Baden-Baden bei Wien

Unless you're familiar with both places, the title may need some explanation. Baden-Baden, Dostoyevsky's 'Roulettenburg' and I guess not awfully changed since then (more on that in the next post), nestles in a valley on the fringes of the Black Forest. Baden bei Wien is a rather sweeter, resolutely old fashioned spa town a tram ride from Vienna. And Vienna, of course, is the location for Strauss and Hofmannsthal's Der Rosenkavalier, not that you'd really have known it from Brigitte Fassbaender's production at Baden-Baden Festspielhaus. Erich Wonder's first backdrop, which I thought might be showing Dubai without the sea from a luxury penthouse, apparently references a view you can get from a high-rise hotel some way from Vienna's inner Ring.

We based a whole Easter jaunt to Germany around Freund Peter Rose's invitation - there he is above the morning after the show we saw at an outside table of Baden-Baden's Cafe König - to go and see his Ochs for the umpteenth time (always welcome, since he is now - fairly unarguably, I'd have thought - the world's best). With Anja Harteros and Anna Prohaska in the cast more of an enticement than Sir Simon Rattle, his Lady - Magdalena Kožená, improbably cast as Octavian - and the Berlin Phil, it sounded like a good opportunity. The idea was to continue with walking expeditions in the Black Forest, but an invitation from the Thuringia Bach Festival changed all that and turned it all into a very wonderful busman's holiday (fortunately the indulgent diplo-mate found it so too, despite initial misgivings).

Not that this Rosenkavalier, for all its many passing pleasures, was the highlight (Strauss yields to Bach done at the highest level). For a start, the Festspielhaus is a bit of a monster. Sure, Baden-Baden's main theatre, originally a thousand-seater with a too-small orchestra pit as Berlioz found when he inaugurated it conducting his specially-commissioned Béatrice et Bénédict in 1862 - would now be inadequate for many of the operas put on by the Festival (the theatre company was performing a version of Berlin Alexanderplatz there which I'd love to have seen had there been more time). But it's a much more attractive option.

The Festspielhaus, a 2500 seater swaggering as the biggest in Germany, opened in 1998 and funded by a club of 300 of Germany's richest citizens, has the facade of Baden-Baden's grand old station (the present one is way to the north). Sure, the station building itself is handsome and the ticket hall now functions with the same guichets that used to sell railways tickets.

But once you get into the theatre, you feel a million miles away from the action, and the singers, too, are dwarfed by the sheer height of the interior (second only to the ghastly Bastille home of the Paris Opera). We were in row 12 of the Parterre, with tons of leg room - always welcome - but felt detached from the action the minute the curtain rose. Even the Berlin Phil, which started with a horn blooper and ended Act One with a flat high note from the solo violin, didn't exactly sound opulent, though there was a certain fullness and the action music of Act Two seemed to come off best: Rattle's attention to detail paid off there. But the orchestra hasn't played this score since Karajan's time - which means most of them haven't played it at all before - and clearly needed more time on it. First of the production photos below shows the orchestra on stage. They're all, I think, by Monika Rittershaus, seemingly the official photographer; I applied to the press office for images but never heard back.

As in the last Royal Opera production, only the Ochs and the Sophie passed their tests with flying colours. Peter's characterisation, always beautifully sung especially in the upper register, has relaxed so much over the years, and casual dress seemed to put him even more at his ease. Anna Prohaska is another stage animal, proving - as have Marie Arnet, Lucy Crowe and Lisa Milne before her - that Sophie is no generic pushover. Here she is with Kožená in the duet following the trio.

I thought Harteros would be another great Marschallin of our times to set alongside Martina Serafin in Vienna and the most gracious lady of them all, Anne Schwanewilms, whom we saw in Dresden, also courtesy of Peter, and will never forget (can't bear Fleming's over-larded interpretation, never could; though it now sounds like I should see the wonderful Krasimira Stoyanova in the role - the DVD of Harry Kupfer's Salzburg production is now out).

