Grosser Saal, Alte Oper, February 7th, 2014
Andrés Orozco-Estrada doesn't officially take over as chief conductor of the hr-Sinfonieorchester -- or the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra as it is known in English -- until next season.
But if this concert is anything to go by, the new era under the 36-year-old Colombian is going to be very exciting.
Billed as a "musical visiting card" by Frankfurt Radio, the programme
for the orchestra's regular subscription series concert in the city's Alte Oper was
impressively eclectic, as if Orozco-Estrada was keen to show off his versatility and wide
repertoire: Haydn's 59th Symphony, Prokofiev's First Violin Concerto with Arabella Steinbacher as soloist, a world premiere of a brand new work entitled Tagebuch by Friedrich Cerha and Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances.
Aside from the Rachmaninov suite, neither of other two established works are exactly standard concert hall fare.
Haydn's Fire Symphony is not one of his better known and Prokofiev's First Violin Concerto is less familiar and much less frequently performed than his Second.
It was clear from the first bar of the Haydn that we were in for an exciting evening.
Orozco-Estrada is no period instrument specialist, but with valveless horns and minimal use of vibrato by the strings, this was a modern orchestra with modern turning fully embracing historically informed performance practices with sharp dynamics, pert articulation and bright and brisk tempi.
The Prokofiev with its much larger orchestra was equally flawless and Arabella Steinbacher impressed with her lithe, athletic tone and assured technical command.
As an encore, she played the first movement of Eugène Ysaÿe's Second Solo Sonata.
Cerha's Tagebuch for orchestra was commissioned by Frankfurt Radio and was composed in 2012.
It comprises eight miniature sketches of contrasting character and lasts just 16 minutes in total.
The orchestration is luminous, the musical argument lucid and the pieces shimmer with spontaneity.
Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances showed just what a fine ensemble the hr-Sinfonieorchester has turned into in its years under Paavo Järvi.
The string sound in particular has taken on a deeper bloom and richer sheen than before and the woodwind are immaculate and the brass top-notch, too.
This was a taut and muscular reading of Rachmaninov's late masterpiece that really packed a punch, the massive orchestral forces coiled like a spring.
While Paavo Järvi cut a very cool figure on the podium, using only the very minimum of gestures, Orozco-Estrada is much more expressive, almost dancing as he coaxes the sound out he wants out of the orchestra.
Järvi's departure from Frankurt after just seven years was a major loss to the city's classical music scene -- even if he will return regularly as Conductor Laureate.
But the hr-Sinfonieorchester appears to have found a more than worthy successor in Orozco-Estrada -- as long as he doesn't overstretch himself with his commitments as chief conductor of the Houston Symphony and principal guest conductor of the London Philharmonic.
Friday, February 7, 2014
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
The Kurt Weill Festival's Tweetfonie
The classical music world has fallen in love with Twitter.
Singers, musicians, opera houses, concert halls, not to mention fans, critics, journalists, musicologists are all embracing social networks with a passion and enthusiasm that really does give the lie to those who say classical music and opera is dead or dying or that it's elitist or snobbish or out of touch with the modern world.
Well, the annual Kurt Weill Festival in Dessau, which runs this year from February 22 until March 9, has come up with yet another idea to woo musically-inclined Tweeps.
They're calling it a "Tweetfonie" and are inviting anyone who fancies themselves as a composer to come up with a good tune (or should it be called a"twune"?) and then tweet it to be arranged for a symphony orchestra in the blink of an eye.
The score and parts are then emailed and printed out for the Anhaltische Philharmonic Dessau and its chief conductor Antony Hermus who will be assembled in Dessau's Bauhaus and will perform the pieces live on March 3 within just 10 minutes of receiving them.
How can you tweet a melody?
Well, the organisers are putting up a special website -- www.tweetfonie.de -- on which the budding Mozarts can compose their tune using an on-screen keyboard.
The melody is then automatically converted into a tweet of 140 characters and sent to a special "Tweetfonie Call Centre" in the Bauhaus.
The best and most original "twunes" are filtered out and sent to professional composers and arrangers in Berlin, Paris and New York, who have an hour to compose a short piece of up to one minute around them.
The arrangement is then mailed in PDF form back to the Tweetfonie Call Centre where the score and parts are printed out and handed out to the waiting orchestra and conductor.
The performances are then recorded in both audio and video, posted on www.tweetfonie.de and sent via link to the Tweeps who composed them.
If all that sounds complicated, the budding composers have a few days to practice on the system.
www.tweetfonie.de goes live on February 28, but the composers can only tweet their twunes for real from March 2.
The live concert of the best of them then takes place in the Bauhaus on March 3.
The scoring of the final pieces is as follows:
http://www.kurt-weill.de/pages_en/kwf_2_0_0_0.html
Singers, musicians, opera houses, concert halls, not to mention fans, critics, journalists, musicologists are all embracing social networks with a passion and enthusiasm that really does give the lie to those who say classical music and opera is dead or dying or that it's elitist or snobbish or out of touch with the modern world.
Well, the annual Kurt Weill Festival in Dessau, which runs this year from February 22 until March 9, has come up with yet another idea to woo musically-inclined Tweeps.
They're calling it a "Tweetfonie" and are inviting anyone who fancies themselves as a composer to come up with a good tune (or should it be called a"twune"?) and then tweet it to be arranged for a symphony orchestra in the blink of an eye.
The score and parts are then emailed and printed out for the Anhaltische Philharmonic Dessau and its chief conductor Antony Hermus who will be assembled in Dessau's Bauhaus and will perform the pieces live on March 3 within just 10 minutes of receiving them.
How can you tweet a melody?
Well, the organisers are putting up a special website -- www.tweetfonie.de -- on which the budding Mozarts can compose their tune using an on-screen keyboard.
The melody is then automatically converted into a tweet of 140 characters and sent to a special "Tweetfonie Call Centre" in the Bauhaus.
The best and most original "twunes" are filtered out and sent to professional composers and arrangers in Berlin, Paris and New York, who have an hour to compose a short piece of up to one minute around them.
The arrangement is then mailed in PDF form back to the Tweetfonie Call Centre where the score and parts are printed out and handed out to the waiting orchestra and conductor.
The performances are then recorded in both audio and video, posted on www.tweetfonie.de and sent via link to the Tweeps who composed them.
If all that sounds complicated, the budding composers have a few days to practice on the system.
www.tweetfonie.de goes live on February 28, but the composers can only tweet their twunes for real from March 2.
The live concert of the best of them then takes place in the Bauhaus on March 3.
The scoring of the final pieces is as follows:
2(+picc).2(+cor. angl).2(+sax).2. – 2.2.2.1.– tmp+2perc(no mallets), hp, pf
– strings 8--‐6--‐4--‐3--‐2.
