Lise Davidsen Luonnotar steals whole Prom ! Storgårds BBCPO

At the BBC Proms, Lise Davidsen stole the show with a spectacular Sibelius Luonnotar. op 17 (1913). Luonnotar is a life force exploding with such intensity that its spirit seemed to spring from the depths of Sibelius's soul, materializing in his score.  At the time it was written, Sibelius was at a crossroads. With his Fourth Symphony he was reaching towards new horizons but hadn’t quite come to terms with their implications. He was approaching uncharted waters and the prospect was daunting. As before, he turned to the ur-source of Finnish mythology for inspiration.
Luonnotar was written for, and premiered by the great Finnish soprano Aino Ackté.  Elisabeth Schwarzkopf was another early champion. When she sang it in Helsinki in 1955, she was moved to say that it was the "best thing she had ever done in her life". There is a clip of this performance but sound quality is poor. Schwarzkopf had guts: until then, most sopranos steered clear of this piece unless they were Finnish (a beautiful language, but tricky to sing) and weren't bothered about the strikingly modern savagery in the part.

Lise Davidsen's Luonnotar was mightily impressive.  Her voice is magnificent, floating the strange modulations in the line with well-judged poise, projecting the keening forward lines so they seek out the furthest corners of space.   Voice as tsunami ! Her Luonnotar is very, very strong, for Luonnotar is the mother of creation itself, forged from struggle.  Davidsen is only 30, so she still has a way to go, but she could well be one of the really great voices of our time, a worthy successor to Söderström, Isokoski and Mattila.  Recently she astonished audiences at Glyndebourne with her Ariadne : definitely a singer to watch.

Luonnotar is the Spirit of Nature, Mother of the Seas, who existed before creation, floating alone in the universe before the worlds were made "in a solitude of ether". Descending to earth she swam in its primordial ocean for 700 years. Then a storm blows up and in torment, she calls to the god Ukko for help. Out of the Void, a duck flies,looking for a place to nest. Luonnotar takes pity and raises her knee above the waters so the duck can nest and lay her eggs. But when the eggs hatch they emit great heat and Luonnotar flinches. The eggs are flown upwards and shatter, but the fragments become the skies, the yolk sunlight, the egg white the moon, the mottled bits the stars. This was the creation myth of the Karelians who represented the ancient soul of the Finnish cultural identity
 
.The orchestra may play modern instruments and the soprano may wear an evening gown, but ideally they should convey the power of ancient, shamanistic incantation, as if by recreating by sound they are performing a ritual to release some kind of creative force. The Kalevala was sung in a unique metre, which shaped the runes and gave them character, so even if the words shifted from singer to singer, the impact would be similar. Sibelius does not replicate the metre though his phrases follow a peculiar, rhythmic phrasing that reflects runic chant. Instead we have Sibelius’s unique pulse. In my jogging days, I’d run listening to Night Ride and Sunrise, finding the swift, "driving" passages uncommonly close to heart and breathing rhythms. It felt very organic, as if the music sprang from deep within the body. This pulse underpins Luonnotar too, giving it a dynamism that propels it along. They contrast with the big swirling crescendos, walls of sonority, sometimes with glorious harp passages that evoke the swirling oceans.

The last passages in the piece are brooding, strangely shaped phrases which again seem to reflect runic chanting, as if the magical incantation is building up to fulfilment. And indeed, when the creation of the stars is revealed, the orchestra explodes in a burst of ecstasy. The singer recounts the wonder, with joy and amazement: "Tähiksi taivaale, ne tähiksi taivaale". ("They became the stars in the heavens!"). I can just imagine a singer's eyes shining with excitement at this point - and with relief, too, that she’s survived! As Erik Tawaststjerna said, "the soprano line is built on the contrast between …the epic and narrative and the atmospheric and magical".

