Seen
and Heard Promenade Concert Review
Prom 70 Berlioz, La damnation de Faust
:
Various soloists, Finchley Children’s Music Group,
Tanglewood Festival Chorus, Boston
Symphony Orchestra, James Levine (conductor) Royal Albert
Hall, 6.9.2007 (JPr)
Hector
Berlioz was the quintessential Byronic hero, with his life
full of conflicting emotions and unrequited love, dismal
failures as well as dramatic triumphs – a true ‘Romantic’.
Much of his music is autobiographical and reflected in what
Wagner
called his 'devilishly confused musical idiom'. His music
anticipated the tone-poems of Liszt and Strauss and his novel
use of orchestral colour for his time inspired just about
every major symphonic composer who was to follow him, most
notably
Gustav
Mahler who certainly inherited his sense of musical
irony.
The
Faust story goes back to sixteenth century Germany, where
there was a Dr Johann Georg Faust, an alchemist, possibly
dabbling in the black arts. Marlowe wrote
a play
(The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus) in 1604 on
the Faust theme, but it is 
Goethe's
version (1808) that is of more literary importance.
The theme of man's desire for knowledge, power and the essence
of life that is only fulfilled by selling his soul to the
devil has such a universal resonance so much so that the story
has been constantly reinterpreted over the years. There have
been no less than four operas (Berlioz, Gounod, Busoni, and
Boito) based on the legend, plus many other works such as
Robert
Schumann's
Scenes
from Goethe's Faust and, let us not forget the
second part of
Gustav
Mahler's Eighth
Symphony.
Berlioz
drew on a translation by Gérard de Nerval of the Goethe for
his La damnation de
Faust, an expansion in 1846 of an earlier 1829
work (Eight Scenes of Faust). It was unfortunately a
failure when first put on at the Opéra-Comique, Paris, and
remained so in his homeland during his lifetime though it was
received much better when he conducted it elsewhere. The later
work skilfully used the original eight scenes from his more
youthful work.
Just a
little background to Berlioz’s life up to the composition of
La damnation de Faust reveals why the composer might
have considered himself Faustian. In 1827, he was working as a
chorus singer to earn money and in September that year, he
encountered Shakespeare's Hamlet for the first time and
he instantly became passionate about Shakespeare but also
about an Irish actress performing Ophelia, Harriet Smithson.
His feelings were at first unreciprocated and she thought he
was mad. In 1828, he began English lessons to read more
Shakespeare, and that year began writing music criticism.
During the 1830 revolution Berlioz finished Symphonie
Fantastique possibly his most famous work.
Autobiographically subtitled 'Episodes in the Life of an
Artist', it is inspired by his obsession with Smithson, his
adolescent worship of Estelle Duboeuf and possibly a brief
affair with Camille Moke, who later abandoned him. It was
first performed in December that year. Among the audience was
Franz
Liszt who was highly impressed, and he became a
good friend of Berlioz. In 1854 when Berlioz’s Faust
score was published it was dedicated to Liszt causing him to
compose his own Faust Symphony.
By late
1832, Harriet Smithson's career was failing, and she has money
troubles and saw Berlioz as a way out of debt, so married him
in 1833, with Liszt as a witness.
Niccolò
Paganini, the great violin virtuoso commissioned Berlioz to
write a work for viola and orchestra. When Berlioz sent him
the first movement of the new work Paganini rejected it
because he did not have enough to play. Eventually the music
formed part of his 1834 Harold en Italie, a symphony
for viola and orchestra. This was followed by the Grand
Messe de Morts (Requiem) in 1837, Roméo et Juliette,
a 'dramatic symphony', in 1839; and the 1840 Symphonie
funèbre et triomphale.
Berlioz's son Louis was born in 1834, but his marriage was
already disintegrating. Harriet, her acting career over was
now drinking heavily and Berlioz began an affair with the
singer Marie Recio who would later become his second wife
after Harriet died. Possibly Marguerite has something of Marie
in the Berlioz version of the Faust story?
Of
course the Prom on Thursday 6 September was over shadowed by
the news earlier that day of the death of Luciano Pavarotti
and in his pre-concert announcement Nicholas Kenyon, director
of the BBC Proms, announced that the conductor, James Levine
the Boston Symphony Orchestra and all the singers were
dedicating the performance to Pavarotti’s memory.
