Aida from Salzburg

Conductor: Riccardo Muti
Director:  Shirin Neshat

Aida: Anna Netrebko
Radamès: Francesco Meli
Amneris: Ekaterina Semenchuk
Amonasro: Luca Salsi
Ramfis: Dmitry Belosselskiy
The King: Roberto Tagliavini
A Messenger: Bror Magnus Tødenes
The High Priestess: Benedetta Torre

Verdi's Aida is this year's hit at the Salzburg Festival  I am behind schedule but have managed to find a view of this great occasion:  Aida, Netrebko and Muti collide.

The production by Iranian Sharin Neshat seems to ask the question "What if Ancient Egypt were a modern middle-eastern country?"  I am loving the simple look after too many years of over-detailed productions.  Aida's look for the first half, seen above, doesn't remind me of anything.

I am finding simplicity in the story, too.  Radames is in love with Aida.  Then he goes to the King to offer to lead an army against the Ethopians who are invading.  Aida says wait, that's my father.  This group dress in uniforms with head gear that looks like a fez, more popular in the past.  The king in a gold fez approves, and then Radames goes to the priests for their blessings. King Farouk of Egypt wore something similar:

The priests all look the way priests look in Iran.  They're called Imams, I know.   Amneris tells Radames to return victorious.  Aida sings yes, "return victorious over my father."

Then we go to the chamber of Amneris.  Time has passed, and Radames has gone off to war. At this point guys come out in what look like bull skulls and do the dance normally done by Amneris' attendants.  What is that about?  They are on stage for only a couple of minutes.  Amneris and her women return and they split.  Curious.

There follows a scene between Amneris and Aida when Amneris tricks Aida into revealing she loves Radames.  Amneris reminds Aida that she is only a slave.  Aida prays for the gods to take pity.

So far I like very much the simple clarity of the scenes.  The main characters are clearly delineated and never disappear into the crowd.  I like the way Netrebko is dressed. Radames has returned and is enjoying a triumphal entrance such as he might have expected in Rome.  I am enjoying the division of everyone into the priestly and military/ civilian classes.  One does enjoy clarity. 

Now if one only knew what the guys in bull skulls were for.  They're back.  The stage rotates and we see the African prisoners made up with white lines down their faces.  Radames returns and is given the wreath of triumph, still very much like a Roman triumph, but then why not?  Aida doesn't crack a smile until she sees her father and runs to him.  He is the Ethiopian king but pretends that the king has died.

In the second half Aida has changed her appearance to look more like the other Ethiopians, even including the white line.  On the banks of the Nile she sings of the loss of her country.  Wonderful aria, wonderful rendition.  Father comes in, then Radames.  Aida and Radames plan how they will escape the powerful Amneris.  Radames tells a military secret, Aida's father hears and declares that he is king Amonasro.  Radames realizes he is now a traitor, they start to escape until Amneris enters with her priests.  The plot is all here in these few minutes.  This is a single set production that functions well for the various scenes.  In this opera everyone messes up.

I like very much that the costumes clearly identify the status of each character.  Priests look like priests.  Soldiers look like soldiers.  I have a vague idea of ancient Egyptian clothing, but would not know which people are which.  Ethiopians all have white lines on their foreheads.

Radames says he will not be with Amneris if he can't have Aida.  They are doomed.  I am enjoying this opera a lot more than I usually do.  Ekaterina Semenchuk is excellent.  I sometimes think Amneris is the main character.  She messes up everyone's lives, including her own. Meli does the best I've heard him.

But the fuss is for Netrebko.  The best music is at the end.  O terra addio.    Love to all.

Un Ballo in Maschera on medici.tv

Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera can be viewed on medici.tv, and if you are Amazon Prime, you can watch it on Amazon with no extra charge.  This version is from La Scala with Riccardo Muti, starring Salvatore Licitra and Maria Guleghina.  There is a traditional production with the story very easy to follow.  The singing and conducting are magnificent.

News

This picture of the Music Director of the Chicago Symphony appeared today on Riccardo Muti's Facebook page:

And maybe this would make a good opera blog logo:

This, of course, is Carmen.

Netrebko's Manon Lescaut

I am listening to Anna Netrebko sing Manon Lescaut from Rome, and my sense of it is that she has at last arrived where she should always have been.  Gorgeous.  To achieve magnificence it requires only the perfect tenor.  We can keep Muti.

