Kinderkuchen for the FBI

The Pinnacle of Singing – Jonas Kaufmann

2012-01-23T23:30:00.003-05:00

[This is an interview before Jonas' recital at the Musikverein in Vienna, translated from here. Thanks to Emilio for his help in translating "ersungen".]

For several years he is one of the giants of the music scene. In February Jonas Kaufmann is to be a guest at the Musikverein with a Liederabend. In his luggage, the celebrated Verdi and Wagner tenor this time has a rather quiet program.

In the world of opera, there are many clichés. One of them says that only Italian tenors bring sufficient luster for the Italian repertory - maybe even the Spanish-Mexican-Argentine. A second is that in Milan, New York or Paris one could not present to the audience a German as a Latin Lover. A Teuton to succeed internationally as Alfredo (La traviata) and Cavaradossi (Tosca)? Until a few years ago it was unimaginable.

Jonas Kaufmann then entered the international arena. Basedin Zurich, where the Munich-born was since the turn of the millennium contractedto sing, he had continuously enriched his audience through singing. 2007 was his solo CD "Romantic Arias" on the market, three more have since followed. There are now a "Fidelio" recording under Claudio Abbado with him, and various DVDs: a "Tosca" from Zurich, a "Werther" in Paris, a "Lohengrin" in Munich and a "Carmen" from London. Even a biography has been published.

That the 42-year-old is an outstanding singer and actor, critics and fans agree. Besides that he also looks good, at least not detrimental to the career. No wonder that a critic of the New York Times recently attested laconically of the singer that he is "currently the hottest tenor in opera". A glance at Kaufmann's diary confirms this: The November and December 2011, he spends at the New York Metropolitan Opera, sings the title role in a new production of "Faust," in January there is a new "Don Carlo" at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. The advantage of the Munich engagement: Kaufmann can finally sleep in his own bed once again - he lives with his wife, singer Margaret Joswig, and their three children after years in Switzerland, now back on the Isar.

On your program for the Musikverein are songs by Liszt, Mahler and Richard Strauss - and Henri Duparc (1848-1933), a friend of Camille Saint-Saens' and Ernest Chausson. Three well-known composers, and a relative unknown . What do you like about Duparc?

I think he's a very interesting but underrated composer who unfortunately has only written a few songs. The poems he set to music are, for the most part very expansive, very flowery, very dense atmosphere. And in combination with Duparc's music, these pieces seem so strong that one listening - or singing - believes that landscapes are to see and fragrances to smell. It is a very particular nature of Duparc, that after a few bars of a song, the specific atmosphere can feel almost palpable.

Do you have among the four, a favorite composer?

Even if these four approach very differently the setting of texts, they are all masterpieces in the genre of song composition. In this respect I do not want to have to choose a favorite composer. For Mahler, it is certainly the increased emotionality that attracts me as a singer in particular. With Liszt the piano virtuoso is of course always in the foreground, so chamber music and songs are often too short. His songs are not nearly as well known as they deserve because of his mastery. In Strauss I can as a tenor "tuck in" more than with other composers, which frankly for me is a lot of fun. But he has also repeatedly phrases, where you can paint with very fine colors. These contrasts feel like a great challenge to me. I also like many Strauss songs for a sense of humor, even self-irony.

You will be accompanied by Helmut Deutsch - you both have a long-standing cooperation. Deutsch has made music with you when you were still a student at the Munich Academy of Music.

Yes, he was my professor in the subject Lied, so we know each other for over twenty years. From the teacher-pupil ratio is then over the years a partnership that I find very harmonious. He's still my mentor in terms of Lieder singing: He has an invaluable wealth of knowledge of singing and song repertoire, from which I have benefitted for years and is basically the foundation of our program design.

They celebrate triumphs on the operatic stage. Why are you still excited by the - perhaps even more difficult - Lied?

Lieder singing to me is the pinnacle of singing. To make Lieder requires a high degree of technical skill and artistic sensibility, which in opera roles is not necessarily the case. As an operatic character one is part of a story; as a song singer, in one evening one tells about twenty different stories. It gives me immense pleasure to show in one evening so many different facets-linguistically, musically, stylistically and dramatically. The singer can work with much more subtle means, not least because the song focuses the attention of the audience to music and text.

On the opera stage, a singer working with a director and a conductor, he has also colleagues as supervisory body. How is this with the Lied? Do you have to fend for yourself?

Yes, as an opera singer, you are part of a larger whole, and you can make even a certain responsibility to the director or the conductor. As Lieder singer is one – together with the pianist - alone responsible. This is a much greater burden, but which, if everything goes well, will be rewarded with greater satisfaction. And what the "Supervisory Body" handles, recordings of rehearsals and concerts are always helpful for me.

Do you remember your debut in Vienna?

Of course! For me this was a great day. A "Fledermaus" at the Volksoper with Heinz Holecek as Frosch in 1997. I sang Alfred and was pretty excited because the Viennese audience is indeed, due to its professional knowledge and its strong interest in things artistic, by us singers equally loved and feared. My debut at the Staatsoper followed nine years later, on June 12, 2006, as Tamino in "Die Zauberflote".

Did you, like many students in Munich, in your study time go occasionally for concerts and operas to Vienna? Do you have memories of the Viennese musical life from the perspective of a spectator?

In my student days, it must have been in 1993, there was a special experience in Vienna, which has not been repeated in this way by luck. From Munich we went with the Bach Choir Fürstenfeldbruck to Vienna to give a performance of "St. John Passion." I should sing the Evangelist and the tenor arias. The whole ensemble took the bus there, and for some reason I took the night train. About an hour before the rehearsal I arrived in the morning at the West Bahnhof, took a taxi and said: "To Peter's Church, please!" Big question mark! The driver did not know Peter's Church, nor did his colleagues. In the days before GPS and cell phone of course we had no other choice than to constantly ask people and to follow some vague references. So we wandered through Vienna for some time, I got as it were a city tour of the most beautiful churches - Votive Church, St. Stephens Dom, etc. - until we finally found the Church of St. Peter. The rehearsal had already started, of course, all were sitting on pins and needles, waiting for me.

As a viewer I especially remember the Viennese New Year's concerts in the Musikverein. To watch television with the family, which belonged to us for New Year's Day just as the fir tree belongs to Christmas. And it was always a special experience: the magnificent hall, the Philharmonic, conductor like Boskovsky, Maazel, Karajan and Abbado, little extras like the gun shots in the Polka "On the Hunt", the beat of the music clapping audience at the "Radetzky March"- all had a very special character, and we children felt instinctively that classical music in Vienna has a stronger meaning than anywhere else in the world.

Does the coming song recital mark your debut at the Musikverein?

No, I have already sung concerts there, before my debut at the Staatsoper. But it's my first Liederabend at the Musikverein, and I am really looking forward to being allowed to sing Lieder in this room with the wonderful acoustic.

Does one dream of it sometimes as a student actually being allowed to sing one day in such historic rooms?

My daydreams as a singing student had relatively little to do with music, with even fewer career (laughs). But if I had asked a fairy godmother at the time in what houses I would like to sing, I would have named three magical places in the world of opera called La Scala, the Met and the Vienna State Opera.

I think I'm in Love

2012-01-21T17:56:00.001-05:00

I think I fell in love today at the Live from the Metropolitan Opera in HD presentation of The Enchanted Island. Maybe I fell in love with the ever more fascinating and spectacular Joyce DiDonato as Sycorax. I was pleased to see she got top billing.

Or perhaps I fell in love with Danielle de Niese as the spectacular spirit Ariel. She got all the best arias and looked adorable in her costume.

It is even possible that I fell in love with David Daniels. He is very serious in the role of Prospero, and perhaps that is what I needed.

I know I love madly Luca Pisaroni as Caliban. He complained about having to shave his hair for the role, but he was successfully lovable and hideous all at the same time.

Perhaps I fell in love with Placido Domingo in his first role as a god. How is that possible? Hasn't he always been a god? Today is his birthday.

Probably I already loved the conductor William Christie, who did not conduct from the harpsichord. I didn't love anything more than he did.

The pastiche was a success. I enjoyed the English text enormously. If English translations were always this good, we would argue for singing more operas in English. Everyone sang it well. The oddest selection for retexting was "Endless Pleasure, Endless Love" from Semele made into an ensemble.

The thing that was least like a real Baroque opera was the frequent use of ensemble numbers. Real Baroque opera is just one da capo aria after another. In this they represented I would say about half of the opera instead of the usual 80 percent.

I found it amusing that Ariel messes up and shipwrecks the wrong boat. The odd plot was very well handled. If you've seen The Fairy Queen, you know that this makes way more sense.

It was enchanting.

Quantum Theory

2012-01-21T17:02:00.001-05:00

I would like to propose a quantum theory of music. The more you observe it, the closer you look and hear, the more you open your heart to it, the more you expand your experiences of it, the more it changes into something you've never heard before.

Blogging

2012-01-21T12:15:00.002-05:00

When I began blogging in 2005, I had many things I wished to say. I had deeply held grievances and complaints I could not wait to express. After 6 years of blogging, it is possible that I have said them all. I have been taking a much closer look at the world of classical music, and this has taught me much. Knowing more changes things.

In general what I think is the opposite of what most musicians are taught. We are taught to learn what is written down and reproduce it precisely. I believe that there is a process of discovering expression that goes far beyond the mere learning of notes, and that the more individual the expression, the better.

But I also find that time and the process of listening might change everything. That said, I find that I still love me. No one expresses what I would want to say better than me. It can't be helped--I love me, and that seems never to change. I am only surprised each time to find how much I still love me. I feel like Maria Callas sitting alone in her Paris apartment listening to her own recordings.

Before I leave me I must include at least one Brahms. There is a wrong note in this performance, but I sing it with so much conviction you are unlikely to find it.

Brahms Immer leiser wird mein Schlummer by Dr.Barbara

Brahms Liebestreu by Dr.Barbara

2012 - 2013 San Francisco Opera

2012-01-20T10:48:00.000-05:00

Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto with Željko Lučić as Rigoletto, Aleksandra Kurzak (pictured) as Gilda, and Francesco Demuro as the duke. I look forward to hearing Kurzak. The second cast is Marco Vratogna, Albina Shagimuratova, and former Adler Fellow David Lomelí. Nicola Luisotti conducts.

Vincenzo Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi with Joyce Didonato as Romeo and Nicole Cabell (pictured) as Juliet. This is a new production. Nicole will also sing in Pearl Fishers at Santa Fe next summer. So far I only know her from the Boheme movie. Riccardo Frizza conducts.

Jake Heggie’s [rhymes with leggy] Moby-Dick had its premier in 2010 in Dallas. Ben Heppner and Jay Hunter Morris (pictured) share the role of Ahab. You will have to pick your favorite. Patrick Summers of the Houston Grand Opera conducts. I heard bits of this on the radio and it sounded fascinating.

Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin with the title role is sung by Brandon Jovanovich (pictured), who sang Siegmund in Die Walküre (2011), and Elsa is soprano Camilla Nylund whom I saw in Zurich in Fidelio with Jonas Kaufmann. Nicola Luisotti conducts.

Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca will have two casts: Angela Gheorghiu, Massimo Giordano (pictured), and baritone Roberto Frontali is one, and the other stars Patricia Racette, tenor Brian Jagde and Mark Delavan. Nicola Luisotti conducts. You may have to go twice.

The Secret Garden is by Nolan Gasser, libretto by Carey Harrison. This is a world premier. Details of the performance are sketchy, and you have to order tickets on the phone.

Jacques Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann is a new production starring Natalie Dessay, who will sing all four women, tenor Matthew Polenzani (pictured), whom I remember most from Don Pasquale from the Met, will sing Hoffmann, Alice Coote is Nicklausse, The Muse, and bass-baritone Christian Van Horn will play the villains. I think I'll probably still wish for Rolando. Patrick Fournillier conducts.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Così fan tutte. Heidi Stober (pictured) is featured. Nicola Luisotti conducts.

Mark Adamo’s The Gospel of Mary Magdalene. This is a world premier with Sasha Cooke (pictured) , William Burden, Maria Kanyova and Nathan Gunn. Michael Christie conducts. All I can say is wow. I have a copy of this book at home and am amazed that someone would write an opera based on it.

We have many familiar name stars in this list: Angela Gheorghiu, Natalie Dessay, Patricia Racette, Ben Heppner, Joyce DiDonato, and Alice Coote. Less familiar rising stars include: Heidi Stober, Aleksandra Kurzak, Matthew Polenzani.

That's three new operas in English, and I must comment. Moby-Dick is obviously not a chick flick, since it is all men, but at least it's based on a novel and not history. The Secret Garden is more a kid flick. It is impossible to imagine what The Gospel of Mary Magdalene will be, but I can't wait to find out.

Kennst du das Land?

2012-01-19T20:30:00.000-05:00

Wolf Kennst du das Land by Dr.Barbara

This is Hugo Wolf's Kennst du das Land? Susan Graham sang it on her program last week. This one is sort of different.

