Gib dem Glück eine Chance, Melanie (German Edition)

---

Most of them belong to the fabulous post-war ensemble of the Vienna State opera and they are able to sing and to record everything between Mozart and Lehar in a still unsurpassed way. The first thing that struck me was the sound. Though recorded in early stereo in it is still amazingly warm and fresh after half a century. Therefore nobody can discard this recording in the series The Originals because it sounds old and worn. Moreover all of the singers are at the height of their powers. I cannot imagine a better Zdenka than the boyish sound of Hilde Gueden which becomes appropriately sensuous when she once more becomes a girl in love.

She is sparkling and technically proficient and her small role is a plea to Decca to reissue her recitals.

Join Kobo & start eReading today

The male department is almost as strong. Anton Dermota as Matteo is far better than the average Matteo. It is an ungrateful role but Dermota with his experience of Mozart and his fine un-German somewhat grainy timbre succeeds in creating a sympathetic suitor. And then there is the singer whom many Americans and others as well will prefer as Mandryka and whom I have doubts about. For my personal taste the bass-baritone of George London is a bit too gruff, too throaty though he brings warmth to it in the third act. Mandryka may be rough from time to time but he is a nobleman.

For me London is the relatively less than perfect singer in the recording but all in all, this budget issue is unbelievably fine and convincing and maybe the best around. Readers of The New Yorker are already familiar with music critic Alex Ross's insightful writing and his ability to bring sounds and styles alive through erudite yet passionate consideration.

Her whole life was glowing testimony to its validity. A farm girl born in southern Sweden in , she grew up pulling weeds and milking cows — things that she continued to do on visits home even after moving to Stockholm to study at the Royal Academy of Music and Opera School. She describes a professional journey made with feet firmly on the ground. It was a no-nonsense career that paid off handsomely with a stellar position in the opera world for four decades. Nilsson organizes the immense detail of her long career in chapters focused on the cities enriched by her talent: An appreciation of her husband concludes the book.

This series of Isoldes became legendary, when she sang opposite three indisposed tenors in a single performance: Each sang one act. Nilsson has more to say about rehearsals than performances, and this gives the book an intimate feeling of opera from the inside. Although a number of dressing-room events provide color, she eschews gossip; she even leaves the soprano for whom Wieland Wagner left wife and family unnamed.

It was Anna Silja. She writes generously of colleagues, and among the conductors with whom she worked she speaks only of Herbert von Karajan with reserve. Prompters, she notes, were usually half asleep. It was exactly so. Although her career stands as a major chapter in the history of opera, Nilsson nonetheless lived between major musical epochs. Her autobiography is thus without great excitement; careful consideration of assignments and thorough preparation kept disaster at bay. She married her first love, Bertil Niklasson, a veterinarian who later went into business on his own and frequently accompanied the soprano on her many trips abroad.

This - strangely — is a translation from the German — not from the original Swedish. And although — says the translator in a brief preface — Nilsson saw the English text and liked it — or found it better at least than two others that she saw, one wonders why the English version is not based on the Swedish original. The English version suggests — although this is no where said — that Nilsson wrote the text. I discovered Nilsson — as it were — on my own. Nilsson reports that the Vienna Philharmonic, pit orchestra in the State Opera, tunes almost half a step higher than A Hertz to achieve a brighter sound.

Mazzocchi has several strikes against him — first, his production is exclusively vocal, and so inaccessible to listeners who don't know Italian or Latin or both. More importantly, even at this late stage in the early music and perhaps due to reason number one , most of his work still remains inaccessible in modern editions for example, the book of madrigals from , with 24 works was only excerpted with a modern edition presenting six. The late collection of Sacrae Cantiones is available complete.

Not only is there first-rate music here, but it is most winningly performed by Les Paladins. Particular applause must go to the excellent bass singing of Renaud Delaigue, who carries off deep and florid parts not an easy combination! Indeed, this moment is too brief, since here and elsewhere in the disc, for reasons of time? Try to rectify this next time, please! Nevertheless, this is a most valuable contribution to the yet-small Mazzocchi discography. To make things even worse, on the podium stood a Catholic priest, Vivaldi himself, acting in the many capacities of composer, conductor, solo violinist - and probably also stage director.

Suspension of disbelief, albeit on the basis of lip-service to morals, was apparently much needed…. The pendulum has now swung so far that, having to dispense with the unavailable castrati, Fabio Biondi selected no less than five ladies, plus one countertenor - and yes! This bears witness to the situation recently described by the Vivaldi scholar Michael Talbot: Was the whole painstaking process worth trying?

Judging from the results, it was. It exhibits most features thereof: In other words, variety pays a premium over dramatic consistency or psychological credibility. Thus, for instance, the title-role Ercole aptly delivers a row of warlike and menacing arias as he keeps clubbing his way to the final triumph; nevertheless, he also produces himself in a sort of love lesson paternally delivered to Martesia, an Amazon princess who ignores the very basics of marriage and wavers between the competing Greek princes Alceste and Telamone, both in love with her.

