Wagner is often misrepresented

René Kollo in conversation with Imre Fabian. Part 1.

René kollo as Lohengrin

Recently, in an antiquarian bookshop, I came across the book from which the present interview with René Kollo is taken. Never have I seen a Wagner singer speak so knowledgeably about Wagner. Intelligent singers always steal my heart, hence the reproduction of this interview. Coincidentally, his autobiography "Die Kunst, das Leben und alles andere", has just been published... which was promptly canonized by the Berliner Morgenpost as the most entertaining singer's biography of all time. Kollo talks in it about the not so obvious existence of a singer, a life between heaven and hell, about his Prussian character, his struggle for the emancipation of the singer, his preference for repertory theater, his clashes with Herbert Von Karajan, Giorgio Strehler, Wolfgang Wagner and August Everding but also about his respect for Patrice Chéreau and Jean-Pierre Ponnelle. Kollo is a singer who fights for his convictions. Self-doubt is not on his mind. "Nothing is more annoying than recognition," he writes. In the following interview, split into three parts, he speaks out about his great Wagner roles, the crisis in the theater, his work with friendly and disliked directors (J.H.)

DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NÜRNBERG

Walther von Stolzing behaves with the impertinence of genius. Is he even a nice guy ?

Absolutely not. Stolzing is a brash fellow with an exaggerated class consciousness. To him, the master singers are just subordinate people, who come out now and then and do their thing. Just plebs, with whom one barely maintains oneself. Until he gets to know Evchen. In dealing with the masters, he constantly loses his patience until the end. His presumptuous behavior is accompanied by the arrogance of youth, understood only by Sachs, who may have been like that before. And the marriage with Evchen is bound to be very turbulent. Evchen, after all, is not a lamb but a self-confident and purposeful girl, just perhaps not as smooth and as brash as she is often portrayed in newer stagings. After all, she says it herself, I want this one and no other: "Dich oder keinen". A difficult matter indeed since she was also in love with Sachs.

Was she really in love with Sachs?

Of course she was. The relationship Evchen-Sachs-Stolzing served as an example for Der Rosenkavalier: in it the Marschallin is like the old Sachs. Naturally, Sachs was also in love with Eva, just as she was in love with him. Eva says it very clearly too: ... "hatte ich die Wahl, nur dich erwählt' ich mir ... Doch nun hat's mich gewählt, zu nie gekannter Qual." In other words, if that Stolzing had not shown up we would have been married long ago.

To which, in this relationship, it still remains unclear whether Sachs has a family.

He did have one. But that was a long time ago... "Hatt' ich einst Weib und Kinder genug." But both have died and he has long been a widower. He never remarried because he was in love with Eva, who grew up in his house. And then when she becomes a young girl, he discovers his love for her. That, after all, is the theme of the Wahn monologue. Thinking about it, like: have you gone completely crazy, you can't have her at all because you're too old. And would you get her anyway then maybe she would become unhappy. That's why he helps Stolzing, because he sees that youth belong together. And then he muses on the fate of King Marke for a while. I think that in the more recent stagings of the play, the Sachs-Evchen relationship is completely misunderstood. In my opinion, that is precisely the most important moment in the play: the love of Sachs for Evchen and of Evchen for Sachs. Those who do not sense this and try to cover it up, with them I cannot discuss this opera, unfortunately. Sachs makes two great speeches in which he explains everything to himself. There can be no greater renunciation than this which the music expresses at the start of the third act. Then follows the monologue: Wahn. Wahn. The way Sachs encourages himself, there is nothing more beautiful in the entire opera literature. The prelude to the third act is something you really have to have experienced from Karajan. That is true detachment, it is also a piece of Karajan himself, a piece of his life, of his detachment. He is a bit like Sachs after all. Because of that, I consider his interpretation unsurpassed. The monologue is Sachs' farewell to Evchen, to the years spent together, at the same time also the farewell to a more mature youth, to the transition to old age. Just like the monologue of the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier.

Which Stolzing, in his adrift, carefree youth, hardly understands.