The Children's Hour

2012-01-19T20:08:00.000-05:00

18 Ives The Childrens Hour by Dr.Barbara I have wanted to do this for years, but have not known how. Enjoy.

American Operas, a List

2012-01-19T13:51:00.002-05:00

1897	The Scarlet Letter	Walter Damrosch
1910	The Pipe of Desire	Frederick S. Converse
1911	Natoma	Victor Herbert
1911	Mona	Horatio Parker
1913	Cyrano de Bergerac	Walter Damrosch
1914	Madeleine	Victor Herbert
1917	The Canterbury Pilgrims	Reginald de Koven
1917	Azora	Henry Hadley
1918	Shanewis	Charles Wakefield Cadman
1919	The Legend	Joseph Breil
1920	Rip Van Winkle	Reginald de Koven
1920	Cleopatra's Night	Henry Hadley
1926	The Witch of Salem	Charles Wakefield Cadman
1927	The King's Henchman	Deems Taylor
1931	Peter Ibbetson	Deems Taylor
1933	The Emperor Jones	Louis Gruenberg
1934	Merry Mount	Howard Hanson
1934	Four Saints in Three Acts	Virgil Thomson
1935	Porgy and Bess	George Gershwin
1935	In the Pasha's Garden	John Laurence Seymour
1937	The Man without a Country	Walter Damrosch
1938	Amelia Goes to the Ball	Gian Carlo Menotti
1939	The Old Maid and the Thief	Gian Carlo Menotti
1939	The Devil and Daniel Webster	Douglas Moore
1942	The Island God	Gian Carlo Menotti
1942	Ramuntcho	Deems Taylor
1946	The Medium	Gian Carlo Menotti
1947	The Telephone, or L'Amour à trois	Gian Carlo Menotti
1947	The Warrior	Bernard Rogers
1947	The Mother of us All	Virgil Thomson
1950	The Consul	Gian Carlo Menotti
1951	Amahl and the Night Visitors	Gian Carlo Menotti
1952	Trouble in Tahiti	Leonard Bernstein
1953	The Taming of the Shrew	Vittorio Giannini
1953	The Mighty Casey	William Schuman
1954	The Tender Land	Aaron Copland
1954	The Saint of Bleeker Street	Gian Carlo Menotti
1955	The Ruby	Norman Dello Joio
1956	Candide	Leonard Bernstein
1956	Susannah	Carlisle Floyd
1956	The Unicorn, the Gorgon and the Manticore	Gian Carlo Menotti
1956	The Ballad of Baby Doe	Douglas Moore
1958	Vanessa	Samuel Barber
1966	Antony and Cleopatra	Samuel Barber
1976	Einstein on the Beach	Philip Glass
1977	The Women in the Garden	Vivian Fine
1979	The Village Singer	Stephen Paulus
1979	Sweeney Todd	Stephen Sondheim
1981	Satyagraha	Philip Glass
1982	The Postman Always Rings Twice	Stephen Paulus
1984	Akhnaten	Philip Glass
1987	Nixon in China	John Adams
1991	The Death of Klinghoffer	John Adams
1991	The ghosts of Versailles	John Corigliano
1991	Orphée	Philip Glass
1992	McTeague	William Elden Bolcom
1994	The Dangerous Liaisons	Conrad Susa
1995	Harvey Milk	Stewart Wallace
1996	Rent	Jonathan Larson
1998	Little Women	Mark Adamo
1998	A Streetcar Named Desire	Andre Previn
1999	A View from the Bridge	William Elden Bolcom
2000	El Niño	John Adams
2000	Dead Man Walking	Jake Heggie
2005	Doctor Atomic	John Adams
2005	Margaret Garner	Richard Danielpour
2005	Grendel	Elliot Goldenthal
2005	An American Tragedy	Tobias Picker
2007	Appomattox	Philip Glass
2008	The Bonesetter’s Daughter	Stewart Wallace
2009	The Letter	Paul Moravec
2011	Heart of a Soldier	Christopher Theofanidis

I'm not sure Victor Herbert counts. He was born in Germany and brought the style of German operetta to American. He was very influential here. Menotti is our only composer to emphasize opera. Nothing before Porgy and Bess remains in the repertoire.

I have to say this is a truly pathetic list.

David Daniels, Cocker Spaniels

2012-01-15T19:12:00.000-05:00

Or Susan Graham at Zellerbach in Berkeley. Susan has her own song called "I am a sexy lady" which ended her program. In it she complains that she is always required to play dudes and kiss other women at the opera, but she is a real woman. Somehow David Daniels and the obvious rhyme Cocker Spaniels came up. We're not sure how. She loves this song.

It was an excellent program. I liked best the Berlioz La Mort d'Ophélie. She has a great feeling for Berlioz. I am always looking for the feeling.

She did a group based on the Mignon songs of Goethe ending with the great Hugo Wolf "Kennst du das Land." My doctoral document was on settings of Goethe, so I always enjoy hearing examples of these. I honestly didn't know that Duparc did a translation of "Kennst du das Land?" I should have. The group also included the Tchaikovsky song on "Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt." In the intermission I complained that she had left out "Connais-tu le pays?" from Thomas's Mignon. I was wrong again!! She sang it as an encore. This was particularly lovely.

Susan Graham excels at a kind of light lyricism, especially of the French variety, and the concert was rich in examples that were well suited to her voice and style. Malcolm Martineau was her excellent pianist.

Visualize...

2012-01-15T14:58:00.000-05:00

Today is the last performance in Zurich of Rossini's Le Comte Ory with Cecilia Bartoli as the Countess. I could not make it due to health problems. So I want you to help me Visualize a DVD for Le comte Ory, Zurich version. This is the version with the new critical edition of the score.

(This idea came from seeing a bumper sticker that said, "Visualize yourself using your turn signal.")

Child Singers

2012-01-11T22:07:00.000-05:00

Here is an interesting discussion of children singing opera. He's against. The article is attracting a lot of comments. This is all brought on by Jackie Evancho, a product of the competition program America's Got Talent.

People have asked me about her. She sings stuff like "O mio babbino caro." She's a kid. People like to see children doing things, imitating grownups. She scoops and slides only slightly more than the woman I was complaining about. It bothers me that she tries to sound like an adult singer with the vibrato and lowered larynx. I think that's what anyone is complaining about. No one seems to complain about English boy sopranos, but they never sound like this.

I prefer this aria like this. I like the pictures of the Ponte Vecchio in Florence because she sings that if she cannot marry her beloved she will throw herself off of it

So what about this little girl with a far more grownup voice than Jackie? This kid actually does give me goosebumps.

It is important for people to realize that it is considered unethical for professional voice teachers to teach little children to sing like adults. This is what the argument is all about. 16 is the generally accepted age for beginning serious lessons, which means after puberty.

Beverly Sills and Roberta Peters trained as children.

Crossover

2012-01-09T00:35:00.000-05:00

I would not have picked her out for this, but I would have been wrong. The English is just a tiny bit off, but the style is amazing.

I'm too sick to travel, so I sit around listening to stuff. It's amazing the things you find.

News about Violins

2012-01-07T12:13:00.001-05:00

One of the big stories going around the internet is the one about the eBay customer who may or may not have smashed a valuable antique violin. Apparently this is Paypal policy. If you want to get your money back, you have to smash the item.

Claims "Erica," the seller: "The buyer was proud of himself, so he sent me a photo of the destroyed violin."

Andrew Hooker, an antique violin dealer and former auctioneer at Sotheby's, said that "only an imbecile" would buy a precious instrument without playing it first. Which would kind of leave eBay out, I would think.

My own opinion would be that if it requires an expert to authenticate it, it should similarly require an expert to unauthenticate it. Advice: neither buy nor sell your Guarneri on eBay.

Aretha Franklin Is Looking For The Next Great Star ... Of Opera

2012-01-04T11:00:00.000-05:00

I don't know what to think about this story about Aretha Franklin auditioning opera singers 18 - 40. Television contests with people singing opera makes me think of Paul Potts. The age range sounds good. Opera auditions normally stop at 30 while opera singing doesn't really hit its stride until about 40.

Buon Matrimonio

2012-01-03T16:03:00.000-05:00

Forgive me if that's bad Italian. My Italian cannot be relied upon. It turned out to be true. The exact date remains a secret, but according to the Forum and the Zurich Opera, Cecilia Bartoli is married. Never say never.

I must admit it seemed to me they were acting married. Do you know what I mean?

Domingo's Favorite Roles

2012-01-03T14:00:00.000-05:00

Part of the recent pledging activity on PBS included a film about Placido Domingo's favorite roles. There are some expected things and some surprises. I am posting some films, but they aren't necessarily the same ones as are in the film. He was the opera singer of my generation.

Carmen by Bizet

Was there ever an opera singer like Don Placido? I think it is the almost magical combination of manly beauty and emotional intensity that sets him apart, quite in addition to the voice that sings anything. He sings all those roles because he can. The intensity of his Don Jose is unsurpassed, not even by Alagna.

La Gioconda by Ponchielli

Luisa Miller by Verdi

At this point in the program came an interview with Deborah Voigt who sang Sieglinda to his Siegmund. "He lives in the moment."

La Fanciulla del West by Puccini

I have a copy of his Fanciulla in my video collection. I liked very much Licitra in this role, but he could not compare to Domingo who raised this opera to greatness.

Andrea Chenier by Giordano

I think this recording is a fragment. See here for the whole thing.

For his Tosca by Puccini we include two recordings. First is "Recondita Armonia."

This is "E Lucevan le Stelle."

This glorious film made in Rome in the real places of the opera's setting is also in my video collection. It is pleasing to see him talking about the filming. The orchestra was in another part of town.

After Tosca came an interview with Erwin Schrott.

Tales of Hoffmann by Offenbach

You'd have to show the whole opera, which I'm not prepared to do. I always understood Hoffmann to be Domingo's favorite.

Samson et Dalila by Saint-Saens

This is the great San Francisco Opera production, but all the good parts are for the mezzo.

I Pagliacci by Leoncavallo

This is a film by Franco Zeffirelli, also in my collection. With the YouTube film comes this comment, "When I really want to hear an especially great voice (as I often do) perhaps I won't choose his. But... if I want to have a complete theatrical experience — with tears and laughter — perhaps how the composers themselves would have like to see, I have not yet found another tenor that puts everything together to breath life into an opera like Placido Domingo. Without him, I dare say operatic standards would not be where they are, today." This comment is also how I feel about him. I wouldn't sit and listen to him on my iPod, but for the full operatic experience, no one tops him.

After this was an interview with Anna Netrebko. She talks about sneaking in to see him sing Otello in St Petersberg.

Otello Verdi

The best comments from Domingo come here. "Better too early than too late." :-)

He talks at length about his voice in this role. "You have to live so intensely; you have to have the stamina; you have to be convincing as a Shakespeare actor; you have to have the high notes; you have to have the low part; you have to have the metal to pass over the orchestra; you have to have the velvet to sing the love duet." He, of course, had it all.

He has led us to know that more is possible. Perhaps opera today is what he has made it.

Happy New Year

2011-12-31T16:06:00.001-05:00

May all your opera dreams come true.

An operatic Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T21:38:00.002-05:00

Blogging

2011-12-25T14:02:00.001-05:00

Disclaimer: I never read what the director says is supposed to be going on in the production. I like it to unfold while I am watching and listening. I want to allow for the possibility of surprise. I assume that whatever I am seeing is what is intended for me to see. If I have to read things to understand the production, something is wrong. The purpose of the production is to explain the opera to me. I consider it the director's responsibility to communicate to me what the production means by putting the meaning in the production.

Now that it's over, I have read a lot of commentary about what was supposed to be going on in Faust. Perhaps they were confused and I was not because they read the director's explanation.

I want to know what in the visual elements of this production would have led one to believe this was another Doctor Atomic, and that he sold his soul, not for a young woman as seems so obvious, but for the atomic bomb? I read that that's what this production was supposed to mean. I do not read what besides the fact that they all wore lab coats would have meant that? I insist that if you can't see it, easily and clearly see it, it isn't there.

I don't memorize leitmotivs or tone rows either.

Pronouncing R

2011-12-23T18:00:00.000-05:00

Norman Lebrecht has gotten himself involved in a discussion of how to pronounce "R." (Here for French, here for German.) This sounds like the sort of silly stuff I write about. My fanaticism is the pronunciation of the unpronounced neutral vowel in French. If it isn't pronounced, how are you supposed to tell how to pronounce it?

When native speakers speak both French and German, they often use a uvular or gutturalized R (back of the throat) instead of a rolled or flipped R (tip of the tongue). When I lived in Germany, my Spanish friend would laugh that she could do a guttural R only on the word "Brod." Then she would demonstrate. I couldn't do it on any word at all, so I was very impressed with this. My uvula refuses to do anything but just hang there. The fanatical German speech coaches fussed with a lot of things about my German but never once brought up how I pronounced R. Perhaps they simply assume that foreigners have no hope of achieving this. Or perhaps the uvular R isn't considered correct in opera singing.

I like to use certain models for these things. In French I think of Edith Piaf as the supreme model. Watching this again I can see her tongue rolling those R's. I am surprised by this.

For my money Régine Crespin and Edith Piaf are rolling with the tip of the tongue. This is what singers are taught. And you will please notice that neither one of these women use the silly super-rounded neutral vowel you are constantly hearing from coached non-French singers.

And Fritz Wunderlich is definitely using his tongue.

Christa rolls with her tongue. The idea here is that you do nothing with your pronunciation that interferes with your tone because tone is king.

When the man in Brussels asks for a uvular R, he is trying for a theatrical effect. He wants Carmen to sound common. Here is a link to comments from the singer on this situation.

Curiously, if you go back a few posts to the film of Victoria de los Angeles, the word "chagrin" sounds the most likely to be guttural of anything I've found.

The only singer I am absolutely certain consistently uses a uvular R when singing is Gisela May.

At one point in the song she even sings it with her mouth wide open. No tongue. She was one of Brecht's favorites. We prefer to approach these subjects using the empirical method.

Schaefer's Dichterliebe

2011-12-23T15:12:00.000-05:00

I have owned this film for years. After all, it comes with Pierrot Linaire which I reviewed here. Es heisst Theaterrealität. It is two things in one--a film of Schumann's Dichterliebe and a film of people filming Schumann's Dichterliebe--and it can be played either way. I am showing the long version without subtitles for the full experience.

There is an extended bit filming Christine Schaefer's bare feet. In another section she says "Ich liebe dich" into the camera over and over. Unsuccessfully. We do not feel loved. The pianist Natasha Osterkorn takes a bath.

They are German, they smoke, they drink. "Es ist leichter sich am Arsch zu kratzen als am Hertzen," she writes on a blackboard while singing "Ich grolle nicht." Hoffentlich.

She is performing the songs in a moving railroad car with ragged furniture and dirt. And a grand piano. And an audience that appears and disappears.

One hears the words as never before.

I begin to feel that the truly modern exists only in Germany. I begin to long for Berlin Alexanderplatz.

Inútil Paisagem

2011-12-22T16:43:00.002-05:00

Here you go.

Try to keep up.

Scooping and Sliding

2011-12-22T15:47:00.000-05:00

I keep thinking about this, so because today is Puccini's birthday, I have decided to post it. At least a month ago I attended a performance in the Crocker Art Museum. I won't name the singer, but her program included a group by Puccini, including "O mio babbino caro."

One programs "O mio babbino caro" to show off ones mastery of the Puccini style, specifically scooping and sliding. Angela Gheorghiu may be considered a master of this style, and performs it with at least 15 scoops and as many slides. Now try to imagine that someone would program this piece and not scoop or slide even so much as once. It was deeply shocking. I am still asking myself why.

