principal flutist and the orchestra’s chair-
man, was equally transfixing in the Tenth.
Not all of Rattle’s interventions were
successful. In the savage Rondo-Burleske
of the Ninth Symphony, he refused to lin-
ger over the aching phrases in the move-
ment’s contrasting lyric episode. (He did
the same in 2007.) As a result, the re-
turn of the slashing main theme didn’t
induce a shiver of terror, as the score all
but requires. Wildness is not Rattle’s way,
though. His strategy of intensification
through restraint paid of in the final
pages, when the string section achieved
an uncanny, hovering stillness. The strings
played at times with little or no vibrato,
producing an eerie “white” sound. Usu-
ally, the piece ends with a feeling of ag-
onized farewell; here, the music seemed
to emanate from the other side of the
line between life and death.
Rattle is the world’s leading propo-
nent of the Mahler Tenth, having first
recorded the Cooke edition of the work
back in 1980, when he was twenty-five.
That version, with the Bournemouth
Symphony, is more vivid than a subse-
quent account with the Berliners. Let’s
hope that the L.S.O. rendition appears
on disk in due course: the performance
at Gefen combined a monumental ar-
chitectural shape—no other work by
Mahler comes as close to Bruckner—
with moments of unchecked emotional
ferocity. The final bars radiated an al-
most shocking sweetness, as if to sug-
gest that Mahler, at the end of his life,
were reliving scenes from childhood.
The vocalists in “Das Lied” were the
robust Wagner tenor Stuart Skelton and
the wizardly baritone Christian Ger-
haher. In the opening movement, Skel-
ton battled an overbearing orchestra, as
the tenor invariably must in this piece,
yet he nobly held his ground. Gerha-
her, a singer-poet out of Caspar David
Friedrich, shone through the far more
transparent textures of “Der Abschied,”
the half-hour finale. Listeners accus-
tomed to the autumnal warmth of a
mezzo-soprano in “Der Abschied” might
have found Gerhaher too cool and re-
served, but for me the inward, confiding
quality of his vocalism gave human focus
to Mahler’s sprawling landscape. His
closing repetitions of “ewig”—“for-
ever”—were like distant figures disap-
pearing into mist.H
eartbeat Opera, a relatively new,
relatively small, categorically imag-
inative company, has made its name with
vital reshapings of repertory operas.
In 2016, it presented a ninety-minute
version of “Lucia di Lammermoor” in
which the title heroine is shown experi-
encing hallucinations in a hospital ward.
This spring, in a mini-festival at Baruch
Performing Arts Center, the company
ofered a “Don Giovanni” inspired by
#MeToo and a “Fidelio” inflected by
the concerns of Black Lives Matter. I
saw the “Fidelio,” and was blindsided
by its impact.
The composer-pianist Daniel Schlos-
berg, who led the “Lucia” in 2016, has a
flair for cutting and repurposing famous
operas without mangling them. “Fide-
lio,” too, has been reduced to ninety
minutes, and transcribed for two horns,
two cellos, two pianos, and percussion.
Even so, much of the force of Beetho-
ven’s score remains. Ethan Heard, who
directed the show, co-wrote new dia-
logue for it with Marcus Scott; they
transform Florestan into Stan, a wrong-fully imprisoned black activist. Leonore,
Florestan’s wife, becomes Leah, who
finds work as a guard as she plots Stan’s
escape. Leading the cast were Nelson
Ebo, grittily afecting as Stan, and Kelly
Griin, giving a confident, full-voiced
performance as Leah.
But the heartbreaking centerpiece
of the production was the chorus “O
welche Lust,” in which the prisoners are
allowed to leave their cells (“O what joy,
to breathe easily in open air”). Earlier this
year, Heard and Schlosberg went to cor-
rectional facilities in the Midwest and
filmed Beethoven’s chorus being sung by
prisoners: members of the Oakdale Com-
munity Choir, the Kuji Men’s Chorus, the
Hope Thru Harmony Women’s Choir,
the Ubuntu Men’s Chorus, the East Hill
Singers, and Voices of Hope. Several
letters from prisoners were on display
in the Baruch lobby. One member of
Ubuntu wrote, “The creativity I possess
is still within me, prison has not taken
away my hope.” Another said that, when
he is singing, “I feel free for that time.”
