France Beethoven Wars: Ellen Giacone (soprano), Matthieu Heim (bass-baritone), accentus, Insula orchestra / Laurence Equilbey (conductor). Grand Théâtre de Provence, Aix-en-Provence, France, 22.3.2025. (CC)
Beethoven – König Stephan: excerpts; Die Ruinen von Athen: excerpts; Leonore Prohaska: excerpts
Insula orchestra, accentus and Laurence Equilbey together with director Antonin Baudry and his co-director Arthur Qwak have created Beethoven Wars: a Manga-inspired immersive experience showcasing lesser-known but nevertheless inspired music by Beethoven.
Why Manga? Because in Manga there is, as Laurence Equilbey explains in an interview supplied in Aix, heroism, a sense of a Utopian ideal and a core humanistic set of values These are, indeed, Beethoven’s values (the ‘Eroica’ dedication story, perhaps, or even more pronouncedly Fidelio, and his Utopianism in the Ninth Symphony). But it is with two lesser known pieces Equilbey memorably calls ‘perles oubliées’ that form the twin musical foundations of Beethoven Wars: King Stephan and The Ruins of Athens.
The subtitle of the event is ‘A battle for peace’; the invitation is to create a better world, despite multiple wars and so much suffering. It is not just a pacifist message, but the Manga imagery also emphasises the importance of ecology, and the whole experience reinforces the significance of the arts to humanity. ‘L’art ne mourra pas’ is a core message from Ruins of Athens.
There are two protagonists in the storyline: Stephan and Gisèle. But the true subject is our planet, and so this links back to Insula’s Pastoral for the Planet (review here) project. Rarely has a project been so aligned to the current global situation: the world is devastated by both war and climate change. King Stephan and Athena are engaged in war, a complete reversal of their situation as children, when they played together, carefree (when Athena was known as Gisèle). A peace treaty is signed, and they embark on a search for a habitable planet – Earth, where Nature is in full majesty but littered with ruins of previous civilisations (Athens, but in the future it could well be ours of today). Pollution and global warming have taken their toll. Although the atmosphere poisons Gisèle, she recovers on board the spaceship; to find a world that has been bult by the two reunited peoples.
A vision of hope: while Manga might appeal to children on an immediate level and, as the deliberately Star Wars opening indicates, the frame of reference is wide, the message remains simple. Both Beethoven pieces, remember, were written in 1812 to celebrate the inauguration of a theatre in Pest in a celebration of peace and justice.
The technology involved in this multimedia event is remarkable: the Aix theatre was transformed into a huge cinema screen with ‘orchestra soundtrack’. But the combined result was far more than that, just as the Manga/Beethoven axis was much more than a mélange. Manga may be visceral in its imagery and colours but so is Beethoven’s music.
It is with König Stephan we begin, the orchestra typically pointed in its accuracy in the Overture, the woodwind an absolute delight. The film’s Stephan is very removed from the context of playwright August von Kotzebue’s original though: this is the Nomad King, born during a war on the only habitable planet on the Mage Nebula (perhaps the name – Mage, magician, has relevancy here, too). The idea that children’s games allow the young King to ignore the sound of warfare can only resonate with the children of the war-torn nations of today. We are also introduced to Athena/Gisèle The plot thenceforth concerns a search for a habitable planet. There are indications of a new Utopia rising from the ruins: ‘We will cultivate the arts and sciences to inspire mankind’ says Athena; ‘The glory of weapons will disappear in the flow of time’ says Stephan.
That planet, of course, is Earth.
