Brahms Requiem from Zurich

Today I am listening to Ein Deutsches Requiem by Johannes Brahms from Zurich.  Lydia Teuscher, soprano, and Konstantin Shushakov, baritone, are the soloists and Gianandrea Noseda conducts.

The orchestra sits on the stage in much the same arrangement as always.  The chorus is distributed around the house.  The audio is ghastly.  I was once in the greatest ever performance of this work with the San Francisco Symphony with Robert Shaw conducting and Kathleen Battle singing, so I am unimpressed.  That's the worst part of getting most of ones music from the internet--the audio seems to be consistently bad.  Professional recordings do a much better job.

News

There was a hoax that Nicolai Gedda had died.  Apparently he's still alive.

The Life Ball, a benefit for AIDS, took place in Vienna with the theme Gold, so we have Woman in Gold played by Conchita Wurst.  Adele Bloch-Bauer may be gone from Vienna in fact but she remains in spirit.

Anna Netrebko goes every year and performs.

Over the weekend I attended a performance of The Requiem by John Rutter.  This was my first experience of one of his choral works.  He is British but is most popular in America.  For my ears it sounds like Fred Waring with more dissonance and a bigger dynamic range.


This came to me from the Zurich Opera:

Zurich Fidelio on YouTube

Conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt
Directed by Jurgen Flimm

Leonora,Fidelio - Camilla Nylund
Florestan - Jonas Kaufmann
Don Pizarro - Alfred Muff
Rocco - László Polgár
Marzelline - Elizabeth Rae Magnuson
Jaquino - Christoph Strehl

I saw Jonas Kaufmann's Florestan in Zurich quite by accident in 2007. I went to see Semele and stayed for other things. This film is the same production and some of the same cast, but the conductor is Harnoncourt instead of Minkowski, and Rocco is László Polgár instead of Matti Salminen. I like Matti, but there is something special about László.

A video is better for the canon. Harnoncourt accompanies discretely, and microphones handle everything else. Rocco sings about money and pulls out a box of it. Is it better if Marzelline, Rocco and Jaquino are funny or serious? Is it better if Fidelio is dignified or flirtatious? Perhaps it is best to see all sides. Florestan is perfect, of course.

Rocco worries about daring even small things, and Fidelio dares everything. What a hero. I am a complete sucker for this opera. It has the best of all happy endings. Only László Polgár gets flowers, but Harnoncourt gets by far the most applause and is far better than Minkowski.

If you haven't watched this, now may be the time.
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News

Anna Netrebko is being picketed in Zurich where she is singing Anna Bolena.

Playing her husband is Luca Pisaroni who is looking very gangster.  The reviews are good.

Rossini's Otello on DVD

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Conductor: Muhai Tang
Production: Moshe Leiser & Patrice Caurier

Otello: John Osborn, tenor
Desdemona: Cecilia Bartoli, mezzo (originally Isabella Colbran)
Elmiro (Desdemona's father): Peter Kálmán, baritone
Rodrigo (man chosen by Elmiro to marry Desdemona): Javier Camarena, tenor
Jago: Edgardo Rocha, tenor
Emilia (Jago's wife): Liliana Nikiteanu

This DVD of Rossini's Otello (1816) from the Zurich Opera records the same series of performances I reviewed here from a live stream on medici.tv.

The plot of this opera is not the same as Shakespeare or Verdi.  It is clearly an opera seria but shows none of the traditional traits.  Twelve years before La Muette de Portici changed opera forever, the two main characters die.  This was unheard of.  My researches tell me that this opera was provided with an alternate happy ending, but we in the English speaking world would be outraged.  There are four scenes.  All of the action takes place in Venice rather than Cyprus.

Act I
In the Doge's palace Otello is presented to the Doge as the hero of a recent battle where he recovers Cyprus for Venice.  He has already married Desdemona, but this is a secret.  Desdemona's father Elmiro has a candidate to marry her in Rodrigo.  Otello announces that he and Desdemona are already pledged to one another, enraging Elmiro.

In this version Desdemona contributes however innocently to her own doom.  She writes a letter to Otello and encloses a lock of her own hair, but the letter falls into her father's hands.  In order to prevent an argument with Elmiro she tells him the letter is intended for Rodrigo.  Jago tells this version to Otello who believes him.

