Giacomo MEYERBEER (1791-1864)
Les Huguenots - sung in German [156.00]
Angela Denning (soprano) - Marguerite; Lucy Peacock (soprano) – Valentine;
Richard Leech (tenor) - Raoul; Hartmut Welker (baritone) - Saint-Bris;
Camille Capasso (mezzo) – Urbain; Martin Blasius (bass) - Marcel; Lenus
Carlson (baritone) - Nevers; Otto Heuer (tenor) – Tavannes; Warren Mok
(tenor) - Bois-Rosé; David Griffith (tenor) – Cosse; Friedrich Molsberger
(baritone) – Thore; Klaus Lang (baritone) – Guard; Iván Sardi (bass) –
Retz; Josef Becker (bass) – Meru; 1st Monk; Miomir Nicolic
(bass) - Maurevert, 3rd Monk; Bengt-Ola Morgny (mezzo) – Leonard;
Klaus Lang (baritone) – Guard; Raemond Martin (baritone) - 2nd
Monk
Deutsche Oper Berlin/Stefan Soltesz
rec. Deutsche Oper, 30 August, 2, 5, 8 September 1991
ARTHAUS MUSIK DVD 102 302 [156.00]
The booklet with this DVD claims that John Dew’s production
of Die Huguenotten was “greeted with unrestrained enthusiasm”
by the critics. Well, not when the production was imported to Covent Garden
and given in Meyerbeer’s original French it wasn’t. The performance here
is based on the German version prepared by Ignatz Franz Castelli for the
Vienna production of 1837. It contains later amendments by Meyerbeer –
changing the casting of the page Urbain from a male to a female travesti
role – made in 1844. One presumes that Meyerbeer approved the German translation
- although a different translation was made for a later Munich production
in 1838. He most certainly would not have approved the fact that this
performance is ‘edited’ by John Dew, whose editorial functions appear
to be limited to the wholesale cutting of the score, of which most of
the Third Act goes missing with disastrous consequences for plot continuity;
four whole numbers are omitted here, and what remains last a mere ten
minutes. Scribe may not have been the most consistent of librettists,
but his dramatic design cannot possibly begin to make sense when it is
treated in this cavalier fashion.
Part of the reason for Dew’s cuts clearly lie in his desire to render
the work more ‘relevant’ to modern audiences by updating the historical
milieu. Meyerbeer and Scribe set the opera in the period of the
French religious conflicts of the sixteenth century, culminating in the
infamous St Bartholomew’s Day massacre when the Catholics of Paris set
about butchering their Huguenot neighbours. Dew relocates the plot to
the Berlin of the 1980s with the conflict between Catholic and Huguenot
re-imagined as a conflict between the West and East German regimes - although
it is not at all clear which is which. This might have been highly topical
in Berlin in 1987 when this production was new, but by 1991 it would already
have become out of date following the fall of the Berlin Wall; perhaps
a more apposite modern setting at that time would have been Yugoslavia
in the 1990s. Meyerbeer and Scribe were not really that interested in
the political aspects of the plot - the Jewish Meyerbeer would presumably
have viewed Christian religious conflicts with some disdain - as in the
consequences that the political and religious disputes have on the principal
characters, torn asunder by factional disputes. The modern staging also
contradicts the words at many points, a fact noticeable almost immediately
when the obviously twentieth century bourgeois Raoul describes
how he rescued an unknown lady love with the use of his sword.
Before the music of the overture actually begins we have some three minutes
of dumb show which portrays the Huguenots being labelled with crucifixes
- overtones of Nazism of the 1930s - but when the action proper begins
it is apparent that Drew has a reluctance to take the plot seriously.
