Opera Today

Teatr Wielki Announces Festiwal Hoffmannowski Schedule

Festiwal Hoffmannowski -- Polsko-Niemiecki Festiwal Operowy

Teatr Wielki in Poznan, Poland, has announced the schedule for the Festiwal Hoffmannowski:

Saturday, 2 April, 19.00
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Cosi fan tutte, Premiere!!!
Teatr Wielki, Poznan

Sunday, 3 April, 19.00
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Cosi fan tutte
Teatr Wielki, Poznan

Monday, 4 April, 17.00
Polish-German vocal confrontation
Young Polish and German artists in Polish and German vocal repertoire

Wednesday, 6 April, 17.30
Richard Wagner, Parsifal
Teatr Wielki, Poznan

Thursday, 7 April, 19.00
Ludomir Rozycki, Pan Twardowski
Teatr Wielki, Poznan

Friday, 8 April, 19.00
Krzysztof Penderecki, Diab

The Cambridge Companion to Grand Opera

As the editor discusses in the preface, this book concerns French opera from the 1820s and 1830s, and also its influence on works later in the century, as grand opera was adapted in other countries and inspired other composers to respond to the genre with their own works. This book is an exemplary volume which contains twenty chapters in which the contributors explore the development of grand opera, the elements essential to it, several representative works, and the influence exercised on composers like Wagner and others.

While parlance often renders grand opera as a term that could be applied to opera in general, an opera company, building, or institution, it is important to understand the origins of the musical style that had such a profound effect on the musical world. In the 1820s, as Paris became a center for opera which attracted musicians from various countries, the operas for the Parisian stage took on larger dimensions than had been previously explored in the genre. Grand opera involved librettos based on historical themes and, at times, took on elements of the French spectacle in their presentation. Likewise, the chorus became an integral part of the work, with the apposition of solo and choral textures used for dramatic effect. Ballet is also part of grand opera, and it was left to the ingenuity of the composers to find a way to include dance in the expanding artform.

Composers like Auber contributed some fine works to the stage, and the operas of Giacomo Meyerbeer established a new standard for opera composition. Several articles in this book discuss the works of these composers; in fact, Meyerbeer's major operas are the subject of two articles, one by Matthias Brzoska and another by John Roberts. Halévy was another influential figure, and his works are part of various discussions, not the least of which is the article devoted to his music by Diana R. Hallman.

Grand opera was not an end in itself, and its far-reaching impact is clearly presented in this volume. With Paris as an important center for opera, composers who wished to set their mark in the genre seem obliged to succeed there. Thus, Italian composers from Donizetti to Verdi either adapted their works for the French stage or composed works for it in the style of grand opera. Beyond the conventional wisdom that has operas for Paris requiring a ballet, works that were brought to France were sometimes reconceived in terms of grand opera, and thus result in different versions of works that were already successful elsewhere. By the same token, the transition that from the Rossini to Verdi involved an awareness of grand opera, as M. Elizabeth C. Bartlet points out in her contribution to this Companion.

Even Wagner was influenced by grand opera, since a success in Paris would guarantee a composer's future. His opera Rienzi was a grand opera in five acts that played a seminal part in his development as a composer. Thomas Grey provides some insightful perspectives on this work in his extensive article about Rienzi, and also shows how the style of grand opera emerged in other works by Wagner. Grey's comments about the ultimate blurring of elements from grand opera into Wagner's later operas might be read with other operas from later in the nineteenth century in mind:

Critics have often sought to separate the modern, philosophical Wagner, as composer and dramatist, from Wagner the stage-designer, still behold to antiquated notions of Romantic stage `realism.' Yet the ways in which he remained true to the ideals of grand opera were critical to his success in capturing the imagination of audiences in his own day, and probably now, as well. (p. 342)

It is possible to read this passage with other composers in mind, including the Verdi of Don Carlos and Un ballo in maschera (a photograph from a production of that operas is part of the cover of the present book), the early Puccini of Edgar and Le villi, as well as and the Richard Strauss of Guntram and Feuersnot - not without reference, too, to the influence of Wagner. Grand opera influenced the genre in other ways, as discussed in chapters devoted to Czech and Russian works and also opera in Italy during the latter part of the nineteenth century. As Sarah Hibberd states near the end of her chapter on grand opera in Britain and the Americas, "By the end of the nineteenth century . . . it is difficult to distinguish the influence of Meyerbeer from that of later composers. . . ." (p. 422). In a sense it is impossible to escape fully the ways in which grand opera reinvigorated the stylistic choices for composers to use in opera and the aesthetics through which audiences can perceive the grandeur and scope of this dynamic artform.

The Cambridge Companion to Grand Opera is an important contribution to study of opera because of the focus with which it treats a genre that is sometimes passed over. In fact, the entire book is well organized, with the individual articles are uniformly consistent and worth reading on their own. In addition to the editor's introduction, which sets the tone for the book, this Companion contains a chronology, which is useful in itself for understanding at a glance the context of the works discussed. Likewise, the bibliography of selected secondary sources provides references to important studies that readers may wish to pursue on their own. This book is essential for those interested in nineteenth-century opera - as well as the culture of the period - and those interested in this music should not miss it.

James L. Zychowicz
Madison, Wisconsin

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Kát’a Kabanová at Staatsoper Unter den Linden

Melanie Diener als Katja
Stephan Rügamer als Boris
© Monika Rittershaus

Trockenes Bad in der Wolga
Regisseur Michael Thalheimer gibt in Berlin sein Operndebüt mit Janácek

von Manuel Brug [Die Welt 24. Januar 2005]

Ihre Ruh' ist hin, ihr Herz ist schwer. Die junge Frau im gelben Sommerkleid duckt sich in ihrem Stuhl, drückt die Hände in den Schoss, blickt nach oben.

Diesmal ist es nicht Goethes Gretchen, das hier - um im jüngsten Grass-Jargon zu bleiben - "verthalheimert", sprich: auf ihr sprachliches und inhaltliches Gerüst skelettiert wurde. Es ist die Kaufmannsgattin Katja Kabanova, die ihre einzige Sehnsucht, die Liebe zum schwächlichen Boris, mit dem Leben bezahlt und in die Wolga geht. So steht es in Alexander Ostrowskis Theaterstück "Das Gewitter" von 1859 geschrieben. Welches Michael Thalheimer, der kühlkopfige Minimalist unter den tonangebenden Theaterregisseuren, sicherlich auf das Wesentliche zurechtzustutzen vermocht hätte. Ohne russische Folklorismen und Nebenhandlungen, nackt, statisch, als pure Versuchsanordnung.

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Il Trovatore at Houston

Sondra Radvanovsky as Leonora in Il Trovatore
in Bilbao (February 2002)
Photo: Julian

Voices carry Il Trovatore in a crowd pleaser

By CHARLES WARD
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle [Jan. 24, 2005, 11:13AM]

The opening-night audience for Houston Grand Opera's revival of Il Trovatore had one thing on its mind: grabbing every chance to cheer the familiar tunes that propel Verdi's dramatically awkward piece.

As soon as soprano Sondra Radvanovsky finished Leonora's first big aria, the bravos let loose -- far more intensely than usual in the middle of a performance.

The ache to approve a style of music many people view as true "grand" opera continued right up to the curtain calls. Then, the crowd unleashed cascades of applause and yells.

That reaction should have made HGO general director David Gockley happy. His past productions of Il Trovatore have been plagued with troubles. While he did need to replace the mezzo-soprano for Azucena at the start of rehearsals, Friday's production at the Wortham Theater Center went on without hitch (save for a couple of off-stage clanks and sliding scenery that needed a shot of WD-40).

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LOEWENBERG: Annals of Opera, 1597-1940

It will also provide countless hours of browsing pleasure to people who are interested in a given opera and want to learn a little more about its performance history. Unfortunately, these comments do not necessarily apply to nineteenth century Italian opera in general and to the bel canto period in particular.

The basic premise of this book is to give the absolute and country premieres of the 4000 or so operas that the author thought important enough to include. This is followed by "full" performance histories of 17th and 18th century works, and first performances by country (or, rather, "cultural unit") of most nineteenth and twentieth century operas. The book was written at a time when the esteem for nineteenth century Italian opera was at its nadir, and, as a result, many significant Donizetti, Pacini and Mercadante works were omitted. These include Maria Stuarda, Pia de'Tolomei, Il Reggente, Le Due Illustre Rivali, and Caterina Cornaro. All but the last had significantly more impressive performance records in the nineteenth century than many of the German works included. Loewenberg himself admits in his preface that a more complete listing of the operas of Donizetti, Bellini and Verdi would have been tiresome and uninstructive. He cannot be blamed for his preference for classical and German opera, but the result is a seriously unbalanced book.

However, the biggest problem with Loewenberg is the very large incidence of errors, both of omission and of commission. This point may best be illustrated by examining in depth the listings of a typical opera. In line with the decision made to use the treatment given Dom Sebastien as one of the key parameters in judging the volumes listed in this bibliography, this work was selected. Loewenberg himself devotes half a column to Dom Sebastien, and divides his entries into five groups:

Performances in French: Both entries are in Belgian cities. The French version is also known to have been given in a number of French provincial cities. The listing of these would have been optional according to Loewenberg's modus operandi, but desirable in order to get an accurate picture of the dissemination of the opera. A more significant omission is New Orleans (the U. S. premiere of the original French version), which obviously should have been included.

Performances in German: As can be expected, this is where Loewenberg is most accurate. His entries are all correct, and while there are no entries for Breslau and Munich, these are covered by the etc., and he already lists two cities in Germany. The one missing entry in German that I would have expected him to include is Ljubljana.

Performances in Italian: This is where Loewenberg is weakest, and is also most typical of what can be expected from his listings for other Italian operas of the period. He gives eight entries for the Italian version: Lisbon, Milan, Barcelona, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Malta, New York City and Mexico. He omits at least eight country premieres. I am listing these by city: Havana, Alexandria, Corfu, Bucharest, St. Petersburg, Montevideo, Caracas, and Constantinople, the Madrid premiere, which should have been included since he lists two cities each for Belgium, Germany and Austria, and three entries in bi-cultural towns, which according to his preface, merited special attention. These are Nice, Trieste, and Rijeka (Fiume). Of the eight entries that he does give, three are wrong: Buenos Aires, Malta, and Rio de Janeiro. Thus, of the 20 entries that one would have expected (16 country premieres, one major country capital, and three bi-cultural cities) five are correct, three are in error, and twelve are omitted. Thus, there is an incidence of error for the Italian version of 75% and for the opera as a whole of close to 40%. While such a high incidence of error undoubtedly does not apply to all, or even many of the Italian operas included, even half that figure would be totally unacceptable. A cursory examination of other listings indicates that the actual figure for the ottocento is probably much closer to 15-25% errors of omission and commission. This is still enough to seriously diminish the value of this volume to musicologists interested in the period.

A second volume, which was originally intended to update the listings to 1980, has been promised for years. It is not known whether it will ever materialize, but that seems highly unlikely at this point.

Tom Kaufman

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Schumann's Genoveva at Volksoper Wien

Kritik Volksoper: Widergängerin aus deutschem Tann

VON STEFAN MUSIL (Die Presse) 25.01.2005

Schumanns "Genoveva", einmal mehr auf Lebensfähigkeit geprüft.

Robert Schumann hat seine Spitzenposition in der Musikhistorie: herrliche Symphonien, wunderbare Kammermusik, grossartige Lieder. Doch er hat auch eine Oper hinterlassen: Genoveva. Eine Komposition auf ein eigenes, ungelenkes Libretto, das durch die Zeiten geistert und weder sanfte Ruhe noch dauerhafte Wiederbelebung erfahren kann.

Schumanns Wunsch nach einer Oper war offenbar gross, er verwarf zahlreiche Ideen, darunter die Nibelungen. Angeregt durch Genoveva-Dramen von Tieck und Hebbel, entschied er sich endlich fürs Schicksal der standhaften Gräfin, die vom bösen Golo bedrängt wird, ihn zurückweist und schimpft, worauf der Fiesling sie des Treuebruchs beschuldigt. Der aus dem Krieg heimkehrende Gatte, falsch informiert, überlässt sie der Todesstrafe. Nur in letzter Minute kann das Schrecklichste abgewendet werden.

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Resonanzen 2005: Alessandro Scarlatti's La Vergine dei Dolori

Alte Musik: Passion in Rom, Kantaten in Neapel

VON GERHARD KRAMER (Die Presse) 25.01.2005

Anspruchsvolles Entrée der "Resonanzen": Alessandro Scarlattis "La Vergine dei Dolori":

Neun Tage lang darf sich Wien jetzt wieder als Welthauptstadt der Alten Musik fühlen. Zum 13. Mal locken die "Resonanzen" ein begeisterungsfähiges Publikum mit einer wohlabgewogenen Mischung aus bewährten und für Wien neuen Künstlern ins Konzerthaus. Das Motto "Metropolen" hebt sich wohltuend von der zuweilen etwas aufgesetzt wirkenden Wahl vergangener Jahre ab: Sinnvoll ordnen sich die Abende zu einem Reigen europäischer Musikzentren zwischen Padua, London und Paris.

So schon "Rom", das stürmisch akklamierte Eröffnungskonzert im Grossen Saal: Keiner könnte die musikalische Pracht der Ewigen Stadt im Barock besser personifizieren als Alessandro Scarlatti mit seinen fast 40 Oratorien - die Gattung erlebte dank des jahrzehntelang aufrechterhaltenen päpstlichen Opern-Verbots eine Hochblüte. "La Vergine dei Dolori" (1717) ist ein Spätwerk; ablesbar an der bis ins Letzte verfeinerten Ausdrucksskala, der preziösen Führung der Singstimmen, der extravaganten Harmonik namentlich in den Rezitativen. Die Seelenqualen der Gottesmutter angesichts der Passion werden so in immer neuen Farben ausgemalt.

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Monteverdi's Le Couronnement de Poppée at Lyon

Le triomphe de l'amour sincère

Lyon : Christian Merlin [Le Figaro]
[24 janvier 2005]

On revoit encore William Christie, l'été dernier, inquiet de la tournure qu'allait prendre son travail avec Peter Stein pour Le Couronnement de Poppée prévu à Lyon cet hiver : le metteur en scène allemand avait, en effet, très envie de se débarrasser des scènes comiques qui, selon lui, viennent comme un cheveu sur la soupe, alors que c'est justement ce mélange des tons qui fait la grandeur de la pièce ! Ce qui devait arriver arriva : on apprit bientot que Stein avait jeté l'éponge, remplacé par Bernard Sobel. Et c'est bien avec le fondateur du Théâtre de Gennevilliers que vient d'avoir lieu la première du chef-d'oeuvre de Monteverdi à l'Opéra de Lyon. Sobel apporte ainsi sa pierre à l'engouement actuel pour cet opéra fascinant, après McVicar, au Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, et avant David Alden au Palais Garnier.

