Stemple method

I arrived early, I usually do, and sat in the lobby of the theater listening to the ticket seller and house manager talking about voice problems. They trashed surgery, citing Julie Andrews and Elton John as victims.

I explained that in the middle of my voice is a dead note. I can sing above it and below it, but not across it.

The house manager explained the Stemple method to me. With your lips almost closed, almost a hum, you sing one note very softly with a bit of buzz on your lips, and hold it as long as you can. Then you do it again. In a few weeks you will be good as new. I'll have to try it.

Jacques Brel

You will be pleased to hear that Jacques Brel is alive and well and living in New York. I heard there were Klimts to see for a brief time only, and off I went to the Big Apple. I had already booked before I realized I was going to NY on 9/11.

I arrived on a Monday so the pickings of shows were slim. I chose Jacques Brel..., only he's supposed to be living in Paris. Only he's dead. Since 1979. I was familiar only with the "Sons of" song, a song about children growing up and going off to war. "Sons of tycoons, sons from the farms, All of the children run from your arms." I don't know why I know this. If anyone has a clue, please tell me.

His songs are all very serious, full of ironic twists, and are about the human condition--that we are brief, fragile and unaware. He is the Sartre of song composers. I heard hints of Satie, Piaf and the soundtrack of Amelie. Very French.

The show is four singers in a set rather like a living room, with an accompanying three piece band of piano, bass and drums.

The most difficult part was sung by a standin, Jayne Paterson, who sang in French, English and Flemish. She was fabulous. Natascia Diaz was Timid Frieda who walks around between two suitcases. Most theatrical in his performance style was Robert Cuccioli--really more of an actor than a singer.

I liked it a lot--more than the over-amplified distortion of most shows.

Divas and Scholars

I bought a book called Divas and Scholars by Philip Gossett, which is about the relationship between opera performance and musicology. That is, after all, the purpose of musicology--to prepare authentic scores for performance. I am very much aware of this from following Cecilia's career all these years. She has an intimate relationship to musicology, has become a musicologist herself ultimately. Reading the book reminds me of how far I am from the life of a real musician.

He writes about her, about her performances at the Met, in particular La Cenerentola and Le Nozze di Figaro. He discusses the scandal of her changing the arias in Figaro, calling it no scandal, merely the disaffection of the stage director. The changes were changes done by Mozart in actual performances he was involved with, and not invented by Cecilia. Unlike them, she knew these performance changes existed and thought she would make a better impression in the other arias. This story still shows up in the newspaper as though it were something disgusting. What's disgusting is the fact that they keep carping about it. She was charming.

Divas and Scholars is a sprawling discussion of musicological issues in the performance of Italian opera, specifically Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti and Verdi. He casually tosses off information about where the autograph scores are and which ones are lost.

This is all fascinating stuff. He writes about the recovered scores for Verdi's Stiffelo and Rossini's Il Viaggio a Reimes, among others.

His treatment of the original instruments issue is excellent. Sometimes the footnotes are more interesting than the text. I know I have been carping about natural French horns, especially when played by La Scintilla. Valved horns were first used in Halevy's La Juive in 1835, which puts Weber's Der Freischuetz, 1821, clearly in the natural horn category. A natural horn player must make all the transitions from note to note with his lips, and when there is no overtone for the composed note, or even more important, when the required overtone is out of tune, as is frequently the case, the natural horn player must stop the note with his hands to get the right note to play. Stopping is done by pushing the hand that is in the bell of the horn even further in, changing the pitch and also the color of the note. The use of natural horns in the Zurich Der Freischuetz changed the hunting horn melodies to the point that they were unrecognizable. The valved horn player just pushes a key, and uses his hand only for color or muting.

My son the horn player could probably fill me in on this, but for me the reasons for using natural horns instead of valved horns is pretty iffy. The valves achieve equal temperment painlessly, which means the use of natural horns is just to avoid equal temperment. I personally like equal temperment just fine, which leaves me wondering what use a natural horn is. I dont have to explain this, do I? Equal temperment means all the semitones are exactly the same size, a situation achieved by slightly modifying the exact pitch of every note in the scale. Pianos are tuned to equal temperment, violins are not.

