Notes from the 2025 Salzburg Festival ( 1 ) A Recital with Igor Levit filling in for Evgeny Kissin

Salzburg Festival • Recitals | D-S-C-H • ex-Kissin | Igor Levit

Whispered Brahms, Affectatious Shostakovich

Substituting for Evgeny Kissin is no picnic – even for Igor Levit. But at least he tried.

The solo recital with Evgeny Kissin, part of Salzburg’s “DSCH” series of concerts, had to go ahead without its planned soloist who had fallen ill on short notice. He was going to play the same program he gave in late March at the Musikverein. Shostakovich, who died exactly fifty years ago that week, at least, remained the focus of the second half, thanks to Igor Levit, who stepped in for his colleague and left that part similar enough. In fact, on paper, the Second Sonata was still the same piece. Musically, everything was fundamentally different, though – including said sonata.

D.Shostakovich Preludes & Fugues op.87 Igor Levit Sony (2021) US | UK | DE

D.Shostakovich Preludes & Fugues op.87 Keith Jarrett ECM (1992) US | UK | DE

The surge, seriousness, and underlying humor that Kissin had drawn out were blown away. In their place came playfulness, a murmur, a small-small in stubborn mezzopiano – here and there interrupted by an occasional furious, note-snatching dash across the keyboard. Musical incidents that each stood like a monolith amid the whispering. Energy, when it was present at all, was derived from speed, not mass. This worked quite nicely for the Preludes and Fugues from Opus 87, as did Levit’s inclination to dissolve the notes into architectural elements. Quirky, in the best sense; a little as if Gyro Gearloose had taken up the piano.

The Largo of the Sonata no longer stood, as with Kissin, in spiritual proximity to Debussy; it was pushed toward twelve-tone music and Schoenberg. “Pointillist,” one might say. Or “frayed.” The ostentatious renunciation of loudness – especially effective in the broad expanse of the Grosses Festspielhaus – was not without appeal. Levit’s delicate, soiree-appropriate soft, and even touch was consistently admirable – especially in the Brahms Intermezzi Op. 117 and Four Ballades Op. 10 of the first half. Brahms benefits from this, to a point – though the approach shifts the burden of generating tension from the performer to the audience: either it sits in raptness (which, in the restless first half, could hardly be claimed) or one faces a certain risk of the audience nodding off.

The question also arose whether there might be such a thing as “over-interpretation,” so much did Levit demand of every phrase in these simply beautiful Intermezzi; so introspective every attack had to become; so brooding every pause: every tiniest note a carefully curated miniature. The Ballades, too, received this detail-minded, intelligent treatment. Like pulled pork, it seemed: so tender it fell apart if you as much as looked at it – a tightrope walk between touching and tiresome. The contrast of the thunderous leap into the B minor Ballade, as rough-hewn as Michelangeli liked to play it, came out all the sharper in this setting. Sweetening the close was another Brahms Intermezzo as encore – holding back the already-breaking-out just once more, and making the already-jubilation-primed remainder of the audience cheer all the harder.


Follow @ClassicalCritic

Notes from the 2025 Bayreuth Festival: A New Meistersinger Production for Bayreuth

Also published in Die Presse: Bayreuth: Als hätte Monty Python bei den „Meistersingern“ Pate gestanden

A Laughing Matter: Matthias Davids and the Natural Humor in Richard Wagner

Bayreuth's new production of Die Meistersinger trusts the libretto and the music, to stage the work as the 'simple' comedy it is. That works, more or less.

Straight into the chatter and hum – as a good third of the audience was still trying to locate their seats in the Festspielhaus – the Meistersinger Prelude growled up from the pit. Accordingly, those already seated busied themselves with hissing “Silentium!”, which, of course, only made the racket worse. But that was somehow befitting this opera, in which art and populace mingle so merrily. Eventually, Daniele Gatti and the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra prevailed, and the overture flowed, very horizontally, as if without bar lines, almost “La Mer”-like. Thus the 149th Bayreuth Festival – following its open-air concert and the children’s Tannhäuser – was officially underway.

