IIn the cast offices of the opera houses, the employees actually have to sleep on their desks at the moment. Because what the lockdown did not manage, the slowed opening option, including the spreading omicron variant, can now: In the music theaters, which are usually around 80 percent vaccinated, the corona outbreaks pile up behind the stage, especially on New Year’s Eve. And with it the rejections.
The “La Bohème” stars Ermonela Jaho and Michael Fabiano malad are in Madrid, luckily they have second and third casts in the house because of the many performances. In Vienna the New Year’s “Bohème” was replaced by “Tosca”, in Munich the New Year’s “Magic Flute” was replaced by a ballet. The dance troupes in Berlin and Hamburg are paralyzed, nothing has been going on on the Spree since Christmas until at least January 11th. In Frankfurt Rimsky-Korsakov will be canceled for the New Year, in Paris three out of four Beethoven Ninth singers had to be replaced.
In Leipzig, with the rest of Saxony in culture lockdown from mid-November to January 9, there was at least internet sparks of the gods live from the public Gewandhaus on New Year’s Eve from 5 p.m. While last year only two pianos and timpani were twinkling in the eerily empty hall, it was now back to the Beethoven affair. But one also asked the anxious question: “Can this work, created for the lively community of hundreds of musicians with thousands of listeners, also connect across a distance?”
Andris Nelsons, who was getting wider and wider, conducted a bearish, dark and powerful kiss from all over the world, especially the soloist quartet Christiane Karg, Mihoko Fujimura, Werner Güra and Georg Zeppenfeld. The empty vineyard room was illuminated in fridge blue. The choirs were placed on the galleries three seats apart, the men’s tails shine like steles in the dark. After the end of Schiller, there was standing waiting for the non-coming applause, as an absurd ritual, bouquets of flowers were still given in silence. Puffing, Nelsons wished all people out there a happy new year.
After all, Leipzig refers to tradition: 40 years ago Kurt Masur opened the third Gewandhaus with these sounds. And the Gewandhauskapellmeister Arthur Nikisch, who died 100 years ago, also set a strong example with this work and with the justification of the custom of performing it at the turn of the year – at that time for the “Peace and Freedom Concert” of the Workers’ Education Institute.
The closest TV New Year’s Eve musicians were those of the Dresden State Orchestra on ZDF, admittedly recorded the day before: Here, too, an empty Semper Opera, illuminated in red and gold instead of pop colors, little comforting lights in many of the stalls. Christian Thielemann has been delivering the most original end-of-year programs for years with his film-musically overwhelmed number sequences, but unfortunately it always sounds under-tested, it’s just not a band job; even if the salon orchestra makes a better sound figure in between.
This time again, the singers Hanna-Elisabeth Müller and Saimir Pirgu were too stiff as operas and inconspicuous in entertainment, a little cleavage, a Charleston band and sequins are just not enough for “From Berlin to Broadway”. After all, the selection from Gottfried Huppertz, Werner Richard Heymann, Franz Lehár, Paul Abraham, Emmerich Kálmán to Ralph Benatzky, from waltzes to tango, paso doble, shimmy to slowfox. And like in 2015 with Lang Lang, the Rhapsody in Blue by Gershwin brought a little fresh jazz feeling into the rotten chapel bones.
Igor Levit at Thielemann
Unusual this time the pianist: at the strictly conservative Thielemann the green court musician Igor Levit was allowed to prelude, very well-behaved in tails. As in Leipzig, there was repeated the reassuring TV banderole: All participants are currently tested negative. People applauded themselves, but were left with flowers after the finale.
The ZDF coincided with Arte, where the Berlin Philharmonic were deployed in the almost full hall, including the ex-chancellor. Unfortunately without her boss Kirill Petrenko, who had suffered a lumbago after the first rehearsal. Lahav Shani, who lives in Berlin and made his debut with the orchestra in 2020, stepped in – without a baton and tie, but in an ill-fitting suit.
However, changes made the already boring program even more tired. A Korngold overture and the high-calorie “whipped cream” suite by Richard Strauss were omitted, instead there was an all too tight “Fledermaus” overture (the title of which the wooden presenter Astrid Frohloff had forgotten at the beginning) and Stravinsky’s little flaming second “Firebird “-Suite.
The great Janine Jansen in a dress with too much black played her Bruch violin concerto mainly internalized. And Maurice Ravel’s waltz frenzy came across primarily apocalyptic. This time concertmaster Noah Bendix-Balgley brought the neutral New Year’s wishes.
For the Vienna New Year’s concert morning there was initially a disappointment on December 27th. The Philharmonic, last year the hall was also empty, had to throw 700 paying guests out of the actually full Musikverein due to the strict Austrian Corona regulations, the rank and galleries remained orphaned. After all, those who went empty already have their tickets for 2023 safe. The Viennese can do their waltz, sloppy and stretched between the second and third part of the bar, even if a conductor as unidiomatic as Daniel Barenboim is now at the podium for the third time.
He looked old, but there was a lot of visual variety in the lashed cheerfulness ritual of the bouquets and Lanners, Ziehrers and Hellmesbergers between the pink city nursery orchids. But – unlike Austria’s new Chancellor Karl Nehammer, who canceled his visit – ORF Marketing knows that the most important red, white and red long-term broadcast in 92 countries has to be filled here.
A butterfly flutters through Vienna
The evocative program, which started out of the ashes of the pandemic twice with the Phoenix March by Joseph and the Phoenixwing waltz by Johann Strauss, sent a lovingly in love extras through the empty picture book Vienna with the Morgenblätter waltz. During the break, an Apollo butterfly fluttered past Austria’s world cultural heritage sites, followed by a Barenboim grandson.
The Philharmoniker sang and whistled to Ziehrer’s night owl waltzes, while debutant Martin Schläpfer even let his Viennese State Opera ballet dance barefoot and not at all fairy-tale through Schönbrunn Palace, including the Gloriette, for the Thousand and One Nights Waltz. And the nymph polka gracefully tripped eight Lipizzaners in the Spanish Riding School.
After all, Daniel Barenboim said a few clear words about the musical “message of joy, friendship and peace” before the Blue Danube Waltz: “Just as musicians come together here in a tonally harmonious community, this may serve as an example for those who are not only healthy , but also the human catastrophe Corona, which is driving us apart. “
Unfortunately, Vienna is entering the third Corona year with routine. With Franz Welser-Möst as New Year’s conductor 2023, also for the third time, you don’t dare to break out.
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