London Philharmonic Orchestra, Edward Gardner conductor; Stéphane Degout, Wozzeck; Annette Dasch, Marie; Peter Hoare, Captain; Brindley Sherrat, Doctor; Christopher Ventris, Drum Major; Eirik Grøtvedt, Andres; Kitty Whately, Margret; Adrian Thompson, The Fool. London Voices
Comments come to mind about London buses…. but I booked this a year ago, long before I knew about the Vienna Wozzeck I went to earlier in April, and it’s not as though I know the work very well…… So, I decided to stick with this and go to London as planned. I’d forgotten though that it was part of ‘Multitudes’ on the South Bank, their yearly multi-medium arts festival ‘powered by orchestral music’. I went to a couple of these events, with some rather mixed responses, last year. In this case the London Philharmonic Orchestra “joins forces with acclaimed film-maker and video artist Ilya Shagalov, who accompanies the searing music with an atmospheric and expressive photo-film inspired by British social realist dramas. Reimagining Wozzeck for the modern day, Shagalov translates the story through the lens of a migrant worker, whose life is shaped by the pressures to survive and the casual cruelties of a fractured modern society.”. Hmmmm – I approached this event with some scepticism – it seemed a somewhat strange concept to have an opera (semi-staged) coupled with a film (though of course many staged operas make use of film). How would you cope with one story on stage and another on film? Why noy just put the opera on in an opera house? I guess it depends on what a photo-film is…………
In the event I am sure that some of the critics reviewing this will trash the concept. But (and there have been some similarly extreme pro-and-anti print and online comments for a multi-media synaesthesiac performance of Turangalila by the RPO/Petrenko a couple of evenings before) I found it worked quite well. In this particular case it was good that music stands were on stage and no-one – apart from Peter Hoare and Brindley Sherrat – really interacted with anyone else. One’s eyes and engagement could then move between the singers, fairly static, the text on the screen behind the orchestra, and the immense number of still shots produced by Ilya Shagalov giving his photographic version of the story. He has photographed people representing all the characters, sometimes clear, sometimes distorted and when needed more abstract shots – for instance around the murder. The photographed Marie has a particularly haunting face, and Wozzeck’s face too seemed infinitely capable of expressing fear and madness. The setting looked possibly Russian, possibly Eastern European. The migrant worker idea underlying the photographs was there an underlying theme but not so obtrusive as to distort our understanding of what was happening in the story the opera was telling – indeed that was a strong point for me of the whole event, that the photos supported a focus on the narrative, and the grimness of the lives these individuals were living. Perhaps because of the tellingness of the photographs, the contrast between the Doctor and the Captain’s atheism and Marie’s reflections on Mary Magdalene and the Woman taken in Adultery came across more strongly than in the Vienna production two and a half weeks ago.
In terms of the singers and their presence on stage, I was impressed by Stephane Degout, not a singer I have come across before. He personified Wozzeck, I have to say, far more effectively than Kranzle in Vienna two weeks ago – determined, gruff, self-absorbed, tense – he very much looked the part and his voice was richly compelling. He did little that could be called acting but his presence said it all. Peter Hoare was his usual very capable self – funny, manic, strongly-voiced and the best actor on stage, and Brindley Sherrat nearly his equivalent. Christopher Ventris was a more convincing Drum Major than his Vienna equivalent. About the performance of Annette Dasch, I was less convinced – somehow, she didn’t have the compelling vocal and stage qualities you’d want to see in this role, even in a concert version, though she was perfectly adequate. Vocally hers was quite a small voice, disappearing under the orchestra once or twice, but she offered us some beautifully floated high notes. All the other roles were well taken.
When I got back home after the trip to Vienna I listed to the old 1960’s recording I have of Karl Boehm, Fischer-Dieskau and Evelyn Lear in this work. One of the things that struck me was how much more exciting this was than either of the two performances I have recently heard, which in part has perhaps something to do with the forwardness of the recording but also with the much greater use of sprechtstimme by Lear and DFD (and Boehm was of a generation old enough to know how this music should go, I guess). However, Ed Gardner and the LPO gave a wonderful performance of the score which was at least as compelling as the VPO performance two weeks ago (some stunning trumpet playing) – and in the final verwandlung was even more expressively powerful. I found also (not that it wasn’t there two weeks ago but I noticed it more clearly here) that not only are there the powerful expressionist, the haunting Mahler throw-back, moments, in the score, but also wonderfully delicate sound effects – quiet string strokes, magical bells. The more you hear the work, the more you find yourself listening to the detail and the more haunting the work becomes.
There was a messy ending – part of it perhaps (in which case, fine) to do with the fact that (according to its manager anyway) 59% of people coming to this Festival last year where new to classical music at the South Bank). Gardner tried to hold the silence after the final chord, a few people clapped and then fell silent, but the spell was broken.. A pity…… Worse, after one inevitably, given the forces involved, messy and elongated curtain call, some idiot in charge of the lighting brought up the houselights so that the audience stopped clapping – a pity, because this was a very fine performance and I am sure the audience would have been up for 2 more curtain calls at least
John's musical journey 