Here's the link to the full programme of this year's Kurt Weill Festival:
Sunday, December 29, 2013
Opera Year 2013
Phew, what a back-breakingly busy year it's been!
I've seen 45 different operas, with Wagner topping the bill, not surprisingly.
The other birthday boy, Verdi, came next along with Händel, followed by Mozart, Donizetti and Gluck.
Frustratingly, in Britten's centenary year, I only managed to see just one of his operas, Peter Grimes.
Among the Wagner highlights, the best came very early on (in January) with a concert performance in Essen of Parsifal conducted by Thomas Hengelbrock and his Balthasar Neumann forces.
In fact, period-performance Wagner featured fairly highly, with a visceral performance of Der fliegende Holländer by Les Musiciens du Louvre Grenoble under Marc Minkowski in Vienna.
But a local performance of Parsifal, also on period instruments, in Bad Homburg was also deeply impressive.
The best staged Wagner opera was undoubtedly Stefan Herheim's Meistersinger in Salzburg, putting Bayreuth to shame in this year of all years. I also managed to catch Herheim's witty production of Xerxes.
Another opera highlight must be George Benjamin's Written on Skin, which I saw in two different productions, the original one by Katie Mitchell in Vienna and Paris and a second less successful one in Bonn.
My personal favourite among the staged performances must be Norma in Moshe Leiser's and Patrice Caurier's new staging for the Salzburg Festival, starring Cecilia Bartoli.
And a close runner-up -- at least in vocal terms -- was Martin Kušej's La forza del destino in Munich starring Jonas Kaufmann and Anja Harteros.
In addition to all the operas, I also attended a great many concerts and song recitals and two by Christian Gerhaher and his accompanist Gerold Huber really stood out, with song cycles by Schumann and Holliger in Heidelberg and Schumann in Frankfurt.
But Britten fared better in concert, too. And burned into my memory will be two performances of the War Requiem, with Mariss Jansons conducting the BR-Symphonieorchester in Munich, with soloists Christian Gerhaher, Mark Padmore and Emily Magee.
On the chamber music front, the Tetzlaff and Arcanto quartets teamed up for a quite breath-taking concert of the Mendelssohn and Enescu Octets in Frankfurt.
Recitals by Igor Levit (in Beethoven, Shostakovich and Liszt) and András Schiff (Bach) left a deep impression.
Another highlight was John Eliot Gardiner's Bach marathon in Paris, culminating in a performance of the h-moll Messe.
Cecilia Bartoli dazzled again when she brought her Steffani programme to Frankfurt.
While this year's Bayreuth Festival itself was a bit of a damp squib, one personal highlight was sitting in the orchestra pit for Act 1 of Götterdämmerung. I also met and interviewed Gottfried Wagner.
The Rhine Main area's contemporary music biennale, Cresc, this year focussing on the works of Bernd Alois Zimmermann, was fascinating and brilliant.
And topping my list of orchestral performances must be the phenomenal period-instrument band, Les Siecles, under their founder and chief conductor, François-Xavier Roth, who played Stravinsky's Le sacre du printemps like I've never heard it before.
Operas
DVORAK Rusalka
I've seen 45 different operas, with Wagner topping the bill, not surprisingly.
The other birthday boy, Verdi, came next along with Händel, followed by Mozart, Donizetti and Gluck.
Frustratingly, in Britten's centenary year, I only managed to see just one of his operas, Peter Grimes.
Among the Wagner highlights, the best came very early on (in January) with a concert performance in Essen of Parsifal conducted by Thomas Hengelbrock and his Balthasar Neumann forces.
In fact, period-performance Wagner featured fairly highly, with a visceral performance of Der fliegende Holländer by Les Musiciens du Louvre Grenoble under Marc Minkowski in Vienna.
But a local performance of Parsifal, also on period instruments, in Bad Homburg was also deeply impressive.
The best staged Wagner opera was undoubtedly Stefan Herheim's Meistersinger in Salzburg, putting Bayreuth to shame in this year of all years. I also managed to catch Herheim's witty production of Xerxes.
Another opera highlight must be George Benjamin's Written on Skin, which I saw in two different productions, the original one by Katie Mitchell in Vienna and Paris and a second less successful one in Bonn.
My personal favourite among the staged performances must be Norma in Moshe Leiser's and Patrice Caurier's new staging for the Salzburg Festival, starring Cecilia Bartoli.
And a close runner-up -- at least in vocal terms -- was Martin Kušej's La forza del destino in Munich starring Jonas Kaufmann and Anja Harteros.
In addition to all the operas, I also attended a great many concerts and song recitals and two by Christian Gerhaher and his accompanist Gerold Huber really stood out, with song cycles by Schumann and Holliger in Heidelberg and Schumann in Frankfurt.
But Britten fared better in concert, too. And burned into my memory will be two performances of the War Requiem, with Mariss Jansons conducting the BR-Symphonieorchester in Munich, with soloists Christian Gerhaher, Mark Padmore and Emily Magee.
On the chamber music front, the Tetzlaff and Arcanto quartets teamed up for a quite breath-taking concert of the Mendelssohn and Enescu Octets in Frankfurt.
Recitals by Igor Levit (in Beethoven, Shostakovich and Liszt) and András Schiff (Bach) left a deep impression.
Another highlight was John Eliot Gardiner's Bach marathon in Paris, culminating in a performance of the h-moll Messe.
Cecilia Bartoli dazzled again when she brought her Steffani programme to Frankfurt.
While this year's Bayreuth Festival itself was a bit of a damp squib, one personal highlight was sitting in the orchestra pit for Act 1 of Götterdämmerung. I also met and interviewed Gottfried Wagner.
The Rhine Main area's contemporary music biennale, Cresc, this year focussing on the works of Bernd Alois Zimmermann, was fascinating and brilliant.
And topping my list of orchestral performances must be the phenomenal period-instrument band, Les Siecles, under their founder and chief conductor, François-Xavier Roth, who played Stravinsky's Le sacre du printemps like I've never heard it before.
