Strauss Lieder

I have long been a fan of Strauss' Lieder, preferring Jessye Norman for these. They came to me by way of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, and are known also in the voice of Renée Fleming. Part of the purpose of this blog--remember it has primarily an inner agenda--is to open up my soul to new insights, new approaches to familiar music as well as the unfamiliar.

So here they are with Jonas Kaufmann, a heldentenor, IMHO. [I can never remember acronyms, but find this one funny.] The sound of his voice is heavenly, and his renditions of these songs come to me as from above. A man singing Strauss. He never becomes sentimental or precious like many a soprano. They are transformed in his voice. I find this recording very beautiful.

In his forties he will become a great Wagnerian. He should begin with Siegmund.
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Blogging

Before I leave this subject forever--no promises--I must say this is the best Bartoli ever. She is simply magnificent.

Maria

It feels like an obsession, especially the parts where Cecilia projects herself into scenes of Malibran. Perhaps I should feel less self-conscious about my own obsessions.

The music that comes down to us from the past has all been passed through a filter--the filter of "good taste." Certain composers and compositions pass the filtering and vast numbers of others are found unworthy and do not. As a result, we come to the music of any era with no idea of what music was heard then. We hear only the mountain peaks and never the foothills or lower ranges.

Cecilia has been trying to single-handedly change all that. She brings us the other Gluck, the one who wasn't reforming anything. She brings us Mozart and his purported enemy, Salieri. She brings operas by Porpora and Haydn. I confess I had never heard any of these works before Cecilia recorded them.

Now she is bringing us an entire era: 1825-36, the world of Maria Malibran. This world is marvelously international and includes both mountains and foothills. Everything she researched did not make the cut of the album. The English song was excluded, but will show up on the concert series. Rossini, Malibran's mentor, is completely unrepresented on the album. It is my understanding that the concert series will include the Malibran version of the aria from La Cenerentola.

The variety of what is included is astounding. We get expert yodeling done in a style to rival Bartoli's other virtuosic singing. We get flamenco. We get full scale Bellini arias in the Malibran versions. We get Mendelssohn. It feels like a whole world.

The whole world was mad for Malibran. She was Madonna, far bigger than any opera star today.

Cecilia has decided to live out her fantasy and recreate the art of Maria Malibran. This is biting off a very big chunk.

She begins with scholarship, finding the music that most closely represents what Malibran actually sang. She recreates the instrumentation of the era--Malibran was just before the major reconstruction of instruments that took place in the nineteenth century.

Bartoli is recreating herself, too. Who but she would even try this? The first thing you're going to notice is the extreme range. Even in her contralto period Cecilia did not growl around in the low range of her voice like this. The most vivid example of this is in the Hummel variations. The other end of her voice is well represented as well.

It is good for Cecilia to have taken on this challenge. She is the sort of artist who needs challenges. She has taken on the recreation of another era and the art of one of the most famous singers of all time. The result is not Malibran, of course, but Bartoli. Long may she reign.

Classification

In the booklet for Maria is this sentence: "So the term mezzo-soprano does not necessarily define the range of a voice, but rather its quality and colour." It is neither of these. Classification is based on tessitura, the preponderance of the notes within the range. Malibran transposed or pieces, entire operas were transposed down for her to put them into the proper tessitura for her voice. She could still add extensions at either end to show off her considerable range. Classification is more for comfort than for sound.

Cecilia Bartoli herself has done the best job ever of convincing us that she may actually be a mezzo after all. Or at least has become one in her maturity. In bringing us history's most famous mezzo in the keys and arrangements designed for her Bartoli shows us how well the pieces fit into and show off her own amazing voice.

But this reminds me of a conversation I had the other day with an old friend from college. In those days we had both studied with Julia who was a tyrant in the studio. We both felt that Julia had misclassified us. Julia would make up her mind quickly and then force the voice into the niche she had chosen. She chose for me to be a contralto and pushed my technique into a low larynx position, removing all intensity from my voice and possibly all high notes as well. My friend said she is a coloratura soprano while Julia thought she was a lyric. We also shared stories about Julia's taste for comparing her students unfavorably to people she liked better.