Modern horns, trumpets, flutes, clarinets, etc. all tuned in equal temperment are what make possible the constant modulation in the orchestra made popular by Wagner. Getting these distorted pitches of equal temperment requires a lot of extra keys on the woodwinds, but for brasses the three valves are sufficient. Older woodwinds were simpler, warmer, but good only for keys close to the key they are tuned to. The arguement for the use of older woodwinds is a better one than the arguement for horns, in my opinion.

Berlioz' book on orchestration is fun to read, and he cites it here and there. In fact, anything by Berlioz is fun to read. Berlioz was a fabulous writer. He writes fondly about the serpent, a pecular looking instrument that twisted high in the air. It looked and worked like a woodwind but had a brass mouthpiece.

As usual, I digress. Gossett points out that standardization of instrumentation in an orchestra is relatively recent, and certainly didn't extend back as far as Rossini. Every town potentially had its own set of instruments which the score had to be adapted to suit. His point is that the published score should show the original notes, however strange they might be, and let the modern interpreter make whatever changes are needed to fit modern instruments. There is some fun discussion of possible tunings for the string bass.

If this bores you to tears, you would not enjoy Gossett's book, though there are some cute anecdotes. He tells how he crashed into a complete Ring cycle in Bayreuth in 1960 and saw Nilsson for nothing.

It is interesting to read how the published score often differs from the autograph. The current trend is to go back to the original. I know this is the case with composers who were completely recomposed, specifically Mussorgsky and Janáček whose works are now presented in much more authentic versions. He is making a different point. Publishers often assumed a godlike authority, and made the music what they thought it should be. He wants to undo all that.

For me it's very interesting. Perhaps you would like it, too.

New World

It seemed like a big change to hear that David Gockley set up a screen in the Civic Center Plaza in San Francisco and 8000 people came to see free live opera.

Now Peter Gelb, the new manager at the Metropolitan, has made this all seem small potatoes. Gockley only needed to string cables across the street some way, but Gelb is proposing an entire network of movie theaters around the country to show operas at the same time they are playing on the stage in New York. Propriatary internet networking is probably the mechanism. Companies don't own actual network hardware any more, but have developed methods to transfer private data over the standard public internet. It's faster and cheaper.

Gockley's idea didn't require permission from the unions because the 8000 people didn't pay to sit on the grass. For the first time ever the musicians union has decided to forego up front fees and collect based on ticket sales. This was the crucial bit that made this idea possible.

That means these six operas will be filmed. This is an exciting change. Let's hope the ticket prices in the movie theaters are cheaper than real opera tickets.

The vast library of audio broadcast performances from the Metropolitan is also being made available for streaming over the internet. This is all mind-boggling. The new electronic world has come to opera.

Porgy and Bess

My local library has a copy of the 1993 film of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, based on the Glyndebourne production, the same cast as the CD recommended by Anthony Tommasini. Why buy a CD when you can see this marvelous film?

The casting is outstanding. Only two of the voices are dubbed: Harolyn Blackwell as Clara and Bruce Hubbard as Jake, characters who sing the important arias "Summertime," that most beautiful of lullabies sung very sweetly here, and "A woman is a sometime thing," also sung to Clara's baby boy. The other parts are played by the singers, and all appear exactly as you would wish. Damon Evans is a wonderfully slimy Sportin Life. Cynthia Clarey as Serena sings the marvelously operatic "My man gone now." Crown played by Gregg Baker is appropriately sexually powerful and irresistable. Cyntha Haymon's Bess is beautiful enough to be fought over and sings very lyrically.

But this is Willard White's Porgy and Bess. Why call it anything else? His Porgy is monumental. He stands with the use of canes, making him powerful and anything but pathetic. Willard White is one of the great contemporary operatic baritones, with a beautiful voice and deep musical understanding. His performance changed my feeling about the opera completely. I liked a strong Porgy.

