modern, with Joihn Mark Ainsley, Maria Riccarda Wesseling, Marlus Petersen, Axel Köhler and Lauri Vasar. In January 2010 it came to the Barbican London, unstaged but with the same personnel. Over the years I've written quite a bit about Henze and Henze's Phaedra in particular.. Here's what I wrote back in 2007 when it was new and my first impressions fresh.

When he wrote L’Upupa, or TheTriumph of Will some years ago, Hans Werner Henze said it would be his last opera. Approaching his 80’s, Henze was dynamised by a whole new surge of creativity. This new opera, his fourteenth, is even more innovative, its impact enhanced by the intensity of feeling that has gone into it. While Henze was writing it, he had a catastrophic illness. When he recovered, his partner of 40 years, who had nursed him back to health, passed away. “The prospect of mortality”, so the saying goes, “focuses the mind”. Perhaps this accounts for Phaedra’s intensity, for it seems distilled from a lifetime of experience and wisdom. There is so much in it that it will, no doubt, keep revealing new depths.

The central image from which the production develops is that the orchestra, in this case Ensemble Modern, is placed in the centre of the auditorium, between stall and galleries. Raised on a platform, the musicians are reflected directly onto a huge mirror surface on stage. It’s a brilliant concept, because it concentrates so many ideas in this remarkable opera. As Henze has said, it’s a “concert opera”, more than opera or concert music alone. Barriers between musicians and audience are blurred because this is an opera where listeners participate, rather than sit passively uninvolved. It’s a creative challenge. What is reality? What is reflection? How does imagination enhance what we see and hear? This is an opera which engages many levels of creative response. The singers start, standing in a circle round the conductor, then gradually make their way along a catwalk, where they are literally inches from the audience. There’s no way you can miss being engaged. It also opens the music out spatially, reinforcing the sense of ever-expanding horizons. Later, the large mirrors are revealed as a series of mirrors which refract visual images like a kaleidoscope, shifting and rearranging “reality” in constant flux. Similarly, the lighting moves, creating substance, even though it’s achieved simply by shadow and illumination.

This is a brilliant example where staging enhances and amplifies concepts central to the music and to the meaning of the opera.

Henze uses only 23 orchestral players and 5 singers, yet builds intricate textures and sub-textures into the richly vibrant score. Part of this comes from individualised groups of instruments operating like inner cells within the whole. The four string players – only four – operate sometimes as a quartet, sometimes as part of the whole. Piano and celeste feature as distinctive individual voices “within the chorus” so to speak, a subtle reference to the Greek origins of the narrative. There’s a fine swathe of cors anglaise, bassoons and a contraforte, a newer contrabassoon with an even more resonant lower range. Henze’s writing for percussion is particularly lively, for he uses a huge range, and works in sounds which are outside the western mainstream, such as Chinese gongs and wooden bells, at once expressing the atavistic nature of the narrative and its universal significance. The textures in this piece manage to be at once floating, sheer and diaphanous, while operating at far more sonorous deeper levels. With Ensemble Modern, Henze’s ideas can be fully realised because this orchestra is an extended chamber ensemble, attuned to precise virtuoso playing. Henze’s textures are deliberately ambiguous, floating freely between diaphanous transparency and sonorous darkness, brooding with menace. With Boder, the ensemble negotiates the shifting textures deftly. This is music that “acts” in the abstract, for it moves, provocatively, through several simultaneous levels.

Given the spare orchestration with its emphasis on keyboard, brass and percussion, Henze is evoking Britten’s short cantata, Phaedra. Britten and Aldeburgh were formative influences in his career.  (Please see what I wrote in 2010 comparing Britten's Phaedra and Henze's Phaedra  HERE)  Similarly, the references to Wagner reflect Henze’s love-hate relationship with the man who revolutionised opera in his own time. Mozart, Berg and others appear, too, thus “expanding” the music across space and time. It’s as if Henze is looking back on his own life, through a retrospective of opera history.

Like dreams, Greek myths don’t follow any logical rationale, yet have the power to touch the deepest parts of our psyches. Ultimately. this is perhaps what makes Phaedra so emotionally involving. Henze and his librettist Christian Lehnert go straight for the mystery and its unresolved, unresolvable emotional turmoil. This is a drama that can’t be approached literally, so the text itself tantalises, giving clues rather than answers. Ever present, though obliquely hidden in the background is the image of the Labyrinth in which the Minotaur was imprisoned. Here the Minotaur wears an immaculate dinner jacket, a primal, disturbing symbol yet “civilised” in modern dress. Lauri Vasar’s solid baritone reflected the bassoons and Wagnerian tubas in the orchestration.

