"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
-- Sinclair Lewis
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Sunday Classics: "Wretches like us" -- class warfare and the tragic depths of Berg's "Wozzeck"
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WOZZECK: What is to be poor! You see, sir, it's all a matter of money, money. But if you haven't any, just try bringing children into the world in a moral fashion then. We are flesh and blood as well. Certainly, if I were a gentleman and owned a hat and a watch and a monocle and spoke in a genteel way, then I would be virtuous too. It must be a fine thing to be virtuous, sir. But I'm only a poor fellow. People like us are always unfortunate in this world and the next. I believe that if we went to heaven, we should be set to work to help make the thunder.
-- Wozzeck, to the Captain, in Act I, Scene 1 (translation by Sarah E. Soulsby for Decca Records, 1988)
Mack Harrell (bs-b), Wozzeck; New York Philharmonic, Dimitri Mitropoulos, cond. Columbia/CBS/Sony, live recording of a concert performance, 1951
by Ken
"Wretches like us" isn't exactly what Wozzeck says when he finally expounds beyond "Jawohl, Herr Hauptmann" ("Yes indeed, Captain"). It's Richard Stokes's English rendering of the simpler phrase "Wir arme Leut'" -- "We poor people." But it's a rendering that's not only vivider but maybe even truer to the original, or anyway truer to the sense of the original.
I was kind of shocked when my friend Richard mentioned, in whichever season the Met last did Alban Berg's Wozzeck (based on the play be the tragically short-lived Georg Büchner, 1813-1837), that he had traded in his subscription tickets for it. I knew it couldn't be because of that awful "modern" music (can a piece first performed in 1925 still really be thought of as "modern"? perhaps so), because I know he loves Wozzeck. He's an old-fashioned romantic opera-lover, but that romantic operatic passion extends naturally to repertory that some people might find surprising, like the operas of Janáček -- and Wozzeck.
No, the problem was almost that he loves the opera too much, and takes it too seriously. He just wasn't prepared to face the horribleness of it, and he mentioned specifically the opera's final image: of the toddler who has just lost both his parents -- who up to that moment had hardly anything or anyone in the world and now has nothing and no one -- riding his hobby horse chanting, "Hop-hop, hop-hop, hop-hop."
BERG: Wozzeck, Op. 7: Act III, Scenes 4-5
WOZZECK, having murdered MARIE in a jealous rage by plunging a knife in her throat by a pond in the woods, has staggered his way back to the pond, realizing that he lost his grip on the knife. Overwhelmed with terror and guilt, he stumbles over the corpse, then actually finds the knife and throws it in the water, then decides it will be found and incriminate him. He staggers into the water after it, but is dragged into the water.
Who should happen by the pond then but WOZZECK's old nemeses the CAPTAIN and the DOCTOR? They imagine they hear the voice of a drowning man and naturally hurry off.
The scene shifts to the street in front of MARIE's dwelling, where her little son is riding a hobby horse. Word spreads among the neighborhood children of her murder. Before they rush off to the pond to see for themselves, one of them thoughtfully tells her son: "You! Your mother is dead!" The child is left riding the hobby horse, chanting, "Hop-hop, hop-hop, hop-hop."
Eberhard Wächter (b), Wozzeck; Heinz Zednik (t), the Captain; Alexander Malta (bs), the Doctor; Vienna Philharmonic, Christoph von Dohnányi, cond. Decca, recorded December 1979
(1) Friday night: Meet Marie (the Act I solo scene, including the lullaby) (2) Saturday night: Meet Wozzeck -- "Wretches like us" (the scene with the Captain)
Act I, Scene 2: Franz Hawlata as Wozzeck and Joel Sorensen as his friend Andres in San Diego, 2007
BERG: Wozzeck, Op. 7: Act I, Opening Scene: "Wretches like us!"
Wretches like us! You see, Herr Hauptmann, wealth, wealth! Without money! Let one of us try to bring his own kind into the world in a fine moral way! We have flesh and blood too!
[in English] Andrew Shore (b), Wozzeck; Philharmonia Orchestra, Paul Daniel, cond. Chandos, recorded July 1-18, 2002
by Ken
Last night we met our "heroine," Marie, flirting with the ruggedly handsome Drum Major, then returning her attention to her poor bastard baby boy. Now we go back to the opening scene, where the boy's father, the soldier Franz Wozzeck, is under siege from the Captain he's trying to shave.
