Fall 2006 - The Boston Wagner Society

Wagneriana
Ei was, zu alt! Hier gilt’s die Kunst:
Wer sie versteht, der werb’ um mich!
–Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Fall 2006
Volume 3, Number 5
From the Editor
What a performance that
was! On September 10,
Soprano Joanna Porackova
regaled her appreciative
audience with exquisite
singing and dramatic
expression that conveyed the
various plights of four
heroines of German opera:
Leonore, Isolde, Elektra, and
Brünnhilde. With her regal
posture and voluminous
voice, Porackova commanded the attention of her
audience, filling the large hall at Pianist Jeffrey Brody and Soprano Joanna
Porackova receiving applause, with Richard
St. Paul’s Church in Brookline
Sizensky, who turned pages, at the piano
with sounds that carried all the way out to the street. Pianist
Jeffrey Brody accompanied her smoothly and expertly, with a good command of this difficult music. At
the end of the performance, the audience applauded on its feet.
As many of you know, the Tristan und Isolde concert had to be canceled due to Heldentenor George
Gray’s accident. Porackova, who was to sing Isolde in that concert, graciously agreed to perform a solo
recital instead, for which we are very grateful. The turnout was quite decent, with 10 members of the
BWS in attendance. One person in the audience had traveled from New York that evening just to listen
to Joanna Porackova.
The concert excerpts were interspersed with introductory comments by William Fregosi, technical
coordinator for Theater Arts at MIT. For those of you who were unable to attend, these comments will be
published as a series in Wagneriana, starting with this issue.
Please note that Wagneriana will now be published as a quarterly, rather than as a bimonthly.
Soprano Joanna Porackova
–Dalia Geffen
1
Beethoven through Wagner’s Eyes
This is the first in a series of articles given as a talk at a concert by Johanna Porackova and Jeffrey Brody on September 10, 2006.
Recently there was given the overture to Beethoven’s opera “Fidelio,” and all impartial
musicians and music lovers were in perfect agreement that never has anything so incoherent, shrill and ear-splitting been produced in music. The most piercing dissonances
clash in a really atrocious harmony, and a few puny ideas only increase the disagreeable
and deafening effect.
The speaker is the highly respected author and playwright August
von Kotzebue, writing in “Der Freimutige” in September 1806, as
quoted in Nicolas Slominsky’s Lexicon of Musical Invective: Critical Assaults on Composers Since Beethoven’s Time. I think Kotzebue’s comment
is highly instructive.
To us, Beethoven is a given, an immortal, an unquestioned force in
musical history. For many during his lifetime that was true, but by no
means for all. As his career proceeded into its final years, many of his
compositions were greeted with confusion, lack of comprehension,
and rejection. In the years after his death it was necessary for
audiences to rediscover him and catch up to his innovations.
In 1870, the centennial of Beethoven’s birth, Richard Wagner wrote
an essay entitled simply “Beethoven,” although Wagner referred to
him in the text mostly as “great Beethoven.” Another artist who not
William Fregosi speaking at
only suffered from being ahead of his time but who positively
the September 10 concert
embraced his status as composer of the music of the future, Wagner
spent a significant amount of time in this essay establishing Beethoven as a specifically German composer, even to the point of ascribing to Mozart—and especially to Haydn—lower status as essentially
German musicians due to their involvement with an international, royalist style and culture.
National artistic and social identity was an important issue in the nineteenth century, through much
of which several great geographic areas that shared a common family of languages, customs, myths, and
ethnicities had no existence as political entities. Movements sprang up to gather folk tales (as in the
work of the Grimm Brothers), to preserve and translate the great chronicles (as in the Icelandic Sagas that
so engrossed Wagner when they were published in the German states), and to transcribe the music of the
people lest it be forgotten.
Tonight’s program contains the music of three composers who represented in their individual ways
the height of German operatic music of their various eras. It would require only the presence of one
other, Karl Maria von Weber--whom Wagner revered as the first great exponent of a truly German operatic style—to have a virtually unbroken chain of specifically German composers spanning the century
and a half from the beginning of the Romantic Age to the middle of the 20th century.
