Last night KQED aired a program entitled “A Journey into Lohengrin,” which I recorded in order to approach the content with as fresh a mind as could be prepared for any experience of the music of Richard Wagner. This was basically a documentary in the “making of” genre involving a production of Wagner’s Lohengrin, which was performed by the San Francisco Opera (SFO) in the fall of 2023. The performance of any Wagner opera is a major undertaking, as much for the musicians as for the vocalists.
Eun Sun Kim conducting a rehearsal of Lohengrin with Kristinn Sigmundsson as King Heinrich der Vogler (left) confronting Brian Mulligan as Friedrich of Telramund (right)
Nevertheless, in many respects Lohengrin is a special case. When I wrote about it on this site after its opening performance, I began the task of description by observing that the plot was “a convoluted account of conflicting factions at the court of King Heinrich der Vogler.” What I did not appreciate at the time was that the demands on the musicians were just as convoluted as the motivations behind each of the characters in the cast. This was particularly the case for the trumpet players, who literally surrounded the audience with fanfares coming from every imaginable direction. Sitting in the audience (even with as clear a view of the orchestra pit as of the stage), I was often more than a little perplexed by what was happening where and why.
As a result of this documentary, I think it would be fair for me to say that I now have at least a plausible conjecture of the “why.” Wagner composed long instrumental passages in the middle of at least one of his acts, rather than settling only for introducing the acts with preludes. That is because there is a major transition in the narrative during the final act, requiring “music without action” for an extended period. The music thus provides action of its own with that distribution of the brass players interjecting their fanfares.
Where the documentary is concerned, the focus is not so much on Wagner as it is on Music Director Eun Sun Kim. While the film captures many of her personal thoughts about preparing the musical side of the production, what is more engaging are the episodes that capture her exchanges with the individual vocalists, as well as her ensemble. I came away with the impression that she wanted to be as well-informed about every detail of the narrative as she was about the marks on the paper of the score that she was preparing to conduct. We thus learn about how the different vocalists established their character parts as much from their own observations as from their interactions with Kim. The viewing experience left me more than a little in awe of a documentary that was capable of delivering so much engagement over the course of only one hour.
The SFO Web page for this documentary includes a hyperlink for online viewing through both the SFO Web site and YouTube. The video was directed by Elena Park, and she knew exactly how much time to allocate to each of the episodes. The interviews included not only the opera singers but also individual members of the orchestra offering their own respective takes on the almost telepathic techniques required to keep conductor, musicians, and vocalists all focused on the goal of bringing music and staging to life.
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