A Swan Swims Down the Danube

After the sudden death of Giuseppe Sinopoli in 2001, Ádám Fischer made his debut at Bayreuth as his replacement and conducted Ring Cycles there and was chosen as ‘The conductor of the year 2002’ by the German magazine Opernwelt. He conducted the Ring for a further two years and returned to the Green Hill for Parsifal in 2006 and 2007. In 2007 he was appointed general music director of the Hungarian State Opera. He is therefore a very experienced Wagner conductor but what was most impressive was that this Lohengrin had not been ‘cobbled together’. Fischer and his musical assistants had carefully prepared – not just the orchestra – but the soloists so that together they gave not thoughtful and musically precise performances where every note was given its true value and colour, and also sang every phrase with a clear understanding of the meaning of the words, even if they were not singing in their first language.

This was a semi-staging because of the lack of depth to the performance area and it was a typical updating of the Lohengrin story; I don’t know when László Marton first came up with his concept but for me it drew heavily on the current Neuenfels staging at Bayreuth, though without the rats! In a few explanatory words from the director in the programme we read how ‘ Lohengrin comes from another world … He is a poet enshrouded in a poetic veil, illuminated with a strange light. He is a complete stranger in the strong, militant world of Brabant … (his) appearance causes this militant and military world to change, the dark colours in the music to lighten. Given a grey-uniformed Maoian world at the beginning of the opera, with the entrance of Lohengrin … the hope of a shining and colourful world arises … Elsa contradicts her own wishes because she is unable to make any change, being so strongly determined by Brabantian militantism.’

A stark grey set (designed by Péter Horgas) dominated and melded into either side of the rear of the ‘stage’ with the utilitarian look of a concrete East-European Presidential palace. The ‘Brabantians’ in full military uniform, are seated on bleachers with 10 mirrored panels behind them. There is the metal frame of a throne in the centre that acts both as a seat and as the podium from where King Henry – or ‘the President’ – addresses his people and beseeches God to save his people from ‘the Hungarian hordes’. (Given the murmuring in the hall, this was something that did not go down too well with the locals when they read the translation at this point!)

The darkly veiled figure of Elsa makes a dramatic entrance from the back of the stalls but the arrival of Lohengrin is a rather amateurish affair involving a reassembling of the mirrored panels to give an impression of wings at the point where he sings farewell to the swan, while gazing at his own reflection. On his arrival the men and women on stage lose their drab garments to reveal garishly pastel clothes. (This is a very similar to what happens in Bayreuth where there is a equally sterile laboratory environment plus ‘rats’ who lose their costumes and are then are dressed in bright yellow.) The fight between Lohengrin and Telramund is a too-often seen risible slow-motion event on a light box at the front of the stage. In Act III the mirrored panels surround the large bed for the newly married couple which is also illuminated from below. Having suffered at airport security on my flight out to Budapest, I could only smile wryly at the soberly-suited protection detail complete with sniffer dogs and metal detector which came on stage to check that all was well on the wedding day and the wedding night.

No money had obviously been spared on the elegant costumes designed by Mari Benedek for the principals, especially the women. Ortrud was fearsomely dressed in what looked like a black leather trouser suit when she takes centre-stage in Act II and later when she appears in a gorgeous black feathered gown somewhat mimicking Elsa’s white wedding dress. This ‘white swan’/’black swan’ idea – as well as the costumes – also seemed lifted from the Bayreuth Lohengrin. The ‘swan knight’ himself was rather less the shining hero and more a penniless itinerant musician when he came on stage dressed like a mature student, curly-haired with glasses and a violin case on his shoulder. All that was in the music case howevr was a simple horn for the young Gottfried which he brings back on stage at the end of the opera to become the true ruler of Brabant. Gottfried was played by a very fidgety young boy clearly unsure of what was going on.

I thought it would be difficult to surpass the overall quality of performance that Semyon Bychkov and his cast gave at Covent Garden in 2009 but this Lohengrin was even better musically. There was however the same ‘stand and deliver’ quality about the singing as at Covent Garden although this production had the excuse that when the platform was full there was really no where else to go. Here in Budapest we had a superior Elsa from Camilla Nylund who went from the dreamy fragility of ‘Einsam in trüben Tagen’ to a single minded steeliness for her Act III ‘Ach! Könnt’ ich deiner werth erscheinen!’ while demanding the answers to her questions. She was more than well-matched by the imperious Ortrud of Petra Lang. Her character has little to do in Act I apart from supporting her husband Telramund’s charges of fratricide against Elsa. But in Act II with flaming red hair and chilling smile she is evil personified and there is always a suppressed rage bubbling away even during the passages when she wheedles her way back into Elsa’s ‘good books’. It is in the triumphant paean to her pagan gods in Act II and the hysteria at the end of Act III however when she really comes into her own. Her voice – which has previously plumbed great malevolent contralto-like depths – now reaches the stratospheric heights of a great dramatic soprano. It was a bit kitsch of her to hold out her right hand as she called for ‘Wodan!’ and then to gesture with her left hand for ‘Freia!’ during ‘Entweihte Götter!’ but those experiencing such moments will not forget them quickly. It is unlikely that anyone betters Petra Lang as Ortrud among the current generation of singers, to my mind, and those who see her in this role next month in Bayreuth will hopefully agree with me.

