Ahead of WNO's season opening Fidelio Lothar Koenigs chatted to Culture Critic about WNO's new season, his interest in Der Blaue Reiter art movement and a (possible please be true) hint at WNO's next venture into Wagner.
The first is Verdi's Rigoletto from the recent summer season with Simon Keenlyside making his role debut as the eponymous funny guy without humour. Joining him as the Duke is Gwyn Hughes Jones, Sarah Coburn making her WNO / UK debut as the jester's daughter (Gilda), Leah-Marian Jones as the psychotic tart with a heart (Maddalena) and David Soar as plain old psychotic Sparafucile. Conducting the performance was / is Pablo Heras-Casado. I thoroughly enjoyed this in the theatre with strong performances all round but as I missed Hughes Jones as the Duke I'm definitely recording this one when it's broadcast on the 2nd of October at 6pm UK time.
The second BBC Radio 3 broadcast comes on the 13th of November (6pm UK time) and is Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos. A strong cast is headed by Sarah Connolly as the Composer, Orla Boylan (Ariadne) and Gillian Keith (Zerbinetta). WNO's Music Director Lothar Koenigs will set the groove. I can't say much about this one as it hasn't been performed yet.
The broadcast times may change so I'll keep an eye out for any movings around. You can listen through the usual ways - Radio, Digital TV and via the Internet (even outside the UK). All of this means you can finally hear what it is I blabber on about for once.
Before I lose any semblance of respect I'll begin by suggesting you may want to jump to the musical excerpts. If on the other hand you've had a drink, are feeling in a good mood or are curious to see what a cock-up I've made of sticking to this idea then by all means carry on reading.
Hairman: First of all many thanks for agreeing to this interview. Leonore / Fidelio: It is a pleasure, but I’m refusing to praise the great martyr Don Pizarro.
H: Duly noted. L / F: To think what that man subjected Florestan to and he is now being commemorated as if he was a great and good man…ach!
(Throws hands up)
H: We’re here today to talk about your impressions of late eighteenth century Seville, more specifically the reports that Seville prison experienced a rare, but devastating outbreak of Chronic Gullibility Syndrome, or CGS for short. As someone who was present at the time in question do you think the claims are well founded?
(She laughs)
H: I’ll take that as confirmation?
L / F: You may.
H: What makes you think that people were suffering from CGS?
L / F: How much do you know about the episode?
H: What do you mean? L / F: It was more than just CGS that was at work during my time in the gaol. There were also spontaneous occurrences of singing taking place throughout that ghastly place. I would be walking from my room to the kitchen when without warning I would be singing about the joys of leg extension. Everybody, and everything was affected. Men, women, children, birds, ants...rocks. There was even an orchestra hidden away in the gaol. It was all very fantastic.
H: I guess it would have been.
(Silence while I wait for a response from Leonore who hums quietly to herself)
H: Any specific examples of this singing and CGS?
L / F: Too many to number! But there are a few that I can recall without difficulty to this day. Marzelline, the gaoler's daughter, was a sweet girl who was forever being bothered by Jaquino, the porter. He was quite harmless really but he was one of those infuriating men who need to be informed repeatedly that their advances are simply not welcome. It was because of him that I think Marzelline fell for her father’s assistant. His name was Fidelio, a young man starting out in life. The trouble was that Fidelio was I, and I was there to rescue my husband from his doom, dressed in a frankly pathetic disguise that included the most capacious shirt and hat you could ever wish to see. Despite this ridiculous costume she couldn’t deduce I was a woman. I knew straight away that something was amiss when I heard her singing this touching song.
L / F: I was surprised she never wondered why her Signorinashave blades began running out the time I came to the gaol. But she wasn’t the only one not to realise I wasn't a young man. Rocco and Jacquino were just as appalling. Take this example when we broke out into song at the same time. You would have thought one of them would have questioned why my voice was more akin to Marzelline's than to theirs. But perhaps they were too taken with their hopes and cares to realise something was wrong.
H: It is quite obvious that your voice isn’t that of a man.
