Opera Today

The Cambridge Companion to Elgar

Perhaps some Opera Today readers may wonder why a book on Sir Edward Elgar merits reviewing on this particular site. The composer never came near to completing an opera. In fact, only toward the end of his career did he seriously contemplate composing one. A suite from the incomplete A Spanish Lady sometimes gets an airing on classical music radio stations: light, tuneful, but hardly dramatic music.

It would be nice to report that the full story of that endeavor appears in The Cambridge Companion to Elgar, a collection of essays by esteemed musical scholars on various topics related to the great man’s life and music. Unfortunately, the text of over 220 pages only contains three brief passing references to A Spanish Lady. That in itself serves as ample evidence of the inconsequentiality of opera as a form for Elgar’s own efforts. However, opera did have a great impact on him as inspiration.

Religious-themed oratorios were the height of both esteem and popularity for British composers as Elgar came to maturity, vocal spectaculars in some ways not unlike the wide-screen Biblical cinematic extravaganzas of the 1950s. Elgar began to make his name with such pieces as The Apostles and especially The Dream of Gerontius. The greater complexity of mood and psychology of Elgar’s music (at least as compared to the work of near- contemporaries such as Parry or Stanford) probably owes not a little to Wagner, as Bryon Adams argues in his essay. Elgar made the requisite Bayreuth pilgrimage, and more than once, with Parsifal becoming a particular passion. Adams’s essay delves into psycho-sexual territory that may alarm some readers; the intimations of homoerotic content in Gerontius certainly took your reviewer aback. Nonetheless, the seriousness of the essay and its analysis shouldn’t be doubted.

Other vocal music of Elgar gets coverage in Robin Holloway’s “The early choral works.” The British love for choral singing gave Elgar a rich field to explore, although not much of that work is well-known. In fact, today too few may know of Land of Hope and Glory, the vocal version of Elgar’s “greatest hit,” if one will, the Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1. The Companion, therefore, does a great service in making clear that vocal music played a large role in Elgar’s musical life, even if opera never quite did.

Of course, purchasers of Jacqueline du Pre’s classic recording of the cello concerto have probably also encountered its CD disc-mate, Janet Baker’s performance of Sea Pictures. Sadly, the Companion has no in depth discussion of that piece. In the context of an anthology of essays, only the largest pieces – the symphonies, for example – receive ample analysis. However, Holloway’s essay does Elgar a major service by spending time on The Black Knight, a wonderfully melodic and dramatic work which deserves to be heard more often. With its dark, melodramatic story, The Black Knight might be the best glimpse into what an Elgar opera might have been like.

Some readers may find the analysis in some essays, such as Julian Rushton’s, hard to follow, with its reliance on musical examples in score form. Most of the essays, however, are written in a way that balances insight and intelligence with communication, making the book a somewhat dense but always fascinating read.

Perhaps the two most illuminating essays come near the end. Timothy Day’s “Elgar and recording” almost serves as a brief biographical note, at least of the composer’s later years, as Elgar delighted in the consumer end of the fledging recording business – the gramophone players and discs – and found some frustration in the recording studio. Similarly, Jenny Doctor’s “Broadcasting’s ally: Elgar and the BBC” offers many fascinating anecdotes both about the composer and the early years of that venerable institution.

Elgar’s reputation has waxed and waned, and no doubt the man would want more than to be remembered as the composer of a march appropriated for countless graduation ceremonies. The Cambridge Companion to Elgar offers ample evidence that there is simply too much richness in Elgar’s output for his reputation ever to be threatened with extinction. For those limited to a love of opera, then, the book may not offer much, but for all other serious music lovers, this is an engaging and fascinating volume.

Chris Mullins
Los Angeles Unified School District, Secondary Literacy

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Vivaldi and the chorus of unwanted children

By William Packer [Financial Times, 29 August 2005]

The Vivaldi industry still grows apace, and with it the myths abound. The musician was known as il prete rosso, the red priest, and one of the oldest rumours is that of his relationships with the beautiful girls of the Pieta in Venice, where he worked as music master. In the chapel of the Pieta in the early decades of the 18th century was to be savoured one of la Serenissima's special treats, as up in the gallery the sweet voices rose and fell behind the grille, the singers not quite out of sight.

Edinburgh reports: slow burn gives sumptuous results

American soprano Christine Brewer tells Rupert Christiansen why it has taken her so long to win international acclaim

[Daily Telegraph, 29 August 2005]

As a popular school music teacher in a small town near St Louis, Christine Brewer sang gospel and folk, held backyard hootenanny parties and spent summer vacations in the chorus of the local opera festival.

Simone Young Plans Four Britten Operas in Hamburg

Faible fuer Benjamin Britten

Hamburgs neue Generalmusikdirektorin Simone Young will vier Opern des britischen Komponisten auffuehren

von Katja Engler [Welt am Sonntag, 29 August 2005]

Ferien, ja... Simone Young seufzt gluecklich, obwohl sie kaum welche gemacht hat. Sie ist in den vergangenen Wochen umgezogen in die Naehe der Alster, hat ihre juengere Tochter in der Schule angemeldet und freut sich nun auf ein paar Wochen "mal ohne Kofferpacken und Flughafen."

Pamela Rosenberg Goes to Berlin

Rausgehen in die Gesellschaft

Die Plaene der Pamela Rosenberg, kuenftig Intendantin der Berliner Philharmoniker

von Volker Blech [Die Welt, 29 August 2005]

Das Deutsch der gebuertigen Amerikanerin mag nicht perfekt sein, aber sie erfindet so wunderbare, gleichnishafte Bilder. Was antwortet Pamela Rosenberg auf die Frage, warum gerade sie zu den Berliner Philharmonikern komme? Zunaechst nur: Sie haette einen Anruf bekommen. Und dann beschreibt sie das Gefuehl. Es sei gewesen, als haette es an der Wohnungstuer geklingelt, sie haette geoeffnet und ein junger aufregender Mann haette sie zum Tanz aufgefordert. Wobei offen bleibt, ob es sich dabei um die ganze Philharmoniker-Mannschaft oder nur um Simon Rattle handelte. Die Philharmoniker haelt sie jedenfalls fuer das beste Orchester der Welt. Und Rattle - man ahnt es - fuer den besten Dirigenten.

AUDRAN: La Mascotte

The relative disappearance of the genre, also due in part to the rage for Gilbert and Sullivan that began in 1878, is too bad, for as this CD reissue of a 1956 mono recording of Edmond Audran's La mascotte demonstrates, the joys of the genre are many. They may not be to everyone's taste, but they are joys nonetheless. For several reasons, however, this may not be the set to serve as an introduction.

To begin with, because the recording was first made almost 50 years ago, the sound is not what most listeners are used to, and the ear has to make some adjustments. For those of us who grew up with recordings from the 1950s and 1960s, the sound is almost nostalgic; for anyone else, it will more likely prove unsatisfying. The remixing is excellent, as are the performances, but it all - especially the orchestra -- still sounds like it is being performed in a can. The highs border on distortion and the lows are rather shallow, and an overall tinniness is at times inescapable.

Second, the accompanying booklet is in French with no translation provided. Anyone with an intermediate ability in the language (and a dictionary) should be able to negotiate it with little difficulty, although the plot analysis uses a few idiomatic expressions that might give pause. The booklet also does not provide the text for the work, only a plot synopsis, a list of the numbers with titles, characters, and track indicators, and a brief biography of Audran. Understanding the sung and rapidly spoken French is somewhat more challenging than getting through the booklet, and much of the humor will be lost on listeners with only modest skills in the language.

Still, the performance is infectious, possibly indicating why the work is, according to Andrew Lamb, Audran's "most lastingly successful operetta." The plot is simple enough to follow but convoluted enough to provide the necessary opportunities for farce and amusing ensembles. "Une mascotte" refers to a person who serves as a good luck charm, and Bettina, a keeper of turkeys (really), possesses this gift. Rocco, the owner of a small farm, is afflicted with bad luck ("avoir la guigne"), and his brother brings Bettina to him, hoping to make things better. Meanwhile, Pippo, Rocco's shepherd, falls in love with Bettina and Laurent XVII, Prince of Piombino, who is having his own run of bad luck, decides to appropriate Bettina for his own "mascotte." And on it goes, eventually winding up in an Italian inn and also involving Fritellini, the Prince of Pisa, and many others. It is all very silly, very spirited, and very French. And very tuneful.

Among the numbers, one is perhaps somewhat better known than the rest. The duet for Bettina and Pippo, "J'aime bien mes dindons" ("I like my turkeys"), seems to have become especially popular, perhaps because of the barnyard noises made by Bettina to intensify her point. But the vaudeville finales are all delightful, that for the first act utilizing bells to demonstrate the ringing indicated by the title "on sonne" ("it rings"). Like its Gilbert and Sullivan counterpart, the French operetta also favored the patter, or character, song for a mature comedian, and this work has several wonderful examples. Most are performed by Lucien Baroux, who sounds as if he was the French equivalent of Martyn Green. His first act couplets are particularly amusing, appropriating as they do the old gag of another singer providing the high notes at the end of a verse. (The second time, Baroux provides his own, which are even funnier than the substitution gag.) The music for Bettina is full of charm and occasional coloratura, and Genvieve Moizan performs it with confidant charm. Her high notes are exemplary, especially considering the quality of the recording, and it's not hard to imagine her a delightful Olympia in Les contes d'Hoffman. (She also does a nice turkey impersonation.) Full of waltzes, character songs, and sparkling ensembles, the score is a wonderful potpourri of styles representative of the genre, and it is performed with great elan by the cast, all of whom seem to be specialists.

This recording is one in a series of French operettas reissued by Accord. (They are listed on the CD box.) If it is representative of the collection, they are all wonderful performances recorded in what now seems substandard sound quality. If listeners are already familiar with the genre and have a good working knowledge of French, the series will be a treasure despite the sound. If a listener doesn't know the genre and doesn't understand or read French, the joys may remain a mystery.

In short, highly recommended, but probably not for everyone.

Jim Lovensheimer, Ph.D.
Blair School of Music, Vanderbilt University

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Livret by Alfred Duru and Henri Chivot; adapted by Max de Rieux.
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RABAUD: Marouf, Savetier du Caire

How welcome, then, is the release of a fine recording of Rabaud's biggest claim to fame. The French label Accord, recently the source of a number of fine new recordings of rare romantic works has, in this case, brought to compact disc a 1976 performance from the Orchestre Philharmonique des Pays de la Loire under Jesus Etcheverry. As is usual with Accord sets, the packaging is attractive and the sound quality of the first rank. The notes and libretto are in both French and English.

Marouf is based on a tale from the Arabian Nights. The title character, as drawn by Rabaud and his librettist Lucien Nepoty, must certainly be one of the most passive protagonists in operatic literature! Our Cairene cobbler isn't ambitious, clever, or brave. Rather he trusts to luck, or perhaps the will of Allah. When his "Calamitous Spouse" drags him before the law for beating her, though innocent, he accepts his punishment without a word in his own defense. He does at last choose to flee the harpy, and takes to the high seas with a group of mariners. But shortly thereafter he finds himself beaten and robbed far from home.

Then fortune smiles. He meets Ali, a childhood friend who'd made good. With Ali's help, Marouf is passed off as the richest of all merchants, who's treasure-laden caravan is just a few days distant. Convinced, the Sultan offers Marouf his daughter, the princess Saamcheddine. Naturally his story begins to crumble as time passes. Marouf secretly confesses to his new bride that he's in fact no merchant at all, but a poor cobbler. The gracious and beautiful Saamcheddine hardly seems bothered that she's been married off to a poverty-stricken con man. She joyfully flees with Marouf to share his destitute life. But such a tale could hardly end in this fashion! A chance encounter with a genie resolves all, and Marouf's supernaturally created caravan arrives just in time to save them from the Sultan's pursuing henchmen.

It is a preposterous story that is meant to amuse, rather than to move the emotions. In fact Marouf's servile manner and vocal lines filled with endless sing-song arabesque started grating on me after a bit--that is, until I encountered his beguiling Saamcheddine! The couple's Act 3 love duet is perhaps the musical high point of the opera. For a moment, one can vicariously feel Marouf's infatuation indeed.

"Modernism is the enemy" was a favorite dictum of the Rabaud's, so it's no surprise that his opera has little in common with the works of such near contemporaries as Arnold Schoenberg or even his compatriot Maurice Ravel. There's hardly a hint of the desperate passions found in contemporary verist works either, such as Zandonai's Francesca da Rimini or Montemezzi's L'amore dei tre re. Rather the name which most often springs to mind while listening to Marouf is that of his professor, Massenet--especially in that composer's lighter and more fanciful moods, found in operas like Esclarmonde or Cendrillon.

Like Massenet, Rabaud's music is suave, melodious, and meticulously crafted. Everything is paced with an astute sense of proportion. But the observant ear will also detect many fascinating "twentieth centuryisms"--hints of Straussian and Debussian harmonies that delight the ear and set his music apart from that of his more famous teacher. He also boasts a formidable orchestral technique.

Rabaud's opera doesn't aim for the heavens, but it achieves its more modest goals with such ease and facility that one cannot help but feel a certain delight in it. But I'm curious to know how he treated weightier themes. A list of his operas suggest a broad range of subjects, including tragic ones, such as his 1923 opus L'appel de la mer, based on the same story as Vaughan Williams's Riders to the Sea. One can only hope that the appearance of recordings such as this Marouf will spur greater interest in Rabaud's entire oeuvre, and lead to more revivals and recordings.

As to the performances, the principal roles are well cast. Michael Lecocq sings Marouf with more of an eye towards emphasizing the character's idiosyncrasies, rather than trying to achieve emotional expressiveness. Whether this is a good thing or not may depend upon personal taste. Anne-Marie Blanzat's Saamcheddine is, by contrast, both poised and youthful sounding--the perfect aural picture of an eastern princess.

Despite the scarcity of Marouf on operatic stages, there is a competing recording on the Gala label at a bargain price. It also boasts a fine performance by the Orchestre de Radio-Televsione Francaise from 1964 under Pierre-Michel LeConte. It's Marouf, Henri Legay, takes the opposite tack from Lecocq's, and sings the role with great expressive intensity. There are a number of downsides though. The sound is good, but not as clear as the new Accord set. More importantly, perhaps, are the presence of some cuts, and, as with all Gala sets, no libretto.

For American collectors, Accord got American distribution only as of last February, and currently many of their titles, including Marouf, are not available from principal online outlets. They are available both directly from Premiere Music Distributors, and from Records International. I contacted Premiere, and they assured me that Marouf would soon be more generally available, as it is already in Europe.

Eric D. Anderson

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ALALEONA: Mirra

Mirra (1920, Rome) is a setting of the final two acts of a tragedy by Count Vittorio Alfieri (1749-1803). Alfieri was a major figure in the development of Italian literature. His fame rests on twenty-two tragedies, among them an Agamemnon, a Saul, and an Anthony and Cleopatra. He was also a spiritual godfather of the Risorgimento by way of the condemnations of tyranny that he put into the mouths of his characters. He enjoyed a long liaison with the wife of Charles Edward Stuart (Not-So-Bonnie Prince Charlie; he was really a big reprobate); after Stuart's death, they lived together, unwed, although, as one Catholic reference puts it, his "religious feelings ... always appeared strong and sincere"! Alfieri's works influenced early Italian translations of Shakespeare; Verdi wrote to Piave during their work on Macbeth that the "the lines [between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth before Banquo's murder], especially at the end of the recitative, should be strong and concise, in the manner of Alfieri."

Mirra was based on one of Ovid's Metamorphses, wherein Mirra (there spelt Myrrha) harbors an incestuous passion for her father, Ciniro (Cinyras), king of Cypress. In Ovid, Myrrha 's father fixation is conjured up by Venus, who gets ticked off because Myrrha 's mother boasts that her daughter is more beautiful than the goddess. Deities are so sensitive. In that telling of the story, Myrrha conceives a child by her father: Adonis. You'll remember what happens to him when he grows up (it involves Venus). When Cinyras discovers that it wasn't his wife in his bed, he tries to kill Myrrha. The other gods figure they'd better resolve another of Venus's dirty tricks gone awry, so they turn Myrrha into the myrrh tree.