Operas
BARTOK Bluebeard's Castle
BEETHOVEN Fidelio (concert)
BELLINI Norma
BENJAMIN Written on Skin
BERG Wozzeck
BIRTWISTLE Gawain
BRITTEN Peter Grimes
CAVALIERI Rappresentazione di Anima
e di Corpo
DIETSCH Le vaisseau fantôme (concert)
DIETSCH Le vaisseau fantôme (concert)
DONIZETTI La fille du Regiment
Lucia di Lammermoor
DVORAK Rusalka
ENESCU Oedipe
GLUCK Alceste
Ezio
GOEBBELS Landschaft mit entfernten Verwandten
GOEBBELS Landschaft mit entfernten Verwandten
GURLITT Wozzeck
HÄNDEL Agrippina
Alessandro
Rinaldo
Teseo
Xerxes
LACHENMANN Das Mädchen mit den
Schwefelhölzern
MOZART Idomeneo
Le nozze di Figaro
Die Zauberflöte
PUCCINI La fanciulla del West
PURCELL Dido and Aneas
PROKOFIEV Der Spieler
STRAUSS Ariadne auf Naxos
VERDI Un ballo in maschera
Don Carlo
La forza del destino
Otello
Les vêpres siciliennes
WAGNER Rienzi (concert)
Der fliegende Holländer (staged and concert)
Tannhäuser
Lohengrin
Das Rheingold
Die Walküre
Siegfried
Götterdämmerung
Tristan und Isolde
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Parsifal (staged and concert)
Friday, December 27, 2013
Oper Frankfurt, Ariadne auf Naxos
Oper Frankfurt
October 25th, December 20th and December 26th 2013
Primadonna / Ariadne - Camilla Nylund
Zerbinetta - Brenda Rae
Der Tenor / Bacchus - Michael König
Der Komponist - Claudia Mahnke
Najade - Elizabeth Reiter
Dryade - Katharina Magiera
Echo - Maren Favela
Harlekin - Daniel Schmutzhard
Scaramuccio - Michael McCown
Truffaldin - Alfred Reiter
Brighella - Martin Mitterrutzner
Ein Tanzmeister - Peter Marsh
Ein Musiklehrer - Franz Grundheber / Johannes Martin Kränzle
Ein Lakai - Kihwan Sim
Ein Perückenmacher - Vuyani Mlinde
Ein Offizier - Ricardo Iturra
Ein Haushofmeister - William Relton
Conductor - Sebastian Weigle / Hartmut Keil
Director - Brigitte Fassbaender
Stage and costumes - Johannes Leiacker
One of the most telling images in Brigitte Fassbaender's delightfully satisfying and lovingly directed production of Ariadne auf Naxos at the Frankfurt Opera comes as the curtain comes down and the cast raise their glasses to Der Komponist (Claudia Mahnke).
After two-and-a-half hours of fierce ego-battles -- between the Primadonna and Der Tenor, the warring factions of Commedia dell'Arte and Opera Seria troupes and the clash between art (the performers) and commerce (the richest man in Vienna and his guests) -- it is to music that all lift their glasses in the end.
Music triumphs over all and, in the same way, Fassbaender's wise and witty new staging, never crude or vulgar, pays a deeply affectionate tribute to Strauss the composer.
Unlike many singers-turned-directors whose productions never seem to catch life and remain just concert performances in costume, Fassbaender's Personenregie is subtle, lively and meticulously wrought.
After years of performing on the stage herself, she really does know and understand her craft.
Johannes Leiacker's visually entertaining sets, which playfully skew perspective, and costumes are "modern", but Fassbaender's updating of the opera never feels forced or artificial. She is no member of the Regietheater school of directing, but always sticks to the libretto, turning up the sexual innuendo to just the right degree and adding flashes of wry humour.
This is a "traditional" staging in modern clothing and you can really feel Fassbaender's deep love of the score in every scene.
It's also one of the best possible showcases for the huge pool of fresh, young singing talent that Frankfurt Opera currently has at its disposal.
The only guests are Camilla Nylund and Michael König, who both appear here regularly, and of course William Relton in the spoken role of Haushofmeister.
The rest are ensemble members, who know each other and clearly have fun working together. And what a hotbed of new talent Frankfurt is.
Brenda Rae's Zerbinetta is the real thing, every single note in the dazzling coloratura pitch-perfect and sung with an ease and facility that takes your breath away.
At the performance on December 20th, which was being recorded for later release, both Rae and Michael König were said to be suffering from colds.
But you'd never have noticed that from either of them, with no hint of strain in König's bright, ringing tenor, which fills the house so effortlessly.
Camilla Nylund's Ariadne is warm and noble of tone, but she plays with gleeful relish the vain, back-stabbing Primadonna who fights tooth and claw to have more arias than her Bacchus.
Claudia Mahnke is more dramatic and less lyrical than I personally prefer as Komponist, but she is quite rightly one of the house favourites for Frankfurt audiences, as is Johannes Martin Kränzle whose superbly characterized Musiklehrer is also one of the highlights of this Ariadne.
It would be unfair to single out any one of the Commedia dell'Arte quartet, but Daniel Schmutzhard and Martin Mitterrutzner must be among the most promising young singers in the Frankfurt stable at the moment.
I also hope and predict great things of Katharina Magiera with her very distinctive contralto.
If I'm totally honest, I've always felt GMD Sebastian Weigle -- who can seemingly do no wrong in the eyes or ears of Frankfurt audiences -- to be somewhat over-rated.
But he was quietly impressive here, carefully drawing exquisite, top-notch playing from the chamber-sized house orchestra. And in the performance on December 26th, he even achieved the impossible: the audience did not (!) applaud prematurely at the end of Zerbinetta's Grossmächtige Prinzessin.
So hats off to him for that.
This Ariadne really shows Oper Frankfurt off at its best.
.
October 25th, December 20th and December 26th 2013
Primadonna / Ariadne - Camilla Nylund
Zerbinetta - Brenda Rae
Der Tenor / Bacchus - Michael König
Der Komponist - Claudia Mahnke
Najade - Elizabeth Reiter
Dryade - Katharina Magiera
Echo - Maren Favela
Harlekin - Daniel Schmutzhard
Scaramuccio - Michael McCown
Truffaldin - Alfred Reiter
Brighella - Martin Mitterrutzner
Ein Tanzmeister - Peter Marsh
Ein Musiklehrer - Franz Grundheber / Johannes Martin Kränzle
Ein Lakai - Kihwan Sim
Ein Perückenmacher - Vuyani Mlinde
Ein Offizier - Ricardo Iturra
Ein Haushofmeister - William Relton
Conductor - Sebastian Weigle / Hartmut Keil
Director - Brigitte Fassbaender
Stage and costumes - Johannes Leiacker
One of the most telling images in Brigitte Fassbaender's delightfully satisfying and lovingly directed production of Ariadne auf Naxos at the Frankfurt Opera comes as the curtain comes down and the cast raise their glasses to Der Komponist (Claudia Mahnke).
After two-and-a-half hours of fierce ego-battles -- between the Primadonna and Der Tenor, the warring factions of Commedia dell'Arte and Opera Seria troupes and the clash between art (the performers) and commerce (the richest man in Vienna and his guests) -- it is to music that all lift their glasses in the end.
Music triumphs over all and, in the same way, Fassbaender's wise and witty new staging, never crude or vulgar, pays a deeply affectionate tribute to Strauss the composer.
Unlike many singers-turned-directors whose productions never seem to catch life and remain just concert performances in costume, Fassbaender's Personenregie is subtle, lively and meticulously wrought.