By writing Artemis for counter tenor, Henze is at once acknowledging the role
of the voice type in opera history and expanding its repertoire for the future. Moreover, he’s exploring the unusual qualities of the voice type, revealing its unique beauty. There is something unworldly about counter tenors, which expresses the exotic, surreal worlds Henze’s music so often evokes. His writing flows naturally with the voice, without distortion, so a singer can focus on meaning rather than sheer vocal gymnastics. Since Artemis is female, and the object of Hippolyt’s love, using a counter tenor to portray her adds another important element to this opera. I’ve long enjoyed Axel Köhler’s singing, and here his clean, fluting tones worked well with Hippolyt’s tenor and with Marlis Petersen’s high, bright soprano.

The two key roles, however, are Phaedra and Hippolyt. The whole opera is electrified by the frenzied energy generated by the polarity between the pair.
After Magdalena Kozena pulled out, Maria Riccarda Wesseling took on the part. This is a stunning role, highly dramatic and intense, a star vehicle if there ever was one, and Wesseling rose to the occasion. Under the wild abandon, her Phaedra was imperious, bristling with tension and power. She moves like a tiger, twisting her body seductively, but the controlled dignity in her singing expressed Phaedra’s strong personality and her ultimate power to destroy, even if she must destroy herself in the process. Hence the tight “bondage” costume, complete with dehumanising headdress, which must be horrendously uncomfortable to sing in. Wesseling’s Phaedra is savage, but as the music and text demonstrate, she’s as much trapped into the violent ethos of this mythic world as the Minotaur in his labyrinth and Hippolyt in his various caves and cages.

Yet it is Hippolyt on which Henze’s opera pivots, and around whom the meaning of the work, whatever it might be, might be found. John Mark Ainsley was superlative. He’s done much excellent work, but this was a leap into another league, artistically. It was superb. His Hippolyt exudes erotic danger, tinged with animal-like primal unconsciousness. No wonder everyone wants a piece of him, and the rape scene is so disturbing. Yet, there’s much more to this Hippolyt, and Ainsley’s characterisation also develops the role in accord with what Henze seems to be aiming at.

The second act, “Evening”, contains some exceptionally good music. The storm scene, for example is truly spectacular, highly atmospheric yet scored in careful detail with counterpoint and cross currents, easily eclipsing Adès’s storm music in The Tempest. The small orchestra is augmented by some recorded sound which adds a subtle yet quite stunning “supernatural” overlay. It is, after all, a psychic storm, from the Underworld, followed by a cataclysmic earthquake which transforms Hippolyt’s fate.

Hippolyt’s central role in this opera is emphasised, too, by having a grand piano on stage. Just as the orchestra had earlier been reflected onto the stage by mirrors, now an instrument, and a solid one at that, is in full focus. Mussbach has Ainsley stride on top of it, singing sometimes unaccompanied, sometimes supported by the piano in the “real” orchestra. It’s a Lieder moment, intimate and personal. It’s also the scene of his final violent
struggle with Phaedra, trumpets and trombones blaring out alarms. The very last scene, when Hippolyt is transformed yet again into the King of the Forest. Vernal flutes and horns evoke feelings of spring and renewal. It is a kind of apotheosis, Ainsley’s voice rising strong and clear : “Ich bin hier in meinem Anfang”. In the glorious final dance, the singers regroup, and darkness becomes light.

I loved L’Upupa, but Phaedra is even richer. It is profound and deeply felt, resonant on many different levels, a major work by a composer who has truly earned his place in the pantheon of opera history.