A steep stairway rising into the stage-heavens, crowned by the Katharinenkirche, greeted the attendees of Matthias Davids’ new staging. Love letters are delivered via airmail: Walther von Stolzing (Michael Spyres) stands amid a gaggle of paper airplanes, arranged to form a heart, and catching the latest missive from Eva (Christina Nilsson). Alas, the staircase is not conducive to the coordination of their reputedly aborted exchanges, as Magdalene (Christa Mayer) is sent to fetch the accidentally-forgotten kerchief, clasp, and prayer-book, because she could never get back and forth in time. The visual gag of lowering her book in a basket on a string doesn’t quite replace the comedic back-and-forth in that tryst that never quite gets off the ground because Walther simply won’t get to the point. A minor point, granted, but to some degree indicative of the production, which sometimes misses out on the natural humor in the libretto by replacing it with jokes, slightly more heavy-handed, of its own.

Prügelszene, Act II

The revolving stage turns to reveal the Meistersingers’ rehearsal room. Andrew Edwards’ set and Susanne Hubrich’s costumes could be 1800 or 1980 – timeless, pragmatic, supplying atmosphere as needed, and ranging from postcard medievalism to a relatable here-and-now of emotions. Eva wears her festival-dirndl as naturally as she does jeans and a summer blazer. The Mastersingers, meanwhile, sport droll – almost silly – hats straight out of a Mainz carnival club. It’s not the evening’s only tightrope walk between wit and slapstick, and depending on one’s sense of humor, it is where any given viewer places that line that will decide whether the night was great or merely solid.

The production – and especially the first act – brims with small gestures: buffet humor, smoking-in-the-toilet humor, seating humor: the flip-up-seats in the rehearsal room are the same as in the Festspielhaus, and they pinch one of the Guild’s members’ back, even with cushions. At times it feels like Monty Python had a hand in the staging. But of course, they are up to distracting shenanigans and side-activities, because the Meistersinger-lot is bored during Pogner’s pompous speech. Rightly so, I’m afraid to say, because Jongmin Park lets the role down. He has a big, deep voice, but produced a hollow, expressionless barreling bellow, paired with stiff acting that would have been better suited to a 1960s Sarastro.

The whole lot of Mastersingers: Sachs: Zeppenfeld, Pogner: Jongmin Park, Vogelgesang: Martin Koch, Nachtigal: Marek Reichert, Beckmesser: Nagy, Kothner: Shanahan, Zorn: Daniel Jenz, Eisslinger: Matthew Newlin, Moser: Gideon Poppe, Ortel: Alexander Grassauer, Schwarz: Tijl Faveyts, Foltz: Patrick Zielke

Wagner, if it needs reminding (and pace Markus Thiel), certainly had humor – just not exactly slapstick humor. His was a deeper-seated, slyly mocking Saxon type. It’s everywhere in this piece, not just in the obvious situational comedy of Beckmesser. Speaking of which: Michael Nagy sang him with a delightfully purring voice and agile but didn’t always seem to take the character quite seriously – a pity, because it defangs Beckmesser unnecessarily and undermines the dramatic tension. His goofiness baited laughs, which is fine, but often papered over subtler moments, too. That Nagy can do otherwise became clear during his moment of reflection and the accompanying flicker of seriousness after the failed song trial.

While act II – with an oversized half-timbered dollhouse garnished with a phone booth turned into a Little Free Library – extends the first act’s world, the opening of Act III breaks from the squarely romanticized half-timbered idyll. Instead, we see Sachs’ realistically outfitted workshop, a chic oval set, smack in the middle of the stage. Sachs is shown gluing back together the stool David used to wallop Beckmesser in the riot scene, a business that gives him plenty of time to ignore David. Again, Matthias Davids offers solid, craftsman-like ideas here. In strict adherence to Chekhov’s law of not putting a freshly glued chair on the floor if no one will try to sit on it later, Beckmesser will, of course, be victimized a second time by that rude piece of furniture.

Spyres, Zeppenfeld, Nilsson, Mayer, Stier, Act III

Singers: Thanks to the bright, spontaneous voice of Christina Nilsson’s, a touch steely at the peaks and garnished with a pronounced ‘accent-vibrato’, her Eva was consequently easy to hear and occasionally even possible to understand. The first comment about Georg Zeppenfeld is always: “like a rock.” And like your above-average rock, he’s dependable, solid, sympathetic – and, dare one say it, just a tiny bit boring. Pale-ish, but on a very high level. Christa Mayer’s Magdalene had good diction but little warmth of timbre; by contrast, Matthias Stier’s rosy-cheeked David was a sonorous, entertaining delight from start to finish.