We're going to hear the whole scene in the click-through -- from this same English-language recording, from the DG Wozzeck from which we heard Marie's Act I solo scene last night, and finally in Italian (!) with the celebrated character tenor Hugues Cuénod as the Captain and Tito Gobbi as Wozzeck.
Sunday Classics preview: Berg's "Wozzeck" -- (1) Introducing Marie
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BERG: Wozzeck, Op. 7: Act I, Scene 3 (excerpt)
What will you do now, poor lamb? You have a child but no man! Ah, why worry, poor mite? I'll sing through the live-long night. Hush-a-bye baby, my darling boy, nobody cares about us!
Josephine Barstow (s), Marie; Philharmonia Orchestra, Paul Daniel, cond. Chandos, recorded July 1-18, 2002
by Ken
We're going to meet poor woebegone Wozzeck in tomorrow's preview. I thought we would start tonight with Marie, the mother of his child. This is her first scene in the opera, and we'll hear a fuller version in the click-through. For now I wanted you to hear just this bit of lullaby, sung by a wonderful artist, Dame Josephine Barstow.
It's just a shame she didn't get to record Marie until 2002, when she was pushing 62. Earlier on, considering that she was not only a lovely singer but a strikingly lovely woman and a terrific actress, she must have been a stunning Marie.
(I remember being close to bowled over by her when she came to the Met as, of all things, Musettta in Puccini's La Bohème -- so striking, vocally and dramatically, in a performance that otherwise didn't have a whole lot of drama going, that it was hard to say exactly that she was wasted in the role. It was the first time it occurred to me that the role has some real dramatic possibilities.)
[6/19/2011] Sunday Classics: "Wretches like us" -- class warfare and the tragic depths of Berg's "Wozzeck" (continued)
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As if this poor little fellow's prospects weren't bleak enough when he still had a father and mother (Alan Held as Wozzeck and Waltraud Meier as Marie at the Met, 2011) . . .
It's funny to be thinking about this poor doomed child so soon after writing about how Congressman and Mrs. Paul Ryan have socked away $150K for their three little ones' college education (a good part of their wealth coming, it seems from her family's mining interests) -- excellent parenting unless you consider it in the light of the congressman's uncomprehending Ayn Randian economic "philosophy," based on his assumption that everything he has, he earned for himself, whereas in reality most everything he has, without his realizing it, was handed to him on an at least pewter platter.
We've already met this poor child's mother, Marie, in Friday night's preview, and his father, Wozzeck, in last night's preview. What's remarkable in Berg's setting of the material is the depth of his empathy, his understanding from the inside of what it feels like to see the world through their eyes, as a place of almost no opportunity, and with even less opportunity for their helpless little boy. (In the Act II Bible-reading we're going to hear shortly, Marie will either coincidentally or comprehendingly read about a child left with no one to care for him.)
FIRST LET'S HEAR WOZZECK WITH HIS OTHER NEMESIS, THE DOCTOR
BERG: Wozzeck, Op. 7: Act I, Scene 4, Wozzeck and the Doctor
English singing translation by Richard Stokes
Scene 4.The Doctor's study. Sunny afternoon.
[Passacaglia: Theme]
DOCTOR [rushes to meet WOZZECK as he comes in the door]: This is monstrous, Wozzeck! You gave your word. Dear, dear, dear! WOZZECK: What is it, Herr Doktor? DOCTOR: I saw it all, Wozzeck, again I saw you pissing. Pissing there on the pavement, just like a dog! Is it for th is that I pay you three groschen? Wozzeck! This is bad! The world is bad, so bad! [Groaning] Oh! WOZZECK: Surely, Herr Doktor, when forced to it by Nature . . .
[Variation I]
DOCTOR [flaring up]: By nature! By nature! Superstition -- deplorable superstition! Have I not demonstrated that the bladder is subject to the human will? [Flares up again] Call of nature, Wozzeck?! Humans are free! In man, individuality is sublimated into freedom! [Shaking his head to himself] Urinating!