 

George Benjamin Ensemble Modern Into the Little Hill

Ensemble Modern

George Benjamin and Ensemble Modern at the Wigmore Hall with Anu Komsi and Helena Rasker in Benjamin's Into The Little Hill. There have been many George Benjamin Days at the Wigmore Hall (also featuring this piece) and  Ensemble Modern are welcome regulars in London   But this was a historic occasion since Benjamin's Into the Little Hill was written for Ensemble Modern, who gave the world premiere in Frankfurt in November 2006, conducted by Franck Ollu, with Anu Komsi and Hilary Summers.  For me, the highlight was hearing Anu Komsi singing it live.  Though other singers, have done the part well, Komsi is much more than just a singer.  She's a phenomenom, a true coloratura with an unusually wide range and the agility to use her voice in the service of Benjamin's fiendishly tricky score, where extreme changes of register and technique continuously contort and challenge. That, in essence, is what Into the Little Hill is about. The tale predicates on the idea that nothing is safe, or can be what it might seem.  It is a horror story so surreal that it invades your subconscious.  It represents a turning point in Benjamin's career : after years of writing meticulous, near pointillist miniatures, Into the Little Hill surged into life in a matter of months.  Benjamin's collaboration with Martin Crimp unleashed a rich new vein of creativity which has led to Written on Skin, the biggest hit in modern opera, and Lessons in Love and Violence.  To my mind, though, Into the Little Hill, with its deliberately claustrophobic atmosphere, remains the masterpiece. It needs to be heard in cramped spaces like the Wigmore Hall for full effect.

Into the Little Hill starts before it begins, with almost inaudible rustlings before the screaming starts "Kill them ! They bite". At this point, the singers are together, representing a mob. Thus the chilling "Kill, and you have our vote". Into the Little Hill is much more than nursery tale. As we know now, Pied Pipers are running the world.  Rasker's monologue (describing the Minister) is undercut by ominous rustlings in the orchestra.  "Kill them ! They bite" screamed Komsi, Rasker joining in.  Pairings develop and change throughout the piece : two violins (one doubling mandolin), two violas (one doubling banjo), two cellos, two horns, two trombones, a prominent bass flute, alternating piccolo, sometimes paired with double bass, a cimbalom and an array of exotic percussion.  Instruments and singers trapped in schizoid lockstep, clouded by opaque non-harmony.  Balances shift. The contralto dominates at first, but the soprano (as The Stranger) sings a seductive tune "I charmed my way in...  with music I can open a heart as easily as you can open a door... with music I can make death stop, or rats scream"  Komsi stretched the word "rats", drawing out the vowel so it moved swiftly, as rats do, at once suggesting innocence and malevolence. "But the world - says the Minister - is round" sang Rasker, but Komsi's lines continued to fragment, perfectly pitched shards of sound that ripped any illusions of comfort: strings became weapons, bows beaten against wood, plucking, tense sounds, the winds gasping in outbursts.  

Anu Komsi , photo : Uupi Tirronen

The First Interlude is a transition, the bass flute a sorcerer pulling the strings behind the dialogue between The Mother and Child.  The depth of Rasker's voice suggests authority, subtly undermined by the flute and by Komsi's lines that stretch like unanswerable questions, syllables twisting and shattering   Komsi's personality also contributes : her child-like innocence convinces, yet her high pitches carry a whiff of dangers to come. Her voice also takes on the colourings of the instruments in the orchestra : suggesting a descent into a world where nothing can be what it seems.  The Second Interlude is even more noctunal, quiet horns and trombones muted, suddenly exhaling when the mutes are pulled away.  "Each cradle rocks empty - each cage-like cot":  sounds rock back and forth,  more dirge than lullaby.  Komsi's voice now glowed with almost surreal brightness.  "Streams of hot metal, ribbons of magnesium, particles, particles of light".  The Mother doesn't get it, but the Child delights . "Our home is under the Earth, with the angel under the earth, and the deeper we burrow the brighter his music burns".  In the past, I've enjoyed performances where the soprano and contralto are relatively close, but Komsi shows how the soprano part defies easy interpretation : Is the child purer than the adults around her ? Or a force of something much less easy to pin down. What is this "music" that seduces people from where they think they belong and what lies ahead ?  Komsi's part and her singing suggest that her role represents something elemental: a force almost beyond mortal comprehension.  The depth in Rasker's singing presented a perfect foil.  In the very elusiveness of Crimp's text lies its depth, and inspires the wonder of Benjamin's setting.

The programme began with Cathy Milliken's Bright Ring, a lively piece with much incident, and Christian Mason's Layers of Love, very well structured and designed - very interesting instrumental pairings. a good choice in the overall programme. Even more pointedly in the context of  Into the Little Hill.  Luigi Dallapiccola's Piccola musica notturna (1954/1961), a lyrical nocturne, where sinister shadows hover, almost imperceptibly.

