BACH: Cantatas BWV 82, 158, 56
Goerne; Salzburg Bach Chorus and Camerata Academica Salzburg, Norrington. Texts and translations. Decca 289 466 570-2
The opening of Cantata BMV 82 (Ich habe genug), which leads off this all-Bach program, immediately suggests something special. The purposefully shaped oboe solo is defined clearly against a background of warm strings, cushioned by a continuo organ registered in clear, open stops. At the vocal entry, Matthias Goerne's handsome lyric bariton
e is captured rather closely, within a subtle, appealing ambient glow. This balance between pinpoint detail and acoustical warmth, typical of Decca/London's best engineering for LP, has only occasionally been replicated in the digital era. This production would stand out for its sonic attractions alone; rarely have these cantatas been recorded so beautifully.
Fortunately, the vocal and instrumental performances match the sonics in quality. Goerne, an accomplished concert singer and recitalist, counts Fischer-Dieskau and Schwarzkopf among his teachers. The Fischer-Dieskau influence is particularly evident in the smooth, easy handling of the voice over a wide range; the pacing of recitatives in a manner simultaneously devotional and conversational; the verbal, immediately communicative inflection of the arias; the changes of vocal color in response to the harmony; and the stylistically informed phrasing. He has the technique not only to toss off the runs in the closing aria of BWV 82 dexterously but to shape them with active intent. "Endlich, endlich," from BWV 56 (Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen), has a nice lilt, the opening invocation of BWV 158 (Der Friede
sei mit dir) a plangent authority.
Not that the Fischer-Dieskau model has been successfully assimilated in every instance. Like his mentor, Goerne treads lightly in the head register, adopting an appropriate stance of composed, dignified reverence; but where Fischer-Dieskau's adroitly integrated head voice always retained a vibrant core, Goerne's comparatively underenergized one leaves a more neutral impression. (Where Goerne does choose to "sing into" the upper voice, the bright immediacy of the tone is gratifying.) And Goerne's even stressing in BWV 56 misses its long, arching lines -- the piece doesn't sound entirely digested yet. But these shortcomings are relatively minor -- sins of omission rather than commission -- and no doubt will improve with time.
Under Roger Norrington, a chamber-proportioned ensemble provides first-rate support, playing with plenty of color and life. Pacing is generally on the brisk, no-nonsense side -- the florid oboe at the start of BWV 82 sounds marginally pressed to fit in all the notes -- but the unfailingly animated rhythms, sprightly or dignified as required, belie any suggestion of inflexible, "sewing-machine" Baroque. Conforming to present-day stylistic preferences, the chorus in BWV 158 and 56 is all male, with the chorale obbligato in the former sung by trebles.
Two concertante sinfonias from the Geist und Seele Cantata (BWV 35) appear as interludes; they are trimly executed, with an interplay and bustle recalling the Brandenburg concertos. The organ, more brightly registered here than in the cantatas, makes a clear, lively impression.
STEPHEN FRANCIS VASTA
OPERA AND ORATORIO
BRITTEN: Billy Budd
Keenlyside, Langridge, Tomlinson; London Symphony Chorus and Orchestra, Hickox. Chandos CHAN 9826 (3)
The appearance of a fourth recording of Billy Budd shows how completely its reputation has changed since it fell into obscurity following its premiere in 1951. This is, however, only the second version of the now-standard two-act revision and thus valuable as an alternative to the first studio recording (Decca/London 2LH3 417428), which is conducted by the composer. (There is also an ENO video of the two-act revision, with Thomas Allen as Billy.)
The new Chandos turns out so similar to that predecessor in its strengths and weaknesses that it seems not so much an alternative as a near-duplicate, hurt by less consistent vitality from its cast. In this opera, with its all-male cast and tendency to spell out the symbolism, it is particularly necessary (especially on recordings) that each of the many shorter roles spring to more memorable personal life than they do here. Shining exceptions are Francis Egerton (an admirably uncaricatured Red Whiskers), as well as the Novice and his friend, movingly realized by Mark Padmore and Roderick Williams. And two major roles are rendered with exceptional musical and dramatic distinction by veterans of conductor Richard Hickox's Peter Grimes recording, Philip Langridge (Captain Vere) and Alan Opie (Mr. Redburn).
But the line of unsatisfying recorded Claggarts remains unbroken: John Tomlinson has a big voice with some bite in it, but a choppy, half-spoken way with the musical line and only obvious acting points to make. Simon Keenlyside sings the title role solidly, beautifully in fact, with a balanced poise worthy of comparison with the role's creator, Theodor Uppman. (Uppman's Covent Garden performance is available on VAI 1034). But Billy needs to bowl us over with a unique personal magnetism, just as he does with those he meets on the Indomitable; and Keenlyside remains just a source of handsome sound.
Hickox offers exceptional insight into the dramatic meaning of musical details, brilliantly played by his orchestra. (The chorus is not up to the same level.) But his cast is not always with him in this regard -- Keenlyside and Tomlinson in particular have their approximate moments -- and Hickox himself is prone to rhythmic stretching, presumably in hopes of increased expressivity but in fact with the opposite result.
In the end, while the general high professional quality of this version would make it most welcome if it were the only Billy Budd on the market, as matters stand it seems somewhat superfluous. Hickox has given us, and surely will give us again, more memorable recorded Britten than this.
JON ALAN CONRAD
MARTINU: Les Larmes du Couteau; Hlas Lesa
Jonásová, Kaupová, Smídová; Brezina, Janál, Okénko, Harvánek; Chamber Choir, Prague Philharmonia, Belohlávek. Texts and translations. Supraphon 3386-2 631 (Qualiton, dist.)
These world-premiere recordings of two rarities by Bohuslav Martinu (1890-1959) show different, equally fascinating sides of his artistry. The first, Les Larmes du Couteau (The Knife's Tears), is a self-consciously modernist but thoroughly intriguing and highly infectious one-act opera. Martinu clearly took his aesthetic cue from Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, the Dadaist leader upon whose play Martinu based his libretto; the resulting opera is anarchic in style and content. Mostly, it plays as an indictment of conventional narrative and a mockery of romantic love's delusions. The story concerns a young woman, Leonora (sung with girlish impetuosity and self-parodying earnestness by Hana Jonásová), who is in love with a hanged man, and her mother, who wants her to marry Satan instead. (This premise was shocking enough to get the opera's scheduled 1928 world premiere at Baden-Baden cancelled.) Musically variegated, the piece shows at different times the influence of Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Les Six and Kurt Weill, but the stylistic references always have dramatic integrity. At times, there is great lyric beauty in the score, but it is always in a satirical context; Leonora's enchanting aria ("Oh, midnight's dream") to her love is addressed to the cadaver hanging on his noose. (The stage directions specify that there are bats circling around him.) Leonora's suicide is followed by a ragtime dance of off-kilter sprightliness, which subverts the impact of the violence (as does her subsequent return to life). The slashing bitonal chords at the end sum up the decisively unsentimental mood of the piece very nicely.
Quite different is Hlas Lesa (The Voice of the Forest), a short radio opera composed and first broadcast in 1935. Much more conventional in its narrative and consistent in its style, it has hints of Czech nationalism and at certain points evokes Dvorák. A young woman, unhappily engaged to a rich man, wanders into the forest to find the poor man she truly loves, whom she is able to save from a group of bandits (a robust male chorus featuring three outstanding soloists). Martinu's orchestration here is quite ravishing, as opposed to the lean, transparent, chamber-style scoring of Larmes. The music is lively, catchy and more consistently melodic (although the best tunes, oddly enough, are in the mordant Les Larmes). Jaroslav Brezina as the poor young forester is moving and heroic when he thinks he is facing death and can sing only of his beloved. Helena Kaupová pours passion and bravado into her portrayal of the courageous bride; she and Brezina blend splendidly in the duet passages. Lenka Smídová does distinguished character work as both the mother in the first piece and the crone-like Hostess in the second. Roman Janál is a seductive, insinuating Satan in Les Larmes, as well as both the First Bandit and the sly Reciter of Hlas Lesa. Jirí Belohlávek leads the Prague Philharmonia with confidence and precision in these two excellent representations of the prolific and often neglected Martinu.
JOSHUA ROSENBLUM
RECITAL
David Daniels
"SERENADE" Songs of Beethoven, Schubert, Gluck, Cesti, Lotti, Gounod, Vaughan Williams, Poulenc and Purcell; Katz, piano. Texts and translations.
Virgin Classics 7243 5 45400 2 8Wolfgang Holzmair
"AN DIE FERNE GELIEBTE" Song cycle by Beethoven, plus songs of Beethoven, Mozart and Haydn; I. Cooper, piano. Philips 454 475-2
What's that? You don't like countertenors? They sound unnatural, hooty, affected, a little silly? Forget the ignoble prejudices and listen to David Daniels's Serenade. The record is a revelation for the uninitiated, a delirious confirmation for the aficionado.
