Dame Kiri te Kanawa’s cousin (who calls the opera diva “auntie because of the age difference”) is promoting “Australia’s first pole-dancing championships.”

While most of us equate this activity with sparkly high heels, g-strings and ostentatious displays of female flesh, [Natalie] Te Kanawa wants pole dancing to be viewed as a legitimate art form, just like opera singing ….

Te Kanawa [Again, Natalie, not Kiri, N.B.!!!] eventually left the industry to become a personal trainer but couldn’t leave the pole behind entirely.

Oh, yes, La Cieca is confident that this will all end quietly and well. [nzherald]

The Met has been beat to the US premiere by Sarasota Opera, who offered a Danish-language production in 1995 (which Squirrel saw when he was still just a small squirrel). But this opera is ready for the Big Time, having been produced in recent years at the Bregenzer Festspiele, Salzburger Festspiele, and Covent Garden. So who will get there first, The Met or City Opera?

To hear more, there is a wonderful 1970s recording, recently re-released on Da Capo which is preferable to the later Decca project. The clip below is from the Danish National Opera DVD, also on Da Capo. Enjoy, kære publikum!

The Berlin Philharmonic brought a spooky Halloween treat to New York on Thursday night, just a few days late. They are at Carnegie Hall for a three-night residency, offering the complete Brahms symphonies along with selected earlier works by that ugly duckling of Brahms disciples, Arnold Schoenberg. They are also far from home during Berlin’s anniversary celebrations of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, having taken a prominent role twenty years ago when an American – one Leonard Bernstein – conducted Beethoven’s Ninth at the Wall, famously supplanting the word Freiheit for the word Freude in its finale. For most of last night, it would seem these remembrances were far from their minds. 

When the pretty, slender Evelyn Herlitzius entered the stage to sing Schoenberg’s 1909 atonal monodrama Erwartung wearing a long, blood-red roll-necked gown, she was already fully in character – a curiously icy and zombie-like stare perfect for Pierrot Lunaire. But she sang a work more akin to Salome than Pierrot, a full-voiced, lyrical account of Schoenberg’s expressionist scena tempered by a somewhat steely, cold tone.

In very good voice, she artfully careened over the perilous cliffs of orchestral crescendo, occasionally shrieking (there is no other way) through Schoenberg’s manic stream of consciousness, and exhibiting considerable vocal might where it mattered. This was not a sensual, dreamy account of Erwartung, but rather a terrifying, waking nightmare.

Choosing to swallow some consonants or reshape a vowel in service to the melodic line, Herlitzius didn’t fall into the pseudo-Sprechstimme trappings of many Erwartung executants, opting for a precise, yet fully sung, account of Schoenberg’s vocal tone-poem. As she observed the body of her beloved lying in the mulch, she leaned on the words “Er liegt da!,” stressing the long vowel but without any hint of vibrato or color. No breathy faking here, she delivered even staccato “Ah!” exclamations with a supple roundness and firm tone. Though she clearly worked for the big notes, her sound was not forced, and in the end she prevailed against a formidable Berlin orchestral torrent. She won a similar torrent of adulation from the audience, and it is safe to expect that we will see more of her.

Perhaps the orchestra shone brightest of all in the evening’s “overture” (of a perverse sort), Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony No. 1.  Originally scored for 15 solo instruments, the composer’s full orchestral version presented here bears a whole catalog of challenging ensemble problems. Solo strings link up with tutti strings in freakish triplet figurations, complicated woodwind entrances overlap with daunting brass countersubjects, all amid a puzzle of dynamic shadings. This huge orchestra tossed it off as if it were chamber music, in a breathtaking display of orchestral virtuosity and surgical precision.

The Brahms Second Symphony started out weirdly Brucknerian. Rattle took a lackadaisical approach to the more expansive bars, then churned out huge crescendos in the more rhythmic passages, but avoided climax or catharsis. He tends toward under-conducting, showing few beats, instead drawing shapes or posing in the air while several whole bars of music pass by. Though they should be used to him by now (he has been music director since 2002) it seemed to confuse the players, who occasionally dropped notes and played in rests. Rattle and the Berlin orchestra have been the topic of some gossip suggesting they do not always see eye-to-eye, especially in the German romantic repertoire. This was the evidence.