 

Henze Phaedra Barbican

Can Henze's grim Phaedra be a love story? Hippolytus is lusted after and betrayed, both by Phaedra his stepmother and by the Gods themselves. He's dismembered, caged, taunted, his very name forbidden. And yet steadfast he remains to Artemis, his goddess, though even she/he cannot change the cycle of fate.

Hearing Phaedra in a concert performance at the Barbican, London, confirmed its stature. The premiere, in Berlin in 2007 astounded because the staging was brilliant. (please see THIS link for more) This time, the focus was on the music. With Ensemble Modern and Michael Boden conducting, and the same cast as in Berlin, the impact was raw and visceral.

Phaedra begins not with Phaedra but with the Minotaur. The long introduction (which starts in silence) is like the Labyrinth in its circuitous,, circular patterns, dead ends heralding changes of direction. In Berlin, the orchestra was filmed as they played, their image projected on stage, confronting the audience. Although this is an opera, the non-vocal, abstract narrative is very important. Already in this music, we can hear the "empty shafts" of the cave in which Hippolytus (Hippolyt in German) will be imprisoned.

Just as the Minotaur roams the Labyrinth, Hippolytus roams the forest. He's devoted to Artemis (Diana) the goddess of hunting, so it's a sacred act, of devotion, not hunting for its own sake. "Death holds (Hippolytus) balanced like a spinning top", sings Phaedra. Humans are toys, at the mercy of some inexorable, almost mechanistic fate. Henze writes the part of Hippolytus very high, so as to convey the unworldly spirituality of the role, for Hippolytus is fundamentally innocent, a foil for the unethical machinations of those around him. John Mark Ainsley has no problem with this, having sung dozens of baroque figures in the past. Yet he also brings convincing strength to the part, with his firm centre. Hippolytus is a hunter, a man of wild, free spaces. Ainsley sings like an angel, but has physical presence. His Hippolyt moves like a huntsman, as intuitive as the animals he hunts. When he himself becomes trapped and caged, the agony Ainsley expresses through his voice is almost painful to witness.

Hippolytus hunts, not for sport, but as an act of worship. Artemis, to whom he is devoted, is the goddess of hunting, which in pre-modern times provided food to the community : a source of life. This gives a sinister, darker meaning to Phaedra's jealousy, and that of Aphrodite. Hence, Henze links Hippolyt to the Minotaur. Both are sacrifices, destroyed by others with ulterior motives. Lauri Vasar's Minotaur is a good balance to Ainsley's Hippolyt. At the Barbican, he wore the same elegant dinner jacket as he did in Berlin, to emphasize the concept of the "beast" as more civilized than those who taunt him. Mythology isn't lost on Henze. The idea of Theseus's son being killed by the resurrection of the Minotaur is another elliptical pattern in this opera, itself constructed like a maze.

And with this denial of innocence comes the sterility of death. Henze writes Phaedra's part with many moments when song fails, and Maria Riccarda Wesseling has to sing almost unaccompanied, alternating between half speech and mechanistic incantation. Her music replicates the twists and turns of the "Labyrinth" music, with its dense flurries and false leads. Phaedra and Aphrodite are a pair, one mortal, one divine, and in the Berlin production were treated as mirror images, reflecting an important theme in the opera. Concert staging benefits Wesseling, who sang with much more confidence than she did in 2007, when she was a late replacement for Magdalena Kožená. She's definitely grown into the part, expanding the role with greater nuance. Marlis Petersen's Aphrodite has developed too, and is more distinctive and individual.

If anything, the Second Act is even more bizarre than the first. Artemis reassembles Hippolytus but the catch is that he has to assume a new name and identity and live in a cage. A bit like marriage. By this stage Hippolytus hardly knows whether he's conscious or dreaming, yet his faith in Artemis is undimmed. Like a bird in an Eygptian myth, Phaedra, too, rises from the dead. Hippolytus the hunter is now the pursued. His body may be restored but without freedom to roam he cannot hunt and is cut off from expressing his love for Artemis, that equivocal male/female figure that holds him in thrall, though he/she can't really help him back to what he was. Axel Köhler's voice is deepening in his maturity, but that's perfect, because it intensifies the ambiguity. that perhaps is what draws Hippolyt to her/him in the first place.

