A HOUSE, TO DREAM - THE BAYERISCHE STAATSOPER AND ITS HISTORIES

Essay by Prof. Holger Noltze
Reading time: 10 minutes

Habent sua fata libelli says an old Latin phrase, “books have their history” we might say – but buildings, and theatres in particular of course, also have their history. They are places where the reality of reality meets with the realm of the imaginary, of illusion, of what we dream, with our good dreams and with our nightmares. The theatre visualises the most beautiful and the most terrible, and musical theatre can also reach us in the darkness of the auditorium, and take us away to where words have no more to say. Opera houses are truly immersive buildings. And have been since long before there was a word for it.

IN ITS FIRST 175 YEARS, OPERA IN MUNICH WAS, AS IT WAS ALMOST EVERYWHERE, A ROYAL COURT PLEASURE AND RITUAL.

When in 1653 musical theatre was enjoyed for what was probably the first time in Munich’s Elector of Bavaria Residence with a dramatic cantata with the beautifully descriptive title, L’Arpa festante (The Festive Harp), by Giovanni Battista Maccioni, it was not just the beginning of what is now the more than three and a half century-old history of opera in Munich – presumably it was also the very beginning of the genre in Germany. And Munich, with its penchant for the beautiful, was certainly no random location, north of Italy and only a few years after Monteverdi’s death, to establish a space of possibilities for the still somewhat impossible art of the opera. A “festive harp”, the title of Maccioni’s cantata, said it beautifully – the social prominence of the festivity, the penetration of ordinariness by the aesthetic attraction of the beautiful, whereby society here at the time, of course, was limited to court life. In its first 175 years, opera in Munich was, as it was almost everywhere, a royal court pleasure and ritual.
 

No permanent position for Mozart 

It took a hundred years until François Cuvilliés (after the very first “electoral opera house” by the Salvatorkirche) created the genre's very own space, the (Old) Residenztheater, a rococo dream and to this very day the venue for this truly special, more intimate format. In the 1781 Carnival season the “Cuv” enjoyed its perhaps greatest music history moment – the world premiere of Idomeneo, a “Dramma per musica” by a 25-year-old gentleman from Salzburg. Mozart’s stroke of genius was certainly a success, but the greatest possible opportunity for opera location Munich had already been missed. On 30 September 1777, Wolfgang Amadé writes from the Bavarian Royal Residence to his father at home that he has personally “humbled himself” at the Elector’s feet and offered his services. To which the Elector replied: “‘But away from Salzburg for good?’ – ‘For good, yes, your Highness. Your Serene Highness.’ – ‘Well, my dear child, there is simply no vacancy.’ – ‘I assure your Highness, I would surely bring even glory to Munich.’ – ‘Well it wouldn’t matter what you did. There is simply no vacancy.’ Said he walking away.”

So no permanent position, not even for Mozart. But instead of course a diligently maintained dedication to Mozart became and remains a pillar of the Munich opera repertoire, almost continuously, being especially prominent in Bruno Walter’s period from 1912 to1923, and beyond to this very day. Mozart remained, even when Munich’s operatic taste changed, from the supremacy of the Italian programme during the reign of King Max I (1806–1825) to the discovery of a German art form under Ludwig I (1825–1848), who dismissed the Italians and commissioned the opera’s relocation from the, by then, limited Cuvilliés Theatre into the new, far more spacious Nationaltheater.

A virtual tour of the National Theater

Karl von Fischer’s now more contemporary classicism was inspired by the Odéon in Paris, with a view to a broader urban audience. Following a small fire and all kinds of financial difficulties, it opened in 1818. Just five years later, however, this first Nationaltheater was in flames again, when it burnt to its foundation walls on 14 January 1823, after the performance of a comic opera by Étienne-Nicolas Méhul. The history of the Nationaltheater, the central location for opera in Munich, is the history of its reconstructions. Which also means – a repeatedly reiterated commitment by the city to having a grand space for its musical-theatrical dreams. Two years later the Nationaltheater was reopened by Leo von Klenze, Ludwig I’s omnipresent court architect, extended with a pillared portico and the stage now also big enough for Meyerbeer’s grand operas. The swift reconstruction was substantially financed by a “Bierpfennig” (beer penny) levied especially for this in Munich.