Après la lecture pléthorique et riche en clins d'oeil de McVicar, façon sitcom hollywoodien, Sobel mise sur l'humilité et la lisibilité. Dans le décor unique mais mouvant de Lucio Fanti, un enchevetrement de figures géométriques bleues tachées d'étoiles et formant une voute, les personnages évoluent dans des costumes accentuant le drapé des toges à l'antique. Pas de transposition ici, mais une allégorie plus intemporelle qu'actuelle. On est parfois à la limite du kitsch et de la naïaut;veté, comme ce sacre final par un angelot ailé, à la lueur de la lune.

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Poppée, immortelle courtisane, couronnée par William Christie

LE MONDE | 24.01.05 | 15h00

A Lyon, Bernard Sobel signe une mise en scène inventive de l'œuvre de Monteverdi.

Lyon de notre envoyée spéciale

Qu'avons-nous à couronner ainsi Poppée, la courtisane corrompue dont le crime se mesure à l'aune du pouvoir cynique incarné par Néron, à la mort de Sénèque le philosophe, à la destruction d'Octavie, impératrice répudiée ? De Paris à Séville, en passant par Hambourg, Francfort, Munich, Zurich, Lyon, Strasbourg, et Salamanque, que de Couronnement de Poppée ! Comme si l'idéologie sulfureuse du dernier chef-d'œuvre de Monteverdi (créé au Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo de Venise, vraisemblablement fin 1642) n'avait rien perdu de sa terrible actualité. Comme si le livret de Francesco Busenello, d'après Les Annales de Tacite (livre XIV), parlait d'un temps que nous reconnaissons.

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Le Figaro Interviews Marc Minkovski

Marc Minkovski : "La Flute appelle mille lectures"

A 20 ans, Marc Minkovski fondait les Musiciens du Louvre et, très vite, imprimait sa sensibilité gourmande sur le répertoire baroque, puis sur des Offenbach qui ont fait mouche à Lyon, Grenoble et Paris. On se souvient d'un grand Couronnement de Poppée à Aix-en-Provence, d'un admirable Pelléas et Mélisande, salle Favart, pour le centenaire de l'oeuvre en 2002. A l'Opéra de Paris, Gérard Mortier en fait aujourd'hui un pilier de ce qui ne ressemble pas à de la sagesse : le voici aux commandes musicales d'une nouvelle Flute enchantée venue du Festival de la Ruhr, et donnée en pâture au délirant groupe catalan La Fura del Baus. Le chef, lui, s'occupe surtout de Mozart.

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Gluck's Alceste — A Crumbling Edifice in Boston

Leighton: Hercules fighting against Death for Alceste

An old opera gets new life in this production of 'Alceste'

By Richard Dyer, [Boston] Globe Staff | January 23, 2005

Last May, Opera Boston general director Carole Charnow saw a production of Andre Previn's operatic version of ''A Streetcar Named Desire'' in Washington, D.C. She knew immediately she had found the director she wanted for the collaborative production of Gluck's ''Alceste'' that Opera Boston and Boston Baroque will present this week.

Brad Dalton, a Harvard alum from the mid-'80s, has worked as an assistant director at the Metropolitan and San Francisco operas and is now making a name on his own. He set ''Streetcar'' not so much in a literal New Orleans as in the mind of the heroine, Blanche DuBois. It was the abstract but emotional quality of his staging that Charnow thought would be right for ''Alceste,'' one of the oldest operas that remains in the international repertoire. Intelligent, emotional, and wired, Dalton talks a mile a minute in an accent redolent of his native Texas, hands flying.

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Samson and Delilah at Opera Carolina

Rembrandt: The Blinding of Samson (1636)

The opera that almost wasn't

Steven Brown
The Charlotte Observer
Published: Sunday, January 23, 2005

Maybe Camille Saint-Saens should've chosen his friends more carefully. When he marshaled a singer to treat them to two arias from an opera he was working on - about the biblical tale of Samson and Delilah - they scoffed.

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Is Opera Relevant in Scotland?

Falstaff is a false dawn for our home-grown talent

KENNETH WALTON [The Scotsman Mon 24 Jan 2005]
ON CLASSICAL MUSIC

WHILE Scotland's national opera company is in meltdown, how ironic is it that the opera school of our national music conservatoire is flying high? The two institutions may only be sited yards across the road from one another in Glasgow's Cowcaddens district, but the fortunes of Scottish Opera and the Alexander Gibson Opera School at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (RSAMD) could hardly be more diametrically opposed.

The problem with Scottish Opera, as we know, and as the company's excellent new production of Tippett's The Knot Garden readily proves, is not artistic. Without going over old ground, the cultural mandarins at the Scottish Executive simply don't have the stomach for high art, the expertise that goes into making opera, or indeed the kudos a successful national company brings.

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Missa Solemnis at Chicago

CSO, Rilling make a statement with Beethoven's `Missa Solemnis'

By John von Rhein
Tribune music critic

January 22, 2005

Two of Beethoven's most difficult yet most inspiring masterpieces, "Fidelio" and "Missa Solemnis," are making Chicago the epicenter of a grand Beethoven festival.

Each work is a heroic undertaking that tests the performers' mettle to the utmost. And yet, with soprano Karita Mattila leading Beethoven's only opera to triumph at Lyric Opera, and, the Chicago Symphony and Chorus delivering a strong and stirring performance of the "Missa Solemnis" this weekend at Orchestra Hall, one comes away exalted, grateful to have heard these pieces performed at the highest level.

Good fortune enabled the CSO to engage Helmuth Rilling on short notice to fill in for Daniel Barenboim while the music director took a week off to allow his injured back to heal.

The German conductor is best known as a Baroque choral specialist but, as he proved with the "Missa Solemnis," he is an authority on the big choral repertory of many periods. With the splendid vocal, choral and orchestral forces at his disposal, he distilled Beethoven's monumental paean to God's majesty into the basic human need for hope in the face of death. For his efforts Thursday night, the audience rewarded him with a prolonged ovation.

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Kurt Schwertsik's Katzelmacher at Neue Oper Wien

Neue Oper Wien: Kunst als heisse Kartoffel

VON WILHELM SINKOVICZ
Kurt Schwertsiks "Katzelmacher" nach R. W. Fassbinder erstmals in Wien - zumindest andeutungsweise.

Der kabarettistisch freche Ton der Pariser Moderne der Dreissigerjah re ist es, der Kurt Schwertsik fes selt. Das bekannte er jüngst im Gespräch. Dieser Ton weist ihm offenkundig auch den Weg in Gefilde des Musiktheaters, die nichts mit den erdschweren, klangwuchernden Experimenten der deutschen und österreichischen Moderne der Nachkriegszeit zu tun haben, sondern sich am moralisierenden Unterhaltungstheater der Zwischenkriegszeit orientieren, das nicht nur von den Franzosen - in einer durchaus konsequent aus dem ursprünglichen, sozialkritischen Operetten-Esprit eines Jacques Offenbach - entwickelt wurde.

Man verstand diese Zeichen der Zeit auch in deutschsprachigen Landen, wenn es auch kein Zufall sein dürfte, dass etwa die in nämlichen Regionen beheimatete Ballett-Farce "Die sieben Todsünden" von Bert Brecht und Kurt Weill 1933 in Paris ihre Uraufführung erlebte. Die Wahl der "Neuen Oper Wien", Kurt Schwertsiks jüngstes Theater-Werk, "Katzelmacher" nach Rainer Werner Fassbinders gleichnamigem Stück, mit den "Todsünden" zu koppeln, schien auch deshalb einleuchtend, weil Schwertsik seit Jahren nicht mehr daran denkt, einem missverständlichen artistischen Fortschrittsdenken zu opfern. Seine Kompositionstechnik ist gegenüber der von Weill jedenfalls nicht im Sinne der Zeitachse als avanciert zu bezeichnen.

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Irritierende Meditationen über die Schlechtigkeit der Welt im Wiener Jugendstiltheater.

Wien - "Schreibe die Musik, die du hören möchtest": Das war der Rat, den der österreichische Komponist Kurt Schwertsik seinem Freund aus der Wiener Nachbarschaft gab. Ob sich dieser daran hielt, wissen wir nicht.

Schwertsik selbst jedoch ist in Katzelmacher, der 2003 im Auftrag der Wuppertaler Bühnen entstandenen Oper nach dem Skandalfilm und -theaterstück des früh verstorbenen Rainer Werner Fassbinder, nicht mehr der romantische Ironiker, der er mal war. Sondern er nimmt sich dieses minimalistischen, tristen Kammerspiels mit seinen kargen Dialogen absolut puritanisch, grell, die menschliche Verlogenheit aufdeckend an.

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Cast information:
Helga — Annette Schönmüller
Gunda — Anna Clare Hauf
Elisabeth — Daniela Fally
Marie — Doris Langara
Ingrid — Tanja Watzinger
Paul — Thomas Rettensteiner
Jorgos — Dmitrij Solowjow
Bruno — Marco Di Sapia
Erich — Dieter Kschwendt-Michel
Franz — Manfred Equiluz

amadeus ensemble-wien

Cantors & Capellmeisters at Queen Elizabeth Hall

New London Consort

Geoff Brown at Queen Elizabeth Hall

WHEN a programme contains music by Gregor Aichinger, Philipp Friedrich Böddecker, Daniel Bollius and Johann Christoph Pezel, to name only four (or is it ten?), an auditorium less than full might, unfortunately, be suspected. These are 17th-century German worthies known largely to scholars alone. But why can't audiences be more adventurous? In that century you're bound to get memorable tunes, catchy rhythms, enticing counterpoint: I don 't see what the problem is.

Besides, after years of happy concerts can't the New London Consort be trusted? Philip Pickett, their ringleader, has never unearthed a dud yet, certainly not in this Cantors & Capellmeisters programme dedicated to Bach's friends and precursors. Vocal cantatas sweet and gracious; a sinewy Buxtehude chaconne; concertos, suites: all dispatched by the most gifted and sure-footed singers and musicians. When Julia Gooding unleashes her rich, round soprano, or Adrian Chandler dances on his violin, or David Staff's trumpet tootles on high, no one should stay away.

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A Disarming Pelléas et Mélisande

Debussy's Ill-Fated Love, Stripped of All but Its Power

By ANTHONY TOMMASINI

You cannot blame this longtime lover of Debussy's "Pelléas et Mélisande" for being suspicious when L'Opéra Français de New York announced that it would present a staged production of the work in its "original version" for voices and piano. No orchestra? Wasn't this small company simply producing the opera on the cheap?

The L'Opéra Français production opened on Wednesday night at the French Institute Alliance Française on East 59th Street, and it was a revelation.

Here was Debussy's landmark opera presented in the institute's intimate Gould Hall in a simple yet gripping modern staging, performed by an appealing cast and the sensitive and tireless pianist Raphael Rochet. Imagine "Pelléas" as psychological theater, as engrossing chamber opera. Those who know the work well, or not at all, and those planning to attend the Metropolitan Opera's revival of Jonathan Miller's production, which opens Jan. 29, should not miss the final performance of L'Opéra Français's production tonight.

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Così fan tutte at Wiener Staatsoper

Kritik: "Così fan tutte" in der Staatsoper
Mit "Così fan tutte" verbesserte sich der Mozart-Ton schlagartig.

Mag sein, manch einer findet die forsche Gangart, die Julia Jones bei Mozart einschlägt, ein wenig zu schnoddrig. Doch erweist sich: Die Dirigentin weiss in jeder Phase einer Aufführung, was sie will, behält die übersicht über die Dramaturgie und hält Orchester und Bühne immer fein zusammen - und das in raschem Lustspielton. Alles Eigenschaften, die heutzutage offenkundig auch in der Wiener Staatsoper rar geworden sind.

Zwischendurch finden die Musikanten, da rundum im komödiantischen Korsett alles fest sitzt, auch Gelegenheit, ein wenig Klangzauber und improvisatorischen Geist einzubringen - vor allem ätherische Bläserfarben, die sich etwa im himmlischen Terzett des zweiten Bilds (Flöte!) und in Solonummern wie der E-Dur-Arie der Fiordiligi (Klarinette, Horn!) ergeben. Da blüht dann neben dem makellos schönen Gesang der Soile Isokoski auch philharmonischer Klangsinn auf, wie er früher einmal selbstverständlich war. Wie er sich auch im Verein mit dem vor allem in der ersten Arie traumverloren schön singenden Ferrando von Michael Schade zwischen Vokal- und Instrumentallinien ergibt, wie er auf manch verschmitzte Pointe reagiert, die von Heimkehrerin Helen Donath, einer selbstironisch hintergründigen Despina, gesetzt wird.

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Salzburg To Celebrate Wolfie's 250th

Salzburger Festspiele Pressebüro

Salzburg Festival to stage Mozart marathon in 2006

Last Updated Thu, 20 Jan 2005 16:23:28 EST
CBC Arts

SALZBURG, AUSTRIA - Austria's venerable Salzburg Festival will stage all 22 of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's operas and musical theatre works next year, the 250th anniversary of the composer's birth.

Simply staging the composer's seven most-performed operas - including Le Nozze de Figaro and Idomeneo — "would have been too little for Salzburg," festival director Peter Ruzicka told reporters Thursday.

"The idea is to be able to examine the development of this unique genius and to contrast it with the music of the 21st century," he said of the Mozart marathon, which will mount the 22 works in about six weeks.

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Click here for general information on Salzburg Festival 2006.

Muti in Milano

Riccardo's way

By Andrew Clark [Financial Times]
Published: January 21 2005 18:15 | Last updated: January 21 2005 18:15

Here, indicates the maestro, is the "punto Callas". Riccardo Muti and I are standing onstage at La Scala, Milan, where so many great operas have been premiered and countless distinguished singers have sung. Facing the deserted auditorium, he points to an unmarked spot on the floor, right of centre, which Maria Callas established as her sovereign territory. It is the punto, or position, which best showed off a singer's voice in a theatre renowned for its acoustical quirks. "There was great competition for this point," smiles Muti. "In a quartet you would have a tower of singers."

