{"id":16313,"date":"2014-03-14T06:10:14","date_gmt":"2014-03-14T10:10:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=16313"},"modified":"2014-03-30T21:07:04","modified_gmt":"2014-03-31T01:07:04","slug":"two-wozzecks-and-a-salome-in-concert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=16313","title":{"rendered":"Two Wozzecks and a Salome in Concert"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Sedgwick Clark<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

Which is more important, asks Richard Strauss\u2019s opera Capriccio<\/i>: the music or the words? With the Vienna Philharmonic onstage at Carnegie Hall and surtitles cuing every vocal line, the question (and answer) may be less whimsical than ever.<\/span><\/p>\n

Franz Welser-M\u00f6st led New York\u2019s favorite visiting orchestra on February 28 at Carnegie Hall\u2019s Vienna Festival in the most beautiful rendering of Alban Berg\u2019s Wozzeck <\/i>I\u2019ve ever heard, and the next evening Andris Nelsons led Strauss\u2019s Salome <\/i>with the same orchestra in a performance that made the composer sound like an amateur orchestrator, which we all know him not to have been. <\/span><\/p>\n

So, pace <\/i>Georg Solti who maintained that the VPO was utterly intractable, conductors do have an effect on this fabled orchestra after all. I fretted that Welser-M\u00f6st\u2019s hitherto neutral brand of music-making would not fully convey the emotional range of this heart-rending score. Neutral, however, it most assuredly was not. I staggered out of Carnegie Hall dumbstruck and shaken that Wozzeck <\/i>could be so devastating emotionally as well as orchestrally ravishing. Remember, this is late-Romantic music, just a step more \u201cmodern\u201d than Mahler\u2019s Ninth and Strauss\u2019s Elektra<\/i> in style. Recordings from the 1920s and \u201930s indicate how it would have been played. Welser-M\u00f6st\u2019s full-throated unleashing of the Viennese musicians\u2019 traditional sonority was fully defensible. Instrumental detail was both wondrous and expressive, revealing every glistening note of Berg\u2019s colorful palette.<\/span><\/p>\n

Wozzeck <\/i>is heavy sledding for those accustomed to such standard operatic tragedies as Werther <\/i>and La Boh\u00e8me<\/i>. A dim-witted soldier (Wozzeck) who has fathered an illegitimate child with what used to be called a \u201cloose\u201d woman (Marie), kills her when he learns of her infidelity with a loutish Drum Major and then drowns when he attempts to dispose of the murder weapon. In the final scene, their son is playing with neighboring children when word comes of his mother\u2019s death; he seems not to understand and continues singing and playing as the other children run offstage and the music simply stops mid-note, unresolved. <\/span><\/p>\n

The VPO opera-in-concert performances placed the vocalists on massive, unpainted, four-foot platforms on either side of Carnegie\u2019s stage, facing each other rather than the audience, with the orchestral musicians spread across Carnegie\u2019s stage in between. In my experience, the optimal balance of presence and indirect sound is in Carnegie\u2019s first-tier boxes. In my usual parquet seat, the vocalists were overwhelmed by the orchestra a good deal of the time. Far better to line up the cast in front of the orchestra and \u201cSing out, Louise.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Marie is the most sympathetic character in the opera and has the most affecting music, which Evelyn Herlitzius projected magnificently. Matthias Goerne (Wozzeck) suffered most from his placement upstage on the audience-left platform; Berg sets much of the role in dark, sepulchral tones, and\u00a0the bass-baritone’s\u00a0low register was particularly muffled. Herwig Pecoraro (Captain) and Wolfgang Bankl (Doctor) succeeded by turning to the audience and never dipping below forte<\/i>. But the star of this show was unequivocally the Vienna Philharmonic, and it came through with flying colors. This was the most extraordinary orchestral performance I\u2019ve heard so far this season\u2014one which I can\u2019t imagine will be surpassed. No doubt, the music was most important here.<\/span><\/p>\n

