La Forza del Destino

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Conductor...............James Levine

Production..............John Dexter

Leonora.................Leontyne Price

Don Alvaro..............Giuseppe Giacomini

Don Carlo...............Leo Nucci

Padre Guardiano.........Bonaldo Giaiotti

Preziosilla.............Isola Jones

Fra Melitone............Enrico Fissore [Last performance]

Marquis de Calatrava....Richard Vernon

The live stream from the Met today is Leontyne Price's last performance at the Metropolitan Opera of Verdi's La Forza del Destino, March 24, 1984.  This was also one of her signature roles.  The first scene makes a lot more sense than the Munich version with Jonas and Anja.  There the whole family sits around a table.  In this version people come in and out depending on whether they are relevant to what is going on.  Talking about eloping with the father there is pretty silly.  The shooting is handled well.

In fact I think perhaps this is the most sensible production of Forza I've seen.  They are in a war and wear military uniforms.  What a concept.  Giuseppe Giacomini and Leo Nucci both look and sound similar.  One must work out a method to tell which is which. It is hopeless to choose who is better.  The cast for this performance is excellent from top to bottom.  Isola Jones is my favorite Preziosilla. 

Unfortunately a somewhat silly production makes this extremely gloomy opera somewhat more tolerable.  A trick ending would be tolerated.  The Munich version cuts a lot.

But we are here for Leontyne Price.  She is a singer to love.  Her Verdi is like no one else's.  She puts her own personal magic into the Italian's line.  Thank you for all the joy you have brought us.

The Only Aida 👍🏻

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Conductor...............James Levine
Production..............John Dexter

Aida....................Leontyne Price [Last performance]
Radamès.................James McCracken
Amneris.................Fiorenza Cossotto
Amonasro................Simon Estes
Ramfis..................John Macurdy

I'm going to cut everyone some slack in the replay of Aida, 1985, from Leontyne Price's last performance anywhere in a staged opera.  The previous season she presented at the Met the last performance of her other signature role from La Forza del Destino.  It starts slow and warms to an intensity seldom seen today.

"Celeste Aida" is tough.  I always remember that when Pavarotti did his first Aida in San Francisco that the papers panned him.  It's tough.  But McCracken carries his weight after that.  Cossotto comes out of the box roaring and carries this to the end.  Perhaps she knows that she will be remembered for this performance.

But this performance is about Leontyne Price.  I cannot top what I said years ago about the Blue Album which I used to play in my dorm room at college:

"To begin here tends to set ones standards absurdly, artificially high. Forever after I thought anyone should be able to do that gorgeous open, almost raw sound, that unbelievably fat middle tone, those awesome high notes. Anyone should be able to hit a high C and spin it back to a pianissimo. Right? How hard can it be?

"And that perfect, fluid phrasing, that perfection of ornamentation, that flawless instinct for scooping and sliding in Verdi, that must be a dime a dozen. Must be.

"And that reckless intensity, that daring passion, there must be hundreds of those.

"But no one who could approach this ever came again. For Bellini it's Callas, but for Verdi there is no one who ever could touch the one and only, never to be seen again Leontyne Price. Herbert von Karajan said that her singing gave him goose bumps. Yes."

And our Aida rerun from the Met captured my attention as seldom happens these days.  Our hearts are with them to the end.

Leontyne Price

Happy birthday.

The Opera House

The Opera House is officially a movie about building the new Metropolitan Opera in Lincoln Center.  Unofficially it is about the youth of Leontyne Price.  She's the best part.




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One cannot love her too much

The heart soars.  This is Marietta's Lied from Die tote Stadt.

Leontyne Price

On February 10 Leontyne Price will have her 90th birthday.  This aria from La Forza Del Destino is one she was particularly noted for.

Give me my robe

Before I leave Barber's Antony and Cleopatra forever, here is a recording of Leontyne Price with visuals singing the final Death of Cleopatra.  I am very glad I turned my attention to this.  You can see and hear how much she loved it.

See also here and here.

Antony and Cleopatra live audio

When I wrote about this opera in 2013, this audio was not in YouTube [And now it is gone]. This is the live broadcast of Samuel Barber's Antony and Cleopatra in its only original cast performance with Leontyne Price, Jess Thomas and Justino Diaz. I am putting it here so I will remember to play it.

