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Bayerische Staatsoper, Munchen, Germany 2009 - 2010

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NEWSREEL - July/August 2009 - On June 27th the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munchen, Germany had the opening of its Summer 2009 Festspiele - a festival that recurs yearly. With the programming of a 'full Verdi' sequence of six operas by Guiseppe Verdi, Aida, Macbeth, Nabucco, Falstaff, Otello and Luisa Miller, it is making a solid claim for position among the four main Opera Houses in the rectangle of Opera Houses in this Southern part of Germany - the Bayerische Staatsoper (Bayeren, Germany), the Opera Houses in Salzburg and Bregenz (Austria) and in the Bareuth Opera House of Wagner (also in Bayeren, Germany). Each of these Opera Houses has its own policy and exhibits individual competitive emphasis in programming strategies. Yet a general and powerful symbiotic co-sharing of artistic energy exists between them. And this is very exhilarating for the opera lover. He enters an opera utopia when he enters this part of the Opera World - a very real Mecca. This year's Festspiele of the Bayerische Staatsoper, with the production of six of Verdi's operas in such a very short span of time - a feat in itself that requires utmost concentration, a high degree of serious professionalism and calls for admiration - is a magnificent opportunity for the roaming opera lover and traveller to get 'into the full Verdi' and experience the massive totality of Guiseppe Verdi's work.

Not surprisingly, most of the productions were sold out well in advance and the rest of the seats are high currency and going fast. It is the same at the Opera House in Bayreuth, a mere two hours drive from Munchen. There the sole Wagnarian repertoire is to be accessed. The annual Bayreuth Festival opened under new management this year, the 25th of July, with composer Richard Wagner's great-granddaughters in charge after their father ran the show for more than 50 years. Half-sisters Katharina Wagner, 31, and Eva Wagner-Pasquier, 64, welcomed luminaries such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who seems to be a regular pilgrim to Bayreuth's 'Opera House on the Green Hill', as the Wagner Opera in Bayreuth is called by Wagner cultists and insiders. Since its erection it has drawn full seating and has had waiting lists for bookings years in advance (as the rumour goes). Whether true or not, this talk has added to the cult-like urban myth that has surrounded the Opera and the Wagner dynasty from the start.

The Bregenz and Salzburg Opera Houses, with their lavish, spectacular, and expensive stage designs, contribute as well to the excitement. The Festspiele of Bregenz at the Bodensee (Austrian part) this year also programmed Guiseppe Verdi's Aida and had an Atlantis type of submerged stage that floats in and on the water, rising and sinking into the lit wet night air as the opera acts followed one another, drawing the focus more to externality (stage design) and thrill of spectacle than seeking balance between the various art forms in opera, speech and poetic language, song and dance, drama, turbulence and transcendence. It drew full seating. And stage director Graham Vick offered much food for thought as he stealthily attacked mythology, terror, anxiety and religious issues, reducing both fact and fiction to rubble. From there, the symbolic colossal is a broken up body wasted in water and on the stage.

The statement that the programming of the Bayerische Staatsoper makes this year is that it hasn't any room for ambiguity, ado or distraction. It shows its determination to create a honest design in which there is sufficient middle distance for the opera goer not to feel threatened, bullied or overpowered into having to agree to be part of the scene as might be argued is the case of Bregenz and on the Green Hill. The Wagner Dynasty's myth however, is changing now with cracks and clarity appearing in its illusive structure and administration. Rumours of a personel dispute just before the opening of the Bayreuth Festival did much harm (but the new management was quick to react to quell them). The Bayerische Staatsoper delivers opera 'straight' and in 'double portion' with no room for additional information or tarnished perspectives. There's no need for rumour. Nor gossip. And interestingly enough, this forces an interesting debate into the open in the German Southern Rectangle - the question as to whether it was the objective of the Bregenz and Bareuth Festspiele to present music and theatrical poetic language and drama in equal emphasis in the first place. There is that terrible danger of hype clouding programming and strategies and the Bayerische Staatsoper avoids this. It merely goes its own route. It has opted for solid open and honest archiving for its 2009 Festspielen program, which the serious opera lover appreciates and which will carry its fame. But there will always be the polemic as to the role and function of spectacle in opera, and the limits of it. And it is not bad that this polemic goes on. Whether Aida is performed in acrid Egypt with the Pyramids as decor and hints of mummies and death motives pervading the background, or in an over-the-top stage design in the water, a sunken Atlantis with death symbolised by an abundance of water from below or above ... it doesn't really matter. Both performances make sense. Yet the debate is there. Opera is a Gezamtheit of the arts and today exhilaration may also have reached the qualification of an art form or genre. Who knows? - referring to the words of Katharina Wagner, of the Bareuth Opera at a news conference:

'...it is a matter of the heart for me to bring opera to the people.'

