Vienna's Spark of History

By Christopher Porterfield

The State Opera brings a treasured legacy to the U.S.

The word for it is Gesamtgastspiel, which, roughly translated, means everybody gets in on the act. And indeed, as the Vienna State Opera unpacked in Washington for its first U.S. visit, everybody--and everything--seemed to have come along. Thirty-seven soloists and 100 chorus members? Check. An orchestra of 95, with all their instruments? Check. Thirty-five stagehands and five staff workers, plus 23 custom-built 40-ft. containers full of scenery and costumes? Check.

The company brought something else too. It did not show up on any check list, but it was essential: the ghostly presence of great composers. The repertory for the visit consisted mostly of works passed down through the company's musical heritage directly from those composers' hands. There was Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro, premiered in Vienna in 1786 with Mozart himself conducting from the keyboard. There was Beethoven's Fidelio, also first produced in Vienna with the composer presiding, in 1805. From the 20th century there were Salome and Ariadne auf Naxos, the latter premiered in Vienna in 1916 and both composed by one of the State Opera's long line of distinguished directors, Richard Strauss.

The Vienna is one of the few companies in the world able to claim that such figures move among its ranks as animating spirits. Opera in Vienna goes back to the early days of the form, when the city's cultivated imperial courts began attracting major composers, starting with Gluck. Today the company can work from scores personally annotated by Strauss and another former director, Gustav Mahler. Such authenticity in itself is no guarantee of quality, but to the performances last week in Washington it added a living spark of history. Washington, as history-minded a city as any in the U.S., responded ardently. Shivering against the predawn chill off the Potomac, buffs began lining up outside the Kennedy Center at 4 a.m. for the 50 standing-room tickets that would go on sale six hours later. Sellout crowds packed the center's 2,300-seat opera house and 2,700-seat concert hall. Sprinkled among them, on one night or another, were such dignitaries as President Carter, Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kreisky, U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim and Henry Kissinger.

The Viennese unveiled three of the four operas, plus orchestral evenings of Schubert symphonies and Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. To be added to the repertory this week were Ariadne and a Beethoven-Wagner orchestral program. Next week, after a 17-day run in Washington, the company will go to New York, where it will repeat the Ninth and the Beethoven-Wagner program and present a concert version of Fidelio.

The crown of the first week's operatic offerings was the Figaro--tender, witty, effortlessly buoyant. The spectacle of servants outwitting their masters, so inflammatory in Mozart's day, was given charm and point by Baritone Walter Berry, as a rather phlegmatic Figaro, and Soprano Lucia Popp, as his pert fiancee. Baritone Hans Helm and especially Soprano Gundula Janowitz, as the count and countess, played along with aristocratic good grace.

The entire cast gave such a ravishing demonstration of a long-cherished Viennese ideal, the singing ensemble, that it seems inappropriate to make anybody first among equals. Karl Boehm, at 85 the elder sage of the company, conducted as much with force of character as with his baton, occasionally omitting the beat entirely if things were tripping along on their own --which, most of the time, they were.

With Salome, a far more inflammatory drama took the stage, one that caused Austrian censorship to forbid a premiere of the work in Vienna in 1905. The story of the Judean princess who becomes obsessed with John the Baptist, then, when spurned, demands his head from Herod, still exerts much of its opulent, neurotic fascination. Zubin Mehta led a surging performance that captured it vividly.

Baritone Theo Adam's disheveled, fiery Baptist was notable among several strong supporting roles. Soprano Leonie Rysanek, who has been singing with the company since 1954, projected Salome's eroticism and vengefulness with undiminished power. Her girlishness in the early scenes, however, was mannered, and her decision to perform the Dance of the Seven Veils--rather than yield to the standby dancer listed in the program --was a mistake.

