Franz LisztSardanapalo - Mazeppa

Franz Liszt entwickelte als Komponist ein literarisch vermitteltes Musikverständnis, das ihn das Genre der Sinfonischen Dichtung erschaffen ließ. Die hier eingespielte Tondichtung "Mazeppa" – sie ist die sechste seiner insgesamt 13 Tondichtungen – besitzt denn auch, wenn sie, wie in dieser Aufnahme, angriffig-robust voller Impetus interpretiert wird, die ausdrucksvolle Prägnanz von Musik, die einen außermusikalischen Vorgang suggestiv schildert.

Umso mehr verwundert es, dass Liszt wohl verschiedene Opernprojekte erwog (etwa nach Dumas, Scott, Goethe oder Schiller), doch keine Oper vollendet hat. Das hier eingespielte Fragment einer Oper über den assyrischen König Sardanapalo (er wollte eher hedonistischen Neigungen nachgehen als Kriege führen) nach dem Drama von Lord Byron brach er mit dem Entwurf eines ersten Aktes 1852 ab.

Erhalten haben sich in Skizzen die Singstimmen und eine angedeutete Orchesterbegleitung, die David Trippett zu einer spielbaren Fassung ausarbeitete: mit einem völlig überzeugenden Ergebnis. Das ist Opernmusik ganz auf der Höhe der Zeit, wie sie Verdi, Bellini oder Berlioz komponierten – an sie reicht Liszt durchaus heran, und an ihr orientierte sich Trippett in seiner Einrichtung der Musik. Der in den Ensemble-Szenen geradezu bezwingende Eindruck dieser Musik entsteht freilich auch durch das vorbildliche Engagement aller Beteiligten und das beeindruckende interpretatorische Niveau: ein glanzvolles Dokument der Spielkultur des Nationaltheaters Weimar! Deshalb mag es ungerecht wirken, Joyce EI-Khoury in der Rolle der Mirra besonders hervorzuheben: Ihr klangvoller, wunderbar beherrschter Sopran lässt diese Einspielung zu einem Erlebnis werden.

Specialist record labels may face a challenging time, but they do at least benefit from one growth industry: the ongoing Franz Liszt discoveries and reconstructions. Yet nobody was expecting to hear anything of the composer's opera Sardanapalo, begun and abandoned in the early 1850s. For all Liszt's tireless role in championing operas by his peers, he wrote his only complete opera (Don Sanche) aged 13. Now it turns out that Act I of Sardanapalo had been sketched fully enough to allow musicologist David Trippett to produce a realisation of the score.

What emerges sounds like a catalogue of styles from Bellini and Verdi to Mendelssohn and Wagner, an unsatisfying mix that lacks its own distinctive voice. Still, it's good to be able to hear it and fitting that Liszt's old Weimar orchestra (now under Kirill Karabits) has recorded it. In the title role, the plangent tenor Airam Hernandez confirms his status as a rising star; but it is Mirra, the king's lover, who carries the burden and Joyce El-Khoury is on exciting, mettlesome form. As the soothsayer Beleso, Oleksandr Pushniak projects a darkly imposing voice.

Though Liszt's operatic ambitions were never fulfilled, he found his metier in the symphonic poem – with contrasting fortunes that are underlined by the inclusion here of the contemporaneous Mazeppa, also based on Byron. Quintessential Liszt, this masterpiece telling the story of a Ukrainian hero is brought to vivid life under the baton of today's leading Ukrainian conductor.

Has any great composer been so vilified in the half century after his death as Franz Liszt?

Ernest Newman’s 1934 biography: The Man Liszt: A Study of the Tragi-Comedy of a Soul Divided Against Itself, says it all in its title. The book itself must establish a world record in anti-hagiography.

I have read widely on the life and music of Liszt, and for anyone interested in a thoroughly readable, gripping biography, it is difficult to do better than Alan Walker’s three volume set, published in 1983,1989 and 1996. In it we learn of Liszt the composer, pianist, music teacher, music arranger, organist, philanthropist, author and traveller as well as of his relations with his children, contemporaries (musical and otherwise) and his lovers.

However, in it you will not find any discussion of Liszt’s incomplete opera Sardanapolo. This is unsurprising, since Liszt left over one hundred and fifty works and/or components of works unfinished. His finished total amounts to over seven hundred, and very many of these are multi-part works. Pieces by him are still being discovered to this day, as anyone who followed Hyperion’s Complete Piano Music series would know, as supplementary ‘New Discoveries’ discs were added quite soon after the official termination.