Beethoven completed only one opera (although he could be said to have done that at least three
times), but one can see Wagner’s point. Beethoven took a perfectly competent and effective rescue
melodrama of a sort common in the wake of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars and, through
his music, elevated it to a plane from which it could shine as an icon of liberation and freedom at the end
of the Nazi horror on opera stages around the world.
–William Fregosi
William Fregosi is Technical Coordinator for Theater Arts at MIT. In January 2004 he gave the Boston
Wagner Society’s first presentation, on modern opera productions.
2
Meistersinger in Edinburgh
Wagner, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Soloists, Edinburgh Festival Chorus, BBC Symphony Orchestra, cond. David Robertson, Usher Hall, Edinburgh, September 2, .2006
On September 2, 2006, at Usher Hall, the curtain came
down symbolically on the 15-year tenure by Brian
McMaster of the Edinburgh International Festival. The
offering was a concert performance of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, and it was exactly what he wanted
and had planned for —a complete concert performance
lasting just under six hours and with the finest cast
obtainable. Even the minor mastersinger characters were
taken by some of the most illustrious, if superannuated,
performers of the day—artists of the stature of John
Mitchinson, John-Shirley Quirk, Richard Van Allan, and
Jeffrey Lawton.
Jonas Kaufmann sang his first Walther, and others in
the cast included Robert Holl as Hans Sachs, Hillevi
Martinpelto as Eva, Andrew Shore as Beckmesser, Toby
Spence as David, and Matthew Rose as Pogner. The
American David Robertson, well known to Boston
Symphony audiences, conducted the excellent BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.
If this was a special occasion for McMaster, it was also one for the audience, the most attentive I have
ever experienced. Neither a cough nor a rustling of programs (which included a full libretto) could be
heard at any time during the performance. Would that we had such attentive audiences here in our concert and opera venues.
And what about the performance? Robert Holl is a major presence in European opera houses, and he
did not disappoint. Within the confines of a concert hall, he communicated the trials and tribulations of
Hans Sachs with authority and sympathy. He has an ideal voice for Sachs and was as fresh vocally at the
end as he was at the beginning. Hilleti Martinpelto is also a regular in the leading European houses. She
has a full, rich voice and would be an asset in American houses as well. Toby Spence is a bright-voiced
tenor, thoroughly at home in his role. Andrew Shore and Matthew Rose brought considerable experience
and fine vocalism to their roles.
The big surprise was Jonas Kaufmann. In a role that is usually sung by big-voiced tenors who also
have in their repertoire Tristan and/or Otello, Kaufmann is an exception. He is a lyric tenor, an Alfredo,
a Tamino. He sang with tonal beauty and sensitivity, the likes of which I had no previously experienced
in this role. He also looked the part to perfection, which is certainly not a detriment.
David Robertson did a remarkable job of conducting the orchestra and the Edinburgh Festival Chorus, and at the same time, bobbing his head from side to side to due the singers stationed to his right and
left. Quite a feat! He was full of energy, to be sure, but just as certainly not on the level of James Levine’s
insightful work at the Metropolitan Opera. At the end, the capacity audience paid tribute to the cast, the
orchestra and the chorus, but also to Brian McMaster, the man behind the festival for these many years.
It was a night to remember for him and also for us, the audience.
–Angelo Mammano
Usher Hall, Edinburgh
Angelo Mammano, the Secretary of the New England Opera Club, is a new member of the Boston Wagner Society.
