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.
With this recording of Mozart’s 1771 opera, Il sogno di Scipione (Sicpio’s Dream), Classical Opera continue their progress through the adolescent composer’s precocious achievements and take another step towards the fulfilment of their complete Mozart opera series for Signum Classics.
This one-act serenata drammatica was thought to have been commissioned to celebrate the installation of Hieronymus, Count Colloredo, as Archbishop of Salzburg in spring 1772 but, after ultra-violet testing revealed that in the recitative leading to the dedicatory licenza the name ‘Girolamo’ (Italian for Hieronymus) had supplanted the erased ‘Sigismondo’, this opinion was revised. [1] The work is now believed to have been commissioned the preceding year by the then Archbishop, Sigismund von Schrattenbach. When Schrattenbach died unexpectedly in December 1771, the fifteen-year-old Mozart altered the dedication and date of composition, and replaced the original licenza with a longer and more florid honorific conclusion. (Classical Opera perform this second licenza, but provide the original as an appendix.) In any case, there is no documentary evidence that it was ever performed, in part or in its entirety, and the first performance is generally held to be that given in Salzburg in January 1979.
Il sogno di Scipione is light on action and heavy on allegory. Metastasio’s libretto, drawing on Cicero’s tale of the Roman general Scipio Aemilianus, presents the dilemma faced by Scipio who, falling into a deep sleep, dreams that he is visited by two goddesses, Fortuna and Costanza, who each implore him to choose them to be his sole guide as he fulfils his duty to complete the destruction of Carthage. Fortuna beguiles him with the thrills offered by chance. Costanza transports him to the heavens where he is confronted by the spirits of Roman generals of yore, among them the ghosts of his father, Emilio, and adoptive grandfather, Publio. His forebears offer their advice but tell him he must make his own choice. To Fortuna’s fury, Scipio elects to follow constancy; she throws him back down to earth where, with this right and proper conclusion to the moral quandary, Licenza appears and pays homage to the Archbishop.
The six roles are all assigned to high voices (three sopranos and three tenors), and Page has been fortunate to be able to call upon a talented young cast comprising Classical Opera Associate Artists soprano Soraya Mafi (Fortuna) and tenor Stuart Jackson (Scipio), alongside four other gifted young singers - sopranos Klara Ek (Costanza) and Chiara Skerath (Licenza) and tenors Krystian Adam (Publio) and Robert Murray (Emilio). For, the bravura demands of the da capo arias are considerable and sustained.
Soraya Mafi conveys the full extent of Fortuna’s tempestuous unpredictability in ‘Lieve sono al par del vento’ (I am capricious as the wind): the florid curlicues are rhythmically even, the pitch spot-on, and the tone sparkles. She evinces a core strength of sound, and considerable lung-power, to sail through the extended runs and emerge gleaming at the top. In Fortuna’s Act 2 ‘A chi serena io miro’ the sweetness of the violins speaks of her duplicity and manipulativeness, while the vocal line really glistens. The enchanting triplets are supple and seductive, but the brief, indignant B-section tells us all we need to know about the perils of meddling with Fortune, while Mafi’s suavity of tone and phrasing confirms Fortuna’s egoism in the da capo repeat.
Klara Ek brings a thrilling brightness and muscular agility to the role of Costanza. The sound is pure and direct in ‘Ciglio che al sol di gira’ (The eye that turns to the sun) as she warns Scipio against the excesses offered by Fortuna, which will dazzle him, disguising her danger: the graceful violin playing adds significantly to the earnestness of the vocal expression. If Ek’s trills are not quite so shapely as those of Mafi, then she admirable enormous stamina; and if the final cadential decoration is rather extended and not entirely idiomatic, then the radiant stratospherics are impressive and one might forgive such indulgence in a dramatic context. Ek’s diction is excellent in the bravura show-piece aria ‘Biancheggia in mar lo scoglio’ (The rock turns white in the sea), in which Costanza asserts her case that she alone can ‘impose limits and laws on her dreaded empire’: we can hear the incipient seeds of the determination and intransigency the Queen of the Night, Kostanze and Fiordiligi - we know that this Costanza will not give up.
As Scipio, in his first recitative Stuart Jackson sounds genuinely bewildered to have been woken and confronted by a divine duo - an amazement expressed by the accomplished vocal vaults, some of which take the ear by surprise, florid runs and rhetorical trills of his opening aria, ‘Risolver non osa’ (My confused mind). Jackson’s coloratura is not quite as pristine as that of his female implorers, though the interpolated extravagances at the close do impress; but, the tenor certainly captures Scipio’s conflicting confusion and majesty, and launches with confidence at the mountainous peaks. In Act 2’s climactic ‘Di’ che sei l’arbitra’ (You say you are the arbiter), Page is sensitive regarding tempo and dynamics but Jackson’s fioratura is not consistently centred and the intonation wanders at times. That said, he does create a convincing three-dimensional character and in the more lyrical passages the vocal warmth and appeal is unwavering.