Billed as a male alto, Daniels made a breakthrough debut at the Met in 1999 portraying Sesto in Handel's Giulio Cesare. Elsewhere he has graduated to the titular duties in the same opera, and it is easy to imagine all Rome trembling before such an authority.
The young man from Spartanburg, South Carolina, seems to have it all: a probing intellect, an uncanny sense of style, dramatic sensitivity, a subtle knack for languages, a dazzling technique, endless breath and, oh, yes, a wide-ranging voice of uncommon sweetness and point -- even power, as needed.
In the beginning, for those of us equipped with extra-long memories, there was Alfred Deller. We admired his daring, his taste, his historical acumen. We didn't have to admire his grainy timbre, however, and long stretches of exposure to his cultivated falsetto tended to give the sympathetic listener a sore throat.
There's no such problem with Daniels. He surmounts every obstacle with swaggering ease. With him the music is the thing, pure and complex. He permits us to take the instrument for granted.
His seventy-one-minute recital on Virgin Classics is oddly packaged. It is almost as if the company didn't want the buyer to know that Daniels produces tones that could be mistaken for those of a woman. One needs a magnifying glass just to find the label "countertenor" in the set, and it certainly does not appear on the cover. Even stranger, we are offered an all-purpose essay on the repertory chosen, but not a biographical word on the singer performing it.
Luckily, Daniels's art speaks for itself -- poignantly in the nostalgia of Beethoven's "Adelaide," gently in the romantic indulgences of Schubert, with elegance in challenges of Caldara, Gluck, Cesti and Lotti, suavely in mélodies of Gounod and Poulenc, and crisply in narratives of Vaughan Williams and Purcell. Sometimes Daniels threatens to overstress dynamic nuances, perhaps honoring the lofty examples of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf or Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. He never copies anyone, however, and always stops safely short of mannerism.
Martin Katz serves at all times as worthy partner at the keyboard. To call him an accompanist would be demeaning.
Austrian baritone Wolfgang Holzmair is another aristocratic specialist in the so-called art song, and in his multi-faceted eighty-minute recital he enjoys enlightened support from Imogen Cooper. Unfortunately, Holzmair commands more taste than voice. Taken individually, the items on the agenda are instantly agreeable, if occasionally precious. Taken en masse, they suffer from severe limitations of color, temperament and heft.
MARTIN BERNHEIMER
Angela Gheorghiu
"VERDI HEROINES" Arias from I Vespri Siciliani, Don Carlo, Rigoletto, Aida, Il Trovatore, Un Ballo in Maschera, Simon Boccanegra, La Forza del Destino and Otello. Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, Chailly. Texts and
translations. Decca 289 466 952-2These days it is often difficult for artists to live up to the hype created by their record companies. Sometimes it's even difficult to live "down" to that hype, which is the case of this collection of well-worn Verdi arias, promising that singer and conductor will "approach the music in a modern and dynamic way, shaking up preconceived ideas and shedding new light on well-known repertoire." Fortunately, this serious soprano and maestro seem instead to treat the selections with appropriate respect, attempting to personalize the interpretations, as any imaginative performing artist would do. That said, it is a bit of a puzzlement why Angela Gheorghiu chose a bunch of Verdi arias that have been recorded to death and, in some cases, are way out of her fach. These choices seem especially prosaic when one considers that Verdi's La Battaglia di Legnano, Il Corsaro, I Masnadieri and Stiffelio all feature arias well within Gheorghiu's vocal weight and begging to be recorded by a major talent.
For all that, fans of this soprano will not be disappointed with Verdi Heroines. This Decca project was begun in 1998 and finished a year later, and Gheorghiu is in wonderful vocal shape throughout. Piano singing is particularly lovely, and there is little sense of the vocal calculation that sometimes pervades her live performances. On the other hand, a strange paradox emerges: all the attention to detail lavished on music and text, which seems sincerely felt, registers in total as more than a bit cool and studied. Part of this overall impression may stem from the fact that the voice, a consistently well-intentioned, intelligently handled instrument, is simply too light for some of the material and lacks the variety of coloration to make it work completely. Phrases usually divided by breaths -- even the difficult end of "Pace, mio Dio!" -- are taken in one breath here, which is impressive indeed, but they would carry more weight if it were being done by a bigger instrument.
The disc begins with a formidable bolero from I Vespri Siciliani; a favorite showpiece for coloraturas who would be ill-equipped for the remainder of Elena's music, it receives a virtuosic, accurate treatment, admirably executed. The florid passages are neatly handled, and while the trills are a bit machine-gunned, they are executed fully, as is the penultimate phrase to a low A-natural. Elisabetta's "Tu che le vanità" from Don Carlo gives the soprano an opportunity to display admirable phrase-tying breath control, the melancholy aspect of this character making a neat fit for Gheorghiu's vocal persona. This reading makes it clear that Elisabetta could be a wonderful role for the diva in days to come, especially as the voice continues to grow. Both of these arias, originally composed for French librettos, are delivered in their more familiar Italian versions.
"O patria mia" (Aida) is vocalized beautifully, somewhat short on impact only because of a lack of vocal heft; even managing the dolce high C is less meaningful when it issues forth from a lyric-soprano throat. The Trovatore Leonora's "Tacea la notte" (assisted by Tiziana Tramonti's idiomatic, nicely sung Ines) is animated, the recitative enunciated with real bite. Dynamics are respectful of the score and expressive. Unfortunately, the difficult cabaletta is not quite so successful, but it does not diminish the impact of the aria. The Forza Leonora is represented by "Pace, mio Dio!," a selection that sounded like heavy going for Gheorghiu on a televised Richard Tucker gala last season; in the recording studio, the soprano manages the same level of intensity but sounds considerably more comfortable. "Come in quest' ora bruna" from Simon Boccanegra, a gorgeous aria that all too often goes for nothing, is sung exquisitely. Gilda's "Caro nome" represents perhaps the greatest irony of the disc. Here is a role clearly appropriate for Gheorghiu in terms of vocal weight, especially if one prefers a Gilda of the full lyric rather than the tweety-bird variety, yet it is one of the less successful excerpts on the program, due in large part to Gheorghiu's dark tone and dour delivery, short on spontaneity. But even here, she is one of few singers to use the rests within Gilda's words properly to express breathlessness.
Finally, we have the long scena from Otello (with Laura Polverelli voicing Emilia's few lines richly), gratifying in every way. It is sung and played superbly, Gheorghiu and Riccardo Chailly creating a strong sense of atmosphere and tension, the vocal demands well within her compass. She manages to project vulnerability and fragility, not always her strong suit, as well as urgency, all the while pouring out ravishing tone. Support from Chailly is strong and sensitive throughout; everything sounds carefully prepared, and recorded sound is flattering to the diva, while not too distant.
IRA SIFF
María Bayo
"HANDEL" Arias from Alcina, Giulio Cesare, Rinaldo and two cantatas (HWV 170 and 140); Capriccio Stravagante, Sempé. Texts and translations. Astrée E8674 (Harmonia Mundi, dist.)
The predominant tone throughout this Handel recital is one of sheer glee. María Bayo, a versatile artist whose repertory includes Puccini, Verdi, Rossini, Mozart, Offenbach and zarzuela, clearly was born for Baroque. Her tone isn't so hefty as it might be in all sections of her voice, but it sparkles with excited colors and handles the majority of Handel's daunting technical hurdles gracefully. Earlier Bayo recordings (especially her Chants d'Auvergne and Mozart CDs) have familiarized us with her charm and eloquence; but Handel demands a tougher, broader virtuosic edge. Bayo uses her talents best when the music is at its riskiest; she clearly understands that the dimensions of Handel's characters are extended through an expansive deployment of coloratura, improvisation and the kind of daring the composer took for granted, but which is looked down upon by too many music professionals today. In Cleopatra's final aria from Giulio Cesare, "Da tempeste," Bayo and the French Baroque ensemble Capriccio Stravagante dash through the notes with an energy that makes other renderings of this bold music sound downright sedate. She bites off the words, and her runs and leaps have a champion's sureness. (Only her trills are less accomplished.) Her rendering of Almirena's "Lascia ch'io pianga," from Rinaldo, is heartfelt, but a similar challenge, in Cleopatra's "V'adoro, pupille," isn't met: the performance is lovely but insufficiently seductive, its long lines failing to wrap around their target (Caesar). (A third Cleopatra aria, "Se pietà," is better.) On the other hand, Bayo's singing in two rarely performed cantatas (the second written in Spanish) is delightful. The same can be said for the arias for Morgana and Alcina in Alcina.
Bayo works perfectly with Capriccio Stravagante and its conductor, Skip Sempé; they, too, adore the music and bring many rich, novel colors to it.
