More than just Haydn: cultural revival at Schloss Esterházy, Eisenstadt

Haydn's Armida in the Haydnsaal, Schloss Esterházy at Herbst Gold 2018 (Photo Jerzy Bin)

The town of Eisenstadt in Austria is synonymous with two names, that of the princely family of Esterházy, whose eponymous Schloss dominates the old town, and the composer Joseph Haydn who worked for the Princes Esterházy for some forty years. Now owned by a private cultural foundation, Schloss Esterházy is the centre for a remarkable revival of musical activities in the form of an annual Autumn festival and a year round concert series, exploring the music of Haydn, his contemporaries and alongside that of more recent composers.

Despite vicissitudes and the splitting of the family estates between Austria and Hungary, Schloss Esterházy remained in the custody of Prince Paul (1901-1989) who, from 1920, husbanded the family's Austrian domains (the Hungarian ones were taken in land reform in the 1950s). He died without issue and left his estates to his wife Melinda (1920-2014), a Hungarian dancer who created a series of family foundations which now own and manage the estates for cultural benefit [the princely title has passed to a distant cousin, except of course neither Austria nor Hungary now recognise such titles].

The foundations, created in 2001, have some 300 employees involved in the winery, the estates, the extensive holiday accommodation, the Burg Forchstein, Schloss Esterházy, Schloss Lackenbach and the St Margarethen Quarry in which opera is performed.

Thus, as a museum, Schloss Esterházy is relatively young and though the house does not wear its history lightly (the 20th century saw many depredations) there is a liveliness to the way things are displayed. When I went round, on a very engaging English speaking guided tour, I was impressed with the way artefacts from the collection (there are some 1 million objects in the Esterházy collections) had been used to create a display linking to the theme of this year's Herbst Gold Festival, of which more anon, with statuettes of Napoleon and manuscripts of Haydn's masses. There was also an exhibition about Melinda Esterházy whose remarkable life across the 20th century was counterpointed by a desire to see the family legacy preserved in the cultural foundation.

Schloss Esterházy, Eisenstadt (Photo Roland Wimmer)

Riveting and remarkable: Anna Prohaska & Eric Schneider in An der Front:

Anna Prohaska (Photo © Holger Hage / DG)

An der Front (Behind the lines; Anna Prohaska, Eric Schneider; Herbst Gold at Schloss Esterházy Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 13 September 2018 Star rating: 5.0 (★★★★★)
A collage of songs presenting the ordinary man and woman's view of war creates a vividly engaging evening

Herbst Gold is a music festival which takes place in September (this year 6 to 18 September) in Schloss Esterházy in Eisenstadt in Austria. The schloss is, of course, best known as the work place of the composer Joseph Haydn who worked for the Princes Esterházyfor over 40 years.

Empiresaal at Schloss Esterházy, Eisenstadt (Photo Lennard Lindner)

The theme of this year's festival was Krieg und Frieden (War and Peace) and as part of this theme soprano Anna Prohaska and pianist Eric Schneider brought their programme An der Front (Behind the Lines) to Schloss Esterházy's elegant 18th century Empiresaal on Thursday 13 September 2018. It was a remarkable programme, a collage of songs from the 16th to 21st century which charted the response of the ordinary men and woman to war, as participant, follower or girl left at home. These were songs about ordinary people's thoughts and feelings, rather than national concepts.

The music covered a wide range. In the first half we moved from folksong, Scots song, Michael Cavendish, Haydn & Beethoven, through Schubert, Wolf and Rachmaninov to Ives, Roger Quiller, Hans Eisler and Wolfgang Rihm. But this wasn't about style, and differences were juxtaposed so Joseph Haydn's arrangement of the Scots song Will ye go to Flanders was almost interrupted by the cacophony of Ives' In Flanders Fields. The angular anger of Wolfgang Rihm's Der Untergang impinged on the purity of Schubert's Sir Walter Scott setting Ellens Gesang I.

