Backstage gets hectic in COC production.
On the Hamilton-Toronto bus, en route to see Canadian Opera Company’s Ariadne auf Naxos by Richard Strauss, there is time to re-dip into Wilhelm Furtwangler Notebooks 1924-54 and read what this truly legendary conductor has to say about tonight’s composer. Although these notes contain nothing on the opera due in three hours, Furtwangler does prove increasingly more condemning of the composer in entries made over the war years.
In 1939, for example, he writes: “The playful trait in Strauss: not the playing of a child, which is actually in deadly earnest, but the conscious play of the irresponsible person, of the person devoid of content, the redundant person. As he never means it quite truly, quite warmly, quite seriously, he is never heard or felt quite truly, quite warmly, quite seriously. He is, of all of them, the one who ‘can’ do the most and ‘who’ is the least.”
In 1940, he continues, “…art emerges which, following the dictates of the material, increasingly relinquishes the soul (Strauss)….” Then in 1943 he writes, “The more of a technician someone is –Hindemith, also R. Strauss-the more he is interested in style, the less in the work.”
Then, in 1944, we have, “In terms of structure and devotion, R. Strauss is equal to the greatest. In this he is as unobjectionable as Bach and Mozart. But what one must object to is what he has to say, the essence and content of his personality. Here he cannot be placed on a par with the great composers.”
In summation, Strauss stands accused of unengaged and contrived playfulness, of technique and style that prevail over substance of meaning. It’s an image that complies with the sometimes shallow Strauss of musical lore who prefers playing cards backstage to shaping music of metaphysical consequence from the podium. And didn’t his collaborator von Hofmannsthal regard Strauss as a bourgeois?
One case for the composer’s defense, however, is the audience for COC’s Ariadne auf Naxos, in a production that originated with the Welsh National Opera. Note the repeated laughter, from chuckle to roar, in the audience, note the many faces full of delighted anticipation, and one realizes that Richard Strauss is a theatrical magician –and composer- of his own kind. From concept to staging, this is a thoroughly entertaining show, a world onto itself.
At the outset, the Prologue reveals a decidedly unmagical world behind theatrical fantasy, one bubbling with sarcasm, irritation, ironies, hurt outrage, and shallow pragmatism. No wonder it is so. “The richest man in Vienna” has arbitrarily decided, first, that some comedians will follow the performance of the serious opera that night and then, because all performance must end at nine so the fireworks can begin, that the serious opera and comedic performance will be performed simultaneously.
The composer who at first wonders, “How can I make sure that Bacchus understands he is a god?” then witnesses this same Bacchus in an ungodlike tantrum of childish, foot-stomping variety. He then hears his magnum opus regarded as boring, as merely “all these sharps and flats,” and, being hypersensitive, as all creators must surely be, declares, wounded, “I’ll never compose again.” Meanwhile, the arrogant diva is indignant: “Don’t they know who I am?”
This is funny stuff, of course, because the wounded naivite, the deflatable pomposity, the unjustified pretentiousness, and the pettiness of theatrical folk all show the human species, by implication, as something silly. Yes, we note the set up of easy targets by a composer who seems emotionally unaffected by them, a composer who further inflates these already bloated individuals into further absurdity with musical exaggeration, but do his victims deserve any better? And don’t we sense, throughout, a knowing wink from Strauss, a patient which seems at the essence of his humour?
So much is spoofed in Ariadne auf Naxos, wherein grand opera and comedy of the street have to work out co-existence: the stereotypes in opera, metaphysical aspiration in opera, romance on or off the stage, pretension of all kinds, innocence of all kinds, even dogma in aesthetics. We laugh, however, because this is what we are, even in our sincerity and vulnerability. We are a silly species and Strauss is funny because he can’t be bothered too much with us, all while he wraps us in rapturous music all the same.
But this is a splendid production. Conductor Sir Andrew Davis negotiates, with easygoing yet acutely aware aplomb, the large variety of orchestral effects in the score. These include dramatic chordal punctuation, attitude-setting lead-ins for the singers, ironic and humorous commentary, full collective ecstasy or pomp, and much else. Davis seems at one with the method of Strauss and over Prologue and Opera guides seductive sounds to expand and recede, to dominate the theatre’s atmosphere and then float away like strands of smoke.
One savours these orchestral sounds, one pays attention to the combinations of instruments that create them and sometimes surprise us. But if Strauss indicates a deliberate manipulation of emotional response on his part, Davis in turn deftly achieves an unselfconscious counterpoint of absurd situations on stage and these painfully beautiful musical passages. He skillfully lures us into a musical world, and there moves us to laughter and to feeling.
This is almost sinfully rich music from the pit, but it is not by orchestra alone that such richness is achieved. It is especially in his writing for the female voice that Strauss has sublime effect and the cast of the Canadian Opera production offers a number of vocal gems, male as well as female, that give memorable results.
Adrianne Pieczonka as Prima Donna and Ariadne shows an inspiring self-assurance of voice. With substantial rounded tone, she is declarative yet subtle on a big scale, effortlessly present with beguiling clarity of sound, with feminine power even in her wounded gentleness. Whatever parody Strauss and von Hofmannstahl have in mind, there is radiant authority in Pieczonka’s performance of Ariadne, one that moves us deeply.
As the Composer, mezzo Alice Coote’s repeated nuanced shaping of Straussian elongations and her subtle manipulation of both volume and resonance create a compelling range of emotion in a character who might otherwise seem artsy, self-indulgent and precious. Coote is consistently sensitive in creamy soft shadings of voice that drift off into aching silences and we in turn find beauty, not cause for mockery, in the Composer’s sincerity.
Soprano Jane Archibald sings the delightful Zerbinetta with bounce and exciting pliability of voice, plus an incisive edge that, urgently at times, delineates inner shifts of feeling. All this in a role that in some quarters is considered the most difficult coloratura role in the canon. As an actress, Archibald is adept at coquettish innuendo and a delightfully suggestive physicality. She is sexy with each gesture as she embodies the score.
Richard Margison’s open throated and masculine tenor, ringing loud at full throttle, brings a welcome heroic dimension to these prevailing feminine sensibilities. Unless the original German speaks more true to life, both librettist (who was a poet) and composer have several chuckles at the cliched lines that Bacchus, as a satiric tool, must mouth. Try these gems: “Now suffering changes to joy in your heart and mine.” Or “I’ve become a god through love.” Or ”Great was my need of you. Now I am transformed.” And my favourite: “I needed you more than anything.”
Director Neil Armfield’s knack for physical and vocal humour provides many a delight throughout the evening and even includes stylized copulation behind a curtain. His almost static arrangement of singers during the Opera creates at times the effect of a concert performance. One senses his mockery of opera in the wrong hands and reduced to a series of showpiece arias with little regard for narrative continuity. Meanwhile, Dale Ferguson’s ripped and punctured flats, with a decidedly dirty look to them, appropriately echo visually a high art being sullied.
Composer and librettist and all elements in the COC’s deliciously theatrical production achieve, as desired, a very fine balance of emotional intensity and comic effect. They put quotation marks around their own high art, even as they make satiric points at the expense of that same art whose emotional impact, ironically, they also hone so well.
One feels oneself made emotionally obese by musical beauty, one feels emotionally both self-indulgent and drained, even as one laughs lovingly at one’s submission to operatic effect. By his own rules, on his own turf, Strauss proves he knows both his craft and humanity insightfully well. Who can doubt that he is very serious indeed about the art he creates, especially when he plays both ends against a paradoxical middle where seriousness and laughter can intertwine?