Customer Reviews

Gogo No Eiko Musikdrama in Zwei Teilen

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After confessing that I hate Mishima's very nasty novella THE SAILOR WHO FELL FROM GRACE WITH THE SEA (and the American movie based on it, which starred Kris Kristofferson), I have to admit that Hans Werner Henze has created something endlessly fascinating and gripping in his operatic adaptation. This is an unpleasant horror story, but Henze's middle of the road atonality ideally suits the tale of a beautiful widow, the sailor she is in love with and her violent voyeuristic teenage son and the gang he belongs to. The totality makes me think of Richard Strauss' SALOME as the teenage son, like Strauss' heroine, is the catalyst in the evil that happens. What one finds most disturbing about the original story, the film AND the opera is that on some level, Mishima believed that the murderous actions of the son and his gang were justified ! Perhaps of necessity, Henze has opted for adult male singers for the son and the gang. This work must be tricky to stage well !
The orchestration successfully moves back and forth between the lyricism of the love story and the violence of the teenage gang. The contrasts are highly effective. Most of the vocal writing works, although it could hardly be called beautiful. The cast, all but one of whom are Japanese(an Israeli countertenor ?),make the most of their roles.
Gerd Albrecht is the superb conductor.
The Sound recording is excellent.
There is no libretto or singer biographies, but there is a passable plot summary.

If you are a fan of Hans Werner Henze and especially his operas, then this is self-recommending. For the rest or if you aren't immediately sold, a bit of history first. This is a major re-write of an earlier opera (1988) DAS VERRATENE MEER--The Betrayed Sea, based on a short story by the Japanese writer Mishima--which was a huge failure, probably the worst of Henze's career. But he believed in it, and in 2003 and then again, in 2005, he transformed it, rewriting it almost completely-adding much music and recomposing the rest to fit a new Japanese text (the story takes place in Japan.) This recording is from a live concert from the 2006 Salzburg Festival. Why it has taken so long to release it, I have no idea. But it was worth the wait. Like L'UPUPA and PHAEDRA (if you've heard it) the earlier lyricism of Henze's music has been transformed into a beautiful sophistication, and the vein of violence intertwined in even more clever ways than before. The "love story" is told with this wonderful beauty while the violence which leads to the shocking conclusion is a great foil. Berg's LULU is a good comparison.

The singers are all Japanese. They are more serviceable than world-class but they seem to understand what they are singing about and they give the music what it needs. The orchestra is wonderful as is the conducting of Gerd Albrecht, who conducted the now-deleted recording of THE BASSARIDS. The balance is not perfect, but despite its imperfections, the music demands a five star rating. (I gave the video of L'UPUPA four stars for it's imperfections, but would change it to five stars if I could.) Unfortunately, it is an import and not cheap. But if you have the bucks, buy it. And if you haven't bought L'UPUPA. buy it, too.