Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Claudio Abbado
(conductor)
Waltraud Meier (mezzo-soprano)
Elena Zhidkova
(mezzo-soprano)
Anatoli Kotscherga (bass)
Swedish Radio Chorus
Eric Ericson Chamber Choir
Thursday 25 April 2002
Philharmonie, Berlin
Brahms: Schicksalslied
Mahler:
Rückert-Lieder
Shostakovich: King Lear
It was one of those performances which no one who attended will ever
forget. After 12 years as chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, Claudio
Abbado bid farewell to his audience with an emotionally charged concert that was
as moving, sad and painful as it was beautiful, exhilarating and breathtaking.
Instead of choosing a Beethoven, Bruckner or Mahler symphony for the occasion
(as most conductors would), Abbado came up with an unusual, not to say strange,
program of works, all of which actually deal with farewells — with
change, loss, solitude and death. Considering that the maestro not only resigned
but also has been battling cancer in recent years, Brahms' Schicksalslied
and Mahler's Rückert-Lieder took on a very personal meaning: it was as if
the conductor communicated his innermost feelings — or even
fears.
Schicksalslied (from Friedrich Hölderlin's 1799 novel Hyperion) contrasts the peaceful life of gods who are untouched by destiny (Schicksal) with the life of humans who are shattered by it. Subtly played by the orchestra, sensitively rendered by the Swedish Radio Chorus, the piece set the dim, melancholy, almost depressive tone for the evening.
With Mahler's Rückert-Lieder, the atmosphere grew even more personal. Mezzo-soprano Waltraud Meier transformed each of the five songs into a multi-layered, emotionally charged and insightful mini-drama. A few harsh, unfocused top notes — possibly due to the strain of her recent Isolde, Ortrud, Waltraute and Sieglinde in the Berliner Staatsoper's monstrous Wagner cycle — did not diminish the intensity of her interpretation. Meier cast a particular spell with "Um Mitternacht" ("At midnight") and "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen" ("I have become a stranger to the world"), both of which she sang with rare naturalness and simplicity.
Shostakovich's King Lear — in a version that conflated the scores for director Grigori Kosintsev's 1941 stage production of the play in St. Petersburg/Leningrad and his 1970 Lear film — added yet another dimension to the concert: on four screens above the podium, the stunning black-and-white movie was actually shown, with the volume turned off most of the time. And there was no need for it: the music said it all, to say nothing of the exceptionally expressive faces of the movie's actors.
Next to the score, Abbado had a small screen from which he took his cues: Shostakovich's music follows the movie so closely that many gestures — a turn of the head, a glance, a bolt of lightning — are actually reflected in the music. In the maestro's hands, the Berlin Philharmonic revealed an amazing cosmos of extreme emotions. Elena Zhidkova radiated gorgeous mezzo-soprano sound as Cordelia; bass Anatoli Kotscherga limned the role of the Fool with tragicomic force. Every once in a while, the original Russian soundtrack was turned up, without subtitles — with the effect that the undecipherable words formed yet another level of "music."
It might be going too far to say that Abbado chose this piece because he sees
himself as Lear. And yet the parallels are obvious: it's all about change, loss,
solitude and death. One only wonders where Goneril and Regan, Lear's
cold-blooded daughters, fit in. In Abbado's mind, perhaps, they might be found
among his musicians: after all, the conductor reportedly feels "betrayed" in
that the orchestra did not want him anymore — which would have made his
farewell program in Berlin a sort of memoir.
