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Hindemith Mathis der Maler
Badisches Staatstheater, Karlsruhe;
first night 17 March 2007, and in repertoire

Reviewed by Michael Eagleton
posted 23 July 2007

We know very little about the artist Matthias Grünewald, whose masterpiece is the many-panelled altarpiece of (perhaps) 1514 for the monastery at Isenheim, now displayed at nearby Colmar. Indeed, that was probably not even his correct name: it is now thought that Grünewald and Mathis Gothardt Nithardt, known to have been working in the Frankfurt area at about the same time, are one and the same. In adopting Mathis as the subject for his third full-length opera, and writing his own text for the first time, Hindemith was able to use this biographical uncertainty to place a personal crisis against a background of political unrest, the Peasants’ Revolt and the Reformation – creative speculation overtaking historical inaccuracy, as one commentator neatly observed. But, as Hindemith himself wrote, ‘One would not expect from the musician and playwright a work to satisfy the academic demands set by an art historian’.

It was Willy Strecker, of Hindemith’s publisher, Schott, who first suggested Mathis as a subject, pointing out the parallels which could be drawn with contemporary events. This was in September 1932. Hindemith at first rejected the idea, but had second thoughts, as he began to realise that the changed political scene from January 1933 placed him in a comparable situation to Mathis. The essence of the work concerns the nature of creativity and the role of the artist, specifically the right of the artist to his own individual conscience. Little wonder, then, that its first performance had to be in Switzerland in 1938, by coincidence not only just days after the opening of the ‘Entartete Musik’ exhibition in Düsseldorf but with the Munich ‘Entartete Kunst’ exhibition still touring Germany, where a number of great twentieth-century paintings were seen for the last time.

Hindemith constructed his opera in seven self-contained Tableaux. The heart of the piece is the sixth of these, taking inspiration from the panel of the Isenheim Altarpiece which describes in gruesome detail the Temptation of St Anthony. Mathis, tormented with self-doubt, is asleep in the Odenwald forest, where all the characters in the opera appear to him in a vision. His benefactor, Cardinal Albrecht, appears last, in the shape of St Paul, exalting him to ‘go forth and create, Let your inner creativity stand as a strong tree in your native soil, mute, great, a part of the people’.

These words were the starting point for the Karlsruhe production, by Alexander Schulin in designs by Christoph Sehl. A sturdy tree stood in the courtyard of the Monastery of St Anthony, the setting for the first Tableaux, where Mathis, finding his creativity ebbing away, first begins to doubt the worth of his work. He sides with Schwalb, the peasant-leader who is on the run, and helps him to escape. The walls of the Monastery outline the distinctive shape of the Altarpiece, and only gradually does it become apparent that they are actually formed of blank canvasses. In each of the following Tableaux, a further set of canvasses slides inside the previous ones, until, in the Odenwald scene, Mathis is hemmed in by a wall of virgin white, powerless to put them to use.

And it was as an artist in today’s world that Mathis’ predicament was being explored. The cast strolled onto the stage at their cues as if from the street, in jeans and t-shirts, carrying their costumes, and transforming themselves into Cardinal or Peasant, Catholic or Lutheran, as we watched. In the final, reconciliatory, scene, the stage now bare, Cardinal Albrecht appeared once more as the ubiquitous man in the street, red cassock slung over his shoulder, leaving Mathis alone once more but now content with his lot, and with one huge picture completed, of the tree.

This was a novel and quite refreshing approach, carried through with conviction, and no shortage of vocal prowess. To single out Scott McAllister as Albrecht and Thomas Johannes Mayer as Mathis intends no slight to the rest of the cast, mostly members of the Karlsruhe ensemble. But a special mention must go to the conductor, Jochem Hochstenbach, Erster Kapellmeister at the theatre. There was a wonderful lightness of touch, especially apparent in the ‘Engelkonzert’ Prelude, which broadened out with considerable gravitas when required, and the orchestra responded with some cultured playing. Required listening for all those who consider Hindemith’s music, of this period at least, to be dry and academic.

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