This performance, from the 1989 Vienna Festival, was greeted with rave reviews: “Profound, scrupulous, and boldly untraditional,” claimed Die Welt. By today’s standards this is a conventional, intelligently-set staging of the opera by Ursel and Karl-Ernst Hermann. After the opening, depicting a high wall with Belmonte on the outside and Osmin looking down from above and inside, the simple sets are waist high walls and create a simple maze within; a small flight of stairs is stage left. The costumes are more-or-less timeless.
Belmonte represents an “Enlightenment figure” (as explained in the accompanying booklet, although we could guess from his spectacles) and the production presents an Enlightened view of Pasha Selim. He is a sad, anxious man; he skulks around the stage even when he’s not in on the action, and his love for Konstanze is a very complicated issue. Of course the opera’s punch line is his clemency–unlike the cruelty bestowed upon him by Belmonte’s father–but here it is made clear by his omnipresence, and, more controversially, by just about all of the spoken dialogue, which in many ways humanizes him. So, I think, do the long silences that pop up at key moments–he glares at characters, they glare at him. It isn’t exactly revolutionary or, by now, “boldly untraditional”, but it does make the opera longer than usual and I found it somewhat tiring. It’s not a very amusing Entführung.
Harnoncourt is on his best behavior throughout, with textures remarkably clear, real spring in the orchestra, the “Turkish” instruments on stage (revolutionary!), and only the occasional eccentricity. The most clear of these is old-hat by now–the ritards in the orchestral introduction to “Martern aller arten” (which, we are told, makes the “emotional content [identify] as much with the captor as the captive”). The quartet that ends the second act is taken slowly, but it’s not crazy-slow; it makes each of the vocal lines clear and makes dramatic sense. In all, it’s a well-led and wonderfully played Entführung, save for the pregnant pauses.
The show’s vocal star is Kurt Streit, who sings a fresh, sincere, tonally handsome Belmonte, with great attention to dynamics, fluency in “Ich baue ganz”, and pointed delivery of the text. Sadly, the rest of the singers are what can be called “good enough”: Aga Winska’s Konstanze is workmanlike and accurate, and she never touches the heart; Elzbieta Szmytka, who later graduated to Konstanze, is a blowsy Blonde, with high Es in place but an unattractive tone and demeanor; Wilfried Gahmlich’s Pedrillo is lively and well-sung, and Artur Korn has all the notes for Osmin, but having heard Kurt Moll and Martti Talvela you only long for a darker sound. In addition, since the opera’s humor is played down, he has less to do. Actor Hilmar Thate dominates the action as Selim, and he’s terrific, but you have to want him to be the opera’s focus.
Brian Large’s direction for the small screen as usual is excellent, and so is the picture. The 20-year-old sound is surprisingly vital and clear. Subtitles are in English, French, Spanish, and Chinese. Among the competition, we can rule out the Amsterdam production (Opus Arte) which is oddly perverse (Blonde is a dominatrix and Konstanze is in love with Pasha Selim), save for Laura Aikin’s alluring Konstanze. Recommended are the 1980 film under Karl Böhm (DG) with Gruberova and Araiza (despite the tacky sets) and the Arnold Ostman-led, period-instrument performance from Drottningholm (TDK) with Richard Croft as Belmonte. The others in that cast are not great (Winska again), but the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. As for this Harnoncourt reading, well, it’s food for thought and mirthless. Is that what this opera is supposed to be?