Act II  Scene 1
We are in Desdemona's room in the palazzo. She tells Rodrigo she is Otello's wife. 

Act II Scene 2
We are in Otello's hangout, a dump with a pool table and refrigerator.  Not only is Otello black, but he is not from Desdemona's social class either.  There are simply too many things against him, hero or not.  There are small issues of continuity in this scene but they shouldn't distract from the incredible singing.  Jago stirs the pot.  The ever hovering Emilia is there to save the situation.  Desdemona has a mad scene here and pours beer over her head.  P.S. I now interpret this as defiance of her father who has come to take her home.

Act III
We are in Desdemona's room in the palazzo.  She writes "Nessun maggior dolore che ricordarsi del tempo felice"  ["Nothing is Sadder than the Memory of Happiness."] on the wall.  She sings a very beautiful rendition of the willow song.  She kisses Emilia because she knows she's doomed.  When Otello arrives, she is angry and defiant with him, very different from Verdi.  Otello kills her then himself.

John Osborn as Otello is in black-face.  Since race is the whole point of the story, this seems right.  Black-face is a comic minstrel tradition only in the United States, so criticizing a French/Swiss production for doing it would seem pretty silly.  It is shocking how much Otello hates Desdemona. 

Cecilia is taking on heavier repertoire these days, and Otello seems on the heavy end of her abilities but still well within her grasp.  She is very intense here.  Someone asked me about her the other day.  She was everywhere for a while and then suddenly she was gone.  I explained that her Columbia Artists Management manager moved back to Europe and she along with him.  I followed her there, at least in spirit, but for most Americans she ceased to exist.

This is an outstanding sample of her work now, her emotional intensity turned to serious drama.  This is bel canto at its most serious extreme.  For people who hate regie it won't work, but I'm not one of them.  Perhaps you aren't either.  Love it along with me.
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Zurich Le Comte Ory

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Timed perfectly to coincide with the opening night of Rossini's Otello in Paris, my DVDs of Le Comte Ory and Otello from Zurich (that is the Opera Awards winning Zurich Opera) have arrived.  Since I saw Otello stream on medici.tv, I am watching Ory first.

Conductor: Muhai Tang
Production: Moshe Leiser & Patrice Caurier (they are growing on me)

Le Comte Ory:  Javier Camerena
La Comtesse Adele:  Cecilia Bartoli
Isolier (Ory's page):  Rebeca Olvera (Adalgisa in Cecilia's Norma at Salzburg)
Ragonde (La Comtesse's companion):  Liliana Nikiteanu
Le Gouverneur (Ory's tutor):  Ugo Guagliardo
Raimbaud (Ory's co-conspirator):  Oliver Widmer

The opera begins with Ory and his assistant Raimbaud brushing their teeth in flip flops and shorts.  Then they go into the trailer and Ory changes into his outfit as a blind hermit who lures young women.  The men of the town are away on crusade and have left a token force at home to guard the women.  Cough, cough.

I notice I said that Florez did not get an aria at the Met, but here Camarena opens the opera with a lovely aria which he sings in his blind hermit outfit.

Cecilia drives up to visit Ory in a blue Peugeot, called an Ente when I lived in Germany.  I have been searching diligently for a photo of Cecilia in her entrance outfit, in vain.  She has her hair back, steel rim glasses, a fancy collar, white pearl earrings, a dark suit, a handbag and a pair of white gloves, in every way the perfect woman of 1959.  I love this.  Rebeca Olvera in her soldier's outfit as Isolier is also adorable.  This is as close as I could get. 



I find the plot much easier to follow here, and less offensive for some reason.  Perhaps hanky panky among the moderns seems better.  It actually seems funny.  Camarena plays everything straight which makes him seem less slimy.  Pardon me.  I hated the Met version, didn't laugh even once.

In the castle the women are holding up a picture of Charles de Gaulle who was president of France from 1959 to 1969.  We may presume that the husbands are off fighting in Algeria.  I was ready to throw this opera out on its ass, but this is charming.  Bartoli and Camarena are marvelous in French, very suave and cute.  Musically it could not be more sweet and graceful.  This is, of course, the new critical edition, and the Met used the old souped up romantic edition.  I am in danger of becoming a convert.  Perhaps this lightness and graceful subtlety is due at least in part to the lighter orchestration obvious here.  The orchestra is La Scintilla.

