In addition, to his popular score to A Midsummer Night’s Dream Felix Mendelssohn wrote incidental music to several other plays. Commissioned by the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, the incidental music to Athalia was intended for a private performance of the play by Jean Racine. While the story is a complicated Old Testament plot, Mendelssohn’s music captures the tone of the tragedy with delight, whimsy, and severity.
Interludes in opera articulate moments when the lush voices of singers and vivid spectacle of scenery and action are removed and often the curtain is drawn, and thus they span a functional gap between textless instrumental music and explicit theatrical vehicle. Although composers and analysts suggest rich and multivalent meanings for the music, those implications often escape decoding by audiences. Even the interlude titles — Zwischenspiel, entr'acte, intermezzo — suggest their intermission-like nature. As functional placeholders for scene changes and the like, the interludes are for many a cue to relax attentive listening, read synopses, and whisper with companions. Undaunted by such complexities, Morris takes up the problematic nature of operatic interludes, engaging their ambiguities with eyes wide open in an effort to enrich our understanding of these challenging bits of music.
According to the book jacket, this is the first major scholarly study of Così fan tutte, considered to be one of Mozart's least-understood operas and librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte's most interesting text. Così fan tutte has been studied extensively, despite the broad assertion stated in the book. What the author of this study brings to the reader, which others have not, is a detailed examination of the philosophical, pastoral, and comic background of the libretto, characters, and music of the opera. New perspectives on text and tone in the opera, the subtle use of the pastoral mode, and the tension and balance between philosophy and comedy are what the author brings to the study of this work. In addition, the author does an intensely close reading of the primary sources of the opera, in order to support his theories and statements.
The importance of the Teatre del Liceu, can not be overstated. The house ranks with all the leading theatres of the world, being right up there with Paris, London, New York, Vienna, Madrid, Rome, Milan, Lisbon, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Turin, Naples, Buenos Aires, and other cities of comparable importance. During its long history (158 years at the time of writing) it featured many of the great singers. These include Caruso, Battistini, Tamagno, Ruffo, Caballe, Tebaldi, Mario, Pavarotti, Vignas, Lazaro, O'Sullivan, Stracciari, Pagliughi, Gayarre, Masini, Stagno, Lauri-Volpi, Bellincioni, and countless others. Quite a few of these who sang there before 1897 are represented on the accompanying disc.
Thomas May's stated goal in Decoding Wagner is indeed summarized in his subtitle, An Invitation to His Music Dramas. Mr. May offers an introduction to those who may seek a reliable yet succinct guide in their first Wagnerian experience; a further potential readership is seen among those who have attended performances of Wagner but who wish to expand their appreciation of the music dramas. In his chronological overview of Wagner's oeuvre from the mid-1830s until the close of his career May presents an approachable guide to appreciating the composer's operatic genius. As an illustration of May's commentary on the works, a generous selection of Wagner's music is included on two Discs that accompany the volume in a protective sleeve.
Books described as a "Companion" to this or that and published by university presses should be required to come with a Reader Beware label. As is the case with many books put out by university and many for-profit publishers, the main reason for publishing these is to advance the tenure and promotion prospects of the authors. This is not a bad thing, except that all too often the books aren't very good.
In Making Words Sing, Jonathan Dunsby investigates what he calls the "vocality" of song, that is, the "quality of having voice," as the author states in the introduction to his study. By using this perspective, Dunsby focuses on the intensification of the text that occurs when words are set to music, which stands in opposition to the kind of "songfulness" that Lawrence Kramer discussed in Musical Meaning: Toward a Critical History (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002).
"Puccini & the Girl" is a rare and engrossing work of scholarship that can be enjoyed on several levels. For the Puccini-lover, to say nothing of one who has a special interest in La Fanciulla del West, it will provide a wealth of information not previously available, particularly all in one place. Any one interested in the creative process will find it exposed and examined clearly. The scholar will recognize the fascinating chance discovery, the thrill of the chase and the deep rewards of work undertaken lovingly and with rigorous care by the dedicated and passionate co-authors.
Jack Winsor Hansen's 520-page biography of Sibyl Sanderson (1865 - 1903) is packed with romanticism and gossip that will delight and titillate true worshipers of operatic divas and inquisitive opera fans. It also fills a gap in the music-historical writings about opera at the end of the 19th century.
Cage's music is like Einstein's theorem: most people know it exists, know it's important, but beyond these facts know nothing about it (count me in this category when it comes to Einstein).
If any opera lover feels daunted by the many biographies and analytical tomes dedicated to the life and art of Giacomo Puccini, Norton has done that reader a tremendous favor with the publication of The Puccini Companion. Tightly organized, this series of essays details the life, discusses the operas, and provides a wealth of supplementary information about the composer.
