<<  -- 5 --  Roderic Dunnett    The role of the artist

Lenz' attention has by now fixated on his lost love : sprawled on his bed, heralded by a striking piece of passacaglia-like writing, he becomes recipient (or victim) of the chorus's pity ('What's the matter?'). Possibly the most attractive bit of singing in the whole evening was a soprano solo, one of the chorus women, followed by boys' chorus, a moment of focused clarity (like Caley's vocal entry as Kaufmann) which the dramatic self-flagellations ultimately, and perhaps by definition, lacked. An anvil, with its brute metal force, indicates the deterioration of Lenz's condition : emotionally wrecked and spiritually racked (by now the audience is verging on the same), Kösters echoes Christ's cry from the Passions 'Mein Gott, warum hast du mich verlassen?' Sung as a simple monody, with soprano and alto folding in the six choir voices as if to wrap him sympathetically, and followed by an exquisite passage for solo cello, it was one of the opera's, and Rihm's, finest and most searing moments.

What the production missed even here, however (unlike the music), and this was largely true of all the thirteen scenes, was some scheme of clearly thought-through visual imagery to point up and differentiate each scene. Much was left to the lighting, which served the production well (as did the Théâtre de Caen's very acceptable acoustic for stagework). Arguably Lenz calls for some non-naturalistic treatment (the chorus verged on this), rather than the naturalistic and unrelenting stridings and strivings of Kösters's Lenz. The plain setting worked strikingly well, but into it rather more ideas needed to be packed if the contrasts and, above all, development so essential to opera were to be achieved to best advantage. By the time he expires, like Davies's mad king, it is a merciful relief.