In Alfieri's version, Mirra is to be married to Prince Pereo, but like many brides, she gets cold feet, blames it on the furies if not a desire to see Arizona, and backs out at the altar. Her mother tries to comfort her, but Mirra says she loathes her. The entire last act is basically one long scene between Mirra and her father, angry because the prince has killed himself, so all the flowers and catering will definitely go to waste. When she finally breaks down and admits that he is the object of her infatuation, she grabs his sword and kills herself.

Alaleona stays pretty faithful to the last two acts of Alfieri's drama. Unfortunately, textual fidelity doesn't always make for exciting music drama. (Othmar Schoeck was a little more successful in his truncated setting of the last part of Kleist's Penthesilea.) The static first act for the most part just portrays long, drawn-out moping on Mirra's part, interrupted only by the wedding and her change of heart. It plays more as an oratorio than as an opera. The second act between Mirra and her father packs more dramatic oomph, though we doesn't find out until about five minutes from the end what she's been upset about the whole time, followed swiftly by her suicide and death. I'm afraid many listeners will shake their heads when the CD goes off and say, "So the whole thing is about a screwed-up offspring-parent infatuation?" Afraid so; if the dog barks at the mailman right when Mirra makes her big confession, you might miss that and still be confused. It ain't no Phaedra.

The music, which clocks in at a little under an hour and a half, for the most part matches the static quality of the text, though one phrase sung by the chorus sounds like it was lifted for Phantom of the Opera. Large sections of the first act resemble late Verdi; other passages nod toward Puccini, who reportedly admired Alaleona, as did Mascagni and Toscanini. The most interesting bit is the interlude at the opening of act 2, which would make an admirable concert excerpt. Here Alaleona used an instrument he called the "pentaphonic harmonium"--replaced in this recording by a celesta--that divided the octave into five equal intervals. Listening to the recording, most listeners probably won't realize that something funky is going on, just that the music is lushly late Romantic (which reminded me of Zemlinsky for some reason). The second act contains a few passages with added melodic pizzazz that go beyond the conversational style that characterizes much of the score.

This recording is characterized by excellent musicianship all around. The young Slovakian conductor Juraj Valcuha moves the score along without letting it drag and bringing out the beauty of the act 2 interlude. Italian soprano Denia Mazzola-Gavazzeni handles the rigors of Mirra's role well and manages to infuse her with pathos rather than making her sound pathetic. Tenor Mario Malagnini comes across as strident, but of course, the prince himself is strident once he's been dumped. Best of all is French baritone Franck Ferrari, who conveys a father's concern for his daughter, his anger at her behavior, and finally his horror at her misplaced feelings. The notes give an admirable analysis of Alaleona's style. This certainly isn't an opera that will ever be performed regularly, but it deserves the attention of lovers of Italian opera.

David Anderson

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MESSIAEN: Orchestral Works

Rattle was famously dedicated to the CBSO from 1979 to 1998, during which time as conductor and music director he endeavored to build relationships between himself and the orchestra and between the orchestra and the audience. Furthermore, Rattle was and still is committed to a broad range of repertoire that includes a heavy dose of twentieth-century works and composers. Rattle's devotion to both the CBSO and modern music is perceptible in the high quality of this recording of Turangalila, which because of its enormous scope of emotional and technical expression, is a challenging work to perform convincingly. It is this very drama inherent in the work that caused many of Messiaen's admirers to scorn Turangalila. For example, Boulez would concede to conduct only the first three movements of the symphony, and these only because Messiaen utilized in them serial techniques to a greater or lesser extent.

As with other albums in the Gemini series, the liner notes to this recording are minimal. The small space that is dedicated to information about Quatour repeats the mythology that has grown up around the work, namely, that its very existence is somewhat miraculous because of the wartime conditions under which it was conceived. James Harding reports on the battered piano on which Messiaen performed, the terrible cold weather, and the audience of some 5,000 prisoners--all circumstances that recent studies by musicologist Leslie Sprout and clarinetist Rebecca Rischin have demonstrated to be somewhat hyperbolic.

In her book on Quatour Dr. Rischin supplements Messiaen's statements about the composition and premiere of Quatour with the stories told by the other performers[1]. Rischin interviewed Messiaen's widow and fellow perfomers at the Nazi camp, most of whom had narratives that were far less exciting than Messiaen's version. For example, Messiaen often repeated that the cello at the first performance was so battered that it only had three strings. Cellist Etienne Pasquier recalls with certainty that the instrument he used to perform the quartet had all four strings. He himself chose the instrument from a local music store to which he had been escorted by a Nazi guard who help was crucial in facilitating the performance.

In a forthcoming paper Dr. Sprout points out that Quatour, while it was composed in captivity during World War II, is not really about the captivity or his sufferings as a prisoner of war. Rather, the process of composing Quatour was an escapist maneuver for Messiaen, one that enabled him to forget temporarily the cold, the boredom, and the hardship that plagued the POWs. Sprout compares the reception and myths surrounding Quatour to the works of another French POW, Andre Jolivet, whose Trois complaintes were much more directly related to captivity and war. Sprout's observation on the relationship between music and captivity is worth quoting at length, as it speaks to the enduring musical power of Quatour:

bq. If what we really wanted was immediacy, we too would embrace Jolivet's Trois complaintes, but they are at once too literal and too dependent on topical references we no longer understand. The voices of wartime listeners to the Quartet remind us that the catharsis we experience in Messiaen's music today says more about us than it does about the Quartet[2].

The three pieces on this EMI release exemplify several of the main themes in Messiaen's musical life and compositional processes. Turangalila-Symphonie is one of three works dealing with the Tristan Legend and the joyfulness of human love. Quatour pour le fin du temps is an expression of Messiaen's Catholic devotion, a passion that deeply influenced most of his musical output. In 1951 Messiaen expressed his lifelong obsession with birdsong in the flute piece, Le Merle Noir. Eventually his interest in birdsong would take Messiaen to seven continents, including North America, where there is a mountain in Utah named after him by a group of fans with whom he had become acquainted while transcribing bird songs there.

Any Messiaen aficionado would probably already have these well-known pieces in her collection, but this CD could serve as a delightful introduction to Messiaen and his most popular pieces.

Megan Jenkins
CUNY - The Graduate Center

1. Rebecca Rischin, For the End of Time: The Story of the Messiaen Quartet (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003).

2. Sprout, "Messiaen, Jolivet, and the Soldier-Composers of Wartime France," Musical Quarterly [forthcoming].

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Marco Polo Film Classics, Part I

Over the past decade, the innovative Marco Polo label has put out approximately 40 new recordings of orchestral film scores. This year, Marco Polo's partner, Naxos, has begun to re-release these recordings at budget prices. So far, 13 discs are available, and eight of them feature classical Hollywood film scores. Overall, this is an eclectic collection. While three of the Hollywood CDs contain some of the best known scores in the history of Hollywood (Max Steiner's King Kong, Franz Waxman's Objective, Burma! and Dmitri Tiomkin's Red River), three others contain lesser-known scores by some of the giants of Hollywood composition (Steiner's The Adventures of Mark Twain, Bernard Herrmann and Alfred Newman's The Egyptian, and a compilation disc containing scores of Steiner, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Victor Young and Miklos Rozsa). Finally, there are two discs devoted to scores by less renowned composers: Frank Skinner, Hans J. Salter, and Adolph Deutsch.

Making new recordings of classical Hollywood film scores is a curious and problematic affair. Specifically, any potential producer is forced to face two sets of problems. One is philological in nature. When classical Hollywood film scores were written, few imagined that the original scores and parts might one day be of value. As a result, thousands of manuscripts were partially or completely lost or discarded over the years. More often than not, a person who desires to make a new recording needs to do a significant amount of restoration and reconstruction from a combination of (not always accurate) piano reductions, the film itself, and--if he or she is lucky--partial full scores and an incomplete set of parts. To make this process even more complicated, one needs to consider the almost inevitable discrepancies between the score and the film. These can result from last-minute visual edits, passages that are originally scored too heavily or too lightly to fit the sound effects and the dialogue, cues that are just a second too long or too short, or a host of other factors. In such situations, the person who is reconstructing the score must decide whether to record the version that made it onto the film or the version that is on the manuscript.

The second set of problems that a potential producer faces is more aesthetic in nature. Undoubtedly, classical Hollywood film scores contain some of the best music ever written, and any potential producer can find a vast amount from these scores that works very well by itself--that is, music that is wonderful to listen to without the visuals. That said, if one were going to record a film score, one needs to ask the following questions: what are we going to do with the cues that peter out in the film and therefore sound incomplete? Should the transitional cues that last no more than ten seconds be recorded? Are we going to record extended passages that fall flat without the visuals?

For their recordings of classical Hollywood film scores, Marco Polo/Naxos has astutely hired John Morgan to do the reconstruction and to make the aesthetic decisions. As an orchestrator for such eminent film composers as Fred Steiner, Bruce Broughton and Alex North in the late 1970s, Morgan learned the language of Hollywood film scoring early in his career. In recent decades, he has concentrated his energies on reconstructing classical Hollywood film scores and composing his own scores.

In the two CDs under review, Morgan's primary goal is not to present the scores as they actually appeared in King Kong and The Egyptian. Rather, he wants to recreate the music that the "silent" movies originally inspired. In the excellent booklet that accompanies the King Kong CD, he writes, "This recording then is not a recreation of the 1933 music tracks, but a musical performance of the complete score as Steiner's original sketches dictated" (p. 7). Similarly, he writes the following in the booklet that accompanies The Egyptian CD, "For this recording, I have gone back to the primary source materials to present this music as it was originally composed for the film" (p. 7).

Max Steiner's (1888-1971) score for the 1933 hit, King Kong, has long been recognized as a milestone in the history of film music. In the early years of sound cinema (ca. 1927-33), filmmakers struggled to find a suitable role for music in films. According to many, this struggle ended with King Kong. By adapting the Wagnerian Leitmotiv system for film scores, Steiner allowed music to become a narrative component in films. If one plays a short motif whenever a certain character appears (e.g., the chromatic descending three-note motif that is heard almost every time King Kong appears), viewers begin to associate the motif with the character. Once this association is made, the composer can use music to aid the film's narrative. For example, by making the aforementioned three-note motif sound menacing, Steiner was able to make Kong appear more threatening and ominous during his initial entrance (Track 9, 0:30 on the Naxos CD). At the end of the film, Steiner uses the same three-note motif in a slightly different way to make Kong into a tragic and somewhat sentimental figure (Track 22, 0:52).

In reconstructing this score for the Marco Polo/Naxos CD, Morgan used primarily Steiner's annotated sketches, which includes one and a half cues that never made it onto the film, to reorchestrate the entire score. He explains why he was dissatisfied with the original orchestration in his liner notes, "It is clear that Steiner composed this music in the full Wagnerian orchestral tradition without a specific, predetermined orchestra layout being adhered to. It was therefore up to his orchestrator (Bernard Kaun) to orchestrate the music within the budgetary confines of the production (meaning the number of players), and to come up with [the necessary] compromises" (p. 5). Later on, he states:

bq. For this recording, our goal was to be as authentic to Steiner's original sketches and intentions as possible, but without the compromises necessitated by budget and sound limitations of the period...I reorchestrated the score from top to bottom in order to maintain a consistency of instrumentation with the somewhat audacious intention of doing it the way Steiner would have if he had the time to orchestrate the music himself, with a full symphonic orchestra and modern recording techniques at his disposal. (p. 7)

So, what are the results?

Overall, Morgan's orchestrations are quite dense. Although most cues are quite effective, I would have preferred to hear a greater variety of textures. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that--unlike the film, which includes passages without music and segments with relatively quiet music--I am listening to all twenty-two cues without a break. In terms of performance, the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, conducted with William Stromberg, copes with the numerous notes in the score quite well. There are occasional clunkers, and the woodwinds can play with more character, but overall the orchestra plays with passion and accuracy. I only wish that they had done one more take of the "Theater Sequence" (Track 17). For whatever reason, the players don't sound completely at ease here.

Unlike King Kong, The Egyptian (1954) is an ambitious but nearly forgotten epic. The CD booklet blames the film's lukewarm reception on the fact that 20th Century Fox was too cheap to hire Marlon Brando to play the lead. While I agree that Brando would have improved this film, I doubt that he could single-handedly have "saved" this diffuse production. In terms of music, The Egyptian is significant because the score was jointly composed by two of the greatest film music composers of all time: Bernard Herrmann (1911-75) and Alfred Newman (1901-70). Today, Herrmann is remembered primarily for his scores for such Hitchcock films as Vertigo and Psycho, but it should be noted that he also composed such wide-ranging scores as Citizen Kane and Taxi Driver. Newman, whose credits include Wuthering Heights, The Song of Bernadette, All About Eve and the 20th Century Fox fanfare, received 45 Academy Award nominations and won nine times.

In reconstructing this score for the Marco Polo/Naxos recording, Morgan's primary task was to cut the almost 100-minute score to something that can fit onto a single CD. He writes, "My criteria for choosing the music for this recording was based on what I felt worked best away from the film as a musical listening experience" (p. 7). Other than this, he had to reconstruct some of the orchestrations from parts and to come to terms with the recording requirements noted in the score. In his liner notes, Morgan offers some examples of the decisions that he had to make:

bq. "Her Name Was Merit" starts out with alto flute and oboe d'amore playing the melody in unison, but the alto flute is asked to sit 30 feet behind the oboist. We honored indications such as the former, as they were done expressly for musical purposes. However, in the cue "The Harp and Couch," Herrmann prerecorded the harp part to picture and later had the bass clarinets and violins play their parts while listening to the harp through headphones. Since this was done solely to synchronize the harp to picture, we recorded everyone together. (p. 8)

Compared to King Kong, The Egyptian is a score that requires a lot more finesse. Unfortunately, the Moscow Symphony Choir and Orchestra, again conducted by William Stromberg, are only partially up to the task. On the one hand, the instrumentalists still play with gusto, and the overall orchestral sound is quite good. The choir's contributions, although a bit loud, are also effective. On the other hand, the ensemble problems that are acceptable in the chase/fight scenes of King Kong really detract from the atmosphere of some of the slower cues, such as "Akhnaton--One Deity" (Track 8). Also, some of the entries and attacks are not as subtle as it should be. An example is the percussion entries in "The Nile & Temple" (Track 4). Finally, Stromberg seems to be very fearful of over-romanticization. While I understand that he does not want to turn all the slow cues into schmaltz, a bit more sentimentality would, I think, really have helped.

For someone who writes about film music, these two CDs are fascinating. I really enjoyed eavesdropping on Morgan's attempts to see what Steiner would have done if he had a full symphony orchestra. Also, listening to the score of The Egyptian apart from the rather dull film did lead me to appreciate Herrmann and Newman's score more. That said, I doubt that I will return to these discs very often. There just isn't enough variety in either score to sustain my interest for 72 minutes. Moreover, some cues, such as King Kong's "Fanfares 1, 2, 3" (Track 19), are just silly outside the context of the film.

At the beginning of the booklet of The Egyptian CD, an unnamed author writes, "Great film music--music composed for the only art form created in the 20th century--can stand alone as a great symphonic experience" (p. 2). There is certainly a lot of great music--great symphonic moments--in film music. I am not, however, convinced that simply listening to all the cues of a great film score in the correct order will produce a good symphonic experience. Film scores contain lots of fragmentary thoughts, repetitions, and musical ideas that wouldn't steal the spotlight during an important monologue. To make a great symphonic experience from this material, we need to be less "authentic"; we need to finish ideas, compose bridges that connect different cues, rearrange the order of the cues, develop some of the less used motifs, and so on.

I hope that, some day, someone would construct and record a really good suite or symphonic poem based on these film scores. This is the way, I believe, to generate a great symphonic experience from this wonderful material.

