Other Lulu's - The Blue Angel, full movie download

The new Lulu at the Royal Opera House brought to mind the film Der blaue Engel, the film which created a huge sensation when it was released in 1930. Watching the film again, it's remarkable how much Alban Berg took from it, and what Christof Loy has taken from it in turn. Josef von Sternberg made the movie in 1930, based on the novel by Heinrich Mann Professor Unrat, written in 1905, which references the Lulu plays of Frank Wedekind, "Spring Awakening" (Erdgeist) in 1895 and Pandora's Box, 1904. G W Pabst's film of Pandora's Box came out in 1929. Embedded into this film is the song Ännchen von Tharau now a much loved Lieder, whose melody goes round and round. The original poem was written in the early 1600's about a real young woman, Anna Neander. It was revised by Gottfried Herder in 1778, and set to music in 1830.

So, rings within rings of influences, each creation a work of art in its own right, Loy being the latest to illuminate the tradition. Berg and the artists of his era didn't believe there was only one way to tell a story.

The Blue Angel starts in a quiet German town : silence operates throughout the movie like an inaudible soundtrack, every bit as important as the "real" music and speech. Long sequences where nothing much happens, nothing is said – bingo! Berg's Lulu, where the action operates on different planes. Berg's long interludes are like musical curtains drawn "across the stage" which aren't simply there to change scenes.

A town clock tings the hours, and a series of carved wooden statues move round its face. Where was this filmed? Probably destroyed now in the blitz - it's a beautiful piece of medieval German art. Look for the saint holding a miniature of a cathedral – a two second image that speaks volumes. The clockwork imagery is also so apt for Berg, whose themes rotate and reappear in relentless symmetry.

The Blue Angel is a seedy nightclub – look at the flat chested frumpy showgirls! Professor Rath's schoolboys (who look like they're 30) sneak off, enamoured of Lola Lola (not Lulu Lulu). So he confronts her and is himself drawn in. He marries her but ends up a sorry clown, amusing the crowds by crowing like a cock. When the show returns to his hometown, the humiliation is too much. He can't go on stage, and cracks up. Later he sneaks back to the schoolhouse and dies on his old desk. It's unbearably tragic, love and "civilization" destroyed.

Watch the minor parts, too like the theatre owner/magician, the strong man, the schoolboys, even the "nice wife". And the last scene, when Professor "UNrat " as his boys called him, creeps back to the schoolroom. Moonlight from the window throws a savage spotlight on his last struggle in the darkness. Loy's last scenes ? The idea is so powerful. Indeed, only now I figure what Loy's doing when he gets Lulu to "make her mark" on Dr Schön by smearing greasepaint on his face. That's what she wore when she was forced to dance while he and his fiancee sat in the audience. Professor Rath breaks down on stage in costume and greasepaint, when he sees how his present distorts his past.

Lola Lola isn't Lulu but they're closely related. Heinrich Mann called her Rosa, and in Berg's opera she has many names. Lola references Lola Montez, the siren who entranced King Ludwig of Bavaria and caused his downfall.

Listen to Marlene Dietrich sing Lola's song
"Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuß, auf Liebe eingestellt. Denn das ist meine Welt, und sonst gar nichts. Das ist, was soll ich machen, mein Natur. Ich halt kann lieben nur, und sonnst gar nichts"
(From head to toe, I'm love personified, it's my world, so there. It's how I was made, my nature, I can't do otherwise". The song is famous in English as "Falling in love again" which isn't quite the same. So we've come all the way from an incident in 1617 which inspired the first poem, all the way to the ROH in 2009.

Watch the WHOLE MOVIE HERE on free download. Sorry the clip is interspersed by ads but they are themselves vintage, quite a scream. "Winston tastes good like a cigarette should" for those who remember the 1950's ! You can also watch segment by segment AND watch full screen mode by clicking the cicrcular button. Subtitled in English.

ROH Ondine - ballet heralds Henze year

In April 2010, the ENO, London, will stage a new production of Hans Werner Henze's opera Elegy for Young Lovers. Henze is undervalued in England, which is surprising, since he spent so much time here in his youth. So, Henze lovers, we have a duty to spread the word!

So the current Royal Ballet staging of Henze's Ondine is a must see. Henze was a sensation in the early 1950's, radical in his own contrary way. He was still only 30 in 1956 when Ondine was written, but he'd already written seven ballets : Ondine was the breakthrough that established him in the genre.

