ICSM Online Journal > Reviews

Reviewed by Michael Eagleton
posted 19 March 2006

For an opera given its first performance in 1996 to have since received a further five productions – including one at the Salzburg Festival – is no bad record, but when that opera dates from the 1930s it could be considered remarkable. Zemlinsky’s Der König Kandaules, complete in short score when the composer reached New York at the end of 1938 and since orchestrated by Anthony Beaumont, made its most recent appearance at the L’Opéra Royal de Wallonie on 27 January, in a joint production with Opéra de Nancy. Much of the attraction of the piece lies in the sheer beauty of the score, which with its thematic references to previous works – the LyricSymphony and Eine florentinische Tragödie in particular – give the piece a subtext of meaning as well as a summation of his life’s work (Zemlinsky was to write nothing further of especial import).

In Liège, the qualities of the music were amply realised under Bernhard Kontarsky and his players. At times perhaps he was a little rigid – and some slight hesitancy in the exposed woodwind writing will surely lessen with familiarity. Kandaules has practical considerations in its favour for these straightened times – only three major roles, with a group of comprimario singers – though the three principals have to be risk-takers. Here, the dramatic tenor role of Kandaules was impressively taken by the American Gary Bachlund, expressive in the parlando dialogue, yet able to open up with only a hint of strain in his big moments. Gyges was local baritone Werner Van Mechelen – Alberich in TheRing here last autumn and in Amsterdam – a fine ‘natural’ singer (every word clearly audible) of whom we will hear a lot in the future. Barbara Haveman was Nyssia, the Queen, who sang the seductive Second Act quite beautifully, but from the point in Act 3 where she realises that she has been betrayed unleashed a formidable soprano with a distinct cutting edge. Of the courtiers, James McLean’s Syphax stood out, though that is not to say that the others were in any way inferior.

Director Jean-Claude Berutti and his designer Rudy Sabounghi moved the action from ancient Lydia to more recent times. Kandaules was entertaining his court at a house party in a trendy hotel – smart cubist furniture and lighting in a background decor of erotic red. There were hints of the 1930s in the costume, though the King used a state of the art camera to record the occasion. Such ambivalence, though, is typical of the opera’s fascination, such as that in the interplay of the King’s public and personal domain (wispy curtains, the red background now blue) and his willingness to allow his childhood friend Gyges access beyond the bounds of normal friendship. How guilty is Gyges? In the Act 2 bedroom scene (the photographic imagery hinting at something more sinister, and his ‘invisibility’ superbly staged with some trick lighting) he seems complicit, yet his later confession is heartfelt. And what are Kandaules’ motives? Simply an altruistic willingness to share his many riches? Wisely, Berutti offers no answers and suspends judgement. Fascinating.

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