RECORDINGS
January 25, 1997
January 25, 1997
Philips' new recording of A Midsummer Night's Dream gives listeners another chance to evaluate Britten's stab at setting the Bard.
BRITTEN: A Midsummer Night's Dream
McNair, Philogene, J. Watson; Asawa, Ainsley, Whelan, Lloyd; London Symphony, C. Davis. English/German libretto.
Philips 454122 (2)
Adaptations of Shakespeare to the opera stage are curiously difficult to achieve. If a test of when a play should be set to music is whether the singing adds something to our understanding and appreciation of the drama -- as it does in Salome, as it does not in Six Characters in Search of an Author -- few Shakespearean operas pass.
Philips' new recording gives listeners another chance to evaluate Britten's stab at setting the Bard, and the work comes off well, if too long in spots. But for Britten's tendency to write egregiously difficult music for his singers and orchestra, this opera probably would be as well known as its inventive clarity and imaginative presentation deserve.
This album is a major improvement over the first one, from Decca/London, in almost every respect, particularly Brian Asawa as Oberon (arguably the only wholly legitimate countertenor role in grand opera), who sings rings around originator Alfred Deller's hooty fairy king. Sylvia McNair's Tytania is vocally lovely, with clear, ringing high notes; her scenes with Bottom are a particular pleasure. Bass Robert Lloyd as the temporarily donkey-headed weaver is a bit too noble-sounding in places but resounds to fine effect in others. The mixed-up lovers -- Ruby Philogene (Hermia), Janice Watson (Helena), John Mark Ainsley (Lysander) and Paul Whelan (Demetrius) -- are well cast, as are the remaining rustics, particularly Ian Bostridge (Flute) and Gwynne Howell (Quince). It is hardly Carl Ferguson's fault that Britten's conceit of writing the central role of Puck for a speaking gymnast comes across as an annoyance on disc, where we cannot be distracted by his physical antics. Diction is uniformly superb. Colin Davis leads with a sure hand and fine sense of tempo. The helpful if rather brief annotations are the work of Britten chronicler and Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music editor Michael Kennedy.
SARAH BRYAN MILLER
PUCCINI: La Bohème
Vaduva, Swenson; Alagna, Hampson, Keenlyside, Ramey; Philharmonia Orchestra, Pappano. Libretto & translation.
EMI 7243-5-56120-1 (2)
Ever alert to marketing opportunities, EMI has produced a new recording of Puccini's time-honored favorite with some CD-ROM add-ons. As a recording, the newly released La Bohème is not perfect but definitely a keeper. This set is richly cast, with Samuel Ramey bringing unusual weight to Colline, and Ruth Ann Swenson as a velvety but substantial Musetta. Roberto Alagna, if lacking the boyish sweetness of tone of a young Pavarotti, makes a more than acceptable Rodolfo. Thomas Hampson has a stirring Act II showpiece with Musetta, and Simon Keenlyside is a special treat in the usually underwhelming role of Schaunard. The only slight reservation concerns Leontina Vaduva's Mimì: like many Russian singers, she cannot quite rid herself of that back-of-the-throat sound when working in Italian repertory. Antonio Pappano leads with a light, vigorous hand.
The recording plays in the usual way on any CD deck. One needs a computer for the bonus CD-ROM features, which include an introduction by Maestro Pappano, a synopsis of the story, performance data, history and libretto. The synopsis allows one to go to any part of the recording by clicking on the stage action being perfomed -- an improvement over the usual hunt-for-the-track method. Performance data includes biographical and background material on the performers, with little insert movies of Pappano's comments, which are not especially insightful or original with respect to either opera or cast. The history section too is rather rudimentary, with minimal graphic content. The libretto is available as a scrolling display of the text being sung, in Italian or another language chosen at start-up (English, German or French). An annoyance here is that the Italian and translated texts cannot be seen simultaneously: one has to switch back and forth. Novelty aside, the opera-lover might find a laserdisc Bohème -- with subtitles or close captioning, and some supplementary materials -- more useful.
In view of the ease with which other EMI multimedia classical products can be played, the special features of this recording presented surprising difficulty on two of the three PCs tried. Only the newest machine, with a six-speed Toshiba CD-ROM drive, managed the task. Two Mitsumi-equipped (double and quad speed) computers failed to read the disks. If your multimedia PC setup is more than a year or so old, you may have difficulty. (The disks also operate on Macintosh, which we didn't try.)