Julie Taymor's Magic Flute

2011-12-22T08:05:00.001-05:00

I'm writing about the rerun of The Magic Flute in HD because I missed it the first time around. I am out of the loop so I didn't realize it was in English. I've seen Flute in English before and found the whole thing offensively misogynistic. Someone was always making insulting cracks about women. They've edited all of that nonsense out, and no one missed it. The plot made the most sense it ever has. Hear, hear for Mozart in the 21st century.

The biggest problem with doing Flute in English, especially for the non-native speakers, most of the cast, is that they are coached so thoroughly on pronouncing English that the musical legato suffers. For that reason this is not the most musically satisfying Flute. For the singer language and phrasing are intricately joined. It isn't enough to say it right.

Mozart was an enthusiastic free mason and Julie Taymor's production uses a lot of masonic symbols, pyramids and so forth, things that mean little to the ordinary person. Visually it is a treat. The most effective parts of the production come with the bird elements that surround Papageno and the three boys.

Nathan Gunn as Papageno shines. He is charming, cute, athletic and a good singer. What more could you possibly want?

I enjoyed the fairy tale vision. In fact there was a lot to like. It was over in under 2 hours.

Image and Reality

2011-12-20T22:59:00.000-05:00

This is Joyce DiDonato on the set of Faust, at least the part you see in the movie theater.

And this is what is actually going on. Ah show business.Pictures are stolen from Joyce DiDonato on Facebook.

2011 in brief

2011-12-19T15:29:00.002-05:00

I have had a very strange operatic year. How about you?

The first strange thing is that of the 37 staged operas I reviewed this year (live, HD, 3 on film) only 15 of them appear on the most performed operas list, and two of those are Faust. First there is no Faust for decades, and then there are 3 in just over a year? It's like waiting for the bus in San Francisco.

The second odd thing is that there were 10 new operas. That means new for me. When I started the blog, I deliberately sought out operas that I hadn't seen as an educational project. This year it was all a coincidence. Only one, Heart of a Soldier, was a live world premier, though two of the films, Anna Nicole and Il Postino, were of world premier performances. While I would not call any of these three operas a great work, there was much to like in them. All three had chick flick elements and were theatrically viable.

The third odd thing is that only 13 performances in my 2011 list were from the Romantic and post-Romantic styles, namely Il Trovatore through Capriccio. Pagliacci in Sacramento was a stunning surprise. Joyce DiDonato as the composer in Ariadne was a joy.

I am including Wagner in this group. One of the highlights of the year was Die Walküre live in New York with Jonas Kaufmann. There should have been more. There should have been Nina Stemme's Götterdämmerung, for one thing. I apologize for missing the San Francisco Ring.

This year I saw 7 different bel canto operas, 4 of them serious (Armida, Lucia, Lucrezia Borgia, Anna Bolena), all by Rossini and Donizetti. These have to be regarded as the cream of the crop. Lawrence Brownlee, Natalie Dessay, Renée Fleming, Anna Netrebko, Joyce DiDonato, Juan Diego Florez and Diana Damrau are all magnificent bel canto singers. It was a treat to hear them. It is one of the great joys of contemporary opera productions that we get to see and hear these wonderful operas.

Bel canto through post-Romantic is what most people think of as opera, and yet in this list it is just barely over half of the operas. I like having my brain tweaked and my experiences stretched.

Even odder is the fact that I saw two different stagings of Iphigénie en Tauride, one in DC and one in HD. I have now seen it 3 times. Curiouser and curiouser. Susan Graham continues her world tour of this opera, which she owns. First decades of no Gluck and now everywhere there is Gluck.

And the oddest thing of all has to be that I saw live performances of 3 Baroque operas I had never seen before: Griselda (annoying plot), Xerxes (trite bordering on stupid plot) and Rodelinda (sympathetic plot). My friends all walked out on Xerxes. Other friends tsked at me when I said I loved Rodelinda. They are not ready for Baroque opera or countertenors, no matter how good they are. Cecilia Bartoli has dragged me kicking and screaming into the Baroque, and now I generally like it. The singing has to be pretty spectacular, though, to overcome the irritating plots. I wonder if any of the companies made money off of these.

I have started to think that perhaps this is the golden age of opera.

Happy New Year.

100 Most Performed Operas

2011-12-19T09:09:00.001-05:00

rank	most performed operas	value rank
1	The Marriage of Figaro	5
2	Tosca	16
3	Don Giovanni	3
4	The Barber of Seville	19
5	La Bohème	7
6	La Traviata	12
7	The Magic Flute	15
8	Cosi fan tutte	34
9	Madame Butterfly	8
10	Rigoletto	18
11	Carmen	13
12	Die Fledermaus
13	The Abduction from the Seraglio	95
14	Fidelio	35
15	Aïda	6
16	The Flying Dutchman	50
17	Salome	40
18	Un ballo in maschera	70
19	The Tales of Hoffmann	48
20	Turandot	22
21	The Merry Widow
22	Falstaff	17
23	Der Rosenkavalier	9
24	Hansel and Gretel	49
25	L'elisir d'amore	59
26	Ariadne auf Naxos	57
27	Lucia di Lammermoor	31
28	Eugene Onegin	36
29	Faust	23
30	Otello	4
31	Il Trovatore	21
32	Die Walkure	1
33	Parsifal	10
34	Cavalleria rusticana	20
35	I Pagliacci	28
36	Don Carlos	44
37	Don Pasquale	63
38	Manon	52
39	Lohengrin	24
40	Das Rheingold	1
41	Nabucco	94
42	Der Freischutz	46
43	La Cenerentola	80
44	Elektra	33
45	La clemenza di Tito
46	Orfeo ed Euridice	43
47	Andrea Chénier	61
48	Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg	14
49	Orpheus in the Underworld
50	The Bartered Bride	53
51	Gotterdammerung	1
52	Boris Godunov	11
53	Adriana Lecouvreur
54	Tannhauser	27
55	Katya Kabanova
56	Werther	62
57	La forza del destino	55
58	Simon Boccanegra	92
59	The Daughter of the Regiment	83
60	Wozzeck	38
61	Macbeth	86
62	Siegfried	1
63	La Vie parisienne
64	The Queen of Spades	81
65	Zar und Zimmermann
66	Jenufa	64
67	Mefistofele	75
68	The Mikado
69	The Gypsy Princess
70	The Pearl Fishers	87
71	L'incoronazione di Poppea	39
72	Manon Lescaut	56
73	Idomeneo
74	L'italiana in Algeria
75	Tristan und Isolde	2
76	Die Frau ohne Schatten
77	Giulio Cesare	71
78	West Side Story
79	Arabella
80	La belle Hélène
81	My Fair Lady
82	Gianni Schicchi	90
83	Norma	26
84	Peter Grimes	25
85	Bluebeard's Castle	68
86	The Merry Wives of Windsor
87	La finta giardiniera
88	The Turn of the Screw	67
89	La Grande Duchesse de Gerolstein
90	A Night in Venice
91	Albert Herring
92	Pélléas et Mélisande	29
93	Thaïs	99
94	The Land of Smiles
95	Dialogues des Carmelites	97
96	La Gioconda	37
97	Il signor Bruschino
98	Samson et Dalila	47
99	Le comte Ory
100	La sonnambula	66

This is a list of the 100 most performed operas. You will notice a number of musicals and operettas in the list. The number on the right tells you how the opera rates in terms of what critics and scholars think are the best operas. Nobody thinks musicals and operettas are the best operas, but are they right? I love that Fledermaus is #12 whether it has any value or not. J. Strauss jr, Lehar, Offenbach, Sullivan are all very popular in their native countries.

You will also notice quite a bit of Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, Puccini, Strauss, Donizetti, etc. but only one Baroque opera: #77 Giulio Cesare. Baroque opera is not high on anyone's list. Also note the absence of Gluck. Your particular operatic perspective may not look like this.

I'm going to refer to this list in my year end summary.

Bernarda Fink, Wigmore Hall

2011-12-17T00:04:00.001-05:00

Occasionally I copy things from elsewhere simply because they are interesting and deserve to be spread around. This is from Opera Today, and I post it because it is the most wildly impressive program for a recital I have ever seen:

The Wigmore Hall marks the 75th anniversary of the death of Maurice Ravel with a series of concerts that run through to June 2012.

Mixing piano song with chamber music, Bernarda Fink’s recital titled “Une rare émotion”, placed Ravel’s vocal music in the context of his era. That “rare emotion” was a search for alternatives to mainstream culture, exemplified by exotic, alien places. While British colonialism belittled other cultures, the French saw in “orientalism” potential for creative growth. Ravel’s fascination with non-western concepts wasn’t effete, but an act of affirmative courage.

Bernarda Fink began her recital with Ravel’s Cinq mélodies populaires grecques (1904-6). Their simplicity is deceptive for they represent a very different aesthetic to the often florid fin de siècle lushness popular at the time. Perhaps it’s significant that the poet who wrote the texts, Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi, persuaded Ralph Vaughan Williams to study with Ravel instead of with Vincent d’Indy. Fink and Christopher Glynn, her pianist, are right not to overdo the folk origins of these songs, for they herald Ravel’s later work, like Rapsodie espagnol and even Boléro. Perceptively, Fink and Glynn juxtaposed these songs with Debussy’s Chansons de Bilitis, written only 5 years previously, preceding the languid sensuality of La Flûte de Pan with Camille Saint-Saëns Une flûte invisible (Flautist : Adam Walker)

Moire stellar, however, was Fink’s performance of Ravel’s very early Shéherézade (1903). “Asie, Asie, Asie”, she sang, her voice glowing with excitement, “Vieux pays merveilleux des contes de nourrice”. Then, she intoned the words “Je voudrais voir des assassins souriant”, almost parlando, hinting at menacing mysteries”. Emotional extremes and daring — Ravel was by no means as mannered as the dandy image he presented.

Jules Massenet’s Élégie (1872) was a reminder of the French Romantic tradition, here transcribed for cello (Marie Bitlloch) which nicely complimented Fink’s lower register. The highlight of the evening, nonetheless, was Fink’s performance of Ravel’s Chansons madécasses (1926). This is Ravel’s exoticism in full glory. Fink’s singing took on a shimmer that brought out the suppressed erotic tension. Her Aoua! was spectacular, vibrant with horror. “Méfiez-vous des blancs, habitants du rivage”, she sang. Beware of the whites, who make enticing promises, but bring carnage. The violence is even more terrifying when Ravel follows this outburst with Il est doux. A man is sitting under a palm tree, a woman is preparing his meal. The music lilts languidly. But who is the man, and who is the woman? After Aoua!, we should beware. Ravel is provocative. Exoticism isn’t safe.

Fink and Glynn sang Debussy’s Trois mélodies de Paul Verlaine (1891) and a selection of Fauré songs from his op 39 and 76, including the lovely Les roses d’Ispahan which often makes me swoon, but after that Aoua! anything but Ravel seemed tame. Glynn’s transcription of Poulenc’s Priez por paix, for voice, piano, flute and cello ended the evening on a more soothing note.

Anne Ozorio

Another Video

2011-12-16T19:17:00.001-05:00

This is the ending of last Saturday's Faust. When I see this, I think what a singer thinks, that she is exhausted and struggling with the fact that this is vocally the most intense part of the opera. I don't make conclusions about her "voice" based on this section. She isn't a dramatic, isn't even possibly a spinto.

The men are wonderful.

The pleasure of Victoria

2011-12-16T18:31:00.001-05:00

This is Victoria de los Angeles at 67. I love this song and find this version wonderful.

The pleasure of love lasts only a moment
The pain of love lasts a lifetime.
I gave up everything for ungrateful Sylvia,
She is leaving me for another lover.
The pleasure of love lasts only a moment,
The pain of love lasts a lifetime.
"As long as this water will run gently
Towards this brook which borders the meadow,
I will love you", Sylvia told me repeatedly.
The water still runs, but she has changed.
The pleasure of love lasts only a moment,
The pain of love lasts a lifetime.

Topix Opera News

2011-12-14T19:23:00.000-05:00

I discovered a new link today that shows stories about opera, and I've added it to my links list. It says it's in Fair Oaks, CA, just down the road from me, but it doesn't show any way to contact them.

I've been thinking of starting to post news about opera when it comes my way. The latest big item is that the orchestra and chorus of the New York City Opera are threatening to strike. The current managers are trying to turn it into something like the Sacramento Opera rather than a major cultural institution in America's largest city. We'll see.

I didn't mind the Faust production that played in HD last Saturday, but I may be the only one. The problem the producers of this opera are having is that they don't think anyone really believes in the devil any more.

Christmas

2011-12-12T13:46:00.001-05:00

Things you might want to give as Christmas presents. I apologize for being rather last minute. You can give instant electronic copies.

I loved this Fidelio.

If your friends like reality television, you could give them Anna Nicole.

There's some pretty wonderful stuff in this recording of Vivaldi's Ercole sul Termodonte (1722) with Fabio Biondi and Europa Galante. Even people who hate staged Baroque operas will probably like this.

This is pretty awesome. Netrebko is in form.

My personal favorite would, of course, be this video of Werther. I warn you, I haven't been able to get any of my friends to watch it.

Merry Christmas.

P.S. to Faust

2011-12-12T10:58:00.002-05:00

Could we please have Jonas in Tosca next time?

And when casting about for a replacement for Angela, the Met might have considered Ailyn Pérez.

What Netrebko is up to

2011-12-11T23:57:00.001-05:00

This is her Donna Anna at La Scala. Of course. It's sort of Mozart as Wagner, don't you think?

I'm the person who gives advice. Right? My sense of Anna at the present time is that her aerobic conditioning is insufficient. I know she used to run in Central Park and can't help wondering if she is keeping this up. Taking the baby to the park isn't the same thing. You may resume ignoring me.

Faust in HD

2011-12-10T22:14:00.001-05:00

Today in Faust Live from the Metropolitan Opera in HD we had the privilege of hearing loud boos from the audience for the production designer Des McAnuff. The production is a bit Eurotrashy, but after the bizarre production in Santa Fe--Marguerite on roller-skates--it didn't really seem too boo worthy. One of the advantages of being in the house over being in a movie theater is that one can participate in the post production audience antics. I "bravo" at the movies, but it does seem a bit silly.