Tempests and earthquakes, cosmic events that further the plot where no human logic can prevail. Hippolytus resurrects yet again, at last as The King of the Forest. As Paul Griffiths noted this may be a reference to Henze's 1956 opera, König Hirsch (Stag, the King of the Forest) which makes sense, for it reflects the recurrent mirror imagery in Phaedra. Indeed, after hearing the Adagio in Elogium musicum (2008) where "eagles fly, and larks and swallows chant many thanksgivings" the reference to Henze's own love, recovery and life is implicit.

At the Barbican, the lights suddenly dimmed, menacingly, as if the hall were about to collapse. It was a wonderful coup de théâtre, achieved by simple means but very effective. Similarly, Henze uses only 23 musicians, augmented by electronics so surreal that it's clear this isn't a naturalistic storm. There's more here than wind and rain, for Henze is creating something metaphysical. (Again, presages of Elogium musicum, with its tortured second movement Nox, referring to "eruptiones, ruinae atroces, nocturni stridores". Indeed, even references to the supernatural trauma in Six Songs from the Arabian, an extremely important song cycle which needs more appreciation (I'll write about that when I have time).

As The King of the Forest, Hippolyus represents spring, regrowth, renewal. The dense, twisting textures of the earthquake and of the Labyrinth music give way again to light, lucid clarity, vernal flutes and pastoral sounding horns. "Ich bin hier, in meinem Anfang" sings Ainsley, with a lovely sense of wonder. (Here I am at my Beginning). Anyone who has ever cared for someone terminally ill knows how people revert to a vulnerable baby-like stage in extremis, as if returning to the safety of the womb. It's incredibly humbling. And so, Phaedra ends, not with chaos but simplicity. "Born naked, we advance toward mortality". We are in a clearing in the forest. The woods will close in again, but so too will there be other clearings. The cyclical symmetry, the mirror images, the pairing of past and future in Phaedra make it a powerful experience.

Please see 15 other posts on Henze on this site including one on Elogium muicum, another on the Berlin Phaedra and more to come)

Hans Werner Henze - Phaedra Berlin

Hans Werner Henze's opera Phaedra receives its first UK performance this weekend at the Barbican, London. Henze nearly died while writing it, and spent many weeks in a coma. Of course it doesn't follow that tragedy "must" mean tragic music, but the situation did seem to make Henze face the fundamentals of life and death. When I first saw Phaedra, what gripped me was the way Henze faced the idea of death without flinching. Subsequently, I've come to hear Phaedra more as an elegy to love. Love has the power to overcome death, to break the boundaries between life and death.

London will effectively be getting the Berlin premiere because the performers are almost identical: Michael Boden conducting Ensemble Modern, and John Mark Ainsley, leading the same cast. Although this will be a concert performance, it should still be informed as drama by Peter Mussbach's original, even though the amazing sets (Olafur Eliasson) will be missing. That staging was amazingly true to the music. The clip above and the stills in this link HERE give an idea what the production was like: emphasis on glittery, impenetrable surfaces, darkness and light. At one point, a naked figure curls into foetal position, but the image is refracted endlessly in mirrors, like a kind of crazy kaleidoscope. It's an apt image of the music, too, for this is a chamber opera, where all is reduced to essentials. As in Greek tragedy, less is more.

The whole Berlin production revolved around the orchestra, which was placed in the centre of the auditorium, between stalls and galleries. Raised on a platform, the musicians are reflected directly onto a huge mirror surface on stage, so they were "present" dramatically even before a note was played. It was a brilliant concept, because it concentrated so many ideas in this remarkable opera. As Henze has said, it’s a “concert opera”, more than opera or concert music alone. Barriers between musicians and audience are blurred because this is an opera where listeners participate, rather than sit passively uninvolved. It’s a creative challenge that asks, What is reality? What is reflection? How does imagination enhance what we see and hear?

Then the singers appeared, standing in a circle round the conductor, then gradually making their way along a catwalk, where they are literally inches from the audience. There’s no way you can miss being engaged. The concept also opens the music out spatially, reinforcing the sense of ever-expanding horizons. Later, the large mirrors are revealed as a series, refracting visual images like a kaleidoscope, shifting and rearranging “reality” in a constant flux. The lighting moves similarly, creating apparent substance, even though what we see is achieved simply by shadow and illumination.