Verdi from Chicago

The stream of the Verdi Requiem from Chicago was the perfect celebration for the great Verdi's birthday.  I feel like I'm supposed to explain it now when you know that the perfect musical performance cannot be explained.

Kudos to the maestro Riccardo Muti.  The maestro knows his Verdi.  Kudos to the spectacular performance on the bass drum by Cynthia Yeh.  And very special kudos to Tatiana Serjan for the most wailing in Verdi I've seen in many years.  See here, here, and here for previous references to wailing in Verdi.

What set this performance apart from all other Verdi Requiems I have heard was the fluidity of the tempo, the almost constant rubato that permeated all the performances.  It was like hearing the piece for the first time.  There was a sweetness that made the dynamic explosions heard only in this piece all the more surprising.  There was so much to hear.

Everyone was wonderful--too many names to mention.  I only wish I could have been there.  I hope you all had a wonderful Verdi 200.

For Verdi

This is the chorus, orchestra and conductor we heard at Salzburg--Rome Opera and Riccardo Muti.  In the middle of this film Muti makes a short speech about Italy.  Then follows the traditional encore that is always sung in Italy, but not in Salzburg.  Muti turns and conducts the audience. 

Interview with Riccardo Muti

My usual translation from Kurier.

"We are talking with God, thank Verdi"

The star conductor Ricardo about Verdi, wrong notes, Regietheater and the KURIER live stream.

Not only is he one of the greatest conductors of the present, but also one of the leading Verdi experts. Currently Riccardo Muti is rehearsing Verdi's "Messa da Requiem" in Chicago, that will be experienced on the 10th October via live stream on KURIER.at ( see details below). The Neapolitan maestro in conversation.

KURIER: Maestro Muti, your interpretation of the Verdi Requiem is transmitted via live stream.  A concession to the new media ?

Riccardo Muti: Rather a concession to Giuseppe Verdi. We want to reach as many people as possible with this transmission. Everyone should have the opportunity to hear Verdi's wonderful music. It's not about to make Verdi even more popular. This is hardly possible. The point is rather that millions of people around the world feel this music at the same time and through this music are linked to one another.

Do you think that music can unite people ?

We live in a society with so many problems. There are wars, crises,  poverty and misery.  I think music can bring people together, because it is a universal language that everyone can understand. Whether through this something has improved, I do not know.  Maybe it's just a dream. But definitely one that you should dream.  In music it should not go primarily to the personal success of the performer, but to a message of humanity.  If you will, to Verdi's message to mankind. If Herbert von Karajan were still alive, he would, however, certainly be the most fervent ambassador to the new media.

What do you personally associate with Verdi's " Requiem"?

I conducted the requiem for the first time in the 1970s. In a basilica in Florence and at the graves of the Borgias. I'll never forget this. Verdi was a Catholic in a very liberal sense. He speaks here to the basic problems of humanity. We speak, thank Verdi, directly with God.  In the sense: You created me, so save me also.  It is a demanding Requiem, and Verdi leaves us in doubt. But as in all his works, by the way also in the operas, Verdi's gaze is always directed towards the heavens. Although Verdi had doubts about what may be after death.  But he knew that answers to this question are a need of the human soul.  In this respect we take a journey into the heart of our soul.

You grant in your new book "My Verdi" intimate insight into your musical understanding and criticize the present treatment of Verdi ...

We have in the Verdi year 2001 on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of his death missed the opportunity to study it again. Now we have this opportunity.  Because we are often very far away from what Verdi wanted. The performance practice has since made ​​many mistakes. And the audience has become a bit sloppy since.  Everyone is waiting only on high notes, and wanting Verdi to be sung like Puccini.  That is completely wrong. Verdi is a classical composer and stands much closer to Haydn than to Puccini. Nevertheless, one must not play him on original instruments, that would be a sacrilege. But this fact should be borne in mind. And then there are also directors ...

... where you basically stand very skeptically opposite  ...

What some directors do there is a single insult to Verdi. But also an abuse of the singer and an affront to the thinking audience. Unfortunately we have too many of these so-called "clever" directors who even delete roles if they don't like a character, who cannot even study the score, who impose their so-called "ideas" on each work. I refuse to be a part of this.  [Bei so etwas mache ich nicht mit.]

