Preussisches Märchen by Boris Blacher, and: Oedipus: Musiktheater by Wolfgang Rihm (review)

In 2012, the Deutsche Oper Berlin celebrated its centennial by releasing on DVD a series of opera productions that aired originally on German television. The two under review here represent operas by two significant post-war composers which were commissioned and premiered by the company.

The earlier of the two, Boris Blacher’s Preussisches Märchen, was first performed in 1952. This revival was staged in 1974 and the production was reconstructed in a television studio for broadcast rather than filmed on stage. The “Prussian fairy tale” of the title is an actual historical event that was dramatized in the 1931 play The Captain from Köpenick by Carl Zuckmayer, in which a well-intentioned nobody, tired of the militaristic bureaucracy which hinders him at every step, buys a second-hand captain’s uniform, commandeers a regiment, and invades the town hall to arrest the mayor. Heinz von Cramer’s libretto takes this idea and adds elements from Heinrich Mann’s novel Der Untertan. The result is a satirical operetta-like farce, with Blacher’s conservative musical idiom suggesting neoclassical Stravinsky mixed with touches of Weill, Shostakovich, and Strauss. The work is designated a “ballet-opera” however the ballet is limited to one dream sequence that lasts about five minutes.

Given that the work has never caught on in the repertory outside Berlin there is very little opportunity to compare it with other recordings. Regardless, this is a delightful performance by any standards and reveals the benefits of having an in-house ensemble rather than a cast of imported stars – these are singers who know one another and work well together. Of particular note is the comfort which the singers show being filmed at close range, long before HD simulcasts exposed things which go unnoticed on stage. Baritone Manfred Röhrl carries the show as the frustrated clerk Wilhelm Fadenkreuz, but particular note must go to Lisa Otto and Ivan Sardi, who after creating the roles of his parents decided to swap their parts for the TV production, playing them in drag. I am not sure what the point is, but it certainly adds to the comic effect. The technical quality of the DVD is fine and shows little sign of its age.

Wolfgang Rihm is one of the most prolific composers today but his operas have not traveled outside Germany very often. Oedipus received it premiere in 1987 and was filmed onstage at a live performance for broadcast. Rihm has confounded attempts to categorize his music, and this work shows him drawing on numerous schools of compositional style. Essentially atonal, it makes use of spoken text (drawn from Nietzsche and Heiner Müller) and chorus on prerecorded tape, dense tone clusters, an orchestra of winds, percussion and harp, with extra percussion instruments played on stage by the cast, and expressive vocal lines which rarely ask the 26 solo singers to do anything other than sing beautifully. It is a challenging score but not inaccessible, although there is some rather loud booing from a faction in the audience at Rihm’s curtain call. The cast however is warmly applauded as they should be. In the title role, Andreas Schmidt is elegant and intelligent throughout, likewise Emily Golden as Jocasta. William Pell as Kreon has the least gracious vocal writing but he sings the high tessitura without any sign of distress. Veteran baritone William Dooley sings Tiresias without any indication that he was 30 years into his career at this time. The technical quality is excellent although some of the chiaroscuro lighting effects appear not to have been adjusted for the filming, and occasionally things get a bit murky.

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