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 On the basis of Wednesday's concert of the pioneering German
composer Helmut Lachenmann's "Tableau" and Mahler's Symphony No.
2 "Resurrection", with soprano Kate Royal and mezzo-soprano
Magdalena Kozena, Rattle's wife, as soloists, plus the Radio
Netherlands Choir, the hall passed with flying colors.
Mahler is known for being loud and over the top, and there were
nine double basses, two harps, two piccolos, an organ and a huge
battery of percussion, plus an oversized orchestra, to ensure
the audience -- packing the 2,400-seat hall which opened in
January -- got their money's worth. Every note and detail came
through gloriously. When two piccolos or two clarinets were
performing, it was immediately evident that two separate
instruments were tooting away. Every entry by the harps, on the
far right of the stage, registered aurally, without having to
glance over.
The Philharmonie is intended to give Paris a hall to rival the
world's best, like the Disney Hall in Los Angeles or even the
Berlin ensemble's own home hall.
Paris has the Theatre des Champs Elysees on ritzy Rue Matignon
where Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" had its premiere in 1913,
and the renovated Salle Pleyel, but they are both in pricey
parts of town with no room for expansion. The Philharmonie comes
as part of a theater and conservatory complex where all three
events on Wednesday night were sold out.
GO-TO DESTINATION
Rattle and his Berliners delivered the kind of concert that is
going to make the Philharmonie a go-to destination in Paris,
even though it is in a northern part of the city, near the
Peripherique ring road and beside the former la Villette
slaughterhouse, which did not tend to attract any but the most
intrepid tourists. The complex is of a piece with Budapest's
Palace of the Arts and others designed to draw the punters to
areas in need of an infusion of visitors and their cash.
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Rattle's programming masterstroke was to include the piece by
Lachenmann, known for getting musicians to play their instruments in
unconventional ways. After a boisterous opening passage, the harpist
swept the strings of her instrument with a bow instead of plucking
them, the double basses produced an ethereal sound by bowing below
the bridge and the percussionists rapped on the edges of their music
stands.
Lachenmann is a master of these unconventional techniques and the
connection Rattle intended was that Mahler, writing a century
earlier, does similar things. He has the double basses slap their
strings with their bows and percussionists play on the edges of
their instruments with a brush. His sound palette, including having
a brass ensemble hidden in the upper wings, is extraordinary.
That same word can be applied to this concert and to the new hall.
The Philharmonie is launched on its mission to resurrect an
out-of-the-way corner of Paris.
(Michael Roddy is the arts and entertainment editor for Reuters in
Europe. The views expressed are his own)
(Reporting by Michael Roddy; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
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