When Rudolf Bing came to the Metropolitan Opera in 1950, he scored a tremendous hit with a new staging of the perennial operetta favorite Die Fledermaus. Both at the opera house on 39th Street and on national tour, the slickly Broadwayized Fledermaus packed in big audiences season after season. A decade later, Bing assembled a fine cast and proven production team for the company's first performances of Strauss's Der Zigeunerbaron in fifty years. 18 performances were scheduled. It sank like a stone and has never appeared at the MET again.
Much current popular culture assumes that its audience is knowledgeable of the American musical. References to, and parodies of, specific musicals are frequently a part of episodes of The Simpsons and South Park, and ads for companies as diverse as The Gap and the World Wrestling Entertainment promotion recently have restaged numbers from West Side Story to plug their products or events. Rarely, if ever, are the sources acknowledged; it is simply taken for granted that a general audience will understand the quotations and parodies.
"I particularly want to reach newcomers" writes Anthony Tommasini, Times chief classical music critic, in his preface. I do not think they will be helped very much by this book. A rookie who picks it up and reads the subtitle may expect something more than two operas by Bellini, two by Donizetti, one Gounod (not Faust), one Massenet (not Manon) and no Lohengrin.
"New musicology" is the cultural study, analysis and criticism of music, which proffers the belief that music has societal, religious, political, personal, and sexual agendas. Consequently, new musicology, much like the discussion of such topics at social gatherings, can be polarizing.
The box-sets contaning the complete recordings of the music of J.S. Bach and W.A. Mozart occupy substantial shelf space in the collections of those fortunate enough to possess them.
Here's a serious niche book, a relatively slender volume dealing with a topic at once both arcane and surprisingly central to some of the major controversies in opera production today. I think it has major problems but it has become for me the pebble dropped into the pond that sends ripples to unexpected places, raising interesting questions in the process.
Among the recent publications on opera, The Cambridge Companion to Grand Opera, edited by David Charlton, breaks new ground with its systematic and thorough exploration of grand opera, a specific part of the genre which played an important role in the musical culture of the nineteenth century.
This volume has long been regarded as the definitive work on the subject, and has been quoted in countless later works whenever a reference was required to the performance histories of individual operas. Taken as a whole, especially when one considers the state of library science when the book was first written, it is a magnificent piece of work, and belongs on the bookshelf of every researcher in the operatic field.
During his heyday, Alain Vanzo did not get quite the recognition he deserved. Though the voice was sweeter and more beautiful than the somewhat white sound of Nicolai Gedda, it was the latter who got all the plums; primo because he was a discovery of Legge and a few years earlier on the scene and secundo while opera managers could cast him in other languages than French and Italian.
![Lucas Meachem as Aeneas & Sarah Connolly as Dido [Photo by Bill Cooper courtesy of The Royal Opera House]](http://www.operatoday.com/Dido_Aeneas_ROH_2009_01.gif)
If combining the anniversaries of both Purcell and Handel in one production at the Royal Opera was something of a master-stroke, then getting the Royal Ballet in on the act must have seemed to be verging on the brilliant from a commercial point of view.
There are plenty of die-hard Handelians in London, a lesser number (we may presume) of passionate Purcellians, and undoubtedly droves of those devoted to the dance — so one can only imagine the glee with which this project was seized upon in the board rooms of Covent Garden. With Dido running to just sixty minutes and Acis to ninety, together they made up a most satisfying sandwich of English baroque music at its most melodious.
Royal Ballet choreographer Wayne McGregor had already shown his work with Dido & Aeneas at La Scala in 2006, so it was only the direction and dance elements for Acis & Galatea that were actually new on the 31st March, and he had a starry cast of singers to work on both productions, as well as his colleagues from the Ballet. In the event there were disappointments as well as delights on the vocal front, and not a little puzzlement regarding the dance.
In Purcell’s Dido, Connolly’s technical assurance, (this role’s tessitura seems to suit ideally) and her total psychological immersion in the role gained from her recent performances and recording, should have enabled her to delineate every nuance of the doomed Queen’s journey from delight in her new love to the final, cathartic acceptance of his betrayal. However, an announced indisposition (a throat infection) prevented her from fully realising the role in a way that might have been expected. She struggled to colour and project in the first Acts, and only managed to give us a glimpse of what might have been in the final, celebrated “When I am laid in earth…” A full recovery in time for the succeeding dates is to be sincerely wished.