We talked about Cecilia and how I had become a fanatical follower. We discussed her interpretive freedom. My friend pointed out that we would not have been allowed to do anything like that by our teachers. Julia in particular saw interpretive independence as a personal insult. This is a matter of great importance. Cecilia has been allowed to be herself as few others are.

I'm going to quote myself: "The big event of the general rehearsal [of La Cenerentola in Zurich] happened when you [Cecilia] conducted the conductor, one Adam Fischer, at the beginning of the scene where Cinderella returns home after the ball. It all happened very fast. You were sitting playing solitaire, the music started, and suddenly you were glaring fiercely into the pit with those incredible eyes, making sharp rhythmic pulses with your right hand. Tempo? There are only three chords to set the tempo before Angiolina begins to sing. The orchestra instantly followed you. Was this a long-running disagreement, perhaps, and this your last chance to correct it? Herr Fischer turned to the audience and made apologetic gestures, but I don't think he liked it. I have never seen a singer do this or anything remotely like it. Normally the conductor is God. I admit I felt envy." Clearly there were no hard feelings, since the same Adam Fischer is the conductor on Maria.

Cecilia is not a heavy mezzo, and no attempt has been made to push her voice into that heavy mezzo sound. The fad for heavy technique came after Malibran. If everyone sings in the same relatively light technique, as was the case through Rossini and Bellini, classification is much less important than it became when Verdi and Wagner came on the scene.

The issue of classification becomes critical when trying to create a heavy mezzo like Dolora Zajick or Elīna Garanča. It is the point in history when some voices are given a very heavy technique that classification becomes such a huge issue. The heavier voices can develop more gradually than the lighter ones.

My friend and I also agreed that everyone should sing Mozart. "Mozart is medicine." I was advised by one of my teachers never to sing Mozart. The mind boggles. Perhaps we should all be less eager to classify and categorize young singers. Cecilia herself may be the living proof of this.

We also talked about how much more opportunity for young singers there is now than when we were young. There are Santa Fe and Glimmerglass for two things.

Classification by tessitura explains why Anna Netrebko is a soprano. Classification by color does not.

So it seems we are still arguing. I think she has always wanted to argue with me, at times fiercely, and I have found this confusing and frightening. I continue to insist that we must meet first, argue second.

Other recordings

I have been buying a lot of CD's lately, including Dawn Upshaw's Canteloube: Chants d'Auvergne. This is a collection of folk songs from Auvergne, a region in central France with its own dialect, called Auvergnat. Cantaloube's songs are in this dialect, though the liner notes show only French and English. This makes it more difficult to match the singing with the translation.

Joseph Cantaloube is known primarily for these songs which were composed over a long period from 1923 to 1955. The orchestral accompaniment seems to answer the question, "What if these songs were in a movie?" We're hearing post-impressionism. Alternate question, "If these songs were a movie, what would the plot be?"

Dawn Upshaw's main talent is her ability to bring a sense of ecstasy into unusual music, a talent strongly in evidence here. It's not a new recording.

I also bought:
Elīna Garanča Aria Cantilena
Angela Gheorghiu Live from La Scala
Measha Bruggergosman Surprise
Vivica Genaux Handel & Hasse Opera Arias
Netrebko and Villazon duets
Natalie Dessay French Opera Arias
Lotte Lenya Kurt Weill
Matthias Goerne Schumann

In the mail is Jonas Kaufmann's Strauss Lieder. I'll let you know if I think of anything to say about them.

Florez' Arias for Rubini is out in Europe, but I can't find it here.
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Cecilia's Maria

It is the utter flawlessness of her sense of rhythm that contrasts her with all others. It doesn't seem to matter what the music is, it will be fascinating and completely her own. The flexibility of the phrasing here is amazing even for her.

She is my siren, and I cannot resist her call. This is the Cecilia my heart has yearned for. Her voice is now fully mature, and she uses it with astounding self-confidence, reaching every possible note, soaring and growling. There is new depth and warmth in her voice, new colors of great beauty. I think I'll just curl up and purr for a while.

I am going to attempt to review Cecilia Bartoli's new album Maria, which is possible as long as impartiality is not required. She is proposing nothing less than revolution. She is telling us that people following in the footsteps of Callas when performing bel canto are doing it wrong. She makes some good points.

This is Cecilia meeting Callas in heaven.