Eric Hung
Westminster Choir College of Rider University

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image_description=Max Steiner: King Kong

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• Max Steiner: King Kong
  Moscow Symphony Orchestra, William Stromberg, conductor
  Marco Polo 8.223763 [CD]
• Bernard Herrmann / Alfred Newman: The Egyptian
  Moscow Symphony Orchestra, William Stromberg, conductor
  Marco Polo 8.225078 [CD]

Fidelio, KlangBogen Wien

By Larry L Lash [Financial Times, 26 August 2005]

Fidelio has four different overtures for a good reason. The 1805 world premiere was a disaster, playing only three performances mostly to Napoleon's soldiers, who had stormed Vienna days before. Beethoven may not have possessed an acute sense of theatre but he was no fool: he created a second version of the opera for 1806. It, too, failed. A Prague production saw more revisions (and yet another overture), but it took until 1814 for the Fidelio we all know and love to emerge. So why revisit that disastrous original after Ludwig Van had acknowledged what was broke and fixed it?

BONONCINI: La nemica d’Amore fatta amante

Bononcini established his fame in the 1690s by composing more than 200 solo cantatas, which were frequently recopied and spread his fame abroad; 6 serenatas, each of which had 3 or 4 characters; the final (most prestigious) act for 3 operas; and 4 complete operas, including the most successful opera of the decades around 1700 (Camilla) and the opera that Handel was to refashion into one of his most delightful works (Xerxes). During the month of August, at least a dozen Roman patrons - cardinals as well as noblemen - sponsored serenatas, which were performed on their balconies or on stages constructed outside of their palaces. For August 1692, at the end of Bononcini's first year in Rome, he and the Roman librettist Silvio Stampiglia wrote their first serenata, La nemica d'Amore. "The enemy of Love" was Clori, who rejected Tirsi's, then Fileno's attempts to woo her, because she refused to relinquish her highly prized liberty. Its complete score does not survive, but one copy of the libretto is extant. In it, as in the libretto for La nemica d'Amore fatta amante, the dedication is to Lorenza, the sister of Luigi and wife of Filippo, and it is signed "Giovanni Bononcini". His dedications request a favorable reception for the "poor shepherdess [Clori], who developed her skills within the rustic woods" ("povera pastorella, nudrita fra la semplicita delle selve"). Such pastoral contexts were highly favored, since they embodied the ideals of the Arcadian Academy, which had been founded at Rome in 1690; and its members included Silvio Stampiglia, Filippo Colonna and Luigi de la Cerda. The dedication of course has a double meaning, because Bononcini was a "rustic" (non-Roman), who was requesting a favorable reception in the eternal city.

In the August 1693 sequel, which has now been "embodied" by Ensemble 415, Clori ends her opening recitative by declaring that she, "the enemy of love, has became a lover." Although neither booklet acknowledges it, the performance materials (and the relevant liner notes) are based on the facsimile editions of the printed libretto in the Vatican Library and the manuscript score in the Library of Congress, which were published in Cantatas by Giovanni Bononcini, selected and introduced by Lowell Lindgren (New York, 1985). The other extant score, which has the arms of the Colonna family on its binding, is in the Santini Collection of the Dioezesanbibliothek in Muenster, Germany. Both scores were apparently copied at Rome in 1693.

The essence of Stampiglia's drama is brought forth by Bononcini's music, which is marvelously conveyed by the Ensemble 415 rendition. In its opening minutes, we are taken to a pastoral world, where time stands still: the archlute improvises dreamily for a while before the ensemble plays Bononcini's first chord, then the solo violin expands freely upon the "solo" motive placed between his opening chords, and the ensemble stresses Bononcini's affective chromaticisms and minor seconds (the "Neapolitan" degree). These delectable, yet sorrowful harmonic effects continue during Clori's opening recitative, which is accompanied only by the 5 violins and 2 violas in Ensemble 415. The other 6 players, which form the continuo contingent, are 2 cellos and 1 each of contrabass, archlute, theorbo and keyboards (namely, a copy of a 17th century cembalo and a positif organ). In most Italian dramatic works of 1693, the treble instruments of the orchestra would be utilized infrequently. The opposite is true in this work, since they play during the sinfonia, 8 arias, 1 recitative, and the ritornellos that end 7 arias. They are silent only during the two duets. Near the end of the serenata, two arias with orchestral ritornellos are accompanied by a soloist. One is a violinist (Chiara Banchini), who represents some incredibly virtuosic cooings of a turtle-dove, and the other is a cellist (Gaetano Nasillo), who mirrors and thus intensifies Tirsi's musings upon Clori's love for him. In the arias, Nasillo and a singer engage in contrapuntal duets, which he plays adroitly. He is thus an apt successor to the composer, who was renowned as a cellist, and played these parts in 1693. In the recitatives, there are many deft changes of instrumentation and expressive uses of rubato, which were presumably managed by Andrea Marchiol, who edited the score, coached the singers and played the keyboard continuo instruments. For example, the recitative before the Tirsi / Clori duet utilizes three different instrumental groups before the organ alone is utilized for "I languish / And I am dying." Equally effective is the recitative after Fileno's final aria. In order to break the spell of his invective-laden text, the continuo instruments improvise (that is, add to the written score) several statements of a stepwise descending bass pattern, then boldly accompany Clori and Tirsi's declarations of love, then let the organ alone accompany the words concerning marriage.

Clori (Adriana Fernandez, soprano) is the fascinating focus of the work. She magisterially sings 7 arias (and the conclusion of an 8th), 2 duets and 1 accompanied recitative, while Tirsi (Martin Oro, alto countertenor), whom she loves, sings only 4 arias and 1 duet, and Fileno (Furio Zanasi, baritone), whom she repeatedly repels, has only 3 arias and 1 duet. She captures every nuance of the great expressive range of her part, as she cogently conveys or wistfully whispers her grief, sensuously sings of her love for Tirsi, or adamantly proclaims her distaste for Fileno (by even interrupting and continuing one of his arias). She and her Buenos Aires compatriot, Martin Oro, add ornamentation judiciously, but hers have a magical, floating quality, while his are executed quite rapidly. His arias are all moderately slow, and he effectively conveys the dramatic function of each one. At the beginning his vocal production is markedly strident, because he does not believe Clori's avowals of love; afterwards it is increasingly tender, most notably in the flowing aria accompanied by a solo cello. Furio Zanasi sings his rapidly paced arias potently. He enters furiously, and jealous outbursts continue to intrude until he angrily departs with an invective-filled aria. He and Martin Oro are thus at opposite poles in terms of their roles and vocal production.

When this serenata was new, a reporter related that a "most sumptuous" ("suntuosissima") serenata had been performed on the night of San Lorenzo [10 August 1693] in the courtyard of Filippo Colonna, who thus honored his wife Lorenza. "Qui concorse tutta Roma." ("Here congregated all of Rome.") In 2003, when the serenata was 310 years old, the work was given a "most sumptuous" recording by Ensemble 415. It belongs in the collections of all who enjoy renditions of melodically, harmonically and texturally rich works composed near the end of the splendid seventeenth century.

Lowell E. Lindgren, Ph.D.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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Serenata for 3 voices
product_by=Clori (Adriana Fernandez, soprano), Tirsi (Martin Oro, countertenor) and Fileno (Furio Zanasi, baritone), with Ensemble 415, directed by Chiara Banchini (solo violin).
product_id=Zig-Zag Territoires ZZT030801 [CD]

The Death of Klinghoffer at Edinburgh

The Death of Klinghoffer

Andrew Clements [The Guardian, 24 August 2005]

It has taken 14 years for John Adams' second opera to reach a British stage. Scottish Opera's production of The Death of Klinghoffer at last goes boldly where no opera company in these islands has dared before (and one of them, Glyndebourne, shared in the original commission).

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The Death of Klinghoffer

[The Times, 24 August 2005]

Robert Thicknesse at Edinburgh Festival Theatre

THE trouble with The Death of Klinghoffer is easy: whatever I say, half of you will hate me. Those who "like" John Adams's opera and those who "dislike" it are accused of fascism in equal measure. And those who impute anti-Semitism to the work should bear in mind that the film of it was banned by the (Palestinian) Ramallah film festival last year.

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Reality of terrorism on stage

By Andrew Clark [25 August 2005]

There were no security checks at the Edinburgh Festival Theatre on Tuesday. You could have carried a bomb inside. And for one long moment it felt as if someone had done just that during the long-awaited UK stage premiere of John Adams's The Death of Klinghoffer. The performance began with three loud gunshots. Before long Arab-looking terrorists were occupying the stage, pointing weapons nervously at the auditorium. One of them waded into the stalls and started dragging members of the audience towards a huddle of frightened hostages.

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Melodrama in Edinburgh

Ariadne auf Naxos/Zaide

Tim Ashley [The Guardian, 25 August 2005]

First performed in 1775, Georg Benda's Ariadne auf Naxos is a melodrama in the most literal sense of the word — a work for actors and orchestra in which music is deployed to heighten the effect of emotional declamation. Even though posterity has tended to play its influence down, many in the late 18th and early 19th centuries rated it as both a masterpiece and a major vehicle for a tragic actress. This performance revealed it to be a work of considerable power.

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The Threepenny Opera in LA

Theater review: Threepenny Opera

By Ed Kaufman [Reuters, 25 August 2005]

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - German writers Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's stylized 1928 masterpiece "The Threepenny Opera" is savagely cynical, sardonic, brittle and worldly wise -- and wonderfully well-performed at the Odyssey Theater Ensemble, a tribute to savvy director Ron Sossi and a cast of 16 talented and eager performers.

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Mercadante's Pelagio in Gijón

Javier Mercadante y la opera "Pelagio", en el Jovellanos

Jose Kuntz Florez [lne.es, 24 August 2005]

La opera "Pelagio", drama lirico en cuatro actos del compositor italiano Mercadante,esta previsto que se estrene en version de concierto en el Jovellanos el 9 de septiembre, dentro de los actos conmemorativos del X Aniversario de la reinauguracion del teatro en el ano 1995 y tambien del XXV Aniversario de los premios "Principe de Asturias", lo que supone una apuesta cultural de primer orden que la direccion del coliseo quiere llevar ante el publico de Gijon, basada en un libreto de Marcos D'Arienzo, en el que se narra un episodio de la vida del rey astur don Pelayo.

Masaaki Suzuki in Tokyo

Die Meistersinger aus Tokyo

Der Dirigent Masaaki Suzuki und sein hinreissendes Bach-Collegium Japan auf Deutschland-Tournee

Von Wolfram Goertz [Die Zeit, 18 August 2005]

Bei Herrn Suzuki kommt die einfache Mathematik zu hoeherer Weihe. "Das vierstimmige Credo machen wir mit 6, 4, 4, 4, das fuenfstimmige Confiteor mit 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, das doppelchoerige Osanna mit zwei Mal 3, 2, 2, 2." Masaaki Suzuki hat sich ueber die Verteilung der Stimmgruppen vom Sopran bis zum Bass und die Zahl 18 als Summe kluge Gedanken gemacht. "Mit 18 Saengern klingt es am schoensten", sagt er, "dann haben wir die richtigen Kontraste zwischen Solo und Chor, den besten Mischungsgrad im Klang, und wir bleiben locker und beweglich." Eine lebenswichtige Tugend. Ohne sie geht ein Chor in Johann Sebastian Bachs h-moll-Messe klaeglich baden.

Celebrating Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's 80th at Salzburger Felsenreitschule

Kritik Konzert: Der Sprache schoenste Melodien

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau mit einem Schumann-Programm in der Salzburger Felsenreitschule.

von Walter Dobner [Die Presse, 22 August 2005]

Inmitten des Sonderkonzerts fuer den Ende Mai 80 Jahre alt gewordenen Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, der seine 55. (!) Salzburger Festspiel-Saison bestritt, ueberreichte ihm Landeshauptmann-Stellvertreter Wilfried Haslauer auf der Buehne der Felsenreitschule das Goldene Ehrenzeichen des Landes Salzburg. Dabei hob der Politiker hervor, dass ihn seit 40 Jahren eine musikalische Aufnahme begleitet: Schuberts "Winterreise" mit Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.

THOMAS: Polish Music since Szymanowski

For some, figures like Andrzej Panufnik, Witold Lutosławski, Krzysztof Penderecki, and others found a uniquely effective mode of expression in the avant garde, which sets them apart from some of the serialist and post-serialist composers in the West. Their accomplishments seem incredible in the context of the turbulent politics and difficult social situations in Poland for the better part of the twentieth century. Given the many issues that Poles faced in dealing with various governments, music should have been sidetracked until the political situation would have allowed for the arts, as often happens in the West. Perhaps the arts function differently in Poland, since the pressures at work in that culture seem to have caused music to flourish, just as some plants put forth some of their more spectacular blossoms when stressed.

In this book Adrian Thomas focuses for the most part on music in Poland in the twentieth century, and takes as his point of departure the death of Karol Szymanowski (1882-1935). He may be seen as a crucial figure, with his work bridging the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Thomas offers a comprehensive and organized review of new music in Poland that encompasses efforts during World War II, music under the Soviet regime, and the new wave of contemporary music after the collapse of the USSR. His study essentially ends with the death of Lutosławski (1913-94), and the focus that Thomas contributes results in a vivid discussion of one of the most creative cultures of the twentieth century.

Thomas’s knowledge of Polish music and politics informs various discussions throughout the book. His comments often reflect a firm understanding of the various traditions that existed and to which Polish artists reacted. Thus, the comments in the first chapter about the Young Poland Movement offer some useful perspectives on the strengths and weaknesses of that group (pp. 6-7). The coverage of music during World War II (pp. 16-25) serves as a prelude to the challenges that composers faced under the Soviets and their various responses to the restrictions placed on artistic expression. The latter section comprises the main part of the book, where the counterpoint between politics and art may be seen to emerge in a number of works, which Thomas puts into perspective masterfully.

Again, some of the social elements may be seen to reflect those in the arts, with the end of the Nazi domination of Poland at the end of World War II offering the potential for improvement. Yet the ideals of the Soviet state gave way to the reality of party dictates when hard-liners imposed their guidelines at a conference of composers held in Łagów Lubuski in August 1949, as Marxist philosophy set the tone for music and the other arts. Polish composers met the challenge in various ways, and while some felt victim to the Soviet regime, others found ways to express themselves and, at the same time, respect the wishes of the state. Thomas calls attention to works like Tadeusz Szeligowsk’s opera Bunt żaków [The Scholars’ Revolt] (1951) and Lutosławski’s Concerto for Orchestra (1950-54), which were composed when these artistic sanctions were in force.

In the course of his discussion, Thomas establishes the ascendancy of the symphony in Poland in the mid-twentieth century, which may seem out of place in the West, where symphonic composition had peaked by the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This sets the stage for later discussions of formalist approaches to music, a stance that was often at odds with the proscriptions of the Soviet regime. Notwithstanding some of the controversies that arose over some works in the genre, the symphony became a vital part of contemporary musical culture. In his discussions of responses to Soviet realism, Thomas raises intriguing issues about the aesthetics involved, which he supports with a firm grasp of the structure of the works discussed.

With such a footing clearly established in the first section of the book, he moves seamlessly into a discussion of the “Warsaw Autumn” that occurred in the early 1950s after Stalin’s death. With the change of leadership in Moscow, music composition benefited from a less oppressive atmosphere, and the result is evident in the annual festivals that took place in the Fall of each year (a list of the works performed is found on pp. 324-31). The “Warsaw Autumn” festivals were an opportunity for an interchange between East and West, since performers like David Tudor were part of the program, as occurred in 1958. More abstract music, like that of Elliott Carter, was performed in Poland, where such music had been proscribed, and native Polish composers composed some of their finest works for these events, with Lutosławski’s Venetian Games and Penderecki’s Threnody for Victims of Hiroshima both premiered at the 1961 festival.

In this study Thomas goes beyond any sort of linear historiography. Rather, he includes in his discussion well-thought discussions of individual composers and their styles, as found in the middle section, which concerns the “search for individual identity.” Through Thomas’s perspective, it becomes clear that Polish composers explored the avant-garde with an eye – or, perhaps, ear – toward personal expression. Novelty does not exist for its own sake, and the quest for new sounds and approaches may be seen as a means of expressing individual voices, as is the case with Baird (see the section devoted to him on pp. 120-32). Likewise, Thomas explores Lutosławski’s style deftly to offer some insights into the composer’s balance between his association with tradition and also the composer’s fascination with new ideas.