In his minimalist text, Sibelius doesn’t tell us that  in the Kalevala, Luonnotar goes on to carve out the oceans, bays and inlets and create the earth as we know it, or tell us that she became pregnant by the storm and gave birth later to the first man. But understanding this piece helps to understand Sibelius’s work and personality. Like the goddess, he was struggling with creative challenges and beset by self-doubt and worry. Perhaps through exploring the ancient symbolism of the Kalevala, he was able in some way to work out some ideas: in Luonnotar, I can hear echoes of the great blocks of sound and movement in the equally concise and to the point Seventh Symphony. The year after Luonnotar, Sibelius was to explore ocean imagery again in The Oceanides, whose Finnish title is Aallottaret, or "Spirit of the Waves", just as Luonnotar was the Spirit of Nature, tossed by waves. The Oceanides, written for a lucrative commission from the United States, is a more popular work, and beautiful, but doesn’t have quite the unconventional intensity and uniqueness of Luonnotar. One of the things that fascinates me about Sibelius is the way he envisions remarkable new territory, yet pulls back as if overwhelmed by the force of what lies ahead.

Prior to that stunning Luonnotar, John Storgårds conducted the BBC Philharmonic Orchestara in  the suite from Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt (of which I've written HERE) and HERE where Davidsen sang Solveig's Song.  Under Storgårds, the BBCPO sounds thrillingly alive. In Robert Schumann's Cello Concerto in A minor op 129, their support for soloist Alban Gerhardt was superb, almost palpable, as if in symbiosis.  To conclude, Paul Hindemith Symphony "Mathis der Maler".  A garagantuan programme, pretty hard to pull off by any standards. I could write volumes but I'm all wrung out.     

Sex and Nuns : Hindemith Sancta Susanna

Paul Hindemith's opera Sancta Susanna still has the power to scandalize. Nearly 100 years after it was written, (January/February 1921) it's still a shocker in many ways. It's a psycho-drama, where the emotions of the protagonists are thrown into extreme focus, the music emphasizing psychic trauma.  Sancta Susanna bends musical form, pushing the borders of tonality, just as the narrative pushes the boundaries of convention. Sister Susanna is praying in a convent chapel, as nuns are supposed to do. But it's May, it's warm, and the open windows let in the perfume of lilac blossom.  Then, strange other sounds. "It's the organ" says Sister Klementia, and we do hear an organ  exhaling. But why is an organ being played at midnight ?

Hindemith's music is ambiguous. Though tonal, it's fundamentally untamed, like the breathing of a wild animal  that might turn savage if roused.  Which is very much what the opera is dealing with : the explosion of sub-conscious instinct in circumstances of repressive order. The Zeitgeist of the early 20th century, to which early psychology gave vocabulary, but which has, of course, existed since the beginning of mankind.  And thus we hear a melody on solo flute, as lovely and as lyrical as something the Greeks would have played in a mythical Arcadia.  Is it the voice of the Nightingale, another age-old symbol ?  Against this loveliness, angular blocks of sound and increasing dissonance.   John Fulljames's production, with designs by Johan Engels,  lets the music speak. The stage is dark - as in a chapel at midnight - crucial details spotlighted as if by moonlight. We see the crucifix towering above, shining white, as if it were porcelain, hard and impermeable, yet easily broken.  Below, the altar, a simple grey plinth that could be a tombstone as much as a table for offerings.  Or a bed.

For the sounds Susanna hears come from a young couple copulating outside a window.  Fulljames depicts this by using acrobats who hang, suspended from the ceiling, their bodies naked, yet held in by black straps.  Not bondage gear, but a reminder that society holds sexuality in check  through moral bonds and ropes. The acrobats move like dancers, writhing in frenzy.  I thought about Renaissance sculpture, where voluptuous bodies contort, yet are held frozen in stone.  Like statues of Jesus, whose agonies are not sexual, but stylized in art.  And nuns, who contemplate religious intensity but are restrained by vows of chastity. Sister  Susanna doesn't know what sex is, but she knows it has an effect on her.  What happens when a nun's love turns to physical lust ?  Naked bodies, blood and upturned eyes, the sensuality of flowers and incense, the singing of angels real or unreal : It's hardly surprising that some can get carried away. Sister Beate was entombed for her sin. That doesn't stop Sister Susana , who rips off her white garment, revealing a body built for the enjoyment of pleasure. She's covered in arcane writings and drawings, as if some ancient curse was embedded onto her skin.  Other nuns appear, in black shrouds like niqab.  they hold their hands up in horror, like denizens of a Greek tragedy. But they, too, have arcane inscriptions on their hands and faces.  Sister Susanna mounts the altar. She doesn't rip the loincloth off the image of Jesus, as the original stage instructions suggested.  Nor do we need to see a spider crawling over her - the ensemble of nuns move like a monstrous spider. It's enough that she lies with he legs apart as the statue on the crucifix miraculously, blasphemously, moves down towards her. 

