Rued Langgaard (1893-1952)
Antikrist, opera in two acts (1921, rev. 1930)
Orchestra and Chorus of the Deutsche Oper Berlin/Stephen Zilias
rec. 2023, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Naxos NBD0176V Blu-ray [102]
Even enthusiasts of Ruud Langgaard’s music (amongst whom I would class myself) have to admit that he is a maddeningly frustrating composer. Not for the quality of his inspiration, which at its best is both enthralling and thrilling, but for its sheer inconsistency. A superbly conceived passage will be abruptly truncated, or find itself switched into another texture and stream altogether, and the new material may well be of startlingly different style or even sheer mediocrity. Langgaard’s two besetting sins – complacent conformity and mindless repetitions – never seem to be far from the surface, and he seems totally unable to notice when these clearly deliberate contradictions are simply self-defeating. It is perhaps not surprising that his sheer iconoclasm – not to mention his diatribes against other Danish composers, especially Nielsen, whom he saw as usurping his rightful position – relegated him to the wilderness for many years. It was not until some thirty years ago, when his symphonies began to be championed by international conductors such as Gennady Rozhdestvensky, that his music had any effect outside Denmark; and his sole opera Antikrist had to wait fifty years after the date of its composition for its first performance, given in 1980 under Øle Schmidt in Copenhagen and enshrined on a CD release from Danish EMI.
One of the results of Langgaard’s sometimes abrupt shifts in tone and style is that one is not always certain how seriously to take the music; and Antikrist contains its fair share of such jolts, as when the rather beautiful duet between soprano and tenor in Act Two is concluded with a spat phrase “Bitch!” from one of the protagonists. But the general nature of the texts (by the composer himself) leave little doubt that he intended his philosophical and moral meditations, put into the mouths of characters from the Biblical Book of Revelations, to be taken very seriously indeed. Not that there is the slightest recognition of this essential fact in the production by Ersan Mondtag. The dramatic direction (reinforced by scenery and costume designs by Mondtag himself) is ugly and iconoclastic in the extreme. A booklet note by Bendt Viinholt Nielsen goes into some detail about the alterations and revisions made by the composer to his score during the 1920s. But it is clear that many of the stage pictures and representations bear no resemblance whatsoever to the composer’s intentions. The voice of God is clearly designed to be spoken from offstage and amplified as he declares his edicts and pronouncements on the future of mankind. In this production, the unfortunate Jonas Grundner-Culemann (whose speaking voice is harsh and ungodly in every respect) is required to parade around the stage in a state of nudity. This is only terminated at the curtain calls, when he is allowed to don a decidedly shabby dressing gown.
The remainder of the cast are allowed to remain clothed, but their costumes are designed to give a caricature of nakedness just the same. That for the Whore of the World combines the attributes of both sexes to a caricatured degree that should arouse the ire of both sexes. It is the greatest deterrence to the erotic lust that the character is intended to evoke that one could imagine. The whole production, in short, is the sort of thing that gives pornography a good name. There is also a nude hanging representation of (presumably) the Antichrist which is suspended by the neck from the flies at erratic intervals, which perversely enough combines an upper male torso and face with quite explicitly portrayed female genitalia. Its appearances and disappearances are as inexplicable as much of the other stage action, including a hyperactive collection of ballet dancers. They begin a series of callisthenic exercises like some demented aerobics class for a couple of minutes before the music even begins, and a lead ballerina who cavorts around the stage during the closing scene for no very apparent reason.
All of that, however perverse and aggravating, might just be forgiven if the musical performance were more satisfactory. But conductor Stephen Zilias seems to be efficient rather than engaged, allowing Langgaard’s lyrical expansions and effusions to go for almost nothing. It does not help that the string sound frequently comes across as undermanned and lacking in any of the essential sense of luxuriance that the plot (such as it is) surely demands. Nor is the actual playing anything like secure enough in the sometimes tricky fugal passages during the first Act, sounding as if the players could have benefited from more rehearsal. By contrast, the brass and percussion contributions, often blisteringly loud, effectively drown out the singers and render Philipp Jekal almost inaudible at times. And he is the only singer whose head is not confined in some grotesque mask or other, where the gaping mouths do little to enable the voices to project in their many strenuous passages. Only Thomas Lehman emerges with any great degree of credit, and the usually excellent baroque singer Clemens Biber is simply way out of his depth in the heldentenor role of the “Mouth speaking Great Things”. Isolated high notes from Flurina Stucki as the Whore do not compensate for a lack of body elsewhere. The delicate voices of Irene Roberts and Valeriia Savinskaia in their Act One duet are badly let down by the etiolated tone of their accompaniment. The chorus, who are given very little to do, manage what they have with a degree of engagement, but it comes far too late. The audience applaud vociferously at the end over a long series of curtain calls, in which the production team are (perhaps wisely) conspicuous by their absence.
Fortunately for Langgaard, and for us, there is an alternative. A video version of the opera was issued on Dacapo in 2005, and even more fortunately it remains available on both Blu-ray and DVD. The production, which I have not seen, seems to be as resolutely low-key (set in a largely nineteenth-century context) as this one is pretentious and tacky. But it does have the additional advantage of some seriously top-flight singers such as Poul Elming and Camilla Nylund, as well as the conducting of Langgaard specialist Thomas Dausgaard. It was well received by the critics at the time. It would certainly seem to be a preferable option for anyone seeking to make the acquaintance of a flawed but fascinating operatic testament. Especially since it comes with a series of extra commentaries and even a sample of Langgaard conducting, as well as subtitles in French, Spanish and Danish in addition to the English and German offered by Naxos here.
Paul Corfield Godfrey
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Cast and credits:
Thomas Lehman, bass – Lucifer
Irene Roberts, soprano – Spirit of Mystery
Maire Therese Carmack, soprano – Despondency
Valeriia Savinskaia, soprano – Echo of Spirit of Mystery
Philipp Jekal, bass – Hate
Clemens Bieber, tenor – Mouth speaking Great Things
Flurina Stucki, soprano – Great Whore
Aj Glueckert, tenor – Scarlet Beast
Kieran Carrel, tenor – Lie
Jonas Grundner-Culemann, speaker – Voice of God
Stage director and designer: Erwin Mondtag
Choreographer: Rob Fordeyn
Video director: Götz Filenius
Subtitles: English, German, Japanese and Korean
Video: HD 16.9 | PCM
Audio: 5.1 Regions A,B,C
