Manon Lescaut Stream

Conductor.............James Levine
Production............Gian Carlo del Menotti

Manon...................Renata Scotto
Des Grieux...........Plácido Domingo
Lescaut.................Pablo Elvira
Geronte.................Renato Capecchi

Three days ago the Met brought us Massenet's Manon.  Today the Metropolitan Opera streamed Puccini's Manon Lescaut from March 29, 1980.  In the streaming series we have already seen Scotto in La Bohème, 03/15/1977.  In the three years between these broadcasts, she lost weight and looks like we are used to seeing her.  We believe Domingo when he exclaims about her looks.

One cannot help comparing the two operas.  Massenet messes around for quite a while before the train arrives carrying Manon.  Puccini puts the carriage arrival with Manon and the falling in love right at the beginning.  He follows this with a gorgeous tenor aria.  He is the master. 

This opera jumps directly from the escape with Des Grieux to her life in luxury with Geronte.  This Manon is more of a narcissist.  Puccini begins act II with a tremendous aria for the soprano.  This is followed by the madrigal. 

When Cecilia Bartoli recorded the Madrigalist for the Decca recording, of course I bought it.  So this opera plays in my head with Mirella Freni and Luciano Pavarotti.  I love the sound of Pavarotti better than Domingo, but Placido is adorable to watch.

The opera takes place before the French revolution.  Gian Carlo del Monaco is the son of Mario del Monaco and received opera from his father's knee.  He tries to evoke the intended setting, and I find this successful. 

Manon very much wants to have her cake and eat it too.  I always think this opera is much sleazier than the other one, but maybe that's mostly because I've seen Netrebko with all her joie de vivre  in two different productions of the other one.  The music here is gorgeous, but you can't help feeling she gets what she deserves.   Scotto dies in style.

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.

Don't you just love YouTube

This is Renata Scotto in Puccini's Manon Lescaut.

Renata Scotto as DJ

If you click here, you will see a discussion with Renata Scotto on NPR along with a short list of selections of arias by herself, her precursors Maria Callas and Jussi Bjorling, and two modern singers Natalie Dessay and Jonas Kaufmann.

This is oddly timely. Natalie sings the mad scene from Hamlet.

For her selection for Jonas Kaufmann she chooses what must also be my favorite track for him: the Prize Song from Wagner's Die Meistersinger.

The screen lets you explore the vast NPR archive. See it now before the yahoos get to it.

Francesca da Rimini

Once you truly begin to love the opera, you want it like food, but unlike food, there can never be too much opera.

The women’s chorus in the opening of Riccardo Zandonai’s Francesca da Rimini , filmed in 1984, see the supposed bridegroom walking by and sing, “He is the fairest Knight in all the world.” And of course he is.

If I had done my sexiest opera singers twenty years ago, it might have had only one name: Placido Domingo. Was there ever a man more gorgeous than he? No man ever did more to make the plots of operas believable than Placido. When Minnie in The Girl of the Golden West sees him walk into her bar, she just naturally goes mad for him, and we completely believe it. And he sings. Placido sings wonderfully, to be sure, but it is almost superfluous.

The story derives from an anecdote in Dante. The Malatesta family has three sons: Gianciotto (Cornell Macneil), known as the lame, Malatestino (William Lewis), the blind, and Paolo (Placido Domingo), the beautiful. Francesca is chosen as a bride for Gianciotto, and her father knows she would never marry such an ugly, crippled man, so he arranges for her to marry him while Paolo stands in for him. Both of them think at the time of the marriage that they are marrying each other.

This film is a lot of fun. I never found my copy and bought a new one. When the battle comes, Francesca stays and pushes herself to the battlements to stand by Paolo whom she blames for the deception of her marriage. It is to be a trial by arrow. He kills the enemy leader and is saved. At the same time he falls madly in love with Francisca and is lost.

Smaragdi (Isola Jones) is an exotic black woman who appears beautifully posed around the set among Francesca’s women. Finally she sings, and out comes an amazing low voice.

What a perfect part for Renata Scotto! She is everything that Renata Tebaldi was not. This does not mean that she is everything that Tebaldi was, but Francesca is a soul in torment, and we need to see it. With Scotto we see everything. This may be the most real acting I have ever seen in an opera. Her voice still sounds good.

I wrote on my paper, “Holy shit!” This is not proper literary writing. Who can get that soulful look in his eyes half so well as Placido? This is very, very, ... very sexy. I wish I was there to shout with the audience. During the bows after act III Renata hugs Placido and looks up into his eyes with an expression that says, “yes.” It is a perfect moment.

This is not earth shaking music, but it is fun and expressive. I have to admit that I really love this. The production and performances are absolutely first rate.
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3 Singers

I found Classic Arts Showcase early on Saturday morning on a community access cable network. I was immediately treated to 3 singers:

Marlene Dietrich singing “When the World was Young”
Gisela May doing two songs by Kurt Weill
Renata Scotto singing Liszt’s “Angelici Costumi”

I was not familiar with Gisela May but found her fascinating. The internet tells me she was “geboren am 31. Mai 1924,” and was the “star of Bertolt Brecht's East German ‘Berliner Ensemble’ theater.” The internet is so cool.

German is supposed to be spoken with a uvular R made by vibrating the uvula against the tongue, though classical singers are taught not to use it. My Spanish friend Dolores used to joke about it. She could do it but only on the word “Brot,” which she would then demonstrate. I couldn’t do it at all. Gisela May not only does it, she flaunts it. She can sustain it for an amazingly long time and makes it part of her interpretation of the song, especially in “Mackie Messer,” giving the whole thing a growling/purring tiger-like quality entirely compatible with her smoky voice.

The other two women we know very well. Dietrich was seen in a 1972 concert film. She is simply telling you a story about her own life, speaking directly to the audience in a very personal way.

And Renata Scotto is always herself, gesturing more than the other two women and bringing drama into even the smallest piece.