[Variation II]
[To WOZZECK again] Now then, I hope you've eaten your beans up, Wozzeck? [WOZZECK nods.] Only beans, now, nothing else but beans, don't forget! And during next week, we'll introduce a . . .
[Variation III]
. . . little mutton. There'll soon be a new revolution in medicine: [counting off on his fingers] protein, lipids, carbohydrates. [Broad gesture] And next: Oxyaldehydanhydride . . . [gesture] [With sudden anger] And yet, you insisted on pissing . . . [Goes up to WOZZECK, then checks himself]
[Variation IV]
No! . . . I must not get so angry, anger is ad for you and unscientific! I am quite calm, my pulse is beating its regular sixty Good God! Why lose sleep over a mere human being? If a salamander died, that would be far more serious. {Again agitated.] This is monstrous. Wozzeck, you really shouldn't have urinated!
[Variation V]
WOZZECK {tries to pacify the DOCTOR, who is making furious gestures]: You see, Herr Doktor, sometimes people have a structure, it's how we're made, and yet, and yet with Nature it's different. [Snaps his fingers] You see, with Nature it's . . . it is like . . . how shall I describe it . . . I mean . . . DOCTOR: Wozzeck, you're philosophizing!
[Variation VI]
WOZZECK: When Nature has . . . DOCTOR [imitating WOZZECK]: What? When nature has . . . ? WOZZECK]: When Nature has died, and the world has darkened so, so you have to fumble around for it with your hands, and you feel that it crumbles like spiders' webs . . . Ah! When it's there but is not . . .
[Variation VII]
. . . there! Ah! Ah!
[Variation VIII]
Marie! When everything is dark, [takes a few steps across the room with outstretched arms] and the western sky just glows like fire, flaming from a furnace . . . Oh what, what is there to . . . DOCTOR: Christ, you're lurlching, as though your body was standing on . . .
[Variation IX]
WOZZECK: . . . cling to? DOCTOR: . . . spider legs. WOZZECK [stays near the DOCTOR; confidentially]: Herr Doktor, when at midday the sun is high, and it seems the world is bursting into flames . . .
[Variation X]
. . . then I hear them, terrifying voices start talking to me. DOCTOR: Wozzeck, you have got an . . .
[Variation XI]
. . . aberatio! WOZZECK [interrupting]: The toadstools! Have you observed the circles of the toadstools out there on the ground?
[Variation XII]
Figurations and circles . . . oh, to understand them!
[Variation XIII]
[track 2] DOCTOR: Wozzeck -- just like a lunatic! you're presenting with an idée fixe, a most wonderful . . .
[Variation XIV]
. . . aberatio mentalis partialis, second species. Nicely cultivated!
[Variation XV]
Wozzeck, you shall get another rise!
[Variation XVI]
You're doing all your duties? Shaving your Captain? Catching my lizards?
[Variation VII]
Eating our beans up? WOZZECK: I do everything, Herr Doktor; the money I earn is for Marie. It's for . . .
[Variation XVIII]
. . . her I work! DOCTOR: You are a fascinating case. Just behave yourself, Wozzeck, and there'll be yet another groschen [penny] payment. But what d'you have to do? WOZZECK [paying no attention to the DOCTOR]: Ah, Marie! DOCTOR: What must you do? WOZZECK: Marie! DOCTOR: What? WOZZECK: Ah!
[Variation XIX]
DOCTOR: Eat those beans up, then move on to mutton; no pissing, keep on shaving your Captain, and cultivate your idée fixe, my boy!
[Variation XX]
Oh! [Increasingly ecstatic] My hypothesis! Oh my fame! I shall be immortal! Immortal! Immortal!
[Variation XXI]
[At the height of ecstasy] Immortal! [Suddenly quite calm, walking up to WOZZECK] Wozzeck, let me look at your tongue now. [WOZZECK obeys.]