The staging of the bedroom trio was also very much superior.  It is clear here that Isolier and the Countess are conspiring against Ory.  They exchange clothing, and Isolier places the Countess lovingly on the floor where it is presumed a mere page would lie.  There is no ambiguity about what is going on. 

Everything is staged and sung, and indeed played to perfection.  If you want an Ory, try this one.

And now the prompter has crawled out of his hole in the floor and is receiving a bow.  That generally means his services were needed.  He faces upstage until one of the actors turns him toward the audience.

Try Presto Classical for early releases of classical material.  If you doubted my psychic abilities, please review this post from 2012.
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Misc

Werther is in rehearsal at the Met.  They announce the 2014-15 season tomorrow.

I'm listening to an audience created Alcina recording from Zurich.  Lots of coughing and bad acoustics, but a wonderful performance from everyone.  People send me stuff.

Cecilia's Ory

Some of us keep wishing for a DVD of this, Le Comte Ory in Vienna last year.  We're falling way behind.  I don't need videos of concerts, but a nice Giulio Cesare, or Ory, or Otello would be nice.  This weekend she opens in Zurich in Alcina.  Of course.

Interview with Giovanni Antonini

[I found this interesting interview here in the Aargauer Zeitung.  It corresponds to the opening of Alcina at the Zurich Opera.]

The Milanese Giovanni Antonini became world famous as a flutist and conductor of the Baroque ensemble "Il giardino armonico".  Today he conducts operas in Salzburg and Zurich.  In this interview he talks about divas and his native Italy. by Christian Berzins

Only a few days after the interview at the Opera House Zurich it becomes clear why Giovanni Antonini said three times in the music room in an hour, "There is no right or wrong, it remains a matter of taste." Though convinced that he is doing the "right thing", the Milanese knows that it is not without controversy.

He can live with that because his style of conducting is well received by both opera star Cecilia Bartoli, with whom he works a lot, as well as the Basel Chamber Orchestra, with whom he plays a Beethoven cycle.  And last but not least by most critics.  In the interview he talks enthusiastically about Bartoli, sighingly over his native Italy, and positively about Alexander Pereira's chances in Milan.

Giovanni Antonini, in 2009 you performed Handel's "Alcina" with the German Anja Harteros in Milan, and in ten days with the Italian Cecilia Bartoli in Zurich. What will be different about this for you?

Giovanni Antonini: An opera performance always depends on the artist.  Here in Zurich are both the production as well as the singer quite different. My view of this music, however, remains more or less the same.  Anja Harteros and Cecilia Bartoli are worlds apart.  I've been working a lot lately with Bartoli, in this work one realizes a development, the way to a common language.

Both singers are divas. Is that difficult for the conductor?

To only be a diva is not enough for an opera by Handel. Whether one likes one or the other singer better is one thing.  But Bartoli has studied this musical language for many years, has her own unique way of singing this music.  Thus, this Zurich production is much more interesting for me.  Although the work was beautiful with the Scala orchestra, I met in Zurich an orchestra that is used to playing Baroque operas.  Here the orchestra is playing on gut strings, with baroque bows and baroque brass instruments.  We start on another level!  As with the singers: It's not about good or bad but to understand the language of music.

Who is this singer, this diva?

Cecilia Bartoli embodies a rare combination of skills. Two tones from Bartoli - and you know who sings. It is the mix of technique, originality, uniqueness of her voice - and she has a musical instinct:  If something does not work, then she notices it.  Bartoli is a typical Italian woman, she can formally smell situations.  She manages to sing so that everyone in the audience thinks she'll do it for him alone. She has many admirers, but kindles at the same time discussions about her person.  This is quite normal .

A few evenings after Bartoli, Agneta Eichenholz sings.  Do you change your conducting?

Quite. The conductor and his orchestra have to breathe with the singers . And at a Einspringerin or understudy I need to understand their breathing. But the times are now situations that exist in the theater. It exerts an opera over many weeks, and on opening night you have to re-adjust to the situation. Suddenly something happened : A change of pace , a forgotten word , something falls down ! Since the conductor must be ready. There are singers who are completely detached from the orchestra : "Follow me , I am the diva."  The Bartoli is the opposite: She's a diva who practices, experiments, and discusses a lot with the conductor.

You quite often work with singers.   Do you love them?

