Lorraine sings Dido

Lorraine Hunt Lieberson has left this to comfort us.  This is the first time I have felt a singer truly understood this aria.

One of the Great Things

Perhaps I should start a great things series.  It doesn't get better than this.

Giulio Cesare alla PS

Forgive me.  I approach everything from the perspective of obsession and am watching Peter Sellars' take on Handel's Giulio Cesare from 1993.  There is no indication of a live audience.  Jeffrey Gall is Caesar, my fourth countertenor experience in this role.  He has a brighter sound than Scholl, Daniels or Fagioli.  His coloratura is impressive.  One of the firsts for me here is Lorraine Hunt en travisti as Sesto.  I would not have gone in quest of Peter Sellars if it weren't for the hidden treasures of Lorraine.  This is filmed somewhere in Europe.


Tolomeo, Cleopatra's brother, is sung by Drew Minter, Cleopatra is Susan Larson and Cornelia is Mary Westbrook-Geha.  My point of departure for the role of Cleopatra is Cecilia Bartoli, and Susan Larson sounds nothing like her.  I don't know how much of this I can watch.

I am mentally reviewing the versions of this opera that I have seen and can only conclude that it is regarded as a comedy.  In Zurich the Egyptians wear striped boxers.  In Salzburg Cleopatra rides a rocket.  At the Met we have wandered into a Bollywood movie.  It's hard to take any of these seriously.

This one is also not serious.  Caesar is president of the United States, apparently, due to seal of the President on the podium.  Tolomeo most resembles a punk teenager.  We have begun to notice that Peter Sellars' version of Regietheater moves every opera to somewhere American.  This is what he knows, so this is what he does.  The first person who appears representing Tolomeo and delivering Pompey's head is dressed a bit like Fidel Castro.  This at least is serious.

Caesar and Ptolemy are negotiating, and after a while Caesar starts throwing cups and felt tipped markers at Ptolemy.  Caesar has a lot more pens in his pockets and he throws them.  Then he opens the water bottles, spills water all around, and exits smiling.  He's always smiling.  Sellars seems to have anticipated our current administration.

By now I am used to the musical quality of the Bartoli GC.  Perhaps I am spoiled forever.

In Act II both Ptolemy and Achilla are harassing Cornelia.  They are laying it on pretty heavy.  So far she just frowns.  Ptolemy wraps her in a garden hose.  Sesto plans to accompany his mother into Ptolemy's harem where he can exact his revenge.  I am watching this for curiosity.  It isn't redeeming itself.  Only Lorraine is outstanding.  She waves her machine gun around menacingly.

They go with comedy all the way to the end.
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Peter Sellars --- Extended

Over the life of this blog I have been trying to figure out the director Peter Sellars, and after all these years I want to try to do a full essay on him.  It turns out there are two of him:  Peter Sellars the opera director and Peter Sellars the librettist.  He has directed other things not opera, but this discussion will limit itself to Peter Sellars in the classical music world.  He is America's foremost representative of the Regietheater movement.

To briefly review, the principles of Regietheater involve:

• moving the action to another time period, including costumes which usually look modern
• more sex than strictly necessary
• creating an interpretation that emphasizes modern day issues.

Peter Sellars the Regisseur of other people's operas

I am attempting to reconstruct my own experience of his work and find this hard going for the operas staged before the beginning of this blog.  I now believe that my experience of his stagings began with the 1987 PBS presentation of John Adams' Nixon in China with Alice Goodman as the librettist.  I especially enjoyed the comic Henry Kissinger.  Who knew Nixon was funny?  I liked Madame Mao's aria, the play within a play and the portrayal of Pat Nixon.  I enjoyed its proximity to real life.  The time frame is not changed because it's already modern.   (film)

It might be important to remember that as an undergraduate he did a puppet version of The Ring.

My next experience with the work of Peter Sellars the opera director probably dated from his 1990 filming of the Mozart-Da Ponte trilogy which played on PBS.  In the Sellars' Don Giovanni we are among the American urban lower class in the 60s.  People shoot drugs and sniff cocaine.  You may and probably should view this here, here, and here.  I should probably watch it again myself for Lorraine Hunt Lieberson as Donna Elvira if nothing else.  Leporello and the Don are played by twin brothers.  At the time it was very shocking and caused an enormous stink.  But isn't that the problem with Don Giovanni?  That it just isn't shocking enough.  The other two operas in the trilogy were not nearly this shocking.  

