Fedora

Conductor...............Roberto Abbado
Production..............Beppe De Tomasi

Princess Fedora Romazov...Mirella Freni
Count Loris Ipanov..............Plácido Domingo
Countess Olga Sukarev........Ainhoa Arteta
De Siriex..............................Dwayne Croft

Giordano's Fedora streamed from the Met today.  This is from a broadcast from 1997. This production was mounted to celebrate the retirement of Mirella Freni from the opera stage.  She was 62 and sounds glorious.

Freni enters to a wonderful ovation.  Fedora is engaged to be married, and on the eve of her wedding her fiancé is murdered.  This is Act I in Russia. 

In Act II Fedora has followed Ipanov, whom she thinks murdered her fiancé, to Paris.  Her Ipanov is Placido Domingo who is 5 years younger than Freni.  They meet in her house in Paris and seem to fall in love.  Fedora hears that the czar has been shot.  There is a lot of narrative of people explaining things that happened off stage.  The stories are emotional, just the thing for opera.  I can see why an Italian singer like Freni would love this.

In the act break Mayor Giuliani gives Mirella Freni the key to the city.  It's wonderful to see this.  Brava Mirella.

Act III takes place in Switzerland where the Princess has a house.  The whole production is very traditional.  It's not difficult to see why Freni would love this opera.  Her character is on the stage for every scene and experiences a very wide range of emotions.  She is happy, sad, angry, joyous, guilty, despondent and suicidal all in one opera.

The opera is sort of verismo for the upper classes.  They are glorious together to the end.  It is wonderful to see this again.  They do it all for Mirella.  Love.

Equal Time

Netrebko deserves equal time with Harteros, don't you think?  "Io son d'amore."

Andrea Chénier from La Scala

Conductor: Riccardo Chailly
Staging: Mario Martone

Andrea Chénier: Yusif Eyvazov
Maddalena di Coigny: Anna Netrebko
Carlo Gérard: Luca Salsi
La mulatta Bersi: Annalisa Stroppa
La Contessa di Coigny: Mariana Pentcheva
Madelon: Judit Kutasi
Roucher: Gabriele Sagona

Giordano's Andrea Chénier is an opera about the French revolution.  The only other one I can think of is Dialogues of the Carmelites which sees the terror from a somewhat different perspective.  It is curious that no opera sees the revolution from the side of the revolutionaries.

This is a wonderful traditional staging from La Scala Milano.  In the first scene the staging is very clear with the revolutionaries' faces appearing through the windows. As I work my way through the scenes, they are all well done and easy to follow.  Not too much detail, not too little.  This is lovely, with well handled chorus, and all the elements of an excellent traditional staging.

"Viva la morte insiem."  Long live death together.  Sort of a self cancelling phrase.  I have been listening to German versions of Italian operas for so long I have forgotten what the Italian version sounds like.  Yusif is actually more highly regarded in Italy.  His steely tone cuts right through the orchestra when necessary.  He and Netrebko are gradually merging into each other.  Will we like the result?

I love this opera and have very much enjoyed its recent popularity.  I realize it will soon disappear, but that's no reason not to love it now.  The poet falls in love and stays behind in France to protect his love.  As a result, he is executed.  It is an opera about love. Maddalena tells us that an angel has kissed her.  This is the exterminating angel.  He has marked her for death.

Chailly knows his Italian repertoire and gives us a stylistically excellent reading. Lovely.  This is the one.

Current Favorite Thing

Andrea Chénier from Munich

👍🏻
Conductor: Omer Meir Wellber
Production: Philipp Stölzl

Andrea Chénier, a poet tenor: Jonas Kaufmann
Carlo Gérard, a servant baritone: Luca Salsi
Maddalena di Coigny, soprano: Anja Harteros
Bersi, Mulattin, her maid mezzo-soprano: J'Nai Bridges
La comtesse di Coigny mezzo-soprano : Doris Soffel

They layered every nuance for us to see at the Bayerische Staatsoper for Giordano's Andrea Chénier.  Above is how we generally viewed the sets.  Below is closer to what the audience saw.

The production made frequent use of split  pictures.  In the opening party scene we see the household staff laboring below stairs while the party goes on upstairs.  When the revolutionaries arrive, we see people from the below stairs staff among them.  When Andrea and Maddalena are preparing to die, we see the guillotine just above them.  The last thing shown is the blade falling.  In the task of explaining the action this production was excellent.

