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Theater Bonn, Germany 2009 - 2010

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"Andrea Schwalbach's direction of Golem this year may be the last bit of dynamic needed to start a real revival that could last well into the 21st century. Staying on this course and exploiting Golem's location on the periphery in relation to mainstream composers may cut the niche deeply for the Theater Bonn and Schwalbach's work and curriculum, along with her productions of compositions of Peter Eötvös, Giorgio Battistelli and Salvatore Sciarrino and give the Theater Bonn the credit it deserves."
- Argo Spier

"To the American opera lover it is quite feasible to make a roundtrip visiting Köln, Dusseldorf, Duisburg and in Belgium, Brussels and Ghent in a three-day sprint for opera and classical music. This is really the message that the Music Halls in the near vicinity of the Ruhr should get out in 2010 – dialogue and feasibility."
- Argo Spier

NEWSREEL - January 2010 - Exciting news, in this first cold month of 2010 in Europe, is coming from the Theater Bonn, Germany, where on the 24th of January the Premiere of a not so often performed opera, Golem, took place; it is the work of the Scottish-born German pianist and composer, Eugen (originally Eugène) Francis Charles d'Albert (1864 - 1932) that debuted on 14 December 1926 in Frankfurt. D'Albert's work in general, however, has stayed on the periphery of mainstream popular opera. But the good news is that now, in Theater Bonn, there is a hint of his work being drawn into the contemporary scene.

The Theater Bonn, one of the 'Rheinschiene’ Opera Houses in Nordrhein-Westfalen, is located on the Rhein and on the fringe of the Ruhr Gebiet of Nordrhein-Westfalen. The other 'Rheinschiene Houses', the Oper Köln and the Oper am Rhein with its two Houses, one in Duisburg and one in Düsseldorf, are within easy reach of each it. Bonn is a mere 30 minute ride by fast train from Köln. With its Programming and the D'Albert Eugen Golem initiative, the Theater Bonn has created a sufficiently 'loaded' counterweight to take a firm stand among the Opera Houses in the Ruhr and surely will profit from this year's 'action' in the Ruhr, receiving much attention, that is due to the selection by UNESCO of the Ruhr Gebiet as Cultural Heritage and World Cultural Capital. With Golem, its programming may be noticed and audiences drawn. Exploring D'Albert's compositions is just the thing that may 'work' and 'cut the needed niche' for the Theatre. It is a valuable opportunity to explore the layered (and symbolic?) work of this relatively unknown composer of 21 operas in all.

Born and educated in Britain, Eugen d'Albert departed early in his life to study in Austria with Franz Liszt and began a career as a concert pianist. He repudiated his upbringing in England when he reaped his first successes with his output of piano, vocal and chamber music and considered himself German from then on and began his larger scale orchestral work. His most successful opera was Tiefland, which premiered in Prague in 1903. Yet none of his operas ever really entered mainstream opera. And all sort of reasons were designed by unconvincing critics to explain this. For the 'failure' and luke warm reception of Tiefland's introduction, for instance, the reason was given that it may have been due to the fact that the house's leading dramatic tenor, Wilhelm Elsner, had died suddenly not long before the Opera's premiere, forcing another singer to learn and perform the role of Pedro in a relatively short time. D'Albert's introduction into the American circuit at the Metropolitan Opera in New York on November 23, 1908, with Emmy Destinn and Erik Schmedes in the leading roles, also had short-lived success and since then Tiefland has represented his opera compositions in the USA. It did, however, draw world-famous stars such as Montserrat Caballé (1945/1946) and Maria Callas who sang leading roles in it, but not much interest for his other operas was generated, except maybe for the one act Die Toten Augen ( Dresden 1916) with its wealth of luxurious lyrical episodes and characterful suspense. D'Albert's choice of subject matter and librettos was always dramatic and, although settings were mostly in biblical theatrical modes, his work has that tinge of Verisimo models and causes mostly a delayed jubilative reaction from audiences.. In 1991, Ralf Weikert produced a most lovely interpretation of Die Toten Augen in a concertante version with the Dresdner Philharmonic Orchestra. But even that wasn't sufficient impetus for a 'real' revival of D'Albert's work and his resurrection into the contemporary opera scene. The Theater Bonn's project now seeems to have legitimacy to do that.