It was
probably not the best of works to celebrate him with but it
had the ideal conductor as James Levine had collaborated with
Luciano Pavarotti in 139 performances at the Metropolitan
Opera, New York, beginning in 1973, and said in an
announcement: ‘Few singers in the history of the Metropolitan
Opera have had the popularity with the general public and the
enormous impact that Luciano Pavarotti had during his 36–year
career with the company. Luciano’s voice was so
extraordinarily beautiful and his delivery so natural and
direct that his singing spoke right to the hearts of listeners
whether they knew anything about opera or not. I will never
forget the sheer magic of that voice, but I will also remember
the warm, generous, and exuberant spirit of the man. He is,
rightfully, a legend already – an artist whose recordings will
be a reference for singers and opera- lovers for a long time
to come.’
From the
opening bars forward the music lifted the spirit as it invoked
Spring, and throughout the performance Faust’s melancholy
often seems secondary to the musical picture being conveyed by
the music. This probably revealed to Mahler that music could
have hidden meaning. James Levine plays close attention to the
written text and allows the drama to unfold out of it. By the
time we get to Scene Four for instance Faust has happily left
the countryside and we believe him but the Easter Hymn and the
wonderful singing of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus perhaps
hint that he should have thought twice about it. Faust is
endlessly melancholic and neither going to a beer cellar or
finding love in Marguerite can help him escape from deep
despair. So by the time we get to Scene 16 Faust is in such a
well of despond that the immensity of it is vividly imagined
in the sombre tone of the orchestra, and by Faust’s own
plaintive soliloquy. For him he soon discovers life is
over,and he is at the devil’s mercy.
The
superbly clean playing of the Boston Symphony orchestra
captured ever so well the broad dramatic sweep of the events
that were unfolding. The Rákóczy March was magisterial, the
first entrance to Auerbach’s cellar doomladen, the Ride to the
Abyss and following Pandemonium cataclysmic. Yet where the
music is delicate, it was played with an exquisite lightness
of texture highlighting the composer’s deft orchestration. No
more so than towards the end in the Epilogue and Apotheosis.
The quality of the choral singing had been immense throughout
with the Tanglewooders always projecting the sense of drama in
what they were singing, for instance in the Amens in Scene
Five they positively sounded a bit tipsy, and while as
Will-O’-The Wisps they sang with delicate beauty. Now in the
closing pages aided by the Finchley Children’s Music Group the
singing was ethereal and very emotionally engaging. The ending
in Levine’s hands had the transcendental potency of the end of
Parsifal in the magical performances I heard him
conduct at Bayreuth.
When I
heard Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony
recently they were at the start of a tour, here the Boston
Symphony Orchestra was at the end of their first European one.
Only did that become apparent in the slightly tired voices of
the soloists, and it did nothing to spoil the occasion.
Perhaps José van Dam makes up in experience for the lack of
flexibility and power in his voice now but he is sufficiently
lyrical, sardonic and sarcastic when required. Yvonne Naef has
a fine, dusky voice that occasionally slid below the note but
she sang a touching Ballad. Patrick Carfizzi made little
impact as Brander. On the evening when the life of Pavarotti
was celebrated Marcello Giordani revealed an effortless tenor
voice as Faust, only tested briefly during his highest lines
of music. He was world-weary and nothing much seemed to change
his demeanour. However, when
he first dreams of Marguerite and calls out her name, he does
start to display a greater range of emotional intensity, and
there is tenderness in his scenes with her. There might have
been a ‘language barrier’ between Marcello Giordani’s
Italianate timbre and his French character but even though he
seemed a bit of a wimp I enjoyed a tenor voice that had no
gear changes … especially on this sad night.
I
thought I had finished my 2007 Proms season and this
performance of La damnation de Faust was a bonus and as
luck would have was just about the best of those I had
attended. This is when music at the Royal Albert Hall works
for the benefit of the audience and not those at home.
Colourful, exciting, cinematic music, large choruses, and loud
voices and the hall becomes filled with marvellous sound.
Jim Pritchard