Among the singing company, high praise was due to both Amazon queens and sisters , mezzo Romina Basso as Antiope and soprano Roberta Invernizzi as Ippolita, for their unfailing intonation and agility, clear diction, style competence and acting stamina. The same was true for Laura Polverelli in the trousers role of Alceste, prince of Sparta, as well as for tenor Carlo Allemano in the title-role, who displayed a doughy quasi-baritone register and a bodily appearance well matching the muscular demi-god he was supposed to impersonate.

Both Emanuela Galli as Orizia and Mark Milhofer as Telamone got going very hard, yet their vocal technique still needs some refinement in order to meet the stipulations of this particular repertoire. His Europa Galante sounded like a large multi-register theorbo struck by a single hand: Biondi has clearly got a signature sound, one of the most exciting in the early music scene today — to say nothing of his individual prowess on the baroque violin. Some disappointment was instead caused by the fixed set which, according to ongoing anticipations, was due to be part of an historically informed staging care of the Arts Faculty, University of Venice, under the supervision of Walter Le Moli, a respected professional.

Actually, it was all about huge square portals in the mould of stock Neoclassic, providing functional in-and-out access to the backstage. No machines, no decorations, no spectacular effects whatsoever. As it turned out, the present Venice production was only semi-staged, with the characters dressed in modern black attires as if for a formal cocktail party, and all of the action revolving, in a rather indecipherable manner, around a Victorian-style couch in red velvet. The barbaric warlord Tamerlano was Daniela Barcellona, towering for her imposing physical shape no less than for the force and precision of her deep mezzo.

As the destitute Little Orphan Asteria, Marina De Liso unfolded hot temperament and versatility in her four widely diverse arias. Notoriously, Bajazet is a thoroughgoing pasticcio, in which several arias are favorites of the singers themselves, a. Despite that, tenor Christian Senn emerged with full honors from his unrewarding part. The sole survivor from the recording was Vivica Genaux, in the not-so-important role of Irene. However, her appearance raised an unprecedented salvo of curtain calls among the demanding operagoers of Venice.

During the intermissions, there was much arguing among the patrons about the frantic quivering motions of her lips and lower jaw. The dispute was solved by an old gentleman who suggested with a meek smile: Indeed, it had been a theatrically-compelling staging — at its Glyndebourne home. On its own terms, however, the musical performance was very strong, led by Vladimir Jurowski whose conducting had rhythmic delicacy and dramatic sweep.

Strong performances too came from Andrzej Dobber in the title role, and Peter Auty as a young Macduff who is matured by his personal tragedy. Of the supporting cast, the Scottish mezzo Karen Cargill gave a notably excellent performance as Waltraute; her focused, dramatic sound and expansive phrasing will surely stand her in good stead for similar repertoire in the future. Only the Norns — Andrea Baker, Natascha Petrinsky and Miranda Keys — sounded as though they had not been employed with the success of the ensemble in mind, and even this is no reflection on the individual singers.

This performance was a great achievement and, like all successful Wagner performances, succeeded in making six hours go by in the blink of an eye. This cannot have done much for the morale of the orchestra or soloists, but this Bluebeard performance would surely have been disappointing in any case. Charlotte Hellekant was miscast as Judit, her glacial poise giving no indication of the warmth she promises to bring to her chilly new home. Correspondingly there was scant evocation of this in the orchestral playing, and little sense of the richly-drawn individual musical worlds to be found behind each of the seven doors.

This performance fell on September 6th, the day Luciano Pavarotti died, and the performance was dedicated to his memory. This experience was evident too in the disciplined and vivid singing of the chorus, and in the wonderful orchestral playing especially in some of the solo woodwind. James Conlon is a good friend to Alexander von Zemlinsky, and Zemlinsky is a good friend to him.

Conlon is the American conductor who is now music director of the Los Angeles Opera and some other things ; Zemlinsky is the Viennese composer who straddled two centuries, living from to Conlon has recorded a good deal of his music, including "A Florentine Tragedy," a short opera. He showed their frailties, their ability to love and hate, to be good, evil, pompous, humble, callous and kind. Poppea is unashamedly popular in its treatment of love, lust and power. Princess, sorceress, child-murderer - Medea is a goldmine for dramatists and composers.

And they don't come much grimmer than Medea, who leaves a trail of havoc through a whole series of Greek myths. Myths recounted by Greeks, that is, for the whole point of Medea is that she's not Greek at all. She's an exotic, a sorceress from a mysterious land at the very edge of the world. Sergej Prokofieff ist wahrscheinlich einer der besonders falsch bewerteten Meister der musikalischen Moderne.

The work was completed in April and premiered in Stuttgart the following October. As Charles Osborne notes:. Eventually, the work was revised with the first part being entirely rewritten as a prologue to the opera. The incidental music that Strauss had composed would reappear later as Le Bourgeois gentilhomme Suite In the house of the richest man in Vienna, where a sumptuous banquet is to be held in the evening, two theatrical groups are busy preparing their entertainments.

The Music Master protests to the Major-domo about the decision to follow his pupil's opera seria, Ariadne auf Naxos, with 'vulgar buffoonery'. The Major-domo makes it plain that he who pays the piper calls the tune and that the fireworks display will begin at nine o'clock. The Composer wants a last-minute rehearsal with the violinists, but they are playing during dinner. The soprano who is to sing Ariadne is not available to go through her aria; the tenor cast as Vacchus objects to his wig.

