And the First Nazarene is one more role that needs some attention. As the five Jews (four tenors, one bass—and these must be voices that penetrate) are reaching the climax of their never-to-be-decided debate over the possible return of the prophet Elijah and the credibility of the new alleged Messiah, and  while Herod is anxiously questioning them and Herodias is demanding that they be silenced, the voice of the prophet again sounds from below (“See, the day is near,” etc.). Herod asks one more question, and now the First Nazarene, to the only music resembling Jochanaan’s that is not sung by him and with the Second Nazarene chiming in a few times, moves to center stage both physically and musically. He’s a bass, and that he is meant to be a deep bass is made clear by the fact that most of his music lies toward the bottom of his range, some of it trading in low G’s, and is meant to be sung calmly and quietly (sehr ruhig is the marking) while he speaks of miraculous healings and even of raisings from the dead. But then, as he reports that the Messiah has left Samaria and is even now approaching Jerusalem, his line unexpectedly (but still calmly) moves on a great arc over the upper F sharp, down, and then back up to the F—”ist in der Nähe von Jerusalem,” a climactic pronouncement. Strauss was apparently confident that opera companies of his time would have on their rosters a bass of rolling sonority in the low range (perhaps their Sarastro and Fafner), yet able to sweep up into baritone territory, sounding beautiful as he goes, with this piece of news. The Nazarene, a proto-Christian, must command the stage for a very short duration at this central point in the opera. Back in ’07, the Met cast Marcel Journet, still in the early years of his major career, in this part, and the ’49 and ’52 performances bring us Deszö Ernster, singer of the leading Wagner bass roles, and Alois Pernerstorfer (Kurt Boehme soon to come). On that Krauss/Goltz studio recording is to be found Ludwig Weber, great Hagen before the war, great Gurnemanz and Ochs after it, giving these pages their fullest measure.

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For a long time, Claus Guth was looking for an opera about child sex abuse, an issue much in the news. Thinking of himself as a sort of social worker, but having no interest in taking one of the low-paying and probably depressing jobs in that field, he wanted instead to direct such an opera, thereby winning the approval of all right-thinking people. He had not the talent and training to write the words and music for one himself (his skills lay in theatricalization), and so he was obliged to look to others for an opera on this subject. But none turned up, and considering what he’d been seeing and hearing in recent years, it probably wouldn’t have been any good anyway. That posed a problem, but nowadays there are no obstacles to its solution. One merely makes the default move of purloining the words and music of others—long-dead others, so that one isn’t sued—and clamping a child sex abuse story, or any other that is crossing one’s mind, onto the back of this old work, like a parasite feasting on an aging beast. And no one will say a word. According to the old understanding, this would have been denied sanction, on the grounds that it destroys the integrity of the artwork. But under our New Covenant, while people may opine about what’s to like or dislike about the look of the new beast, as to the crime that gave it birth we won’t hear a whimper. It’s the one species of flagrant cultural appropriation that no one seems to mind.