Bernhard Kontarsky conducted the Orchestra de l'Opéra de Lyon. The soloists were Agnes Selma Weiland - Susanna,  and Magdalena Anna Hofmann - Klementia.  Hindemith's vocal lines are impressionistic, phrases cut off hardly completed, ominous rumbles and flights up the register which  are nothing now but were something in 1921/2.   Superlatively detailed acting helps a lot. Fulljames inspires the singers so their body language expresses what their words can barely articulate. Wonderful close ups, tiny gestures, for this is very much "inner drama".

Sancta Susanna  was one of a triptych of operas Hindemith write based on the plays of August Stamm (1878-1915)  the other two being Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen op. 12 (1921), and Das Nusch-Nuschi op. 20 (1921) . The common thread: a fascination with morbid psychopathology, ofetn with exotic, erotic connotations. Absolutely the Spirit of the Age,  manifesting in the paintings of the Munich Secession, in literature, film and music. Santa Susanna's cousins are Salome, Elektra, Ewartung, the operas of Franz Schreker and Rudi Stephan's bizarre Die ersten Menchen, which like Sancta Susanna premiered in Frankfort, but a year earlier.  Cinema can depict things that can't be done on stage. Thus the masterpiece movies of the early 1920's like The Cabinet of Dr Caligari,   Der Vampyr and a host of other films some of which I've written about here (see the labels Weimar and movies silent)

Hindemith Cardillac Vienna - full broadcast

Full broadcast of Cardillac, Paul Hindemith's iconic opera from 1926, available on BBC Radio 3 online, on demand for 5 more days. It comes from the Vienna State Opera, recorded late lat year. Franz Welser-Möst conducts.

Juha Uusitalo is Cardillac the goldsmith, who thinks strictly in terms of his craft. Even his daughter means nothing to him, because, unlike gold, women can't be forged and twisted into shape. Cardillac is so obsessed with the jewellery he makes that he can't bear to let go. Everyone who buys a piece gets murdered. Control freak anal retentive to the nth degree. It's probably impossible to make Cardillac sympathetic, even when he's torn apart by the mob. Juliane Banse sings Cardillac's daughter, who loves her Dad despite knowing he's nuts. Her lover is The Officer (Herbert Lippert).

The plot's fiendishly complicated, a lot like the intricate jewellery Cardillac designs, so don't expect to get it easily without visuals the first time. It grows on you, though, even though emotionally the opera pushes you away, just as Cardillac himself pushes people away.  Please read my analysis of the 1985 Munich production, conducted by Wolfgang Sawallisch and Jim Zychowicz's review of its re-release.There's also a more recent Paris production, conducted by Kent Nagano. There are at least 3 audio recordings, of which Keilberth (Fisher-Dieskau/Donald Grobe/Elisabeth Söderström is most interesting. It's not "obscure", but one of the more seminal works of the period. Just not very "feelgood".

See the production photos on the BBC site. Much is made of this production being based on silent film, though the Paris production had the same concept. But I think it works fine, to bring out the stark film noirish aspects of the story. Cardillac himself thinks in black and white terms, and the music reflects that off-centre edginess. Lots more on Hindemith on this site !

Hindemith Cardillac Sawallisch

Franz Welser-Möst conducts Paul Hindemith Cardillac at the Wiener Staatsoper. Read about it on the exceptionally good blog Likely Impossibilties. It sounds good! So I watched again the DVD from Munich 1985 conducted by Wolfgang Sawallisch, with Donald McIntyre as Cardillac.

Cardillac is a goldsmiith. He loves gold because it shines in dark mines and can be moulded the way he wants it to be. He isn't letting anything he can control slip from his grasp. Even if he has to kill his customers.

