An extraordinary dimension
Othmar Schoeck’s opera ”Penthesilea” is one of the poor relations of modern music theatre. When one comes across this infrequently performed work in a good performance, as happened twice within the space of a few weeks – on 2 November 2007 in Basel and 10 February 2008 at the Semperoper Dresden, where it was premiered 81 years earlier on 8 January 1927 – an aura of the extraordinary radiates from the unwieldy, demanding work. Schoeck has reduced Kleist’s tragedy to the crux of a convulsive passion of death, the meeting of the Amazon queen Penthesilea and the Greek king Achilles on the battlefield of Troy. At the end of this driven intertwining of erotic love and violence in which – famous quotation – ”Küsse” [kisses] and ”Bisse” [bites] rhyme, comes the bestial murder when Penthesilea tears the unarmed Achilles limb from limb.
It would be difficult to imagine two more different approaches than in Basel (Hans Neuenfels) and Dresden (Günter Krämer). And yet, both were equally convincing, and equally impressive advocates for Schoeck’s tempestuous Penthesilea.
An inscrutable balancing act
In his highly-concentrated production, Neuenfels takes neither the tricky ground of naturalistic coarsening nor that of expressive excessive increase as his starting point, rather the breathless current which comes from Kleist’s text and Schoeck’s musically concise melodrama, aesthetically filtered by a double distancing. The scenery (set designs: Gisbert Jäkel) draws on the one hand on elements of classical architecture (and with this alludes to the period in which the work is set), and on the other hand also depicts a theatre (and with this moves into the situation of the observer) – a theatre in which the extreme circumstances of feeling of this passion of death stretch out in slow motion and with this all its oppressive beauty is shown.
Against a background of the machinery of war, portrayed in music by Schoeck – the Amazons in black Wehrmacht overcoats armed with bows and arrows, the Greeks, like a colourful troup of male displays kitted out from the theatre equipment store (costume design: Elina Schnizler) – Neuenfels develops the deathly encounter in a calm which is often almost excrutiating. And this results in a provocative contrast to the affective gesture of speech, with which Schoeck’s melodic declamation clings to the verse character of Kleist’s writing. The love encounter takes place in quite unreal circumstances, the great duet composed afterwards; for this, Neuenfels places Penthesilea on a white plaster horse, and Achilles on a black wing.
For the end – when Penthesilea enters with Achilles’ corpse – Neuenfels finds an oppressive image which raises the horror into the realms of the surreal. Penthesilea pushes a wheelchair covered with a net in front of her. On top of this lies the deadly bow, smeared with blood. From the vehicle itself, she lifts down several bloody suitcases, which she kisses whilst dying – a sign of the pathological exaltation with which she drives the absoluteness of love into delusion.
The fact that this inscrutable balancing act was able to succeed is thanks to the young mezzo-soprano Tanja Ariane Baumgartner, who sang the title role in Basel. Her Penthesilea was at the same time ”half fury” and ”half gracefulness”, as Kleist dreamt of. Through her slim girlishness (also her slender, indeed gentle voice, still penetrating in the lower register), the transformation from ”miraculous woman” of the paranoid fixation through the incredulous questioning amazement, to silent helplessness in the face of the fact in this final scene is all the more moving – an absolutely exceptional performance in both acting and singing in the modulations of the vocal inflections of erotic love and violence.
On the podium was Mario Venzago, who urged the Basel Symphony Orchestra on to rhythmically precise, concentrated playing. He had a feel not only for the stark sound of Schoeck’s highly individual instrumentation, but also for the speech-like song style of this music. Whether the introduction of a female reciter and the many retouches in Schoeck’s score were really required, which Venzago justifies in the programme book, is another matter.
In an unearthly nowhere
Günter Krämer’s barren, austere Dresden production was quite different, but in its shocking execution is no less moving. Krämer concentrates far more on the love tragedy of Penthesilea and Achilles than Neuenfels does. Jurgen Bäckmann has created a large, flat platform on the empty stage, on which the martial conflicts take place at the beginning. After Penthesileas’ defeat by Achilles, the platform moves into a vertical position, and presents the two protagonists frontally as if caught in a net. They then slowly abseil down the mirrored wall shimmering with gold. Later, Bäckmann closes off the room with a black curtain, so that the Liebestod battle about the mutual subjugation takes place in an unearthly nowhere. Only at the end of the opera does a wide crack open again, when the bloodstained Penthesilea offers up the body of Achilles. The Amazons’ costumes are also timelessly up-to-the-minute (designer; Falk Bauer): black, off-the-shoulder hooped skirts, from which the white powdered hands, faces and hair emerge almost ghost-like. Nothing here distracts from concentration of the destiny of both the adversaries, which unfolds with the inexorability of a classical tragedy.
Kramer’s production leaves the vehemence of the monstrous action almost completely to the music; ”she has really devoured him, Achilles, out of love”, wrote Kleist to his relation by marriage Marie von Kleist (Krämer had her appear at the beginning, reciting the letter). This pushes the title role, by which every performance of the work stands or falls, completely to the centre. Iris Vermillion portrayed Penthesilea’s love mania with obsessive expression and commanded with sovereignty dark, bronze tones reaching down into the alto register as well as the ecstatic tessitura, often exceeding the soprano cantilena register. In particular with her final aria, she carried the audience completely with her. In comparison with Tanja Ariane Baumgartner, however, she was more fury than gracefulness, more frightening culprit than touching, moving victim of a woman only becoming fully aware in crossing the threshold of death.
Conductor Gerd Albrecht, with the brilliant Sächsische Staatskapelle at his disposal, fashioned the passionate ecstasy of the intoxicated love duet and the unbelievable toughness with which Schoeck, decades before Orff’s ”Antigonae”, pared the music down to the rhythm of ostinato beats, accentuating both text and plot. In Schoeck’s stark, dissonant vision, the music isn’t meant to be anything other than the rhythmic-tonal support to the sung or spoken word. This “iron clash” requires from the conductor a subservient asceticism which Albrecht entered into with the greatest vigour. Unfortunately, this did not prevent him from making unnecessary retouches and dramaturgically problematic deletions.
On both occasions, in Basel as in Dresden, Schoeck’s ”Penthesilea” proved its theatrical viability in a convincing manner. In both productions the public was highly impressed, indeed captivated, and rewarded the interpreters with ovations.
Uwe Schweikert
(translation: Elizabeth Robinson)
from: takte 1/2008)
Photos: Matthias Creutziger