Which "Fidelio"?
Wed, Apr 25 2012, 2:01PM
#2
RE: Which "Fidelio"?
I find that many works have a touch stone which will determine if a particular interpretation is to be bothered with. To me, it's often in the hands of the conductor to get it right - singers are rarely in a position to ruin an entire performance since they tend not to sing all the time, but the orchestral part, on the other hand, is there all the way.
I am not a man of any musical education, so luckily my touchstones are rarely centrered around the conductor's ability to guide us through some intricate contrapunctual argument, rather it's a simple phrasing, dance or marching rhythm (like my example from Fidelio).
Examples are the introduction of the first theme in Mahler's 4th. The strings have to bow to the strange percussion introduction, like invitating to a dance. Walter knew how, and so did Britten but few others. Sadly enough for me, I rarely make it more than 2 minutes into Mahler's 4th.
The 'Juche, Juche' choir from Haydn's seasons is a Landler, but few conductors (Karajan, Bohm, Fricsay being the exceptions) have discovered this or know how it goes.
I could go on.
Wed, Apr 25 2012, 3:54PM
#3
RE: Which "Fidelio"?
I find that many works have a touch stone which will determine if a particular interpretation is to be bothered with. To me, it's often in the hands of the conductor to get it right - singers are rarely in a position to ruin an entire performance since they tend not to sing all the time, but the orchestral part, on the other hand, is there all the way.
I am not a man of any musical education, so luckily my touchstones are rarely centrered around the conductor's ability to guide us through some intricate contrapunctual argument, rather it's a simple phrasing, dance or marching rhythm (like my example from Fidelio).
Examples are the introduction of the first theme in Mahler's 4th. The strings have to bow to the strange percussion introduction, like invitating to a dance. Walter knew how, and so did Britten but few others. Sadly enough for me, I rarely make it more than 2 minutes into Mahler's 4th.
The 'Juche, Juche' choir from Haydn's seasons is a Landler, but few conductors (Karajan, Bohm, Fricsay being the exceptions) have discovered this or know how it goes.
I could go on.
Try and make a point like that to canary fanciers and I, suspect, that you will get short shrift.
I always look to see who the conductor is before anything else because you are right as one poor singer cannot ruin a performance completely as misguided (Sinopoli) or dull (Erede) conductors can.
Also, some can inspire singers to greater heights. The singing is markedly improved at the ROH since Pappano took over, for example. The orchestra was always an underrrated gem.
Note how skilled conductors like Parry can find that little bit extra in a score whilst being attentive to their singers.
One of my favourites at the moment is Patrick Summers. I caught a recording on DVD of his Met performance of Salome which goes beyond such considerations and finds subtleties in the score that I have not had my attention drawn to before. Exceptional!
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For me, you don't have to listen very far into a Fidelio recording to figure out if it's worth being bothered with. You fast forward to the marching rhythm of the Prisoners' Chorus. You'd think that all the distinguished Fidelio conductors know how that should go. And Furtwangler, Klemperer, Bohm are not troubled by it. But Maazel, and Masur in particular, fail at the hurdle.
Well we'll have to disagree about the Masur and Maazel, HMV.
But the more general point you were making - that in many works there's a sort of touchstone that colours one's view of an interpretation - was, strangely enough, something I was thinking about a few days ago. In that case, it was when listening to a few versions of Otello, to compare the way each Iago, after narrating his dream, sings the crucial phrase saying that he was sure he'd seen the handkerchief in Cassio's hand ('lo vidi in man di Cassio'). My teeth are almost set on edge when the Iago spits out 'Cassio' like some pantomime villain.
The other which immediately sprang to mind was the end of Act 1 of Boheme, when the tenor chooses to show off his upper register and takes the high option with the soprano on the last 'Amor' and it ends in a squawking match rather than one of the most beautiful effects in all opera - as Puccini no doubt knew it would be when he wrote it. Unfortunately, one can always tell a couple of bars out if he's going to do it.
Sorry, I'm beginning to rant now and have rather strayed away from Fidelio, for which, apologies.
JKH