22 Dec 2008
Karita Mattila — Fever
Ondine provides a treasure of a booklet for Fever, Karita Mattila's traversal of some standards from the so-called "Great American Songbook," plus two Brazilian numbers.
Recently in Reviews
Domingo Conducts Holdridge’s New Opera Dulce Rosa
Dulce Rosa, a brand new opera, had its world premiere Friday night, May 17, 2013 at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica, California. It was produced by Los Angeles Opera, but staged in the smaller theater.
Verdi’s Falstaff at Glyndebourne
Richard Jones’ 2009 production of Verdi’s Falstaff translates the action from the first Elizabethan age to the start of the second.
Gareth John, Wigmore Hall
Baritone Gareth John is rapidly accumulating a war-chest of honours. Winner of the 2013 Kathleen Ferrier Award, he recently won the Royal Academy of Music Patrons’ Award and was presented the Silver Medal by the Worshipful Company of Musicians.
La bohème at ENO
This second revival of Jonathan Miller’s La bohème was the first time I had caught the production.
Rolando Villazón: Verdi (International Opera Stars Series 2013)
It’s Verdi’s bicentenary year and Rolando Villazón has two new CDs to plug — titled somewhat confusingly, ‘Villazón: Verdi’ and ‘Villazón’s Verdi’, the latter a ‘personal selection’ of favourite numbers performed by stars of the past and present.
Brahms Third in San Francisco
Nicola Luisotti and the San Francisco Opera Orchestra climbed out of the War Memorial pit, braved the wind whipped bay and held spellbound an audience at Cal Performances’ Zellerbach Auditorium at UC Berkeley.
Ariane et Barbe-Bleue on Blu-Ray
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.
Glyndebourne: Ariadne auf Naxos
Utterly mad but absolutely right — Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos started the Glyndebourne 2013 season with an explosion. Strauss could hardly have made his intentions more clear. Ariadne auf Naxos is not “about” Greek myth so much as a satire on art and the way art is made.
Wozzeck at ENO
“Man is an abyss. It makes one dizzy to look into it.” So utters Georg Büchner’s Woyzeck, repeating what was also a recurring motif in the playwright’s own letters.
Mulhouse: Rare Britten Well Done
National Opera Company of the Rhine has marked this year’s Benjamin Britten celebration with a remarkably compelling, often gripping new production of the seldom-seen Owen Wingrave.
Frankfurt's Intriguing Idomeneo
Once upon a time, Frankfurt Opera had the baddest ass reputation in Germany as “the” cutting edge producer of must-see opera.
Rigoletto at Lyric Opera of Chicago
Productions of Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto can serve as a vehicle for individual singers to make a strong impression and become afterward associated with specific roles in the opera.
Britten Sinfonia with Ian Bostridge
Just in case we were not aware that the evening’s programme was ‘themed’, the Britten Sinfonia designed a visual accompaniment to their musical exploration of night, sleep and dreams.
Aida, Manitoba Opera
Poor Aida! She never seems to have anything go her way.
Superlative singing: Don Carlo, Royal Opera House
Is it possible to upstage Jonas Kaufmann? Kaufmann was brilliant in this Verdi Don Carlo at the Royal Opera House, London, but the rest of the cast was so good that he was but first among equals. Don Carlo is a vehicle for stars, but this time the stars were everyone on stage and in the pit. Even the solo arias, glorious as they are, grow organically out of perfect ensemble. This was a performance that brought out the true beauty of Verdi's music.
Sarah Connolly: French Song at Wigmore Hall
The big names were absent: Duparc, D’Indy, Debussy, Ravel … and while Fauré, Chausson, Roussel and several members of Les Six put in an appearance, in less than familiar guises, this survey of French song of the early 20th century and interwar years deliberately took us on a journey through infrequently travelled terrain.
Rare restoration: Handel’s Esther 1720
Composed between 1718 and 1720, Handel’s Esther is sometimes described as the ‘first English Oratorio’, but is in fact a hybrid form, mixing elements of oratorio, masque, pastoral and opera.
The Damnation of Faust, London
Hector Berlioz's légende dramatique, La Damnation de Faust, exists somewhere between cantata and opera. Berlioz's flexible attitude to dramatic form made the piece unworkable on the stages of early 19th century Paris and his music is so vivid that you wonder whether the piece needs staging at all.
Elizabeth Connell Memorial Concert, St John's Smith Square
St. John’s Smith Square was the site of Elizabeth Connell’s final London concert, intended as a farewell to London on her moving to Australia. It was rendered ultimately final by her unexpected death.
Aida with all the Trimmings, Even a Blue Silk Elephant!
With the building of the Suez Canal, Egypt became more interesting to Western Europeans. Khedive Ismail Pasha wanted a hymn by Verdi for the opening of a new opera house in Cairo, but the composer said he did not write occasional pieces.
OPERA TODAY ARCHIVES »
Reviews
Glamour shots present her most seductive looks, while pictures snapped at the concert where the live recording took place venture into camp territory, especially the enormous white fur floor-length jacket that apparently provided any warmth the stage lights couldn’t project. A short essay serves as a lovely example of over-the-top PR prose, establishing how Ms. Mattila’s “idea of singing a jazz programme” became a “vision {that} was finally realized.” All this while she “has been living in the USA a lot recently.” Your reviewer has been living a lot recently in the USA too. Small world.
Another note explains the history of Tin Pan Alley for us, then provides brief commentary on each song’s composer (“Cole Porter was a wealthy man of the world…”). All that’s missing is an extended list of personal “thank you’s” from the artist to make Fever fit right in with the typical pop release self-celebration. Almost in compensation, this note is found at the end: “The author of this text, Markku Piri, has initiated and developed the artistic concept of this Fever project in close collaboration with Karita Mattila. Piri also acted as set and costume designer for the shows.” You go, Piri.
The history of classical singers and popular song is long but not particularly fabled. This is not Karita’s first delving into this territory. On another Ondine release, Karita Live!, she did both great arias, such as “Vissi d”arte,” and also very enjoyable run-throughs of lighter material, such as “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend.” On Fever, Ms. Mattila does try out a few jazz licks, with some carefully rehearsed scatting in a couple places. She seems more comfortable singing just behind the beat, and she allows herself to play with the melody lines from time to time, generally in a tasteful fashion. Peggy Lee seems to have been her model, as indicated by songs associated with Ms. Lee such as the title track and “Black Coffee.”
Ms. Lee’s reputation can only be burnished by comparison to Ms. Mattila’s singing here, but Karita does fine overall. On holding her voice back, some of the top range loses color and is not always in tune; the body of her range sounds very good indeed. Her English comes very close to being idiomatic, with some flat “r” sounds being the occasional giveaway. Your reviewer can’t evaluate her Portuguese, but both “O Pato” and “Corcovado” get enthusiastic performances. The arrangements tend to be very light jazz indeed. “Stormy Weather” in particular gets a most bizarre orchestral prelude before slipping into a more expected blues shuffle.
A vocal trio with the odd name How Many Sisters backs up Ms. Mattila. No Vandellas they.
Ms. Mattila’s greatness as a singer has long been established in the opera world. If this recording brought pleasure to her and the enthusiastic crowds at the live concerts, then “this Fever project” is worthwhile. But don’t let PETA catch her in that fur…
Chris Mullins