The “Easter Festival in Autumn” was a triumph for Christian Thielemann.
It is his penultimate appearance in Salzburg as boss.
With Wagner he remains unrivaled, we have to talk about Mozart.
Seen in this way, the price per minute has fallen dramatically, from 4.60 euros in the opening concert to 2.20 euros at the Wagner party on the third day. The former remains bizarre, financially and programmatically. After just 50 minutes of the Mozart Requiem without the usual second work, the festival ends in the Great Festival Hall and the audience is released for dinner at a maximum price of 230 euros per ticket. The curiosity fits the entire event. This has to be called the “Easter Festival in Autumn” because in spring 2021 there was still lockdown and now, without the usual opera, four substitute concerts were organized on the All Saints weekend.
Christian Thielemann, soon relieved of all chief posts from Dresden via Bayreuth to Salzburg and asserting his freedom finally won, is allowed to play a penultimate time in Salzburg with his Staatskapelle Dresden.
It is well known that the end of the Easter Festival in 2022.
Then Nikolaus Bachler, ex-director of the Bavarian State Opera, takes over the sole regiment of the small, hyper-fine festival and invites a different orchestra every year.
Bachler and Thielemann have settled their war
You can call it a truce, peaceful coexistence, or modus vivendi. One thing is certain: the public catfight between Bachler and Thielemann is a thing of the past. You still don't love each other, but you act like professionals. And if you are celebrated like Thielemann this weekend, the forced departure may not hurt so badly.
Even after the first “Valkyrie” act in the Wagner concert, which lasts almost twice as long as the Mozart prelude, Richard's earthly deputy is blissfully extensively celebrated.
This well-developed Wagner has nothing to do with the big cream cake interpretation that Thielemann likes to say.
Unlike in the past, Thielemann wants his Dresdeners to be high revs right from the start, he intensifies the 60 minutes into a thriller, including pleasurable braking.
There is a smile from the boss for successful mini moments.
In general, it is currently unique how knowing concentration on detail balances each other with the large, tense elevation.
Mozart Requiem from the Stone Age
This is also the case after the break, in the snippets from “Götterdämmerung”. The Staatskapelle knows their Wagner inside out, Thielemann even more. And this team is only just beginning at a level that others can only achieve with difficulty. Anja Kampe has to make small compromises in Brünnhilde's final monologue, it is not genuinely highly dramatic. Before doing this, she sings a captivating, text-conscious Sieglinde and carries away Stephen Gould, who is also gray in sound and who divides Siegmund cleverly and consciously. René Pape as Hunding is luxury, and he knows it too. Standing ovations, the Wagner evening entitled “Winterstürme” sweeps through the Festspielhaus like an autumn orca.
You almost forgot the beginning.
Thielemann delivers a Mozart requiem from the Stone Age conductor.
Fugues and big tutti moments boom al fresco.
The actually famous Salzburg Bach Choir, otherwise used to more subtle things, struggles.
The conductor seems to be interested almost only in the solo moments, which - whether Recordare or Benedictus - are much more differentiated.
Golda Schultz, Christa Mayer and René Pape offer something exquisite here, including Sebastian Kohlhepp, who somehow got lost in the wrong performance with his fine sonic speech.
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Hilary Hahn (right) receives the Karajan Prize from the conductor's daughter Arabel Karajan.
© Matthias Creutziger
Traditionally, a guest is brought in for a concert at the Easter Festival. Daniele Gatti, who fell at the Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam because of alleged #MeToo stories, conducts as if he wanted to apply for Thielemann's successor from 2024 in Dresden. Mendelssohn Bartholdy's overture “Calm Sea and Happy Voyage” becomes a multi-layered sound painting, especially Schumann's Third Symphony. In terms of sound, this is only half-bold, but flexible, crafted with aplomb, rich in energy, always relying on the old gold charm of the Staatskapelle. Only Mozart, the violin concerto KV 219, cannot get beyond a petitesse on velvet paws. How things have to be done differently is shown by soloist Hilary Hahn with her offensive, very plastic interpretation. The cadences, which descend into the remote, come from herself.And for the Karajan Prize presented by Bachler and Karajan's daughter Arabel, Hahn thanks him with an emotional speech that celebrates the restart of cultural life.
For the finale of the somewhat different Easter Festival, there was Strauss's “Heldenleben” on Monday evening.
And you can be sure that this time it was not just about autobiographical issues from the composer's life, but that Thielemann also meant himself.
One more time, next spring, with a week that is formed around a new "Lohengrin".
The Salzburg jubilation for the Dresdeners and their still boss is like an acclamation.
It would be unwise if Bachler would forego this best possible combination in a future Wagner project.