Faust in this production is an aging bomb maker between the two world wars. The current trend is to explain the opera as a dream or hallucination between the poison and dying. Faust flashes back to his own youth, and the costumes change. Faust and Mephistopheles always dress alike. Perhaps Satan is his alter ego. The sets are spare, abstract and gray.

The goal is to cast the sincerity of the medieval religious fable into the cynical frame of the present. The sincerity of the music plays against this cynicism. I was prepared for the production to be confusing, but I did not find this to be the case.

In case there was any doubt about who the opera is really about, our Marguerite Marina Poplavskaya's face was projected on the curtain for extended periods throughout the opera. These were films. Her facial expression would change gradually, but she never blinked. When Faust is still in his laboratory, Marina enters and sits down at one of the work stations. He is hallucinating about a real woman. I enjoyed her performance, but her expression in the Jewel Song was rather textbook for my taste. In her interview with Joyce DiDonato she worked on her sewing the entire time. Perhaps she has never sewn anything before.

As an old man, Jonas Kaufmann's hair will apparently go straight. His problem in this role is that it is hard to think of him as a cad. He was irresistible. That is the idea, isn't it?

Musically this Faust was somewhere between the extremely somber San Francisco Opera version and the really quite gay Santa Fe Opera version. (Remember I am an old woman who has lived in a time when "gay" had a variety of meanings.)

Rene Pape was explaining to the very elegantly dressed Joyce DiDonato that he had no desire to be a tenor. Why, in fact, would he wish to be anyone but Rene Pape? He was simply awe inspiring. In his interview he greeted his mother who was supposed to be watching from a movie theater in Nuremberg, not too far north in Bavaria from Munich where Jonas is from.

I enjoyed the calming effect of the modern context. I cried anyway.

Preparing for Faust

2011-12-10T11:27:00.001-05:00

Remember before you start carping that everyone in Faust has better stuff to sing than the tenor.

"Le veau d'or", the ballad of the golden calf, is for the bass-baritone Méphistophélès.

The men's chorus has this wonderful march.

The soprano Marguerite gets this incredible Jewel Song, sung here by my favorite Victoria de los Angeles.

Even the stupid brother Valentin gets this magnificent aria.

And Siebel, a completely insignificant person, gets this.

This is Faust's aria. Oh well. I'm just saying. I personally find the sentiments expressed in this aria, at a point in the opera when we know exactly what will happen, completely disgusting. The ovation is stunning. I have to say I wholeheartedly concur. This man knows his French opera. If you want to know how to pronounce French, listen to him. And Regine Crespin.

Here we have Mirella Freni's version of the ending.

Auto-tune for Opera

2011-12-09T22:33:00.001-05:00

I went to a party last night where it was discussed that the famous DVD of Netrebko and Villazon in La Traviata had the pitches corrected with auto-tune over 200 times. This completely ignores my claim that pitch modification (highly polite term for singing flat or sharp) is part of the singer's expressive tool kit. It's just your opinion that they are not supposed to be doing this.

Maybe that's why the recording sounds so bland.

Footnote please see Opera Chic for news on James Levine.

There is no Utopia

2011-12-09T13:58:00.001-05:00

"After all human beings have to live dogs too so as not to know that time is passing, that is the whole business of living to go on so they will not know that time is passing, that is why they get drunk that is why they like to go to war, during a war there is the most complete absence of the sense that time is passing a year of war lasts so much longer than any other year. After all that is what life is and that is the reason there is no Utopia, little or big young or old dog or man everybody wants every minute so filled that they are not conscious of that minute passing. It's just as well they do not think about it you have to be a genius to live in it and know it to exist in it and express it to accept it and deny it by creating it." Gertrude Stein

This is probably my favorite Stein quote. Which brings me to the current on-going argument about original instruments. This comes up in all sorts of contexts. In recent years we have been hearing about the pros. Cecilia Bartoli has joined their cause and sings their praises. As their cause advances and the groups become more and more common, they get bolder and bolder, insisting that later and later composers should be played by these instruments.

The main purpose of all these "improvements" to musical instruments was to improve the ease of playing in tune in a large variety of keys, in fact to create a situation where all 24 keys (12 major, 12 minor) are created equal. The overtone series, the source of all pitches on natural instruments, creates a situation where the key of the fundamental pitch of the instrument is the most in tune, and the farther away you get from that the more out of tune everything is. Are we clear about that? Yes, modern instruments are louder, but that was not the purpose of changing them. The purpose was to improve intonation, and by extension allow much freer modulation to keys that are not close to the original key of the piece. The constant pea soup of Wagner modulation requires modern instruments. And don't even bring up Schoenberg's Twelve Tone System. I am ignoring the string family of instruments which changed to make a brighter tone. You can play anything on either kind of violin.

To play a composition on "original" or "natural" instruments, it will need to have been composed in a way that makes this possible. Special care is taken to put in notes for the French horn that will actually be available on a natural instrument. Pieces in different keys might have involved using instruments with different fundamental notes. Blah, blah, blah. Needless to say, giant books are written about this.

The point of this is--you can play any classical piece from any era on modern instruments, but you can only play pieces composed for natural instruments on original instruments. For simplification's sake the early instruments fell out of use. If I can play anything on my modern instrument, what do I need with this old one? I can simplify my training and improve my virtuosity if I focus on the present.

The revival of the use of original instruments is due to the fact that "there is no utopia." People are people, and that involves a lot of boredom with how things are and a desire to change them to something else. Right and wrong, good and evil, are not involved. It's all just human nature at work.

Apologies to The Horn who has been getting quite fiery about this subject here, here, here, here (my favorite in the series), here ( kind of like this one, too), here, here, and here.

Our ears are now accustomed to the exquisite precision of recorded orchestral music, particularly the precision of intonation. This is not a concept that can be projected into the past. The cultural ideal has changed and will continue to change. Your brain is different from theirs. Whatever you choose, you are doing it for your own reasons, and not for reasons related to what previous generations thought.

Precision creates boredom. Boredom creates a desire for something new, in this case "original instruments."

People just love feeling they are superior to other people. It's what people do. Do you enjoy playing original instruments? Then by all means keep doing it.

Satyagraha in HD

2011-12-08T11:59:00.001-05:00

The picture shows Richard Croft, Alfred Walker, Rachelle Durkin, the Metropolitan Opera chorus, their shoes lined up along the apron and their coats flying in the air.

I went to the theater and sat in the chair for one act. I was very tired and struggling with falling asleep, so I went home. I am reminded again that it is the most spiritual of all operas. A film showing the real Ghandi ran in the intermission. Eric Owens was the host.

I saw this production live in New York in 2008, so you should read my full review there. Other comments on Glass can be found here, here and here.

People in the audience.

Ranking Baroque Opera Performances

2011-12-05T09:57:00.001-05:00

I am including only fully staged operas seen either live or in HD from the Met since I started the blog in 2005. This leaves out The Fairy Queen from Glyndebourne. I am leaving out Monteverdi, since his operas are really their own genre. This leaves in chronological order:

Giulio Cesare in Egitto at the Zurich Opera on 4/9/2005.
Semele at the City Opera on 9/14/2006.
Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno at the Zurich Opera on 1/19/2007.
Semele at the Zurich Opera on 2/15/2007.
Ariodante at the San Francisco Opera on 6/25/2008.
Rinaldo at the Zurich Opera on 7/3/2008.
Orlando at the Sacramento Opera on 11/20/2010.
Griselda at the Santa Fe Opera on 8/6/2011.
Dido and Aeneas at Cal Performances on 9/19/2011.
Xerxes at the San Francisco Opera on 11/17/2011.
Rodelinda in HD from the Metropolitan Opera on 12/3/2011.

Much as I love Dido and Aeneas, I have to disqualify it on grounds that it was staged as a ballet. This leaves a very nice set of 10 operas.

Placed at the bottom must come (9) Griselda, Vivaldi's only entry, because I absolutely hated both the opera and the staging, and (10) Orlando, because the overall quality of the entire performance was inferior to the others.

Next higher in the rankings come the two productions from the San Francisco Opera which are saved solely by the presence of the magnificent Susan Graham. The productions were unimaginative, and Xerxes is just not that great an opera. So that's (7) Ariodante and (8) Xerxes.

All six of the remaining performances are worthy.

Is the opera any good? Giulio Cesare is a Baroque opera that has actually stayed in the repertoire since the 1920's and is Handel's most popular opera. Semele and Il Trionfo are not operas at all. Rinaldo includes the wonderful villainess Armida to keep things exciting. Rodelinda is simply sweet beyond belief, a surprisingly sentimental plot for Baroque opera. Ranked for libretto from first to last: Giulio, Rodelinda, Semele, Rinaldo, Trionfo. Ranked for music: Giulio, Il Trionfo, Semele, Rodelinda, Rinaldo. You may feel free to rearrange this one.

Tops for creativity in staging must come Semele at the City Opera, Rodelinda in New York and Il Trionfo in Zurich. A special award for making a Theatrical Silk Purse out of Sow's Ear of completely static oratorio must go to Il Trionfo. Turning the oratorio Semele into an opera about American icons was shocking but fascinatingly believable. It would have been nice to see this preserved on video.

A special award for making the movements of the actors during the performance of da capo arias seem completely natural must go to Rodelinda. I also enjoyed the Eurotrash transformation of Rinaldo into modern corporate rivalry.

Ranked for staging: Rodelinda, Il Trionfo, City Semele, Rinaldo, Zurich Semele, Giulio.

And how is the singing? Two of these performances are ranked basically because they include the ever astounding Cecilia Bartoli. Would I have been happy to see Giulio Cesare without Cecilia? And Semele in Zurich simply belonged to her.

The presence of Anna Bonitatibus also raises Il Trionfo and Giulio Cesare. The Zurich singing ensemble is simply incredible. Malin Hartelius is marvelous in Il Trionfo and Rinaldo, and I love Liliana Nikiteanu in Semele and Rinaldo. If I missed anyone, apologies.

The most emotional countertenor award has to go to Andreas Scholl for Rodelinda.

Ranked for singing: Giulio, Rodelinda, Il Trionfo, Zurich Semele, Rinaldo, City Semele.
Ranked for acting: Rodelinda, Giulio, Zurich Semele, City Semele, Rinaldo, Il Trionfo,

Je ne sais qua points go to Rodelinda and both versions of Semele.

So here's what I ended up with, based on a numeric scoring system:

(1) Rodelinda. Everything was simply perfect.
(2) Giulio Cesare.
(3) Semele in Zurich. Cecilia at her funniest.
(4) Semele at City.
(5) Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno. This was some of the most spectacular singing I've ever heard, but lost on other issues.
(6) Rinaldo. This ended up at the bottom because of the competition.

It is clear to me that I thoroughly enjoyed all six of these, and could rearrange this ranking a dozen different ways. Biggest surprise from the numeric scoring system: Griselda moved ahead of Ariodante and Xerxes.

I think Baroque opera, particularly Handel opera, requires an enthusiasm for singing to overcome its limitations. Probably the greatest limitation is the presence of countertenors. A lot of people just don't like them. Notable in my list is that Trionfo and Rinaldo had no countertenors.

Christmas in Sacramento

2011-12-05T08:55:00.001-05:00

Sacramento has a group called Camerata California that performs interesting choral music by a small ensemble. They have done it again. Someone finds this stuff.

The first half of the concert was Oratorio de Noël, Opus 12, by Camille Saint-Saëns, something new for me. The composer claimed it was just like Bach, but this is nonsense. It's divided up into numbers, which is Bach-like I suppose, but it sounds very much middle Romantic without showing any Berlioz influence. The accompanying ensemble was harp, organ and string quartet. I wondered why there were two mezzos--Patrice Houston and Kathleen Moss, both lovely singers--until we got to the ensembles for a quintet of soloists and chorus. Sung in Latin, it was very enjoyable.

The second half was Lauda per la Natività del Signore by Ottorino Respighi, another new piece for me. This time the band was all woodwinds. They started off too loud for the singers, but things improved as they went along.

I was fascinated by this piece. The writing for voice was very much in the style of Italian opera, and would in fact have been completely suitable for an opera. So why no Respighi opera? One ponders. Wikipedia tells me Respighi wrote 9 operas, none of which I have ever heard.

The ensemble has improved in performance standards, probably due to the new conductor Kenneth Raskin.

Rodelinda

2011-12-03T17:52:00.001-05:00

Handel's Rodelinda is an excellent opera. One of the hard parts of creating opera is finding a good libretto. In the Baroque and Classical periods this was much simpler: you just stole it from an existing opera. So Handel has stolen an excellent libretto, and even without any hit tunes, has created an excellent opera. In its original production it starred Cuzzoni and Senisino. You would be hard pressed to beat that.

Renée Fleming, our wonderful title singer, says it is her youngest daughter's favorite opera, because it is about family. It's about royalty, until the verismo serious opera is always about royalty, but it's also about a child who is treasured by his parents, and parents who love each other and who work very hard to bring their family back together. The required happy ending is truly joyful this time.

The direction, by Stephen Wadsworth, was practically miraculous. The movement from aria to aria and scene to scene was very smooth, and the singing actors well understood their roles. The non-singing child who begins the opera in bed with his mother was very fine in his role.

Few countertenors are as revered as Andreas Scholl who played the Senisino role, Bertarido. Senisino was a contralto, and a uniquely expressive singer. Scholl goes very deeply into the emotions of his character and is especially beautiful in his duet with Fleming toward the end. And who knew he was such a clown? Deborah Voigt asked him what made him decide to be a countertenor, and he answered in a very high voice. :-) Then he remarked that he had originally been a counter-terrorist and the transition to countertenor had been easy.

Stephanie Blythe impressed. She runs counter to every trend and succeeds magnificently in spite of this.

Joseph Kaiser, Lestyn Davies and Shenyang complete the cast. The conductor was Harry Bicket. He conducted from the harpsichord. I explained to my seatmates that at the original production that would have been Handel sitting at the harpsichord.

Of the eight Handel operas I have seen staged since I started this blog I think I liked this one the best. Bravi tutti.

Grammys

2011-12-01T17:55:00.001-05:00

People I have heard of who have been nominated for Grammy awards include:

Natalie Dessay for Cleopatra.

Joyce DiDonato for Diva/Divo.

Andreas Scholl for O Solitude.

Bay Area's Philharmonia Baroque for Haydn Symphonies.

Dudamel for Brahms 4.

