Smyth: The Wreckers

Opera no 74

Smyth: The Wreckers

Soloists

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra

Odaline de la Martinez

Boughton: The Immortal Hour

Opera no 73

Boughton: The Immortal Hour

Soloists

English Chamber Orchestra

Alan G Melville

I thought that this was a very interesting work. To be honest I was not expecting very much - just a peice of rather fey fairy whimsy with fairly unsophisticated music. There was some of that but there was also plenty of places where there was real invention and dramatic interest. The harmonic pallet is rich - Delius is the most obvious point of comparison - and the orchestration rich and sonorous - plenty of Cor Anglais throughout. At times it did wander rather aimlessly (another Delius trait) but in other places in commended attention. There were some particularly beautiful offstage choral effects - the end of the first act in particular stood out. But the end, also with an offstage chorus, was the most abrupt ending to any opera that I remember (even including Wozzeck!). The music just disappears - in fact I thought at first that there was a fault on my CD and I had to listen to it again just to make sure!

This opera had a huge impact when it was first performances in London, with an initial run of 216 performances. It is hard to imagine it being successful nowadays, tastes have changes, but perhaps in a very sympathetic production it could still hold the stage. Certainly it has much to commend it. 

Stanford: The Travelling Companion

Opera no 72

Stanford: The Travelling Companion 

Soloists

New Sussex Opera

Toby Purser

This was Stanford's last opera - it was not performed until after his death. I have to say that I thought that it was a pretty mediocre work. Some of it was in  that rather fey 'hey nonny no' folksy style that I find so off-putting in British music of this era. But even ignoring that I didn't find much stylistic coherence to the piece and not much to grip the listener. The whole thing is extraordinarily old fashion for an opera from 1916, and it is hard to imagine that it will ever be more than a curiosity. Oddly enough the last couple of minutes - a gradual wind down towards a quiet ending impressed me more than anything else in the opera, but of course by that time it was far too late. So this is very much one to put down to experience.

Beethoven: Leonore

Opera no 71

Beethoven: Leonore

Soloists

Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique

John Elliot Gardiner

I've known Fidelio for as long as I can remember but I have never heard Leonore before. It was a fascinating experience. It was like listening to a familiar opera going in and out of focus. Most obviously different are the numbers which Beethoven completely removed but even more interesting is listening to Beethoven's earlier thoughts on some of the most familiar music. There are all sort of different melodic turns, changes in harmony as well as wholesale rewriting of sections. Generally speaking Fidelio is more concise and one can see why Beethoven made cuts and tightened up the whole score. Most of the cuts seem well thought out - though clearly any mature Beethoven is not to be missed - but the section before the final duet between Florestan and Leonore was highly effective and perhaps Beethoven was unwise to remove it. 

I did however miss the extraordinary end of Fidelio, where Beethoven lets rip in an explosion of energy. The very end of Leonore doesn't have that impact and I must confess that after finishing listening to this opera I did put on the last scene of Fidelio, in the Klemperer recording, just to remind me what I had missed.

I also talk the opportunity to listen to the 10 or so minutes that have been rescued from Beethoven's abortive opera Vesta's Feuer because this was the original source of the music in the Florestan-Leonore duet. There it seemed quite pretty and almost conventional. The transformation Beethoven achieved in turning it into the huge outburst of passion in the opera is quite extraordinary.

It has been an highly enjoyable experience listening to the operas which led up to Fidelio. I've know Winton Dean's masterly account of Beethoven as an opera composer for many years and it was really good to be able to hear the examples in his book brought to life in full orchestral performances. The three operas by Paer, Mayr and Gaveaux were all worth listening to, but it only take a few moments of listening to Beethoven to realise the difference between talent and genius.

For the next stage in this project I am going to cover 20th and 21st Century British and Irish opera. 

Gaveaux: Léonore

Opera no 70

Gaveaux: Léonore

Soloists

Opera Lafayette

Ryan Brown

This version of the story is much closer to Fidelio than the two previous operas in this project. Indeed Beethoven’s librettist took the libretto of this opera as his starting point. It follows the same broad structure as Fidelio and, like that opera but unlike the two previous operas, has spoken dialogue rather than recitative.

