United Kingdom BBC Proms 2025 [11] – Beethoven, Bartók: Dorottya Láng (mezzo-soprano), Krisztián Cser (bass), Budapest Festival Orchestra / Iván Fischer (conductor). Royal Albert Hall, London, 6.8.2025. (AK)
Beethoven – Symphony No.7 in A Major
Bartók – Duke Bluebeard’s Castle
I have known Iván Fischer for a long time and attended many of his concerts. He provides some surprise at all his concerts; it would be most surprising if there was no surprise at any of Fischer’s performances. This time Fischer kept the surprise elements relatively small, and more integral than audience orientated.
Fischer kept the audience spellbound during the Beethoven symphony (as well as later during Bluebeard’s Castle); so much so that there was no applause during the movements. One can argue about the pros and cons of clapping between movements but I, for one, was delighted that the symphony could unfold without interruption. BBC Prom audiences seem to be fond of applause after each movement but this time the packed Hall was fully engrossed.
Beethoven’s repetitive scale runs in the slow part of the first movement sounded like flowers opening in early spring, facilitating the beautifully played dolce theme of oboe/clarinet/bassoon, later joined and taken to even a higher level by the solo flute (Gabriella Pivon).
I was in tears during the second movement: it was played with a slightly slower tempo than often heard, with mysterious and hushed pianissimos (with the size of the Royal Albert Hall reducing Beethoven’s pianos and pianissimos further). The gentle dialogue between wind and horn – with Fischer’s sensitive batonless left-hand movements indicating the shapes of motives – gradually grew into Beethoven’s passionate and dignified funeral image. In spite of being marked Presto, the third movement was not rushed: it was elegant and charming, allowing natural pace for the cantilena wind tune and the beautifully controlled diminuendo passage for the first horn (Zoltán Szőke) in the central section.
There was no holding back in the last movement: the superfast speed (marked Allegro con brio) was indeed full of vigour, infectious joy, and brilliance.
Unless my eyes deceived me, Fischer conducted the symphony from memory; he lived as well as directed the music.
Without doubt, for all to see, the double basses were placed (as the first surprise at this concert) high above everybody in the orchestra, just below Sir Henry Wood’s bust. They were a long way from the cellos but, as seen and heard, their musical delivery was of top class.
The second surprise of the concert was Fischer himself narrating the Prologue of Duke Bluebeard’s Castle. This spoken text by Béla Balázs – who also wrote the libretto – is poetic and meaningful. The Prologue is mostly recited by actors, either live on the stage in front of the curtains or pre-recorded. Hats off to Fischer for taking on the Prologue role; this meant that he had to conduct fifteen bars of music while facing the audience and reciting a Hungarian poem. No mean achievement but it had its downside.
This is the penultimate strophe of the Prologue, in Kenneth Wood’s translation:
The music is playing. The flame is burning.
Let the games begin
The curtain of our eyelids rises.
When that curtain closes, you will know to clap.
Ladies and gentlemen.
With conductor Fischer reciting the poem in Hungarian but surtitles providing approximation in English, the audience laughed at the penultimate line: they thought that Fischer jokingly encouraged applause for conclusion of the concert.
The third surprise was the staging, that is the non-staging of the opera. Fischer is not only a conductor but also a composer and by now an experienced opera director. Whether it was for reasons of space or any other practical reason, I was and remain surprised that there was no physical acting by the singers although they did relay the action (whether psychological or not) with their vocal colours. The only actual physical acting was reserved for Judith when, prior to opening the seventh door, she bowed forward and let her long falling hair cover the front of her neck.
The singers stood motionless for fifty minutes throughout the whole opera, at each side of the conductor but slightly forward toward the audience. They did not see the conductor, there were no TV cameras to look at. However, most astonishingly, they delivered a wonderful musical performance by evidently just listening to the orchestra while conductor Fischer listened to the singers and fully supported them.
Near the beginning of the opera, shortly before the first of the seven doors in the castle is opened, Balázs and Bartók indicate that the castle sighs twice. Opera houses use different methods to create the short sound of sighs but at this performance the sighs were real, vocalised by the orchestra. This fourth surprise was very short but significant: Fischer’s orchestra can play, convincingly sigh – and as I witnessed on other occasions – they can sing and act.
Conductor Iván Fischer, singers Dorottya Láng (mezzo soprano, Judith) and Krisztián Cser (bass, Bluebeard) plus the whole orchestra delivered a wonderful musical performance. I only wish the opening of the fifth door (to Bluebeard’s kingdom) would have been supported by the great organ of the Albert Hall, not by a chamber organ brought by the orchestra from Budapest.
Perhaps next time?
Agnes Kory