Vivaldi Ercole for too many people to list.

I own 3 of these and find them excellent recordings.

There will be no Best Classical Recording this year.

Selling Opera

2011-12-01T09:32:00.001-05:00

Joyce DiDonato wants us to quit apologizing for opera. I wholeheartedly agree.

Opera is the only art form I can think of that can be all things to all men. Somewhere in this wonderful repertoire is the opera for you. Opera will rise with you. Your knowledge of the art form will grow with increased listening. As you absorb the experience of opera, your soul will rise.

Its pleasures will not diminish as you grow older. In each decade of your life new artists will come to bring their passion to your heart. They will cast light into corners never heard before. If your heart stays open, they will bring new works to give you joy.

Opera is the soul of the world. Its symbols go deeper than you could possibly imagine, and fill with ever deeper and deeper meaning. There is meaning in these notes that you will find nowhere else.

Opera is magic. One day when you least expect it, it will lead you to extasy.

Local Baritone Impresses

2011-11-30T13:00:00.001-05:00

Michael Sokol, baritone, is a relatively recent addition to the faculty at California State University, Sacramento, and last night he gave a faculty recital with Richard Cionco at the piano. I didn't know he existed when a friend suggested we check him out. My apologies to Mr Cionco--the picture above shows a different pianist. Also a different piano. Also microphone. Actually only the baritone is the same.

His program consisted of Schubert's Schwanengesang, a song cycle that is actually a pastiche published posthumously. Maybe some of the songs were intended to be sung together, maybe not. The subject matter is the usual thing for this period--unhappy love affairs. It includes "Ständchen" (Serenade), one of Schubert's most famous Lieder. The heaviest of the set is probably "Der Doppelgänger" (the lookalike).

An English translation was provided, but it didn't correspond at all to the clearly understandable German he was singing. I asked him after if he spoke German, and when he said no, I congratulated him on some of the clearest German diction I had heard outside Germany. It was very impressive.

The songs cover a very wide vocal range which he handled easily. His voice is exactly the kind of bright baritone you would want for Lieder, and his expression was very nice, just right for Lieder.

Richard Cionco was an excellent, very musical accompanist. Lieder recitals by Americans are seldom this good.

Einstein

2011-11-29T16:45:00.001-05:00

I begin to feel deprived that I have never seen Philip Glass's Einstein on the Beach. There are a number of audio versions, but clearly the visuals are essential. This is THE modern opera. The no intermission part would be a problem.

I've always pictured something more like this:

Mu Phi

2011-11-28T13:33:00.001-05:00

On Sunday afternoon in the Crocker Art Museum our Mu Phi Epsilon International Competition winner, pianist Yukiko Sekino, gave a recital. Her program, limited by the Crocker to 1 hour, was spectacular.

Piano Sonata, Op. 1, by Alban Berg.

Variations on "Salve tu, Domine" in F major, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Andante Spianato et Grande Polonaise brillante, in E-flat major, Op. 22, by Frédéric Chopin.

Etude No. 53: Cell Division and Etude No. 30: A Gliss is Just a Gliss, by David Rakowski, 2 pieces from the 21st century.

Dante Sonata (this is the short name), by Franz Liszt.

It starts slowly with the cerebral Berg, moves to the lyrical Mozart, and then bursts into flame in the Chopin polonaise. And if that isn't enough flash for you, we have a small modern piece with lots of glissandi up and down the keyboard. And if that still isn't enough flash for you, we end with one of Liszt's more outrageous and dynamic pieces. Everything was played brilliantly.

The museum asked for a piece by someone Italian to go with the current exhibition of paintings from Florence. We will assume the Dante Sonata will serve. There isn't that much Italian piano repertoire.

We are very pleased with our prize winner.

il Postino

2011-11-26T01:30:00.001-05:00

Completely unexpectedly, Il Postino (the postman), the opera by Daniel Catán, produced last fall in LA, was on television last night.

And how beautifully it fits into our currently developing tenor theme. The two main roles are both tenors. The poet Pablo Neruda, sung by tenor Placido Domingo (called Don Placido in Linda Ronstadt's introduction), is a character in the drama, andMario Ruoppolo, sung by tenor Charles Castronovo is the title character. Getting the rest of the cast out of the way:

Beatrice Russo (pronounced Italian), Mario's love, Amanda Squitieri
Neruda's wife, Cristina Gallardo-Domâs
Giorgio, communist postmaster, Vladimir Chernov
Donna Rosa, Beatrice’s aunt, Nancy Fabiola Herrera
Grant Gershon conducted.

There are a number of positive things about this opera. The composer, Daniel Catán, who has since died, actually seems to like to compose for singers. His style is neo-Romantic, possibly even neo-verismo. The plot is not only about love, it's about poetry, a marvelous subject to sing about. I don't know if it is a problem that the opera is in Spanish. Does this present casting difficulties?

The plot is handled in a manner reminiscent of Hector Berlioz: I compose the parts I like and skip the parts I don't like. This left the story presented in a choppy, disjointed way. Perhaps librettist is a skill that has not lasted into the 21st century.

It was enjoyable. I especially enjoyed the romantic portrayal of Charles Castronovo as the young man learning to love the metaphor and how to seduce a young woman with words. He was charming.

Yon moon

2011-11-25T00:11:00.001-05:00

I was asked to post Cecilia Bartoli singing Balfe's "Yon moon o'er the mountains", and this was all I could find.
It is fun to see him coaching her to sing with an English accent. She also talks about an ornamented version but sings it straight.

Sena Jurinac

2011-11-24T13:25:00.001-05:00

The great mezzo Sena Jurinac has died. She is perhaps best remembered for singing Octavian in the wonderful video of Der Rosenkavalier with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. I praised her most in my review of Ariadne auf Naxos with Reri Grist here. YouTube provides us with an excerpt from that performance.

Here is another.

P.S. I knew her only for her mezzo repertoire, and have since educated myself. I find that I like best this video from Forza.

I apologize for saying that Sena Jurinac never sang at the San Francisco Opera. Her career there began in 1959 when she sang the composer to Eileen Farrell's Ariadne in Ariadne auf Naxos, Eva in Die Meistersinger, Donna Anna in Don Giovanni and Cio Cio San in Madama Butterfly. Wow. People used to do this sort of thing under Adler. After that she appeared only in 1971 as the Marschallin to Christa Ludwig's Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier and in 1980 as Kostelnicka in Jenufa. In 1959 I had just started college. In 1971 I lived in Indiana. I probably did not see her.

Tenor Blog

2011-11-23T13:43:00.001-05:00

Apparently there is an entire blog that obsesses over the vocal technique of tenors here. I'm not prepared to get this carried away with it. The operatic tenor sound is not exactly natural, so they have to get very heavily into technique. There is stuff about squillo, e.g.

Murder and Mayhem

2011-11-20T12:08:00.001-05:00

The Sacramento Opera succeeds best when it eschews subtlety. Leoncavallo's Pagliacci is a prime example of verismo, opera based in the rough lives of the lower classes.

I don't like the orchestra at the back of the stage with acting in front, but since the first half of the program was a concert by the Sacramento Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Michael Morgan, I suppose it was necessary. For their portion the orchestra was imprecise, both in pitch and rhythm, and the music was spiritually bland.

The contrast with the opera could not have been greater. The set effectively made the orchastra's presence hidden. TV screens made the conductor visible to the actors.

It was crude and wild and spectacular. Special kudos must go to the stage director, David Bartholomew.

The tenor who sang Canio, Eduardo Villa, was a last minute replacement, and he made the production. Canio should be a middle aged man with a beautiful, too young wife, a scruffy Italian looking man with violent passions lurking just beneath the surface. Then these violent passions must break forth. Villa was all those things. And he has just the right heavy, powerful dramatic tenor voice that kept all this passion well within his grasp. It was a privilege to see him.

Shana Blake Hills was good and very slutty as Nedda. Igor Vieira's Tonio was downright creepy. Zachary Gordin was a good but not great Silvio.

Congratulations. La comedia è finita.

Dame Janet Baker

2011-11-18T23:12:00.001-05:00

Gramophone Magazine has issued their Classical Music Awards for 2011, and among them is a Lifetime Achievement Award for Dame Janet Baker. Nothing I am about to write should be misconstrued as a criticism of Dame Janet.

There are three things: voice, technique and style. Dame Janet is a British singer not only by birth but also by style. There is a distinctly British style of singing with a quality of cleanness. British singing is spare, relatively unslurred and unornamented, like a great British folk song. In addition to her Britishness, Dame Janet also sang with a personal discursive style, rather like a magnificent British orator. To achieve the truly personal is for me the highest praise of a performer.

In the Gramophone article they discuss how instantly identifiable her voice is. And I insist--so is her style. She is her fascinating creative self in all her repertoire. My particular favorites are the Bach Matthew Passion and Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde.

The article goes on to say how clearly she observed the composer's wishes. I propose that this is only possible if all the composers whom she has performed wished their music to sound British.

No offense. They are British writers and have British ears. The composer's wishes have nothing to do with it.

None of this is a criticism of the great Dame Janet who was a very great singer and well worthy of this honor.

Xerxes

2011-11-17T21:16:00.001-05:00

I'm struggling with what to say about the San Francisco Opera's production of Handel's Serse, or Xerxes, as it is billed here.

There are a number of pretty funny things about the production from the ENO in London. Apparently it has made the rounds. The main characters are dressed more or less as Handel's period. And then there are the gray people. I thought they might be garden statues, or anonymous chorus. My favorite bit was the green folding lawn chairs, shown above. They began their life folded flat on the floor.

At one point the back of the stage opens up on a desert landscape, and I thought I was back in Santa Fe. On the floor of the desert are the ruins of the ancient Persian city of Persepolis.

I think it might be important to understand that Serse was a failure when it first appeared in 1738. The music, if we choose not to blame the conductor, Patrick Summers, is a bit draggy and pompous.

Another problem is that four of the characters all have names that start with A:

Arsamenes, Xerxes' brother, sung by David Daniels,
Ariodates, Xerxes' general, sung by Wayne Tigges,
Atalanta, Ariodates' daughter, sung by Heidi Stober,
Amastris, Xerxes' betrothed, sung by Sonia Prina, seen also in Ariodante.

The production helped with this situation by introducing the characters during the overture. And not to forget Xerxes himself, sung by Susan Graham, and the other daughter of Ariodates, Romilda, sung by Lisette Oropesa.

Do we have to talk about the plot? Everything gets straightened out in the end.

Making it all worthwhile was the marvelous Susan Graham, who gets all the really good bits. She starts the opera with that great Handel aria "Ombra mai fu." Did you know it was about a tree? I should have known that. The other hit tune comes at the end where Xerxes knocks over a bunch of statues singing "Crude furie." This is only a hit tune because it's on Joyce DiDonato's Handel Mad Scenes album.

I think there could have been cuts.

What makes a great tenor

2011-11-14T22:49:00.001-05:00

This is a fun series of films about tenor singing with lots of examples, narrated by Rolando Villazon. Tenors are listed in the order of appearance.

Rolando Villazon,
Franco Corelli*,
Jonas Kaufmann,
Luciano Pavarotti*,
Placido Domingo*,
Joseph Calleja,
Juan Diego Florez*,

Rolando Villazon,
(Christophe Dumont, countertenor),
Chris Merritt,
Joseph Calleja,

Fritz Wunderlich*,
? guy singing Mozart,
Roberto Alagna,
Franco Corelli*, he sets the bar,
Heldentenor not named, am I supposed to know? I wish they'd find someone I liked,

Luciano Pavarotti*,
Rolando Villazon,
Jonas Kaufmann, Carmen,

Placido Domingo*, Otello,
Rolando Villazon, (Domingo conducting),

Jose Carreras, West Side Story,
Francesco Tamagno,
Enrico Caruso*,

Mario Lanza,
Placido Domingo*, does an excellent imitation of Lanza,
Three Tenors,
Rolando Villazon

* from the 20 tenors list.

Quote from YouTube comment

2011-11-12T12:00:00.001-05:00

"It's about voice first, otherwise it wouldn't be opera." josephlemon

I wish someone composing today would get this.

Cats

2011-11-10T15:05:00.001-05:00

These are my favorite three versions of the famous Cat Duet, perhaps by Rossini.

First we have Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Victoria de los Angeles. You can't really tell their voices apart. On second thought maybe you can.

The next one is more your grand divas Leontyne Price and Regine Crespin.

The last one is quite bizarre: Nicolai Gedda and Frederica von Stade. I think they're the funniest.

I apologize for the lack of videos. Oh what the heck. Here's another one with pictures. In spite of the German narration, this is obviously a Prom.

Forza

2011-11-07T18:49:00.000-05:00

La Forza del Destino with the one and only Leontyne Price. One is not enough.

I love Forza and wish it was revived more often. Don Carlo grows on me but nothing beats Forza. Perhaps no one comes to claim it.

The baby has landed

2011-11-06T23:35:00.000-05:00

Translated from:

Society October 17, 2011

AUSTRIA reported the good news in May: "Pregnant! Opera star Elina Garanca is having a baby. "

A message that would be even more gratifying, currently making the rounds in the circle of friends of Garanca's Viennese gynecologist: The baby was already one and a half weeks ago well, "landed." The daughter of Garanca and her husband, the from Gibraltar star conductor Karel Mark Chichon, in southern Spain, where the artists live, was born healthy. [They write sentences like that in German.]

The world wide in demand mezzo-soprano and the best Carmen on the opera stage was before confinement rather taciturn when it comes to family planning: "We Latvians are superstitious," she used to deny in interviews.

And even now no details penetrate to the public about the private happiness – there are zero entries about this on her international website.

Is this cheating?

2011-11-06T11:01:00.001-05:00

I stole this picture of David Daniels from Facebook.

Siegfried Success

2011-11-05T21:57:00.000-04:00

What you want and never get with your Siegfried (live from the Metropolitan Opera in HD) is a sexy Siegfried. We have him in the sexy Heldentenor from Texas, Jay Hunter Morris. In her interview Deborah Voigt mentioned there was more electricity opposite Jay than the tenor he replaced. Those of us who have experienced the male teenager at home recognized him in Jay's portrayal of the 17 year old Siegfried. All teenagers think they know everything, but this one actually might.

