George Hunka

Notes and comment

Tag: radio klassik Stephansdom

  • Rienzi in Bayreuth and a word of congratulations

    When the Bayreuth Festival opens tomorrow for its 150th season, it will open with a work never presented there before: Richard Wagner’s Rienzi, his third opera, which premiered in Dresden in 1842 and was for many years his most popular opera in Europe (to his considerable chagrin later in life; indeed, he himself barred any production of it at the Festival during his lifetime). Its plot, per Wikipedia:

    The opera is set in Rome and is based on the life of Cola di Rienzo (1313–1354), a late medieval Italian populist figure who succeeds in outwitting and then defeating the nobles and their followers and in raising the power of the people. Magnanimous at first, he is forced by events to crush the nobles’ rebellion against the people’s power, but popular opinion changes and even the Church, which had urged him to assert himself, turns against him. In the end the populace burns the Capitol, in which Rienzi and a few adherents have made a last stand.

    Rarely performed, the curtain rises in Bayreuth tomorrow, July 26, at 4:00 pm local time. Wagnerians of the United States, however, can turn to Deutsche Grammophone’s Stage+ service to watch it live tomorrow at 10:00 am Eastern time, with repeats at 6:00 pm tomorrow night and 5:00 am on Monday morning. (A Vienna friend offers a few more options.) The production is directed by Alexandra Szemerédy and Magdolna Parditka, while Nathalie Stutzmann takes the podium.

    One of the most moving moments of my last trip to Vienna was my attendance at Mass at the Wiener Hofmusikkapelle on my birthday, where Caldara’s Missa Dolorosa was on the program. So I’m delighted to report that radio klassik Stephansdom‘s music director Ursula Magnes, with whom I had the delight of exchanging a few pleasantries about Heinrich Schütz last year, has been named the new director of the Hofmusikkapelle, beginning on September 1. This is the first time a woman has been named director to the post. Rector Peter Schipka said, “As rector of the Hofburgkapelle and thus as the ecclesiastical responsible for the services in this place, I congratulate Mrs. Ursula Magnes very warmly on her appointment as director of the Hofmusikkapelle, as the first woman in this function. I am delighted by her appointment and look forward to working with her.” I congratulate her too, for what it’s worth; the Hofmusikkapelle is in good hands.

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  • Radio love

    Valentine’s Day isn’t until Saturday, but tomorrow you can show a little love for Vienna, music, and the spiritual life with a donation to radio klassik Stephansdom. Thursday, February 12, marks this month’s donation day, and rkS is celebrating with a love-themed appeal. Those of my readers who live in Europe will be interested to hear that their prizes this month include a night at an Austrian spa, free tickets to the Theater an der Wien, and candy from the elegant Xocolat Chocolates Kontor. Special guests will  be joining rkS hosts all day long, so tune in and donate to support this very special radio station.

    For those of my readers who live elsewhere, as unofficial chairperson of the unofficial American Friends of radio klassik Stephansdom, I’d be happy with your donation.

    More here.

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  • Opernabend: “A Freudian bubble bath of the psycho-erotic”

    A little opera tip for the weekend: On Saturday at 1:00 pm Eastern time you can hear that old warhorse Carmen from the Metropolitan Opera, but if you wait an hour, until 2:00 pm, tune in to radio klassik Stephansdom’s Opernabend for a true curiosity: Richard Strauss’s Die Liebe der Danae, in a 1999 performance from the Garsington Opera.

    Completed in 1940 but denied a public premiere until 1952 at the Salzburg Festival, the opera is vaguely based on the story of Danae, Midas, and Jupiter. In her review of the Garsington Opera production in The Guardian, Fiona Maddocks said, “Despite its dark undertones, [Strauss] dubbed the work a ‘light mythology,’ made Midas his benign hero and entangled him with the delicious story of Danae, whom Jupiter seduced in a shower of gold, making it all a Freudian bubble bath of the psycho-erotic.” She went on to provide this brief synopsis of the plot:

    Joseph Gregor’s libretto, based on an outline by Strauss’s great collaborator Hugo von Hofmannsthal, lacks the latter’s wit or elegance, making Strauss’s transformation of the leaden plot through music all the more remarkable. The bankrupt Pollux’s daughter Danae has gone off men but remains partial to gold, about which she fantasises freely. Fortunately, Midas falls for her and she for him. Unfortunately, Jupiter does likewise, in a jealous rage turning Danae into gold and depriving Midas of his gift.

    In the powerful third act, Jupiter returns as a humble old man (looking remarkably like the ageing Strauss in this production), with a reflective monologue depicting the impotence of age. Still she rejects him. With her final word, ‘Midas’, the opera ends.

    Rarely performed (most recently here in America at the Bard SummerScape festival in 2011), Strauss’s score nonetheless is said to feature some of his finest music. His biographer Michael Kennedy says, “The treatment of the many themes and motifs is amazingly inventive, the orchestral colours glow and shine – with Greek gold and mediterranean sunlight … Die Liebe der Danae does not deserve its neglect. Its third act alone lifts it into the category of first-rank Strauss.” And Leon Botstein, who conducted the  SummerScape production, told The New York Times that the opera was newly relevant in an interview with Peter G. Davis: “Not only is the score a marvel of technical ingenuity and lyrical generosity, but the subject is also completely up to date. What could be more modern in these days of financial crises and deficit spending than a morality tale about Midas’s fabulous golden touch and Danae’s obsession with his riches? There’s a valuable lesson in Danae’s eventual rejection of Jupiter’s tempting offer of divinity and her willing embrace of poverty with Midas, when he loses everything and is reduced to the life of a humble donkey driver.”

    The Garsington Opera recording, conducted by Elgar Howarth, features Peter Coleman-Wright as Jupiter, Adrian Thompson as Midas, and Orla Boylan as Danae. Opernabend is hosted by Eva Reinold. So drag down the Kobbé to brush up on the plot details, then tune in tomorrow, Saturday, January 17, at 2:00 pm Eastern time for that Freudian erotic bubble-bath.

    Towels, anyone?

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