EIF: Tannhäuser: Concert Performance
Usher Hall - 25/08/23
Deutsche Oper, Berlin – Sir Donald Runnicles
A hit – A palpable hit!
There has been much to enjoy at this year’s International Festival but nothing had swept me off my feet until this concert version of Wagner’s ‘Tannhäuser’ by the Deutsche Oper, Berlin, conducted by my old school friend, Donald Runnicles. This was a great Festival event, a packed Usher Hall, big orchestra, fabulous chorus and a line-up of top class soloists in an opera by Wagner never before played at the EIF.
This early masterpiece, first seen in Dresden in 1845 when the composer was only 32, is difficult to perform as the title role is enormous. I myself have never seen a stage performance, and have only ever sung in it once, in a small role 10 years ago, coincidentally with Sir Donald in the BBC Proms. We were lucky tonight that the young American tenor, Clay Hilley, was singing the title role for the first time, and approached it with the zeal of a young man, his voice firm and strong throughout. More of him later.
Sir Donald knows the score well and is a great advocate of this work. Bringing the assembled forces of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin, of which he is Music Director, to Edinburgh cannot have been cheap, and I was initially concerned that such an expenditure on a single performance might be an over-adventurous venture. The opening of the magnificent overture dispelled my doubts immediately, as the glorious melodies poured forth from the superb opera orchestra, who were obviously enjoying their day in the limelight after a season in a darkened pit below the stage in Berlin. Donald was using, for the most part, Wagner’s ‘Dresden’ version, published in 1860, revised after the revival of the original, in 1847, in Dresden, with a couple of minor additions from the Paris version of 1861. The full glory of the big orchestra must have stunned contemporary listeners, and although there are still elements of the older tradition of German Romantic Opera composers like Weber and Marschner, the youthful exuberance of Wagner’s music is still stunning, even now.
The first scene in the Venusberg finds Tannhäuser finally tiring of the sensual embrace of the goddess Venus, and longing to return to the real world. Why he would ever want to leave the stunning Venus of the American mezzo, Irene Roberts, wearing a truly fabulous dress of glittering blue, I have no idea, but leave her he does, returning to the wooded valley near the Wartburg in Thuringia, where he disappeared a year before. Ms Roberts gave a wonderful account of Venus’s music, alternately cajoling and seducing, but finally cursing the errant knight for leaving her. Mr Hilley displayed a truly wondrous Heldentenor voice, thrilling throughout the range, and seemingly unflagging in power, while also displaying a honeyed mezza voce for quieter moments. Only a slight tendency to sing sharp at the most stressful moments betrayed Mr Hilley’s lack of familiarity with the role, but I am sure the more he sings it, the more he will find occasions to apply less pressure. It’s already mightily impressive as an interpretation, but you could see his relief at the end when he knew he had made it!
Back in the real world, various knights out hunting discover their long lost friend, and invite him back to the Wartburg, where his chaste soulmate, Elisabeth, is revealed to be crestfallen at his disappearance. We then see her at the beginning of the second act, as she sings of her joy at once again returning to the great hall of the castle, where the singing competitions are held, in the great aria, ‘Dich, teure Halle’. This is one of the finest arias Wagner wrote for soprano, and here we saw and heard for the first time in the opera, the magnificent Elisabeth of the English soprano, Emma Bell. Winner of the Kathleen Ferrier Award in 1998 (only 17 years after me!), this dramatic soprano sang Leonore in ‘Fidelio’ with Sir Donald at the EIF last year and made a big impression. Tonight she was even better, giving a truly magnificent account of this extremely mixed up but wonderful girl, chaste but warm and loving, with a heart of gold. The voice is like gold too, easy throughout the range, capable of extremely soft and subtle singing but also able to expand to the brightest and most powerful of forte singing, riding over the huge orchestra with ease. She moved me to tears several times, most notably in her third act prayer to the Virgin, which was the best singing I have heard this year, or any other for that matter. The Austrian bass, Albert Pesendorfer, as the Landgrave Hermann, presents a strong generous figure with a stentorian voice. After one of the best introductory choruses to any aria in any opera, complete with six trumpets (from the RSNO) arranged across the organ gallery, he sang his great scena with a firm, loud voice, filling all corners of the hall.
I was most taken with the warm baritone of the American, Thomas Lehman, as Wolfram von Eschenbach, who had impressed last year in ‘Carmina Burana’. This is a really lovely voice, warm and velvety, and he is clearly a good actor as, even in a concert performance, he created a sympathetic character on stage. My only slight criticism would be that, in his great third act aria, ‘O du mein holder Abendstern’, one of the most beautiful of all Wagner’s vocal moments, he was seduced by the perfect acoustic of the Usher Hall to over-lighten his voice, almost crooning the end, rather than keeping the breath going through the phrase, even in pianissimo. A tiny flaw in an otherwise superb performance.
Mention of acting leads inexorably to the old dilemma of concert performances of opera, and the amount of stage stuff to bring to the concert hall. Since all the singers apart from Mr Hilley have performed their roles in Berlin, or will do so soon, they know them from memory, but with no scenery and minimal space to move about, the question is whether to try to act a bit, or not. My view has always been to avoid interaction as much as possible, and by and large that was achieved in this performance, except in the big ensembles (of which there are several in Tannhäuser) when, in the apparent absence of a semi-stage director, the singers decided to start acting with each other. This resulted in some really awful mugging, hand waving and shocked or startled looks and movements. Best avoided, I think!
All the smaller parts were well taken. I was particularly impressed by the shepherd of Meechot Marrero in the first act (superbly accompanied on cor anglais at the back of the hall by Iveta Hylasova Bachmannova) and Attilio Glaser as Walther von der Vogelweide, one of the Deutsche Oper’s leading tenors, and luxury casting here. I must single out Tyler Zimmerman, the American bass, singing Reinmar von Zweter. This was the role I sang with Sir Donald at the Proms 10 years ago, and I know from experience how frustrating the role is. You sing for about an hour throughout the evening, but never have a single solitary solo line, so no one hears your voice! I gave him a special clap at the end when he took his bow!
Finally, a word about the chorus and orchestra. The orchestra clearly love working with Sir Donald, and they played flawlessly throughout, led by Nathan Giem. I was delighted to discover that the extensive offstage band was played by principals and members of the RSNO, unseen but not forgotten. It is no criticism of the wonderful Edinburgh Festival Chorus to say that the chorus of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin was absolutely fabulous. The full sound of a professional operatic chorus in a concert hall is a thing of wonder, and the famous Pilgrims’ Chorus was utterly fantastic, with soaring and mellifluous tenors and sonorous basses, all of them a credit to Jeremy Bines, formerly chorus master at Glyndebourne.
In total command as always, Sir Donald Runnicles presided over this whole performance, steering a majestic path through this complex score. Even when his music stand decided to drop to the floor in the first act, he acted quickly and with the help of the first desk violin, all was sorted with, dare I say it, Teutonic efficiency! He is a most welcome visitor back to his hometown, and much loved by all here in Edinburgh. Now a major international star, with posts in America and Australia too, it is great that he finds time to conduct here, and we salute him.
