Es wurde nun endlich auch einmal Zeit, dass während der Bayreuther Festspiele eine Oper des Sohnes von Richard Wagner, Siegfried Wagner, aufgeführt wurde, zumal wir in diesem Jahre auch seinen 150. Geburtstag feiern. Zum Thema der drei runden Wagner-Geburtsrage in diesem Jahr habe ich auch einen längeren Artikel aus Anlass eines Symposiums des Berliner Richard Wagner Verbandes verfasst.

Seit Jahren gibt es die Internationale Siegfried Wagner Gesellschaft unter der Leitung von Prof. Dr. Peter P. Pachl, auch Generaldirektor des pianopianissimo-musiktheaters. Er war die „treibende Kraft“ hinter den zwei Aufführungen von Siegfried Wagners „An Allem ist Hütchen schuld!“ in Bayreuth während dieser Festspiele. Pachl, der bereits sieben Siegfried Wagner Opern inszeniert hat und bei weiteren sieben als Dramaturg tätig war, führte selbst Regie in den Bühnenbildern von Robert Pflanz, mit den Kostümen des Modedesigners Christian Bruns und Filmeinlagen von Sebastian Rausch, der darüber bisweilen etwas in Rausch geraten zu sein schien, aber dazu gleich. Dramaturgische Assistenz gab der 3D-Künstler Achim Bahr, der auch (Ko-)Kurator der alljährlichen Siegfried Wagner Ausstellungen in Bayreuth ist. Der englische Dirigent David Robert Coleman hatte die musikalische Leitung des Karlsbader Symphonie Orchesters und des Philharmonischen Chores Nürnberg. Dass die Aufführungen im herrlich renovierten barocken Markgräflichen Opernhaus Bayreuth stattfanden, mit seinem italienischen spätbarocken Innen-Dekor, gab dem Ganzen noch eine besondere Note.

Siegfried Wagner kam mit „An Allem ist Hütchen Schuld“ 1917 heraus, und es ist eine der drei Opern, die von seinen 17 Bühnenwerken auf Märchenstoffe zurückgreifen. Das Stück besteht aus drei Akten. 1. Akt: Frieder und die Haus Magd Katherlies’chen lieben sich und wollen heiraten. Die Mutter Frieders will aber, dass ihr Sohn die reiche, aber hässliche Trude heiratet. Es kommt zu Spannungen zwischen den beiden Frauen mit dem Ergebnis, dass eine Flucht Frieders mit Katherlies’chen vereitelt und beiden verboten wird, künftig gemeinsame Wege zu gehen. 2. Akt: Dieser ist ein Potpourri verschiedener Märchen und handelt von unabhängigen Episoden beider Liebenden auf deren Basis. So raten Sonne, Mond und Stern beiden, wie es weiter geht, der Teufel kommt ins Spiel, Prüfungen müssen ähnlich wie bei Pamina und Tamino in der „Zauberflöte“ absolviert werden, um Antworten auf drei erlösende Fragen von Trude zu erlangen. Dabei erkennen die beiden sich zweimal nicht. Sie können aber am Ende mit allerhand Zauberei die Fragen lösen. 3. Akt: Wieder heimgekehrt, findet Frieder die Antworten nicht mehr und befürchtet, nun doch die „schieche“ Trude heiraten zu müssen. Doch Katherlies’chen kann sie unter Hergabe eines goldenen Sternenkleides überlisten, eine Nacht bei Frieder zu weilen. Trude versucht daraufhin beide zu verhexen, wogegen Katherlies’chen aber immun ist. Bei Frieder gelingt es ihr jedoch. Mit Frieders Flöte („Zauberflöte“!) vertreibt Katherlies’chen Trude und gibt mit einer Salbe Frieder das Augenlicht zurück. Es wird ein großes Fest angesetzt, wobei den Nachbarn egal ist, wer heiratet, Hauptsache ein Fest! Alle geraten sich in die Haare, bis eine Märchenfrau verrät, dass an dem ganzen Wirrwarr der Kobold Hütchen schuld sei, der sich aber enttarnen lasse. Das gelingt auch, aber er flüchtet und rächt sich, indem er das Haus zum Einsturz bringt, wobei alle bis auf Frieder und Katherlies’chen umkommen. Mit der Salbe erweckt Katherlies’chen die Toten zum Leben und alle schwören sich, künftig gut zu sein…