The “baritenor” label for Spyres is more marketing flourish than unique selling point, but his first Walther impressed: lyrical, with a creamy fullness, occasionally caramel-tinged but never overdriven, all evening long. Had it not been for the Meistersinger production earlier that month, at the MüPa Wagner Days (English review forthcoming, German review here), which featured Magnus Vigilius’ Walther, that would have been considered top of the line. But the latter (who also turned in the most moving Siegmund I have ever heard, at the previous “Budapesti Wagner Napok” (Bayreuth an der Donau: Die Wagner-Tage in Budapest sind ein Geheimtipp), had that added bit of youthful enthusiasm and irresistibly charming Sturm-und-Drang air about him, that made the character even more relatable and the story all the more touching.

Michael Nagy as Beckmesser, Act III

Gatti conducted fluidly and with finesse – not something one might have expected from rehearsals, apparently – coaxing an exceptionally beautiful, wafting “Fliederduften” from the orchestra. He did grow ever louder in Act II, which pushed his Sachs to the brink of audibility, which might have been avoided: In this conversational piece, after all, you’ll want to understand as much of the text as is humanly possible. The near-unanimous, enthusiastic cheering already between the acts suggested that Davids’ idea (the director’s, not the character’s) – to simply let Meistersinger be the Meistersinger, after two cerebral, over-interpreted Bayreuth stagings, Katharina Wagner’s and Berry Kosky’s – made sense. Do not be mislead by the most-publicized picture of the production, which shows a neon-colored blow-up cow arching over the Festwiese, which has the halmark look of what some (misguided, but that's for another day) people might call a "Eurotrash" or "Regietheater" production. It was the very opposite. Some Bayreuthians may have even felt a warm Wolfgang-Wagner glow, during this appeasing, traditional production. (Incidentally, Michael Schulz’ seasoned Budapest production works along the same lines and does it even more successfully.)

The applause was strikingly friendly, but also surprisingly brief. Fair enough, because the production surely wasn’t bad, it simply could – and will – be better, still!

Michael Spyres, Act III

All pictures courtesy Bayreuther Festspiele, © Enrico Nawrath

Follow @ClassicalCritic

Notes from the 2025 Bayreuth Festival: Camping Masterclass and Macbeth at the Foot of the Green Hill

Also published in Die Presse: Partystimmung bei „Macbeth“

Wagner-Light – and not even that much Wagner

The free-to-all Open-Air Festival Opener is a welcome opportunity to combine Green Hill Flair and camping gear.

The 149th Bayreuth Festival has opened, but eyes are already fixed on next year: 150 years of Bayreuth – though, strictly speaking, only the 113th actual Festival season (39 pre-, 74 post-1951). The grand plan? All ten canonical Bayreuth operas plus, for the first time on the Green Hill, Rienzi. Reality and the treasurer had other ideas. So now the plan is a bit more modest if still unique, thanks to Rienzi.

Is that a good thing? Bayreuth doesn’t have to offer “unique” – it is unique. Tradition, simply by being tradition, has value. In fact, that’s Bayreuth’s main draw. Yes, tradition is constantly subverted here (which is itself part of the tradition)– but the frame of tradition ought to be handled carefully. If the festival were to start putting Meyerbeer on the Bayreuth stage (as people sometimes – unwisely, inexplicably – suggest they do), it’d be the first step toward the festival losing the plot and surrendering to the arbitrary. Opening the Festspielhaus to Rienzi, meanwhile, does no harm nor need it be the ledge of a slippery slope. Incidentally, the staging is meant to be a one-off, performed nine times, before being passed on to other opera houses.

That the team of Magdolna Parditka and Alexandra Szemeredy orients its production more along the lines of Wieland Wagner’s 1957 Stuttgart Rienzi and the 1939 Karlsruhe version of the score, rather than attempting some Frankensteinian “complete” version, is heartening. That the other production will be a so-called “AI Ring”, visually drawing on all previous Ring-productions and fed by cues from the ‘staging’ (as opposed to “directorial”) team, can faze no true Wagnerian, especially with Thielemann conducting. Granted, it sounds like it will be more likely “interesting” than “good” but worst case: close your eyes and perk the ears. A lesson learned from Jay Scheib’s Augmented Reality Parsifal.

Back to the present: the third Festival Open Air served as a warm-up act. The Festival Orchestra, “almost voluntarily,” took to the stage for this open-access concert at the foot of the Green Hill – right between the stage and the VIP zone/champagne tent. A few trees are in the way (nothing a generously ambitious axe couldn’t solve in the coming years), but people adapt. The crowd? Plenty of youth, musicians’ families, locals, and some early-arriving festival-goers. Cherry tomatoes, cubes of cheese, bottles of Kulmbacher beer, and glasses of Aperol were the currency of the evening. Territorial skirmishes – already two hours before the concert – were managed politely, amid a display of Germany’s native talents for camping, picnicking, and spontaneous order.

