On a production of Mozart’s opera at the Salzburg Festival
Editor’s Note: The below is an expanded version of a piece that appears in the current issue of National Review.
Salzburg, Austria
There is a wide repertoire here at the Salzburg Festival. Onstage this year, for example, is an opera by Martinů: The Greek Passion. Bohuslav Martinů, for those who haven’t gotten acquainted, was a Czech composer who lived from 1890 to 1959. When I was a kid, I was interested in the little circle over the last letter of his last name. I hadn’t seen one before. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen many since.
Martinů and others aside, Salzburg is Mozart’s town, and Mozart has pride of place. The festival is staging The Marriage of Figaro, one of the “Da Ponte operas,” which is to say, one of the operas (three) that Mozart wrote with the librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte.
It’s a pity that “great” is so casually used, and “masterpiece” too. “What a great tuna sandwich.” “So-and-so’s latest string quartet is a masterpiece.” Well, if it’s merely good, or merely worthwhile — that’s good enough. What about The Marriage of Figaro? Even within Mozart’s catalogue, Figaro stands out. It is his Hamlet, you could say.
Years ago, Marilyn Horne, the great mezzo-soprano (truly great), had a complaint: Critics spent almost all of an opera review on the production. (That is, the theatrical elements of an opera performance, as distinct from the musical.) Singers were practically an afterthought.
True. Productions too frequently steal the show, or steal the review. They crowd out the singers, the orchestra, the conductor — hell, the opera itself (meaning the score and the libretto).
I will get to Salzburg’s latest production of The Marriage of Figaro in due course.
The conductor is Raphaël Pichon, a countertenor from France. What the . . .? This is the Salzburg Festival. Richard Strauss, Karl Böhm, and Josef Krips, among others, have conducted Mozart here. And they’ve brought in a French countertenor who thinks he is a conductor?
They knew what they were doing. He is a conductor. And an excellent one.
I attended a performance on a Saturday night in — where else? — the festival’s House for Mozart. The overture was crisp, lively, and, blessedly, unrushed. Pichon was Mozartean at every turn of the opera. He was grand and lush when required, nimble and scampering when required, and so on. He never did anything stupid and never did anything bland.
Hang on a minute: There was so much rubato (license with time) in the final pages of “Non so più,” I think they lasted about an hour and a half. But this was within bounds — musical, interpretive bounds — barely.
The entrance to Act II was fudged. But the pizzicatos under “Voi che sapete” were precise, which is rare. The twists in the wedding march were electric, quasi-demonic. And the D-major exultation at the end was just what Mozart ordered.
Playing in the pit, by the way, was the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. This is a luxury — the VPO as a festival’s house band. It is churlish of me to report that the horns flubbed in Act IV. But sometimes man bites dog, and a reporter needs to say so. (Actually, flubbing horns, even in the best of orchestras, are more like dog-bites-man.)
In the title role, Figaro, was a Polish bass: Krzysztof Bączyk. (The squiggly under the “a” is as striking as the circle over the “u.”) Bączyk is a genuine singing actor, or acting singer. His “Se vuol ballare” had the right tough-guy undercurrent: “Bring it on,” it said, stylishly. By the way, Bączyk seems to be about 7 feet tall. He towered over everyone onstage.
His Susanna was Sabine Devieilhe, a French soprano, one of the best Mozart singers of our time. She was fresh, clean, clear — and eerily accurate. In “Deh vieni,” she wove a spell, putting on a clinic of lyricism. The voice bent like taffy, or Silly Putty.
Incidentally, Devieilhe is Madame Pichon. Or, if you like, he is Monsieur, or Maestro, Devieilhe. Between husband and wife, in the pit and onstage, there seemed nothing but harmony and cooperation.
Singing the Countess was Adriana González, a soprano from Guatemala. Question: Has an artist from that country ever made it to the world stage? At any rate, González has, and she is a true Mozart singer. In the Countess’s arias — “Porgi, amor” and “Dove sono” — she sang in long breaths and seamless lines. High and soft was no problem for her. For the average Joe, or Josephine, it’s a big problem.
González sang her Italian in a slight Spanish accent, as native Spanish-speakers tend to do. (Plácido Domingo has been doing it for 60 years.) The languages are so close, one may not bother to adjust. Regardless, González was charming, affecting, and Countess-like.
Listening to her, I thought of Renée Fleming, the great soprano from upstate New York. (Again, I use “great” advisedly.) In an interview here in Salzburg many years ago, Fleming told me that she got a lot of work early in her career — particularly as the Countess — because more seasoned sopranos did not want to deal with the rigors of Mozart. He is so hard, so “exposing.”
