Babes of Opera

An article in the Daily Mail has come to my attention.  It says that "opera gets sexy."  I beg your pardon.  Opera has always been sexy.  There can be no question that our up-coming Partenope star, Danielle de Niese, is about as sexy as it gets.  She already appeared in our sexiest list here.

She is currently appearing at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich in La Calisto (see above), one of the sexiest operas ever. Here is Danielle in Giulio Cesare.  I also flagged her for a very sexy Poppea here.

Read the article for yourself.  The subject matter appears to be that Danielle has compared her own on stage sexiness (artistic integrity) with Miley Cyrus (sexuality for the wrong reasons).

This doesn't sound like an argument we wish to become involved in, but we do very much prefer Danielle to Miley.

Ercole Amante

No expense has been expended to explain the plot of Cavalli's Ercole Amante (1662).  Perhaps a dissertation would be required.

Here we go.  In Act II Scene 4 someone explains that:

"Hyllus [son of Ercole, Jeremy Overden] loves Iole and she loves him, but she hates Ercole [Luca Pisaroni] who loves her;  Nicander loves Licoris, and she loves Orestes who loves Olinda; Olinda and Celia love gold and jewels...."

Ercole is married to Deianira, mother of Hyllus, and Iole hates him because he killed her father.  Ercole thinks he should kill Deianira and Hyllus.  Apparently, explained in Act III, Iole's father promised her to Ercole.  Iole then talked him out of it, and Ercole killed him.  Ercole blames everything on her.

There is a lot of hanky-panky in this opera which was supposed to be given at the marriage of Louis XIV to Maria Theresa of Spain.  I'm not sure, but I think there is a confusion of Ercole with Louis.  It's a kind of Iron Man plot where as the king of France he is skinny like, well, like Luca Pisaroni, and then he puts on his muscle suit and turns into the super buff Hercules.  This suit doesn't help him fight crime, it's just for attracting women. 

Doesn't seem like a particularly suitable plot for a wedding celebration.  They could not perform the opera at the wedding in 1660 because the construction of the stage machinery was not complete.  I imagine things soaring through the air or flying down from above, things which don't seem to happen in modern productions.

This is all miserably hard to understand.  Much like in the Ring, there are gods littering the stage who take sides with the mortals.  Venus is with Ercole.  Juno [Anna Bonitatibus], naturally sides with Deianira and tells Iole how wonderfully virtuous she is.  Neptune and Juno advise Hyllus.  Oy.  It's exhausting.

The music is mostly Florentine recitative with arias and ballet interspersed.  Because it's meant for Paris, there is quite a lot of ballet.  There are some funny scenes.  The dialog refers to Atlas, so he appears holding up the world, which Ercole takes out of his arms and carries easily around before giving it back to Atlas.  The program notes call this an opera buffa, but we know that it is before the split into seria and buffa.  It can't be a buffa because there was at least one castrato who sang Juno.

In Act IV there are giant fish, boats and water for Neptune to rise out of.  They could have more successfully differentiated the gods from the humans.  But then what to do with Ercole who is some of each?  Luca is adorable in his muscle suit.

In the end Ercole becomes a god who marries Beauty.  In his guise as a god he goes back to resembling Louis XIV, a significantly thinner person who wears a sun crown.  
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Interesting things in Los Angeles

The Los Angeles Opera has also made a season announcement, and it includes a couple of interesting items.

I might think it was worth a trip to LA to see Florencia en el Amazonas by Daniel Catán which is part of the 2014-15 season.  I liked very much his Il Postino.  I liked especially the way he composed for voices.  Lisette Oropesa is in this.  She's everywhere these days. Francesca Zambello is doing the production. She is also everywhere.

And when did you ever see a Figaro Trilogy?  The order from Beaumarchais is The Barber of Seville, The Marriage of Figaro, The Ghosts of Versailles.  What an incredible idea.  There isn't a lot of information about this, but it doesn't play until Feb-Mar in the 2014-15 season.  Ghosts will star Patricia Racette and Patti LuPone.  File it away in your brain somewhere.  They're not doing them like a Ring Cycle, unfortunately.