After years of performing on the stage herself, she really does know and understand her craft.
Johannes Leiacker's visually entertaining sets, which playfully skew perspective, and costumes are "modern", but Fassbaender's updating of the opera never feels forced or artificial. She is no member of the Regietheater school of directing, but always sticks to the libretto, turning up the sexual innuendo to just the right degree and adding flashes of wry humour.
This is a "traditional" staging in modern clothing and you can really feel Fassbaender's deep love of the score in every scene.
It's also one of the best possible showcases for the huge pool of fresh, young singing talent that Frankfurt Opera currently has at its disposal.
The only guests are Camilla Nylund and Michael König, who both appear here regularly, and of course William Relton in the spoken role of Haushofmeister.
The rest are ensemble members, who know each other and clearly have fun working together. And what a hotbed of new talent Frankfurt is.
Brenda Rae's Zerbinetta is the real thing, every single note in the dazzling coloratura pitch-perfect and sung with an ease and facility that takes your breath away.
At the performance on December 20th, which was being recorded for later release, both Rae and Michael König were said to be suffering from colds.
But you'd never have noticed that from either of them, with no hint of strain in König's bright, ringing tenor, which fills the house so effortlessly.
Camilla Nylund's Ariadne is warm and noble of tone, but she plays with gleeful relish the vain, back-stabbing Primadonna who fights tooth and claw to have more arias than her Bacchus.
Claudia Mahnke is more dramatic and less lyrical than I personally prefer as Komponist, but she is quite rightly one of the house favourites for Frankfurt audiences, as is Johannes Martin Kränzle whose superbly characterized Musiklehrer is also one of the highlights of this Ariadne.
It would be unfair to single out any one of the Commedia dell'Arte quartet, but Daniel Schmutzhard and Martin Mitterrutzner must be among the most promising young singers in the Frankfurt stable at the moment.
I also hope and predict great things of Katharina Magiera with her very distinctive contralto.
If I'm totally honest, I've always felt GMD Sebastian Weigle -- who can seemingly do no wrong in the eyes or ears of Frankfurt audiences -- to be somewhat over-rated.
But he was quietly impressive here, carefully drawing exquisite, top-notch playing from the chamber-sized house orchestra. And in the performance on December 26th, he even achieved the impossible: the audience did not (!) applaud prematurely at the end of Zerbinetta's Grossmächtige Prinzessin.
So hats off to him for that.
This Ariadne really shows Oper Frankfurt off at its best.
.
Monday, December 23, 2013
Bayerische Staatsoper München, La forza del destino
Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich
Premiere on December 22nd, 2013
Il Marchese di Calatrava / Padre Guardiano - Vitalij Kowalijow
Donna Leonora - Anja Harteros
Don Carlo di Vargas - Ludovic Tézier
Don Alvaro - Jonas Kaufmann
Preziosilla - Nadia Krasteva
Fra Melitone - Renato Girolami
Curra - Heike Grötzinger
Un alcade - Christian Rieger
Mastro Trabuco - Francesco Petrozzi
Un chirurgo - Rafał Pawnuk
Conductor - Asher Fisch
Director - Martin Kušej
Sets - Martin Zehetgruber
Costumes - Heidi Hackl
Lighting - Reinhard Traub
Chorus - Sören Eckhoff
Let's face it, the plot of La forza del destino is not really very credible.
The problem for directors nowadays is whether to take Verdi's Mills and Boon-style libretto at face value and tell it straight, or try to fashion some deeper meaning out of it and make it just that little bit more credulous for modern-day audiences.
It was utterly predictable, then, that the city's ultra-conservative premiere-night audience -- who seemed unfazed at first and accepted the sleek and modern-looking Act 1 without a peep -- would take offence at his updating of the story to contemporary times with its imagery of modern-day warfare (Iraq? Balkans?) and terrorist attacks. And the boos started in Act 3 when the army's prisoners are tortured, whipped and chained like inmates of Abu Ghraib.
Sometimes all it takes is a different perspective. And the stark, visually arresting sets by Kušej's long-term collaborator Martin Zehetgruber offer just that: most striking of all in Act 3 where we're looking down onto the bombed-out building interior from a bird's eye view.
It's a highly cinematic moment.
But with imagery so specific -- and therefore so ultimately outdate-able -- it is arguable whether Kušej's staging will outlive anything but a one or two revivals.
(But few new stagings nowadays are really built to last anyway, so maybe that's beside the point.)
Nevertheless, Kušej's decision to re-tell the story in the head of Leonora, who seems to be suffering from some sort of post-traumatic stress disorder after seeing her father accidentally shot by her lover Alvaro, is intriguing. And it pays dividends if you let it.
The first indication of Kušej's reinterpretation of the plot comes from the dinner table at which all the characters are seated during the overture, but which remains where it is during all four acts.
A more significant signal comes from the decision to double-cast the Marchese as Padre Guardiano.
At first this seemed to be a way to better show off the huge talent of Russian bass Vitalij Kowaljow. But Kušej seems to be saying that in her state of shock and grief, Leonora is idealizing her dead brutish bigot of a father and turning him into the caring and loving figure she would like him to be who offers refuge and comfort.
Alvaro, too, is not the slightly greasy small-time gangster he first appears in Act 1, but a more courageous Glaubenskrieger who -- in Leonora's imagination -- valiantly saves the nerdy snitch who is her brother Carlo.
Jonas Kaufmann and Anja Harteros are of course the big crowd-pullers -- and rightly so -- as the unhappy lovers.
They have already earned their spurs as great Verdians in last season's Il Trovatore.
And there can't be any other singers currently on the planet who could sing Forza better than they do, both making their role debuts.
Kowaljow's dark, balsamic bass made the Marchese more human, almost likeable and was all the more fatherly as Padre Guardiano.
Premiere on December 22nd, 2013
Il Marchese di Calatrava / Padre Guardiano - Vitalij Kowalijow
Donna Leonora - Anja Harteros
Don Carlo di Vargas - Ludovic Tézier
Don Alvaro - Jonas Kaufmann
Preziosilla - Nadia Krasteva
Fra Melitone - Renato Girolami
Curra - Heike Grötzinger
Un alcade - Christian Rieger
Mastro Trabuco - Francesco Petrozzi
Un chirurgo - Rafał Pawnuk
Conductor - Asher Fisch
Director - Martin Kušej
Sets - Martin Zehetgruber
Costumes - Heidi Hackl
Lighting - Reinhard Traub
Chorus - Sören Eckhoff
Let's face it, the plot of La forza del destino is not really very credible.
The creaking, clunky action is driven less by Destiny with a capital D than by Hair-raisingly Hammy with a capital H.
