Die ägyptische Helena. Richard Straus

7/29/2019 Die ägyptische Helena. Richard Straus

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Die agyptiscbe Helena. Richard Strauss

Helen: Leonie Rysanek

Aithra: Annettes Kupper

Hermione: Luise Comer

First Serving Maid: Antonic FahbergSecond Serving Maid: Lilian Benningsen

Omniscient Mussel: IraMalaniuk

Men tions: Bernd Aldenboff

Da-Ud: Richard Holm

Altair: Hermann Uhde

Orchestra an d Chorus of the Bavarian State

Opera

Joseph Keilberth, conductor

Live performance, 1956

plus excerpts from the opera:

Helens Awakening (orchestral interlude),

ac t 1;

"Bet jener Na cht0 (Helen's aria), act 1;"Zweite Brautnacht" (Helen* aria), act z,

Orchestral interlude, act 2,

Rose Pauly (soprano)

Orchestra of the Berlin State Opera

Fritz Busch, conductor

Melodram (distributed by Qualiton Imports,

Ltd.) ME L 27066 (2 CDs)

It is not without justification that opera companies continue to neglect StrausesDie agyptisebe Helena. Heldentenors for the role of Menelaus have never beenplentiful, and these days the title heroine and the sorceress Aithra are no t easilycast, either. Along w ith a problematic lib retto, the opera also poses large-scaleorchestral and scenic requirements. D uring the past two decades, only the fewmajor companies specializing in Strauss—Munich, Vienna, Santa Fe—havestaged the work. An earlier Munich production, dating from 1956, is thesource of this Melodram release.Die agyptiscbe Helena (1928) follows Intermezzo in the Strauss canon. The two

works resemble each other only in that each centers on the journey towardmutual understanding of one married couple. With his uniquely gifted libret-tist, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Strauss intended to deal with the story inoperetta terms; he was as surprised as anyone when Helena turned out muchgrander than originally anticipated. Five years after the premiere Strauss al-tered the second act significantly, collaborating with director Lothar Wallersteinand conductor Clemens Krauss. Unlike Verdi with Boccanegra and Pucciniwith Butterfly, in this case the alterations did little to increase the work'schances for success.

Basing his libretto on Euripides and Stesichorus, Hofrnannsthal first shows

us Aithra, a sorceress in love with Poseidon and currently languishing inher Mediterranean island palace near Egypt. The Omniscient Mussel (I'mnot making this up, you know!) tells Aithra that Helen of Troy, sailing homeafter the Trojan War, is about to be murdered by her husband, Menelaus.Aithra conjures up a storm, which brings the shipwrecked Helen and Mene-laus to her palace as guests. While Menelaus furiously pursues an apparitionof Paris, Aithra puts Helen to sleep with lotus juice, the drink of forget-fulness. The sorceress explains to Menelaus that Paris seduced a phantomHelen; the real Helen spent the war in a castle on Mount Atlas. Menelausnow loves Helen, w ho conveniently awakens. Instead of going home to Sparta,she makes an already tedious opera one act longer by asking Aithra to send

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her and her husband off to fun in the sun, in a place where no one will

know them.

The pair winds up at the foot of Mount Atlas, where, after a lusty night

with Helen (we encounter them the morning af ter) , Menelaus gives us more

doubts as to the identity of the real Helen. We meet the hectoring chieftainAltair and his wimpy son Da-Ud, Menelaus's rivals for Helen. Menelaus kills

Da-Ud and, after again sipping some tasty lotus juice, recognizes the real

Helen. Their child Hermione appears from nowhere, as if to say, "Now we're

all one happy family."

Ho fma nns thal may have had a long-s tandin g, serious interest in Greek

m yth s, but h ere he laid an egg. Particularly in the second act, the p lot inspires

a good deal of unintentional laughter, even a "who cares?" attitude in the

opera's listeners. Excepting moments in which Helen's charm and Aithra's

resourcefulness create a certain appeal, the dull characterizations and confus-

ing dramaturgy hardly represent Hofrnannsthal at his best.The libretto drew one magnificent response from Strauss, Helen's "Zweite

Brautnacht" in act 2—murderously difficult vocally but a real gift for a great

soprano. Only a few other episodes yield pleasure: the exquisite writing for

ho rns and flutes in the serene close of act 1 and th e "Helen's Aw akening"

interlude from the same act; the heroine's loving first-act aria; and two expan-

sive trios for Helen, Aithra, and Menelaus. There is much vocally cruel and

musically lifeless arioso, plus endless orchestral bombast that, while crafted

with the technical skill one expects in Strauss, becomes wearisome well before

the en d. Th e work is a chore to sit thro ug h, even in this performance with the

twenty-nine-year-old Leonie Rysanek as Helen.

