News from Facebook

"Jonas Kaufmann and Cecilia Bartoli named joint Artist-of-the-Year Diapason d'Or 2009 For the first time France Musique listeners and Diapason readers were able to vote on the Artist of the Year award and jointly selected Jonas Kaufmann and Cecilia Bartoli from 15 contenders for the title. The prize was awarded last night in recognition of Jonas' Romantic Arias and Cecilia's Sacrificium recording and album."

Cool. I am in tune with the universe.

Despite the fact that the news was put out by Jonas' fan page, it has to mean the Sehnsucht album and not the Romantic Arias album. Or if it isn't a mistake then they awarded to an album from last year.

This is the most GQ of Jonas' pictures.

Christmas Presents

Everyone is right in thinking that Angela Gheorghiu and Jonas Kaufmann in Puccini's Madama Butterfly is the recording to give for Christmas. Angela is the most stylish verismo singer around, and Jonas is a wonderful partner for her.


I very much enjoyed Bellini's La Sonnambula as recorded by Cecilia Bartoli and Juan Diego Florez. Cecilia's bel canto is more fluid than anyone else's. By all means consider this.


But then how could you possibly skip this recording of Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi with Elina Garanča and Anna Netrebko. There voices blend in a way that is magical. It's hard to choose.

I can't believe how badly I've fallen behind in reviewing opera videos. This year the complete opera CD's seem to overshadow most things.


This video with Natalie Dessay should satisfy almost anyone. It may be the funniest opera video ever made.


And the La Boheme film with Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazon is finally out on DVD. If you don't want to give it, you should find a way to see it.


Joyce DiDonato makes my list this year for the best Handel album. Forget Rolando's.


Jonas and Cecilia tied for the Diapason d'Or artist of the year. Sehnsucht is all German repertoire with an emphasis on Wagner.


Cecilia Bartoli continues her interest in the Baroque with Sacrificium. She attempts to rival the gods, and may just possibly succeed.

Hmm.

Or follow my lead and forget about opera. Try a little Bach with Murray Perahia.

Blogging

People want me to write about them. This may be difficult to explain, but I am not trying to succeed at this. I never pay any attention to how many people are reading me, and prefer to assume that no one is. Paul, Chris, Sarah, and four other people. People who are googled about someone in particular that I have written about. I was sort of shocked when my visit to see Jonas in Lohengrin did not google.

I get email. While I was at jury duty, I got a phone call--that was a first.

I just go to things because I want to and think I might enjoy them. Lately I have been remarkably successful at selecting events that I will enjoy. I don't write about everything I go to. I am very susceptible to stress and don't want to add any to my life. I am just trying to have fun.

However, my funds are limited, so if you have FREE TICKETS, by all means let me know.

Too soon for another Interview

I have translated this interview from the Financial Times Deutschland with Cecilia Bartoli [I think. I can't find it now,] which has only a bit of repeat material from the previous translation:

Classical music star Cecilia Bartoli hates the dictates of beauty

Essen. She is so popular that she even guests on "Wetten, dass…" Now classical music star Cecilia Bartoli with her CD "Sacrificium" appreciates the suffering of the castrati and, naturally, their angelic singing. On 13 November she appeared in Cologne. Jürgen Overkott spoke with the merry Diva.

JO: You speak Spanish, French, English and German apart from your native language Italian still…

Cecilia Bartoli: … German however only in the restaurant. It is enough in order to order a menu.

JO: Her modesty honours her. And nevertheless I ask the question: Do you collect languages?

Cecilia Bartoli: No, no. I collect no language, I collect music. That is a language, which is everywhere understood. Everyone can hear music, and everyone can make music. Music is a language which goes directly in the heart.

JO: And it is the only language, which does not need words…

Cecilia Bartoli: … naturally, but music is suitable and also outstanding to strengthen the effect of poetry.

JO: You love to rediscover lost music pieces. Are you the hunter of lost treasures?