So one should stage Verdi entirely classically?

Beware, one thing must not happen: Verdi did not want any "show business" [in English]. Neither scenically nor with swanky voiced singers. Verdi was a man of the theater, he knew exactly why he wrote the way he did.  Everything is there in the scores.  One needs only to look at them.

Is that one of the reasons why you rarely conduct opera?

As well. But there is another reason. It lies with the houses themselves and their scheduling . When I study a new opera, I need to do this conscientiously, at least a month's time. But this time is rarely given. But I do not accept when singers or conductors arrive a week before the premiere, to then bring in a botched action something on the stage. Unfortunately in this regard the Vienna State Opera also doesn't give me the time required.

You love Vienna ...

Very much so. Vienna is a great city with a very fine and educated audience. And of course there is the city of Vienna Philharmonic.  I love this orchestra.  I have learned so much from the Philharmonic in the course of my life and I'm always happy to come again for concerts.  But as for opera in Vienna or Salzburg, then: You should never say never.

Nabucco in Concert in Salzburg

© Silvia Lelli
E-Mail: silvia@lelliemasotti.com
Corso Genova, 26 I–20123 Milano

Riccardo Muti, Conductor

CAST
Željko Lučić, Nabucco, king of Babylon  (Met's Rigoletto)
Dmitry Belosselskiy, Zaccaria, Jewish high-priest
Anna Pirozzi, Abigaille, Nabucco's daughter
Francesco Meli, Ismaele
Sonia Ganassi, Fenena, Nabucco's daughter
Saverio Fiore, Abdallo
Simge Büyükedes, Anna, Zaccaria's sister
Luca Dall’Amico, Il Gran Sacerdote, high-priest of Baal
Orchestra e Coro del Teatro dell'Opera di Roma

The highlights of the concert included a magnificent "Va Pensiero" by the Rome Opera chorus, an adorable ham-actor performance by the piccolo player with constant rocking and bowing, and an excellent stand-in Abagaille in Anna Pirozzi, although members of my group claim Muti skipped her when shaking the soloists hands.  Lučić must receive a mention.

Now is the time for complaining.  This is early Verdi (1841).  While I admit that Berlioz and Paris Grand Opera had already invented the giant orchestra, and that this is the legitimate orchestration, does it really have to be this loud?  Normally an opera orchestra is in the pit where the sound is muffled.  The first half was especially bad.  I was experiencing ear pain.

This closed our wonderful Salzburg experience.

Muti

I enjoyed very much this article about Riccardo Muti in the New York Times. He was in New York to conduct Verdi's Otello at Carnegie Hall.  I was always told not to sing when conducting, but Muti appears to have another opinion.

It was followed by this review.  I posted the picture because it shows the singers in a curious clump around the maestro.  These are two very different perspectives, but without actually hearing the concert, it's impossible to judge.  Perhaps the singers should be offered the opportunity to hear Muti sing their parts.

News from the New York Times

I read that Riccardo Muti has had a pacemaker installed after falling off the podium during a rehearsal in Chicago.

La Gioiosa is calling

Somewhere in a comment it says that this is "salzburg, mozart-jahr [2006], uchida, muti, bartoli." They are performing "Ch'io mi scordi di te," K 505, the great Mozart concert aria.

My flagging memory tells me that Salzburg wanted a performance of this specific aria and had asked Renée Fleming to sing it. She replied that it did not suit her voice. She offered to sing something else, but the pianist Mitsuko Uchida was the featured soloist.  And thus occurred this performance. Cecilia Bartoli is still my favorite Mozart singer, and she is very much in form here.

Why am I posting this? Because I wish I was going to Zurich for Rossini.

All the performers are very fine.

News

From Alex Ross we know that Hildegard Behrens has died. I think my only live encounter with Frau Behrens was from a front row seat in Davies Symphony Hall when she sang Leonora in a concert version of Fidelio. Ben Heppner was the Florestan and Herbert Blomstedt conducted. Blomstedt's Beethoven was excellent. The entire performance was very moving.

Riccardo Muti will assume leadership of the Rome Opera at the end of 2010. Just what I needed--a new reason to go to Rome.

