What better way for Masonic brothers, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Emmanuel Shikaneder to disseminate Masonic virtues, than through the most popular musical entertainment of their age, a happy ending folktale that features a dragon, enchanting flutes and bells, mixed-up parentage, and a beautiful young princess in distress?
Since its first performance at the Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo during Venice’s 1643 Carnevale, Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea has been one of the most important milestones in the genesis of modern opera despite its 250 years of unmerited obscurity.
Though 2013 is the bicentennial of the births of Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner, the releases of Cecilia Bartoli’s recording of Bellini’s Norma on DECCA, a new studio recording of Donizetti’s Caterina Cornaro from Opera Rara, and this première recording of Saverio Mercadante’s forgotten I due Figaro, suggest that this is the start of a summer of bel canto.
Recording Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen is for a record label equivalent to a climber reaching the summit of Mount Everest: it is the zenith from which a label surveys its position among its rivals and appreciates an achievement that can define its reputation for a generation.
Few people who love opera in general and bel canto in particular have never heard the comment made by Lilli Lehmann, veteran of the inaugural Ring at Bayreuth in 1876, that singing all three of Wagner’s Brünnhildes—in Die Walküre, Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung, respectively, all of which she sang to great acclaim—pales in comparison with singing the title rôle in Bellini’s Norma.
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.
Tuxes and gowns, a marathon of trotting on and offstage by renowned singers, a ritzy audience abusing their palms with ritual clapping—yes, EuroArts has another opera gala event available on DVD in this two-disc Vienna State Opera Gala concert.
Director of the Vienna Opera Ioan Holender claims in a short note at the front of the enclosed booklet that this gala is not a celebration but “an opportunity to recall the great dedication and the many sacrifices that Austrians brought to the task of rebuilding their beloved” opera house, critically damaged in an air raid in March 1945. Ten years from that event, in November, a rebuilt opera house opened, and 50 years on, this gala took place. Quiet moments for reflection do not, however, appear in the two-disc DVD record of the gala. Five conductors, a huge cast of fine singers, including superstars such as Placido Domingo and Edita Gruberova, and an elegantly dressed and coiffed audience all seem in the mood to enjoy the glory of the operatic tradition till going strong in the Austrian capital.
However, a couple of distinguishing characteristics separate this DVD from typical galas, affairs which may entertain a live audience but make for less than riveting viewing later. First, instead of a random assortment of arias without theme or sensible order, this concert focuses on selections from several of the operas presented in that first season after the rebuilding of the house—and all of them operas central to the house’s repertory. As each section begins, the director cuts away from the concert to the poster with the cast listing for the 1955 production. Second, longer scenes dominate the evening, which allows for a level of characterization not usually found in the formats that center on isolated arias.
The advantages of this strategy do not make much of an impression, unfortunately, on the first disc. Seiji Ozawa opens with the third Fidelio overture, and then Zubin Mehta takes the baton for a Don Giovanni section, which begins with two solo arias. Ferruccio Furlanetto sings Leporello’s catalog aria. Edita Gruberova then appears (to an ecstatic reception from a house audience she has entertained for many years) with a most impressive “Non mi dir.” Finally a fuller cast enters for the act I finale, but Thomas Hampson goes for a gruff sound and a grating smile of self-infatuation. Ildiko Raimondi and Boaz Daniel don’t come across as gala-level signers in their roles as Zerlina and Masetto, although they are unobjectionable. The return of Gruberova, with the glorious Soile Isokoski as Donna Elvira and Michael Schade as Don Ottavio, helps bring this section to life at last.
Disc one ends with another gala favorite, the Rosenkavalier trio. In fact, Angelika Kirschshlager sang Octavian in the recent Berlin Opera Night DVD, and perhaps in the same glamorous female tux. Here she joins Soile Isokoski’s splendid Marschallin and the sweet but unprepossing Sophie of Genia Kuhmeier. West Coast readers may want to make plans to attend Isokoski’s run in this role in summer 2007 in San Francisco. Christian Thielemann conducts, and seems to be a Vienna favorite. Perhaps some of his fans can recommend a better barber. Warning to viewers who like the titles on: the banal translation of the trio seriously undermines the sublimity of the music. Turn them off here.
So far this DVD has been fair entertainment, but disc two takes it to another level. Danielle Gatti leads a dynamic, detailed act three from Aida, and shortly into the other thirty minutes of this section, the gala frou-frou disappears and the drama comes to life. Especially outstanding is Violetta Urmana’s Aida. She only manages a soft ending to “O patria mia,” and the lack of floating high notes may dismay some. But everywhere else, she pours out the dignity and pathos in an uninterrupted stream of gorgeous tone. Franz Grundheber still has a lot to offer, and though his habit of scrunching up one side of his face makes one wish the director backed off on the close-ups, his fearsome King contributes mightily to the scene. Though not in their class, Johan Botha does have enough voice to make a fine aural impression. An attempt at a soft singing in the top range goes awry; otherwise, he holds his own.
Then the crowd goes crazy for Placido Domingo and Agnes Baltsa in the great Radames/Amneris confrontation scene. Domingo can come on stage beaming with an almost childish glee at the fun of the occasion, and then turn on the dramatic power as easy as flipping a switch. Although she is also done no favors by the director’s insistence on close-ups, Baltsa digs into Amneris’s dark infatuation with undeniable relish. And the crowd goes even crazier.
Thielemann comes back on for the Meistersinger prelude, and then we learn the conductor is not the tallest man performing that night, as Bryn Terfel joins him for two of Hans Sachs arias. Terfel will grow further into this role, but what a treat to have his glorious tone and dramatic restraint—yes, that’s right—in this role. He lets his eyes do the acting, and Hampson would have done well to do the same.
Falk Struckmann and Deborah Polaski now join conductor Franz Welser-Most for arias and the finale from act three of Die Frau ohne Schatten, with Botha’s Kaiser, the Kaiserin of Ricarda Merbeth (little to do here but capable), and some lovely “stimmen der Ungeborenen.” Struckmann struggles a bit at the top, and as the tune here is one of Strauss’s loveliest, a more lyric baritone might have impressed more. Polaski’s Dyer’s wife employs her power and edge well, certainly better than in some lines from the finale of Fidelio, which closes the program under the baton of Seiji Ozawa. Polaski’s edginess gets too pointed there. Botha, seemingly the only power tenor employed by Vienna these days, takes on the few lines for Florestan. Hampson, Walter Fink, and Struckmann fill out the scene, with Hampson redeeming himself with some unmannered and handsome vocalizing.
EuroArts ends the disc with something your reviewer loves—a complete round of ovations for the artists, including solo bows. This credits section goes on over 9 minutes, but viewers of a successful live DVD recording, whether of a gala or complete performance, want to celebrate the performers along with the audience present.
And “celebration” is the word, no matter what the house Director writes. Especially for that Aida section, this Vienna State Opera gala concert deserves no less.
Chris Mullins
Los Angeles Unified School District, Secondary Literacy