In his interview Morris mentioned that he no longer sang as loud as he could. He gets through the very taxing role in fine form by allowing the natural ping in his voice to carry the day. I loved it. Jay, you need to hire a good photographer. I have undoubtedly seen him in San Francisco, but I scour my memory without success.

I liked the log machine a lot more this time than I have in the previous two operas. The technical gimmick of the forest bird was masterful. A yellow bird appeared to flit around the stage from tree to tree while Mojca Erdmann sang off stage. The projections grow ever more complicated.

Another thing that I liked much more this time was Bryn Terfel's Wotan the Wanderer. He seemed to handle the character better as someone who has tried everything and failed. He is bitter and seems to be fully prepared for the ultimate humiliation when Siegfried breaks his spear. He roles up his runes and leaves.

The dragon, shown above, is quite handsome.

And here is Deborah Voigt in the final scene. She tries to convince Siegfried to admire from a distance, but her heart just isn't in it.

Renée Fleming was her usual professional self in the interviews. It was an excellent Siegfried. I don't know if Levine would have been an improvement over Luisi. Everyone seemed well coordinated and dynamic.

P.S. It occurred to me after posting this that this installment in the Log Machine Ring included no wire walking. Perhaps it has started to occur to the producers of this mess that scaring the wits out of your performers is not the path to great acting achievements. Good riddance.

Marilyn Horne

2011-11-04T23:33:00.000-04:00

The Metropolitan Opera Guild is honoring Marilyn Horne this week. Here is a short interview with her.

I hope she is referring to the performance of the German Requiem with Kathleen Battle as the soprano soloist and Robert Shaw conducting the San Francisco Symphony and chorus. I sang in the chorus and it was one of the more wonderful musical events of my lifetime. This is as close as we can come.

And ye now therefore have sorrow:
but I will see you again,
and your heart shall rejoice,
and your joy no man taketh from you.
(Choir: Thee will I comfort
as one whom a mother comforts.)
Look on me: for a short time
I have had sorrow and labour
and have found great comfort.

This is my favorite Pavarotti

2011-11-04T15:31:00.000-04:00

It's from the first act of Manon Lescaut.

Rerun of Anna Bolena

2011-11-03T13:48:00.002-04:00

I wanted to see Anna Bolena again so I could catch Anna Netrebko clowning around behind Renée Fleming. Her countryman Ildar Abdrazakov started it and egged Anna on. In an opera that is so strenuous it is nice to see them able to relax in the intermission. Tristan is maybe harder than this. Only just maybe.

In her interview before the opera Anna said she based her portrayal on "Tudors." I assume this means the TV series The Tudors. "Don't tell the director."

I enjoyed it again the second time and stayed awake all the way to the end. I like popcorn at the opera.

Jaroussky

2011-11-01T14:07:00.000-04:00

This is embarrassing. In my youth we had only one countertenor--Alfred Deller--and he was strictly take it or leave it. Now there are countertenors everywhere. I've always hated them, both for the odd sound of their voices and for the fact that they were taking parts from my beloved mezzos. So how should I confess that I really love Philippe Jaroussky? It's so embarrassing.

He appeared at Hertz Hall in Berkeley on Sunday afternoon, the same time as the opening of Xerxes at War Memorial across the bay. I've seen him before, though only from the back, at Salle Pleyel as Sesto in Giulio Cesare.

He shared the stage with a group called Apollo's Fire, conducted by Jeannette Sorrell. There was an interesting story told between arias about Jaroussky and Sorrell exchanging letters of mutual admiration. Apollo's Fire would be a difficult name to live up to.

Apollo's Fire play standing. Except for the cellos. I don't know if you can play a cello standing. The theorbo player also sits, but Ms Sorrell stands at the harpsichord. When they stand, their bodies become involved in the emotion of the music. This is some of the most passionate playing by a Baroque ensemble I have ever heard.

I added this picture because it's the only one I have that shows the theorbo player on the right end. These are everywhere now. In Baroque music theorbo is now as common as the harpsichord and cello for realizing the figured bass.

This is an Italian style ensemble with no winds. Many of the instrumental numbers are arranged by Jeanette Sorrell, the conductor. I am going to guess that this is due to the sketchy nature of the orchestration in the original scores. It is hard to picture this, but the original purpose of the figured bass was much like a modern fake book, to provide a basis for extemporizing. Not many can do this today. Instead of carefully planned orchestration such as we have today, a piece might be played by whoever was available, and they would extemporize their parts.

The entire concert was Handel and Vivaldi, so the period of the music was basically identical to Saturday night's program, and similarly it alternated instrumental with vocal numbers. The violinist Olivier Brault played a Vivaldi concerto and shared another Vivaldi concerto with Johanna Novom. It was all very dynamic and exciting.

So why Philippe Jaroussky? He sang Handel in the first half of the program, including an aria from Ariodante, and Vivaldi in the second half. His voice is actually beautiful and shows a lovely vibrato, a rarity among countertenors. And he phrases the dickens out of everything. Both slow tempo and up tempo showpiece arias were wonderful. He sang three encores including a final glorious "Ombra mai fu."

How can this be happening? At the end we waved at each other. In Berkeley this is the sign that the concert is over.

Arias for Farinelli

2011-10-31T20:23:00.001-04:00

This was very much a Baroque weekend. On Saturday night was Vivica Genaux with the Philharmonia Baroque in Berkeley doing her Arias for Farinelli program.

Philharmonia Baroque performs in the First Congregational Church in Berkeley, and after living in Sacramento for a while, I am feeling a bit of envy for such a spacious room with such nice acoustics.

This was sort of an anyone but Bach concert from the generation born from the decade 1678-88:

We begin with a concerto for six woodwinds by Johann Friedrich Fasch, who worked within 50 miles of Bach. This was on the program as a memorial for two of their woodwind players who died last spring.

Then Vivica thrilled us with three arias by Antonio Vivaldi.

Georg Philipp Telemann's "Sinfonia Spirituosa"

Then we have two arias by Nicola Porpora and one by Roccardo Broschi. Broschi is heard only because he was Farinelli's brother and wrote a number of show piece arias for him. He is younger than the others. These were pretty flashy.

The program closed with a suite by Jean -Philippe Rameau from La Guirlande. This included some very primitive looking percussion--a tall drum and a tambourine.

Vivica sang "Agitata da due venti" from Vivaldi's Griselda as an encore. I don't think it was as funny as this film.

Don Giovanni in HD

2011-10-31T12:53:00.000-04:00

One of my long time wishes came true in the Live from the Metropolitan in HD broadcast of Don Giovanni on Saturday. I have always wished for a very sexy and aware Zerlina, one who truly meant "vorrai e non vorrai" [I want, and I don't want], where you could see it in her eyes. I wanted to feel the moment when she pauses and finally says "andiam." [we go] I wanted the vision of her full participation in the seduction. I got her in Mojca Erdmann's Zerlina. She was perfect.

This was an excellent production for a number of reasons. Don Giovanni is hard to stage unless you just bail on the whole thing and stick with a bare stage. The scene is constantly shifting. In this production the stage pictures were pleasing and moved smoothly and easily from scene to scene. This version by Michael Grandage was very comprehensible and well thought out. And the death scene was the best ever.

The cast was well matched, but I felt that the Leperello of Luca Pisaroni stole the show from Mariusz Kwiecien [pronounced KVEE-chen, according the the New York Times, although Renée Fleming seemed to be saying something slightly different] as the Don. Mariusz has a pretty face so we forgive him the dastardly deeds. He showed no effects of his back crisis of only two weeks ago.

The rest of the cast, which included Barbara Frittoli and Ramon Vargas, was also excellent. Vargas is a wonderful singer, but I hated the fact that he sang his whole first aria sotto voce. Sotto voce is a stunt, something done only for a specific effect, and not real singing at all. More than a single phrase is too much. This is a recent phenomenon, and I refuse to just give in and ignore it. It must be weeded out.

Fabio Luisi conducted from the harpsichord where he played the secco recitatives. He explained in the intermission that it is easier for him to keep the music flowing from the harpsichord. Everything worked together to create a Don Giovanni of incredible dramatic effectiveness.

Blogging

2011-10-27T13:53:00.002-04:00

Please forgive me. I am trying to find a shade of pink I don't hate and failing. Maybe I will have to give up on pink.

Copyright Law

2011-10-25T18:37:00.001-04:00

There is currently a lot of discussion around the subject of copyright law. The situation as I understand it is that the Disney Corporation wants everything ever created by Walt to stay under copyright no matter how long he's been dead. They have the money to persuade people. So the time was extended. This put a bunch of stuff back under copyright, including music, that had already gone to public domain. This went to the Supreme Court for a decision on October 5.

San Francisco Classical Voice has a long discussion of this whole situation and how it affects music here and here.

I say Walt and his descendants have already made enough money off of Snow White.

Comedy

2011-10-24T00:37:00.002-04:00

I decided to make a category of comedy. Most of the comedy I find, since I don't really laugh when I hear bad singing, turns out to be films of Cecilia Bartoli. She really is a very funny lady. And don't you like her German here?

Complaining about Opera News

2011-10-23T23:01:00.000-04:00

Once again I am complaining about something in Opera News which arrived in my mail yesterday. There is a review of the recent disk featuring Aleksandra Kurzak. The reviewer goes on and on about about the expected choruses that are left out and the other singers one might have expected to hear. He talks about which versions of the ornaments are used. In short he talks about what a great genius he is and tells us nothing about whether we should buy the recording--the purpose of writing reviews. Is she any good? We won't know from anything in Opera News.

Staging Concept

2011-10-22T12:26:00.000-04:00

I haven't done one of these in years. When I first started blogging I would invent imaginary stagings. My favorite was always Don Giovanni as Austin Powers. So why is Don Giovanni never done as a comedy?

Today I have a new one: Cosi fan Tutte as Cheers. Coach is Don Alfonso and Carla is Despina. One couple is Sam and Diane and the other couple is Frasier and Lilith. The whole thing would take place in the Cheers bar in Boston. We will ignore any problems with who appeared in which season. Could we imagine Diane and Lilith as sisters? This seems a minor difficulty. After much puzzling, I think Lilith has to be the serious Fiordiligi, while Diane is the more frivolous Dorabella.

If you are too young to remember Cheers, it's got to be in rerun somewhere.

Noah

2011-10-21T22:44:00.000-04:00

This is Noah Stewart. He is very wow in just too many ways. He appears places with Katherine Jenkins, but you mustn't hold it against him.

Domingo's Tristan

2011-10-20T14:22:00.001-04:00

Someone gave me a copy of Placido Domingo's recording of Tristan und Isolde. Nina Stemme is Isolde in this recording. She is incredible. One could wish to hear her with a real Heldentenor. Placido Domingo is not one. His voice sounds somewhat fragile, and the technicians seem to have done nothing to make him seem to balance with Stemme.

I'm not a fan of Tristan. In my search for a Tristan I could make it all the way through, I liked only Nilsson and Vickers. I don't hear Wagner in Domingo's voice. People don't always make the best decisions. Am I supposed to carry on about how old he is? Domingo's tone is self-consciously developed to sound like a certain type of tenor, and this isn't a Heldentenor. He does nothing here to sound like a Heldentenor.

I also own the Tristan with Christine Brewer and John Treleaven. Brewer is very bland compared to Stemme, and Treleaven is almost a baritone compared to Domingo. I think I prefer Runnicles conducting with Brewer to Pappano with Domingo. Do I totally love either one of them? Probably not. How about Stemme and Heppner?

Comment

2011-10-20T00:15:00.000-04:00

I was interested in the fact that Peter Gelb interviewed Anna Netrebko before the performance of Anna Bolena. I see this as a signal to the world. He, Peter Gelb, is conferring on this diva a never before seen honor, that she is now the number one opera singer in the world.

8 Bit Nude

2011-10-17T21:36:00.000-04:00

I bought this painting, titled 8 bit nude, in Albuquerque. The artist's name is Jeremy Singer, and he's a Navajo. Alternate title: 8 bit nude in 32 bit landscape. Sorry. That's a computer joke.

Anna Bolena

2011-10-15T21:21:00.000-04:00

If you look at the numbers running along the left side of the screen, you will see that the singer with the most blog entries is Anna Netrebko. There is a reason for this. Over the period that I have been blogging by far the most exciting singer out there has been Anna Netrebko.

I used to correspond with another fan of Cecilia Bartoli, and he was mystified that I would like both Cecilia and Anna. To him they are apples and oranges. Cecilia is heavily articulated in the fast notes while Anna is slurred. Why would the same person like both of them? This is because each sets out to define her musical universe and then works to produce the best possible examples of this universe. Art is about individual expression. When you go to see Anna or Cecilia, she brings it.

Today Anna brought it to Anna Bolena. By the end of the opera I was sobbing, a first for the simulcasts. She was magnificent. La Cieca has designated her the prima donna assoluta. Perish the thought that I would agree with La Cieca, but I do. As her voice expands, so does her presence. She dominates the stage as few opera singers ever have, and I've seen a few opera singers. There is simply no one like her.

The production was smooth and somber. I liked seeing Princess Elizabeth in the first scene. For two of the four main singers, Ekaterina Gubanova as Seymour and Ildar Abdrazakov as Enrico, were new to this opera. I don't doubt that it has been better to see them late in the run. I thought both of them projected their characters well. Ildar was astoundingly arrogant in his role, as the real Henry VIII must have been.

Stephen Costello was new for me. He's not in a category with Rockwell Blake, the great Rossini singer, the other person I have seen sing this role. Costello cranes his neck forward and then raises his chin to compensate. This looks terrible and can't be good for his technique. I suppose I shouldn't say stuff like this. He's cute and has a good voice, though it's more neo-Verdi for my ears than bel canto. Nascent-Verdi. One of those words.

I hear more and more Verdi in Donizetti. This is only apparent in the serious operas which aren't heard that much. The opera was performed as though it were Verdi. Perhaps this is current Italian practice.

You would want this for Netrebko, to see her transformation into an immortal. I was pleased to see she has not matured so much that she forgets to clown for the camera.

After Callas

2011-10-14T23:02:00.003-04:00

Maria Callas was simply incredible. She understood the flow of the phrase more completely than anyone else. I especially enjoy when a singer can stretch out the tempo and carry the phrase over larger and larger landscapes.

Many people don't like her, usually because of the gradual deterioration of her tone as she got older. My current theory is that she was a pushed up mezzo, and that when she was preparing her spectacular performances, that was the last thing she worried about. The clue is that mezzo roles fit so well into her voice.