The first Wozzeck<\/i> I ever saw was at the Met in February 1969, in English, conducted by Colin Davis, and the most recent Wozzeck <\/i>was two performances under James Levine at the Met this past week (3\/6 and 3\/10). In between were a fine concert performance by Christoph von Dohn\u00e1nyi and Cleveland at Carnegie (1\/28\/95); a notably successful semi-staged concert performance at Avery Fisher Hall last season, superbly played and conducted by London\u2019s Philharmonia Orchestra and Esa-Pekka Salonen, with a fine Wozzeck in Simon Keenlyside (11\/19\/12); and several other Levine\/Met performances. \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The Levine bears comment. The minimal stage design is effective, with dark shadows and melancholy colors. Unlike Welser-M\u00f6st and Salonen, he was careful to keep the orchestra at a level that allowed the singers to be heard clearly. Matthias Goerne, substituting on opening night (3\/6) in the title role for an indisposed Thomas Hampson, was heard to far greater effect at the Met. Levine\u2019s approach to the score emphasized its stark, unsensuous Expressionist elements, which today\u2019s commentators are likely to consider more authentic. Making a comparison with artists contemporary to Berg, one might say that Welser-M\u00f6st is to Gustav Klimt as Levine is to Egon Schiele. <\/span><\/p>\n

For me, Welser-M\u00f6st\u2019s Wozzeck <\/i>was a revelation, and while I could appreciate the craft, Levine\u2019s didn\u2019t move me an iota.<\/span><\/p>\n

Salome <\/i><\/b>and Andris Nelsons<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Coming one evening after W-M\u2019s Wozzeck<\/i>, the Vienna Philharmonic\u2019s opera-in-concert presentation of Richard Strauss\u2019s Salome<\/i>, conducted by Andris Nelsons, was not to my liking. VPO\u2019s opaque textures caused me to wonder if it were the same orchestra (and, indeed, many of the players of this large ensemble might have been different).<\/span><\/p>\n

The major, and accomplished, vocalists\u2014Gun-Brit Barkmin (Salome), Gerhard A. Siegel (Herod), Jane Henschel (Herodias), Jochanaan (Falk Struckmann), and Narraboth (Carlos Osuna)\u2014often made a point of turning toward the audience and moving to the front of the platforms, improving the vocal\/orchestra balance problems of the previous evening. On the other hand, upon exiting the hall, my primary feeling was that of having been screamed at for an hour and 45 minutes.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ll stick with memories of Teresa Stratas as Salome with Karl B\u00f6hm from the late 1970s and Karita Mattila with Valery Gergiev from 2004. Oh, and Birgit Nilsson with Georg Solti and the Chicago Symphony (12\/18\/74) from front row center of Carnegie Hall\u2019s balcony. <\/span><\/p>\n

As for Maestro Nelsons, music director-designate of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, he is impossible to watch. A strong sense of structure would seem more helpful to an orchestra than describing every little detail in the air to players far more acquainted with the music than he. I had hoped to be able to find more to praise last night (3\/13) at Carnegie in his final concert of the Vienna festival. Haydn\u2019s Symphony No. 90 was its usual joy, but a tired reading of Brahms\u2019s Haydn Variations and a sprawling Third Symphony were not encouraging.<\/span><\/p>\n

Looking Forward<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

My week\u2019s scheduled concerts (8:00 p.m. unless otherwise noted): <\/span><\/p>\n

3\/14 Avery Fisher Hall at 2:00. New York Philharmonic\/Alan Gilbert. Nielsen: Helios Overture; Symphony No. 1; Symphony No. 4 (\u201cThe Inextinguishable\u201d). <\/span><\/p>\n

3\/16 Avery Fisher Hall at 3:00. Los Angeles Philharmonic\/Gustavo Dudamel. Corigliano: Symphony No. 1. Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5.<\/span><\/p>\n

3\/17 Avery Fisher Hall at 8:00. Los Angeles Philharmonic\/Gustavo Dudamel; Yuja Wang, piano. Daniel Bjarnason: Blow Bright. Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 3. Brahms: Symphony No. 2.<\/span><\/p>\n

3\/20 Avery Fisher Hall at 7:30. New York Philharmonic\/Jeffrey Kahane, conductor and piano. Ravel: Piano Concerto in G. Weill: Symphony No. 2. Gershwin: Concerto in F.<\/span><\/p>\n