I love singers who want to work together to evolve and have a vision of their role.  I do not like simply to accompany a singer.  But I respect every singer because singing is something quite different to master from an instrument like a violin.  A singer is naked on stage.  How badly we sometimes judge the voices and hit the people!  While talking about voices we have to be careful not to destroy the people.

You have not only conducted Handel with Cecilia Bartoli, but Vincenzo Bellini's "Norma", a major work of the 19th Century.  And now you present a Beethoven cycle with the Basel Chamber Orchestra.  Is this a normal step for the baroque specialist Antonini?

Each was an adventure.  There are standards on how to conduct Bellini's music.  But this tradition, I do not know, so we said:  let's see what is really in this score, we let go of everything that Maria Callas had shown us!  My musical roots are in the 18th Century, I drew this Bellini closer to Mozart than to Verdi.  So I went also at the Beethoven symphonies .

Handel, Beethoven, Bellini - now follow Verdi and Puccini?

I'm not sure if the world of opera should be my center.  My nature corresponds to the more symphonic and my flute playing with chamber orchestra.  There are ideas, projects, but better not to make any greater steps than the leg allows, as we Italians say. The 18th Century remains my world.  I have conducted the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and other world-famous orchestras , but when I conduct Il Giardino Armonico, the Basel Chamber Orchestra, the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg or a comparable orchestra, I meet a familiar community that is trusts me and is congenial.  Also here in Zurich it seems to me that it's on the musical and human plateau.

You, the Milanese, since 2009 have directed no more operas in Milan or anywhere else in Italy, the "Land of Music," but trade it for headlines in Salzburg.  Is not that strange ?

Italy is now a very strange land (hesitates).  I told you how I want to work - the emphasis is on "work".  That's no longer possible in Italy today.

There are so many great Italian musicians! Do men gather together for anything to happen in Italy? Why is there no Baroque Festival in Florence in the historical halls - where the opera had its origins?

The politics has not yet understood that the cultural offering can make a major contribution to the economic development of a country.  Salzburg is for example a small town, but the international success of the festival is a benefit for the whole of Austria, culturally and economically. In Italy there are many talented, creative people with great ideas, who call festivals to life.  But they are not supported, which makes it impossible for them to plan long term.  Sitting together is not an Italian strength. The sense of the Country or the sense of community can be seen, despite unification in the 19 Century less and less. We let Pompeii disintegrate, we do not care. It has so many other works of art ... Soon one has some less ( sighs) ... Nevertheless, I love this country .

At La Scala there is now the ex - "Zuricher", the Austrian Alexander Pereira. Will this go well?

I think so, he knows the Italians.  Pereira will understand the system.  In Milan a lot is expected from him, but also there is a lot of confidence in him.

Giovanni Antonini was born in 1965 in Milan.  While still a student the flutist founded the specialist ensemble Il Giardino Armonico, with whom he performed all over the world and he leads alone since 1989.  The encounter with Cecilia Bartoli was 2000 when the famous Vivaldi album came out. He has conducted, among others, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich. His recording of the complete Beethoven symphonies with the Basel Chamber Orchestra is nearing completion. Giovanni Antonini conducts at the Zurich Opera House on 26 January Handel's "Alcina".

[Dr B.  I like very much at the beginning where the question of right and wrong is discussed.  He says it's a matter of taste.  Whether or not something is correct means nothing to me.  All I care about is does it live in the soul of the artist?  In Antonini's case that seems to be true.]

 

Königskinder

This is such an unbearably sad opera.

Humperdinck's Königskinder is a fairy tale opera, and fairy tales don't usually have the happy endings of those we love today.  Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty all find their princes.  We love Hansel and Gretel.  We love to see the witch pushed into the oven and come out a cookie.  We love to see the children come back to life and dance around.  We would not love it if the citizens of a local town came in and destroyed everything.

Witch:  Liliana Nikiteanu
Goose-girl:  Isabel Rey
King's Son:  Jonas Kaufmann
Fiddler:  Oliver Widmer

Conductor:  Ingo Metzmacher

One set is a room full of plant stands with cutouts of geese to represent the witch's home.  The King's son comes and sees the Goose-girl and immediately falls in love with her.  He gives her the crown.  She looks around for somewhere to put it and chooses the prompter's box.

