Deep in his brooding, bitter opera ‘Wozzeck’, Alban Berg conjures up a soldier’s barracks in the dead of night. A choir sings: a faint, wordless gauze, interrupted by the strangled stabs of a double bass.
When the Boston Symphony Orchestra performed that work at Carnegie Hall on Tuesday, the voices were soft but piercing, reminiscent of a quiet, suffocating room of sleeping men. The bass notes were curt, but not too harsh, like jagged stones wrapped in wool—suggesting anxieties that were both fainter and heavier with the late hour and the surrounding silence.
After a few seconds, the moment is over. But it is one of countless passages, fiercely frugal yet perfectly expressive, which, when performed properly, capture a world of romanistic density in just 90 minutes. And the Boston Symphony, led by its music director, Andris Nelsons, more than performed this opera — arguably the most influential of the 20th century, with its cinematic flow and stylistic diversity.
‘Wozzeck’, especially in concert, is a study of orchestral sound, and this ensemble did justice to both its crushing density and uncanny lightness – sometimes both at once, as in an early interlude with pale strings and whispering but denser brass. This was not a crushing achievement, but a dazzling one.
It’s hard for singers to compete when they have to share a concert stage with all that, though the baritone Bo Skovhus grimly bites as the made-up soldier in the title role. Among the minor parts, the tenor Christopher Ventris sang with sinister robustness as the drum major, and the veteran bass Franz Hawlata avoided caricatures as the Doctor, all the more effectively for his steady tone rather than overt madness.
Soprano Christine Goerke had one of the great successes of her career singing Strauss’ Elektra with Nelsons and This Orchestra at Carnegie in 2015. If Marie, Wozzeck’s stray common-law wife, is a less bombastic part, it’s a good one. for her, taking advantage of the maternal warmth of her middle voice and the cutting cry of her high notes.
But this was definitely the Boston Symphony’s party. It wasn’t the only performance last week in which an orchestra and conductor were the stars of an opera. On Friday, Handel’s “Rodelinda” returned to the Metropolitan Opera, conducted by Harry Bicket, who made his Met debut with this piece in 2004, when Stephen Wadsworth’s grandiose production was new.
Over the past 18 years, Bicket has led another “Rodelinda” run, as well as Handel’s “Giulio Cesare” and “Agrippina”—and some Mozart, for good measure—and Bicket has subtly revolutionized the sound of the company in this repertoire, by exploiting the instrumental textures to achieve a balance between sharp baroque dexterity and with-filling richness. His pace is acute and varied, and the energy never slacks.
There was more musical acumen and glamor in the pit than on stage. This is the first time “Rodelinda” is performed at the Met without the star power of Renée Fleming in the title role of a deposed queen determined to remain faithful to her husband, who is believed to be dead. (Spoiler alert: he isn’t.)
The part, which leaned more on lyrical expansion than on coloratura virtuosity, suited Fleming well. But the soprano Elza van den Heever took over on Friday and was representative of a cast that sounded pale and not assertive.
Van den Heever was a bit shrill in her top notes and underpowered from below, she sounded plausible and sang with admirable control, but made little impression. Ditto Sasha Cooke, with her tender, silky mezzo-soprano; the light tenor Paul Appleby; the gruff bass-baritone Adam Plachetka; and the countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, full of character but with a tone that leans towards pointed.
Only the soft voice of countertenor Iestyn Davies, with the floating warmth of thin cashmere, really seduced. And even he, as Rodelinda’s miraculously returned husband, Bertarido, was pushed past comfort in faster passages, such as the climactic “Vivi, tyranno.”
The situation is similar at the Met in Verdi’s “Don Carlos,” where Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the grand, spatial concept of the orchestra’s score are more charismatic than many of the voices. But when the game is also detailed and useful in Strauss’ “Ariadne auf Naxos”, currently conducted in the house by Marek Janowski, it feels more balanced with the singers in that work.
Not only the captivating soprano Lise Davidsen in the title role, but also the mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard – her sound silvery yet grounded and full as the Composer – and the tenor Brandon Jovanovich, who as Bacchus bravely and largely unforced fights Strauss’s ridiculous demands. This ‘Ariadne’ is the show of the orchestra – and also of the cast.