Carnegie Hall, New York City. November 11, 2006.
James Levine brought his Boston Symphony Orchestra to Carnegie Hall Saturday night with a program of two masterpieces. Brahms’ First Symphony was the rather anti-climactic occupier of the second half of the concert, upstaged by the opening work, Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle.
It’s not often that the Brahms symphony is overshadowed in such a manner. Part of the reason is simply that it seemed tame, defanged after the extravagant opulence of the Bartok opera. Another was the somewhat generic interpretation it received; everything neatly in place, tempos apt, but for all its warmth and integrity the lingering impact of the Bartok interfered with the comfortable familiarity of the Brahms. Adding to all this was the surprising degree of roughness in the orchestra’s playing – a too-pungent oboe in the beautiful Andante, the shaky brass chorale and rough climaxes elsewhere. This was very far from a bad performance, but it’s hard to feel that it rose enough above the routine to inspire enthusiasm.
The performance of the Bartok opera however, was superb. The orchestra, which carries the burden to an extent that staging, scenery, and even the text can seem superfluous, was in absolutely top form. The strings glowed, the brass bit, the winds were radiant. Moments like the sighing of the castle walls and the luminous scoring of the opening of the door behind which jewels glowed were overpowering, and the opening of the door that revealed Bluebeard’s vast domain was as wide and powerful as the unseen lands themselves. As impressive was the subtlety of the more intimate moments, where string and wind colorations were radiant. This is a score as original, inventive, and powerful as any in opera and it sounded that way in this performance.
The singing was almost on the orchestra’s level. Anne Sofie von Otter, as Judith, sang with her usual dramatic subtlety and a mezzo-soprano voice that gave full due to Bartok’s parlando-rubato (flexible speech-rhythm) vocal writing. Hungarian bass-baritone Albert Dohmen was an effective, if understated, Bluebeard; his resonant voice delineating a man watching his soul bared and facing the inevitable slide into eternal night. Levine chose to include the spoken Prologue often cut in most performances, and it was done with flamoyance by Hungarian actor-writer Ors Kisfaludy. In short, a magnificent performance of a great score.
The Boston Symphony’s next Carnegie Hall concert features Berlioz’s Damnation of Faust on February 12. If the Bartok was any indication, it should be a season highlight.
Dan Davis
