Die ägyptische Helena. Original version (1928)

7/29/2019 Die ägyptische Helena. Original version (1928)

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native of Salzburg, might well have heard it voice on a 1968 recording of act2, scene 2,during a summer vacation from his job at last seen on Electrolac-063-01850 (LP).Ulm . Perhaps study of the Salzburg reviews 10. All the music is present, though thewould cast clearer light on the matter. Empress's spoken lines in the third act are

9. Berry can be heard in much fresher somew hat abridged.

Intermezzo (1924)

Lucia Popp, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Adolf Dallapozza, Gabriele Fuchs, Klaus Hirte ,Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Wolfgang Sawallisch. Angel/EMI

Germany (not distributed in the U.S.A.)CDS 7 49337 2 (2 CD s)

The onlycomplete commercially recorded In termezzo,dating from theearly 1980s, appears to

have been absent from the American catalog since around 1990. When we soughtsome clarificationabout the apparent deletion of this u nique set, British EMI affiliate Richard Bradburn informed usthat "this tide, originated by EM I Germany, remains in the International (European catalog:

page 142 of 1999 catalog). I would never be so callous as to mark it down for deletion—especially notas [1999] is, as [yousay], the fiftieth anniversary ofStrauss's death" (e-mail to

editor, 17 November1998).

Die agyptische Helena

Original version (1928)Helena: Gwyneth Jones The OmniscientMussel: Birgit FinnildAithra: Barbara Hend ricks Detroit Symphony OrchestraMen elas: Matti Kastu Antal Dorati,conductorAltair: Willard White London GrandOpera Series (distributed b yDa-ud: Curtis Rayam PolyGramClassics) 430 381-2 (2 CDs)

Revised version (1933)

Helena: Leonie Rysanek Orchestra an d Chorus of the BavarianAithra: Annelies Kupp er State OperaMenelas: Bernd Aldenhoff Joseph Keilberth, conductorAltair: Hermann Uhde Live performance, Munich, 10 August1956Da-ud: Richard Holm Orfeo (distributedby Qualiton Imports)The OmniscientMussel: IraMalaniuk C 424 962 I (2 CDs)

The Egyptian Helenhas always been considered the least successful of theStrauss-Hofmannsthal collaborations, and many commentators have dismissedthe work ou t of hand.1 Dramatically, Helena is all too easily made fun of, on asuperficial level. Its message might be summarized thus: All men are idiots,

ruled by their horm ones, hence a beautiful, sexually desirable woman can (anddeserves to) getaway with just about anything; furthermore, drug-takingis notthe answer to m arital problems.2

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Helena is, next to Guntram, the most self-consciously Wagnerian of Strauss'soperas, which may be one reason why the w ork received sucha lukewarm recep-tion at its 1928 Dresden premiere; it must have seemed curiously old-fashioned.Hofmannsthal may have convinced himself and Strauss that he was writing a

modern statement about the nature of matrimony, bu t in fact his libretto con-sistently falls back on Wagnerian models. The potions of forgetfulness and rec-ollection are straight out ofGotterdammerung (where Hagen at least doesn'tcarelessly leave them lying around, risking a mix-up, the way Aithra and hermaidservants do). Examples of pretentious wordplay such as "Totlebendige!Lebendigtote!" and "Ungetreue, Ewig-Eine, Ewig-Neue! Ewig Geliebte!Einzige Nahe! Wie ich dich fasse, wie ich in dir vergehe!" are also very muchin the Wagnerian tradition. Confronted with such text, Strauss could scarcelyavoid writing pseudo-Wagnerian music.

Act 1 is the better of the two and certainly the more consistent in style; thesupernatural element, as representedby Aithra,her potions, and her elves, helpsto keep things moving. The confrontation between Menelas and Helena, inwhich both stall for time (he intends to kill her but cannot bring himself to doso ; she proves herselfan expert at reverse psychology, easily manipulating herhusband), has its moments. Predictably, the best music in the first art is givento the orchestra alone: Helena's Awakeningis the kind of evocative instrumentalpassage, interweaving previously heard leitmotifs into a transformed texture,that Strauss always excels at.

Act 2 begins with H elena's exultant mo nolog ue, "Zweite Brautnacht," the

only num ber from this opera to have achieved an independen t existence (thememorable Leontyne Price recording, conducted by Erich Leinsdorf andrecently reissued on RCA'sEssential Leontyne Price com pilation 68158-2, is theone to own). From this height, the quality of the music drops precipitously.The writing for the desert chieftain Altair and his henchm en contains attem ptsat musical exoticism that sound like pages rejected during the composition ofSalome; these episodes migh t seem less banal had the idiom no t subsequentlybeen done to death in countless Hollywood film scores. The final scene, inwhich Helena and Menelas drink the potion of recollection and are reconciled,bo th reads and sounds like a parody ofTristan. With so much dense text tocover, Strauss couldn't keep it simple; the soprano and tenor have fast-moving,heavily chromatic lines overa thick orchestral impasto of leitmotifs. It'sa toughsing, fatiguing to listen to. Nevertheless, there are some splendid passages inthis scene, often at unexpected spots. The use of organ to reinforce the w indsection at isolated, exposed moments is a clever touch. In the concludingepisode, when Poseidon's armor-clad troops come to the rescue, the stage direc-tion a low clinking sound is heard coming from behind the tent an d growing invol-ume until itseems as if a stormy wind is shaking an iron orest— on paper, a typicalbit of Hofmannsthal fustian— elicits from Strauss a brief spurt of imaginative

