Der fliegende Holländer ▪ Wagner ▪ 6 August 2022
Lohengrin ▪ Wagner ▪ 7 August 2022
What a confusion!! Historically banned from performance in Israel due to fervent antisemitism and Bayreuth’s association with Hitler, Wagner’s music inspired as much devotion as it does opprobrium. The two 19th century music schools in Germany were either supporters of Wagner or supporters of Johannes Brahms. The Brahms supporter and powerful critic at the time Hanslick – of whom Beckmesser in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is in part a caricature – corresponded with another detractor, French composer Alkan who described Wagner “not a musician, but a disease”. Debussy regarded Wagner “the old poisoner” and Rossini said Wagner had “wonderful moments and dreadful quarters of an hour” and so it goes on.
In 1871 Wagner moved to Bayreuth and after the town council donated a large plot of land – known as the Green Hill – a theatre was built which was completed in 1875, and thus the annual Bayreuth Festival commenced in 1876. Adolf Hitler was a great admirer of The Bayreuth Festival and indeed Wagner’s music was used at many Nazi events even though some of the Nazi hierarchy resented attending Wagner’s lengthy epics even at Hitler’s insistence. There have been frequent suggestions of anti-Semitic stereotyping in Wagner’s operas such as the character of Alberich and Mime in Der Ring des Nibelungen, Beckmesser in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and Klingsor in Parsifal.
And thus, my confusion. In relation to Wagner’s music, I’m in the “admired” camp but the whole question of antisemitism and other controversies sit badly with me. It had taken a long time, however, to decide to attend the Bayreuther Festspielhaus (Bayreuth Festival Theatre) and see for myself first hand which side of the confusion and controversy I would face. And indeed, I was blown away by the result.
Like it or not, I was in a very small minority of people that were exercised by the history outlined above. By far, the greatest number of people in the audience were interested in the vision, music and sound and not the historical facts behind it. And in a way, I could understand this because the integrity of everything around the performance – the production, the music, the singers and the Festspielhaus itself was on another level to any Wagner that I had seen, heard or experienced so far. This will never be enough for some people but I, for one, am glad of the experience.
I was lucky enough to watch two different operas at Bayreuth, Der fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman) and Lohengrin, both at the Bayreuth Festival. The theatre itself is one of the largest free standing timber structures ever erected, with seats arranged in a single steeply shaped wedge – arena style! It gives every seat an uninterrupted view of the stage and has a 1,925 seat capacity. The orchestra pit recedes under the stage and is completely invisible to the audience. This design helps the balance of volume between singers and orchestra, creating an ideal acoustic for Wagner’s operas despite it being a challenge for even the world’s best conductors. The Festspielhaus has other interesting quirks. The lights at the beginning go down in the most genteel of manners. There are no surtitles. There is no applause to interrupt the music or the opera during a performance. Cushions are a prerequisite for the hard Festspielhaus seats. The exit doors are locked as the performance begins which is quite disconcerting!
Life indeed has moved on in the Bayreuther Festspielhaus. The Ukrainian conductor Oksana Lyniv was in 2021, the first ever female conductor of an opera at Bayreuth conducting Der fliegende Holländer, as she did again in 2022. Yuval Sharon is the first American Israeli director of a show at Bayreuth directing Lohengrin. The barriers are being removed bit by bit, happily it seems without any regress in the quality of the performance.
DER FLIEGENDE HOLLÄNDER
Der fliegende Holländer @Bayreuth 2022
The performance of Der fliegende Holländer was overwhelming. The production was by the Russian director Dmitri Tcherniakov. The sets were attractive, being moving houses and a church in a village setting. The lighting by Carsten Meyer was always on point, but Tcherniakov’s interpretation of The Dutchman’s story was extreme to say the least.