It is very different in character to the other two operas. It is very obviously a French rather than Italian work. There is very little coloratura or overt display. Some of it is quite simple in style - reminiscent of composers such as Grétry, though there are also much more sophisticated passages showing the impact that Cherubini and his school were having on French music at the turn of the 19th century.

There were moments of real drama here - with a real sense of momentum. The minor characters don’t get in the way of the action in Act 2 as they do in the Paer and both Léonore and Florestan come across very vividly - their duet of recognition is really impressive. Unfortunately Gaveaux then complete spoils the effect by following this immediately  by the most trivial and almost comic music of the chorus as they announce the arrival of the governor. What should be a moment of high drama becomes almost farcical. This is a great pity as earlier in the opera the prisoners’ chorus is impressively moving. It has something of the mood of the equivalent chorus in Fidelio . We don’t know whether Beethoven knew this opera - he owned a score at some point, but we don’t know when he acquired it. There is no chorus in either of the other two settings - a reminder that the Italian tradition, unlike the French, had little need for choruses - certainly not of the sophistication you find in French music of this time.

This version was certainly more to my taste that the two Italian versions - Gaveaux had a real dramatic skill - it is such a pity that he lets himself down occasionally with really poor and commonplace passages.

On to Beethoven next

Paer: Leonora

Opera no 69

Paer: Leonore

Soloists

Bayerisches Symphonieorchestra

Peter Maag

This is a much longer version of the story that the Mayr which I listened to previous - there is about 2 1/2hrs of music here altogether. Again there is striking music in the arias for the main characters but a lot of the rest of it is rather thin. All very competent of course as one would expect from a composer whose work was widely performed in his lifetime but much of the invention seems rather routine. Paer also didn’t quite know when to stop - the overture came to what seemed like a resounding end and then continued on for another couple of minutes and several of the arias were overextended to give the singers plenty of coloratura opportunities - this is an Italian opera after all!. The role of Marzellina is far too prominent and showy - she appears needlessly just after Florestan and Leonora have discovered each other and instead of leaving them to get re-acquainted  she sings an elaborate duet with Leonora. Any sense of dramatic tension is lost.

Within the confines and conventions of Italian opera there is a plenty here to enjoy but this is never going to be a credible alternative to Beethoven. That is too much to expect.

Mayr: L'amor conjugale

 

Opera no 68

Mayr: L'amor conjugale

Soloists

Opera Fuoco

David Stern

There is a fascinating group of Operas from round the turn of the 19^th century which all share the same basic story as Fidelio. I want to explore some of them in this part of the project. Winton Dean’s chapter on Beethoven and opera has been a very helpful guide here.

Mayr was an important composer who features in the history books largely because of his setting of Medea in Corinto and this version of the Fidelio story. The character names are changed but the basic  plot is broadly the same. Much of the music is Mozartian in style – though the more you hear of opera  of this period them more you realise just what a genius Mozart was – but there are some places which looking forward to early 19^th century opera. It is rather an unbalance work. It is quite short and some it is is quite light, but there are two huge arias, one for the Lenora and one for Florestan characters. These are both impressive and show real expressive breadth. Curiously some of the music in the latter part of the opera seems almost to be a straight lift from Cosi fan Tutte – surely it can’t be coincidence. Dean doesn’t comment on this and I’ve not found any reference to it elsewhere. Very odd.

Would this opera be worth listening to if it were not for Fidelio?  I’m not sure. Some of it is impressive but elsewhere it shows a mastery of the standard tropes of late 18^th century opera without anything particularly distinctive.  