CURTAIN [at first very fast, then suddenly slow, and closing very gradually]
[in English] Clive Bayley (bs), the Doctor; Andrew Shore (b), Wozzeck; Philharmonia Orchestra, Paul Daniel, cond. Chandos, recorded July 1-18, 2002 [in German] Karl Christian Kohn (bs), the Doctor; Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (b), Wozzeck; Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Karl Böhm, cond. DG, recorded March-Apr. 1965
NOW WE'RE GOING TO HEAR THE THREE-MOVEMENT SUITE FROM THE OPERA ARRANGED BY BERG HIMSELF
And with it we're going to have the excellent commentary provided for RCA's booklet notes by the late Neville Cardus (1889-1975), onetime music critic of The Guardian. To make matters more confusing, we are going to hear the extraordinary recording of the suite Cardus's notes were written to accompany -- but only at the end, all together. It's a different performance we'll be hearing movement by movement.
NEVILLE CARDUS: The recorded excerpts being toward the end of the second scene of Act I. Wozzeck and another soldier are in a field in the late afternoon. Already Wozzeck has premonitions of the tragedy to come. "The place is accursed," he says. "Still, all is still, and the world is dead." Our first excerpt begins orchestrally and in twenty bars takes us to Marie's room. We hear a military band passing beneath the window. Marie, with her child, is watching. She burst into song at sight of the Drum Major:
Soldiers, soldiers are handsome fellows!
She closes the window and begins to rock the child to sleep. Her music is a German nursery cradlesong done into semi-atonalism:
Come, my boy, what do people expect? You are only a harlot's child, yet you give your mother joy with your unhallowed face.
Girl, what now can be done? You have got a child and no husband. What's the good of asking? If I should sing the livelong night: "Hush, my baby sweet," not a soul would come to my aid. Hansel, harness your six white chargers, give them your fodder, give them to drink. No fodder they'll eat, no water they'll drink! Only cool wine must it be!
Hanne-Lore Kuhse (s), Marie; Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra, Herbert Kegel, cond. Deutsche Schallplatten/Vanguard, recorded c1966
NEVILLE CARDUS: The recording moves from this scene to the opening of Act III. Marie is again in her room, alone with her child. By candlelight she reads from the Bible the story of the woman taken in adultery:
"And there is no guile found in His mouth . . ." Lord, Lord, look not upon me!
Variation [Marie continues reading] But the Pharisees brought unto Him a woman that lived in adultery. Jesus said:
Variation II: ""I condemn thee not; go now and sin no more!"
Variation III [Looking at her child] Lord God, the boy stabs me to the heart! Go! You're nothing to brag about!
Variation IV [Marie cries suddenly] No, no! Come here! Come to me!
Variation V [She begins to tell the child a story]: "Once there was a poor child that had neither father no mother -- Both were dead, and there was no one else in the world -- And it was hungry and wept day and night.
Variation VI [Continuing the narration]: "And since he had no one left in the world . . ." Franz has not come, not yesterday, not today . . .
Variation VII [Turning quickly to the Bible]: What is written here about the Magdalen?
Fugue [Solo viola take s over the subject at the second bar, a solo violin at the third, and a solo double bass at the fourth. Marie reads, then beats her breast]: "And she knelt and kissed His feet and wept, mostening them with her tears, and anointed them with ointment . . . " Holy one, I would anoint Thy feet also. Lord, Thou hadst pity on her; have pity on me too!
Hanne-Lore Kuhse (s), Marie; Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra, Herbert Kegel, cond. Deutsche Schallplatten/Vanguard, recorded c1966
NEVILLE CARDUS: Now we go to the opera's shattering climax. Wozzeck has murdered Marie, and himself has drowned, searching for the knife. The music marvelously evokes the haunted night,, the sinister forest and pool, and the blood-red moon. In the orchestra there are ghostly croakings and gurglings. Somehow these instrumental tones make silence audible. The Captain and Doctor pass by. They hear Wozzeck's death gasp. Then they hurry away in dread. Berg moves to the opera's end by means of an orchestral interlude. It is an adagio and a lamentation, sadly reviewing the main motifs associated with Wozzeck. This interlude is essentially Mahlerian in tone-flavors and the melodic shapings. It reveals Berg as a born romantic, and a man of as much heart as brain. A flash of celesta tone reveals the last scene and the bright sunshine. Wozzeck's little boy is rocking on the hobbyhorse. The other children sing Ring-a-roses. Now comes the messenger of doom, in the guise of another innocent child, who points to Marie's boy, telling the dread news. Marie's baby rides on, as the rest of the children run away; he is left alone on the stage, singing "Hop, hop!" -- left alone in the world, no father, no mother, alone in the mercilessly ironic world of Büchner and Berg. But Berg's music, at the end, somehow purges terror with pity.
Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra, Herbert Kegel, cond. Deutsche Schallplatten/Vanguard, recorded c1966
NOW LET'S HEAR THE COMPLETE RCA RECORDING OF BERG'S THREE MOVEMENTS FROM WOZZECK
Phyllis Curtin (s), Marie; Sacred Heart Boychoir of Roslndale, Massachusetts, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Erich Leinsdorf, cond. RCA, recorded c1963
Hildegard Behrens as Marie and Alan Held as Wozzeck in San Francisco, 1999
HERE'S THE FULL OPENING SCENE OF WOZZECK -- IN ENGLISH, GERMAN, AND ITALIAN
BERG: Wozzeck, Op. 7: Act I, Scene 1
[NOTE: This is the singing translation by Richard Stokes used in the Chandos English-language recording.]
Scene 1.The CAPTAIN's room. Early morning. The CAPTAIN is sitting on a chair in front of a mirror. WOZZECK is shaving the CAPTAIN.
CAPTAIN: Slowly, Wozzeck, slowly! One thing at a time! [Anxiously] You make me quite giddy . . . [covers himself with his hand; steadies himself; WOZZECK stops what he is doing] What can I do with the extra ten minutes leisure time if you finish early today? [WOZZECK continues shaving with interruptions.] Wozzeck, consider: you still have thirty years ahead of you, remember! Thirty years! That's three hundred sixty months, you know. And then all those days and hours and minutes. What can you possibly want with such a vast expanse of time? [Serious again] Sort yourself out, Wozzeck! WOZZECK: Of course, Herr Hauptmann! CAPTAIN [mystically]: It makes me afraid for the world, to think of eternity. Eternity -- that's eternal, you understand. Now, all of a sudden, it's not eternal, merely one moment, yes, one moment! Wozzeck, it frightens me when I consider that he world revolves in just one day! Whenever I see millwheels go round, I am laid low with melancholia! WOZZECK: Of course, Herr Hauptmann! CAPTAIN: Wozzeck, you always appear so harassed! A decent man doesn't fret; a decent man, with a conscience beyond reproach, always moves slowly . . . [Almost spoken] Say something then, Wozzeck.
[Gigue]
And what about the weather? WOZZECK: It's bad, Herr Hauptmann! Wind! CAPTAIN: I sense it; there's something so blust'ry out there. Such a wind sets my teeth on edge, ,just like a mouse. [Artfully] I think the wind is blowing from south-north? WOZZECK: Of course, Herr Hauptmann! CAPTAIN [laughs loudly] Ha ha! Ha ha ha! South-north! [Even more loudly] Ha ha! Ha ha ha! Ha ha! Ha ha! Oh, you are dumb, quite absurdly dumb. [track 2] [Sympathetically] Wozzeck, you are a decent man, and yet . . . you have no moral sense!
[Quasi Gavotte]
You don't conduct yourself morally! (You follow? A most delightful word.) [With pathos] You have a child who is not blessed by our God's church. WOZZECK: Of course . . . [Stops] CAPTAIN: As our regimental chaplain always preaches to the men: "Not bless'd by God's holy church" (the words are not my own).
[Double I]
WOZZECK: Herr Hauptmann, the Lord above will not spurn the poor little creature, just because the "Amen" was not spoken before the mite was made. The Lord said, "Suffer the children to come to me!"
[Double II]
CAPTAIN {jumping up in a rage]: What do you mean? And what sort of curious answer is that? You make me quite confused! [His voice cracks.] When I say 'You," then I mean "You," "You" . . .
[Air]
Wretches like us! You see, Herr Hauptmann, wealth, wealth! Without money! Let one of us try to bring his own kind into the world in a fine moral way! We have flesh and blood too! Oh, if I were well bred, and had a top hat, a pocket watch and a monocle and a proper accent . . . then I would be virtuous too! It must be wonderful to be virtuous, Herr Hauptmann. But I'm only a poor man! Men like us always will be ill-fated in this world and in any other world! I think, if we ever got to Heaven, we'd all have to manufacture thunder!
