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Sunday 7 September 2008

Feeble Fidelio

Fidelio
Teatro Real, Madrid

But the director was still feeling his way. When the villain Pizarro entered, to storm through his great aria of vengeance, he was in a wheelchair, crutches attached. At the terrifying climax of that aria, as the orchestra beat out unexpectedly feeble chords, he rose and fell flat on his face — a planned effect, presumably to show the impotence of wrath. And so things continued. The prisoners were stacked in tiers looking on, a Wieland-Wagnerish effect, as were many touches in the production. But they did stagger on for their chorus, again an oddly understated affair, with a particularly wretched First Prisoner, who has one of the most moving passages in an opera which should be devastating in its impact throughout. Abbado conducted in an airy fashion, and such moments as the very end of Act I — as winds call to one another, while the lowest strings presage, with infinitely moving effect, Fidelio and Rocco’s descent to the dungeon, another point where you shouldn’t be able to breathe — were made light of. The opening of Act II, with great vicious chords evoking the wretchedness of Florestan’s state, physical and spiritual, was immaculately executed: surely Furtwängler and Klemperer and Knappertsbusch never got such unanimity. Their recorded performances, as, too, most recently, Colin Davis’s at the Barbican, chill one to the marrow. Abbado’s left one wondering at his baton technique. The substitute Florestan, the American Clifton Forbis, was tolerable but not more. As one scene which I adore succeeded another, all with minimal impact, I almost joined the ranks of conspiracy theorists. The nadir was reached when Pizarro was led in and arraigned, and had his head chopped off by the underused guillotine, leaving the other main characters to take turns in his wheelchair, whizzing hilariously round the stage, while Beethoven’s most sublime melody, ‘O Gott, welch’ ein Augenblick’ disappeared. None of the solo singing was distinguished, but this is an opera which can be overwhelming when performed by amateurs, or — as we witnessed here — wholly uninvolving with a seasoned professional cast.

The next evening Maurizio Pollini gave one of his intense, remote recitals, of works by Schoenberg, Schumann and Beethoven, which impressed by its austere nobility, but again seemed largely to eschew feeling. He resisted the audience’s desperate applause, and gave no encores. Perhaps he, too, felt there was a missing ingredient.

More articles from: Michael Tanner | this section

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