The economics of the recording companies dictate much that is not ideal. Wagner’s operas were not composed as they were in order to permit the extraction of bleeding chunks, even on those occasions when strophic song forms do occur.
Among the recent recordings of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony, Valery Gergiev’s release on the LSO Live label is an excellent addition to the discography of this work.
While not unknown, the songs of Alexander von Zemlinsky (1871-1942) deserve to be heard more frequently.
Recorded on 5 and 6 May 2008 and 17 and 18 January 2009 at the Lisztzentrum (Raiding, Austria), this recent Bridge release makes available the piano-vocal versions of three song cycles by Gustav Mahler, Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, Rückert-Lieder, and Kindertotenlieder performed by mezzo-soprano Hermine Haselböck, accompanied by Russell Ryan.
Contraltos rarely achieve the acclaim and renown of sopranos. Assigned few leading roles in opera, they are condemned to playing the villain or the grandmother, or to stealing the castrati’s trousers in en travesti roles.
Following their 2011 Decca recording of Striggio’s Mass in 40 Parts (1566), I Fagiolini continue their quest to unearth lost treasures of the High Renaissance and early Baroque, with this collection of world-premiere recordings, ‘reconstructions’ and ‘reconstitutions’ of music by Giovanni and Andrea Gabrieli, Monteverdi, Palestrina, and their less well-known compatriots Viadana, Barbarino and Soriano.
Eternal Echoes is an album of khazones [Jewish cantorial music] for cantorial soloist, solo violin and a blended instrumental ensemble comprising a small orchestra and the Klezmer Conservatory Band.
Michael Tilson Thomas’s recording of Mahler’s Third Symphony is an outstanding contribution to the composer’s discography.
Oliver Knussen burst into British music with an unprecedented flourish. In 1967, the London Symphony Orchestra premiered Knussen’s First Symphony, with István Kertész scheduled to conduct.
Based on performances given in Summer 2010 at the Lucerne Festival, this recording of Beethoven’s Fidelio is an admirable recording that captures the vitality of the work as conducted by Claudio Abbado.
Stanisław Moniuszko (1819-1872) was one of the most popular composers of his day in Poland, and of the many works he wrote for the stage, two are performed from time to time, Halka (1848) and Strazny dwór [The Haunted Manor] (1865).
The Polish alto Jadwiga Rappé is a familiar voice in various stage and concert works, and the recent release of a selection of songs by Stanisław Moniuszko (1819-1872) is an opportunity to hear her performing artsongs.
Originally released on multiple discs in 1981 this reissue on two CDs is a comprehensive collection of art songs by Italian and French composers from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
An exciting contribution to the discography of this popular opera, the live performance of Richard Strauss’s Salome from the Festspielhaus at Baden-Baden is a compelling DVD.
Released in late 2011, Deutsche Grammophon’s DVD of the new staging of Berg’s Lulu at the Gran Teatro del Liceu, Barcelona is an excellent contribution to the discography of this fascinating opera.
A recent release by the Metropolitan Opera, this two-disc set makes available on DVD the famous performance of Berg’s Lulu that was broadcast on 20 December 1980 as part of the PBS series “Live from the Met.”
The novels of Sinclair Lewis once shot across the American literary skies like comets, alarming and fascinating readers of that era, but their tails didn’t extend far behind them.
Once the province of only the most dedicated opera fanatics, mid-20th century recordings of privately taped live performances have become more widely available.
Flute players in opera orchestra around the world must look forward to the frequent appearances of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, knowing that while the stage spotlight in the mad scene will be on the soprano, the orchestral spotlight will be on their instrument.
Since his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1971, conductor James Levine has come to represent the house’s commitment to artistic excellence — reliable, professional, and immaculately presented.
The House of the Sun Einojuhani Rautavaara, music and libretto Ondine 1032-2D Oulu Symphony orchestra Mikko Franck, conductor The recording company Ondine, based in Helsinki, has built itself an international reputation, at least arguably, by dedicating itself to the works...
