Austria Hans Pfitzner’s Palestrina: Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra of Vienna State Opera / Christian Thielemann (conductor). Livestreamed (directed by Ella Gallieni) from the Vienna State Opera, 12.12.2024. (JPr)
It must have been 1981 when Abbey Opera gave the first semi-professional UK production of Hans Pfitzner’s 1917 Palestrina that I heard the famous musicologist Hans Keller – only a few years before he died at the relatively young age of 66 – introduce the opera to members of the UK’s Wagner Society. I don’t believe I saw and heard it in 1981 or when Palestrina had a belated UK premiere in 1997 (conducted by Christian Thielemann who now conducted it in Vienna).
To his own libretto – and setting it against the backdrop of the mid-sixteenth century Council of Trent – Pfitzner’s Musikalische Legende (musical legend) tells of the real-life Renaissance composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. He is tasked with saving polyphony (with its differing melodies) and opposing those who would ban it and return to Georgian chant (with its single melodic line). Palestrina could be regarded as an archconservative (believed to represent Pfitzner himself) triumphing over modernism; though Greforian chant is decidedly not ‘modern music’. Palestrina is suffering ‘composer’s block’ after his wife’s death and resists the arm-twisting tactics of Cardinal Borromeo who supports Emperor Ferdinand I’s wish for a new mass which would convince the Pope to put an end to the denigration of musical tradition.
It is Borromeo’s wish that Palestrina should be music’s ‘salvation’ and a vison of nine ‘old masters’ – including Josquin des Prez – urge him on and they are followed by a choir of angels who dictate his new mass (the Missa Papae Marcelli) to him. Exhausted Palestrina falls asleep, and his pupil Silla and son Ighino discover him surrounded by sheets of music. All this is in the opera’s first act that lasts an extravagant 100 minutes and Borromeo sings for a considerable amount of that.
Pfitzner wants us to consider the role of a creative artist in a society they consider – as in this case – anti-musical. As a result, they might even be considered the outsider struggling to defend an art from – as the libretto recounts – a storm coming ‘from another direction’ and ‘threatening the whole art.’ The composer was eventually a Third Reich sympathiser, and this has apparently tarnished Palestrina somewhat in all but German-speaking countries. Though now having sat through it for the first time I understand why Keller lectured on Palestrina to the Wagner Society since we have elements of both Tannhäuser – at one point Palestrina sings ‘I have hung up my harp in the meadow’ – and, especially, Die Meistersinger von Nϋrnberg in it. For me Borromeo was very much like Beckmesser, Palestrina is Hans Sachs (remembering his wife died too) and of course there are his ‘masters’.
The 70-minute Act II is a strange affair dominated by endless theological bickering with Palestrina barely getting a mention. Nevertheless, it made me think of it as an extended version of the ending to Act II of Die Meistersinger. The opera rushes to a conclusion with Palestrina/Sachs/Pfitzner perhaps realising how if you are to challenge tradition you must first embrace it and change it from within. Lots has happened (unseen) to Palestrina in the interim since the first act, he has been imprisoned by Borromeo for refusing his commission and Ighino saves him from being executed by handing over his father’s finished Mass. There is a mournful prelude when we hear the striking of the bells of St Peter’s, as well as the choristers in the Papal chapel singing Palestrina’s composition. To Wagnerians – and Pfitzner was possibly an adherent despite being personally despised by Cosima Wagner – the opening prelude of the third act of Tristan und Isolde with its sailor’s song and the shepherd’s tune on the cor anglais is suggested. We learn how ‘The Mass is resonating throughout the world’ and the pope is so pleased that he wants Palestrina to stay in his service until the end of his days. Borromeo begs Palestrina’s forgiveness, and they are reconciled as the opera concludes with shouts of ‘Evviva Palestrina! The saviour of music!’
Herbert Wernicke production was first seen in Vienna in 1999 and sets the action firmly in the late-twentieth century and we did not see either Palestrina’s house or the Great Hall in Cardinal Madruscht’s Palace in Trent as suggested by the libretto. All three acts are played out in a grand concert hall dominated by an array of huge organ pipes at the rear of the stage. It is all white-gold and beige-gold which reflects the current Vienna State Opera itself. The façade of the organ will open to reveal a choir of angels singing the Gloria and then in Act II massed ranks of clergy as if sitting in a grandstand. When the pope finally appears he will sing from a box to the side of the stage.