Nominally, the action is set in Ancien Régime Paris where the King controls everything, just as Cardillac controls gold. Which gives Hindemith a chance to shape a subplot that's pointedly modern and political. The townsfolk are a mob, easily manipulated both by Cardillac and  Gold Dealer, his treacherous crony. The mob tear Cardillac apart in murderous frenzy. In Jean-Pierre Ponelle's  production, the townsfolk are anonymous, masked and dehumanized, vaguely like inmates in a lunatic asylum.  They're dwarfed by the towering set behind them, a cityscape that looms above them menacingly.

The rich and privileged are gorgeously costumed, but they, too, are overshadowed by giant walls. The King appears on a huge white horse, which is fake, drawn along on a plinth. He's a control freak, who brags about melting people on slow flames and mounting them with pins. Not so different from Cardillac and his creations.
 
Watch out for Doris Soffel's wonderful performance as the Lady, dressed in Art Deco exotic silver and fur, hair like a lioness. She keeps giant toy lions and tigers, for she herself is caged in a kinky S&M relationship (control again!) with The Kavalier (Josef Hopferwise). Cardillac kills them when they're in flagrante.

Meanwhile Cardillac's daughter (Maria de Francesca-Cavazza) wants to get married but is scared to tell the old man, knowing how possessive he is. |When the Offizier (Robert Schunk) asks for her hand, Cardillac isn't at all perturbed. All he cares about is gold. Women, he sings, can't be controlled, so they're worthless.

Hindemith's music in the scene between father and daughter pits two different musical lines in cross-currents. Throughout the opera jagged lines race against each other, rarely meeting. No unison in this madhouse. Long orchestral interludes which march one way, down another. There are even hints of military marches, quite apt for an opera written barely 8 years after the Fist World War which was much more disruptive in Germany than in Britain.

Lots of anti-religious hints too, odd for someone like Hindemith, so inspired by liturgical art. "Here I stand" sings Cardillac, defiant, like some mad Martin Luther. In this production, Cardillac's workshop is festooned with gigantic jewels, like a cathedral. Shapes of clear glass look like huge diamonds til you look closely. They're coffin shaped, within each a golden shape vaguely like a rotted corpse. Cardillac is cornered in a graveyard. While the chorus sing one line, he sings another in response, like responses in a Mass. Here. he stands against an angel on a headstone, so her wings seem to sprout from his back.

The ending is equivocal too. As the crowd carouse in the background the two-way cross-currents become three. The daughter joyfully sings of freedom. The Offizier hints that he wants to possess her totally, without question. Although he tells the townsfolk not to judge Cardillac too harshly, is the Offizier a hero? Perhaps this production is hinting that he, too, may turn into a psycho like all the rest. He wears a helmet-like white wig, his makeup a ghostly caricature, like the mob, though he doesn't wear a mask.  He halts the mob and explains, "Er war das Opfer eines heil'gen Wahns" (Cadillac was a victim of a Holy Madness)

As the crowd yell, Cardillac's going back into the earth, where his gold came from. While the crowd intone fairly conventional hymnal chorus, and the Daughter sings soaring scales, the Offizier sings what sounds oddly like plainchant  Ein Held Starb, up and down the octave. Later, he says he envies Cardillac, returned to peace.What is Hindemith getting at? Is Cardillac's madness some kind of ritual, more akin to alchemy than jewellery? Is he an Artist whose work is more precious to him than life, and murder justified? Or is it simply that kindness and love defeat obsession? It's an ending that opens up as many questions as it answers. Thank goodness the opera is being staged more often.

Please see my other posts on Hindemith and stagecraft.

Mathis der Maler GMJO Hindemith Prom 62

Hindemith's Mathis der Maler with the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester (Prom 62) should have been a wonderful experience. The GMJO redefine the term "youth orchestra". Claudio Abbado's vision was to give young musicians the finest support and coaching possible, to treat them like serious professionals so they'd be inspired to play like fully fledged artists, not just another collection of bright kids. Eyes closed you can't tell how old they are. That's the point. The vision is that youth can  be channeled into art.