In the theatre, a video of the prisoners’
work substituted for a live performance
of “O welche Lust.” Beethoven’s music
was itself a spell of freedom for them—a
virtual walk in open air.
Heard and Schlosberg refused to
coat this wrenching spectacle in feel-
good sentiment. Mindful of American
reality, they discarded the opera’s happy
ending and imposed a bleak coda, with
a scrambled, dissonant collage of “Fi-
delio” music and other Beethoven snip-
pets to match. It turns out that Leah
has been asleep at her desk, dreaming
of a rescue; Stan remains in prison. Some
members of Heartbeat’s chorus of free-
dom will die behind bars. THE NEW YORKER IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF ADVANCE MAGAZINE PUBLISHERS INC. COPYRIGHT ©2018 CONDÉ NAST. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
VOLUME XCIV, NO. 15, May 28, 2018. THE NEW YORKER (ISSN 0028792X) is published weekly (except for ive combined issues: February 12 & 19, June 4 & 11, July 9 & 16, August 6 & 13, and
December 24 & 31) by Condé Nast, which is a division of Advance Magazine Publishers Inc. PRINCIPAL OFFICE: Condé Nast, 1 World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. Chris Mitchell, chief
business of icer; Risa Aronson, vice-president, revenue; James Guilfoyle, executive director of inance and business operations; Fabio Bertoni, general counsel. Condé Nast: Robert A. Sauerberg, Jr.,
president & chief executive of icer; David E. Geithner, chief inancial of icer; Pamela Drucker Mann, chief revenue and marketing of icer. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and at additional
mailing of ices. Canadian Goods and Services Tax Registration No. 123242885-RT0001.
POSTMASTER: SEND ADDRESS CHANGES TO THE NEW YORKER, P.O. Box 37684, Boone, IA 50037 0684. FOR SUBSCRIPTIONS, ADDRESS CHANGES, ADJUSTMENTS, OR BACK
ISSUE INQUIRIES: Please write to The New Yorker, P.O. Box 37684, Boone, IA 50037 0684, call (800) 825-2510, or e-mail [email protected]. Please give both new and old addresses as
printed on most recent label. Subscribers: If the Post Of ice alerts us that your magazine is undeliverable, we have no further obligation unless we receive a corrected address within one year. If during
your subscription term or up to one year after the magazine becomes undeliverable, you are ever dissatis ied with your subscription, let us know. You will receive a full refund on all unmailed issues. First
copy of new subscription will be mailed within four weeks after receipt of order. For advertising inquiries, please call Risa Aronson at (212) 286-4068. For submission guidelines, please refer to our Web
site, http://www.newyorker.com. Address all editorial, business, and production correspondence to The New Yorker, 1 World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. For cover reprints, please call (800) 897-8666,
or e-mail [email protected]. For permissions and reprint requests, please call (212) 630-5656 or fax requests to (212) 630-5883. No part of this periodical may be reproduced without the consent
of The New Yorker. The New Yorker’s name and logo, and the various titles and headings herein, are trademarks of Advance Magazine Publishers Inc. Visit us online at http://www.newyorker.com. To sub-
scribe to other Condé Nast magazines, visit http://www.condenast.com. Occasionally, we make our subscriber list available to carefully screened companies that offer products and services that we believe would
interest our readers. If you do not want to receive these offers and/or information, please advise us at P.O. Box 37684, Boone, IA 50037 0684 or call (800) 825-2510.
THE NEW YORKER IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE RETURN OR LOSS OF, OR FOR DAMAGE OR ANY OTHER INJURY TO, UNSOLICITED MANUSCRIPTS,
UNSOLICITED ART WORK (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, DRAWINGS, PHOTOGRAPHS, AND TRANSPARENCIES), OR ANY OTHER UNSOLICITED
MATERIALS. THOSE SUBMITTING MANUSCRIPTS, PHOTOGRAPHS, ART WORK, OR OTHER MATERIALS FOR CONSIDERATION SHOULD NOT SEND
ORIGINALS, UNLESS SPECIFICALLY REQUESTED TO DO SO BY THE NEW YORKER IN WRITING.