What we look for in a modern day performer--at least this is what I think--is that each creates her own unique performance. I look for the heart and soul of the singer who stands before me. Believe me. If there existed in the time since Callas anyone who could work the Callas magic, she would have done so by now.

I tried to communicate my position in my long essay on performing the mad scene from I Puritani. If you prefer to sit home and listen to recordings of La Divina, by all means do. Just don't come around when we're enjoying someone new and trash them because they're not as good as the long dead Callas. We want the new singers to be the best that they are capable of. We want to be thrilled by what they bring to the performance.

I always feel that the less I know about a performance before I hear it the better. I want to be surprised. The easiest way to avoid comparisons with Callas is never to have heard her.

New Candidates for Sexiest

2011-10-11T23:26:00.000-04:00

Ailyn Perez

Ildebrando D'Arcangelo

Sarah Coburn

Noah Stewart

Danielle de Niese

Philippe Jaroussky

Eva-Maria Westbroek

Aleksandra Kurzak

Stephen Costello

Advice

2011-10-09T13:12:00.001-04:00

I think I stopped giving advice to opera composers far too soon. Please try to understand. The opera isn't about the orchestra. The opera isn't about the plot. The opera isn't about the significance or lack of significance of the story elements. The opera isn't about the staging, much as we like to carry on about it. The opera is about the singing. If the singing stinks, the opera stinks. Grasp the largest object near you and pound that into your brain.

Anna Nicole, the Opera

2011-10-08T23:30:00.000-04:00

Curiosity has killed the cat. It is completely dead. I could not overcome my desire to see Mark-Anthony Turnage's opera Anna Nicole. I can't decide. Does it help or hinder appreciation of it that I know virtually nothing about her? For instance, I didn't know she was from Texas. It kind of explains a lot.

I am pondering this opera in light of things I always say composers should do. This opera is definitely a chick flick. In the classic plot the heroine starts high and ends low. Then there's the Traviata plot where she begins low, goes high and then dies. It's hard to see any highs in the life of Anna Nicole Smith. In the opera her mother calls her an embarrassment.

I asked for interesting music. I find the style of the music suitable to the subject matter and reasonably entertaining. I asked for the composer to love singing and to write something that shows off the voice. I didn't get it. These singers are very fine, but they have not much to work with.

The whole thing would not be possible without the glorious work of Eva-Maria Westbroek. She looks disturbing like the woman she is portraying and projects her essence. She carries the opera. She would have to. Alan Oke and Gerald Finley are wonderful. Pappano conducts.

I don't know what to think. It is a lot of fun through to the place where husband #2 dies. It gets gloomier from that point until it just peters out. This is the trajectory of her real life. It's a comedy until it isn't. As a comedy I liked it very much. How often do you hear the words "Yoko Ono" as a gag line?

I want to thank the librettist for making husband #2 seem lively and entertaining. It made that part of her life seem less grotesque. It is just as trashy as you would have imagined.

Conversation

2011-10-08T18:15:00.001-04:00

Son: I just don't get the French Baroque.

Mom: Huh?

Son: I don't understand at all Couperin the Great. [François Couperin (1668 – 1733)] I have recordings of his contemporary [Domenico] Scarlatti (1685 – 1757). Him I get. So why should the same harpsichordist playing music from the same period sound so different?

Mom: Well, there you have a misconception. Scarlatti is Baroque, but Couperin is considered Rococo. In fact he is more or less considered to have invented Rococo. With Scarlatti the music is in the notes. With Couperin the music is in the ornaments.

Son: I usually think you should just leave the ornaments out.

Mom: In the case of Scarlatti you could probably get away with that. In the case of Couperin nothing would be left. You need someone who understands the Rococo style.

Son: Why should it make any difference with a harpsichord?

Mom: I have a friend who wrote a book on expression on the harpsichord.

Footnote: We really do have conversations like this all the time. We agree that I shouldn't suppress my inner nerd. If I have to play to the masses, it isn't any fun.

Reviving the Sacramento Opera

2011-10-07T22:40:00.001-04:00

Last night in the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacramento on 11th and K was the first piece of the attempt to revive the Sacramento Opera. Basically it was a piano vocal recital accompanied by John Cozza, president of the Saturday Club, and sung by Soprano Carrie Hennessey, Mezzo Julie Anne Miller, tenor Scott Ramsey, baritone Igor Vieira and baritone Zachary Gordin.

The repertoire was selected based on a poll of Sacramento opera fans, and Sacramentans like their war horses. We would like to hear Mozart/Da Ponte, and maybe a little Magic Flute, followed by Rossini's Barber. Then maybe we would like a little Verdi, including La Traviata, though the Sacramento Opera lost money when this opera was presented a couple of years ago. Then please we would like some Carmen and all of the big three Puccini. For variety we might go for Massanet's Werther, Samson and Dalila and a little Faust. The appearance of Werther was a surprise.

The venue allowed for lots of listeners and low ticket prices. It also allowed for a very lively echo. The singers stood under the dome which probably has the most echo in the building.

It was a pleasant evening with some very pleasant young people singing. Apparently the biggest barrier to opera in Sacramento lies in the lack of the perfect venue. The usual place is expensive. The size of the audience seems to indicate that at $25 a person, there is a lot of interest in opera in Sacramento.

La vie en rose

2011-10-07T21:34:00.001-04:00

And there are lots of nice pictures of Paris.

I want to sing Elsa.

2011-10-05T17:49:00.000-04:00

[This interview is translated from Opernwelt and is about 3 years old.]

Anna Netrebko prefers to look forward rather than backwards. Why does she sing in arenas and so gladly go to concerts, why is bel canto good for the voice, and how child and career go together, and what is the price of success, the soprano has revealed to Kai Luehrs-Kaiser.

Ms Netrebko, you are now a mother and living in Vienna. Could we talk in German?

Maybe better not (laughs). Languages are my weak point. I'm trying what I can. And on the new album, I have maybe almost exaggerated it. There are ten languages I sing there. In reality, languages are the hardest thing there is for me.

Why is it so difficult?

I do not keep the vocabulary. I am still desperately learning French, for example. Maybe I'm too lazy or not intelligent enough. My mother language I speak only with friends, and they are mainly in Russia. I live in New York, Vienna and St. Petersburg. Three wonderful cities. My new album is almost a reflection of the fact that I'm linguistically well basically easily uprooted.

The album is called "Souvenirs". Do you like to look back?

The title is not about me. The idea was rather to tie together a bouquet of blossoms and flowers. Some may find they do not quite fit together. But they sound good together. The most difficult was the Andalusian song. My favorite is the Yiddish. I wanted something very old among them. With men's choir and guitar. I love the ornaments in this music. No, I do not look back, but I try to take pleasure in what is.

On stage you sing almost nothing of these?

Right. Six of the titles are even written for mezzo-soprano. Some are very dramatic and would have to be sung at a concert hall with a bigger voice than I can. I actually sing it softer and sweeter than one usually hears it. But you find that everything has to be sung on stage? I do not. At most on a small one.

The album marks where you hear operetta songs, a move to lighter repertoire?

No. The task was to bring the title in good order. I pleaded for the album to open with more spectacular titles. Then, I confess, there is a break. After that - with "Solveig's Song" from Grieg – comes something for the soul. Then something to wake up. Then it's over.

You are in German speaking countries today the best known and in this sense, one might say, the most important singer. How do you cope with it?

Thank you for the compliment. I hear, of course, that you think that's not quite so unproblematical, that it’s not easy. And it is not. I feel my popularity. I feel the sympathy that I receive from the public. That's one reason why I perform so often in huge concert arenas, the artist if it’s only about art, will not necessarily make the most fun. I understand that but - apart from the fact that I live it - as part of the responsibility that follows from my success. For me personally it was always the sole important thing to sing well. The rest comes afterwards. But it's true that sometimes this “rest” is a pretty big group that I must overcome.

Whom would you yourself describe as the most important singers in the world?

I think about it, but not often. But I adore and admire numerous singers and colleagues, whose success pleases me very much. Not only sopranos. Among the sopranos I find particularly amazing are Natalie Dessay and Diana Damrau, Renée Fleming and Angela Gheorghiu. Quite different singers who take nothing away from one another. I go passionately to their concerts - and afterwards regularly behind the stage to congratulate them. For example, recently in "Lucia di Lammermoor" with Natalie Dessay. I also share with them professionally. Natalie, for example, knows exactly what she does - and what is required of her artistically.

You do not?

[Here appears that wonderful German word “Doch!” which translates to ‘On the contrary yes.” There is no English equivalent.] Now I also know. I am sometimes unhappy with the productions in which I sing. And will therefore become a bit difficult. You know, I have to do again and again with production revival directors who tell me to do as did my predicessors a decade ago in the same staging. However, I need nobody to tell me: "Kneel down, when you come to this place. Look up to heaven." These things I know even if they are necessary. However, I have no strong preference for overly traditional productions in which they too often must cast eyes to the sky. I do not need this.

What are the dangerous sides of fame?

There is a disturbing side of success, that's true. It is the price one must pay sometimes. What makes me sick, are mainly made-up interviews or quotes that contain some shocking details. For example, I would like to sing naked, or similar horrors. A significant burden of success also stems from a certain responsibility to be always better than you are. This is not so simple.

What do you mean?

We singers are live performers. So my service is subject to fluctuations, which depend on the daily constitution of biological things and also on coincidences.

For example, pregnancies?

I had during my pregnancy suddenly quite an iron deficiency. In the evening I was to sing in Vienna a performance: Bellini's "I Capuleti ei Montecchi." Ten minutes before the performance I had lost my voice. I did not go on. It was a nightmare. What to do? If I would have canceled the performance, there would have been a scandal. Then we effectively eliminated the need for some high notes. And I was announced as indisposed. Thank God I can sing a pretty good performance. But I was shaking like anything. Why am I telling you this? Because one price of my success consists of the fact that I may give no bad performances.

Your colleague Rolando Villazón has recently fallen into a vocal crisis and had to pause a few months. What effect has this had on you?

We are all in the same boat. Rolando is like many of us - and I also – an appearance hungry artist, who is pulled onto the stage. Add to this the constant demands, offers and enticements. For many singers of our generation, certain things, including interviews are just part of it. We do it because we believe that it must be. And then we don’t find the limit in order to protect ourselves. I must say that I've been through a corresponding crisis. It did not take quite as long. And it was with me above all psychological.

When was that?

About four years ago. I could not cope with all the hype and was desperate. I was not clear how it would go. I did not become a singer to be famous. But to sing. It was awful to bring myself out from this crisis. It was as if someone had eaten too many sweets. I then completely withdrew for one month. And then cut drastically the number of my interviews. Initially there had been sometimes eight hours of interviews. I won’t do that anymore.

How do you perceive the public Anna Netrebko that jumps at you out of the tabloids?

As negative only if the reports are invented. I have to play a public role to some extent, in order to survive. I must appear as strong and determined, even if I go only to a party. And now I'm even happy at parties of friends. Immediately, I'm part of something, but I do not really want. Still does everything I say about myself, agree with me. I am also proud of this. I do not like to be fake.

Your child will change your career fundamentally?

Well, that's the big question in my mind, of course. What matters is that I want to be a good mother. I don’t want the child always trusted to a nanny. My child will be happy. But I have also spoken with colleagues about it who have the same problem that I think have overcome it well. Christine Schäfer for example, whom I also honor very much as a singer, has two children and has really gotten the hang of it. She told me: you have some difficult months, but then you can get it. I am confident and certainly determined to get it.

Can the birth of your son change your voice?

Even the pregnancy if you keep getting heavier, is not easy for the voice. But the voice remains. I've sung for a long while I was pregnant. That was not hard. My pregnant Juliette in Paris was, I believe, still quite good. True, there are bad stories about singers after the birth of a child. But I have my technique. And I think that if women have problems with the voice after the birth of their child, that this is actually due to a technical deficiency.

A few years ago when you dropped out of the recordings on your chosen Mozart album, you have described yourself as particularly a bel canto singer. Would you still look at it that way?

I still try it. Of course, the voice has developed. I sing, for example, more French repertoire. But bel canto is and remains simply the best for the vote. One expresses oneself better with it. Mozart is also good for the voice. But bel canto remains for me the measure and the basis of things.

How about the complete recordings of opera in the future?

I would like to sing Elsa in "Lohengrin."

No joke?

No, I like that she wants to know everything. I myself am curious, and my curiosity has hurt me many times. But I have enough intuition to know behind which door a gaping chasm might be. Seriously, I like "Lohengrin" much better than for example "Meistersinger". Basically, I'm a Wagnerian. Pity that there are no more for me to sing.

Why have you settled in Austria and not, for example, in Switzerland?

But this is a provocative question! Switzerland is a great country, and the Swiss are a great audience. I had just the beginning of close ties to Austria. And I love being able to go to concerts in Vienna, not only of fellow singers. I am a very happy person when I'm at a concert. Also, I'm good friends with Valery Gergiev and Daniel Barenboim. I am a lover of classical music. Recently I was at "Rape of Lucretia" by Britten with Ian Bostridge. Fantastic!

You love Britten?

Yes, since I heard many years ago "The Turn of the Screw." That made me really electrified. I love Britten. But I am also a big fan of Shostakovich. All composers, of which I unfortunately can not sing much.

Would you like some times to exchange your fame for the ability to be easily able to give only the music?

I don’t want to change anything in my life. Yes because I can concentrate entirely on music. When it concerns my role in the popular press, then I do not look at myself. My German is not sufficient to excite me over the contents.

And when you see pictures?

If I suddenly see pictures of me, I think most: "My God, I'm fat!" Besides, my celebrity tabloid status in other countries is not nearly as bad. In Britain, for example, I remain largely spared. Since they already have Amy Winehouse.

Echo Klassik Singer of the Year

2011-10-03T20:24:00.004-04:00

Echo Klassik has named Thomas Hampson singer of the year for his recording of Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn. Having finished Heart of a Soldier, he is back in Zurich rehearsing for Verdi's Otello.

