The company’s orchestra is a fine one, with a deeper, more homogeneous texture than we often hear, and from the full-throated chorus I was particularly taken with the purity, steadiness, and harmonic balance of the women.  János Kovács, the conductor, clearly knows the piece well and understands its stylistic fundamentals. But I have an ongoing quarrel with the modern treatment of Romantic extravagance in vocal writing, and the sequence I mentioned earlier—Astaroth’s Lockruf and Assad’s response, “Magische Tōne”—illustrates it well. There are always the questions of whether or not we’ve just given up on singers, as in “We know they can’t really do this, so let’s go by the score, bar-by-bar;” or whether modern singers, whose attention seldom strays toward—or is directed toward—historical precedent, just don’t understand the possibilities; or whether the many years of literalist enforcement by conductors and scholars have simply beaten singers into submission. “Yes,” “yes,” and “yes” are the correct answers. In this instance, it’s doubtful that the attractive but loosely supported soprano of Eszter Zavaros, the Astaroth, could have sustained the penetrating purity of the sustained tones, bitten off the crush notes, or warbled a true trill to the entrancing effect once within the technical range of many lyric sopranos.  And Lászlo clearly does not have the palette available to a Slezak, a Caruso, a Jadlowker, a Rosvaenge, or the best of the traditional cantorial tenors one suspects Goldmark had in his ear. Nonetheless, to hear these paired solos, with their demonstrated magical effects, pass by with no effort to do more than get through them at tempo, is to miss the romantic heart of the act. ^(I) We are left to imagine the impact the work must once have had, not only because of the greater voices and more complete techniques of the singers cast, but because of the full embrace of the romantic temperament by such artists and a conductor like Seidl.

In terms of “production values,” this was an entirely representational effort. Its one departure in the general direction of “concept” was in the handling of the Prelude. I am congenitally averse to the staging of preludes and overtures, but I’ll rise above principle in this case. The director, Csaba Kaél, used the second half of the Prelude (a subdued one that rather outlives itself toward the end) to dance/mime the first meeting of Assad and the Queen. This involved a starry firmament, lots of veil-like fabric, and some genuinely sensuous (at times pelvically quite explicit) choreographed moves by the excellent (uncredited) dancer of the Queen. This worked well as a prequel to the narrative, set an appropriately romantic tone, and came after the Prelude had accomplished its ear-only mission. The set, a high wall with parapet and grand staircase down into the forestage playing area, served well for the first act—the arrival of the Queen and the “phantastische Gruppierung” of her retinue, complete with a Danae-like showering of golden glitter, gave us an oldtime cornball thrill—but less so for the subsequent ones, with the garden, the ballet and festivities, and the final desertscape being quite meanly served. The costuming, though, was opulent and distinctive, with the peculiar exception of Assad’s, which was of no help to a performer who could have used some. In an instance like this one, where the several complete, detailed, romantic-realist sets that are indicated cannot be provided, I’d be prepared to forego another principle in favor of highly atmospheric abstraction, with costuming, lighting, and set pieces giving us the sense of place and mood.