Wagner-Theatre

In 1864 at just 18, Ludwig II is made King in Bavaria – and with him Munich becomes the central point of activity of his favourite composer and idol, Richard Wagner. For the genius of the 19th century’s musical drama, unlike he of the 18th century, there was a “big vacancy” here, and the Hof- und Nationaltheater saw the birth of no fewer than four key works of the eternal global opera repertoire. On June 10 1865, following spectacularly failed attempts in Vienna, Karlsruhe and elsewhere, Hans von Bülow conducted what was considered an unperformable “plot” of Tristan und Isolde. The Meistersinger von Nürnberg followed in 1868, again conducted by von Bülow. Furthermore, against the composer's wishes, but at the explicit request of the royal patron, Das Rheingold appeared in 1869, followed by the Die Walküre a year later. The conductor in the specially lowered orchestra pit was Franz Wüllner, both enjoying the fame of the world premiere conductor, but also incurring the wrath of Wagner: “Hands off my score. I tell you sir, or to hell with you!” It was to no avail of course, and for Wagnerians, the first complete Ring des Nibelungen at the initial Bayreuth Festival in 1876 is indeed the actual and official premiere anyway. Wagner in Munich was both a glorious and a hysterical time for everyone, and after his roaring departure, the creator of total works of 19th century art also remained a second key pillar of the Munich programme, and in 1901, the new venue built as a festival theatre, the Prinzregententheater, opened, logically of course, with the Meistersinger. Footnote: Wagner’s early work, Die Feen was also celebrated in Munich, posthumously in 1888.

With the end of the First World War the Court Opera became the Staatsoper (State Opera), soon to be guided by legendary conductors – until 1923 Bruno Walter, phenomenal champion of Mozart, Mahler and many others. Hans Knappertsbusch followed, but was driven out of office in 1935 by the Nazis, who he dared to publicly criticise, with his thoroughly conservative convictions. He was also the prominent initiator of the fatal, “Protest der Richard-Wagner-Stadt München” against Thomas Mann’s profound lecture on his essay, Leiden und Größe Richard Wagners, in June 1933 at the University of Munich. The journalistic attack was the tipping point for Mann’s going into exile. Knappertsbusch was little interested in direction and almost not at all in a contemporaneity of opera, but he knew how to fascinate others for what he believed in.

THE HOUSE HAS ITS STORIES, AND IT IS OF COURSE BRICKS AND MORTAR, BUT THE SPIRIT WITHIN IS WHAT DEFINES IT. A SPACE FOR MEETING OUR DREAMS, BUT ALSO OUR FEARS. AND HOPES. OPERA REMAINS A RISKY ART FORM, WITH ITS PROMINENT LOCATION IN THE HEART OF THE PUBLIC SPHERE, IT IS A MONSTROSITY INDEED.

Strauss Tradition

Along with more than 40 other persons of renown, the signatories of the Mann protest also included Munich-born Richard Strauss, son of the Munich royal court orchestra’s principal horn player. In 1886, the young composing and conducting genius became its third conductor, and it was his exclusion from conducting the late world premiere of Wagner’s Feen that made him leave Munich for Weimar and the rest of the world. But Strauss was of course unstoppable in Munich. He began a meteoric career in Dresden, Berlin, Vienna and elsewhere, and the first “Strauss-Tage” (Strauss Festival Days) were already celebrated in his home town in 1910. And so, Strauss became the third pillar of the Munich programme, although only Friedenstag (1938) and the late Capriccio (1942) celebrated world premieres here.

Clemens Krauss was the conducting General Manager at the Bayerische Staatsoper from 1936, and unlike his predecessor Knappertsbusch, he was diplomatically talented and agile in dealing with the authorities of Hitler’s regime. Krauss’s programme policy cemented the Mozart-Wagner-Strauss tradition, but he also opened up the house to artistically ambitious direction, with, for example, the appointment of the later General Manager, Rudolf Hartmann.