tone-pain ting, as vivid as anything in his great symphonic poems.Anyone interested in this opera has probably already acquired the1979 Lon-don studio recording, which presents the original version of the opera, corre-




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sponding to the Boosey and Hawkes vocal score (1928; rpt. London, 1956).Antal Dorati and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra's account may be short onsubtlety and nuance, but itis full-bodied, colorful, and extremely well-recorded.The set's most interesting vocal performanceis the Aithra of Barbara Hendricks.

Her bright, girlish voice would probablybe too light for the role in the theater,but it is lovely to hear on record. Hendricks makes the sorceress sound like agiddy teenager who develops an adolescent crush on H elena and experiencesadult sensuality vicariously through her.

As the married couple, Gwyneth Jones and Matti Kastu are vocally well-matched, in that they bo th have bigvoices under imperfect control and are will-ing to workhard. Jones is in representative Iate-i97os form: her basically warm,lush tone turns hooty, constricted, or curdled at odd moments, underminingher good intentions. ThisHelena appears to be Kastu's only recording, unlessI have missed som ething on the Scandinavian labels. H e sounds neither betternor worse than any ofa dozen other would-be heldentenors one has encoun-tered over the years. As with Jones, an inability to integrate his registers causesthe w eight of the voice (artificially puffed up to begin with) to d rop away sud-denly, resulting in patches of dry, precarious-sounding tone. Lo ndon's sup-porting cast is uniformly goo d.

In 1933 Strauss revised the opera for a Vienna production. The changes areconfined to the second half of act2. There are cuts and significant changes inthe sequence of events, all intended to clarify the action and ease the burden onthe leading soprano and tenor. Strauss composed some new music, including

a trio for Helena, Aithra, and Menelas, to paper over the gaps that resulted fromthe cuts and reshuffling. (Because Hofmannsthal had died in 1929, LotharWallerstein supplied the composer w ith new text where needed.) The differ-ences between the two versions are discussed in detail in Norman Del Mar'scritical biography of the composer.3

Orfeo's C D issue ofa live 1956 Mun ich performance uses the1933 revision.A com parison of the two recordings proves to my satisfaction that the1928 scoreis preferable and that none of the1933 changes is really an improvement. (If youtry to follow the Orfeo recording using the Boosey and Hawkes score, you willbegin to lose yourplace on page 231, where Strauss threw out the original wordsand music and rewrote the passage from scratch; from this po int to the en d,you'll need to be adept at page-skipping and -flipping —the latter backward aswell as forward.)4

M unich is, of course, one of the few places where Strauss's less successfuloperas are regularly revived, and interest naturally ran high whenHelena wasmoun ted there in1956. The performance of10 August was broadcast, and morethan one enthusiast recorded it off the air. An enterprising member of the audi-ence also managed to tape the August 27 performance. As a result, tapes andLPs of both performances have circulated underg round for decades, and bo th

performances have previously been issued on CD s.Orfeo presumably brings us the "official" August 10 broadcast tape. The


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sound is of decent quality, probably at least the equal of any pirated edition bu tno t exceptional for its vintage; there are many other European air-checks fromthis period that offera greater degree of vocal immediacy and orchestral detail.(Some of the composer's subtler instrum ental effects are inevitably lost, so in

this respect the D orati recording has a decisive advantage.)The performance is a good one, making one regret the recording's relative

inferiority. Joseph K eilberth conducts firmly, seemingly unw illing to surrenderto the sensuousness of the score, but his sober approach has the virtue of bring-ing out purely musical values that m ight otherwise be obscured. The orchestraplays very well for him. The chorus is also good, although it has little to do inthis opera.

Leonie Rysanek brings her customary impulsiveness and generous tone tothe title role. In art i the strength of the voice seems concentrated on top; shecan sound sluggish and overweighted in the lower-middle area, as thou gh no tproperly warmed up. She occasionally attacks sustained tones softly and thenswells them , resulting in an ungainly wailing effect, and some wide intervals arenegotiated witha swoopy portamento . In the theater these slight problems maynot have been noticeable, and in any event they vanish by the start of act 2."Zweite Brautnacht" pours forth with awesome confidence (the audiencerewards her with an ovation), and from here on Rysanek is in top form. (It'samusing to hear Keilberth, who tends to bea literalist, allowing her to linger onhigh Cs.)