My attention was drawn to this by an article in the January copy of Gramophone.  The cover article was everyone talking about Schubert's Winterreise, but once inside I found an icons article about Leontyne Price.  The recommended recording of her is Solti's Aida. The article closes like this:

"Price's greatest failure may eventually be remembered as her finest hour:  Antony and Cleopatra.  Before the opera's high-profile, 1966 flop, composer Barber thought it his greatest work -- and wasn't wrong.  The often-named culprit was Franco Zeffirelli, whose extravagant production put Price in costumes that made her resemble a walking sarcofagus.  But how often has the radio relay of the premiere been duly re-examined?  [I complained that it was unavailable in my piece.]  Easily found on YouTube, Antony and Cleopatra is a tough work, with Price playing her character not as a variant on Elizabeth Taylor (whose film version came out the previous year), but as a cool, political strategist.  The lack of a love duet in this first version of the opera (which was later revised) was no oversight.  Barber was creating people, not ornate historical objects.  And if his original version is ever rehabilitated, the intelligence of Leontyne Price's recorded characterisation will likely lead the way."

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P.S.  I am listening to the film and have a few observations.  Cast list from Wikipedia:

Cleopatra	soprano	Leontyne Price
Mark Antony	baritone	Justino Diaz
Octavius Caesar	tenor	Jess Thomas
Enobarbus	bass	Ezio Flagello
Charmian, servant to Cleopatra	mezzo-soprano	Rosalind Elias

This is a spectacular cast, but Barber has violated one of the basic rules of operatic casting by making Mark Antony a baritone.  The male love interest is always a tenor.  This throws the vocal balance off.

Most of what is wrong with this opera can be laid at the feet of Zeffirelli:  It was he who selected text by Shakespeare, making the opera very talky.  Price is the only one in the cast who has performed enough Barber to feel free in her interpretation.  When she isn't singing, we get a lot of growly talking.

I get warm enthusiasm from the audience.

This is the era before surtitles at the opera.  We would be on our own trying to understand the text.  And on top of that it is Shakespeare, a writer of great beauty and poetry, but difficult for modern people to understand.  Perhaps if you had the text in front of you.

I am very sorry to say that I am only enjoying Ms Price. She is such a wonderful singer.  The last act seems to work better than the other parts.  More Leontyne, more action, more tenor.  She loved it.  She has said so.  Her performance is full of love.  Artists with the gift of Ms Price come to us once in an eternity.  This opera, this performance deserved more respect.

We have reached "Give me my robe."  The ending is spectacular.  The audience is very enthusiastic.  Sigh.  Barber gets a lot more applause than Zeffirelli.

Stay for the interview at the end.  She calls it "the event of the century."

The Leontyne Price Requiem

I was raised on this.  Leontyne Price was the greatest Verdi singer that ever lived, and she wails this like no one else.  Watch how relaxed she is in her body when she sings.  The energy all goes into the phrase.  Karajan loved her and said she gave him goosebumps.

But I like to hear new things, new voices, new phrasing.  They are not required to top Ms Price because no one ever will.  I notice the more I blog about music the more love I feel, both for the music and for the artists making it.

The new Barenboim recording has soloists that all come from Germany and Latvia, singers who feel it differently.  I don't require other singer's to top Leontyne Price, but could they please try to wail just a bit now and then.

Footnote.

This is Renata Scotto, and she definitely wails.

Antony and Cleopatra

I became interested when I noticed that there is a complete film of Samuel Barber's opera Antony and Cleopatra on YouTube.   All I have known about it has been rumors of a giant catastrophe.

This opera was composed for the opening of the New Met on September 16, 1966 with Leontyne Price as Cleopatra.  She is known to have loved this work.

According to the Met archives, this opera was given one series of performances the first of which was broadcast.  As a Price fan, I feel it would be wonderful to hear this. There can be no question that the Met has at least an audio recording of the complete opera.   Look in Met on Demand.

Everything was criticized about this opening.  The preparation seems to have been inadequate, resulting in an embarrassing performance by the orchestra.  Carping about the text is a little silly, don't you think?  It is from the Shakespeare play and selected by Franco Zeffirelli.  Operas always have less text than plays.  This performance was pre-supertitles, so perhaps that is the problem.  It isn't one of Shakespeare's best plays but has an outstanding role for a woman.

The complete film on YouTube (pt1, pt2) is of a performance that occurred at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 1991 in a revised version created by Gian Carlo Menotti.  Here is the cast of that performance.

Cleopatra - Catherine Malfitano, soprano
Mark Antony - Richard Cowan, baritone
Octavius Caesar - Jacque Trussel, tenor
Enobarbus - Eric Halfvarson, bass
Charmian - Wendy White, mezzo-soprano
Iras - Nancy Maultsby, mezzo-soprano
A Messenger - Paul Jacobsen, tenor

Conductor - Richard Buckley

I don't mind Malfitano but she is not in the same league with Price, one of the greatest singers of the 20th century.   Everyone sings big.  Richard Cowan is a gorgeous, hunky baritone, and Catherine is beautiful enough.  After all, it is Cleopatra's infinite variety that pleases.  And perhaps that is what is missing--variety.