The opera starts with The Dutchman as a boy witnessing the suicide of his prostitute mother in a town where she had been ostracised and he now returns to that town to seek revenge. He meets the sailor Daland, who offers his rebellious daughter, Senta, in marriage. But things quickly go wrong. After the Norwegian sailor’s song in Act 3 “Steuermann, lass die Wacht” and the subsequent “Phantom” song, Senta witnesses the Dutchman shoot into the crowd and kill some of her compatriots. As the Dutchman violently casts the shocked Senta aside, her mother, Mary, enters and aims a shotgun at the Dutchman’s back, killing him instantly. It is Senta, calmly taking the shotgun from Mary, who is clearly at the centre of Tcherniakov’s vision for this opera as the curtain falls on the Dutchman’s corpse.
And indeed, it is the Senta of the Norwegian soprano Elisabeth Teige who steals the show. The German baritone, Thomas J. Mayer’s Der Holländer, whilst a tour de force, never quite matches the level of Teige’s performance of Senta. Bearing in mind that Teige followed the performance of the 2021 outstanding Lithuanian soprano Asmik Grigorian in this production, her thrilling performance was superbly dramatic with a fresh unyielding sound of great stature, reminding me of another Norwegian debut some years ago, of the soprano Lise Davidsen. No higher praise. It was a sensational performance which deservedly brought the house down in applause.
The bass of Georg Zeppenfeld was a plush and intense Daland, and all the other parts – the Erik of Eric Cutler, the Mary of Nadine Weissmann and Der Steuermann of Attilio Glaser – were well sung and added to the overall quality of the night.
The conductor, Oksana Lyniv, in her second year at the Bayreuther Festspielhaus, directed the orchestra with a great pace but with constant attention to detail. Her baton was firmly focussed in ensuring that the acoustic reverberation synchronised the orchestra with the singers exactly. It was a remarkable performance, more so that the hundred or so chorus members produced unyielding sound that crackled with electricity.
Truly outstanding, even though the stage director’s somewhat eccentric interpretation of the story, is a rewrite of the composer’s story 150 years after its composition. Are directors really at liberty to do this, even in Bayreuth?
LOHENGRIN
Lohengrin @Bayreuth 2022
The conductor of Lohengrin, Christian Thielemann, is perhaps currently the foremost Wagner conductor performing at the Bayreuther Festspielhaus. The kaleidoscope of interpretation and the brushstrokes of the special acoustics required from the pit are no stranger to him and they were all on show for the thrilling performance of Lohengrin.
The production by the American Israeli, Yuval Sharon, was somewhat hit and miss. Everybody is coloured or dressed in various shades of narcotic blue with a large electricity transformer station standing centre stage. There are visual signs of electricity without necessarily achieving an electrifying effect! The good people of Brabant wear small or large beetle wings. The colour scheme only changes at the end with Elsa von Brabant appearing in an orange dress and her brother Gottfried, who had been turned into a swan by the evil Ortrud, reappearing as a green goblin.
Ultimately, Sharon’s production might work to some degree, but his liberal interpretation has a rather stale feel about it. The video backdrop in the second act seems rather dated and there was a lack of coordination with the electricity transformer in centre stage. Of course, good Elsa von Brabant is dressed in white and bad Ortrud – sung by the imperious Petra Lang – was dressed in black!
Lohengrin is sung by a full force virile toned German tenor Klaus Florian Vogt who seems to have put any vocal difficulties behind him, although he is somewhat cautious in his upper register. Elsa von Brabant was the fresh sounding and sensual Finnish soprano Camilla Nylund, with the bass Georg Zeppenfeld singing intellectually as a sophisticated Heinrich der Vogler. All the rest of the cast – Friedrich von Telramund of Martin Gantner and Der Heerrufer des Königs of Derek Welton were outstanding in their individual roles.
Did I like the handcuffed ladies dropping flower petals in Act 2 for the wedding scene? Not at all, but this low point in the opera could not take away the musicality that Thielemann produced with a superb substantial chorus providing incredible intensity to the textural detail demanded by the conductor.
It was Thielemann’s show. He retains his magnetic grip on the performance, the music, the orchestra, the chorus, and the audience. Long may this continue!
I have witnessed two brilliant Wagner performances and have been overwhelmed as a result. The Bayreuther Festspielhaus has moved on but, of course, it is so important to never forget history and whilst enjoying the present, to pay homage to the past.
David Buchler