So I did.  You should too.  Lorraine is fabulous, but what else could she be?  The filming is a bit heavy on the close ups but otherwise completely brilliant.  When these guys act like they will kill one another, you believe them.  Every scene rings true.  How often does that happen?  There is a lot of kissing and snuggling but no fake sex.  The hero strips down to his briefs a couple of times.  At the end, after the Don has descended to hell, it appears that the sun has begun to rise.  This is actually more timely today than when it was originally done.  (film)

I attended a performance of Adams' The Death of Klinghoffer, libretto by Alice Goodman at San Francisco Opera in 1992, shortly after its premier.  When the opera was withdrawn from the HD season in 2014 for political reasons, I discussed it in the blog.  It was trying to be even handed about a terrorist attack, which I found difficult.  One side are terrorists, the other tourists.  What's even about that?  The direction by Sellars was not remarkable. (live)

L'Amour de Loin ("Love from afar,") (2000) Music by Kaija Saariaho, seen later in 2005 on a DVD from Finland, was also directed by Sellars with a kind of mysterious simplicity.  I simply wanted to see and hear this work.  A shallow pond of water representing the Mediterranean Sea covered the stage, and on each side was a winding metal staircase.  On the left staircase was Dawn Upshaw in France, and on the right was Gerald Finley in Lebanon.  A messenger in a boat brings their communications back and forth.  I found everything about this fascinating, including the music and the fabulous singing stars.  The story comes from the mythical past, but everything here seems modern.  It was a deep and wonderful experience.  (film)

In 2011 the Metropolitan Opera revived Adams' Nixon in China and kept the original director, Peter Sellars, making his Met debut.  This new Met version ended with enhancements bordering on pornography.  I didn't see the point.  The Met also used some of the same singers who were then older.  I still prefer the Houston version.  (HD)

My next encounter with Sellars wearing only his director hat was Vivaldi's Griselda at Santa Fe.  I also attended his lecture here and agreed with him that Griselda is a terrible opera.  The most notable thing here was that the always smiling Isabel Leonard never smiled once.  They look rather like people from the 60s.  I don't know if this opera could be saved.  How about staging it like Platée with a man in the title character?  (live)

After all these years of hearing about but always missing it, I came upon Peter Sellars direction of  Bach's Saint Matthew Passion from Berlin.  A religious work became a ritual, an aspect of religion that cannot be disparaged, at least not by me.  I was deeply moved by this enhancement to a long loved work.  The wonderful musical performance also helped.  A glimmer of light began to appear. (film)

Then in 2017 came Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito from Salzburg.  This story about ancient Rome became a modern racial encounter.  The encounter was emphasized through the use of cast members who belonged to the suggested races.  Sellars added some other music (which he also did in Griselda) from a mass by Mozart to enhance the sad parts.  I found this entire production profoundly beautiful.  Two home runs in a row.  How was I to explain this?  It made me think that he is actually capable of the truly profound and should work harder.  As usual, the costumes are modern.  I saw as never before that this was an opera about forgiveness and reconciliation.  It may possibly be Mozart's greatest opera.  (film)

I followed my curiosity over to an easily available film of Handel's Theodora from Glyndebourne in 1996.  Lorraine Hunt Lieberson and Dawn Upshaw are also in this.  It turned out to be a much earlier example of his true gift:  the portrayal of large, significant issues.  This is an oratorio with a story rather than an opera, and consists of a lot of very beautiful music suitably staged in modern settings.  I recommend it.  (film)

Can I write about stagings I have not seen?  After his wildly popular, at least in Europe, Mozart-da Ponte trilogy, he staged Saint François d'Assise by Olivier Messiaen at Salzburg in 1992.  There's a film about this but not of it.  He says,  "Anything that finally matters doesn't appear in the plot synopsis.  So this history of staging the plot synopsis is one of the things that has made opera so intellectually inert and dull and expressively limited.  And opera becomes incredibly expressive just as soon as you forget about the story and try and stage the music."  I would go with a statement that said:  what does this opera express?  Stage that.