This is a play about patriotism and class resentment.  It started to sound familiar.  The central character is actually Carlo Gérard who tries to stand on both sides of the conflict.  He is for the revolution and overthrowing the aristocracy, but he also loves the family he served.  He is the truly honorable but conflicted man.  Each speaks of how he loves his country.

The artistry of the performers set fire to this opera.  It is an opera about one of the most violent periods in western history.  But somehow before today it has never had a sufficient effect. From "La mamma morta" to "Vicino a te" it blazed to ever more emotional intensity.  Opera should set fire to your heart, and this one did.  Bravi.

Andrea Chénier from San Francisco

Conductor Nicola Luisotti
Director David McVicar

Carlo Gérard:  George Gagnidze *
Maddalena di Coigny:  Anna Pirozzi *
Bersi:  J'Nai Bridges *
Contessa di Coigny (Maddalena's mother): Catherine Cook
Andrea Chénier: Yonghoon Lee *

Giordano's Andrea Chénier from the San Francisco Opera was a real treat. The above performers with * next to their names were making their San Francisco Opera debuts.  My favorites in order were George Gagnidze, Anna Pirozzi, J'Nai Bridges and Yonghoon Lee.  Gérard's aria in the prison scene was especially wonderful.  I have seen Gagnidze a few times before.  I'll try to remember him this time.  This is an excellent group of debuts.

I saw this production in the film from the Royal Opera in London.  I thought the final scene made a better effect here.  I like the way the entire production looks.

Most surprising was Anna Pirozzi who began her performance with a relatively small tone and continued to increase in volume until the really quite loud finale.  It was thrilling.  She was new for me.

I have seen Yonghoon Lee before in Il Trovatore from the Met.  I felt he handled Verdi much better than he managed Giordano.  Chénier is a role that best fits a voice like Mario del Monaco while Lee seems to try too hard and creates the impression he is struggling.

This is highly recommended from me.  I enjoyed it very much.

I went to the lecture where we were told that Maddalena actually got away.  Sigh.

Andrea Chénier

I always have to be a bit nostalgic.  My first Andrea Chénier was in 1965 at the San Francisco opera and starred Richard Tucker and Renata Tebaldi.  I recall she entered from upstage to great applause.  The stage director was Lotfi Mansouri who knew that the great star required an entrance.

I have watched the link on the comment of Andrea Chénier from the ROH.  I didn't mind at all the absence of titles.  They have all made an excellent case for this opera.  This is not a story like Tosca and Butterfly.  They are real people who lived and died in a way much like this.  They have honored the story with real costumes such as they might truly have worn.  I even liked the two Madame Defarge characters knitting in the front row of the tribunal scene.

And for this most real opera they have hired two wonderful singers, Jonas Kaufmann and Eva-Maria Westbroek, who just may be the two most sincere singers today.  For only absolute sincerity will carry the last scene, one of the greatest in all opera.  Lučić was remarkable, too, showing a very wide range of emotions.

For love, for poetry, for art.  Bravi tutti. 

Andrea Chénier, a poet tenor Jonas Kaufmann
Carlo Gérard, a servant baritone Željko Lučić
Maddalena de Coigny soprano Eva-Maria Westbroek
Bersi, her maid mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves
La comtesse di Coigny mezzo-soprano Rosalind Plowright
Pietro Fléville, a novelist bass Peter Coleman-Wright
Mathieu, a sans-culotte buffo or baritone Adrian Clarke
The Abbé, a poet tenor Peter Hoare
The Incredible, a spy tenor Carlo Bosi
Roucher, a friend of Chénier bass or baritone Roland Wood
Schmidt, a jailer at St. Lazare bass or baritone Jeremy White
Madelon, an old woman mezzo-soprano Elena Zilio
Fouquier-Tinville, the Public Prosecutor bass or baritone Eddie Wade
Dumas, Master of the Household bass Yuriy Yurchuk
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From the Bastille Day Concert

I love to watch people rehearsing. For me this is better than the concert.  FYI: the picture on the back of her jacket is of herself as #73 in the top 99 from Ask Men.

A Little Jonas

Ah. I feel much better now.

From a comment:   Es ist ein Traum. Diese Arie könnte noch stundenlang dauern.

And another:   Meraviglioso Jonas!

