Opera: How to Hear Ahead

The reputation that preceded the Hamburg State Opera into Manhattan's Lincoln Center was formidable indeed. Hamburg's powerful productions of a varied, venturesome repertory made it, said one Lincoln Center official, "the most exciting opera company in the world." Last week the Hamburgers, the first foreign company invited to appear in the Metropolitan's new house, justified their advance billing by stylishly bringing off a daunting array of New York premieres: a vividly atmospheric Lulu, by Alban Berg; a vocally polished and forceful Mathis der Maler, by Paul Hindemith; and a flowing and convincingly dramatic Jacobovsky and the Colonel, by Giselher Klebe.

Many in the tradition-bred Met audiences were pleased, some were piqued or puzzled, few were bored. In fact, last week when the Hamburgers also presented the first American performance of Gunther Schuller's Kafka-inspired, twelve-tone opera The Visitation (TIME, Oct. 21), a minority of listeners leaped to their feet with truly Italian fervor to boo, hiss and shout "Fraud!", while a noisy majority clapped and cheered.

New Directions. The Hamburg Opera's distinctive approach, which Germans call "realistic musical theater," is not often seen in America. Instead of featuring barnstorming stars with showy voices, the company uses lesser-known but accomplished singers (many of them American) who stay with the company throughout the ten-month season and blend smoothly into the overall musical texture. Instead of garnishing glorious music with pageantry and posturing, Hamburg produces cohesive, hard-hitting dramatic performances, in which the text is as important as the score. And instead of sticking with proven but sometimes flyblown versions of operatic warhorses, it mounts eight new productions every year, two of which, like Jacobovsky and The Visitation, are commissioned works by contemporary composers.

Hamburg's approach sounds like a formula for box-office harakiri, but, as General Manager Rolf Liebermann says: "Our job is to try out new things and to find new directions. In such a context, a flop or a hit today is of no consequence whatever." In practice, the company has many more hits than flops, selling out a seasonal average of 86% of its 1,670 seats, attracting opera buffs from around the world to its occasional week-long programs of contemporary opera, and having its pick of top festival tours.

No Museum. Liebermann, 56, a charming, energetic ex-composer, firmly controls quality by adjusting the tiniest strokes of stage business and watching nearly every performance. In the belief that "seduction of the audience through the eye is easier than through the ear," he has brought such gifted directors as Jean-Louis Barrault and GianCarlo Menotti to Hamburg to stage his productions; and as a musician, he has persuaded such fellow composers as Hans Werner Henze, Ernst Krenek and Krzystof Penderecki to write new operas for the company.