In the second half, we had longer ballads starting with Liszt's remarkable scene Jeanne d'Arc au Bucher (setting Alexandre Dumas) and working through Schumann, Poulenc and Mahler, ending with a pair of passionate Kurt Weill settings of Walt Whitmann.

Haydn at Eisenstadt: Armida at Herbst Gold festival Schloss Esterházy

Haydn: Armida - Ana Maria Labin - Herbst Gold 2018 (Photo Jerzy Bin)

Haydn Armida; Ana Maria Labin, Francisco Fernandez-Rueda, dir: Alessio Pizzech, Haydn Philharmonie, cond: Enrico Onofrio; Herbst Gold at Schloss Esterházy, Eistenstadt
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 14 September 2018 Star rating: 4.0
A rare opportunity to hear Haydn's Armida in a semi-staging in the hall where he regularly worked in Eisenstadt

Francisco Fernandez-Rueda, Enrico Onofrio, Anicio Zorzi Giustiniani
Herbst Gold 2018 (Photo Jerzy Bin)

Festivals should generally aim to do something different, something that does not come the way of the ordinary concert or opera-goer. So it is a perfect fit that Herbst Gold, the festival in Eisenstadt, has begun a planned series of concert stagings of opera by Joseph Haydn (possibly Eisenstadt's most famous resident). We still do not see enough of these operas, and Haydn regarded them highly. And until performers, directors and audiences get used to his particular style, it will be difficult to understand them.

As this year's Herbst Gold festival had Krieg und Frieden (War and Peace) as its theme, the opera chosen was Armida based on Torquato Tasso's Gerusalemme liberata about the Crusaders at war in Jerusalem. On Friday 14 September 2018, Enrico Onofrio conducted the Haydn Philharmonie in the Haydnsaal of Schloss Esterházy, with Ana Maria Labin as Armida, Francisco Fernandez-Rueda (replacing the previously announced Julien Pregardien) as Rinaldo, Roberta Mameli as Zelmira, Anicio Zorzi Giustiniani as Ubaldo, Christian Senn as Idreno and Fernando Guimaraes as Clotaro.

The concert staging was by Alessio Pizzech; the cast was in costume with loosely Middle-Eastern style for Armida, Idreno, Zelmira and modern cricket-whites for the crusaders Rinaldo, Clotardo and Ubaldo (though Rinaldo had 'gone native' with his shirt unfastened and hanging out of his trousers). The cast performed on a small podium running in front of the orchestra, recitatives were done from memory with scores used for the more elaborate arias. Armida spent much time poring over her book of magic, in fact, her score - a neat solution.

Haydn: Armida - Christian Senn - Herbst Gold 2018 (Photo Jerzy Bin)

Armida was premiered in the theatre at Esterháza in 1784 and was performed there over 50 times as well as being given in Vienna, Turin and Budapest. Schloss Esterhazy had no theatre, but it is known that Haydn produced operas for the prince in the Haydnsaal, so the festival's concert staging was most apt. To put the piece into context, Armida was premiered two years before Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro premiered at Vienna's Burgtheater whilst Gluck's equally ground-breaking Orfeo ed Euridice premiered at the same theatre in 1762 with the French version appearing in 1774.

The libretto for Armida is somewhat old-fashioned, the first act involves a traditional sequence of exit arias for the main cast members, and throughout the exit aria convention is still strong and there is little opportunity for ensembles in the way that Mozart introduced into his opera serias, Idomeneo (1781) and La Clemenza di Tito (1791). Where Haydn does push the boundaries is in his extended use of accompanied recitative, so that moments like Act Two Scene One have a very French feel, with long sections that are orchestrally accompanied. There are also significant orchestral interludes, with Haydn giving us some terrific music.

The issue of the libretto should not be landed entirely at Haydn's door, he was writing exclusively for Prince Esterhazy and it was the prince's taste which would have been paramount.