3
Impressions from Bayreuth
Der Ring des Nibelungen, Bayreuth Festival, Das Festspielorchester and Der Festspielchor, cond.:
Christian Thielemann, dir. Tankred Dorst, set designer: Frank Philipp Schlössmann, costumes: Bernd
Skodzig, lighting: Karl-Heinz Mattitschka
Das Rheingold, August 22: Wotan - Falk
Struckmann, Donner - Ralf Lukas, Froh Clemens Bieber, Loge - Arnold Bezuyen, Fasolt
- Kwangchul Youn, Fafner - Jyrki Korhonen,
Alberich - Andrew Shore, Mime - Gerhard
Siegel, Fricka - Michelle Breedt, Freia - Satu
Vihavainen, Erda - Mihoko Fujimura,
Woglinde - Fionnuala McCarthy, Wellgunde Ulrike Helzel, Flosshilde - Marina Prudenskaja
Die Walküre, August 23: Siegmund - Endrik
Wottrich (Robert Dean Smith for Act 2),
Hunding - Kwangchul Youn, Wotan - Falk
The Bayreuth Festival House
Struckmann, Sieglinde - Adrianne Pieczonka,
Brünnhilde - Linda Watson, Fricka - Michelle Breedt, Gerhilde - Satu Vihavainen, Ortlinde - Amanda
Mace, Waltraute - Martina Dike, Schwertleite - Janet Collins, Helmwige - Iréne Theorin, Siegrune Wilke Te Brummelstroete, Grimgerde - Annette Küttenbaum, Rossweisse - Alexandra Petersamer
Siegfried, August 25: Siegfried - Stephen Gould, Mime - Gerhard Siegel, Der Wanderer - Falk
Struckmann, Alberich - Andrew Shore, Fafner - Jyrki Korhonen, Erda - Mihoko Fujimura, Brünnhilde
- Linda Watson, Stimme des Waldvogels - Robin Johannsen
Götterdämmerung, August 27: Siegfried - Stephen Gould, Gunther - Alexander Marco-Buhrmester,
Hagen - Hans-Peter König, Alberich - Andrew Shore, Brünnhilde - Linda Watson, Gutrune - Edith
Haller, Waltraute - Mihoko Fujimura, Norn 1 - Janet Collins, Norn 2 - Martina Dike, Norn 3 - Iréne
Theorin, Woglinde - Fionnuala McCarthy, Wellgunde - Ulrike Helzel, Flosshilde - Marina Prudenskaja
At precisely 6 p.m., the doors closed, lights dimmed, and a dream of nearly a lifetime began.
It was Das Rheingold from the Bayreuth 2006 3rd Ring Cycle. The acoustics in the Festpielhaus are so
live that even with a covered orchestra pit, every note found its way to the center of my being, the prelude swelling until the music was almost too beautiful, too present.
I attended this Ring, in Wagner’s house, for the music more than the production, and I was not disappointed. The orchestra, under the able baton of Christian Thielemann, was the real star of the cycle,
and in this house I heard elements of the music I have never heard before.
The production looked like it had been designed by a committee—there was no theme or cohesion
between the various sets and costumes. The direction by Tankred Dorst was minimal for the most part.
But it didn’t detract from the singing, and that, for the most part, is what I will mention.
In Rheingold, the curtain rose on a river bed, with the Rheindaughters in vivid red, in the middle of
the stage. The action was rather static, but so beautifully sung by Fionnuala McCarthy, Ulrike Helzel,
and Marina Prudenskaja, that one forgave the lack of action. The Alberich of Andrew Shore engendered
sympathy and strength from the moment he entered—well sung and well acted. Dancers representing
the daughters and film projection extended the action beyond what the singers could do.
In Scene 2, Wotan and his family appeared to dwell in an abandoned bridge embankment, adorned
with graffiti. The costumes were stylized, and rather unattractive for the most part, reminiscent of a
1960s space concept. Wotan (Falk Struckmann) commanded the stage with his voice and presence, sing-
4
ing with authority. Kudos go to Loge (Arnold Bezuyen) for both his singing and character portrayal, and
at the end of the evening the audience agreed.
As many may know, there is a fanfare by a brass octet from the outside balcony before each act—a
single fanfare at 15 minutes before, a double fanfare at 10 minutes, and a triple one at 5 minutes. The
musicians play a brief (6 to 8 measures) excerpt from the upcoming act, and I wasn’t the only one looking forward to this each evening, and a little sadly before the 3rd act of Götterdämmerung, because it
would all be over soon.
Hunding’s hut in the beginning of Die Walküre was another abandoned building. A printed announcement outside the theater proclaimed that Endrik Wottrich , who was to sing Siegmund, was ill
and asked our indulgence. I’m sorry not to have heard him healthy, but it was a relief when it was announced, to thunderous applause from the audience, at the beginning of Act 2 that Robert Dean Smith
would replace him. Smith had one more Tristan to sing in a few nights, so it was understandable that he
would not take on Act 1 as well, but he and Adrianne Pieczonka as Sieglinde were on fire, and it was a
shame not to have heard them together in Act 1.