CHRISTIAN C. RIX
PUCCINI: Madama Butterfly
Spacagna, Sh. Graham; Di Renzi, Parce; Hungarian State Opera House Orchestra and Chorus, Rosekrans. Libretto and translation.
Vox Classics 4-7525
Puccini's multiple revisions of Madama Butterfly, trounced at its Milan premiere, triumphant at Brescia a few months later and then further altered for its Paris debut, have now been gathered on a four-disc set. The original 1904 La Scala version, which differs from the standard performing edition in matters great (act divisions) and small (a half-tone transposition for part of the Suzuki-Pinkerton-Sharpless trio), is recorded here for the first time and leads off the proceedings, taking up the first two-thirds of the set. Variants for other editions of the score follow on the remaining discs; listeners with programmable players can edit selections to a complete Brescia or Paris edition if they choose. This edition has been prepared as a labor of love, with microscopic attention to detail: the libretto booklet carries an information-packed essay by Michael Kaye and every syllable of the text's three major incarnations (copiously footnoted), as well as further variants for Colonel Henry Savage's American edition of 1906, Puccini's modifications for a 1920 production in Carcano and an annotated typescript of a draft of David Belasco and John Luther Long's play Madame Butterfly.
It is unlikely that the first Butterfly will displace its successor in the international canon, but it provides fascinating listening. The La Scala Butterfly is occasionally jarring; the unexpected shifts in melody or text in some of the opera's most beloved moments (Cio-Cio-San's entrance, the death scene, etc.) can startle ears set to bask in thrice-familiar set pieces. Considered as a whole, this Butterfly is a darker, less sentimental work than the classic re-working: Pinkerton is more caddish, Cio-Cio-San more forthright, their child more powerfully present in the action.
The differences in Puccini's early editions of the score owe much to the three highly individual Cio-Cio-Sans who led the productions in Milan, Brescia and Paris. At La Scala, the part was created by the adorable Rosina Storchio, a mistress of pathos, while the Ruthenian dramatic soprano Salomea Krusceniski, an admired Isolde and Elektra, brought the opera much of its first success at Brescia. The work's final theatrical smoothing in Paris was tailored for the ambitious Marguerite Carré, a canny lyric soprano (of questionable vocal authority) wed to the director of the Opéra Comique. The current set boasts but one Cio-Cio-San: the impassioned, committed Maria Spacagna, who has performed the standard version of the opera throughout the U.S. and Europe. Spacagna's consistently vivid if somewhat blunt singing is well suited to the La Scala edition, her words securely pointed within each vocal phrase. The other principals, most of them Americans, are workmanlike, with Erich Parce's Sharpless registering strongly in the letter scene. The Hungarian State Opera House chorus, operating comfortably within Charles Rosekrans' spacious tempos, contributes a lively wedding scene but a cloudy humming chorus.
F. PAUL DRISCOLL
CHERUBINI: Médée
Tamar, Ciofi, Damonte; Courtis, Lombardo; Italian International Opera Orchestra, Eluk Chamber Chorus (Bratislava), Fournillier. French libretto only.
Nuova Era 7253/54 (2)
Despite a multinational cast, chorus and orchestra, this 1995 live performance manages to convey a sense of Cherubini's original French Médée -- in style and nuance, considerably different from the familiar Italian version, whose recitatives were composed by Franz Lachner. With its spoken dialogue, this neoclassical tragédie lyrique places strong emphasis on declamation, and though truly idiomatic French eludes the cast, they manage at least not to mangle the language.
Of course, no matter what version, the title role requires a great soprano, on the order of Maria Callas or Eileen Farrell, and for all her commitment, the unsteady Jano Tamar is not really up to the task. Worse, her Jason, Luca Lombardo, bleats his part. The best work comes from Magali Damonte, the eloquent Neris, particularly effective in "Ah! Nos peines seront communes." Conductor Patrick Fournillier pushes the music hard, especially in the frantically paced overture. Decent sound.
JAMES CAMNER
RIMSKY-KORSAKOV:
Snegurochka
Zemenkova, Evstatieva, Milcheva, Mineva; Andreev, Videnov, Ghiuselev; Bulgarian Radio, Angelov. No libretto.
Capriccio 10-749/51 (3)
The Golden Cockerel
Stoyanova, Stoilova, Babacheva; Dyakovsky, Stoilov; Sofia National Opera, Manolov. No libretto.
