Le Nozze di Figaro from the Met 👍🏻

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Conductor...............James Levine
Production..............Jonathan Miller

Figaro..................Bryn Terfel
Susanna.................Cecilia Bartoli
Count Almaviva..........Dwayne Croft
Countess Almaviva.......Renée Fleming
Cherubino...............Susanne Mentzer
Dr. Bartolo.............Paul Plishka
Marcellina..............Wendy White
Don Basilio.............Heinz Zednik
Antonio.................Thomas Hammons
Barbarina...............Danielle de Niese

The Metropolitan Opera has rerun free of charge the 1998 telecast of Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro.  I would have seen the original, of course.  It was in the center of my infatuation with Cecilia Bartoli. Watching it again I find that it is a Figaro for the ages.  There is not even the tiniest hole in this cast.  Even Barbarina features Danielle de Niese making her Met debut at 19.

This opera features the Countess in two glorious arias-- Porgi Amor and Dove sono--sung gloriously by Renée Fleming.

This film still has the most hits for Cecilia Bartoli on YouTube and the second most for Fleming.

The Met cast Bartoli into more or less the same Fach as Kathleen Battle only with a comic slant. In her career she was known for her very successful coloratura singing, and this provides the explanation for the replacement of Deh vieni non tardar, an entirely legato aria, with something with at least some coloratura.

Bryn is perhaps my all time favorite Figaro, and Cecilia and Bryn's flirting is the best ever seen in this opera.

The last time I watched it I wrote this:

It was a surprise when it was announced that Cecilia would sing the role of Susanna, a role I don’t think she has sung since. There was a huge scandal because she insisted on performing different arias. I know “Un moto di gioia” is one of her favorites. Her choices, especially the final aria, are very successful, but she does not sing “Deh vieni non tardar.”

I have felt since I first saw this film that I never really understood this opera before. In a world where everything had to be about status and privilege, where the operas were clearly divided between elevated moral dramas about the upper classes and comedies in dialect from the lower classes, Mozart has brought us real people from all the various classes of his era, people with serious problems, people like us. I don’t think I really understood how deeply serious Figaro really is.

Cecilia is key in the success of this entire performance because she makes you feel how much Susanna loves Figaro and how much she hates the idea of sex with the count, how much she loathes his attentions while successfully masking her emotions from him. This is the content of the Marriage of Figaro, not just the jokes. I have read the book this is based on, but it is Mozart and da Ponte who give true life to these people.

There is a wonderful rapport between Cecilia and Bryn which they exploited in a duet album and dvd. This rapport is at its best here. They are exciting and very charismatic together.

As if this were not wonderful enough, there is also the fabulous countess of Renée Fleming, who needs only to sit around being miserably regal while singing two of the most gorgeous arias ever written. Gorgeously. She is in top form.

It is a succession of perfectly executed scenes by ideally cast singing actors. When was Figaro’s discovery of his parents ever so perfect? The count and countess are effectively upper class while Susanna and Figaro are common, as it should be. The entire production is pure perfection in singing, conducting and ensemble acting, and never becomes stale.

As one who has long adored Cecilia and has seen a lot of her stage work, this is her masterpiece.

Takács Quartet

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We finished the New Millennium concert series at Sacramento State with a grand performance by the Takács String Quartet, a founding member of the Gramophone Hall of Fame.  This is what quartet playing is supposed to sound like.  They are from Hungary and have been playing together for over 40 years.  Wow.  For our concert they played:

• Mozart's String Quartet No 14, K.387 (1782)  This is the first of the Haydn Quartets, in the standard 4 movements.

• Mendelssohn's String Quartet No. 6, Op.80 (1847)  This is the last piece completed by Mendelssohn before his death.  I especially liked the first of four movements.

• Beethoven's String Quartet No.14 Op. 131 (1826) This piece listed 7 movements, but they all seemed to flow one into the other.  An especially fast section seemed a Presto to me--section 5.  I turned out to be correct.  They are famous for their Beethoven.

This was a treat.  They have recorded extensively for Decca.