Now we have an opera, or to be accurate, part of one, and original opera is a genre with which Liszt is not usually associated. In fact, his catalogue of completed works contains only one operatic entry, Don Sanche from 1824-5 when Liszt was 13. Of course, he composed a multitude of operatic paraphrases for piano, and during his Weimar years he wrote a series of tracts on Opera and Stage Works. As far as I can tell only some of these are in print, but in edited, collected form, Vol.1 has 314 pages, Vol.3 part 1 has 314 pages and Vol.3 part 2 has 342 pages. From this information alone, it can be seen that opera formed a fundamental part of Liszt’s artistic interests, which were of an astonishing range and depth.

Sardanapolo dates from about 1846 until 1852. Its progress, or otherwise is a complex matter, and it seems that Liszt finally gave up in frustration over complications with the libretto. The booklet notes that accompany this fine CD are by Dr. David Trippett, who is responsible for Sardanapolo’s unearthing, the editing and the completion of the first act. They are similar to the content of an interesting interview with him for Presto Classical by Katherine Cooper, which can be read here.

The plot is derived from Byron’s five-act tragedy Sardanapalus (1821). The plot of the first act begins with a slave girl, Mirra, being comforted by a chorus of the King Sardanapalus’ concubines. She is pining for her lost home, as the chorus assures that she is the de facto Queen, having been chosen by the King from thousands of others. She is struggling with guilt for having fallen for the King who conquered her homeland, and also for having adopted his faith. Then the King enters and asks her why she is distressed and he seeks to reassure her, speaking of their love in a grand lyric duet. Despite this, she still feels unhappy at her circumstances. Beloso, a Chaldean Soothsayer enters and warns of war, urging the indolent and pleasure-loving king to take up arms against the insurgents. Sardanapalus hesitates, being fearful of the carnage that would ensue, but Mirra pleads with him to take action. The act concludes with a grand trio espousing the war, and a closing orchestral march.

And the operatic style? In five words – largely Italian, sung in Italian. I must admit that this surprised me. Liszt conducted the first performance of Lohengrin at Weimar in 1850, and it might be supposed that he would have been greatly influenced by it. Instead, to my ears, at least, we have bel canto and a hint of Verdi, but I have to admit that the booklet informs us that there are proto-Wagnerian harmonies and massed sonorities after the style of Berlioz. It seems that Liszt believed that the genre of Italian opera could be modernised, even monumentalised, as drama. In common with other orchestral works of the period, Liszt had intended the work to be orchestrated by Joseph Joachim Raff, who was acting as his assistant at Weimar in the 1850’s, and from whom he was learning the techniques of orchestration. In fact, Raff orchestrated some of the early Symphonic Poems, although once he felt himself to be fully competent in handling the orchestra, Liszt re-orchestrated them himself. The opening section of the opera has the woodwind chirping in a manner that reminds me of some of Raff’s rustically inspired works.

The vocal writing is taxing, and the excellent soprano, Joyce El Khoury is occasionally pushed to her limits. She has a lovely voice though, and such moments are rare There is a lovely passage where she persuades the king to go to war, her voice chiming beautifully with the harp. The tenor, Airam Hernández is splendid, his voice youthful and ardent in his passion for Mirra, and the bass-baritone, Oleksandr Pushniak is suitably impressive in his warnings of war. The female chorus is lovely and Kirill Karabits obtains accurate and committed playing from the heirs to Liszt’s own orchestra at Weimar.

The CD is completed with a performance of the roughly contemporaneous Mazeppa. This is really just a nicely performed makeweight. However, Audite might have done better to include one of Liszt’s rarer orchestral works instead.

The recording itself is suitably natural, with an excellent balance between the vocal and instrumental forces, and a fine bloom on the sound. The booklet is in German and English, and is suitably comprehensive, but unfortunately no text is given, just a synopsis. However, the complete libretto, in Italian, German and English, is available through the Audite website.

Der assyrische König Sardanapalo, der als Hedonist Wein und Konkubinen den Staatsgeschäften vorzieht und der ukrainische Volksheld Iwan Mazeppa, der nach Leid und Erniedrigung ruhmvoll stirbt: konträrer könnte man sich zwei Protagonisten wohl kaum vorstellen. Die literarisch-dramatischen Vorlagen von Lord Byron und Victor Hugo dienten Franz Liszt als Inspirationsquelle, wobei die Oper Sardanapalo nach Byron leider Fragment blieb und lediglich den ersten Akt umfasst.

Er war eine Sensation: Der neu entdeckte und letztes Jahr erst uraufgeführte Opernakt von Franz Liszt: "Sardanapalo". Desiree Löffler spricht mit Musikwisseschaftler David Trippett, der das Werk mühsam aufgearbeitet hat.