PATRICK GILES
Véronique Gens
"NUIT D'ÉTOILES" Songs by Fauré, Debussy and Poulenc; Vignoles, piano. Texts and translations. Virgin 7243 5 45360 2 1
A thoroughly persuasive interpretation of the dazzling Poulenc cycle Banalités is the high point of this all-French recital by Véronique Gens and Roger Vignoles. Gens gives the opening "Chanson d'Orkenise" the quality of an overture, with her brilliant, clear tone lightly differentiating the characters. "Hôtel" is languorous and long-lined but still a touch flirtatious. A ruthless intensity in the phrasing sets off the inscrutable text of "Fagnes de Wallonie." "Voyage à Paris," all too often insipidly performed without a touch of irony, here has the feel of a knowing wink, acting as a foil for the final "Sanglots," which builds almost imperceptibly to the one devastating climax of the work. Gens and Vignoles perfectly capture the suspended quality of the ending.
Elsewhere, the artists effectively sustain the gentle but inexorable progression to a bittersweet end of "Le tombeau des Naïades" from Trois Chansons de Bilitis, but the level of the rest is variable. Gens, though a soprano, is not ideally free and natural in the upper reaches of these mélodies; the sudden pianissimo at the climax of Debussy's "Clair de lune" is beyond her. Often there is a lack of grace at the end of a phrase. The charm and enchantment she projects in two early Debussy settings, "Fleur de blés" and "La Belle au bois dormant," do not reappear anywhere else, and they would have been especially welcome in Fauré's "Mandoline." Sometimes text is all but uninflected, as in an oddly detached version of Fauré's "Clair de lune." Her tone, which is not distinctive, lacks the light, forward placement that has made recorded performances of this repertoire by Maggie Teyte, Marni Nixon and especially Phyllis Curtin so cherishable. In a 1964 Debussy-Fauré recital telepathically partnered by Ryan Edwards, recently reissued on VAI, Curtin shows how listeners can be captured by the first syllable of a song, how Debussy's animés can be achieved without an automatic increase in tempo, and how a held note can sparkle lightly.
But perhaps Gens is just a victim of the current expectation for jam-packed CDs. There are twenty-seven songs here, with the composers predictably in chronological order and little thought given to the arrangement of songs within each group. With a little pruning of the less successful numbers and a little imagination in the programming, this recital still could have offered good value.
WILLIAM R. BRAUN
Alessandra Marc
"OPERA GALA" Arias and orchestral selections by Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi,
Puccini, Strauss and Barber; Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Litton. Delos DE 3240Alessandra Marc is a soprano blessed with a voice of such amplitude and beauty that one hopes always to enjoy her work and to see her career reach its enormous potential. In this age of stage-director-ruled productions, destined for DVD, opportunities have become more limited for larger singers -- especially female. But Marc's obstacles cannot all be laid at the feet of the visually obsessed; her singing itself has sometimes frustrated even partisans with its vague diction and non-directional phrasing.
This recording, compiled from three consecutive concerts in Dallas in 1998, presents both the pros and the cons of this puzzling singer, but it provides enough of the former to delight fans of big, soaring voices. The program begins with a somewhat galumphy Forza del Destino overture, heavy on the horns. Marc chooses Norma's "Casta diva" for her entrance aria, logical in terms of programming, but asking for trouble nonetheless. A difficult aria to sing cold, it is even more perilous for heavy voices. In this case, Marc's magisterial tone and authoritative delivery succumb to the difficulties built into the piece; turns and melismas are blurry, and the final cadenza is not clearly articulated. What is really perplexing is the use of a voiced consonant and/or glottal stroke on nearly every attack. What seems at first a stylistic tribute to Caballé or Gencer soon becomes a mannerism that causes a great deal of scooping and even textual distortion -- e.g., "tempra tu" becomes "dempra du." Unfortunately, this approach to bel canto pervades the gorgeous cavatina from Anna Bolena, "Al dolce guidami," the first part of Anna's mad scene. Here the soprano manages some impressive trills, and she has a real feel for the piece, which almost works but ultimately falls short due to labored handling of the ascending figures to the high A on "al nostro amor" and an unclimactic finish.
After the Luisa Miller overture, the soprano begins to come into her own. If she is not quite yet on form in "Zweite Brautnacht" from Strauss's Die Ägyptische Helena, this is still an impressive display from one of the major Strauss voices of our time. In this case, the singer sounds involved, even though the orchestral support from Andrew Litton and the Dallas Symphony could be a shade more cohesive. All reservations vanish, however, with "Give me my robe," from Samuel Barber's Antony and Cleopatra. Here, even flaws become assets, usually the sign of an individual artistry at work. On sheerly vocal terms, this reading could hardly be bettered. Marc sails through a score composed as a showcase for the upper voice of Leontyne Price -- no mean feat -- and makes it her own. Diction is surprisingly clear, and the idiosyncratic approach to attacks and text, which causes problems in the bel canto, is used to great effect here.
The "gala" concludes with three Puccini excerpts. The first, Preludio Sinfonico, was a student work, a curiosity worth a single listen. Tosca's "Vissi d'arte" begins with a major scoop, proceeds in mixed-bag style but ends with glorious ease, from the difficult climactic B-flat to the aria's finish. Finally, there is "In questa reggia," in which the soprano has the advantage of singing Turandot's murderous entrance aria with a fully warmed-up voice. One wishes diva and conductor were always on the same track, but rarely will you hear Puccini's climactic phrases crested with such ease and beauty of tone.
I.S.
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf
"THE UNPUBLISHED EMI RECORDINGS, 1955-1958: BACH AND MOZART" Cantatas and arias by J. S. Bach and Mozart; Philharmonia Orchestra of London, Ackermann and Dart. Texts and translations. Testament SBT 1178 (Harmonia Mundi, dist.)
Emma Kirkby
"HANDEL OPERA ARIAS AND OVERTURES 2" Arias and instrumental pieces, 1729-41. Brandenburg Consort, Goodman. Texts and translations. Hyperion CDA67128 (Harmonia Mundi, dist.)
These two discs, each a marvelous contribution to the catalogue in its own way, speak volumes about the development of Baroque style in the last forty years. It is hard to imagine that Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and her husband, Walter Legge, the artistic producer of these hitherto unpublished recordings of Bach and Mozart, found them unworthy to be released. In the takes from the 1957 sessions, which include the haunting "Wedding" cantata, "Weichet nur, betrübte Schatten," Schwarzkopf is ultra-fresh of voice, her German inflection bringing to this piece the immediacy of her lieder recordings. She sings both fast and slow arias with pinpoint accuracy and nary a trace of the portamento that informs the album's other Bach arias from the next year. Her 1955 recording of Mozart's aria with piano, K. 505 "Ch'io mi scordi di te," written for Nancy Storace (the first Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro), is a wonder of timing and sensitivity, and Schwarzkopf is effectively partnered by Geza Anda on the piano obbligato. Schwarzkopf was in her early forties when most of these recordings were made, and the youthfulness and vigor of her tone are more suggestive of Susanna than of the Countess. Any of today's top conductors of period orchestras might choose such a voice for their performances; it is tantalizing to think what imagination she might have displayed had she been accompanied with the rhythmic vitality and transparency of one of today's period bands.
Emma Kirkby's album of Handel arias rejoices in Roy Goodman's lively orchestral accompaniments. The allegros are fiery, the slower movements stately. Nearly all the arias chosen for this album were written for the coloratura soprano who dominated Handel's later years, Anna Strada del Pò. Three out of the nine are act finales, for which Handel always wrote knock-out showstoppers. The two simile arias are most arresting. In "Scherza in mar," from Lotario, the heroine, Adelaide, compares her love with a frolicking ship at sea. Kirkby delivers it with lightning coloratura. In "Son qual stanco pellegrino," from Arianna in Creta, the soprano spins a melancholy line to the faltering steps of Angela East's cello, representing the tired pilgrim in the aria.
Kirkby's take on Alcina's Act II finale, "Ombre pallide," makes an interesting comparison with another recent release, the new complete Alcina with Renée Fleming. While Kirkby's accuracy is especially appreciated in the accompanied recitative preceding the aria, as well as in the winding divisions of the aria itself, Fleming's voice, hauntingly reminiscent of Schwarzkopf's in this music, is an emotional turn-on all by itself. Kirkby has been giving enlightened performances of early repertoire for better than two decades, but her voice still sounds young, bright and firm. She does not have the dynamic range or dark colors of Schwarzkopf, to be sure, but she compensates with an unfailingly lively sense of rhythm. Her voice has taken on noticeable new strength in the chest, though she sounds rounder and fuller in live performance than she does here.