But this is opera, after all, and Italian 19th century opera at that. So we know when we enter the theatre not to expect gritty fly-on-the-wall realism.
We hang up our credulity with our coats at the door.
Despite what its critics say, that is the basic -- and well-intentioned -- premise of most Regietheater: to find a way into the opera's often ludicrous and labyrinthine plots and make them that tiny bit more believable.
Whether we the audience really want or need that, or whether directors succeed is a different matter.
Whether we the audience really want or need that, or whether directors succeed is a different matter.
But therein lies the rub of much modern music theatre and the ferocious Glaubenskrieg that has long raged between supporters of so-called "traditionalist" and "modernist" stagings.
Martin Kušej is one such exponent of Regietheater. And an intelligent and thought-provoking one he is, too. So there was never any chance he would simply re-tell Verdi's far-fetched little story at face value for his star-studded new production at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich.
Martin Kušej is one such exponent of Regietheater. And an intelligent and thought-provoking one he is, too. So there was never any chance he would simply re-tell Verdi's far-fetched little story at face value for his star-studded new production at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich.
It was utterly predictable, then, that the city's ultra-conservative premiere-night audience -- who seemed unfazed at first and accepted the sleek and modern-looking Act 1 without a peep -- would take offence at his updating of the story to contemporary times with its imagery of modern-day warfare (Iraq? Balkans?) and terrorist attacks. And the boos started in Act 3 when the army's prisoners are tortured, whipped and chained like inmates of Abu Ghraib.
Sometimes all it takes is a different perspective. And the stark, visually arresting sets by Kušej's long-term collaborator Martin Zehetgruber offer just that: most striking of all in Act 3 where we're looking down onto the bombed-out building interior from a bird's eye view.
It's a highly cinematic moment.
But with imagery so specific -- and therefore so ultimately outdate-able -- it is arguable whether Kušej's staging will outlive anything but a one or two revivals.
(But few new stagings nowadays are really built to last anyway, so maybe that's beside the point.)
Nevertheless, Kušej's decision to re-tell the story in the head of Leonora, who seems to be suffering from some sort of post-traumatic stress disorder after seeing her father accidentally shot by her lover Alvaro, is intriguing. And it pays dividends if you let it.
The first indication of Kušej's reinterpretation of the plot comes from the dinner table at which all the characters are seated during the overture, but which remains where it is during all four acts.
(In a nice little aside, too, it is Curra, Leonora's confidante, who tips the Marchese off to the lovers' secret tryst.)
In Act 2, the body of the Marchese who has been shot in the previous scene remains onstage while Leonora cowers in terror under the table.
In Act 2, the body of the Marchese who has been shot in the previous scene remains onstage while Leonora cowers in terror under the table.
A more significant signal comes from the decision to double-cast the Marchese as Padre Guardiano.
At first this seemed to be a way to better show off the huge talent of Russian bass Vitalij Kowaljow. But Kušej seems to be saying that in her state of shock and grief, Leonora is idealizing her dead brutish bigot of a father and turning him into the caring and loving figure she would like him to be who offers refuge and comfort.
Alvaro, too, is not the slightly greasy small-time gangster he first appears in Act 1, but a more courageous Glaubenskrieger who -- in Leonora's imagination -- valiantly saves the nerdy snitch who is her brother Carlo.
Carlo has similarly been transformed into a soldier so that the two adversaries can do battle over her honour,
The whole Mills and Boon-style story is, in fact, the romantic imaginings of a young woman who, in her cloistered, religious upbringing secretly devoured cheap love novels.
Finally, in the last scene, in her fevered hallucinations, the three men in Leonora's life -- her father, her brother and Alvaro -- are symbolically brought together and it is the heroine herself who dies among a huge pile of oversized crucifixes.
Repeated viewings are probably needed to judge whether Kušej's concept is ultimately successful.
The whole Mills and Boon-style story is, in fact, the romantic imaginings of a young woman who, in her cloistered, religious upbringing secretly devoured cheap love novels.
Finally, in the last scene, in her fevered hallucinations, the three men in Leonora's life -- her father, her brother and Alvaro -- are symbolically brought together and it is the heroine herself who dies among a huge pile of oversized crucifixes.
Repeated viewings are probably needed to judge whether Kušej's concept is ultimately successful.
But at first encounter, it seemed a lot more interesting and intriguing than the knee-jerk boo-ers and those who harp continuously on about the composer's "true intentions" would have us a believe.
Unfortunately, with a dream cast such as Kušej and conductor Asher Fisch have assembled, getting a ticket for a second performance will be nigh-on impossible.
Unfortunately, with a dream cast such as Kušej and conductor Asher Fisch have assembled, getting a ticket for a second performance will be nigh-on impossible.
Jonas Kaufmann and Anja Harteros are of course the big crowd-pullers -- and rightly so -- as the unhappy lovers.
They have already earned their spurs as great Verdians in last season's Il Trovatore.
And there can't be any other singers currently on the planet who could sing Forza better than they do, both making their role debuts.
Harteros's soprano, so ravishing and creamy but with a solid core of steel, glints and shines with jaw-dropping beauty.
Kaufmann's tenor, in the flesh, seems darker and more burnished than on his recent Verdi album. And he seems much more natural and at ease in Verdi than in some of the Wagner roles he's been trying out on disc.
He also cuts a fitter and trimmer figure on stage, too, as if he has been working out.
Ludovic Tézier is every bit their vocal match as Carlo.
Ludovic Tézier is every bit their vocal match as Carlo.
The French baritone, very impressive recently as Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor in Paris, was astonishingly convincing as he transformed from Leonora's bookish younger brother into fanatical avenger of the Marchese's death.
Kowaljow's dark, balsamic bass made the Marchese more human, almost likeable and was all the more fatherly as Padre Guardiano.
Bulgarian mezzo Nadia Krasteva as Preziosilla and Renato Girolami as Fra Melitone rounded off the superb cast.
With so much high-voltage vocal power on stage, Asher Fisch, conducting Verdi for the first time in Munich, seemed a little star-struck and left little real impression, even if the Staatsoper orchestra were in fine form.
Fisch's neat and tidy conducting lacked real bite, but perhaps he will loosen up as the series progresses.
Monday, September 30, 2013
Beethovenfest Bonn: Written on Skin
Oper Bonn
Premiere on September 29th, 2013
Miriam Clark - Agnès
Evez Abdulla - Protector
Terry Wey - Angel 1/The Boy
Susanne Blattert - Angel 2/Marie
Tamás Tarjányi - Angel 3/John
Hendrik Vestmann - conductor
Premiere on September 29th, 2013
Miriam Clark - Agnès
Evez Abdulla - Protector
Terry Wey - Angel 1/The Boy
Susanne Blattert - Angel 2/Marie
Tamás Tarjányi - Angel 3/John
Hendrik Vestmann - conductor
Alexandra Szemerédy, Magdolna Parditka - direction and stage
Thomas Roscher - lighting
Beethoven Orchester Bonn
Since its world premiere in July 2012, George Benjamin's Written on Skin has taken the opera world by storm, thanks, not least, to Katie Mitchell's landmark staging -- visually arresting, exquisitely crafted and breathtakingly acted -- which has toured from Aix-en-Provence to Toulouse, Amsterdam, London, Vienna, Munich and Florence and will reach Paris in November.