Breaking the eerie stillness, the maestro claps his hands to show how much more flattering the acoustic has become since the great Milanese theatre reopened last month after a three-year renovation. Has La Scala ever resonated so crisply to the sound of one person's applause? Muti's point is that there is no longer any need for a "punto Callas".

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Don Giovanni, Grand Theatre, Leeds

Published: January 20 2005 02:00 | Last updated: January 20 2005 17:12

After some wild recent productions it comes as a surprise to find a Don Giovanni set in Spain, as Mozart intended. How many directors care to remember that Don Giovanni's tally of women there numbered 1,003, as Leporello's catalogue reminds us every time we see the opera? Having decided on a Spanish setting, Opera North's new production tries to make the most of it. Photos of bullfights are flashed across a screen to draw a glib parallel with Don Giovanni the predatory sexual toreador. The cast gird their loins for some rather dubious Spanish dances. And — most important — the time is updated to the Spanish Civil War, bringing the class antagonism of the opera into modern focus.

All these presumably looked promising ingredients, but Olivia Fuchs, the director, has made a right paella out of them. Whatever political message she was hoping to elicit is scuppered before the interval, when the aristocratic Don Giovanni is found entertaining the leftwing sympathisers to a black-tie ball. (Which side is he meant to be on?) Throw in a set that comprises three ladders against a blank wall and a laddish translation apparently hatched in Ilford c.1985 and all pretence at period Spanish colour is lost.

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BERG: Wozzeck

Alban BERG (1885-1935)
Wozzeck (1917-1921)

Walter Berry, bar (Wozzeck); Max Lorenz, ten (Tambourmajor); Murray Dickie, ten (Andres); Peter Klein, ten (Hauptmann); Karl Dönch, bass-bar (Doctor); Harald Pröglhof, bass-bar (Erster Handwerksbursch); Marjan Rus, bar (Zweiter Handwerksbursch); William Wernigk, ten (Der Narr); Christel Goltz, sop (Marie); Polly Batic, alto (Margret).

Orchestra and Chorus of the Vienna State Opera/Karl Böhm
rec. live, Vienna State Opera Festival, 25 November 1955.
Mono. DDD 2004
includes 176pp booklet and libretto

ANDANTE AN 3060 [35'44" + 60'04"]

Andante's new mastering of famous live performances aims to capture what those performances might have felt like. This gives these recordings an automatic cachet of authenticity and a kind of cult status. However, much depends on the quality of the particular performance. The skill is to choose quality performances that really are interesting in themselves, and to remaster them in ways that do them justice. The Andante series comes impressively packaged, with luxuriously bound booklets, beautifully presented. However, in this case the music does not quite match the promise. Worthy as this performance is, and worthy it is indeed, it is not an ideal first choice. Artistically it is good, but best appreciated by those who know Abbado, Boulez, Dohnanyi and even Böhm's later recording. While I'm one who listens for music, not for sound quality, in this case the sound quality is poor enough to distract - not enough to ruin listening, for it would take a lot to deter a genuine listener - but just enough to feel that you're listening through an artificial medium. This may have been recorded live, but it doesn't "feel" live, with the pops, crackles and occluded passages. Ultimately that defeats its own purpose.

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Karita Mattila — A Stunning Leonore

'Fidelio' returns
Lyric, cast rise above flawed Beethoven opera

By John von Rhein
Tribune music critic

January 19 2005, 1:00 AM CST

"Fidelio" has been missing in action at Lyric Opera for nearly 24 years, much too long for a flawed masterpiece that once held sway on Wacker Drive whenever the great tenor Jon Vickers was available to sing the punishing role of Florestan.

Beethoven's only opera attempts to translate the high-flown democratic ideals he later developed in his Ninth Symphony into credible theatrical form. He didn't fully succeed despite his heroic labors. But dramatic awkwardness finally bows to the music itself: a great score driven by noble sentiment.

Much of that noble sentiment was recognizable in the radiant Finnish soprano Karita Mattila's thrilling portrayal of Leonore, the opera's courageous, larger-than-life heroine, at the Lyric's first performance of the season Tuesday night at the Civic Opera House.

But the Lyric also did itself proud with its casting of the other roles, all of them strongly filled.

Whatever inconsistencies of concept marred German stage director Jürgen Flimm's updated production from the Metropolitan Opera (taken over in his absence by his assistant, Gina Lapinski) were more than offset by the splendidly idiomatic conducting of Christoph von Dohnányi, returning in triumph to the theater that gave him his U.S. operatic debut 36 years ago.

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Beethoven's 'Fidelio' seizes the heart

January 20, 2005

BY WYNNE DELACOMA Classical Music Critic

With all due respect to Beethoven -- creator of those landmark piano sonatas, gripping string quartets and iconic Ninth Symphony -- opera was not his forte. "Fidelio,'' his sole foray into the form, which opened Tuesday night at Lyric Opera of Chicago, has its clunky patches. In Act II, he is so eager to emphasize his points about the value of freedom and selfless love that he belabors them mercilessly.

But such weak spots were easy to overlook, given the powerful musical and theatrical forces at work in this production conducted by the estimable Christoph von Dohnanyi and starring Karita Mattila in the title role, Rene Pape as the jailer Rocco and Kim Begley as the imprisoned Florestan.

"Fidelio's'' story of a wife risking her life to free her unjustly imprisoned husband is universal, and designer Robert Israel has moved the action to the 20th century. The tale of the loving wife, Leonore, who disguises herself as a male prison guard, Fidelio, in an attempt to rescue her husband, Florestan, plays out in a grim concrete prison block. Its gray, forbidding shadow could be falling across God-forsaken stretches of west Texas, Bosnia or South Africa. Originally staged for the Metropolitan Opera by Jurgen Flimm in 2000 and staged for Lyric by Met assistant director Gina Lapinski, this is a world in which important politicians wear well-cut three-piece suits and prison guards sport short-sleeved khaki shirts and brandish billy clubs.

At the center of this barren arena, Mattila's Fidelio glowed like a judiciously hooded but red-hot flame. Previously this season, the Finnish soprano sang a moving Donna Anna in Lyric's "Don Giovanni," and her Leonore/Fidelio offered an even more nuanced blend of glorious singing and riveting acting. Mattila's voice is big and agile, with a bright center and velvety edge, capable of plumbing every facet of Leonore's treacherous emotional journey.

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Live from New York — Death and Transfiguration

Facing Death, Armed Only With Sound, Not Drama

By BERNARD HOLLAND

The level of Luciano Berio's music was still on the ascent when he died two years ago at 77. "Stanze" - five poems for solo voice, chorus and orchestra - were his last pieces, and they shine with poise and quiet confidence. We are reminded that the possibilities of instrumental combinations are far from exhausted. The Philadelphia Orchestra under Christoph Eschenbach introduced New York to "Stanze" at Carnegie Hall on Tuesday night, adding Act III from Wagner's "Parsifal" in concert form.

Paul Celan's "Tenebrae," the first poem, is accompanied by drifting, attenuated chords of extraordinary beauty. If Berio's music moves slowly, or sometimes not at all, there is activity within: textures swelling and contracting like lungs, woodwind colors swimming and undulating. So striking are the sounds that high drama is unnecessary.

Death and the approaching appointment with one's maker dominate these poems. If Celan is dark and supplicating, Giorgio Caproni's offering here is a sly and wistful metaphor of one man's descent from a crowded train. The music is colored by small flutters and shrieks; the chorus sings in almost conversational fragments and spurts.

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Peace is at hand in San Diego

Opera-symphony pact a notable event

The two major groups haven't always cooperated

By Preston Turegano and Valerie Scher
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITERS

January 20, 2005

A San Diego Opera-San Diego Symphony agreement reached this week to share musicians signifies a new level of achievement for two arts organizations that have fought second-tier status for years.

It also ushers in unprecedented cooperation for these major arts organizations, which didn't always work cooperatively or compatibly.

The relationship will link the symphony and opera as never before while boosting their artistic quality and enhancing the orchestra's hard-won financial stability — building on a $100 million gift it received in 2002 from philanthropists Joan and Irwin Jacobs.

"We are probably the only orchestra in America today that is expanding its commitment to musicians," symphony executive director Edward B. "Ward" Gill said yesterday. "It's a huge challenge. We must collaborate. We must coordinate schedules, make everything work."

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Seeking Greatness at Lincoln Center

Lipsky, Pat / 2004

Lincoln Center hosting diverse 'Great Performers'

Thursday, January 20, 2005
BY BRADLEY BAMBARGER
Star-Ledger Staff

NEW YORK -- The British are coming. So are the Russians, along with an Argentinean and the usual Austrians and Germans. Lincoln Center's 2005-06 "Great Performers" lineup was announced Tuesday, and the 40th season of the multimedia series once again draws a multicultural mix of classical performers.

The opening events of "Great Performers," Sept. 28-Oct. 2, bring the return of the virtuoso London Symphony Orchestra under Sir Colin Davis in programs ranging from the Verdi Requiem to Sibelius and Vaughan Williams. That kicks off a season featuring visits from 10 international orchestras, plus 31 recitals and chamber concerts.

The "Great Performers" offerings also include a festival devoted to Argentine-American composer Osvaldo Golijov and a new series of late-night, world-music concerts, as well as a 10-part film series on Richard Wagner and sundry educational events.

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Ghosts of Performances Past

Concert Memorializes the Ghost of the National Theatre in Washington DC

In the Helen Hayes Gallery, as part of Monday Night at the National Theatre, Opera Music Theater International (OMTI) under the direction of James K. McCully conducted a memorial concert in honor of actor John McCullough. John McCullough, a distinquished actor who performed Shakespearean and other roles at the National Theatre, and according to the Washington Post was reputedly shot and killed in the theatre by a fellow thespian. His remains are rumored to lie in earth beneath the stage of the National Theatre in Washington DC.

Washington DC (PRWEB) January 20, 2005 -- The National Theatre is a plethora of stars of the past, the present, and the future of the great American theatre. Almost every great stage performer over the past century has graced the stage of this historic theatre. The oldest cultural institution in the Nation's capital, the National Theatre is one of the oldest continuously operating theatres in America.

The National Theatre, managed by the Shubert Organization, has presented numerous North American and World premieres of professional Broadway Class-A Legitimate Productions throughout its history. The National Theatre over looks the International Trade Center and Freedom Plaza on "The Avenue of the Presidents". Since its inception, the National Theatre has been crowned "The Theatre of the Presidents" having performed for every American President and First Lady.

"The First Lady of the American Theatre" and legendary actress Helen Hayes saw her first stage performance from the balcony of the National Theatre. Miss Hayes returned many times since that time to perform on the stage of the National Theatre throughout her career. The Nation's official portrait of Helen Hayes is on permanent loan from the National Portrait Gallery, and is prominently display at the National Theatre in the Helen Hayes Gallery.

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Renée Takes Seattle

Fleming gives it all she's got, and that's a lot

Thursday, January 20, 2005

By R.M. CAMPBELL
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER MUSIC CRITIC

Renée Fleming came and conquered the full house Tuesday night at Benaroya Hall.

Now 45, the soprano is in her prime, not only with that voluptuous voice but her musical acuity and dramatic instincts.

When singers become as famous as Fleming, connoisseurs find something to criticize, often justified: a mannered style or lackluster ambition in terms of repertory, for instance. When the voice is as gorgeous and gleaming as Fleming's, there is always the danger the singer will be content to deliver a pretty sound and little else.

That argument has been made against Fleming, but there was little in her recital, presented by the Seattle Symphony, to support it, in spite of the occasional technical smudge. I have been listening to Fleming live for 15 years, and I cannot remember a more persuasive evening of her art.

With Fleming, one begins with the voice itself: a sound like cream that travels effortlessly up and down the scale. There is radiance in the voice as well as purity, strength and openness. Its warmth is balanced with roundness. It blossoms when you want it to and can crawl into a silvery pianissimo when desired. She possesses a line that seemingly can travel forever without interruption. She can be exquisite or ardent and, at Benaroya, she never confused the two. The voice summons the word lyrical and all that it implies, from sheer beauty of tone to seamless phrasing. She can float a note, or series of notes, to the degree the ear follows closely as the sound slips into nothingness.

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Pelléas et Mélisande in New York

Savoring Debussy's 'Pelléas'

By Anthony Tommasini The New York Times
Wednesday, January 19, 2005

NEW YORK Sigmund Freud's seminal "Interpretation of Dreams" was published in 1900. But Claude Debussy had already poked around in the unconscious in his landmark opera "Pelléas et Mélisande," which he had essentially composed (though not orchestrated) by 1895.

Of course, Maurice Maeterlinck, whose play Debussy adapted into his opera, had been treading through Freudian terrain even earlier. Maeterlinck, a leading figure in the Symbolist movement, which arose in the 1880s, espoused veiled emotions, mystery and indirection over realism.

On the surface of a Maeterlinck play, the dialogue might seem everyday, the action inconsequential. But below, his works stirred up disturbing, confounding and sensual feelings. Debussy read the newly published script for "Pelléas et Mélisande" in 1892, saw a production in Paris the next year and immediately seized on it as a subject.

As he wrote at the time, the play had "far more humanity than those so-called 'real life' documents" and contained "an evocative language whose sensitivity can be extended into music and into the orchestra décor." There will be two opportunities to encounter the work here: On Wednesday and Friday, L'Opéra Français de New York will present a staged production of what it calls the "original version" of the opera, for voices and piano. On Jan. 29 the Metropolitan Opera revives Jonathan Miller's alluring 1995 production of the familiar final version.

The mysterious story, set in some vaguely medieval time and place, tells of a sullen middle-aged widower, Golaud, the son of the frail King Arkel of Allemonde. One day, while hunting aimlessly in the forest, Golaud comes upon a lovely, frightened and evasive young woman who cannot bear to say a word about her past life. Passively, she follows Golaud and later marries him, only to find her emotional armor threatened by Golaud's attractive and adoring young half-brother, Pelléas.

For all the perplexing richness of the play, Debussy's deceptively calm music taps the subliminal emotions of the characters more deeply than Maeterlinck's words. Though he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1911, Maeterlinck is probably best known today for his role in the creation of Debussy's opera.

"Pelléas et Mélisande" is a radical work, a kind of anti-opera that has long divided audiences. Some listeners find it dramatically static and exasperating. Admittedly, the pacing is glacial; inconsequential events are stretched into entire scenes. Debussy's music, sensuous and radiant, can seem as murky and evasive as Mélisande, the most striking example of a compulsive liar in all of opera. Even Maeterlinck nodded off when Debussy played through the score for him at the piano, though, from all reports, Maeterlinck had little sensitivity for music.

