Bach: St. Matthew Passion.
Christina Landshamer, soprano; Stefan Kahle, alto; Wolfram Lattke and Martin
Lattke, tenors; Klaus Mertens and Gotthold Schwarz, basses; Thomanerchor
Leipzig and Gewandhausorchester Leipzig conducted by Georg Christoph Biller.
Accentus Music DVD. $39.99.
Die Thomaner: A Year in the Life
of the St. Thomas Boys Choir Leipzig—A Film by Paul Smaczny & Günter
Atteln. Accentus Music DVD. $24.99.
Ligeti: Le Grand Macabre.
Chris Merritt, Inés Moraleda,
Ana Puche, Werner Van Mechelen, Frode Olsen, Ning Liang, Barbara Hannigan,
Brian Asawa, Francisco Vas, Simon Butteriss; Symphony Orchestra and Chorus of
the Gran Teatre del Liceu conducted by Michael Boder. Arthaus Musik. $39.99 (2
DVDs).
The eye is inevitably
guided in DVDs of classical-music performances: the director of the video
decides what to show and when, and if what is shown happens not to be what a
viewer would have looked at during an actual concert performance, there is
nothing to be done about it. Skilled
directors – and directors as a group have been getting better at this in recent
years – find ways to mix wide shots with closeups, overviews with intimate
pictures, and full-ensemble shots with ones of individual players or
singers. The best directors do this after
careful study of the score, so the video and audio elements of a DVD are as
much in harmony as are the sonic elements themselves. Nevertheless, even in an especially fine
performance – perhaps especially in
such a reading – there is always something a little bit discordant about the
visual elements, which can easily become a distraction from music that is
intended to sweep the listener away from and beyond worldly concerns. Watching such a work as Bach’s St. Matthew Passion on video anchors a
viewer rather too firmly in the everyday world.
The performance directed by Georg Christoph Biller is undeniably
splendid, packed with knowing and sure-voiced soloists and featuring the
remarkably smooth and elegant voices of the justly renowned St. Thomas Boys
Choir Leipzig. Solos, choral and orchestral
elements blend beautifully here in an interpretation that fully captures the
religious transcendence packed by Bach into this remarkable work. Surely the provenance of the St. Matthew Passion informs the
intensity of this reading: Bach wrote the work for the St. Thomas choir of his
day, and he is buried in St. Thomas Church.
It would be facile and inaccurate to say that the composer’s spirit
somehow imbues this performance, but it is surely true that all the performers
are well aware of the venue and of Bach’s intimate connection with it – and
thus give their all to the music. The
result is a performance whose sheer beauty will likely often have
viewer/listeners closing their eyes, the better to appreciate the lovely sound
and highly expressive interpretation. Of
course, that reaction wars with the whole point of a video recording; but such
a situation is inevitable in DVDs of classical performances.
Viewers wanting to
know more about just how the St. Thomas Boys Choir Leipzig gets so good and sounds
so harmonious (literally so) will enjoy Die
Thomaner: A Year in the Life of the St. Thomas Boys Choir Leipzig, which
actually includes excerpts from the St.
Matthew Passion to demonstrate the points made by filmmakers Paul Smaczny
and Günter Atteln about the group’s sound and spirit. The bonding techniques used to create this
sure-voiced ensemble are time-tested, perhaps not since the choir’s founding in
the year 1212 but certainly over the last several centuries. The boys live together, practice together,
relax together, play sports together, and share their feelings of uncertainty,
pride, doubt and homesickness with each other – and with viewers of the
film. Performance pressure is
everywhere, not just in music practice, and the boys are as driven to excel as
they are to develop camaraderie that will be reflected in the remarkably
homogeneous sound they produce in performance.
The film, which lasts nearly two hours, provides snippets of the boys’
experience not only in Leipzig, where they are seen in classroom
music-practice, sporting and relaxation settings, but also on tour, following
them to South America. Well-traveled,
sophisticated, intensely groomed for their musical roles, the members of the
St. Thomas Boys Choir Leipzig certainly have an atypical childhood –
particularly by American standards for youths ages nine to 18. But what an effect this life has on
them! The way they feel the music they
perform is quite remarkable, and the way they unite on stage to provide
mellifluous, even transcendent audience experiences is little short of
miraculous. The film is only for
viewer/listeners with a strong interest in learning the ins and outs of one of
the world’s great boys’ choirs – but for them, it will be revelatory.
What is revealed in
the world première recording of
the only opera by György Ligeti
(1923-2006), Le Grand Macabre, is
something very different. Written in
1974-77 and revised in 1996, the opera has a libretto (by Ligeti and Michael
Meschke) that was specifically created to be readily performable in multiple
languages. And so it has been: in German, Swedish, English, French, Italian and
Hungarian. This recording, in English,
was made at a performance at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona in November
2011, as staged by La Fura dels Baus; it was a true multinational endeavor,
also involving Théâtre Royal de
la Monnaie, Opera di Roma and English National Opera. And it was all in the service of – what? Ligeti created this work as an
anti-anti-opera, intending to recognize both opera traditions and criticisms of
the genre. The music, which is sometimes
noise, begins with rhythms scored for a dozen car horns at different pitches
and ends with a mocking passacaglia, including in between everything from urban
sounds to pastiches of Beethoven, Rossini and Verdi. Intended to have a serious message
communicated in a light way, the disjointed work partakes significantly of
surrealism, and it is hard to escape the notion that it is more a play with
music than an opera in any recognized sense of the word. It is all about death and mortality, and
indeed Death is the central character, personified as Nekrotzar (leader or
ruler of the dead: “necro-” plus “tzar”); bass-baritone Werner Van Mechelen
handles the role with considerable skill.
The action takes place in a just-barely-pre-apocalyptic world, where a
brilliantly realized gigantic female form towers over litter-filled streets. Nekrotzar picks up some peculiar, disturbed
people (Chris Merritt, Frode Olsen) as assistants and takes them with him to
the court of Prince Go-Go (Brian Asawa), where deliberately disconnected scenes
are designed to keep it unclear whether the audience is watching a farce, a
descent into doom, or something else.
Ligeti plays throughout with expectations; for example, he creates an
opposite-sex couple, Amando and Amanda, but has the roles written for two women
(Inés Moraleda and Ana
Puche). There is an outstanding,
scene-stealing performance in Act II by Barbara Hannigan as Gepopo, the
prince’s espionage chief, who sings entirely in code phrases and
incomprehensible babble while tossing herself around the stage – and who, per
Ligeti’s intention in another of his plays with expectations, has also sung
Venus in Act I. As for the
instrumentation, its most notable component is percussion, including numerous standard
instruments plus a wind machine, paper bag, signal and steamboat whistles, a
large alarm clock, a metronome, two whips, a large sledgehammer and many more
items. Clearly, opera or anti-opera or
anti-anti-opera, Le Grand Macabre is
a spectacle, and as such it really does need to be seen to be believed (or
perhaps disbelieved). The Teatre del Liceu
performance is a superb one, with staging that emphasizes the surreal elements
of the story and absolutely marvelous lighting effects that accentuate them
further. The music is – well, sometimes
it is music, sometimes not, and somehow it does not really seem to be the point
of the whole enterprise. To say that
this work is not to all tastes is something of an understatement; but certainly
this recording will be a must-have for people who do have a taste for post-modern and in many ways post-musical stage
productions. For such viewer/listeners,
it gets a rousing (++++) rating; for those seeking something more traditional
and less disturbing, it is perhaps better, and in the spirit of the production
itself, to give it no rating at all.
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