Krystian Adam’s Publio is dignified and earnest in the long recitative in which he urges his grandson to remember his responsibilities to his family, to history and to his present subjects. Adam convincingly suggests experience, maturity and wisdom: in his aria, ‘Se vuoi che te raccolgano’ (If you wish these realms to welcome you), imposing brass imply his former might but the vocal line is itself sensitively shaped, replete with strong emotion which will surely touch his grandson’s heart and conscience. The coloratura is lightly negotiated; there is never a sense of an old man huffing and puffing, and if a little more baritonal colour might have deepened the characterisation further, then this was in evidence in Publio’s fluently unfolding Act 2 aria, complemented by vibrant strings and propulsive horns.
Robert Murray displays a fittingly youthful ring and crispness as Emilio, which is complemented in ‘Voi colaggiù ridete’ (Down there you laugh) by some lovely interjections from the flutes and violins; indeed, I wonder if Emilio does not come across as rather too sympathetic here - after all, the father is taunting his son’s, and all mortals’, presumption and pride? But, in the B-section of the aria Murray finds a brusqueness - ‘Up here we laugh at you,/for at the end of your days, when your hair is all white/you are still children’ - which briefly suggests contempt and a warning born from undoubted love for his son.
Chiara Skerath floats through the lovely extended, florid phrases of Licenza’s ‘Ah perchè cercar degg’io’ (Ah why should I search), in which her timbral variety is complemented by woodwind and horns. And, the Chorus of Heroes would undoubtedly have given Scipio a shock upon his arrival in heaven! A triumphant wall of sound greets him, the trumpet’s flourishes of glory cutting through the massed choral ensemble (which is admittedly not the young Mozart’s most inspired effort - though there are a few tricks borrowed from Handel).
The Orchestra of Classical Opera plays stylishly for Page, and with plenty of character and spirit. The Overture skips fleetly along, punctuated by ceremonial punch from brightly ringing horns and trumpets. The string articulation is incisive and clean; the woodwind offer piquant hues and, in the slower triple-time section that concludes the overture, blend beguilingly - no wonder Scipio is lulled into comforting oblivion. The tuttis conjure excitement and drama, and Page makes effective use of the modulatory twists. In the ensuing arias, the ambitious young Mozart loads his instrumental parts with copious detail and Page - and the Signum engineers - makes sure that we hear them all, but also that busyness does not become weightiness. To take an early example, just a few bars into Scipio’s first aria, the second violins find themselves breezing delicately through rapid arpeggio figuration. Page moves with fluency between the varied tempi and moods of the individual arias and the light touch continuo keeps the secco recitatives moving along. The single accompanied recitative - when Scipio resists Fortuna’s blasts of light and upturned spheres, and feels Constancy’s ‘divinity’ infusing his breast - is brilliantly crafted. This number finds Jackson at his best too: his tone is forthright, plosive consonants giving way to first gentility and assurance, and finally noble confidence. This is stirring musical theatre.
The CD-booklet presents a complete libretto, with English translation. And, Page provides an engaging and informative account of the contextual background and the composition of the work, as well as drawing attention to striking features of the libretto and score. As always, there is no doubting Page’s commitment and he writes persuasively and with evident passion and pleasure about the telling details which reveal the teenage Mozart’s ‘dramatic genius’, such as the musical representation of Scipio’s dream-swept progress into Elysium and his subsequent re-awakening.
Could Il sogno di Scipione ‘work’ in the theatre? When Christopher Alden offered the US its stage premiere of the work - with Henry Street Chamber Opera (now Gotham Chamber Opera) conducted by Neal Goren - his spicy modern-dress production was praised (in Opera News, August 2001), for its ‘valiant’ attempt to bring life to a drama which is ‘forbiddingly inert’. A 2006 Salzburg production, directed by Michael Sturminger and conducted by Robin Ticciati was felt by Brian Robins ( Fanfare, July 2007) to have musical merits but to suffer from ‘idiotic direction’. Judith Weir must have considered the work to have innate dramatic potential when in 1991 she adapted Mozart’s serenata for her 30-minute chamber opera Scipio’s Dream. [2]
Perhaps Page and Classical Opera will one day give UK audiences the opportunity to judge for ourselves. In the meantime, the characterful music-making on this recording offers substantial musical enjoyment.
Claire Seymour
Mozart: Il sogno di Scipione K.126
Classical Opera - Ian Page (conductor)
Scipione - Stuart Jackson, Costanza - Klara Ek, Fortuna - Soraya Mafi, Publio - Krystian Adam, Emilio - Robert Murray, Licenza - Chiara Skerath, The Choir and Orchestra of Classical Opera.
[1] A detailed account of the work’s origins can be found in E.T. Glasow’s review of the 2001 recording by the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra under conductor Gottfried von der Goltzin, in The Opera Quarterly, Autumn 2001, Vol.17(4), pp.739-743. Glasow also suggests that it was the association of Mozart’s azione teatrale with the Archbishop who later dismissed Mozart from his service, that led to its negative reception by musicologists who scorned it as ‘that wretched piece’ (Alfred Einstein, Mozart: His Character, His Work) and ‘formal and uninspired’ (Edward J. Dent, Mozart’s Operas: A Critical Study).
[2] This chamber opera, written in collaboration with Margaret Williams, was commissioned by the BBC and AVRO Holland as a television film in the Not Mozart series.