‘I was deeply moved by this music,
I have such a great respect for it, and I just took the gestures from
the words and music… everything for me is rooted in the text…’ thus
Trisha Brown in an interview
for Seen & Heard last year: she was referring here to her
production of Monteverdi’s Orfeo but the same kind of dedication
to text and music is evident in this Winterreise in which Simon
Keenlyside is also the protagonist. Both Brown and Keenlyside were both
obviously aware of the daring nature of this undertaking, with its potential
to offend those who are disturbed by radicalism, but Winterreise
like all masterpieces will survive whatever we do to it – in this
case it would be more appropriate to speak of illumination.
The traditional song recital in
which the soloist, resplendent in his penguin-suit, stands in the curve
of the piano is of course the perfect form of musical communication
for those attuned to it, but it has disadvantages which the present
event seemed to me to overcome. In most London recitals the singer can
look out onto a sea of heads buried in their translations as he swelters
in his elegant evening-wear – here, to what I am sure is to the dismay
of curmudgeons, the English translations were projected on screens at
either side of the stage and the singer was liberated from his dress-suit
and wore a loose shirt and trousers which, though hardly suitable for
a winter journey, must surely have felt more comfortable. It certainly
sounded that way; this is the fourth time I have heard Keenlyside sing
this work and it was by far the finest – perhaps he is such an individual
that only this form of communication can bring out the best in him,
but whether or not this is true there were certainly songs within the
cycle performed at the level of Goerne or Quasthoff, and I cannot think
of higher praise.
Winterreise is not merely
the story of a journey: it is as Richard Capell says ‘an outcry of scorched
sensibility’ and it is in the evocation of this sensibility that Keenlyside
and Brown triumphantly succeed. The road upon which the wanderer embarks
is just as ‘latent with unseen existences’ as Whitman’s but here the
existences are the stuff of the protagonist’s dreams and self-analysis.
Brown’s choreography is fluent, subtle and naturalistic, concentrating
mainly on the use of arm and hand movements which she describes as ‘a
complex union of arm gestures by three dancers, including the singer,
that signals the subject of a song that appears and reappears during
the cycle such as trees, exhaustion or the crow’. These gestures stress
the vulnerability of the protagonist, who seems very often to be ‘lifting
distressful hands as if to bless’.
Gute Nacht is set almost
like a satire on normal performance style; the singer wears a frock
coat as a girl dressed in a parody of either a wedding gown or a mannequin’s
outfit circles around him – the hypnotic quality of the movement here
finely echoed the sense of inevitability suggested by the music. Brown
has taken her cue here from the lines ‘Es zieht ein Mondenschatten /
Als mein Gefährte mit’ and Jennifer Tipton’s lighting eloquently
implies both closeness and distance, since the man and woman meet only
as shadows on the backdrop leaving the physical shell of the wanderer
to trudge on alone. Pedja Muzijevic’s playing was not merely supportive
of the singing but nuanced and sensitive in phrasing: the deceptively
simple shift from D minor into the major key at ‘Will dich im Traum
nicht stören’ beautifully counter-pointed Keenlyside’s poetic rendition
of the text. I can only assume that the style of this interpretation
naturally slowed down the singing since it seemed to me that this was
the first time that the F sharp on that phrase and the jump of a sixth
at ‘An dich hab' ich gedacht’ sounded not only comfortable for this
singer but heartbreakingly expressive.
Die Wetterfahne shows us
a dancer representing the wind which mocks the poor fugitive and plays
with hearts: the singing of ‘eine reiche Braut’ sounded less resentful
than is usual. In Gefror’ne Tränen and Erstarrung the
patterns of the gestures echo the speaker’s tears, eschewing any literal
notions of kissing the ground or seeking green grass. Der Lindenbaum
employs Brown’s ‘cell’ of gestures, in this case suggesting perhaps
the goddess Devi, at once benign and ferocious. At the lines ‘Komm her
zu mir, Geselle, / Hier find'st du deine Ruh'!’ Keenlyside’s beautifully
inflected and coloured singing found its perfect counterpart in the
movements suggesting the temptation to finish his journey here and find
the rest which eludes him.
Rast and Frühlingstraum
could be seen as the centre of this interpretation: in the former
Keenlyside is required to become part of a quartet of dancers within
which he is at times partially, at times entirely, supported by the
others, suggesting the trusting, almost instinctive way in which the
wanderer responds to the world around him. Keenlyside’s singing of ‘Fühlst
in der Still' erst deinen Wurm / Mit heißem Stich sich regen!’
superbly evoked the protagonist’s inner bitterness, all the more evocative
when contrasted with Frühlingstraum where the dancers form
a bed where the singer can briefly indulge in his dream. This was for
me the most moving and involving part of the whole performance: as the
voice mesmerizingly reflects on who might have painted the leaves on
the glass, the singer’s hand delicately traces their shape in the air
– somehow this made even clearer the irony that the flowers are merely
ice-crystal patterns, and the artist Winter – and we are then able to
contemplate those heartbreaking lines where the protagonist faces his
desolation yet still feels his heart beating warmly after his dream.