Get acquainted with next season's stars

I have chosen these films to help you get acquainted with the singers next season at the San Francisco Opera.

Stoyanova who will sing Amelia



Radvanovsky who will sing her Norma.



De Niese will sing Partenope



Deshayes will sing Angiolina in her very contralto voice.



Haroutounian will sing Tosca.



Michael Fabiano, who recently won the Richard Tucker prize, will sing Rodolfo.  For my ears he is one of the stars of the future.



Nadine Serra will sing the Contessa in Figaro and Musetta in La Boheme.  This film is from her last summer appearance in the Neue Stimmen vocal competition.  You can tell she has been busy.



Luca Pisaroni.  Usually he is Figaro, but in our production he will sing the Count.



And here is the recently added Mimi of Alexia Voulgaridou.  She is miked because this is outdoors in Bregenz 2002.



Here's something more recent.  This makes two of "Je veux vivre."



I just thought you should have an idea.  This is all very top shelf.

Blogging

I've been blogging for 9 years now, and I feel I must pause to consider.

I have a new friend who has an opera website called Classical Searchlight.  It isn't really a blog.  His point of view is very much the viewpoint of my contemporaries.  He catalogs and evaluates primarily recordings, most of them from my youth.

I find that I own only about 30 CDs of complete operas while owning about 175 opera videos, tape and DVD.  Callas recorded a lot of complete operas, while I own only 4 of them.  There was a sale.  I don't believe there are any films of complete operas with Callas, but there are some individual scenes.  Second act of Tosca.  I don't own any CDs of Sutherland or Caballe.  I do have a video of Caballe's Semiramide with Horne and Ramey.  This is quite spectacular.

I was collecting Bartoli, of course, and have 6 of her opera CDs.  In contrast I have 11 videos of her in complete operas.  The oddest thing in my opera CD collection is 2 complete Tristan and Isolde recordings--Stemme and Brewer.  One was a gift, you may guess which one.  The only T&I I really like is Nilsson.  You knew that.

I'm not trying to get it to stop in my brain.  I'm not trying to find perfection.  In fact what I am doing is almost the opposite.  I want to see what these new ones are going to make of our art form.  

A nameless singer told me recently she never learns from recordings.  And I say that is simply not possible.  If you listen to them, you learn from them.  It is your ears that build the music in your brain.  I know what she meant though.

We each of us have our own music.  This is part of the great joy that it brings to us.  I want my brain to go on to hear new things, even new things in the same old recordings.  I don't still like things I loved before.  I used to listen all the time to the Four Last Songs in the Schwarzkopf recording.  Now I love best Jessye, I think, but also Lucia and Renée.

The Verdi year has for me transformed Verdi into a German.  Perhaps the young singers should find some nice Italians to listen to.  

I was happier when I thought no one read it.  It was just me thinking out loud.

Anniversary of Undefined Length

It was xx years ago that I suddenly went mad for Cecilia Bartoli.  The complete madness of it has died down, but has not completely left me still.

 

This is the contract signing in Salzburg.  The Forum printed only the version where her contract covered the front of her dress.

This came in the mail postmarked Roma.  She is still the only famous person I ever wanted to meet.

She does seem to be having more fun than the others. 

Toi toi toi for Alcina.

Lots Happier

If you want to keep up with what's going on in American opera, the Richard Tucker Gala is a must.  I found it on the PBS website.

A lot of previous winners were on the program:

Isabel Leonard, 2013 Richard Tucker Award Winner 
2012 Ailyn Pérez
2011 Angela Meade
2009 Stephen Costello
2004 Matthew Polenzani
2002 Joyce DiDonato
1999 Stephanie Blythe 
1990 Renée Fleming

Other equally wonderful people on the program:
Susan Graham
Greer Grimsley
Eric Owens
Maestro Riccardo Frizza

Program

• Isabel Leonard "Gracia mia" by Granados.
• Stephen Costello and his wife Ailyn  Pérez did a scene from The Elixir of Love.  She gets more and more beautiful.
• Eric Owens sang "Te Deum" from Tosca.  I find his voice very beautiful but not very evil sounding.
• Renée and Susan sang the Flower duet from Lakme.   Gorgeous.