In discussions of Lutosławski, Penderecki and others, Thomas reveals his understanding of convincing works, and never sacrifices his enthusiasm for innovation alone. Thus, he establishes a context for Penderecki’s exploration of new sounds and techniques that may have escaped other commentators. His comments about some of Penderecki’s sonically innovative works of the early 1960s not only convey a useful perspective on such pieces as the Threnody, Anaklasis, and others, but they are also apt when it comes to discussing some of the composers of that generation:

They are evidence of Penederecki’s exhilarating sense of freedom, not just from the stifling neo-classicism of his youth but also from what he saw replacing it in Polish music, the insidious avant-garde hegemony of serialism. More than that, he felt free from the construction of traditional musical parameters: rhythm and metre, harmony and melody, and many aspects of form. . . . (p. 165).

These comments help to establish a context for discussing the works that Penderecki composed later in the 1960s and 1970s, and also individuals like Gorecki, Szalonek, and others. Those composers continued to explore music in the following decades, as did Penderecki, and while some of their music may be no longer performed, their contributions may be seen as a tangible connection to some of the contemporary trends that Thomas explores in the later part of this study. With the openness to Western culture that emerged after the 1970s, the potential for personal expression offered a new impetus for composition, which may be perceived not only with those composers, but also others. The well-known Third Symphony of Gorecki is just one example from this time, and Thomas explores Gorecki’s music, as well as that of other composers, as he takes the reader to the present, when “Young Poland” is again a term used to describe the creative spirit that persists to the present. It is clear that Poland has much to offer contemporary music, and beyond the works that circulate in printed and recorded form, the enthusiasm for new music that exists in Poland is one of its most powerful attributes. Thomas conveys that spirit in this book, which is an effective study of a remarkable music culture. The various technical apparatus that are part of the study, the lists of composers and their works, a chronology of events from the late 1960s to the 1990s, and the comprehensive bibliography (of both general works and studies connected to individual composers) are tools that are invaluable to future explorations of this music. For those who appreciate Polish music and others who may want to know about it, Polish Music since Szymanowski is an important publication that should endure as the present generation of composers takes its audiences into the twenty-first century.

James L. Zychowicz
Madison, Wisconsin

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Music in the 20th Century (series).
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GIORDANO: Andrea Chénier

Raina Kabaivanska is at her most luscious. The Bulgarian soprano combines an original somewhat Slav timbre with Italian style. She is not an easy somewhat lame victim in " La mamma morta ", who surrenders from despair a la Tebaldi but an iron willed lady who sings the aria as a kind of defiance. Subtle her interpretation is not and in decibels she gives tit for tat to the tenor and the baritone though there is never a hint of shrillness.

Aldo Protti is one of Italy's most underrated baritones. He was lambasted after his early Decca-recordings because he didn't bring Gobbi's subtle inflections in his interpretations of Rigoletto and Jago but he had a big healthy baritone voice that could easily fill any house. He was an extremely short man, with a barrel-like breast so that he looked almost as wide as he was tall. This probably didn't help him with some critics but the sound is exciting and well-modulated.

Conductor Paolo Peloso (a name new for me) knew his Giordano and he paces the performance excellently, giving his singers space to breath without overindulging them. All in all not the greatest _Chenier_ available but a worthy alternative if you happen to have a soft spot for one of the principals.

_Jan Neckers_

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La Traviata and Mazeppa at Salzburg

La Traviata/Mazeppa

Edward Greenfield [The Guardian, 23 August 2005]

After the disappointment of the new Mozart opera productions at this year's Salzburg festival, Willi Decker's staging of Verdi's La Traviata must be counted a triumph. Admittedly, it is based on a gimmick, with no scenery in Wolfgang Gussmann's designs, just a plain semicircular white wall across the expanse of the Grosses Festspielhaus stage, and props limited to a few settees and a large clock. Also, the chorus, women as well as men, are dressed throughout in severe black lounge suits, acting in a block.

SANTA FE — Second Thoughts

The just-concluding season offered one memorable success, Benjamin Britten's haunting 1945 tragedy Peter Grimes. Everything about it worked, from a spare but imaginative production to first rate singing and acting, with quality throughout the big cast. Anthony Dean Griffey, today's specialist in madman tenor roles, excelled in the name part and soprano Christine Brewer presented her role of schoolmarm Ellen Orford with luxurious tone and understated but effective acting. The huge choruses were magnificently done, much honor going to SFO music director Alan Gilbert for his leadership and choral director Gregory Buchalter. Considering the SFO chorus also had major duty in Turandot, and individual members (the opera apprentices) also took part in two evenings of scenes with piano, the young artists had a vigorous work-out over summer 2005. They came through brilliantly.

Mozart's youthful (he was 15) Lucio Silla enjoyed an elegant, stylized production and superb singing from sopranos Celena Shafer, Anna Christie and Susan Graham, as well as tenor Gregory Kunde, but the score holds little of interest, and none of Mozart's mature melodic genius. The adequate conductor was Bernard Labadie from Canada.

The much-booted Ainadamar, a 'new' (read revised) 'opera' (read play with music) by Osvaldo Golijov proved to be 75-minutes of tedium - excessively wordy; most action reported or recollected (difficult as a technique unless you are an ancient Greek master), and a score that dwelt in the land of Latin dance rhythms, but no such steps were ever taken. It was a weird evening considering the talent involved: composer Golijov, librettist David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly) and director Peter Sellars. Maybe there was just too much talent to come up with one unified artistic vision. I found the effort diffuse and almost entirely ineffective, yet some critics gave it a rave. Perhaps one can charitably say, succes d'estime.

For the record, "Ainadamar" means something like "fountain of tears," in this case at Granada, Spain, where the gay revolutionary poet Garcia Lorca was shot by fascists in 1936 in the Spanish civil war. The central role of actress Margarita, an old, dissolute, lesbian friend to Garcia, was taken by the spruce, coiffed, scrubbed, prettily-singing Dawn Upshaw, in an example of serious mis-casting. With a different singer in the key role, matters might have improved. Since the entire effort was electronically amplified, often to excess, it is hard to say how much contribution was made by music director Miguel Harth-Bedoya, as compared to sound engineers Gustavo Santaolalla and Jeremy Flower. Better luck next time!

Turandot was treated as fairyland kitsch, with 80-year old Willa Kim's imaginative costumes and radical, young Douglas Fitch's goofy set of plastic steps and platforms, variously colored from lighting within their Plexiglas structures, and it was all fun - but it was also mainly nonsense. A routine cast and only so-so conducting from Gilbert contributed to a forgettable performance. I am not much of an advocate for Puccini's final opera - it's a lot of recycled tropes and ideas from the master's earlier, better days. There are more interesting ways for an opera company to spend its Puccini budget. Amidst all the hubbub was the sweet, little lyric Liu of Patricia Racette - the one element of Italianate opera over the evening. Jennifer Wilson, loud through not thrilling, took the title role but did not own it, while beefy Carl Tanner shouted a bit as the Calaf and seemed short on romance. Hard work!

And then there was Stefano Vizioli's take on Rossini's The Barber of Seville. It was frantic - over produced, over acted, over the top and with no memorable singing. Yes, Barber should be fun, but with prissy, unidiomatic conducting from Ken Montgomery and principal singers camping their way thru the show, little pleasure was found. Most surprising was Ana Maria Martinez as Rosina without low or top notes and entirely given over to mugging and dashing about the stage, no doubt as directed by Vizioli. Even last summer as Elvira in a splendid Don Giovanni at Santa Fe, Martinez was eliciting rave reviews from this and other critics, and she was a superb, vocally accomplished Fiordiligi in Cosi fan tutte the year before. Somewhere along the way Martinez seems to have gotten off the track; I hope she soon returns to the main line.

With its lovely new theatre, a first class orchestra, the ambience of Santa Fe abounding and fine mountain evenings to enjoy, not to mention its mounting assets and strong box office (by some accounts over 95% for this season), America's premiere summer opera festival needs to improve artistically. Glimmerglass is hard on the heels of Santa Fe, and often doing a better job. I wish them both great success, but the artistic vision in New Mexico needs to be sharpened.

Santa Fe repertory for 2006 is Carmen, Salome, The Magic Flute, the Massenet Cinderella and the American premiere of Thos. Ades's The Tempest, only the last two promising much of interest.

J. A. Van Sant
Santa Fe, New Mexico
© 2005

CHRISTINE BREWER — The ‘Anti-Fleming’

Now the rainbow has faded and only a few festivals and occasional venues in the largest cities offer such vocal and instrumental recitals. Happily, one of these is the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, which presented the elegant soprano Christine Brewer in a concert of American art songs August 9, in the 400-seat St Francis Auditorium, part of the Museum of New Mexico in downtown Santa Fe. La Brewer sang to an audience of musical cognoscenti, alas in a half-filled hall. Her co-equal at the piano was Craig Rutenberg, and together they gave a 90-minute program that was the stuff of legend it was so beautifully achieved. In her unaffected naturalness as a singer, it seems apt to call Brewer 'the anti-Fleming.' Both sopranos are gifted artists, but Brewer's artistic integrity and naturalness make her an ideal recitalist compared to the over-contrivance and mannerisms of a Fleming. Bottom line: Brewer is there for the music, nothing else gets in the way.

As is becoming known, Brewer's large, wide-ranging soprano voice is one of the most beautiful before the public today. She is singing Isolde in Edinburgh as I write this, and will be San Francisco's Isolde next season, and no doubt will be heard in other Wagnerian roles over years to come. One of my favorite comments read recently about Brewer is, "she may be in her late 40s, but the voice sounds 35!" This is true; her tone is rich and steady; she is the mistress of color and nuance; her musical instincts are true and dramatically valid; her diction is clear (as St Louis heard in June with her Queen Elizabeth in Britten's Gloriana), and her command of dynamic shading is breathtaking. She has everything that Helen Traubel had, plus the three top soprano notes, and everything Eileen Farrell had plus the ability to sing a haunting piano and spinning pianissimo tone. If this sounds like I am overstating things, go hear for yourself.

The program of art songs, as they used to be called, was well chosen and smartly paced. Works of John Carter and Richard Hundley, along with an operatic sounding mini-cycle by J. C. Menotti dominated the first half. This music seemed not well known to the audience, which received it warmly. Better known were songs of Charles Ives and Harold Arlen, and a set of four songs regularly sung by Kirsten Flagstad on her American recital tours, by Sam Barber, Edwin McArthur, Walter Kramer and Mildred Lund Tyson. Kramer's was an impressionistic song "Now Like a Lantern," from 1919 based on a James Joyce poem; it was fascinating. For her first encore, the intrepid soprano took on the music critics with a song by Celius Dougherty, "Review" that parodied a critique of a vocal recital. This derring-do paid off with its gentle but pointed chiding of cliched review writing; the audience was much amused by the singer's comic abilities. Brewer ended with a surprise, "If I Could Tell You," the long-forgotten theme song of The Voice of Firestone, a song that once swept America every week on radio and television, written by none other than Idabelle Smith Firestone, wife of rubber magnate. The moment Craig Rutenberg played the intro much of the audience stirred in recognition of the sentimental ballad, and after the soprano's radiant performance gave her a standing ovation. Mrs. Firestone never had it so good. [The song can be heard on a number of VHS video tape issues of The Voice of Firestone, performed by a wide variety of singers, none finer than the youthful golden soprano of Eleanor Steber.]

J. A. Van Sant
Santa Fe, New Mexico
© 2005

HANDEL: Saul

Does it succeed in surpassing the current competition? Instrumentally there's certainly a case for saying so. For instance, in the opening symphony we are treated to bright jewelled textures, with true Allegro tempi and some wonderful sound balancing work by the engineers in the Larghetto and Andante sections between the winds and strings where every instrument is faithfully reported. This level of playing and recording continues throughout. The 40-strong Concerto Koeln sound as good as one rightly expects of them under this director, with perhaps only the winds and brass shining a little brighter than the rest of this exemplary crew. There was one small detail that I especially enjoyed: the carillon is a delight in the opening of scene 3 where its crystalline notes contrast delightfully with the chorus's heavier wedges of sound. I also relished a relatively elevated and clear-textured "Dead March" — no lumpen morbidity here, rather a majestic and calm portrayal of inevitable death that leads inexorably into the chorus's smoothly-sung Elegy. Jacobs is somewhat renowned for taking a degree of liberty with some works, but here I found little that jarred (at least on the instrumental side) and indeed I heard a piece of music new to me in a recitative and accompagnato in Act 1, ably sung by the High Priest (Michael Slattery). Presumably this was one of those "pick and mix" elements that Mr. Handel was prone to add or delete depending on circumstances.

Vocally, I'm not so sure that this recording achieves to the same extent, but it certainly offers a rewarding alternative, and one's final choice of recording (if choice one must make) will surely rest on subjective preferences for certain voices, and certain elements of choral production. Indeed, my first reaction to the 36-strong RIAS-Kammerchor's opening lines was one of slight disappointment at the diction and the English ... a definite Germanic vowel sound is evident and it doesn't help a distinctly muddy delivery of the faster lines which continued right through to the final chorus of Act Three. I found myself straining to catch the words — and that was with the libretto to hand. No such problems with any of the soloists however: all eight are crisp and clear throughout.

If I had to give a "best in show" award to a soloist, it would have to be to Emma Bell as Saul's feisty daughter Merab. In her first character-defining aria "What abject thoughts....." she displays a wonderful mix of spot-on coloratura and warm incisive tone with some quite thrilling ornamentation which pins the listener to the seat and declares: this lady is not for trifling with. However, as her character softens, or at least expands, we can luxuriate in one of the most gorgeously expressive soprano voices singing today. She is simply superb in the quietly contemplative "Author of peace" where a feeling of controlled power is complemented by a rich long line and exquisite, minimal, decorations which illustrate perfectly her gradual change of heart.

Jeremy Ovenden sings the part of Jonathan with a no-nonsense, crisp characterisation which from the start tells us this man is no puppet prince, but one of honour and courage. As ever in this work, one wishes that he didn't disappear as early as he does. If Ovenden's more thoughtful passages lack a certain elegance of line perhaps better found in other recordings, this is still a very convincing performance. His dramatic sense is evident — one can hear this quite clearly in Act Two, for instance, in his resolute, if intimidated, confrontation with the bullying King Saul as he attempts to protect his friend and thus incurs the royal wrath.

The role of that friend, the young warrior David, is sung by Lawrence Zazzo. This American countertenor has been working extensively in Handel productions on the continent of Europe in the past few years so it's not difficult to see why Jacobs chose him for this recording. Vocally, he seems to occupy a place somewhere between the radically-different styles of the two recent starry "Davids" of note, Andreas Scholl on the Archiv recording with McCreesh and David Daniels' live portrayals in Edinburgh and Munich, but without their sheer class across the board, or quite yet establishing a truly personal sound of his own. He has a surprising tendency to shrillness in the faster, louder passages, as on the plus side his voice is warm and elegant in slower passages and very sweet in the highest registers. If he doesn't sound completely at ease with some of the ornaments he sings then maybe it's because some are definitely quirky, if not downright contentious: have a listen to the final repeats of the words "his wounded soul" from the aria "O Lord, whose mercies numberless" in Act 1, if you don't believe me. However, this is still a performance of merit, questionable ornamentation notwithstanding.

Having enjoyed her live performance in Munich so much, I was just a little disappointed in this Michal of Rosemary Joshua's — perhaps her lighter-hued voice is just ill-matched with that of Bell's and comes off worst in comparison. For all her undoubted technical mastery of the genre and supremely elegant singing, I felt this was not Joshua at her very best — something was lacking. Having said that, a slightly below-par Joshua is still a force to be reckoned with and she is still a Michal-of-choice for many Handelians. Just listen to the way she fashions her voice to reflect her resolute defence of David and defiance of Saul's death threats in "No, no let the guilty tremble" — regained determination, line, crisp diction and heartfelt emotion, all found from within the dancing rhythms of Handel's music and Jennen's text.

In the title role — always one dependent on strong recitative singing with so few actual airs to display one's gifts — Gidon Saks is a worthy choice and his obvious experience in making words count shines through, although I'm not sure he quite "carries" the true spirit of this unhappy king in an expressive sense. One gets the feeling of rage, and jealousy, but not so much of his decline into mental disorder in the face of the irrational powers driving him from within. He also tends to sing the music line by line, rather than making sense of the poetry — phrases just don't flow naturally and there are odd pauses between words where there should not be. Because of this tendency, I have to admit to preferring the Saul of, for instance, either Neal Davies or Alistair Miles.