The manservants prance around the stage with mincing gait like some horrible
vaudeville act, and the women are dressed like a cross between Cabaret
and The Rocky Horror Show. The Catholics appear to be a rowdy
lot – Raoul is nearly raped by the serving women in their fishnet stockings
– and the singing is often boisterously cavalier, to put it mildly. Richard
Leech delivers his romance, described by Kobbé as “suave and elegant”,
in stentorian verismo tones with hardly the slightest hint of
mezza voce. He receives an uproarious reception from the audience
for doing so. It is a thrilling sound, but it is not what Meyerbeer had
in mind when he wrote the role. Martin Blasius renders his war song with
an almost apologetic manner, and when Camille Capasso appears – despite
some very effective coloratura singing – it is impossible to
take her character seriously when her false beard very clearly contradicts
the page’s unbroken voice. Stefan Soltesz beats his way mechanically through
the music, and the chorus are ragged and sometimes almost drowned out
by the orchestra.
The Second Act opens with Marguerite de Valois’s big coloratura
aria, made famous by many prima donne over the years. Angela
Denning has a very heavyweight voice for the role, and she is relieved
of much of the more elaborate passage-work by some cuts. She does not
make a very good fist of what is left. The much older Joan Sutherland
on the rival Australian DVD demonstrates exactly what is required (and
missing) here. Denning clearly finds the fioriture far too much
of an effort, and she is not helped by being required to act like a vamp.
The bathing scene is fully staged, but whereas Meyerbeer caused a scandal
by his implication that the offstage ladies are naked while being spied
on by the page, here the effect of the ladies round a rather small swimming
pool in very decorous bathing costumes lacks any edge of dangerous prurience
whatsoever.
So it goes on. After the truncated Third Act - which leaves gaping holes
in the plot – how does Valentine know of the mooted plot to kill Raoul
and the Huguenots, and why has Raoul’s attitude towards her changed so
drastically? - we move quickly towards the dénouement. Here at
last Dew begins to take the plot more seriously, and we get the chance
to hear some extended singing from Lucy Peacock – who is, after all, the
heroine. She has the best-suited voice for Meyerbeer in the cast, and
presents a real character; but Hartmut Welker leads the blessing of the
swords in rather rough tone and yields points to Lenus Carlson in style.
Here Soltesz is very brusque and abrupt with the music, in what is after
all one of the most horrific depictions of mob violence before Peter
Grimes; he hustles the chorus along, robbing them of the chance to
develop full tone. The extended duet between Raoul and Valentine which
follows is given uncut, and Peacock and Leech work up a real storm between
them. Sadly, it all comes a bit late.
The whole of the opening scene of Act Five is omitted, but the booklet
note does not seem to be aware of this fact and gives us a full synopsis
of the action - as it does of the cut sections of Act Three. Don’t the
writers of these notes watch the video? The author, Guido Johannes Joerg,
is also allowed to refer the septet in Act Three as one of the “musical
highlights” of the score – but not here, where it is one of the items
that Dew cuts.
I suppose we should be grateful to hear any of Act Five at all – it used
to be cut regularly in performances in the nineteenth century, but it
is essential to round out the plot. Dew spares us none of the brutality,
but before the final massacre the trio between Valentine, Raoul and Marcel
is very moving. Cecil Forsyth in his book on orchestration points out
that the sinister bass clarinet accompaniment to this trio anticipates
Wagner’s use of the same instrument in King Mark’s lament in Tristan.
Here one really feels the emotional parallel, with some incandescent acting
from the three principals. For some reason Brian Large’s video direction
does not let us see the curtain calls but I think I can hear some booing
towards the end, presumably for the production team.
There is an alternative DVD version of this opera, which enshrines Dame
Joan Sutherland’s farewell stage performance from Australian Opera in
1990. Although this is also far from ideal - the subsidiary casting leaves
something to be desired - it is nevertheless preferable to the release
under consideration here. It maintains Meyerbeer’s historical milieu
and gives us much more of the score although still not without some truncations.
It is given in the correct language, and Bonynge has a feel for the music
that largely eludes Soltesz. If you want a version of Les Huguenots
for your DVD collection – and I suppose it is hardly an essential acquisition
– that is the version to go for. Otherwise this is a release for German-speaking
viewers and aficionados of ‘director opera’ only. Maybe not even
for them, when well over an hour of the music has simply gone missing.
Paul Corfield Godfrey
A release for German-speaking viewers and aficionados of ‘director
opera’ only and even so there’s well over an hour of the music missing.
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