The work is unrelentingly somber, following slavishly the tenets of the Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk.  Think how much more fun is the ever changing Cleopatra of Giulio Cesare.  I cannot think of an opera more intensely tragic and dark without any hints of self-parody or cynicism.

I am able to imagine a singing actress who could make a success of this.  She would have to be a giant.  People are more inclined to sympathize with women with tuberculosis or dying geishas.  Your knowledge of opera is incomplete without it.

There can never be too much Leontyne

I find this to be astounding.  It is from Gustave Charpentier's Louise. 

Knoxville

This is Samuel Barber's "Knoxville: Summer of 1915" with Leontyne Price singing and Schippers conducting, 1959.  Maybe I could learn to like Barber.

When I hear this, it sounds American to me.  I am after all these years simply awed by her.  I cannot help wondering if this piece is really this magnificent.

If not me then who?

I was watching the Tonys last night.  Tunes from Broadway musicals seem to sound the same as they always have.  In the meanwhile life has gone on.

But that isn't why I'm posting.  Audra McDonald won the Tony for Best Actress in a Musical for Porgy and Bess, and she sang during the broadcast.  There is a problem.  Don't get the wrong idea:  she richly deserves this award.  If you don't like it when I do this sort of thing, please stop reading now.

Porgy and Bess is an opera, and to perform it really requires opera rules, not musical rules.  Musical rules are seven or eight performances a week.  Opera rules are absolutely no more than three performances a week.  Bess is a spinto, someone like Leontyne Price.  Audra McDonald is not.  She is a lyric soprano.  Put as succinctly as I possibly can--her voice is not big enough for what she is doing with it, and she is hurting it.  She may already have passed the point of no return.

I'm sorry, but if not me then who?

Summertime

I've done "Over the rainbow," so why not "Summertime?"  It might be possible to say this is the great American song.  I have picked these versions because each singer transforms it to herself.

Ella Fitzgerald

Norah Jones

Billie Holliday

Janis Joplin

Leontyne Price.  For me Leontyne is definitive.

Cats

 Duetto buffo di due gatti

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

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.

Today is Leontyne Price's Birthday

I want to celebrate the great diva's birthday by posting two pieces I had previously never heard.

This is the sleepwalking scene from Verdi's Macbeth.



And this is an absolutely awesome performance of "Casta diva" from Bellini's Norma.


Best wishes.

Aria di Doretta

She was the best. I'm so glad this recording of Leontyne Price Rediscovered is out.

Well. Someone is "devastated" that I like this. La Rondine is definitely opera semi-seria, as they say in Gramophone. At a party Magda's guest poet has begun a poem, but has no ending. Magda listens to the song and then presents her own version with her own romantic ending. The song is a party piece, an entertainment.

I never critique based on technique, but Price in this piece is displaying her technique at its finest. This is how she sang. The context for this particular performance is an encore for a Carnegie Hall recital. The style is completely suitable for the piece and the context.

Renée, Angela and Kiri all do fine versions.


Renée likes to sing really slow.


It would be a serious challenge to top this version by Angela Gheorghiu.


This version by Kiri is wonderful.

But Leontyne is my girl. It can't be helped: she was my first.

Old and New Leontyne

To blog about opera one must have opinions and state them. Reading old opinions leaves me thinking that I change my mind a lot.

Which is better:


Young Leontyne


or old Leontyne.

The years change her. Her voice is less agile, but her interpretation ripens and takes on depth as she ages. An opinion that feels right in one moment, changes in another.

I wrote in January about making music: The trick is to make the magic with every piece, to find its heart, to reach that perfect intersection of work of art and self, to find the music of your soul.

The old Leontyne Price achieves this here to a level of perfection that may never have been exceeded. It is completely her and completely Verdi all at the same time. Don't ask me how.

It must be mentioned that the second film is Leontyne's farewell to opera. It must be seen for the ovation alone.

Gershwin on YouTube

I generally hesitate to put up things from YouTube because they go away so quickly. I found these, and I hope they stay up long enough for you to hear them.


This is Leontyne Price singing "My Man's Gone Now." She is the point where I come to this. It's Gershwin as Verdi, if you know what I mean. She wails like no one else, and this is an excellent example of Leontyne at her best.


But does that spoil me for Nina Simone singing the same song? This is Gershwin as blues, a different kind of wailing. It works, too.  Singing starts around 3'.


And so does this Audra McDonald version, Gershwin on Broadway, a place where he was most at home.

Three more different versions could hardly be imagined from three more different voices. All three are a treat. It is interesting to ponder how well this piece fits all three styles. It is at once blues, Broadway and opera, convincing in all three genres. In particular it is stunning how well he composed for the operatic voice.

Enjoy.