Walter Braunfels (1882-1954)
Jeanne d’Arc. Scenes from the Life of Saint Joan (1943)
Johanna – Juliane Banse (soprano); Baudricourt, a knight – Martin Gantner (baritone); Charles of Valois – Pavol Breslik (tenor); Gilles de Rais – Johan Reuter (baritone); Duke of la Trémouille – Ruben Drole (bass-baritone); Archbishop of Reims / Florent d’Illiers – Thomas E. Bauer (baritone); Cauchon / Bertrand de Poulengy – Michael Laurenz (tenor); Jacobus von Arc – Tobias Kehrer (bass)
Salzburger Bachchor; Salzburger Festspiele und Theater Kinderchor
ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra/Manfred Honeck
rec. live, 1 August 2013, Felsenreitschule, Salzburg
German libretto & English translation included
Capriccio C5515 [2 CDs: 135]

Over the last few years, the representation of Walter Braunfels’ music has greatly expanded on CD; I’ve built up quite a little collection of discs and I’ve admired what I’ve heard. When this set of Jeanne d’Arc came my way, I presumed this would be the first recording of the work. In fact, one of the many things that I learned from Jens F Laursen’s very valuable booklet essay was that there was a previous Decca recording, now deleted; I wonder if this was part of their Entartete Musik series.

I’m indebted to Laursen’s essay for some essential background information. Despite the fact that he had converted to Roman Catholicism, Walter Braunfels had some Jewish ancestry. This meant that when the Nazis came to power in Germany he was not only out of favour – he was dismissed or resigned from his various posts – but also in no little danger. He retreated into internal exile and his music fell into complete neglect. Jeanne d’Arc was a product of this period of exile; he worked on it from 1939 until 1943. Though Braunfels was rehabilitated after the war, his music did not attract the attention it had received pre-war and Jeanne d’Arc was never performed in his lifetime. Indeed, it was not until 2001 that the work achieved its premiere performance; that took place in Sweden with Manfred Honeck conducting and I understand that was the performance which Decca subsequently issued on disc.

Mr Laursen tells us that Braunfels compiled his own libretto. For this he drew on the fifteenth-century documents (in Latin and French) relating to the trial of Joan of Arc. In addition, he wrote some of the text himself and also introduced “a smidgen” from George Bernard Shaw’s play Saint Joan. This significant reliance on contemporaneous texts, Laursen argues, gives particular authenticity to the libretto: “The characters’ lines are taken right out of life, realistic and natural, as if written straight from actual people’s mouths”. I’d describe Jeanne d’Arc as a dialogue opera in that for most of the time the characters are conversing with each other; there are relatively few extended set-piece solos. One addition that Braunfels makes to the well-known story of Joan of Arc is to add, in Laursen’s words, “a most touching, if necessarily ill-fated, would-be love story between Joan and Gilles de Rais”. As I followed the action of the opera it seemed to me that, for dramatic purposes, this was an entirely understandable addition to the overall story; it is credible. Mr Laursen doesn’t mention any modern-day contemporary resonances in the libretto – and as the author of several booklet essays for previous Braunfels recordings, he clearly knows his subject. However, I wondered as I listened whether Braunfels was drawing any parallels between the story of Joan’s attempts to help the French king throw off the shackles of the English invaders and events in 1930s Germany. I may be wrong about this – though surely Braunfels didn’t live in a vacuum – but two instances made me wonder about this. One occurs in the interlude between the two Acts when the Duke of la Trémouille, one of the Dauphin’s advisers, delivers a soliloquy in which he expresses his serious suspicions of Joan. He displays contempt for those who have hailed Joan as the potential saviour of France and says (in English translation): “From every hole there now crawls all who were poor and who, deeply humiliated, long for a thousand-year Reich”. The italics are mine. Much later on, as the Second Act reaches its climax we encounter Cauchon, the Bishop of Beauvais, who is leading the prosecution of Joan. In the deeply unpleasant portrayal of this character very appropriately presented by tenor Michael Laurenz, Cauchon comes across just as one would expect a fanatical Gestapo interrogator to sound.