Michelle Breedt’s Fricka came into her own in the domestic squabble with Wotan—a huge improvement over her bland portrayal the night before. Linda Watson’s Brünnhilde began tentatively, but she
looked good in the role, and her singing in Act 3 was more focused and beautiful.
The rock in Act 3 was one of the best set designs in the cycle. I’d have liked Wotan to be a bit more
gentle during his farewell to Brünnhilde, but still, the end of the scene, when he hugged and kissed her
and spread the fire, was very well done. He made me believe he was torn by what he had to do.
Another highlight of the festival is the hour-long intermission concept: long enough for a snack—the
bratwürste were my favorite in the first intermission—and socializing. Except for one night that it sprinkled, the weather was fine for outside mingling. I’m grateful that it cooled off before I got there. The
seats were a bit uncomfortable, but other than that I couldn’t have asked for better conditions.
And now we come to Siegfried, my favorite of the four operas—although not by much. The first scene
took place in a science classroom, with a periodic table on the wall, a skeleton hanging from a stand, and
other dated classroom paraphernalia . Mime (Gerhard Siegel) carried the weight of this scene while
Stephen Gould warmed up for the marathon ahead and showed jubilation when he realized he had
forged a working Nothung.
In Act 2 the setting was a naturalistic forest. As Fafner growled, the earth opened, and Siegfried entered that void and came out with the Ring and Tarnhelm. Fafner crawled out of the opening to die as
himself. The final act of this opera, with Siegfried and Brünnhilde’s duet, was glorious. Siegfried saved
himself for this act, and well he might. He had more to sing in this act than some tenors have in a whole
opera, and he was magnificent!
Bayreuth is a welcoming city. I spent most of my time on foot in the old part of the city, visiting the
Margravial Opera House, with a jewel of a baroque theater and housing an exhibit of the history of the
Ring at Bayreuth. Both the Wagner and Liszt Museums have English-language written guides, which
gave biographies of the two composers and listings of their compositions. There were beautiful parks to
enjoy and plenty of sidewalk cafés with wonderful food and beer!
And at last, we came to the end. How could a week gone by so fast? The Norns appeared in a starry
background. The stars blinked, and the Norns did what they were meant to do—set the stage for the horror that was to come—and they did it brilliantly.
The Gibichung Palace was a traditional room with two staircases, where the villagers came and went.
In the second act, they were dressed in tuxedos and long gowns, but not all from the same era. And their
hair styles were unusual. But the singing was all one could expect and hope for. Siegfried’s Tod, one of
my favorite excerpts from the Ring, was played so well I was in tears.
Brünnhilde carried the last act. The end of the world consisted of mostly smoke and lights—but it
had emotional weight and was a fitting climax to a mostly superb week. The curtain calls went on for a
long time, as the audience reluctantly left the house, wishing it could begin again the next night.
5
I met many people during intermissions—an 87-year-old gentleman from Lyons who was enjoying
his 22nd visit to Bayreuth, a woman from Australia who was attending for the 2nd time, and people from
Italy who had seen many Rings at Bayreuth and elsewhere. And although we spoke different languages,
we talked about Wagner and opera, since music is a universal language.
–Kathy Boyce
Kathy Boyce is a member of the Boston Wagner Society.
In Memoriam: Astrid Varnay and Ingrid Bjoner
Ibolyka Astrid Maria Varnay was born on April 25, 1918, in Stockholm, Sweden, the
daughter of coloratura soprano Mária Jávor and tenor-producer Alesander Várnay,
two Hungarian operatic artists who were performing there at the time. They later
moved to Kristiana, Norway (today’s Oslo), where Alexander Várnay cofounded that
city’s Opéra Comique, featuring his wife in leading soprano roles. One evening, when
her mother was singing Oscar in Un ballo in maschera, she discovered that the drawer in
her dressing room was a little high to harbor the baby safely and so asked if the lady
singing Amelia in that performance would mind having little Astrid in her dressing table drawer. This
was Astrid Varnay’s first encounter with Kirsten Flagstad, one of many artists her father discovered or
whose career he fostered.