Der vollständige Radiobeitrag ist zu hören unter: https://www.audite.de/media/file/00/34/73/WDR-3-TonArt-20190214-AUD-97764.mp3

Unter seinem Chefdirigenten Kirill Karabits hat die Staatskapelle Weimar im Sommer 2018 die unvollständige Oper ‘Sardanapalo’ von Franz Liszt uraufgeführt. Das Manuskript lag seit 100 Jahren völlig vergessen im Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv in Weimar. Die Musik wurde von David Trippett, Dozent an der Fakultät für Musik der Universität Cambridge, überarbeitet und orchestriert.

(Remy Franck): Das Libretto basiert auf Lord Byrons Tragödie ‘Sardanapalus’ und erzählt die Geschichte von Sardanapalo, dem König des alten Assyrien, einem friedliebenden Monarchen, der von Rebellen besiegt und ermordet wird. Liszts Oper konzentriert sich auf die Liebe zwischen König Sardanapalo und seiner Lieblingskonkubine Mirra, die den König liebt, obschon sie sich als eine vom Schicksal verhöhnte Sklavin ansieht. Im letzten Teil des ersten Aufzugs versuchen ein Wahrsager und Mirra, den König zu überzeugen, einen neuen Krieg zu beginnen, was er denn auch tut.

Liszt komponierte nur einen Akt. Musikwissenschaftler gehen davon aus, dass er mit dem Libretto für die Akte II und III nicht zufrieden war.

Trippett arbeitete an dem Manuskript mit Liszts eigenen Anweisungen zur Orchestrierung der Partitur und erhielt eine Performance-Version, die für die Weimarer Premiere verwendet wurde, die dieser Aufnahme zugrunde liegt. Laut Trippett ist die Musik eine « einzigartige Mischung aus italienischer Lyrik und harmonischer Innovation. » Die starken melodischen Linien können an Bellini oder Donizetti, mitunter auch Verdi erinnern, ein bisschen sogar an Wagner. Von Liszt hat die Musik die auf der Dramatik fußende Melodik, nach seinen eigenen Worten die ‘deklamatorische Melodie’. Jedenfalls gilt es festzustellen, dass an ihm ein guter und einfallsreicher Opernkomponist verlorengegangen ist.

Weimar hatte für die Besetzung eine sehr gute Wahl getroffen. Joyce El-Khoury singt mit leuchtendem Sopran, schönen Nuancen und Farben die Rolle von Mirra.

Der Tenor Airam Hernandes imponiert als Sardanapalo, und Oleksandr Pushniak ist großartig in der Rolle des Beleso.

Kirill Karabits dirigiert leidenschaftlich, und die Staatskapelle Weimar setzt sein Dirigat farbenreich und dramatisch um. Eine insgesamt großartige Aufnahme eines hörenswerten Werks!

Die CD beginnt mit einer spannenden und sehr differenziert und flexibel gestalteten Darbietung von ‘Mazeppa’.

(Guy Engels): In Liszts Musik begegnen wir immer wieder Heldenfiguren, die nur zu oft von Interpreten überhöht werden. Die mächtigen Klänge werden romantisch aufgemotzt und übertünchen den differenzierten Blick, den Liszt auf seine Protagonisten wirft.

Kirill Karabits lässt eine solche Lektüre nicht zu. Er stutzt ‘Sardanapalo’, den König wider Willen, auf sein menschliches Maß zurück. Sardanapalo frönt lieber den Freuden des Lebens als der Diplomatie und dem Krieg. Durch die Mahnungen seines Beraters Beleso gerät er jedoch in eine persönlichen Konflikt wegen der Vernachlässigung seiner Königspflichten.

Karabits zeichnet die unterschiedlichen Facetten und Seelenzustände des Sardanapalo durch einen sehr differenzierten Klang. Er sucht die Schattierungen in Liszts Musik, nicht deren inhärente Opulenz. Die Staatskapelle Weimar spielt mit warmem, homogenem und durchaus auch kräftigem Klang, enthält sich aber jedweder Heroisierung. Das Sängertrio fügt sich wunderbar in die Inszenierung dieser Politromanze ein: Airam Hernandez als zweifelnder und verzweifelter Sardanapalo, Joyce El-Khoury als verliebte Sklavin, die mit ihrem reinen und schillernden Sopran nach der Heimat verlangt sowie Aleksandr Pushniak, als mit klarem, dunklen Bass mahnender Berater und Priester.

Ergänzend zum Opernfragment ‘Sardanapalo’ hören wir die Tondichtung « Mazeppa », die zur gleichen Zeit entstand. Auch Mazeppa ist in dieser treffenden Lektüre ein Mensch aus Fleisch und Blut, ein Mächtiger, der am Ende ohne Macht und ohne Freunde ist.