Partnering González as the Count — not that the Count is all that interested in his wife — was Andrè Schuen, an Italian baritone. Why is that accent pointing the wrong way? Perhaps because Schuen is from South Tyrol, where Ladin is spoken, along with Italian and German. In any case, Schuen made a suave Count, vocally and theatrically.
Cherubino was taken by Lea Desandre, the Italian-French mezzo-soprano. She is delectable in anything she does. For years, she trained as a ballet dancer, and she did some dancing as Cherubino — not ballet, but dancing nonetheless, and she was professional, whether she was paid for her dancing, specifically, or not.
In sum, you will rarely see a Marriage of Figaro better sung, acted, played, and conducted than this one. Would that the review could end there.
Maybe I could tell a story or two. In 2006, the Salzburg Festival had another production of The Marriage of Figaro, rather screwy. (The plot of the opera itself is screwy. Still, a director can screw it up.) When a favorite moment of mine came along — a favorite musical moment — I found myself closing my eyes. I did not want the action on the stage to mar the moment.
(For those curious: This is in Act II, Scene 10, when Mozart looks back to the Baroque — employing, for example, counterpoint. The stretch begins when Figaro sings “Mente il ceffo, io già non mento.”)
In 2002, the festival had staged another Mozart opera — another Da Ponte opera — Don Giovanni. Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, the great German soprano, was in attendance. Leaving at intermission, she asked a member of the cast, “How can you lend your talent to this?”
That production was by Martin Kušej, the Austrian stage director, and a major figure at the festival. He is the director of the current Figaro. I will mention some details.
As the overture plays, the characters are all lined up on the stage. Before the overture ends, they are swigging from bottles, popping pills, etc.
Traditionally, the opera begins with Figaro measuring out space in a room. (The space where the bed he will share with his intended, Susanna, will fit.) In this production, he is counting drinks on a bar. In the next room, a murder is committed.
And there will be others. I’m not sure an audience member is supposed to question why.
A tradition in Salzburg Mozart productions, I have observed over the past 20 years, is the infliction of physical pain. Gratuitous and incomprehensible, at least by me. While Figaro is singing “Non più andrai,” Don Basilio effectively tortures Cherubino.
There is plenty of nudity, of course — and not just live and in the flesh, so to speak, but in the form of a photo on the wall: a horrid crotch shot.
Barbarina, the gardener’s daughter, is a high-heel–wearing slut. She and Don Basilio do the nasty. In this production, Basilio is both music teacher and priest. When Barbarina gets on her knees before him, in a simulation of oral sex, he “blesses” her.
Susanna is gettin’ it on with the Count — which warps the story. Which makes a nonsense of the plot (already complicated).
The morning after the performance I attended, a member of the Vienna Philharmonic asked me a question. Bear in mind: The orchestra is in a pit and can’t see the stage. He said, “When Marcellina announces that she is Figaro’s mother, why does the audience laugh, in that strange way? Usually, they don’t sound like that.”
Well, in this production, Marcellina makes her announcement — and then she and Figaro embrace, sexually. They proceed to paw each other, sexually. The audience’s laughter is nervous, I suppose.
Lorenzo Da Ponte was a bad, bad boy — the Jewish-born Venetian who became a priest, caroused with Casanova, and was always having to leave town just ahead of the law. But his libretto is sly, subtle, suggestive. This production is consistently blatant and coarse. Between what you hear, from singers and orchestra, and what you see, there is a gross mismatch.
Frankly, I wanted to shower for about a week straight.
“Never mud-wrestle with a pig,” goes an old saying. “You just get dirty and the pig likes it.” When someone like me writes a review like mine, some people exclaim, “Ah, the squares object! Victory.”
In a 2009 interview, Lorin Maazel, the late, great conductor, put it to me this way: “The faddists are so clever, because they paint you into a corner.” Their trick is to say, “If you object to us, you’re a conservative, you’re a fuddy-duddy, you’re a living anachronism! What we do is new!” Continued Maazel, “It’s not new. It’s boring.”
Back to the music, or to the musicians. When the opera was over, the audience in the House for Mozart applauded the cast heartily. The audience, by the way, included Angela Merkel, the former chancellor of Germany. She is a regular attendee at the festival. She likes to dine at the Sternbräu.
When Maestro Pichon entered the stage, the audience stood, raining applause down on the conductor and the Vienna Phil. This was right. They and the singers had done Mozart proud. But he has to put up with so much, Mozart does.