One of the most famous poetic evocations of the Israelites’ journey through the wilderness is in Welsh (look in your hymnbook). So it seemed appropriate to see Moses und Aron in Cardiff, complete with Welsh surtitles. Really though I was forced to do so because Welsh National Opera weren’t taking the production to Bristol.
The production has had mixed reviews, and certainly the first act seemed awkwardly staged in some sort of lecture theatre. The large chorus (60+) didn’t have room to to move around, and as they picked up chairs at the end I was reminded of the close of staff meetings at work. Furthermore, the references to Moses and Aron approaching from far away didn’t work. In the second act the Golden Calf was replaced by a film, supposedly projected where the audience were sitting. We found this worked rather better; there are no references in the libretto to the precise shape of the image, but plenty to its illusory nature. Some reviews likened the setting to the Arab Spring, although the production is a few years earlier.
At the root of it all though is the question: just what is the opera about? Is it specifically religious, or is it saying something more general? What is the effect of omitting the Egyptians (who never appear) and barely referring to the patriarchs of Genesis, so that God’s relationship with Israel seems to start with Moses? If Moses somehow represents Schoenberg himself, who is Aron? Adolf Hitler and Alban Berg seem to be the main candidates. The latter interpretation is not going to endear the opera to Berg enthusiasts, but it is hard to dismiss completely the idea that it examines the artistic relationship between Schoenberg and his pupil, strained by Berg’s reluctance to abandon keys completely (I have a theory that at one level Lulu is also about this relationship, but won’t go into it here). As the naked virgins line up to be sacrificed, you feel like saying ‘Do lighten up a bit – it’s just some tonality!’ This interpretation does offer an explanation for Schoenberg’s failure to complete the opera. In the third act Moses denounces Aron, who drops down dead, and this could have become impossible to set after Berg died in 1935. On the other hand, Schoenberg had known problems with finishing lengthy works, and his Act 3 libretto is undramatic.
If Schoenberg depicted himself as as the inarticulate Moses, he did himself a disservice, since his writings in German and English are clear and elegant.
Performance-wise, everything seem to be in place and the orchestra and chorus played and sang superbly, with the orchestral detail coming over nicely in the Millennium Centre’s acoustic. Aron was sung by Mark le Brocq, with whom I used to sing in the Cambridge Taverner Choir. One could not tell that he was standing in for Rainer Trost, as he appeared completely comfortable with both the vocal and staging demands of the role. Moses was Sir John Tomlinson, who delivered his lines with great feeling and often lying or sitting down.
Hear for yourself on Radio 3 on Monday 17 June. I don’t know which performance this was recorded at, but Mark le Brocq is singing in it.
Reviews:
- Telegraph
- Guardian
- Financial Times
- The Classical Source (of a performance in Birmingham)