               Renée, "Olympics of Singing."
               Susan, "We are slowly morphing into each other."

• Matthew Polenzani "Kleinzach" from The Tales of Hoffmann.   He recently sang Hoffmann here and was marvalous.  I shouted for him.
• Angela Meade "No, mi lasciate... Tu al cui sguardo." I Due Foscari.  The audience loved her best.  Her vocal gifts are truly astounding.
• Isabel Leonard "Ombre vane" from Griselda.  She was spectacular in this at Santa Fe.  It's too bad she couldn't sing the whole role, but maybe that would be too much.  She was wonderful.
• Stephanie and Greer sang a scene from Samson and Dalilah, the heaviest item on the program.
• Susan sang "J'aime la militaire" from La Grand Duchesse de Girolstein by Offenbach with soldiers, uniform and everything.  I should have gone to Santa Fe last summer.
• Stephen Costello sang "Salut demeure chaste et pure" from Faust.  I hear weight coming into his voice.
• Renée "ombra di nube" by Refice.
• Joyce DiDonato "Tanti Affetti" from La Donna del Lago.  I guessed it from the first 2 chords.
• Finale from William Tell.

This was a wonderful concert with a lot of spectacular singing.  I would have liked more.  I flagged this as television even though it wasn't for me.  My favorites are Matthew, Joyce, Ailyn, Isabel, Renée and Susan, but truly I think I love them all.  These people with maybe here and there others are the cream of American singing now.  I don't know who picks them, but they have their shit together.

I'm going for Jamie this year.  Who do you pick?

iTunes problems

People have problems with playing complete operas in iTunes.  The software just reacts to the text that was imported.  I usually find that I have to change the text.  For instance, if I want only one entry for each composer on my iPod, I change the composer's entries to all be exactly the same.  Warning:  I have a really old iPod, but my iTunes updates regularly.

To edit the text on iTunes use Control-I key combination to bring up the edit screen.  Then click the Info tab.

The Album Artist and Album fields seem to control what plays with what.  If you want all the tracks of an opera to play without stopping, change the text of these fields to all be the same for that opera.   Copy and paste.  You may have to spend time finding all the entries you need to change.

Over on the right side will be boxes that say Track number and Disk number.  These will control the order anything plays in.

Be sure to save your changes after you make them.

Click on disk 1, track 1 to begin your playback.  This works for me.  Most of the contents of my iTunes are ripped from CDs.

My sense of this is that this problem is a relatively recent phenomenon resulting from one of the iTunes upgrades.

Changing the text also fixed another problem I had with iTunes:  I bought copies of Die Schöne Müllerin by both Matthias Goerne and Jonas Kaufmann.  Because they both had exactly the same album name, track one of both albums would play on my iPod before proceeding on to track 2.  This was amusing for only a while.  The solution was to change the name of one of the albums in iTunes.

I hope this helps.

Which new operas will last

Please forgive my taste for lists.  I maintain a list of operas for all sorts of purposes, and this piece is everything since Einstein.  The operas included in my list come from a variety of sources, but do not cover everything.

The New York Times classical music reviewers have issued their own take on new operas of lasting significance here.  We did something similar at a party I attended last month.  Their starting point was Einstein on the Beach, generally considered the musical milestone that separates the present from the past.  They considered all the places where New York Times critics fly to.   Our starting point was 2000, and the operas to be considered were only those presented in the San Francisco Bay Area.  The Times operas are in bold, and ours have -SF.  * Identifies those I have seen.

