Wagner: Die Feen
Chelsea Opera Group, Queen Elizabeth Hall, 17th March 2013
There are fairies at the bottom of the garden. On the Wagner-Verdi bicentenary dual carriageway, the Chelsea Opera Group charabanc trundled into town for the first of its celebrations to offer up a rare slice of early Wagner (Verdi is served by Alzira later in the season). COG is an unpredictable vehicle at the best of times – it can run smoothly (a fine original version Simon Boccanegra, featuring a lovely soprano) and at times it can judder to an abrupt halt (a truly memorable Traviata for all the wrong reasons). This evening, whilst the cornering was occasionally treacherous and the wheels threatened to come off on more than one occasion, the resulting performance of Die Feen was still rather enjoyable, both for the opportunity to sample Wagner’s first opera and for some spirited vocal performances.
Kirstin Sharpin
© Axel Michel
Wagner never saw Die Feen performed. It was composed at the age of 20, after he abandoned his first attempt at writing an opera, Die Hochzeit, although he rescued the names of Ada and Arindal from it for the couple at the centre of his new work. Wagner gave Die Feen the description of Grosse romantische Oper. He used Carlo Gozzi’s La donna serpente as his source, fashioning his own libretto. In 1834, he revised the score, but it wasn’t staged until 1888, five years after his death, and has had few outings since, although this bicentenary year sees a staged production in Leipzig next month.
Part of the fun in hearing operas from early in their composers’ careers is in identifying the influences, as well as spotting pre-echoes of later works. Despite some longueurs, Die Feen is a fine example of German Romanticism and, as such, I heard plenty of Weber (especially Der Freischütz), Lortzing and Marschner, as well as hints of Beethoven and Mendelssohn – not from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, alas; Wagner’s fairies are less ethereal and more of a scary prospect, especially the meddling pair encountered here.
In terms of orchestration, Der fliegender Holländer isn’t too far away, particularly in the overture, while hints of Lohengrin can be detected, especially in Arindal’s solos. Other Wagnerian traits are already formed – brevity was rarely in his armoury. Act I was particularly slow to take off, with an early example of narration holding up the action in Gernot’s lengthy account of the ‘back story’ between Arindal and Ada.
Another link to Lohengrin comes from the plot in terms of ‘the forbidden question’ with Ada, half-fairy/ half-mortal, who has married Arindal on condition that he never asks her who she is nor where she comes from. Curiosity is a dangerous beast and by the time the opera starts, Arindal, we learn from Gernot’s exposition, failed in that condition the very day (wouldn’t you know) before the eight-year term that came with it expired. Having popped the question, Ada disappeared and was cast into the wilderness. In Act I, Arindal and Ada are reunited but, on being proclaimed queen, she imposes a new condition that, whatever may happen, he will never curse her. Inevitably and, it should be added, with much Act II provocation, he does, at which point Ada is turned to stone and disappears. Act III sees a delirious Arindal journey into the underworld to defeat Groma’s Earth Spirits (hints of the trials from Die Zauberflöte) and – Orpheus-like – he uses the power of song to break the spell over Ada. The opera ends with Arindal leaving his kingdom to his sister, while he joins Ada to rule in fairyland. Hey ho.
This concert performance was not without its hairier moments and there were times that it seemed we had been invited to an open rehearsal. Singers were score-bound (understandably so given they hadn’t received their scores until a fortnight ago) and late/ missed entries were noted, especially in Act I where, at one point, conductor Dominic Wheeler called things to a halt to attempt a certain passage again. The orchestra suffered from suspect string tuning and plenty of muffed brass passages. It took quite an effort from Wheeler to hold it all together. The overture contains many of the opera’s principal themes (à la Weber’s overtures) and was played with spirit. The score wasn’t quite presented complete, with cuts including a buffo duet for Gernot and Lora’s maid, Drolla.
The solo roles were, on the whole, reasonably taken. As Arindal, Danish tenor David Danholt had a fitful evening; at times, he blazed away gloriously, as in his opening aria “Wo find ich dich”, but at others he seemed less assured. Tiring through the performance, his harp-accompanied aria which breaks the spell over Ada (“O ihr des Büsens Hochgefühle”, a fine piece of vocal writing) saw his voice sadly fizzle out. At his best, his tenor has a pleasing ringing quality well suited to Wagner’s music.
In the lead soprano role of Ada, Kirstin Sharpin took some time to settle. Her Act I cavatina “Wie muss ich doch beklagen”, which launches the extended finale, found her tone somewhat glacial and brittle at the top, but she improved as the performance progressed. In Act II, Ada has a long, testing scena, with writing reminiscent of Agathe in Der Freischütz, which concludes with a fantastic cabaletta. Sharpin was on fiery form here, plenty of drama was evident and warmer tone was encountered in her lower register.
Part of the improvement in Act II came about with the introduction of Elisabeth Meister to proceedings as Arindal’s sister, Lora. Meister just waltzed in and flooded the auditorium with a stream of glorious sound – quite a gleaming, metallic timbre to my ears – and a degree of dramatic commitment which had been previously absent in the performance thus far. Lora only has one significant solo – a rallying cry to the besieged warriors of their kingdom – but the immediate impact that Meister made on the performance either made her colleagues feel more secure or forced them to ‘up their game’. The long ensemble finale to Act II came off well and was one of the evening’s highlights.
Andrew Slater’s flinty bass gave a degree of gravitas to Gernot’s strophes, while Mark Stone made a very strong impression as Morald, the courtier in love with Lora. My favourite characterisation of the whole evening, however, came from Emma Carrington, who imbued the role of the meddling fairy Farzana with a degree of heavy irony that was delicious to behold. In addition, her mezzo is wonderfully dusky. Eva Ganizate, as her co-conspirator Zemina, offered a bright, clean soprano sound, if less malevolent dramatically. Bass Piotr Lempa shone in the tiny roles of the voice of Groma (a highly original passage accompanied by trombones) and the Fairy King.
The opera has a prominent role for the chorus, no doubt influenced by Wagner’s work as chorus master in Würzburg at the time of his opera’s composition. The Chelsea Opera chorus was game in its attempt to match Wagner’s demands.
Although greater preparation and a higher degree of orchestral security would have resulted in a more polished performance, the ambition behind presenting a Wagnerian rarity is to be welcomed, especially given the reluctance of London’s major House to contribute to the bicentenary with anything significant beyond a patchily cast Parsifal.
This review originally appeared on Opera Britannia