This is a brilliant example where staging enhances and amplifies concepts central to the music and to the meaning of the opera. Henze uses only 23 orchestral players and 5 singers, yet he builds intricate textures and sub-textures into the richly vibrant score. Part of this comes from individualized groups of instruments operating like inner cells within the whole. The four string players – only four – operate sometimes as a quartet, sometimes as part of the whole. Piano and celeste feature as distinctive individual voices “within the chorus” so to speak, a subtle reference to the Greek origins of the narrative. There’s a fine swathe of cors anglais, bassoons and a contraforte, a newer contrabassoon with an even more resonant lower range.

Henze’s writing for percussion is particularly lively, for he uses a huge range of this too, and works in sounds which are outside the western mainstream, such as Chinese gongs and wooden bells, at once expressing the atavistic nature of the narrative and its universal significance. The textures in this piece manage to be at once floating, sheer and diaphanous, while operating at deeper, far more sonorous levels. With Ensemble Modern, Henze’s ideas can be fully realised because this orchestra is an extended chamber ensemble, attuned to precise virtuoso playing. Henze’s textures are deliberately ambiguous, floating freely between the diaphanous transparency and sonorous darkness brooding with menace. With Boder's musical direction, the ensemble negotiates the shifting textures deftly. This is music that “acts” in the abstract, as it moves, provocatively, through several simultaneous levels.

Like dreams, Greek myths don’t follow any logical rationale, yet have the power to touch the deepest parts of our psyches. Ultimately, this is perhaps what makes Phaedra so emotionally involving. Henze and his librettist Christian Lehnert go straight for the mystery and its unresolved, unresolvable emotional turmoil. This is a drama that can’t be approached literally, so the text itself tantalises, giving clues rather than answers. Ever present, though obliquely hidden in the background, is the image of the Labyrinth in which the Minotaur was imprisoned. Here the Minotaur wears an immaculate dinner jacket, a primal, disturbing symbol yet “civilised” in modern dress. Lauri Vasar’s solid baritone reflected the bassoons and Wagnerian tubas in the orchestration.

By writing Artemis for counter tenor, Henze is at once acknowledging the role of the voice type in opera history and expanding its repertoire for the future. Moreover, he’s exploring the unusual qualities of this voice, revealing its unique beauty. There is something unworldly about counter tenors, which expresses the exotic, surreal realms that Henze’s music so often evokes. His writing flows naturally with the voice, without distortions, so singers can focus on meaning rather than vocal gymnastics. Since Artemis is female, and the object of Hippolyt’s love, using a counter tenor to portray her adds another important element to this opera. I’ve long enjoyed Axel Köhler’s singing, and here his clean, fluting tones worked well with Hippolyt’s tenor and with Marlis Petersen’s high, bright soprano.

The two key roles in the opera however are Phaedra and Hippolyt and the whole work is electrified by the frenzied energy generated by the polarity between the pair. After Magdalena Kozena pulled out of the production, Maria Riccarda Wesseling took on the part which is a stunning role, highly dramatic and intense, a star vehicle if there ever was one. Wesseling rose to the occasion: under all the wild abandon, her Phaedra was imperious, bristling with tension and power. She moves like a tiger, twisting her body seductively, but the controlled dignity in her singing expressed all of Phaedra’s strong personality and her ultimate power to destroy, even if she must destroy herself in the process. Hence the tight “bondage” costume, complete with dehumanising headdress, which must be horrendously uncomfortable to sing in. Wesseling’s Phaedra is savage, but as the music and text demonstrate, she’s as much trapped into the violent ethos of this mythic world as the Minotaur in his labyrinth and Hippolyt in his various caves and cages.

Yet it is Hippolyt who is the pivot of Henze’s opera and around whom the meaning of the work, whatever that might be, may be found. John Mark Ainsley was superlative. He has done much excellent work in the past, but this was a leap into another league artistically and it was superb. His Hippolyt exudes erotic danger, tinged with animal-like primal unconsciousness: no wonder everyone wants a piece of him, or that the rape scene is so disturbing. Yet, there’s more to this Hippolyt, and Ainsley’s characterisation also develops all of the role fully in accord with what Henze seems to be aiming at. The second act, “Evening”, contains some exceptionally good music. The storm scene, for example is truly spectacular, highly atmospheric yet scored in careful detail with counterpoint and cross-currents, easily eclipsing Adès’s storm music in The Tempest. The small orchestra is augmented by some recorded sound which adds a subtle yet quite stunning “supernatural” overlay. It is, after all, a psychic storm, from the Underworld, followed by a cataclysmic earthquake which transforms Hippolyt’s fate.

