2023-12-07 22:26:59
Social crippling as a side effect of art has been painfully reflected again and again in art itself. Hugo von Hofmannsthal worked through the seduction of asociality through aestheticism, from remaining in an attractive substitute for reality, in which no real life experience and humanity were possible. And in his film “Autumn Sonata,” Ingmar Bergman confronted the pianist Charlotte with the consequences of her self-realization in the face of her daughter’s vain hunger for compassion.
“Autumn Sonata” is a wonderful title, said the composer Manfred Trojahn in a recent interview with the “Rheinische Post”, but it has already been taken. And so he called his new opera “September Sonata” because he found the original title of the piece – “The Jolly Corner” by Henry James – to be inappropriate. Shortly before the premiere, the chief dramaturge of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf, Anna Melcher, suggested that “The Jolly Corner” sounded too much like a neighborhood bar. And social trash at the bar really doesn’t want to be associated with James’ upper-class melancholy, which Trojahn silvers in a matt shine at the end with verses by Rainer Maria Rilke.
The Rilke ending, like that of the poetry album, and the title “September Sonata” indicate embarrassment: the desire to continue making art at the height of classical modernism, but at the same time the admission of living aesthetically – like a business – second-hand. Trojahn himself adapted the short story that James published in 1908 into a libretto. Spencer Brydon – about whom we don’t know exactly what kept him away from the acquisitive drive of his American parents for years, whose inheritance as a real estate owner he now inherits – becomes the writer Osbert in Trojahn. He meets his childhood playmate Ellice again, now an actress, who turns his head by saying that she would have fallen in love with him immediately if she had seen him then as he does now. Osbert indulges in self-pity looking for admiration. When he expresses his disgust at the pursuit of “profit maximization” – a word straight out of a cocktail talk critical of capitalism – he sounds like the caricature of a lifestyle leftist on the Viennese satirist Irina’s Tiktok channel “Toxische Fries”.
Trojahn, awake enough, doesn’t allow this poseur to escape: he confronts Osbert in the haunted house of his childhood with the ghost of himself – the businessman he could have become if he had followed his family’s wishes. There is a reckoning between the addiction to money and the addiction to self, which ends up being a zero-sum game. Compositionally, this dialogue between the two Osberts is extremely effective and captivating: Trojahn designed it as a heterophony of two baritone voices. That means Holger Falk as Osbert Brydon and Roman Hoza as Osbert II sometimes sing the same thing, both synchronously and out of phase, but sometimes different things. They are two and one at the same time. The director Johannes Erath and his costume and set designer Heike Scheele take up this game with identity and non-identity. From the beginning, Osbert is doubled by a writer at the typewriter. The parents’ house with the covered furniture first appears as a film projection, then on the stage: with minor, irritating differences.
Trojahn is experienced, if not experienced, as an opera composer. You notice it when, after the long conversation in the first picture, the second picture follows in effective contrast, almost without a song, as an instrumental romance and dance interlude. The designated general music director Vitali Alekseenok (pronounced: “Alexejónok”; the English transliteration is phonetically nonsensical) succeeds in getting tension, changes of mood and the most delicate nuances out of the part for 15 players – there are no violins at all. The only surprising thing is the frequent balance problems with the singers, even in this delicate orchestral line-up.
Falk, with an enviably easy and confidently appealing height, approaches his role of Osbert more by speaking, while Juliane Banse, who sings Ellice decisively from the first note, speaks less. She relies on flattering, approachable lyricism in tone, rather than the crackling prose of conversation. As Osbert II, Roman Hoza has a vocal weight (despite all the flexibility of his voice) that almost overwhelms the vocally delicate Falk. Susan Maclean as the housekeeper Mrs. Muldoon, with her mezzo-soprano, oscillates eerily between sobriety and secret complicity with the ghost.
Jan Brachmann Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 13 Jan Brachmann Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 14 Jan Brachmann Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 13
The piece is missing something: the promise of art. There is no longer any chance of a more intense life beyond everyday life that would make Osbert’s unsuitability for life tragic. Trojahn’s orchestral writing – small-scale, nervous, full of rapidly changing aggregate states – is also more hyperactive than contemplative. At best, the perception is invited to linger and deepen during the final duet.
Erath is merciless towards the characters when directing. After a half-hearted attempt at seduction by Ellice, Osbert sits on the chair for a long time with his pants down, as if in urgent need: portrait of an old literary figure as a poor sausage. Shortly before the end, while in reality they are still singing Rilke backstage, Osbert and Ellice rush out of the opera to the dressing room in a film recording: Just get out of here! This directorial idea brutally reveals that the characters in the play have already become boring while watching themselves.
#Manfred #Trojahns #Oper #Septembersonate