Henze had already made his mark in opera. Boulevard Solitude (1948) enjoyed a new production a the Royal Opera House in 2001: it's regular repertoire in Germany. There's a DVD available (not ROH) - enjoy! Some fifteen other operas have followed. L'Upupa, und der Triumph der Sohnesliebe was a massive hit at Salzburg in 2003. The DVD of that is fantastic!

In 2006, Henze was so seriously ill he was months in a semi-coma. His partner of 40 years nursed him through his illness, but then suddenly died himself, still young. Frail as he was Henze completed the phenomenal Phaedra, where love triumphs over death. It's incredibly powerful, even without knowing the background. I was at its premiere in Berlin, shaken by its intensity. Rupert Christensen of the Telegraph, true to form, scolded the composer for making a "farewell" that wasn't light hearted and funny! Fortunately, for us, Henze isn't a follower by nature. He's now written yet another opera, Immolazione, to be premiered in 2010. Londoners may have to wait, or go to Rome, but the Barbican is doing Phaedra semi staged in January 2010, the highlight of a Henze Total Immersion weekend. John Mark Ainsley sings, as he's done in past productions.

So get down to Ondine at the Royal Opera House and savour Henze's beautiful music. The choreography is by Frederick Ashton: beautifully romantic. The staging's deliberately retro, evoking the 19th century ballet Ashton wanted to celebrate Margot Fonteyn. Oddly enough the designs are by Lila Dinobili (b 1916) who also designed the Glyndebourne production of Henze's Elegy for Young Lovers in 1961. So indulge. This production is like a museum piece, its very antique look quite appealing in a post modernist way.

I learned the music from the CD set conducted by Oliver Knussen, so it was wonderful to "see" how it translated in dance. This was a lesson! Music for ballet has to allow for physical demands. Dancers can't float up in the air indefinitely. And there have to be episodes for extended dancing, which is the whole purpose. On audio such moments may drag but the drama is in the dancing itself. The music and choreography are so seamlessly integrated that you can see each semi quaver twitch in synchrony. Each note reflects in movement. The interplay between harp, piano, guitar and celeste is ravishing, but wait til you see the dancers express it en pointe! There's a wonderful scene where Ondine plays with her shadow, which the orchestra recreates with different textures. Then a wonderful ensemble, when the dancers form a circle, their arms undulating like a giant sea anemone. I'll never be able to hear that passage again without seeing them in my mind.
See full review HERE
PLEASE SEE ALL THE OTHER POSTS HERE ON HENZE, enter name under SEARCH There are lots

The buzz is on ! Lulu at ROH

The big buzz in town's the new Lulu at the Royal Opera House, London, starting June 4th. Word of mouth is spreading fast that it's going to be interesting. Lulu herself will be a mystery new singer called Agneta Eichenholz, quite famous in Sweden but unknown outside. That's very appropriate as Lulu is a mystery. Who is she really? People know her by different names.

The new ROH production sounds fascinating because Christof Loy (who found Eichenholz), has worked carefully on the characterization. He seems intrigued by the essential mystery of who Lulu is and why she's come to be the way she is. It sounds like a much more psychologically informed approach than the usual cliché that assumes Lulu is no more than a mirror, projecting what others want.

Listen carefully to the music, blanking out the words. Lulu's music speaks, elusively, even though she seems passive. She's had a horrific past that's taught her to hide herself behind survival strategies. That's exactly how abused kids function. They wreck things like a kind of pre-emptive strike because they've learned that happiness can't last.

The photo above comes from the 1929 Louise Brooks film based on the Wedekind play that inspired Alban Berg. Brooks doesn't do actorly things like emote or declaim: instead she fills space, generating energy. That's another reason for getting into the opera through the music. It hovers over the plot like an invisible presence, it speaks character.

So why is the new ROH production causing such interest? Michael Volle is singing the critical role of Dr Schön, who's known Lulu since she was a girl. He's her extreme opposite, a powerful magnate who seems to have it all, but is destroyed. Volle has worked with Loy before – last year in Munich they did Hans Werner Henze's Die Bassariden.

"I knew he would not do anything conventional but that he would try and get into the characters and find the key to their personality”, says Volle. Loy’s does this by working closely with the singers from the start. “We talk a lot about the role. He tells you his thoughts about the background and what he imagines the character is like and then you have to find a way to express it. He is one of those directors who knows and loves the music so well that he can make it easy for a singer to find his way into a character. He doesn’t try anything artificial you can’t understand. It’s more like putting flesh and bones on the score”.