Fabulous Cosi in HD

Full cast

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Conductor...............David Robertson
Production..............Phelim McDermott

Fiordiligi..............Amanda Majeski
Guglielmo............Adam Plachetka 
Dorabella..............Serena Malfi
Ferrando................Ben Bliss
Despina.................Kelli O'Hara
Don Alfonso.........Christopher Maltman

Two words:  saddle oxfords.  The sisters in Mozart's Cosi fan Tutte in HD from the Metropolitan Opera are on the right in outfits which were popular when I was in junior high school.  They look so fabulously authentic.  They are in a motel and Despina is the woman who cleans the rooms.

These two guys, Ferrando and Guglielmo, are in a bar with Don Alfonso, their older male friend. When they are just a bit too drunk, the younger men start to brag about the faithfulness of their fiancés, the two sisters Dorabella and Fiordiligi.  According to the guys, they are truly faithful. Don Alfonso says this is nonsense, that all women are fickle. He bets that their girlfriends are like all the others, and he will prove it. The two guys agree to test this. The two guys first appear in their naval officer uniforms, a touch that for me made all the difference.  These two young men might indeed be suddenly called off to war.

This production completely transformed my take on this opera.  It is important to remember that it is the young men's complete faith in their girl friends that makes any of this plausible.  In their military uniforms they obviously feel their young fiancés are too insignificant to jilt such important people as themselves.  They never seem to consider they might lose.  They do whatever Don Alfonso tells them and laugh at the results until it's too late.

My favorite thing about the production is the disguises, especially the mustacchi (mustaches) which make the young men look far more gorgeous than their stuffy military officer real selves.  Ferrando is completely transformed.  The disguises are always lame.

The circus performers were fun if sometimes a little overwhelming.  In the green outfit seen above is our Despina as the notary who brings the marriage certificates all the way from Texas.  This was the most fun of all with her Broadway dance number.  The entire production was complex and busy with virtually a set for each aria.  It made the whole thing a lot funnier.  It's a comedy.  We should laugh.

In the end Don Alfonso makes his case, but he realizes that Despina has done all the real work and gives her all the winnings.  New motto for Cosi fan Tutte:  Don't take your woman for granted.  My favorite Cosi ever.

Beethoven and Mozart in Sacramento

Dmitri Sitkovetsky came to Sacramento to conduct and play solo violin for the Sacramento Philharmonic and Opera.  I found this to be a particularly well constructed concert program and assigned this success to Dmitri.  Thank you for coming.

Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Suite No. 4 "Mozartiana", Op. 61 (1887)  

These movements are all based on music by Mozart. (Notes from Wikipedia)

1. Gigue. Allegro (G major) After the Little Gigue for piano, K. 574. 
2. Menuet. Moderato (D major) After the Minuet for piano, K. 355. 
3. Preghiera. Andante ma non tanto (B♭ major) After Franz Liszt's piano transcription of the Ave verum corpus, K. 618. (In 1862 Liszt wrote a piano transcription combining Gregorio Allegri's Miserere and Mozart's Ave verum corpus, published as "À la Chapelle Sixtine" (S.461). Tchaikovsky orchestrated only the part of this work that had been based on Mozart.) 
4. Thème et variations. Allegro giusto (G major) After the piano Variations on a Theme by Gluck, K. 455. (The theme was the aria "Unser dummer Pöbel meint", from Gluck's opera La Rencontre imprévue, or Les Pèlerins de la Mecque). 

I admit I'm not a huge Tchaikovsky fan.  Sitkovetsky conducted.

Wolfgang Mozart, Violin Concerto No. 5 in A major (1775)

This is a lovely violin concerto, Mozart's last, from the time when part of his income source was playing violin solos.  He was 19.  Sources point out that his violin concertos don't show off all the possibilities of the violin as Beethoven and Brahms do.  Ok.  Mozart would have played these pieces himself, while Beethoven and Brahms would have relied on professional violin soloists active at their time.  Mozart's concerto is characterized by beautiful melodies and typical Mozart style.  For me it was very beautifully played.  Sitkovetsky was conductor and soloist.  The orchestra played well without constant attention from the maestro.