Yet Harteros didn't seem to know what tone to adopt. Way too much hair-fiddling in the opening scene, nothing inward about the first monologue (apparently it was her idea to have the Notary with her for the start, since she thought she had to address 'Da geht er hin' to someone onstage). A gorgeous physical presence, of course, and how she opened up to golden tone, especially in the Trio - but then I (and J too) kind of wished we were hearing her Verdi again. This is possibly the only time I've not been remotely touched by the closing scene of Act One.

The other blames lie there with Rattle's uncertain tempo relations and above all with Kožená's young blade. Not nearly as grim as I was expecting, and her dreadful habit of throwing her head back for top notes that don't really come out very fully could be ascribed to the impetuousness and exaggeration of the young man. Yet it was so apparent that this is a voice not in the same league as those of Harteros, Prohaska and Rose, and the 'take my wife' thing has never seemed quite right to me*. Quality there undoubtedly was from Irmgard Vilsmaier's ever-striking Duenna, an unusually strapping Faninal in Clemens Unterreiner and of course from Laurence Brownlee's Italian tenor.

Excellent Valzacchi and Annina, too, from Stefan Margita (I thought he was more a Helden- than a light tenor) and Carole Wilson. Their visual gags were the funniest, among several which had to do more with the  wacky costume designer, Dietrich von Grebmer, than with Fassbaender, who claimed she had no concept at the start, and it showed: plenty of interesting ideas, but none of them properly followed through. Our intriguers started as cross dressers. Then for the 'Ecco!' scene they had swapped striped suit and old-lady pink, only to both appear as 'ladeez' for the Letter Scene. I did find that funny. And I loved the Leopold, Ochs's illegitimate son, as a teenager on rollerblades (again, von Grebmer's idea and again, he could have been developed by Fassbaender as far more of a character, though the gag of Ochs sending him off for takeaway pizza when our Baron rejected the inn's expensive fare was a good one).

The photos actually make it all look rather handsome; in the theatre, it seemed cheap and nasty. One spent far too much time working out what Wonder's projections were supposed to be or to mean, and the idea of people doing long entrances back and forth at the back messed up the privacies of Act One.

The Presentation of the Rose was blown by having us see Octavian raised on a pedestal before he makes his entrance among people who've been working on sewing-machines (Faninal wouldn't mess up business with show). Pointless business, too, with producing the silver rose from a bunch of real flowers.

In Act Three, quite apart from the fact that there were way too many people piling on stage (the chorus need be no more than a dozen), Peter was left repeating business to fill gaps where Fassbaender hadn't really thought of anything. And the stupid thing is that Hofmannsthal hands it to the director on a plate. If you throw most of his stage directions out, you have to find stuff that's equally convincing, as did Richard Jones at Glyndebourne. Above all, I kept wishing this was a Glyndebourne-sized experience instead of vacuity in a barn. Won't be going back to this Festspielhaus again, however extraordinary the cast. But still, we had a fun time in Baden-Baden the day after the show, cafe-hopping with Peter and Martin Snell (the Notary, interesting chap who lives in Lucerne).

It's been a driven week since our return, with way too much of me on The Arts Desk starting with the Bach festival writeup, hitting a dud of supposedly radical music-theatre on Tuesday and then soaring with Gypsy (the unsurpassable Imelda Staunton in one of Johan Persson's production shots above), Cheek by Jowl's harrowing Measure for Measure and Sasha Regan's hysterically funny but also very disciplined all-male The Pirates of Penzance (group shot below by Kay Young). And then yesterday we caught the tail-end of dearly beloved old rock and roller Paul Beecham's 70th birthday party, with the master at the turntable and many of his old cronies reunited.

Anyway, the London summer season is on a real roll now, with too many good things to resist. Back to school tomorrow with the first Opera in Depth class of the summer term, on Guillaume Tell. I've just read the Schiller play and it's a masterpiece - way better than the libretto for Rossini's opera. But that will furnish plenty of musical riches.

*Worse - she's going to sing the Angel in The Dream of Gerontius at the Proms, with Sir Si conducting the Vienna Philharmonic. How could he, when he's worked with Dame Janet? One to miss. 

