Bernstein In Vienna

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31027, 5 April 1966, Page 8

Bernstein In Vienna

Leonard Bernstein made his first appearance at the Vienna State Opera on a tense first night last month, conducting Luchino Visconti’s new nononsense production of “Falstaff.”

The unpoetic, no smell of “art” production found its counterpart in Bernstein’s unpoetic, rackety account of the score. All the sharp-edged brilliance was there, and very little of the warmth and romance which infuse Verdi’s comedy. Bernstein’s handling was vivid, but not mercurial, and never lyrical. He crashed far too often and the way he let the brass rip might have been Dennis Vaughan demonstrating how later hands have coarsened the score since it left Verdi’s pen. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau singing his first Italian Falstaff (in Berlin he sings the role in German) gave a virtuoso display of intelligence, pointed declamation, variety of tone, colour and dynamic and “unbuttoned” good humour.