He understands it in the moment, which is also almost always wrongly staged, namely when Evchen throws herself at Sachs and says, "0 Sachs! Mein Freund! Du teurer Mann! Wie ich Dir Edlem lohnen kann!" Stolzing should be so astonished by this that he rushes to her and demands an explanation from her. He should be completely off the boil, he should snatch Evchen away with a gesture of indignation, what are you telling me there? Through the beauty, authenticity and truth of Evchen's statement, he understands that there has been something between the two. One thing or another now gets through to him and this situation should be clarified scenically, which usually does not happen. That is why I would like to direct Die Meistersinger myself one day. It would also be the ideal piece for Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, it could be a super-Ponnelle staging. But, as I said, I would also like to tackle it myself. Because something more beautiful, something more true about human relationships and about art has not been written since, it is also Wagner's most beautiful text.

In my interpretation I try to maintain Stolzing's presumption, his arrogance, to the very last. When he takes the gold chain from the master singers and pushes it away with a gesture as if, "I now have my Evchen, so now leave me alone with your lines" and then turns to Evchen with the wish: "ich will ohne Meister selig sein, mit dir". Then Sachs comes and makes his speech. Stolzing reacts with irritation: now he is giving another sermon to tell me what to do. Only at that moment, when Sachs explains to him that without these rules he would be worth nothing today, that it is thanks to the masters and their rules that he has gotten Evchen, only then does it click in his head and he accepts, against his will and without conviction, the rules of the masters' guild.

With the closing speech, we have arrived at the most thorny point of the play

The ending is a controversial one. It has a strong nationalistic component that must be seen in a completely different historical context. There is a trace of fearfulness to it to which it must immediately be added that one could detect the same fearfulness in many operas of Verdi. One should not delete these verses but interpret them on another level, as instruction for Stolzing: do you know how all this is connected? Sachs can take him by the arm and say: so, as you present it to yourself, it is not like that at all.

Die Meistersinger is a deeply human piece and so is the finale, not a German brimborium. Sachs' appearance on the fest meadow, after the "Wach auf" chorus is also usually misinterpreted. This is indeed a major national celebration. Then Sachs performs his "Euch wird es leicht, mir macht ihrs schwer,! gebt ihr mir Armen zu viel Ehr". And that means exactly the opposite of what is usually seen on stage. After all, it means, "Yes, you have easy talk. But I must make another speech because I have been sentenced to do so by you: Sachs will do it again. This is not a tragic German figure but the reaction of a man from whom something sensible and special is expected in all circumstances. He is a very human character, a kind of Albert Schweitzer father figure.

How do you see the ending: will Beckmesser be welcomed back into the community?

Obviously. Someone from the masters has to come to him and say: admit it, you made a mistake. The funny thing about his song only comes into its own when he is absolutely convinced that he has the right song in his hands and notices with every word what a comical turn the whole thing is taking. Why didn't I read that before? Because I thought: if Sachs wrote it down then it must be good. Now that he reads Sachs' memo of Walther's poem he notices with every word what nonsense he is talking about. It's not that only the others notice it, he notices it just as well himself. Only, this time he is in the chair. The joke follows from his understanding what laughable nonsense he is talking. He has to look nervously as if he's holding the wrong magazine.

And that is not made clear in most stagings

No. Most of the time it looks like he really wants to recite the whole nonsense with full seriousness. But Beckmesser is not an idiot; he is the most intelligent among the masters, the highest in stature.

TANNHÄUSER

From a singing point of view, which parts are the heaviest for you?

Tannhäuser. Because of all the parts, it is the worst partitioned. The early Wagner operas are actually all composed too high for the voice. Not in the top notes but in the register itself. The Holländer, Rienzi, all are too high.

What is your position on Rienzi? Do you think this opera has a chance in the repertoire? It is a very rewarding title part.

If one did not politicize Rienzi, but brought it, as it was intended, in a spectacular production like great Meyerbeer opera and put a lot of resources into the scenography, then a new staging could actually be attractive and successful. It suffers from the many cuts so that not much remains of the great dramatic unity. Now they are only highlights strung together.

The piece in its original length would be impossible to realize today.

No. Even Wagner already made major cuts and deliberately did not include the piece in the Bayreuth concept. He knew all too well that Rienzi was indebted to the French grand opéra.

