Am Anfang die Frage: Ist’s Bach, ist’s Koopman? Von Johann Sebastian Bachs Markus-Passion ist nur der Text erhalten geblieben. Der Holländer Ton Koopman hat nach einer gängigen Kompositionsmethode Bachs – der Wiederverwendung eigener Werke – die Arien und Choräle der Passion gesetzt und die Rezitative dazwischen neu komponiert. Man könnte sagen, einen handwerklich bearbeiteten Bach erschaffen. An dieses ganz besondere Stück wagte sich nun Philipp Amelung mit seinem Bach-Ensemble und bescherte damit dem Publikum im Münchner Herkulessaal einen äußerst spannenden Abend.
Category: Reviews
Stravinsky’s Les Noces and Oedipus Rex at the Barbican
After opening its brief Barbican residency with Rimsky-Korsakov, the Mariinsky Theatre moved on to less regular territory for the company, with performances of Shostakovich’s The Nose and a Stravinsky double bill. Although the two Stravinsky works – the “choreographic scenes” of Les Noces and the “opera-oratorio” Oedipus Rex — were first performed (both in Paris) just four years apart, in 1923 and 1927 respectively, they belong to different musical worlds, for Les Noces had been conceived much earlier, in the immediate aftermath of The Rite of Spring, and Stravinsky took a decade to perfect its formal shape and scoring.
TOMMASINI: The New York Times Essential Library: Opera — A Critic’s Guide to the 100 Most Important Works and the Best Recordings
“I particularly want to reach newcomers” writes Anthony Tommasini, Times chief classical music critic, in his preface. I do not think they will be helped very much by this book. A rookie who picks it up and reads the subtitle may expect something more than two operas by Bellini, two by Donizetti, one Gounod (not Faust), one Massenet (not Manon) and no Lohengrin.
Chabrier’s Roi malgré lui in Lyon
Wagnérien passé à la postérité grâce à une espagnolade (España) représentative du brio orchestral français, Emmanuel Chabrier a suscité l’admiration de Ravel et de Stravinsky avec Le Roi malgré lui, dont l’Opéra de Lyon présente une nouvelle production. Pourtant, cet opéra-comique repose sur un livret que peu de commentateurs ont apprécié avec bienveillance. A commencer par le compositeur, aigri par les multiples remaniements du texte : “Une bouillabaisse de Najac et de Burani, que fait cuire Richepin et dans laquelle je colle quelques épices.”
Bostridge and Uchida in Vienna
Einen Schubert-Liederabend im Großen Musikvereins-Saal zu veranstalten, ist eigentlich eine Schnapsidee. Umso mehr, als ein so persönlicher und intimer Liedzyklus wie die “Schöne Müllerin” auf dem Programm stand, zu singen von Ian Bostridge mit seinem zarten, schlanken Tenor. Immerhin konnten dem Publikum auf diese Weise zwei Schubert-Experten auf einen Schlag präsentiert werden: Bostridge, der zuletzt mit seiner Einspielung der “Winterreise” für Aufsehen sorgte, und Mitsuko Uchida, sicher eine der führenden Schubert-Interpretinnen unter den Pianisten.
Mosaic: African-American Spirituals
Angela Brown has attracted the attention of those eager for the appearance of the next great Verdi soprano, and she continues to live up to the high expectations. Appearances with the Opera Company of Philadelphia as Leonara in Il Trovatore, Elisabetta in Don Carlo, and Strauss’s Ariadne evoked high praise from local and national critics, and her recent debut as Aida at the Metropolitan Opera was well received. All have noted the powerful and richly expressive voice in early bloom as well as Brown’s commanding stage presence. So this recent recording of spirituals, sung only with guitar or piano accompaniment (they all three contribute to the final “Ride Up in the Chariot”), is an interesting release. Brown is minimizing resources in search of what, in the liner notes, she calls an “intimate recording” of “songs of personal introspection.” The results are a little more mixed than her operatic reception.
VERDI: Falstaff
This Andante release is a marvelous compilation of two recordings of Verdi’s Falstaff performed at the Salzburg festival, the first conducted by Arturo Toscanini in 1937, the second by Herbert Von Karajan in 1957. The juxtaposition and accompanying extensive program notes encourage the aficionado to compare, contrast and delight in the music through the lens of time. Falstaff was a favorite of the maestri and both took professional chances with it. Toscanini performed Falstaff during his first season at La Scala in 1898; Karajan perplexed his German-speaking audience by programming Falstaff in Aachen during his final season in 1941-2.
STRAVINSKY: Oedipus Rex; Les Noces
Robert Craft has begun an ambitious project of recording Stravinsky’s oeuvre with two of the best dramatic works, Oedipus Rex — a sort of melodrama in a fever — and Les Noces (The Wedding), which simply defies any generic classification. The two make an ideal pairing, Rex as high drama told at a breakneck crawl, Noces as a kind of musical Polaroid camera that churns through frozen snapshots with a mind numbing velocity. Craft was a close confidant and collaborator with Stravinsky, and was responsible for many premiers and other definitive statements. For better or worse this fact brought down upon his head a certain amount of critical skepticism on the part of academics. This can be set to one side in these recordings, which are certainly reliable in a workaday sense, if a little tepid in terms of insight and energy.
Rossini’s La Cenerentola in Milwaukee
Vivica Genaux hasn’t been singing long enough for the whole world to recognize it, but she is one of the greatest singers of our day.
Genaux returned Friday to the Florentine Opera, to sing the title role in Rossini’s “La Cenerentola.” Her voice was huge, and as dark and rich as a profound red wine. Rarely do voices with such weight come to roles such as this, which are loaded with quick, tricky ornaments and aerobatic coloratura tangents. For all its power, Genaux’s singing seems effortless, and her voice is incredibly agile. She articulated every note with utter clarity and accuracy, even in the fastest runs and at the extremes of her range.
Chicago Opera Theater to Present Handel’s La Resurrezione
From an artistic standpoint, Chicago Opera Theater’s inaugural season last year in the new Harris Theater for Music and Dance in Millennium Park couldn’t have been more successful.
Productions of Monteverdi’s “The Coronation of Poppea,’’ the haunting Chicago staged premiere of Benjamin Britten’s “Death in Venice’’ and a version of Rossini’s whimsical “Il viaggio a Reims’’ set in the American Wild West were outstanding on both musical and theatrical levels.