In Act I it is just as though an orchestra rehearsal had just finished and the musicians had put down their instruments and were on a break. When Palestrina enters, he is in clothes the singer (Michael Spyres) would wear for a rehearsal, and he sits at a desk with his manuscript paper and a portrait of his dead wife. Palestrina’s son and student are in modern suits, whilst the choristers and members of the catholic clergy, the ambassadors and envoys (notably in Act II) were costumed as you would expect them to be. At the start of Act II, the instruments and music stands of Act I are removed to just leave a central lectern, and so with everyone on either side of it seated on chairs, it now had the appearance of a chorus rehearsal.
At the conclusion of Act III, when we hear how Palestrina must ‘live again, laugh again’, he gazes again at his wife’s portrait as Ighino takes the score of the new Mass to the organ console on the stage and begins to play it. Palestrina goes to the podium and wearily raises his arms ready to conduct although the music soon begins to fade away.
Christian Thielemann is renowned as a tireless advocate for Palestrina through his performances and 1995 recording (his first) and Vienna State Opera is the opera’s ‘spiritual’ home with seven productions since 1919, the first conducted by the Pfitzner himself. Looking at some of the faces in the pit who were being led by concertmaster Rainer Honeck it was unlikely any other conductor could attract so many of the Vienna Philharmonic’s first XI (and more) to play together in the opera house. Nor probably would Thielemann hobble – as he recovers from recent tendon surgery – to the conductor’s chair on crutches for anything other than Palestrina. The orchestra’s luscious string tone was much in evidence in Pfitzner’s sumptuous late-Romantic music, its textures failing to obscure many wonderful contributions from the Vienna musicians, whether solo ones or from individual sections. Thielemann conducted with typical attention to detail and unflagging dynamism – almost but not quite – glossing over Palestrina’s longueurs. Despite the visionary beauty of some of the music, the orchestral accompaniment is rather like a movie soundtrack, as what we hear doesn’t always match what we see. Palestrina is a very uneven work, with its shifting emotional tone and atmosphere; it very often too static and certainly too long for the subject matter.
Micheal Spyres makes his role debut as a tireless Palestrina, his voice expressive, lyrical yet baritonal, and he acted the conflicted Kapellmeister convincingly in his struggles with the questions of conscience he is faced with. Wolfgang Koch was audibly coughing and the gruffness of his wizened and intense Borromeo sounded very appropriate as he despaired about Palestrina’s stubbornness. Kathrin Zukowski was Ighino, and it was an excellent portrayal as she defended her father in the opening scene with his pupil Silla (a spirited Patricia Nolz) who will eventually leave to seek a new musical direction in Florence. Here we veer into Richard Strauss territory with Silla as the ancestor (!) of his Composer in Ariadne auf Naxos composed a few years before Palestrina. Amongst all the conspiring, rivalry, and infighting of the Act II throng there were impressive vignettes especially from Michael Nagy (Morone), Wolfgang Bankl (Cardinal Madruscht), Michael Laurenz (Novagerio) and Clemens Unterreiner (Bishop Severolus). As Pope Pius IV, Günther Groissböck’s cavernous bass is now rather gravely and unwieldy. Listed above are 35 roles (and there are in fact more in the opera) and the whole ensemble had the strength in depth you come to expect in Vienna but would be impossible in London these days.
Jim Pritchard
Featured Image: Günther Groissböck (far right in box, Pope Pius IV) © Wiener Staatsoper / Michael Pöhn
Creatives:
Production – Herbert Wernicke
Sets, Costumes and Lighting – Herbert Wernicke
Chorus master – Thomas Lang
Cast:
Giovanni Pierluigi Palestrina – Michael Spyres
Cardinal Borromeo – Wolfgang Koch
Giovanni Morone – Michael Nagy
Silla – Patricia Nolz
Ighino – Kathrin Zukowski
Pope Pius IV – Günther Groissböck
Cardinal Madruscht – Wolfgang Bankl
Cardinal of Lorraine – Michael Kraus
Patriarch Abdisu – Hiroshi Amako
Archbishop Brus – Jusung Gabriel Park
Bernardo Novagerio – Michael Laurenz
Bishop Ercole Severolus – Clemens Unterreiner
Dandini of Grosseto – Devin Eatmon
Bishop of Fiesole – Andrew Turner
Bishop of Feltre – Ilya Kazakov
Young Doctor – Teresa Sales Rebordão
Spanish bishop – Marcus Pelz
Chapel singers – Clemens Unterreiner, Jusung Gabriel Park, Michael Gniffke, Hiroshi Amako. Ilya Kazakov
Apparition of Lucretia – Monika Bohinec
Masters – Hiroshi Amako, Andrew Turner, Michael Gniffke, Clemens Unterreiner, Jusung Gabriel Park, Marcus Pelz, Ivo Stanchev, Ilya Kazakov., Wolfgang Bankl
Angel voices – Ileana Tonca, Anna Bondarenko, Jenni Hietala