EARLIER THIS YEAR the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra announced plans to regularly feature opera music in its annual programme, beginning with the 2004/05 season. Next month will see the first of such concerts, the 20th-century one-act classic Salome.
Richard Strauss' work, based on Oscar Wilde's portrayal of the self-obsessed, neurotic daughter of King Herod and her obsession with John the Baptist, was originally criticised for being unconventional and immoral. But the work has been performed by every major opera house since its premier in 1905.
HKPO artistic director and chief conductor Edo de Waart said there were many reasons for presenting certain operas in concert. The operas of Wagner and Strauss, in particular, worked superbly in concert because the two composers used the orchestra to set the scene and tell the story.
'Without the distraction of the scenery, costumes and acting, the music is allowed to engage the imagination of the audience and to take you deep into the drama and into each character,' de Waart noted. 'Wagner and Strauss used a compositional technique in which each character, place and event had its own theme, or leitmotif, which recurs in the music throughout the opera. These themes are related to each other and transform themselves as the characters and the action develops.
'By making the music the primary focus of the performance, these musical details are revealed much more fully, especially as the orchestra will be on stage and not in the pit.'
Operas performed in concert are a unique art form and pose a challenge for both conductors and musicians. The orchestral writing becomes every bit as important as the words to the songs (and often more so), and tremendous demands are placed on virtually every member of an orchestra and the singers.