Arvo Pärt, Fratres (Brothers) (1977)  

The title refers to religious brothers.  This was the first time I have heard Arvo Pärt played live on a concert.  He is a living composer from Estonia.  This piece was undoubtedly chosen because it is also a violin concerto of sorts.  It begins with a series of jarring violin arpeggios and goes on to repetitive chords and arpeggios.  You will note that this piece dates one year after Einstein on the Beach by Philip Glass.  Both Pärt and Glass are pioneers of the minimalist school.  We went to the lecture before where this was mentioned.  Sitkovetsky was the violin soloist and occasionally had opportunity to conduct.

Ludwig Beethoven Symphony No. 8 (1814)

Sitkovetsky returned to conducting for this.  This is a somewhat small symphony which could have come from an earlier period.  Again it was well played.

I enjoyed the way this concert was constructed with works from many styles which all related back to the influence of Mozart.  I especially liked hearing the Mozart concerto, a favorite.  Now that I understand that Arvo Pärt is a minimalist, I hope he will appear again for me.  Otherwise I only know about him from recordings.

Le Nozze di Figaro from Munich

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Conductor: Constantinos Carydis
Production: Christof Loy

Il Conte di Almaviva: Christian Gerhaher
La Contessa di Almaviva: Federica Lombardi
Cherubino: Solenn' Lavanant-Linke
Figaro: Alex Esposito
Susanna: Olga Kulchynska
Bartolo: Paolo Bordogna
Marcellina: Anne Sofie von Otter
Basilio: Manuel Günther
Don Curzio: Dean Power
Antonio: Milan Siljanov
Barbarina: Anna El-Khashem

Haven't I seen this set before, or does every set look like a theater now?  Some costumes are modern, others are period.  Uniforms?  This is the live stream of Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro from the Bayerische Staatsoper.  I'm hearing a piano in the secco recitative, maybe a first for me.  Mozart played pianos, not harpsichords.

This is of course an opera about sexual harassment, in case you were imagining this was a new thing.  Perhaps that's why it is ever green in every generation.  The women get their revenge.  I wonder how many modern women think of that. 

The comedy is very much enhanced by the fairly brisk tempos.  Munich is one of the best opera companies in the world, and this is a very high quality performance.  This is a gorgeous "Dove sono" from our Contessa.  And our conductor is a winner of the Kleiber prize. Musically it is gorgeous.  How to conduct Strauss may be falling from memory, but Mozart was never better than today.  This is a lesson, especially the recitative.

The production is simple and does not interfere with the story.  Either the people shrink or the doors get bigger.  You decide.  I choose the people are shrinking.

One does not think to ask, also for the first time, why one is hearing Marcellina's aria.  Except one isn't.  This is a song interpolation of Mozart's "Abendempfindung.“  It fits beautifully and is for the biggest star of this cast, Anne Sofie von Otter.  This is lovely.

I cannot explain how much I love it.  Everyone should see this. The ending is cute.

Die Zauberflöte in HD

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Conductor:  James Levine
Production/Costume and Puppet Designer:  Julie Taymor

Pamina:  Golda Schultz
Queen of the Night:  Kathryn Lewek
Tamino:  Charles Castronovo
Sarastro:  René Pape
Papageno: Markus Werba
Speaker:  Christian Van Horn

Nadine Sierra was our announcer today for Mozart's Die Zauberflöte from the Met, and she did a fine job.  She has charisma to burn.  Julie Taymor's production of The Magic Flute first played in HD with cuts and in English in 2006 and has replayed since then. This performance was for those of us who love this opera in German.  It was lovely to hear the original words in an uncut version.

It is interesting to me that in his final year of life Mozart wrote two operas about forgiveness.  Die Zauberflöte and La Clemenza di Tito.  Perhaps it was for us.  This is Kurt Moll.  In this holy hall we don't speak of revenge.



Out of the cast listed above, only Markus Werba was completely new to me.  His Papageno was a joy.

Kathryn Lewek was in Cecilia Bartoli's Ariodante which I very much wish I had seen.  She was outstanding here.

Golda Schultz appeared in the La Clemenza di Tito from Salzburg this past summer. Pamina suits her better.

