The Sixteen continues its exploration of Henry Purcell’s Welcome Songs for Charles II. As with Robert King’s pioneering Purcell series begun over thirty years ago for Hyperion, Harry Christophers is recording two Welcome Songs per disc.
In February this year, Albanian soprano Ermonela Jaho made a highly lauded debut recital at Wigmore Hall - a concert which both celebrated Opera Rara’s 50th anniversary and honoured the career of the Italian soprano Rosina Storchio (1872-1945), the star of verismo who created the title roles in Leoncavallo’s La bohème and Zazà, Mascagni’s Lodoletta and Puccini’s Madama Butterfly.
Collapsology. Or, perhaps we should use the French word ‘Collapsologie’ because this is a transdisciplinary idea pretty much advocated by a series of French theorists - and apparently, mostly French theorists. It in essence focuses on the imminent collapse of modern society and all its layers - a series of escalating crises on a global scale: environmental, economic, geopolitical, governmental; the list is extensive.
Amongst an avalanche of new Mahler recordings appearing at the moment (Das Lied von der Erde seems to be the most favoured, with three) this 1991 Mahler Second from the 2nd Kassel MahlerFest is one of the more interesting releases.
If there is one myth, it seems believed by some people today, that probably needs shattering it is that post-war recordings or performances of Wagner operas were always of exceptional quality. This 1949 Hamburg Tristan und Isolde is one of those recordings - though quite who is to blame for its many problems takes quite some unearthing.
The voices of six women composers are celebrated by baritone Jeremy Huw Williams and soprano Yunah Lee on this characteristically ambitious and valuable release by Lontano Records Ltd (Lorelt).
As Paul Spicer, conductor of the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Chamber Choir, observes, the worship of the Blessed Virgin Mary is as ‘old as Christianity itself’, and programmes devoted to settings of texts which venerate the Virgin Mary are commonplace.
Ethel Smyth’s last large-scale work, written in 1930 by the then 72-year-old composer who was increasingly afflicted and depressed by her worsening deafness, was The Prison – a ‘symphony’ for soprano and bass-baritone soloists, chorus and orchestra.
‘Hamilton Harty is Irish to the core, but he is not a musical nationalist.’
‘After silence, that which comes closest to expressing the inexpressible is music.’ Aldous Huxley’s words have inspired VOCES8’s new disc, After Silence, a ‘double album in four chapters’ which marks the ensemble’s 15th anniversary.
A song-cycle is a narrative, a journey, not necessarily literal or linear, but one which carries performer and listener through time and across an emotional terrain. Through complement and contrast, poetry and music crystallise diverse sentiments and somehow cohere variability into an aesthetic unity.
One of the nicest things about being lucky enough to enjoy opera, music and theatre, week in week out, in London’s fringe theatres, music conservatoires, and international concert halls and opera houses, is the opportunity to encounter striking performances by young talented musicians and then watch with pleasure as they fulfil those sparks of promise.
“It’s forbidden, and where’s the art in that?”
Dublin-born John F. Larchet (1884-1967) might well be described as the father of post-Independence Irish music, given the immense influenced that he had upon Irish musical life during the first half of the 20th century - as a composer, musician, administrator and teacher.
The English Civil War is raging. The daughter of a Puritan aristocrat has fallen in love with the son of a Royalist supporter of the House of Stuart. Will love triumph over political expediency and religious dogma?
Beethoven Symphony no 9 (the Choral Symphony) in D minor, Op. 125, and the Choral Fantasy in C minor, Op. 80 with soloist Kristian Bezuidenhout, Pablo Heras-Casado conducting the Freiburger Barockorchester, new from Harmonia Mundi.
A Louise Brooks look-a-like, in bobbed black wig and floor-sweeping leather trench-coat, cheeks purple-rouged and eyes shadowed in black, Barbara Hannigan issues taut gestures which elicit fire-cracker punch from the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.
‘Signor Piatti in a fantasia on themes from Beatrice di Tenda had also his triumph. Difficulties, declared to be insuperable, were vanquished by him with consummate skill and precision. He certainly is amazing, his tone magnificent, and his style excellent. His resources appear to be inexhaustible; and altogether for variety, it is the greatest specimen of violoncello playing that has been heard in this country.’
Baritone Roderick Williams seems to have been a pretty constant ‘companion’, on my laptop screen and through my stereo speakers, during the past few ‘lock-down’ months.
Melodramas can be a difficult genre for composers. Before Richard Strauss’s Enoch Arden the concept of the melodrama was its compact size – Weber’s Wolf’s Glen scene in Der Freischütz, Georg Benda’s Ariadne auf Naxos and Medea or even Leonore’s grave scene in Beethoven’s Fidelio.