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Cincinnatus Idyll

Idol-izing the Opera

The audition of a lifetime: Would-be chorus members sing for spots before judges at Music Hall

By Lauren Bishop
Enquirer staff writer

There was no scowling Simon Cowell, no one singing while holding a scooter and no William Hung.

But Cincinnati's own classical version of "American Idol" auditions took place Friday and Saturday at Music Hall. Budding singers and classically trained performers sang with all the fervor of "Idol" winner Fantasia in an attempt to land a spot in one or more of Cincinnati Opera's four summer productions.

The 46 people who signed up to sing Friday and Saturday, the third set of auditions the opera held, were trying out for 20 remaining chorus positions. Those spots mostly were in "Margaret Garner," a new opera that has a 32-person African-American chorus.

The hopefuls read over sheet music, paced and, in some cases, prayed before singing in front of the "judges" - chorus master Henri Venanzi and artistic administrator Marcus Küchle.

Waiting to audition Saturday, 29-year-old Lewanda Spaulding of Springfield Township studied color photos of past performances hanging on a wall.

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Carmen at Toronto

Carmen curse put to the test

COC's last staging in 1993 was disaster

MARTIN KNELMAN

Richard Bradshaw is finally ready to lift the curse and bring Carmen back to Toronto next fall as part of the Canadian Opera Company's final season at the Hummingbird Centre.

Georges Bizet's hot-blooded saga about the Spanish gypsy and jealous soldier is one of the greatest crowd-pleasers in the opera repertory, but at the COC a black cloud has been hanging over it for the past 12 years.

The reason: The COC's last production of Carmen, in 1993, was a disaster that helped mire the company in debt and led to the sacking of Bradshaw's predecessor, Brian Dickie.

This time, Bradshaw explained with a sly smile at a COC press conference yesterday, Carmen (opening Sept. 29) will be "firmly and recognizably set in Seville."

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Philadelphia Opera Company's 2005-2006 Season

A premiere among the classics

'Margaret Garner' debuts during Opera Company's upcoming season

By TOM DI NARDO

For the Daily News

The premiere of "Margaret Garner," plus a late Verdi masterpiece, and Figaro's twin adventures as told by Rossini and Mozart make up the Opera Company of Philadelphia's 2005-2006 season.

For the second year, the company will present four operas with six Academy of Music performances each.

"We hope that we will be able to return to five productions in the 2006-2007 season," said the company's general and artistic director Robert Driver as the '05-'06 season was announced yesterday.

The much-anticipated "Margaret Garner," with libretto by author Toni Morrison and music by Richard Danielpour, will receive its East Coast premiere in February after being performed by its other co-commissioners, Michigan Opera Theatre and Cincinnati Opera.

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The Sopranos

Two dazzling American divas headline Opera Company of Philadelphia's spring season.

by David Shengold

It finally happened: Record companies have gotten their image-obsessed claws into the opera world. And now more than ever, the opera "industry," if not necessarily the listening public, wants its sopranos to be ready to do a few (nonspeaking) minutes on Letterman. Some of these runway-model-type singers, like Opera Company of Philadelphia alumna Anna Netrebko, have genuine talent; several have crashed and burned almost as fast as television starlets. This situation has spun out of control. Opera should be about total theatrical conviction, not just silhouettes.

Never fear: Opera Company of Philadelphia boasts two exciting sopranos to anchor its spring shows: Angela Brown in Verdi's Aida and Christine Goerke in Johann Strauss' Die Fledermaus. These two world-class singers command plenty of glamour and charisma onstage but are keenly aware that they do not have the supertrim bodies of the carb-phobic album-cover babes that recording execs have been desperately pitching the opera world for the last 15 years. In November, Goerke described herself (unfairly, but with typical humor) to The New York Times as "built like a linebacker;" but she made a dizzyingly seductive figure as Handel's sorceress, Alcina, at New York City Opera. Similarly tall and queenly, and bringing dignity and passion to her roles, Angela Brown can cut up a room with her irreverence. (In the unlikely event Soul Plane gets made into an opera, she gets the Mo'Nique role.) By any adult reckoning, these are two of the hottest young sopranos in America, and that includes their voluptuous presences onstage. Opera singers are athletes, varying in weight class as do boxers; they have to be toned to do their job. Projecting one's voice over a large orchestra to a hall seating 2,800 -- completely unmiked, as listeners attuned to pop and rock are often surprised to learn -- involves a great deal of muscular development and training. Both Brown and Goerke move impressively and can access the Big Emotions that can make opera a uniquely moving art form.

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The Russians Bomb at Kennedy Center

Kirov Opera: Hitting All the Wrong Notes

By Tim Page
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 19, 2005; Page C04

What were they thinking?

The "Kirov Spectacular" — which opened last night at the Kennedy Center Opera House — proved the sort of celestial vaudeville that should have . . . well, gone out with vaudeville.

It seemed a generous program — some three hours of selections from ballets and operas performed by the Kirov Ballet, Opera and Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre, under the direction of Valery Gergiev. But the pieces had little to do with one another (indeed, they could almost have been chosen by lottery) and the musical performances were too often shopworn and lackluster — a scanty reward for those who managed to find their way to the Kennedy Center through the cold, clotted streets of pre-inauguration Washington.

The evening began well, with the overture to Glinka's "Ruslan and Lyudmila" — peppy, Russianized Rossini, conducted by Gergiev with his trademark headlong vigor. Within the past couple of days, it was decided, somewhat mysteriously, to make this long program longer by incorporating the "Black Pas de Deux" from "Swan Lake" into the proceedings, and here the show began its own swan dive, for the orchestra sounded tired and blanched (despite a nice hint of Gypsy throb to some of the solo violin playing). This is hardly the best of Tchaikovsky to begin with, and it sounded especially rum in the rigid, clattering performance it received last night.

[Click here for remainder of review.]

Manon Lescaut at Seattle — Two Reviews

Monday, January 17, 2005

An early, problematic Puccini work gets mostly successful reading by Seattle Opera

By R.M. CAMPBELL
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER MUSIC CRITIC

Puccini's "Manon Lescaut," which Seattle Opera has produced only sporadically in its 40-year history, is a work that goes in fits and starts. Moments of genuine inspiration and compelling drama mark the composer as a man of genius, but in this early opera, his talent is not always consistent. The demands on the tenor are notoriously difficult.

So, with its eyes wide open, the company mounted the third production in its history to bring in the new year Saturday night at McCaw Hall. It succeeded more than many efforts without breaking the bank, using conventional but serviceable sets and costumes from Montreal Opera.

Rooted to its place in time, Puccini's "Manon" is a period piece that resists attempts to make it more contemporary or more visually alluring. Seattle Opera made no attempt dress up the piece to give it style or panache. It allowed those revelations of Puccini's talent to flower, and when they did, they were given generous impetus.

One can readily criticize the jumbled libretto, the product of many hands, and the varied writing for singers. However, where Puccini was at his surest was in the orchestra, typically full-bodied and rich in details. Wisely, Seattle Opera asked an old hand at Puccini to preside in the pit, and he delivered the goods from the overture to the denouement.

[Click here for remainder of review.]

Leads deliver stunning debuts

By Melinda Bargreen
Seattle Times music critic

There's only one way to make a success of Puccini's "Manon Lescaut": with impassioned singing actors who can make the audience believe the world is well lost for love.

Seattle Opera has just such a show with two singers, Carol Vaness and Jay Hunter Morris, making their career debuts in the leading roles. As Manon, Vaness brought decades of international stage experience to bear on a wholehearted, utterly committed performance. Vaness gave everything she had, redefining the concept of throwing oneself into a role, and the results were stunning.

From her opening scene to her last gasp, Vaness peeled the years away to become three different women. First was the slightly gauche, enthusiastic young girl en route to the convent, a girl who discovers love at first sight with the dashing young Chevalier des Grieux (Morris). Next came the bored, spoiled young mistress of the elderly Geronte (Arthur Woodley), still longing for her true love but unwilling to give up her newly acquired jewelry.

Finally, Vaness became the desperate, broken woman in exile, the one who declares that her sins will be forgotten, but never her love. Achieving these transformations would be a credit to any actress, but, of course, there is more than acting to opera.

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More Than 2,000 Say Goodbye to Victoria de los Ángeles

The coffin of Spanish Victoria de los Angeles, a distinctive soprano who sang most of the great lyric roles in most of the world's opera houses, is placed inside the cathedral Nostra Senora del Mar during her funeral in Barcelona, January 17, 2005. Victoria de los Angeles died in hospital on Saturday at the age of 81.
REUTERS/Gustau Nacarino

La musica preside el adiós a Victoria de los ángeles

Más de 2.000 personas asistieron al funeral de la soprano en Santa Maria del Mar

ROGER PASCUAL
BARCELONA

Más de 2.000 personas abarrotaron ayer la basílica de Santa Maria del Mar para despedir a Victoria de los ángeles. Familiares, amigos, representantes del mundo de la lírica, la política y la cultura y admiradores de la soprano asistieron al emotivo funeral, en el que, como no podía ser de otra manera, la musica tuvo un papel principal.

Acompanado por las notas del Parsifal de Wagner, interpretado por el coro y la orquesta del Gran Teatre del Liceu, el féretro entró en la iglesia desbordada por la masiva afluencia de publico. En la primera fila, a la diestra del ataud, se situaron los familiares de la fallecida. A la izquierda del féretro se encontraban las autoridades políticas que, con su presencia, resaltaban la trascendencia de la finada.

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Songs of Schumann, Vol. 9

The Songs of Robert Schumann, vol. 9.
Ann Murray, Felicity Lott, sopranos, Graham Johnson, piano. Hyperion CD J33109

The latest volume of Hyperion's comprehensive collection of the Songs of Robert Schumann is an impressive recording of Schumann's Liederalbum für die Jugend, Op. 79 (1849). The songs are settings with children in mind, and not necessarily music for children to perform; the texts are by a number of poets, such as Goethe, Hebbel, Schiller, Rückert, Uhland, and von Fallersleben. In selecting the texts for this collection of Lieder, Schumann touched upon a variety of subjects, including topics associated with children, like Christmas, and verse about animals ("Marienwürmchen" and "Die Schwalben"); other texts deal with seasons, like Spring ("Frühlingsbotschaft" and "Frühlingsgruss") and the fantastic, as occurs in "Vom Schlaraffenland."

In this CD the performers created what the pianist Graham Johnson describes as "a new performing version" of the work by interspersing the songs with various pieces from the composer's Klavieralbum für die Jugend, Op. 68 (1848). This mode of presentation is wholly in the spirit of Schumann's music and gives the sense of a Lieder-Abend. In fact, the performance is framed by other works that reinforce the spirit of the recording, with a vocal duet set to a text by Schumann's daughter, Marie, and concluding with the "Soldatenlied" (WoO 6) that ends with the direction (implied in its text) that should send children to bed.

Graham Johnson's extensive notes that accompany this recording are useful for understanding the performers' rationale in combining these two collections — the Liederalbum and the Klavieralbum — into a convincing whole. In explaining the planning that went into this performing edition, Johnson considers the exigencies of performing this music. While the music is overtly intended for children, the works do not entirely lend themselves to unskilled performers. Johnson concedes that youthful pianists could tackle the music in either the solo piano pieces or the accompaniments to the Lieder, but cautions the use of children's voices for Lieder that are better suited to experienced singers.

In fact, the two singers here demonstrate in their effective performance the nuance they can contribute. Both Ann Murray and Felicity Lott are highly regarded for their work with Lieder, and this new recording is further proof of their talent. When the women sing together, their voices blend easily and convincingly, as is evident in the "Mailied" (Op. 79, no. 10) and "Frühlingslied" (Op. 79, no. 19). Elsewhere, each singer renders the songs with equal assuredness and mastery, as found in Murray's effective approach to the two "Zigeunerliedchen" (Op. 79, nos. 7 and 8) and the "Käuzlein" (Op. 79, no. 11). Likewise, Lott makes the most of the music in "Mignon" (Op. 79, no. 29), which contains the famous text "Kennst du das Land." In this single Lied, Lott demonstrates her ability to shape such familiar music masterfully.

The pianist Graham Johnson not only accompanies these two women in the Lieder, but also executes the piano pieces deftly. He chose several fine pieces from the Op. 68 collection to use in this performance, so that they complement the songs and also contribute some thematic unity to the recording. In placing the "Lied Italienischer Marinari" (Op. 68, no. 36) after "Kennst du das Land" Johnson offers an apt postlude to the song just before the recording closes with both women singing the "Soldatendlied" that forms a fitting epilogue to the entire performance.

This recording is an excellent contribution to the modern performances of Lieder preserved on CD. Not only does this recording offer authoritative interpretations of the Op. 79 Lieder, but it should inspire performers to use their creativity to combine music by Schumann in the engaging fashion found here, which is fully in the spirit of nineteenth-century practice. The booklet published with the CD includes Johnson's discussion of this performing edition, along with a fine essay on the genre of music for children, which he places in the context of nineteenth-century culture. In addition, the complete texts and translations are accompanied by a commentary on each song and the several illustrations from the period, including facsimiles from various editions, round out the presentation of Lieder on this fine CD.

James L. Zychowicz
Madison, Wisconsin

Fidelio at the Lyric Opera of Chicago

For his only opera, Beethoven won 'martyr's crown'

January 16, 2005

BY WYNNE DELACOMA Classical Music Critic

Among history's crowded pantheon of tormented genius-artists, Beethoven holds an honored spot.

Often he composed quickly and with little apparent struggle. But he was no Mozart, who typically composed with a facility and speed that some music scholars have described as "taking dictation from God." Beethoven filled sketchbooks with musical fragments, doggedly reworking and refining them like a miner scratching for diamonds in a black-walled shaft. With his wild hair, scowling gaze, deafness -- a particularly cruel infirmity for a musician -- and volcanic temper, he is the very model of a modern angst-ridden artist.

Few of his compositions gave him more angst than "Fidelio," which Lyric Opera of Chicago presents starting Tuesday in an updated production with Karita Mattila, Kim Begley, Rene Pape and conductor Christoph von Dohnanyi. Put through three major revisions between 1804 and 1814 and performed with four different overtures, it is Beethoven's only opera and explores the lofty ideals of love and freedom that obsessed the composer throughout his life.

The opera's full title is "Fidelio, or Married Love," and it tells the tale of the courageous Leonore, who disguises herself as a man, Fidelio, and risks her own life to free her unjustly imprisoned husband from his underground dungeon. With stirring music including a powerful prisoners' chorus and an ecstatic love duet, it contains hints of two masterworks, the Missa solemnis and the Ninth Symphony, that would follow in the next decade.

