Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992)

[bhodges]

As much of a Messiaen skeptic as I am, I'd still love the opportunity to catch Saint François live.

I still lament that New York City Opera was planning to stage it - and at the vast, airplane hangar-sized Park Avenue Armory (old photo below) - until Gerard Mortier abruptly left the company. But I hope the new director, George Steel, will consider it. The company's financial state is apparently a bit precarious at the moment, but I'm rooting for them to recover.

--Bruce

[(poco) Sforzando]

I am not a Messiaen skeptic and would also love to attend a performance. 

The effect of this kind of mammoth work depends on hearing it uninterrupted, in a theatrical setting - and to totally enter the composer's world for how many hours it lasts.  Until you have done this I do not think one can truthfully claim to have experienced the work.

So I haven't experienced it. Boo-hoo. Life is too short.

The new administration at Paris's national opera company strove mightily to ensure that Olivier Messiaen's lengthy meditation on the life of St Francis would be the event of this unfolding season. Considerable prestige was involved for both the French house and the Belgian impresario who has literally stamped his name on the company's public identity (its logo now reads 'Opéra national de Paris direction Gérard Mortier'). The work was commissioned for this company in 1983 and composed by a veritable national treasure. Its title role was created by the renowned baritone who reprised it in this third Paris production, Mortier's countryman José Van Dam. In the pit with the enormous orchestra was another longtime Mortier collaborator, Sylvain Cambreling, a veteran of the 1992 revival and one of seven, count 'em, 'permanent conductors' named by Mortier earlier this year.

Working against Saint François's bid for hitdom were its length (nigh on six hours in this new production, counting two unnecessarily long breaks) and the acquired-taste status of much Messiaen, even in France, combined with less than buzzy advance word of mouth about Stanislas Nordey's stationary staging and Emmanuel Clolus's dark geometric sets. In the event, the critical reaction was mixed and the respectably full houses tended to bleed spectators at the intervals despite Van Dam's moving performance. By turns commanding and compassionate, his reading of this role (which reportedly he had to be coaxed into undertaking for a third time) was never unsure and often purely beautiful despite its rigors.

One wonders if the difficulty and sheer length of the part were offset or exacerbated for the singer by the mostly immobile staging, which had Saint François perched on little platforms for hours on end. From the audience viewpoint a bit more activity would have been welcome. Other particularly outstanding members of a generally fine cast were German soprano Christine Schäfer as the angel and American tenors Chris Merritt and Charles Workman as, respectively, the leper and Brother Masseo.

http://www.operajaponica.org/archives/paris/parisletterpast04.htm

[Coco]

I don't think it's too much of a revelation that most people get restless after 5+ hours.

[Philoctetes]

So I haven't experienced it. Boo-hoo. Life is too short.

Poco's epitaph:

Missed Messiaen's St. Francis

SEE now you're life is DEFINED by that moment.

[Philoctetes]

I don't think it's too much of a revelation that most people get restless after 5+ hours.

I sat through Les Troyens with no problems.

[karlhenning]

Any opera that long should have a lunch-break.

[Coco]

I sat through Les Troyens with no problems.

And I've sat glued to the screen through Siberiade and Bernard's Les Misérables — but we're not "most people".

[karlhenning]

Les Troyens with two intermissions is fine IMO.

[Philoctetes]

And I've sat glued to the screen through Siberiade and Bernard's Les Misérables — but we're not "most people".

http://www.youtube.com/v/8M0QiNwyRKE

[karlhenning]

Pffft.

[DavidW]

Most operas are too fuckin' long in my books.

Wait isn't Stockhausen's supposed to be really, really long?

[(poco) Sforzando]

Most operas are too fuckin' long in my books.

You might like Gianni Schicchi.

[MDL]

As much of a Messiaen skeptic as I am, I'd still love the opportunity to catch Saint François live.

I attended the semi-staged BBC Proms performance in 2008; it was long on the arse, to be sure, and there are half a dozen Messiaen works that I prefer, but being "forced" to concentrate on, and follow, the whole thing (rather than merely dipping into Nagano's vivid DG recording) was a revelation. I posted about it at the time; the audience was shockingly small for a Prom, considering the number of people on stage and the amount time and money that must have been necessary to bring this work to London. I am so glad I went; it was draining, daunting but mesmerising.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

So I haven't experienced it. Boo-hoo. Life is too short.