Cecilia Bartoli: Yes, actually I love to rescue musical treasures from archives. There still lie many other jewels, worth digging up. I believe that they still have a lot to say to us. But I love also the popular repertoire beyond that. You know, I admire Mozart. And if one loves Mozart, one must be occupied also with Haydn. Because Haydn affected Mozart strongly. Actually one would have to always sing pieces of both.

JO: Now you let the art of the castrati revive again. In what relationship did the singing stars of the 18th century stand to Mozart?

Cecilia Bartoli: There is a direct relationship. Mozart wrote much music for castrati, many pieces for mezzosoprano actually were for castrati. The high men’s voices were in the 18th Century very much in vogue, and even Rossini in the 19th Century still wrote for castrati.

JO: How did you discover the charm of the castrato music for yourself?

Cecilia Bartoli: That has something to do with Naples. There was there, just like in Bologna, a school for castrati, and their teacher was Porpora, a teacher and a composer. And the music of Porpora for stars such as Farinelli impressed me very much - it is music full of feeling. Porporas arias are very dramatic, very pathetic, they shimmer in many colors.

JO: Farinelli was the superstar of the castrati. He could even ensure that the depressive king of Spain felt better. Is music medicine?

Cecilia Bartoli: Oh yes! It’s good that you mention that. Farinelli could not heal the king, but nevertheless alleviated his condition. He had to sing the same six songs after midnight until in the morning around four, always. But: Farinelli became with time a trusted friend of the king and finally prime minister.

JO: But Farinelli paid a high price: He had always to sing the same pieces.

Cecilia Bartoli: (laughs) Yes, correct. That is about the same as if Elton John would have to play "Candle in The wind" for the Queen each night. Well, but Farinelli has done it nevertheless for the king…

JO: Now castrati are men, but no longer male. Doesn’t eroticism go? [Geht da nicht die Erotik flöten?]

Cecilia Bartoli: No, no. Directly with Farinelli there is an abundance of fine psychological shades, of gentle melancholy. The castrati were not men, were not women. Perhaps they were in a position to be able to mediate between the two sexes.

JO: For their heavenly voices the castrati opened the gate to hell. Is it permitted for maintenance in Top quality to pay every price?

Cecilia Bartoli: Ha! Good question! The castrati have, like the title of my album suggests, actually made a sacrifice for their art. In former times annually 4000 boys were castrated. Poor families saw therein a possibility to escape from their fate. And only two or three castrati actually made a career. But is it nowadays really different? Many artists cut away at their bodies. Think only of Michael Jackson! That was nevertheless indescribable: Finally was not his nose more genuine. We can be terrorized by the dictates of beauty.

Elixir in Sacramento

Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore, now playing at the Sacramento Opera, makes widely varying impressions, depending much on how Adina is portrayed.

On the video with Rolando Villazon she is a serious woman who sits at home in her large house and reads. At Santa Fe she was a school teacher. In Sacramento she is clearly a fast girl who is completely in character when she decides to marry Sergeant Belcore. I think it's more emotionally satisfying when she is a woman of substance.

The production places us in the Napa Valley in the 40s. It doesn't really matter where it takes place.

The cast is good. Katrina Thurman's Adina is a light-voiced coloratura. Dinyar Vania is excellent as the countrified hero Nemorino with interesting Italian phrasing.

We clearly cannot blame Verdi for the Italian opera Oom-pah-pah style he is so often criticized for. He obviously got it from Donizetti. The most prominent player in the orchestra was the bass drum and cymbals. I don't remember noticing this so much before.

If you like your comedy painted with broad strokes, you will love this.

Blogging

I went to the Sacramento Opera last night. Perhaps I will blog about the opera, perhaps not. There was a booth selling jewelry, and I bought a pale blue brooch that went with my outfit. I pinned it on, but was unhappy with where I had pinned it. "I should pin it higher, like that woman," pointing to someone standing facing me with a silver brooch pinned much higher.

