Duck croak and a large orchestra

Actually, the town of Rheinsberg should be renamed Ludwigslust this summer. Because a big “Festival for Beethoven” will be celebrated around the palace until August 21st. Because the pandemic prevented the composer’s 250th birthday from being properly celebrated last year, Georg Quander, director of the “Rheinsberg Castle Chamber Opera”, postponed his program planning to 2021 – and then even expanded it.

As we knew it from his time as director of the Lindenoper from 1991 to 2002, the theater and musicologist studied dramaturgically in depth at the summer festival in Ruppiner Land. With the young singers who have qualified for the Rheinsberg program to promote young talent this year, he has already presented Beethoven’s arrangements of folk songs from all over the world – which was particularly fitting because the ensemble also represents a colorful mix of nationalities. After the final concert of Siegfried Jerusalem’s master class, there was an evening in which four-part “Fidelio” passages were juxtaposed with Beethoven’s style-defining string quartets.

From August 4th, the composer’s only opera will be shown in a new open-air production, directed by the director himself. Of course, he did not choose the version from 1814 that is usually performed, but the first version from 1805.

When Quander spoke to the conductor of the production, Peter Gülke, at a lecture concert about the genesis of the work last weekend, it met with great interest from the large audience, as he reports in an interview. In general, the director is positively surprised by the development of advance sales. Not only in Berlin, but also around the capital, people are obviously dying to finally be able to experience live culture on a large scale again.

A perfect summer evening in the palace complex

With the artists things weren’t quite so carefree. The participants from Great Britain had to stay at home, the Russian singers were initially told that they would also be banned from leaving the country – and when they were finally allowed to come to Rheinsberg, the “Fidelio” rehearsals were already in full swing.

Financially, Georg Quander calculated carefully from the start with only 50 percent space utilization (as it is now handled), at the beginning of the year his team was on short-time work. And because the “Fra Diavolo” production planned for July had to be canceled due to the corona and both the state donors and sponsors transferred their funding as planned, he will probably not have to overdraw his budget. If the weather continues to play along as before.

In any case, on Friday visitors can experience a perfect summer evening in the inner courtyard of the three-winged palace complex at the first of three concerts in which the Academy of Early Music juxtaposes Beethoven’s symphonies with unknown works by his contemporaries. The rows of seats with the airy folding chairs are placed in such a way that the view can wander through the double row of columns of the colonnades, across the Grienericksee, which glistens in the light of the setting sun, to the forest on the other side, in front of which an obelisk crowns the baroque visual axis of the park. An excited swarm of swallows hisses to the side, chirping when the music gets louder, between the sentences you can sometimes hear ungracious ducks croaking.

Sounding comic with musical means

Before the orchestra plays the “Eroica”, without a conductor, with full physical effort and a bobbing ponytail, guided by concertmaster Meesun Hong Coleman, an absolute rarity can be heard, Paul Wranitzky’s “Grande symphonie caractéristique pour la paix avec la République Francaise” from 1797. Beethoven knew the music director of the Vienna Burgtheater well, the score of the symphony celebrating the peace treaty between Austria and Napoléon von Campoformio was in his library.

(The festival runs until August 21st. Further information at: www.kammeroper-schloss-rheinsberg.de)

Paul Wranitzky has composed a kind of sounding comic, using striking musical means to tell current history: The first movement is about the turmoil of battle, atmospheric episodes are sharply cut against each other. The second movement depicts the calm after the storm, followed by a ceremony during which the people are informed of the conclusion of the contract with lots of cannon blows, and the symphony ends with a cheerful all-will-be finale.

Beethoven’s genius is always particularly evident in direct comparison with his contemporaries. As wonderfully vital as the Akademie für Alte Musik plays Wranitzky’s opus, the “Eroica” written just six years later, in 1803, has so much more substance, is rhythmically more innovative, harmonically richer, melodically more refined. This autonomous music does not need an additional narrative level to be effective, it does not have to illustrate anything because it speaks for itself. It is full of surprises and yet develops absolutely organically, even with compelling logic, because all thoughts are interwoven in a masterly way.