“There are productions where there are a lot of sexual things on stage”, adds Volle, as if Dr Schön’s motives are simply erotic, for men (and women) lust after Lulu. But in this production, it’s more complex. “Only one kiss”, says Vollle, "and a few bits of touching. There’s no need to show nudity and violence. It’s shocking how much violence there is in it anyway”. Suicide, murder, implied paedophilia, and Lulu seducing Alwa on the very sofa his father bled to death upon, all easy subjects to play up to scandalize an audience. Yet Loy’s approach is not sensational for sensation’s sake. “What I like about Loy’s work is that he does not do Yellow Press”.

“It’s very tragic. Terrible things have happened to Lulu in the past, and it’s affected her so she can’t trust anyone, or be content”, says Volle, explaining the psychology behind this production. “She must always destroy the happiness of others ”. Lulu wrecks Dr Schön’s engagement but she’s unhappy when she marries him herself. “She loses interest because she doesn’t have to fight for attention anymore. In this production that tragedy is made very clear. There are lines which show Lulu does have feelings for Dr Schön, but she’s damaged, and hurts others because she’s been hurt so much herself”.

Volle is also happy with the Royal Opera House production because it’s being developed so closely with the conductor, Antonio Pappano. “He is a gift”, says Volle, “He was there at the first rehearsal, and he knows the piece inside and out. He gives so much input and ideas about the music”. With Berg, details count. “The more you hear in it, the more you discover”, says Volle. This is significant, as Volle knows Berg’s idiom well, having sung the title role in Wozzeck.

One of the minor subplots in this opera is the idea that wealth and status are worthless without deeper values. In Act 3 the banker's shares turn out to worthless, and of course Dr Schön's wealth does him no good. Perhaps Michael Volle's own background gives him insight, but he's an experienced singer who specializes in roles with depth of character. His Graf Tamare in Franz Schreker's Die Gezeichneten is exceptionally well realized. That's one of the great early 20th century operas.

Read more about Micahel Volle and about the new ROH production HERE. I'll be writing more about Lulu and this production in the next few weeks.

TRY TO GO ! As Volle says, on first hearing, it's shocking, but the subject is shocking. This is not a plot whose issues you can be complacent about. And listen to the music. It's not that difficult or strident, and a very good performance brings out its clarity and oddly enough its beauty. There is a very good DVD of the Glyndebourne production of 1996 where Christine Schäfer is compelling. Far and away the best orchestrally is the CD set with Pierre Boulez conducting. This isn't an easy opera to do. Many versions have weak points and there's one I would actively dis-recommend. So bear this in mind, and go to this Lulu and make the most of it. PLEASE READ THE OTHER POSTS on this blog re LULU, which include reviews, interviews, and a whole movie downlaod ! Not only this Loy production but Cheereau too and other thoughts on the opera. Go to the labels list on right and click on "Berg".

Acis, Galatea, Dido and Aeneas

Melanie Eskenazi in inimitable, lively form on the Royal Opera Royal Ballet double bill :

" “Dido and Aeneas” remains Purcell’s most often performed and subtly influential work – would we have had Britten’s “The Rape of Lucretia” without it? .....

"To convey the spirit of his mixture of tragic nobility and almost comical malevolence the ideal cast would be made up entirely of genuine baroque specialists, in which the UK is exceptionally rich. Well, I suppose three out of nine isn’t too bad, and it beats the one out of five offered in “Acis and Galatea”.

" Wayne McGregor’s austerely beautiful production was first seen at La Scala in 2006, and it looks ravishing in Hildegard Bechtler’s designs – McGregor keeps things nobly simple, as is right for the piece, and the starkness of the surroundings, even in the hunting scene, forms an appropriate backdrop for the tragedy. I found the dancing hard to get used to: attuned to expecting something rather more ‘pastoral, the steps did not quite mesh with the sentiments.

"I felt the same about the dancing in “Acis and Galatea” until I realised how deeply the production was influenced by Lucas Cranach’s iconic painting of “The Golden Age” (1530) where naked figures dance with angular movements around a Golden Apple Tree, “…two and two, necessary coniunctuion / Holding eche other by the hand or the arm / Which betokeneth concorde” (Elyot / Eliot). It was still a little disquieting to find ‘Oh! The Pleasures of the Plains!’ accompanied by what at first looked like an aerobics class, but I became attuned to it after a while and was able to savour some very graceful dancing, especially from Eric Underwood and Edward Watson."

