Rudolf Noelte

 

Brian McMaster was and is a fantastically knowledgeable surveyor of the cultural scene. He is also a brilliant executive and wonderful human being. He has occupied many of the great offices of the operatic and musical state: first at EMI, then the English National Opera, Welsh National Opera, Vancouver Opera and Edinburgh Festival.

When starting his 15 years at WNO he took the company to a new level at the forefront of operatic activity almost at a stroke. For a description of the opening production of his era see my post on Harry Kupfer. 

The company went from there to performing The Ring at Covent Garden, and to guest appearances at Leipzig, Dresden, Paris, New York, Tokyo and Milan - at La Scala no less. This hasn't been repeated either by the WNO or any other company I can think of.

Brian is motivated by Art. He thinks first of what would be the greatest imaginable project and then how to realize it. When the subject of how to pay for it comes up he says 'we'll raise the money for it. and he did somehow. 

In this way he brought some of the greatest artists of the day to Cardiff including Pierre Boulez, Reginald Goodall, Joachim Herz, Ruth Berghaus, Peter Stein and Rudolf Noelte.

I had never heard of Noelte but found out he was a highly respected veteran of German theatre, opera, film and TV. He was famous there for his hyper-realism. Everyone on stage had to be the same sex, age and type as the role they were playing. The scenery was realistic. He used designers such as Jurgen Rose. 

I was fascinated to see a production by Noelte. He hadn't done one recently but his 'Onegin' was still in the repertoire of the Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich. 

I managed to catch a performance and it was superb. I remember Wolfgang Brendel in the title role lounging about like an adolescent. The sets were exquisite. The whole thing, conducted by Dimitri Kitaenko a dream.

Later I met an interesting person whose Christian name or names I don't recall at the moment. His surname was Ekle. This Ekle was a fervent admirer of Noelte and his self-appointed assistant. So when Brian McMaster contacted Noelte with the idea for him to direct 'The Bartered Bride' for WNO, Ekle went incognito to Cardiff to see a performance of the company and it was on this basis that Noelte agreed to the proposal.

Ekle was a mine of information about Noelte. I remember he told me that in the production of 'Onegin' I had seen, the showcase in the Larin's living room had contained real Meissen porcelain. Apparently this was insisted on by Noelte. The management balked at the idea. Nobody in the audience would know whether it was genuine Meissen or not. Noelte reasoned that in spite of this, the singers would know and would move differently on the stage as a result. That was the level of Noelte's hyper realism.

The first Noelte-ism to surface was that the singer playing Esmeralda should walk tight-rope in the circus scene. I foresaw the whole project coming to an end there and then. In my experience no singer would ever walk the tight-rope especially if they had to sing at the same time and Brian McMaster also wondered how they would surmount this difficulty. 

I was determined to solve the problem. I reasoned it could only be done if we could find a tight-rope walker who could sing a bit. Esmeralda's part is short and not difficult so I went about trying to contact circus companies and acrobatic troupes to see what I could find. Not surprisingly this line of enquiry was futile so with a heavy heart I told Brian that the problem was insoluble. He replied breezily that it wasn't a problem at all because they had found a singer who was prepared to learn to walk the tight-rope after all. That singer was Lesley Garrett.

And so it came to pass! I had 'sold' Mark Ermler from the Bolshoi to Brian as conductor. The evening was a tremendous success. Everyone was brilliant but the overall impression was that of how Noelte created a real village community on stage and how he took the action seriously and gave it real theatrical weight. After all, to be forced to marry someone you don't love is a pretty awful thing. 

After this triumph, the next stop was Covent Garden. They offered Massenet's 'Manon' in 1987 and Noelte agreed but he needed a designer he told me. I had what I thought was the brilliant idea of suggesting Peter Rice. I had admired Rice's work at Covent Garden, Glyndebourne and Scottish Opera. He was I thought the British equivalent of Jurgen Rose; a sort of successor to Oliver Messel. Indeed Noelte was very happy with this suggestion and so Rice was engaged.

However and tragically, Noelte was suffering from Alzheimer's disease already and this became more pronounced in the interval between the WNO 'Bartered Bride' and 'Manon.' Looking back on it I remember an incident outside the Shaftesbury Theatre when passing by what looked to be a door to the backstage area, Noelte took a step as if to go through the door and I was able to prevent him from doing so only at the last moment which was lucky because it wasn't a door as such but an access to the under-stage area far below street level. He could have fallen to his death. I can see now that his perception was compromised by his illness.

The leading roles of Manon and des Grieux were taken by Julia Meginnis and Niel Shicoff who behaved badly and ganged up on Noelte during the rehearsal period. He had lost his authority and the production was weak. After the dress rehearsal he wanted to take his name off it but the theatre wouldn't agree to that. 

So sadly this great and lovely man had to return home with this failure to cap his great career. I don't think he ever worked again and died in 2002.