Three impressive young singers shine brightly in the remaining lesser, but always dramatically important, six roles of High Priest and Witch (Michael Slattery), Doeg and Samuel (Henry Waddington), and the Amalekite and Abner (Finnur Bjarnason). Of the three, Michael Slattery makes the biggest impression, if only for the sheer dramatic range of his singing. Not all will approve of his almost pantomime-witch portrayal of Saul's medium to Samuel — his suave and robust tenor of the High Priest is contorted into a lisping, almost falsetto simpering sound which may be a step too far for some although it certainly worked in context for me. In contrast, the bass-baritone of Henry Waddington is steadily consistent and he sings Samuel's doom-laden air of retribution to the despairing king with appropriate gravitas and textual awareness. The deaths of Saul and his son are foretold with a gentle decrescendo, all the more chilling in its subtlety, on the final words "The Lord hath said it: He will make it good."

So, we have another excellent modern recording of Handel's "Saul" under the always intelligent and responsive direction of Rene Jacobs, even if it doesn't quite — by virtue of some variable vocal solo work — manage to establish a new benchmark for this most dramatic of oratorios.

© Sue Loder 2005

image=http://www.operatoday.com/content/saul.jpg
image_description=George Frideric Handel: Saul, Oratorio in three acts (HWV 53)

product=yes
product_title=George Frideric Handel: Saul, Oratorio in three acts (HWV 53).
product_by=Henry Waddington (bass); Finnur Bjarnason (tenor); Michael Slattery (tenor); Rosemary Joshua (soprano); Emma Bell (soprano); Lawrence Zazzo (countertenor); Jeremy Ovenden (tenor); Gidon Saks (baritone). RIAS-Kammerchor; Concerto Koeln; Rene Jacobs (dir.) (full texts in English, French and German)
product_id=Harmonia Mundi HMC 901877.78 [2CDs]

Rossini's Adelaide di Borgogna at Edinburgh

Adelaide di Borgogna

Tim Ashley [The Guardian, 22 August 2005]

First performed in 1817, Rossini's Adelaide di Borgogna is a questionable effort. A product of the confusion of post-Napoleonic Europe, its subject is monarchical legitimacy and individual fitness for government. The opera deals with the eponymous medieval Italian queen, who requested military assistance from the German emperor Ottone when the brutish Berengario usurped her throne. Berengario, in his turn, was determined to legitimise his dynasty by forcibly marrying Adelaide to his son Adelberto.

Caballé Backs Out of Pelagio Production

Monserrat [sic] Caballe abandona el cartel de 'Pelagio' porque el papel "no se ajusta" a su voz

La soprano, que ya tenia el contrato firmado con el Jovellanos, sera sustituida por la ucraniana Tatiana Anisimova

[El Comercio Digital, 21 August 2005]

Entradas: butacas y entresuelos, 30 euros; general, 20 euros. Saldran a la venta para los abonados los dias 24 y 25 de agosto, y para el resto del publico se venderan a partir del 26 de agosto.
Montserrat Caballe no sera la hija de 'Pelagio'. La soprano ha decido renunciar a su participacion en la opera en concierto que se reestrenara en el Jovellanos de Gijon el proximo 9 de setiembre. El contrato ya estaba firmado, pero la Caballe se puso en contacto con los responsables del teatro para comunicar su ausencia. Segun ella misma aclaro, el papel "no se ajusta" a su voz, razon por la que ha preferido no actuar.

Sir John and Me

My week: John Eliot Gardiner, Conductor

Alastair Sooke speaks to the conductor

[Daily Telegraph, 20 August 2005]

Monday

I am a farmer as well as a musician. Harvest has started on my organic farm in north Dorset, but I needed to work on my scores of Walton's First Symphony, which I'm conducting at the Proms. It's the first time I've done this virtuosic piece and I've spent hours memorising the music. I'm also writing a biography of Bach, which is proving a colossal project. You only need one curveball - like a machine breaking down - and your planning, however well-intentioned, goes down the plughole.

Click here for remainder of article.

Honoring Franz Schreker

A Good Deed - and Some Good Music,Too

By Jay Nordlinger [NY Sun, 19 August 2005]

SALZBURG, Austria - As you may remember from a review last week, the festival is honoring Franz Schreker this year. He was an Austrian composer (1878-1934) whose father was Jewish (and super-assimilated). When the Nazis came to power, they stripped Schreker of his position - director of the Berlin Conservatory - and banned his music. After the Nazi period, Schreker was largely forgotten, because the late Romanticism that he embodied was despised - not by audiences, but by a rigid musical establishment. The same fate befell Korngold and Zemlinsky. All of these composers have been honored by the Salzburg Festival, in a series that ends this year.

The Guardian Profiles Sir Charles Mackerras

The modest maestro

Charles Mackerras was born in the US and raised in Australia before coming to England to study music. A stay in Prague confirmed his desire to be a conductor and ignited a passion for Janacek. Though internationally acclaimed, he disdained stardom and missed out on the plum post at Covent Garden. Now approaching 80, he is still in great demand

Stephen Moss [The Guardian, 20 August 2005]

Sir Charles Mackerras was conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra at the Festival Hall in June when the death of the great Italian maestro Carlo Maria Giulini was announced. Giulini had had a long association with the Philharmonia in the 1960s and his death had to be marked. Some conductors would have milked the occasion, shed theatrical tears, perhaps changed the programme, but not Mackerras. He made a brief, well-judged speech, then put away the microphone and ignited the orchestra, letting a Mozart adagio - the scheduled item and, as he told the audience, apposite to the occasion - express the emotion felt by Giulini's fellow musicians.

Renovating The Bolshoi

A leap of faith

Kim Murphy [Weekend Standard, 20-21 August 2005]

The old columns are swaying and, one day, if architects are to be believed, could topple altogether and dump Apollo and his great bronze chariot all over busy Teatralnaya Square.

Discovering Rossini in Pesaro

Beauty is a moral imperative for many Italians. That can be bemusing for an outsider, not least in the field of opera direction, where decoration tends to take precedence over meaning, and aesthetic gratification over substance.

La Clemenza di Tito at Edinburgh

La Clemenza di Tito

Tim Ashley [The Guardian, 18 August 2005]

Concert performances of opera have always provided the international festival with some of its most memorable evenings, and this version of Mozart's great examination of the moral implications of absolute monarchy was no exception. It did, however, highlight one of the format's occasional problems, namely that fine individual interpretations - derived, one suspects, from stagings elsewhere - sometimes don't quite cohere into a satisfactory whole.

Britten's Curlew River in Edinburgh

Curlew River, Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh

By David Murray [Financial Times, 18 August 2005]

Benjamin Britten's opera Curlew River was inspired by the Noh plays he saw on his 1956 visit to Japan, after which he asked his regular librettist, William Plomer, to adapt Sumidagawa for him. Eight years later, the opera was composed. Since it lasts only an hour and requires a highly stylised kind of performance, it has never been a favourite with regular opera houses, but it makes for excellent festival fare. The Edinburgh Festival has mounted its own production, directed by Olivier Py, which is well worth catching.

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Curlew River

Tim Ashley [The Guardian, 17 August 2005]

Benjamin Britten's church parable Curlew River is widely regarded as one of the few truly great religious music dramas of the 20th century, though its harrowing impact could also be said to transcend any given belief system. A Christian reworking of the Noh play Sumidagawa, it centres on emotional reactions to the ill treatment and murder of a child - acts that, in themselves, call into question the existence and nature of an omnipotent and benevolent deity. The opera posits the idea of divine grace as being necessary to make such arbitrary cruelty bearable to those who live in its aftermath, though the austere, tortured music also leaves us questioning whether grace in itself is ever adequate for such a task.

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Daily Telegraph Interviews Franz Welser-Möst

Why all those insults made me stronger

Ivan Hewett talks to controversial conductor Franz Welser-Moest

[Daily Telegraph, 18 August 2005]

"Ah, Frankly Worse-than-Most" is the acid response I get whenever I tell anyone I'm going to interview Franz Welser-Moest.

It was the nickname bestowed on him during his bruising time as music director of the London Philharmonic, a job he bagged when he just 28.

On Melodrama

Drama queens

Melodrama wasn't always about villains twirling moustaches. It was once regarded as high art. Misha Donat on how the genre and its composers changed opera for ever

[The Guardian, 19 August 2005]

"Nothing has ever surprised me so much," wrote Mozart enthusiastically to his father after seeing Georg Benda's melodrama Medea in Mannheim, towards the end of 1778. "It is not sung, but only declaimed, and the music is like an obbligato recitative. Occasionally there is also speech underneath the music, which makes a marvellous effect. Do you know what I think? One ought to treat operatic recitative in this way, and only have sung recitative when the words can be well expressed by the music."

Cecilia Bartoli in Salzburg

Letter From Salzburg

By Jay Nordlinger [NY Sun, 17 August 2005]

SALZBURG, Austria - About 10 years ago, Cecilia Bartoli was the hottest thing in music (classical division). Now the hype has largely died down, and she is just an ordinary superstar. But of course, there's nothing ordinary about La Bartoli: She is a phenom. And she put in a phenomenal appearance at the Grosses Festspielhaus on Monday night.

Iolanta at Royal Albert Hall

Iolanta

Erica Jeal [The Guardian, 17 August 2005]

Double bills aren't what they used to be. Iolanta, Tchaikovsky's last, one-act opera, was conceived as the second part of an evening that would have begun nearly two hours earlier with his ballet The Nutcracker. Welsh National Opera's concert presentation, which has been touring on and off since June, paired it with only a few snippets from the ballet score - and the evening didn't exactly seem short.

The Mariinsky on the Skids?

Kirov a tragedy on and off stage

Hugh Canning [The Australian, 18 August 2005]

AFTER the Kirov Opera's recent visit to the Royal Opera House, the writing must be on the wall for the reputation of the St Petersburg company and its workaholic music director, Valery Gergiev, at least as far as London audiences are concerned.

Motezuma Judgment Overruled on Appeal

Barockoper "Motezuma": Vivaldi kommt doch an den Rhein

Im Prozess um die szenische Auffuehrung der Barockoper "Motezuma" siegt das Duesseldorfer Kulturfestival Altstadtherbst.

von Alexander Esch [Westdeutsche Zeitung, 17 August 2005]

Duesseldorf. Ploetzlich ging alles ganz schnell. Nach nur zehnminuetiger Beratung verkuendete der Vorsitzende Richter des Oberlandesgerichts Duesseldorf, Wilhelm Berneke, das Urteil. Danach steht fest: Die wiederentdeckte Oper "Motezuma" von Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) darf beim Kulturfestival Altstadtherbst im September diesen Jahres in Duesseldorf aufgefuehrt werden.

Handel's Giulio Cesare at Glyndebourne

Cleopatre seduit Cesar et le public

Glyndebourne : Jean-Louis Validire [Le Figaro, 16 August 2005]

Se rendre a Glyndebourne, c'est aller a la recherche du temps perdu, quitter Londres sous la menace terroriste pour rejoindre un havre de paix, une reserve d'Indiens ou tout ne serait que luxe, calme et volupte. Dans un rite immuable, les spectateurs attendent dans le parc, les femmes en robes longues, les hommes en smoking. Le seul bruit est celui des bouchons de champagne qu'il est de bon ton de deguster en couple ou entre amis avant d'entrer dans la salle en bois de l'opera, a la remarquable acoustique.

[Translation: To return to Glyndebourne, one looks for times past, to leave London under the threat of terrorism, to join a haven, an Indian reserve where all would be only luxury, quiet and pleasure. In an unchangeable ritual, the spectators wait in the park, the women in long dresses, the men in tuxes. The only noise is the welcome sound of champagne corks, as couples and friends imbibe before entering into the auditorium with remarkable acoustics.]

Click here for audio samples.

Die Gezeichneten at Salzburg

ALL ABOUT SCHREKER

A forgotten fin-de-siecle composer.

By Alex Ross [The New Yorker, 22 August 2005]

A friend once borrowed a history of opera from the library, only to find that every other page had been marked up by one of those hyper-punctuating annotators who stalk the pages of library books around the world. Whether the topic was Monteverdi, Wagner, or Gilbert and Sullivan, the voice in the margins kept returning to one agonized, enigmatic question: "WHAT ABOUT SCHREKER???" My friend, who understandably knew little of the Austrian opera composer Franz Schreker (1878-1934), began to use that graphite cri de coeur as shorthand for the cult of obscure art, which sees repertories and canons as conspiracies against neglected genius. Any gathering of aesthetes will sooner or later have a "What about Schreker?" moment.

Mitridate, Re di Ponto at Salzburg

Music Versus Theater

Letter From Salzburg

By Jay Nordlinger [NY Sun, 16 August 2005]

SALZBURG, Austria - The festival's production of Mozart's "Mitridate" is so odd, it tries to negate the singing and playing. But the singing and playing on Saturday night were so good, the production had no chance.

"Mitridate" is Mozart's first "opera seria," composed in 1770, when the composer was 14 years old. It is early Mozart, yes (although there is earlier - much). But given the composer's absurdly brief life, can we really say there is "late" Mozart? In keeping with its genre, "Mitridate" consists of recitative and aria, recitative and aria, for hours on end. Every character in the drama has his turn at bat. And everyone in Saturday night's cast stepped up to the plate.

Candide in San Francisco

Lead-footed 'Candide' revival botches dual identities

By Steven Winn [SF Chronicle, 16 August 2005]

Like "The Threepenny Opera," "Porgy and Bess" and "Sweeney Todd," Leonard Bernstein's "Candide" belongs to two musical realms. Labeled a "comic operetta" by the composer, this ebullient adaptation of Voltaire's great 1759 novel about airy philosophy, bruising reality and hope premiered (and flopped) on Broadway in 1956, fared better there in a 1974 revision and entered the New York City Opera repertoire in 1982.

CILEA: Gloria

Of course Cilea had moved on after the initial impact of Adriana which strangely enough disappeared after two years of initial successes on the boards only to re-emerge in the twenties, this time to stay forever. He too suffered under the attacks that he could only write a few tunes which he then consequently repeated endlessly. Therefore in Gloria he went for the uninterrupted flow of the music Puccini would use three years later in his Fanciulla. Nevertheless though the arias and duets are well hidden by orchestral postludes they still are clearly discernable and though they don't fall so easily on one's ears like " Poveri fiore " or " La dolcissima " they are still memorable after a few hearings; the final duet being especially worthwhile.

The recording has two exceptional singers in the title role. The American soprano Margherita Roberti shone ten years in dramatic coloratura roles in Italy and she is here caught at her very best : a supple rich sound which easily overcomes the many vocal hurdles. Labo (" probably one of the biggest voices in one of the smallest frames I ever saw ", was the definition a friend gave me who heard him frequently at the Met) is one of the tenors who are often talked about on opera forums with the epitaph " if he would be singing now etc ". This may be nostalgia but it nevertheless is true: the voice with the fine burnished sound is big, easily recognizable and even from bottom to the easy high notes. Maybe Villazon's sound comes nearest though the Mexican tenor has not quite the splendid top Labo had His role is not overlong (indeed the whole opera only lasts less than an hour and twenty minutes) but heavy with a lot of difficult intervals which he makes sound so easy. Baritone Lorenzo Testi is not completely in the same class as the two title main singers but he still brings with him a good and gruff voice well suited to the villain of the piece. Ferruccio Mazzoli on the other hand sings with splendid richness his few lines. In short this cast has nothing to fear from comparison with the 1907-creators Zenatello, Amato and Kruszelnicka; none of whom ever recorded a single note from this opera.

Personally I'd dearly wish to see a production of this opera (one of the many offspring's of the Romeo and Julia-theme, this time set in medieval Siena) but I fear neither the singers nor the right spirit to revive Gloria are available at this time. The bonus is an interesting one: some Cilea's songs sung by tenor Leonardo De Lisi (nice timbre; too much thickening of the tone above the staff) and soprano Anastasia Tomaszewska Schepis (a little too shrill under pressure). The songs are not particularly distinguished and sound a little bit too laboured; Francesco Tosti obviously had nothing to fear from Cilea who reserved his best tunes for his operas So I cannot say these songs are a warm recommendation for the CD with the complete chamber songs by these same artists (GB 2336-2) Still, the set is a must in every collector's cupboard.