What is striking in the newer Baroque recordings (Fleming's Alcina is a collaboration with William Christie and Les Arts Florissants) is the vigor and polish of the accompaniments. Continuo players have learned to refrain from intrusive figuration, and accompanying instrumentalists and singers have begun to toss ornaments and innuendo back and forth with the immediacy of a tennis game. Recording engineers have learned to put continuo groups further back in the sound landscape, which brings the obbligato instruments and the voices more forward, giving the music overall a more stirring effect. On the downside, one has only to experience the sound of old analog recordings, this Schwarzkopf sampler being a prime example, to feel how much warmth, fullness and depth a voice can have when well recorded. Compare how shrill and sometimes hollow voices can sound (both Kirkby and Fleming, in places) under the scrutiny of digital recording. A Baroque aria is an elongation and distillation of an emotional moment; where some of the emotion is lost, all the style and sense in the world can only partly make up for it.
DREW MINTER
MUSICAL THEATER
LaCHIUSA: The Wild Party
Collette, Kitt; Patinkin, Arias; Ellison. Text. Decca Broadway 012 159 003-2
Michael John LaChiusa is as prolific as he is innovative. This past season two of his shows made it to Broadway: Marie Christine and The Wild Party. The former was serious and noble, as one would expect of a reworking of Medea. The Wild Party, on the other hand, is based on the 1928 jazz-age poem of the same name by Joseph Moncure March, and is hard-driving and at times grating, just like its source material. Think honky-tonk with a Weill-Brechtian edge.
The story revolves around two vaudeville performers -- the blonde showgirl Queenie (Toni Collette) and the obnoxious Burrs (Mandy Patinkin), a baggy-pants comic Queenie lives with but no longer loves -- and the all-night party they throw in their Harlem apartment one hot summer's evening.
Each of the party guests gets his or her moment in the spotlight, but it's the legendary Eartha Kitt as Dolores, a performer "of a certain age," who steals the show hands down (as she did in the Broadway production) with her two big numbers, "Moving Uptown" and "When It Ends," a powerful turn about survival in a cold, hard world ("The higher the high, the harder you're gonna/Crash back down/When it ends").
Collette, the young Australian actress best known for her ugly-duckling turn in the film Muriel's Wedding, is quite good as Queenie -- although her polished portrayal glosses over the character's poignancy. Yancy Arias, as the gigolo who wins Queenie's heart, sings with an underplayed suavity that works better on CD than it did on Broadway. Patinkin, who used to deliver heartfelt performances, seems here to have taken his cue from his own overwrought rendition of "Buddy's Blues" on the New York Philharmonic recording of Follies. His Burrs is frighteningly one-note, his vocal technique has turned to mush, and his "homage" to the great Al Jolson is -- quite simply -- terrible. Can the Jolson estate sue for defamation of character?
REBECCA PALLER
DOYLE, PORTER, GERSHWIN, KERN, BERLIN: Love's Labour's Lost
Silverstone, McElhone, Mortimer, Ejogo; Branagh, Lester, Lane, Spall, Nivola,
Lillard; Shearman. No texts. Sony Classical SK89004Kenneth Branagh conceived his current movie adaptation of Shakespeare's neglected comedy Love's Labour's Lost as a 1940s Hollywood musical, and there are arguments in favor of this conceit. For one thing, Shakespeare does "spot" songs throughout his plays, and an updated setting suggests an updating of the songs as well, especially when texts serving a similar purpose can be found. Director Branagh (who also plays Berowne) and composer Patrick Doyle have chosen apt, well-loved standards by Porter, Gershwin, Berlin and Kern, composers whose musical and lyrical finesse parallels Shakespeare's poetic sophistication.
However. Branagh is not a singer, nor, with few exceptions, are his co-stars. Furthermore, either the recording engineer didn't trust the singers (understandably) or the orchestrator was in charge of the mixing; the voices, weak to begin with, are for the most part practically inaudible against the instrumental texture. Still, there are a few bright spots. Timothy Spall, who was a vocally able Mikado in Mike Leigh's Topsy-Turvy, turns in an amusingly Spanish-accented "I Get a Kick Out of You" as the lovelorn Don Armado (misspelled throughout as Armardo), and when Nathan Lane (Costard) pipes up with "There's No Business Like Show Business," one is grateful for a voice with some real pizzazz. Adrian Lester (Dumaine), Bobby in the West End's recent revival of Company, also sounds more experienced than the others, faring nicely with "I've Got a Crush on You."
Much of the other singing is in unison, which, with each voice untrained in its own way, is a recipe for disaster. To assume that non-singers can mine the gold in these tunes is a miscalculation. Otherwise, Doyle's original music is quite delightful, with a lush, effervescent period sound, and the team-written orchestrations, extremely well played by the London session musicians, are aggressively inventive and always interesting.
JOANNE SYDNEY LESSNER
HISTORICAL PURCELL: Dido and Aeneas
Baker, Clark, Sinclair; Herincx, Mitchinson; English Chamber Orchestra, A. Lewis. 1961. English libretto. Decca Legends 289-466-387
MASSENET: Werther (in English)
Baker, Roberts; Brecknock, Wheatley, Blackburn; English National Opera, Mackerras. 1977. English libretto. Chandos 3033 (2)
Previously available in another CD incarnation, Janet Baker's 1961 Dido and Aeneas has always enjoyed critical esteem. Recorded before the heyday of the early-music movement, Anthony Lewis's musicians honor Purcell's style with appropriate lightness of tone on modern instruments, a middle-of-the-road approach with which few listeners of any persuasion would quibble. The tempos are lively without pressure or tension, leaving each number its own inner spontaneity. Baker's near-contralto tones in her early career give Dido a sense of seriousness and foreboding but no heaviness, and her sensitive word projection draws every nuance from the simple text. She adds appoggiaturas, trills and other ornaments, executing the music with easy stylistic familiarity. Raimund Herincx, playing the stalwart soldier as Aeneas, reads his recitative with anguish when finally forced to part from his beloved. Patricia Clark carols brightly as Belinda, while Monica Sinclair sounds both menacing and mirthful as the Sorceress. Thurston Dart, who plays the harpsichord continuo, prepared the edition.
Werther, one of a series of operas in English from Chandos, was recorded from a December 1977 stage performance at the Coliseum in London. Norman Tucker, former director of Sadler's Wells Opera, wrote the version sung here. A conversational opera such as Werther translates readily, and indeed the world premiere was sung in German. What doesn't translate is the Frenchness of vocal sound built into Massenet's music, the phraseology of both text and melody. Given this limitation, the performance is a fine one, with attention focused once more on Baker's interpretation -- intense but controlled, carefully detailed but never fussy. Much the same characteristics mark Charles Mackerras's conducting. John Brecknock, pure in both diction and vocal lyricism, earns high marks as Werther, with Joy Roberts a fresh-sounding Sophie, Patrick Wheatley a correct, quietly frightening Albert.
JOHN W. FREEMAN
STRAUSS: Die Fledermaus
Pfahl, A. Kern, Ruziczca; Volker, Henke, Domgraf-Fassbaender; Berlin State Opera Orchestra and Chorus, Weigert. 1929. Plus Fledermaus Overture: Palace Theatre Orchestra, Tauber. No texts or translation. Pearl GEMM 0087 (Koch, dist.)
A real curio -- and not a very satisfying one -- this abridged Fledermaus from 1929 plays itself out in a mere fifty-two minutes. One of more than a dozen condensed operas and operettas recorded by Polydor in 1929-30, it boasts a marvelous cast and buoyant conducting by Hermann Weigert. Weigert, however, also made the abridgment (with Hans Maeder), and unfortunately he chose to include as much spoken dialogue as music. Cuts occur everywhere, especially within the most familiar arias and set pieces, so that they seem over almost as soon as they've begun. The cumulative effect is frustrating rather than pleasing, particularly since the cast is so delectable. Waldemar Henke (Eisenstein), Franz Volker (Alfred) and Willy Domgraf-Fassbaender (Falke) sing handsomely, and they obviously had a great time making the recording. Sopranos Margaret Pfahl (Rosalinde) and Adele Kern (Adele) share that marvelous, tightly focused, early-twentieth-century Germanic sound that seems to hit the center of each tone like a dart. Everyone's diction is sharp, and the sonic ambience is more open and spacious than in most recordings of the era. (That didn't seem to stop the folks at Pearl from adding unnecessary "reverb" to the remastering.) Since Weigert's abridgment did not include the overture, a rare 1942 version recorded in London and conducted by no less than Richard Tauber is used on this disc. Tauber's tempos are surprisingly leisurely.
Pearl's accompanying booklet devotes four pages to Die Fledermaus's history and plot synopsis -- like we really need that -- and a mere three paragraphs to background on the recording. There is nothing on Weigert's career, nothing on the lives of the singers. If you're impressed by Pfahl's Rosalinde or Else Ruziczca's Orlofsky and want to know more about them, you're out of luck.