There is typical backstage chaos. Seeing the attractive Zerbinetta and inquiring who she is, the composer is told by the Music Master that she is leader of the commedia dell'arte group which is to perform after the opera. Outraged, the Composer's wrath is turned aside when a new melody occurs to him. The Major-domo returns to announce that his master now requires both entertainments to be performed simultaneously and still to end at nine o'clock sharp.

More uproar, during which the Dancing Master suggests that the Composer should cut his opera to accommodate the harlequinade's dances. The plot of Ariadne is explained to Zerbinetta, who mocks the idea of 'languishing in passionate longing and praying for death'. To her, another lover is the answer. Zerbinetta and the Composer find they have something in common when Zerbinetta tells him 'A moment is nothing - a glance is much'.

But when he sees the comedians scampering about, he cries, 'I should not have allowed it. On the island of Naxos, where Ariadne has been abandoned by Theseus, who took her with him from Crete after she had helped him to kill the Minotaur. Ariadne is asleep, watched over by three nymphs, Naiad, Dryad and Echo. They describe her perpetual inconsolable weeping. She can think of nothing except her betrayal by Theseus and she wants death to end her suffering.

Zerbinetta and the comedians cannot believe in her desperation and Harlequin vainly tries to cheer her with a song about the joys of life. She sings of the purity of the kingdom of death and longs for Hermes to lead her there. The comedians again try to cheer her up with singing and dancing, but to no avail. Zerbinetta sends them away and tries on her own, with her long coloratura aria, the gist of which is that there are plenty of other men besides Theseus. In the middle of the aria, Ariadne goes into her cave. Zerbinetta and her troupe then enact their entertainment in which the four comedians court her.

The three nymphs excitedly announce the arrival of the young god Bacchus, who has just escaped from the sorceress Circe. At first he mistakes Ariadne for another Circe, while she mistakes him for Theseus and then Hermes. But in the duet that follows, reality takes over and Ariadne's longing for death becomes a longing for love as Bacchus becomes aware of his divinity. As passion enfolds them, Zerbinetta comments that she was right all along: Click here for the full text of the libretto. Live performance, 20 April , Weiner Staatsoper, Vienna. The musical passages are in the second part of the job, when Frank begins the auditions of the singers.

Madams Herz sings an air ranging from an initially pathetic and sentimental character to a bright conclusion, rich in virtuosities. The following air tests Mlle Silberklang. The singers determine that art can thrive with all the personal ambition only through the peaceable cooperation of all their strengths. Click here for vocal score. Cecilia Bartoli celebrates an illustrious forebear on Maria. Yet for North American audiences, Bartoli is primarily a recording artist. The Royal College of Music's world-renowned alumni are gathering to celebrate its th birthday, says Ivan Hewett.

In 10 days' time, some of Britain's starriest singers will be gathered together to sing in the same piece on the same stage. That's an amazingly unlikely event, as they have careers that keep them constantly on the move to every corner of globe. In Seattle Opera's Iphigenia in Tauris, composer Christoph Willibald Gluck and director Stephen Wadsworth spin out a slender plot into two of the most absorbing hours of opera in memory. The story is taken from Euripides, and in a brief but breathtaking prologue, the title character is rescued from the sacrificial altar by Diana, the two of them silently whooshing into the air.

As the opera opens, Iphigenia has become a priestess in far-off Tauris. Charged with the killing of two prisoners—ironically ordered to inflict upon them the fate she escaped—she agonizes over the deed until her connection to them is revealed. The New York City Opera has been particularly hospitable to Handel, but its productions come and go, often bursting onto the New York State Theater stage for a season and then disappearing.

A recently rediscovered opera written especially for Victorian music icon, Dame Nellie Melba, has its world premiere recording in Melbourne more than a century after its last performance, Minister for the Arts, Lynne Kosky, said today.

In Houston he set a record for world and American premieres and built a house - with both a and seat theater that bespeaks the commitment of that oil-rich town to the arts. Indeed, Gockley is the man who made opera grand in Houston and made the HGO a way of life in the city. And when Pamela Rosenberg departed from the San Francisco Opera after six rather unfortunate seasons, it was widely agreed that Gockley was the only person who could put the company together again and restore it to the position of prominence that it had had for well over half a century.

Gockley arrived as SFO general director just before the opening of the season and during that year he was largely the executor of plans made and laid by Rosenberg. Gockley set out to make his mark with two productions: Despite those who would yoke the composer to his own 19th-century Bayreuth stagings, it was Wagner who commanded: Or as Vick puts it: Even at the penultimate performance of the season on October 7, the production was of exuberant freshness.

Petra Lang was an appropriately seductive Venus. Veteran bass Eric Halfvarson seemed rejuvenated as the Landgraf. And Czech Stefan Margita — Walther — is clearly a tenor worth watching. Runnicles opted for the Paris version of the score with its expanded ballet, which was choreographed by Ron Howell. Completing the cast, by the way, was Alloy, a white quarter horse, who — handled by his owner Gary Sello — behaved impeccably on stage.

