Review: 33 Variations by Zach Theatre
by Michael Meigs
In 1819 Viennese music publisher Anton Diabelli invited many of the leading musicians of the Habsburg empire to compose a variation upon a simple waltz of his own devising. Profits from the project were to be contributed to support orphans and widows of soldiers killed in the Napoleonic wars. Ludwig von Beethoven initially declined to contribute, then changed his mind. He eventually penned 33 variations, over several years, which Diabelli published as a separate volume sponsored by the 'Patriotic Alliance of Artists' (Vaterländischer Künstlerverein).
Alfred Brendel called this late work of Beethoven "the greatest of all piano works"; Arnold Shoenberg wrote that "in respect of its harmony, [the Diabelli Variations] deserves to be called the most adventurous work by Beethoven." Moisés Kaufmann of the Tectonic Theatre Project -- yes, the Kaufmann who assembled the memorable two-part Laramie Project -- took the story and legends of Beethoven's writing of the variations and made a play of it.
Zach Theatre artistic director Dave Steakley tells us that UT-based concert pianist Anton Nel approached him with the offer to join in a production of Kaufmann's 33 Variations. Nel is a world-class artist who has appeared with many of the world's great symphonies. We'd heard him with Peter Bay and the talent at the Austin Symphony, so how could we not look forward to this production?
I came away deeply disappointed by 33 Variations, and it's taken me a while to figure out why. I'm not a musician -- I can clumsily interpret simple sheet music on a keyboard but when all is said and done, my head just doesn't work that way. But classical music captivates me, and none more so than that of Beethoven. I listen with awe to a piano virtuoso like Nel, understanding only that this is an art that surpasses my own capabilities entirely.
Kaufmann has invented a trio of stories loosely associated with the Diabelli variations, and I found myself increasingly annoyed that Beethoven's inscrutable genius was used in the production mostly to bridge between the scenes and to punctuate the action. This might have been acceptable if the script and stories had risen somewhere near the level of Nel's performance, but instead they offer a comic, exaggerated account of the genesis of the composition; an unappealing largely first-person account of the last months of a musicologist who isolates herself with the Diabelli composition books; and a complementary account of the musicologist's desperate dutiful daughter seeking her mother's love.
Kaufmann's imaginings are entertaining, although they're flawed by stifled sentimentality and broad comic exaggeration. But as Nel performs those intricate, vigorous variations, the rest of the show plays out before him like music hall scenes, tear jerkers and clown numbers. The close of the first act offers rapid-fire counterpoint exclamations and dialogue from the all characters in the three stories, a swirling and criss-crossing staging that's self-consciously operatic.
It's not the fault of the cast. Beth Broderick as the musicologist delivers a performance that's entirely too Botoxed for my taste, but her glacial lack of expression may well be deliberate, suggesting that Professor Katherine Brandt has in her studies become detached from herself and from the rest of us mortals, including in particular her daughter (Christin Sawyer Davis). Davis and her beau Mike Clark (Lincoln Thompson) are an attractive pair of lightweights, drawn by Kaufmann with a lightly mocking pen.
Meanwhile, back in 1819, Brian Coughlin puffs and preens as Diabelli and Peter Reznikoff is a total caricature as Beethoven. Greg Baglia, as the master's assistant and amaneusis Anton Schindler, is credible, earnest and greatly put upon -- a particularly kind interpretation of a historical figure known as Beethoven's unreliable biographer. To be fair, Kaufmann does give Broderick dialogue nailing Schindler for historical inaccuracies.
Austin's own Barbara Chisholm appears as Dr. Gertrude Ladenburger, the librarian guarding the precious manuscripts of the Beethoven archive. With her measured interpretation, she establishes an entirely credible personality for a character that Kaufmann wrote as the crudest of Teutonic stereotypes. There are a couple of funny moments, but they're achieved cheaply. The story asserts that the ailing American and the stiff-mannered cerberus developed a mutual admiration and confidence, but if so, it was on a plane beyond my perception.
Cliff Simon's scenic design is elaborate and otherworldly. Upon entering the Topfer Theatre, one might misread it as an elaborate construction for Teahouse of the August Moon. Much of the staging ignores it, but we eventually discover that it represents the inner sanctum of the Beethoven archive, and the cryptic decorations on the sliding panels are not Asian calligraphy but instead enlarged facsimiles of the scribblings of Beethoven's hectic pen The grand piano and the pianist are at deep center stage most of the time.
Perhaps maestro Nel is so comfortable with the power of the music that he considers any explication of it to the general public to be beneficial -- similar to the Austin Symphony's unfortunate embrace of the Chicago Symphony's 'Behind the Score' explications.
33 Variations is an entertainment and you might well enjoy it. But if you're more interested in the real thing, go get tickets for Anton Nel's April 14 solo performance at the Long Center -- it's all Beethoven, on the Hamburg Steinway that Nel personally selected for the hall.
Review by Jeff Davis for austin.broadwayworld.com, February 3
Review by Luke Quinton for the Statesman's Austin360.com Seeing Things blog, February 4
Review by Elizabeth Cobbe in the Austin Chronicle, February 7
EXTRAS
Zach's on-line profile of pianist Anton Nel, January 19
Click to view excerpts from the Zach Theatre program for 33 Variations
33 Variations
by Moisés Kaufmann and the Techtonic Theatre Project
Zach Theatre
