Zurich Fidelio on YouTube

Conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt
Directed by Jurgen Flimm

Leonora,Fidelio - Camilla Nylund
Florestan - Jonas Kaufmann
Don Pizarro - Alfred Muff
Rocco - László Polgár
Marzelline - Elizabeth Rae Magnuson
Jaquino - Christoph Strehl

I saw Jonas Kaufmann's Florestan in Zurich quite by accident in 2007. I went to see Semele and stayed for other things. This film is the same production and some of the same cast, but the conductor is Harnoncourt instead of Minkowski, and Rocco is László Polgár instead of Matti Salminen. I like Matti, but there is something special about László.

A video is better for the canon. Harnoncourt accompanies discretely, and microphones handle everything else. Rocco sings about money and pulls out a box of it. Is it better if Marzelline, Rocco and Jaquino are funny or serious? Is it better if Fidelio is dignified or flirtatious? Perhaps it is best to see all sides. Florestan is perfect, of course.

Rocco worries about daring even small things, and Fidelio dares everything. What a hero. I am a complete sucker for this opera. It has the best of all happy endings. Only László Polgár gets flowers, but Harnoncourt gets by far the most applause and is far better than Minkowski.

If you haven't watched this, now may be the time.
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Nina

I have been threatening for years to review all of Cecilia Bartoli's releases. I still might do this, but today I felt a need to see something that is completely the opposite of the recent Otello.  Cecilia at her most physically dynamic has to be Nina, o sia la pazza per amore (2002) by Giovanni Paisiello.  What a mess she is in this, with scraggly hair and an over-sized coat.

Nina is hard to categorize.  For one thing there is spoken dialogue, which as you know never happens in Italian opera, either seria or buffa.  The cast is chosen for their ability to speak convincingly in Italian.  It's most like an opera comique, I suppose, with lots of simple songs and arias, and a few recitativo accompagnato.  Nina is roughly contemporary with Don Giovanni.

The pastore (Jonas Kaufmann before he became famous) sings a song for Nina and then suggests perhaps she should sing something.   She responds with "Ah, lo previdi", recitative and "Ah, t'invola agl'occhi miei", aria, K272, a concert aria by Mozart. As a rage aria, it seems to fit well into the plot.  She stands formally and lets it rip.  Maybe if she writhed around on the floor during this part, too, we would accept it more easily.

One alternately laughs and cries.  One isn't sure which is more appropriate.  She is obviously enjoying herself, and is definitely quite pazza--jumping, running, flopping down on the floor or on the strange object on one side of the stage, alternately crying, smiling, frowning, laughing or perhaps temporarily sane.  It is all a wonderful pleasure to watch.

Cecilia's sister, Federica Bartoli, is in the cast.  She is one of the women's chorus and occasionally speaks a few lines.  She is the one Cecilia knocks to the floor in Act I and who combs Cecilia's hair in act II.

My other favorite cast member is László Polgár as Nina's father.  He's so wonderfully sad and somber.

Lindoro comes back and there is a happy ending where Nina tries to undress him.  Nina will always be pazza, but the mad ones are best.  Bartoli goes on being mad to the end.  In the bows she eats the bouquet again.

Cecilia does everything to excess, an approach that I highly recommend.  Adam Fischer conducts.

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IL BASSO LASZLO POLGAR E' MORTO OGGI.

IL BASSO LASZLO POLGAR E' MORTO OGGI, ALL'ETA' DI 64 ANNI, ALL'OSPEDALE DI ZURIGO. This says that the bass Laszlo Polgar is dead today, at 64 years in the hospital in Zurich.  I guess this happened yesterday and was unexpected.  He was a man with a beautiful voice and a wonderful aura. He was a member of the ensemble of the Zurich Opera.

László Polgár in Recital

László Polgár, bass, is a man with an aura. If he is there, you know something tragic is going to happen. One of his roles is Bartók`s Bluebeard. With him singing the part you would know the ending was not happy. All ambiguity would be gone.

He was a replacement at the Zurich Opera House for someone else which probably explains the fact that he used a score in the first half, and that the program seemed to change from what was advertised. In order of presentation things seemed to improve as we went along.

Schumann`s Liederkreis was done rather matter-of-factly. Admitedly all song cycles have the same subject--poet has lost his one true love--and this makes them seem a bit alike.

Then came sections from Schubert`s Schwanengesang. The ones that worked well are the ones that best fit his aura of gloom: Der Atlas and Still ist die Nacht.

As we go from section to section the level of gloom deepens and the quality of the performance increases. What Lieder are glomier than Hugo Wolf`s Drei Gesänge nach Sonatten von Michelangelo?