Atmosphere was everything – as it should be. The acoustics? Well, like at similar open-air festival in Schönbrunn, Munich’s Odeonsplatz, Berlin’s Waldbühne: decent under the circumstances, but only loosely related to actual concert music. To pretend otherwise would be silly, just as it would be pointless to measure such an event by the standards of a concert-hall performance. Pablo Heras-Casado, this year’s conductor of the Parsifal , kept the mood lively. Gershwin’s Girl Crazy overture brought out a “SummerStage-in-Central-Park” vibe. Beethoven’s Fifth (the first movement) thundered along with delightful furiosity. That the strings struggled a little with the evening’s humidity could be overlooked – the important thing was the oomph.

Three excerpts from Verdi’s Macbeth fit the Meistersingerian festival motto (“Wahn, überall Wahn”) – though the work isn’t exactly most people’s idea of open-air party-time. For that, Johann Strauss’ Thunder and Lightning Polka (“ Unter Donner und Blitz was far better suited: an encore gratefully seized upon by an audience whose joints, after four hours of sitting on the ground, were celebrating their own 150th anniversary. “Next year, better bring a chair,” advised a nearby, seated lady from her enviably comfy-looking camping gear – in a tone part helpful, part pitying. You live and you learn.
Follow @ClassicalCritic

#ClassicalDiscoveries: The Podcast. Episode 016 - With Werner Erhardt: The Man Who Discovered Salieri

Welcome to #ClassicalDiscoveries. Here is a little introduction to who we are and what we would like to achive at the first (or rather "double-zeroëth" episode). Your comments, criticism, and suggestions remain most welcome, of whatever nature they may be. Now here’s Episode 016, where we are talking with our special guest, the fonder and long-time leader of Concerto Kön and L'Arte del Mondo. His discography is amazingly long, both as a conductor and as the ensemble leader of Concerto Kön, on all kinds of labels, well beyond Capriccio. (Teldec, DHM, Harmonia Mundi, DG, Berlin Classics, Erato, Sony...) I hope we will publish a second cut from this conversation, which easily lasted two hours, where we talk about some of my favorite recordings of all time that he had been part of.

Werner Erhardt on Record

Concerto Köln Capriccio Collection (10 CDs) Werner Erhardt Capriccio, 2019 US | UK | DE

Concerto Köln Berlin Classics Collection (12 CDs) Werner Erhardt Berlin Classics, 2019 US | UK | DE

Concerto Köln Teldec/Warner Collection (6 CDs) Warner (2008) US | UK | DE

Concerto Köln Saraband Dream of the Orient Archiv (2000) US | UK | DE

#ClassicalDiscoveries: The Podcast. Episode 015 - Dmitri Shostakovich - The Symphonies

Welcome to #ClassicalDiscoveries. Here is a little introduction to who we are and what we would like to achive at the first (or rather "double-zeroëth" episode). Your comments, criticism, and suggestions remain most welcome, of whatever nature they may be. Now here’s Episode 015, where we return to Dmitri Shostakoivch, but now the symphonies, not the film music. We focus on a few favorites and Joe plays plenty of music to lighten the mood. :-)

The Kitajenko-Shostakovich

DSCH The Symphonies Gürzenich-Orchester Köln D.Kitajenko Capriccio, SACDs 2005

DSCH The Symphonies Gurzenich Orchestra Cologne D.Kitayenko Capriccio, CDs 2025

#ClassicalDiscoveries: The Podcast. Episode 014 - Charles Koechlin - France's Hidden Symphonist

Welcome to #ClassicalDiscoveries. Here is a little introduction to who we are and what we would like to achive at the first (or rather "double-zeroëth" episode). Your comments, criticism, and suggestions remain most welcome, of whatever nature they may be. Now here’s Episode 014, where we are talking about the wonderful, eclectic music of the overlooked Charles Koechlin, a Surprised-by-Beauty-composer of the first water.

Koechlin on Capriccio (so far)

Charles Koechlin Symphony No.1 Reutlingen Philharmonicn A.Matiakh Capriccio, 2025

Charles Koechlin Symphony of the Stars Reutlingen Philharmonicn A.Matiakh Capriccio, 2022