In another scene the community is sitting on benches that look like a cross between a school dining room and a fast food restaurant.  The townspeople are so unpleasant and hateful.  They are told that at a precise moment the King will enter the town.  Then at that exact moment the Goose-girl comes in wearing the crown, and they laugh at her and tear the place up.  Only a young girl and the fiddler know that they were truly the King and Queen.

This is like politics.  If the savior came, would we scorn him?  Oh.  Sorry.  We did.  I digress. 

There is a long introduction to the third act, and the action resumes in the same destroyed room with the young girl still sitting in her place.  Snow comes in through the broken windows.  The fiddler is now blind, and the witch is dead.  The children and fiddler go out to look for the King and Queen.

When everyone has gone, the King and Queen climb in through one of the broken windows.  He carries her and calls her light as a feather.  How many tenors could do this?  They are lost and starving.  He cannot find the way back to his kingdom.

I have always thought of Engelbert Humperdinck as the closest of Wagner's followers.  The technique is similar, the harmony and flow of the scenes.  But the emotional content is entirely different.  He does not want the heavy growl of pomposity that Wagner loved, preferring a much lighter sweetness. 

Spoiler alert:  the King sells his crown for a piece of bread that the witch poisoned.  Sigh.  The music is all very sweet.

They shout for Jonas.  He looks remarkably young in this film, clean shaven, unlike the picture on the cover.  Without the facial hair he looks about 18.

Short post script:  this opera had its premier at the Metropolitan Opera with Geraldine Farrar as the Goose-girl.  She trained the shown flock of geese for her performances.

 
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Nina

I have been threatening for years to review all of Cecilia Bartoli's releases. I still might do this, but today I felt a need to see something that is completely the opposite of the recent Otello.  Cecilia at her most physically dynamic has to be Nina, o sia la pazza per amore (2002) by Giovanni Paisiello.  What a mess she is in this, with scraggly hair and an over-sized coat.

Nina is hard to categorize.  For one thing there is spoken dialogue, which as you know never happens in Italian opera, either seria or buffa.  The cast is chosen for their ability to speak convincingly in Italian.  It's most like an opera comique, I suppose, with lots of simple songs and arias, and a few recitativo accompagnato.  Nina is roughly contemporary with Don Giovanni.

The pastore (Jonas Kaufmann before he became famous) sings a song for Nina and then suggests perhaps she should sing something.   She responds with "Ah, lo previdi", recitative and "Ah, t'invola agl'occhi miei", aria, K272, a concert aria by Mozart. As a rage aria, it seems to fit well into the plot.  She stands formally and lets it rip.  Maybe if she writhed around on the floor during this part, too, we would accept it more easily.

One alternately laughs and cries.  One isn't sure which is more appropriate.  She is obviously enjoying herself, and is definitely quite pazza--jumping, running, flopping down on the floor or on the strange object on one side of the stage, alternately crying, smiling, frowning, laughing or perhaps temporarily sane.  It is all a wonderful pleasure to watch.

Cecilia's sister, Federica Bartoli, is in the cast.  She is one of the women's chorus and occasionally speaks a few lines.  She is the one Cecilia knocks to the floor in Act I and who combs Cecilia's hair in act II.

My other favorite cast member is László Polgár as Nina's father.  He's so wonderfully sad and somber.

Lindoro comes back and there is a happy ending where Nina tries to undress him.  Nina will always be pazza, but the mad ones are best.  Bartoli goes on being mad to the end.  In the bows she eats the bouquet again.

Cecilia does everything to excess, an approach that I highly recommend.  Adam Fischer conducts.

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Otello ossia il Moro di Venezia

The streamed version of Rossini's Otello was both unusual and pleasing.  This opera was produced at the San Francisco Opera only once-- in 1994--with Chris Merritt, Bruce Ford and Cecilia Gasdia.  I remember only the Willow Song.

Since my research on Rossini opera seria a few years ago, I am very much aware that the Rossini gimmick accelerando music usually appears only in comedies, but in Otello it makes frequent appearances, including the beginning of the overture.  We feel on familiar ground.

The casting of the characters is quite unusual by modern standards.  Six of the characters are tenors, just as in Armida the following year, one is a bass and both women are mezzo sopranos.  This isn't Shakespeare--Desdemona's father is an important character, for instance--and Rossini doesn't hesitate to expand the female roles.  However, he does not expand them into a love duet between Desdemona and Otello, which changes the emotional dynamic of the whole opera.  The time of happiness is already past.