Jan Neckers

image=http://www.operatoday.com/content/cilea_gloria.jpg
image_description=Francesco Cilea : Gloria

product=yes
product_title=Francesco Cilea : Gloria
product_by=Margheritha Roberti (Gloria) ; Flaviano Labo (Lionetto) ; Lorenzo Testi (Bardo) ; Aquilante (Ferruccio Mazzoli) ; Anna Maria Rota (La Senese) ; Enrico Campi (Il Vescovo). Orchestra sinfonica e coro di Torino della Rai
Conducted by Fernando Previtali. RAI Torino 1969. Bonus : 5 Songs by Cilea and Sonata per violoncello e pianoforte
prouct_id=Bongiovanni GB 2375 /6-2 [2CDs]

Der lustige Krieg at Bregenz

Der lustige Krieg, Bregenz Festival

By Larry L Lash [Financial Times, 12 August 2005]

With operetta an endangered species, thanks are due to the Bregenz Festival for dusting-off Johann Strauss's big hit of 1881, Der lustige Krieg. Written seven years after Die Fledermaus and forgotten by the intrusion of the 20th century, it shows Strauss as tuneful as ever, but abandoning the strict "numbers" approach to operetta and developing a more sophisticated compositional style.

La Traviata at Salzburg — Anna Netrebko and More

Alles ueber Anna

Salzburger Festspiele: Die Netrebko kehrt als "La Traviata" an den Ort ihrer Entdeckung zurueck

von Manuel Brug [Die Welt, 9 August 2005]

Mit h-moll in den Untergang. Die Zeit laeuft. Der Tod sitzt bereit. Geteilte Geigen in hoechster Hoehe, triste, abfallende Phrasen. Eine Frau in fuchsrotem Brokat und mit wirrem Haar platzt rueckwaerts in das leere Raumrund. Kruemmt sich, sinkt auf eine Bank, schaut fast erleichtert Freund Hein, einem weisshaarigen Alten, ins Auge. Anna Netrebko ist da. Violetta auch. Es kann losgehen. Die Salzburger "Traviata" hat seit zwei Minuten endlich begonnen.

Click here for remainder of article.

"La Traviata": Anna Netrebko gibt's gar nicht

Verdis "Traviata" in Salzburg. Notizen nach einer zum Ereignis des Jahres erklaerten Festspielpremiere.

von Wilhelm Sinkovicz [Die Presse, 9 August 2005]

Die Hysterie nahm erstaunliche Formen an. Gleich nach dem Ende der Salzburger "Traviata" sprangen einige Damen in der ersten und zweiten Reihe des grossen Festspielhauses von ihren Sitzen. Daraufhin mussten die hinter ihnen Sitzenden auch aufstehen, um noch sehen zu koennen, wer auf der Buehne sich verbeugen kaeme. So erzeugt man eine Standing Ovation.

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Unearthed Vivaldi Aria Premiered in Australia

By Carlo Vitali [Musical America]

Countertenor Christopher Field performed "De torrente in via bibet," an aria for alto and strings from the work's ninth movement, at the Faculty of Music's Melba Hall, with Linda Kent conducting the school's Baroque ensemble. Dr. Janice Stockigt, a musicologist at the University, recently identified the 11-movement piece for choir, soloists and orchestra, capping a five-year research project in Dresden's Saxon State Library. She says the score formerly had been attributed to Vivaldi's younger Venetian contemporary Baldassarre Galuppi.

Stockigt's finding that this "Dixit Dominus" was in fact Vivaldi's was subsequently confirmed by Michael Talbot, a leading expert on the composer and professor emeritus at the University of Liverpool. Though the work is but one of his three extant Psalm 100 settings, its importance in the study of his overall oeuvre is paramount. The spectactular choral fugue concluding the piece on the words "Sicut erat in principio," for example, overturns the traditionally accepted notion that Vivaldi didn't care much for strict counterpoint.

Indeed, Talbot has declared it the most significant Vivaldi discovery in 75 years. And Professor Warren Bebbington, Dean of the Melbourne Faculty of Music, forecasts that "Vivaldi lovers the world over will be excited to hear this brilliant work, all thanks to Jan Stockigt's intrepid research."

The project that yielded Stockigt's find, funded by the Australian Research Council, aims to identify and analyse the repertory of the Catholic court church of the Saxon capital, Dresden, during the 18th century. In her research she examined countless dozens of surviving manuscripts.

The setting is the fourth newly identified Vivaldi sacred work to have turned up in the Dresden Library in the last 20 years, thanks mostly to the joint efforts of Stockigt and Talbot. In each case, the piece belonged to a large consignment of sacred vocal works supplied to the Saxon court during the 1750s by Venetian copyist Giuseppe Baldan, a notorious falsifier of attributions out of commercial convenience. Vivaldi being dead and forgotten for the last decade, Baldan could reap additional profits from the composer's works by recycling them far from their original performance site (Venice) under the name of the more contemporary and thus fashionable Galuppi, whose name is proudly inscribed on the title-pages. The contrivance led astray not only Baldan's patrons, but also modern librarians and scholars.

Plans are afoot for the Koernerscher Sing-Verein Dresden to give the complete "Dixit Dominus" its modern premiere in Dresden, as part the city's forthcoming 800th anniversary celebrations.

Copyright 2005, Commonwealth Business Media, Inc.

This report is reprinted with the kind permission of Musical America, the "Business Source for the Performing Arts." Musical America is located on the Internet at http://www.musicalamerica.com/.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/content/211-thumb.jpg
image_description=Antonio Vivaldi

Honoring Karl Hartmann

Stepping out of history's shadow

Composer Karl Hartmann, who heroically resisted the Nazis, is remembered at the Proms tonight. It's about time, says Ivan Hewett

[Daily Telegraph, 11 August 2005]

For German composers the rise of Nazism was a severe test of moral and artistic fibre. Some of them managed to avoid it by fleeing to the safety of the UK or the USA. Of those who stayed, many were liquidated, above all if they were Jewish. Those who were allowed to live had to find a way to live with the regime. Many paid lip-service to it, while keeping their true feelings to themselves.

Nielsen's Maskarade at Bregenz

Maskarade, Bregenz Festival

By Larry L Lash [Financial Times, 10 August 2005]

Maybe it had something to do with getting out of bed at 9.00am to start dressing to go to an opera at 11.00am, but I simply don't understand why I didn't enjoy David Pountney's production of Maskarade more than I did.

Another Vivaldi Work Discovered

Vivaldi: Dixit Dominus

Clive OConnell [The Age, 10 August 2005]

To celebrate a musicological feat achieved by Janice Stockigt from Melbourne University, the faculty of music's Early Music Studio orchestra gave a small taste of the work that she recently identified as a composition by Antonio Vivaldi. Vivaldi not only composed the well-known The Four Seasons violin concertos but also had a powerful impact on his contemporaries such as J. S. Bach, who transcribed and adapted many of the Italian master's concertos.

Musical Lies

The arts column: how technology creates beautiful lies

Rupert Christiansen critiques the current state of the commercial recording industry

[Daily Telegraph, 10 August 2005]

Here is a tale of two new classical CDs. One seems to mark the end of something, the other a beginning. Both stand at a turning point in the century-long history of the commercial recording industry.

Golijov's Aindamar at Santa Fe

Ainadamar, Santa Fe Opera

By George Loomis [Financial Times, 10 August 2005]

Osvaldo Golijov's first opera, Ainadamar, was a disappointment at its premiere two years ago, especially for anyone susceptible to the Latin rhythms of his wildly popular St Mark Passion. But at a subsequent performance in Los Angeles, Peter Sellars saw its potential and teamed up with the composer and the librettist David Henry Hwang for a revised version, now in repertory at the Santa Fe Opera in a production by Sellars.

Le Figaro Discovers Mörbisch Festival on the Lake

Moerbisch, le Bayreuth de Franz Lehar

Jean des Cars [Le Figaro, 9 August 2005]

Les amateurs de Wagner ont Bayreuth, les mozartiens ont Salzbourg et, de Verone a Aix-en-Provence, d'Orange a Glyndebourne, on chante et on joue chaque ete des compositeurs de genie a travers l'Europe. L'opera et l'opera-comique sont a l'honneur. Et l'ope-rette ? Ce genre delicieux, trop souvent meprise en France parce que considere, a tort, comme mineur, et, helas !, parfois mal chante et mal monte, a toujours ses admirateurs, en particulier en Europe centrale. Connaissez-vous Moerbisch ? Non, sans doute... C'est le nom d'un coquet village de vignerons a la frontiere austro-hongroise, au bord d'un vaste lac, la ou commence la Puszta, la plaine magyare.

A Double Bill at Glimmerglass

The question of whether two small operas, including one with but a lone singer, could fill the large stage of Glimmerglass Opera has been answered with a resounding yes. If the singers are in peak vocal condition and are equally good actors, that is almost all that is required.

Well, that and the music of master composers. The company serves that up easily with Jules Massenet's "Le Portrait de Manon" and Francois Poulenc's "La Voix Humaine."

The Ring in Seattle

'Ring' cycle opens with beauty and majesty

In the early days of Seattle Opera's 30-year tradition of mounting Wagner's monumental "Der Ring des Nibelungen," there was a sense of ritual about seeing the work as the composer intended -- all within a week. That sense seemed to be there again as this year's three performances of the four-opera marathon began with "Das Rheingold" Sunday night at McCaw Hall.

Tristan und Isolde at Bayreuth

Christoph Marthaler's new production relocates Wagner's masterpiece to an unidentified central European city, a decade or so after the second world war. This has predictably caused ructions in Germany where the Swiss director's work is the subject of ongoing controversy. While the transposition reminds us that the opera does, indeed, take place some years after a protracted military conflict, Marthaler comes close to overstating his case. What for Wagner is a point of detail in an internalised psychodrama becomes instead a central element.

LORTZING: Der Waffenschmied

Lortzing was, as John Warrack has noted, "the most inventive composer of opera with spoken dialogue in mid-19th-century Germany," and his skills are evident in this wonderful performance. While Lortzing knew well the masters who preceded him - we can frequently hear traces of Mozart, Beethoven, Weber, and others, as well as French opera-comique and Italian buffa, in this and other scores - his approach and results were individual. Perhaps guided by a theatrical instinct cultivated by years spent acting, singing, and conducting for the stage, Lortzing was a fine craftsman and, by Der Waffenschmied, excellent orchestrator whose entertainments continue to please a wide range of German audiences.

The accompanying essay by Juergen Schlaeder — Marie Praeder provided the sometimes awkward translation — addresses Lortzing's praise of middle-class values in the work. While Count von Liebenau is of the elite class, for instance, it is under the disguise of an apprentice armorer that he wins the love of Marie, the daughter of Stadinger, the master armorer of the title. Stadinger is the character who embodies the steady middle-class values upheld in the work, and when, near the opera's end, he sings of what Schlaeder refers to as "the restoration of traditional ideas of morality," it is in a strophic folk-like song that would have appealed to the middle-class audience for the whom the work was intended. (The work premiered in Vienna's Theater an der Wien in 1846, however, and, as Warrack points out, the Viennese audience was less taken with the "homely and very German humor" than subsequent German audiences have been.) Sir John Tomlinson, a very highly regarded Wagnerian specialist, brings a remarkable vocal presence to this folk-like Lied, as Lortzing calls it, as well as a fine sense of character and style throughout. It's rather like Hans Sachs lite, and it's more than rather nice.

The other standout vocal performance is by soprano Ruth Ziesak as Marie. While she may fall short of the exceptional insight and warmth that the late Lucia Popp brought to this kind of role (and everything else she sang), she comes close to it. The voice is rich and expressive, and Ziesak's performance of the aria that closes the Act 1 finale is a highlight of the recording. She also scores with the opening of Act 3, another extended aria for Marie, as she does in her duets with the Count (Boje Skovhus) and in the ensembles.

It is in the ensembles that Lortzing shines. The second act sextet is quite well written. It begins with an extended unison passage that blossoms into a passage reminiscent of Mozart; after this, its comic sensibility grows as the ensemble begins to sound more and more like refugees from Rossini. After the sextet, a duet for Stadinger and Georg, the Count's squire disguised as another apprentice, further demonstrates Lortzing's familiarity with the Italian buffa style: under Georg's lilting melody, Stadinger, the bass, sings a patter section, and the whole segment recalls Rossini's Figaro and Almaviva's Act 1 duet at the end of The Barber of Seville. The chorus is exceptionally good throughout, providing a subtlety and richness that at times surpasses the material. Its performance of "Wie herrlich ist's im Gruenen," a delightful chorus in Act 2, is particularly satisfying, both in how it's written and in how it's performed. The finales to each act are also especially effective.

The CD's sound is above average, although the louder ensemble passages suffer a bit. Overall, however, the engineering serves the work well. The booklet, in German and English, provides the essay mentioned above, an exploration of Lortzing's life and the work in terms of their demonstration of middle class values and perspectives. It provides next to nothing in terms of plot synopsis, however, although it does provide a breakdown of the tracks by title, character, and classification (aria, chorus, sextet, etc.).

I probably should have mentioned at the beginning of this review that I am a bit of a fan of this genre - my CD collection includes several works by each of the composers mentioned above, and while I have never seen any of them performed, I have no problem imagining why they remain popular in Germany. They are delightful, stage-worthy, and, at times, exuberant, works with much to offer. This recording would serve as a fine introduction to nineteenth-century German opera after von Weber and before Wagner. It is certainly a welcome addition to my collection.

Jim Lovensheimer, Ph.D.
Blair School of Music, Vanderbilt University

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VERDI: Aida

Eventually, this statement appears:

In my view, those who plan to put a work on the stage should first of all take a look at it from the viewpoint of the age in which it was written, in order to be able to present it in a manner that meets the aesthetic requirements of our own time.

Herzl goes on to explain how that principle guided the creation of this production at this "open-air event" (basically, a quarry) at the Festival St. Margarethen festival.

Viewers of the lamentable result will have to reconcile Herzl's essay with his show. Your reviewer cannot do so.

Working in conjunction with Manfred Waba (stage design and special effects), Herzl has devised an Aida with over-the-top stage action which frequently swamps the story and dwarfs the characters. Examples: At the end of her confrontation with Aida, Amneris hops into a chariot, grabs a shield and sword, and goes flying off the stage, like a Valkyrie. For the victory procession, Radames (probably a double, as the singer's face is masked) laboriously rides an elephant down a hillside onto the stage area. In the final scene, each of the three principals is placed in vertically aligned openings carved high into the quarry wall, with visible restraining ropes to keep the singers from accidentally falling forward and down to a doom more certain that suffocation in such a "tomb" (why Amneris is placed in the same location goes unexplained).

One might also wish for an explanation as to how a Nordic blonde youth ended up in Egypt for the requisite farce of a dance sequence. And what would Verdi have thought of the lovingly filmed fireworks show at intermission? Perhaps best not to know.

Even when such outlandish malarkey isn't provoking either groans or guffaws (or both), Herzl has failed to get satisfactory performances from his singers, with the Aida of Eszter Sumegi being a notable exception. Cornelia Helfricht's Amneris needs a good slap, as she struts arrogantly round the stage, frequently displaying a tendency to throws cups and articles of clothing to the ground in a hissy fit. The voice is no fresher than her matronly appearance would suggest.

As for Kostadin Andreev's Radames, here is a plump, not especially masculine Egyptian war hero given to pouting and "dramatic" arm waving. Andreev doesn't have a satisfactory voice to compensate for his unfortunate acting, with most of the voice no more than a mezzo forte bleat, although he can reach the high notes.

Eszter Sumegi retains her dignity for most of the evening. The tight vibrato will evoke varying responses in listeners, but she has it in fair control, and most miraculously, manages to create and hold onto a believable character. The best scene of the evening takes place on a bare stage, as Amonasro (a decent Igor Morosow) confronts his daughter. Here Herzl shows what he can do when quarry-sized antics don't come first.