Rysanek's Strauss heroines were a glory of international operagoing for

three and a half decades. Commercial recordings have not documented this

singer's career sufficiently; in an ideal world her finest portrayals would all be

preserved on disc. We should be grateful to those "private" recordings that fill

in the gaps.

The Viennese soprano sings Helen sublimely. Barring the occasional char-

acteristic imperfection—a scoop or two, a few cloudy moments in the middle

register—she com plem ents ravishing sou nd with com plete con trol of phrase

and dynamic. She is also able to exploit her predilection for leaps to highnotes , for instance , a ju m p to B-flat in act 1 on the word "Flamm ennacht" wi th

the voice truly aflame. She effortlessly covers two and a half octaves, up to a

lightly touched C-sharp in "Zweite Brautnacht." The opera's creators have not

made it possible for a three-dimensional being to emerge, yet with Rysanek

on e does get a sense of He len as a wa rm, utterly desirable wo m an.

If Rysanek had been in less splendid form, Annelies Kupper's failings would

not seem so obvious. Aithra is admittedly the opera's toughest role, demand-

ing a Salome voice with a flexibility and range exceeding that o f He len herself.

One of Strauss's favorite artists, Kupper—a famous Salome and the first to

portray the comp oser's D an ae— w as in late career by 1956. Shirking n on e of

Aithra's challenges, she sings strongly but with unattractive tone. Her debili-

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taring lack of vocal focus makes the soft passages especially hard to take. The

voice misses the femininity, mystery, and touch of quicksilver necessary for this

clever encha ntress. We are suppos edly listen ing t o "Aithra die Junge," yet all to o

often the sound would better suit the Witch in Hansel und Gretel.

Bernd AldenhofPs Menelaus barely passes muster. His one incontestablevirtue, shared with Kupper and the other singers, is admirably clear diction.

A Bay reuth Siegfried in th e 1950s w h o ma nag ed a single Tannh auser, o n e

Tristan, and two Parsifals at the Met in 1955, Aldenhoff can blast ou t an impres-

sive high note, but this goes for nothing beside the painful sounds he emits

when not singing at full tilt. His tenor is plagued by shallow tone, wobble,

and the inability to sing pianissimo securely. He departs frequently from the

score, both as far as note values and the pitches themselves are concerned, and

he cannot sing legato. He also spares his weak low range by taking many

phrases up an octave. Aldenhoff projects no definite persona, although the fact

that he is playing a nincompoop is not his fault.Th e others do w hat they can with characters that go no where. The less-than-

adequate recorded sound wreaks havoc with the miked voice of Ira Malaniuk;

still, the listener can detect blessedly solid contralto sound, the one essential

quali ty for the Omniscient Mussel. Richard Holm sings Da-Ud with a musi-

cality one wishes his tenor colleague Aldenhoff were able to emulate. Altair is

no m ore than a macho bass-baritone bellower—low F to high F-sharp within

his first minute of music. In this thankless role, a miscast Hermann Uhde

manages the considerable feat of negotiating the notes.

Joseph Keilberth and his Bavarian State Opera forces are ill-served by therecording. In the theater the instrumental timbres of this renowned Strauss

orchestra undoubtedly conveyed more color and brilliance. As far as one can

tell, the playing itself is more than competent, while lacking the shading and

sinuo us p hrasin g so necessary in this score. Strauss marked th e ope nin g of act

2 "passionate" and "very fiery"; the lack of impetuosity in Keilberth's version,

typical of the orchestral performance as a whole, reflects the reticence for

which critics often chided the late German conductor.

The set includes a welcome bonus: excerpts from the opera with soprano

Rose Pauly and the Berlin State Opera Orchestra under Fritz Busch, who led

the wo rld prem iere. Recorded in 1928, the Berlin orchestra com mu nicatesmore drama and sensuousness than Keilberth achieved with his Munich players

twen ty-eigh t years later. Helena's tw o extend ed solos find Pauly low on passion

(surprising for so famous an Elektra), but she soars through this taxing music

with silvery ease.

Melodram does purchasers no favors by failing to include a libretto or a

synopsis, both of which most listeners will desperately need for this work.

There is only a very brief introductory essay, in which typographical errors

abound. Rysanek's Helen deserves better.

Roger Pines

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Die ägyptische Helena. Richard Straus