Our Rossini tenors, mainly Brownlee and Florez, are chosen for comedy and have relatively light voices.  The tenors appearing in Zurich are more along the lines of Chris Merritt and Rockwell Blake, robust and very dramatic.  I especially liked John Osborn as Otello in a natural wig, Javier Camarena as Rodrigo, and Edgardo Rocha as Iago.  There are some wonderful tenor duets here.  The miking is a bit heavy, so it is difficult to tell how they would sound in the house.




The production is 21st century minimalism--dark clothes, spare sets.  The only visual hint that we might be in Venice is the giant glass chandelier hanging in the first scene.  Cecilia wore black or white.  Liliana Nikiteanu as Emilia wore casual clothes and behaved in a completely casual way.  She exists only for Desdemona, who kisses her at the end.  Everything else is somber in the extreme. This opera is about racism and sexual cruelty. 

I have seen Cecilia Bartoli act in many different operas, and each time her intense physicality dominated the character.  We could hardly have known her here.  Her body is stiff and straight, and except for pouring a bottle of beer over her own head, her movements are all quite constrained.  Her face is stiff and full of sadness.  We know we are in a tragedy which darkens and deepens as the opera progresses.  This darkness carries into the "Willow Song"--the greatest version ever, topping all of her former performances.  After all, this is its true context, and the somberness adds to the intensity.  We got to see her smile only in the bows at the end.  I was very moved.

Otello kills himself and the others kick his body.  There isn't nearly enough Rossini opera seria in the opera world today.  Muhai Tang conducted.


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Visualize...

Today is the last performance in Zurich of Rossini's Le Comte Ory with Cecilia Bartoli as the Countess. I could not make it due to health problems. So I want you to help me Visualize a DVD for Le comte Ory, Zurich version. This is the version with the new critical edition of the score.

(This idea came from seeing a bumper sticker that said, "Visualize yourself using your turn signal."  This in turn is a parody of the classic Berkeley bumper sticker, "Visualize world peace.")

Interview with Thomas Hampson

THE INTERVIEW
Thomas Hampson

Gustav Mahler is a priority. The range of issues that Thomas Hampson touched on in conversation with our colleague Dr. Thomas Baltensweiler reaches from the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie to Verdi plans. Excerpts from the interview.

2010 marks the 150th Anniversary of the birth of Gustav Mahler, in 2011 follows the 100th anniversary of his death. You have made this the occasion for a new recording of "Des Knaben Wunderhorn," the cycle you have already recorded with Geoffrey Parsons on CD. Why now again?

With Geoffrey Parsons I had recorded the world premiere of the piano version. That was in 1993. The orchestral version I've never recorded commercially. For the Mahler year I wanted to do something special. This has brought me to the idea of recording the cycle with the Vienna Virtuosi, with whom I had already been on tour. The Vienna Virtuosi are a chamber ensemble without a conductor. Mahler wrote, "Des Knaben Wunderhorn" should be played in a "chamber sound." Certainly, such a "chamber sound" is not dependent on the number of instrumentalists, and a large orchestra can create intimacy. The name probably means above all that the instruments are as important as what the singer sings. That does not mean that a chamber orchestra should play the music, especially a contemporary chamber orchestra that is different from one of Mahler’s time. With the Vienna Virtuosi I have – in order to come to this particular project - experimented, how many musicians a recording of this cycle really needs. We have adhered closely to Mahler's musical instrument list and we dealt strongly with the particular iconographic significance of the instruments, such as the harp, which refers to the afterlife. I have produced the album myself and given the license over to Deutsche Grammophon.

Your song recordings are also often unconventional in the choice of program, I think for example of your album "I Hear America Singing". How would you describe your approach in practice in the compilation of a program?

The selection of songs that I want to sing from the many that exist is purely subjective. In the American songs project I focused on American and European composers that have set American poetry to music or have been Americans. I have created a network that shows how a nascent American culture has unfolded in stages. The aim was to tell something about America. To seek the American Schubert would certainly have failed; I tried to capture the spirit of various decades, rather than to look through the eyes of a single composer.