"We were once more in the world of singers for whom the baroque is not really their bread and butter, with the notable exception of Paul Agnew, another (absurdly late) house debutant, who completely outshone everyone else with his gravely sensitive ‘Voice of 18th-century Reason’ of a Damon – not for the first time with this singer, he showed the rest how it should be done."

" If anyone can carry off a ludicrous wig and an absurd costume it is the gorgeous Danielle de Niese, and she has the opulent voice to match her looks – the trouble is, it’s just not a very Handelian one, with its rapid vibrato and tendency towards swooping into phrases. As with her Acis, though, she knows how to make you believe in her character, and ‘Heart, thou Seat of soft Delight’ had ravishing moments."

PLEASE NOTE : in January I'm reviewing Katie Mitchell's book on directing.

Read the whole longer piece (it's very perceptive, pulls no punches but warm hearted) here :
http://www.classicalsource.com/db_control/db_concert_review.php?id=6937

Der fliegende Holländer London Terfel

This Der fliegende Holländer was eagerly awaited as it hasn’t been heard at the Royal Opera House, London, since 2000. With Bryn Terfel’s return to Covent Garden as the Dutchman a full house was guaranteed.

Terfel's admirers would not have been disappointed. His voice boomed majestically, even when he had to walk carrying a heavy rope, and wade through real water at the foot of the platform. In this production, however, by Tim Albery, he wasn't really called upon to develop the Dutchman's character. As he said to one interviewer, he hasn't been challenged enough yet. He is capable, so it's a pity that it wasn't needed in Albery's concept of the opera.

At the recent ENO Boris Gudonov (see label list at right), Albery gave us Gudonov as stolid, mild-mannered bourgeois. This Dutchman is his kin, by no means a ravaged, cursed "pale man", no more haunted than Daland. Later, when his men appear, they're all neatly dressed in uniform. No way have they been roaming the oceans for centuries. Perhaps there's a rationale for this. When the Norwegians call out to the doomed ship, they face the audience in the orchestra stalls, shining torches in their faces. Is this a hidden meaning? I don't know. The production was generously supported by wealthy patrons. But then, Wagner himself was not above cocking a snoot at his benefactors. But I suspect the real reason was that the concept wasn't completely followed through.

For me, this production worked musically because it focussed on Wagner's underlying techniques, at a period when he was finding his own direction. Particularly interesting is the way he mixes the banal pop songs the sailors sing with the altogether more extreme wildness of the Dutchman's music. These songs and choruses reminded me of Der Freischütz, another tale in which happy peasants meet demonic forces. This duality runs throughout the opera, so there's constant turmoil in this music. Like the sea itself, ever churning, it's not fixed on firm ground. Wagner is moving away from established German aria-based opera to something altogether new. Marc Albrecht, the son of George, not Gerd, who conducted this opera at Covent Garden 30 years ago, focussed on the more traditional elements of the work. It's still a "numbers" piece with set vignettes and "local colour". If Albrecht didn't get the grand sweep of Wagner's later vision perhaps it's because he was focussing on his earlier influences. This performance was a reminder that Wagner was still young when he wrote it, and how far he still had to go.

But music must work with staging, and it wouldn't have been any more right for Albrecht to go for panoramic wildness any more than for Terfel to do what he might have done with a more ravaged Dutchman. Thus it was interesting to watch the Overture unfold. This is an essential part of the opera, not merely an opener, for it sets out the themes that are to come at considerable length. Here it was played against a backdrop of green light, with projections of rain on glass and vague forms flitting from left to right with minimal variation. Perhaps that's what being at sea is like, but there's a lot more development in the music, which goes through very distinct changes as it progresses.

And conflict is what the opera is about. Wagner wields leitmotivs about like weapons. Particularly wonderful is the Third Act where crosscurrents of different music are thrown against each other, with the force of violent waves. Just as there's a storm at sea in Act One, there's a storm on land in the Third, an echo of a more cosmic storm of the soul. In the Third Act, the Royal Opera House Choruses show how exceptionally good they are. They carry the intricate counter-forces with precision and committment. No denying the in this opera now. At last the production came vividly to life.