So any new director who dares to take on this piece -- the original production has already been captured on CD and will be released on DVD next year -- is going to have their work cut out for them.
Unfortunately, Alexandra Szemerédy and Magdolna Parditka who are staging the work's second-ever production in a cooperation between Bonn Opera and the city's Beethovenfest singularly fail to live up to this daunting task at just about every level.
It is clear from the beginning that everyone is out of their depth -- from the audibly under-rehearsed Beethoven Orchester Bonn and the clueless conducting of Hendrik Vestmann to the director-duo themselves who have managed to come up with a "reading" so cringingly banal and simplistic that it had me squirming in my seat with embarrassment for the composer who had flown in earlier that day and was sitting in the row in front of me.
Only the singers offered any sort of respite. But valiant as even their efforts were, they, too, were no match for the cast whose voices Benjamin had in mind when he wrote the opera.
Miriam Clark's soprano may be slightly richer and creamier than Barbara Hannigan's, and she can also reach her final top C with ease.
However, in Szemerédy's and Parditka's reading, Agnès is no living, breathing woman, intelligent but illiterate and longing for love and fulfilment, but reduced to little more than a cipher.
It needs more than writhing seductively around on the floor to convincingly portray a woman's sexual and intellectual emancipation.
Terry Wey has a clear, angelic voice, but is also not in the same league as either Bejun Metha or Iestyn Davies who shared the role of the Boy in the original production.
Similarly, Evez Abdulla had a few convincing moments, but remains a distinctly small-time gangster of a Protector compared to the dangerous, smoldering Christopher Purves, "calm, powerful, addicted to purity and violence."
After seeing Written on Skin first on the webcast from Aix and then in three live performances at Vienna's Festwochen, (where Audun Iversen replaced Purves in the role of Protector) I was excited about the prospect of a different take on the work.
(A third production is slated next year in Detmold).
But that excitement quickly gave way to trepidation when I saw the photos of the Bonn production posted on the theatre's website, with a punkish stage aesthetic that harks back to what counted as "avant-garde" in the West back in the 80s and 90s and seemingly still appears to do so today in eastern Europe.
In the original production, Mitchell and her stage designer Vicki Mortimer came up with visuals as stark, austere and beautiful as Benjamin's miraculous score itself.
Szemerédy and Parditka have simply trashed it, situating the action in some sort of post-nuclear holocaust world, where the Angels are alien-like creatures and the Protector and Agnès a pimp and his whore, whom he keeps on a chain.
And the characters are all dressed in silly, unflattering wigs and costumes that make it impossible for the audience to like, identify with or care about them at all.
There are simulated sex scenes with S&M whips, chains and masks (ooh, edgy!).
There's a "critique" of capitalism and consumerism in the form of television screens that flash up stock prices while the Protector's suited employees push supermarket trolleys laden with groceries straight into the rubbish heap, watched by the starving, rag-wearing homeless crowds (ooh, biting!).
The undercurrents of sexual tension between the three protagonists that bubble just below the surface in Benjamin's score were powerful and palpable in Mitchells' staging, thanks to the astonishing acting of the roles' creators.
In Bonn, Terry Wey's Boy is so sexless in his red page-boy wig and ludicrous costumes that it's difficult to imagine anyone falling for him, let alone Miriam Clark's Agnès or Evez Abdulla's Protector.
Indeed, as Clark gets all voluptuous in the squalid room that counts as the Protector's "perfect" house, Wey sits primly reading a book (my guess would be something by Enid Blyton), way out of her reach.
The illuminated book itself, so central to Benjamin's story, plays only a cursory role in Szemerédy's and Parditka's staging.
When the Protector asks the Boy for an example of his artwork early on, the Boy merely produces loaves of bread from his rucksack which he then doles out to the starving poor.
And he certainly paints no illuminated pages as the story proceeds, with the only allusions the piles of second-hand books scattered at the front of the stage.
Indeed, while the original production's was rich and compelling in its multiple layers of meaning, here the use of symbolism was crass and heavy-handed.
A runway runs along the very top of the set and at different points during the action, we see various figures move along it, including the Boy riding a unicorn and a woman in childbirth in a hospital bed surrounded by medical personnel in operating theatre garb.
At the end, Agnès doesn't escape her murderer-husband by jumping out of the window, but he chains her to a ladder in the pose of a crucifix, while the spirit of Boy who ascends the ladder into Everlasting Light.
I really had high hopes for this new staging and I wish I could be more charitable.
But it's an unremittingly ugly, depressingly ill-prepared mess of a production that has none of the subtlety, the deep, probing intelligence or stagecraft of the original.
The only good thing to come out of it is that I'm looking forward all the more to revisiting Katie Mitchell's staging when it comes to the Opéra Comique in Paris in November.
Sorry, Oper Bonn. But this is a definite fail.
[All photos courtesy and copyright of Oper Bonn]
Since its world premiere in July 2012, George Benjamin's Written on Skin has taken the opera world by storm, thanks, not least, to Katie Mitchell's landmark staging -- visually arresting, exquisitely crafted and breathtakingly acted -- which has toured from Aix-en-Provence to Toulouse, Amsterdam, London, Vienna, Munich and Florence and will reach Paris in November.
So any new director who dares to take on this piece -- the original production has already been captured on CD and will be released on DVD next year -- is going to have their work cut out for them.
Unfortunately, Alexandra Szemerédy and Magdolna Parditka who are staging the work's second-ever production in a cooperation between Bonn Opera and the city's Beethovenfest singularly fail to live up to this daunting task at just about every level.
It is clear from the beginning that everyone is out of their depth -- from the audibly under-rehearsed Beethoven Orchester Bonn and the clueless conducting of Hendrik Vestmann to the director-duo themselves who have managed to come up with a "reading" so cringingly banal and simplistic that it had me squirming in my seat with embarrassment for the composer who had flown in earlier that day and was sitting in the row in front of me.
Only the singers offered any sort of respite. But valiant as even their efforts were, they, too, were no match for the cast whose voices Benjamin had in mind when he wrote the opera.
Miriam Clark's soprano may be slightly richer and creamier than Barbara Hannigan's, and she can also reach her final top C with ease.