1976	Einstein on the Beach*	Philip Glass
1976	The Martyrdom of saint Magnus	Peter Maxwell Davies
1977	The Women in the Garden*	Vivian Fine
1978	Le Grand Macabre*	György Ligeti
1978	Lear*	Aribert Reimann
1978	The Red Line	Aulis Sallinen
1979	The Village Singer*	Stephen Paulus
1979	Sweeney Todd*	Stephen Sondheim
1979	King Harald's Saga	Judith Weir
1980	The Lighthouse*	Peter Maxwell Davies
1980	Donnerstag aus Licht *	Karlheinz Stockhausen
1981	Satyagraha*	Philip Glass
1982	The Postman Always Rings Twice	Stephen Paulus
1983	Saint-François d'Assise*	Olivier Messiaen
1984	Un re in ascolto	Luciano Berio
1984	The Mask Of Orpheus	Harrison Birtwistle
1984	Akhnaten	Philip Glass
1984	Samstag aus Licht	Karlheinz Stockhausen
1986	The man who mistook his wife for a hat	Michael Laurence Nyman
1987	Nixon in China*	John Adams
1987	The Fall of the House of Usher	Philip Glass
1987	A Night at the Chinese Opera*	Judith Weir
1987	The Aspern Papers	Dominick Argento
1988	Montag aus Licht	Karlheinz Stockhausen
1988	Greek	Mark-Anthony Turnage
1991	The Death of Klinghoffer*	John Adams
1991	Gawain	Harrison Birtwistle
1991	The ghosts of Versailles*	John Corigliano
1991	Orphée*	Philip Glass
1991	Dienstag aus Licht	Karlheinz Stockhausen
1991	Mary of Egypt	John Tavener
1992	McTeague	William Elden Bolcom
1992	Life with an idiot	Alfred Garyevich Schnittke
1994	La Belle et la Bête	Philip Glass
1994	The Dangerous Liaisons*	Conrad Susa
1994	Blond Eckbert	Judith Weir
1995	Harvey Milk*	Stewart Wallace
1996	Rent*	Jonathan Larson
1996	Der Koenig Kandaules	Alexander von Zemlinsky
1996	The Picture of Dorian Gray	Lowell Liebermann
1997	Parodia*	Pablo Ortiz
1998	Little Women*	Mark Adamo
1998	A Streetcar Named Desire*	Andre Previn
1999	A View from the Bridge	William Elden Bolcom
1999	The Great Gatsby*	John Harbison
2000	El Niño*	John Adams
2000	Dead Man Walking*	Jake Heggie-SF
2000	L'Amour de Loin*	Kaija Saariaho
2002	Tea: A Mirror of Soul*	Tan Dun
2002	Galileo Galilei	Philip Glass
2002	Sophie's Choice*	Nicholas Maw
2003	L'Upupa Und Der Triumph Der Sohnesliebe	Hans Werner Henze
2003	The Little Prince	Rachel Portman
2005	Doctor Atomic*	John Adams--SF
2005	The Tempest*	Thomas Ades
2005	Margaret Garner	Richard Danielpour
2005	Grendel	Elliot Goldenthal
2005	Ainadamar*	Oswaldo Golijov-SF
2005	An American Tragedy	Tobias Picker
2005	Perfect Lives	Robert Ashley
2006	The First Emperor*	Tan Dun
2006	Adriana Mater	Kaija Saariaho
2007	Appomattox*	Philip Glass-SF
2007	Phaedra	Hans Werner Henze
2008	The Bonesetter’s Daughter*	Stewart Wallace-SF
2008	The Minotaur*	Harrison Birtwistle
2009	The Letter*	Paul Moravec
2010	Il Postino*	Daniel Catán
2010	Moby-Dick*	Jake Heggie-SF
2011	Heart of a Soldier*	Christopher Theofanidis-SF
2011	Anna Nicole*	Mark-Anthony Turnage
2011	Kommilitonen	Peter Maxwell Davies
2012	Written on Skin*	George Benjamin
2012	Dog Days	David T. Little
2013	The Gospel of Mary Magdalene*	Mark Adamo-SF
2013	Bonjour, M. Gaugin	Fabrizio Carlone-SF
2013	The Secret Garden*	Nolan Gasser-SF
2013	The Perfect American*	Philip Glass
2013	Dolores Claiborne*	Tobias Picker-SF
2013	Champion*	Terence Blanchard-SF
2013	Brokeback Mountain*	Charles Wuorinen-SF
2014	As One*	Laura Kaminsky-SF
2014	La Ciociara*	Marco Tutino-SF

The first thing you should notice is the absolute lack of any overlap between the two lists.  Apparently New York Times critics do not fly to the west cost of the United States, very much preferring London.

