Austria Mozartwoche Salzburg 2024 [1] – Salieri, Rimsky-Korsakov: Soloists, Puppeteers, College students from the Mozarteum College, Salzburg / Kai Röhrig (conductor). Salzburg Marionette Theatre, Salzburg, 27.1.2024. (MB)
Salieri – Axur, re d’Ormus: Piccolo sinfonia to Act IV; La secchia rapita: ‘Son qual lacera tartana’; Il ricco d’un giorno: ‘Eccomi più che mai – ‘Amor, pietoso Amore’; La grotto di Trofonio: ‘La ra la ra’
Rimsky-Korsakov – Mozart and Salieri
Manufacturing:
Director, Designs – Matthias Bundschuh
Lighting – Matthias Bundschuh, Alexander Proschek
Manufacturing supervisor – Philippe Brunner
Solid:
Isora – Ekaterina Krasko / Svetlana Schönfeld / Maximilian Kiener
Mozart – Konstantin Igl / Ursula Winzer
Salieri – Brett Pruunsild / Eva Wiener
Blind violinist – Philipp Schmidt
After a number of years concentrating on Mozart alone, Rolando Villázon, Intendant of Salzburg’s Mozartwoche, has turned to Mozart and Salieri. There may be a lot extra, a lot extra of curiosity, to Salieri than the preposterous cost that ‘everybody’ is aware of, however it has been drastically influential, whether or not we prefer it or not, and that in fact consists of its inventive legacy. Most celebrated of all is Peter Schaffer’s Amadeus, which might be seen right here each as movie and play. (I ought to have been eager to see the latter, however alas the scheduling gods had different concepts.) However lengthy earlier than Schaffer was Pushkin, along with his quick story: the idea, virtually verbatim, for Rimsky-Korsakov’s quick, one-act opera of 1897, right here given at Salzburg’s Marionette Theater with puppets, three younger singers, and a chamber ensemble of scholars from the Mozarteum carried out by Kai Röhrig.
It’s a very quick opera, so Matthias Bundschuh has determined, in a prologue, to offer a backstory and to redress a bit of the Mozart-Salieri imbalance by providing a bit of of the latter’s personal music. A middle-aged prima donna Isora remembers her profession in its prime: she labored usually with Salieri, ‘Antonio’, although sadly by no means with Mozart. She sings us a few of his music, from the buffa fairly than seria finish of his output and tells of his unrequited love – he desired marriage – which resulted in her joking dismissal of him by way of the reward of poison (fortunately or unhappily, Reward in German).
The scene is ready, dramatically and musically, for the opera correct to start, in a German translation by Bundschuh and Philipp Schmidt. And so, in short, Mozart, vigorous and a levity Salieri finds irresponsible, even obscene, calls upon the elder composer, brings him a blind violinist as a joke, massacring his personal ‘Batti, batti, o bel Masetto’ – right here achieved with depraved ability – and is invited to dinner, for which he returns in fairly darker temper. He tells Salieri the story in regards to the mysterious stranger who has commissioned his Requiem, drinks from the goblet Salieri has ready, goes to the piano to play from the work he’s composing, and is killed.
All is achieved by way of collaboration and synthesis in music, a bit of speech, and naturally the wonderful working of Bundschuh’s personal puppets. Good extra touches embrace a crackly document of Mozart as tango which, considerably incongruously, the 2 composers dance, and the intrusion of a recorded excerpt from the Requiem itself. However the scene wherein the puppet Mozart performs a brand new composition of his personal on the piano, with interjections from Salieri, is maybe most spectacular. One sees, hears, and appreciates simply what craft is required within the collaboration of puppetry and music.
In a programme observe, Bundschuh tells of his dislike for ‘Russian pathos’: truthful sufficient, I suppose, however I wonder if the method adopted sells Rimsky’s opera, which in any case is hardly Eugene Onegin, considerably quick. It’s partly owed, in fact, to the necessities of marionette theatre, however may there not have been room for one thing a bit of stronger, dare I say extra Amadeus-like? Nonetheless, the final lightness of what’s in any case a light-weight rating by Rimsky’s requirements has its personal attract and permits our vocal Mozart and Salieri to impress. Konstantin Igl as the previous reveals an adept, characterful tenor. The (actually) deeper, much more fragmented Salieri is a Chaliapin position, no much less. (The bass apparently claimed to have sung the work as a monodrama, given Mozart’s half additionally lay inside his vary.) It was equally properly sung by baritone Brett Pruunsild, the 2 reaching appreciable chemistry, however the need of singing offstage. Equally spectacular was Ekaterina Krasko’s glowing despatch of the Salieri arias, likewise to sympathetic enjoying from the conservatoire college students and energetic total course by Röhrig.
There may be appeal and never a bit of magic right here on this co-production between the Stiftung Mozarteum, the Mozarteum College, and the Marionette Theatre. And as soon as once more, I discover myself wishing extra composers would, as Pierre Boulez urged a while in the past, avail themselves of the chances puppetry may supply opera. There’s something unquestionably Mozartian to the thought.
Mark Berry
