Michael Hendrick, in a debut, who, in the circumstances did remarkably well. So, it was his lucky day!

Richard Strauss’ Die Ägyptische Helena

The chance of portraying Richard Strauss’ Helen of Troy, a role that can launch a thousand slips, has not tempted many sopranos. Luckily, its dangers did not discourage Deborah Voigt. It is 79 years since Strauss’ Die Ägyptische Helena had last been given at the Metropolitan Opera and apparently its Premiere was not much of a success when even Strauss’ own choice, the famed Maria Jeritza, had had some difficulty with the score. No matter.

At the 15 March Premiere of the Mets new production a gorgeously commanding Voigt and the lustrous Diana Damrau, playing the cheerfully conniving sorceress, Aithra, Consort of Sea-God Poseidon, had a deserved triumph when this psychologically complex but sumptuous opera returned, with its rich orchestral textures all lovingly displayed by conductor Fabio Luisi. The new production, by the British Director David Fielding, also responsible for the settings and costumes, deliberately sets the clock back to the ‘twenties with its cute, sometimes effective version of the then fashionable decorative Max Ernst-like surrealism. The staging originated ten years ago in the decidedly more modest circumstances of England’s Garsington Opera, that openair mini-version of Glyndebourne, but has obviously been much expanded and adapted.

The most rarely produced of all the collaborations between Strauss and his favourite librettist, the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal, it’s a difficult opera to stage – I only knew it previously through a fine Antal Dorati CD starring Gwyneth Jones – and while Fielding has found the right design style he tends to leave his singers on stage shipwrecked statically as if in an oratorio. The theme is, not unexpectedly, marriage and infidelity. Helena, with Paris dead and her Greek fling flung, finds she still loves her husband, the vengeful Menelas, played by Torsten Kerl, and wants him back. Menelas, agonised by jealousy, is far from sure.

Aithra intervenes, having been tipped off by The Omniscient Mussel, the only bivalve oyster in opera – and I’m not making this up! – and tries to persuade Menelas that Helena’s flight was just a flight of fancy and that the Paris affair was mere fantasy with the real Helena still faithful. When two other suitors for Helena’s hand, Altair, an impressively forceful Wolfgang Brendel, and his son, Daud, played by Garrett Sorenson, turn up, Menelas is even less certain. But Aithra and Helena finally win him over.

The opera is not Strauss’ finest; indeed, it is just possibly his worst, in the running perhaps with his first opera, Guntram, which I’ve never heard. I daresay it will be another 79 years before I see it again. Nevertheless, it does offer great chances to singers and Voigt with her hallmarked blend of lyricism and drama was magnificent, matched by Damrau’s dazzling display as Aithra.

The Egyptian Helen is not only of mixed quality, it seems rather unlucky. At this Premiere the German tenor, Torsten Kerl as Menelas, making his Met debut and with an obvious cold, had vocal difficulties, having to withdraw after the First Act, to be replaced by his waiting stand-by, Michael Hendrick, also in a debut, who, in the circumstances did remarkably well. So, it was his lucky day!

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P3-1317072551.html

by Clive Barnes

Musical Opinion