Sequenza21/The Contemporary Classical Music Weekly

Kurtag's "Kafka Fragments" at Zankel

by David Salvage

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If you missed Gyorgy Kurtag�s Kafka Fragments last week, you missed the best concert of the year.

Well all right, so I�ve been a big, big fan of Kurtag�s music now for a few years and am a little biased. That said, I was actually kind of worried. Dawn Upshaw�s been raising some eyebrows lately: people are wondering if she�s past her prime. And Peter Sellars can be a bit, shall we say, wayward.

But I cannot recall a production of such consistent excellence. Dawn Upshaw was a triumph. Not only did she remain in brilliant vocal form throughout the 70-minute piece, but her acting was by any standard superb. Her facial expressions and her movement around the stage evidenced a performer who was committed with every ounce of her being, and there was not one trace of "diva-dom" to be detected. How lucky the world of classical music is to have one of its top stars be someone so dedicated to interesting cutting-edge projects!

Peter Sellars�s direction found a wonderful balance between arresting imagery and deference to the music. During each of the piece�s four parts, Upshaw, dressed in the sort of comfortable, loose clothing one wears around the house, engaged in such quotidian tasks as washing dishes, scrubbing the floor, and doing the laundry. Such tasks put into brilliant relief the often tortured texts, and reminded one of Kafka�s own life adding up figures at the bank � tedious work, done in obscurity.

Behind the action, Sellars projected a series of black-and-white photographs by David Michalek. Sellars used a similar device in "El Nino" which I completely did not understand, though that time it was a live-action film. In "Kafka Fragments," however, the photographs enhanced the drama beautifully. Not only did Upshaw sing of her own life, but also of the lives of the countless other people portrayed in Michalek�s photos.

And the music? I can think of no other composer alive capable of such unmediated expression. Sometimes as diatonic as a major scale, other times as thorny as the roughest passages in serialism, Kurtag�s music has an unparalleled capacity to evoke an infinity of psychological states. Yes, much of "Kafka Fragments" is dark. But it would be a mistake to accuse the piece of one-dimensionality. Sometimes the music was silly, at other times relaxed, elsewhere quiet and introspective. And yet, for all its guises, never once did the music sound affected or mannered. In the hands of Upshaw and violinist Geoff Nuttall, the whole score sounded as natural as improvisation.

The night I saw "Kafka Fragments" the house was nearly full and the audience reasonably attentive. Of course, some idiots left during the performance. But I hope this production leads to more performances of Kurtag�s music in New York and around the United States. With a music scene filled with gimmickery and warmed over expressive gestures, composers like him are nigh impossible to overpraise.

posted by David Salvage 1/16/2005