Mathis der Maler is inspirational music, and no doubt the orchestra knows the background well, because it informs performance.  As the Weimar republic collapsed and Hitler came to power Hindemith studied Matthias Grünewald's masterpiece, the altar triptych at Isenheim, pictured above. (click to expand for detail).

Grünewald lived during the Reformation, so he knew all about schism in society, and how belief can lead to war.  The paintings depict horrors like crucifixion. Yet they're designed to make the viewer contemplate, and sublimate earthly pain.  Could, or should, modern music give modern people some sense of transcendence when evil reigns? Wilhelm Fürtwängler knew exactly what he was doing when he championed Hindemith and stood up to Goebbels.  When I found Fürtwängler's denazification file, there was a lot on Hindemith. Luckily there was enough evidence in his defence that the authorities didn't need to study the opera.

Nowadays when churches are full of tourists more interested in webcams than art, one forgets that paintings like these were made for intense, personal contemplation. Perhaps music, because it's more abstract, can give us that inexpressible inner dimension.

Certainly this performance was pleasant, because this music isn't "difficult" to take in even though structurally it's as complex as a triptych which can be viewed from many sides, including when it's closed shut. Herbert Blomstedt spent years in Dresden, one of the hot points in the Reformation, but for whatever reason, this didn't add insight to his conducting. Had this performance been directed by passion or insight it would have been truly beautiful in the deepest meaning of the word.

Abbado and most others who've conducted the GMJO have capitalized on their youthful energy, which is why this orchestrra has such unique character. If Blomstedt had let his players take more risks and play with greater freedom, they'd have reached real illumination. Technically correct isn't artistically correct.

Please see my piece on Paul Hindemith's Das Marienleben (also inspired by Grünewald). Picture HERE

Some Fischer-Dieskau fans denounce Christian Gerhaher, but I've always had a soft spot for him. Not though at Prom 62, where his Mahler Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen was pedestrian, even in the better acoustic on broadcast. Isn't the young journeyman walking, you might ask? No, not really.  This set of songs was Mahler's preparation for greater things, just as Hindemith's symphony was a preparation for a much darker, complex opera.  The fahrenden Gesellen isn't really walking, he's covering huge emotional distances.  Just not in this performance.

Bruckner is spiritual, though I usually can't relate to his vibe (Messiaen works miracles with me) so it was unlikely that I'd benefit from Blomstedt's Bruckner 9.  So here's a treat - Hindemith himself conducting Mathis der Maler (stretched over 4 parts). Get a good recording and hope that the GMJO will play it again.

Hindemith Das Marienleben Isokoski

Hindemith's Das Marienleben has a formidable reputation, but is rarely heard. Soile Isokoski could change all that. Her new recording is magnificent. The 1948 version lasts an hour and is a tour de force, but tours de force need singers capable of achieving them. Das Marienleben needs an absolutely top-notch singer to do it justice. (Glenn Gould knew nothing about singing !) Isokoski is the first really big-name singer to record it since Gundula Janowitz 20 years ago. Moreover Isokoski sings with such fervent sincerity, the cycle becomes a statement of the human soul, as well as a great work of art.

Isokoski's recording, with pianist Marita Viitasalo, on Ondine is the new benchmark, not that there's been much competition. This is a performance that puts paid to all those ideas about whether the first (1922/3) version or the revised (1948) versions are better. Isokoski understands what the cycle means, and brings out its depths with the dignity and grace it deserves.

The photograph (click to enlarge) is the Stuppach Madonna by Martin Grünewald. See the faces, painted so they glow with an almost supernatural luminousity. Behind them stand buildings which represent the church and power, but the figures aren't really "of this world". Like the lilies in the foreground they represent something far purer and more rarified. When Grünewald painted it in 1518, he didn't realize how his world would be changed, irrevocably by the Reformation. Hindemith knew, and quite possibly that meant even more to him after he'd been forced into exile from Europe.

Sensucht lies heavily on Das Marienleben : it's the story of a life lived behind momentous events. Instead of writing about Jesus, Rilke focused on Mary, without whom the Jesus narrative would not be what it became. For Hindemith, it's deeply felt, hence the revisions, made not just as musical theory but because he cared about it. So much for the nonsense that "objective" music isn't emotional. Theories are fine, but good performance is real experience.

