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Franz Schubert: Winterreise, D9.11
Munich, Cuvilliés-Theater, 25 July 2003
Simon Keenlyside, baritone
(replacing Jonathan Lemalu who was ill)
Malcolm Martineau, piano
Franz Schubert:
Winterreise (Song cycle) D9.11
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What the critics say
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Süddeutsche Zeitung, 29 July 2003 (Klaus Kalchschmid).
Translated by Ursula Turecek
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Hot or cold
Opera Festival: a recital of baritone Simon Keenlyside
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Outside sweltering midsummery heat, inside the Cuvielliés-Theatre Schubert’s “Winterreise”, bitingly frosty and numb with snow and ice, this staggering, infinitely sad cycle about a lonesome soul weary of life and loving in vain, a lover who confronts death in nearly each of the twenty-four songs, conjuring it and longing for it. Actually scheduled was an evening with the young bass Jonathan Lemalu. But he had fallen ill and thus baritone Simon Keenlyside sang this “Winterreise” between two “Tannhäuser”- performances: pin sharp and yet well-rounded in the diction with an excellent perspicuity of the text and an implicitness and unsophistication of expression that were impressive.
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Rarely a baritone discovers as many muted sounds in this music, as much sallowness, as many indirect colours shaded in grey as Keenlyside. Phrases like “Nun merk ich erst, wie müd’ ich bin, / da ich zur Ruh’ mich lege”, “Wie eine trübe Wolke... so zieh ich meine Straße / dahin mit trägem Fluss“ or „eine Straße muss ich gehen, / die noch keiner ging zuürck“ became a manifesto, very restrained in pace and sung pianissimo. But also rarely anyone succeeds in delivering the fervid outbursts like in „Rückblick“, „Der stürmische Morgen“ and „Mut“ as directly, clearly composedly and unsentimentally as Keenlyside. At the piano, Malcolm Martineau answered Keenlyside’s restraint equally unpretentiously and without vanity with slender, heartfelt play, quasi setting the songs like jewels in feebly shining gold. Much applause.
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