Taken from a pair of semi-staged concert
performances in Lucerne in the summer of 2010, this is a most
scrupulously rehearsed and performed Fidelio. Conductor Claudio
Abbado appears to be using a somewhat reduced orchestra, and the
winds are very prominent; the string section never overwhelms.
In fact, there are times when the strings are far less audible
than they should be. Abbado keeps vibrato down, with a (not
necessarily authentic) nod toward the date of composition. Each
cast member sticks to his or her rhythms, and ensembles are
letter perfect. Dynamic instructions are rigidly adhered to,
with real pianissimos, mezzo-fortes, and fortes.
Florestan's opening cry of "Gott" begins as a whisper, seemingly
coming out of the dungeon's darkness, and grows into a big,
potent fortissimo. Every grace note in Pizarro's aria is
audible. The Prisoners' Chorus is truly eerie at first, and
their eventual joy at being in the sun is truly moving. The coda
to the "Er sterbe" quartet is a flawless dance, and every
syllable in "O namenlöse Freude" is precisely in time and in
tune. Abbado's sense of architecture is amazing and each act
captures lightness and darkness in texture and tone.
That
having been said, I fear I'm about to be in the minority when I
state that I find this performance almost clinical. The overture
is fine--beautifully played, exciting, punchy, and nervous, but
never grand. The early bits of Singspiel are deftly handled and
handsomely sung by Rachel Harnisch as Marzelline and Christoph
Strehl as Jaquino. The former is perky without being too
cute--she seems to be a character from a Mozart opera--and the
latter's sound is so impressive that I suspect he will not be
singing Jaquino much longer. Their banter is utterly believable.
Christof Fischesser's Rocco is having such a good time that he
occasionally sounds like a character out of Benny Hill; his duet
with Pizarro is even mellow. By the second act he sounds
somewhat grave--and granted, this is a character who is hard to
pin down, but still...
Gravitas enters with "Mir ist so
wunderbar", which is wonderfully colored and mellifluously
delivered, but the orchestra still sounds a bit delicate.
Pizarro's aria isn't exactly leisurely, and I suspect that for
sheer clarity of enunciation and note-producing, Falk Struckmann
has every other baritone beat--but it lacks menace. I've heard
Struckmann sing menacingly so I know he can do it, but here he
sounds like a chilly bureaucrat and entirely lacks the necessary
snarl. The lack of barking is a delight, but it almost de-fangs
the characterization. The entire "Er sterbe" sequence is, as
mentioned above, unimpeachably delivered, but that's just what
it does not need: this is a moment of mania, surprise,
intensity, and horror, and we find ourselves being amazed at its
clarity and not at its emotional content. Peter Mattei is a
luxurious Don Fernando.
Our two leads are great
singers. Nina Stemme arguably is--after Karita
Mattila--the Fidelio for today. She sometimes sounds like
Nilsson in her lower notes, but her high notes have more warmth;
her dialogue (all dialogue is pared to a minimum in this
performance) is just as effective as her singing. Stemme's
accuracy, a few muffled moments at the start of her big aria
aside, is astonishing. She lacks the rage one looks for, and
that we find with sopranos from Flagstad through Mödl, Nilsson,
and Mattila, and I'm sure that this is all part of Abbado's
non-violent approach to the opera. Very un-epic; very
un-Klemperer.
Jonas Kaufmann, everyone's
tenor-love of the moment, can do no wrong, and in fact he does
no wrong here, articulating his despair as well as his hope and
desperation with great sincerity, solid tone, and intelligence.
And it's a pleasure to hear the last couple of minutes of his
aria so flawlessly, almost effortlessly sung--but I suspect that
Beethoven wrote it that way in order for it not to sound easy:
use Jon Vickers as your guide. It's hard to fault a singer for
sounding too secure, but that's just about what we get here.
Kaufmann does not take a wrong step throughout the entire act,
delivering his part of "O namenlöse Freude" with urgency and
round tone. Both he and Stemme sound properly relieved, but
anyone recalling the near-hysterical outburst of Ludwig and
Vickers under Klemperer will realize that something is missing
here.
What is one to make of this? Abbado is
obviously going for a lean performance and he succeeds; you hear
things in both orchestra and vocal lines that are frequently
smudged elsewhere. But this is not the cry for freedom we want:
the final scene is joyous and gloriously played and sung, but it
doesn't drive the listener wild, as it should and invariably
does. Is this an opera that calls for discretion? A
chamber-music approach?
The performance on Naxos under
Michael Halasz is lean as well, but it can be properly vicious
as Abbado's never is. I'm afraid that I like my Fidelio with
strong moral and philosophical underpinnings and would be
willing to give up a grace note or two for the real drama that
is inherent in the arias for Pizarro, Leonore, and Florestan as
well as the obsessive passion that overtakes the entire opera
when we enter the dungeon.
As I said, I suspect some
colleagues will adore this clean, unaffected, almost bel
canto-like reading, but I think that, at its core, it misreads
Beethoven's intentions. It may sound great, but it doesn't get
to Beethoven's vision. Listen to Klemperer's two recordings, on
EMI and Testament, and get ready to be overwhelmed; Böhm, on
Opera d'Oro with Christa Ludwig and James King, also is a
front-runner. Sonics, by the way, are superb, packaging is
plastic-free, and Thomas May's booklet notes are intelligent and
well-written.