By the finale, however, it no longer mattered – the obvious joy with which this orchestra plays this music was irrepressible. After soaring through the hopeful second subject’s recapitulation, and landing on the tutti chords that announce the end, they seemed to want to pull back the tempo, to stay in the moment, before diving into the coda with smiles on their faces. A recognizable sound and feeling filled Carnegie Hall – a golden-hued tenor of pride and nostalgia – and if you closed your eyes, it could have been that same Berlin Philharmonic of 1963, or 1978, or November of 1989: Unvanquished.

Incredibly, about halfway through his critique, the scribe manages to disclose director Patrice Chéreau’s most spectacular coup de théâtre, which (duh!) is meant to be a surprise, Tony, and next time why don’t you just tell us the psychiatrist was dead the whole time?

Briefly: Tommasini loved everything about the production, the music, the direction, the naked guys. So now you don’t have to read his review.

And now La Cieca believes she is entitled to a well-deserved facepalm.

• Sirius/XM
• RealNetworks from metopera.org

Synopsis (from metopera.org):

Act I
The yard of a Russian prison camp. Early in the morning, prisoners leave their barracks to wash. An argument breaks out, and there is talk of a new prisoner, a “gentleman” named Gorianchikov. When he arrives, the commandant interrogates him and demands to know what he has been imprisoned for. When Gorianchikov replies that he is a “political prisoner,” the commandant orders him to be flogged. A prisoner plays with a captured eagle whose wing seems to be broken. The others admire its defiance in captivity. The commandant orders a group of prisoners off to work. Among those remaining is Skuratov, who begins singing snatches of a song, annoying Luka. Skuratov dementedly recalls his former life in Moscow, then suddenly breaks into a frenzied dance and collapses. Luka talks about his previous imprisonment for vagrancy. He tells how he killed an officer and was flogged for his offence. The guards drag in Gorianchikov, beaten half to death.

Act II
Some months later, prisoners are working outside the fence of the camp. Gorianchikov asks the young Alyeya about his family and offers to teach him to read and write. The boy eagerly accepts. When the day’s work is done, bells sound from the town, announcing a holiday. Townspeople arrive and a priest gives his blessing. Some men ask Skuratov why he was imprisoned, and he tells how his love for a German girl named Luyza led him to murder the man she was forced to marry. For a long time prisoners have been rehearsing two pantomimes, which they now perform: the first about Don Juan, the second about a miller’s pretty and unfaithful wife. When the show is over, bleak reality returns. A whore passes and a young prisoner goes off with her. Gorianchikov and Alyeya drink tea, which infuriates some of the other prisoners, who think it “gentlemanlike.” One of them hurls a jug at Alyeya, who falls unconscious. Guards rush in to restore order.

Act III
Alyeya lies in the prison hospital, delirious with fever and watched over by Gorianchikov. In other parts of the ward are Luka, close to death, and Skuratov, now mad and crying out for Luyza. Another prisoner named Shapkin describes how a police officer, who interrogated him after he was caught in a burglary, almost tore his ears off.

Night falls and silence returns, broken by an old prisoner lamenting that he will never see his children again. Prompted by Cherevin, Shishkov tells the story of his imprisonment: he married a girl named Akulina who allegedly had been dishonored by another man, Filka Morozov. But Filka later revealed that he had been lying about his relationship with the girl, who was in fact innocent. When Akulina confessed to Shishkov that she still loved only Filka, Shishkov killed her. By the end of the tale Luka has died. Only now does Shishkov recognize him as his old enemy, Filka. The body is carried away. A guard arrives with orders for Gorianchikov to follow him.

A few hours later, the commandant, drunk, apologizes to Gorianchikov and tells him that he is free. His chains are knocked off and, desperately, he says goodbye to Alyeya, who will stay in jail. The prisoners release the eagle, whose wing has healed, to shouts of “Freedom!” The guards order them off to work, and prison life goes back to its routine.

Evelyn Herlitzius singing Brünnhilde in Budapest

Tonight I’ll attend the Berlin Philharmonic’s concert at Carnegie Hall featuring Schoenberg’s Erwartung, sung by Evelyn Herlitzius. (Simon Rattle fills out the program conducting Schoenberg’s First Chamber Symphony and Brahms’ Second Symphony.)