Capriccio 10-760/61 (2)
In these clear studio recordings of 1985, making their CD debut, the singers are well forward at the expense of the colorful orchestra. The Bulgarian forces, remembered as merely conscientious from Decca/London recordings of Russian operas several decades back, evidently have attained somewhat higher standards, if these Capriccio releases and Sony's (in its fairly recent series under the late Emil Tchakarov) can be considered representative. Neither cast is serious flawed, except for the Czar Berendei of tenor Avram Andreev (with a disturbingly lazy vibrato) and the Queen of Shemakha of Elena Stoyanova (accurate but less than tonally alluring).
Snegurochka (The Snow Maiden, 1882), Rimsky's third opera and avowed favorite, like his others is dramatically underpowered, with little or no narrative pull, despite many musical virtues and distinctive orchestration. More pageant than opera, with characters neither developed nor enhanced by the music, it seems extremely long on disc. The outstanding voice on the two sets is that of bass Nikolai Stoilov as Didon in The Golden Cockerel, clearly someone to watch. Both conductors are informed and idiomatic, Dimiter Manolov a shade livelier than Stoyan Angelov. Production values are poor, with keyed synopses but no texts.
C. J. LUTEN
GRAUN: Cleopatra e Cesare
Williams, Vermillion, Dawson; Gambill, Popken; Concerto Köln, Jacobs. Libretto & translation.
Harmonia Mundi 901561/63 (3)
It was Cleopatra e Cesare, by Frederick the Great's Kappelmeister, Carl Heinrich Graun (1703-59), that inaugurated the Berlin Opera in 1742. Along with works by Johann Adolph Hasse, Graun's Italian opere serie dominated the mid-eighteenth-century lyric stages of Germany, and if Cleopatra is any indication, there could be untold treasures awaiting revival. Although music historian Charles Burney belittled Graun as a mere imitator, Cleopatra, tailored to the requirements and aesthetics of Frederick's court, is a work of abundant beauty and dramatic impact. Set to a libretto by Giovanni Gualberto Bottarelli, the opera transparently features Cesare as an all-knowing, magnanimous surrogate for the German monarch. This is high baroque, with tremendous coloratura challenges for the soloists, met to a large degree by René Jacobs' well-directed cast.
As Cleopatra, Janet Williams proves dazzling in several brutally intricate arias, achieving a tour de force in "Tra le procelle assorto." Iris Vermillion's plummy tones in "Sommi Dei" heighten the intensity of her Cesare in bravura arias such as "Voglio strage, e snague voglio" -- hair-raising, if not always easy on the ear. Her uninhibited singing, which would not be out of place in a verismo performance, offers welcome relief from the academic correctness that so often stifles early-music revivals. In the role of the fiery Cornelia, Lynne Dawson sings with facility, though at times the soprano's hard tone mars legato passages, such as "L'ombra amata del mio sposo." Ralf Popken, the Arsace, has an unattractive countertenor voice but above-average flexibility.
Jacobs, a countertenor himself as well as a scholar, whips the superior Concerto Köln along with irresistible drama, so that even Graun's few pages of flagging inspiration, such as "Ah! dirti non poss'io," have positive force. The booklet contains an interesting essay by Jacobs on the problems of performing baroque opera, but one would like to read more about Graun and the performance history of Cleopatra e Cesare. The Harmonia Mundi engineers have provided excellent recorded sound.
JAMES CAMNER
PORPORA: Dorindo, Dormi Ancor?
Frisani, Invernizzi; Lazzara; Stradella Consort, Velardi. Texts & translations.
Bongiovanni 2181/82 (2)
This world premiere recording of Nicola Porpora's Christmas cantata is fascinating and rewarding. Porpora (1686-1768) is best remembered as one of the great musical pedagogues. Among his pupils were the castratos Farinelli and Caffarelli and the composer Franz Josef Haydn. A composer himself, Porpora rivaled Handel in London, where his trump card was having Farinelli at his disposal. Dorindo, Dormi Ancor?, written for the papal court, had its premiere on Christmas Eve 1732.
Soprano Rosita Frisani as Dorindo is an engaging performer, making much of her recitatives, as in "Detesto il fato." Playing the Angel, soprano Roberta Invernizzi shows a lovely voice, with her aria "Di dolce ardor vedrete" charmingly sung. The Montano, alto countertenor Marco Lazzara, has an unpleasant tone; he gulps and swallows his words but frequently displays an excellent trill. The Alessandro Stradella Consort plays and sings beautifully, captured in fine sound.
