Another Not-So-Fine Mess from Peter Sellars

Last night Peter Sellars returned to Davies Symphony Hall for his latest effort with the San Francisco Symphony, led by Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen, to wreak havoc on a narrative composition of music. This year that composition was Arnold Schoenberg’s Opus 17, a one-act monodrama (performed by a single vocalist) entitled “Erwartung” (expectation). It was composed in 1909 but was not premiered until 1924, when Alexander Zemlinsky conducted it in Prague.

The narrative is as straightforward as it is spooky. It is the middle of the night in a forest, and a woman is searching for her lover. The music unfolds in a series of episodes, each a different stage in her search. Ultimately, she finds him or, more specifically, his corpse. Recovering from the shock of discovery, she wanders off into the night.

The Woman in “Erwartung” (Mary Elizabeth Williams) with the body bag containing her lover (courtesy of the San Francisco Symphony)

For reasons unknown (possibly because I missed the preconcert discussion) Sellars tried to turn this into a police procedural. The cast was extended to account for two policemen without speaking roles (Pierre Jones and Pedram Razavi), who are preparing the Woman (soprano Mary Elizabeth Williams) for an interview. In front of her is a body bag. In other words, the performance begins after all the events in Marie Pappenheim’s libretto have taken place, turning the sung role into a reflection on what has just happened. The good news was that this did not involve very much staging, allowing for an excellent account of musical interplay between the vocalist and the orchestra. Nevertheless, Sellars’ prologue did little more than undermine the impact of that Woman’s shock of discovery in Pappenheim’s text.

The first half of last night’s program was devoted entirely to the one-act ballet version of Maurice Ravel’s suite Ma mère l’Oye (Mother Goose). This began as a set of five short pieces based on fairy tales and scored for four hands on a single keyboard. It was composed in 1910 (one year after “Erwartung”); and the original “four hands” were those of Mimi and Jean Godebski, aged six and seven, respectively. Ravel subsequently orchestrated the music and expanded it for a ballet by adding a prelude and interludes between the original piano movements.

In last night’s program Alonzo King provided choreography for this extended version performed by the members of his LINES Ballet. Sadly, that choreography had absolutely nothing to do with any of the narratives that had inspired Ravel’s original score; and, while the overall score was relatively short, the dancing was so repetitive that felt like it was going on forever. Those familiar with the music and the tales behind the core movements were thus free to imagine relevant choreography for themselves.

To be fair, Salonen did his best to provide engaging accounts of both compositions; but both of the selections would have fared much better had the music been allowed to speak for itself.