Birthplace of the rose-bearer

Strictly speaking, it should have been to salute Wagner's Dresden era in his anniversary year that I returned to the Semperoper (pictured above) after 23 years; I last saw Joachim Herz's so-so production of The Love for Three Oranges here, and still have one of the foam oranges chucked at the audience to prove it. That was a bonus to a recording-session visit for Gramophone; the occasion was Haitink's EMI recording of Der Rosenkavalier in the Lukaskirche, with Kiri te Kanawa and Anne Sofie von Otter (the highlight for me was getting to talk to the Staatskapelle Dresden's then first horn, Peter Damm, whose Kempe recording of the Strauss concertos I'd long adored). Subject for another entry must be the transformation of this once-beleaguered city that's taken place in the interim.

My Strauss Leibsoper - or is that Ariadne auf Naxos or Intermezzo or Daphne, I can't decide - had its first performance here in 1911, and this time we had a chance to catch it at home. Below, Robert Sterl's painting of Ernst von Schuch conducting at the opening run.

The prompt was our good friend Peter Rose, giving his latest showing of the role which has truly become his own, Baron Ochs; but he'd have to have paid my air fare and hotel to see him, say, with Simone Young conducting - as she so often seems to be, and I'm truly sorry not to think more highly of one of the few maestras on the scene - or a less than diamond cast. But the Marschallin was the glorious Anne Schwanewilms, her Octavian Elina Garanča (whom I also saw in Vienna years ago when Peter should also have been singing, but had to pull out). Thielemann was conducting, too, and he knows the score inside out.

So what could go wrong? Well, truth to tell, not enough to matter to the essentials, but all-round perfection, alas, it was not. By no means the biggest drawback was that the sets had got stuck in the floods and for some reason I didn't understand never made it even for the second performance. Elbe waters were still high after the heroic salvation of the city the previous week by sandbagging Dresdeners, but all else seemed back to normal and the locals were breathing huge sighs of relief by drinking and/or picnicking on the riverbanks during two perfect summer evenings.

I don't think we missed a great deal, having seen Uwe Eric Laufenberg's underanimated production WITH the sets on DVD; the 1950s costumes are the thing, and everyone wears them with style. Only occasionally was the perfunctory back wall, globe lamps above and shabby doors beneath, a liability. In the first act it helped throw the action forward, giving three fine singer-actors space to operate and impress. Photographer Klaus Gigga's images for the Semperoper often capture that superbly.

Garanča is such a hyper-feminine mezzo that she seemed more in her element as 'Mariandel' than Octavian, though always singing with that unique and connected upper-range fullness that makes her one of the world's top opera stars (and, for me, THE best Carmen). Peter has enlarged his repertoire of grins and tricks, making Ochs a more than usually lovable country cousin in his rustic get-up while singing the parlando with incredible elegance and beauty of tone when the opportunity arose. He told us he'd added some business with the naughty pugs in the levee scene mainly for our benefit, and sure enough I laughed so loud that the dowdy Dresden bourgeoisie around us cast disapproving looks. Below: cutting short the Italian tenor (Bryan Hymel, not visible here but excellent, though having to be followed by the orchestral players rather than following them) with 'Als Morgengabe!'

I complimented Peter first on the apparent rapport with Thielemann, but he told me they'd got by on just one rehearsal. Can you imagine? The conductor's one of the very best, but collegiality would not seem to be a forte; he barely acknowledges his singers offstage and sometimes trips them up with the marvellous but seemingly capricious flexibility for which he's famous (this information not from Peter, by the way, who got the thumbs up from the pit on more than one occasion). It's standard for continental repertory opera - not so the EXTRA rehearsal with the orchestra alone - but contrasts markedly with the Glyndebourne Ariadne, for which Jurowski was present from the first at the seven week of rehearsals.

Schwanewilms, anyway, was beyond sublime in the Marschallin's Monologue - phrases so delicately inflected that you strained to catch them - drawing an audience in is always a much greater art than reaching out - and such pointing of the German text that I never expect to hear it bettered. She certainly brought on the heartbreak and the tears in her changed-mood misalliance with her uncomprehending Quinquin.