"Hello, Barbara, I'm DA," she said. Conversation. She recognized my laugh from 50 years ago. Some things never change. I said, "I sit and watch TV all day, and then I fly to somewhere to see opera." She said she did this, too, and her heart throb was Marcello Alvarez. Pronounced Marsello. She goes out to eat with him.

Bernarda Fink Schubert Lieder

For my ears Bernarda Fink is obviously not German, though her diction is excellent. This is hard to explain. The phrasing is beautiful but not exactly German. I'm told she is from Argentina.

I love Schubert, and find these easy to listen to. Two criticisms of the album:

• If I turn the sound down to the point where it doesn't hurt my ears, I can hardly hear the piano. This is an engineering issue.
• Engineer also must insert a bit of dead space at the end of each song so you can tell when one stops and the next one begins. This problem is worse because of the first item.
  

Her voice is very sweet, but the tone does not vary much. There are songs here I haven't heard in years: "Ganymed," "Die junge Nonne," "An Silvia." She never gets really carried away.

I apologize for not buying something more current, but I really love Schubert.
#ad

Advice

I remember distinctly saying I would never give advice to JD whom I saw in recital the other night. Well, I lied.

This is sort of weird advice. It's sort of recital as theater rather than recital as singing. I liked very much the musical interpretations of the songs, and I definitely don't think--deeply as I love her--that everyone has to turn into Cecilia every time they perform, as one reviewer declared.

It is, however, important to communicate, both to yourself and to the audience....
here is the start of the song....
here is a transition to the second section....
now I am at the emotional climax...
and this, ahem, THIS is the end.

I told you it would be weird. Way too many songs got over without anyone being able to tell. Give us a signal. Relax something.

This reminds me of the conducting class exercise where we were to get everyone to come in together without actually moving. This turned out to be easy. One changes the expression on ones face.

Tell us every second of the way what we are expected to do without actually doing anything. Tell us that the song has finished, but we are not to clap. Tell us exactly when to start clapping. Remember, you are in charge.

DiDonato recital

I don't think I've ever done this before, but here is the entire program for the Joyce DiDonato recital in San Francisco Monday night.

I. Arie Antiche

“Danza, danza, fanciulla gentile” Francesco Durante
“Se tu m’ami” Giovanni Pergolesi
“Amarilli mia bella” Giulio Caccini
“Mio ben” Luigi Rossi
“Nel cor piu non mi sento” Giovanni Paisiello
“Or ch’io non sequo piu” Raffaello Rontani (?-1622)

II. “Willow Song” from Otello by Gioacchino Rossini

III. I Canti Della Sera by Francesco Santoliquido (1883-1971)

“L’assiolo canta”
“Alba di luna sul bosco”
“Tristezza crepuscolare”
“L’incontro”

[Everything before the intermission was in Italian. I have put in dates for anyone I am not familiar with. I always think it is important to put things in a context. Santoliquido was completely unfamiliar, intimate and sexy. Perhaps she will record them. She promised Italian love songs some time in the future.]

INTERMISSION

[Everything after the intermission was in Spanish or Catalan. I can't tell the difference.]

IV. Canciones Classica by Frenando Obradors (1897-1945)

“La mi sola, Laureola”
“Al Amor”
“Corazon, porque pasais?”
“The jealous lad”
“Dreaming of love, dear mother”
“From the finest hair”
“Tiny the Bride” “Tiny the bride, tiny the groom, tiny the parlor, and the bedroom, which is why I want a tiny bed with a mosquito net.”

[I had a teacher long ago who was especially fond of Obradors, but this may be the first time I have heard these songs. They're all love songs, I believe. They aren't in my iTunes.]

V. “La Maja Dolorosa No.1. No. 2, No. 3” by Enrique Granados
[This group was dedicated to the memory of James Schwabacher who died this past year.]