Strauss’s Capriccio in November 1942 was the last major world premiere performance in the old Nationaltheater. In the night of 3 October 1943, the building on Max-Joseph-Platz was hit by incendiary bombs and largely destroyed. Following the war performances began again straight away in the Prinzregententheater. Firstly General Manager Georg Hartmann guided the ensemble through the post-war years, followed by (not related) Rudolf Hartmann who began to organise the second reconstruction, essentially also driven by the civic engagement of the “Freunde des Nationaltheaters e. V.” society (Friends of the Nationaltheater) and supported by important conductors – the young Georg Solti, Rudolf Kempe, Ferenc Fricsay, and his highly esteemed successor, Joseph Keilberth, who died in the Munich orchestra pit in 1968 during a festival performance of Tristan und Isolde. On 21 November 1963, Keilberth had conducted the festive opening of the new Nationaltheater with Meistersinger, making its return to the programme once again. Even if this piece is about the new in art, we must understand the reconstruction of the Nationaltheater, a reconstruction as a “contemporary” interpretation of the basic concept of architecture, but with modern technology, as an avowal, a commitment to tradition. Other locations, other concepts were examined and abandoned, also because of the architectural cohesion of the Residenz ensemble.

With Günther Rennert in 1967 followed a director as General Manager, and Wolfgang Sawallisch became the long-serving formative General Music Director. Rennert staged and produced, but also opened up the house for his contemporaries, Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, August Everding, Otto Schenk and others. Everding (1977–1982) and Sawallisch (1982–1993) guided the house into an enlightened, tradition-conscious present day period. 1978 saw the world premiere of Aribert Reimann’s Lear. General Manager Sir Peter Jonas (1993–2006) introduced the successful development of the baroque repertoire and the cultivation distinctive directorial signatures. The gigantic dinosaur that fell, was booed and cheered in Sir Peter’s second new production, Handel’s Giulio Cesare, became an icon of a new opera era. Sir Peter’s development of Opera for All was also a connecting factor for his successors: The two-year management period of a directorate made up of Kent Nagano, Ulrike Heßler and Roland Schwab was followed by Nikolaus Bachler, who moved to the Bayerische Staatsoper from the Wiener Burgtheater in 2008, with Kirill Petrenko as GMD since 2013. Bachler’s term as General Manager, which focused on the opera as a place of splendour and innovation, weathered several storms. The legacy of the Bachler years includes the excellence of Kirill Petrenko’s musical prowess, as well as the star power of Anja Harteros and Jonas Kaufmann. With Das Gesicht im Spiegel and Babylon in 2003 and 2012 we saw two new operas by Munich-born Jörg Widmann and three further world premieres by Miroslav Srnka.

And today?

The house’s more recent history is shaped by the work to connect the expectations of one of the world’s biggest opera houses, a functioning repertory production with some 80 works, with the pressing issues of the present. These issues certainly also include the question of the social relevance of the special “opera” art form. Serge Dorny, General Manager in the 2021–2022 season, with Vladimir Jurowski as GMD, is busy interconnecting the Bayerische Staatsoper with the city and its cultural scenes. Dorny also sees his work as audience-oriented in a consciously demanding way – the audience is often underestimated: But, “Mediocrity brings nothing. We therefore have to challenge the audience. And it wants to be challenged.”

The new productions of his first season should be understood as a passionate commitment to the connectivity of opera in the here and now. As the space of an undogmatic understood contemporaneity, the establishment of a new festival, Ja, Mai!, follows a broad understanding of modernity, accompanied by the September Festival as a consciously low-threshold format. The house has its stories, and it is of course bricks and mortar, but the spirit within is what defines it. A space for meeting our dreams, but also our fears. And hopes. Opera remains a risky art form and, with its prominent location in the heart of the public sphere, it is a monstrosity indeed.

Serge Dorny in an interview with BR-Klassik