Antidote

This is one of Maria Callas' more perfect performances. Is it time to speculate that she was really a pushed up mezzo? It would certainly explain a lot.

Trilogy

In his prime I would buy tickets to see Placido Domingo and something would always go wrong. There would be an earthquake. His mother would die. Now these weren't reasons you could exactly complain about, but nonetheless, I was not getting to see him sing. Finally I got to hear him in Massenet's Herodiade with Renée Fleming, a not very interesting opera with a ridiculous plot and a not very significant tenor role. I had wished for Les Contes d'Hoffmann.

Until Sunday's Trilogy: Domingo and Friends in 3 Acts at the Washington National Opera. He looked and sang very well. Domingo has always been kind of a baritone with high notes, and as his voice ages this becomes more and more apparent. Amazingly, in his middle sixties he has no trace of a wobble, but there is a certain added gravitas.

Act I was Fedora Act II, with Sylvie Valayre as Fedora. This is the best act for the tenor with the hit aria, "Amor ti vieta," and the narrative of why he killed Fedora's fiance. There is a party. Amanda Squitieri, a Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist, as Olga was especially nice. Watch for her. I went with my neighbor and she liked this part the best.

Act II was Act IV of Otello. I never got to see Domingo sing the whole opera, but this is the best part anyway. What a treat! Barbara Frittoli is a fabulous Desdemona. She has voice, she has style, she has beauty, she has acting and she lies very quietly hanging off the bed for quite a long time without falling off.

Act III was Act III of The Merry Widow. This scene also has a party, and like the party in Fledermaus, it was used to insert added entertainments. Sylvie Valayre and Barbara Frittoli sang a duet from Cosi fan tutte, for instance. I've never cared for the lustige Witwe and was happy to be spared the whole operetta. Ending with a party was nice. There's a great bit where the soprano compares Parisian men to a fizzy alcoholic drink which I cannot remember the name of. Domingo sang his aria in German while everything else was in English.

It was a pleasing froth with a glorious, dramatic center.

Andrea Chénier

This video tape has not been sitting around my house for years, but comes instead from deep in someone’s archives.

These days operas are filmed on location as movies, such as Zeffirelli’s opera films, or from the stage of opera houses with multiple cameras during performances. In 1955 when this black and white film of Umberto Giordano’s Andrea Chénier was made, operas were filmed for television on sound stages with cameras at eye level like a TV show. They appear also to be lip-syncing, which may account for why we can’t picture where the orchestra is. Inside Daisy Clover has a marvelous scene showing the heroine lip-syncing the song to the already existing film, but opera must work the other way round, like someone on Saturday Night Live. It's not like the opera movie with Sophia Loren--they are all lip-syncing themselves.

This film is notable for the presence of Mario del Monaco in the title role. In his prime his voice had a wonderful brilliance, most similar to Corelli, I suppose, which was very intense and beautiful. He had a tendency to over sing and suffered for it later in life, but at his peak he was physically and vocally very beautiful, as he certainly is in this film. He had his fanatical followers.

Giuseppe Taddei as Gerard and Antonietta Stella as Maddalena are also outstanding. This kind of intense singing is not common today. It’s wonderful to hear it.

The production is traditional, and when combined with the filming technique produces an oddly intimate realism. It’s very moving.

The label says $5.95 from Rasputins.
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Fedora

In the continuing saga of unwatched opera videos today we have Fedora by Giordano. It comes after his Andrea Chenier and is roughly contemporary with Tosca.

This presentation at the Met was done especially for Mirela Freni—it is her favorite, and it’s not hard to see why. The character Fedora is in every scene. The hit tune from Fedora, “Amor ti vieta,” is for tenor, but not to worry. Fedora gets to be anxiously awaiting the fate of her mortally wounded lover, to swear vengeance upon his killer, to pursue the killer and try to entrap him, to instead fall madly in love with him, to express bliss, regret and any other emotion, and finally to commit suicide. How could you possibly top this?

Placido Domingo has a nice part as her lover and enemy, Loris. Please forgive my former cracks about him. What was I thinking?

I enjoyed it, but then I cannot get enough of scenery chewing. By the end the entire set is in tatters. It is popular in Italy, I understand. Mirela Freni is no longer at her peak, and Placido is struggling a bit to come up to the required level of melodrama. What would this have been like 10 years before?
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