ERIC MYERS
WAGNER: Der Ring des Nibelungen
Varnay, Brouwenstijn, von Milinkovic, Madeira; Windgassen, Kuen, Hotter, Greindl, Neidlinger, van Mill, Uhde, et al.; Chorus, Orchestra 1956 Bayreuth Festival, Knappertsbusch. Notes, no libretto. Music and Arts CD-1009 (13)
WAGNER: Götterdämmerung
Fuchs; Svanholm, Dalberg et al.; Chorus, Orchestra 1942 Bayreuth Festival,
Elmendorff. Live performance. Notes, no libretto. Music and Arts CD-1058 (4 )WAGNER: Der Ring des Nibelungen (excerpts)
Gottlieb, Klose, A. Konetzni; Kirchhoff, Weber, Hoffmann, et al.; Walter Straram Orchestra, von Hoesslin. 1930 Pathé Records. Notes, no libretto. Gebhardt Records JGCD 0016-3 (3) (Qualiton, dist.)
Wagnerians who have never understood why conductor Hans Knappertsbusch enjoys his exalted reputation are likely to get the message from this 1956 Bayreuth Ring. At its best -- which is all of Rheingold (even with its ghastly electronic anvils), all of Götterdämmerung and Act III of Siegfried -- this is a Ring for the ages, a performance so imbued with drama and power, so full of ravishingly beautiful singing and committed orchestral playing, that it is impossible to do it justice in mere words. Perhaps the best way to describe Knappertsbusch's contribution is that he is conducting the text, not merely the big musical moments. Singers often are granted those extra few seconds -- to indulge in a bit of rubato, to point up a word or two, to highlight a phrase -- that give a performance a thrilling sense of spontaneity and immediacy. And unlike other Ring performances on CD, this one features a conductor who is an active part of the evolving cycle, matching his singers' emotions with the colors of his orchestra, which is very much a character in its own right. Yes, tempos are frequently on the slow side, but they have an underlying pulse that keeps everything moving; there is seldom anything routine or perfunctory. Instead there is an electricity to much of this Ring that gives it a sense of occasion. No, it is not perfect. The scheduled Siegmund, Ramon Vinay, became ill and was replaced by Wolfgang Windgassen (the cycle's Siegfried), who had just sung Walther in Meistersinger. Even considering these extenuating circumstances, Windgassen's Siegmund is appalling. He is often measures ahead of the orchestra, even derailing the superb Gré Brouwenstijn as Sieglinde (she is also a radiant Gutrune), and Act I of Walküre is pretty much a shambles. Knappertsbusch slips back into plodding, perfunctory mode, and this opera never rises to the level of the rest of the cycle.
His heavy-handed pacing also undercuts the beginning of Siegfried. Though Windgassen is a bit more disciplined in Siegfried's first two acts, it is not until Act III that the sparks begin to fly once again. The scene with the Wanderer soars, and in Siegfried's wooing of Brünnhilde the tenor is the ardent, clear-voiced, youthful hero Wagner wanted. Fortunately, Astrid Varnay is equally responsive to the occasion, and the result is an uncommonly satisfying, richly compelling Siegfried duet. And the pair simply sail through Götterdämmerung -- right into legend. (Varnay also jumps in for an indisposed Martha Mödl and sings some of the Third Norn's music; Jean Madeira, a wonderful Erda, Götterdämmerung Waltraute and First Norn, also contributes to the Third Norn on this occasion.)
This is a Ring with an almost uniformly excellent cast, all of whom understand how to create characters through coloring their voices. When was the last time you heard a beautifully sung Alberich? Gustav Neidlinger's portrayal is no less dark and villainous for his choosing to sing legato rather than barking the words. Josef Greindl (Hunding, Fasolt and Hagen), Paul Kuen (Mime), Arnold van Mill (Fafner), Georgine von Milinkovic (Fricka), Ludwig Suthaus (Loge) and Hermann Uhde (Gunther) all deserve much more than a mere mention. Hans Hotter's hay fever/asthma means that his voice often has a pronounced beat to it, especially at the top and when he is singing forcefully. ("He sounds like God Himself with a bad cold," a friend once quipped accurately.) But the timbre of the voice, combined with Hotter's innate authority and majesty, would melt the hardest heart in the more intimate moments. This is a Wotan that, once heard, will never be forgotten.
The broadcast sound of the live performance is quite good. The orchestra is strongly weighted in favor of the strings, so that many of the brass and horn passages do not have their accustomed prominence. But the (quite wonderful) other half of the equation is that one actually hears an astounding amount of colorful, important music for the strings -- especially in the violas -- that often goes unnoticed.
Unfortunately, the 1942 Götterdämmerung broadcast from Bayreuth is nowhere near so compelling (to put it kindly) as the 1956 version. The former is a straightforward, almost perfunctory rendition of the work with little to recommend it beyond a certain curiosity value -- which is quite surprising, given its time and location. Marta Fuchs (Brünnhilde) is best known in the U.S. as the Brünnhilde on EMI's 1938 Walküre Act II recording, but in this Bayreuth performance her voice is wan, often quite off-pitch and painful to hear. Set Svanholm hectors and bullies his way through Siegfried (and sometimes simplifies his part in the process), displaying neither charm nor heroism. Friedrich Dalberg, a truly "black" bass, has all of Hagen's notes but none of his authority or drama, and Karl Elmendorff's conducting is strictly routine, but the orchestral playing is quite good. The radio sound is superb for the time, though there is some distortion at peak moments.
Also pretty much a (disappointing) curiosity is the release of Pathé's 1930 recording of major excerpts from the Ring, using the same singers throughout. The small snippets of Ludwig Hoffmann's Hagen and Margarete Klose's Rheingold Erda are sumptuously sung, as is much of thirty-one-year-old Ludwig Weber's Wotan. (Anny Konetzni is a Rhinemaiden and a Valkyrie.) The Walter Straram Orchestra, under the skillful direction of Bayreuth veteran Franz von Hoesslin, is recorded unusually well for the time. But unfortunately, above a certain dynamic level, the sound becomes quite distorted, and much of the music from Walküre Act III and the end of Siegfried is almost unlistenable. In addition, individual tracks are jammed together to form one continuous selection, even when jumping from opera to opera. The only time there is any pause is -- maddeningly -- right in the middle of Siegfried's Rhine Journey!
Some listeners will value this set for the presence (in several roles) of Walter Kirchhoff, one of the most famous Loges of the twentieth century. He made his debut in 1906 in Berlin and sang, from 1927 to 1931, at the Met, where his artistry was greatly admired, but his voice was deemed no longer up to roles such as Tristan and Siegfried. His excerpts here of Loge, Siegmund and both Siegfrieds confirm that impression. His very masculine-sounding, dramatic tenor voice is used with skill (he is not shy about using head voice in the more intimate passages), but it sometimes displays an unpleasant tightness that almost becomes a whine. However, he is always involved with the drama, even though he often sings flat above the staff -- a fault shared by the set's intensely feminine Brünnhilde, Henriette Gottlieb. Though Gottlieb is not in the same league as her more famous Brünnhilde contemporaries (Frida Leider, Kirsten Flagstad), she is particularly moving in the role's quieter moments, especially Siegfried's "Ewig war ich." (In 1934, after singing for ten years at Berlin's Städtische Oper, Gottlieb was dismissed because she was Jewish; in 1940, she was deported to a concentration camp, where she died.)
The third CD of the set is filled out with a 1932 recording of Kirchhoff and Margarete Bäumer in Tristan's "O sink' hernieder" and a few excerpts from Covent Garden's famous 1937 Holländer (Fritz Reiner conducting Flagstad, Max Lorenz, Herbert Janssen and Weber).
PAUL THOMASON
A rarity by Mancinelli; anthems by Orlando Gibbons; songs by Bowles, Larsen, Sacre and Tchaikovsky; Bernstein conducts Mahler and Sibelius; new work from John Tavener; recitals featuring the music of Stolz and Lehár; reissues are devoted to sopranos Elisabeth Grümmer and Lotte Schöne.
OPERA AND ORATORIO MANCINELLI: Paolo e Francesca
De Maio; Tota, Vassallo, Montanari; Mezio Agostini Chorus, Pro Arte Orchestra of the Marches, Berdondini. Text and translation. Bongiovanni GB-2245 (2) (Qualiton, dist.)
Luigi Mancinelli (1848-1921) belonged to an illustrious generation of Italian conductor-composers, a lineage founded by Angelo Mariani and Emanuele Muzio, which included Franco Faccio, Edoardo Mascheroni and Giuseppe Martucci, eventually producing Arturo Toscanini, Bernardino Molinari and Victor De Sabata. During the years 1893-1903, Mancinelli conducted for seven seasons at the Met; like Ettore Panizza, who followed three decades later, he also composed several operas. The second of these, Ero e Leandro, with a libretto by Arrigo Boito, appeared briefly at the Met during Mancinelli's seasons there. The third, Paolo e Francesca (1907) text by Arturo Colautti (who also wrote the librettos for Adriana Lecouvreur and Fedora, was revived in a concert performance at the Teatro Comunale Masini in Faenza in April 1999 and now emerges as a curiosity on Bongiovanni.
