Vienna Opera abuses Mahler
NewsThe Vienna State Opera has ‘dedicated’ the coming season to the memory of Gustav Mahler, exploiting the 125th anniversary of his appointment as director of the Opera in October 1897.
To mark this minor anniversary, the company has commissioned an operatic realisation of two Mahler song-cycles: Das klagende Lied and Kindertotenlieder. The director is the Catalan controversialist Calixto Bieito.
What could possible be wrong with that?
Well, Mahler was adamant that he would never write an opera. He said so repeatedly.
When pressed, he explained that running an opera house was his day job, a world apart from his vocation as a symphonic composer.
Mahler would puke at seeing his song cycles presented as an opera for the benefit of Vienna’s returning tourists.
On the other hand, he would probably say: Wien bleibt Wien.
It’s a city without conscience.
Aix just did Mahler’s Resurrection w/Castellucci. No complaints I guess? Why so selective, Mr. Lebrecht?
I suspect that Mahler would have been delighted that two of his song cycles were to be staged by one of the most brilliant if “controversialist” directors of our time. Obviously they are not creating an opera by Mahler! Aren’t most song cycles inherently crying out for a staging of the actions and thoughts they describe? Has NL seen Macmillan’s wonderful Das Lied der Erde ballet for example? That was my first experience of Mahler’s music and I quickly wallowed in his symphonies!
The Vienna State Opera is to be applauded for this incentive, widening the appeal of works which are usually presented in the ice-cool intellectuals-only hushed environment of a concert hall. Clearly we respond in our own ways to these traditional presentations, but how exciting to see what Bieito will do! It will probably be controversial and there will be those who won’t like it, but what’s wrong with that?
If you can access their stream handle, Wienner Staatsoper ballet performed Mahler’s symphony No. 5 . Once upon a time, critics screamed when movies sound tracks contained Beethoven’s and other classic music
Older classical music is popular with movie producers because it is no longer in copyright, as most readers of Slipped Disc already know.
I completely agree. If you can dance to the St. Matthew Passion, which has been staged numerous times, you can certainly stage Mahler
Perhaps Mahler, 125 years later, would be grateful that his music is being performed anywhere? I certainly am.
If Vienna wanted to stage Mahler concert cycles “for the benefit of Vienna’s returning tourists”, they wouldn’t have asked Bieito. Plenty of wouldbe Zeffirelli hacks to please the crowds.
Mahler never wrote an opera, but he made several attempts during his youth, and at 26 he completed Weber’s “Die drei Pintos” from sketches. Maybe it was the withering criticism of Pintos by von Bülow and Hanslick that convinced Mahler to stop trying. In any case he remained fascinated by opera creation: during his decade at the Hofoper no less than 33 new operas were performed, and over 50 were reworked.
None of us has the slightest idea how he would react “at seeing his song cycles presented as an opera”, for the simple reason that staging concert cycles didn’t happen in his day. And the idea that a new approach to canonical work would be forbidden because some assume it would make their long-deceased creator puke… yeah.
You may have a point, but the vulgarity of ‘puke’ and ‘yeah’ may make the ghost of Mahler a little queasy.
Temporally and culturally cringy, but hardly harsh words
Regardless of what von Bulow and Hanslick may have said, “Die drei Pintos” had successful runs in both Leipzig and Dresden. I don’t believe what they may have said had anything to do with Mahler not composing operas either. He was drawn to symphonies and song cycles, and barely had enough composing time to bring those projects to fruition. Mahler himself was very clear on that point.
Not sure why “staging concert cycles didn’t happen in his day” is a reason. I take ‘concert cycle’ to mean a series of separate related concerts.
Is London a city without a conscience?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rexlF27PmyQ
“It’s a city without conscience.”
It might well be after it tried to mandate everybody with a clot shot bioweapon.
I’d like to say I’m surprised but I’m not. They treated Gustav appallingly. When Lenny conducted Mahler with the Vienna Philharmonic, a soloist pronounced that the music was “scheisse musik”.
While I don’t agree with that particular assessment, I think a notable difference between that chap and many other orchestral players is that we all play a lot of music that might deserve the same epithet, but he had the conviction to say what he thought publicly.
i recall a video of him erupting at the orchestra with that comment… perhaps on youtube?
The abuse Mahler faced in Vienna was a measure of his greatness.
It takes two to tango. Mahler was EXTREMELY demanding, and was not the most diplomatic of leaders to deal with. Far from it. In fact, in spite of his tyrannical ways, Mahler could be very paranoid of what others said and thought. As a result, he tended to use favorites as sort of his ‘spies’. Today he would be considered an HR nightmare. And yet, in spite of all that, Mahler very much carried ‘the Philarmonic’ in his heart, and secretly praised their ‘innate musicality’. If you’re referring to the Viennese press, they were divided into factions and could be brutal (there were a boatload of news papers in those days, as you’re well aware). Of course, antisemitism was lightly tossed around by Mahler’s detractors. That part was definitely abuse! But in his biography of Mahler, Jens Malte Fischer provides plenty of evidence that Mahler left Wien for New York for both practical and financial reasons. It was also the last act in his ongoing habit of planning for the next stage of his career.
It was Mahler’s strife for perfection that made the Vienna Orchestra what it is to this day.
and they repaid him how? his niece was murdered in Auschwitz
Maybe. It certainly didn’t hurt. Mahler may also be one of the reasons why the V.P.O. – an elite offshoot of the Staatsoper Orchester – won’t commit to any single conductor.
What I wish they would do instead is a reconstruction of the production of The Marriage of Figaro (in German) that premiered March 30, 1906, that Mahler not only conducted AND stage directed but also for which he composed a new scene in Act III based on the courtroom scene in the original Beaumarchais play. He also revised and recomposed all the other recitatives in the opera to fit the new German translation commissioned for the production. There’s also some evidence that he did his trademark “retouching” of Mozart’s orchestration though it’s not certain those materials still exist. What definitely still exists are those recitatives, published by Peters in a vocal score in 1906, the beautiful designs for the production by Alfred Roller, and several detailed verbal descriptions of the staging by contemporary witnesses. It’s akin to what was available to those people who recreated Nijinsky’s choreography of The Rite of Spring – and unlike that production, Mahler’s Figaro received rapturous reviews.
And a revival of Die drei Pintos wouldn’t be a bad idea either. But I definitely agree that a staging of Kindertotenlieder would be obscene sacrilege. (Whereas IMO Klagende Lied deserves the epithet “juvenalia” and should stop invading our concert halls in any form.)
cool your jets, principe.if it’s good for Bach, it’s good for Gustavrl.
Will Kindertotenlieder have kids on swings?
Exploitation of a great musician. Mahler would never allow such a bastardized presentation his masterpieces.
Does that matter? Should we be tied to what you imagine the composer may or may not have liked?
That’s a pretty extreme position to hold. Especially if you’re not clairvoyant
“It’s a city without conscience.” Are you blaming the actions of a few administrators and slapped that on a city of 2 millions? How is that a fair assessment???
The arguments above are solid. Not to forget how he was treated.