At the start and after intermission, the orchestra is glimpsed, but their exact location in relation to the stage remains a mystery, as the quarry setting allows for no pit. The sound throughout, unsurprisingly, comes from a generic source, and all the singers sport small microphones, tastefully taped to the center of their foreheads. The cast resembles an alien race of a Star Trek episode where the budget only allowed for a brow ridge to indicate their extra-terrestrial origins.

Almost any other Aida on DVD earns preference over this one, but if a viewer wants more of the intimacy of the opera captured, the Zefferelli-produced Busetto production deserves mention. For high-powered singing and stage excess, perhaps the La Scala production with a quarry-sized Pavarotti would fit the bill.

Just anything, anything, other than this Festival St. Margarethen production. The fireworks are nice though.

Chris Mullins
Los Angeles Harbor College

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product_by=Eszter Sumegi, Kostadin Andreev, Cornelia Helfricht. Chorus, Ballet and Orchestra of the National Theater Brno. Ernst Maerzendorfer, conductor.
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The Cambridge Companion to Stravinsky

Predictably, however, just like the composer in question, this Companion is much too complex to fit comfortably into the mold. The reader will immediately note the seemingly disproportionate amount of space dedicated to the issue of reception: six of fourteen articles are placed in that section of the volume, with many essays from the other two sections veering frequently in the same direction. Indeed, as Christopher Butler's and Arnold Whittall's essays in the opening section illustrate, contributions to this collection inevitably represent conflicting trends in Stravinsky criticism. In "Stravinsky as Modernist," Butler casts the composer in his traditional role as a "conservative modernist" as opposed to Arnold Schoenberg's "progressive avant-garde." Meanwhile, Whittall, in a rather unfortunately titled "Stravinsky in Context" (now there's a title that means everything and nothing!), often contradicts his colleague while discussing many stylistic and compositional parallels between Stravinsky and Schoenberg. Commissioned separately, the essays do not engage each other's arguments. Instead, the authors polemicize — vehemently at times — with Richard Taruskin, whose distinct, distinguished shadow has loomed large over the Stravinsky discourse ever since the 1996 publication of his comprehensive two-volume Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions. Indeed, several essays in this Companion are heavily indebted to Taruskin's work. This includes Rosamund Bartlett's opening article "Stravinsky's Russian Origins," the only truly biographical essay in the volume. But while Bartlett's fascinating account of the artistic life in early 20th-century Russia is well worth the reader's attention, I hesitate to make the same claim for the two "Russian" essays in Part 2 of the collection, Anthony Pople's "Early Stravinsky" and Kenneth Gloag's "Russian Rites: Petrushka, The Rite of Spring, Les Noces." While both authors make a point of summarizing the views of other scholars, such as Pieter van den Toorn and Stephen Walsh, as well as bringing their own perspectives to the table, the number of Taruskin references in Pople's account in particular is at times so overwhelming that one feels a strong desire to abandon the Companion altogether and run back to the original.

Thankfully, that feeling disappears as the reader progresses through the volume and away from the "origins." Martha M. Hyde's insightful essay "Stravinsky's Neoclassicism" explores the complex notions of engagement with time, past and present, imitation, anachronism, and the relationship between neoclassicism and post-modern pastiche. Opera lovers will be delighted to see a significant portion of the article devoted to the analysis of The Rake's Progress, in its textual and musical dialogue with Goethe's Faust. Music for — broadly defined — theater is also the subject of the editor, Jonathan Cross's contribution to the volume, "Stravinsky's Theaters," in which he discusses the aspects of "high" and "low" in the composer's various staged projects. One of the most valuable contributions to the volume, in my opinion, is Joseph Straus's wonderful overview "Stravinsky the Serialist"; but a word of caution — the author's detailed analysis of specific passages may prove prohibitive for the uninitiated.

Two of six "reception" essays in the Companion also include analysis of excerpts from Stravinsky's serial compositions. In a part of his "Stravinsky and Us" (to be discussed below), Richard Taruskin offers an alternative (or perhaps a complementary) view of Stravinsky's journey into serialism to the one outlined in Straus's article through the textual analysis of the Cantata. Meanwhile, Craig Ayrey, in "Stravinsky in Analysis: The Anglophone Traditions," traces and critiques the analytical approaches to Stravinsky's music used in the English-speaking world by applying them to the Lacrimosa section of the Requiem Canticles. Unlike Taruskin's, and even more so than Straus's essay, Ayrey's contribution is dense with formulas, and thus not recommended for amateurs or the faint of heart.

To the contrary, Nicholas Cook's delightful essay titled "Stravinsky conducts Stravinsky" is a must equally for a scholar, performer, and intelligent listener. Cook examines the composer's attitude toward the value of interpretation in performance, and poses questions on the relative significance of the composer's own conducting for discerning his intentions by pointing out important interpretive deviations in his successive recordings of the Rite of Spring. The essay also includes astute observations about the connections between Stravinsky's "new objectivity" and the issues of "authenticity" in contemporary performance practice. For a different kind of contemporary practice, Jonathan Cross's interview with Louis Andriessen titled "Composing with Stravinsky" addresses Stravinsky's influence on this Dutch composer, as well as on other composers today, an influence — it is asserted — that is still in its early stages. The interview is a worthy read; the only drawback perhaps is that the discourse all too frequently abandons its supposed subject matter and focuses on Adriessen's career instead.

Two articles in the Companion address the most classic issue in Stravinsky reception — criticism. Stuart Campbell's essay "Stravinsky and the Critics" provides an overview of the composer's relationship with his critics throughout his long career, and elucidates the role played by these critics (including the fellow expatriates and composer colleagues) in disseminating his works and ideas. Max Paddison's "Stravinsky as Devil: Adorno's Three Critiques" discusses the complexities, contradictions, internal motivations, and a gradual evolution of Theodore Adorno's Stravinsky critiques, from the late 1920s through the early 1960s.

Overall, The Cambridge Companion to Stravinsky should wear the label "use with caution." While a specialist student of Stravinsky would find in it much fascinating and useful material, the collection would not serve as a good general introduction to the composer's life and works. The reason for this, primarily, is the absence of a continuous narrative or even a coherent argument — in a word, a single point of view. It is a pity that the format of a Cambridge Companion does not provide for an in-depth editorial introduction — beyond, that is, the four sentences available on the opening page. Without it, the diversity of angles and the sharpness of arguments may distract and confuse a reader not easily familiar with the daily fads of Stravinskian discourse. In a stroke of editorial ingenuity, Taruskin's "Stravinsky and Us" serves as a conclusion to the volume. This essay's main focus is unraveling a variety of self-constructed and posthumously imposed "Stravinsky" mythologies that engender our daily engagement with the phenomenon of this composer and his music. To an extent, the controversies and contradictions that fill the current Companion themselves provide a telling illustration of the enduring power of the myths, and the eternal pleasure we musicologists derive from endlessly perpetuating them.

Olga Haldey
University of Missouri-Columbia

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Renata Tebaldi: A Portrait

That being said let's concentrate on what is offered here. It is abundantly clear that the very great Tebaldi is to be found in the first items on the first DVD. There the voice still has the unimpaired velvet that would somewhat disappear after her first vocal crisis in February 1963 to be supplanted with a more metallic though still clearly recognizable Tebaldian sound. The pieces from La Boheme with Bjoerling are well-known and VAI is so honest to note that the sound is a synched audio recording made in the studio during the telecast to suit the kinescope image. This is the correct procedure as picture recording was rather primitive in the fifties and often directly recorded sound (which could be more easily preserved) and images (which got blurred or sometimes even got lost for a second) don't quite match if one doesn't take this road. Luckily the synching is done expertly and once more one is struck how natural an actress Tebaldi is; surely when compared with Bjoerling's stiff attitude.

One of the surprises of the lively debates on several opera forums after she died was the remarkable opinion of many veterans who saw both ladies that she was a more believable actress than Callas who seemed to many still to be stuck in the grand guignol-style of the thirties. We don't have Callas as Cio-Cio-San but it's hardly believable she could improve on Tebaldi's magnificent interpretation of the two arias (and in full colour as well. As a bonus you get these scenes somewhat longer in black and white as well but this hardly deserves the "first release" cry). I'm wondering if the full colour "Si, mi chiamano Mimi" is still somewhere in the archives. The sound track for that item (I often saw on Flemish Public TV) is derived from her second complete Boheme as was clear from the audible "Si" by Carlo Bergonzi between the two parts of the aria. A picture of that video found its way to the cover of the London-(not the Decca) issue of the opera on LP.

The telecast of 1961 is less to recommend. The picture is somewhat murky and the soprano has to wear some things which could make an impression on the Family Circle at the Met but are very much overdressed, even ugly in close-up. The excerpts from her Stuttgart Tosca are more worthwhile, though it is not for the strangled sounds of tenor Eugene Tobin or the dry voice of George London. I remember well the excitement almost 45 years ago when the opera (followed or preceded by an Otello with the horrible Hans Beier) was broadcast by Eurovision in Western Europe. Most countries had only one channel (the big ones had two) and commercial television didn't exist. At that time opera singers were still household names and the fact that Tebaldi would sing directly was front page news. She is in good voice though somewhat husbanding her means at the start and one now notices how she cuts short her top notes.

The Concerto Italiano was recorded by Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 1965; so just in time before the decline from 1968 onwards when her top register became completely unhinged and she refused any engagement in a complete opera performance outside the US as there alone she was sure the fans would turn in a deaf ear to her vocal shortcomings. In this broadcast she is at her best in Rossini's Regata Veneziani which she sings (and acts) with love and a dose of humour and which moreover poses no vocal hurdles as she must go no higher than high A. The long Tosca selection of the second act is less successful: not as to singing per se though the voice is steelier than in her great years but she is far more convincing, far more natural in her two complete theatre Tosca's. The cameras follow her closely and she is clearly overacting, always doing things, throwing looks, moving hands one second longer than is necessary. I fear the TV director is the culprit as there were no subtitles at that time and there was so much fear the audiences wouldn't "capture" the story; but four decades later it almost looks like a parody on Tosca. This time the soprano is more than ably partnered by the young Louis Quilico and he too has to squirm in overdrive.

Jan Neckers

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Arias from La Boheme (with Bjoerling), Madama Butterfly, Tosca, and others
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Barber's Vanessa in Central City

World premieres during Rudolf Bing's 22-year reign at the Metropolitan Opera can be counted on the fingers of one hand, so it is a sign of Samuel Barber's prestige in the 1950s and 1960s that his two main operas are part of the tally.

Anthony and Cleopatra was a notorious flop, thanks mainly to Franco Zeffirelli's overblown production, but what of the earlier Vanessa, an intimate piece set in a Chekhovian household in northern Europe?

BIZET: Les Pecheurs de Perles

The orchestra is somewhat thin sounding and so is the chorus. Conductor Bruno Rivoli (whose name is printed in the smallest letter possible on the back) has some strange ideas concerning tempi at the start of the opera (the faster the better) until Alfredo Kraus makes his entrance and then Mr. Rivoli gladly follows the experienced guide. There is no libretto included and for those wishing to brush up their French this is not the course to follow. The chorus has no inkling what it is singing and Vicente Sardinero grunts a lot of sounds that vaguely resembles French. Therefore this set is strictly for the fans of the three principal singers and it must be said they will not be disillusioned.

The main attraction of course is tenor Alfredo Kraus whose picture is on the cover though he is at least twenty years younger on it than he was at the time of the performance. Still the voice after a career of 26 years had the youthful sheen which at the end of the eighties would gradually disappear. Kraus is the only singer with perfect French and he is his stylish self though with a few reservations which definitely won't put off his fans as he is playing a home match and not recording a set for the international market he is not too much concerned with note values. Each high note is kept a second longer than necessary though he doesn't make a circus spectacle of this facility. He makes his entrance with a blazing unwritten high C and he keeps up the good works all along .There is in my opinion something lacking in this performance: charm and sweetness. Take the big aria " Je crois entendre encore ". The voice is a little too stiff, too unwieldy to lead us into the land of his dreams. There is no morbidezza in this song which can be found so abundantly in Alain Vanzo's interpretations. Moreover Kraus' attacks on the high notes are always fortissimo, then gradually declining into piano and this makes the aria more of a robust love song than a dream. Of course the moment determination has to be shown his approach works magnificently as in the duet " Ton coeur n'a compris le mien ".

Mariella Devia is a fine Leila — young sounding (and not old as Jeanine Micheau did on the historic set with Gedda) or too thin as with Ileana Cotrubas on the later EMI-set though that lady has a bit more charm than the Italian soprano. Devia's middle register is not very distinct but of course the voice takes flight from middle G on. Baritone Vicente Sardinero mixes up Bizet with Mascagni. There is no elegance in his delivery like Blanc or Massard gave us but there is no denying the fully rounded sound he brings with him. Bass Giovanni Foiani is a deluxe Nourabad in a role which is often weakly cast. Indeed I always wondered why he didn't have a bigger career.

As told, this is not an authentic performance of the score though I take the heretic view that hundred and fifty years of tradition cannot be wiped away as some seasoned performers probably recognized better the beauties of the opera than did 25-year old Bizet himself. The hit of the piece " Au fond du temple sain " is given the traditional reprise of the main theme after the short quarrel between Nadir and Zurga instead of the somewhat clumsy melody Bizet wrote. And I still think that Benjamin Godard's trio " O lumiere sainte " (magnificently sung here) is a more impressive way to conclude the opera than Bizet's own ideas.

Jan Neckers

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image_description=Georges Bizet: Les Pecheurs de Perles

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Conductor Riccardo Muti Discusses Mozart, La Scala Squabble

Riccardo MutiAug. 5 (Bloomberg) -- It's the day before the premiere of Mozart's ``The Magic Flute'' at the Salzburg Festival, and conductor Riccardo Muti looks relaxed. In a crisp shirt, unbuttoned at the neck, with his trademark mane of chestnut hair combed back, he strolls out to the gate of his property, very much the master of the house.

Jennifer Larmore in Chicago

BY WYNNE DELACOMA [Chicago Sun-Times, 5 August 2005]

Local opera lovers with an eye on their budgets will have to wait more than a month for Lyric Opera of Chicago's free preseason concert at Millennium Park. Stars from the company kick off a weekend showcasing Lyric, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Steppenwolf Theatre Sept. 10 in the Pritzker Pavilion.

BERNSTEIN: Peter Pan

After some searching, he found an entire score composed by Bernstein that nearly no one knew existed. While songs by Bernstein were retained for the production (Bernstein did his own lyrics), his incidental music was replaced by the music of Alec Wilder, and much of it had never been heard, recorded, or, in some cases, even orchestrated. This welcome, and mostly excellent, recording is the result of Frey's seven years of musicological digging in search of this score. For those of us familiar with the already extant songs, as well as those of us for whom Bernstein's work in general is a national treasure, the recording is a wonderful gift. Frey has restored the entire score from manuscript materials and other sources; they have been completely orchestrated; and Bernstein's interpretation of the classic J. M. Barrie tale is at long last available.

For those used to the better known musical version of the story that originally featured Mary Martin on Broadway and, perhaps even more famously, on television, this take on the story holds some surprises. It is recognizably Bernstein from top to finish, to be sure. But how he responds to the story and characters is often fascinating.

Take, for instance, the opening music. The Prelude to Act 1, in which we are musically introduced to the Darling family, is Bernstein at his gentlest. The music surrounds us (and the Darlings) with a safe and homey musical environment - gently orchestrated, melodically simple, harmonically straightforward. The sense of security is complete, although it is, of course, about to be upended by the shadowless boy who flies into the room. Apart from a lullaby sung by Wendy, to which I'll return momentarily, the rest of the act consists of incidental music: "Peter's Tears," in which Peter expresses his dismay at having lost his shadow; "Shadow Dance," in which he celebrates Wendy's having re-attached it with a metrically delightful romp; and two pieces of flying music that accompany Peter, Tink, and the Darling children out the window and on to Neverland. If the flying music sounds a little generic, it's probably because we have grown used to similar music in any number of John Williams scores, from Superman (whose flying music borrowed blatantly from Richard Strauss) to E.T.

The rest of the incidental music is appropriately evocative and charming, and the orchestrations are warmly expressive. Several fight sequences are full of rhythmic and thematic interest, and one of Bernstein's scene changes (track 12) sounds wonderfully like something Darius Milhaud meant to write but never got around to. There is a terrific Bernstein moment in the sequence "Tinkerbell Sick / Tink Lives!" I won't ruin it for listeners in the know, but suffice it to say that Tinkerbell would feel a bit disoriented if she revived and found herself, musically at least, in a completely different musical.