After making it straight-faced through a synopsis of the insubstantial yet overly complex narrative, Pfister sums up with this: Basically, the story gives the soprano reason to fret and wring her hands for three acts before drinking poison. She falls in love with the Count, but not before identifying him to his political enemies. They go after his family, and he announces that he will seek out the woman who set his enemies on his trail.

Neither character is very sympathetic, unfortunately, and the supporting cast is thin on interest or even relevance to the plot. The La Scala DVD still makes for a mildly enjoyable wallow, with its old-fashioned backdrop sets by Luisa Spinatelli, idiomatic conducting by Gianandrea Gavazzeni, and Freni singing gloriously. Alessandro Corbelli hams it up delightfully in his rather pointless little scene. This Fedora serves as a reminder that some operas live on the outskirts of the standard repertory because they really don't fit in when they make it into town. Or perhaps not remarkable at all when you take into account the considerable talents of Angelika Kirchschlager and Simon Keenlyside.

Strauss, Lehar, von Suppe,and Kalman are all well represented, of course, alongside a pair of jewels from works by Milloecker and Stolz. It is doubtful that either artist has performed all, or perhaps any of these roles in a staged production, yet each seems immersed in the material, conferring each selection with an appropriate characterization. The many waltz numbers do tend to have a certain albeit lovely aural sameness to them, but that is not the fault of the artists. And both singers show imagination and seriousness of purpose in quite successfully creating a fresh take on each piece.

Kirchschlager is idiomatic and persuasive on them, and the first does serve to bring a needed bit of cheeky variation in the material. The Tonkuenstler-Orchester Noe under the secure leadership of Alfred Eschwe is an able partner in these highly enjoyable, and eminently listenable results offering pliable phrasing, nice solo work, and solid rhythmic pulse as required. Hell, I may just play the whole thing yet again and rejoice in the guilty pleasure that two outstanding artists have perpetrated a highly infectious recording.

This production focusses on the opera as the drama of a horribly dysfunctional family. Murderous they may be, but they're still recognisably human, not stereotypes. Elektra isn't just a raving madwoman but someone with whom we can readily identify. Dressed in a hoodie and fingerless gloves, she's the punky rebel we've all encountered. That probably says something disturbing about the society in which we live, but it's all the more reason for listening to this interpretation.

The very ground beneath the singers undulates, underlining the shaky foundations of Klytemnestra's power. Holes in the floor provide burrows in which Elektra can hide, like a feral beast. Like abused children, she's had no support, and hardship has taken its toll. This production places some emphasis on social commentary. Doors open and close along barren corridors, as if the palace were a hotel.

The contemporary focus also brings out interesting secondary themes. Elektra and Chrysothemis represent completely different ways of coping with the family trauma, and by extension, illustrate the choices open to women in society. This is in the libretto and in the music, so it's not inappropriate and is not, in any case, overdone.

More developed, though, is the production's fascination with sexual ambiguity. The story wouldn't have happened in the first place if were it not for Aegisthus and Klytemnesrra having an illicit relationship, so there's clearly a sexual undercurrent. Yet Elektra's identification with her father and brother goes deeper than anger at her father's death.

The scene in which she buries the apparition of a little blond girl ties in psychologically with her revulsion at being touched by Orestes and the frisson with which she imagines her sister's marriage. Her kind of madness would have fascinated Freud, and the wordly circles in which Strauss moved.

But what do we make of the naked young men who flit across the stage in suspender belts and lipstick? Or the butch mistress who manages the maidservants? Or Aegisthus with so much rouge? Definitely these things contribute to the idea of a court where aberration rules, but the scene in which half the cast turns up in feather tutus is a bit beyond me. It's certainly spectacular, though, and a visual release after all that repression.

Eva Johanssen convinces as this conflicted Elektra because she's a good actress, the subtlety of her portrayal captured better on film through close-ups and quick cuts than would come over in stage performance. Vocally, her range is more restricted, but this is not a role that requires prettiness. Just as Elektra had to hold out alone for years, awaiting vengeance, Johanssen's part heroically supports the whole opera. She creates the character even when she's not actually singing. She uses the natural roundness in her voice to balance the harshness inherent in the role. Klytemnestra has bad dreams, so she does have a conscience, not at that far from the surface.

In comparison, Deiner, Muff and Schasching have relatively straight forward parts. The dialogues, such as between the sisters, and later when Elektra faces off Aegisthus, come over clearly. A pleasant surprise was Sen Gou. It's probably back handed compliment to single out one of the maids in a chorus, but her role is more important than it might seem, for she's the maid who defends Elektra when all the others condemn her. Sen Gou's personality and singing definitely stood out. I also liked the orchestral playing, for Dohnanyi's lucid style did not submerge the spartan angularities in the music.

Even when he's evoking the wild abandon of the final dance, his clear vision respects the modernity in Strauss's orchestration. Grant and Robert E. Lee that seemingly ended the Civil War. Glass counterpoints this historic event with the massacre of black militia by Louisiana racists in , the murder of civil rights worker Jimmie Lee Jackson by Alabama State Troopers in and the hate-filled words of Edgar Ray Killen, the Klan member convicted only in for his role involved in the slaughter of a trio of civil rights workers 40 years earlier.

