The New York Philharmonic presents a remake of Beethoven’s sole opera, ‘Fidelio,’ with entirely new music, and the result is a gloomy production leached of the original’s passion.
A scene from ‘prisoner of the state’ PHOTO: CHRIS LEEByHeidi WalesonJune 12, 2019 2:47 p.m. ET
New York
With “prisoner of the state,” given its world premiere last week by the New York Philharmonic, composer David Lang remakes Beethoven’s sole opera, “Fidelio,” with entirely new music. His version strips away not only the awkward comic elements and secondary love stories of the original, but also rejects both its central narrative premise—rescue—and its theme, the triumph of justice. What remains is a gloomy, 65-minute oratorio that extends the prison setting to the wider world. As Mr. Lang’s Prisoner sings: “Everywhere we are in chains. The difference here—between prison and outside—in here you see the chains.” The production, directed by Elkhanah Pulitzer with scenic design by Matt Saunders and costumes by Maline Casta, ringed the David Geffen Hall stage with chain-link fencing topped by barbed wire. The onstage orchestra wore black watch caps, and the chorus, in yellow prison garb, occupied a raised platform at the rear.
Mr. Lang devised his own English libretto, following Beethoven’s basic template but adding references and texts from Machiavelli, Rousseau, Hannah Arendt and Jeremy Bentham. The characters have titles rather than names (Assistant, Jailer, Governor, Prisoner) and there’s a chorus of Prisoners and four Guards. The opera begins with the Assistant’s simple, wistful song, “I was a woman once.” It is an early high point of the score, particularly as sung by Julie Mathevet in an ethereal, vibrato-free soprano. She’s the Prisoner’s wife, pretending to be a boy in order to save him, but her straight tone, as we will see, also suggests that she is powerless.
Indeed, in damping down the narrative thrust of the story, Mr. Lang leached much of the passion from it. There’s nothing corresponding to Leonore’s defiant “Abscheulicher!” The Prisoner’s aria, “uhhh, so dark,” is oddly pretty and tonal; with his mellifluous baritone, Jarrett Ott sounded more like Jesus in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, already passed to the other side, rather than a living man in extremis, as in the Beethoven original. (He was seen in a video feed from his cell beneath the stage apron.) Even the music of the Governor (tenor Alan Oke), his villain’s part beefed up with utterances like the aria based on Machiavelli’s line “Better to be feared than loved,” is matter-of-fact rather than nasty. The Jailer’s aria about gold has more texture, and Eric Owens used the weight of his bass to express a cynical, downtrodden view of a world where nothing matters but money.
The opera’s most interesting musical moments were choral, like the chilling a cappella number in which the short, choppy phrases of the Prisoners (“We break. We are worked”) were woven with those of the Guards (“We punish so we can forgive”). (The men’s chorus came from the Concert Chorale of New York; Matthew Pearce, John Matthew Myers, Steven Eddy and Rafael Porto were the Guards.) Most of the dramatic tension was built in the orchestra, conducted by Jaap van Zweden, using repeated melodic cells and slashing percussion that created an undertone of darkness and dread. The darkness is warranted: There is no rescue. The Assistant fires a gun at the Governor to protect the Prisoner; the Governor smiles, and takes the weapon. The trumpet of rescue sounds, but the Governor sings, “In a better world, the inspectors would arrive at just the right moment” and “Until we hear [the people] crying out ‘Freedom’…No one man is ever safe or free.” The noisy finale throws the responsibility for liberation back on the audience, but its musical confusion suggests that this will not be an easy job.
—Ms. Waleson writes on opera for the Journal and is the author of “Mad Scenes and Exit Arias: The Death of the New York City Opera and the Future of Opera in America” (Metropolitan).
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