The actual sound of the performance from Insula and accentus was lean, incisive and when called for, tender. It offers a Beethoven sound that seems perfect for this music; and accentus reflects this in its own sense of clarity and linear accuracy (as one could hear in the first chorus, ‘Ruhend von seinen Taten’/‘Resting from his deeds). The move to the more rhythmically active ‘Auf dunklem Irrweg in finstern Hainen’/‘On a dark path in dark groves’) offered vibrancy, segueing into the ‘Siegesmarch’ (Triumphal March), so full of pomp, hard-sticked timpani, naturally, punctuating the discourse. But it is the way Equilbey can make a seemingly innocent melody sing so effectively that stood out; music many would pigeonhole as second-rate Beethoven appears here as soul-enervating. doube
One could argue the same for the guileless female chorus, ‘Wo die Unschuld Blumen streute’ (‘Where innocence scattered flowers’). But maybe it was Equilbey’s alignment with melodrama and how it works that is so impressive: pieces such as Egmont, and Mendelssohn’s Athalie fascinate her, and how this enthusiasm seeps through in perfect pacing and into moments of enrapture: just listen to the almost hymnic ‘Geistlicher Marsch’ (Sacred March). Perhaps an aspect of that sense of dramatic pacing comes out in the final two movements from König Stephan, both choruses: ‘Heil, unserm Könige’ (‘Hail to our King’) – an impeccably Beethovenian paean which surely links to the final chorus of Fidelio, and ‘Heil! Heil unsern Enkeln!’ (‘Hail to our grandchildren’) – a clear nod, in the film’s context, to a better future possible going forwards.
The remainder of the performance comprised mainly Die Ruinen von Athen, but with three excerpts from Leonore Prohaska. A delight to hear the Overture to Die Ruinen von Athen, Op.113, in a brilliantly dramatic account; even finer to hear the mysterious low scales that usher in the miraculously beautiful, lyrical duet ‘Ohne Verschulden Knechtschaft dulden’ (‘To suffer servitude without cause’); and for all of Mathieu Heim’s warmth of voice, and Equilbey’s way with the aspirational phrases, it was Ellen Giacone’s purest of soprano voices that truly impressed. Their two voices work beautifully together, too, and their duet even overshadowed the one piece in the whole programme surely most people are familiar with: the ‘Turkish March’, here rapid, jangly, a reminder of the period’s fascination with the ‘East’ (and indeed, Mozart’s Entführung aus dem Serail).
Few, surely know the chorus that follows, ‘Du hast in deines Ärmels Falten’ (‘Thou has taken the Moon into the folds of thy sleeve’) a remarkable, almost nightmarish moment.
Equilbey’s choice of repertoire is always thought-provoking. His is the ‘other’ Leonore: Leonore Prohaska, music to a play by Johann Friedrich Leopold Duncker (1770-1842). Beethoven composed incidental music, but the play appears not to have been performed. There are four extant pieces for the play of which we heard three. The Funeral March is like an Ur-Funeral March: there is no missing its intent. In the play, this is for ‘Elenora’. The original funeral march Beethoven wrote is lost, but he also orchestrated the funeral march from the A-flat major Piano Sonata, Op.26. Then the melodrama, with the unforgettable sound of a glass harmonica (invented by Benjamin Franklin, no less) and Giacone unforgettably innocent in the Romance ‘Es blüht eine Blume’ (‘In my garden blooms a flower’), accompanied only by the harp (Virginie Tarrête). The final march (non-Turk) and chorus (‘Schmückt die Altäre!’; ‘Deck the altars’) blossomed beautifully in Equilbey’s performance. How beautiful, how aspirational, that the final part of that chorus is a hymn to nobler joy and higher pleasure.
The sequence of purely orchestral movements is carefully chosen and ordered to underscore and mirror the story. And the most poignant part? The line from ‘Old Stephan: ‘The most terrible truth is that we didn’t learn from our elders. We forgot their history. And we repeated the same mistakes’. The age-old trope, played out around all of us right now.
A VR version is due later this year. March 26 to 28 finds Insula in Hong Kong to present this momentous project. If on the final analyses, I find Sky Burial the more viscerally powerful piece, Beethoven Wars still opens up another huge can of worms. Lucky those in Hong Kong.
Colin Clarke