So, we have a well-constructed libretto which flows well and credibly. What of the music? I completely agree with Mr Laursen’s view that Braunfels deploys “often sumptuous, post-romantic musical language (somewhere between Die Tote Stadt and Salome, with a spice of Bartók)”. As I say, I concur with Laursen but I would add that, at least to my ears, there are qualifications to be made to the twin operatic comparisons. Though Braunfels presents the story in music that is often dark and powerfully dramatic, the music doesn’t have quite the same visceral nature of Salome. On the other hand, Braunfels is essentially a romantic, lyrical composer but Jeanne d’Arc lacks the lush quality that one finds in some passages in Die Tote Stadt. All that said, Braunfels relates the story of Joan in music that is potent, dramatic and which compels the listener’s attention.  The orchestration is packed with incident and is full of invention. I don’t know the exact scoring but a photo of the performance on the back of the booklet shows a substantial orchestra. Yet, thanks to the skills of the musicians and engineers, the singers are never overwhelmed. The orchestra plays marvellously.

All the soloists – there are sixteen of them – acquit themselves very well indeed. All of them are highly committed and sing with no little intensity. Pavol Breslik is very successful in portraying the fears of Charles of Valois as he confronts the perilous situation of the French people prior to Joan’s arrival on the scene.  Ruben Drole takes the role of the Duke of la Trémouille, the most prominent among Charles’s advisors; he’s wholly convincing. Johan Reuter makes a very strong and credible contribution as Gilles de Rais, anguished at the eventual fate of Joan.  Tobias Kehrer is cast as Joan’s father. His is a smaller role but he engages our sympathies as a firm but caring parent. The trio of saintly voices, Siobhan Stagg, Sofiya Almazova and Bryan Hymel all make significant contributions; Hymel’s strong, ringing voice is well suited to the clarion music to which Braunfels sets the words of St Michael.

Dominating the proceedings – and rightly so – is Juliane Banse. Jens Laursen says in the booklet that she “owns” the role of Joan; he’s absolutely right. Banse gives us a full portrayal of Joan; her courage and resolution to do the bidding of God in order to save France comes across in her singing but so too does the vulnerability and fear of a young girl. As the opera moves to its inevitable dénouement with Joan a prisoner, she stiffens her resolve and retracts the recantation she has made, in full knowledge of the consequences. Banse’s portrayal is gripping at this point. I think it’s worth making the point that this performance was “just” a concert performance; to judge by the booklet photograph it wasn’t even semi-staged and the soloists sat (or stood) in a straight line at the front of the stage to the conductor’s left. It may have been a concert performance but I doubt that anyone listening to this recording will think that Juliane Banse is anything other than fully inside her role. Her engagement with her character is palpable and that comment can apply to all her colleagues too. I found Ms Banse’s portrayal of the doomed heroine was consistently compelling.

I said that Ms Banse dominates the proceedings and that’s true; but there’s another dominant performer in the shape of conductor Manfred Honeck. It’s clear from what is said in the booklet that he is deeply committed to Braunfels’ music in general and to this opera in particular. Under his direction the performance has drama, direction and focus from beginning to end. I think it’s pertinent to say that what we have here is a one-off concert performance from the Salzburg Festival. Though there may have been some patching from rehearsals, the performance is tight and taut

The presentation values of this set are high. The engineering is very successful, presenting large forces with clarity and impact; you can hear plenty of detail but the ‘big picture’ is equally impressive. The Salzburg audience is commendably quiet; there is no applause included. The documentation is excellent and it’s a relief to find a lengthy libretto presented in a font that is clear and easy to read.

Jeanne d’Arc is clearly an important work in Walter Braunfels’ output. It has been exceptionally well served in this live recording.

John Quinn

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Other performers
Colin, a shepherd – Norbert Ernst
Vicar-Inquisitor – Johannes Stermann
Baudricourt’s wife – Wiebke Lehmkuhl ·
St. Katharina – Siobhan Stagg
St. Margarete – Sofiya Almazova
St. Michael – Bryan Hymel
Hertzog von Alençon – Johannes Dunz
An English Captain – Domen Križaj