THE 2000 BAYREUTH FESTIVAL
Opera Review (From the February 2001 newsletter)
This concludes Jim Leigh's comprehensive review of the
2000 Festival productions.
See also: 2000 Bayreuth Ring: Jim
Leigh Wonders: A bühnenbilderische Ring?
The other new production was Lohengrin (first seen in 1999).
Producer, Keith Warner, and designers, Stefanos Lazaridis and Sue
Blane, have given us a staunchly unromantic Lohengrin, largely
black and white and featuring a World War 1 Belgian battlefield, with
Lohengrin appearing as a human among the crowd and disappearing into
a shell hole, and the Brabantans a sorry lot until and even after
his arrival to gee them up to support the Saxon army. There was also
a contrast of opposites between the power games of Telramund-Ortrud
and the idealism of Lohengrin-Elsa. Ortrud (Linda Watson) did a lot
of acting in shadowing Elsa's every move. Elsa was sung purely
by Melanie Diener; her costume was the only white to be seen apart
from Lohengrin's arrival with a blazing white cross as a mirror
of the sword. There was much difficulty with the Lohengrin role. Roland
Wagenfuhrer, who was ill, was replaced by Dean Smith then by a double
act with Wagenfuhrer acting and Raimo Sirkia singing from a score
on side stage, then Dean Smith alone again. Dean Smith sang both roles
beautifully and he has the cherubic good looks for both parts.
A strong feature was the distinction between the organised Saxon
army and the dispirited Brabantans. The Saxons were assembled in armour
in rigid rows and suspended above the Brabantans. King Henry (Eric
Halfvarson) was with them on high while represented on earth by his
Herald (Roman Trexel), a tall lean man with a ringing bass baritone.
Other telling effects were the wedding chamber scene on a central
rotating platform, the tilting of this platform to allow Telramund's
watery blood to run off like a post mortem table, the slowly accelerating
eclipse of the moon to signify Elsa's increasing uncertainty
about her champion and the initial descent of the Grail and swan depicted
during the Act 1 prelude.
The Act 2 machinations of Ortrud and Telramund (Jean-Philippe Lafonte)
were scary and the big choral scenes effective (Eberhard Friedrich:
chorus master). Musically the opera was held together well by conductor
Antonio Pappano. A different but absorbing Lohengrin, but what
a contrast to the more mature operas at the Festival.
Wolfgang Wagner's Parsifal and Meistersinger,
which have been around for many years, were the best part of the Festival.
Precisely because they are simple, traditional and beautiful productions,
smoothly rehearsed and developed over time, one could concentrate
more on the music and singing. This year we also had two brilliant
new young conductors. Christian Thielemann, born in Nürnberg, gave
a seamless reading of the magical Meistersinger score (better
in my view than Barenboim whom I had heard twice before). Christoph
Eschenbach, perhaps a distant relative of Wolfram von Eschenbach,
the author of the Germanic version of the Parsifal legends, was criticised
as "lumpy" in his many tempi changes, but I didn't.
I had also seen this Parsifal twice before, conducted by Sinopoli,
with Hans Sotin rather than Matthias Holle as Gurnemanz, and found
this year's production better because of Violeta Urmana's magnificent
singing and acting as Kundry; a much more convincing seductress than
Linda Watson in 1998. Sotin pulled out late in a well publicised difference
with Herr Wagner, but Holle was an admirable replacement. Parsifal
was sung in clean ringing tones by the good looking Poul Elming, whom
we are to be privileged to hear in the Adelaide Parsifal in 2001.
I also heard him twice as Siegmund this year in the Geneva Die
Walküre. Andreas Schmidt repeated his tortured Amfortas.
Andreas Schmidt was also a totally different looking Beckmesser in
Meistersinger, whom he played very sympathetically. At the
end, after his humiliation, Sachs (Robert Holl) brought him back into
the fold. He was after all a Mastersinger and a respected member of
bourgeois society. The other main parts were Robert Dean Smith (Walther),
Emily Magee (Eva), Eric Halfvarson (Pogner), Endrich Wottrich (David),
Michelle Breedt (from South Africa) Magdalene and Hans-Joachim Ketelsen
(Kothner).
Jim Leigh
4 September 2000
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