Fidelia was something of a perplexity. As Florestan, the honest man wrongly imprisoned by the corrupt Don Pizarro, Tenor Jess Thomas fell short of the role's impassioned outcry against injustice. Soprano Gwyneth Jones acted credibly as Leonore, Florestan's dauntless wife who impersonates a male jailer in order to free him. But too much of her singing was to the notes what drunk driving is to traffic lanes: a sometimes hair-raising approximation. Leonard Bernstein's conducting had its peaks of grave beauty. His Leonore overture, inserted in the middle of the second act, was superbly rousing. Yet at times even Bernstein was unable to stir the work out of its rather static, if noble, solemnity.

Fidelia's exalted humanism has long given it a kind of ceremonial stature. It was the obvious choice in 1955 to inaugurate the new Vienna opera house that was rebuilt from World War II wreckage, and it was the obvious choice to mark the gala opening in Washington. Said Bernstein, who unwound at a post-performance party by accompanying himself at the piano in blues and cabaret tunes: "What Fidelia is about is really what America is about. It's about the right to speak the truth as you see it and not be thrown into a dungeon. Fidelia should be the American national anthem."

At home, the Viennese each year present some 40 operas over a ten-month season. Many singers stay on from year to year under long-term contracts. With such continuity, it is no wonder the productions in Washington revealed a consistency of approach and attention to detail right down to the smallest role. The staging throughout was solid and fairly realistic. Even the occasionally outrageous Director Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, whose surreal The Flying Dutchman shocked Met audiences last season, contributed a relatively straightforward Figaro. There was no shortage, however, of imaginative effects. The richly colored orientalism of Juergan Rose's Salome set and costumes, inspired by the Austrian painter Gustav Klimt, was especially gorgeous.

Is there an opera house in the world that boasts a better orchestra than Vienna's? Whether in the iridescent pulsations of Salome or the silky, intimate lyricism of Figaro, or the architectural sweep of Fidelio, the orchestra played like a first-rate symphonic ensemble -- which, of course, is what it is. When not in the opera pit, it is the renowned Vienna Philharmonic. With Bernstein again on the podium, it excelled last week in a highly dramatic, virtuoso performance of Beethoven's Ninth. Bernstein tended to heighten what needed no heightening, but by the time the final movement erupted out of the smooth melodic arcs of the adagio, he and his players had built up a triumphant momentum. The Vienna chorus-- tonally brilliant, never forced or fuzzy -- drove home the finale splendidly.

For the Kennedy Center's venturesome executive director, Martin Feinstein, whose previous imports have included La Scala and West Berlin's Deutsche Oper, the Vienna visit turns out to be the final coup of his tenure. Internal conflicts have led the center's board to redefine Feinstein's status as of Nov. 30, retaining him thereafter only in the less powerful role of director of opera and ballet. The impact of this change on future visits by foreign companies is unclear.

The Viennese are going through transition too. Shortly before the company left Vienna, it announced that Director Egon Seefehlner, 67, would retire and Cleveland Orchestra Music Director Lorin Maazel, 49, would take over in the 1982-83 season. Maazel is the first American to be entrusted with the company's treasured legacy. Possibly his appointment signals a desire by the Viennese to open up that legacy to new influences. One hopes so. The operas brought to Washington are all great works; but they are also cultural totems, safe and certified, and this reflects a basic conservatism in the company's outlook. It would have been refreshing if one production had been set aside for something offbeat, to show what the company can do in a more unusual direction. The great Viennese tradition, after all, is made up of a succession of creative figures who transformed it even as they were perpetuating it. Mahler once burst out to his recalcitrant colleagues: "What you theater people call your tradition is nothing but your comfort and your laziness." Maazel seems prepared to line up with Mahler when he says: "Opera has to be renewed constantly. I shall not hesitate to break with tradition to maintain the excellence of this company."

Meanwhile, that excellence is on view in Washington, making an eloquent case for the company's conservatism. If the Viennese venerate the ghosts in their midst, at least they have chosen to venerate the best. --Christopher Porterfield

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