L / F: You can tell, sitting here. But if you had been there at the time in question you would have been as hopeless as the rest. But Rocco, the gaoler, was also blinded by something other than this CGS. He was eager for his daughter to marry and I am of the opinion that he was willing to ignore the truth. He was like us all really, wishing things were different than they were...and he did have a weakness for money, especially gold and how it affected the quality of happiness a person could hope to experience in their lifetime.
L / F: I couldn’t accuse the prisoners of being gullible, locked away as they were in those pitch-black cells they could hardly see the gruel, and thankfully not the maggots, in their bowls. They were quite overcome when Marzelline and I encouraged Rocco to allow them to be let out in the yard. It may have been some years since many had been outside, let alone seen the sun.
L / F: Florestan was by far the worst of any of the prisoners. The poor man was losing his mind. Pizarro had him hidden away from the other prisoners, kept alone in the bottommost dungeon. A terrifying place for any soul. This was his reward for telling the truth.
H: Did anyone suspect who you were?
L / F: Not one person. I cleaned up after everyone, always insisted the toilet seat be put down, never did I take part in their sport of pelting the village idiot with rotten tomatoes. I had protuberances where they hadn’t any, and vice versa. Even Pizarro failed to recognise me, and he possessed the senses of a hawk. Pardon me for saying this but I couldn't believe they were all so thick. But that was before this CGS of yours stopped working its witchcraft on us. Did you know this wasn’t the first time something like this had happened in Seville?
H: Erm. No.
L / F: It seems that a teenager called Cherubino was mistaken for a girl. And then there was a count who dressed up in all manner of disguises. Even though he was well known throughout the countryside and town nobody recognised him. Of course he never pretended to be anything other than a man so perhaps it doesn’t tally with your CGS. But they all broke into song.
H: Did they now?
L / F: But I doubt they sang anything as joyful as everyone in the gaol did to celebrate our deliverance from Pizarro's clutches and my rescuing Florestan.
L / F: And then, as soon as we finished singing this CGS of yours weakened its grasp. But not utterly. Pizarro, following his death was pardoned by our new ruler and is now heralded as a martyr. The poor souls he tormented will be forgotten. Are we finished now?
All recreations were undertaken by:
Mahler Chamber Orchestra / Lucerne Festival Orchestra Arnold Schoenberg Chor Wien (Chorus Master Erwin Ortner) Claudio Abbado: Conductor
Peter Mattei: Don Fernando Falk Struckmann: Don Pizarro Jonas Kaufmann: Florestan Nina Stemme: Leonore Christof Fischesser: Rocco Rachel Harnisch: Marzelline Christoph Strehl: Jaquino Juan Sebastian Acosta: First Prisoner Levente Pall: Second Prisoner
Their efforts will be recognised with a CD release in early 2011 on the Decca label.
In a Please don't sue me notice the recordings will cease to exist after the final performance of WNO's Fidelio at Oxford's New Theatre on the 3rd of December.
I don't do predictions – just ask my bookie, Knuckles ap Kneecaps. My speciality is more Things I'd Like to See Happen in 2010 / 2011. Call them whims, moans and wishes, in no scientific order of preference the list goes something like this…
5. S4C / BBC Wales to record at least one performance out of each of the seasons. That is a grand total of three operas. Not many. If both these organisations, who have the brief of reporting on Welsh life, would lose a rugby match here, an obscure Katherine Jenkins documentary there I'm sure they could fit in the filming of performances for the benefit of those who can't make it to the theatres, at the same time preserving the work that goes on at WNO.
3. The management of the Wales Millennium Centre to put up better signs for the toilets. After several years of pointing the confused members of society towards the wc's I'm in possession of enough evidence to say that the original signs just aren't working. I can't fault the toilets themselves – top notch, just as long as aimers hit their targets…
8. A younger audience. To be fair the age of the audience at WMC is quite varied but on certain nights I feel quite young, which I don't mind given the realisation that my significant birthdays now fall every ten years. However, for the sake of future audience figures it would be nice to see an influx of younger folk in attendance as they will be the oldies of the future.