Kienzl: Der Evangelimann

Opera no  67

Kienzl: Der Evangelimann

Soloists

Munich Radio Orchestra

Lathar Zagrosek

This is another opera which had a huge initial impact but which has almost disappeared from view. I had heard it years ago and was glad to make its reaquaintance. Stylistically it was rather hard to pin down. Wagner was certainly a major influence. The music at the end of the first act to illustrate the fire was clearly indebted to the Magic Fire music from Die Walkure and parts of the anguished monologue in Act 2 could have come from Tannnauser or even Parsifal. Yet elsewhere there was delightlful lighthearted music for the village scenes which could almost have come from The Bartered Bride. There were moments of verismo and the big tune in the overture (reprised later in the opera) seemed almost a straight lift from Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty. But all of these elements do come together to make an entertaining and dramatic work. Tastes change and the music associted with the Evalgelist – complete with children’s choir – now seems over-sentimental and indeed almost kitch. Perhaps it could still work in a sympathetic production but somehow I doubt it,

This is the last in this group of German operas , where I have tried to follow almost a century of development. What is striking is how little 19^th century German opera has remained in the repertory. Wagner casts an enormous shadow. In fact the only non-Wagner operas from the 19^th century which are still part of the standard repertoire are Hansel and Gretel and Fidelio,

So for the next part of this project I will be looking at some of the operas which form the background to Fidelio.

Nessler: Der Trompeter Von Säckingen

Opera no 66

Nessler: Der Trompeter Von Säckingen

Soloists

WDR radio orchestra

Helmuth Froschauer

You come across this opera from time to time in histories of German music and of 19th century opera. It was hugely successful in its time but has disappeared from the state. I had no idea what to expect from it - but I wasn’t expecting it to start with rousing student songs in the simplest of styles. But that was a clue to what was to follow. This is the lightest of operas - looking forward perhaps to Johann Strauss or Lêhar, but without any of their subtlety of refinement. There were some attractive moments in the score, particularly in the more reflective passages, but to be frank a lot of it was very crude and second rate. Now I like light opera, but there is a difference between lightness and banality and unfortunately banality is the right word for this work. I can see that on a warn evening with an undemanding audience it might be quite entertaining for a while, but that its about it.

Oddly there are two links with Mahler to note. The first is that early in his career he wrote incidentlal music to a play based on the original poem which is the subject of the opera. That music is lost other than one movement which became the Blumine  movement of the original version of his first symphony before it was removed when the work was reduced from five to four movements. Secondly in the early part of his career Mahler didn’t have a choice over the operas he performed and he had to conduct this work many times. He hated it and thought that it was an awful work. I can quite understand why.

Goetz: Der Widerspenstigen Zähmung

Opera no 65

Goetz: Der Widerspenstigen Zähmung

Soloists

Bavarian Radio Orchestra

Jospeha Keilberth

I came across Hermann Goetz while I was still at school when our youth orchestra played his symphony on a residential course. I imagine that the conductor (Trevor Harvey who wrote for Gramophone magazine ) wanted to hear what it sounded like. But the name Goetz is also familiar to readers of the music criticism of George Bernard Shaw, who wrote a very enthusiastic review of this opera 'You have to go to Mozart’s finest quartets and quintets on the one hand, and to Die Meistersinger on the other, for work of the quality we find, not here and there, but continuously, in the Symphony and in the opera, two masterpieces which place him securely above all other German composers of the last hundred years, save only Mozart and Beethoven, Weber and Wagner.  He also said' He has the charm of Schubert without his brainlessness, the refinement and inspiration of Mendelssohn without his limitation and timid gentility, Schumann’s sense of harmonic expression without his laboriousness, shortcoming, and dependence on external poetic stimulus; while as to unembarrassed mastery of the material of music, shewing itself in the Mozartian grace and responsiveness of his polyphony, he leaves all three of them simply nowhere.  Brahms, who alone has touches him in mere brute musical faculty, is a dolt in comparison to him.”, 

As somebody who has never appreciated Brahms that latter comment did rather appeal!

The opera is a version of Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew. I did hear it years ago and coming back to it I found it a pure delight. It has real charm. Some attractive lyrical passages and moments of broad comedy. Goetz keeps the momentum going and has a real sense of theatre. The basic musical language is Mendelssohnian but there are are touches of later romantic harmony with a few nods to Wagner here are there. It does in my view rank very highly in the pantheon of comic operas - perhaps only The Barber of Baghdad is its equal. Shaw was spot on!