For the third time the Ludwig van Beethoven Easter Festival had produced the concert performance of a neglected operatic work by a great composer. After Cherubini’s Lodoïska and Spohr’s Der Berggeist, we had the opportunity to attend the Polish premiere of Carl Maria von Weber’s Euryanthe.
This opera contains some of the finest music that German Romantic opera ever had. There are suggestive scenes, recitatives quickly changing to arias or ensembles, and, above all, there are fragments of the most imaginative instrumentation. To quote but one example here: Act II, Scene 2, the introduction to aria of Adolar was scored for two bassoons, two clarinets and a flute accompanied with subtle passages played by viola solo.
If the music was so good, as confirmed by Wagner and Schumann, both of them heavily borrowing from it, why did it never made up to the standard repertoire?
There are two main reasons. First, because the title part is not very attractive one. Euryanthe is not a living person, except for the fragments where she accepts her guilt and then immediately denies it – this is so real, but so common and so vulgar at the same time. And that leads us to the other issue: the libretto by Wilhelmine Christiane von Chézy. If not the worst operatic libretto ever, certainly among bottom five. Despite the author heavily borrowed clichés from Cosí fan tutte and Don Giovanni to Macbeth, from Hamlet to Otello, from gothic novel to Heinrich Heine (shamelessly stolen verse from Die Rose, die Lilie… contained in his Lyrisches intermezzo) – the libretto is terrible. What is the sin of Euryanthe? Why Lysiart hates Adolar? Why everyone know every detail of the plot, even the pack of hunters, who never saw Euryanthe before – everyone but her lover Adolar? In the Act III Adolar raises his visor and is recognized by his subjects. Then he closes his visor for a moment and opens it again a few bars later. And he is recognized by the same people once more! Even if the author knew about anagnorisis, she just could not get the proper idea of it. As there is no logic in the action, and there is no surprise that it does not resolve: the family curse of unknown origin is removed without a reason. It is not only terribly conceived, but also terribly written, with death, heart, thunder, pain, lighting, rocks, Moon, stars, castles and flowers present in every verse and every scene. There are hunters, peasants, folk wedding, knights and there is a good king too, rather naïve and stupid, but he does his best in difficult circumstances. If Weber was able to compose to this text, he would certainly succeed in setting Viennese address book into music.
Was it at all worth performing this opera then? By all means – yes it was! The historic importance of the work, that was a point of departure for late Romantic German opera, is one good reason for it. Other one is, simply, that this is great music, period. And the concert performance is the perfect way of presentation of this work.
The Warsaw performance of Euryanthe was simply outstanding. It is extremely rare in case of large vocal works to have singers equal in quality throughout the cast, and we are delighted to say that actually there was no weak point among the singers tonight. Dan Karström, tenor, sung the relatively small part of Rudolph with great taste. Wojtek Gierlach, bass, was a noble King, acting perfectly as deus ex machina. The soprano Izabela Matuła was charming Bertha, a small but attractive part, a character introduced in Act III.
The four main characters, a couple of positive ones and a couple of villains were cast superbly and the performance of singers was enhanced with some suggestion of the stage action. Melanie Diener, soprano, was precious Euryanthe, being able to enliven this paper character. John Mac Master, tenor, was perfect Adolar, in love with Euryanthe (admirable Romanze of the Act I Unter blüh’nden Mandelbäumen), driven with contradictory feelings and revenge-seeking at the end. Stephen Gadd, baritone, was a Bond-like villain in the character of Lysiart. His acting was impressive and his singing was moving in changes of moods. He was deceitful, double-dealing, dishonest… and it was all in his voice, in subtle changes of timbre. He was a true Saruman of the plot, and his acting skills were comparable to that of Christopher Lee. Lysiart’s female counterpart, Eglantine, was sung by mezzosoprano Helena Juntunen. She was a brightest star of the evening, perfect both vocally and in her stage appearance. From deception of Euryanthe through aria di vendetta to the final scene of madness and redemption she was a full-bloodied person, true in every note and movement. Her beautiful, natural voice was bright and crystal-clear and her musicianship was admirable.
The evening’s success was secured by the performance of joined forces of the Choir of the Podlasie Opera and Philharmonic in Białystok, the Polish radio Choir and The Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Łukasz Borowicz. The quality of the Orchestra grows every year and it was most enjoyable to listen to well-played woodwind parts and to witness a great moment of four horns playing a virtuoso ensemble with the hunter’s choir.
Euryanthe was a well-deserved success of all and any of the musicians. The performance was recorded and the CD is to be released this autumn. Without hesitation we recommend this recording wholeheartedly.

Krzysztof Komarnicki