While a few of the incidental pieces are extended - the penultimate scene change (track 26) is a gorgeous orchestral version of the song "Build My House," for example, and at least one of the fights is of relatively substantial length - most of them are quite short. They provide the exact mood for the moment and disappear, just as they should. Without anything in between them, however, they sometimes don't register.

As we already know, Bernstein also wrote several songs for Peter Pan, and they are all gems. The songs are for Wendy, Captain Hook, the pirates, and the mermaids. Peter Pan does not sing, presumably because Jean Arthur, the star, did not.

Linda Eder is unafraid of Wendy's deceptive simplicity, as well as that of her music, and she gives a vocal characterization completely free of affectation. There is no sense of an adult playing down to a child's level: Eder is childlike without being childish, and she uses straight tones with great effect. She also knows when not to use them. Her "Who Am I?", a lullaby Wendy sings to her brothers before Peter arrives, is simple in all the right ways. Only afterwards do we realize the artistry of song and singer. The song "Peter Peter" is a strange charmer. Wendy is telling Peter how much she cares for him, according to the booklet notes, but the words are unusually physical: "I want to feel your touch," "I long for it [the touch of Peter] night and day," etc. Eder sings these lyrics with both innocence and sincerity, and the result dispels what on the page is somewhat disconcerting. Only on "Dream With Me," a song cut from the show, does Eder go astray. Instead of maintaining the wonderful character that she has established - and the wonderful, straightforward vocal embodiment of it - Eder changes styles and suddenly sounds all grown up. It's as if Wendy is having a cabaret moment while singing Peter to sleep. Mind you, this Linda Eder, so it's a very nice cabaret moment, but it somehow seems inappropriate in context and less motivated. But the only comment I can make about Eder's performance of "Build My House" is thank you. She sings it the way I have always hoped to hear it sung.

Alas, Daniel Narducci seems rather out of his element here. Whereas Eder seems to have made acting choices and sung accordingly (exception noted), Narducci doesn't seem to have made any choices at all. Captain Hook is the stuff of character men, and Narducci appears to be a leading man with a nice if unmemorable baritone voice. I'm afraid he invests Hook with nothing. The performance doesn't work as villainy and it doesn't work as comedy. It's just bland. The singer seems unaware of the actor's opportunities. To hear Narducci say "Split my infinitives, but 'tis my hour of triumph!" - a line a good character actor could turn into a one-act play - is to realize the missed opportunities throughout. Bad casting, which is especially unfortunate because Hook has some wonderful material, from a extended "Soliloquy" to a "Plank Round" with the pirates, both of which provide an actor with great opportunities.

The sound of the disc is outstanding. The booklet includes all the lyrics to the songs, biographies, and notes by Frey and David Felsenfeld, the latter of which get off track a few times: is Candide really a mostly-forgotten show? Jule Styne and Comden and Green wrote additional material for the other, more famous Peter Pan — the original score was by Moose Charlap and Carolyn Leigh, who Felsenfeld does not even mention. Etc. But overall the notes are useful. The vocal ensemble sings well, the Ambrose Chamber Orchestra plays with the right combination of warmth and crisp rhythmic awareness, and Alexander Frey, whose labor of love all this is, leads the proceedings with an unmistakable joy. While this is a trifle, it is a trifle by Bernstein, and the results are an important contribution to the literature. Grateful kudos to Mr. Frey.

Jim Lovensheimer, Ph.D.
Blair School of Music, Vanderbilt University

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Complete score restored and edited by Alexander Frey.
Original orchestrations by Trude Rittman and Hershy Kay; additional orchestrations by Sid Ramin, Garth Edwin Sunderland, and Alexander Frey.
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NIELSEN: Maskarade

The Danish National Symphony Orchestra's recording of Maskarade succeeds admirably in striking a careful balance between these ideals. The present DaCapo SACD is an enhanced reissue of a 1977 presentation of Nielsen's opera. In addition to the model recording the essays and performance data in the generous booklet invite further study and appreciation of this acknowledged favorite among Danish operas. Performances of Maskarade during the 2005 Bregenz festival suggest a renewed interest and reappraisal of this work for the musical stage. Despite a perceived unevenness by some of music supporting the dramatic action, the current performances have emphasized the strengths of Nielsen's work.

The three acts of Maskarade are joined by a dramatic unity underscored through temporal designations in the text. On a single day in 1723 Leander, the son of Copenhagen's citizen Jeronimus, tells of his adventures at the masquerade ball on the previous night. Contrary to his father's wishes that he marry the daughter of Leonard, Leander declares his love for a young woman whom he met at the masquerade. He balks at his father's insistence and resents both the diatribe and proscription of future participation. Those taking sides for and against the masquerade are divided into two camps, with most at least secretly yearning to attend. The next two acts take place later on the same evening (II) and then during the masquerade that night (III). After its resolution of plots and disguises for the ball, it is finally revealed that Leander's love is actually the daughter of Leonard, and that he simply had not earlier apprehended her identity.

The integration of music and plot in Maskarade is especially evident in the present recording. Under John Frandsen the Danish National Symphony Orchestra emphasizes carefully Nielsen's striking compositional patterns for orchestra and for accompanied voice. In the overture, the modulation between larger repeating themes and lighter dance rhythms is attentively observed as here played. The repeated themes are then - in part - identified with emotions and characters' situations, whereas dance motifs are associated with the integration of the masquerade into human lives. The overture closes on an increasing diminuendo, ending thus on the softest chords. Such a subdued conclusion highlights at the opening of this drama the sleepy pair of Leander and his servant Henrik, who had both spent the previous night until all hours at the ball. The roles of young gentleman and manservant are given convincing portrayals here by Tonny Landy and Mogens Schmidt Johansen respectively. In their singing and acting, especially in interchanges during all three acts, both men create the character-types of the love-struck young hero and his clever valet who manipulates from behind the scene. Johansen, the baritone servant, holds forth convincingly by imitating the voices of those who would complicate his master's life, while Landy basks in a moody reverie of nascent infatuation. Neither singer relies on cliche to achieve characterization but rather preserves a distinct individuality of portrayal. This same approach can be appreciated in other members of the ensemble as well. Leander's mother Magdelone, aware of his nocturnal escapades, enters the room early and begs to know if she might still attend the masquerade as she had in her youth. In the role of Magdelone the contralto Gurli Plesner delivers a lesson in singing and dramatic representation, as she courses through various melodic styles to describe what had been her adolescent skill at dance. Frivolity in this small group ends abruptly with the stark appearance of Leander's father, Jeronimus, sung in this recording with appropriate bluster and irritability by the established baritone Ib Hansen. Arguments, counter-plots, and denial figure among the characters who alternate in duets and larger ensembles. In response to a condemnation of the masquerade as morally tainted, Henrik defends the entertainment as benevolent and having socially egalitarian properties. As Jeronimus gives orders for his son to be guarded at home so that he might marry Leonard's daughter on the following day, we sense that Henrik will devise a ruse to spirit him out of the house and off to the alternate world of the masquerade.

In contrast to the appropriately lively and harried tone of the overture to Act I, the orchestral prelude to the second act is taken as softly lyrical under Frandsen's direction. Here the emphasis on romantic and dreamy nocturnal sentiments functions as a transition to the later excitement of the dance and masquerade that will dominate much of Act III. In that final part of the opera the Danish National Symphony Orchestra resumes its concisely spirited playing in its approach to the well-known "Dance of the Cockerels." Between these orchestral pieces the interplay of romance and humor follows a tight pattern: when Leander and Leonora meet again, they declare their love alongside numerous comical attempts to enhance or to thwart their relationship. The role of Leonora, appearing first in Act II, is given a clear lyrical focus by Edith Brodersen, whose mutual song of romance with Tonny Landy recurs melodically with haunting polish later in the scene. In keeping with Henrik's assertion of social equality in the masquerade, he too is paired in the ensemble with Leonora's maid Pernille, here performed with soubrette brilliance by Tove Hyldgaard. By the close of the opera the misunderstandings and mistaken identities caused by disguise are resolved to the good of those involved, just as the lead romance is allowed to prosper outside the masquerade. Henrik's claim for the benevolence of the institution remains untouched.

The predominantly Scandinavian and German cast in this recording performs the declaimed and spoken parts of the text with natural idiomatic clarity. It is to be hoped that the re-issue of this performance will contribute to a greater familiarity in the operatic community with Nielsen's masterpiece.

Salvatore Calomino
Madison, Wisconsin

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Boris Godunov at Covent Garden

George Hall [The Guardian, 3 August 2005]

The Kirov Opera's week-long visit to Covent Garden opens with Mussorgsky's great historical epic, Boris Godunov. It is played in the original 1869 version, in a staging first seen in St Petersburg in 2002. The souvenir programme credits Valery Gergiev and designer George Tsypin for the "stage conception", which implies that the Kirov's artistic supremo and chief conductor holds responsibility for the visual as well as the musical side of the show. If so, he should have left it to the others.

Renovations underway at the Wiener Staatsoper

Main stage of Wiener Staatsoper undergoing decennial renovations. (Photo: Gary Hoffman)

ROSSINI: Equivoco Stravagante

Francesco Esposito (director and designer) has created such a performance for this Kicco Music DVD. Some Rossiniites may have been praying for a chance to see the very early L'Equivoco Stravagante; one hopes to be forgiven for suggesting the clamor elsewhere could not have been so great. The libretto's one amusing feature, alluded to in the title, involves a scam meant to convince an older suitor that his intended bride is actually a male — a castrato. That plot point takes up most of the shorter act two; act one offers a more familiar set of scenes of young lovers struggling against the preemptory rights of age and money. In fact, that first act contains many eerie foreshadowing of Barbieri di Siviglia, including the tenor suitor's disguised entrance into the house of his beloved, aided by that home's servant.

The score cannot compete with that of the later masterpiece, but the music remains fresh and energetic throughout.

Esposito, working with a cast of no great distinction, manages to make the performance come to life, mainly through his clever design. No one would mistake this for a Metropolitan Opera production. Clearly the theater is small and the budget tight. Necessity has engendered much creativity, however. Three large frames, representing different rooms and/or locales, dominate the stage. Within each frame are carefully selected props that truly evoke the required milieu — the kitchen setting in act one, with realistic steam seeping through pot lids, serves as just one example.

Most importantly, Esposito has sought out ways to keep the stage picture as fresh as the energetic action. So that sometimes only one of the frames is used, or two at other times too. In some scenes the chorus appears behind a long row of smaller frames, making for am amusing row of portraits. Through a variety of approaches Esposito keeps the action moving and still manages to set the scene. It is very well done.

Viewers may differ on whether the occasional use of film deserves as much praise. The overture accompanies some mystifying antics involving a Rossini bust come to life. Later, as the buffoonish older suitor imagines with horror the supposed male he has been romancing, we see that character (mezzo-soprano Olga Voznessenskaia) with full beard, entertaining a bevy of nymphs. (this is before the "knife" — here scissors — but surely a bearded youth wouldn't have a voice worth preserving through such extreme measures!)

Similarly, including the audience seating area in the action smacks a bit of desperation for innovation. The general spirit of fun allows for a forgiving spirit, however.

If only that spirit could extend to the reaction to the singers. The older suitor, played by the youthful Luciano Miotto, is decent enough, both as actor and singer. The other two leads leave much to be desired. The tenor, Vito Martino, is the anti-Juan Diego Florez — having neither that great singer's charming appearance or sweet, fluid instrument. One can only imagine how much more rewarding this performance would be with a more effective tenor.

Voznessenskaia, the supposed castrato in love with the tenor and eager to escape the clutches of the "basso comico," possesses a dark, heavy contralto, which belies the supposed youthful femininity of the character in the first act. The second act masquerade might be more believable with such a voice. Suffice it to say, when this contralto and tenor get together, the resulting duet makes for some uncomfortable listening.

The DVD has one large demerit — the titles, at least in English, are even worse than usual. One may become accustomed to the typical DVD's odd spelling or wayward syntax. Here, however, the shoddy translation makes some of the story incomprehensible. Surely someone can do better than "A man without a head in his head" or "Life don't out of me!" On the other hand, sometimes the mangled English becomes quite poetic as the mezzo decries the "frenetic delirium of a pygmy thinker" and the basso worries that he is engaged to a cross-dresser with "a rock beneath the waves." Ouch!

A mixed bag, therefore. On a vocal level, this L'Equivoco Stravagante can't merit a recommendation. As an example of what a truly creative director can do under less than ideal circumstances, the DVD provides much to ponder, and even enjoy. And Francesco Esposito deserves credit for that.

Chris Mullins
Los Angeles Harbor College

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Britten's Paul Bunyan at Central City

Before there was Glimmerglass or St Louis or even Santa Fe, there was Central City, a haven for summertime opera in America since 1932. The opera house in this quaint, former mining town near Denver is older still, built for music-loving Welsh and Cornish miners in the 1870s. With its charming trompe l'oeil decor and 756 seats - Beverly Sills sang Aida here - it offers further evidence that the economics of opera in America do not mandate gargantuan spaces.

La Voix Humaine at Glimmerglass

In Summer Opera, Smallest Is Best
By Heidi Waleson [Wall Street Journal, 3 August 2005]

The most satisfying opera at Glimmerglass this summer was the smallest -- Poulenc's "La Voix Humaine" (1959) performed by soprano Amy Burton. The intimacy of this piece makes it hard to pull off: A woman talks on the phone for 45 minutes with the husband who has left her (the libretto is by Jean Cocteau), and we hear the stages of her despair. A suicide attempt is mentioned. Some singers turn the piece into a hysterical melodrama, torturing their voices, but with Sam Helfrich's direction, Ms. Burton played the scene with a subtle realism and beauty of sound that was infinitely more wrenching and vulnerable.

Donizetti's Rita at the Wiener Kammeroper

Rita, performed by Lusine Azaryan, regularly beats her husband to keep him in tow, whether he needs it or not. Her former husband, it appears, treated her likewise. When Gasparo (Dmitry Ovchinnikov), arrives he instantly recognizes Rita as his supposedly dead wife and she in turn recognizes him as her supposedly dead husband. Beppe discovers Gasparo's identity and he promptly cedes his position to Gasparo. Much commotion follows with a surprise ending reminiscent of many a television sitcoms.

Situated in the Fleischmarkt, the company's home theater is an intimate venue that seats, perhaps, 300 along with standing room space on the balcony. The orchestra is completely out of sight, except for a closed circuit television image of the conductor. The performers wander about freely on stage and off to give added dimension to an otherwise cramped stage.

The singers' performed with panache, their voices being equally weighted such that no one dominated the performance. Ms. Azaryan's soprano is rich and even, while Mr. Aparicio is a light tenor with a brilliant top that is perfect for comic opera. Mr. Ovchinnikov's bass is black as night. Although the waiter (Marco Di Sapia) did not sing until late in the work, his comic acting and mime were singularly outstanding; and, when he did finally sing, his baritone was pure and fluid. High praises go to the orchestra under the able leadership of Daniel Hoyem-Cavazza.

All in all, this was a treat. The librettist, Gustavo Vaez, was clearly ahead of his time.

Gary Hoffman

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at Munich

Sunday's performance of Die Meistersinger von Nuernberg concluded the Munich Opera Festival 2005. Tobias Hell of Merkur-Online praises conductor Peter Schneider for his precision and avoidance of false pathos. Jan-Hendrik Rootering as Hans Sachs may have lacked full vocal authority, but the remainder of the cast was convincing. Eike Wilm Schulte is particularly noteworthy for his giving shape to the role of Beckmesser.

Mitridate, Re di Ponto and The Magic Flute at Salzburg

SALZBURG, Austria, July 31 - If only Mozart could see his hometown now. His letters are full of disdain for Salzburg, which he saw as hopelessly narrow-minded and parochial. As he wrote to his father, he felt constantly undervalued by his employer here, the Archbishop Colloredo, whom he despised "to the point of madness." He finally ended his service to the court on "that happy day" in 1781 and described to his father being booted out the door by Colloredo's deputy, with what is surely the most famous such kick in music history.