Charles Castronovo has appeared a few times in San Francisco.  My favorite outing from him was Il Postino with Placido.  His voice is robust for Tamino, but I agree with his comments--he enjoys a heroic sounding Tamino.

Everyone knows the one and only René Pape who flew over just for this performance.  He's the best now.

I love the Julie Taymor production and enjoyed seeing it again.

La Clemenza di Tito from Salzburg

Vitellia and Tito

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Teodor Currentzis | Conductor 
Peter Sellars | Stage director

Russell Thomas | Tito Vespasiano (b) USA
Golda Schultz | Vitellia (b) South Africa
Christina Gansch | Servilia (w) Austria
Marianne Crebassa | Sesto (w) France
Jeanine De Bique | Annio (b) Trinidad
Willard White | Publio (b) Jamaica

This is Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito from the Salzburg Festival in a staging by the American Peter Sellars.  I put letters next to the cast to show that most of the cast is black.  They are from everywhere.  I know what this would mean to Americans but am not sure how a European audience would react.  It would be difficult to persuade me that the timing of this was a coincidence.  All appear to be fine singers.  This is on medici.tv until November, and I see no titles.

When the opera opens the crowd of mostly white people are herded into a corner by army.  Some of the women wear head scarves.  Tito picks Sesto and Servilia out of the crowd.  This is such wonderful music.  How have I not known this?

There are Roman arches across the stage as the only reminder of the Roman Empire, but the costumes are all modern.  I read elsewhere that Tito is compared to Nelson Mandella.  This is rather more profound than I normally expect from Peter Sellars.  This is clearly a concept production, much more so than the Claus Guth from Glyndebourne.  Mandella, the great reconciler is evoked.  Clearly Sellars has changed it into a story of racial conflict and broadened the impact by placing it in modern South Africa and using black singers.

Sesto and Annio

Sesto shoots Tito who does not die.  This is intensely serious.  A miracle could happen -- I could become a fan.  This is so brilliant I am truly amazed.  The timing couldn't be more right.  It goes to the top of my list of great Regietheater.

Annio sings a Kyrie for those who have died in the raid on the Campidoglio.  Jeanine De Bique's Annio was for me the best singing.  I liked Golda Schultz but thought she struggled with the low parts of her arias.  The use of chorus is spectacular and may truly be his area of expertise.  Russell Thomas raises Tito to new heights and then dies in the hospital.  Tutto perdono.  Are we ourselves so large?

This version has a sad ending which is achieved in part through the presence in this performance of music not originally in the score for this opera, music undoubtedly added by Peter Sellars.  One may feel free to complain.  The first clue came with the Kyrie sung by Annio.  He liked the singer and wanted her to have more to sing.  In part the tragic ending is created through the addition of serious music from Mozart's Great Mass in C minor.

I felt the brilliance of this interpretation long before the ending and therefore did not require this musical interpolation.

The Chastity Tree at West Edge

Diana, Cupid as female

Conductor:  Robert Mollicone
Director:  Mark Streshinsky

Diana, goddess of chastity (soprano):  Nikki Einfeld
Clizia, nymph (mezzo-soprano):  Molly Mahoney
Britomarte, nymph (soprano):  Maya Kherani
Chloe, nymph (contralto):  Kathleen Moss
Doristo, keeper of the tree (bass):   Malte Roesner
Cupid (soprano):  Christine Brandes
Endimione, shepherd (tenor):  Kyle Stegall
Silvio, shepherd (tenor):  Jacob Thompson

The Chastity Tree, originally called L'Arbore di Diana (1787) by Vicente Martín y Soler, is contemporary with Mozart's Don Giovanni and has the same librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte.  It was performed with the original Italian da Ponte libretto.  It is important to notice that L'Arbore premiered in Vienna, while Don Giovanni was first presented in Prague.  Martin was Mozart's competition.  This opera faded from awareness during the 19th century, until it was suddenly revived in the 21st century.  I will never again think of Mozart as a slut.