Never has so much blood been drained. And Grant and Lee, portrayed here as men of dignity, moral stature and generous spirit, are determined that the conflict that took over , lives should be the last war. Grant is sung by bass Andrew Shore, Lee by bass baritone Dwayne Croft and Lincoln by bass Jeremy Galyon, low voices all that underscore the sorrow of the tale as Glass tells it.

In this ahistoric age Grant and Lee are little more than cardboard cutouts on the distant horizon of fourth-grade history. Grant, although unkempt, scruffy and fresh from battle, is not the bumpkin as which he is often portrayed, and Lee is every inch a Southern gentleman and aristocrat. The respect of the two men for each other — and their shared concern for their mission — is genuine. It is they who see the inhuman dimension of the war and lament its consequences.

Impressive also is the ability that Glass has now developed to make words fully comprehensible — even without resorting to the titles now traditional everywhere. So if you go very high with the voice it becomes difficult to understand the words. One thing most will learn from the opera is that Appomattox Court House is not the seat of local government that the name commonly implies, but rather an entire small town, in which the generals met in the living room of Wilmer McLean.

It is — literally — a cutting-edge expression of the nature of war. On the other hand, for the destruction of Richmond he takes his cues from Cecil B. This is not to say that this is a perfect work; the chorus of black Union soldiers, for example, should be shortened.

To measure him by the ruler defined by Mozart ignores the originality of a man who has contributed to every known genre and — in his collaborations with poet Allen Ginsberg and his operas built upon Jean Cocteau films, to mention only two examples — he has created some of his own. It is thus his first SFO commission. We all know that it's not safe to go to the movies, or the opera house, for a history lesson. Instead, for the price of admission, we expect to be transported to somewhere beyond our day-to-day world.

In the spring of , I made the questionable decision to start a blog. I reserved a dot-com address, signed up for an Internet-for-dummies service called Typepad, and, to the delight of more than a dozen compulsively Googling insomniacs around the world, began adding dribs and drabs to the graphomaniac ocean of the Web. One of the things that makes "The Magic Flute" so difficult to pull off is that Mozart's late opera begins as a comic-book fairy tale and then takes on philosophical weight - not always convincingly - as it goes along.

Those first shows had been well received both domestically and internationally, with some outstanding singing from Maite Beaumont, Inga Kalna and David DQ Lee. Also retained from the previous cast were baritone Florian Boesch, required to play the tyrant Tiridate as a ridiculously pantomime villain, bass Tim Mirfin as an elderly King Farasmane, and Hellen Kwon as Prince Tigrane. Christiane Karg stood in at only 3 days notice to play Fraarte. Handelian purists would be best advised to avoid this production where tragedy is degraded to vaudeville, and odd conflations of the plot make an already complex story dramatically questionable.

Yet there were vocal highlights that rose above this mish-mash of directorial conceits and bland playing, and they included the strong dramatic singing of Boesch, who could colour his upstanding baritone from cooing suitor to bombastic tyrant with ease, the precise and pleasing coloratura of Kwon, not a natural baroque singer, who warmed to her task in the later acts. Most impressive of all was the beautifully articulated, warmly sensuous singing of David DQ Lee as the much-troubled Radamisto.

October 30, 2007

Se mi dai vita and he achieved neatly executed divisions whilst convincing entirely with his acting. Ifkovits [AFP, 10 October ]. The reasons are clear: Donizetti and his librettist, Cammarano, were stage-wise pros and their work, boiled down from a verbose Walter Scott novel, is a tight dramatic ship as well as tunefully irresistible. The sextet has been called the most famous ensemble in opera, but it does not come from nowhere — it bursts logically from a nervous situation, and the scene that follows propels the excitement to a teetering high.

Coloraturas prove themselves on the Fountain Scene and the Mad Scene, but the latter, too, is the logical result of all that has gone before.

The Tomb Scene that follows may be anticlimactic, but its beauty has lured many a great tenor to attempt to steal the show. The Met has always loved Lucia; every notable Lucia of the last years has sung it there. The era has been warped to the late nineteenth century for no obvious reason, though it does permit Natalie Dessay to wear a tight Empress Sisi riding habit in Act I and glamorous red silk in Act II. I thought the Ashtons were strapped for money?

The director is Mary Zimmerman, who like so many tyros brought in by the Gelb regime, has never staged an opera before. Her theater skills are evident, but also her unfamiliarity with the form. In bel canto opera, singing is the primary focus — everything else seems secondary because it is secondary. Beautiful music is where the drama occurs, and such acting as may occur should support that. That is the message someone should have explained to Zimmerman when she grew impatient — as, alas, she did — with moments, minutes, of mere music.

It will puzzle anyone who knows Lucia why any director would upstage the famous sextet, but that is what Zimmerman has done by introducing a new character — a fussy society photographer — who is busily placing people for a Victorian wedding photo, so that instead of a tragic crisis, we have a giggly skit. Very funny, but why is it here? Does Zimmerman think this is a comic opera? Three new corpses for Six Feet Under , perhaps? Zimmerman obliges us to choose between paying attention to her or paying attention to the opera, which is just what I object to about new wave opera directors.