Rather than the full-blown treatment that Zandonai would later accord Dante's tale of doomed lovers, Mancinelli chose a one-act drama, as Rachmaninoff did for his own Francesca da Rimini (1906). Though Mancinelli's score appears influenced by the brevity and visceral impact of Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci, Mancinelli was also reacting against the commonplace language and modern settings of early verismo. In its poetic treatment and medieval ambience, Paolo e Francesca prefigures Montemezzi's L'Amore dei Tre Re, which shares its Tristan-like story.
If Mancinelli's music lacks a strong melodic profile or personal thumbprint, it is idiomatic, shrewdly crafted for the stage and harmonically engaging. There are only four main characters, with a crafty Fool taking the place of Paolo and Gianciotto's warped brother Malatestino in the Zandonai version. Franco Vassallo is the star of Bongiovanni's single-CD album, bringing out Gianciotto's inner torment with vocal resource and interpretive dignity. The Fool is played by generic character tenor Stefano Montanari with a light, malevolent touch. Coping with Paolo's heavier tenor demands, Donato Tota shows almost continual strain: his tone doesn't waver, but his pitch is chronically flat. American soprano Barbara De Maio does waver, at least toward the start, but she warms to the task, and a strong verismo chest voice enables her to address Francesca's lines with gutsy passion. The chorus has its own problems with intonation, and Marco Berdondini's valiant baton fails to ignite his scrappy orchestral forces. As provincial CD performances of otherwise unhearable operas go, this one ranks as better than nothing, no worse than many.
JOHN W. FREEMAN
RECITAL Brigitte Lindner
"STOLZ: FRÜHLING IN WIEN" Songs for soprano and orchestra. Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie, Mogg
Julia Migenes, Sebastian Reinthaller
"WALTZING IN THE CLOUDS: THE MUSIC OF ROBERT STOLZ" BBC Concert Orchestra, Sutherland
Julia Migenes, Ryszard Karczykowski
"GOLD & SILVER: THE MUSIC OF FRANZ LEHÁR" BBC Concert Orchestra, Wordsworth
Austrian operetta master Robert Stolz (1880-1975) seemed to compose incessantly (an opera, nearly sixty operettas, one hundred film scores, and over two thousand popular songs, if biographical sources are to be believed) throughout his long life. With his contemporaries Franz Lehár, Emmerich Kálmán, Leo Fall, Oscar Straus and Ralph Benatzky, he represented operetta's exquisite "Silver" era, which began roughly around the turn of the twentieth century and extended into the years of the early talkie musicals. Like the "Golden" era that preceded it (led by Johann Strauss, Millöcker, and Von Suppé), the "Silver" era celebrated lush waltzes and plush excess, but spiced the brew by flirting with such newly-fashionable ingredients as jazz, dance-band rhythms, and Freudian psychology. Stolz carried his mittel-Europe idiom all the way to 1940's Hollywood, where he received two Academy Award nominations (Best Song for "Waltzing in the Clouds" from Spring Parade in 1940, and Best Score for It Happened Tomorrow, 1944).
Two recent discs spotlight Stolz's legacy. Both qualify as appealing, nostalgic ear-candy. Someday we may be offered recordings that grant deeper insights into Stolz's work; but for the time being, it's a pleasure to have at least this much available. Frühling in Wien comprises fourteen tracks, all with Herbert Mogg conducting the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie, ten of which feature Brigitte Lindner. Lindner's soprano may not suit every taste; its hardness of tone borders on the shrill at times. However, she clearly adores Stolz's music and sings it with winning fullness and abandon. The orchestral numbers--including such rarities as an overture to Spring Parade and a ceremonial march Stolz wrote for the U.N. in 1972--are conducted by Mogg with verve and charm.
Stolz is also the subject of Waltzing in the Clouds, a live BBC Concert Orchestra performance. The BBC is simultaneously releasing Gold and Silver, a live Franz Lehár tribute. Both were recorded during the mid-1990's; Iain Sutherland conducts the Stolz and Barry Wordsworth the Lehár. The two discs feature Julia Migenes, who is partnered by two different tenors: Sebastian Reinthaller for Stolz and Ryszard Karczykowski for Lehár. Both tenors are perfectly adequate and acceptable, and their essentially light instruments serve the music well. The conducting of Wordsworth and Sutherland, if not exquisitely idiomatic, is certainly colorful. Migenes is the problem here. Her sound is no longer that of a young woman; its maturity is rather ill-suited to these bouyant, spring-like tunes. The voice has also grown too large for operetta; it smothers her tenor partners and the music's delicacy with its blunt, juggernaut timbre and the wobble that it has acquired on top. Her high notes, held far too long, threaten to teeter precariously off the edge of the pitch. The effect is thrilling--for all the wrong reasons. Migenes is an exciting, passionate artist, but her temperament and her present vocal equipment render her poorly-suited to operetta. This is a talent which should be exploring the verismo repertoire. That's not a particularly popular operatic genre these days, but Migenes has the insight, intensity and star wattage to dust off works like Risurrezione, Zazà, and Madame Sans-Gène and single-handedly turn them back into the crowd-pleasers they were a hundred years ago.
ERIC MYERS
CHORAL AND SONG BOWLES: The Wind Remains, Secret Songs, etc.
Schaufer; Halvorson, Ollmann; Eos Orchestra, Sheffer. Texts and translations. BMG 09026-63685
The music of novelist/composer Paul Bowles (1910-99), a member of the expatriate American group in Paris during the 1930s, enjoyed a vogue during the 1940s but went underground after his departure for Morocco in 1947. Like his friends Virgil Thomson and Peggy Glanville-Hicks, he wrote with a kind of French lightness and clarity that went out of fashion during the ultramodern '50s and '60s. Bowles's brief return to the U. S. in 1995 was accompanied by a mini-revival, of which this CD is a happy legacy, fairly sampling his range of skills and interests.
Thomson once remarked, "When you're composing, you're not thinking about style, you're thinking about the work." In Bowles's case, however, the composer's stylistic taste seemed to dictate his choices of form and substance. BMG's disc, divided between instrumental and vocal pieces, starts with a jaunty Pastorela for chamber band and proceeds to an earlier Suite for Small Orchestra, a little more self-consciously "modern," if one reads "modern" in 1933 to mean Stravinskian acerbic neoclassical. The Concerto for Two Pianos, which follows, is cheerful and pat in much the same ways as Poulenc's piece in the same format.
It's with the so-called zarzuela The Wind Remains, to a Dada text by García Lorca, that Bowles's spiky instrumental commentary turns moody and suggestive -- more so than the relatively conventional vocal parts, handily dispatched here by mezzo Lucy Schaufer and tenor Carl Halvorson. In Secret Words, a cycle put together and orchestrated by conductor Jonathan Sheffer, there's still some of Poulenc's smooth insouciance but also a touching sentiment and lack of artifice that suddenly seem uniquely American. Baritone Kurt Ollmann captures the homespun tone of these six songs, set to poems by Gertrude Stein, Bowles himself and his wife, Jane. Sheffer and his musicians have performed a labor of love in this tribute to an elegant composer.
JOHN W. FREEMAN
GIBBONS: Anthems Blaze, Varcoe; Winchester Cathedral Choir, Hill. English texts. Hyperion CDA67116 (Harmonia Mundi, dist.)
The tragically short-lived Orlando Gibbons died at forty-one, of what was probably a brain hemorrhage, in 1625. While a noted composer of madrigals, the English polyphonist is perhaps most celebrated for his sacred music and anthems, the latter of which is heard on this well-recorded disc.
Winchester Cathedral director of music David Hill has chosen a nicely balanced selection of Gibbons anthems in both "full" and "verse" styles. Full anthems are settings for the entire choir, while verse anthems alternate solo passages for one or more voices, against the chorus, which repeats or reinforces the soloist's music. "Sing unto the Lord" shows Gibbons's striking gift for vibrant vocal polyphony, set off by a discreet organ accompaniment. The Magnificat from the Second Evening Service is especially lovely, offering refined and well-blended singing from the men and boys of the choir. Gibbons's skillful and fluent alternating of solos for different voices with choral singing is shown to best advantage in "O clap your hands," which, with "Hosanna, to the son of David," richly conveys the joyous qualities of the settings with subtle mastery.
In the verse anthems, those used to a more robust David Daniels-like timbre may find countertenor Robin Blaze a little wispy in "This is the Record of John," though he sounds more firmly focused in "Behold, thou hast made my days" and fuses nicely with Stephen Varcoe's dark-hued baritone in "Glorious and powerful God."