My seat for this performance was an improvement over Saturday night.  I could see fine. The metal object shown above is intended to represent the tree.  Diana, goddess of the hunt, and her three nymphs make up a community sworn to chastity.  Diana has used her magic to create a tree that sings when the chaste nymphs walk beneath it.  However, if one of them is found not to be chaste, the tree pummels them with apples until they die.  At the start of the opera a group of women dressed in green with a large red circle climb up into the tree where they remained for most of the rest of the opera.  I decided that these were the apples.  They occasionally sing, do simple gymnastics and perform choreography.  In the overture the tree lights up and the pom poms wave when pleasant music plays, representing the tree when it is happy.

In her status as goddess of the hunt, Diana in mythology carries a bow and arrows.  Her arch rival and perhaps enemy Cupid is similarly equipped but uses his arrows to strike love into the hearts of humans.  This places them at complete cross-purposes.  As you might expect from a libretto by da Ponte, love or at least promiscuity wins in the end.  Cupid brings shepherds into the community of nymphs, making this a traditional nymphs and shepherds plot.  Only the unfortunate Silvio seems to miss out on the love making.

Hanky panky is everywhere, but Diana herself falls seriously for the shepherd Endimione, a beautiful young man.  The best music is for Diana.  Cupid is a boy, sung by a woman, but disguised as a woman throughout the opera, except he/she keeps the goatee and mustache.  Various characters suggest that Cupid might be a man, but he/she  remains in her pink dress until the end.  At the end a storm destroys the tree before it can throw down any apples.  Boy Cupid declares victory.

This is an entertaining opera which will henceforth inform my sense of the da Ponte comedies by Mozart.  The music is good but not great.  It's fun.  Enjoy. 

La Clemenza di Tito Glyndebourne

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Conductor:  Robin Ticciati
Director:  Claus Guth

Tito:  Richard Croft
Vitellia:  Alice Coote
Sesto:  Anna Stéphany
Servilia:  Joélle Harvey

Claus Guth is one of the masters of Regietheater.  Looking at the above picture from his production of Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito we are reminded of a production of Lohengrin from La Scala a few years ago where the action takes place on a river bank with similar looking grass.  Yes.  That too was Claus Guth.  More recent experiences are the PTSD Fidelio and Salome in a men's wear store. So an opera about an emperor of Rome takes place in a grassy field.  I may see some water behind.  It seems to be a cabin in the woods.  The original tenor quit over "artistic differences."

I like all these singers.  Alice Coote is outstanding, in spite of the fact that she lights cigarettes all the time.  They're talking about places in Rome, burning down the Campidoglio, but we see only grass.  They explain in the interval that this is to remove all hints of cultural context.  A swamp could be anywhere any time.

This particular swamp is where these same people played together as children.  Films play in the background showing children playing.  This production focuses entirely on the emotional relationships between the characters.

I hadn't until recently realized that this is such a wonderful opera.  Beautiful arias, beautiful sentiments.  And best of all it's Mozart.  In such an opera it is possible to sing with complete sincerity.  The soul is open.  My own experience of this opera is informed by Cecilia Bartoli's performances on her early Mozart recording of the arias:  "Non più di fiori," "Deh per questo istante solo" and "Parto, ma tu ben mio."

No flowers for me.  Non piu di fiori.  She repents and thinks she will not marry.  It is opera seria so they all live happily ever after.  Glorious.  Sesto is the star.  Anna Stéphany was a replacement for a pregnant Kate Lindsey.  She looked and sang beautifully and received the most applause.

Oberon

Conductor:  Ivor Bolton
Production:   Nikolaus Habjan

Oberon.........................Julian Prégardien
Rezia.............................Annette Dasch
Hüon von Bordeau........Brenden Gunnell
Titania (Puck)................Alyona Abramowa
Fatime, Rezia's servant...Rachael Wilson
Scherasmin, Hüon's squire..Johannes Kammler

Oberon, or The Elf King's Oath (1826) by Carl Maria von Weber is originally in English with spoken dialog. Characters appear from A Midsummer Night's Dream.  Today it live streamed from the Bayerische Staatsoper where it presents in German with English subtitles.

The original dialog is rewritten to suit the regietheater production.  We saw this rewriting of the dialog recently in the Carmen from Aix-en-Provence, and it is strangely curious that it appears to be for the same reason--to make the opera about psychiatry. 