In the liner notes she points out that Malibran sang "Adina [L'elisir d'amore] and Leonore [Fidelio?], Amina [Bellini's La sonnambula] as well as Romeo [I Capuleti e i Montecchi?], and in the same opera, both Semiramide and Arsace [Rossini's Semiramide], Desdemona and even Otello [Rossini's Otello]." This strongly implies a different vocal technique from present day standards. The heavier the technique the more differentiated the classifications. Malibran must have used a lighter technique, a technique very much like Cecilia Bartoli's.

Cecilia is seducing us with the lightness of early instruments and the lightness of her technique to like a much more flexible and enticing style of singing. She wants nothing less than the opera world to follow her.

The phrasing is sinuous as nothing I've ever heard. Will she succeed?

Miscellaneous:
There is a credit for the yodeling teacher, Nadia Raess.

There is also a very nice photo of Cecilia and Christopher Raeburn together honoring his 50th year with Decca. I would guess it was probably him she did it for. I'll take it anyway.
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Modern operas

Sometimes I find blogging a tedious activity. I am bored with my constant tirade about the failure of contemporary composers to write singable music for their operas. Often they don't even seem to give a shit.

The way to formulate the idea correctly in your mind is to try to imagine a young up and coming soprano launching her career from your opera. Janacek can do it. Can you? If there is no big female role for her, then dump your libretto and pick something else.

It's difficult to find good bits from modern operas on YouTube. There isn't much to choose from. There is nothing from Saint Francis except a couple of rehearsal films, nothing from Devils of Loudun, no Henze to speak of.



My opinion of John Adams as an opera composer comes from "I am the wife of Mao Tse Tung", one of my personal favorites. It actually seems to be an opera aria, even a da capo aria, and is one of the most fabulous arias in all modern opera. I would accept more writing along these lines.



Listening to "Magic" from Previn's A Streetcar Named Desire I have to wonder why I always trash it. I think it was the lack of dramatic tension on the stage that bothered me. He seems to be at least trying to write an aria.



Here is a bit from Appomattox. It's fun Philip Glass if you pay no attention to the singing. I think his best are Einstein (for which you need to bring your sleeping bag) and Satyagraha. Both are in his trance inducing minimalist style and might require one of those necklaces for sleeping on airplanes. I did enjoy Orphée.



This is an excerpt from Osvaldo Golijov's St. Mark Passion by the people I heard in London. It gives you a flavor. I am totally turned on to this and hope he comes up with something this good for the Met. Dear Mr. Golijov, please give us something completely wild and don't be intimidated by the Met.


Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk is a popular favorite. I've seen a couple of different productions of this and it's very sexy. The subtitles are in Hungarian. The singing here is impressive. One can imagine a Russian soprano becoming famous singing this. Here is more:



Opera is a story setting for opera singers. Quit worrying about the significance of the subject matter. No one cares what the opera is about. They care about how it makes them feel. How about a Princess Diana opera? Or a Mary Todd Lincoln opera? Make her the whole story and give her a lot of arias and a full scale mad scene. She was quite bonkers, or so I understand.

Opera is like a chick flick. How about An Affair to Remember as an opera?

The Romantic Generation

Charles Rosen's The Romantic Generation is based on a series of Charles Eliot Norton Lectures, and I can't help thinking how much more interesting it would be as a lecture series. Or perhaps an audio book. The content is densely intertwined with the musical examples that fill the book and expand it to 700 pages. When they come from Lieder cycles that I know, I understand the points he is making. When they come from his vast knowledge of piano repertoire, I feel myself left behind. This probably means something dire about my level of musicianship, but without a keyboard to at least try them out, I am missing a lot of what he has to say. For me music exists largely in my ears, I'm afraid. I'd like to hear the examples.

So if it is just words, the words don't seem to explain enough. How can I hope to understand Liszt's contribution to the development of piano sonority without hearing the examples played on a piano. If it's only for pianists who can play them themselves, I think I need advanced warning.

Jonas Kaufmann

I couldn't find it at the store, so I listened to the bits on Amazon of Jonas Kaufmann's Strauss Lieder album. This is simply gorgeous. Others have commented that they hear baritone, but for my ears his voice is maturing into a true Heldentenor. I'll have to order a copy.