The details of this production are awesome: the woman smoking a corn cob pipe, everyone dressing up for the church picnic, e.g. The sense of faithful realism that pervades this film is rare in any medium, unheard of in opera.

Porgy and Bess is the iconic American opera, entirely unlike anything before or since, with the most American of stories and the most American music. In the triumvirate of theater--singing--music it is outstanding in all three. How did a pop composer like Gershwin write so well for operatic voices? P&B is a true opera.

Perhaps it took the English theater to make this opera really work. I've never seen it so well done as here. It is simply beautiful.
#ad

Rusalka

This should come as no surprise, but productions from Paris seem to focus on sex. That's fine for Alcina with Renée Fleming, Susan Graham and Natalie Dessay, since that's what Alcina is about--sex, not love. Men enchanted in various stages of undress seems quite sensible as well as entertaining. Incidentally, the cast of the House of Opera nude man Alcina is the same as the CD recommended in the New York Times Essential Library--Opera book. The singing on the video is excellent.

This DVD of Dvorak's Rusalka is also from Paris, and recasts the fairy tale into sexual terms. Instead of nude men, we have beds in every scene. As a water sprite Rusalka, it seems, doesn't long for the Prince so much as his bedroom, seen perched at the top of the set.

When the rival appears, the Prince alternates between two identical bedrooms. The story isn't very attractive when told this way. It effectively showcases Renée Fleming in her favorite role.
#ad

Movie musicals

AFI top 25 movie musicals:

1 SINGIN' IN THE RAIN 1952 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (Kelly, Reynolds) *
2 WEST SIDE STORY 1961 United Artists *
3 WIZARD OF OZ, THE 1939 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (Garland) *
4 SOUND OF MUSIC, THE 1965 Twentieth Century-Fox (Andrews) *
5 CABARET 1972 Allied Artists (Minnelli, Grey) *
6 MARY POPPINS 1964 Disney (Andrews, van Dyke) *
7 STAR IS BORN, A 1954 Warner Bros. (Garland) *
8 MY FAIR LADY 1964 Warner Bros. (Hepburn, Harrison) *
9 AMERICAN IN PARIS, AN 1951 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (Kelly, Caron) *
10 MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS 1944 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (Garland) *
11 KING AND I, THE 1956 Twentieth Century-Fox (Brynner, Kerr) *
12 CHICAGO 2002 Miramax (Zellweger, Zeta-Jones) *
13 42ND STREET 1933 Warner Bros. (Baxter, Daniels) *
14 ALL THAT JAZZ 1979 Twentieth Century-Fox, Columbia (Schneider) *
15 TOP HAT 1935 RKO (Astaire, Rogers) *
16 FUNNY GIRL 1968 Columbia (Streisand, Sharif) *
17 BAND WAGON, THE 1953 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (Astaire, Charisse)
18 YANKEE DOODLE DANDY 1942 Warner Bros. (Cagney) *
19 ON THE TOWN 1949 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (Kelly, Sinatra)
20 GREASE 1978 Paramount (Travlota, Newton-John)
21 SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS 1954 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (Powell, Keel) *
22 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST 1991 Disney (cartoon)
23 GUYS AND DOLLS 1955 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (Brando, Simmons) *
24 SHOW BOAT 1936 Universal (Dunne) *
25 MOULIN ROUGE! 2001 Twentieth Century Fox (Kidman, McGregor) *

Marni Nixon must be proud! She is in numbers 2, 8 and 11. Judy Garland appeared in 3, 7 and 10. There's a bit too much Gene Kelly for me (1, 9, 19) and not enough Fred Astaire (15 and 17). Julie Andrews is in 4 and 6.  Howard Keel is in 24 and 21.  Ginger Rogers is in 15 and 13.

Chicago is a little high on the list for me. Rent is missing, as are Oklahoma, Carousel, Hello Dolly and South Pacific. Moulin Rouge? Give me a break.

Music

From the Philadelphia Enquirer:

Q: If sets don't reflect settings, how do we know where we are?