Bryn Terfel was obviously the big draw, but it's Anja Kampe who I'll remember. What a huge voice, from such a tiny frame! Maybe it's good miking, but she gave Terfel a run for his money. Again, the production downplays her inherent hysteria. She's fixated on the Dutchman long before he appears, clinging to his image like a teenage Goth obsessed by symbols of doom. Of course she's virginal and sweet but even her mates think she's a bit warped. Senta is the prototype Wagner heroine, who equates love with death, and needs to find herself through sacrificial redemption. A bit like what Wagner expected of the women in his life. Kampe should go on to do interesting things in this vein. She's singing Isolde at Glyndebourne this summer.

Please see what Mark says about this on Boulezian and also Intermezzo (link at right)
And photos
http://www.operatoday.com/content/2009/02/at_covent_garde.php

George Benjamin Into the Little Hill

The big news about the long-awaited London premiere of George Benjamin's Into the Little Hill was that it wasn't. A power cut minutes into the performance and that was it. Read about it on boulezian and intermezzo's blogs (follow link at right). Intermezzo has pix!

Since many people don't live within taxi distance, the "solution"to the power cut was pretty unfair. Lots of people are out of pocket and not just for tickets. Next time let's hope they do the right thing and offer refunds. There must be insurance for these things.

Luckily, I had cancelled my tickets for the first night and caught the whole show on the second night. For a change I hit the jackpot. This was a wonderful performance with Benjamin himself conducting the London Sinfonietta. Claire Booth and Susan Bickley, often raved here on this blog, sang the vocal parts. This is a new production by The Opera Group. Follow the link below to read more about them and the background to the opera. Their site has photos, video and audio clips - recommended!

Into the Little Hill reminds me of many things - the cartoon/novel Maus, even Michael Jackson's truly creepy song "Ben", where the disturbed kid makes friends with a rat. The story is desolate. A man appears in a little girl's bedroom. He has no face...no nose...no eyes. Yet the father does a deal with the sinister stranger and swears on the little girl's life. Seriously sick. The whole opera pivots on ideas of dissimulation, concealment, crawling into dark recesses, nothing is safe from being gnawed away.

This production seems, from pictures, to be more atmospheric than the French one. A circle of black gauze screens orchestra from singers. That's very well thought through, for even the music here is cloaked in disguise. You hear something eerie, or harps or bells. Sure enough, look behind the screens afterwards and there's a cimbalom right in the heart of the orchestra. You hear something tense, tinny and shrill : it's a banjo, and conventional strings being played like banjos, strings plucked high up the shaft, not bowed. Much emphasis is on low toned instruments like bass flute and bass clarinet, whose sensuous, seductive themes weave through the piece like a narcotic night blooming flower. At one point it sure feels like there's a sound so high pitched that the human ear can't quite hear it : but rats can hear at higher frequencies than we can....

Benjamin's writing for voice is a revelation. Unlike Thomas Adès, he doesn't force voices into painful contortion. While the lines are extremely challenging, they flow naturally, almost as speech even when they range up and down octaves. Part of this may be the texts themselves, written thoughtfully, like haiku, allowing the listener's thoughts to form. "The hum of a refrigerator in summer" sings the mezzo, and you know what she means and why it's relevant. Bickley and Booth don't sing "roles" and often their lines are reported speech, echoes perhaps of the ancient tradition of story telling. But there's no mistaking the modernity of this truly disturbing, ambiguous piece. It has a force of its own, which I suspect, even Benjamin and his librettist, Martin Crimp, have channelled as opposed to having consciously written.

What a brilliant idea, too, to pair Into the Little Hill with Harrison Birtwistle's At the Greenwood Side, from 1969. The whole Punch and Judy ethos gives me the creeps, whatever its artistic validity, because it is sick and unhealthy. Perhaps that's the point Birtwistle is making. The mummers and their play are frauds, utterly sordid. You can almost smell their stench in this production. But there's a thin line between ironic comment and the celebration of sickness. At least At the Greenwood Side is concise and gets to the point without too much fuss. And Booth's bag lady murderess is so clearly nuts, she's sad, not vicious, unlike the male characters. Nice touch, too, that the London Sinfonietta are dressed in white tie, which for them is "costume". This distances them from the drunken tramps the actors portray. Pity though that the piece is more speech than music. But then is Birtwistle implying that the barbarians have breached the gate ? This piece feels like graffiti in the meanest sense, smeared on art. Good performance and production though. Perhaps that's why it's so effective (and upsetting).

