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.
Some opera sets are meant to be an introduction to the work presented. They contain a booklet which tells you about the life of the composer, the history of the work, some analysis, a synopsis of the story, and maybe (if you're lucky) the libretto translated into your language.
Other sets are merely documents of a performance—of a particular night at the opera house when everything came together, or perhaps a monument to a particular singer's talent. A recently released recording of Giacomo Meyerbeer's 1859 opera Dinorah quite clearly falls into the latter category, as the label's moniker, Living Stage, perhaps suggests. I have never seen so sparsely documented a recording. A cast list and track list are included, but that's it—not a word about the opera, or even biographical sketches of the featured singers.
On the plus side, the set does feature a tour-de-force performance by soprano Luciana Serra, who sang the title role in the 1983 performance from Trieste that is here immortalized. Dinorah is the Italian title of the opera, which Meyerbeer christened Le pardon de Ploërmel for its Paris unveiling.
After a parade of vast, imposing dramas such as Robert le diable, Les Huguenots, and Le prophète which had made him rich, established his fame, and made his name synonymous with French grand opera of the grandest sort, Meyerbeer was clearly looking for a change of pace. Dinorah was Meyerbeer’s second straight opéra comique, and is a work of relatively modest length that features a simple (some might say "silly") plot in a pastoral setting. The opera was clearly intended to be a showpiece for coloratura sopranos, as Dinorah’s music is filled with complex passagework, trills, and all manner of vocal fireworks. Though originally written with passages of spoken dialogue, recitatives were eventually substituted.
Since his death, Meyerbeer has gone from being one of opera’s most performed composers to being one of its most neglected. He suffered greatly from post-Wagnerian criticism, which found his showy, entertaining operas wanting in comparison with the high-minded music dramas with intellectual aspirations that were favored by Wagner and his burgeoning band of disciples. Much of this criticism was unfair, as Meyerbeer was a composer of no small talent, and he invests Dinorah with an abundance of stirring, worthwhile music. Yet even Meyerbeer’s most ardent admirers would likely admit that with Dinorah’s libretto, the composer provided his critics a juicy target.
Meyerbeer and his librettists work mightily to stretch a rather brief tale, filled with logical and motivational problems, over three acts. The action takes place among superstitious peasants in rural Brittany. There are a number of subsidiary characters who briefly show their faces, but only three of any importance. The first two are Dinorah and her fiancé Höel, who were on their way to be married before a terrible storm intervened, destroying Dinorah’s cottage. There is no money to rebuild. Höel learns from a wizard that a supernatural treasure may be claimed by anyone who is willing to leave human society for a year. The catch? The first to touch the treasure will die. Höel works out a solution. He will find a gullible dupe, promise him half the treasure, and make sure that this poor fellow will be the first to touch the treasure! He leaves Dinorah without a word (Life lesson: How many problems might be avoided with a simple word of explanation!). Believing herself abandoned, she immediately embodies one of the most popular of nineteenth-century operatic clichés by going mad. She spends much of the opera’s length wandering around the countryside searching for her little goat Bellah, and alternately bewailing her abandonment and imagining that everything’s fine.
Höel finds his dupe in the person of our third character, the bagpiper Corentino. But his plot is complicated by Corentino’s limitless cowardice. The two share a number of slapstick scenes in which Höel harangues Corentino, tries to get him drunk, and repeatedly reminds him of the riches they’ll share in order convince him to join his quest. They also encounter Dinorah, but mistake her for the “Lady of the Meadows”, a malevolent fairy who coincidently also wanders the countryside in a wedding dress, and preys on single men.
In the second act, during a terrible nocturnal storm, Höel descends into a ravine where the treasure is supposed to be hidden while Corentino cowers above. Dinorah madly wanders by, singing a song which betrays the secret of the treasure’s curse. Höel’s plot is thus revealed to Corentino, who, while refusing to touch the treasure, hardly seems sufficiently disturbed by Höel’s plan to effectively murder him. Rather, he suggests they send the mad girl into the ravine to touch the treasure first (apparently chivalry isn’t one of Corentino’s principal virtues). When Dinorah pitches into the ravine while trying to follow Bellah across a fallen tree which has bridged it, Höel recognizes his abandoned love, and, stricken with guilt, follows, hoping to rescue her.
The brief third act opens with good-natured arias from a hunter, a reaper, and two female goat-herds. Höel enters holding an unconscious Dinorah in his arms. He fears that she is dead, but she awakens, and, seeing her beloved, regains her sanity. Fortunately, she also has no memory of all that has transpired. Inexplicably, Höel points out her house—now perfectly rebuilt (How did this happen? No explanation is given.). As pilgrims on their way to Ploërmel sing a noble chorus, the happy couple resumes their nuptial journey.
Having never seen Dinorah in the opera house, it is hard to judge it fairly in dramatic terms. The comic scenes with Höel and Corentino didn’t strike me as all that funny, especially since Höel’s sinister purpose undermines our sympathy for him. Corentino’s later willingness to lead a hapless girl to her death hardly makes him the most likeable fellow either. On the other hand, Dinorah herself is a charming and compelling figure in her own way, and goes some distance in redeeming the opera as a whole. She is an impossibly innocent, childlike figure who compels our sympathy with her faith in Höel and her devotion to her little Bellah, whose bell can be heard tinkling in the orchestra. Dinorah’s famous second act “Shadow Song” is remarkable, and the music as a whole was clearly a labor of love. Indeed, the final chorus wouldn’t sound out of place in Tannhäuser, well demonstrating the musical kinship the two composers shared (despite all Wagner’s protestations to the contrary).
In the end though, this particular set is about the singing, and the standard here is high. Serra is clearly the star of the show, but both Angelo Romero’s Höel and Max Rene Cosotti’s Corentino are also sung superbly. The sound is clear, if not particularly rich. Baldo Podic leads his orchestral forces with real energy. Fans of Serra will want to own this set. Others—especially those who want to know the opera as a whole—might be better served by this set’s chief rival, a fine performance on the Opera Rara label featuring soprano Deborah Cook, which includes full notes and a translated libretto (in the opera’s original French). Another recently released option is a DVD featuring soprano Isabelle Phillipe.
Eric D. Anderson