Hippolyt’s central role in this opera is further emphasised by having a grand piano on stage. Just as the orchestra had earlier been reflected onto the stage by mirrors, now an instrument, and a solid one at that, is in full focus. Mussbach has Ainsley stride on top of it, singing sometimes unaccompanied, sometimes supported by the piano in the “real” orchestra. It’s a Lieder moment, intimate and personal. It’s also the scene of his final violent struggle with Phaedra, trumpets and trombones blaring out alarms. The very last scene has Hippolyt transformed again into the King of the Forest. Vernal flutes and horns evoke feelings of spring and renewal. It is a kind of apotheosis, Ainsley’s voice rising strong and clear : “Ich bin hier in meinem Anfang”. (I'm here again, at my beginning" - mirror concept again!) In the glorious final dance, the singers regroup, and darkness becomes light.

Please also see this link for more comments in the German press.

January brings London back to life

New brooms sweep clean so chimney sweeps bring good luck. To switch metaphors, what an oasis January will be after the desert of December.

András Schiff will be bringing good cheer to the Wigmore Hall with his new series, where he'll be blending songs for voice with songs for piano. He does real "intelligent programming" so look at his selections and drool even if you can't get there. First off on 6th January, he's playing Mendelssohn, Schumann and early Mahler with Juliane Banse.

On Sunday 10th, Peter Schreier will be conducting Bach at the Royal Academy of Music. Modern instruments but Schreier's brilliant. He's been conducting RAM students for years, and he's well loved. Needless to say, it's sold out but lucky me, I've got a ticket. Many tickets still available for Brecht songs on the 12th - not Schreier singing though. He retired gracefully a few years ago, while still relatively in his prime. OTOH Brecht isn't difficult so he probably "could" sing at a pinch, though he evidently has more sense.

On 12th and 14th, though, the big draw will be Strauss's Elektra in a concert performance at the Barbican. Gergiev conducts and a good line-up - Jeanne-Michele Charbonnet, Felicity Palmer, Angela Denoke, Matthias Goerne, Ian Storey. Also on at the same time, Melvyn Tan and the Škampa at the Wigmore Hall, and also Sholto Kynoch there, too.

The biggest feature for me though will be the Hans Werner Henze Total Immersion at the Barbican on 16th-17th. This is the first big retrospective since the South Bank Henze series 10 years ago. Oliver Knussen will be conducting Symphony no 4 and the UK premiere of Elogium musicum, after an afternoon that includes Voices and two films. The Barbican doesn't name the speaker for the talk, which is ominous as if they'd got anyone good he'd be advertised. These days pre-concert talks are becoming a bad joke, a platform for those who know nothing about the subject to show off about themselves, antagonizing genuine listeners. Sit strategically near the door.

Absolutely unmissable though will be opera, Phaedra, for which I booked as soon as tickets were available last year so as not to miss it. Almost the same cast as the Berlin premiere which I attended, which I'll write about closer to the time. Ensemble Modern hardly ever come to UK anymore, so that in itself is a draw. It's an amazingly powerful work, quite hard to take it's so intense, but Henze always confounds.

More clashes, as on the 16th the South Bank kicks back in action with Jurowski conducting Shostakovich. At the Wigmore Hall, the Nash Ensemble has an interesting French programme followed by Raphael Wallfisch next day. AND two concerts of opera and early music (Mingardo and Borsi) Luckily no clash with Netrebko and Hvorotovsky in recital at RFH on the 18th. The rest of the month is just as busy, so I'll write about that later.

Alternative Winterreise

If a piece of music is powerful, artists will want to express how it affects them. In principle there's no reason why good music shouldn't be staged as artists, dancers and theatre people have just as much right to engage with a piece as singers and pianists.Meta-performances aren't a substitute by any means, but can help us appreciate how someone else responds. Think of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson and her hospital bed staging of Bach. She sang with extra poignancy as there was so much death in her personal life she needed to deal with. So what she did was creative.

Winterreise has inspired dozens of responses, good and bad. You don't want to see Brigitte Fassbender dressed up as a nun, surrounded by Beidermeier peasants, however well she sings (yes, it exists). But Simon Keenlyside's Winterreise with choreographer Trisha Brown sparked off new ideas for me. Keenlyside is an athlete (now married to a ballerina) so he has physical presence. In this production, he didn't dance but it was very physical, the semi-invisible dancers around him formed a kind of net which caught him when he fell. It was like he was trusting in fate - he didn't "see" the dancers but they stopped him from crashing to the ground and pushed him ever onwards. Just like the landscape in the cycle.

