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Palestrina Act 2 at Wiener Staatsoper (Photo: Michael Pöhn)

Hans Pfitzner’s opera Palestrina has struggled to gain a foothold outside German-speaking lands. It didn’t receive its UK premiere until 1997, when it was conducted at Covent Garden by Christian Thielemann, the opera’s greatest modern-day advocate, who also led the 2001 revival.

It’s a different story in Vienna, where Palestrina has been given seven productions since 1919, the first directed by the composer himself. The Staatsoper’s programme book includes historic notes by Pfitzner; Bruno Walter, who conducted the 1917 premiere in Munich; and baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, who sang the role of Cardinal Borromeo. This performance was the 130th at the Haus am Ring. The work is revered here, as is Thielemann, who was at the helm.

The opera, which Pfitzner described as a “musical legend”, depicts Renaissance composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, who saves the art of Church polyphony in the 16th century – under attack at the Council of Trent, which proposes to ban it and return to Gregorian chant – by clearing the “writer’s block” he’s suffered since the death of his wife and composing his Missa Papae Marcelli. Pope Pius IV signals his approval and invites Palestrina to lead the choir at the Sistine Chapel.

In his parable-like idolisation of Palestrina, Pfitzner was essentially writing an opera about himself; the renewal of art, the conservative taking a firm stand against modernism. It’s a philosophical operatic essay on the theme of artistic struggle and the loneliness of the creative individual, in a similar vein to Mathis der Maler, Die Meistersinger or Capriccio. It’s reflective and slow-burning, sometimes turgid. Structurally it feels lopsided: Act 1 lasts 100 minutes; Act 2 70 minutes; but Act 3 is done and dusted in just half an hour.

Yet Pfitzner manages contrasts well. The outer acts, set in Palestrina’s home, contain beautiful music and lush harmonies, particularly in Act 1 where the composer receives divine inspiration via three angels who dictate the mass that he’s been charged with writing. The middle act is a sardonic caricature of cardinals and bishops at an acrimonious session of the Council of Trent, bickering and backbiting factions divided between scheming Italians and “scurvy” Spanish.

Michael Spyres (Palestrina) and Kathrin Zukowski (Ighino) at Wiener Staatsoper (Photo: Michael Pöhn)

Herbert Wernicke’s 1999 production shifts the action to the mid-20th century and rejects much sense of transcendence, setting the action not in Palestrina’s house in Rome nor Cardinal Madruscht's Palace in Trent, but on a concert hall stage, its cream and gold decor echoing the Staatsoper’s auditorium. An organ façade looms across the rear, opening up to reveal a celestial choir at the end of Act 1 and a grandstand of clergy in Act 2. The Pope makes his brief appearance in a box above the pit.

The third act – dubbed by Thielemann in the programme as a “bubble bath in a minor key” – is tremendously moving here. At the close, Palestrina’s son, Ighino, takes the score of the mass to the organ, while an aged Palestrina shuffles to the podium and raises his arms ready to conduct, the music fading to a soft organ pedal.

Making his role debut as the reluctant musical hero, Michael Spyres sang a transcendent Palestrina, lyrical and luminous, affectingly acted. Wolfgang Koch, vocally under the weather and relying on a very audible prompter, was an effective foil as Cardinal Borromeo, whose patience snaps when Palestrina refuses the commission. Mezzo-soprano Patricia Nolz sang a spunky Sillo, Palestrina’s frustrated apprentice, a trouser role very much a cousin of the Composer in Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos, while soprano Kathrin Zukowski was an affecting, limpid Ighino.

Palestrina Act 3 Günther Groissböck (Pope Pius IV) and ensemble at Wiener Staatsoper (Photo: Michael Pöhn)

Among the clearly drawn clergy in Pfitzner’s long ensemble cast list (nearly 40 roles), Michael Laurenz’s scheming Bernardo Novagerio and Wolfgang Bankl’s pompous Giovanni Morone were especially characterful, as was Matthäus Schmidlechner’s Heldentenor-ish Bishop of Budoja. As Pope Pius, Günther Groissböck’s smooth bass is now sadly frayed.

Thielemann, on crutches following recent tendon surgery, earned a resounding ovation before every act and adulation at the curtain call. He injected pace and clarity of line into the score – even if he didn’t iron out all its longueurs – and drew tremendous playing from the orchestra, the brass unleashing Borromeo’s fury with poisonous venom. Shimmering strings and two harps evoked sublime religious ecstasy – you could almost smell the incense. Thielemann adores this opera, but it will be interesting to see if any other conductor feels like taking up the baton to champion it.