Here's The Opera Group's link, with photos, video clips and audio samples:

http://www.theoperagroup.co.uk/productions/more/into_the_little_hill_down_by_the_greenwood_side/

Korngold Die tote Stadt, London ROH 1/09

Die tote Stadt is Korngold’s masterpiece in the old sense of the word, when a craftsman would produce a dazzling work to show the world what he could do. This is Korngold’s manifesto, so to speak. It displays his virtues beautifully. But his vices, too, are part of the mix. In Die tote Stadt we hear both the promise of his youth and echoes of what was to come.

The virtues are clear – this is delightful music full of action and romance. Korngold weaves genres together with ease and freedom. The Meyerbeer segment is a joy. He connects a tradition of popular opera while alluding to the most recent incarnation of the Pierrot story – Pierrot Lunaire, Schoenberg’s greatest hit, a sensation before the First World War. He references Wagner, the Strausses (Richard and both Johanns) and plenty of Puccini, particularly Madama Butterfly, another tale of obsessive love and death. Korngold is no ignoramus. He knows his music history and knows his audiences will relish the allusions. The good moments in this opera are superb, torrents of chromatic colour, sonorities so luscious one could almost drown in their gorgeousness.

“O Tanz, O Rausch!” sings Marietta, who loses herself in the ecstasy of dance. This mindless, instinctive surrender to sensuality animates the opera. Marietta symbolizes life and vigour. Only she dares confront the overpowering portrait of the dead Marie. Marie may have her moment of vengeance but ultimately, it’s Marietta who lives on. When Frank, Paul’s alter ego, suggests they leave Bruges, Paul sings a reprise of Marietta’s Lied – it becomes a song of triumph, not regret.

The message in Die tote Stadt could not be clearer. Paul must move on if he is to survive. The past can be treasured but cannot take priority over the future. Metzmacher perceptively said that the opera was “like an old photograph. You like to keep it and look at it. But reality is different”. The original novel, Bruges la Morte, by Georges Rodenbach, was illustrated with photographs of the city, preserved forever in one moment in the 19^th century.

This performance, at the Royal Opera House, under the baton of Ingo Metzmacher, was perhaps truer to the spirit of the original than many others, for Metzmacher sees it as fresh, daring and modern. This is important because Korngold has, in the last ninety years, acquired a reputation for backward-looking sentimentality. Audiences do like what they assume to be tradition. In 1920, Die tote Stadt was cutting edge. Wozzeck and Jonny Spielt auf were years away. There are shockingly daring harmonies and clashes of key, especially in the Prelude to Act 3. Metzmacher’s clear, incisive style doesn’t cloak the modernity in a slush of sugar, but makes us realize just how aware and innovative Korngold could be. Orchestrally this was infinitely more lucid than the Leinsdorf recording, which, while lovely, hasn't quite the pungency to cut through the prettiness.

Korngold, like Richard Strauss in Elektra, seems to pull back from the edge. However much his admirers may champion his later work, it is Die tote Stadt that is his masterpiece. There isn’t place in this review for an assessment of Korngold’s career as a whole, but the very fact that he chose this ambivalent narrative is revealing. The libretto was written jointly by Korngold and his father, the domineering Julius Korngold, but this was concealed until 1975. How far did Julius’ arch-conservative hand hold sway over what the son did, consciously or otherwise ? Since the hero’s dead wife holds vampire-like control of his life, the relevance may not be purely accidental.

The original novel is far more sinister and disturbing. Korngold instead avoids facing the dilemmas by turning murder and madness into a dream, from which his protagonist can walk away without reflection. Yet reflection occurs again and again in the music and textual images. Willy Decker’s staging makes much of mirrors, portraits, of transparent glass surface that throw light back on the action. The “parallel reality” scenes in Act 1 are excellent as theatre, expressing the ambiguous, multi-layered duality that pervades the music and plot. The procession scene is designed to match the Meyerbeer scene – white costumes, masks, stylized ensembles. This is perceptive for it expresses visually the fundamental contrast in the opera between real life and artifice, between actors and characters.

First Night nerves may have accounted for lapses in the singing, though both Paul (Stephen Gould) and Marie/Marietta (Nadja Michael) are demanding roles that keep the singers on stage nearly the whole evening. The range in Marie/Marietta is fearsomely wide, so if Michael was more comfortable in the lower register, it was understandable. Gerald Finlay was luxury casting even though he only appears intermittently. As always, the Royal Opera Chorus was superb.