And the excitement is that there is a link to the USA. The Theater Bonn may be the first facilitator in Europe, along with the Washington Opera in the US (in 1995, Tiefland had its first major US production in 81 years, conducted by Heinz Fricke and directed by Roman Terleckyj), to create a revival of D'Albert's work. The real reason for the 'inconspicuousness' of D'Albert's work may be due to lingering undercurrents in local political agendas and his double edge cut of subject matter and the terrible stories that suggest corruption. Golem, for instance, is based on the emergence of the mythical 'mud-man' of Prague and the transcendent revolt of humanity against submission. The (new) myth of Golem-the-Mud man was created from all sorts of cabbalistic debris and stories that lived amongst the Jewish community in Prague during the late sixteenth century in 'the time' of the 'storyteller' Judah Loew ben Bezalela. The myth contains strong suggestions of a real corruption of the concept 'redeemer' and leaves the terrible threat that God may be also an 'avenger'. This is ambiguous and generates either a pro- or an anti- D'Albert attitude. During the Nazi occupation in the 40's, D'Albert's work disappeared into deep closets and wasn't programmed at all (not even in the camps of the Allies). And this fact makes the initiative of Theatre all the more intriguing. Has the political 'climate' changed?

Andrea Schwalbach's direction of Golem this year may be the last bit of dynamic needed to start a real revival that could last well into the 21st century. Staying on this course and exploiting Golem's location on the periphery in relation to mainstream composers may cut the niche deeply for the Theater Bonn and Schwalbach's work and curriculum, along with her productions of compositions of Peter Eötvös, Giorgio Battistelli and Salvatore Sciarrino and give the Theater Bonn the credit it deserves.

free scores of d'albert eugen's work
you tube link - tiefland (terra baixa) - d'eugen albert (2008-2009)

Argo Spier, Opera Pages
Consulting editor, Joneve McCormick, USA

ARCHIVE 2009

 

NEWSREEL March 2009 - In the BONN CHANCE! EXPERIMENTELLES MUSIKTHEATER on the Beule side of Bonn, the intriguing and ‘experimental’ operatic drama, Des Landes Verwiesen, by Juan Allende-Blin, went into Premiere on March 22, 2009 after about 40 years of absence from the stage scene. This ‘Konzertante mit szenische Aktionen’ version, based on the fates and biographies of publicists, writers and poets (Albert Ehrenstein, Carl Einstein, Erich Mühsam, Federico Garcia and Pablo Neruda), which fell victim to fascism in Germany and Chili in the 20th century, is bound to produce quite an impact on the contemporary opera scene in Nordrhein-Westfalen. Allende-Blin, born in Chile in 1928, and who has been exposed to the silencing of political dissidents whole his life - first in the rise of National-socialism under Adolf Hitler and, in the 70's, under the cruel dictatorship in Chili of Augusto Pinochet - delivers with Des Landes Verwiesen a composition he created in the late 60's a punch that today still has the capacity to expand and deliver new awareness within its own class. In it Allende-Bin not only provides ample feasibility for the re-enactment of historical and materialistic discourse but also, and strangely, provides an almost new Kolakovskian debate concerning Neo Marxism in which capital (money) is used to provide the opportunity for the critique on capitalism. Everybody in the audience was well-dressed and arrived at the Beule Hall of the Theater (located in an old factory complex of warehouses) with expensive German-make cars.

By programming this drama of Allende-Blin now, and bringing it out as a re-take – at a time when all of us brandish the hope that the world financial crisis has reached its height and is ebbing out - the Theater Bonn, and this is a compliment to the management, proves to have the ability to provide up-class intellectual entertainment with the desired demanding contemporary touch expected in theatres today. It ‘knows’ when to engage in ‘hot topic’ dialogue. We are again living in a time when governments of all countries and strides are feverishly building contingency plans for recession. There is that almost demonic desire of institutions to ‘watch’ over the flow of money and the 'urge' to control it and to control the individual's 'wasteful' way of spending it. Norms and benchmarks are being set, promises are being made, and with the use of sophisticated tools such as databases and generative software 'guidelines' are being issued which make an evocative balancing all that more precarious. Are we in times similar to Europe in the pre-War II 1930's? What about this 'control' that's 'required' for 'change' as Angela Merkel suggested? However it may be, the question of the 'have’s' and the 'have nots' in our society, and the possible manipulation of the working and middle classes as 'proletariat units' may well, once again, have become 'hype', as it was in times past before wars broke out.