The work is atonal but, unlike Esther, written before Schoenberg’s fleshing-out of Serialism. Though slim on plot, it is viscerally theatrical, and daring in its use of materials (Schoenberg’s score avoids any repetition of motives or themes – something of which Weisgall is suspected as well).

Vamping up, I re-read Charles Rosen’s brief yet insightful 1975 monograph on Schoenberg, and came across some interesting passages that would have been very instructive back  in the 50s and 60s:

“[Schoenberg’s] works composed after the invention of Serialism in 1921 have, in a strange way, become a normal part of today’s music; they are not often heard, but they are the works that have been imitated by hundreds of composers all over the world.”

and

“To speak of the ‘breakdown of tonality’… is to beg the question, as we can see if we look to a similar late-nineteenth century development in literature… Free play of meaning is essential [to Mallarme] … we cannot speak of the breakdown of a linguistic system in Mallarme, or the decline of French. The ‘breakdown of tonality’ is similarly a fiction.”

Though this may not be precisely the point Rosen is making, I’d say that too many composers have believed the myth of the “breakdown of tonality”, an overly simplistic conceit, and a mandate that music not lean on a “broken” system. Tonal or not, it seems to me the work need only be true to its own materials, and be effective.

Or as our La Cieca once said, “Talent trumps everything – even hard work!”

I’ll report back later with some words about the performance. If you don’t have tickets, Herlitzius’ Erwartung is also available, in a performance from November 7 at Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, via the Berlin Philharmonic’s gorgeous new Digital Concert Hall mini-site. Alas, there is a download fee (€9.95), if you have that many Euros. (I don’t, and they refuse to accept acorns.)  While there’s no Herlitzius Erwartung to be found on the YouTube, here is some very rewarding Jessye:

The story is the journey of Verena, tormented by dreams of her illegitimate child who now appears to her as a goblin, searching for redemption. We learn that her own cruel mother killed Verena’s child, and there are dark hints of sexual abuse.  

Verena, too, seeks redemption through love — though, as the song goes, she’s lookin’ in all the wrong places.  Her journey involves a travelling troupe of actors, a mysterious old man named Eckhart, a devious and deviant Count and Countess, and a symbolic magic stone.

In the end, the Count’s henchmen,  trying to kill her lover Friedrich,  stab Verena.  She dies, redeeming all the children’s souls. In the story and the music, one hears hints of Lohengrin (exactly the same first chord), Pelleas et Melisande, Elektra, The Ring, Parsifal, and, yes, Rosemary’s Baby.

It must be said that the opera contains some magnificent musical passages, particularly the orchestral interludes. The prelude to Act III is particularly complex, expressive, and beautiful. Verena’s song about a blind bird in Act I is lyrically lovely, and the Count’s music when he attempts to seduce Verena is particularly haunting and passionate. Much of Verena’s music in Act III, too, is melodic, emotionally clear, and inventive. Unfortunately, these sublime sections are surrounded by pedestrian and uninspired music (particularly in the sections involving the acting troupe), a derivative mess.

The production captured on DVD (Marco Polo MCPO 2220003), directed by Peter T. Pachl for Stadtttheater Furth with the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra under Frank Strobel, doesn’t help matters. The difficult plot could have been illuminated by a production that looked for clarity, but here we have a heavy-handed attempt at psychological symbolism that only further obscures the story. A geometric “window” hangs in the middle of the stage, serving as a stage set for the actors and a portal through which dreams appear.

We are constantly assaulted with projections, evidently to show us the state of Verena’s mind (we couldn’t get that from the music?) — and, of course, they are the usual suspects: dark clouds, waterfalls, and peering eyes. One set of projections, apparently to set us for the Count’s house in Act II, involves a number of poodles romping about. Are we to think that the leather-clad Count and Countess are dog breeders on the side?

In the pivotal role of Verena, the production happily has the soprano Rebecca Broberg, who gives a nuanced, powerful performance. She is a capable actress and a most expressive singer throughout her range, with excellent phrasing and emotional clarity. I also much liked the dark-voiced Regina Mauel as Verena’s mother Gertrud, though her singing is limited to Act I. The rest of the large ensemble cast was successful in their acting, but the singing ranged from competent to barely tolerable.

It seems to me that this opera might better be approached by hearing an audio recording before viewing this DVD. I found it very difficult to let my imagination respond to the music drama while attempting to decipher so much visual clutter.