David Aphham impacts and moves with a superb ‘Wozzeck’ in the National Auditorium | Culture

“I can only say that the entire orchestra, the soloists, the choir and those who collaborated artistically in this representation, including myself, we felt increasingly inspired by the work and deeply moved from one essay to another.” With these words, the orchestra director Erich Kleiber evoked in the Viennese newspaper New Viennese journal the preparation of the absolute premiere of Wozzeck In Berlin, almost a century ago: on December 14, 1925. Words that David Aphham could well be his, after offering a brilliant concert version of Alban Berg’s opera, with which he opened last Friday, October 3, his last season at the head of the national orchestra and choir of Spain (OCNE).

A concert version in the Symphony Room of the National Auditorium that incorporated, as on other occasions, a clearly visible scenic concept and subtitles to bring it closer to a representation. The singers moved around the orchestra, located on a platform in front of the podium, in a side amphitheater, in the armchair or in the organ of the organ. The person in charge was again the theater director Susana Gómez, as already happened with Salomé From Strauss in 2022. He proposed a simple costume, basic lighting and a minimum daring that included a practice barber chair, used both so that Wozzeck would shave the captain and toy for his son, bed in the barracks, a schedule of the doctor and even the scene of Marie’s murder. She was granted the resuscitating license, as a victim of gender violence, unlike the protagonist, who ended up lying in the armchair.

No more was needed, because Berg’s intense music filled everything. The Austrian composer never sympathized with the prominence of the scenic direction and always defended realism, although with some concession to abstraction to represent the schizophrenia of the protagonist of his opera. This is explained by Bryan Simms and Charlotte Erwin in his recent monograph entitled Berg (Oxford University Press), where clearly summarizes all aspects of Wozzeck. It is an impressive fusion between the social desperation of the unfinished drama of 1837 by Georg Büchner and the powerful musical expressionism of Alban Berg, which makes the tragedy of a simple man in universal: a shaved soldier exploited, humiliated, betrayed and pushed to madness and parricide.

The great protagonist of the evening was David Affham, who directed from the podium a version as shocking as Berg’s opera. The German director handled with remarkable dramatic sense the rigorous structure of this complex work, formed by 15 scenes linked through interludes and distributed in three acts, with a duration of some more than an hour and a half without pauses.

It is true that in the first act he did not spare in volume or intensity, where each scene becomes a piece of character to present the five protagonists of the opera: the cartoon captain, the obsessive Wazzeck, the grotesque Doctor, the longing for Marie and the virile major drum. Sometimes he momentarily covered the voices, but knew how to deepen with a mastery in figurativism and sound symbology deployed by Berg, both on reasons, effects and in harmonies. The performance of the National Orchestra was amazing in all its sections, capable of wrapping the voices in its multiple symphonic and cameryistic variants.

Everything improved in the second act, conceived by Berg as a symphony in five movements. Aphkham spun with admirable precision its contrasting sections, showing a brilliant domain of what Elliott Carter called “metric modulation”, that is, the gradual and exact adjustment of tempo changes. The complex fourth scene – the Scherzo of this symphony – located in the garden of a crowded tavern late at night, was specially prominent. There is a traditional Viennese band, in which four National Musicians stood out next to a guitar and a accordion interpreting a rustic Lederbut also a male choir that sang a hunting song, started in a somewhat confusing way by the members of the national choir.

In any case, the third act concentrated the maximum dramatic intensity, with an overwhelming progression that covered from the murder of scene 2, through the frantic tavern of scene 3, until the death of the protagonist in scene 4. However, the high Powerful climax in min minor about the reason for the protagonist: We poor people! (We, the poor!).

The vocal cast was up to it. It was headed by the bass-baritone Martin Winkler as Wozzeck, remembered in Madrid for its excellent Kovaliov in the production of the Royal Theater in The nose of Shostakóvich. The German singer began somewhat distant, but offered a powerful incarnation of the upset Raso soldier, with a rich and dark bell in which the dramatic intensity of the multiple vocal records used by Berg prevailed than the precision of his nuances. Something similar happened with the Marie de Lise Lindström, who already starred in the Ocne Salomé y Electra by Richard Strauss. The American soprano adapts well the vocal challenges of the character to his metal, with serious demanding and acute that must sound strident, and links them with a less tender and more vindictive vision, evidenced in his powerful replicas in front of the abuses and abuse of the major drum and Wozzeck.

The German tenor Jürgen Sacher stood out as a compressary solid in the role of Captain, with skilled transitions from the scarce to the falsetto. The Danish bass Stephen Milling contributed security and scenic presence to the Doctor, while Mexican tenor Rodrigo Garull embodied a greater drum more bluff than seducer. Among the secondary ones, the German tenor Tansel Akzeybek offered a light Andrés in his speech of the second act, and the mezzo-soprano Swedish Solgerd Isalv solved his Anthem of the third as Margret. It is also worth highlighting the outstanding participation of three soloists of the national choir-Enrique Sánchez-Ramos, Diego Blázquez and Xabier Pasqual-in the aforementioned fourth scene of the second act, showing a rich palette of vocal resources.

We do not know if the rehearsals of Wozzeck De Berg exceeded Centenar, as happened with Erich Kleiber at the premiere of 1925, but we are facing the best opera that David Affham has directed in the National Auditorium. A brilliant start for its last season, which will include a second function next Sunday, October 5 and will be registered by classical radio (RNE) for a future broadcast.