Das Vorspiel beginnt mit lyrischer Linienführung und spätromantischen Klangfarben, dass man meint, man sei musikalisch ins 19. Jahrhundert versetzt. Im Prinzip ist diese herrscht diese Klangästhetik auch den ganzen Abend über vor, wenn auch hier und da Szenen eher musikalisch kommentiert werden und schnellere Tempi Platz greifen. Fast nie aber steht die Musik im Vordergrund sondern verbindet sich eng mit dem Geschehen auf der Bühne, nicht zuletzt wohl auch unter dem Einfluss von Siegfrieds Vater. David Coleman kann hier überzeugend das Beste aus Siegfried Wagners Musik vermitteln.

Szenisch beginnt es erst einmal recht gewöhnungsbedürftig, um es dezent auszudrücken. Katherlies’chen als (natürlich in der Rangordnung unten stehende) Magd des Hauses wird verachtet, nach einem vermeintlichen Diebstahl malträtiert und gar mit Füßen getreten. Den Höhepunkt in diesem Zusammenhang bildet aber ein regelrechtes „Gang Banging“, denn etwa sechs Männer nehmen sich einer nach dem anderen wie selbstverständlich das Recht heraus, die wehrlos am Boden liegende zu vergewaltigen. Musste das sein, um die gesellschaftliche Unterlegenheit der verhassten Geliebten Frieders zu verdeutlichen?! Bei „Cenerentola“ fanden die Verantwortlichen da verträglichere Wege…

Gleich von Beginn an sehen wir den Kobold Hütchen, ein schlanker fescher Junge (Niklas Mix) den die Agierenden natürlich nicht wahrnehmen können. Er spielt unglaublich behänd und wirbelt nur so über die Bühne. Was mich aber ganz besonders gestört hat, auch weil es so unnötig war: Über der ohnehin weit vorn liegenden und damit von überall bestens einsehbaren Spielfläche schwebt eine riesige Leinwand, auf der am laufenden Band filmische spots oder die Bilder der Kamera zu sehen sind, für die zwei Kameraleute ständig über die Bühne wuseln müssen. Das ist sehr störend und nicht zuletzt deshalb entbehrlich, weil das auf der Bühne gezeigte Geschehen ohnehin so intensiv und auch von der Personenregie her so gut gemacht ist, dass es weder der Kameras noch des Overhead-Projektors bedarf. Ja, es nahm dem Märchen, das es ja nun mal ist, viel von seinem Charme. Mit dem geschäftigen Treiben in einer Käsefabrik wurde die Handlung ohnehin etwas mehr in die Realität verfrachtet.

Rechts am Bühnenrand stehen Bilder von Schiller und Goethe wie Referenzen der großen Literatur, wohl auch um gewisse Banalitäten etwas auszugleichen. Es gab aber viele schöne und auch fantasiereiche Momente, so die Aufstellung und Kostümierung von Stern, Mond und Sonne zu Beginn des 2. Akts oder die auch menschlich einnehmenden Szenen mit dem Königssohn. Pachl legte in seiner Bebilderung insbesondere der vielen Märchenszenen des 2. Akts viel Fantasie an den Tag. Hier bietet sich auch ein enormes Betätigungsfeld für jeden Opernregisseur.

