Aaron

1. (Aron) (Schoenberg: Moses und Aron). Tenor. Brother of Moses, who asks him to use his powers of oratory to convince the Israelites to follow Moses out of bondage. Aaron is unable to accept the idea of a god which he cannot see in person. While Moses is away collecting the tablets of stone from the Lord, Aaron builds a golden calf for the people to worship. When Moses returns, he smashes the stone tablets in frustration and chides his brother for being so sceptical. Aaron, having been put in chains, is released on Moses' orders, but dies as soon as he is freed. Created (1954, concert) by Helmut Krebs; (1957, stage) by Helmut Melchert. It is interesting that in the title of the work, this character is spelt with one ‘a’, but as the character, there are two ‘a’s. There is a theory that Schoenberg was superstitious - to spell it with two ‘a’s in the title would have resulted in that title having thirteen letters. Therefore, one of the ‘a’s was dropped, but retained for the character.

2. (Aronne (Elisero)) (Rossini: Mosè in Egitto). Tenor. Brother of Moses. Finds his niece hiding with Pharaoh's son. Created (1818) by Giuseppe Ciccimarra.

AARON

(Moses und Aron - Schoenberg)

by Philip Langridge

I have to confess that the first time I looked at the part of Aaron with a view to singing it, I thought it much too difficult to learn. It was not so much the rather angular vocal writing - I had seen music written in a much more aggressive way than this - it was more a question of tuning. The flow of the vocal line in many places is very lyrical, but when you look at the detail of the accompaniment, the chords written beneath almost every note, you find that some notes fit exactly with that of the singer and some absolutely do not. I began by learning each phrase, one note following the other, so that each note was exactly in tune. Then each of these notes had to be sung, whistled, or hummed while playing the notes of the chord underneath it. If there was an exact match with the note I was singing, I put a ring round it. On the other hand, a note which was ‘challenged’ in the accompanying chord was very firmly crossed out. I know it sounds very long and laborious, but actually it did save time in the end because I was aware of the sounds around me when I sang it and that gave me a great sense of security.

I first performed the role in 1984 in a concert performance under Sir Georg Solti with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and we recorded it at that time. I feel now that the character of Aaron was not thought out as it would have been on stage and I had to wait until I met the late Jean-Pierre Ponnelle for the Salzburg Festival production (1987) before I understood how this could be achieved. The first thing he said (with his wonderful French accent) was ‘Sportin' Life’ [the ‘spiv’-like dope-peddling character in Gershwin's Porgy and Bess] by which I thought he must have meant eloquent and persuasive. This gave me a great starting point for Aaron, who had to be extremely persuasive to get the multitudes to forget their troubles and march off to the promised land!

My next production was with Herbert Wernicke at the Châtelet Theatre in Paris (1996). This was a very different reading altogether. The chorus were at the back of the stage standing in square holes designed to appear as if their occupants were looking down on the proceedings from a high-rise building. Moses sat on a huge pile of Bibles at the front and this left me with the whole stage to play with. My only problem was to ‘persuade’ the chorus (at the back) while I was singing to the front over that huge orchestra! I felt very lonely out there, almost like a comedian dying on his feet. Then I realized that Schoenberg had originally written this piece as an oratorio and only later had he put in all the stage directions.

This actually made the whole situation clearer and I was able to see the dilemma of the Multitude (imprisoned in their ‘Plight’) and Moses trapped with his ideals, unable to express them, while Aaron tries to sort everything out. This still called for lots of persuasion and guile and a great deal of eloquence, but above all it called for immense energy and concentration. From the singing-actor's point of view then, this was an even better solution, and we performed the piece with real understanding. After all, this work is somehow a re-creation of a bit of biblical history and it needs to be told with a certain amount of truth - which is what we should always be doing on the stage, whether in comedy or tragedy. If we play truthfully to each character, then we can speak to the heart from the heart.