Raff opera premieres

[Alan Howe]

My point, as Mark rightly says, was that, for a more significant Raff revival to take place, there would need to be a wider recognition of his genius. While applauding the stage productions and greatly looking forward to the forthcoming recordings, my fear is that the revival will be confined to his bicentenary year and then lost in the mists of time.

What Raff needs is a number of high-profile advocates who will keep his music before the public in the coming years. That, I suppose, is the need of all the composers whose work is discussed at UC.

[Ilja]

[...] I'll certainly take my fair share of the credit for lifting Raff's profile over the years [...]

This was my point, to be honest. It's very difficult to get any "new" works performed even occasionally, but I think your work (and by others, obviously) to promote Raff's music shows how it can be done. It's a long game, though.

[Mark Thomas]

  45 years so far...

[Mark Thomas]

In advance of Samson's premiere, I've just learned that the Weimar premiere on Sunday will be recorded by Deutschland Radio and broadcast on, I think, 8 October. A full report on the premiere itself follows in due course...

[Alan Howe]

Wowee!

[Mark Thomas]

Everyone will be able to judge for themselves the quality of Samson when the recording of last night's premiere in Weimar is broadcast by Deutschland Radio Kultur on 8 October, but in the meantime here are my initial impressions.

This is a Raff we've never heard before, highly dramatic music imbued with a youthful energy and passion and composed on a large scale - five acts lasting just over three hours, including a brief interval between III and IV. There are all the lushly beautiful melodies one could hope for: stand outs being a tender duet between Delilah and her father Abimilech, the long love scene between her and Samson (of course), and one of the Act V ballet dances is Raff at his most raptly lyrical, but there is also a lot of declamation. Not Wagnerian sprechgesang, but Raff's own powerful, melodic but forceful version of recitative. The pace never flags, the orchestra is never merely an accessory to the voices but drives the action forward and, of course, Raff's writing for it is masterful and transparent even in the fullest passages. Stylistically, this is music which was modern in the mid-1850s, so there are certainly echoes of Lohengrin and Berlioz, not because Raff is copying Wagner in particular, but because this music was "in the air" amongst Raff and his contemporaries. That said, it is in no way derivative and you would never mistake Samson for one of Wagner's earlier operas. It is undoubtedly one of the pinnacles of Raff's oeuvre, clearly the high opinion which many of his colleagues, like Liszt, von Bülow and Schnorr von Carolsfeld (the first Tristan) had of the piece was not misplaced. It is such a contrast with last week's elegant Die Eifersüchtigen of 30 years later, much greater in ambition, if not in length.

What of the performance itself? The German National Theatre did the opera justice with a pre-performance discussion and a party afterwards. They obviously have high hopes for the piece, which will run for another eight performances between now and Christmas. The work isn't an easy sing for any of the five principals, and they all acquitted themselves well, I thought, although I did find Delilah's constant vibrato rather wearing. The chorus, which plays a major part in the outer acts, was large and made a fabulous sound, and what wonderful sonorities Raff conjures from it - absolutely thrilling. The orchestra, the full strength Staatskapelle Weimar under Dominik Beykirch, was equally impressive and his musical direction seemed to me at first hearing to be spot on.

On a personal note, I was so pleased to see my friend Volker Tosta, who was beating Raff's drum long before I came on the scene, receive due and enthusiastic credit, both before and after the performance, for creating a modern score from the manuscript and then lobbying long and hard for its production.

Unfortunately the staging, for me at least, detracted more and more from the performance as the evening wore on. One doesn't expect, or need, a traditional, historically accurate scenario, but a Samson spending most of his time in his underpants, Delilah's father being graphically beaten up, stripped to his waist and periodically pleasured by a silent female who seemed to spend the rest of the evening wheeling a bicycle around the set didn't do much for me, any more than the absence of dancers in the final act's ballet sequence was made up for by the elephantine antics of that splendid chorus. It probably wasn't regietheater at its most extreme, but I do look forward to hearing the broadcast without having to sit there wondering what on earth is it all supposed to mean? Still, the director was cheered at the party afterwards, so what do I know?  But the music - wow!

[Mark Thomas]

I should have added that one of the best moments to listen out for in the broadcast is a magnificent quartet for four men (three of them principals) which is at the end of Act II. It is a really powerful passage, sung with strength and conviction. Samson isn't a "numbers opera" as such, of course, but it does have a clear structure in which duos, trios etc. crop up as the plot dictates.

[savvy]

Thank you for the review! I simply hate Calixto Bieito, as he already ruined Die Gezeichneten in Berlin and Flammen in Prague, but I'll try to go anyway.

[Mark Thomas]

Please do. You can always close your eyes, and the music is a real revelation.

[Alan Howe]

the director was cheered at the party afterwards, so what do I know?

You know an unclothed Emperor when you see one!

This is really exciting. Will someone be able to capture the upcoming broadcast?

[eschiss1]

Some of your description reminds me of a videotape of Strauss' Electra (Bohm? Karajan?) played in 20th-century music class in college...

[John Boyer]

Ah, another Eurotrash production!  What else these days?  I've walked out of my share, unwilling to sit there eyes closed act after act.  But at least a recording will be different. 

Now, I'm dying to know: what did you think of the overture?  Did they use the one composed by our mutual friend?

[Mark Thomas]

No, the Prelude which Volker Tosta and I commissioned from Avrohom Leichtling wasn't used, but we knew that it wouldn't be. The conductor now has the score, I believe, so we'll see what he thinks. My view is that Avrohom made a very convincing job, basing it on three or so themes from the opera, employing the orchestra Raff specified, and creating the same atmosphere as the opening choral scenes convey. His Prelude would be a more effective beginning to the work than the abrupt chords Raff employed, especially as this staging is more or less bare, so quite literally the stage is not set before the singing begins. A few minutes establishing the gloomy musical mood would have helped a lot. Raff himself recognised this and did apparently compose his own Prelude for the staging planned for 1865, but it hasn't survived, hence our attempt to replace it.

[John Boyer]

That's too bad.  I, too, found it very convincing. 

[Mark Thomas]

When I return home from Weimar I'll upload Avrohom's digital realisation of his score. It's good,