Karl Goldmark: Die Konigin von Saba (The Queen of Sheba)
Conductor: Claude Schnitzler
Director: Patrick Mailler
Designer: Massimo Gasparon
First performance : Hofoper, Vienna, March 10th 1875
The Bible says simply that she arrived in Jerusalem, laden with gold and spices, to check out the fabled wisdom of King Solomon. Apocryphal legend has it that when she left again, she was both impressed and pregnant with Solomon's child. In the gospel according to Goldmark she is playing fast and loose with a young diplomat at Solomon's court: whatever way you look at it, the Queen of Sheba seems to have been one feisty lady.
There is a good deal of disagreement over where, exactly, "Sheba" might have been - some say Ethiopia, some say Yemen, recent (though highly disputed) research places it in Nigeria - but everyone seems to agree that the queen's personal charms were pretty irresistible. Indeed it was a chance remark comparing the beauty of one of his music students, a young mezzo-soprano named Caroline Bettelheim, to that of the African queen which inspired Goldmark - a penniless Jew from the wrong side of the Hungarian tracks - to write a dazzlingly exotic opera on the subject.
The plot is simple: the queen has been having a secret affair with the diplomat Assad but refuses to recognise him publicly: when she turns up at his engagement party, the hapless Assad commits blasphemy and is banished to the wilderness. The queen meets him in the desert, but he rejects her, is caught up in a violent sandstorm - and dies in the arms of his long-suffering betrothed, who has arrived, as long-suffering beloved are wont to do in operas, in the nick of time.
Patrick Mailler made his Wexford debut with the 1997 productions of Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress and Puccini's Gianni Schicci and last year he directed the Opera Scenes Die Fledermaus. Of French and Madagascan par- entage, he has worked with directors Pier Luigi Pizzi, Bob Wilson and Sonja Frisell.
`Is the Queen of Sheba a magical figure? Exotic, I would say, more than magic; and in this opera, she is almost an idol-like figure. We should not forget that Goldmark was Jewish - and orthodox Jewish at that - so Sheba represents some sort of danger, the danger of the unknown, something which might infect the Hebrew tribe with new-fangled ideas from outside. I like that idea, the idea of the confrontation of two different cultures; and it will certainly be central to our interpretation, this view of the Hebrew culture as extremely strict from the religious point of view, so that whatever does not fit into the religious framework is considered evil.
"I'm also very much concerned by - I mean, I don't like the way women are treated in this play. As far as the Hebrew tribe is concerned, women are supposed to get married and that's it. They have no voice and if, as a woman, you find a voice, then you're seen as the bad one, the dangerous one. So we have male power on one side and female power on the other - and we should not forget that Sheba is the only Arabian queen who has ever existed. And it's almost an impossible idea in itself, the idea of a woman ruling this male desert culture.
"In the opera the tenor character, Assad, well, he's an anti-hero first of all. But to me he's a very sympathetic character. He's the only one in Solomon's kingdom who has been sent away, who has experienced life outside the rules, who has met something new. That is to say, he has met this woman outside the rules of marriage and it creates a problem for him because he's not allowed to do that. It makes big trouble for him when he comes back to the rules, and to his God.
"Our production won't look oriental at all, or particularly historical, either, although you'll be aware that it's set in the past. The only oriental part will be musical, I think - but more Jewish than oriental. Jewish cliche, almost; like in the big temple scene for instance, where you have the priest singing and the chorus answering. I'm sure that there's nothing in the opera which represents authentic religious music, but Goldmark and his librettist did try to put some of their musical culture into it, in a very delicate and intelligent way.
"Having said that, the score as a whole is very Wagnerian, with a big orchestra, a lot of people, big voices - it's not heavy, but it's very thick music. And at the end, although Assad dies, there is a very strong idea of redemption because, even though Goldmark was a Hungarian Jew, he also had Austrian and German culture in his background, with a big Protestant influence, that is to say, that death is not the end but is, on the contrary, a sort of happiness because you're going to meet your God."
