Musical America Blogs

By Frank Cadenhead

A top orchestra manager in Paris once told me in private “What is Mikko Franck still doing in Finland?” Born in Helsinki in 1979, he was already on the international circuit at 23 and has frequently guest-conducted in Paris. He would be an obvious choice for a major orchestra and his leadership of the Finnish National Opera comes to an end next year.

His musical gifts were on display when he replaced music director Myung Whun Chung on October 13 at Salle Pleyel with little notice. On the program was a concert version of Wagner’s epic Tristan und Isolde (which he had never conducted before) with today’s leading Wagnerian soprano, Nina Stemme, singing Isolde and a strong cast supporting her. The hall was, of course, long since sold out and it was to be broadcast live on France Musique.

Final score: an audience hoarse from shouting and critics searching for superlatives – a major triumph. If your recording is by Boehm or Karajan, you need to be warned before listening to the internet re-broadcast: be prepared for barely-under-control raw energy. He has the Orchestre National de Radio France and the Radio France choir playing as if their lives depended on the outcome and regulars know that this is not always the case. The sheer passion of this score has never been so clearly revealed except when Furtwangler, and a few others, have took up the baton.

Always central to this music is the erotic. The story, using an old tool of “magic potion,” talks about the compulsive, radical changes in people’s lives caused by the sexual urge. We are not talking about “falling in love” here: Tristan and Isolde actively dislike one another before cocktail hour. The famously randy composer himself was well known for surrendering himself to adoring young “protégés” and it always seemed to me that Isolde’s aria “Mild et Leise,” which ends this opera, was an effort to describe an orgasm in music. Mankind’s fumbling attempts to balance their sexual desire with concepts like “love” and “devotion” has been grist for the artistic mill since time began. The Greek gods were certainly no better at that than any of us.

It was only six weeks ago that this observer saw this same opera in the Festspielhaus at Bayreuth. The audience reception was warm but the performance, under the direction of Peter Schneider, was routine. The three other conductors I saw at the end of August, Andres Nelsons (Lohengrin), Thielemann (Tannhauser) and, particularly, Philippe Jordan (Parsifal), are all younger than Schneider and their performances had a spark that was lacking in Tristan. Certain conductors avoid the routine and find eternal youth in the music even in their later years. Some years ago a young assistant conductor to Kurt Masur, when he was music director of the Orchestre National de France, noted a score that he packed for Masur on a tour. “He’s restudying Bolero!” he told me with some astonishment.

You can hear this remarkable broadcast for only the next three or four days on the France Musique website. The re-broadcast button is on the main page. You can see if this is the Tristan you have been waiting for. Keep a Kleenex box handy.