Lucas Meacham, baritone, as the perfidious Aeneas, managed to convey some of the vacillating aspects of his character, but his effortful singing and lack of period style was noticeable. In stark and welcome contrast was the stylish, agile soprano of Lucy Crowe who gave us a youthfully-blooming and bell-like Belinda which promises much for the later classical repertoire as well as further major Handelian roles. This dramatically rather ambiguous character’s music was delivered with intelligence. The lesser roles were again variable: Sara Fulgoni mangled the vowels of the Sorceress to a degree that really isn’t on with Purcell at this venue (she sang in the La Scala production where one assumes it wasn’t noticed so much) and didn’t convince as the evil manipulator of the whole drama. Her young witches Eri Nakamura and Pumeza Matshikiza sang brightly with better diction, but were costumed as if just off a London catwalk. Far too nice. Young English countertenor Iestyn Davies was a welcome newcomer to ROH, singing his twelve bars as the Spirit from off-stage somewhere, but with clean attack, good full-throated projection and clear diction. Anita Watson sang the one aria of the Second Woman and Ji-Min Park the Sailor’s; the latter with commendable style and tone. Throughout, the Chorus was excellent in both diction and ensemble and their essential role in this drama was not only underlined but showcased in an entirely proper way.
Sara Fulgoni as Sorceress & Eri Nakamura as First Witch & Pumeza Matshikiza as Second Witch
Seeing the added choreography for the first time neither added nor particularly detracted from the whole — the dancers seemed to be colouring-in the musical interludes and choruses rather than saying anything very much new about the drama. The classical, spare set worked well and gave all performers room to move and lighting filled in the nuances of the drama.
Less convincing were the choreographic elements of Wayne McGregor’s handling of Handel’s Acis. McGregor has, he says, tried to not just mirror the action of this pastoral masque, (or serenata), but to try to access the “meanings” of the drama through the use of dance-imagery — his famously angular patterns trying to elucidate the tensions between the “present” reality of the drama and a more fragile emotional reality. Each singer had either a single or couple of dancers (in as-naked body-stockings) as their alter-egos and it was necessary to accept this extra dimension to the operatic experience if one was to gain such insight. This writer couldn’t, but others may.
Danielle de Niese as Galatea & Charles Workman as Acis
It was good to see Charles Workman back on an English stage in the title role. His Handel, up to now, has been limited to just four roles as he’s been in demand on the continent for his Rossini and Mozart, but on this showing we might expect to see more of him here. Acis lies high in the lyrical tenor’s range, and Workman was indeed working hard from time to time, but his elegance of phrasing and good line in such deceptively difficult arias as “Love in her eyes sits playing…” was a delight. Even more noticeable, and welcome, was his ability to combine Handelian style with plenty of vocal power; his full and ringing tone was a highlight of the whole evening’s double bill and he also received the only spontaneous post-aria applause after a sterling “Love sounds th’alarm”. Matching him in the style stakes, if not the dynamics, was the veteran period performer Paul Agnew who wove lovely phrases around Damon’s bewitchingly melodic lines.
Ji-Min Park as Coridon, Lauren Cuthbertson as Galatea and Paul Kay as Coridon
Workman’s fellow American, the glamorous Danielle de Niese, has built up a considerable (would it be churlish to suggest mainly male?) following in Handel in recent years. But Galatea is no Cleopatra, and de Niese was called upon to realise a very different heroine here. Curiously decked out in black and white, with a bright red scarf and peroxide blonde wig with plaits, she looked like a particularly exotic Heidi and occasionally acted like one. Her soprano is well schooled and flexible and in her middle range she approaches a really beautiful tone. Her carefully prepared trills and ornaments were beautifully placed and “As when the dove….” was prettily sung, but a hardness creeps in when she goes high above the staff. This can reduce the impact of such delicate and affecting arias as “Heart, the seat of soft delight” which is a shame as this is what this role is all about.
Another throat-sufferer pre-announced was bass Matthew Rose as the giant Polyphemus, who made his entrances along a curious but clever “Giant’s Causeway” of mock-basaltic rocks. His singing was not too badly affected and was rounded and smooth without any bark or growl. Whether McGregor’s direction of him worked is debateable. He seemed strangely awkward at times — and was required to walk off stage rather tamely after a perfunctory killing of the noble Acis with a very small rock. Ji-Min Park again sang — this time the one aria of Coridon — and again showed a pleasing tone and style.
Matthew Rose as Polyphemus & Danielle de Niese as Galatea
Also repeating success, and if anything surpassing themselves, was the Royal Opera Extra Chorus who had more acting to do and who sang with assurance and relish. The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under veteran Christopher Hogwood presided at each “opera” — and after some initial intonation variations they settled down to give a polished reading of both, with Anthony Robson’s oboe particularly expressive and stylish. This wasn’t a cutting-edge period performance, but then neither were the productions. What Covent Garden’s first night full house certainly got was value for money — whether it’s the way forward for such baroque gems is another matter.
Sue Loder © 2009