Paul Dukas’ Ariane et Barbe-Bleue, first heard in 1907, once seemed important. Arturo Toscanini conducted the Met premiere in 1911 with Farrar and later arranged some of its music for a 1947 recording with his NBC Symphony.
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.
This 1959 recording is one where the whole is bigger and better than the separate parts. It is the German equivalent to the Cetra recordings of the fifties. Those were maybe not the greatest recording of an opera but one felt that everybody was steeped in the Italian tradition. The same is happening here.
This was the last recording of the work with an all German-speaking cast before Swedish, American, Mexican, Finnish tenors and sopranos of international standing took over some of those roles as they were thought to be better sellers (granted, Carlos Kleiber once more had an all German male cast in 1973 but he had the horrible idea to ask theatre actors for the speaking parts).
Not all of these singers were still at the top of their career or even excellently suited to their roles, but all of them had known the opera all their lives, even before they started an opera career and this shows in the flow of the recording, the pacing and the ease in the dialogues. Der Freischütz with its rather naïve story was immensely popular in the broad sense of the word (“volkstümlich the Germans say) and up till the sixties there would have been no German, Austrian or Swiss who didn’t know the hunter’s chorus while most Germans thought the bridesmaids chorus to be a folk tune. Though the recording firms still kept up the pace, performances of Weber’s masterpiece slowly declined in Germany but it would never leave the repertoire as did most of Albert Lorzing’s fine Spielopern.
The recording has some strong points. First, there is the warm sound so typically for DG at the time. How we detested those magnificent stereo Decca recordings of Bohème (Bergonzi, Tebaldi), Lucia (Sutherland, Cioni) etc. because most people got a kind of hollow sound which improved definitely when one turned the volume a few notches up. But when one lived between paper thin walled houses or small apartments one could only try this for a few minutes before an angry knock asked you to calm down and as people still had some politeness and consideration for each other in those days….The DG recordings didn’t neglect the orchestra, but they placed the singers a bit more to the front; they didn’t have Culshaw extravaganzas and were far more easier to listen to in cramped surroundings.
I have fond memories of Eugen Jochum conducting a top notch orchestra (which was Celibidache’s after all). Apart from the Berliner in those days most German top orchestras belonged to a big public radio network as these organisations offered year long contracts in contrast to the opera houses and thus recruited the best players. On rehearing I was surprised at the very slow start of the overture and feared for a moment that my memories had played me false and that Jochum was suffering from a bad case of Furtwänglerism. But soon the conductor speeds things up and succeeds in building the tension that results in a chilling Wolfsschluchtscene. The best vocal performance comes from Rita Streich who would sadly die in 1987, only 56 years of age. She was one of that remarkable trio of light sopranos (the other two being Erika Köth and Anneliese Rothenberger), all born between 1920 and 1925, who still sang a lot of French and Italian roles in German with a fine legato, good top notes and easily distinguishable voices. Streich is sure and light-footed in her solos and has no difficulty at all of being heard in the ensembles though her voice was small. But she brings with her the joy and frivolity and the rock-sure vocal technique needed for someone who recorded a lot of waltzes and operetta though she was foremost an opera and lieder singer.
Next to her Irmgard Seefried is not on the same level. The soprano had a very beautiful voice in her youth and she was a far more popular figure at Salzburg than Schwarzkopf as she unstintingly gave of her best. But she paid a price for her lack of formal training. She was only 20 and still studying when she accepted an offer from the Generalmusikdirektor of Aachen’s small opera, Karajan. As the war was on maybe she was glad to earn a few Reichsmark. By the mid-sixties, only 45, she was spent and she cut short her operatic career and concentrated for many years on lieder before dying at 69. When she made this recording there are already hints of trouble. The warm personal middle voice is still there but the sound becomes thin at the top and one feels her reticence in giving her all as she cannot get away in the studio with flat notes which still passed on the scene. Therefore her Agathe is too tentative, too restrained as the voice no longer can respond to the character’s needs. Richard Holm was a fine Mozartean, a good Tamino though more a Pedrillo than a Belmonte. The voice is beautiful, smooth and well-projected with a good clear diction but the role is a size too big for him and he sometimes has to force in ensembles. Bass Kurt Böhme has more than the size. With a big booming voice he is a fine devil often too much relying on exclamations and Sprechgesang and some people will probably prefer the more smooth interpretation of Gottlob Frick or Karl Ridderbusch in later recordings. Eberhard Waechter in the small role of Ottokar is cast from strength and so is Walter Kreppel as Samuel.
There is no libretto included with this budget issue.
Jan Neckers