Die Engländerin Rebecca Broberg sang das Katherlies’chen mit klangvollem Sopran und hoher darstellerischer Intensität bei guter Diktion sowie mit gutem Volumen. Sie hat bereits einige Erfahrung mit Siegfried Wagner Opern gesammelt und auch schon eine beachtliche Diskografie. Hans-Georg Priese gab einen stimmstarken und viril auftretenden Frieder. Während seiner Zeit in Meiningen wechselte er vom Bariton- in das Tenorfach. Das hört man ihm heute mit der schönen baritonalen Unterlegung immer noch an. Er hat auch schon den Parsifal in Saarbrücken gesungen, und ich bin überzeugt, dass da bei Wagner noch mehr drin ist. Die estnische Mezzosopranistin Maarja Purga überzeugte stimmlich wie darstellerisch als Trude mit schönen Klangfarben. Sie sang auch die Märchenfrau. Es wundert mich nicht, dass sie noch in diesem Jahr in Berlin als Fricka debutieren wird. Alessandra Di Giorgio sang eine resolute Mutter des Frieder, die in jeder Situation merken ließ, wie ernst es ihr mit der Verheiratung des Sohnes an die vermögende Trude ist. Sie war auch des Teufels Ellermutter und die Sonne. Die Rumänin Silvia Mica interpretierte das Hexenweibchen mit sehr guter Höhe. Daniel Arnaldos ließ als Dorfrichter einen guten Bariton hören. Genannt werden muss noch der Teufel von Axel Wolloscheck, der vokal klangvoll aus der mythischen Figur eine komödiantische Charakterstudie machte. Er war auch der Mond und ein Wirt. Die Stimme von Ulf Dirk Mädler als Tod war etwas harsch mit wenig Klang und eher deklamatorisch. Auch seien Szene überzeugte nicht recht. All die weiteren vielen Nebenrollen waren gut besetzt und hatten offenbar Spaß an der Show. Am Ende trat auch noch Peter P. Pachl als Jacob Grimm auf…

Man müsste diese facettenreiche und bunte Oper Siegfried Wagners mindestens zwei- bis dreimal sehen, um wirklich alles gebührend mitzubekommen. Aber auch so wurde klar, dass sie durchaus öfter auf den Spielplänen zumindest mittlerer Häuser stehen sollte.

Klaus Billand | 20.08.2019

Siegfried Wagner was born in 1869 to Richard Wagner and his wife-to-be Cosima, daughter of Franz Liszt, so his musical heritage was solid. It was also his grandfather who gave him some early instructions in harmony. Later he studied with Engelbert Humperdinck, Richard Wagner’s assistant, but his main interest at the time was architecture, which he studied in Berlin and Karlsruhe. In the early 1890s he was inspired by a friend to devote himself more wholeheartedly to music and started composing, and 1894 he made his conducting debut in Bayreuth, where he later became associate conductor. From 1908 until his death in 1930 he was Artistic Director of the Bayreuth Festival, after his mother had withdrawn. As a composer he was quite assiduous – among his compositions are a violin concerto and a symphony – but very little is played nowadays. Most of his many operas – there are eighteen listed, some of them never completed – were performed during his lifetime, but none has remained on the standard repertoire. Several of them are based on fairy-tales or legends, and An Allem ist Hütchen Schuld! (Little-Hat is to blame for everything!) is in that category. Wagner, who wrote his own librettos, has here drawn on episodes from around twenty fairy-tales by the Brothers Grimm and also one by Hans Christian Andersen.

As we all know, fairy-tales are not necessarily stories for children. There are light episodes but also a lot of darkness with witches, devils, violence and death. To give prospective buyers a fair picture of the complicated tidings, I take the liberty of making a compact version of the synopsis from the booklet. It is written by the leading authority on Siegfried Wagner, Peter P. Pachl, who also plays the role of Jacob Grimm on this recording:

“Frieder and Katherlies’chen (Little Katherlies) are in love and want to get married, but Katherlies’chen is poor and Frieder’s mother wants him to marry the rich Trude. Frieder is not interested and Katherlies’chen tells Trude how ugly she is. A little Witch tells Trude how she can enchant Frieder – and that sets the ball rolling. There is hostility between the rivalling women, and the village judge decides that Frieder and Katherlies’chen must go their separate ways, hating each other. They are chased out of the village. Independently of each other, Frieder and Katherlies’chen ask the Sun, Moon and Stars for advice, and are referred to Death and the Devil. Then follows a series of tidings with witchcraft and magic and tumultuous scenes of various kinds. It all ends when at the chaotic villager’ gathering it is revealed that everything is the fault of the invisible goblin Little-Hat, who can be made visible with garlic and pimpernel and is finally caught. Katherlies’chen accuses him of his misdeeds but still feels sympathy for the little fellow and lets him escape. The angry neighbours scorn Katherlies’chen for her inappropriate mercy. Little-Hat gets his revenge when he causes the house to collapse and everybody is buried in the ruins except for Frieder and Katherlies’chen. The fairy tale world once again takes over. Death and the Devil approach, but Frieder threatens to give them a thrashing and chases them away. Katherlies’chen revives those lying under the ruins with her magic salve. Everyone promises to be good from now on.”

As can be seen from the above, all the various ingredients from the fairy-tale world are to be found in this opera. Readers with a special interest in fairy-tales can find a list of tales from which Wagner culled elements for his libretto here.

From the outset Siegfried Wagner reveals in the long overture, that he is his father’s son – his harmonic language and his expert instrumentation – and knowing that Humperdinck was his teacher, I wasn’t surprised to find that his melodies very often have a distinct German folk song tinge. Hänsel und Gretel is without doubt the most obvious model for a fairy-tale opera, even though Humperdinck’s masterpiece is the more child-friendly – in spite of the nasty witch. Siegfried Wagner’s overture is a fine piece of music, more an agreeable, idyllic symphonic suite than a strict opera prelude. It changes character now and then, and some jarring dissonances supposedly tell us that there will be complications coming up. It is certainly a piece I would like to hear again, and in a symphony concert it could be an appetising opening number.

What is less appetising are the heavy bumps and steps during the whole overture. I suppose that the curtain was open from the beginning and that there was action of some kind, maybe a crowd of people moving back and forth, but when the play begins, only the two main characters, Frieder and Katherlies’chen, are heard and throughout the performance there are various, sometimes very disturbing, noises.

Siegfried Wagner’s eminent orchestral writing is frequently on display elsewhere too. Besides the interlude between scenes 7 and 8 in the second act, there are also seamless orchestral changeovers between the scenes, sometimes quite extensive, as between scenes 4 and 5 in Act 2. There are no arias or other formal numbers but dialogues, several times between Frieder and Katherlies’chen – the one in Act 3 (CD 3 tr. 3) takes more than twelve minutes. Katherlies’chen has also a long monologue in the first act, Geträumt hat mir von Rosmarin! (CD 1 tr. 8), where she plans her suicide and writes her testament. It is beautiful and touching, and possibly the best scene in the opera. Otherwise, there are several scenes with a lot of persons involved, and they tend to be quite noisy. There is also a lot of shouting and it is not easy to tell the various characters from each other without a libretto. There should be a libretto with English translation (see header), but I wasn’t able to download it, which was a pity.

The cast contains around forty roles, many of them small, and with a couple of exceptions most of the singers have to take on two or more roles. I’m afraid the general standard of singing is quite undistinguished. Only one of the soloists lives up to expectations, and that, fortunately, is Rebecca Broberg in the crucial role of Katherlies’chen. She has a brilliant lirico spinto voice and she copes admirably with the often high tessitura. Hans-Georg Priese, in the role of Frieder, has a strong dramatic tenor, but his tone lacks sonority and sometimes he has to resort to shouting. On the credit side is his expressivity, which to some extent compensates for his rough delivery. Maarja Purga, who sings Trude, Katherlies’chen’s rival, has a dramatic though slightly matronly mezzo-soprano, and her achievement is passable.

The booklet contains, besides the synopsis quoted above, several interesting and valuable articles and analyses that enhance the understanding of the work.

I’m afraid I can’t be more positive than this, but I admire the initiative to revive this work, which certainly doesn’t lack merits.