Only those who know it, and force themselves to ignore the stage. Again, when Raimondo, beautifully sung by John Relyea, admonishes Lucia to accept her fate in an aria often cut, many people may not notice because a bunch of servants behind him are changing the Act II set from scene 1 to scene 2. Too, if Lucia and Arturo are seen mounting the staircase at the beginning of what will become the Mad Scene, they have less than two minutes for Lucia to go mad, find a knife, stab him 23 times, drench herself in blood, and be discovered before Raimondo rushes back to the hall with the news.

The singing, at least with this cast, is too good for this.

404 Not Found

At the October 5 performance, two weeks after the premiere, the star was certainly Dessay, and it was a performance of the role not of the music alone, the vocalism never divorced from the neurotic girl giving way under emotional pressure. But edge can be good in the theater; in time it can become custom: There were charges of tastelessness when Sutherland, fifty years ago, became the first Lucia to have blood on her dress at all. Lucia has always submitted to one strong-willed man or another.

October 31, 2007

Going murderously mad is her way of fighting back. None of the men expect this, and with so petite and in Act II pallid a Lucia, it is especially unsettling. Someone should advise the Alisa, Michaela Martens, that it is not good form to drown out the diva at an act finale. She may be more thrilling to see than to hear. As Edgardo, Marcello Giordani sang with a liquid tenor thriving on the duet with Dessay and, best of all, his morbid double-aria in the final scene. John Relyea, as Raimondo, turned in the best-judged performance for the style of the music and the even flow of line.

Young Stephen Costello, the hapless Arturo, has an exciting sound that has aroused comment, but his high notes were not without strain. Yet in presenting this recital the baritone Thomas Hampson used the opportunity to explore literature that is rarely heard in concert and less often preserved in recordings of this quality. The program includes settings by such composers as Edward MacDowell , Charles Loeffler , and Charles Tomlinson Griffes , as well as European composers who took inspiration in American verse, including Frank Bridge , Ralph Vaughan Williams , Paul Hindemith , and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco Yet it is of interest to know that verse by Tennessee Williams was set by the polymath Paul Bowles in his Blue Mountain Ballads, a seldom cycle seldom heard and performed convincingly by Hampson in this recording.

The challenge of setting such strong writers as Whitman and Dickinson is to avoid introducing musical elements that detract from the rhythm and intonation in their texts, and the listener can determine how effective the various composers are in this regard. While it is easy to praise some of the more famous composers, like Vaughan Williams and Hindemith, the value of this collection is in the range of composers represented.

Many of the figures may be, for some listeners, names on a list whose music is not immediately familiar. Thus, in addition to individuals like Bowles, it is useful to hear works by such fine composers as Hugo Weisgall , Henry Thacker Burleigh , Ernst Bacon , and others included in this recital program.

In addition, the familiar has its place, with the selections from the music of Stephen Foster and John Jacob Niles contributing an almost iconic sense to this recording. By no means encyclopedic in presenting American song, some composers, like Copland, Blitzstein, and Bernstein are notably absent, but their vocal works are known well enough through various recordings. Nevertheless, the settings of e. At the same time the selections in this recording also call to mind the songs of other contemporary composers, like William Bolcom, who represent other American voices.

As to the performances themselves, the dynamic of the live recital emerges effectively in this recording, which includes some spoken passages by Hampson. His delivery is solid and deliberate, his phrasing well-thought and insightful. In rendering a range of pieces by a variety of composers, Hampson offers some persuasive interpretations that both accompanists support well.

The contribution of Hampson and his associations in I Hear America Singing certainly opens the door for further explorations of the rich poetic and musical traditions that will allow other performers and their audiences to enjoy the musical creativity of generations of artists. And the fact that his works were published in Wittenberg is also ample evidence of their attractiveness to the Reformed world.

It survives in as many as eleven sources. For good measure, the anthology also adds a Magnificat in alternatim and a Requiem introit. The Josquin Capella brings to their performances a high sense of style. The ensemble sound is lean, the bass particularly rich, and the expressive palette given to dynamic nuance. There is an occasional feeling of pitch sag here and there—not in actuality, but in impression--as the darkness of the timbre seems to weigh the pitch down.

But the expressive beauty of the singing is the most lingering impression, and for that this recording is unusually fine. When it comes to the interpretation of the work, Eschenbach can be at times overtly demonstrative. Near the opening of the first movement Mahler moves from the first theme to the second, more lyrical one, the transition to the second theme seems to be paced a bit cautiously, and this almost anticipates the slower tempo in advance.

Opera Today: October Archives

It is as if the score were intended for the stage, where the dramatic elements must at times be prominent. That stated, it is not entirely unwelcome to hear the kind differentiation that Eschenbach offers later in the movement, since such an approach is useful when it comes to distinguishing the elements in this score that some criticize for being less individualized than the content of the works surrounding it, that is, the Fifth and Seventh Symphonies.