There's also a film of Winterreise with Christine Schäfer and Eric Schneider, which many admire passionately. I haven't seen it myself but can understand why it's such a cult, it's edgy and uncompromising. I love the audio version, which I think is a different and better performance. because her high, bright soprano brings out the eerie quality of light in the music extremely well. She sounds shockingly vulnerable and yet sharp - chilling and totally in accord with the music. Indeed I can't recommend this CD too highly. It reveals aspects of the cycle no-one else comes close to expressing. Sure, it's not the usual butch male thing, but it "needs" to be heard to bring out levels of Winterreise not usually accessed.

Years ago when Ian Bostridge and Julius Drake were fairly malleable they got talked into filming the cycle with David Alden. Alden had very definite ideas, and even judicious editing can't hide the fact that he and Bostridge/Drake didn't feel comfortable with them. This was filmed in a Victorian lunatic asylum. At one stage Bostridge writhes in a straitjacket. "Let me out of here!" his eyes seem to plead. He's got good ideas of his own, far less limiting than the "psycho" scenario around which tis film predicates. It's Alden's vision, Bostridge and Drake are just extras.

Another unusual one, which I haven't seen either but heard about from others. Winterreise mixed with The Sorrows of Young Werther, two great classics of Romantic despair. The singer is Erik Nelson Werner. Very demanding role esp. as it means switching modes, adding to the sense of disorientation.

There's also been a Black Theatre of Prague version, where a disembodied voice and piano do their thing while fleeting images in black and light flicker on the stage. I know there's at least one ballet but can't remember at this moment - prompt please? And there's Hans Zender's orchestration, with Ensemble Modern, which was a good experience live because some of the musicians move about in the hall, like a ragged village band. Better than it sounds, but not quite so interesting on audio. Everyone who listens has a different perspective (which changes all the time). So exploring alternative Winterreises is like listening to someone telling you how they feel about it. It may not be the same as what you feel, but to say "never!" is like saying, never listen to someone else's opinion. Though sometimes you get Fassbender dressed as a nun.

Henze launches Barbican new operas season

PLEASE NOTE there are 15 Posts on Henze on this site and more coming, including reviews of Phaedra, both in Berlin and in the Barbican. Please use search facility at right Hans Werner Henze's Phaedra at last comes to London in January, keynote of special immersion weekend in Henze's wonderful, far-ranging music. Devotees booked their tickets a year ago, but you can still get them now from the Barbican. Henze is the greatest living German composer, by miles. He's not given nearly enough recognition in the English-speaking world because in 1968 he put his principle before profit. He supported the revolutionary ideals of the time, went to Cuba and protested against the Vietnam war. End of lucrative deals: DG had just issued a mega retrospective of his symphonies, so they lost out badly. But they stood by him and are now reissuing the recordings to new audiences who now realize that maybe Henze had a point.

Henze is an institution. If anything in old age and infirmity he's even more creative. Phaedra is a crucial point in his life and music. It's a passionate statement about love, and the power of love to triumph over all obstacles, including death. Personally it had huge emotional resonance for Henze because his lover of 40 years died suddenly while it was being written. This lover had just nursed Henze himself through a traumatic near death illness which left him incapacitated for months. So there's no separating the personal from the musical in this powerful work. When the work premiered in Berlin in 2007 one writer sneered that it wasn't funny enough and that Henze shouldn't end his career like that. Another moaned it was in German! Well, Henze didn't end his career and has gone on to write yet another opera, to be premiered in Rome in May 2010.

Henze's previous opera L'Upupa was cheerful and whimsical but the composer has written so much else. Indeed, his work is notable for its extreme range. Phaedra is a very tightly crafted, intense chamber opera, austere and yet other-worldly. In London, we'll be getting Ensemble Modern, who've made it a key part of their repertoire, and John Mark Ainsley.

Read more about it HERE on What's on Stage. Simon Thomas has interviewed Angela Dixon about the Barbican's special season of new European operas. The special season will include Peter Eötvös's Angels in America and Michael van der Aa's After Life. Read about them in the link.