I'm getting the impression a lot of people are angry about psychiatrists.  They pick two seemingly random people from the audience and conduct experiments on them to see if they will experience passionate, long-lasting love.  As things go along we pick up on the idea that this is personal between the head psychiatrists and that one or both of them are betting on no. Here no papers are signed and the fantasy is assisted with drugs and electric treatments.

The producer Nikolaus Habjan is a puppeteer.  His puppets are larger than ventriloquist dummies but are handled similarly except the ventriloquist tries to be invisible.  I've seen this sort of thing before but I don't think in an opera.  The characters that exist entirely in the fantasy of Oberon assisting an imagined mortal in finding his love and recovering his good name.  The real people are the two men from the audience and Rezia.  We aren't sure if Fatime is real or imaginary.  The psychiatrists and lab technicians are all real, of course.  I don't know if it's necessary to explain this any further.  The action results from sick cruelties inflicted on the test subjects. 

Weber was a great composer, but this opera is supposed to have killed him.  It was a pleasure to hear this music, though technical difficulties interfered with some of the arias.  The greatest aria from this opera is "Ozean du Ungeheuer."  If you've never heard it, here is a sample.



Our soprano Annette Dasch was excellent, and at least one audience member shouted bis at the end of the aria.  We also liked the tenor Brenden Gunnell.

The drama comes out on the side of love.

Don Giovanni from Aix

Conductor: Jérémie Rhorer
Production: Jean-François Sivadier

Don Giovanni: Philippe Sly
Leporello:  Nahuel di Pierro
Donna Anna: Eleonora Buratto
Don Ottavio: Pavol Breslik
Donna Elvira: Isabel Leonard
Zerlina: Julie Fuchs
Masetto: Krzysztof Baczyk
Il Commendatore:  David Leigh

What if Don Giovanni is a silly person and is just larking about?  And what if Leporello is the one who stabs the Commendatore, accidentally, of course? Is this the Don Giovanni I've been searching for?  This is the great Mozart opera from Aix-en-Provence.

There are period costumes, sort of, and props and makeup, but no sets to speak of. Leporello seems to be in on everything more than is usually the case.    Zerlina is sufficiently sexy.  Donna Elvira is a complete bitch.  DG jumps around a lot more than anyone would think possible for an opera singer.  Don Ottavio, a serious young man, comes to the party with a gun.  Viva la liberta.  This is like an orgy, but the girls look dubious.  Donna Elvira makes off with the gun.

Donna Anna, Don Giovanni, Donna Elvira

Toward the end of the intermission the Don comes out in more or less modern clothing and offers flowers to a woman in the front row.  He's scanning the audience for more candidates.  He waves.  The orchestra is back so he's looking them over.  He claps for the conductor.  Leporello is in modern clothing, too.

Elvira enters with a shorter skirt, followed by her servant carrying the gun.  The Don and Leporello exchange silly wigs.  They don't look much alike.  Leporello has tattoos, Don Giovanni doesn't.  This is completely satisfying my desire for a Don Giovanni in a comedy staging.  The best singing is from the women.

Masetto shows up in the audience with a gun which he waves around.  I see now that this is as close to a comedy as it can get.  Some of the characters, Ottavio, Anna, Elvira, are serious to the core.  We have here corrupt young men going wild.  Giovanni strips down to his underwear at the end.  There is some nudity.

I completely bought it.  Don Giovanni may now return to being a serious opera.
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Don Giovanni from San Francisco

     Leporello, Donna Elvira, Donna Anna, Don Ottavio, Don Giovanni

Conductor:  Marc Minkowski  *
Director:  Jacopo Spirei

Leporello:  Erwin Schrott  *
Donna Anna:  Erin Wall *
Don Giovanni:  Ildebrando D'Arcangelo *
The Commendatore:  Andrea Silvestrelli
Don Ottavio: Stanislas de Barbeyrac *
Donna Elvira:  Ana María Martínez
Zerlina:  Sarah Shafer
Masetto:  Michael Sumuel

At the San Francisco Opera we have gone suddenly from a performance with 5 Adler Fellows to one with 5 debuts (*) and no Adler Fellows.  The debuts include the great conductor Marc Minkowski, Erwin Schrott and Ildebrando D'Arcangelo.  You can see this is something of a big event.