Anna Netrebko has performed an all Russian recital with Daniel Barenboim in Salzburg to a standing ovation. Europeans don't stand up for everyone the way we do. Anna's Russian work is unexcelled. However, when you call something "The Russian Album" it sort of sounds like you've covered the subject. A Russian recital recording would be wonderful. Maybe they'll do this one so the rest of us can hear it.

In other news Classic FM magazine asks us to believe that of the 100 Best Artists you might want to hear, 5 of them are countertenors. How likely is that?

Center of the Universe

Dr. B: I see Chicago has suddenly become the center of the universe.

Dr. Gosset: I was at Muti's Requiem. It really was extraordinary: the reports are absolutely accurate. Frightening in the moments of high decibel tension, disturbing in the moments of individual angst, lively and dance-like in the Sanctus, and deeply moving in the Agnus Dei. Who could want for anything more? Muti and Obama! What a mix!!!

Paraphrasing Waltraud Meier

I watched on ARTS a short selection from an interview of Waltraud Meier talking about her career as the perpetual Kundry at Bayreuth. She spoke of working the role with James Levine, Riccardo Muti and Daniel Barenboim. "These are three different worlds." Then she asks "what is music?" It is nothing definite. It is life. It is something that changes as life changes. It is personal, individual expression.

That's as close as I can get.

It is vitally important to note that she got this gig by simply calling them up herself and auditioning. She had just finished doing Kundry at another house where she worked with Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, the director and designer.

Muti to Chicago

Riccardo Muti is going to Chicago--see this article in the New York Times. The person responsible for this is someone named Deborah Card who has managed the Chicago Symphony since 2004. I am told that she wanted Muti. This is major coup for her.

Il Trovatore

I was happily reading Divas and Scholars where he tells about the huge scandal at La Scala when Riccardo Muti insisted that the tenor, Salvatore Licitra, not take the interpolated and inauthentic high C at the end of "Di quella pira" in Verdi's Il Trovatore. Wait. Don't I have a Trovatore from House of Opera with Muti conducting and Licitra as Manrico? How interesting!

This is a pretty terrific Trovatore. Besides Muti and Licitra, the cast includes Leo Nucci as di Luna, Barbara Frittoli as Leonora and Violeta Urmana as Azucena. I bought this DVD to hear Licitra, and it's entirely possible that leaving out the high C is what allowed him to sing this role. For me this is a small sacrifice. This opera is treacherously difficult to cast. The whole opera is relentlessly intense, very heavy, and full of dramatic accentuations, but with virtually all of Bellini's coloratura left in. Caruso is supposed to have said, "All it takes to perform Il Trovatore is the four greatest singers in the world."

According to Divas and Scholars, Muti was attempting to recreate Trovatore as Verdi would have done it. If I had a score, I could follow along and see what has changed, but I did manage to notice the absence of anvils in the Anvil Chorus. Not much of anything happens on the off beats.

This is very fine Verdi indeed, something we never seemed to get in San Francisco. Scandal or no, Muti gets the most applause.

P.S. If I give such a high rating to a House of Opera DVD, it's for the musical content, not the quality of the copy. Please beware.

[See Kinderkuchen History 1850-70]

Modern Life

Modern Life allows you to have anything you want. Well, maybe not love, but anything else. For instance, if you can't afford to fly to every interesting opera performance in the world, you can buy a copy from House of Opera. They recently had a sale. $10 is a much more reasonable price for a product of this quality. I bought 7 dvds.

I have bought things from them before. I bought a copy of Cecilia's Il Turco in Italia from them before it came out commercially. These videos are filmed at home off of someones tv set, and they look it. In Il Turco the picture suddenly becomes a test pattern every now and then. It was worth it to see the madness of this production.

I chose to listen first to a performance from La Scala of Verdi's Il Trovatore. In commenting on Corelli I said that no one takes these kinds of risks any more. I'm eating my words again, for I had not seen 35 year old Salvatore Licitra singing Manrico. He is burning down the scenery in "Di quella pira." Was even Corelli this out there? We could tame him, smooth out his rough edges, but would we love him more? The picture is terrible, they film through the pauses, the tabs in the dvd go to just anywhere.

But Muti is conducting. It is a marriage made in heaven.