Pfitzner: Palestrina [Blu-ray]

A Garish Cartoon
I suppose that we in the 21st century will never again see an opera the way the composers intended it to be seen. Instead we will see stagings by directors who have no knowledge of operatic tradition and/or are possessed of colossal egos. When we see a director deciding to stage overtures or preludes we know also that he or she has no love of music. This is an opera that I never expected to see in any guise. Now I have (more or less). The sets and costumes are bright primary colors that make the opera appear to be a cartoon. Anachronisms abound. One of the participants at the Council of Trent is eating an ice cream cone and the papal legate arrives in a limousine. Makeup is particularly garish and reminds one of kabuki. If one is wearing a green costume then he has green eyeshadow and green lipstick. The Pope resembles a Hindu deity, and Palestrina's son has so much eyeshadow that one knows that the composer will never be a grandfather. Although visually it is a fright, the opera is...

Not All Forgotten Operas Deserve to be Staged ...
... BUT THIS ONE DOES! And I say that despite the fact that I have no great enthusiasm for the musical heirs of Richard Wagner. During his lifetime, Hans Pfitzner (1869-1949) was rightly perceived as the chief rival of Richard Strauss (1864-1949). I won't be so rash as to claim that Pfitzner belongs in the same echelon as Strauss -- not on the basis of this single DVD! -- but I was entranced by Pfitztner's orchestral art, which is more conservative than Strauss's. Conservativism in music isn't always a dead end; witness Shostakovich and Bach! Pfitzner was also a conservative on social issues, one who almost had the stomach to be a Nazi but who so offended Hitler that the Führer branded him as half Jewish. He wasn't, but his chief offense against Nazism was his refusal to be a loyal anti-Semite. He maintained his support for Jewish musicians, especially for conductor Bruno Walter, at considerable risk and cost to his career. You gotta like anyone whom Hitler detested, right...

Reposted from Superconductor: "Help! Help! The Bobbleheads!"
Pfitzner based his "musical legend" on a (fictional) incident in the life of composer Giovanni Pierluigi di Palestrina. The opera depicts the grieving composer (Christopher Ventris) in his struggle to overcome the death of his wife and write the Missae de Papae Marcelli. At stake: the fate of polyphonic music in the Church at the Council of Trent, featuring a vast array of squabbling cardinals and archbishops jockeying for political power. There is some sublime orchestral writing to be heard, and the last half of Act I (which depicts the creation of the Mass) soars with inspiration.

This production (by Christian Stückl) presents a surreal drama, with Palestrina himself as the one living man surrounded by white-faced ghosts and (worse yet) rebellious music students. The staging presents a fever-dream environment picked out in white, hot pink and luminous, sickly green. Huge, hideous puppets depict Palestrina's deceased wife and later the Pope.

The Council of...

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