At times one might wish for a greater expressive range from the choir, with the pleading of "O Lord, in thy wrath rebuke me not" little differentiated from the more hopeful "If ye be risen again with Christ." Under Hill's direction, the men and boys of the Winchester Cathedral Choir sing (for the most part) with refined corporate tone and enviable precision, and individual members distinguish themselves in their solo opportunities. Gibbons's Fantasia in A minor for solo organ, respectfully played by Stephen Farr, makes an admirable bonus. The excellent recording offers a fine ecclesiastical bloom without loss of clarity, and these performances earn a firm recommendation.
LAWRENCE A. JOHNSON
LARSEN: Songs of Light and Love, Songs from Letters
Valente; Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Revzen. Texts. Koch International Classics 3-7481
Libby Larsen, born in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1950, studied with Dominick Argento, among others, and has composed eight operas. She and Stephen Paulus, a fellow student at the University of Minnesota, founded the Minnesota Composers Forum. With over a dozen CDs already listed under her name in the Schwann/Opus catalogue, this new disc, which includes her Symphony No. 4 (String Symphony), is an attractive introduction to her work.
Songs of Light and Love (1998), seventeen and a half minutes long, are settings of five poems by the late May Sarton; Songs from Letters (1999), a few minutes shorter, deal with an equal number of selections from letters written between 1880 and 1902 by Calamity Jane (Martha Jane Canary) to her daughter Janey. On this disc, the sensitive, ladylike singing and soft, floating tones of Benita Valente, for whom the Sarton songs were written, suit those better than the other group but reveal a tenderness and vulnerability hidden in Calamity Jane's rough-and-ready lines. There are a few patches of unsteady tone in slow, sustained bits, as in the first Calamity Jane song. The price of Larsen's intense lyricism in her vocal writing is a certain rhythmic shapelessness, at odds with the crisp, definite contours of the String Symphony, though the latter's slow movement shows kinship to the cool, shimmering radiance of Songs of Light and Love.
In songs with orchestra, there's always a trade-off between the richer accompaniment and the loss of intimacy, accentuated here by a rather formal distance in sonic framing of the solo voice. Under Joel Revzen, however, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra is the soul of discretion, and so is the composer's sparing, evocative scoring.
JOHN W. FREEMAN
SACRE: Songs
F. Katz; Gardeil; Eidi, piano. Texts and translations. Timpani 1C©1051 (Qualiton, dist.)
Under the small Timpani label, the France Télécom Foundation has been publishing a series of CDs devoted to French songs -- not the obvious Debussy, Ravel and Poulenc but Honegger, Satie, Milhaud, Chausson, Chabrier, and the lesser-known Maurice Emmanuel, Louis Vierne, Lili Boulanger, Maurice Delage and Georges Auric. Guy Sacre, born in 1948, is to be followed by Henri Duparc (the complete songs) and André Caplet.
The fact that there are forty-four songs on this single CD already tells something about Sacre: he is a miniaturist, many of his entries coming in at less than one minute. His choice of texts runs to the Symbolist poets, whose writing is not so much concerned with symbols (images representing something else) as with fleeting associations and fanciful imagery (images reflecting states of mind, conscious or unconscious). There's hardly a verse here that one could accuse of being clear-cut, from the nostalgic laments of Apollinaire to the fleeting haikus of Paul Claudel. Sacre is in his element, showering keyboard figurations like fleeting glimpses, moments of portent or anxious pause, creating a world in a few bars, then dissipating it as quickly as one of Anton Webern's fugitive Pieces for Orchestra.
The idiom itself, recognizably akin to Poulenc (though with none of Poulenc's sauntering nonchalance), is not difficult for the listener, but the abstruse quality of the poems, presented cumulatively in this collection, will strike many as unbearably precious. Compared to the intricate, subtle piano parts, which challenge the skill and sensitivity (an anti virtuosity in itself) of Billy Eidi, the rhythmically and melodically monotonous voice parts, mostly in the semi-recitative hallowed by Pelléas et Mélisande, call mainly for restraint, emotional sensitivity and exquisite French diction, all displayed in abundance by baryton martin Jean-François Gardeil and mezzo Florence Katz. It's a wonderful disc -- but strictly for connoisseurs.
JOHN W. FREEMAN
TAVENER: Fall and Resurrection
Rozario; Chance, Hill, Richardson; BBC Singers, St. Paul's Cathedral Choir, City of London Sinfonia, Hickox. Text and translations. Chandos 9800
A work like John Tavener's Fall and Resurrection, obviously the product of deep spirituality and an intensely personal vision, effectively insulates itself from criticism, but let me give it a try anyway. It doesn't make any sense to discuss Tavener's pieces in the context of contemporary Western classical music, a tradition he has explicitly rejected. He has publicly lamented the abandonment of the sacred in music, and his best works synthesize the ancient and the modern, combining mystical, lyrical tranquility with enough melodic and textural resourcefulness to keep the ear interested.
This is not one of his best works. Out of total silence at the beginning of the piece, sustained bass tones emerge, eventually leading to a passage of orchestral cacophany. The beginning of time--so far, so good. Next appear Adam and Eve, slowly intoning lines like "Eve my wife," "Adam my husband," "Wife," "Husband," "Eve," "Adam," with a solemnity that verges on self-parody. I'll admit that I found the basic melodic cell of the piece (G-E-F-Ab) memorable, but that's only because I felt clubbed over the head by it. What follows is an assortment of unintelligible chanting by the chorus, Middle Eastern-style wailing by the soloists, idiomatic but clichéd uses of non-Western instruments like the ram's horn and the kaval (a wooden flute), and a slightly oppressive vocal technique involving rapid, glottal iterations of the same pitch. The pacing is funereal throughout. As for the setting of the text, let's just say it does not facilitate comprehensibility. One could say that Tavener is trying to conjure a completely unknowable primordial world, a sound universe that antecedes our tired categorizations. On that level, he succeeds. But I couldn't wait for it to be over.
JOSHUA ROSENBLUM
TCHAIKOVSKY: Complete Songs, Volume 2
Kazarnovskaya; Orfenova, piano. Texts and translations. Naxos 8.554358
Soprano Ljubov Kazarnovskaya is a thoroughly convincing advocate of Tchaikovsky's songs, probably the least known component of the composer's output. Her second Naxos disc of this repertoire is devoted to the Children's Songs, Op. 54, and the Six Romances, Op. 73, sets which provide gratifying variety when heard back to back. The Children's Songs are full of simple pleasures and irresistible melodies, showcasing in miniature both the exuberance and the melancholy that are familiar from Tchaikovsky's orchestral music. Kazarnovskaya's readings are fully-fleshed and exquisitely shaded. The dramatic richness of her voice is always present, even in her delicate pianissimos, and the total control she wields over her sound makes her a marvelous story-teller. In the Six Romances, which require a different level of emotional intensity, she finds places to unleash her full vocal power as an additional element in her expressive arsenal, to considerable effect.
Pianist Ljuba Orfenova is, as before, a sensitive and artistically well-matched collaborator. The sound in the piano's upper-middle range is occasionally tinny here, which was not the case with Volume 1; this is odd, since the same person is credited as producer/engineer on both discs. Nonetheless, these performances are a joy to listen to, and the first two installments bode very well for the rest of the series.
JOSHUA ROSENBLUM
MAHLER: Lieder (4 Rückert-Lieder, Lieder und Gesaenge, Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen)
with Fischer-Dieskau; Bernstein, piano. Texts and translations. Sony SMK 61847
SIBELIUS: Symphony No. 2, Op. 43; Luonnotar, Op. 70; Pohjola's Daugher, Op. 49
with Curtin (Luonnotar); New York Philharmonic, Bernstein. Text and translation (Op. 70) not included. Sony SMK 61848
The latest contributions to the "Bernstein Century" series on the Sony label present the formidable and versatile maestro as an accompanist. In a Mahler lieder disc, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, as might be expected, sings as one to the manner born. He knows just how to concentrate the emotive potential in the brief works, endowing each with his usual honeyed tone and dramatic sense. The balance between voice and piano is tilted just slightly in favor of the former. As an accompanist, (these were the days before the term "collaborative pianist" took over), Bernstein recedes but does not vanish behind the firm vocal presence of his esteemed peer. Instead, he opts for unusually delicate, evocative, ethereal textures and phrasing. In "Ging heut' morgen uebers Feld," Bernstein basks fully in the glory of nature, bringing birds to life with gracefully evocative warbling. Their reading is flexible, spotted by gentle surges and releases throughout. It would be difficult to imagine anyone tinkling out the beauty of "Phantasie der Don Juan" in a more wispy, haunting manner. The cohesion between parts here -- not to mention textual clarity -- is utterly unique.