Besides his early opera Don Sanche, Sardanapalo is Liszt’s only other opera, yet it remained unfinished, with only one from three acts. David Trippett has orchestrated the score, and his performing version was first given at the Staatstheater Weimar in 2018. This premiere recording is from that production. Kirill Karabits and his ensemble offer good singing and music making, with an excellent sense of presence and atmosphere.

It's a little-known fact that Franz Liszt, famed composer of symphonic poems and virtuosic piano works, actually tried his hand at writing an opera.

And now, thanks to an intrepid musicologist, a willing conductor and a cast that includes Canada's Joyce El-Khoury, we'll be able to listen to the world premiere recording of Sardanapalo, set for release on Feb. 8.

Liszt got as far as sketching out the first act of his opera, based on Lord Byron's Sardanapalus, before abandoning the project in the mid-1850s.

A few years ago, musicologist David Trippett sought out Liszt's sketches and notes for the opera at the Goethe and Schiller Archive in Weimar, Germany, and spent three years translating and fleshing them out. His reconstructed score then enabled Staatskapelle Weimar to present the first-ever concert performances and recording sessions of the opera's first act, which took place in August 2018 under the direction of Kirill Karabits. The cast comprised soprano El-Khoury as Mirra, tenor Airam Hernández in the title role, and baritone Oleksandr Pushniak as Beleso.

"It's through-composed with a meaty orchestration," explained El-Khoury to CBC Music, pointing out the influence of Richard Wagner on Liszt. "But the vocal lines are in an Italian bel canto style. It is evident from his vocal writing that Liszt loved the voice."

The role of Mirra is a particularly satisfying sing, as El-Khoury explains.

"Constantly pulled in two directions, the character has an abundance of the magical ingredient for the stage: conflict. This is expressed in the music Liszt wrote for her, and it demands every tool in a singer's arsenal. Even in this one extant act, the tormented passion and complexity of her existence is laid bare. Being a slave who was forcibly removed from her homeland, and then, in an ironic twist of fate falls in love with her captor, King Sardanapalo (probably the destroyer of her family), the opportunity to show this inner conflict is theatrical gold to a dramatically alert singer."

El-Khoury credits musicologist Trippett for making the whole thing possible. "He was very communicative from the start, generously offering his knowledge about the piece over emails and Skype calls," she recalls. "Once we arrived in Weimar for the concerts and recording, David coached us and helped us form the characters, carefully having considered Liszt's wishes. He was present during the recording sessions giving notes, feedback and encouragement. No one knows the piece as intimately as David does, so it felt like somewhat of a direct line to Liszt himself."

In addition to her Violettas (La Traviata), Tatyanas (Eugene Onegin) and Mimis (La bohème), El-Khoury has lately made a specialty of reviving and recording forgotten operas by Gaetano Donizetti: Belisario (released in 2013), Les Martyres (released in 2015) and L'Ange de Nisida (to be released in March 2019). And her album Écho, which has been nominated for a 2019 Juno Award, also features excerpts from obscure operas alongside more familiar ones.

This process of (re)discovery is thrilling for El-Khoury, who says, "there are no traditional norms to adhere to (or be expected to adhere to) and no so-called traditions associated with the pieces," she says. "It is, in short, liberating. I now try to bring this sense of freedom to my other roles as well. It has helped me step outside the box and visualize what my voice, personally, has to say."

Sendebeleg siehe PDF!

Der assyrische König Sardanapalo, der als Hedonist Wein und Konkubinen den Staatsgeschäften vorzieht, und der ukrainische Volksheld Iwan Mazeppa, der nach Leid und Erniedrigung ruhmvoll stirbt: konträrer könnte man sich zwei Protagonisten wohl kaum vorstellen. Die literarisch-dramatischen Vorlagen von Lord Byron und Victor Hugo dienten Franz Liszt als Inspirationsquelle, wobei die Oper Sardanapalo nach Byron leider Fragment blieb. Die zeitgleich in Weimar entstandenen Werke repräsentieren die Ideen des Komponisten im Ringen um eine Vereinigung von Literatur und Musik. Auf der einen Seite die Modernisierung der italienischen Oper, auf der anderen die Weiterentwicklung der Sinfonik. Das Manuskript zu Sardanapalo umfasst lediglich den ersten Akt, weshalb das Material 170 Jahre lang im Weimarer Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv schlummerte. Erst 2017 wurde die Niederschrift von David Trippett an der University of Cambridge entziffert, editiert und orchestriert. „Die erhalten gebliebene Musik ist atemberaubend – eine einzigartige Mischung aus italienisch beeinflusstem Gefühlsüberschwang, kühnen harmonischen Wendungen und Seitenwegen“, beschreibt Trippett die Komposition. „Es gibt nichts Vergleichbares in der Opernwelt. Das Werk ist durchflutet von Liszts charakteristischem Stil und birgt zugleich Elemente von Bellini und Meyerbeer, in denen immer wieder auch Wagner zu erkennen ist.“ Kirill Karabits hat das Fragment mit der Staatskapelle Weimar für AUDITE erstmals eingespielt, mit dem Orchester der Stadt, für welche die Oper einst gedacht war. Das Label setzt damit die verdienstvolle und vielbeachtete Veröffentlichungsreihe von Werken der großen Komponisten und Weimarer Kapellmeister fort.