Following the demise of the Comique, the family moved on to South America for a couple of seasons,
which included the first Argentine performance of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, directed by Alexander Várnay with his wife as Queen of the Night. They then stopped off in New York on their way back to
Europe to see if they could make some contacts there. It was there that Alexander Várnay was taken ill
and died at the early age of 35. Unwilling to beg the price of the return journey from anyone, Mária Jávor
decided to stick it out in the States, and so Astrid completed her high school education in Jersey City,
following which she took a job as a secretary and studied voice with her mother. After several lessons
and intensive work on the Italian repertoire, Mme. Jávor determined that Astrid was destined for the
dramatic soprano repertory, and so she asked her friend Kirsten Flagstad, who had recently arrived to
begin her first contract at the Metropolitan Opera, to advise her on a good teacher for the German roles.
Flagstad recommended Hermann Weigert, who helped her perfect her Wagnerian characterizations. In
the course of time, the professional contact became a personal contact, and Astrid became Mrs. Weigert.
In a career that involved the young artist crossing many a
Rubicon, none was quite so daunting as her very first
performance. Never having appeared on any stage anywhere,
she was sent out onstage as the fifth cover after the other four
ladies had proven unavailable for a variety of reasons, to sing
Sieglinde in a Saturday matinée performance of Die Walküre
beside such luminaries as Lauritz Melchior, Helen Traubel,
Friedrich Schorr, and Alexander Kipnis. Six days later, she
crossed the next Rubicon when she took over from an
indisposed Helen Traubel as Brünnhilde in the same
production. A recording of her broadcast debut performance
confirms the professionalism that launched a career marked in
professional acumen and artistic excellence on the highest level.
It was a career that would bring her from New York to stages
throughout the United States and Europe, including the postwar Bayreuth Festival, which she helped
inaugurated when it was revived in 1951. It was her definitive delineations of the top Wagnerian heroines that provoked the composer’s grandson Wieland Wagner to defend his abstract, symbolic productions with the question: ”Why do I need a tree on stage when I have Astrid Varnay?”
Astrid Varnay at Bayreuth in 1951,
with Fritz Deiss (center) and
Wieland Wagner (right)
6
In a career that spanned well over five decades and ranged from leading soprano roles in German,
Italian, and—yes—American opera, to interpretations of a variety of character roles to which she lent a
special brilliance, she joined forces with many of her contemporaries to redefine operatic interpretation
as an all-encompassing art, propelled, as she often put it, by the musical score, but infused with the honesty of the dramatic action and a total identification with the vast array of parts she played.
During the final years of her career, she selected me to collaborate with her on her memoirs, 55 Years
in Five Acts: My Life in Opera, supervising every word we wrote with the same love for detail and accuracy she brought to her operatic portrayals. It was a labor of love that occupied our attention for well
over five years, and we were proud when the prestigious magazine Opernwelt named it Book of the Year.
My own most striking memory of that collaboration comes from a phrase that became a mantra as we
moved ahead in our collaboration: “Look it up, Donald,” preferring ascertainable fact over educated
guessing that might ultimately be justifiably subject to challenge.
She did not, to quote Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, “go gentle into that good night,” but died as she
lived, with an incredible zeal. At the end, when infection finally claimed her after a long, hard-fought
illness, her body was devastated, her mind ravaged, but her spirit unsullied. In our last get-together, I
asked her if she watched much television—she had once been an avid viewer—and she replied with candor: “I don’t like the world.” If anyone ever deserved a better one than this vale of tears, it is she. All of
us who remain behind to mourn her loss have been incalculably enriched by her presence among us, and
many happy memories provoke a smile to allay the tears.
She once did a radio interview for Bavarian Radio for which she asked me to be present. As I took my
seat in the corner, the interviewer, a dear friend of both of us, Alexander von Schlippe, couldn’t help but
wonder why she wanted me around, and she replied with that twinkle in the violet eyes that gave her
her name—Ibolyka is the diminutive form of the Hungarian word for “violet”: “It does me so much
good to see him in a situation where he can’t say anything.” With what I hope is her permission, I will
continue to sing her praises as long as I am vouchsafed the opportunity to stick around down here.
