ICSM Online Journal > Reviews

Reviewed by Michael Eagleton
posted 9 August 2005

As the reassessment of the works of the Weimar republic continues, one piece in particular seems to have been left out in the cold. Max Brand’s ‘factory’ opera Maschinist Hopkins, premiered in Duisburg in 1929, received 37 new productions in the few years before its progress was summarily halted. Only Křenek’s Jonny Spielt Auf, of 1927, achieved more, and now Jonny is once again firmly back in the repertoire. The prospects for a similar success for Hopkins , however, were not helped by the first post-War production, in Bielefeld in January 1984, where the director John Dew, in aligning the rise of Hopkins with that of Adolf Hitler (which required cutting and altering the order of scenes), turned the piece into something far removed from the original. An amateur semi-staging in London in 2001 was a project of laudable ambition which disappointed in its execution, and the only other staging, in Giessen in 2000, was unremarkable. A concert performance in Vienna in September 1988 was released by Austrian Radio on somewhat muddy-sounding CDs some years later, but those of us who believe in the piece have been sustained by BBC Radio 3’s excellent studio recording, part of Clive Bennett’s Weimar Season, conducted by Simon July in 1986 which at the time aroused considerable interest.

So hopes were high for the new production which opened at the Stadttheater, Augsburg , on 5 March 2005 , and they were not disappointed. This was a ‘back to basics’ staging, in which Ulrich Peters (the Intendant) and his designer Wolfgang Buchner took as their point of departure contemporary 1920s silent film (the iconic Fritz Lang Metropolis had been shown the previous week), with settings in black and white and all shades of grey in between, save for one splash of red light at the point where the Lulu-like Nel is murdered. The machine room at the Lixten factory was crammed with brooding cog-wheels and camshafts, seeming more malevolent on each of the three occasions they confront us. This work is as much about the power struggle between man and machine as it is about ambition and corruption, love and blackmail. In contrast, the jazz restaurant and following terrace scenes looked gorgeously seductive (yes, even including six blacked-up close-harmony singers for the black-bottom routine, with its nonsense American text by George Antheil, as specified in the score).

The conductor was Thomas Kalb, now freelancing following a stint as Music Director in Heidelberg , and working in Augsburg for the first time. Perhaps his most significant accomplishment was the clarity of the multi-layered machines’ chorus; every line and every word in this complicated texture was audible. There was also some cultured orchestral playing, especially during the beautiful interlude (the music here is serial) leading to the love duet. The three principals, all members of the Augsburg ensemble were well up to the mark – Sally du Randt’s versatile soprano as Nell, Peter Bernhard as a youthful Bill, the dreamer turned ruthless boss, and a sinister Hopkins from Stefan Sevenich. There were no weak links, either, in the numerous other named roles.

So there is now no doubt that Maschinist Hopkins still works, as a viable and exciting piece of music theatre. Opera North?

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