An immensely important issue, this is the first recording of the performing edition by British musicologist David Trippett of Sardanapalo, the only projected opera by the mature Liszt of which substantial material survives. Its genesis remains to some extent shrouded in mystery. Byron’s 1821 play Sardanapalus, about the sensualist Assyrian king who immolated himself and his mistress after failing to quell an insurrection, was among the subjects that Liszt was contemplating, as early as 1842, to mark his return to opera, his only previous work in the genre being the juvenile Don Sanche of 1825. Why he chose Sardanapalo over, among others, Byron’s Corsair and an opera about Spartacus, is seemingly unknown. We also have scant information about Sardanapalo’s librettist, an unnamed Italian poet suggested by the Princess Cristina Belgiojoso after attempts failed to procure a text from the French playwright Félicien Mallefille. Nor has the full libretto survived: the only extant portions are those to be found in the manuscript.

Liszt seemingly began composition early in 1850 and was still working on the score in the winter of 1851 52. At some point shortly afterwards, however, he abandoned the opera, probably because his librettist was either unable or unwilling to undertake revisions to the second and third acts. The manuscript itself, meanwhile, though familiar to Liszt scholars, was long deemed too fragmentary for reconstruction. Trippett’s painstaking research, however, revealed that in essence what we possess is a draft piano-vocal score of the complete first act, albeit with some key signatures omitted and a handful of gaps in the accompaniment; there are also a number of cues for orchestration, which Liszt apparently intended to entrust to his assistant Joachim Raff. Trippett consequently decided there was ‘just sufficient’ to undertake a performing version, and his edition caused something of a stir when it was first heard in Weimar last August, conducted by Kirill Karabits, with the cast we have here.

It is indeed extraordinary and in some respects unique. Commentators familiar with the manuscript have often dubbed it ‘Meyerbeerian’. The opera might better, however, be described as through-composed bel canto, at times echoing Bellini, at others pre-empting 1860s Verdi (Forza in particular comes to mind), though the melodic contours and chromatic harmony are unmistakably Liszt’s own. Dramatically straightforward and uncluttered, it falls into four distinct sections: an introductory chorus for Sardanapalo’s many concubines; a colossal scena for Mirra, the king’s slave-girl mistress; a love duet for the central couple; and a final trio in which Mirra and the Chaldean soothsayer Beleso attempt to persuade the unwilling king to go into battle after news of the insurrection breaks. Though the opening chorus repeats its material once too often, the rest of the act is beautifully shaped, while Liszt’s fluid treatment of bel canto structures – blurring boundaries between recitative, aria and arioso in a quest for psychological veracity – reveals an assured musical dramatist at work.

He makes no concessions to his singers, though, and his vocal writing is taxing in the extreme. Joyce El Khoury is pushed almost to her limits in Mirra’s scena, with its big declamatory recitatives, interrupted cavatina (it fragments as mounting desire for her captor obliterates memories of a life once lived in freedom) and vast closing cabaletta. Her dramatic commitment is never in doubt, though, and there’s a ravishing passage later on when she pleads with the king to put aside his aversion to military conflict, her voice soaring sensually and ecstatically over rippling harp arpeggios. Airam Hernández sounds noble and ardent in the title-role, wooing El Khoury with fierce insistence and responding to Oleksandr Pushniak’s stentorian Beleso with assertive dignity. The choral singing is consistently strong, the playing terrific, and Karabits conducts with extraordinary passion. Trippett has carefully modelled his orchestration on Liszt’s works of the early 1850s, and it sounds unquestionably authentic when placed beside the exhilarating performance of Mazeppa that forms its companion piece. Throughout there’s a real sense of excitement at the discovery and restoration of a fine work by one of the most inventive of composers. You end up wishing that Liszt had somehow incorporated operatic composition into his extraordinary career, and wondering what the course of musical history might have been if he had.