–Donald Arthur
Donald Arthur is the ghostwriter of Varnay’s autobiography 55 Years in Five Acts: My Life in Opera. His recent book, Hans Hotter: Memoirs, will be available for purchase at our October 23 event (see below).
Ingrid Bjoner was one of the finest Wagner and Strauss sopranos of the twentieth
century. She was born in Krakstad, Norway, on November 8, 1927, and died in Oslo
on September 4, 2006. She was a member of the Bayreische Stattsoper in Munich for
more than 25 years, and also appeared at La Scala, Covent Garden, the Paris Opera,
the Wiener Staatsoper, Hamburg Staatsoper, the San Francisco Opera, and the
Metropolitan Opera. She was at the Met from 1961 to 1974 and sang 48 times with
the company. Her roles included Eva, Elsa, the Kaiserin, and Turandot. She
appeared at Tanglewood with James King in a Tristan und Isolde highlights concert
under Leonard Bernstein. We in the audience were thrilled by the brilliance and
strength of her performance on that occasion. Unfortunately, her recorded legacy is
not large but well worth investigating.
–Angelo Mammano
The Meistersingers' motif
7
Ingrid Bjoner as Isolde
Historical Singers: Tiana Lemnitz (1897–1994)
Possessed of an unforgettably beautiful voice, German soprano Tiana Lemnitz
made her operatic career between the two world wars. The youngest of 10
children, she was born to a musical family and began to sing at the age of seven.
At 15, she entered the Metz Music School, eventually making her operatic stage
debut in Frankfurt as Undine. While in that city, she learned 25 roles and was
hired by Stadttheater in Aachen. She made her debut there in 1922 as Waltraute
in Die Walküre. When the singer who was to sing Woglinde in Das Rheingold
became ill, Lemnitz replaced her without a rehearsal and sang it flawlessly.
Subsequently she began singing more important roles, including Elsa and Eva.
She then was offered a contract at the Stadttheater in Hanover. In 1934 she
became a member of the Berlin Staatsoper and remained there for 23 years. In
1937 she was awarded the prestigious title Kammersängerin. In the same year she sang Sieglinde for the
first time, plus Elisabeth. According to Musical America, “What more adjectives can do justice to the
Elisabeth of Tiana Lemnitz! This beautiful voice, this superlative vocalism, this absolute supremacy of
the technical and the interpretative in which the economy of gesture lent the whole a spiritual grandeur.
It was wonderful . . . Lemnitz remained unique in the perfection of her performance.”
Lemnitz was also a favorite at Covent Garden, where she made her first appearance as Eva in 1936,
along with Torsten Ralf, Rudolf Bockelmann, Ludwig Weber, and Herbert Janssen. An English reviewer
wrote, “The greatest moment of the evening came in the quintet [of Meistersinger]. Lemnitz, beginning
the movement, sang so beautifully that—without being rude—one was conscious of nothing else. Wagner’s biographer Ernest Newman thought her Eva the best he had ever seen.
Lemnitz was also an incomparable lieder interpreter. Her last performance was a lieder concert at the
Stadtsoper in Berlin in 1757. Infinitely expressive, she gave all of herself to her art. About herself, she
said: “I am very earnest in my art and consider it as a holy legacy which shall procure some of the higher
sense of life to the people.”
Lemnitz’s exquisite singing can be found in a few recordings, among them the Lebendige Vergangenheit series by Preiser and “Legendary Wagner Singers of the 1930s” by Teldec.
–Dalia Geffen
____________________
Upcoming Events
“Hans Hotter: An Operatic Giant,” Audiovisual Presentation by Donald Arthur, editor and translator of
Hans Hotter: Memoirs, with book signing; free
October 23, 2006, 7 p.m., Newton Free Library, 330 Homer Street, Newton Centre, MA 02459
Wagneriana is a publication of the Boston Wagner Society, copyright © The Boston Wagner Society, Inc. Logo design by Sasha Geffen.
Contact information: 617-323-6088; Walhall@BostonWagnerSociety.org; P.O. Box 320033, West Roxbury, MA 02132;
www.bostonwagnersociety.org.
8