Don Giovanni expresses exploitative sexuality; Nixon is just people out of their context; Klinghoffer expresses that terrorists are people, too; L'Amour is about love conquering all; Griselda is about men treating women badly, or maybe it's just about singing; Matthew Passion is about the life and death of Jesus; Clemenza is about forgiveness; Theodora is about the life and death of a Christian; Saint François is basically the same with vastly more complex music.  Clearly the staging works best where the message is clearest.  You may feel free to hate my simplified summaries.

This vision statement I quoted above may explain everything.  I think if you are staging an existing opera, you need to focus on enhancing its musical expression within the delineated characters.  But generally when you are composing an opera, the libretto is usually slightly ahead of the music.  There must be a vision of the opera before the composer can write it.  That's my idea anyway.

Score card:

Great things:  Mozart La Clemenza di Tito, Handel Theodora, Bach Matthew Passion, Iolanta / Perséphone
Hits:  Saariaho L'Amour de Loin, Mozart Don Giovanni, Nixon (1st)
So so: Mozart Figaro, Giulio Cesare
Misses:Vivaldi Griselda, Adams The Death of Klinghoffer, Nixon (2nd)

This is an excellent record for any director.  I will add to this list where I can.  Next is Giulio Cesare.  Clearly he follows the first rule of Regietheater:  everyone will wear post WWII clothing.  Stuff you can buy in a department store or thrift store.  They will look like people you know.  This is key.

There is one thing that he does that I can think of no one else who does.  Claus Guth took all the spoken dialog out of Fidelio and replaced it with groans and sound effects, but he left the music alone.  We are living in the era of reconstructing old scores to accurately represent their eras and original condition.  Doctor Gossett called this a critical edition.  Peter Sellars consistently changes the score, sometimes adding from somewhere else, sometimes cutting sections, in order to reflect his vision.  Academicians will object to this, especially the adding part.

Peter Sellars the Librettist and regisseur of his own operas

Which brings us to the other Peter Sellars, the librettist.  After the stink that surrounded The Death of Klinghoffer, Alice Goodman abandoned her career as an opera librettist, or it abandoned her.  Her libretto for Nixon in China was very successful, but no one was willing to forgive Klinghoffer.  She began working on Doctor Atomic with Adams, but withdrew after a while.  Adams was used to working with Peter Sellars by then, and he took over the task of librettist.

As a librettist, it is not possible to add or subtract from the score or the original theatrical concept because one is the person creating it.  One may do what one wishes.

The John Adams/Peter Sellars operas are El Nino (2000), Doctor Atomic (2005), and Girls of the Golden West (2017).

I began blogging about his direction with the premier of John Adams' Doctor Atomic at the San Francisco Opera in 2005 where Sellars wore both librettist and director hats.  Some of the work was done by Alice Goodman, but she bailed somewhere around mid way.  Perhaps around the beginning of Act II.  Added to this trio of collaborators was the boss Pamela Rosenberg who thought of it as a Faust play.  I think it is this mish mash of influences that muddies the plot here.

Other people's ideas about Faust seem to be different from my own.  It's true that Faust was an intellectual, a scientist, but his soul was clearly not threatened by this fact.  It was threatened by the fact that in old age he began to regret wasting his life with serious efforts instead of having fun.  The devil immediately pops in to offer other activities that might attract his attention.  In short:  science is the good path, seducing women and debauchery is the path to hell.  Please, Faust, take one of these and love it.  Wearing lab coats is irrelevant.  But this is a side issue.  Apparently Rosenberg did not win the argument.

For me the production was a bomb hanging in the air, a bomb which looked nothing like the photos of the bombs that were dropped on Japan.  Contrary to my comments, the bomb used in the production looked just like the experimental version of the bomb that was exploded in New Mexico.  I ranted, "I attended Peter Sellars' lecture before Doctor Atomic where he enthusiastically raved over what a great opera it is and what a great production he had invented. I don't care if the opera sells when you're talking about it. I don't care if part of it came from John Donne. I only care if it plays while I'm watching it. Do the characters matter? Does the drama draw me in?  Or is it all BS?"  I got carried away.   (live)

In the first half people came out and spoke to the air.  The first part of the opera was OK if somewhat static, but the entire second half was empty.  We waited and waited, and there wasn’t even an explosion at the end.  This was supposed to represent time moving slower and faster, but remember I am the person who never reads the program before.  If that's what it means, show me.