Allende-Blin’s work has a congruity in it that pleases and sets a high standard. The libretto by Jean Pierre Faye, which consists of poetic verse, historic-descriptive narration and gaga semantics, ‘expands’ the music score to such an extent that the categorization of Des Landes Verwiesen as being ‘experimental’ almost seems surpassed. Instead of 'experimental', Des Landes Verwiesen is better described as ‘a search for the mean in the total condition of the erzats'. In this 'search' use is made of almost everything available in the spectrum of sound and silence. For Allende-Blin, silence has the same function as it has for the poet who is aware of the white space around his poem. And he has form-content unity from that in the drama. Nothing in the 95-minute duration of the action is boring. It is as if Allende-Blin’s music and his silences fill the drama like doodles fill pages. First there is the meaningful verse that is plotted down. Then it is crossed out. Then the lingering silence rings, filling what space is left in the experience … to its brim. In his own words, his music exists out of the variation of sounds that ‘fall’ towards silence. ‘Musiksprache besteht aus differenzierten Klängen, die sich bis zur Stille entfalten’. This makes of Des Landes Verwiesen a most intriguing happening and a very well worthwhile piece of ‘operatic’ entertainment. The superb inventiveness of the mise-en-scene by Florian Lutz fully underlines the musical score and is like another layer of the doodle. And it brings out perfectly what the underlining central idea of Allende-Blin's Des Landes Verwiesen wishes to advocate – ‘we are all in it' and ‘we all have to engage in the discourse’. This point is irrevocably proven in the end when the audience ends up on the stage and the actors and orchestra end up in their seats and on the balcony. Des Landes Verwiesen is opera drama worth travelling 350 km for - as I did. And it might be the first time since it was composed that the full value of Allende-Blin's Des Landes Verwiesen reaps its well-deserved real ovation.

See the Opera's 'Des Landes Verwiesen' page.

Argo Spier, Opera Pages
Consulting editor, Joneve McCormick, USA

 

 

 

Julia Klumparendt
THEATER BONN
Assistentin der Presse- und Öffentlichkeitsarbeit
julia.klumparendt@bonn.de

 

sought after composer

Nicola Luisotti's 'real and authentic search into the past'

[Press - Meeting with Nicola Luisotti, Music Director San Francisco 2009 - 2014
Date: 2007-01-27 - Occasion: Ill Trittico - Puccini
Text: Argo Spier - Wordcount: 1000]

LUISOTTI INTERVIEW

My meeting with Nicola Luisotti on the 27th of January 2008, just before he went onstage to conduct Puccini's Il Trittico in Frankfurt, was a memorable and uplifting experience. His enthusiasm for his work and his respect for the works of the 'Masters' (composers) has such serenity that one cannot but admire him as a person as well. He is open and friendly and so elated with what he is doing that this too spreads contagious energy. But Nicola Luisotti has no 'time on his hands' to waste. He is a very busy and sought after conductor - an 'up-coming young talent' with an impressive curriculum vitae - much appreciated on both sides of the Atlantic. From the 2009/2010 Season until 2014, he will be the Music Director of the San Francisco Opera, USA. And this Season he still has engagements (with his Puccini Cycle) in various Opera Houses across Europe and also in Tokyo, Japan. He will be conducting Truandot in Covent Garden, England, Don Carlo in Geneve, Switzerland and Macbeth in Munich, Germany. He will also be at The Metropolitan in New York again the 29th of February 2008, conducting La Boheme.

Getting to his office on the first floor, entering through the 'Opernpforte' on the right side of the Willy-Brandt Square in Frankfurt, I had to go through the usual formalities. I was met at the stage door by a representative of the Chief Press Officer and chaperoned to Mr. Luisotti's office. He was playing the piano when my host knocked at the door. As an 'opener' I suggested we refer to Manfred Honeck's 'slender and transparent' approach in conducting Berlioz's Les Troyens in December, 2007 in Stuttgart. But as I was asking the question I realised it was an irrelevant one. There is something charismatic about Luisotti that invites communication on a 'different level'. When I told him my question was irrelevant he just laughed and said that every conductor has a different approach and that the issue isn't the 'attitude' of a conductor but how the conductor is able to revive what is past.