And to the remark of Nicola Luisotti, Music Director San Francisco 2009 - 2014, and conductor of the opera Macbeth at the Bayerische Festspiele,

'... there has to be that moment of transcendence in the opera where audience and music merge'

[Press - Interview with Argo Spier - Date: 2007-01-27, Occasion: Ill Trittico - Puccini, Frankfurt.]

In Salzburg the Summer 2009 festivities opened with a rarity that created a different kind of expectation and dialogue and suggested that there is a new dynamic return to the triviality of early- Christian martyrdom in contemporary opera - George Händle's Oratorio, Theodora. It is a very fresh wind that breezes in from that side of the Austrian/German Alps and predictions are that Oratorio will in the near future win back its rightful place on the opera scene. This is already happening in France. (See newsreel Opéra National de Lorraine, Nancy, France). And there is the new technology that broadens scopes. The Festival in Salzburg was opened with a ceremony at the Felsenreitschule, which was broadcasted live on ORF2 and 3sat. The Adagio from Joseph Haydn’s Symphony in D-Minor Hob. I:26 Lamentatione was performed. This too is within reach of all Oper Houses - live broadcasts and for consecutive viewing and listening in diverse media.

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

View the Bayerische Staatsoper's page.

* USA bits - BAYREUTH, Germany – The annual Bayreuth opera festival opened under new management on Saturday, with composer Richard Wagner's great-granddaughters in charge for the first time after their father ran the show for more than 50 years. Half-sisters Katharina Wagner, 31, and Eva Wagner-Pasquier, 64, welcomed luminaries such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel — a regular pilgrim to Bayreuth — and Bavarian Governor Horst Seehofer to the Festspielhaus.The new directors are offering innovations such as a trimmed-down version of "The Flying Dutchman" for children but, with performers booked years ahead, the main program at this year's 98th edition of the festival focuses on familiar fare.This year's opening performance was "Tristan and Isolde," staged by Christoph Marthaler, with Robert Dean Smith as Tristan and Irene Theorin as Isolde. On Aug. 9, a "Tristan" performance will be broadcast live on the Internet and also screened live in a central Bayreuth square — moves championed by Katharina Wagner. The new team's innovations "constitute promising beginnings of reform, even if the new directors' artistic signature will only be visible in the long term," Culture Minister Bernd Neumann said this week. - Flash from BRIGITTE CASPARY, Associated Press Writer Brigitte Caspary, Associated Press Writer – Sat Jul 25, 12:17 pm ET. * USA bits - SALBURG FESTIVAL, Austria - The 2009 Salzburg Festival was opened with a ceremony at the Felsenreitschule on Saturday, July 25, at 11:00 am. The ceremony was broadcast live on ORF2 and 3sat. After a welcome from Festival President Dr. Helga Rabl-Stadler, the Adagio from Joseph Haydn’s Symphony in D-Minor Hob. I:26 Lamentatione, played by the Mozarteum Orchestra under its Chief Conductor Ivor Bolton, and an address by Landeshauptfrau Mag. Gabi Burgstaller, the Federal Minister for Education, Arts and Culture, Dr. Claudia Schmied, spoke. After the chorus “He saw the lovely youth” from George Frideric Handel’s oratorio Theodora, performed by the Salzburg Bach Chorus, the Federal President of Austria, Dr. Heinz Fischer, opened the Festival. This was followed by the keynote address delivered by Daniel Kehlmann. The ceremony ended with a composition for three percussionists by Iannis Xenakis entitled Okho, performed by Martin Grubinger, Rainer Furthner and Leonhard Schmidinger. - From the Salzburg Festival page.

 

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

Rising in rank

ARCHIVE - The German Ministry of Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kunst Baden-Württemberg honoured singers world-wide in Stuttgart 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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