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Enescu's Oedipe at Cagliari

Oedipe a Cagliari

Recensione di Lanfranco Visconti

Il Teatro Lirico di Cagliari pur attraversando, come risaputo, un periodo difficile sotto il profilo strettamente finanziario da cui - con lo sforzo e l'impegno di tutte le maestranze e, soprattutto, di tutte le istituzioni pubbliche e private alle quali dovrebbero stare piu a cuore le sorti e il bene della cultura musicale regionale e nazionale -, ci auspichiamo riesca anche con sacrifici ad uscire, ha inaugurato la stagione lirica e di balletto 2005 con "Oedipe", tragedia lirica in 4 atti del rumeno George Enescu, su libretto di Edmond Fleg, in una nuova produzione dello stesso Teatro Lirico, in prima esecuzione assoluta in Italia e in versione originale francese.

I responsabili del Teatro hanno così voluto perseverare nel percorso iniziato con successo di pubblico e di critica nel 1998 con "le Fate" di Wagner, proseguito nel 1999 con "Dalibor" di Smetana, nel 2000 con "Gli stivaletti" di Cajkovskij, nel 2001 con "Elena egizia" di Strauss, nel 2002 con "Euryanthe" di Weber, nel 2003 con "Opricnik" di Cajkovskij e "Alfonso und Estrella" di Schubert, nel 2004.

Rappresentata per la prima volta all'Opéra di Paris il 13 Marzo 1936, l'opera trae ispirazione sia dagli antichi miti greci sia dall'Edipo re e dall'Edipo Colono di Sofocle ed è imperniata sul tragico ed inesorabile destino di Edipo, figlio del re dei tebani, Laio, e di sua moglie Giocasta, che secondo la profezia dell'oracolo uccise suo padre e sposo sua madre.

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Mozart's Mass in C Minor Completed

Happy Ending for Unfinished Mozart

By ALLAN KOZINN

Mozart left comparatively few major (or potentially major) works unfinished, and while it may seem daunting - presumptious even - for another musician to complete these scores, the lure of making an incomplete work whole is clearly too great to resist.

Can the results ever be more than hyphenated Mozart? Probably not. A musicologist steeped in Mozart's musical moves may project what the composer might have done at any point in a work, based on what he did in similar scores, and the completion may sound thoroughly Mozartean. But Mozart often came up with solutions that are completely surprising. Part of what made him Mozart - in fact, part of what makes any great composer great - is unpredictability.

Robert D. Levin, a superb pianist and a skilled, conscientious musicologist, has completed or reconstructed several works by Mozart and other composers. His version of the Mozart Requiem is the most satisfying of the many completions of that score. One gets the sense, from both his essays and lectures, that his decisions in these projects are carefully weighed and also that he takes enormous joy in having reached conclusions that are both historically proper and musically enlivening.

His latest reconstruction, unveiled on Saturday evening at the valedictory concert of Carnegie Hall's weeklong Choral Workshop, is a completion of Mozart's Mass in C minor (K. 427), commissioned by Carnegie Hall for the occasion. It was given a robust, soulful performance by the Carnegie Hall Festival Chorus (that is, the participants in the choral workshop) and the Orchestra of St. Luke's, led by Helmuth Rilling, one of the world's most eloquent choral directors.

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The Tsar's Bride at the Mariinsky

Here comes the bride

By Galina Stolyarova

STAFF WRITER

Anna Netrebko stars as the passionate and poisoned Marfa in the Mariinsky Theater's new production of "The Tsar's Bride. The Mariinsky Theater's famous blue curtain rises and Grigory Gryaznoi, the mighty commander of Ivan the Terrible's feared bodyguards, the oprichniki, bemoans his unrequited love for young beauty Marfa Sobakina. Gryaznoi sits on a shabby bench in a place resembling one of the so-called Culture and Leisure parks that were a typical feature of the Soviet era.

A seashell-shaped summer theater with quiet alleys and a ferris-wheel in the background is the setting for a new production of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's 1899 opera "The Tsar's Bride," which premiered on Dec. 29 at the Mariinsky Theater.

Director Yury Alexandrov moves the characters into the post-war Russia of the late 1940s. Sixteenth-century Russian boyars throw their fur coats over casual mid-20th century clothes, and Ivan the Terrible's oprichniki look more like NKVD officers. Fear and uncertainty abounds the stage.

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Les Pêcheurs de perles at Metz

Les Pecheurs de perles

Dans le cadre de la programmation de l'Orchestre national de Lorraine, nous avons le plaisir d'assister à une représentation de concert des Pecheurs de perles, ouvrage d'un charme indéniable quoique légèrement suranné d'un compositeur de vingt-cinq ans, encore tributaire de certaines influences (mais certainement pas de l'influence wagnérienne dénoncée par certains critiques à la création !), en bénéficiant de l'acoustique exemplaire de la grande salle de l'Arsenal. Le concert permet d'oublier l'indigence d'un livret dont les auteurs (Michel Carré et Eugène Cormon) avaient été les premiers à regretter les faiblesses, pour se concentrer sur les qualités de la partition. En effet, si Bizet apparaissait encore prisonnier des conventions de son époque et laissait peu deviner du génie dramatique qui s'exprime dans Carmen, ses Pecheurs de perles ne manquaient pas d'atouts, et Berlioz, critique aussi lucide qu'exigeant, prit d'ailleurs la plume pour défendre un ouvrage recelant selon lui "un nombre considérable de beaux morceaux expressifs pleins de feu et d'un riche coloris". A l'aune du chef-d'oeuvre à venir, cela peut sembler peu, c'est certain ; pour autant, la partition ne mérite probablement pas le dédain qui lui est ordinairement réservé par une certaine élite intellectuelle autoproclamée dont le sectarisme continue à faire beaucoup de tort à l'art lyrique. Les Pecheurs de perles ne sont certes pas visités par le génie, mais ils témoignent d'un métier très sur au regard de la jeunesse d'un compositeur déjà habile à trousser la mélodie et à colorer l'orchestre pour composer un orientalisme sans doute désuet mais tout à fait séduisant.

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Britten's Billy Budd in Munich

Stöckelschuhe und Seemannsgarn
Vor allem ein musikalisches Ereignis: "Billy Budd" im Nationaltheater
Edward Morgan Foster, einer der beiden Textlieferanten von Benjamin Britten, hätte womöglich protestiert. "Billy ist unser Erlöser", notierte er, "und doch ist er Billy, nicht Christus". Was der Regisseur, Kitsch-verliebter überdeutlichkeit nicht abgeneigt, irgendwie überlesen haben muss. Wir sehen also Billy an eine Golgatha-gleiche Leiter gefesselt, dann die "Kreuzabnahme" durch Captain Vere, als Eingangsbild aber, aus dem sich alles als Rückblende entwickelt: Billy als Pietà in den Armen dieses Mannes, der durch den schönen Matrosen sein emotionales und erotisches Erweckungserlebnis hatte - der "Messias" also gescheitert?

Gut ein halbes Jahrhundert hat es gedauert, bis "Billy Budd", Benjamin Brittens 1951 uraufgeführtes Meisterwerk, an der Bayerischen Staatsoper angekommen ist. Ein hochtheatrales Stück zwischen Seemannsgarn und Homoerotik, zwischen Kriegs- und Menschenrecht, zwischen verborgener (Zu-)Neigung und Pflichterfüllung. Ein Stück also, das "funktioniert" und berührt, wie der enthusiastische Premierenbeifall zeigte. Kein Buh, nicht einmal für Regisseur Peter Mussbach, dafür Bravi schon vor Beginn, als Kent Nagano, GMD ab 2006, den Graben enterte.

Und mag's im Orchester auch murren, weil man sich bei Naganos Berufung übergangen fühlte, weil auch das absurde Argument kursiert, der Neue habe doch kaum Opernerfahrung: Das Dirigat des künftigen Chefs weckt grosse Neugier. Nagano änderte die Sitzordnung, platzierte tiefe Streicher links und die Bläser direkt vor ihm, wodurch das eigentümliche Kolorit von Brittens Partitur noch verstärkt wurde. München muss also umhören. Denn Nagano ist ja kein Freund süffiger Unverbindlichkeit, sondern ein Schattierungs- und Strukturtüftler.

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Der junge Mann und das Meer

Kent Nagano dirigiert Brittens Seefahrer-Drama ,Billy Budd" und gibt sein Debüt an der Bayerischen Staatsoper

Von christine Lemke-Matwey

Als Winston Churchill für die britische Kriegsmarine zuständig wurde, soll er in einer Rede vor dem House of Commons geknurrt haben: ,Unsere Marine floriert seit Hunderten von Jahren auf Grund von drei Dingen: Rum, Peitsche und Sodomie." Daran ist mehrerlei bemerkenswert. Zum einen sagt es etwas über Politikersprache und deren Deutlichkeit, zum anderen ist das House of Commons keineswegs kollektiv in Ohnmacht gefallen. Und zum dritten benennt diese äusserung in ihrem Sarkasmus eine Stimmung, wie gewiss auch Nicht-Briten sie unweigerlich mit Romanen und Filmen wie ,Moby Dick" oder der ,Meuterei auf der Bounty" assoziieren: stolze Dreimaster in peitschender Gischt, Harpunen, die zuckendes Menschenfleisch durchbohren, rasselnde Säbel, klingelnde Ohrringe, Breitseiten aller Arten - und über allem das Bild einer trotzenden-strotzenden Männlichkeit, das das Salz der Weltmeere wohl bis in alle Ewigkeit auf unsere Netzhäute gebrannt hat.

Mit solcher Piratenseligkeit wollte die Bayerische Staatsoper naturgemäss nichts zu tun haben, als sie Kent Nagano und Peter Mussbach nun mit der Münchner Erstaufführung von Benjamin Brittens Seefahrer-Oper ,Billy Budd" betraute. Das ist richtig und bedauerlich zugleich. Richtig, weil Brittens Musik - und was wäre nach Opern wie ,Peter Grimes" (1945) oder ,The Rape of Lucretia" (1947) je anderes zu erwarten gewesen - in all ihrer Verträglichkeit für das zeitgenössische Ohr, ihrer ebenso überzeugten wie überzeugenden ästhetischen Homöopathie niemals bloss illustriert.

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Don Giovanni at Vienna

Staatsoper: Was weiss Wien noch von Mozart?

VON WILHELM SINKOVICZ

Edita Gruberova singt noch einmal die Donna Anna in einem etwas chaotischen "Don Giovanni".

Auf dem Programmzettel liest man: 136. Aufführung in dieser Inszenie rung. Tatsächlich: Wenn der Vor hang sich hebt, erblickt der Staatsopernbesucher die altvertrauten Kulissen der einst von Franco Zeffirelli betreuten "Don Giovanni"-Produktion. Sie ist über 30 Jahre alt und ersetzt aus unerfindlichen Gründen schon wieder die erst vor zwei Jahren aus dem Theater an der Wien ins grosse Haus übersiedelte, jüngere Inszenierung.

Damit sind die Anknüpfungen an die Wiener Mozart-Tradition auch schon wieder zu Ende. In Zeffirellis Kulissen hatten sich einst noch Restbestände von Sing- und Spielkultur ereignet, die den Zaungast angelegentlich darauf verwiesen, dass in dieser Stadt einmal Mozarts grosse Opern auf ganz besondere Weise gepflegt wurden, dass diese Tradition von Generation zu Generation vererbt und insbesondere im philharmonischen Orchester innig bewahrt wurde.

Tempi passati. Von einer Mozart-Spielkultur sind wir heute so weit entfernt wie von einem Sängerensemble, das diesen Namen verdiente. Denn ein Ensemble zeichnet sich jedenfalls dadurch aus, dass die einzelnen Vertreter miteinander in Spiel und Singweise harmonieren, aufeinander eingehen und miteinander ein Stück erzählen, sich und dem Publikum zur Freude.

Dergleichen ist in Wien seit Jahren nur noch in Ausnahmefällen zu erleben - zuletzt bei "Figaros Hochzeit" in der Volksoper, bei "Idomeneo" und natürlich bei den von Riccardo Muti betreuten Vorstellungen im Theater an der Wien. Im Grossen und Ganzen aber ist von einheitlichem Gestaltungswillen und -können keine Rede mehr. Man kämpft mehr ums überleben. Und zwar jeder für sich.

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Le Monde on Victoria de Los Angeles

Victoria de Los Angeles, une voix au naturel

LE MONDE | 17.01.05 | 15h11

La cantatrice espagnole est morte à Barcelone le samedi 15 janvier, à 81 ans. La soprano a laissé des enregistrements d'anthologie et a marqué son époque par un répertoire extremement étendu.

Elle s'en est allée rejoindre les anges, dont elle portait si bien le nom. Victoria de Los Angeles s'est éteinte samedi 15 janvier, à l'âge de 81 ans, à la clinique Teknon de Barcelone, ou elle avait été hospitalisée, à la suite de troubles cardio-pulmonaires, le 31 décembre 2004. Née le 1er novembre 1923 dans la capitale catalane, Victoria Gómez Cima (ou Garcia Lopez), dite Victoria de Los Angeles, avait grandi dans une Espagne meurtrie par les guerres. La fille du concierge de l'université, qui travaillait sa voix dans les salles de cours vides, avait conquis le monde de l'opéra dès 1947 en remportant le grand Concours international de Genève, qui lui valut de débuter l'année suivante à la BBC dans le role de Salud de La Vie brève de De Falla.

Immédiatement connue et reconnue pour son timbre lumineux et chaud, son pouvoir expressif instantané, son charisme scénique et son charme naïaut;f et frais, Victoria de Los Angeles faisait partie de ces artistes rares qui vivent leur art avec une humanité désarmante et possèdent ce don précieux d'incarner la musique. Chevelure très brune, sourire émouvant de madone et regard tragique, Victoria de Los Angeles, malgré sa silhouette menue, possédait une grande force de caractère. Josep Carminal, l'actuel directeur du Liceu de Barcelone, ou elle débuta en 1944, dans la Comtesse des Noces de Figaro, parle d'une artiste instinctive, mais au gout exquis. Victoria de Los Angeles reste un modèle de style et de phrasé, parfaitement intelligible dans quelque langue qu'elle chante.

Artiste complète, la soprano catalane pouvait tout interpréter, de la musique baroque à la chanson espagnole, du Lied allemand à la mélodie française, en passant par le grand répertoire lyrique italien, français et germanique. Sa discographie en témoigne : 80 enregistrements pour EMI, dont 21 opéras complets et 25 récitals solistes. . . .