JAMES CAMNER
VECCHI: L'Amfiparnaso
Vaccari, Pederzoli, Scabini; Von Goethem, Carmignani, DiDonato; Cappella Musicale di Petronio di Bologna, Vartolo. Text & translation.
Naxos 8-553312
Orazio Vecchi, senior to Claudio Monteverdi by a generation, was active in his native Modena in the last quarter of the sixteenth century and achieved a fair degree of renown before his death in 1605. This diverting performance of the master's commedia harmonica, variously dated from the 1590s, should bring a blush to the collective cheek of those today who celebrate nonlinear narrative as the height of modernism.
The text of L'Amfiparnaso offers stock types from commedia dell'arte -- elderly cuckold, wily servant, young lovers, braggart Spaniard, etc. -- in a series of madrigal scenes preceded by brief spoken statements. Most of the music is arranged in polyphonic style, in which a five-voice texture may represent the words of a single character. A story is told in poetry and song, even though character development and interplay, at least as modern audiences understand them, are absent.
The scenes are static, highly formal exhibitions of dramatic situations that have a cumulative power beyond their individual impact. (Did someone just mention Philip Glass?) This presentation by the Cappella Musicale di San Petronio di Bologna under Sergio Vartolo has a gentle, tender grace, captured in excellent sound.
F. PAUL DRISCOLL
GOLDENTHAL: Juan Darién
Toney; Provenzano, Goldenthal; Cordova. Text included. Sony SK-62845
Juan Darién: A Carnival Mass, a theater piece by director Julie Taymor and composer Elliot Goldenthal, first performed in 1988 and revived at Lincoln Center in late 1996, combines movements of the Catholic mass with a South American story of love, honor and retribution. In the jungle and a rural village, we follow the life of Juan Darién, born a jaguar cub, who is transformed into a child through the love of a human mother. Taymor uses live actors along with puppets -- exotic, fantastical beings with whole personalities, replete with mysterious shadings and colors.
Goldenthal's score creates a dramatic world for the puppet characters, but one sorely misses the visual components. The composer himself plays two characters, the Circus Barker and the Streetsinger, both of them with far too much vocal gravel, reminiscent of the pop group the Gypsy Kings; his style seems out of sync with the other singers, whose work is excellent. The chorus begins the work with a haunting Agnus Dei. Mezzo Andrea Frierson Toney as the Mother has a rich, soulful sound, particularly evident in her prayer "Inter oves locum praesta," and boy soprano Devin Provenzano sings Juan with touching earnestness.
The innovative orchestration, including percussion instruments from around the world, didjeridoos and prepared piano alongside standard instruments, is well served by the recording's active, spacious sound. Particularly enthralling is The Mr. Bones Two Step, a kind of warped Danse Macabre, showing off Goldenthal's unique orchestration.
JANE L. KOMAROV
ROUSE: Dennis Cleveland
New World 80506
Surely no one was more amused than Mikel Rouse when his talk-show opera was lapped by the Jenny Jones murder trial. In Rouse's hyper-media-savvy work, the host, guests and audience (most of them played with deadpan humor by the composer) gradually merge into an indistinguishable mass of memory and revelation.
Rouse himself wrote the sharp yet eerily beautiful libretto. Defiantly uninterested in developing plot or character through music, he sets it all with an almost undifferentiated bouncy parody of Pet Shop Boys and early U2. As befits the subject matter, the orchestra is entirely synthesized. Far from a tedious drone, the effect is oddly energizing as material of all levels of importance floats by, to be sorted out by the listener.
If Dennis Cleveland doesn't quite make it as a purely musical experience, it isn't designed to. Its ideal forum would be the home screen, where channel surfers might stumble onto it.