The production and Minkowski's conducting went well together.  Both moved briskly and smoothly from scene to scene with no hesitation.  With these wonderful singers our conductor brought us a masterful performance.  The only problem with the production from our viewpoint in the balcony was that it was filled with shiny screens that reflected the lights from the pit rather than the projected images.  Perhaps something could be done to reduce their shininess.

Schrott and D'Arcangelo are a magnificent pair.  Never was Giovanni such an arrogant asshole, and never was Leporello such a genius of comic timing.  We laughed.

The ladies were also beautiful though very serious.  Erin Wall whom I know from performances at Santa Fe was an elegant Donna Anna.  Ana Maria Martinez who recently sang here in Don Carlo was magnificent and intense as Donna Elvira.  Sarah Shafer made a youthful Zerlina.

________________________________
Footnote:

It seemed to me that this Don Giovanni was longer than usual, that I was hearing things I didn't usually hear.  The talk seemed longer and more detailed.  So I called the opera, and yes, there were a number of restored recitatives that are usually cut.  Perhaps Minkowski wanted this.  I like that I noticed this.

The Ying Quartet

You could call them The Ying String Quartet, I suppose.  They started out as a family enterprise, but now the first violinist is not a family member.  They are Janet Ying (violin), Phillip Ying (viola), Robin Scott (violin), and David Ying (cello).  For our final New Millennium Concert Series program at Sacramento State we enjoyed this excellent quartet.  They are my favorite of the recent chamber music groups I have heard.

String Quartet No. 2 in D Major (1881) by Alexander Borodin
This piece sounds familiar because a couple of the movements provided source material for the musical Kismet.  It's also just very beautiful music from the high Romantic.

String Quartet No. 2 in F Major Op. 92 (1941) by Sergei Prokofiev
This is pleasingly modern but not too modern since it's based on Russian folk tunes.

Quartet in C Major, Op. 59 No 3 (1808) by Beethoven
This is one of the Razumovsky string quartets commissioned by a Russian Prince Razumovsky, thus continuing the Russian theme of the concert.

The selection of repertoire is part of what made this concert particularly pleasing, along with the beautiful romantic playing.

Orphée et Eurydice

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My education with regard to Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice is woefully inadequate.  In part to compensate for this I have purchased this DVD of Orphée et Eurydice starring Vesselina Kasarova.  The other reason was to see more of Kasarova.

This is the version created by Hector Berlioz in 1859 for Pauline Viardot, making it a legitimate vehicle for a star like Kasarova.  The role in Italian was written for a castrato, and in French it is often sung by a haute-contre (French high tenor).  Only since 1950 has the role been taken by a countertenor.  At Glimmerglass I saw Michael Maniaci who bills as a male soprano.

The curious feature of this production is the genderless costuming.  Whatever style is on display, it is worn by both males and females.  I've always wondered what this would be like.  At first everyone is dressed in men's tuxedos.  The fires of hell are tended by laborers in bakers' hats. Then we see Greek outfits which look a bit odd on the men.  Then back to tuxedos.

An annoyingly large amount of time in this not that long opera is consumed by ballet.  If you are French, this probably is not a problem.  The chorus mimes an orchestra.  Vesselina does not play her violin, but she sings and acts gloriously.  To fully understand why Berlioz would make such an arrangement for Viardot requires that you see such a towering performer in the role of Orphée.  It is a tour de force.

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Idomeneo in HD

Conductor...................James Levine
Production..................Jean-Pierre Ponnelle

Idomeneo, King of Crete:  Matthew Polenzani
Idamante, his son:  Alice Coote
Ilia, princess from Troy:  Nadine Sierra
Elettra, princess from Argos:  Elza van den Heever
Arbace:  Alan Opie
High Priest:  Noah Baetge
Voice of Neptune:  Eric Owens

Eric Owens was also the host for the Metropolitan Opera HD presentation of Mozart's opera seria Idomeneo, composed when Mozart was only 24.  It is very much in the traditional Neapolitan style of endless da capo arias.

