Imitatio, aemulatio and superatio: What is said to have shaped artistic processes of the pre-modern period as copying, imitating and overcoming lasted longer than expected. Learning by example, with the aim of developing something entirely your own, is still one of the fundamentals of music education, but also of composer training. She begins with style copies, with the knowledge of what has been handed down, until at some point that magical moment is reached and one’s own creativity breaks ground with power – assuming there is one.
Only rarely does such an artistic self-realization occur in the noisy public rather than in the quiet room. The comic opera “The Three Pintos” is such a case: Carl Maria von Weber left the piece in November 1821. When he died only five years later, seventeen numbers were available, only melodies from the arias and only framework parts from the choruses. The third act was almost entirely absent. Weber’s descendants made every effort to achieve perfection: Giacomo Meyerbeer first tinkered with the sketches for twenty years, but then gave up again. He considered the libretto to be the “stupidest thing in the world”.
Louis Spohr and Johannes Brahms immediately declined. It was not until the young Leipzig conductor Gustav Mahler recognized the potential of the material in 1887 – not so much because he rated the silly libretto differently than his predecessors, but because he saw the shadow of his own musical edifice growing more and more behind Weber’s ruins. When the work had its acclaimed premiere in Leipzig in 1888, Mahler had finally completed his long-delayed transition from conductor to composer. The interact music “Pinto’s Dream” is regarded as Mahler’s first symphonic piece: the imitation of natural sounds, the rather loose setting and the dominance of fourths and fifths refer to his first symphony. The third act is pure superatio, an absolute personal contribution of Mahler.
It was more than a good idea for the Leipzig Gewandhaus to put the concert performance of the “Drei Pintos” as the overture of this year’s Mahler Festival on the programme. In a pretty symbolic way, Leipzig can thus be experienced as the genius loci of Mahler’s international breakthrough and the work at the same time as the basis for much of what is on the program until the end of May. At the same time, the colorful music opens up a completely different view of both composers: neither the image of Weber as the creator of dark German forest fairy tales nor the image of Mahler as a desperate, melancholic womanizer may fit the music.
No case for Freud’s couch
Here nobody lies on the couch with Sigmund Freud, the characters are free of self-reflection, mythical double faces or even murderous intent. Instead, the guys slap each other on the back like buddies, get drunk, slur and dupe the dolt Don Pinto.
In the end, the real Don Pinto, who actually has a different name, gets the right woman. It all culminates in a huge burst of laughter scene of loss of control, in which the chorus chants “Didel dudel, didel dudel dum!” to the “Hot, hot, hot, hey!” of the harmless imposter Don Gaston (Benjamin Bruns), the main character Clarissa ( fabulous: Viktorija Kaminskaitė) only screams “I am yours”, her maid Laura (just as grandiose: Annelie Sophie Müller) contributes “I want to dance, dance, dance!” and the joker Ambrosio (mimically and vocally impressive: Krešimir Stražanac) does it to the point: “What fun!”
The music tips into the bitingly ironic
What one could scenically do with this rarely performed piece! Maybe everyone ends up on the couch after all? In any case, the music tips into the bitingly ironic – no one can say whether this ending is fun or serious, despite the naive lyrics.
Katja Stuber (as the innkeeper’s daughter Inez) stands out with her velvety soprano of the highest quality. Wilhelm Schwinghammer (Don Pantaleone), Franz Hawlata (Don Pinto) and Matthew Swensen (Gomez) act reliably. The Gewandhaus Orchestra under Dmitri Jurowski needs a bit of a run-up to shake off the symphonic seriousness, but by the operetta-like gallop of the first movement everyone is in a swaying mood.
The fact that the lively, flexible Gewandhaus choir – like the orchestra – is much too big for Weber’s more delicate themes only makes sense in the finale, when Mahler is completely at peace. The Leipzig audience was there from the beginning: Again and again scene applause, although there is no scene. At the end the ranks roar. What fun!
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