Tannhäuser is a split personality, a torn figure. His tornness, however, is of a very different nature from Tristan's

In fact, they are not characters in themselves but parts of a human being. The bad part of Tannhäuser is, if you will, the Dionysian in us. It is about returning to the Apollonian, to Christianity. Venus and Elisabeth are also just one figure, they embody the good and the bad in man.

Then you would hold the directorial concept that has both roles performed by the same singer to be correct

From the dramaturgy point of view at least. Or one would have to have them sung by two singers who are very similar. One is very chaste and Christian, attached to the conventions, the other is Dionysian, bubbling with joie de vivre. Both are present in Elisabeth and Tannhäuser. Wolfram is a kind of Beckmesser type. For him there is neither a Dionysian nor an apollonian side to life but a cultivated middle ground from which he never breaks out. Elisabeth is a very differentiated figure because she combines both in herself, a human being whose doubts about religion bring him into conflict with his habits and his morality. A bit like Isolde in Tristan.

LOHENGRIN AND TRISTAN

Lohengrin is condemned to failure from the outset because his demands, his conditions are unacceptable to Elsa, he desires the impossible. Therein exists the tragedy of the character.

Humanity cannot accept a "savior." He could become human but humanity cannot take him in because it must know where he came from. Just as people could not recognize Christ, if he existed at all. They need to see miracles to be convinced. For Lohengrin, the bridal chamber scene is the attempt to become human. When he says, "Atmest du nicht mit mir die süßen Düfte," it does not mean that he is looking around in a garden and sees a beautiful bouquet of flowers there, as it is so often represented. It has a higher meaning, namely: do you not breathe with me love, the highest realization of being human. There is also physical contact, from which she too does not withdraw. Only that delusion works in her head, as it does with Sachs. And that is the human thing about history: I have to know, who he is, what he is and where he comes from.

The dramatic counter-figure to Lohengrin is Ortrud

I don't agree with that. In my opinion, Ortrud is also misrepresented. In her innermost being she is completely honest with herself and convinced that she is following the right religion. It is set in the time of the transition to Christianity. Ortrud should in no way be presented as an evil fairy tale witch. For this woman is convinced that what people have done and believed for centuries is right. Ortrud is a conservative figure. She has also become somewhat demonized by Wagner. If Wagner had composed Lohengrin later the psychological differentiation of this figure would certainly have been greater. Ortrud must possess an extraordinary power. She is a kind of Elektra, defending only what she considers right. In this sense she is not an antagonist of Lohengrin, he doesn't have to fear her at all.

I rather understood the notion of the antagonist as Ortrud giving rise to doubt in Elsa which will ultimately cause Lohengrin to fail

That is the accepted view. From the beginning, Elsa is the one who wants to -and must- ask the questions. Doubt overwhelms her from the start, that is the human thing. The divine principle is destroyed by this, the principle of the ability to believe without doubting. A truly religious person, which I am not, does not ask about the existence of God, but believes in him. Credo quia absurdum. Lohengrin is the parable of the incompatibility of the divine with the human. Man actually fails himself because he is incapable of believing. God cannot be grasped by rational means. This is the central problem of human history.

In recent years, several directors have made exciting, interesting attempts to explain Elsa. As an exalted, overwrought, visionary woman, versus the more conventional, often rather dull, exalted saintly figure

There is one important point that is never brought up and that is the relationship between King Heinrich and Elsa, a kind of father-daughter relationship. When Heinrich has to decide what should happen next he says it very clearly: I cannot decide, only a god's judgment can. He also always comes back to her and asks: what exactly happened, Elsa, tell me. He has a very close relationship with Elsa, he does not look down on her like a king from on high. The god's judgment is instituted by the king out of desperation because he no longer knows how to proceed and he cannot choose between Telramund, his best general, and Elsa. This compulsion is rarely, if ever, staged. Of course, certain schizophrenic traits are noticeable in Elsa but not in the sense of being mentally disturbed. The first act does not get a satisfactory resolution scenically when the emotionally charged, close relationship between the king and Elsa is not shown. Mostly both stand there as if they barely know each other.

Elsa is psychologically burdoned?

