影片简介
◎简 介
The original title: Georg Friedrich Händel (1685–1759) - Messiah
Output: 2010
Genre: Classical, Baroque, Oratorio
Director: Claus Guth
Performers: Susan Gritton, Cornelia Horak, Martin Pöllmann, Bejun Mehta, Richard Croft, Florian Boesch, Arnold Schoenberg Choir, Ensemble Matheus, Jean-Christophe Spinosi
Director Claus Guths operatic re-imagining of Handels Messiah for Viennas Theater an der Wien in 2009—a production recently released on DVD and Blu-ray by Unitel Classica and C Major—is conceived on an uncommonly grand physical scale. Placed on a gargantuan turntable, Christian Schmidts set creates a continuously evolving maze of fluorescently-lit corporate meeting rooms, starkly appointed hotel suites and hallways, lined with dozens of mysterious doors, that stretch out and sharply angle off into darkness. The large rooms are repurposed for the needs of Guths invented scenario (a funeral chapel is transformed into a party room and then an executive boardroom) and many of the key scenes take place in those anonymous hallways.
The feeling of a stripped-down modern world devoid of warmth or any sense of nature or time-of-day is arrestingly evoked. And the often surreal manner in which Jürgen Hoffmann lights the tight groupings of choristers—the Arnold Schoenberg Chor in superb vocal form (though unable to disguise their German-accented English delivery), and treated by Guth variously as mourners, religious zealots, tipsy partygoers, and editorializing Greek choristers—lends vivid atmosphere to the stage pictures.
In one sense, the simple story Guth has imposed on what was originally a recounting of Jesus nativity and passion could be regarded as reductive, even mundane: a businessman whose wife is cheating on him with his own brother, and whose other brother is a drug-addicted pariah, commits suicide after a corporate presentation fails and destroys his career. There are more than a few overly literal applications of the music to everyday events (For Unto Us A Child Is Born for a cocktail reception following a baptism; He Was Despised for the businessmans rejection by his corporate colleagues, etc), and an ineffectual minister is given a few too many opportunities for anguished hand-wringing when his religious message isnt being heard by his troubled flock.
But theres something potent going on in Guths staging as well. Thanks to his shrewdly chosen cast of singers—all vocally strong and well-suited to this material, and at the top of their game as affecting singing-actors—the director creates a compelling narrative built from small, dramatically telling moments, where the grandeur and metaphysical scope of Handels score registers as the barely contained subtext, the roiling inner life of characters who, on the surface, seem stricken, only just alive.
Bass-baritone Florian Boesch and countertenor Bejun Mehta give layered performances as the businessmans brothers (Boesch as the socially volatile addict, Mehta as the marital cheat), and theres effective tension generated between sopranos Susan Gritton and Cornelia Horak as a pair of long-suffering wives. Even tenor Richard Croft is able to find nuance in the one-note role of the preacher who always manages to arrive too late to really help anyone. Conductor Jean-Christophe Spinosi values smart attacks and fraught pauses—that serve to tellingly point up myriad moments in the drama—in his reading with the period-instrument band Ensemble Matheus.
But the transcendent core of the production is the casting of two non-singing roles. The businessman is played by dancer Paul Lorenger, whose anguished eyes, grimly set mouth and steel-spined posture make him impossible to take your eyes off. His lithe, deeply expressive movement in Ramses Sigls choreography communicates more about Guths narrative and the depth of Handels music—this businessman could just as well be Jesus in a modern suit—than all the singing combined.
The other extraordinary presence onstage is Nadia Kichler, a strikingly lovely sign language performer who appears in various guises (tho
The original title: Georg Friedrich Händel (1685–1759) - Messiah
Output: 2010
Genre: Classical, Baroque, Oratorio
Director: Claus Guth
Performers: Susan Gritton, Cornelia Horak, Martin Pöllmann, Bejun Mehta, Richard Croft, Florian Boesch, Arnold Schoenberg Choir, Ensemble Matheus, Jean-Christophe Spinosi
Director Claus Guths operatic re-imagining of Handels Messiah for Viennas Theater an der Wien in 2009—a production recently released on DVD and Blu-ray by Unitel Classica and C Major—is conceived on an uncommonly grand physical scale. Placed on a gargantuan turntable, Christian Schmidts set creates a continuously evolving maze of fluorescently-lit corporate meeting rooms, starkly appointed hotel suites and hallways, lined with dozens of mysterious doors, that stretch out and sharply angle off into darkness. The large rooms are repurposed for the needs of Guths invented scenario (a funeral chapel is transformed into a party room and then an executive boardroom) and many of the key scenes take place in those anonymous hallways.
The feeling of a stripped-down modern world devoid of warmth or any sense of nature or time-of-day is arrestingly evoked. And the often surreal manner in which Jürgen Hoffmann lights the tight groupings of choristers—the Arnold Schoenberg Chor in superb vocal form (though unable to disguise their German-accented English delivery), and treated by Guth variously as mourners, religious zealots, tipsy partygoers, and editorializing Greek choristers—lends vivid atmosphere to the stage pictures.
In one sense, the simple story Guth has imposed on what was originally a recounting of Jesus nativity and passion could be regarded as reductive, even mundane: a businessman whose wife is cheating on him with his own brother, and whose other brother is a drug-addicted pariah, commits suicide after a corporate presentation fails and destroys his career. There are more than a few overly literal applications of the music to everyday events (For Unto Us A Child Is Born for a cocktail reception following a baptism; He Was Despised for the businessmans rejection by his corporate colleagues, etc), and an ineffectual minister is given a few too many opportunities for anguished hand-wringing when his religious message isnt being heard by his troubled flock.
But theres something potent going on in Guths staging as well. Thanks to his shrewdly chosen cast of singers—all vocally strong and well-suited to this material, and at the top of their game as affecting singing-actors—the director creates a compelling narrative built from small, dramatically telling moments, where the grandeur and metaphysical scope of Handels score registers as the barely contained subtext, the roiling inner life of characters who, on the surface, seem stricken, only just alive.
Bass-baritone Florian Boesch and countertenor Bejun Mehta give layered performances as the businessmans brothers (Boesch as the socially volatile addict, Mehta as the marital cheat), and theres effective tension generated between sopranos Susan Gritton and Cornelia Horak as a pair of long-suffering wives. Even tenor Richard Croft is able to find nuance in the one-note role of the preacher who always manages to arrive too late to really help anyone. Conductor Jean-Christophe Spinosi values smart attacks and fraught pauses—that serve to tellingly point up myriad moments in the drama—in his reading with the period-instrument band Ensemble Matheus.
But the transcendent core of the production is the casting of two non-singing roles. The businessman is played by dancer Paul Lorenger, whose anguished eyes, grimly set mouth and steel-spined posture make him impossible to take your eyes off. His lithe, deeply expressive movement in Ramses Sigls choreography communicates more about Guths narrative and the depth of Handels music—this businessman could just as well be Jesus in a modern suit—than all the singing combined.
The other extraordinary presence onstage is Nadia Kichler, a strikingly lovely sign language performer who appears in various guises (tho