VI. Xavier Montsalvatge (1912-2002)

“Cuba dentro de un piano”
“Punto de Habanera”
“Nighe, nighe”
“Canto Negro”

Encores

“Tanti affetti” Rossini
[Everyone stood up and shouted after this one. She sang a very ornamented version.]

“Over the rainbow” by Harold Arlen

She likes to talk. It all began here for her and she was excited to be in San Francisco again. She spoke of memories of Jimmy Schwabacher, and made it clear that for her there has truly been an over the rainbow.

Her singing was warm and emotional. She made a personal connection with each piece. She gets it. Viva.

I will have to begin paying more attention to her.

Dido

My friend J, who is 88, and I were thinking this was the first time we had ever been to a concert devoted entirely to Henry Purcell (1659-1695). Coming into the Mondavi Center to hear Philharmonia Baroque last night, the usher asked, “What’s his first name?” I said Henry, and another usher said, “That’s spelled ‘H-E-N-R-I.'” Oh heavens no. He’s English, not French.

How can this great composer be so little known? I have always been especially fond of the middle Baroque, that most neglected of all style periods. But thinking about it now, perhaps it is only the great Purcell I am especially fond of.

Nicholas McGegan, the conductor of Philharmonia Baroque, talked before the concert and spoke about the French influence on Purcell – King Charles II was raised in France – and the roughness of English harmony compared to the French. I think it is this roughness that I love, the way the lines bounce against one another, the liveliness of the rhythms, the astounding beauty of the English text setting, never heard before or since.

Purcell is my man. Let’s have an All-Purcell-All-The-Time festival. We would probably be criticized for performing inferior repertoire. [Sorry. This is currently a sore point for me.]

There were questions after the talk, and I wanted to ask, “Why aren’t you famous?” This would have been unfortunate because McGegan probably already regards himself as famous.

I asked about Elizabeth Blumenstock, the concertmistress of the Philharmonia Baroque and was told she was in Italy this month. She has a life that is larger than her orchestra. Philharmonia Baroque is an early instruments orchestra, but the orchestra listing was missing from the program.

The first half of the program was devoted to an instrumental piece called Chacony, a couple of anthems and a fascinating Suite from Abdelazer, or The Moor’s Revenge. These are isolated movements to be played between scenes of a play. In the center is the text:

Lucinda is bewitching fair.
All o’er engaging is her Air.

In ev’ry Song Lucinda’s Fam’d.
She is the Queen of Love proclaimed.
To all she does a Flame impart
Expiring Victims feel her Dart.

Strephon for her has Love expressed,
Philander sighs too with the rest;
Wracked with Despair each one complains,
Unmov’d, untouch’t She all disdains.

This small aria was performed sweetly by Celine Ricci--all with the wonderful Purcellian expressive ornamentation.

The second half of the program was devoted to the most perfect piece of music ever composed, the small opera Dido and Aeneas.

As is the case with all music from the Baroque, these modern performers ornamented beyond the written score, especially in the repeats. My old-fashioned ears enjoyed it very much.

There is simply too much to write. The excellent chorus transformed into a group of hags for the witches choruses. Cynthia Sieden transformed magically from Belinda to first witch and back again. Celine Ricci sang both the second woman with her amazing aria “Oft she visits this lone mountain,” taken at a very fast clip, and the second witch. “She” in this aria refers to the goddess Diana. Jill Grove was an excellent, evil sorceress. William Berger was the most intense Aeneas I’ve ever heard.

This performance was semi-staged. A throne was provided for Dido, and people moved about, good guys stage right, bad guys stage left.

Susan Graham brought us Dido. I found her voice to be just right for the role, enough weight for the deep sadness of the character, enough lightness for the ornaments. The entire performance was a joy--lively, dramatic and fun.

[My protestations that I did not wish to be famous may be in vain. McGegan kept looking at me and smiling. He does seem to smile all the time, so maybe I imagined this. Or maybe he was just happy we stopped coughing.]