This intimate performance of Mahler songs stands in rather stark contrast to the altogether more plush, full-bodied string sound commonly associated with Bernstein. For that, however, one can turn to the Sibelius disc and, especially, the Luonnotar poem, sung strongly here by Phyllis Curtin. This offers another angle to Bernstein's skills as an accompanist. Curtin's voice is forceful, here sounding almost Wagnerian in scope and body, which makes for a dramatic account. She is more than capable of rising above the molten orchestral tide. Bernstein, directing the New York Philharmonic, matches Curtin with intense, sweeping support. It is an unusual work well-suited to this combination of artists.
ZACHARY LEWIS
HISTORICAL Elisabeth Grümmer
lieder by Mendelssohn, Schumann, Schoeck, Wolf. Reimann, piano. 1963-1968. Notes, no text. Orfeo C 506 001 B (Qualiton, dist.)
The recorded legacy of German soprano Elisabeth Grümmer (1911-1986), while not extensive, is distinguished enough: Don Giovanni at Salzburg under Furtwängler, 1953, Die Meistersinger (Kempe, 1958), Der Freischütz (Keilberth, 1959), Tannhäuser (Konwitschny, 1963), Lohengrin (Kempe, 1964). Her Donna Anna, Eva, Agathe, Elisabeth, and Elsa were all exemplary and highly praised in print. Nonetheless, as her American career was limited to a single role (Elsa, in 1967) and since her inward nature was not exactly the stuff for the publicity mill, she is not remembered by the operatic community to the extent merited by her stature. All the more welcome is this interesting collection preserving radio concerts of lieder in Germany between 1963 and 1968. Well into her fifties by then, the artist seems to have retained a large measure of the youthful lyric sound that characterized her recorded Agathe, Elsa, and Eva.
The five Mendelssohn songs present a thoughtful contrast between the nostalgic yearnings of "Nachtlied" and "Scheidend," the wistful fantasy of "Auf Flügeln des Gesanges," and the elfin magic of "Neue Liebe," while in the last line of "Frühlingslied," Grümmer observes the sudden melancholy coloration. Schumann is represented by the "Frauenliebe und -Leben" cycle, a much-recorded item to which Grümmer may not bring any revelations, but her observance of the poet's various mood-pictures is always apt, clearly projected and realized with the proper involvement yet free of excessive sentiment. Here and elsewhere, Albert Reimann's collaboration -- assertive but not domineering -- adds special distinction.
Othmar Schoeck (1886-1957) was a Swiss composer who wrote more than a hundred songs to the texts of the great German Romantic poets (Goethe, Heine, Uhland, Lenau), and in this instance Eichendorff and Mörike. Schoeck's settings are in a twentieth century idiom, with harmony often determining melody. The piano accompaniments range from guitar-like simplicity ("Auf meines Kindes Tod") to casting a mystic aura over the vocal line ("Ergebung") or pursuing a seemingly independent path ("Nachts"). In his determined respect for the poetic texts, Schoeck followed the example of Hugo Wolf, and here, too, Grümmer proves and ideal interpreter. She also excels in the four songs from Wolf's "Spanisches Liederbuch" chosen for this recital, including the charming "In dem Schatten meiner Locken," delivered in a manner more bemused than suggestive. Here a certain breathiness invades the singer's tone, but verbal clarity is never sacrificed. Reimann's accompaniments are ideal; the digitalized mono sound is fine. Texts would have been helpful, however.
GEORGE JELLINEK
Lotte Schöne
Arias and duets by Mozart, Massenet, Verdi, Puccini, J. Strauss, Nicolai. Berlin State Opera Orchestra, Blech /Zweig / Schmaistich / Orthmann, Coppola. Notes, no texts or translations. Pavillion Records Limited GEM 0093 (Pearl)
Erna Sack
"CIRIBIRIBIN: ERNA SACK, DIE DEUTSCHE NACHTIGALL" (Telefunken Legacy 3984-28412-2)
Coloratura sopranos have always captivated the public with their vocal acrobatics and easily accessible repertoire. In the 20's and 30's there emerged a small flock of them who, unlike Madame Tettrazini and her hefty turn-of-the-century colleagues, sported petite dress sizes as well as petite instruments, and used both of these assets to intoxicate opera audiences. Several of them, like Miliza Korjus and Lily Pons, reached a far wider audience through films. While Pons was chirping at the Met and in Hollywood, German audiences were being captivated by the likes of Erna Sack, Maria Ivogun and Lotte Schöne. Recently, Telefunken released a CD of Sack's recordings (Ciribiribin: Erna Sack, Die Deutsche Nachtigall), a collection of fare so light that Adele's laughing song ("Mein Herr Marquis") from Fledermaus is the heaviest piece in seventy-minute program which features so many ascents above the staff that the effect, at first startling, than dizzying, becomes a bit annoying. The main drawback here is that the repertoire is so syrupy, so heavily laden mit schlag, that we don't really get to experience the singer described so glowingly in the liner notes as an interpreter of Zerbinetta, Gilda, Rosina and the Queen of the Night.
Pearl's new Lotte Schöne release, taken from her catalogue of Electrola recordings made between 1927 and 1931, offers the flip side of the coloratura coin, featuring, as it does, a parcity of fireworks, and a glimpse of a different kind of artist - namely, one who used her delicate instrument to dip into the heroines of Puccini, but without inflating nor damaging the goods. In an age in which anyone with any volume or color in the voice seems to head from lyric to spinto to spento, it is difficult to imagine such restraint.
Born of Orthodox Jewish parents (her real name was Charlotte Bodenstein), Schöne's musical promise was nurtured and formalized with vocal lessons beginning at age fourteen. Her serious career began at the Vienna Volksoper in 1913, and in 1917 she moved to the Hofoper (later the Staatsoper), making her debut as Papagena and essaying a variety of parts including Cherubino, Olympia (Tales of Hoffmann) and Zerbinetta, while guesting back at the Volksoper where she sang Gilda, and appeared opposite Richard Tauber in Die Fledermaus (Adele) and Carmen (Michaela). Schöne became a regular at the Salzburg festival, working with Bruno Walter who, in 1926, lured her to Berlin's Charlottenburg Opera to share coloratura duets with Ivogun, and take on lyric roles like Mimi, Butterfly and Liu in the Berlin premiere of Turandot, a role she recreated for the London premiere in 1927. With the arrival of the Nazis, the soprano relocated to Paris where she was already admired as Melisande, and when the German armies entered France she hid out in the southern Alps with her son until the end of the war. After one post-war Susanna in Berlin, Schöne concertized and then taught in Paris, where she died in 1977.
This is an artist known for her beauty, vivaciousness and charm, as well as her vocal gifts and technique. But her art on disc has about it the appeal of a miniature; every interpretation is understated and half-voice is employed as the norm. This can prove a bit frustrating to contemporary ears, particularly when climactic notes are delivered in the pinpoint manner so admired in the German school of this period. When the voice does open for a moment, as in Liu's "Tu che di gel," the tone takes on an attractive spin, and no loss of beauty, but rather some much-longed-for intensita.
All selections, save for two duets from Rigoletto, Mimi's farewell and Liu's arias, are sung in German. These include a sprightly duet from Don Pasquale with baritone Willi Domgraf-Fassbaender, father of brilliant mezzo Brigitte, a restrained "Adieu, notre petite table" and gavotte from Manon, Oscar's "Volta la terra" from Ballo and Butterfly's "Un bel di" and "Che tua madre." The Puccini arias are fascinating, as they present a Cio Cio San small in scale and introspective in delivery, moving on its own terms.
In the Italian language excerpts Schöne may be far from idiomatic, but "E il sol del anima" (Rigoletto) pairs the soprano nicely with the Duke of Scottish tenor Joseph Hislop and presents her using her famous pianissimo with a warmer tone, perhaps a result of the language. In "Tutte le feste..Pianigi, fanciulla," the real star is Herbert Janssen as Rigoletto, whose firm legato and dynamic shading speaks volumes. Liu's "Signore, ascolta" was probably mesmerizing in the opera house, but here the refusal to sing throughout above a p makes the floated ending less effective.
The remainder of the disc includes what must be the slowest "Ach, ich fuhl's" on record, tenderly delivered in a whisper - you'll either love it or hate it - and some delightful renderings of arias and duets (with Marcel Wittrisch) from Strauss's Die Fledermaus and Eine Nacht in Venedig. A lively and beautifully created "Nun eilt herbei" from Nicolai's "Die Lustigen Weiber von Windsor" creates a craving for more coloratura flights, as does the Bolero from Rossini's Soirees Musicales, albeit arranged for orchestra in a schmaltzy setting by Clemens Schmalstich. Transfers include some surface noise, which was not removed in the interest of preserving vocal color.
IRA SIFF
photo credit: © Hans-Georg Schöner(Goerne)
OPERA NEWS, September 2000 Copyright © 2000 The Metropolitan Opera Guild, Inc.
PRINCE OF CANTATAS
Matthias Goerne delivers
a Bach recital of rare beauty
under the direction of Roger Norrington.
Bach Street Boy Goerne