Yes, she is. Her dream is actually a sign of genius. She has more imagination, more ideas as her environment, there again a piece of Stolzing-Sachs comes up. She seems confused because she instinctively senses what is coming. That's why you can't let her walk around like a madwoman, because from the other hand she is also something like a pure German girl. She must also possess these traits, otherwise the tragedy loses its effect at the end. If Elsa were to be hysterical from the beginning, then one already knows from the start how the play will end. She must be a split personality but also a very pure character. When she is greeted, the chorus sings, not incorrectly: here comes the angelic one, the pure one. She is also a kind of saint among men. The entire first act is about the father-daughter relationship between the king and her. Her exaltation is visible because no one understands what she is saying. For herself, it is perfectly clear and obvious. Of course she also has doubts, when Lohengrin does not appear at first. One must always see Elsa from Lohengrin's farewell. He then sings, "Dann kehrte, selig in des Grals Geleite, dein Bruder wieder, den du tot gewähnt." So this proved that she was completely right.

The questioning, the inquiring, the doubting, inquiring into the secrets of the psyche and then finally succumbing to these doubts and questions, is also a theme for pyschoanalysis. A theme which has also been taken up again in the 20th century, for example in Bartok's Bluebeard

Freud and modern psychoanalysis have learned a staggering amount from Wagner. The philosophical problem of modern physics, for example, is anticipated in Parsifal with the sentence "Zum Raum wird hier die Zeit" long beforehand. Or the first sentence of modern psychoanalysis in Tristan "Wie, hör' ich das Licht" - the total schizophrenia. No thinking person can get past Wagner hence my access to the Wagner parts is always through philosophy. I love Lohengrin, not because of the fact that he performs and sings beautifully but as an idea. And that becomes noticeable in the character when one is on stage. With Tristan it is the same. I am not talking about the sword-wielding hero, but rather about the figure of the downfall within the framework of philosophy at the end of the 19th century, of wanting to go under. This is exactly what we experience today: not being strong enough anymore to defend oneself. That one lets oneself be carried away and says: the best thing would be to dissolve completely into nirvana. That is the theme of Tristan for me and not the story, which is played on stage. The theme is the Schopenhauerian philosophy of downfall, the decadence of our world.

That's why I love Tristan because the correctness of this philosophy that we can only today test for its validity, the longing for death, the no-longer-can-live, the abolition of religion, of traditional values, convince and fascinate me deeply. That's why it's hard to have to work with people who deal with this piece on a completely different level. I think this was Wagner's intention, which he connected with the great love story and which is curiously available in the music but which he himself did not experience. His sexuality is in Tristan. In Wagner's operas, I am always interested by this philosophical aspect rather than by the formal story depicted on stage. For 20 years I have been concerned with Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Wagner and their time.

Turning now to the history of Tristan: both lovers, Tristan and Isolde, are convinced that they are drinking the death potion. However, Brangäne has handed them the love potion. However, the drink is only a catalyst, it brings out the repressed

For me that is the most important scene, not only in the first act but in the whole play. There are two possibilities. One is that Tristan does not visually perceive Isolde's " Ich trink' ihn dir". The other that they drink together. After that, both can only take to themselves and stay that way to finally die. With Ponnelle I had a very nice collaboration in Bayreuth, but this scene was also with him the point where he could not convince me. He liked the cup so much from a visual point of view that he wanted it to be different. He is among those directors who also like to take something from others, someone with whom one can discuss, a completely open person, who does not cling crampedly to a concept. However, this is a scene where I don't want to make any concessions. Because at that moment the play is lifted to another level. The moment Isolde says that, all brakes are off. The threshold to amorality is crossed. There is no more dying, or at most a communal dying. Or they must be so far apart that they still do not want to admit their love to each other. We found a similar solution in Dresen's staging in Zurich. That is a possibility. But Tristan and Isolde can no longer separate when Isolde confesses, "Ich trink ihn Dir", which means, yes I love you, have you still not understood that, and that is also composed in the leitmotif. I want to repeat: that is the moment when the brakes of all moral concepts fall away, where both already pass into Nirvana. Where the social constraint of the then chivalrous time has been lifted. Exactly as Wieland Wagner staged it. That is why a Tristan und Isolde cannot be modernized, because the coercive position -we are also subject to social coercion but of a totally different nature- is that of the chivalrous period. Of the Middle Ages or even before, when the notion of being a knight led to the highest coercive position.