Perhaps it is a misnomer to treat these three works as a unit, when the are distinct compositions that deserve to be treated on their own terms.

With the second movement, in this performance, the Scherzo, Eschenbach starts with almost the same tempo as the first movement. As a result, the details are clear from the start, and a sense of delicacy characterizes the music. This stands apart from performances of the Scherzo that are more driven and result in a harsher style of playing.

The appoggiatura works well with Eschenbach, because he does not overemphasize it, and the timpani strokes that color the theme later in the movement do not predominate when they occur. This movement shows an exemplary reading on the part of the Philadelphia Orchestra, which benefits from a strong sense of ensemble to make the score seem to emerge natural from the group. Eschenbach chose to follow the Scherzo with the Andante, and such a position is contrary to recent thought on the movement order of this work.

Mahler originally intended the inner movements of the Sixth Symphony to occur in the order Eschenbach used, but Mahler reversed them in the revised edition of the work and in all the performances he conducted. It would seem that his final thoughts on the order would be those, but the critical edition that was published in the early s and treated as authoritative for a generation of musicians had the inner movements in the original order.

Yet with the Finale found on the second of two CDs, the transition is not as immediate as if it occurred as the next track or on a single CD. If the latter part of the slow movement is somewhat hesitant, such lingering on various sonorities is not without interest for the fine sonorities the Philadelphia Orchestra delivers.

By the end of the movement, the sense of timelessness pervades the performance, without some of the tautness that occurs with other readings of the score. The Finale brings the listener back to the milieu of the first movement, and Eschenbach delivers a straightforward interpretation of the movement. On this recording the sonics reinforce the various orchestral effects that Mahler used to support the musical structure.

The telling point for some can be the coda, which benefits from understatement, so that the sonorities act hand-in-glove with the melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic ideas, all fine-tuned by the articulations — the resulting effect is unique in orchestral literature. With a single movement placed on the second CD, it is useful to find an additional work included with this recording. Becko was a Walloon engineer, one of the few Walloons able to speak acceptable Dutch, and at the end of his too short life the owner of a magnificent collection of I know several collectors who had to deal with Becko and he was not one to sell cheap or to be generous to other members of the tribe.

Anyway his wife and daughter sold the collection in its entirety to De koning Boudewijn king Baldwin in English and not Baudouin as they always mistakenly call themselves Foundation which handed the treasure to the Koninklijke Bibliotheek Royal Library at the Kunstberg in Brussels where appropriate measures will be taken to make it accessible.

The two CDs contain 60 interesting records and nowhere, not in the liner notes, not on the sleeve, can one find a date. Granted it is not always easy to have an exact date of recording but The Record Collector has proven for almost 60 years that with some research one can come near. Now we get an acoustic followed by an electric followed by a cylinder followed by an acetate etc. The booklet is very luxuriously illustrated with many photographs but the notes themselves are far from interesting.

Though a lot of the singers are very obscure, there are no biographical details. Nevertheless page after page is devoted to Mr. Becko do we really have to know he liked Tony Poncet? Maybe this kind of non-information was a condition imposed by the family. A small essay on Belgian singers during the shellac days is just an enumeration of names. The koning Boudewijn Foundation is one of the last curiosities pretending that Belgium should stay as it is, denying the huge cleft on every issue between Flemings and Walloons.

Therefore the Foundation should take care not to publish an essay that is offensive to one of two peoples. Lemmers should finally know and acknowledge that Dutch is the language of Flanders; Flemish being a dialect known from Dunkirk in France to Middelburg in the Netherlands but not in the former duchy of Brabant where I am living though it is the heart of nowadays Flanders. I can assure Mr. Lemmers that the non-French selections on the CDs are sung in excellent Dutch, understood by everybody from Amsterdam to Brussels. This condescending attitude results in some mistakes as well.

Happily for the American collector, this will pale against the treasures to be found on these CDs. The transfers are excellent, pitched during long hours of work by my friend a Walloon, would you believe it? Georges is a teacher of physics and a talented amateur-baritone, using the score, a piano and his gut feeling when pitching. He takes such care that, not being a shellac guy myself, he succeeded in instilling doubts in me when listening to some selections.

Was Blouse Flemish or Walloon? The producers Lemmers, Couvreur, Cardol sold the idea of these CDs to the Foundation by telling them that it was an overview of Belgian singers and then they picked out recordings of some of the most rare and interesting singers in the Becko collection, a lot of them French. But with others we are in for a surprise: Tenor Charles Fontaine has a whole CD, produced by Georges Cardol for his friends only lucky me but deserves to have an issue widely available.

And I admire them for including items by great names, even if the singing is less than great but now at last we can judge for ourselves if we appreciate the dry tone of Georges Imbart de la Tour or Georgette Leblanc. For 15 Euros this is a bargain and I hope these CDs will sell well. Take care to ask for the English language version. Welcome is the news that other labels will be allowed to mine the Becko collection too. Now available on DVD, as well as on CDs that were issued in the s, it will certainly draw a new audience to the sensuous world of seventeenth-century Venetian opera.