[Prelude in retrograde: Introduction]
CAPTAIN [somewhat nonplussed]: All right, all right! [Pacifying] I know. You are a decent man, [exaggerating] a decent man, [more controlled] only you think too much. That's bad. You always appear so harassed. [Anxiously] Our discussion has quite fatigued me. Run along, but don't rush ahead! Down the avenue and back to the barracks. [WOZZECK is about to depart in his usual haste.] And keep in the middle, remember, nice and slowly, yes slowly! [WOZZECK exits]
CURTAIN
[in English] Stuart Kale (t), the Captain; Andrew Shore (b), Wozzeck; Philharmonia Orchestra, Paul Daniel, cond. Chandos, recorded July 1-18, 2002
[in German] Gerhard Stolze (t), the Captain; Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (b), Wozzeck; Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Karl Böhm, cond. DG, recorded March-Apr. 1965
[in Italian] Hugues Cuénod (t), the Captain; Tito Gobbi (b), Wozzeck; RAI Rome Symphony Orchestra, Nino Sanzogno, cond. Live performance, Sept. 30, 1954
You'd think after meeting Marie last night and Wozzeck tonight, the plan was to bring them together tomorrow. Alas, no. But we are going to hear more of each of them, and hear how the whole sorry drama ends.
[6/17/2011] Preview: Berg's "Wozzeck" (1) -- introducing Marie (continued)
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Katarina Dalayman as Marie and Alan Held as Wozzeck at the Met, 2005
HERE'S THE WHOLE OF MARIE'S ACT I SOLO SCENE
BERG: Wozzeck, Op. 7: Act I, Scene 3 beginning
[NOTE: This is the singing translation by Richard Stokes used in the Chandos English-language recording.]
Scene 3.Marie's room. Evening. Marie stands with her child on her arm at the window.
MARIE [speaks]: Tschin-bum, tschin-bum, bum, bum, bum! [The military band approaches.] Can you hear, boy? They're coming. [The band, headed by the DRUM MAJOR, comes into the street before MARIE's window.] MARGRET [in the street, looks through the window and says to MARIE]: What a man! Built like a tree! MARIE [through the window to MARGRET]: Look at him -- as proud as a lion! [The DRUM MAJOR greets MARIE, who waves to him.] MARGRET: You little flirt! We're not used to that from you!
[Quasi trio]
MARIE [sings to herself]: Our soldiers, our soldiers, what handsome creatures! [Stops singing.] MARGRET [still spoken through the window]: You see! Your eyes are smoldering! MARIE: And what's that to you? Take your own eyes to the Jew and have them polished -- perhaps then you could sell them as two bright little buttons! MARGRET: Why -- you prim little maid! I'm respectable; but we all know that y ou can stare your way through seven pairs of leather trousers! MARIE [shouts at her]: Bitch! [Slams the window. She is alone with the child. The military band is suddenly inaudible as the window is closed.] [Flaring up] Come, my boy! Never mind what they say! [Takes the child in her arms.] You are just a bastard child [sits] and give your mother such pleasure with your sweet bastard little face! [She rocks the child.] Hush-a-bye baby! . . .
[Lullaby]
What will you do now, poor lamb? You have a child but no man! Ah, why worry, poor mite? I'll sing through the live-long night. Hush-a-bye baby, my darling boy, nobody cares about us! Johnny, go saddle your horses now, fill up their troughs to the brim. Oats simply are far too rough, no water clean enough. Purest, coolest wine it must be. [She notices that the child is asleep.] Purest, coolest wine it must be!
[in English] Josephine Barstow (s), Marie; Jean Rigby (ms), Margret; Philharmonia Orchestra, Paul Daniel, cond. Chandos, recorded July 1-18, 2002
And here's the scene in the original German -- starting earlier, going back into the orchestral interlude from the previous scene -- from the first stereo recording of Wozzeck, conducted by Karl Böhm, still my favorite recording of the opera.
Evelyn Lear (s), Marie; Alice Oelke (ms), Margret; Orchestra of the Deutsche Opera Berlin, Karl Böhm, cond. DG, recorded March-Apr. 1965