Herr Polgár is Hungarian and therefore not an obvious choice for a Liederabend. He ended his program with something more suitable: Mussorgsky`s Songs and Dances of Death, sung in Russian. In this cycle the singer represents death himself, and who better than gaunt Lazlo in his black silk pajamas and snow white hair? Perhaps when death appears he will look like this. In these songs he was magnificent. He relaxed into the expression, leaned back on the piano and was quite beautiful.

Fierrabras

The Zurich Opera, my home away from home, has produced a genuine curiosity: Franz Schubert's Fierrabras. The tiny folder that comes with the DVD tells why we have never heard it, or indeed unless you are memorizing lists of things for your doctoral orals, heard of it. The Viennese company that commissioned the work changed management just before it was to be produced, and the new managers dropped it. It had its first Viennese performance in 1988.

We seem to have wandered into a staging rehearsal where Schubert himself is the director. All are costumed in clothing from Schubert's era, and Schubert, who occasionally speaks, moves them around the stage. I imagine the Schubert character is a Regie insertion into the fairy tale plot, that his lines are borrowed from the other characters. He hands out lines and scores to the characters who appear to read from this copy.

There is a cute bit of business at the end where Schubert is handing out scores to the characters and Jonas Kaufmann who plays Fierrabras follows him around the stage insisting on his score. He is quite irate. He opens the skimpy book he is finally handed, sees that there are only a couple of pages for him, that he doesn't even get the girl, and he stalks off in a huff. Schubert shrugs.

Jonas is relatively cheerful about the insignificant nature of his music. Indeed only the two women, Juliane Banse as Emma and Twyla Robinson as Florinda, seem to have anything like an aria. László Polgár as Charlemagne has a fairly significant part. He has grown a beard which improves his looks.

Most of the music is ensembles, and all has a lovely stately quality. The two love affairs end as they should. Would you want to buy this? Only for the historical curiosity aspect of the thing. Compare with Fidelio.

Fidelio....................Fierrabras
1814..........................1823
spoken dialog..............spoken dialog
melodrama..................melodrama
fabulous arias.............ariettas at best and none to write home about
great plot.................plot too complicated
great part for Jonas.......lousy part for Jonas, though he looked cute
great soprano role.........two halfway decent soprano roles
off stage trumpets.........off stage trumpets
great music................good but rather bland music
lots of arias.............endless tedious ensembles
happy ending..............happy ending

The absence of significant arias is key. It never rises above nice. All of my advice to opera composers would seem to apply to Schubert as well.
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Der Freischütz

For my retirement I was given a $100 gift certificate at Borders. A drop in the bucket, but a welcome one.

I have purchased a DVD of Der Freischütz by Carl Maria von Weber from the Zurich Opera. I have only seen this opera once before, in the 1970’s at the Wienerstaatsoper. The two productions could not be more different.

In Vienna the orchestra pit was overflowing with extra horns who made a fine blast of sound. The sets were in a romanticized naturalistic style. This Zurich production with Nickolas Harnoncourt shows a bare stage and black costumes, and in the pit are only four natural horns, which produce a relatively delicate sound. These are the same natural horns that blooped their way through Giulio Cesare, and now they are blooping their way through Freischütz. Pardon me if I don't acquire a taste for this.

Freischütz is still in the Singspiel tradition with spoken dialog. The opera has a Faust plot. Max is a candidate for the post of forester, but doubts his ability to win the shooting contest and the hand of his beloved Agathe on his own, and sells his soul to the devil in exchange for bullets that never miss.

It is one of the underperformed gems of opera with great arias and an exciting plot. They seem to be working very hard here to make it boring. I suppose this approach is cheaper, but it’s not much fun.

Every now and then people lie down on the floor for no reason, usually in groups, all pointing in the same direction. Does it beat boredom to have something to puzzle over?

The plot of Freischütz is difficult to make clear, especially the ending. We're dealing with bullets which cannot be seen. Max aims at the white dove and hits Agathe who seems to fall dead. When she does not die, it is never clear exactly why. It is also not clear why Kaspar dies instead. It is an unsatisfying deus ex machina.

Everything from Zurich seems to include the Hungarian bass László Polgár, a tall man with a somber expression and a beautifully lyrical bass voice. He's quite gloomily attractive. His name does not appear on the notes anywhere, but I remember him from other opera dvds from Zurich, most notably as Leporello in Don Giovanni. Matti Salminen as Kaspar is wonderful, the scariest man on the opera stage.
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