‘Die Augen schless’ ich wieder, / Noch schlägt das Herz so warm’
was perfect in its understated yet fervent expression, ‘warm’ being
given just enough slight pressure, and Muzijevic’s playing of the right-hand
figure suggesting the heartbeat, and his response to the final question,
devastating in its eloquent finality, were both as fine as could be
wished – the leaves will never be green again for him, just as he will
never hold her in his arms – was the clear answer given by that desolate
A minor chord.
Der greise Kopf was remarkable
for the way in which the body of the singer is used, at one point he
is carried by the dancers after having ‘failed’ to travel the distance
he desires: the most powerful hand gestures are used here too, especially
where one of the dancers seems to be stopping the protagonist’s descent
into the grave. Both Letzte Hoffnung and Täuschung
superbly evoke the consoling and yet capricious power of nature. The
one leaf falling to the ground is simply shown with a hand gesture rather
then the singer hitting the floor, and the will o’ the wisp is characterized
by subtle lighting and, in the piano, Ländler-like phrasing which
serve to make the delusion even more touching. Der stürmische
Morgen is one of the most energetic songs in the cycle, with the
singer grimly commenting that the stormy morning is after his own heart
– appropriately this is the song during which Keenlyside actually has
to leap, and far from being embarrassing, such movement seemed the only
choice for a song dominated by words like ‘zerrissen’.
Brown’s understanding of Winterreise
is well displayed in Der Wegweiser and Das Wirtshaus where
she rejects what might be the expected visual image of walking in different
directions and instead sees the lines ‘Habe ja doch nichts begangen,
/ Daß ich Menschen sollte scheu'n’ as central: the wanderer does
not pace the stage, but in Das Wirtshaus he lies facing the audience
in the most vulnerable intimate position, the lighting dramatically
emphasizing his drawn features so that in his desperation that the rooms
in the ‘inn’ are already taken we cannot help but recall his forlorn
question about shunning mankind. Keenlyside sang both songs with searing
power, achieving a daring approach to ‘matt zum Niedersinken’ and the
exact tone of grim determination required at the end.
Die Nebensonnen was staged
with elegant simplicity, dancers and lighting suggesting the three suns
and finally in a subtle projection the one whose disappearance would
make the speaker feel better ‘Im Dunkeln’. Graham Johnson perceptively
remarks ‘…this is dance music in slow motion… his (Schubert’s) music
encouraged romantic embraces from which he himself was excluded. When
his keyboard was the only thing he could lovingly touch all evening,
it is hardly surprising that he should associate dancing with being
on the outside looking in and that many of his dances are suffused with
an almost physical sense of longing’. Brown’s choreography finely evokes
not only the words themselves in a literal sense, but the longing behind
them.
In Der Leiermann, the three
dancers are pared down to one, whose shadow is cast across the stage,
his distorted beckoning fingers at once frightening and consoling. In
that tremendous moment when the wanderer, for only the second time in
the cycle, questions another being at ‘Wünderlicher Alter’ Keenlyside’s
upward inflection on ‘Alter’ and his anguished final enquiry formed
a few of those rare moments in performance when one wishes that what
is heard and seen then could last forever. The postlude refuses any
consolatory answers to the question: this interpretation of ‘Winterreise’
is equally reticent, but in its respect for the music and poetry, born
out of what the choreographer has called her desire to ‘understand the
languages of both music and drama in the deepest way I can’, Trisha
Brown, Simon Keenlyside, Pedja Muzijevic and the dancers Brandi L. Norton,
Seth Parker and Lionel Popkin, have created a work which reminds us
once again of the true nature of a masterpiece: just as the hurdy-gurdy
man circles slowly as the voice mesmerizingly evokes his part in the
drama, so the world continues to turn, oblivious to, or heedless of,
our part in it, and the great work stands at the still centre as perhaps
our only recognizable evidence, apart from the love of children, that
we have even influenced it.
This was unquestionably one of
the greatest Winterreisen I have seen, both in terms of the singing
and playing, and of the overall nature of the experience itself. I’m
sure there are plenty of people who were either outraged or bored by
it, but they were clearly not much in evidence on Thursday night, when
the performance was given an ovation the like of which I have not heard
for many years – and what a joy it is just to contemplate these little
words: ‘nearly two thousand people packed the Barbican to hear Winterreise’.
They will be privileged indeed if they ever hear a finer performance.
Melanie Eskenazi
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