Bartók, Schoenberg, Stravinsky: Anja Silja, Soprano, The MET Orchestra,
James Levine, Conductor, Carnegie Hall, New
York City, 29.01.06 (BH)
Bartók: Suite from The Miraculous Mandarin,
Op. 19 (1918-23)
Schoenberg: Erwartung, Op. 17 (1909)
Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring (1911-13)
What a dream of an afternoon. For those with a penchant
for raucous early 20th-century modernism,
this splendid, generous buffet satisfied, and satisfied,
and more so. One of the nicest comments I can offer
is that for two days afterward, I didn’t want to
hear any music whatsoever – the spell cast by this
amazing concert kept my mind in a vise grip.
Any disappointment that James Levine didn’t program
the complete Miraculous Mandarin was quickly
forgotten in this scorching reading of the suite.
This was a nervous nail-biter from first to last:
the brittle opening, an exhausting and relentless
ride in between, and the image of the violinists’
precision bowing in the final three or four slashing
chords will stick with me for months. One could
only gaze in awe. As an aside, I wonder if one
of the reasons for this ensemble’s huge sound is
that they are used to playing in the larger, and
acoustically odd Met house? When they relocate
to Carnegie, their already-large presence is amplified
(not to discount their abilities as musicians to
produce such volume on their own).
So back to the 20th-century carnival, which
continued with the legendary Anja Silja in oh-so-confident
form as the protagonist in Schoenberg’s monodrama
Erwartung. The piece is filled with dread-filled
(as opposed to dreadful) imagery, as a woman wanders
through a forest and discovers a corpse – perhaps
her lover? Perhaps she killed him? Ms. Silja,
now in her mid-60s, may not have the force of youth
but she has the force of experience in spades.
Her jugular reading made a sunny Sunday afternoon
positively frightening, with air-raising high notes
and equally mesmerizing whispers. And as for the
orchestra, how does Levine do it? Program
annotator David Hamilton cites Levine in agreement
with Pierre Boulez, noting Erwartung is “one
of the two most challenging pieces to conduct from
memory, because there is no ordered repetition of
elements.” Levine’s empathy began with the first
note, and coursed through Schoenberg’s violent river
right up through the final softly swirling figure
that ends the work, almost like an afterthought.
The friend with me noted that Stravinsky’s Rite
needs a great timpanist, and the Met has one. But
this reading went far beyond percussive pounding
and into the land of magic – a brilliantly colored
world populated with some of the best woodwind and
brass playing I’ve heard the piece command. Every
shrill cry, every muffled thump, every squeak was
in place against a bedrock of strings. The volume
level achieved in the climaxes, rest assured, was
plentifully explosive, but the crashing was balanced
with luminosity. It was as if the Carnegie Hall
space were completely filled with some kind of giant,
prehistoric bird, slowly preening to display every
last feather in its sunlit plumage.
Bruce
Hodges