This is the secret behind the beauty of Isokoski's performance. She believes in it sincerely and communicates her love for the work. Hers is one of the loveliest voices around. She's exquisite in Mozart and Strauss. Her Strauss Vier Letzte Lieder is one of the best. She'll be singing the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier at the Royal Opera House in December. Despite her megastar status, Isokoski has always sung music she cares about, even if it's not commercially viable, which is more than can be said about some of her rivals in opera! Obviously she sings Sibelius perfectly, but it was she who showed how interesting other Finnish composers, like Sallinen, Madetoja, and Merikanto can be. She created the market. Her recordings of Finnish hymns weren't made for glamour, but because they're dear to her heart.

Das Marienleben is much like Messiaen's Vingt Régards sur l’Enfant-Jésus, not simply because of the subject, but because it unfolds contemplatively. The very first song, Geburt Mariã. was inspired by a passacaglia in Biber about the Resurrection, so the whole cycle is, in a sense, built around it. The beautiful first chords on the piano already hint at the ultimate purpose of Maria's life. The piano part is reverential, but the voice soars with supressed excitement at the miracle to come. Rilke's texts are lovely, but wordy, so there's no chance for easy strophic setting. Instead Hindemith makes a virtue of the long, flowing lines, often using breaks within the written line, rather than at the end, to create a sense of fluid movement.

Mariae Verkündigung describes the Annunciation. It starts with the same reverential pace that began the cycle, but grows to a crescendo of agitation when Maria realizes what the angel means. Then the calm figures return, and Isokoski blooms with confidence, "Dann sang der Engel seine Melodie".

The more distinctive songs aren't the obvious ones like Geburt Christi but those where Maria faces challenges, as in Rast auf der Flucht in Ägyptien, Vor der Passion and Pietà. Theologically, these are key moments, but Isokoski also makes them feel intimate and human. Her voice is naturally pure and lucid, but she colours her words with genuine emotion, to express the depths of Maria's personality. She wasn't picked by God for nothing. When Jesus turns water into wine, Maria rejoices, but her tears of joy will soon turn to blood. Hindemith paints the words "Blut geworden war mit deisem Wein" sensitively, "geworden" curling on itself, "diesem" and "Wein" stretching outwards towards what is to come.

The pain of Vor der Passion and Pietà gives way to tender reconciliation when Maria meets the Risen Christ. Her destiny is fulfilled, so the three final songs form a sort of inner trilogy which rounds out the cycle. Some wonderful moments here, when Maria, alone, faces O Ursprung namenloser Tränen-Bäche vowels meantto be sung with huge, open-hearted affirmation. When Maria dies, Rilke describes her passing wie ein Lavenderlkissen eine Weile da hineingeliegt, like a lavender pillow that leaves its scent even when it's taken away. Hence the confident, bright key of the final song, Vom Tode Mariä III, and the adamant ostinato in the piano at the end. "Mann, knie ihn, und sie mir nach und sing !" She's dead, but in a better place.

Isokoski and Viitasalo performed Das Marieleben in recital at the Wigmore Hall on Tuesday 10/11. Because the cycle isn't familiar, the audience had their noses buried in the text, rather than listening. But as my friend commented, "it's not like we don't know the story". Isokoski's German is excellent, and easy to follow although the way the words are set on the page in Wigmore Hall format, it wasn't easy to find your place in the middle of lines if you'd been listening and needed to look back. Also it is a long cycle, and some of the songs are six or seven minutes. It was a good idea to pause after the birth of Jesus, and to darken the hall between his death and resurrection, because it gave a structure, which reflects the structure in the music. Nonetheless the audience wasn't as attentive as they could have been, which quite spoiled the mood of hushed mystery. Performance is interactive, and Isokoski may have picked up on the lack of attention.

One thing the Wigmore Hall audience had that those who get the CD won't get was a decent translation. Ondine has used a 1923 translation which is horribly mawkish. Far better the clear, direct Richard Stokes translation which is much, much closer to Rilke's style.
A neater, punchier version of this is in Opera Today.