Appomattox

Appomattox Court House in Virginia is the site of the surrender on April 9, 1865, of General Robert E. Lee, shown right, to General Ulysses S. Grant to begin the end of the American Civil War. Philip Glass has written an opera about it called Appomattox.

Rhoslyn Jones--Julia Dent Grant
Elza van den Heever--Mary Custis Lee
Ji Young Yang--Julia Agnes Lee
Heidi Melton--Mary Todd Lincoln
Kendall Gladen--Elizabeth Keckley
Jeremy Galyon--Abraham Lincoln
Andrew Shore--Ulysses S. Grant
Jere Torkelsen--Brigadier General John A. Rawlins
Richard Walker--Colonel Eli Parker
Dwayne Croft--Robert E. Lee
John Minágro--General Howell Cobb
Chad Shelton--Brigadier General Edward Alexander
Noah Stewart--T. Morris Chester

Presented at the San Francisco Opera, there are moments in this opera of great effectiveness. The opera begins and ends with scenes by the wives of the great male participants. At the beginning they are sure this war will be the last, while at the end they are sure that there will be more wars. People want to think that if a war is vastly horrible, as was our Civil War where more Americans died than in all of our other wars combined, then surely no others will follow. These ensembles were well done.

There was another moment when the Confederates decide to abandon Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate capitol, by blowing up most of the assets. The scene shows crowds of refugees and huge explosions where the actors stare in amazement and sing "aah."

In the battle scenes the Civil War song "Tenting on the old campground" is heard in its entirety.

There is another moment where Robert E. Lee is shown dressing for the occasion of his surrender. He was a southern gentleman whose house in Arlington, Virginia, is now the site of a national cemetery, the one where John Kennedy is buried. Early in the opera Mrs. Lee complains that she can no longer walk in the gardens of her house. Grant was no gentleman, and the contrast between the two men is itself an illustration of the culture clash the war was based on.

There is a famous picture of the room where the signing took place. More vivid in memory will be the scene that takes place in the opera after the signing: all the furniture is stolen and the building is completely demolished.

Into this simple story political events outside the time line are inserted in a kind of random way, especially in the second act. The assassination of Lincoln is anticipated and shown.

The civil rights movement of the fifties and sixties is shown. The war ended but didn't end in the hearts of southerners. If they couldn't own blacks, they would make sure their lives were miserable and degrading. Edgar Ray Killen appears in a wheel chair and describes the murder of three civil rights workers. I remembered that this referred to the murders of two white jews, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, and one black man, James Chaney, but in the context of the opera it was just a morbid illustration of southern cruelty that couldn't be precisely identified.

And how was it as an opera? It was theatrically effective, at least for an American audience, and never became tedious. It was my second Glass opera in 6 weeks, so I couldn't help comparing them. Orphée achieved moments of great lyricism, moments of beautiful singing, indeed moments that seemed to require singing to make their proper effect. There were no such moments in Appomattox. I retain my prejudice: opera is about singing. I am there to hear people singing. I felt sorry for Dwayne Croft, a fine baritone who looked wonderful in his dignified portrayal of Robert E. Lee, but croaked miserably through the ugly vocal part composed for him. Every note seemed completely thankless. Perhaps Lee should have been a bass. Or perhaps it should have been written with the idea that someone would be singing it.

The best work came from Adler fellows. The picture on the left is Noah Stewart, excellent in the role of T. Morris Chester, a black journalist during the Civil War. I have been following him since I saw his performance of Don Jose in Davis. He is a lovely tall tenor that I have wanted to add to my sexiest list. I lack only an appropriate picture. I was previously worried that his voice might be too light, but I see from his work here that he has plenty of power.











This picture is of Kendall Gladen, formerly seen as Carmen and playing Elizabeth Keckley here, and Heidi Melton as Mrs. Lincoln. Heidi is a dramatic soprano of very great potential. In San Francisco people already know her name. Rhoslyn Jones as Mrs. Grant and Elza van den Heever as Mrs. Lee were also fine.

Whenever Glass loses interest in his material, he fills in with the noodle noodle music he is famous for. It's a complete cop out. The writing for voice was bad to ghastly.

Is this a relevant comment? You tell me. I am pondering the fact that all the white characters were portrayed by white singers, and all the black characters were played by black singers. Perhaps this is a coincidence, but perhaps not. Is that really necessary? I think the Civil War still lives.