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Music

Winterreise (Sydney Festival) ★★★★★

by •
ABR Arts • 08 January 2016
Music

Winterreise (Sydney Festival) ★★★★★

by •
ABR Arts • 08 January 2016

The protagonist of Thomas Mann's great novel, The Magic Mountain (1924), Hans Castorp, goes into battle, and almost certainly his death, at the end of the book singing 'Der Lindenbaum' from Schubert's song cycle, Winterreise:

The song meant a great deal to him, a whole world ... His fate might have been different if his disposition had not been so highly susceptible to the charms of the emotional sphere, to the universal state of mind that this song epitomized so intensely, so mysteriously ... what questions did he ask himself ... about the ultimate legitimacy of his love for this enchanting song and its world? What was this world that stood behind it, which his intuitive scruples told him was a world of forbidden love? It was death.

As tenor Ian Bostridge eloquently expresses it, Schubert's winter journey 'becomes an axis between the two Freudian poles, Eros and Thanatos, love and death; an education in renunciation, in reconciliation with the inevitable.'

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Michael Halliwell

Michael Halliwell studied literature and music at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, at the London Opera Centre, and with Tito Gobbi in Florence. He has sung in Europe, North America, South Africa and Australia and was principal baritone for many years with the Netherlands Opera, the Nürnberg Municipal Opera, and the Hamburg State Opera singing over fifty major operatic roles, including several world premiere productions. He has served as Chair of Vocal Studies and Opera, Pro-Dean and Head of School, and Associate Dean (Research) at the Sydney Conservatorium. He is President of the International Association for Word and Music Studies. His publications include the monographs, Opera and the Novel (Rodopi: 2005); and National Identity on Contemporary Australian Opera: myths reconsidered (Routledge, 2018), as well as many chapters and articles. He still performs regularly and recent CDs include When the Empire Calls (ABC Classics, 2005); O for a Muse of Fire: Australian Shakespeare Settings (Vox Australis, 2013); Amy Woodforde-Finden: The Oriental Song-Cycles (Toccata Classics, 2014); That Bloody Game; Australian WWI Songs (Wirripang, 2015).

Leave a comment
Michael Halliwell

Michael Halliwell studied literature and music at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, at the London Opera Centre, and with Tito Gobbi in Florence. He has sung in Europe, North America, South Africa and Australia and was principal baritone for many years with the Netherlands Opera, the Nürnberg Municipal Opera, and the Hamburg State Opera singing over fifty major operatic roles, including several world premiere productions. He has served as Chair of Vocal Studies and Opera, Pro-Dean and Head of School, and Associate Dean (Research) at the Sydney Conservatorium. He is President of the International Association for Word and Music Studies. His publications include the monographs, Opera and the Novel (Rodopi: 2005); and National Identity on Contemporary Australian Opera: myths reconsidered (Routledge, 2018), as well as many chapters and articles. He still performs regularly and recent CDs include When the Empire Calls (ABC Classics, 2005); O for a Muse of Fire: Australian Shakespeare Settings (Vox Australis, 2013); Amy Woodforde-Finden: The Oriental Song-Cycles (Toccata Classics, 2014); That Bloody Game; Australian WWI Songs (Wirripang, 2015).

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Comments (2)

  • The woman next to me, whose spare ticket I had bought at the last minute, said at the end of the performance: "Wonderful, but it didn't need the Kentridge." I'm inclined to agree with her & with Leo Schofield. A huge admirer of Kentridge's work, I found many if not most of the images familiar from other contexts - which set up a mental duel in the attempt to re-position them.
    It was too dark to decipher the translation. Less familiar with the words than the images, I'd have liked surtitles.
    Posted by Virginia Duigan
    12 January 2016
  • A fine review but I am not the only person in the audience who thought the Kentridge component a modish irrelevance. At one point I thought that the relentless avalanche of images embraced everything but the kitchen sink until lo! up flashed a kitchen sink closely followed by a tap and a goldfish bowl. The singing and accompaniment were as fine as one could ever hope to hear. Goerne is a singer without peer. He acts with the voice, his body language and vocal colour astonish. I am with Mr. Halliwell when he suggests that 'many in the audience wished that this performance could have commenced once more.' But without the modish, fizzing visual 'accompaniment'.
    Posted by Leo Schofield
    12 January 2016

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