However, in Szemerédy's and Parditka's reading, Agnès is no living, breathing woman, intelligent but illiterate and longing for love and fulfilment, but reduced to little more than a cipher.
It needs more than writhing seductively around on the floor to convincingly portray a woman's sexual and intellectual emancipation.
Terry Wey has a clear, angelic voice, but is also not in the same league as either Bejun Metha or Iestyn Davies who shared the role of the Boy in the original production.
Similarly, Evez Abdulla had a few convincing moments, but remains a distinctly small-time gangster of a Protector compared to the dangerous, smoldering Christopher Purves, "calm, powerful, addicted to purity and violence."
After seeing Written on Skin first on the webcast from Aix and then in three live performances at Vienna's Festwochen, (where Audun Iversen replaced Purves in the role of Protector) I was excited about the prospect of a different take on the work.
(A third production is slated next year in Detmold).
But that excitement quickly gave way to trepidation when I saw the photos of the Bonn production posted on the theatre's website, with a punkish stage aesthetic that harks back to what counted as "avant-garde" in the West back in the 80s and 90s and seemingly still appears to do so today in eastern Europe.
In the original production, Mitchell and her stage designer Vicki Mortimer came up with visuals as stark, austere and beautiful as Benjamin's miraculous score itself.
Szemerédy and Parditka have simply trashed it, situating the action in some sort of post-nuclear holocaust world, where the Angels are alien-like creatures and the Protector and Agnès a pimp and his whore, whom he keeps on a chain.
And the characters are all dressed in silly, unflattering wigs and costumes that make it impossible for the audience to like, identify with or care about them at all.
There are simulated sex scenes with S&M whips, chains and masks (ooh, edgy!).
There's a "critique" of capitalism and consumerism in the form of television screens that flash up stock prices while the Protector's suited employees push supermarket trolleys laden with groceries straight into the rubbish heap, watched by the starving, rag-wearing homeless crowds (ooh, biting!).
The undercurrents of sexual tension between the three protagonists that bubble just below the surface in Benjamin's score were powerful and palpable in Mitchells' staging, thanks to the astonishing acting of the roles' creators.
In Bonn, Terry Wey's Boy is so sexless in his red page-boy wig and ludicrous costumes that it's difficult to imagine anyone falling for him, let alone Miriam Clark's Agnès or Evez Abdulla's Protector.
Indeed, as Clark gets all voluptuous in the squalid room that counts as the Protector's "perfect" house, Wey sits primly reading a book (my guess would be something by Enid Blyton), way out of her reach.
The illuminated book itself, so central to Benjamin's story, plays only a cursory role in Szemerédy's and Parditka's staging.
When the Protector asks the Boy for an example of his artwork early on, the Boy merely produces loaves of bread from his rucksack which he then doles out to the starving poor.
And he certainly paints no illuminated pages as the story proceeds, with the only allusions the piles of second-hand books scattered at the front of the stage.
Indeed, while the original production's was rich and compelling in its multiple layers of meaning, here the use of symbolism was crass and heavy-handed.
A runway runs along the very top of the set and at different points during the action, we see various figures move along it, including the Boy riding a unicorn and a woman in childbirth in a hospital bed surrounded by medical personnel in operating theatre garb.
At the end, Agnès doesn't escape her murderer-husband by jumping out of the window, but he chains her to a ladder in the pose of a crucifix, while the spirit of Boy who ascends the ladder into Everlasting Light.
I really had high hopes for this new staging and I wish I could be more charitable.
But it's an unremittingly ugly, depressingly ill-prepared mess of a production that has none of the subtlety, the deep, probing intelligence or stagecraft of the original.
The only good thing to come out of it is that I'm looking forward all the more to revisiting Katie Mitchell's staging when it comes to the Opéra Comique in Paris in November.
Sorry, Oper Bonn. But this is a definite fail.
[All photos courtesy and copyright of Oper Bonn]
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Boycotting Castorf's Ring: The Follow-Up
Remember my 'Weird Wagnerian' who coughed up €25,000 not to go to see Frank Castorf's new Ring in Bayreuth this summer?
Or more accurately, a certain Erich Fischer who took out five adverts in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on August 10, 14, 15, 17 and 19 this year to proclaim to the world that "out of reverence and love for Richard Wagner, we will not be taking our seats in Ring II in Bayreuth"?
You know, that droll little story that filled the Sommerloch for a while. (If your memory needs refreshing, you can read my original blog posting here. )
Well, just when I'd given up hearing from him, despite multiple enquiries, an e-mail plopped into my in-tray.
More than 5 weeks after I first contacted him. But hey, who's counting?
To be honest, even now he didn't respond to my questions personally and directly, but chose to answer them instead via a mock "self interview" that he'd similarly paid to have published in the FAZ on August 29.
In it, he claimed that while the media had initially "shown an interest, it led nowhere, for one reason or another."
(I'm sorry, Mr Fischer, but that's more than just a little disingenuous of you.
You had my contact details and I'd already pestered you several times. And your secretary promised me you'd contact me when you were ready.
So I can't help feeling you were avoiding a direct interview, either face to face or via telephone.)
Anyway, as I'd already surmised in my original article, it was indeed the very same Erich Fischer, a 75-year-old Munich-based former entrepreneur and founder of the philanthropic Internationale Stiftung zur Förderung von Kultur und Zivilization.
According to a pamphlet downloadable from its website, the main achievements of this organisation is putting on afternoon concerts for senior citizens and financing music lessons for school children and prisoners in an attempt to re-socialise them.
All laudable aims in themselves even if the organisation's name is rather pompous and self-aggrandising.
Fischer also confirmed that he'd spent €25,000 on his highly unusual advertising campaign, a sum most of us could put to infinitely better and more constructive use.
(Interestingly, he never reveals what he actually did with the tickets.)
Throughout the "interview", Fischer never broaches the crucial question as to how he hopes to judge a production that he has never actually seen.
Nevertheless, his fear, he assures us, is that "Richard Wagner's oeuvre is in mortal danger, particularly in Bayreuth."
What is more, he wants to save opera in Germany from the curse of Regietheater.
Now this is a hazily defined term, usually spat out venomously by the cultural Taliban of the opera world whose artistic notions are challenged and their hackles raised if the female leads don't wear a pretty frock and the male singers aren't hamming it up in tights and a ruff.
You know the ones: the self-appointed guardians of Wagner's Holy Grail who harp on endlessly about the composer's "true intentions" and insist that his stage directions be followed to the letter.
(They're usually the ones, too, who complain that 'modern' directors can't read music when I'd bet my bottom dollar that they can't either.)
Fischer is one such High Priest in this strange cult called Wagnerism.
"The issue is the authenticity of the work of art that is being reproduced," he tells us.
The directorial excesses of Regietheater "make a mockery of the artwork and the audience," Fischer complains. And they are almost only seen in Germany.
