“An otherworldly start” Rave review about opening concert in Heidenheim

Pietari Inkinen, Tuuli Takala and the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie received an enthusiastic review for the opening concert of the Opernfestspiele Heidenheim.

Writing under the headline “An otherworldly start”, Marita Kasischke (Heidenheimer Zeitung) described the evening as “high-class” and “otherworldly beautiful”. She praised Pietari Inkinen, who led the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern “with great sensitivity to tremendous power, even in the most delicate passages”.

According to the review, Sibelius’s Pohjola’s Daughter unfolded with “an almost beguiling effect”, while Tuuli Takala’s interpretation of Sibelius’s orchestral songs created a world that was “strange, ethereal, alluring and dramatic”.

In Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, the orchestra, “magnificently led by Pietari Inkinen”, combined “cheerful, dance-like grace”, “passages moving enough to bring tears”, “power and bliss”. The evening left the audience, the critic concluded, “in spheres that could not possibly have been surpassed”.

Here is the complete review:

“An otherworldly start

The Opernfestspiele began their season impressively on Friday evening. In the process, “Das himmlische Leben” was taken quite literally: the opening concert allowed the audience to drift away into other spheres.

The games are open. That is, now the games on the Schlossberg. The Opernfestspiele began their season on Friday evening in the Festspielhaus, and if the season turns out to be like the opening concert, then it will be otherworldly. The title “Das himmlische Leben” already suggested that other spheres would be opened up, but that the audience would be transported there so completely was nevertheless surprising. And astonishing. And thrilling. And all this despite the fact that Finns have a reputation for being heavy-hearted and melancholic. For the evening was, after all, largely in Finnish hands.

There was the crystal-clear soprano of Helsinki-born Tuula Takala, who contributed greatly to making the audience float. There was Pietari Inkinen, the Finnish conductor, who led the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern with great sensitivity to great power, even in the most delicate passages. And there was Sibelius, the Finnish composer par excellence.

Golden carpets of sound

His symphonic fantasy for orchestra “Pohjola’s Daughter” formed the opening of this transcendental evening. And if Sibelius is to be believed, she is quite a capricious little character. According to a Sami legend, like the miller’s daughter in the Brothers Grimm, she can spin gold; she lets the violins shimmer, race and lash, the harps in turn weave golden carpets of sound, the basses set tension-filled accents, and in between there are again and again dissonances that cut very deep.

Here Sibelius has created a musical monument to the legendary heroine and to the shaman, who must first carve a boat from her spindle before she will listen to him; a monument in which light and dark, calm and momentum, heights and depths, in their constant alternation, unfold an almost beguiling effect. In the end, the shaman is left without a boat, and Pohjola’s Daughter floats away into the sky – and the audience with her.

That the audience continued to remain there was again due to Sibelius, but above all to Tuula Takala. The soprano interpreted six of Sibelius’s orchestral songs so compellingly that it reached all the senses. Her voice merged with the orchestral accompaniment into a beguiling experience. And even if probably very few in the audience had any command of Finnish, they nevertheless understood the stories of autumn evening, sunrise, dream and the creation of the world. The performers, for their part, created a world for the audience. Strange, ethereal, alluring, dramatic, and this unfolded an immense pull.

Powerful and mysterious

Mahler after the interval was then a contrast programme – and yet again it was not. For in terms of weightlessness, the orchestra with Symphony No. 4 in G major picked up exactly the thread that had previously been spun so delicately. The work, originally conceived by Mahler as a humoresque, also provided considerable lift in its multilayeredness, allowing one to float along in the delicate passages and to be swept away by its repeatedly surging whirlwinds. Cheerful, dance-like grace and also passages moving enough to bring tears, power and bliss, powerful and mysterious – the orchestra, magnificently led by Pietari Inkinen, invited the audience with its interpretation to take flight.

And that was an exceedingly easy exercise, because the final word once again belonged to Tuuka Takala, who performed the final movement of the symphony with the orchestra and sang “Wir genießen die himmlischen Freuden”, a text from “Des Knaben Wunderhorn”, thereby once again allowing the audience to enjoy her voice. The heavenly joys — precisely these were also felt by the audience: joy at this high-class, otherworldly beautiful evening, joy in anticipation of the festival. Incidentally, the final word also remained the final word: no encore. And that was a good thing. The audience was already in spheres that could not possibly have been surpassed.”

[Photo: Tim Weiler / O-PR]