I have experienced it, in Amsterdam. I hate to say it, but once was enough. I love Messiaen's organ pieces, I love his wonderful harmonies. But Saint Francis was too often just plain boring.

[Scarpia]

Well, I think I have come to terms with with why I may never really connect with Messiaen.  It is that the thing which I find most interesting in music is (or at least it seems to me) largely absent from Messiaen's music.  I like progression in music, music that tells an abstract story, develops themes, comes to a conclusion.  Messiaen's music strikes me as strikingly static.  Each movement has a certain idea, which is painted in sound, but there is no sense of journey.  The sense of drama and progression to a resolution is not there (at least as I perceive it).

[Henk]

Well, I think I have come to terms with with why I may never really connect with Messiaen.  It is that the thing which I find most interesting in music is (or at least it seems to me) largely absent from Messiaen's music.  I like progression in music, music that tells an abstract story, develops themes, comes to a conclusion.  Messiaen's music strikes me as strikingly static.  Each movement has a certain idea, which is painted in sound, but there is no sense of journey.  The sense of drama and progression to a resolution is not there (at least as I perceive it).

With Messiaen you also have just thrown away Bach with these critics. Maybe your critics are not to be taken completely serious, but rather are to be conceived as testimonies of craziness?

[Luke]

Well, I think I have come to terms with with why I may never really connect with Messiaen.  It is that the thing which I find most interesting in music is (or at least it seems to me) largely absent from Messiaen's music.  I like progression in music, music that tells an abstract story, develops themes, comes to a conclusion.  Messiaen's music strikes me as strikingly static.  Each movement has a certain idea, which is painted in sound, but there is no sense of journey.  The sense of drama and progression to a resolution is not there (at least as I perceive it).

That's a pertinent observation and very largely true. OTOH in multi-movement works there is, at least, the progression from movement to movement. And often there are movements within this which do tell a story of some sort, which do progress. I am thinking of several from the Vingt Regards - the Joy movement, the mighty fugue Par Lui tout a ete fait, the various intimate and radiant virgin/child movements, which can build to rapt climaxes ordevlop into intense inner monologues. There is also the progression and change which is often inherent in Messiaen's techniques - the various augmentation/diminution/rhythmic character techniques etc that he developed and which can be easily followed an traced in the listening, to enjoyable effect. But I do recognise entirely what you are saying - I think this is really one which just boils down to taste.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

But I do recognise entirely what you are saying - I think this is really one which just boils down to taste.

Indeed. I share Scarpia's difficulties.

[Scarpia]

That's a pertinent observation and very largely true. OTOH in multi-movement works there is, at least, the progression from movement to movement. And often there are movements within this which do tell a story of some sort, which do progress. I am thinking of several from the Vingt Regards - the Joy movement, the mighty fugue, the various intimate and radiant virgin/child movement, which can build to rapt climaxes ordevlop into intense inner monologues. There is also the progression and change which is often inherent in Messiaen's techniques - the various augmentation/diminution/rhythmic character techniques etc that he developed and which can be easily followed an traced in the listening, to enjoyable effect. But I do recognise entirely what you are saying - I think this is really one which just boils down to taste.

Well, my familiarity with Messiaen is not exhaustive, by any means, so anything I saw should be taken with a grain of salt.  There are the pieces which build to a climax, but the impression I get is more in the manner of the unfolding of a musical idea, and the accretion of more and more sound to that idea.   There is still the absence of a sense of resolving, in tonal music of returning to the home key, or in less tonal music of the musical themes confronting each other and coming to a new place.

In any case, maybe the issue is that I have to try to understand Messiaen's music on his terms, if at all.

[Henk]

Well, my familiarity with Messiaen is not exhaustive, by any means, so anything I saw should be taken with a grain of salt.  There are the pieces which build to a climax, but the impression I get is more in the manner of the unfolding of a musical idea, and the accretion of more and more sound to that idea.   There is still the absence of a sense of resolving, in tonal music of returning to the home key, or in less tonal music of the musical themes confronting each other and coming to a new place.

In any case, maybe the issue is that I have to try to understand Messiaen's music on his terms, if at all.

Well I really have been striked by Messiaen's music more then once. His music has convinced me, your ideas about it can't make me re-evaluate Messiaen. So I just object to your ideas because of I have good experience with Messiaen's music.

Messiaen is like Debussy for me, but then taken to the next level. And he really influenced Takemitsu. Do you also dislike Takemitsu?

Henk