This Die tote Stadt made a convincing case for Korngold’s reputation. Glorious as it is, though, there are elements in it which make us realize in retrospect why the composer would later excel in music for film. Early movies were a kind of “extreme opera”, where music intensified dramatic action, where emotions were whipped up even if the plots were thin.

Korngold was writing for film long before the Anschluss, which caught him already in Hollywood. The colourful, episodic nature of Die tote Stadt, with its evocation of feeling, despite the weakness in the text, is a foretaste of where Korngold was to find himself. Only a few years previously, all movies were silent. Film music was the cutting edge of modernity, and Korngold was in the vanguard, creating a whole new genre. Please read the other posts on this blog about Die Tote Stadt, Korngold, Metzmacher and Bruges. There's more on this blog than most places on the net and it's totally original, too. Music of this period, and exilmusik in particular, is one of my special interests, explore a bit on this site. Special requests welcome.

see this for production pix
http://www.operatoday.com/content/2009/02/die_tote_stadt_.php

Bruges-la-morte 2 Die tote Stadt

Hugues keeps locks of his first wife’s hair in a crystal box. It never changes, but Jane is getting older. She gets wrinkles, starts having new friends, goes shopping, doesn’t stay passive. So Hugues resolves to leave her. “You’re kidding” she mocks. She knows he can’t face “un second veuvage”. That night he goes home, filled with free floating anxiety. Death seems to have returned, “emmaillotée en linceul dans le brouillard.” The swans, so normally calm, are screaming. It’s a bad omen.

Soon it’s the Feast of the Holy Blood, when there’s a procession in the streets, Barbe, Hugues' pious old servant decorates the sombre mansion with masses of flowers, so it’s perfumed like a sacristry. Into the house pour sounds of bells from all round town. She’s exalted, as if in the presence of angels. Then Hugues rings, and says a lady is coming for dinner. Barbe is in shock, for she knows about her master’s secret “concubinage”. Then she leaves. Moments later Jane arrives. She wants to open the shutters but Hugues is afraid it will attract attention. Meanwhile, the procession draws close. People are singing, Hugues visualizes the ancient knights of Flanders, smells the incense, sees the massed crowd in the street, falling to their knees as the Reliquary approaches. Jane and Hugues sit together on the sofa. Then

La musique des serpents et des ophicléides monta plus grave,
charria la guirlande frêle,
intermittente, du chant des soprani.

Jane looks round the strange mansion with its portraits of Hugues' dead wife. Then she spots the crystal box with the dead woman’s hair, opens it and laughs. To Hugues, it’s a “profanation”. He’s never dared touch it, all these years. He goes berserk and strangles Jane with her own hair, wrapped around her neck. Jane’s cadaver turns pale, like his dead wife, long ago. Outside, the procession has passed, the streets are empty, silence descends once more.

Et Hugues continûment répétait: «Morte... morte... Bruges-la-Morte...» d'un air machinal, d'une voix détendue, essayant de s'accorder: «Morte... morte... Bruges-la-Morte...» avec la cadence des dernières cloches, lasses, lentes, petites vieilles exténuées qui avaient l'air--est-ce sur la ville, est-ce sur une tombe?--d'effeuiller languissamment des fleurs de fer!

This novel was the inspiration behind Korngold’s Die Tote Stadt, who used the pseudonym Paul Schott to write the libretto. I do wonder how Freudian it must have been to young Erich, utterly dominated by his father's personality. The tales differ, of course. But the original is worth reading because it’s so atmospheric and beautifully written. Long out of copyright, it can be read in full at

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14911/14911-8.txt

Interestingly, one of the features of the original novel is that it was illustrated by actual photographs, so the reality of the setting blends into the unreality of the narrative. Maybe there is a house on the quai du Rosaire. Maybe it’s still stuffed with 19th century furniture and dusty mirrors ? Maybe Hugues and Jane remain suspended in time and space in a different dimension ? After posting this I received a message from someone who knows Bruges well. There really is a Quai du rosaire and there really are ancient houses there. Uncanny! see
http://www.pbase.com/francist/image/2840795

Bruges-la-Morte 1 Die tote Stadt

C'était Bruges-la-Morte, elle-même mise au tombeau de ses quais de pierre, avec les artères froidies de ses canaux, quand avait cessé d'y battre la grande pulsation de la mer.

