2023-06-28 02:59:00
The German baritone specialist in lied interprets “Wozzeck” in the staging by Simon McBurney. Schizophrenic portrait of the artist and the character.
In a small windowless salon of the Grand Théâtre de Provence, Christian Gerhaher gropes for the light. Her hobbling figure moves in the darkness. That’s it, he found it: two small white lamps near two leather armchairs in which we sit. Not far away, the technicians are preparing the stage where a rehearsal of Wozzeck will soon begin. Christian Gerhaher, baritone in civilian life, plays this former soldier in a new production directed by Briton Simon McBurney. Who is Christian Gerhaher, who tells us about Wozzeck? Portraits.
“Wozzeck is schizophrenic. So was Johann Christian Woyzeck, a barber, who really existed and was executed for murdering a woman during a fit of schizophrenia. This injustice affected Büchner, who was also a doctor. He drew an unfinished play from it, which Berg then adapted. He posed the role of a doctor who experiments with food on Wozzeck to create a cheaper army where, instead of meat and lentils, the soldiers would eat beans and peas. It’s almost torture. This diet has side effects, in particular it provokes auditory hallucinations in Wozzeck. It frightens him, anguishes him. He hears things that no one hears and he misinterprets reality.
A singer’s soul
Born in 1969 in Straubing, Bavaria, Christian Gerhaher came to music through the violin and viola. One of his teachers was none other than the father of the young Gerold Huber, who became a friend of Christian before accompanying him as a pianist, as a teenager in their city, then, much later, on the international scenes. In the meantime, the young Christian, little gifted for instrumental practice, joins a choir and discovers the soul of a singer, stimulated by the discovery of Schumann’s Dichterliebe. He practiced as an amateur while continuing to study medicine. He dares to introduce himself to the great Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, the undisputed master of the lied, who agrees to give him a lesson. A few days later, Fischer-Dieskau calls him to fix a new appointment, but Gerhaher cannot free himself on the proposed day, nor on another, nor on a third: he is taking his exams. “OK, slips Fischer-Dieskau, drop it. So become a doctor and keep singing as a hobby.” Disconcerted, Christian Gerhaher passed his diplomas, then enrolled at the Würzburg theater and began new studies, singing this time, at the school of the Munich Opera. He will never practice medicine.
“It’s a tragic role. Because, on the one hand, Wozzeck is a victim. He’s uneducated, but he’s shrewd and, I would say, smart. He’s an interesting man. But he doesn’t have the words to express what he feels. He doesn’t have the education to understand the world. These elements are multiplied by the effects of his terrible diet, hallucinations and schizophrenia. He also has no medical treatment to get out of it. However, he tries to make himself understood, from the first act, by his girlfriend Marie. But she doesn’t understand him. Just like his friend, Andres. Then Marie’s affair with the drum major becomes a betrayal that Wozzeck cannot accept. For the first time in his life, he makes a decision. And that decision is to become a murderer, to kill her, because he can no longer bear his life. The only constructive idea he finds is murder. His only way out.”
The twists and turns of the German repertoire
During his career, Christian Gerhaher has performed many important roles at the Opera, from Pelléas et Mélisande (Pelléas) to Tannhäuser (Wolfram Von Eschenbach) via the Magic Flute (Papageno) or Don Carlo (Rodrigo), and was directed by a team of prestigious chefs (Harnoncourt, Boulez, Rattle…). But the baritone has above all made a specialty of the lied. With his lifelong accompanist, Gerold Huber, he has traveled back and forth through the twists and turns of the German repertoire, romantic (Schubert, Schumann, Brahms), post-romantic (Mahler), baroque (Bach), with modern incursions (Britten, Schoeck). If the opera genre is structured by a plot, which always ends up appearing, even in an ambiguous context, Gerhaher prefers the opacity of the song, its irresolution, the paths it opens and leaves suspended, in an almost abstract way, to the imagination of the listener and the performer. When Gerhaher released the first of a long series of records in 2000, he received a short note of congratulations. Written by Fischer-Dieskau.
“Working Wozzeck with Simon McBurney is miraculous. He is very smart, fast and intuitive. He intimidates me because I can see that he is special. I’m not sure I’m good enough for him. It’s complicated, but when I see the work he does with others, I’m amazed. A lot of things happen in the moment. It’s interesting but not easy. And he doesn’t thwart the work with too much clarity, he preserves the mystery of the character, the opacity of this non-communication from which Wozzeck suffers. We can also see in the character the effects of a society that used the weakest. Büchner, who was a socialist, had written a very important essay on the extremely harsh living conditions of his compatriots, whom he called on to rebel and rise up against the powerful. He had to go into exile.”
Prototypes without progeny
Christian Gerhaher sits up, puts out the two small lamps. He will return to the stage and reconnect with Wozzeck, this role he cherishes, the central character of the greatest opera of the 20th century according to him, with Pelléas et Mélisande – two works of opacity, so singular that they are like prototype without offspring. “But I’m not anxious. I can no longer afford to live with anxiety at 53. It’s too late. I need to replace my hip. I have to take care of my family. I have to survive. I don’t worry about art anymore. And while I’ve always longed for quiet productions that feel like a vacation, that’s never been the case. Even the easiest work for me, which I know perfectly and on which I have ideas, can become very complicated.
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