My next encounter was with a film of another John Adams work:  El Nino (2000), also with Lorraine Hunt Lieberson and Dawn Upshaw, which I reviewed in 2006.  I couldn't stand how the film switched constantly from filming the performers and showing still pictures of other people.  I rejected it for its film direction, but it is also a work where Peter Sellars wears both librettist and director hats.  I really wanted to see this but could not stand looking at it.  A live performance would probably have been easier to deal with.  Even a split screen would have been better.  I offer no opinion of the work itself. (film)

Doctor Atomic was significantly changed when it played at the Metropolitan Opera in 2008.  This version was directed by Penny Woodcock.  The empty act II was filled out with action.  So here Sellars wore only the librettist hat.  I am still unclear about the meaning of this opera.  What does it mean that a man reads John Donne who searches for God while simultaneously developing the largest bomb ever seen on earth, a bomb destined to kill thousands in Japan.  This is the story I wanted to see and did not.  I wanted to see the conflict of good and evil.

This season I saw in San Francisco Girls of the Golden West .  The text is yet again assembled around a structure provided by letters of Louise Clappe with the pen name Dame Shirley.  There are many other sources.  I was again missing a sense of clear narrative, though this doesn't seem to have been fatal.  Dame Shirley is telling stories about her experiences during the gold rush, which is a kind of narrative.

If there are other operas by John Adams on librettos by Peter Sellars, I have not seen or reviewed them.  I didn't get the impression from anything I have read or heard about these works that Peter Sellars actually wrote any of the words sung from the stage.  I believe he only selects and assembles them.  So if you get the impression that no one is speaking to anyone else, it's because the words came from something written down by people not named Peter Sellars and never attempts to simulate conversation.  Glass successfully writes operas in Sanskrit and ancient Egyptian and still does not make you feel lost without a sense of narrative.

What does this opera express?  Then include structures and text that accomplish that.

You may also have noticed that the narrative never quite gels.  An Oratorio like Messiah can be assembled, but no staging is implied.  Assembling a text in English, generally the language of the audience, made up of literary texts never intended to represent conversation or action is a problem.  No amount of moving people around is going to make up for the fact that the words were never intended to be theater.  For me this requires that the action be absolutely clear.

Clearly Mr. Sellars' operas haven't given me the sense of genius that his work on other people's operas have.
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Theodora from Glyndebourne

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Conductor:  William Christie
Director:  Peter Sellars

Theodora, a Christian of noble birth, soprano: Dawn Upshaw
Didymus, a Roman Officer, converted by and in love with Theodora, originally alto castrato, here countertenor:  David Daniels
Septimius, Roman soldier and friend to Didymus, tenor:  Richard Croft
Valens, President of Antioch, bass:  Frode Olsen
Irene, a Christian and friend of Theodora, mezzo-soprano:  Lorraine Hunt
Messenger, tenor:  Michael Hart-Davis

Someone said that Peter Sellars' production of Handel's Theodora was even better than his La Clemenza di Tito, so I thought I would give it a try.  He seems best in things that have religious themes.  This is one of Handel's oratorios and is in English.  This film is from 1996.

Hmmm.  There are soldiers and they wear American flags on their sleeves.  It's politics and religion rolled into one.  Christians are ordered to bow to idols to show loyalty to Caesar.  This is a  joy.  And then there is Lorraine Hunt.  It would be hard to ask for more.  He stages the first Christian scene like a prayer meeting, except women speak.  Lorraine sings of prosperity and people put money on the floor.  Many are in white and kneel on the floor to pray.  The chorus always present in any Handel oratorio represents the congregation.


Soldiers enter and warn the Christians that they are tempting fate.  "Dread the fruits of Christian folly."  This is not the usual oratorio libretto.   I understand it was not popular at its premier.  Oratorios usually draw their plots from either scripture or mythology.  Theodora is an historical Christian martyr.

I begin to grasp Peter Sellars' world view.  He sometimes strays too far from it.  He is THE outstanding American leader in the world of Regietheater, and this is one of his greatest works.  Among his productions, this one makes no alterations to the original text.

Apparently, honoring the Emperor consists of getting falling down drunk. So far I don't find this staging to be at all a distortion of the original.  People just look like people today instead of ancient Romans.  If this bothers you, you should get over it.