A: Listen to the music. Ultra-realistic Franco Zeffirelli productions made the music dispensable. Now that the productions don't explain the opera, the composer does. Again.

DrB: That was what I liked best about the Salzburg Traviata DVD--the clarity and abstraction of the production brought the music into sharp focus for me. I loved the music of Verdi's La Traviata as I had not done before.

Victoria

She isn’t at all the sort of dark voice that would usually attract me. She is the violin and not the cello. She is the flute and not the French horn. She was nice looking without being beautiful, a good but certainly not great actress. Why her?

She is simply music. Of all the singers on record she is perhaps the most truly musical, the most deeply immersed in each composition she sings. She plays her voice like a great violinist, with nothing in the elegant way she uses her beautiful voice that would interrupt the flow of the phrase. In any language she is first herself, her glorious musical self, with the perfect emotion, the perfect musical expression for each piece. She is truly the fabulous Victoria de los Angeles.

Essential Library of Opera

I bought a new book: The New York Times Essential Library, Opera by Anthony Tommasini, 2004. This book is an excellent introduction to opera, and consists of his own selection of 100 operas with recommendations for best recordings.

It is a personal selection that omits Gounod’s Faust, Leoncavallo’s I pagliacci, Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana, Massanet’s Manon, Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera and Wagner’s Lohengrin, all operas in my A list. He is trying for something broader, a more inclusive idea of what makes opera than a list based on popularity alone.

The oddest inclusion for me is Ferruccio Busoni’s Doktor Faust. I promise you, no list of mine will include this opera. He isn’t even particularly flattering about the work, calling it “jumbled” and says, “So freely did he borrow music from earlier compositions that you could say that the score to Doktor Faust was assembled as much as it was composed.” So why put it in a selection of 100 operas and leave out Barber’s Vanessa, for instance? He recommends Kent Nagano’s recording, the one I own. For me it was money wasted.

Judith Weir’s A Night at the Chinese Opera is included, a charming work I saw in London. So is my beloved Messaien’s Saint Francis, also in a recommended recording by Kent Nagano. I've seen him conduct this with the Berkeley Symphony, and it was excellent.

A small number of singers come with photographs.

Placido Domingo is on the cover and with Andrea Chénier.

Marilyn Horne is in the front in her costume for Semiramide. He calls her "miraculous" in this opera, a view in which I heartily concur.

Joan Sutherland is costumed for I Puritani.

He shows Jon Vickers dressed for Les Troyens, a recording he recommends.

There is a beautiful picture of Peter Pears, recommended for everything by Benjamin Britten and especially for Death in Venice.

Luciano Pavarotti for his beloved L’elisir d’amore.

A young Mirella Freni is shown with Romeo and Juliet.

Carlo Bergonzi and Renata Tebaldi are both pictured. These two recorded often together and are favorites of Tommasini, recommended for La Boheme and Madama Butterfly.

Callas is dressed for Tosca.

Leontyne Price is costumed for Aida, and there are wonderful anecdotes describing her relationship with the role.

There is a wonderful photo of Birgit Nilsson as Brünnhilde.
Kirsten Flagstad is not shown in a photograph, but her Isolde is remembered.

He likes Cecilia’s Cenerentola. So do I. I can’t think of an opera I have listened to more than this one. The operas from the Grammaphone 100 greatest recordings list are all here. He does not trash consensus, even going so far as to recommend all three of Maria Callas’ Norma recordings.

His ideas are closer to us than the traditional volumes of opera plots. I think it’s worth buying and reading. Compared to the Rough Guide to Opera it's pretty light weight, maybe even trivial.

P.S. I continue to prefer to view and recommend DVD’s of operas rather than recordings. Selections of great recordings of standard repertoire generally feature artists now dead, while the vast majority of opera DVD’s are still relatively recent and feature artists you might hope to actually see in performance. Opera is theater and should be experienced that way. That said, many of these recommended recordings are so beautiful, so beyond the ordinary range of contemporary performance that they really should not be missed.