Discographie

Anthologies et divers

The Very Best of Victoria de Los Angeles. Avec Gerald Moore et Alicia de Larrocha (piano), Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos et Carlo Maria Giulini (direction). 2 CD EMI.

œuvres de Ravel, Duparc, Debussy, Ravel, Montsalvatge, Scarlatti, Berlioz, Dvorak, Purcell, Mozart, Granados, Rodrigo, Mompou, Toldra, Brahms, Falla, etc. Avec Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (soprano), Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (baryton), orchestres divers, Georges Pretre, Jean-Pierre Jacquillat (direction). 1 coffret de 4 CD EMI.

Les Archives du Festival de Prades, avec Clara Haskil, Mieczyslaw Horszowski (piano), Orchestre du Festival de Prades, Orchestre Philomusica de Londres, Pablo Casals (direction).

Opéras

Faust, de Gounod. Avec Nicolai Gedda et Boris Christoff, Chœur et Orchestre de l'Opéra de Paris, André Cluytens (direction). 3 CD EMI.

Carmen, de Bizet. Avec Nicolai Gedda, Chœur et Orchestre de la Radio française, Thomas Beecham (direction). 2 CD EMI.

Manon, de Massenet. Chœur et Orchestre de l'Opéra-Comique, Pierre Monteux (direction). 3 CD Testament.

Simon Boccanegra, de Verdi. Orchestre et Chœurs de l'Opéra de Rome, Gabriele Santini (direction). 2 CD EMI.

Madame Butterfly, de Puccini. Orchestre et Chœurs de l'Opéra de Rome, Gianandrea Gavazzeni (direction). 3 CD EMI.

La Vida breve, de De Falla. Avec l'Orchestre d'Espagne, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos (direction). 2 CD EMI.

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Death of Columbus at Pittsburgh

Opera Review: Opera or oratorio, 'Death of Columbus' premiere is a success

Monday, January 17, 2005
By Robert Croan, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

When is an opera not an opera? The world premiere of Leonardo Balada's "Death of Columbus" -- performed in concert form Friday evening in Carnegie Music Hall -- raises the question. It's not just the lack of scenery, costumes and staging for this occasion, but the nature of the work itself. There was a feeling that scenery, costumes and staging might not have made much difference.

The Carnegie Mellon composition professor wrote "Death of Columbus" in the early 1990s to follow his "Christopher Columbus," which had been premiered in Barcelona in 1989. Whereas the earlier work dealt with the activity of the voyage, ending with the arrival of Columbus in the New World, the sequel places Columbus on his deathbed, and proceeds in surrealistic flashbacks that are almost entirely contemplative.

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Parsifal at Wiener Staatsoper

Wagner Demystified, With a Human Face

By ANNE MIDGETTE

VIENNA, Jan. 14 - Sir Simon Rattle, arguably the leading conductor in the world, had never conducted at the Vienna State Opera until Wednesday night, when he made his debut with a bang, and with Wagner's five-hour "Parsifal."

"Parsifal" is commonly labeled Wagner's Christian opera. At the very least it is a tale about redemption, and many conductors limn it in hovering clouds of mysticism.

But Sir Simon gave it a human face. His reading was anchored at every moment in what was happening on stage, aiming not for transcendence but for human emotions expressed in human terms. He drew lyrical passages of pure singing out of the score, as if even the orchestra were speaking with a human voice.

Another major factor in this humanity was the Amfortas of Thomas Quasthoff, who first did the role here when the production opened last April. Mr. Quasthoff, one of the most gifted singers alive, was born with physical deformities caused by the drug Thalidomide: around four feet tall, with hands growing almost directly out of his shoulders and no knee joints, he long avoided the opera stage in favor of concerts and recitals.

Sir Simon helped persuade him to take the plunge into opera, starting with the small role of Don Fernando in Beethoven's "Fidelio" at the Salzburg Easter Festival in 2003. Amfortas is only his second opera role. He was brave to try it, and right to do so.

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Victoria de los Ángeles Has Died

Fallece a los 81 anos la soprano barcelonesa Victoria de los ángeles

La cantante estaba ingresada en la clínica Teknon desde el pasado 30 de diciembre, aquejada de una afección respiratoria

Agencias

Barcelona. -- La decana de los cantantes líricos espanoles, Victoria dels ángeles, ha fallecido hoy a los 81 anos en la Clínica Teknon de Barcelona, donde se encontraba ingresada desde el 30 de diciembre como consecuencia de una afección respiratoria.

La familia de la soprano ha comunicado que la capilla ardiente se instalará manana en el Palau de la Generalitat de Catalunya, entre las 12.00 y las 19.00 horas. El funeral de la cantante, nacida en Barcelona el 1 de noviembre de 1923, tendrá lugar en la Basílica de Santa María del Mar, el lunes a las 11.00 horas.

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Spanish Soprano De Los Angeles Dies

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: January 15, 2005

Filed at 8:25 a.m. ET

MADRID Spain (AP) -- Victoria de los Angeles, a Spanish soprano whose career spanned five decades, died Saturday at a clinic in Barcelona, a spokeswoman for the city's Liceo Theater said. She was 81.

De los Angeles was taken to Barcelona's Teknon Clinic on Dec. 31, 2004 suffering from bronchitis and slipped into a coma after being admitted, said Liceo spokeswoman Carmen Urgell. She died Saturday following heart trouble and breathing problems.

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SCRUTON: DEATH-DEVOTED HEART — Sex and the Sacred in Wagner's Tristan and Isolde

Tristan and the toothless lion

Lucy Beckett
09 April 2004

Roger Scruton's new book is an engrossing attempt, intensely argued throughout, to persuade the reader that Richard Wagner's Tristan and Isolde is a religious work, not only in the vague sense that it elevates our feelings into an exalted condition that strikes the non-religious as "religious", but in the precise sense that it incarnates, as the Eucharist incarnates the doctrine of Christianity, a doctrine that would give our meaningless lives a sufficient meaning if we were to believe and follow it. Nearly half a century ago, Joseph Kerman, in Opera as Drama, called Tristan "a religious drama" and suggested an analogy between it and Bach cantatas dealing with religious conversion and conveying religious experience. Twenty years later, Michael Tanner, a resolutely acute writer on Wagner, described Tristan and Bach's St Matthew Passion as the two supreme examples of works "of which it is a prerequisite that one suspends disbelief . . . in the ethos which the work embodies and promulgates". At the same time he admitted that the love unto death of Tristan and Isolde is not "a kind of living that can be rationally valued". More recently and less cautiously, in his Wagner, he calls Tristan "the one work of Wagner's which seems to be making an unconditional demand on our capacity to embrace a new, redeeming doctrine".

Scruton's book is both a confirmation, a working out, of this "unconditional demand" and, in the rational case it makes for the work's "new, redeeming doctrine", a response to Tanner's earlier challenge.

The book is also a closely detailed study of the text and the score, and of how, together, they deliver one of the most gripping psychological and emotional dramas ever written. The long chapter on the music has some passages wonderfully evoking the actual sound of Tristan and its purposes. To say that "Wagner's 'chromatic' harmony . . . involves no renunciation of tonality and its logic but instead a refined exploration of its unpoliced regions", or to describe the Tristan chord as "ill at ease yet stationary, standing isolated in the music like an outsider at a gathering", is to shed much light in few words. The general and often the particular explanations of the use of leitmotif in the work could not be improved on. There are also stretches of harmonic analysis so minute and literal as to be incomprehensible (ie, inaudible) without both a score and a piano, and even with them of doubtful use to those who could not manage analysis, score and keyboard for themselves.

It is not, however, Scruton's intention to reveal only how this most inward of operas works in the theatre. An eccentric chapter connects it to Greek tragedy through the notion of the sacrificed scapegoat. (The sacrifice of Iphigenia is more significant as the original sin of the Oresteia, while Oedipus' unwitting murder of his father is not in any sense a sacrifice.

Othello may believe he is restoring purity to Desdemona by killing her, but the whole burden of the play is that he is wrong.) Scruton's overriding intention, however, is to persuade us that Tristan and Isolde is a representation of a kind of love - consuming erotic passion - which has a philosophically coherent justification as an ideal to be aspired to, and which, in accordance with the doctrine it incarnates, has to culminate in a double ritual death understood as a redeeming sacrifice. The book truly is as odd as it sounds and the case it makes as seductive and as perilous as many listeners have found a good performance of Tristan to be, before daylight clears the music of the night from their heads.

To unravel the strands of Scruton's argument, it helps to detach from each other, as he does not, the three periods across which it extends. The first is the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, the time of Gottfried von Strassburg, who died in about 1210, leaving his Tristan poem unfinished.

This was the period of practically universal Catholic orthodoxy in Latin Christendom, and also of more than 500 Cistercian abbeys founded in the previous hundred years, four of them within a few miles of Strasbourg. St Bernard, the inspiration of the Cistercian monastic revival, had used in his eighty-six sermons on the Song of Songs erotic love as the humanly understandable image of the spousal union between the soul and hrist which is the goal of mystical prayer.

In this context, Gottfried's church-like marble "cave of love", in which his Tristan and Isolde feast on love and beauty on a bed in the place of the altar, is a consciously transgressive fantasy intended, in Gottfried's words, "for the pleasure of the world and the delight of lofty spirits", of whom there are very few. It is thoroughly misleading to confuse, as Scruton does, this subversive vision - "There was a time", Gottfried adds, "when I too led such a life and I thought it quite sufficient" - with the ordinary medieval view, evident elsewhere in Gottfried's poem, of erotic passion as a temptation and an affliction, as if the sublimated love of Dante for Beatrice or the renounced love of Lancelot for Guinevere were the same as the consummated unrenounced love of Paolo and Francesca or of Tristan and Isolde. There is no love-death in Gottfried's unfinished poem. Wagner used the movingly simple last fragment of Gottfried's source, the Tristan of Thomas of Britain, where there is grief and pity in the deaths of the lovers but no suggestion whatever of "sacrifice", either of religion or of parody religion.

The second period is the 1850s, when Wagner wrote Tristan and Isolde, the only one of his mature works to emerge from a single creative impulse rather than from decades of gestation. With the revolutionary hopes of 1848 dashed and Christianity for most intellectuals in disregarded pieces, the elevation of the erotic to the one attainable meaning of life was not uncommon. La Traviata, Les Troyens (with its own cave of consummated, doomed love), Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina were all written within a few years of Tristan, cruel reality supervening on passion in each case. Scruton wants Kant's philosophically grounded valuation of persons as ends to underpin the absolute commitment to each other of Wagner's lovers.

Wagner had picked up some idea of Kant from Feuerbach and then from Schopenhauer, first read with delighted enthusiasm while he was planning Tristan and reread for the rest of his life. But the rational justification for erotic obsession sketched by Scruton is his own rather than Wagner's: nothing so grand as Kantian ontology is needed to explain the all-consuming passion of Wagner's characters.

That Schopenhauer regarded the erotic as the most acute manifestation of the struggle of individual existence, and therefore as that from which the good man must most urgently seek release through renunciation, was so evident to Wagner that, in his Tristan period, he even drafted a letter to the elderly philosopher explaining that he had got sex all wrong. Within a very few years Wagner came to agree with Schopenhauer's view; had he agreed with Scruton's, he would not have had Sachs nobly renouncing Eva, nor Parsifal acquiring through compassion the kind of knowledge that makes it possible for him to rescue Kundry into mortality by resisting the erotic temptation that she embodies. Further, although Schopenhauer thought death the much-to-be-desired end to the chaos of the individuated will, he was adamant in his opposition to suicide, and would have taken a dim view of Tristan's provoked and Isolde's self-induced death.

Scruton's third period is our time, which he castigates, with justice, for its cheapening of both art and sex, its reductive presentations of Wagner, its "demystification of desire" to the point where there prevails "an easygoing market in sexual commodities - a market that can be entered without shame and left without damage", and finally for its overwhelming, by "a culture of desecration", of the modernist "task", which he takes Tristan to have inaugurated, "of resacralizing a desacralized world". But the world is not sacred unless God made it, and the attempt to "resacralize" it in art can deliver only the religio intransitiva Erich Heller diagnosed in Rilke and Nietzsche: they do not "praise the praiseworthy. They praise. They do not believe the believable. They believe.

And it is their praising and believing itself that become praiseworthy and believable".

The period to which Scruton's argument really belongs, in fact, is not the twelfth or mid-nineteenth or the twenty-first century but the early years of the twentieth, when Rilke was writing and Nietzsche being read, and when D. H. Lawrence was explicitly replacing Christianity with a new religion of exalted sexuality. Birkin and Ursula in Women in Love are locked into precisely the "encounter between subjects" that Scruton finds in Wagner's Tristan and Isolde, and are as far removed as they from the daylight tiresomeness of "marriage, household, budgets, children", which Scruton says of Wagner's characters, "would pollute this heroic love". Scruton insists that Tristan is on the side of "life", "in its fullest sense of achieved and outward-going individuality". He is therefore placing it in "the tradition of moral vitalism" for which Michael Tanner long ago claimed Wagner, the tradition of Nietzsche, Lawrence and Leavis, in which man in a meaningless universe creates his values, or the artist creates our values, rather than discovering what is good (as Sachs and Parsifal undeniably do).

Wagner, according to Scruton, teaches us "that man makes himself by sacralizing himself". Scruton is sure that there is no God; that, in particular, Christianity consists only of "baseless promises that offer redemption from a point outside our human world". Therefore, if we want "the sacred" we must find it in whatever makes us feel "holy", for example the sacrificial love-death of Tristan and Isolde. But if the death of Christ is not unique in its real carrying of real redemption, then it, with its re-enactment in the Eucharist, is no more than one of many sacrificial rituals now all meaningless. In this case, how can the Tristan love-death be said to be a redeeming sacrifice, or the re-enactment of one, by which we are "brought into the presence of the sacred"? Only by borrowing from Christianity and its "baseless promises" the force of terms such as "sacrament", "atonement", even "sanctity", which have no meaning unless they are anchored to a transcendent reality "outside the human world". Scruton is playing what George Steiner calls "the language games of the sacred"; Allan Bloom described those who dispense with God but insist on talking about "the sacred" as "like a man who keeps a toothless old circus lion around the house in order to experience the thrills of the jungle".