Christians are serious people while pagans are drunks seems to be the general idea.  One remembers this primarily for the work of Lorraine Hunt, but I am enjoying also Dawn Upshaw and David Daniels.  Theodora is in prison and Didymus visits her.  She asks him to kill her, but instead they exchange clothing and she escapes.

This is an extraordinary piece, deeply emotional.  One needs exposure to a wider range of Handel's works.  Here we still hear the Italian coloratura along side the more English lyricism and Handel's great choral music.

The picture above depicts the application of the death penalty.  The ending is sad and strange.  Christians wave their arms rather more than is strictly tolerable.   My experience of the Baroque does not include anything like this.  I came for Peter Sellars and Lorraine Hunt but ended with the joy of some of the most beautiful music of Handel I have ever heard.
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Lorraine

Lorraine

Around the internet today are people who are remembering the tenth anniversary of the death of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. The actual date isn't until July 3.  The anniversary today is for her last performance.  Here is something I haven't heard before.



She was a transcendent performer who cannot be forgotten.

Lorraine sings Bach

I should be getting close to owning everything available for Lorraine Hunt Lieberson.  My first blog post was a death announcement here.

Then I checked the DVD for John Adams' El Nino out from the library.  She is in that, and I wanted to see it, but I couldn't stand the constant cutting back and forth between the stage and a film.  I couldn't follow either one of them.  Maybe audio would work better for me.

I started to become a fan with Neruda Songs, a wonderful set of songs by her husband Peter Lieberson.

Then I began some serious collecting with Lorraine at Wigmore, and her Handel arias, both fine recordings.  Though there is an audio version of Marc-Antoine Charpentier's Médée, recently rereleased, I wanted to see the action and bought a DVD of it from House of Opera.  Either version is highly recommended, but some people cannot stand House of Opera.  This was followed by her Dido with the Philharmonia Baroque.  I also own the recital at Ravinia which was nominated for a Grammy in 2010.  It includes a different recording of this gorgeous Brahms.  I highly approve.




Lorraine has her own very personal style of sliding, the mark of the great artist.  Don't let your teachers fool you into thinking you shouldn't slide.  All the great ones do it.

This brings us back to Bach.  If you can bear it, there is a YouTube video of the aria "Ich habe genug" with Lorraine in her hospital gown.  I cannot.  This is Peter Sellars' fault.  The quality of the CD is much better.

I am one of the ones who hear the soul in her singing.  For the Baroque it can be necessary to feel across extremely long phrases.  Phrasing in large part consists of deciding where is the beginning, where the middle, and where the end of the phrase.  Each short set of notes must be felt to move forward or hold back.  When the phrase is extremely long, the singer must feel it all the way to the end, even if a breath is necessary.

Surely they will run out soon.
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Lorraine

While waiting for the second half at Temple Emanu-El a couple of weeks ago, we (bloggers and critics) began to discuss Lorraine Hunt Lieberson and how much we loved her. I said it was because she played the viola. She sang as though she were playing the viola. The critic mentioned the variety of her colors.

Here is a bit of her Handel.


Of course, it is not a good thing to be at one singer's recital and talking the whole time about another singer.

Neruda #5

If you never hear it anywhere else, here is Lorraine Hunt Lieberson singing #5 of the Neruda Songs.

My love, if I die and you don't--, My love, if you die and I don't--, let's not give grief an even greater field. No expanse is greater than where we live. Dust in the wheat, sand in the deserts, time, wandering water, the vague wind swept us on like sailing seeds. We might not have found one another in time. This meadow where we find ourselves. O little infinity! we give it back. But love, this love has not ended, just as it never had a birth, it has no death: it is like a long river, only changing lands, and changing lips.

Berkeley Symphony

The Berkeley Symphony, which performed last night in Zellerbach, has a new music director since Kent Nagano stepped down from the position in 2009 after 31 years.  Her name is Joana Carneiro and she comes to Berkeley from Lisbon by way of Brazil by way of Paris....  The list gets a little long.  She likes to talk and speaks virtually unaccented Berkeley English.  Welcome.

She talked for a while about Enrico Chapela, a composer from Mexico City whose piece Private Alleles was debuted last night.  The title of the piece refers to genetic studies of the native populations of Mexico.  To quote Wikipedia "His style amalgamates elements of Jazz, Rock and the Latin-American tradition with classical serialist techniques, which often are used in a playful manner."  Playful serialism.  Hmmm.  For my ears he sounds post modern.  It was ok but not at all memorable.  He came up for a bow.