You should also notice right away something else interesting about the list from the New York Times:  George Benjamin, Peter Maxwell Davies, Thomas Ades, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Judith Weir, and Harrison Birtwistle are all British.  Hmmm.  Robert Ashley, David T. Little, Lowell Liebermann, John Adams and Philip Glass are Americans.  Kaija Saariaho is the only composer from a non-English speaking country.

I became curious about an opera about Anna Nicole Smith and have the DVD.  It's extremely entertaining if not exactly what you would call significant.  I no longer remember what led me to see L'Amour de Loin, but it is also on DVD.  I agree with them that this is a very important opera, but if you don't have Dawn Upshaw and Gerald Finley to sing it, then what?  

Satyagraha and The Death of Klinghoffer have played at the San Francisco Opera, and The Tempest was simulcast from the Met. I saw A Night at the Chinese Opera in a student production while I was in London. The rest are unknown to me.

I've seen all three of John Adams' major operas, Nixon, Klinghoffer, and Dr. Atomic, and I thought Klinghoffer was the least interesting.  Why would anyone want to see an opera about terrorists killing an old man in a wheelchair?  I found it disgusting.  I liked very much the idea of Nixon and Mao talking at each other and understanding not one thing the other said.  This was very entertaining, as was the nutso Madama Mao and the comic genius Kissinger.  I like politics as comedy, I guess.  There is definitely nothing funny about Klinghoffer.  Europeans like operas with political content whether or not the music is particularly interesting.  So are we to allow Europeans to decide for us?

So I would say that I agree with about half of their choices.  Satyagraha is wonderful.  I still like Orphee.

The things not considered by the New York Times critics were probably more interesting than those that were.  For instance, Saint-François d'Assise by Olivier Messiaen falls within their boundaries.  I don't know what I would predict for it, but it is a towering and spectacular work. 

Anything by Jake Heggie is not important for them, including his masterpieces Dead Man Walking and Moby-Dick.  I found both of these very moving.  Golijov's Ainadamar may or may not be classical music, but it's the most musically exciting of anything in the list.  My friends liked these three operas.

The problem with all of them is that you wouldn't go to any of them to hear the singing.

Anja Harteros

2013 for me was the year of Anja Harteros. Before that I posted nothing about her. When I went to Munich to see Lohengrin in 2009, I remember the soprano was not Anja. Watching the film of Lohengrin may have been my first experience of her.

She is a German of Greek extraction. My impression of her from the interview I translated of Jonas and her together is that she is possibly funny.  Meaning humorous and cheerful. You might possibly believe it of her that she would deliberately play off her long curly-haired resemblance to Cecilia Bartoli at the Cardiff Singer of the World competition, which she won.

She will never be the rock star celebrity that Anna Netrebko is, but her growth into a Verdi singer has been completely organic.  Her natural lyric soprano voice expands into dramatic intensity with almost no discernible change in color or production.  The voice never disintegrates into distortion which so often happens with Verdi.  She never seems to be trying to sound suitable for Verdi--she just is.  She opens her throat and out it comes.  Your heart does not hesitate to soar with her.  I only recall Eileen Farrell who could do this equally well.

The Italians, of course, would not approve.  Jonas and Anja are attempting to convince us that Verdi was a German, too.  The Italians will not be convinced.  They both seem to feel with the music without having any intuitive inclination to scoop.  For me if the drama of the phrase carries seamlessly, I simply don't notice.  My heart wants only to stay in the phrase to the end.

The roles I have heard are Elsa, Leonora (Trovatore), Leonora (Forza), and Elisabetta, all with Jonas Kaufmann.  She's doing Tosca and Simon Boccanegra later this year.  It's interesting to me that I accept her more as a Verdi singer than as a Strauss singer.  She seems most effective in the large gestures, the sweeping landscapes.  I cannot help wondering if she saw what a giant leap this Verdi year would be in her career.  If it was planned, it was a master stroke.  Congratulations.

I don't get the impression that New York is seeking her out.  They are busy promoting Sondra.  I feel very pleased to have someone new to feel enthusiastic about.

On to 2014.  The search for great new singers never ends.