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English Touring Opera are delighted to announce a season of lyric monodramas to tour nationally from October to December. The season features music for solo singer and piano by Argento, Britten, Tippett and Shostakovich with a bold and inventive approach to making opera during social distancing.

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This tenth of ten Live from London concerts was in fact a recorded live performance from California. It was no less enjoyable for that, and it was also uplifting to learn that this wasn’t in fact the ‘last’ LfL event that we will be able to enjoy, courtesy of VOCES8 and their fellow vocal ensembles (more below …).

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Royal Opera House Gala Concert

Just a few unison string wriggles from the opening of Mozart’s overture to Le nozze di Figaro are enough to make any opera-lover perch on the edge of their seat, in excited anticipation of the drama in music to come, so there could be no other curtain-raiser for this Gala Concert at the Royal Opera House, the latest instalment from ‘their House’ to ‘our houses’.

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"Before the ending of the day, creator of all things, we pray that, with your accustomed mercy, you may watch over us."

OPERA TODAY ARCHIVES »

Reviews

Fritz Wunderlich: The legend
13 Feb 2009

Fritz Wunderlich — The Legend

Some opera aficionados who take a look at the contents of this two-CD Fritz Wunderlich collection from Profil might shake their heads in bemused wonder: the German lyric tenor as Turridu, let alone Pinkerton and Rodolfo?

Fritz Wunderlich: The legend

Fritz Wunderlich (Tenor)

Profil PH 08016 [2CDs]

$21.99  Click to buy

And if those fans don’t care for operetta, the second disc won’t persuade them to take a chance.

But they should. Profil provides scanty documentation, but the performances apparently derive from 1954-56. Wunderlich, in other words, sings in the freshest voice possible, but with the taste and elegance of his prime. And why not a tasteful, elegant Turridu sung in German (as are the Puccini selections)? Wunderlich traces a beautiful melodic line in the opening serenade, and when it comes to Turridu’s ode to wine (here called a “trinklied”), the tenor pours out that joyful richness heard in his famous versions of “Granada.” Unfortunately, that already brief number suffers a brutal cut, as does Turridu’s farewell to his mother. The duet with Santuzza whips and stings, but as Turridu’s mama has some lines, Profil should have identified the roles taken by the credited Marlies Siemeling and Ingeborg Wenglor. Theo Zilken takes Sharpless to Wunderlich’s Pinkerton, a portrayal that even en Deutsch rivals Pavarotti’s for tonal beauty with the appropriate hint of Yankee arrogance. It’s less of a surprise that Boheme’s Rodolfo fits Wunderlich like a glove, and again he has a good partner in the Marcello of Herbert Brauer, although Trude Eipperle’s Mimi can sound strained. Disc one ends with four selections from Mozart’s early Zaide, two with Maria Stader, and here Wunderlich reaffirms that he is without peer as a Mozart tenor.

Amusingly, Profil identifies the first two tracks of the 17 on disc two as being more Mascagni from Cavalleria Rusticana. “Komm in die Gondel” and “Treu sein, das liegt mir nicht” actually come from Johann Strauss II’s Eine Nacht in Venedig. The conventions of German operetta mean that for some ears, such as your reviewer’s, almost an hour of tenor numbers risks boredom, but such is Wunderlich’s grace and control that tedium never manifests itself. Surely Die Fledermaus has never heard a more attractively sung Alfred.

As mentioned above, Profil does itself and consumers no favors with the packaging. The only track listing, in painfully small font, appears on the back of the jewel box. The slim booklet merely provides only a generic biography, in German and English (of a sort).

Snap this up, Wunderlich fans who do not have the selections, and any other lovers of truly great tenor singing.

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