Then she talked about Lorraine Hunt Lieberson whose presence was invoked with a gesture toward the viola section where at one time she was principal viola.  Many still in the orchestra were her friends.  This was part of the introduction to Neruda Songs by Peter Lieberson, a set of five love songs that was written both to and for his wife Lorraine.  If you have not heard them in her voice, you should change that immediately.

It was brave of mezzo Rachel Calloway to take them on in this place where Lorraine is still so well remembered.  I could not help comparing. 

Rachel Calloway was also the soloist in de Falla's El amor brujo suite.  Both of these pieces are too low for Rachel's voice, especially El amor brujo where she actually struggled to make the right effect.

The Berkeley Symphony is showing the effects of having a conductor who can spend sufficient time with them to bring out their more wonderful qualities.  It was well programmed, well conducted and well played.

I must

Please forgive me for I must post this. It is a more modern sensibility for the "Urlicht." It is the divine and immortal Lorraine Hunt Lieberson with MTT and the San Francisco Symphony. There are performances one wishes one had attended.

"O red rose! Here we are in greatest need! Here we are in greatest pain! O were I better in heaven! There I came upon a broad, fair path, then there came a little angel who would turn me away. Ah, no, I would not be turned away. I am of God, and will return to God, for our loving God will give me light for seeing, which will light me into that eternal, blissful life!"

No offense to Maureen.

20 Mezzos

Gramophone hasn't done one, but so what? This list in chronological order comes mostly from my iPod.

Giulietta Simionato	Italian	(1910-2010)
Kathleen Ferrier	English	(1912-1953)
Christa Ludwig	German	(1928-2021)
Janet Baker	English	(1933-)
Marilyn Horne	American	(1934-)
Fiorenza Cossotto	Italian	(1935-)
Teresa Berganza	Spanish	(1935-)
Tatiana Troyanos	American	(1938-1993)
Brigitte Fassbaender	German	(1939-)
Agnes Baltsa	Greek	(1944-)
Frederica von Stade	American	(1945-)
Eva Podleś	Polish	(1952-)
Dolora Zajick	American	(1952-)
Lorraine Hunt Lieberson	American	(1954-2006)
Susan Graham	American	(1960-)
Olga Borodina	Russian	(1963-)
Denyce Graves	American	(1964-)
Cecilia Bartoli	Italian	(1966-)
Joyce DiDonato	American	(1969-)
Vivica Genaux	American	(1970-)
Magdalena Kožená	Czech	(1973-)
Elīna Garanča	Latvian	(1976-)

I just posted this and now see that Giulietta Simionato has died. I added 2 more to make the list 22. I am going to annotate and rank the list. There are a lot of American mezzos here, but that is due to my own personal bias.

Shirley Verrett
Elena Obraztsova

The Passionate Americans

The center of classical music may lie elsewhere, but we Americans bring our own particular passion to the field. This list is not inclusive but reflects my own taste.

There is Lorraine Hunt Lieberson whose Bach I wish to specially honor.



I hear so much more here than with the other mezzo who sings Bach. I like and occasionally love Lorraine's Handel, but nothing surpasses her Bach. In YouTube there is a recording of Ich Habe Genug, her last appearance, where she sings in her hospital gown. "I have enough. I am ready to depart." But I simply could not bear it. And besides this is perfection.

We are apparently into Bach this morning, so here are two more passionate Americans: Kathleen Battle and Wynton Marsalis doing an aria from Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen.



No one brings more of her heart to music than Kathleen.

This list would not be complete without the very passionate Jessye Norman, here in Wagner's Ring.



No one soared higher than Jessye.

New to my list is the very passionate Joyce DiDonato, here in Handel.



You can absolutely not beat this. She joins the long list of passionate American singers. If I have omitted your favorite, then make your own list.