WILLIAM R. BRAUN
VERDI: Aida
G. Jones, Cortez, Gazarian; Domingo, Holmes, Giaiotti, Franc; Vienna State Opera, Muti (1973). No libretto.
Bella Voce 107209 (2)
Gwyneth Jones never had the liquid vocal flow one wants from an Aida, nor the ability to rise to high notes without clearly preparing herself for the ascent. And Radamès' high tessitura has always been uncomfortable for Plácido Domingo, despite his many other virtues. That said, one can admire what each does accomplish in this well-preserved 1973 aircheck. Each is in top vocal form -- musical, dramatically alert, exceptionally faithful to Verdi's dynamics. For the latter, the fastidious Riccardo Muti deserves some of the credit, though on the whole his reading is a bit grim and not consistently colorful. Viorica Cortez is a gusty, honorable Amneris, Bonaldo Giaiotti a vocally pleasing if hardly implacable Ramfis. Eugene Holmes, the Amonasro, is over his head and frequently forces his tone.
C. J. LUTEN
BELLINI:
Beatrice di Tenda
Gruberova, Kasarova; Bernardini, Morosov; Austrian Radio, Steinberg. Libretto & translation.
Nightingale 70560 (2)
I Puritani
Gruberova, Lytting; Lavender, Kim, Ellero D'Artegna; Munich Radio, Luisi. Libretto & translation.
Nightingale 70562 (2)
Edita Gruberova, who turned fifty in December, is an important artist
of our period who, up until the advent of the Nightingale label, has been
poorly represented on disc. 
Still
close to the peak of her powers, she is in the process of making several
complete operas that will permit proper assessment of her stature as a
bel canto singer. She already has had success with Donizetti's Anna
Bolena (70565) and La Fille du Régiment (70566), even
with rather routine support. Now Nightingale presents her in Bellini's
last two operas.
Apart from some strain on a few sustained high notes, mostly in Beatrice, the soprano is on form, her tone bright and secure, her extraordinary agility unimpaired. Most important, she has that largeness of expression and command of pathetic accent essential to bringing Bellini heroines to life. Her associates in Beatrice are a bit crude, with voices of insufficient color and a no more than adequate conductor, but the set is worth hearing for the wonderful brief trio in the finale and Gruberova's superlative control of mezza-voce in "Ah! se un'urna," the music Chopin asked to hear on his deathbed.
The Puritani performance is stronger, in fact one of the best around. Superbly engineered, this set boasts a sensitive Bellini conductor, Fabio Luisi, who listens to his singers, leads with a strong, light hand and produces a rare reading, transparent in sound, well shaped and rhythmically vital. Justin Lavender (Arturo) has a tenor undernourished in color and ring, undercutting any heroic stance, but he is a good musician, shapes lyrical phrases well and is dramatically aware. The lower voices are uncommonly sturdy. Bass Francesco Ellero D'Artegna offers a sympathetic "Cinta di fior."
C. J. LUTEN
MEYERBEER: L'Africaine
Caballé, Weidinger; Domingo, Sarabia, Petkov, Pons; Teatre Liceu (Barcelona), Almeida. No libretto.
Legato 208 (2)
A pair of superstar principals, plus the scarcity of Meyerbeer operas on disc, give this release some curiosity value, but from an artistic standpoint it is lamentable. Taped live in 1977 at the Teatre Liceu in Barcelona, this L'Africaine preserves second-rate orchestral playing and laughably sloppy choral work in dreadful sound, clumsily edited.
Despite the tepid atmosphere brewed by conductor Antonio de Almeida, a few of the supporting cast offer worthwhile performances, among them Christine Weidinger's positive, pretty Inès and the solidly punched Don Diego of Juan Pons, who sounds decades younger than his proposed son-in-law, Don Pedro, the woolly but unwild Dimiter Petkov. (Petkov also distinguishes himself by cutting the shakiest French accent here, no mean feat in these circumstances.)
Giullermo Sarabia tries hard as Nélusko, but the impact of his unaccompanied address to the matelots is undercut by a clearly audible pitch pipe. Montserrat Caballé, a potentially ideal Sélika, floats an uneven characterization, liberally salting passages of unsurpassable vocal beauty with moments of unbelievable slackness as she toys with her patient prompter like a gifted but incorrigibly naughty child at play. The youthful authority, virile ardor and sheer class of Plácido Domingo bring genuine sizzle to the occasion as his Vasco da Gama enters the Portuguese court with the air of Joe DiMaggio stepping up to bat in a Little League game. The performing edition used is generous, opening many traditional cuts, but as recorded is a tad diva-friendly, ending the action with Sélika's air (and its thunderous applause) rather than with Nélusko's death.
F. PAUL DRISCOLL
OPERA NEWS, January 25, 1997 Copyright © 1997 The Metropolitan Opera Guild, Inc.