Göran Forsling | September 2022

I note that when my colleague Göran Forsling reviewed this set (from a press preview) recently, he was unable to access the German libretto and English translation from the Naxos website where it was supposedly available. I decided then to postpone my investigation of the set until the text and translation did appear, since the highly complex nature of Siegfried Wagner’s lyrics drawing on multiple sources from what may be as many as eighty (yes, eighty!) Grimm fairy tales seemed to fully indicate that a full understanding of the dramatic situation and indeed of individual sentences would be highly desirable if not a matter of absolute necessity. Some four weeks later the link for the libretto as shown on the box was still not functional, but an e-mail enquiry to Naxos brought a response within minutes and a link to both text and translation as supplied by the Siegfried Wagner Society; one might presume therefore that the whole 68-page document is now available for download to all purchasers, although that is not altogether clear since the translation by Rebecca Broberg provided to me by Naxos makes reference to an ‘additional’ English translation by Susan Baxter where the indicated link remains unavailable.

In fact the recording in question has already in some measure been anticipated by an earlier DVD release of the same production (including many of the same cast) taken from a semi-staged performance in Bochum conducted by Lionel Friend which has been available for some five years now. That video recording did furnish English subtitles as well as those in German, but alas no other languages. This new audio recording, taken from a revival three years later at the Margrave Theatre in Bayreuth itself, appears now to enshrine a new critical edition of the score; but perhaps I may take the opportunity to welcome back the Marco Polo label, the senior and more expensive arm of Naxos which I assumed had been more or less wound up a decade or more ago, with older recordings progressively transferred to the budget label or available only online via streaming services. In fact there have been a couple of DVD releases of Siegfried Wagner operas also on Marco Polo, but this appears to be the first issue for some time on the CD branch of the label. And in the old days, mind you, full-price Marco Polo issues would have automatically furnished purchasers with the complete text and translation, in a separate booklet if necessary.

Marco Polo had an enviable record in the field of Siegfried Wagner operas, having over the years issued a number of CD sets that have enshrined première recordings of various pieces which would have remained unchallenged in the catalogues for many years. Many of those earlier recordings owed their inspiration to Volker Horn, who himself appeared in many of them; but all have now vanished from the current listings. Clearly now a new generation has taken over, to supplement occasional releases from CPO who have also in the last decade joined in the exploration of the Siegfried canon specialising in his orchestral scores. But while over the years eleven complete operas (out of sixteen or so) have been issued on CD by either Marco Polo or CPO as well as three DVDs, apart from downloads only the DVDs now remain available. Clearly CD sets of Siegfried Wagner have a limited shelf-life; those who wish to purchase are advised to do so quickly.

And (quite apart from the matter of the new edition of the score) given some of the stills in the booklet, it might be counted something of a relief to be freed from the staging or semi-staging inflicted on the opera in its DVD version. The convoluted nature of the plot, with its madcap helter-skelter of differing source materials, is better served by a comprehensive printed libretto than by any would-be clever visual interpretations. The opening stage direction says it all: Katherlies’chen pushes a big cheese towards the garden and wants to roll it down the hill. “You’re talking to the cheese?” asks her alarmed would-be husband. “Have you lost your mind?”. Just as you do in German fairy stories (at least in the less grim ones). No wonder Siegfried Wagner clearly enjoys himself so much; the music bubbles over with a sense of fun. There is no point however in making any attempt to summarise a plot which leaps with a fine sense of inconsequence from one fairy-tale motif to another without any more attempt at dramatic coherence than a Monty Python confection; those who would like a brief synopsis are referred to Göran Forsling’s review. The highest moment of absurdity comes during the final scene, when suddenly Jacob Grimm pops up to deliver a (spoken) attack on Siegfried Wagner’s misuse of his original material (“you steal from me right and left”) – only to be capped by another actor impersonating the composer himself and defending his actions (“I help you get on your feet, and you start to scream”), an argument which ends with a fist fight.

