Othmar Schoeck: Penthesilea (2000)

A 20th Century Masterpiece

Othmar Schoeck's claim to fame does not solely rest on the prodigious amount of lieder (which could be compared to Schubert's) extending throughout his lifetime, although his most recorded work, in all probability, is the haunting Elegie, a collection of poems sung with an orchestral accompaniment. Schoeck, like Mahler and Zemlinsky, reacted with feelings of pain and betrayal when his lover, Mary de Senger, ended their relationship in 1923. Both the Elegie and the opera Penthesilea were generated from the aftermath of his despair. Heinrich von Kleist's play of the ill-fated romance of Achilles and the Amazon Penthesilea takes a different tact from Homer; in his libretto, Penthesilea kills Achilles and dies of grief for having killed her lover!

Since Schoeck was honored to be asked to attend Reger's composition class, certainly his roots were founded in late Romanticism and Expressionism. These roots are clearly discerned in the gorgeous opera Venus, which has been described as an opera-length tone poem. Decadence comes to light when the protagonist forsakes his betrothed for a sensual statue of Venus that comes to life and ultimately entraps him in his own deceit. Schoeck's friendship with Honegger exposed him to Berg and the Serialists, whose music he so greatly admired that he altered his own more Straussian sound to emulate them. The music of Penthesilea walks a tightrope of atonality, but never quite surrenders to it. By the time of its premiere, Jazz was the rage of the continent, and Schoeck edited the work further.

The most obvious "problem" with this opera (in my opinion) is the long passages of dramatic dialogue (neither Singspiel nor backed by the orchestra). The dialogue is spoken by the characters in the play, not as the Chorus in Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex, for example. In the Orfeo recording I own, the conductor does not take advantage of the fine music Schoeck wrote. It is a raucous, unpleasant affair.

No one in the world understands Schoeck as well as conductor Mario Venzago. He recognizes the beauty in the scoring and does not let passionate emoting get the better of the music. As I have written elsewhere, the new Musique Suisse CD of orchestral works, he finds insights that others have not. You will appreciate this mastery in the love scene that ends the first disc; there is a blossoming of irresistible passion that will take your breath away. I can't comment on Venzago's controversial account of the Bruckner symphonies. But his Venus is worth seeking out. He seems to understand that Schoeck would inevitably abandon atonal music for post-Romanticism.

The soloists are uniformly excellent, both vocally and dramatically, and the orchestra is up to the challenge. One would never guess this is a live recording, except for the final applause. It is unfortunate that, although the notes are in 3 languages, the libretto is only offered in German. Still, this is another 20th Century masterpiece worth owning.