Someone is Calling Me

Ghastly

Occasionally there is something interesting to read in Gramophone magazine, like this review of Sento Brillar, a Handel collection by Vesselina Kasarova. "Volatile or excitable dramatic situations suit Kasarova's bulging mannerisms better than the slower, gentler arias, which are spoilt by excessive rubato and lumpy articulation (eg the ghastliest 'Scherza Infida' on record)." It's always fun to read stuff like this. On my iPod I have two recordings of "Scherza Infida," one by Lorraine Hunt Lieberson and the other from Furore with Joyce DiDonato. They are quite different, but both are interesting. Lorraine attacks the aria with great vehemence and focuses on her tone and emotion to make her effects. That is what you want her for. She shines especially in heavier, sadder repertoire. This performance with piano is weighty. Joyce is new for me. There is a bright clarity to her singing that is very attractive. Her tempo is slower, her concept sweeter. I like a singer who can achieve a dark color and bright vowels together. Yes, I know this is too technical. One can't really help hearing how it is done. For me Furore is highly recommended.

Hunt and McGegan

Undoubtedly I was living in the San Francisco Bay Area when Lorraine Hunt Lieberson began her career there and knew nothing about it.

The extensive discography for Nicholas McGegan and the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra includes several recordings by Lorraine, including a lovely version of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas. It's charming and very theatrical. Lorraine ornaments a lot more than Janet Baker.

The other people on the recording don't quite achieve Lorraine's heaven. The sailor and even the following chorus are done with heavy lower class English accents. Cute. Silly. I like the witches. The incredible theatrical viability of this work are everywhere apparent in this recording.
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Toys

I have new toys: an iPod and a digital camera. So I can wander around photographing and listening to Lorraine Hunt Lieberson sing "As with rosy steps of morning" at the same time, producing a puzzling spiritual experience. This tiny camera will make up to 30 minutes of film. I should try to do a pirate film somewhere so I can upload it to YouTube.

I am getting reacquainted with my CD collection, and there is some interesting stuff in here. Lorraine is constantly connecting to the other side, telling us that she will soon leave us. "Deep River," "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen." She speaks to me.

Médée

I bought this DVD of Marc-Antoine Charpentier's Médée from House of Opera because it listed Lorraine Hunt in the cast. When I started to play it, I noticed a couple of things. This isn't a television copy--it's a hidden camera in a nice seat, maybe the front of the boxes or a dark corner in the back of a box. In short illegal. Never mind. One of my favorites, the nude men Alcina, is one of these. This also means there are no subtitles in any language.

I noticed that I was not able to figure out what was going on and tried to find a plot summary somewhere. And I found it in Eyewitness Companions: Opera which tells me this film is of an historic production in Caen, France, in 1993. There is a CD set you can buy from Amazon. Who knew? Besides Lorraine, other members of the cast include Mark Padmore (a very nice high tenor) as Jason, Monique Zanetti, Bernard Delétré, Jean-Marc Salzmann, Noémi Rime and Isabelle Desrochers.

This Charpentier is a contemporary of Lully who was allowed to produce operas only after Lully had died in 1685. Médée is 1693. Modern productions of operas from the middle Baroque are rare.

The production is in Louis XIV costumes, and they all unite to praise the King in the extensive prologue. This scene is staged as a religious ceremony--the first communion of the children, perhaps.

Seventeenth century opera is primarily an entertainment. In France this environment was dominated by Louis XIV who was himself a dancer in his youth. There is a lot of dancing, and it doesn't particularly move the plot forward. There are crowds of dancers and secondary characters that can lead to confusion, as it did in Orfeo in London last year.

Into this mix comes Lorraine Hunt with the wonderful gravity she brings to any music. There can be no question who is most important here. She transforms this entertainment into drama in a performance that made her a star.

You can't help asking yourself: Jason knows Medea is a sorceress with a bad temper. So why is he messing with her? Masculine ego, probably.

Don't run right out and buy this unless you're into middle baroque, or Lorraine. It's awfully long, and the filming is rather bad. I think these operas were intended to end in a blaze of glory, rather like the finale to a Cher show, and modern productions just seem to peter out. It's disappointing.
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iTunes

I have made a folder called Handel Arias in iTunes and put the Handel arias from Cecilia Bartoli's Proibita, Renée Fleming's Handel album and Lorraine Lieberson's Handel album into it. Then I shuffled them. What a treat! These three ladies are the best. Not knowing what comes next improves the pleasure.

I know about Lorraine Hunt Lieberson primarily since her death, but by now I am definitely a fan. She is deep and dark.

It is curious to realize that in this trio Cecilia is on the light end. For me it can never get too dark.