By Rebecca Schmid<\/p>\n
Of Berlin\u2019s seven major orchestras, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester (DSO) is beloved among connoisseurs for its innovative programming. For the past five seasons, the orchestra has offered \u201cCasual Concerts\u201d concluding with a DJ act in the foyer of the Philharmonie, as initiated by former Music Director Ingo Metzmacher. In what the Berliner Zeitung<\/em> is calling one of the most important concerts of the season, the series most recently featured Hans Graf, principal conductor of the Houston Symphony, in a self-devised triptych that traveled through Puccini\u2019s Suor Angelica<\/em>, Hindemith\u2019s Sancta Susanna<\/em>, and Skryabin\u2019s Le po\u00e8me de l\u2019extase<\/em>. The program was also performed as a straight concert on April 22, which I had the opportunity to attend.<\/p>\n Hindemith\u2019s one-acter about the forbidden desires of a nun is, according to a recent publication issued by the Hindemith Foundation, one of the biggest scandals in twentieth-century music history. The conductor Fritz Busch refused to perform it in 1921 as part of a Puccini-inspired triptych that begins with M\u00f6rder, Hoffnung der Frauen<\/em> and ends with Das Nusch-Nuschi<\/em>. When Sancta Susanna<\/em> premiered in Frankfurt the following year, religious and conservative cultural institutions broke out into protest. While the Catholic Women\u2019s League was organizing \u201catonement devotions\u201d during Holy Week, Theodor Adorno praised Sancta Susanna <\/em>as not only \u201cthe best of the three pieces\u201d but the most mature stage work Hindemith ever wrote: \u201cthe thematic pressure of the orchestral flow and widely arching vocal melodies, the sultriness of the spring night and the vehemence of the catastrophe from this single, elemental force.\u201d<\/p>\n The 25-minute work based on poetry by August Stramm has enjoyed something of a renaissance this season, with a full staging at the Op\u00e9ra Lyon in January and, as seen with the DSO, a well-conceived semi-staging. Graf positioned the singers in front of himself and the orchestra, using screens on which they were able to follow his direction. The concert hall was otherwise darkened, with individual lights for the musicians to follow their scores. Melanie Diener inhabited the title role with fearless dramatic force, ripping of her black cape lustily when she declares in a climactic moment to the cautioning Sister Clementia (Lioba Braun), \u201cich bin sch\u00f6n\u201d (\u2018I am beautiful\u2019). Other parts of the plotline were left to the audience\u2019s imagination\u2014such as the moment when Susanna rips the loin cloth of the crucifix and the apparition of a spider (a symbol of repressed female sexuality) that crawls across the altar, only to end up in the protagonist\u2019s hair. This must be a challenging aspect even in full stagings, although Hindemith\u2019s xylophone motive makes it perfectly clear when the creature appears.<\/p>\n Graf led the DSO in a powerful account of Hindemith\u2019s score. The vocal lines are initially set to eerily sparse textures, which were kept taut and hushed. The agonized chords representing the convent\u2019s repression surged with raw force\u2014as Adorno noted, the vivid landscape of anger, lust and frustration reveals Hindemith at his most expressive powers. Hindemith also adopts impressionist touches, such as the sensuous melodies of a flute that hovers over trembling strings, yet in the end the orchestra repents grudgingly. The work thus functioned perfectly as a kind of purgatory scene following Suor Angelica<\/em>, in which the title character drinks poison after discovering that her illegitimate son has died of a fever. Juxtaposed with Hindemith, the\u00a0modernist features of Puccini’s score also emerged more clearly, such as when Suor Angelica declares \u201cparlate mi di lui\u201d (\u2018tell me about him\u2019), setting the orchestra in unison through a jagged, furious descending motive.<\/p>\n Barbara Frittoli was slated to sing the title role, but health reasons forced her to cancel at the last minute. Fortunately, another Italian soprano, Maria Luigia Borsi rose to the occasion admirably with lush bel canto singing that is rare to hear in Berlin. \u201cSenza Mamma\u201d was quietly devastating, with the orchestra already providing glimpses into the white light of heaven. While the DSO\u2019s strings could have been warmer throughout the score, Graf sculpted Puccini\u2019s phrasing with depth and conviction. The semi-staging worked well, with the nuns celibately donning white, roped gowns. Braun made a stand-out performance as the frigid princess, Angelica\u2019s aunt, who convinces her to sign off her inheritance. The American soprano Heidi Stober gave a dynamic performance as Suor Genovieffa despite some less-than-ideal diction; Jana Kurucov\u00e1 (La suora zelatrice) and Ewa Wolak (La maestra della novizie) impressed with their rich timbre.<\/p>\n Le po\u00e8me de l\u2019extase<\/em> concluded the program with opulent orchestration and heaving melodies, a refreshing embrace of sensual indulgence afer the harrowing experience of Sancta Susanna<\/em>. Above the shimmering strings and colorful motivic development, the trumpets herald a new realm beyond the earthly, an explosion of sound which Skryabin declared in 1905 would be \u201can enormous festival.\u201d Graf led the DSO with tremendous control, steering through the contours of this unpredictably episodic score with the same dramatic sensitivity he brought to the previous one-acters. The audience was left raptured, if not emotionally spent, by this musical journey\u2014concerts like this make it clear how the DSO is able to hold its own even with the Berlin Philharmonic in town, and how spoiled those living here are for variety.<\/p>\n Stay tuned for a review of the Berlin Philharmonic under Dudamel featuring Leonidas Kavakos in Korngold’s Violin Concerto (not the Golijov world premiere that was originally slated, but who’s complaining)<\/em><\/p>\n