Idomeneo has sworn to Neptune that if he lives through a storm at sea, he will sacrifice the first person he sees on the shore to him.  He lives.  He walks down the stage already lamenting the death to come when his son Idamante approaches him.  The plot has the best possible ending.  Idomeneo does not kill his son but instead cedes his kingdom to him.  Opera seria usually has happy endings.

It was as long as Tristan and did not start early.  A lovely film of a much younger James Levine coaching Jessye Norman and Kathleen Battle in Ariadne auf Naxos was inserted between acts II and III.  I miss them.  It was nice to see them, but this added to the length of the performance.

The camera showed Levine conducting the Mozart overture today, and I thought his movements looked much better than the last time I saw him.  This didn't help the draggy tempos. There needed to be cuts.  By the third act it all began to seem tedious.  I think we are in a period where people refuse to cut anything.

People have jumped on Elza van den Heever for her manic performance, but I found her refreshing and the highlight of the program.  I always love Nadine Sierra, and she was outstanding here.  There were three tenors, but none of them were in the Mozart tenor tradition.  We had big singing and intense drama from all of them, especially our hero Matthew Polenzani.  Perhaps Alan Opie is considered a baritone, but this role was on the high side.  The only disappointment was Alice Coote who seemed out of sorts.

More Beethoven at Sacramento Philharmonic and Opera

Chee-Yun Kim 

The Sacramento Philharmonic performed Beethoven's Fourth Symphony in the first half and his Violin Concerto after the intermission.  Our guest conductor was Michelle Merrill, the first female conductor we have had.  She dressed all in black. 

The treat of the concert was the wonderful violinist Chee-Yun, called Chee-Yun Kim in our program.  She is from South Korea and was wonderful to hear. 

Our soloist played an encore of a very fancy solo violin arrangement of the Beatles' "Yesterday."

Pinchas Zukerman

Pinchas Zukerman played at our local college.  We were lucky to get him.  I asked "What's he going to play?"  The answer was, of course, violin sonatas.

Mozart
Beethoven
Brahms

This included a piece by Brahms called "Sonatensatz," which means movement from a sonata, a postumous composition.  I explained to the people sitting with me that Satz is German for sentence and is what they call a movement.  So why do we call it a movement?  I will communicate your sympathy.

I enjoyed the Brahms most.  I generally do. 

As an encore, he played a short romantic piece by a female composer named Maria Teresa....  I should have written it down.

Bach and Beethoven at the Sacramento Philharmonic and Opera.

The latest concert with the Sacramento Philharmonic and Opera featured guest conductor Andrew Grams with Peter Serkin and Tomoki Park on the two Steinway grand pianos.

The concert opened with the Brahms Academic Festival Overture.  When they reached "Gaudeamus Igitur," my friend and I began to sing along.  I even remember the words from when I played a student in The Student Prince. 

The second piece was for 2 pianos and orchestra by Toru Takemitsu and was composed in part for Peter Serkin. I found this piece pleasant and enjoyable, but was shocked to find that I did not like at all the Bach Double Keyboard Concerto which was switched to BWV 1061 at the last minute from 1062.  Bach's keyboards would have been harpsichords, but we are all well accustomed to pianos on these pieces.

The concert closed with a lovely rendition of Beethoven's Symphony No. 7.  Beethoven always comes through.  I liked Andrew Grams enthusiasm.

For Mozart's Birthday

The Four Seasons in Sacramento

Gioachino Rossini – Italiana in Algeri Overture
Joseph Haydn – Symphony No. 101, “Clock”
Antonio Vivaldi – “The Four Seasons”
Andrés Cárdenes, conductor and violin

This is the program for last night's performance by the Sacramento Philharmonic & Opera.  Andrés Cárdenes guested last season in a program that featured him playing a Mozart violin concerto.  In the first half of our program the orchestra included winds and timpani and a podium for Rossini and Haydn.  For the Vivaldi all the winds disappeared and the timpani were replaced by a harpsichord.  The podium also disappeared and was replaced by a music stand.