SALZBURG DIARY : The Verdict: Salonen <i> Ja</i> , Sellars <i> Nein</i>

The results are in, and--wonder of wonders--there seems to be general agreement among the critical voices of the Germanic press:

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Point 1: Olivier Messiaen’s “Saint Francois d’Assise” is a very challenging, very undramatic, very important opera.

Point 2: The ambitious new production at the Salzburg Festival--only the second attempt to stage the sprawling opus since the unhappy 1983 premiere in Paris--represents the highlight of Gerard Mortier’s first season as artistic director here.

Point 3: Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic received the sort of approval that should obliterate the dubious impression left by their ill-advised debut concert.

Point 4: The cast--led by Jose van Dam as the titular saint and Dawn Upshaw as the singing Angel (with Sara Rudner wearing Fra Angelico wings as her dancer-double)--was superb.

Point 5: Peter Sellars’ modernist staging scheme--a series of primitive tableaux ornamented with a huge neon grid and a battery of flickering video monitors--contradicted the humble piety of the composer’s intentions.

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The opening-night audience on Monday greeted the 6 1/2-hour marathon with cheers for everyone except Sellars and his designing accomplices. But they had vociferous advocates as well. Salzburg loves nothing so much as a good controversy, on the stage and in print too.

Karl Harb of the Salzburger Nachrichten declared that “the sovereign achievement of Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic assured a glorious musical triumph,” even though he admitted, gingerly, that a “more natural, less ponderous approach” might have enhanced the pathos of the final scene.

As for Sellars, Harb admired his intelligence, musicality and daring but decried his imposition of “the language of video, neon and electronics.” He wondered, rhetorically, what the gentle Messiaen would have thought of the “garish birds on Sellars’ TV screens.”

The headline in Die Welt of Hamburg heralded “Sacred Mysticism Under a Neon Cross.” Anton Gugg deplored Sellars “new-age disco” ambience and concluded that “much in this sensational production gave one the queasy impression of a purely superficial aesthetic masquerading as a new profundity.”

Marianne Reissinger wrote in the Munich Abendzeitung of “Video Games Minus a Message.” She acknowledged Sellars’ stature as an “exceptionally imaginative director,” but claimed that his obsession with television and neon reduced this work to “color-dream kitsch.” Salonen and the Philharmonic, however, were praised for the “decent pathos that lent special persuasion to Messiaen’s musical credo.”

Gerhard R. Koch of the distinguished Frankfurter Allgemeine labeled “St. Francois” “an anti-opera” and decried some monotony in a production that, he found, culminated in “maudlin episodes worthy of an Oberammergau passion play.” Koch also was disturbed by what he regarded as Sellars’ tendency to “substitute media sterility for the composer’s creative invention.”

The same critic voiced praise, however, for “Salonen’s agile baton technique and alert circumspection, which assured a top-class bravura achievement . . . reinforced by the stamina and intensity of the musicians from California.”

Peter Vujica of the Vienna Standard suggested, rather provocatively, that Sellars’ boo-serenade was “hysterical and certainly not exclusively predicated on artistic considerations.” Although he had unkind words for the stage direction, Vujica did call the premiere “an artistic event of worldwide significance.” He described the contributions of conductor and orchestra as “overwhelmingly powerful.”

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And so it went. Gerhard Ritschel’s notice in the Oberosterreichische Nachrichten felt the staging conveyed nothing so much as “the death of a saint in the manner of a TV orgy.” He did say, however, that Salonen and the orchestra had earned a “secure position in the annals of the Salzburg Festival.”

Ernst P. Strobl of the Salzburger Volkszeitung found the direction and decors “worthy of Las Vegas,” the jerky TV images a “trial for both nerves and eyes.” Still, he took comfort in Salonen’s “ability to control the masses of sound and bring order to the potential chaos of Messiaen’s bird calls.”

Wilhelm Sinkovicz of the Vienna Presse decided that Sellars’ work here was “hardly better than what one would expect in a nice student workshop.” He seconded the audience’s “euphoric endorsement of the musical performance,” however, with one qualification: “Salonen sometimes may have stressed clarity at the expense of expression.”

Wolfgang Schreiber of the Suddeutsche Zeitung in Munich noted that “the precise, exceedingly dynamic Esa-Pekka Salonen drove the heroic, well-prepared Los Angeles Philharmonic to the outer limits of exertion.” He also thought that Sellars’ video innovations “distorted, cheapened and mechanized the unity of music and drama, inhibiting concentration in the process.”

A review in the Neue Kronenzeitung, signed by one KHR, appeared under the headline “Death of a TV Saint.” It called “St. Francois” “a masterpiece,” and the musical performance “perfectly balanced.”

The most disturbing review came from the Vienna Kurier via Franz Endler, a notably outspoken critic of Mortier’s policies in post-Karajan Salzburg. He wrote that Sellars’ contribution “was not quite as awful as one might have expected, but much more nervous than necessary.”

Quite startling in context, Endler also attacked Salonen:

“He does not really have the music within his grasp, and does not really allow it to blossom.” Then came the blow: “Seiji Ozawa was incomparably better at the Paris premiere.”

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Most enlightened critics, amateur as well as professional, had been disappointed with Ozawa’s reading. A recording confirms numerous inequities, as do some remarkable words of self-deprecation from the maestro himself. Shortly after the first performance, he admitted that he had been frustrated by some of the simultaneous complexities that abound in this formidable score.

Lingering questions regarding Endler’s possible political agenda came to mind in his final paragraph:

“The massive Arnold Schoenberg Choir (of Vienna) is impeccable. The Los Angeles Philharmonic was not.”

So much for the minority perspective.

Meanwhile, our busy Philharmonic braces itself for three more encounters with St. Francis, an evening of Debussy, Bartok and Stravinsky under Salonen, and a Bartok-Berg-Debussy valedictory under Pierre Boulez.