In the relationship between Tristan and Marke one can also read a few things

One can read all kinds of things into it, which under the circumstances of the time would have looked completely different. A friendship between men, a kind of father and son relationship, such as that between Marke and Tristan had a completely different meaning in the age of chivalry. It was a pure man's world, a male society closed in on itself. One could mention homosexuality but not in the sense given to it today. It was a completely normal thing at the time, just as it was in ancient Greece. So the gay aspect is a given but it is irrelevant since Tristan falls in love with Isolde - and Marke too, for that matter. Tristan is playing a wicked game because, after all, he has robbed the king's daughter of Ireland. Being an unknown, he has gone back to Ireland to get her. This creates another compelling twist in the story. "Er sah mir in die Augen" - at the time when he was lying there sick and injured. But now, that he is up there on the deck of the ship and she is down below, he cannot look at her. Then she reaches out to him for the drink that will solve everything.

With Isolde, it's a kind of love of hatred. To be dragged as a king's daughter to a foreign land is a deadly humiliation. But she loves him. She can mock him honourably but he can't look at her because he knows exactly what kind of evil game he is playing with her, instead of saying, I love you too. The second act is the perfect definition of what Wagner meant when he said that his dramas should be visible acts of music. Everything takes place in the music. Hence, one must not over-stage the play and set up action after action. One must let the music speak.

One could say, this second act cannot be staged.

The second act cannot be staged. At best, no action is taken as Wieland has done. After all, everything takes place in an inner world, in the music. Every action feels ridiculous. It is not an act of love, it has nothing to do with love in an erotic sense. In the entire piece it never comes to a kiss let alone to more than that. Because love cannot exist within this convention but can only exist in death. They want to pass into the next realm because they can no longer live in the present one. The second act is Schopenhauer. Not being able to live anymore, not being strong enough to struggle against the convention. Even the greatest hero can no longer do it. That is exactly the beauty of it. The greatest of all heroes is the weakest and most decadent. He wants nothing more than to die.

Then comes the third act with its feverish hallucinations, the greatest challenge one can present an interpreter in all of music literature, both in terms of singing and interpretation.

It is wonderfully beautiful but the most murderous one can imagine. You stand before it as if you were facing a mountain or a twenty meter thick concrete wall and you think: if only I can get through today without having a heart attack... I am always physically completely exhausted afterwards and need several days to recover, I just can't get out of bed afterwards.

There is also a curse on the part because the first Tristan died shortly after the premiere

That was a tragic coincidence with Schnorr von Carolsfeld. Otherwise, many would have died of Tristan. But the part certainly goes beyond the limits of the normally bearable. There, purely physical matters also play a major role. If you have been on stage for three hours and now, in the last act, are lying on the floor - and for 20 minutes you only have to lie down - your blood circulation goes so much into a slumber that, with the second outburst - the first one is easier to master - your eyes turn black or you start to see stars. At that moment I no longer know where I am. I'm really not exaggerating. My whole blood circulation is so weak because I have been lying on the floor for so long. And then comes "Isolde kommt, Isolde naht". That's written so relentlessly that for me there are moments when I think: now it's done, now the curtain goes down. And yet it always goes on... I can only sing this role with full commitment and not just reel it in.

That is why Tristan will remain the benchmark role for all Wagner singers.

I must honestly say, when I hear that Lauritz Melchior has sung 250 or 300 Tristans, I am speechless. On top of that, of course, they were all docked. Because in America, for example, the third act is reduced to half and the second act is also greatly shortened. Then it is actually not a big problem. If the play were reduced to 4 hours I could also sing 300 Tristans. But without cuts? If Melchior sang 300 uncut performances then they must have been very bad, otherwise I don't understand. I just can't imagine it.

Source : Imre Fabian im Gespräch mit René Kollo, Orell Füssli, 1982. Translation: Jos Hermans

Originally published in the printedition of Leidmotief, April 2004