"The composer is watching!" he said, and smiled again. He is of the opinion that a conductor has to search hard into the past to be able to revive the authenticity of a work of a composer long since passed away. To him purity and honesty are the ‘real’ issues to consider. And he reminded me that the conductor has "a terrible responsibility towards the composer as well as to the audience". This responsibility is vast in scope. He spoke of the "time consuming aspect of the process" and the "plain hard work" that a conductor has to put in to reach for an authentic re-creation of what the composer had created.

“The conductor must put life into what’s dead,” he said. "It’s a question not only of the composer's music that has to be resurrected in a performance but the composer himself must be made to be 'there’. As if he is in the audience," he explained.

When asked how he would describe his own approach to conducting, he replied without any hesitation: “Real and authentic.” And when I asked him about the relationship between the libretto and the music of an Opera and referred to the age-old dialogue about it - since Gluck's time, 1769 - he gave me a startling metaphor that I will remember for years to come. I had referred to a debate between Pietro Metastatio and Chevalier de Chastellux in which Metastatio had said, "…when music vies with poetry to take the principal role, it achieves the destruction of both." His answer was almost zenith: "Arms can destroy what the mouth says." One can picture the conductor violently conducting, using his arms (or not using them enough). And there's the soprano, tenor or baritone singing, forming the 'beautiful' words the librettist poet has written with her/his lips. And suddenly there's the concept of destruction hanging in the air like a shout or a warning. What comes or doesn't come from the 'mouth' now is all of a sudden a 'physical threatenening' by the 'corpus', the conductor and his 'arms', the conducting itself. Music also now is something alive, a living organism. There's conspiracy and danger in the room. The metaphor states the power of the conductor and it is also a dire reminder to be on guard against 'irresponsible conductors' misusing their power and excellence. The metaphor conveys that the conductor is the one who decides 'what lives' and 'what is killed and destroyed'.

After this turn in our conversation and just before we ended the interview, we started to talk about 'creative energy' and 'that special moment of transcendence' that comes into play in performances. I was now perfectly at ease and taken by his comments, his innovative vision and the patient guidance he assumed in the conversation. For him to refer to this 'moment when it all come together' in a performance, the past, future and present and when magic happens, was exciting.

"If you send energy to the public,” he said, “They send it back to you.” And I perfectly understood what he meant.


The three Operas of Il Trittico, Il Tabarro, a verism with social criticism, Suor Angelica, a tragedy of alienation, and Gianni Schicchi with its burlesque approach to social supremacy, form a unity representing the composer's exploration of the human condition sine qua non were most enjoyable. It was in Suor Angelica that I noticed how the crossover and transcendence came about and manifested. I enjoyed it enormously ... as did the full-house audience. It is quite understandable why the Oper Frankfurt has mostly sold-out performances with all its operas. There is something serious going on during its performances, the past appears in the erzats and starts to live. This, and the superior operatic value that it continues to add to its performances draws the public ... which recognizes well what is going on.

That's why they come. They come for the authentic and the real.

Argo Spier

Eine florentinische Tragödie

ARCHIVE 2007 - There is again a reason this season for Oscar Wilde lovers to flock to the Opera in Frankfurt. In October and November two one act operas by Alexander Zemlinsky (1871-1942), Eine florentinische Tragödie and Der Zwerg, are being preformed in the Staatsoper Frankfurt. Both are based on stories from the pen of Oscar Wilde and the two together offer opportunities for most enjoyable evenings. Their successes last year resulted in a retake of the productions this year, with new casting.

Conducting by Friedemann Layer
Production and stage setting for both opera are by Udo Samel, Ludivine Petit and Alan Barnes.

Rising in rank

ARCHIVE - The German Ministry of Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kunst Baden-Württemberg honoured singers world-wide in Stuttgart in March 2007 with the title of Kammersänger, among them the Bostonian, Mark Munkittrick. Tenor Helmut Holzapfel from South Africa and Wolfgang Schöne from Germany also received the title.

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