Dresden Music Festival

After rehearsing Way of Light with Camilla Hoitenga on Friday the 9th, in preparation for the premiere of the version for flute that I arranged for her, Yvonne and I attended the opening concert of the Dresdner Musikfestspiele. Almut Kühne, a native of Dresden (now living in Berlin), and a terrific young singer and composer who specializes in improvisation, invited us to stay with her family at their exquisite home overlooking the Elbe River. She’s striding forward to greet us, in front of the Semperoper, where we then heard a dramatic rendition of Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle, followed by the Kodály Te Deum---clearing the air and cleansing the space after Bluebeard’s gloomy presence. The outstanding soloists: Krassimira Stoyanova, soprano; Lioba Braun, mezzo-soprano; Howard Haskin, tenor, and Rudolf Rosen, bass. Harmut Haenchen (left in the photo) was the dynamic conductor, and also directs the Musikfestspiele this year. Setting the disturbing and dark mood for the Bartok just prior to the performance, the actor Eörs Kisfaludy can be seen standing between the bass and alto singer, in one of their many curtain calls. The orchestra and chorus, also first-rate: Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR, and the MDR Rundfunkchor. Bartok’s blending of the organ with the strings, using it to shadow the orchestra, contributes to the melancholy infusing his only opera.

This was my first visit to Dresden (from a word meaning ‘people of the riverside forest’) and I was utterly entranced by the beauty and vitality of this city. Hard to believe, with all of the restoration, that Dresden suffered mightily and unnecessarily from bombing attacks carried out by the Royal Air Force and the U.S. Air Force, and was ensconced in the Soviet bloc state of the GDR for the next forty years. The Frauenkirche, where Bach gave a recital on the original Silbermann organ in 1736, underwent extensive rebuilding after the war. A symbol of reconciliation towering over a bustling square, it was completed only as recently as 2005. Cobblestone streets lined with all manner of restaurants radiate out from the church, and the majestic Elbe flows past it all. Who wouldn’t fall in love with Dresden?