Béla Perencz sang powerfully and often so eloquently that he almost elicited an unusual sympathy for Telramund. Michael Nagy (Wolfram soon at Bayreuth) was a strong Herald, Alfred Muff a slightly venerable King Henry but the revelation amongst the male singers was István Kovácsházi’s Lohengrin which deserves to be much better known. Off stage the tenor looked as nondescript as he did on stage so maybe that is the reason for his relatively limited reputation but here none of that mattered because his singing was exactly what this ‘poet’ needed. His voice took on the colours of a counter-tenor for his initial ‘Nun sei bedankt, mein lieber Schwan!’ and I wondered whether he would get through the challenges of the evening. He did so magnificently revealing along the way a tireless voice with a bright tone and metallic top notes.

Jim Pritchard | 13/06/2011

Bayreuth on the Danube

Six years ago Hungary’s leading conductor Adám Fischer devised the bold new idea of presenting Wagner’s operas in a non-traditional venue, the Palace of the Arts. Less than ideally located in a southern industrial district of Budapest, its concrete and glass modernism is nevertheless graced within by the beautifully built Béla Bartók concert hall. The hall is a state of the art venue with acoustics that one is tempted to describe as perfect. For Wagner, its striking advantages add dimensions unfamiliar to listeners in traditional opera houses. The annual festival, held in June, adapts the stage in either full or partial formats (“mostly staged” might be the best description) to present full operas. The Bayreuth atmosphere is suggested by midafternoon start times and intermissions long enough to allow for serious contemplation and promenades in the nearby Danubian park surroundings. Just as at the Ur-Wagner Festival, brass players are dispatched from the orchestra to announce each new act with a rousing leitmotif. Previous years have featured a complete Ring, along with other works.

This year’s festival introduces Lohengrin in an imaginative production by László Marton. The opera emerges in a recent Central European past. King Heinrich is attended by vassals dressed in what could be either communist or fascist uniforms (no tell insignia), while Telramund and his men sport field greatcoats suitable to any European army in World War II. The ladies are at first dowdily dressed in modest 1940s styles, though Elsa, who makes her entrance from the audience, is somewhat more elegant. When Lohengrin triumphs over Telramund in his defense of Elsa’s virtue, however, these drab styles disappear in favor of warm colored dress shirts beneath. Nothing less than a hero’s victory is what the society needs to break out of its staid conventions and enter something that looks more contemporary in aesthetic sensibility. Indeed, throughout the opera Lohengrin looks very Bohemian in an artsy vest and polka dot ascot. He carries the sword, horn, and ring that he leaves for the restored Gottfried in an instrument case. Telramund’s ruin in the second act is depicted with his reduction to the castaway clothes of the urban down and out, while Ortrud’s dowdy wardrobe is ditched for a leather jacket. After the first act the action unfolds in a carefully scripted post-modernity. Usually it is a success. The swan is suggested by mirrors turned inward. Perhaps we are to feel that life’s decisive journeys, like Lohengrin’s mission of divine mercy, are inherently introspective. Suited private security guards helped by bomb-smelling dogs (German shepherds, of course) screen the Act II wedding guests and scan the Act III wedding nest. We seem meant to believe that no precaution can break the spell of Ortrud’s evil insinuations in dooming the fairy tale romance.

If Bayreuth traditions are replicated in this musical palace on the Danube, leading Wagnerian singers are not at all out of place. Camilla Nylund maintains an exhausting schedule of performances in the early, lighter Wagner soprano roles. Her Elsa was a continuing demonstration of how different these earlier roles are from Isolde and Brünnhilde and how they radiate their own unique beauty when intelligently sung. Petra Lang’s Ortrud exuded a fine mezzo tonality that only at times migrated into the shrill realm that ensnares too many talents. After admirable second act singing, Ortrud’s Act III hysterics descended into an unbalanced series of shrieks topped off by a blood curdling scream when Gottfried returns. Lang’s dramatic abilities, however, reflected the character’s evil with convincing verve and an insightfully overt sexuality that we rarely see in the role. The respectable bass of Alfred Muff brought much dignity to King Heinrich. On only a few occasions did he sound a bit wan. The original cast was to have included the highly regarded tenor Burkhard Fritz in the title role, but he was replaced by a revelation in the young Hungarian tenor Istvan Kovacshazi. Unknown to international audiences, Kovácsházi sang the role with a lightness of tone that the earlier Wagner tenor parts need and deserve. The characterization might have been a bit too delicate at times – who doesn’t want a heroic Lohengrin? – but it neither lacked expressive power nor conflicted with the overall concept. Béla Perencz’s Telramund brought another fine Hungarian singer to well-deserved attention. The impressive combined efforts of the Honvéd Male Choir, the Budapest Studio Choir, and the Hungarian Radio Choir delivered a spectacular choral performance.

Fischer’s superb conducting imbued the score with a laser-like precision. His recent resignation from the artistic directorship of the Hungarian State Opera over political disagreements with Hungary’s new right-wing government has not tarnished his artistic reputation. The audience’s wild cheering belied any notion that this Wagner Festival – perhaps the only regular event of its type outside Germany – will continue to be anything less than successful. It is only a pity that the 4pm start time on a weekday prevented a larger audience from attending. Such a worthy premiere should not have had so many empty seats. Well cast performances of Tristan und Isolde and Parsifal will follow.

Paul du Quenoy | 06/09/2011