The literal meaning of the word "religious" is "firm binding" or "re-binding" of the human to the divine. To cut the word loose from divinity, and from truth, and to use it for any experience or represented experience that gives us the subjective feeling that we are "in the presence of the sacred" is either archly elitist, in the knowing manner of Gottfried - Scruton says of modernist art that its "mysteries are encrypted in a language that is not accessible to the profane" - or actually dangerous. In the new religion Scruton finds in Tristan, self-generated meaning, meaning that is "its own reward", is to be found in self-sacrifice: "By enfolding this sacrifice within the sacred aura of the erotic, Wagner offers the final proof that man can become holy to himself with no help from the gods". Some may find the meaning of everything in erotic love; those who do are here seriously recommended to die with the one they love: "love can be fulfilled in death, where death is chosen and . . . this fulfilment is a genuine redemption". At Mayerling, for example? Others, as Roger Scruton does not mention, have found a sense of the sacred, or self-sacrifice for a meaning that is its own reward, in laying down their lives for a crazy guru, or Hitler, or historical inevitability. The real theme of this book, in other words, is idolatry, or the worship of what is not God.

Wagner indulged from time to time in a variety of grandiose ideas, but that in Tristan he was giving the world a new religion was never one of them. "Wagner", Joseph Kerman said in the chapter on Tristan that started the religious hare, "was a big talker, but as an artist he was practical and opportunistic, a fact that his critics do not always keep firmly enough in mind". Wagner realized later that what he had created in Tristan was frightening stuff, but he embarked on it, as his letter to Liszt in 1854 makes clear, in a spirit of imaginative experiment, like Gottfried's, and not even half-serious self-dramatization. "As I have never in life felt the real bliss of love, I must erect a monument to the most beautiful of all my dreams, in which, from beginning to end, that love shall be thoroughly satiated . . . . With the 'black flag' which floats at the end of it I shall cover myself to die." In his next sentence he asks Liszt to send Rhinegold to the Dresden chorusmaster so that he can get its copying finished.

This review is reprinted with the kind permission of The Times Literary Supplement (TLS). TLS is a weekly publication that provides book reviews and literary analysis. More information on TLS may be obtained at its website at http://www.the-tls.co.uk/.

image=http://206.135.15.25/content/scruton.jpg
Image_description=Death-Devoted Heart

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MAGEE: THE TRISTAN CHORD — Wagner and Philosophy

Wotan's law and Tristan's love

Jerry Fodor
17 November 2000

WAGNER AND PHILOSOPHY. By Bryan Magee. 398pp. Penguin. #20. TLS Pounds 18. 0 7139 9480 0

[U.S. Edition: THE TRISTAN CHORD — Wagner and Philosophy. By Bryan Magee. 424 pp (paper). Henry Holt & Co. $17. 0-8050-7189-X]

Wagner, bloody Wagner; will we ever have done with the man? I don't suppose that we'll ever have done with his operas. For many of us, they are indispensable art; among the defining achievements of the Western tradition. "There is no music deeper . . . and no drama deeper either. (The Ring) is enough in itself to place Wagner alongside Shakespeare, Michelangelo and Mozart." If you don't think Wagner is that good, you won't like Wagner and Philosophy, Bryan Magee's new book about him. Whether or not he is that good, there is surely a problem that arises insistently about Wagner but not Michelangelo or Mozart or, least of all, about Shakespeare: that of getting the art clear of the artist. Shakespeare is notorious for disappearing from his plays, but Wagner is everywhere in his operas. You just can't think about them and not think about him; nor would he conceivably have wished you to.

Civilized people try their best to avoid the genetic fallacy; they think the work is one thing and the worker is another. But does this, after all, apply to Wagner and his operas, given the way that he inhabits them? It seems sufficiently apparent that Wagner was, in some respects, a disreputable man; how, then, could the operas that he wrote not be disreputable works of art? Thus Bernard Williams, in a recent number of the New York Review of Books: "If, at least for some of Wagner's works, a production which 'did them justice' would find them guilty, this will constitute the historical vengeance of the ethical on an artist who uniquely raised the stakes high enough for such a vengeance to be even possible." And Magee, in the present volume, clearly feels a pressure for exculpatory pleading; it is one of his recurrent themes that Wagner, though quite beastly enough by any reasonable standards, wasn't all that beastly by the standards then prevailing: " . . . though Wagner tended to talk like this, it did not sound at all the same in the context of his time as it sounds to us . . . . That was then. This is now."

Well, there may be a question whether Wagner wrote "guilty" operas; and whether, if he did, it is Wagner that the operas that he wrote are guilty of. And it may be that we must face such questions if we want to get clear in our response to his work. A lot of Wagner criticism has assumed that we must, and is thus extensively concerned with large issues about the relation between Art and Ethics. It is not self-evident that this has proved to be a useful way of getting closer to the operas.

Nor does the need to moralize in Wagner criticism follow directly from what everyone agrees: that the man is uniquely present in his work. What his being there means depends a lot on whether he brings his ideology along with him; in particular, on whether his politics are as ubiquitous in the operas as his presence is. And that depends, in turn, on what the operas are about, a matter in respect of which critical consensus is remarkably lacking. It is, for example, germane to the accusation that the politics of The Ring are intolerably vicious whether, in fact, The Ring is an opera about politics. (If we're prepared to live with the anti-Semitism of The Merchant of Venice, that's partly because it so obviously isn't a play about Jews. Perhaps it is a play about the antithesis of the word and the spirit - as, by the way, is quite a lot of the Ring; see below.) But it belongs to the peculiarity of Wagner's art that people who know his operas well, and who cherish them, can find it very hard to say what they are about.

Now, there really is a lot wrong with Magee's book; not least his ungrasp of the niceties of some of the philosophical views that he expounds. ("No epistemological object can, as the same entity, be an independently existing object. That is the greatest single gift that Kant's philosophy has to offer . . . . " Piffle. We sometimes think about the very same independently existing things that we sometimes sit upon, viz, chairs. Kant was entirely alert to such truisms.) Also, Magee's prose often has the academic quality - earnest, unctuous, tutorial and just that bit condescending - that comes with years of telling to people things they don't particularly wish to know. But it is a great virtue that Magee does have on offer a general account of what the Wagner operas are about. I don't think he gets all of it, or even most of it, but he does get some of it, and thereby provides a good place to start from.

Magee begins with a sketch, plausible enough I think, of Wagner's ideological trajectory: "He is a classic example of someone who, when young, is a passionately committed and active left-wing revolutionary, but then becomes disillusioned with politics and turns away from it altogether in middle age." There is, according to Magee, a corresponding transition in Wagner's philosophical affiliations: he starts as an anarcho-socialist in the tradition of Feuerbach and ends as a metaphysical pessimist much under the influence of Schopenhauer.

If that is at all accurate, then the clear conclusion ought to be that Wagner's politics had little or no expression in his operas. For, as Magee rightly observes, the Schopenhauerian themes of renunciation and redemption predominate from the earliest of the mature works (Der Fliegende Hollander, Tannhauser and Lohengrin.) And it is definitely not redemption from economics that the heroes of these operas are seeking; it's redemption from sin. That is not, one would have thought, a notably Feuerbachian thing for a hero to be trying to find. There is, to be sure, one Wagner opera that can plausibly be said to be "political"; and that is Die Meistersinger, which is deeply involved with the relation of individuals to their society and, in particular, with the relation of artists to social traditions and institutions. But Meistersinger preaches a politics of reconciliation. Its sympathies are all with Sachs, who could hardly be said to typify the artist as revolutionary.

It is not, of course, without precedent for even a deeply personal artist to leave his politics at home when he goes off to work; Philip Larkin is a recent, notorious example. It would thus be open to Magee to read the Wagner operas as simply not about politics. Except, however, for the view he takes of The Ring, and notably of Das Rheingold. "Wagner's attitudes to politics were of decisive significance here. In the libretto of The Ring they are probably the most important single ingredient as far as ideas are concerned . . . ." But, of course, the conclusion of The Ring is not the reformation of society but the end of the world. (Pace Magee, there is no indication that "(after) Valhalla itself goes up in flames, the world embarks on a new beginning . . . ". Nothing could be less in the valedictory spirit of The Ring's finale.) So either Magee misreads Wagner's intentions, or Wagner must have changed his mind, quite radically, somewhere between Rheingold and Gotterdammerung.

Unsurprisingly, Magee presses for the latter option, but it isn't very plausible. For one thing, the libretto (though not the music) of Gotterdammerung, was written before the libretto of Rheingold; indeed, before anything else in The Ring. And, for another, the whole of The Ring postdates Hollander, Tannhauser and Lohengrin, the spirit of which was, as I remarked, thoroughly Schopenhauerian and apolitical. Magee is aware of this. He attempts to straighten out the anachronisms by distinguishing between what the young Wagner consciously believed (the Feuerbach stuff) and what his unconscious prompted him to put in the operas (the Schopenhauer stuff, except in Rheingold, where, presumably, Wagner's unconscious was temporarily off duty). "It was (in) The Flying Dutchman that he let his intuitions take over the reins . . . . It represented a kind of abandonment to his own unconscious (although) that amazing instrument his conscious mind still had an enormous amount of work to do . . . ."

Though Wagner too produces gobs of it, I do find that sort of depth-psychobabble most unedifying. Magee's story about what the operas are about - and, particularly, about what The Ring is about - clearly needs substantial rethinking, if only in light of their chronology. I doubt, in fact, that Rheingold is an opera about politics. And I doubt that The Ring is a muddle (at least, it isn't the muddle that Magee has in mind). This is a long story, but here is a rough approximation.

The Ring has two main concerns. The first of these closely recalls Aeschylus' Agamemnon trilogy, The Oresteia: it is the accomplishment of civilization, considered as the replacement of the rule of power by the rule of law. That is Wotan's great achievement; he governs by the treaties carved on his spear and is thus committed to the sanctity of contracts. (These include, as Fricka acidly reminds him, the marriage contract.) As in the Aeschylus plays, the alternative to contract is coercion; thus the world of "Dark" Alberich, Wotan's antithesis.

But unlike The Oresteia, The Ring is a deeply pessimistic work. It is, indeed, hard not to see the one as consciously a commentary on the other. The Oresteia starts with the vindictive murder of a hero and ends with a courtroom wrangle; it celebrates the replacement of blood feud by the institutions of legal redress. The Ring goes the other way round; it starts with a wrangle over a contract (Wotan's with the Giants) and ends with the vindictive murder of a hero (Siegfried's by Hagen's catspaw Gunther). In between, we see the decay of the civilization that Wotan has constructed. It is a moral collapse in which Wotan has himself been deeply complicit ("I touched Alberich's ring / Greedily I held his gold / The curse from which I fled has not left me"), and to which he has himself become resigned ("Now I will only the end").

That is one of The Ring's main themes. The other is familiar from Wagner's early operas and will recur in most of the ones that follow: the motif of redemption through love. This second preoccupation could hardly be less in the spirit of (what Wagner calls) Greek optimism, and it is the dialectic between the two that mainly informs The Ring. Sooner or later, the rule of law subverts itself and becomes arid. Sooner or later, the choice is not between coercion and contract but between the word and the spirit. That Wotan is bound by the contracts he has made is the core of his dilemma; because he is, he must betray first Freia, then Siegmund, and then Brunnhilde. Only a free man can choose the spirit over the word; in The Ring, only Siegfried can. The crucial moment on which the whole Cycle turns is therefore Siegfried's breaking of Wotan's spear; which is to say, his breaking of the Tablet of the Law.

The Ring is a remarkably ambitious fusion of Classical Greek with Judeo-Christian preoccupations; on the one hand, the antithesis of civilization and barbarism, on the other the antithesis of love and contract. The general idea is that even contractual obligations - even civilization - must be transcended if the needs of the spirit are finally to be satisfied (and, presumably, if the conditions for a free art are finally to obtain). That's not anything like a worked-out philosophy, to be sure. Nor is it, by the way, one that I at all approve of. I'm of Wotan's party; it's quite all right for the contractors not to love me, if only they'll get the house built so I can move in. Still, this part of the ideology of The Ring seems adequately coherent as far as it goes; and certainly it is not suggestive of a call to revolution, from the Right or from the Left.

I wouldn't, however, wish to deny for a moment that The Ring is full of loose ends and unresolved conflicts. For one thing, the more or less Christian stuff about redemption through love doesn't really sit well with the more or less Schopenhauerian stuff about renunciation and the end of striving. Wagner doesn't get this worked out until Tristan, where love has become a metaphor for death. What Tristan wants from Iseult in Act Three isn't love; it is release from anxiety. What he wants is her permission to die.

And, second, Wagner has trouble keeping his eros out of his agape. Siegfried breaks the Tablet of the Law, and thereby achieves Brunnhilde's love. But the love that he achieves isn't redemptive. In fact, the squalid world of Gotterdammerung isn't much different from Dark Alberich's realm: conspiracy, deceit, betrayal, vendetta, coercion. This structure cannot be sustained; the state of nature returns with Brunnhilde's suicide, as though the whole experiment of articulate consciousness had failed. The orchestra sings its final lament for Siegfried, which is also its lament for the world. The Cycle therefore ends where Rheingold started; there's a ring indeed. I wonder if even Wagner fully grasped the ironies. Magee, anyhow, doesn't seem to.

This review is reprinted with the kind permission of The Times Literary Supplement (TLS). TLS is a weekly publication that provides book reviews and literary analysis. More information on TLS may be obtained at its website at http://www.the-tls.co.uk/.

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Mozart's Portrait — Doubts Emerge

Zweifel: Mozart-Porträt nicht authentisch?

VON VOLKMAR BRAUNBEHRENS

In Berlin tauchte ein angeblich authentisches Mozart-Porträt auf. Erste Eindrücke zu dieser Sensation.

Nur wer mit den Eigentümlichkeiten Wiens und seiner Bewohner, ihren Empfindlichkeiten und Ab grenzungen, vor allem im Umgang mit den einverleibten Idolen, einigermassen vertraut ist, kann ermessen, welch empfindlichen Nerv die Nachricht treffen musste, die am Dreikönigstag aus Berlin, ausgerechnet Berlin, verbreitet wurde, dass in der Berliner Gemäldegalerie ein bisher unbekanntes Mozart-Porträt aufgetaucht sei. Zwar wurde zugleich eine elektronische Kopie dieses Bildnisses mitgeliefert, auch der Name des Malers, Johann Georg Edlinger, genannt und mitgeteilt, es sei 1790 bei Mozarts letztem Aufenthalt in München entstanden, alles Nähere jedoch soll erst bei einem Vortrag am 27. Januar 2005 durch den Oberkustos der Berliner Gemäldegalerie, Rainer Michaelis, bekannt gegeben werden. Also just an Mozarts 249. Geburtstag.