7. People travelling up from London to quit moaning about the time it takes to get out of the WMC at the end of the night. Of course not every visitor moans but having experienced the traffic jam in the Amphitheatre at Covent Garden quite a few times and then taken part in the demolition derby that's the cloakroom in comparison getting out of WMC isn't the major hassle some people suggest it is. I agree that there should be an extra set of lifts on either side of the building but generally speaking it isn't a huge slog to leave the Armadillo.
89. I decide on Hairman, HairMan or Hair Man as my name.
21. If #5 proves a bit of a struggle how about BBC Radio Wales / Cymru recording the performances? Lose a rugby match here, a Katherine Jenkins concert there...
2. A suitable replacement for John Fisher is found. I don't want to see a rushed appointment that fails to work out, but at the same time I wouldn't want any extra pressure to fall on Lothar Koenigs' shoulders. Stability really is the key and the sooner WNO can find a replacement the better for the company as a whole.
9. Surtitles failure. For some reason the English surtitles at the WMC can go AWOL from time to time but luckily for me I can speak / read / write / dream in Welsh so I slide my eyes to the right to read the Cymraeg. However, many people (including Welsh folk) can't understand the Welsh surtitles so my wish is that the English surtitles don't succumb to exhaustion as much this year.
34. Sweet suckers. So you eat sweets – I don't care. So you unwrap them during the quietest bits, ummmmm, I care. So after the final curtain has gone down you've left your rubbish behind – I really care. If you're too lazy to take your rubbish with you, don't bring it in the first place.
Just another seventeen points and I can get to bed tonight
I like to think that Mozart would have enjoyed WNO's Papageno Game. I can imagine him with a glass of wine to one side and his powdered wig upturned, on the other, housing a collection of Viennese nibbles keeping the rumbles at bay while he spent hour after hour sending Mini-Papa rushing across the screen with the recitative going something like this:
Run! Run! Oh don't catch the umbrella! Don't! Don't you dare...Oh you bloody idiot!!! Do that again and I'll feed you to a giant snake...Right! That it! Thaaaaaat's it!! I've had enough. Where's Mayor Wilkins?
Or this is what I thought at 2.04 am this morning by way of false reassurance that I was not in danger of joining the cast of The King of Kong. If you think I'm talking baloney then I suggest you try it out for yourself. As for me I'm hanging up my net...when I crack 100. Pass my wig, it's going to be a long night.
Dust off your tuxedos, unmoth your gowns, spit on your shoes and starch your undies; WNO's season opening Fidelio will soon be with us! Although the two Ps of international season openings will be absent (paparazzi, plastic [surgery devotees]) there is no denying the sense of expectation that has been building in some tents over the summer break. But what's this? Turbulence in the anticipation? Ye gods and forsooth an army of Macbeth's finest hags! Following the ecstatic end to the 2009 / 2010 season with Meistersinger at the Proms WNO's groove has been grived with John Fisher's decision not to renew his contract next summer. All of a sudden things have become complicated and confusing. It's like an old fashioned Saturday morning at the pictures cliff-hanger. Will WNO Get Its Groove Back? Will I Learn To Punctuate? Will management at the Wales Milennium Centre stick up better toilet signs? The only way to find out is to get on over to the opening jive of the jamboree later this month.
So what's on offer at WNO this autumn? Well, obviously Fidelio since I've already mentioned it. It's often been described as a hymn to freedom and humanity, but never as an examination of a rare outbreak of Chronic Gullibility Syndrome in 18th century Seville. A recent critical paper, by myself, has proven to be a controversial, yet groundbreaking event among Beethoven scholars and I will reveal my findings in a future post – I couldn't believe they were all so thick: Leonora lets her hair down with Hair Man at the Opera.
The second offering is Richard Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos. Playing out like a metaopera it's a new one on me and as such I've decided to award it with Getting to know...with Hair Man at the Opera status. I can't promise you a comprehensive understanding of plot, musical structure or anything else of worth so you may want to skip those posts. But you'll know this already.
*I'd like to lay claim to this wonderful little description but it's a reference to a cycling race in Italy, Il Giro di Lombardia / The Tour of Lombardy, also known as the Classica delle foglie morte / The Race of the falling (dying) leaves.
