Reinhard Mayr and Irena Portenko
Our favorite song cycle is Winterreise, composed by Franz Schubert in 1828, a setting of text by Wilhelm Műller. We never miss an opportunity to hear it live and recall hearing it sung beautifully by students at our local musical conservatories. This gives the lie to the opinion that only a mature singer possesses the depth of feeling and finely developed artistry to do the work justice. Indeed the work is the pinnacle of German Romanticism, with elements of nature expressing emotion--in this case, the abject despair over the loss of love that can only be felt by the very young. Is the histrionic hyperbole of the text foreign to our age of irony and "kewel"? We think not! To this day, unstable teenagers commit suicide over romantic rejection.
This leads us to question the occasional practice of putting this cycle into the hands of female singers and men of various fachs. We ourself prefer the youthful coloration of a lyric tenor, as Schubert intended. We were curious to hear how it sounded sung by a bass and we did not enjoy it at all. Enjoyment is not quite the right word. We have always been moved to the core, fighting back tears as we recalled our own pain of lost love when we were but thirteen years old. And who among us has never experienced such pain?
Well, Dear Reader, last night at Weill Recital Hall, we fought off boredom, not tears. Two well-regarded musicians worked their way through the hour-plus cycle without reaching our heart. We will do our best to explain our lack of emotional connection and how the performance failed to draw us in. We cannot attribute it to our mood which was one of anticipation. Nor can we blame distance from the stage, since we were sitting as close as was possible.
Part of the problem may have been the quality of the bass fach. Tones often sounded angry and stentorian; perhaps that is the way Reinhard Mayr interpreted the story of a jilted youth wandering alone through the countryside. Nowhere did we hear any variety of coloration, whereas Schubert's piano part often gives us many shades of sadness--melancholy, disappointment, grief, despair, sorrow, loneliness, false hope, and resignation. The vocal performance was monochromatic. There was, however, a great variation in dynamics. When the volume was high, it was stentorian. When low, one could barely hear it over the piano.
Even worse were the exaggerated body movements. Mr. Mayr swayed back and forth constantly with his trunk forming circles. However, his hands remained locked in front of his body with fingers pressed together in the manner of men of the cloth delivering a sermon. We found this distracting.
There was no audience engagement, neither visual nor emotional. We wanted so much to see the barren wintry landscape through his eyes but there was nothing. We searched for something positive in the performance and the best we can say is that we understood his German, which is to be expected since he is of Austrian nationality. Singing in one's birth language should have given the singer an advantage in interpretation but there was none to be heard.
There also seemed to be a disconnect between the piano of Irena Portenko and the singer. One never had the feeling that they breathed together, something we have observed in good partnerships between singer and pianist. Ms. Portenko occasionally lost her place and kept the bass line going whilst scrolling through the score with her right hand. This lack of preparation is something we might have ignored had we been wrapped up in the emotional content but we were not.
Schubert's cycle is replete with harmonic interest and rhythmic variety that tells us what the protagonist is feeling and, sadly, this rarely came across. Schubert was already quite ill with syphilis when he composed this cycle and clearly mined his own grief so thoroughly that it seemed strange to be sitting in Weill Recital Hall feeling nothing. Schubert's genius expressed itself in his depiction of natural elements. One should be able to feel the snow, the ice, the menacing crow, the bareness of the landscape.
To our surprise, the audience applauded enthusiastically at the conclusion and we wondered whether there was something wrong with us. However, our opera singer seat mate was similarly bored and agreed with our criticism, offering some of her own. Not a very good night!
Just to find out whether we had grown bored with the cycle we played the first recording of Winterreise that we could find. It was Jonas Kaufman with Helmut Deutsch as collaborative pianist--from twenty years ago. We really needed to erase the memory of the live performance and reassure ourselves of the greatness of Schubert's masterpiece.
© meche kroop