Wenn man weiss, dass seit etwa einem Jahr bereits die Vorbereitungen zur Feier von Mozarts 250. Geburtstag im Gange sind, die das, was 1991 zum 200. Todestag weltweit veranstaltet wurde an Kongressen, Ausstellungen, Festveranstaltungen, Fernsehfilmen etc., weit in den Schatten stellen werden, dann muss man den Berlinern ein gehöriges Mass an Chuzpe bescheinigen, wie sie diesen Medien-Hype losgelassen haben. Alle aufgeregten Recherchen aus Wiener Redaktionen halfen nichts: Das neue Mozart-Porträt und die Umstände seiner Findung werden erst am 27. Januar "enthüllt".

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Opera in the UK

An uncertain year for opera

Robert Thicknesse

I HOPE you made the most of last year's opera highlights because 2005 looks pretty dull by comparison. The resignation of Scottish Opera's music director, Sir Richard Armstrong, has added to the company's woes. With only three productions in the foreseeable future, the main risk is that the audience forgets the company exists.

The vanishing audience is a spectre that haunts other companies: ENO must be wondering what became of an audience that was more like a loyal football crowd.

Various conductors are rumoured to have turned down the job of music director -- which becomes vacant when Paul Daniel retires in May -- while Sean Doran and John Berry are in charge. But there is plenty to look forward to, and the company did some brilliant work last year.

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Opera in Paris

Wagner prometteur, Mozart décoiffé, Britten agrandi

Christian Merlin
[13 janvier 2005]

Le premier temps fort de cette deuxième partie de saison lyrique sera La Flute enchantée bientot proposée par l'Opéra Bastille : on a déjà vu dans une halle d'usine de Bochum ce spectacle étonnant conçu par les Catalans de la Fura del Baus, à l'époque ou Gérard Mortier dirigeait le Festival de la Ruhr. Comment les matelas gonflables et la science-fiction philosophique imaginés par ces plasticiens virtuoses passeront-ils à Paris, et comment Marc Minkowski, qui avait très bien dirigé l'oeuvre en Allemagne, sera-t-il reçu par l'Orchestre de l'Opéra ? On le saura à partir du 24 janvier. Deux jours après, on suivra aussi, à Garnier, le second Couronnement de Poppée de la saison, après celui de McVicar aux Champs-Elysées : le metteur en scène, David Alden, est aussi anglais, et la divine Antonacci ne sera plus Néron mais Poppée.

L'événement du printemps sera le nouveau Tristan et Isolde de Wagner, confié au tandem Salonen-Sellars et à une distribution de reve (Waltraud Meier, Ben Heppner), avec l'appoint du vidéaste Bill Viola : espérons que le snobisme ne parasitera pas un projet artistique riche de promesses. En attendant, on suivra quelques reprises pour la personnalité des chefs : le brillantissime Vladimir Jurowski sera aux commandes du monumental Guerre et Paix de Prokofiev, l'une des grandes réussites de l'ère Gall, et si l'on attend peu d'améliorations de la mise en scène d'Otello par Andrei Serban, les débuts de Valery Gergiev dans la fosse de la Bastille devraient lui donner un sacré coup de fouet.

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Turandot remains a prime tourist attraction at the Met, lock, stock and chinoiserie. Even after 17 years, gasping crowds muster ovations for the scenery in Franco Zeffirelli's kitsch orgy. Monday night some rubes actually popped flash cameras mid-opera. In any case, it was hard to take Puccini's rambling, rumbling and ultimately wondrous valediction very seriously.

Adding to the extramusical brouhaha was the would-be diva cast as the titular ice princess. In the current Opera News magazine Andrea Gruber boldly discusses past battles with drug addiction, not to mention an obesity problem solved with gastric-bypass surgery. The New York Times echoed the interview on the day of the performance. Under the circumstances, one hoped her interpretation of this fiercely demanding role would provide an artistic counterbalance to the sensationalism. Unfortunately she seldom rose above respectable competence. . . .

Most impressive among the secondary players was Krassimira Stoyanova, a sympathetic Liu who floated lovely pianissimo tones offset by occasionally strident fortes.

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A Dead-end at Abbey Road?

Twilight of the CD Gods? A Studio 'Tristan' May Be the Last Ever

By MICHAEL WHITE

LONDON, Jan. 4 - The EMI recording studios at Abbey Road in north London are always a surprise when you walk through the modest regency-villa facade and find yourself in a citadel of sound technology. It's like passing through some science-fiction barrier from one world into the next: a magical world that has embraced all categories of music making since the 1930's.

It was here that the 16-year-old Yehudi Menuhin recorded Elgar's Violin Concerto under the composer's baton. Here that the Beatles made their soundtrack to the 60's, turning the adjacent zebra crossing into one of London's tourist sights. And here that through the holiday period an army of orchestral players, singers, agents and sound technicians has been gathering in Studio One — the largest and most celebrated studio in the world, despite its resemblance to a school gymnasium - for what many in the business think will be another landmark of recording history, touched this time with sadness and nostalgia.

The mood can be judged from comments in the cafeteria: "Make the most of it," and "There won't be many more like this."

And what is "this"? It's a gargantuan, million-dollar recording of Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde," put together as a now-or-never enterprise for the tenor Plácido Domingo but also as a last, heroic stand from a classical CD industry so crushed by economic pressures that many consider it in terminal decline.

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The Cambridge Companion to Rossini

Based on other such "companions" that I have seen (one published by Cambridge, the other two by another publishing house), I would expect a handy reference guide to the composer in question. Such a reference guide might include discussions of and/or information on:

1. The operas
2. The composer's life and times
3. The singers who created the roles
4. Other key interpreters — i.e. Conchita Supervia, Marilyn Horne and Chris Merritt in the case of Rossini
5. A discography
6. A discussion of the state of opera when the composer began his career, including composers who influenced him
7. A discussion of the composer's key innovations and his style, including how that style changed over the years
8. A discussion of the influence of the composer (or the period), i.e.which composers were strongly infuenced.
9. A discussion, if appropriate, of the current state of the revival of the composer's operas
10. A bibliography
11. Any number of essays on various other aspects of the composer

Obviously, some of these aspects may be more feasible for one composer than for another. Thus, it would be more practical to discuss Bellini's ten operas¹ in depth than Donizetti's sixty plus, with Rossini somewhere in between.

Again, it seems to me that such a Companion should serve as a handy reference work that opera lovers interested in a given composer or style might want to consult regularly. It is with that in mind that I will take a closer look at the "Rossini Companion", and how it meets my expectations.

1. The Operas: Only four are discussed in depth (Tancredi, Semiramide, Il barbiere, and Guillaume Tell). The quality of these, especially Heather Hadlock's essay on Semiramide, makes one wish for more. If this volume were to serve my own needs in terms of a basic reference book on Rossini, I feel that comparable discussions would have been ideal for the more important works (Otello, Ermione, Armida, Mose, Zelmira, etc. and shorter discussions (a few paragraphs) for the lesser operas such as Adina and La gazzetta. It is a thin volume (only 264 pages), and by adding only about 150-200 or so pages, it would have been possible to accomplish this goal.
2. The composer's life is adequately treated in the chapter by Richard Osborne.
3. There are brief biographical notes on some of the creators of the many Rossini roles included in a section on Rossini singers in the chapter by Leonella Caprioli on singing Rossini. This is fine as far as it goes, but it is, admittedly, selective, and should have included all the creators of leading roles. To give one example, Geltrude Righetti-Giorgi, who created both Rosina and Cenerentola is missing, although the fact that she created both these roles is mentioned elsewhere.
4. Some other key interpreters are included in the above list. On the other hand, Conchita Supervia, who played such a key role in the Rossini revival of the 1920 is not even mentioned in the index. Marilyn Horne, who sang 7 serio roles is included elsewhere in the chapter on the Rossini renaissance, but Chris Merritt, who sang ten serio roles, and did so magnificently, is not even mentioned.
5. There is no discography, useful as that would have been, although it would eventually have been out of date.
6. There is no discussion of the state of opera at the start of Rossini's career. Thus, Cimarosa is mentioned only in passing, while Mayr's Ginevra di Scozia, one of the most successful Italian operas between Cimarosa and Rossini, is completely ignored.
7. An entire section, titled "Words and Music" is devoted to various aspects of Rossini's style. The chapters on compositional methods by Phillip Gosset and on dramaturgy by Marco Beghelli are to be particularly commended in that respect.
8. Again, there is a little discussion of Rossini's influence, but no chapter devoted exclusively to it.
9. There is a discussion of the revival of the composer's operas, which is, with one exception, quite good. The exception is the section on singers, to which slightly over two pages are devoted. This section goes into a fair amount of details on the prima donnas involved, especially Callas, Sutherland and Horne. It virtually ignores Caballe, simply saying that she is one of 11 sopranos who sang opposite Horne. Only one tenor (Salvatore Fisichella) is mentioned in passing. Rockwell Blake, Chris Merritt, Bruce Ford and William Matteuzzi, without whom much of the Rossini revival would have been impossible are completely ignored, as is the wonderful Sam Ramey. Finally, there is a statement to the effect that Rossini wrote many of his opere serie for two principal tenors, and that this has perhaps kept these operas from assuming a larger place in the repertory. He may or may not be right about that, but, should he not have at least mentioned all the performances and/or recordings of these works sung by Chris Merritt or Bruce Ford in combination with Rockwell Blake or William Matteuzzi?
10. There is an excellent bibliography.
11. Many of the individual chapters make great reading, and are highly interesting as far as they go.

To sum up, I consider this a nice book to have, as far as it goes, but would not view it as the definitive Rossini companion that this wonderful composer so richly deserves. It is just too lightweight to qualify.

¹ If you count Bianca e Gernando and Bianca e Fernando as the same opera.

Tom Kaufman

image=http://www.operatoday.com/content/Rossini_companion.jpg
image_description=The Cambridge Companion to Rossini

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product_title=The Cambridge Companion to Rossini
product_by=Edited by Emanuele Senici. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 280 pages 10 half-tones 35 music examples
product_id=ISBN:0521001951 | ISBN13:9780521001953

VERDI: Il Trovatore

Il Trovatore

Giuseppe Verdi, music and Salvatore Cammarano and Leone Emanuele Bardare, libretto
TDK DVUS-CLOPIT

Raina Kabaivanska (Leonora)
Fiorenza Cossotto (Azucena)
Plácido Domingo (Manrico)
Piero Cappuccilli (Conte di Luna)
José van Dam (Ferrando)
Maria Venuti (Inez)
Heinz Zednik (Ruiz)
Karl Caslavsky (Un vecchio zingaro)
Ewanld Aichberger (Un messo)

Vienna state opera chorus and orchestra
Herbert von Karajan, conductor

Enrico Caruso famously stipulated that all a satisfactory Trovatore needs is the world's four greatest singers. Of course, given the hot passions that run through opera fandom, at any given time determining just who those four greatest singers might be would probably never be an easy affair. Nevertheless, TDK's recent release on DVD of a 1978 Vienna production offers wonderful testimony to support Caruso's conjecture, which the additional provisos that one shouldn't slight the leadership of a great conductor who loves the work, and the smaller roles benefit from careful casting as well.

The booklet for this DVD set relates the history of the production, one not only conducted by Karajan but also designed and directed by him. A rather dark picture denies the viewer much chance to fully evaluate the physical production — painted backdrops of a type Verdi would have known well seem to dominate. Perhaps it is better this way. Trovatore's convoluted plot arguably works better in a setting that promotes atmosphere over specifics, and the dim, oppressive aura emanating from Karajan's very traditional production never interferes with the singers. Their rich and traditional costumes give the viewer much to admire, however.

Jan Neckers

[Click here for additional information on this production.]

Classical Music Sales Looking Up

A Year When Classical Labels Came Through

By ANTHONY TOMMASINI

In 2003, the problems affecting the classical recording business seemed daunting: markets flooded with multiple versions of the standard repertory; declining sales; widespread layoffs in the offices of the major labels; ill-conceived moves by controlling conglomerates to cut losses that only made matters worse.

Still, during that sobering year, many companies, to their credit, adjusted their priorities, focused anew on releasing albums that added something of artistic merit to the discography, and generally realized that smaller could in fact be better.

Several companies also pledged to take innovative steps within the next year to deal with the financial realities, steps that might find opportunity amid the challenges. So, now that 2004 has past, it's time to see whether the companies are keeping their promises. In several cases they are following through, as a crop of welcome recent recordings makes clear.

For example, in early January of 2003 there was an article in this newspaper about the looming expirations of copyright protections in Europe for countless classic recordings from the 1950's. In the United States such copyrights last 90 years, at least for now, while advocates for public domain access and defenders of the rights of production companies continue to slug it out in the courts. But in Europe, copyrights for recordings expire after 50 years. This means that starting now and during the next decade landmark 1950's recordings by artists ranging from Maria Callas to Elvis Presley are coming into the public domain in Europe. Since American retailers routinely stock imported European records, especially classical albums, such releases are already showing up in the stores.

[Click here for remainder of article.]

La Serva Padrona in Boston

Soprano Amanda Forsythe voices her love of opera

By Richard Dyer, Globe Staff | December 31, 2004

Boston Baroque, Martin Pearlman, Music Director.
Photo: Julian Bullitt

Soprano Amanda Forsythe has sung so often with baritone David Kravitz that she was only mildly surprised recently when she Googled her name, and up popped a reference to "Amanda Kravitz."

Tonight and tomorrow afternoon, Forsythe is paired with Kravitz again for Pergolesi's delicious little opera "La Serva Padrona" ("The Maid as Mistress"), presented by Boston Baroque as part of its annual New Year's Eve/New Year's Day gala at Sanders Theatre.

In the opera, the spirited servant girl Serpina tricks her boss Uberto into marrying her. As it happens, Forsythe is busy planning her own wedding this summer — but not to Kravitz. Her fiance is Edward Elwyn Jones, the new university organist and choirmaster at Harvard.

The soprano, who is in her 20s but is pointedly vague about just which birthday she has passed, arrived in Boston a few years ago as a graduate student at New England Conservatory. Her star had been conspicuously rising ever since. Martin Pearlman, artistic director of Boston Baroque, gave her her first professional break in 2001 and has repeatedly re-engaged her; she has also sung with Emmanuel Music and the Handel & Haydn Society.

Forsythe was elegant, poised, focused, and determined as she talked recently about her emerging career. She grew up on Roosevelt Island, alongside Manhattan, and sang in high school choirs without ever taking her vocal potential very seriously.

[Click here for remainder of article.]