"If you go to the opera in France or Italy, you can -- in contrast to here -- recognize which work is being performed."
He then goes on to say -- seemingly completely without irony -- that "even in the US, at the MET in New York, things are a lot more conventional."
And he confounds such hair-raising ignorance further by saying later: "Look at the Comédie Française in Paris or the Royal Shakespeare Company in London -- the stagings are antiquated there, too."
This man has patently never been to any of these places and I'm not sure the theatres in Paris or London would take kindly to seeing their productions described as "museum-like" (or in his word museal).
Neither is the boycott of Castorf's Ring Fischer's first such campaign. He took out similar ads after seeing "with horror" Stefan Herheim's Parsifal in August 2008, which he said "adulterated and bastardized Wagner's Bühnenweihfestspiel beyond all recognition."
Fischer's biggest clou, however, comes in his proposed remedy to the plague of Regietheater productions in Bayreuth.
"Instead of surrendering Wagner's works, particularly in Bayreuth, to the mercy of ever new, ever more dubious 'interpretators'... the ideal solution" would be to re-stage Wieland Wagner's "timelessly relevant stagings from the 1950s and 1960s," Fischer says.
"Their symbolism is completely coherent and even 'more correct' than what Richard Wagner did himself," Fischer says.
In addition, it would save the festival many millions of euros each year, money that could be spent training new Wagner singers, he argues.
He makes no bones about it. Opera, for him, is clearly not a living, breathing art form, but a museum.
(And this man has set up a foundation the aim of which is to "promote culture and civilisation? The irony is clearly lost on him.)
To this end, Fischer is launching an initiative entitled "Save Richard Wagner's Bayreuth" and asks for the support of "everyone who has say in politics, in culture, in the media and in industry, as well as all Wagnerians."
What Fischer fails to realise is that there is just such a festival already in existence, the Richard Wagner Festival in Wels, Austria.
And it nearly went bust this year due to lack of support.
Now I challenge anyone to say Wagnerians aren't a pretty mad bunch.
Or more accurately, a certain Erich Fischer who took out five adverts in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on August 10, 14, 15, 17 and 19 this year to proclaim to the world that "out of reverence and love for Richard Wagner, we will not be taking our seats in Ring II in Bayreuth"?
You know, that droll little story that filled the Sommerloch for a while. (If your memory needs refreshing, you can read my original blog posting here. )
Well, just when I'd given up hearing from him, despite multiple enquiries, an e-mail plopped into my in-tray.
More than 5 weeks after I first contacted him. But hey, who's counting?
To be honest, even now he didn't respond to my questions personally and directly, but chose to answer them instead via a mock "self interview" that he'd similarly paid to have published in the FAZ on August 29.
In it, he claimed that while the media had initially "shown an interest, it led nowhere, for one reason or another."
(I'm sorry, Mr Fischer, but that's more than just a little disingenuous of you.
You had my contact details and I'd already pestered you several times. And your secretary promised me you'd contact me when you were ready.
So I can't help feeling you were avoiding a direct interview, either face to face or via telephone.)
Anyway, as I'd already surmised in my original article, it was indeed the very same Erich Fischer, a 75-year-old Munich-based former entrepreneur and founder of the philanthropic Internationale Stiftung zur Förderung von Kultur und Zivilization.
According to a pamphlet downloadable from its website, the main achievements of this organisation is putting on afternoon concerts for senior citizens and financing music lessons for school children and prisoners in an attempt to re-socialise them.
All laudable aims in themselves even if the organisation's name is rather pompous and self-aggrandising.
Fischer also confirmed that he'd spent €25,000 on his highly unusual advertising campaign, a sum most of us could put to infinitely better and more constructive use.
(Interestingly, he never reveals what he actually did with the tickets.)
Throughout the "interview", Fischer never broaches the crucial question as to how he hopes to judge a production that he has never actually seen.
Nevertheless, his fear, he assures us, is that "Richard Wagner's oeuvre is in mortal danger, particularly in Bayreuth."
What is more, he wants to save opera in Germany from the curse of Regietheater.
Now this is a hazily defined term, usually spat out venomously by the cultural Taliban of the opera world whose artistic notions are challenged and their hackles raised if the female leads don't wear a pretty frock and the male singers aren't hamming it up in tights and a ruff.
You know the ones: the self-appointed guardians of Wagner's Holy Grail who harp on endlessly about the composer's "true intentions" and insist that his stage directions be followed to the letter.
(They're usually the ones, too, who complain that 'modern' directors can't read music when I'd bet my bottom dollar that they can't either.)
Fischer is one such High Priest in this strange cult called Wagnerism.
"The issue is the authenticity of the work of art that is being reproduced," he tells us.
The directorial excesses of Regietheater "make a mockery of the artwork and the audience," Fischer complains. And they are almost only seen in Germany.
"If you go to the opera in France or Italy, you can -- in contrast to here -- recognize which work is being performed."
He then goes on to say -- seemingly completely without irony -- that "even in the US, at the MET in New York, things are a lot more conventional."
And he confounds such hair-raising ignorance further by saying later: "Look at the Comédie Française in Paris or the Royal Shakespeare Company in London -- the stagings are antiquated there, too."
This man has patently never been to any of these places and I'm not sure the theatres in Paris or London would take kindly to seeing their productions described as "museum-like" (or in his word museal).
Neither is the boycott of Castorf's Ring Fischer's first such campaign. He took out similar ads after seeing "with horror" Stefan Herheim's Parsifal in August 2008, which he said "adulterated and bastardized Wagner's Bühnenweihfestspiel beyond all recognition."
Fischer's biggest clou, however, comes in his proposed remedy to the plague of Regietheater productions in Bayreuth.
"Instead of surrendering Wagner's works, particularly in Bayreuth, to the mercy of ever new, ever more dubious 'interpretators'... the ideal solution" would be to re-stage Wieland Wagner's "timelessly relevant stagings from the 1950s and 1960s," Fischer says.
"Their symbolism is completely coherent and even 'more correct' than what Richard Wagner did himself," Fischer says.
In addition, it would save the festival many millions of euros each year, money that could be spent training new Wagner singers, he argues.
He makes no bones about it. Opera, for him, is clearly not a living, breathing art form, but a museum.
(And this man has set up a foundation the aim of which is to "promote culture and civilisation? The irony is clearly lost on him.)
To this end, Fischer is launching an initiative entitled "Save Richard Wagner's Bayreuth" and asks for the support of "everyone who has say in politics, in culture, in the media and in industry, as well as all Wagnerians."
What Fischer fails to realise is that there is just such a festival already in existence, the Richard Wagner Festival in Wels, Austria.
And it nearly went bust this year due to lack of support.
Now I challenge anyone to say Wagnerians aren't a pretty mad bunch.
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