Cavalli was the leading composer of opera in Venice during the s, and Calisto which premiered in November finds him at the height of his powers. Calisto, a female devotee of the goddess Diana, and her pursuer, Jove; and Diana herself, and the shepherd Endymion. As a follower of Diana, Calisto has rejected carnal relations with men; as a result, in order to win her affection, Jove disguises himself as Diana, and Calisto willingly follows him in that guise to enjoy carnal pleasure. According to the myth, Calisto is transformed into a bear, and will later ascend to the firmament as the constellation Ursa Minor.

The Jacobs production, directed by the late Herbert Wernicke, is built around a set that displays allegorical representations of the constellations; most strikingly, at the conclusion of the opera the set darkens, the stars become visible, and Calisto ascends to take her place in the heavens. The three walls of the set remain constant throughout the opera; most of the characters enter and leave through trap doors, or, in the case of the gods, descend from the heavens.

Another visually stunning moment finds the parched Calisto whose thirst derives from the environmental devastation brought about by the fiery fall of Phaeton relishing an immense silvery fabric that represents the stream created by Jove at the beginning of the first act.

Wernicke further exploited themes of comedy and vulgarity through graffiti both sexually explicit and more generic and a number of stage actions. This presents two options in performance: Jacobs and Wernicke chose the first option, and this decision inevitably governed many other aspects of the opera. One other comic element in the production continues a practice that Raymond Leppard initiated in his first performances of Calisto in the s.

Calisto has been the subject of a good deal of academic research in recent years. Brown provides the most thorough discussion of the history of the opera and its performing issues heretofore available, along with a complete version of the libretto in Italian and English. The fifty-four-minute documentary concerning the making of the production should certainly be viewed, whether before or after watching the performance of the opera.

The cast is top notch. Count Opizio orders a new opera to be written within the space of four days. The composer has already turned out the score, but the poet, suffering from deadline pressure, must adapt his verses to the existing music. Eleonora, the prima donna hired for the opera by the Count, enters and delivers a sample of her vocal artistry.

Eleonora exits, and the librettist and the composer wrestle with the problem of writing a new text for the existing music or producing music for an existing text. A lengthy dispute ensues. Tonina, representing opera buffa , enters and demands a role in the new opera. The composer and the librettist quickly concoct a vocal number for her.

The scene culminates in having both sing their arias simultaneously. The composer and the librettist are able to pacify the two ladies by agreeing to a juxtaposition of the seria and buffa styles, thereby putting a conciliatory end to their quarrel. Click here for score. Sir Charles Mackerras is looking disgustingly spry. Particularly for someone who will celebrate his 82nd birthday by conducting not one, but two, series of concerts this month at the Opera House.

At his only concert, the Spanish tenor presented his new programme titled "Mediterranean Passion" that featured exclusively love songs from the operas by Puccini and Ravel. Opera fans are pondering this question, as the opening date — this Saturday — for Seattle Opera's "Iphigenia in Tauris," the company's first co-production with the Metropolitan Opera of New York, draws closer.

Terminally corny or spiritually uplifting? Kate Royal is one of the most ballyhooed young singers in the world right now. And, thank goodness, there's something to ballyhoo. She is an English soprano, in her late 20s. She recently graced the cover of Gramophone magazine, a bible of classical-music recordings.

Shopping Cart

She is that kind of singer: In fact, there's a little — I said a little — of Catherine Zeta-Jones in her. Mozart's "Marriage of Figaro" has a large cast, but the most important performer of all is the conductor: He's the one who drives, controls, and shapes the opera. He is the spirit on which the opera depends if you leave out Mozart and his librettist, Da Ponte. A pregnant Susanna being chased by the Count and flirted with by Cherubino would have given the story a different spin.

At the same time Albert Ayler and John Coltrane were exploring the outer limits of free jazz, and Jefferson Airplane combining psychedelics and folk-rock, amateur ensembles with krummhorns, sackbuts, shawms, and other dead instruments were reviving centuries of forgotten repertoire from Machaut onwards. Early music managed to be cutting edge by going deep into music which had been only of interest to historians, and transgressive by suggesting that this music and the music which followed did not belong only to its self-anointed priesthood, which seemed to be only mumbling half-understood inherited formulas, with no sense of the enlivening spirit within.

Collection Baccara Band How to write a great review. The review must be at least 50 characters long. The title should be at least 4 characters long. Your display name should be at least 2 characters long. At Kobo, we try to ensure that published reviews do not contain rude or profane language, spoilers, or any of our reviewer's personal information. You submitted the following rating and review. We'll publish them on our site once we've reviewed them. Item s unavailable for purchase.

Please review your cart. You can remove the unavailable item s now or we'll automatically remove it at Checkout. Continue shopping Checkout Continue shopping. Chi ama i libri sceglie Kobo e inMondadori. Unsere Angebote des Tages. Buy the eBook Price: Available in Russia Shop from Russia to buy this item. In this series Book Ratings and Reviews 0 0 star ratings 0 reviews.

• Die Fünfundvierzig (German Edition)
• Barrons SAT Math Workbook
• Collision Course
• Examination of Conscience for Teenagers
• Labrador Puppy Training: The Ultimate Guide on Labrador Puppies, What to Do When You Bring Home Your