When I saw that the Salzburg Marionette Theatre was coming to town, and that it was to be accompanied by András Schiff, I obviously decided I had to take my grand-daughters.This would be fun, but would also, I thought, help nurture their budding musical education. I am, of course, not the only doting and drooling grandparent who wants to develop his/her grandchild/ren’s good taste and good judgement in music. The hall was packed with young listeners, mostly extraordinarily well behaved and attentive. But all of them, including my own, were there for the marionettes and these were only slated to appear in the second half of the concert.
The first half was entirely occupied by Mr Schiff, and although the pieces he played both have children in their name, Debussy’s Children’s Corner and Schumann’s Kinderszenen, there was nothing childish about his playing. Do you think I’m paying Mr. Schiff a compliment? Well actually, none intended!
András Schiff is no doubt a great pianist. But everything he did that evening profoundly irritated me. He turned out to be an incredibly stuffed shirt, completely lacking in à-propos and in sense of humor. So, in my modest opinion, it was definitely a wrong choice of performer for the occasion. In other words, Mr. Schiff was sorely miscast and might consider changing his name to András Stiff…
At the outset, everything was fine. A lovely rendition of Debussy’s Children’s Corner, but unfortunately children’s education today has very little in common with that of little Claude-Emma (“Chou-Chou”) Debussy and they became extremely restless. My own two princesses Lulu and Julia behaved beautifully, as did many of their peers, but this was apparently not the case with a little boy in the first row – although I had noticed absolutely nothing until András Schiff, coming back after the Debussy, before taking his seat to play the Kinderszenen, approached the edge of the stage and looking down at the child said something like “Young man, zis is serrrrious music. Vee can talk beforrre ze music, and vee can talk after ze music, BUT VEE DO NOT TALK DURRRRING ZE MUSIC!” That did it for me. So angry was I, that I haven’t the slightest recollection of how Schiff played the gorgeous Kinderszenen. He could have played like Clara Schumann herself that I wouldn’t have cared. His attitude was just unforgivable. No applause from our three seats!
Finally, after this pointless and unpleasant incident and a short intermission put to good use to restore the children’s shaken moods with some Coke and Sno-Caps, it was time for the marionettes. The children’s curiosity had been aroused from the beginning as the stage had already been set for the performance of the Boîte à Joujoux, also by Debussy. Schiff and his page-turner made their entrance and slouched at the piano, as if fast asleep. One of the puppeteers then produced a huge cardboard key and pretended to wind up the pianist and his acolyte, who both sprang to life and started playing. This was intended to be a whimsical start to the performance, but after his previous display, Mr. Schiff was less than convincing. Never mind, as the attention was now totally on the puppeteers and their creatures, and the children laughed and squealed to their hearts’content, with the pianist having to stoically endure what he probably considered a crime of lèse-majesté. Serves him right.
I must confess I find both the music and the script rather boring, but the children seemed happy enough, as they followed the silly story and the puppeteers’ rather heavy-handed antics with obvious pleasure. I have difficulty relating to mimes and puppets and marionettes and I have trouble grasping the slapsticky humor, but that is nobody’s fault but my own. Marcel Marceau bored me to tears and even as a child I can’t remember enjoying either Guignol or his cousins Punch and Judy. You may wonder why on earth I decided to take the kids to see this show. Well, that is because I would do anything to please them and if I can do it with a chance to get them to love music as much as I do, I just go for it! No luck this time though, as they were given little opportunity to enjoy the musical part. Now, if it had been, say, Leon Fleisher at the piano, taking time to explain a little about what he was going to play for them and about what Debussy and Schumann were trying to express, that would have been another matter. One can always dream…