In Hamburg, in a large-scale cooperation between tour operators and orchestras 2010/2011 Mahler's complete works are to be performed. It is marketed under the label "Elbe Philharmonic Hall,” a building that is still not completed. They will interpret in this context the complete Mahler Lieder. How did this commitment happen?

With the Intendant Christoph Lieben-Seutter I share a long-standing friendship. I have already experienced "Mahler residences" elsewhere, as in Vienna, and the mid-1990s I sang in Amsterdam every Mahler song. Certainly behind the concept of "artist in residence” stands a commercial interest, because you can put together an interesting "series." Hamburg is one of those: Here you can hear all the songs with piano and most with orchestra, and this is very enlightening.

You are also still active on the operatic stage, currently your debut in Zurich's "I Masnadieri" stands on the program, an early masterpiece by Verdi with music that seems to be elemental in its power but in contrast to the subtlety of the art song. What attracts you to such a role?

When you talk about Thomas Hampson, one can say nothing more than a lyric baritone with dramatic abilities. Purely technically I need with such a role to pay close attention to myself. But song and opera are not so close to each other. One can indeed focus on one of the two, but if you sing both, you become better. The song is not a specialist sanctuary, and the idea that one speaks a song with certain sounds does not correspond to my idea of singing.

You have recently taken up Scarpia in your repertoire, there the orchestra brings out the heavy artillery!

Yes, but with Scarpia I would always think what kind of house will I sing the part in. I love the character of Scarpia. His intelligence and sophistication, with its concomitant malignancy, which is never vulgar, is an acting and vocal challenge. In a singing career like mine often after a “heavy” role comes again “light,” and after light again heavier. So for example, after my first Posa [Rodrigo in Don Carlo?] I embodied again the "Barbiere -Figaro, who I respect very much not only for his comedy, but also his wisdom. It would be very appealing to me to sing again the barber.

Which brings us to your opera plans.


Next season is the new Iago in "Otello" at the Zurich Opera House. I have performed in the last 26 years, each season in Zurich, where I now have an apartment again. I was nowhere else as regularly heard over such a long period of time. I have also sung in this house many of my premiere roles. Now I'm looking forward to another role debut - my first Iago.

[This is translated from the online version of Opernglas.]

Clari

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This DVD of Halévy's Clari (1828) comes with something I've never associated with opera before:  a comic book.  This is apparently essential to the production which is called a photo-novel.  Another first for me is an opera plot about internet dating.  The comic book skips over some parts of the story.  We'll see.

It starts off with Oliver Widmer cursing out the orchestra.  This is good.

Cecilia Bartoli's attraction to Clari is based on the fact that the opera was written for Maria Malibran and forms part of the Maria project.  As with most opera lovers, I am only familiar with La Juive of Halévy's works, and was unprepared for the fully bel canto style of the opera.

Rather like Pinkerton, the hero declares that the demands of honor mean nothing to him.  Hmmm.

Cecilia pops out of a cake.  You are wondering, of course, how do they work the pink gorilla into the plot?  I'm not sure I should tell.

The comic book that comes with Clari tells us that we are "in a beautiful but poor country far away," a country that looks a lot like Switzerland, where the production takes place.

Clari with her new lover whom she met on the internet and who does not offer to marry her is reminded of home, has a nervous breakdown and ends up in the hospital.  They do a fascinating job of integrating the "Willow Song" from Rossini's Otello into the second act.  Clari, in despair, sees a hypodermic, shoots herself up with perhaps morphine, and sings the aria while on an extended high, thus turning the aria into a mad scene.  This is apparently what Malibran sang in this same place in the opera.
 
Papa sits back at home watching football on tv with his pet pig and complaining loudly.  First Clari and then her Duke, very well sung by John Osborn, show up at the old farm house and resolve the problem with the help of a suitcase full of money for papa.  Another aria, this time by Halévy himself, is inserted for Cecilia. The score contained only the words.

Let's be clear: this opera would not be a suitable vehicle for either Maria Malibran or Cecilia Bartoli without these two aria additions. It is, perhaps, not ideal to be reminded here of what true genius actually sounds like, but both arias are suitable to their contexts. Something that cannot be said for the Mozart that appeared suddenly in the middle of Nina.