Well, what can I say? Wanderer (see previous blog entry; and see now - 22/6 - his own take on the evening, capturing far more eloquently than mine the essence of heavenly Anne, which I should have highlighted more) and I couldn't stop blubbing in the interval. It's singing-acting on a level very few achieve. And throughout the interval we had the balmy Dresden evening to enhance the bittersweetness,  not to mention the astonishing view across the Theatrerplatz to Augustus the Fat's Hofkirche - an unpopular Catholic riposte to the citizens' Frauenkirche, about which more anon - the Residenzschloss and the Hausmann Tower, a great ensemble complemented by the Zwinger Palace out of sight to the right.

The location gave as much to gawp at as the crowds (though I have to say I've never encountered a more frigid audience, which seemed more local than international. They did, it's true, give a standing ovation at the end).

Oh, we were so anticipating the Presentation of the Rose, but from the minute the Sophie opened her mouth I knew we had a liability on our hands. Ungainly of phrase, lacking charm in sound and appearance, useful only for her top notes, Daniela Fally was not on the level of her colleagues. And frankly, you do need a bit of scenic glitz - even if it's nouveau-riche Faninal bling - for the famous Hofmannsthal-concocted ritual. At least the splendid Irmgard Vilsmaier, whose Hänsel Mother had made such an impact at Glyndebourne and who is also a Brünnhilde as you could tell, made some amends as a full-voiced Marianne Leitmetzerin (pictured on the right here).

Bit parts were a mixed blessing. Apparently Thielemann had sacked some of the house singers on a single hearing, putting the Dresden admin in a funk to find international replacements double-quick. For every plus there was a minus: vivacious Helene Schneiderman as a stylish Annina was let down by her unfunny, self-conducting Valzacchi (no name needed). The Faninal (also nnn) was a cipher; the Police Commissar in Act Three, house bass Peter Lobert, more than stood up to Peter vocally and demonstrated how threatening this usually saggy bit of the drama could be if it were moved back from Laufenberg's setting to the 1940s. Excellent pint-sized tavern owner from Dan Karlström; the footmen at the end of Act 1 the usual gabbled mess. The extras in the Lerchenau retinue wambled around grotesquely and without discipline.

But the main thing is that without a sympathetic Sophie, in effect the Marschallin's younger self who escapes the older woman's fate of a loveless arranged marriage, you do miss the senior soprano for an act and a half. Her comeback in Act Three was, naturally, highly emotional, and Peter made the most of Ochs's dashed hopes in that fascinating disentanglement before his waltz-exit: his 'mit dieser Stund' vorbei' gave the final threesome's entanglement a run for its money.

Trio? To be fair, Fally sang well enough and was even rather touching as a forlorn schoolgirl standing apart; Schwanewilms crowned it with hyper-pathos and Garanca provided lustre, though I inwardly groaned when she missed a big phrase - Thielemann-anxiety, perhaps? - and the magic took a while to return. Again, I just don't think this sort of thing would happen given Glyndebourne or even Covent Garden preparation time. You have to hand it to these international singers, exposing their reputations to an audience who knows nothing of the rollercoaster circumstances. Although Thielemann still gets results, and no-one does late-romantic rubato quite as easily as he does, the collegial way is surely better.

Anyway, we filed out with hearts tugged at, though not so much as in Act One, and wafted past the 19th century homages to Roman grottesco style in the foyers

down the stairs to the bust of Wagner (I wanted to find another to Strauss, but the attendants denied knowledge of one),

out into the fragrant Dresden summer night

and on to a meal with Peter and co. Our Dresden experience had only just begun - I have much more to write about the bewildering treasures we saw the next day - but our reason for being there was already fully vindicated.

In the meantime, my very long eulogy on Richard Jones's Royal Opera staging of Britten's Gloriana yesterday evening - a well-nigh perfect entertainment from first to last - is  up on The Arts Desk. Shame I didn't make it to Aldeburgh for an against-the-odds amazing Peter Grimes beach show on Monday, but a migraine peaked at just the wrong time, and it was a fair old trek to north London for the press bus - shudder - and back in the wee small hours.