Menelas is surely the most difficult tenor role in the Strauss canon . Bacchus

and the Emperorin Die Frau ohne Scbatten may be as taxing, note for no te, b utthey have less to sing and are never asked to scramble around a series of awk-ward intervals, as Menelas is often required to do in his agitated moments.Bernd Aldenhoff, a Siegfried, copes with the task surprisingly well. He doesn 'tsucceed in making all his music sound easy or beautiful, but he achieves muchmore than the basic hit-the-notes job that one might expert from him. In art2, especially, he isa worthy partner for Rysanek. With their two healthy voicesfilling ou t the music, the opera's climactic m oments sound almost like top -drawer Strauss.

Annelies Kupperis a capable Aithra, hitting her music with big, rather blowsytone. She sounds as though she could step into the title role at a moment'snotice. At the art1 invocation to theelves, where Strauss suddenlyasks for runsand a trill, Kupper displays unexpected agility.

Hermann Uh de makes a predictably strong Altair, meeting the challenge ofthe consistently high tessitura and making as much of the character as can beexpected. Richard Holm sings Da-ud's music attractively, and Ira Malaniuk isa strong O mniscient Mussel, who wisely ignores the composer's instruction tosing throug h a Sprachrohr (a speaking trumpet or megaphone).

Orfeo providesa German-only libretto and is not particularly generous w ith

CD tracks —eight for art 1, nine for a rt 2. The booklet's in troducto ry essay,translated in to English, creates confusion by referring toa new duet—suppos-




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edly added in 1933—for H elena and M enelas(it is actually the aforementionedtrio).

Rysanek and Strauss fans will want thisset as a supplement to the Londonrecording. There is still p lenty of room in the catalogue, however,for a new

stud io version of the1928 score. I would suggest Sawallischor Haitink as con-ductor, with the Staatskapelle Dresden,the Munich Radio Symphony,or theVienna Philharmonic. As Aithra, Deborah Voigt or Alessandra Marc; asMenelas, Ben Heppner or Peter Seiffert; and as Altair, Bryn Terfel. Any nomi-nations for the title role?

N O T E S

1. Some may argue that the 1914 Josephsle-gende ballet is even kitschier than Helena.However, although the idea for the balletwas indeed Hofrnannsthal's, the details of itsscenario were worked out by Count HarryKessler, making Hofrnannsthal's ultimateresponsibility debatable.

2. For an essay in defense of Helena, seeRodney Milnes, " 'Somewhere betweenMoscow and New York . . . , ' " Opera,vol. 48, no. 7 (July 1997), pp. 780-83. Mil-nes confines most of his commentary tothe libre tto, leaving the challenge of tryingto make a case for the music wide open.

3. Richard Strauss: A Critical Com mentaryon His Life and Works, vol. 2 (Ithaca, N.Y.:Cornell University Press, 1986), pp. 348-49.

4 . There is one trivial yet curious discrep-ancy between the printed score and both theLondon and Orfeo recorded performances ata point in act 1. At the bottom of page 80 ofthe score, Helena (referring to Menelas)sings "O wie ich ihn Hebe!" and the

Roland Graeme

Omniscient Mussel (describing what isoccurring outside Aithra's palace) sings"Menelas! Jetzt lauft er wie ein Toller . . ."According to both the Boosey and Hawkespiano-vocal score and the same publisher'sfull score —volume 12 of the Richard StraussEdition (London, 1996) —these two vocallines overlap (i.e., they are to be sung simul-taneously). On both recordings, though, theMussel waits until Helena finishes her phrasebefore beginning to sing in her turn. As aresult, both performances of act 1 are, in asense, more than complete — for they contain

two extra bars of music. Is the directive inthe vocal score a misprint? Or did someoneat some point in the opera's performancehistory decide that it is better for the phrasesto be sung consecutively? (If the latter is thecase, however, why single out this particularpassage when there are many other places inthe score where vocal lines similarly overlap,often at the expense of verbal clarity?)

Arabella (1933)

Arabella: Viorica UrsuleacMandryka: Hans ReinmarZdenka: Trude EipperleAdelaide: Luise WilierWaldner: Theo HerrmannAfatteo: Horst Taubm annFiakermilli: Else BottcherElemer: Franz KJarweinDominik: Odo Ruepp

Lamoral: Alfred PoellFortuneteller: Ruth MicbaelisWaiter: Emil GrafWelko: William WcrnigkOrchestra and Chorus of the Vienna StaatsoperClemens Krauss, conductorLiveperformance: Salzburg, 9 August1942Myto (distributed by QuaUtonImports)

2 MCD02I.S4- (2 CDs)


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Die ägyptische Helena. Original version (1928)