The opera ends with a stage full of lovely cows.  I am almost tempted to call it the original verismo opera.  It is a special event for a special person.  She stands at the end next to Oliver holding her roses and smiling.   The pictures will be hard to forget.  Perhaps it is love that makes it work.
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IL BASSO LASZLO POLGAR E' MORTO OGGI.

IL BASSO LASZLO POLGAR E' MORTO OGGI, ALL'ETA' DI 64 ANNI, ALL'OSPEDALE DI ZURIGO. This says that the bass Laszlo Polgar is dead today, at 64 years in the hospital in Zurich.  I guess this happened yesterday and was unexpected.  He was a man with a beautiful voice and a wonderful aura. He was a member of the ensemble of the Zurich Opera.

Liliana Nikiteanu

In videos and on visits to Zurich I have heard the very fine mezzo soprano Liliana Nikiteanu. Here she is in Figaro. She has the fortune / misfortune to work in the same house as Cecilia. It would be nice to see her step out of Bartoli's shadow.

Arabella

Arabella soprano Renee Fleming
Zdenka, her sister soprano Julia Kleiter 


Mandryka, a Croatian landowner baritone Morten Frank Larsen

After hearing Renée Fleming sing the ending to Capriccio, I thought it might be time to listen to my DVD of Arabella from the Zürich Opera. I don't have a lot of Arabellas to draw on for comparison.

The plot is a little thin. A young woman first coming of age during that fabulous German excuse for endless parties--Fasching--must commit tonight to someone she will marry in order to save her family from financial ruin. She will do her duty but still longs for the man of her dreams who will sweep her off her feet. He shows up, they get together, etc.

There is a somewhat amusing subplot. The mezzo in drag is actually in drag in the story. This has to be some kind of opera joke put in to confuse regular opera goers. She is in love with her friend Matteo who loves her sister Arabella. The subplot has a happy ending, too.

The production is a typical Zurich minimalist design. Simple modern clothing with not much in the way of set. I would think the locals would be tiring of this style by now.

Renée is divine as Arabella, but the musical preparation of the rest of the cast is disappointing. No one but Renée comes close to getting it. It's basically two operas--when Renée is singing and when she isn't. Someone seems to have created the impression that singing Strauss is nothing more than pronouncing the words and hitting the correct notes. It is so far from the correct style for Strauss it's embarrassing. They do excellent Handel in Zurich and a pretty nice Carmen, but this misses.

Morten Frank Larsen as the man of her dreams just made me wish for Jonas Kaufmann. He looked beautiful but sounded wooden and unpleasant. They should have done better by Renée.

Strauss is all in the phrasing. All. No phrasing, no music.
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And this curious picture from Zurich

There isn't exactly a rule that says that outdoor furniture isn't to look like indoor furniture, but....

Rinaldo

Photo caption left to right: Ruben Drole, Liliana Nikiteanu, Malin Hartelius, Juliette Galstian and Ann Helen Moen.

How I love this Eurotrash Handel--especially the kind they do at the Zurich Opera! Our war isn't between Christians and Saracens--it's between two large corporations, one headed by the heroic CEO Rinaldo and the other by the evil sorceress Armida.

One especially nice thing is the fact that there are no countertenors--just lovely girls having fun in their drag outfits--sometimes in business suits and sometimes in urban guerilla outfits.

There is ballet work but no dancing. It's amazing how much more I like ballet without the dancing. There is an escalator which doesn't move, but the ballet go up and down on it like it did, creating the illusion of an escalator. There is kissing--anyone kisses anyone. There is pantomime kicking in usually imaginary balls.

Ruben Drole, baritone, the one lone male, is Argante, Armida's lover / flunky--we're not sure which. Or perhaps both.

All of this works because of the fabulous, gorgeous, bitchy, glorious Malin Hartelius as Armida. The singing was incredible, starting from the top with Juliette Galstian as Rinaldo and Ann Helen Moen as his girlfriend Almireno. I also like Liliana Nikiteanu who was having a lot of fun with her part.


I loved it.

Here is the official trailer.

In the past I have bitched about La Scintilla, the natural instruments orchestra at the Zurich Opera. The first time I heard them was in Giulio Cesare a few years ago, and I found them seriously out of tune and inaccurate. Things have improved a lot. I noticed Ada Pesch went twice around the orchestra helping some players tune their instruments.

In Rinaldo there was a lovely aria where a flute imitates a bird that was quite charming on the soprano recorder.