Bruges-the-dead, cut off from the sea, the waters in its canals turgid like the blood in dying arteries…a surreal city of silence. In the novel, by Georges Rodenbach, a man called Hugues Viane has lived in limbo since his wife died five years before. Nothing is changed, everything as she left it. He doesn’t even like to move the dust on the mirror. He wanders the empty streets, desolate, numb. Then one day he sees an apparition, a woman with the same hair, the same eyes…. Agitated, he follows her, losing her in the crowd, like clouds hiding the moon. Since his wife died, Hugues had feared music. Even the wheezing, asthmatic strains of a street accordion reduced him to tears. In this city of church bells and organs, Sundays were hell. At last he sees the woman again. She’s the exact image of his wife “Le miroir vit”.

Jane is a dancer, she lets him set her up in a silent apartment where he stares mutely at her, wanting her never to change. He dresses her up in his dead wife’s clothes. “I look like an old portrait” she says, innocently. In the novel the quasi-religious kinkiness is implicit. “En cette Bruges catholique surtout, où les moeurs sont sévères!..... À tous les coins de rue, dans des armoires de boiserie et de verre, s'érigent des Vierges en manteaux de velours, parmi des fleurs de papier qui se fanent,tenant en main une banderole avec un texte déroulé, qui de leur côté proclament: «Je suis l'Immaculée.» Chapter 6 is particularly evocative of the city and its mysteries. The prose flows like a journey through the streets, through the widower’s soul. He has “une âme grise, de la couleur de la ville”. Spring comes, and Easter, then winter descends once more. Read Chapters 10 and 11 too, like poetry. Hugues wants to become like the towers that stand immobile, frozen above the city, as if suspended in the time of Memling. He wanders in at the end of Mass where the priest is talking about death. Hugues is anguished, torn between his need for Jane and his fear of damnation. To be continued.....

Erich Korngold's goose feast

In 1919, Austria had just lost a war and an empire. Vienna was plunged into austerity. Then Erich Korngold was invited to a party at which was served a pre-war luxury – roast goose and goose liver paté! As a thank-you young Korngold left the room for a moment and returned with a complete song, with piano accompaniment, which he'd whizzed up in the ante-room. Not a fool, young Korngold (he wrote the poem, too).


Die Gansleber im Hause Duschnitz

"To celebrate this day with you and contribute a little song,
I appear quickly on the spot as a houseguest in the
Duschnitz' night hotel, and throw on my best clothes and shout:
"Long may they live, the happy married couple on their
fortieth anniversary!"

"And while I'm speaking of wishes, without hesitating at all
I'd like to mention a few of my own.
I don't want to offend anyone, but I wish that, speaking of
your heating system, you wouldn't be stingy with the coal.
Otherwise, there's a certain danger of catarrh...."

"But this sort of wish is very small compared to this one:
hope that sometime again in my life I'll encounter such
a goose liver, and such a roast goose along with it. Because
a goose liver like this is a wondrous thing and gives any
dinner party an entirely, entirely different sort of splendor!"

"When it's browned, when it's crisp and crackly --- anyone
whose heart doesn't laugh for joy deserves, for such
baseness, to be forced off to bed and made to stay awake
all night with chattering teeth!"

"Oh no, I don't want to be one of those people. So I promise
you ladies and gentlemen: while I'm waiting for the Golden
Wedding (fifty years' anniversary) I hope to eat many
thousands of such goose livers!"

Now you know why I'm off to Korngold's Die tote Stadt at Covent Garden next week.

The glorious Angelika Kirchschlager

Tonight the divine Angelika Kirchschlager sings Hänsel in the ROH Hänsel und Gretel ! It's a role that could be made for her. She has a personality as vivacious as her voice. Over the years, it's been lovely to watch her develop from an ingenue to a major star, yet what's always come over in interviews (and her singing) is her naturalness and sincerity. Life hasn't been a fairy tale for her, to use the cliché. But fairy tales in reality are pretty grimm. So maybe like their heroines she's grown from the experience. Certainly Kirchschlager is lovable and such a pure, luscious voice ! Her Mélisande last year was deeply thoughtful. Clad in scarlet, she brought out the erotic danger in the part few dare express quite so clearly these days. Pity about the rest of the staging, which didn't develop the concept. Maybe another production ! Here is a link to what she said last week with Simon Thomas :

http://www.musicomh.com/classical/features/kirchschlager_1208.htm