Lucrezia Borgia

2011-10-03T13:14:00.002-04:00

The plot of Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia at the San Francisco Opera is a bit odd. There are these two war buddies (remind you of anything?) who swear to live and die together--Orsini, a mezzo pants role, sung by Elizabeth DeShong, and Gennaro, the tenor, sung by Michael Fabiano. One of them doesn't become a Moslem, but they do chase women and get drunk a lot. There is more than a hint of homo-eroticism here. Why else cast Orsini as a woman?

The other two principals are Duke Alfonso of Ferrara, sung by Vitalij Kowaljow, and his wife Lucrezia, sung by Renée Fleming. There is no romance. The first pair connects to the second pair because Lucrezia is Gennaro's mother. This is a secret. Lucrezia is the only one who knows. The passion that develops between Gennaro and Lucrezia gives us more strong hints of forbidden sexuality, the basic plot of this opera. It seems sexual to Lucrezia's husband, too, and he tries to get rid of Gennaro.

I liked the production and the singing very much. There are supposed to be hit tunes in this opera. Orsini gets a nice Brindisi in the third act, and Lucrezia's first act aria is supposed to be famous. Neither was famous to me, philistine that I am, and this was my first viewing of the opera.

In the context of this opera Lucrezia is a complex role. She gets to express motherly love, and then later she poisons all of her son's friends for insulting her. Accidentally she poisons him, too. Usually Renée's roles are about outfits, but this one is about hair.

Which brings us to Renée Fleming. We've been hearing her a lot lately on the HD simulcasts, but I have recently begun to suspect that these broadcasts include body microphones. I spotted them on Natalie Dessay and suspected them on Joyce DiDonato in Le Comte Ory when hers briefly phased out. This is all a carefully maintained secret.

One of the reasons I fly around to see opera is because I am aware that you can't fully evaluate a voice without hearing it live in the house. I heard Renée sing Daphne at Kennedy Center where she was occasionally difficult to hear. But the acoustics at the Kennedy Center concert hall are ghastly, and the conductor made no effort to tone down the giant orchestra.

The acoustics at the War Memorial Opera House are only a bit better than Kennedy Center, but everything possible was done to make her performance work. She was consistently blocked close to the front of the stage. In the War Memorial this is as close to a hot spot as it gets. Things drop off a lot as you begin to move up stage.

Our conductor Riccardo Frizza was very thoughtful in keeping the orchestra under control. (For some unknown reason this opera sounds like Rigoletto to me.)

I love Renée Fleming. Money was spent getting her here for this performance. Anything I say is said with love. The opening aria, a sweet song about Lucrezia's beautiful son, was excellent. The style of her singing is always a joy. But in the final aria her voice simply did not carry.

Dare I say it? Someone should have considered a microphone.

It is important to note that I was not sitting in my normal seat.

[See Kinderkuchen History 1830-50]

Anne Midgette vs Placido Domingo

2011-10-01T13:32:00.000-04:00

Though I used to live in DC, I hadn't been paying any attention to Anne Midgette, music critic for the Washington Post, until I clicked to "like" her on Facebook. Facebook is a great way to get into all kinds of trouble.

I guess there is a long-standing quarrel between her and Domingo. The latest exchange began with Midgette's review of the current Tosca at the Washington National Opera. She said:

"All the performances were hampered, indeed sabotaged, by the conducting. Placido Domingo, appearing for the first time since stepping down as general director, is a wonderful singer. But rather than supporting the singers, his conducting either drowned them out or tripped them up. He got warm applause, but I’m not sure his presence sells enough tickets to make up for spoiling the evening. Surely there are other ways to include him in WNO’s future."

I admit that letting the orchestra play really really loudly is one of my peeves, too. This is the worst I have read about Domingo's conducting, which is generally described as uninteresting rather than just plain bad.

Well. Domingo responded with this letter to the editor:

"In more than 50 years of my career as a singer and nearly 40 as aconductor, I have accepted critics’ reviews, positive or negative, for what they are: personal opinions and points of view. But for the first time in my life, I am sending a letter to the editor of a newspaper, because your music critic Anne Midgette has crossed the line between reasonably objective criticism and what appears to be open animosity.

"I believe that during my 15 years with Washington National Opera, my colleagues have been able to observe my integrity as an artist and my love of and consideration toward all of them.

"Midgette’s statement that my conducting actually “sabotaged” WNO’s recent performances of Puccini’s “Tosca” is offensive and defamatory. An act of sabotage is a destructive act done on purpose. Her remark suggests not only that I “spoiled” the performances but that I did so intentionally. This is unconscionable."

My goodness. Or maybe Holy Shit! I wasn't there so I don't know what particular things she is criticizing. I have the film of Die Fledermaus with Kiri Te Kanawa where he is conducting, and I like it a lot.

Midgette also criticizes the part-time nature of his management of the WNO here.

But let's get back to the conducting issue. She rebuts his letter in another column here. In her own defense she points out that he was booed at the Met for inattentiveness to his soprano, Anna Netrebko, when she slowed the tempo in her aria. Opera conductors do like to maintain the fiction that the singers are supposed to be following them, but the audience at the Met was not fooled.

This is very interesting. I admit that I have often wondered about Domingo's multi-faceted career. Because he is Placido Domingo, voted by BBC Magazine as the greatest tenor of all time (see here), he seems to get to do whatever he wants and resents it that others might want him to prove his qualifications first.

He can't be regarded as a flop as an Intendant, but he's clearly not in a category with David Gockley. I've always wondered if it wasn't possibly Mrs. Domingo who was actually running these companies.

This is all very interesting.

Blogging

2011-10-01T00:12:00.000-04:00

Just a thought: the only thing I can think of that would save Vivaldi's Griselda would be if the role of Griselda were sung by a man and played as comedy--maybe not the broad comedy of Platée, but something a bit gentler. She should be performed as buffo, maybe even by a buffo bass. Then we would love her and accept her, and it wouldn't matter that all her music is ugly. Just a thought.

Opera Now

2011-09-29T09:04:00.000-04:00

Jonas Kaufmann is on both the front AND the back covers of Opera Now for August-September. I know I am a bit slow to notice this.

The cover article describes how he becomes involved in his productions early. None of this showing up at the last minute unrehearsed for Jonas. I want to say that this was my impression of the wonderful Werther in Paris. My sense of the entire performance was that everyone, especially the conductor Michel Plasson, was working together toward the same goal. This level of artistic coordination is not possible without planning.

The magazine also includes a list of hot productions over the next year. Maybe I'll include some of them in my performance calendar.

Here's an interesting quote about Lawrence Brownlee: "The young tenor Lawrence Brownlee is now prime property, just as virtuosic as Juan Diego Florez and with more shades of color in the voice." You know, I think I agree.

More Anna

2011-09-28T17:18:00.000-04:00

Because she opened the Met season on Monday, Anna Netrebko is everywhere.

Here is a radio interview from New York.

And Intermezzo has provided this link to a terrific article about her from Newsweek. Newsweek is also back.

Someone seems to have talked Anna into returning reluctantly to opera.

On the Subject of Modern Dance

2011-09-26T13:29:00.000-04:00

Yes, that's Cecilia Bartoli singing the "Fac ut portem" from the Pergolesi Stabat Mater as accompaniment to the Chemnitzer Ballet in 2010. That means there are no live performers because this was recorded years ago. It's still fun to watch.

Is Anna Back?

2011-09-25T13:43:00.002-04:00

So maybe you didn't know she was gone. I have been mad at Anna Netrebko because she refuses to diet off her pregnancy fat. If you are one of the most beautiful women in the world, you have certain obligations. Or so I thought.

So today in the New York Times I read that for the last couple of years she has been truly enthusiastic only for home and family. I think my intuition told me this. After all, one of the things we most love about Anna is her enthusiasm for performing. Who but Anna jumps up and down in the final bows, or sticks out her tongue at the camera, or shows off her marvelous joie de vivre.

So (we are trying to start every paragraph with so) the New York Times seems to feel she is regaining her enthusiasm for performing. She points out that she needs always new things to be singing to maintain her interest. Anna Bolena is part of this plan. She is at this moment pretty much the prima donna assoluta.

So she is also doing a recital at Carnegie Hall consisting entirely of Russian songs. I went to a Netrebko recital years ago with Donald Runnicles accompanying, and concluded that the world did not need Anna Netrebko doing Lieder recitals. After all we have a lot of perfectly excellent Germans for that. What the world needed was an artist of Anna's stature singing Russian songs. If not Anna, then who? The passage of time has proved me right. As the years pass, I begin to feel moderately less arrogant, but I was still dead on on this one.

So perhaps the Netrebko is back.

Next year at Santa Fe

2011-09-23T18:53:00.003-04:00

I was talking to a new friend at the opera on Wednesday, and he asked me if I had seen Szymanowski's King Roger? I said no, but knew that I had heard the name recently. What was it? He said it was a wonderful opera.

King Roger, 1926, by Karol Szymanowski is one of the 5 operas in next year's season of the Santa Fe Opera. I have to admit my friend's recommendation has tweaked my curiosity. (This reminds me that another blogger has established a wish list. Hers is too long, but I might want to do this, too.) It will be the first opera at Santa Fe sung in Polish. Mariusz Kwiecien will sing King Roger, and he actually is Polish.

Tosca by Giaccomo Puccini is on the schedule. Amanda Echalaz and Andrew Richards will make their Santa Fe debuts as Tosca and Cavaradossi, and have sung their roles elsewhere to great acclaim. Thomas Hampson will be in some of the performances as Scarpia.

Nicole Cabell will appear as Leila in George Bizet's The Pearl Fishers. She was Musetta in the La Boheme movie with Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazon, and was the only person besides Anna and Rolando who both sang and acted her role. She also did Musetta at Santa Fe in 2007.

There is musicology at work on the score of Maometto II by Rossini. Leah Crocetto will make her company debut. If you like serious Rossini, as I certainly do, this is a rare opportunity to see it live.

To round out the five operas we have Richard Strauss' Arabella, a work I have only seen on DVD. Erin Wall, whom I loved in Daphne, will sing Arabella. Heidi Stober will appear this season in Xerxes at the San Francisco Opera and was the Musetta in Santa Fe this summer.

That's all I know. All five operas will be in new productions. Frédéric Chaslin, the chief conductor of the Santa Fe Opera, will conduct 2 of the operas. Sounds like fun.

Heart

2011-09-22T21:33:00.000-04:00

We stood and sang the "Star Spangled Banner" before the start of Christopher Theofanidis's Heart of a Soldier. In September, 2001, it was the beginning of the term of Pamela Rosenberg at the San Francisco Opera. We first got to see our new General Manager when she stepped out from behind the curtain and asked us to stand and sing "God Bless America."

By the end of Heart of a Soldier we felt that we knew Rick and his friend Dan. Some of this is due to the powerful portrayals of Thomas Hampson and William Burden.

The story begins when Rick and Dan meet in Southern Rhodesia and practice the ritual of gaining strength by wearing the blood of the dead lion.

Then there is the war lesson of protecting the person to your left. The goal seems to be to do what you are told while keeping everyone alive. It is the story of lives trained to withstand danger. We are told to teach our hearts to be brave, and the greatest aid in accomplishing this is to sing. The story ends when Rick leads his office-mates out of the burning tower, and then goes back to try to save others.

The heart of a soldier would appear to be a heart trained for duty. We see how a hero is made.

The production enhanced the ever shifting setting--a bar in Rhodesia, a training camp in Georgia, a battlefield in Vietnam, and most vividly the two towers of the World Trade Center in New York. From a strictly theatrical sense it is a triumph. The text, the production and direction all combine to move us. It is our 9/11 opera.

For me the music was nothing more than sound effects, timbre and little else. A true opera should be mostly about the music.

At last some good news

2011-09-19T00:58:00.001-04:00

I found this comment on the Jonas Kaufmann unofficial website:

Dear Kaufmann fan community,
After unfortunately hearing no information on Jonas Kaufmann's health,I want to let you know about a picture intoday's "Courier" which shows Jonas Kaufmannwith lederhosen and traditional jacket at the opening ofthe Oktoberfest in Munich. Soplease calm down – Jonas is obviously verywell!
Kind regards, Eleanor Moser

Dated today, translation mine.

Mark Morris' Dido

2011-09-19T00:31:00.001-04:00

I would like to get all complaining out of the way quickly. There were no supertitles and the room was too dark to read the text to Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas at Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall this afternoon.

Don't get the wrong idea. I remember precisely every single word of this wonderful text. Who could resist...

"Oft she visits this lone mountain.
Oft she bathes her in this fountain."

or

"No repentance shall reclaim
The injured Dido's slighted flame;
For 'tis enough what e'er you now decree
That you had once the thought of leaving me."

or

"Harm's our delight and mischief all our skill."

And the music shapes these words in a way that approaches divine perfection

Stephanie Blythe was an amazing Dido: strong, thoughtful, emotional, sensitive. Perhaps, like Christa, she searches for the perfect performance. She was also a very nice sorceress.

Philip Cutlip's Aeneas was also excellent. His voice has a wonderful quality.

But this is Mark Morris's Dido. He would want nothing to distract us from watching the dancers. Morris also conducted. The Philharmonia Baroque, the chorus, and all the soloists were crowded into the small pit below the virtually empty stage.

The troop of dancers, male and female, all dress the same in unisex skirts or briefly in unisex shorts. They dance barefoot, and their feet slap against the smooth floor. The angularity of their movements suggests pre-classical Greece.

There are several numbers where no one sings, and I have always thought they needed dancing in these spots. I was right.

The great works of music can be created again and again, each time with the insight of the individual artists bringing us to see it anew. It helps to know every word, every note. You see and hear every gesture in stark relief. I wouldn't have imagined this dance, but it expanded my idea of the work. It was very beautiful.

[See Kinderkuchen History 1670-95]

Happy Birthday Anna

2011-09-17T19:19:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow, September 18, marks a major milestone in the opera world: Anna Netrebko will be 40. Congratulations, Anna.

Schwarzkopf

2011-09-16T13:53:00.001-04:00

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf was famous not only for her voice and style. She was also very beautiful and enormously seductive when she sang, especially in Lieder. This film of a Lied by Hugo Wolf gives an idea of this. The poem is by Goethe. "Don't sing about the loneliness of night. Night is half of life, and the more beautiful half at that."

Mark Morris' Dido

2011-09-12T13:56:00.001-04:00

One of the entries from my new calendar--a calendar deeply biased toward California--is Mark Morris' Dido and Aeneas at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley. SFGate has a very nice interview here.