The House of the Sun
Einojuhani Rautavaara, music and libretto
Ondine 1032-2D
Oulu Symphony orchestra
Mikko Franck, conductor
The recording company Ondine, based in Helsinki, has built itself an international reputation, at least arguably, by dedicating itself to the works of Einojuhani Rautavaara. Rautavaara's music is unclassifiable, beyond saying that it is the music of Rautavaara. Thoroughly schooled in contemporary compositional techniques, he has developed a lyrical approach of eerie beauty. Perhaps his best-known work, Cantus Arcticus, may serve as representative. A concerto for "birds and orchestra," it weaves tapes of arctic bird cries with an orchestral fabric of cool, smooth texture. The result draws the listener into a world both recognizable and alien. Besides a premiere on Ondine, that piece has also been recorded on the BIS label and on Naxos, the latter a fine version at budget price.
Rautavaara has not ignored opera, and in 1990 he composed The House of the Sun, which he subtitled a tragedia buffa. The CD booklet features a well-written essay by the composer on the creation of his opera. The inspiration for the libretto came from a tragic but bizarre news story: two older ladies were found frozen to death in their trash-filled home. Daughters of a family that had fled the Russian revolution, they had never integrated into Finnish society, and once they could no longer afford servants, they simply shut themselves away until death claimed them.
The libretto makes use of a time-honored flashback technique, as we see the sisters in their old age first and then learn their story through their hallucinations and reveries. Misbegotten romance, political disruption, family tragedy — all flash by, as unwelcome visitors from the "real" world intrude into the increasingly addled ladies' lives.
Many a contemporary opera has been built on such slender narrative. Think of Katia Saaraiho's recent L'Amour de loin, a Tristan und Isolde-inspired work in which two would-be lovers correspond, agree to meet, and at the end of one's journey to the other, the traveler dies. Perhaps composers feel that new opera must avoid the event-packed melodrama of the standard repertory, or just as likely, since much of contemporary composition builds itself up from small fragments through minute development, only such a story will serve.
Whatever the reason, each opera must be judged on its own terms, and The House of the Sun makes for compelling, even moving listening. The sisters, as lost children of a dead world, can symbolize the ideals of Western civilization, pathetically neglected and out of place in a contemporary world, represented in the opera by lawyers, bankers, and social welfare workers.
However, Rautavaara's classification of the opera as a tragedia buffa must be recalled. Sad as they are, the sisters remain somewhat foolish creatures who engineered their pathetic fate by refusing to adapt to new surroundings. When two young men, brought to the home to help the ladies out, take advantage of the ladies' obliviousness to steal a precious egg, they also, out of sheer random cruelty, shut off the electricity. The ladies cannot fathom how to turn it back on, and settle down into their hallucinations of their deceased family members, who remind me that "nothing [is] really, really real."
Despite techniques familiar from many contemporary scores, such as bursts of aggressive percussion, a haunting lyrical mood dominates. Without strong melodic content, the music still manages to convey a lost world of beauty and grace, and a long duet for the sisters in act one, over nostalgic strings, is masterfully conceived.
The stage-worthiness of the opera may be questionable, but as a vehicle for female voices, surely a smaller company could find it worthwhile. On this recording Anna-Kristina Kaappola and Raija Regnell's voices blend beautifully as the older sisters, and their younger selves are sung by Mia Huhta and Helena Juntunen. Male voices tend to the gruff, fitting the characters, and Mikko Franck leads the Oulu Symphony Orchestra with requisite force and sensitivity.
Rautavaara's libretto is as skillful as his music. Under 90 minutes long, the opera as recorded conveys the sad, monotonous life of the sisters without being static itself. When the final visitor knocks portentously on the door as the sisters slip away, listeners may feel that a whole world, slightly ridiculous and yet deeply beautiful, has slipped off to its eternal rest, leaving nothing but a world of commerce and bureaucracy.
One may even be inspired to turn off the electricity and join the sisters in proclaiming that nothing is really, really real — but have some batteries for the CD Walkman handy, so that Rautavaara's The House of the Sun can serve as a morbid soundtrack.
Chris Mullins