Fidelio on DVD: Freedom from thought

One more pre-Christmas G'Schenk!  For my Schenk/Anti-Schenk series, I am comparing productions by Otto Schenk to some more modern efforts (read the introduction here).  Our own Wiener Staatsoper has an old Schenk production of Fidelio that would make a nice counterpoint to Calixto Bieito's new one, but they haven't programmed it this season.  But it is on DVD, so I checked it out of the library.  This performance was recorded in 1978 and probably maintains its high status because of Leonard Bernstein’s conducting.  Then, Schenk’s production was new.  That was 32 years ago.

Musically there’s a lot to like and some things to not like as much.  Productionwise, meh.  Whatevs.  In all fairness, that was probably the reaction Schenk was shooting for.

If you want an ultra-traditional Fidelio, that’s what you’ll get here.  Visually, everything is realistic, dreary, and gray.  This includes the final scene to far too great an extent.  This DVD is very much directed for the camera, with many different angles and the kind of acting that is more for close-ups than the audience in the theater, who probably couldn’t see much of the detail due to the monochromatic color palette.

The aesthetic, while at first glance timeless, in a few cases reeks of the 1970’s.  Check these lapels:

All the characters act how you think they should, and this is a problem. Fidelio’s text deals in types, not three-dimensional characters, and Schenk’s lack of creativity only emphasizes this.  They are vivid types, but types they remain, without identities beyond the immediacies of the text (remember Rocco’s pathetic little potted plants in Jürgen Flimm’s Met production? that is the kind of detail I love).  And a few of the Augenblicke are off: Florestan and Leonore stand in full sight of each other for a long time for him to not recognize her (since we’re being literal today), for example.

Schenk’s sense of Werktreue is selective.  While slavish to scene-setting, he shows flexibility with the spoken text, cutting and rearranging it every which way (I was comparing to this critical edition).  If we’re going to consider the set and stage directions so inviolate, why are other details of the text so flexible?  (Not that the text is very good, it isn’t.)  But I doubt Schenk had any choice about the insertion of the Leonore No. 3 after “O namenlose große Freude,” so I’m not going to blame him for that.

Bernstein conducts a very orchestral performance where the voices often take a backseat to the profile of the instrumental parts. It’s majestic and grand but also very tight and controlled, there’s not a lot of breathing space or lyricism.  The recording is dry, giving things a constrained quality.  But it is powerfully done, with wonderful rhythmic vitality and phrasing and timing.   It’s only occasionally marred by a bassoon player who was having a really bad day (over and over and over, the bassoons are out of tune and time).

Gundula Janowitz is a lyrical Leonore of beautifully clear, pure tone (albeit a horribly shrill high B), and sings and acts with detail and feeling.  However, she is strained by the more dramatic sections of the score, and not very assertive dramatically. “Töt erst sein Weib!” comes out as a shriek.  Admittedly, my favorite Leonores are all-out heroic ladies like Christa Ludwig and Karita Mattila, and Janowitz is just too aristocratic for my taste.  Rene Kollo is strained by Florestan’s aria and often sounds nasal.  It seems unfair to judge any tenor on this aria, and we should probably stop expecting anyone to be able to sing it live like they can on recordings.  Elsewhere, though, he doesn’t sound much better, however he acts well.  I’m sorry, but this is from the much-touted era when all singers were better than everyone who is working today?  I’m not buying it.  It isn’t at all bad, but I’m pretty sure you could do better than this today, either with lyric or dramatic voices, whichever.  The other cast members are fine but unnotable except for Lucia Popp's absolutely perfect (though fussily-acted) Marzelline.  But the orchestra is really the focus here, so the lack of high-profile singing may have been intentional.

As a production it is perfectly OK, but never interesting.  I would prefer something with more character and ideas.