We see the characters first in two boxes at an opera house. The five singers share a box and stare at the stage. But Konstanze’s eye is caught by a man in a box opposite: Bassa Selim (actor Tobias Moretti), who stares steadily at her and broods in voiceover at having lost her, his inspiration.
Bassa Selim is a Valentino-like dress designer (“BASSA” reads the license plate on his Jeep, and his logo, “BS,” resembles the signature of a sultan). Konstanze is a supermodel (übermodel?) lured from her lover, Belmonte. Blondchen is one of the many seamstresses we see at their machines, working on the new collection. Osmin is a power-lifting major d’omo. Pedrillo works in IT. The entire production was staged for telecast in Hangar-7 of the Salzburg Airport, otherwise a museum for classic Formula 1 race cars and fancy airplanes. Pedrillo sings “Frisch zum Kampfe” in the cockpit of a fighter. “Vivat Bacchus” is sung at a cocktail bar. Ramps and labyrinths crisscross the space, and singers perform their arias while parading up, down and around, always on camera. There is a lighted runway (and four models in statuesque gowns by designer Lena Hoschek to slink along it). And the entire performance appears to be taking place in real time, for television airing, with an audience of Festival-goers following the singers around the huge space.
Somehow the airy sense of this joyful fable never evaporates under what could have seemed a heavy-handed treatment. This is very much to the credit of stage director Adrian Marthaler and video director Felix Breisach: They do not permit the high concept to crush the quicksilver charm of this ever delectable score, the forerunner and pre-echo not merely of Zauberflöte but also of Fidelio and Der Freischütz.
The success is also very much to the credit of the singers. Not only are the cameras “in their faces,” backing down ramps as they sing or intruding on them in dressing rooms, the audience is not sitting in the theater but pursues them all about the set. Too, the orchestra is not present—they’re over at Hangar-8, audible to the singers by visible earphone-microphones of the sort nowadays familiar on Broadway. Presumably, the conductor is visible on screens above the cameras, but following such a trick can’t be a usual part of the opera singer’s skill set—or not until lately. It’s probably very much a skill young singers are obliged to acquire. Too, very rarely do a singer’s eyes look inappropriately away—following the conductor—as happens so often in filmed opera. And all of them look good and act well, though Kurt Rydl, an experienced Osmin, looks neither young enough nor muscular enough for the part as here conceived.
Everybody sings well if not precisely at top star level. Désirée Rancatore (the 27-minute “bonus” film on the making of this project makes clear) was a last-minute replacement when Diana Damrau became pregnant, but she leaped at it and she carries it off, her sorrows and regrets, resisting a genuine attraction to Selim to remain true to Belmonte, visible in her expressions. One has heard more precise “Martern aller Arten”s, but this was a well-shaped performance, and her “Traurigkeit” is melting and moving.
Javier Camarena displays subtler acting chops here than in his self-consciously bumptious appearances at the Met last spring as Bellini’s Elvino and Rossini’s Don Ramiro. Too, the entire quality of the voice, which seemed Latin, almost voluptuous in Bellini and Rossini, is entirely different here, a dignified, well-proportioned German sound. Thomas Ebenstein’s Pedrillo is all grinning Viennese operetta, good-natured and sexy, though his suave tenor is of rather higher quality than operettas usually get these days. The find among the lovers, however, is Rebecca Nelsen, an American unknown to me, whose Blondchen is brilliant when she needs to scatter high spirits to the stratosphere without forfeiting a womanly beauty displayed throughout her range. A pretty woman, a fine actress, and a singer I hope to encounter in the future. The veteran Kurt Rydl, forced to sing his initial ballad while pulling weights, is grayer and less able at his assignment, Osmin—less adept at the fioritura than he was a generation ago but fiery in his torture manifestoes. Tobias Moretti acts proud but conflicted, a man who chooses not to exercise the violence his frustrated passions suggest: The controlled hero Mozart admired. Admirable as he was, one felt, as always, a regret at his having no music to display himself. Couldn’t we borrow one of the pasha’s arias from Zaide for Selim?
Hans Graf and the Camerata Salzburg revel in this wonderful score, and the flow of melodious delight is perfect for any evening’s entertainment.
John Yohalem
Cast and production information:
Desirée Rancatore, Rebecca Nelsen, Javier Camarena, Thomas Ebenstein, Kurt Rydl, Tobias Moretti. Hans Graf: Camerata Salzburg, Salzburger Bachchor “Live from Hangar-7.” Filmed at Hangar-7 of the Salzburg Airport as part of the 2013 Salzburg Festival.
Arthaus Musik 108 102 [Blu-Ray]