ICSM Online Journal > Reviews

Reviewed by Michael Eagleton
posted 9 August 2005

The 2004–5 season was Ingo Metzmacher’s last as Music Director in Hamburg . Early in his career he was pianist with the Frankfurt-based Ensemble Modern while serving as a répetiteur at the Frankfurt Opera under Michael Gielen, and he caused something of a stir in taking over at short notice from Christoph von Dohnányi a new production of Schreker’s Der ferne Klang in Brussels in 1988. He was in Hamburg from 1997, conducting a wide range of repertoire from Pelléas to Nono, Verdi and Wagner, and of course, the three pieces of music theatre among the greatest in the twentieth century – Wozzeck , Lulu, and now Moses und Aron. In the concert hall, he has challenged the Hamburg public with a series entitled ‘Who’s afraid of Twentieth Century Music?’, and with virtual sell-outs at all seven performances of the new production of Moses at the Staatsoper, the answer can only be – fewer than there were when he arrived!

The musical element in this production (first night 14 November – I was at the third performance on the 20th) was astonishing. Orchestral detail was pin-point in its accuracy, while the overall sweep and drama exhilarating – I hate to think how many rehearsals had been necessary! Exhilarating, too, the chorus. Most recent productions in Germany have augmented their local resources with choirs from eastern Europe – in Darmstadt (1998) and Stuttgart (2003) it was the chorus of Krakow Radio, and here they were again joining with the Staatsoper chorus. They probably sing Moses in their baths!

Aron was sung by Reiner Goldberg, Known principally, of course, as a Wagnerian heldentenor, he has now packed these roles away. His Aron is powerful yet lyrical, and only occasionally strained – certainly one of the best things I have seem him do. Moses, the Sprechtstimme role, was Frode Olsen, a huge bear of a man hailing from Oslo , and his very stage presence seemed to add an additional irony to the drama’s essential tenet – that he cannot communicate and needs his brother to interpret his vision. The many smaller roles, too, were all strongly sung – a stentorian Ephraimite (Jörn Schümann) and an ecstatic Young Girl (Gabriele Rossmanith) of special note.

The word exhilarating could equally be ascribed to the production, the tenth collaboration between Metzmacher and director Peter Konwitschny. Remember that Schoenberg only completed two of the three acts. Only the text of the Third Act exists. The original design would have seen the spectacle of the Golden Calf scene framed by a first and third act each containing a lengthy Moses/Aron dialogue, ending with Moses having regained the authority which seems to have abandoned him at the end of Act Two. It is the frustration in Moses’ final words of that Act – ‘O Wort, du Wort, das mir fehlt’ that Konwitschny uses as his starting point. Firstly, the religious and philosophical background – to a large extent Schoenberg’s own thoughts – are pushed well into the sidelines. We meet Moses as a shepherd in a nebulous wilderness, listening to voices seemingly in the very air about him (no burning bush). Then in the first Moses/Aron scene we are in the kitchen of Aron’s obviously cramped apartment. The main thrust of the drama, though, is set in an east German workers’ canteen, which has obviously seen better days. Their freedom promised is all that euphoria when a united Germany was everyone’s dream….

The ‘set pieces’ of this scene, as Aron’s trickery convinces the people of the new world ahead, were graphically done. Moses’ rod is turned not into a serpent, but a semi-naked temptress, and the leprous hand becomes a hideous dwarfish look-alike. At the finale to Act 1 the workers ransack their canteen store and distribute its contents among themselves.

By the end of the Golden Calf scene it is plainly evident at what cost the reunification dream has failed. Hard-earned money has been burnt, people unable to cope with the new order have taken their own lives, and the decay remains. The tribal leaders who gallop in to worship turn out to be Chancellor Schröder and his cabinet, taking out a suicide bomber on the way, but they do not stay. Moses’ final frustrated words come from the same blue swirl of nothingness with which the opera began. It is impossible not to remember that cities like Dessau , Wittenberge, and many others continue to haemorrhage their populations to the West.

Purists will not have liked this approach at all, but there is no denying that Konwitschny carries it all off with huge conviction and dramatic flair. To my mind, the only serious miscalculation was to have that exquisite whispering chorus ‘Wo ist Moses’ which precedes Act 2, sung by a group of sequinned dancers – this was the only occasion when Schoenberg’s music was at odds with events on the stage. That said, this is one of the most exciting Moses’s that you are likely to see.

back to top