Unfortunately, in this recording, the sense of riotous fun is all too apparent in the sheer amount of noise coming from the stage. Even during the opening overture (nearly a quarter of an hour) we are subjected to loud sounds like the tearing of newspaper which are not only totally meaningless in the context of an audio recording but unnecessary; surely it should have been possible to turn down the microphones onstage during the purely orchestral passages (and the same applies during later the substantial interludes between scenes). These unexplained onstage noises become somewhat less obtrusive later on, but even so the sounds like clinking coins during the scene with the King’s Son (CD 2, track 5) are particularly annoying because they interfere with the flow of the music. Fortunately, on the other hand, there are also moments of repose amidst all the jollity, beginning with the delousing of the Devil’s hair by his grandmother (CD 2, track 6); and darker passages such as the passage through the realm of Death (CD 2, track 3).

Other highlights in the score are often purely orchestral, with the lengthy interlude preceding the meeting of the lovers (CD 2, track 9) which is worthy of Siegfried’s father in its deployment of the instrumental forces of a large romantic body of players; and the orchestral playing under David Robert Coleman is one of the major highlights of this recording. Once upon a time, in live recordings of Siegfried Wagner from German opera houses, the orchestral writing was frequently pushed into the background by microphone placing designed to focus on the solo singers; here the balance between voices and instruments is much better managed, and the playing is of correspondingly higher quality. The singers too seem to benefit from the recorded sound, and there are none of the superannuated German provincial house comprimarios who sometimes produced such unpleasant results in earlier versions of these operas. Here the cast, assembled from international sources, are predominantly young and produce excellent and well-focused results. The two leading roles are taken by Hans-Georg Priese, who manages his transitions from lyric into heldentenor territory with aplomb and without any sense of strain; and Rebecca Broberg as his not-quite-such-a-simpleton beloved, although her gentle aria as she manifests as a star-child (don’t ask!) is not altogether free from a sense of strain and suffers yet again from clinkings of stage machinery which sound annoyingly as if one’s CD player is developing a fault (CD 3, track 4). Among the remaining large cast, many heard in multiple roles, Joa Helgesson is exceptionally impressive as the King’s son although he is short-changed by his microphone amplification when he turns up in Act Three as Siegfried Wagner himself, comprehensively drowned out by the bellowing Peter P Pracht as Jacob Grimm. On the other hand Pracht is largely responsible from the organisation and promotion of this issue, so is probably entitled to grant himself a degree of aggrandisement.

The opera is very long for its content (another composer without Wagnerian bloodlines could probably have got through the material in half the time) but nonetheless it is pleasing that the temptation to inflict cuts on the music has been resisted. The singers certainly don’t seem to show any signs of tiredness as the evening wears on, although the girls’ vocal line in their wedding chorus (CD 3, track 4) is suspiciously flat even if it is perhaps intended to convey a sense of character. But then the reappearance of the innocent Katherlies’chen to her beloved Frieder which follows brings a moment of resplendent glory, complete with rapturous violin solo, which is worthy of Richard Strauss, brings a sense of rich fulfilment to the score in its closing section.

The booklet brings essays by conductor David Robert Coleman, Peter P Pacht as producer and Achim Bahr who draws attention to potentially darker undertones in the text constructed by Siegfried Wagner. He lays emphasis on the identification of the mischievous goblin Hütchen whose activities provoke most of the action of the plot with his appearance in an earlier Siegfried Wagner opera Der Kobold where he is described as one of a number of murdered (that is, aborted) children. Deep material indeed, especially given the composer’s own complex psychological motivations. I am not altogether sure that such close investigation really repays dividends here. The music of the opera certainly contains no evidence of sinister or tragic underpinnings, and it is perhaps best to regard this as one of the most genuinely light-hearted and enjoyable of the younger Wagner’s operas, the nearest approach of his career to the style of his teacher Humperdinck. Despite my complains about the noises deriving from live performance, we are unlikely to get a better recording any time soon. And, given the short shelf life of audio CDs of Siegfried Wagner, it is certainly worth while snapping these ones up while they remain available.

Paul Corfield Godfrey | November 2022