{"id":10593,"date":"2013-04-04T08:02:50","date_gmt":"2013-04-04T12:02:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=10593"},"modified":"2013-05-07T05:25:34","modified_gmt":"2013-05-07T09:25:34","slug":"requiem-aeternam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=10593","title":{"rendered":"Requiem aeternam"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Rebecca Schmid
\n\"\"<\/a>The Festtage <\/em>of the Staatsoper Berlin, founded by Daniel Barenboim in 1996, is not officially an Easter Festival. But while the Berlin Philharmonic left the Philharmonie for some mountain air (taking up residence for the first time this year in Baden-Baden<\/a>), the maestro\u2014 between conducting the first full cycle of the Cassiers\/Bagnoli Ring <\/em>production, which has unfolded between the German capital and Milan since 2010\u2014presided over ensembles of both the Staatsoper and La Scala in two different Requiem masses.<\/p>\n

The pianist and conductor, currently music director of both opera houses, opened Mozart\u2019s Requiem <\/em>on April 1 with W.A.\u2019s last piano concerto, KV 595. The Staatskapelle’s rich warm, strings lent the music great strength\u2014particularly in forte passages\u2014while gentler nuances could have been more florid and secretive. Still, the balance with the piano was ideal in the opening Allegro<\/em>. Barenboim brings a wonderful spontaneity to his performances\u2014even if there were a couple of smudges on the keyboard\u2014and he masters the Staatskapelle\u2019s full-bodied sound with a firm but giving hand. The final Allegro <\/em>movement, which opens deceptively with a variation of the chirping song Komm, lieber Mai<\/em>, attained a mysterious quality that provided a captivating bridge to the Requiem<\/em>, where Mozart could no longer take refuge in the childlike playfulness that masks a complex spectrum of emotions in other late works.<\/p>\n

The mass, which lay unfinished on the composer\u2019s deathbed, conveys a God-fearing sense of his own mortality. It is not until the bright E-flat major triad of the Sanctus <\/em>movement, completed largely by Mozart\u2019s contemporary Frank Xaver S\u00fc\u00dfmayer, that the light of day shines. There is nothing operatic about the work\u2014one of several masses Mozart wrote between 1768 and 1791. As penetrating as the voices of the Staatsoper chorus were, one almost wished for a more penitent approach. Of the soloists, it was Ren\u00e9 Pape and Bernarda Fink\u2014respectively the lower male and female voices\u2014who captured the music\u2019s demands for internal spirituality.<\/p>\n

Rollando Villaz\u00f2n seemed to vie for attention with his hystrionic facial expressions, so it was all the more excruciating when he switched suddenly from head to chest voice mid-entrance in Tuba Mirum<\/em>. He managed to push above the ensemble later but it seems unlikely his timbre will ever recover the luster it bore pre-vocal crisis. Soprano Maria Bengtsson lent every line a pretty, creamy sound, but her inflections were often mannered. The Staatskapelle performed with increasing intensity, investing Domine Jesu Christe <\/em>with an incision that drove to the heart of the music. Barenboim brought the final Lux Aeterna <\/em>to a spaciously paced close.<\/p>\n

Verdi\u2019s Requiem<\/em>, performed March 30 with the orchestra and chorus of La Scala, is unarguably the more theatrical of the two masses, emerging in the 1870s when the composer wrote no new operas. Verdi, moved to complete the work upon the death of his literary hero Alessandro Manzoni in 1873, nevertheless commented modestly that with so many Requiem Masses \u201cthere\u2019s no point to writing one more.\u201d He was wrong. His Dies Irae <\/em>is one of the most petrifying moments in musical history, the chorus descending into a fiery pit of swirling strings and brass so demonic that even Wagner looks tame. The effect was nearly ear-numbing from my seat on the balcony above the stage, but I couldn\u2019t miss the chorus\u2019 homogeneity of tone and commitment to every syllable.<\/p>\n

Daniela Barcellona gave a lesson in rich shading, carrying effortlessly across the hall in her solo of the second Dies <\/em>movement. Soprano Maria Segreta, stepping in last minute for Anja Harteros, has a sweet timbre that sometimes struggled to hold its own alongside the voluminous mezzo, although it\u2019s impossible for me to judge properly given the acoustics from my seat. They struck a placid balance in Agnus Dei<\/em>. Pape was his usual serene self, and tenorissimo Fabio Sartori rounded out the ensemble with a penetrating but unpretentious tone. The musicians of La Scala made clear how deeply this music flows in their veins, phrasing with an unforced fluidity worthy of the highest Kunstreligion<\/em>.<\/p>\n

rebeccaschmid.info<\/a><\/p>\n