OPERA's recent Discs of the Month, on CD and DVD

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OPERA's recent Discs of the Month, on CD and DVD
16th June, 2008

APRIL 2008
The Excursions of Mr Broucek, Janácek (CD)
Rodney Milnes

Maria Haan (Málinka/Etherea/Kunka), Martina Bauerová (Young Waiter/Child Prodigy/Student), Lenka Smídová (Kedruta), Jan Vacík (Mr Broucek), Peter Straka (Mazal/Azurean/Petrík), Ivan Kusnjer (Svatopluk Cech/Second Taborite), Jaroslav Brezina (Painter/Rainbow Glory/Voice of the Peacocks/Voice of the Professor), Ales Briscein (Composer/Harper/Miroslav the Goldsmith), Edward Goater (Poet), Roman Janál (Sacristan/Lunigrove/Domsik), Zdenek Plech (Würfl/Wonderglitter/Councillor), Václav Sibera (Poet/Cloudy/Vacek Bradaty), Christopher Bowen (Poet), Charles Gibbs (First Taborite), BBC Singers, BBC Symphony Orchestra, c. Jirí Belohlávek. Deutsche Grammophon 00289 477 7387 (two CDs)

This is not the easiest of Janácek’s operas to assimilate: it is more specifically Czech in subject-matter and treatment than any of the others—even Jenufa—and in the second part it is certainly an advantage to know your Taborites from your Hussites (I don’t). Yet I wager it is the only opera in which our very own John Wycliffe gets a mention. And it is difficult (perhaps it is meant to be) to decode Janácek’s attitude to his beery protagonist, to the lunar aesthetes he mocks, and to the unthinking religious fervour and patriotism of 1420, especially in the context of the explosion of artistic activity in the dying years of the Habsburg empire and emergence of the Czechoslovak state at the time of the opera’s premiere (1920): it is dedicated to President Masaryk. Does the composer love or despise Broucek? Both, I suppose, and either way the rentier with a house of three storeys and no mortgage is as much a Bohemian archetype as the Good Soldier Svejk.

In the face of a recording as superlative as this, there is little reason or indeed time to worry about such things—one is too busy being bowled over by the lyricism and the prodigious inventiveness of the score. The Barbican concert performance from which it is taken garnered much praise from Andrew Porter in last year’s May issue (pp. 586-7): praise for Belohlávek, for the almost entirely Czech cast, and for the superb playing of the BBC Symphony Orchestra—the performance must have been exhaustively if not exhaustingly rehearsed. The recorded sound is excellent, full, absolutely clear and with ideal balance between singers and orchestra. The closing bars of the first act in the 15th century with thunderous organ and bells can only be described as a coup de son. The wide-ranging colour of Janá?cek’s orchestration—gloriously pungent woodwind—is unfailingly caught. The libretto of the Moon episode is famously chaotic, but you can just forget the words, sit back and revel in the intoxicating dance rhythms and brilliant orchestral textures.

The cast can scarcely be faulted. Jan Vacík’s heroically-voiced Broucek is full of character, yet when given the opportunity he sings with delicacy and musicianship. Maybe Peter Straka’s tone is little too strident for the Moon poet, but he sings the love music with Maria Haan's Málinka succulently; she, too, can get a little steely above the stave when under pressure. But like all the cast, they enunciate the text with welcome clarity, as do the BBC Singers and the non-Czech singers in small roles. Roman Janál and Zdenek Plech bring bags of ‘face’ to their various assignments, and the only slight disappointment is the strident and wobbly Svatopluk Cech, a brief but crucial role, and one so memorably taken by John Mitchinson in Colin Graham’s 1978 ENO production (and later by Alberto Remedios). Only a minor blemish on a stunning recording.

(c) 2008

MARCH 2008
Jonas Kaufmann—Romantic Arias (CD)
Richard Fairman

Arias from La Bohème, Carmen, Martha, Tosca, Don Carlos, Der Freischütz, La traviata, Manon, Rigoletto, Faust, Die Meistersinger, La Damnation de Faust and Werther. Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, c. Marco Armiliato. Decca 475 9966 (one CD)

It is fortunate for Jonas Kaufmann that the search for the ‘fourth tenor’ seems to have been abandoned since the precipitate fuss over Roberto Alagna, José Cura and Rolando Villazón. Kaufmann has been left to follow his path largely undisturbed, though singing opposite Anna Netrebko will probably have put an end to that. He is surely destined to be the leading German tenor of his generation—a successor to Siegfried Jerusalem in the Wagner stakes?—but at the moment is enjoying the freedom to sing a wider repertory while he can.

Just as this disc arrived for review, his first shot at Don José in the Royal Opera House’s recent new production of Carmen was being televised. He sings ‘La fleur que tu m’avais jetée’ in this recital, opening with a dreamy soft tone that sets the mood nicely and gradually building his warm, brooding tenor up to full throttle. These are the characteristics that distinguish him from the competition today. His Des Grieux, though not completely at ease in the high opening phrases of ‘Ah! fuyez, douce image’, is a big-house portrayal, rising powerfully to a passionate climax. As Faust—both Gounod’s (a soft, not quite perfectly controlled top C in ‘Salut! demeure chaste et pure’) and Berlioz’s—he is able to be at once tender and grand.

In Italian opera he could perhaps do with a brighter, more open sound. His Duke in Rigoletto sings with impressive ardour in ‘Parmi veder le lagrime’, though the voice loses its focus slightly at less than full volume and there is no cabaletta; and his unusually dark-toned Alfredo in La traviata misses something of the character’s youthful buoyancy, but the cabaletta is present this time, sung with muscle and the bare minimum of definition in the groups of semiquavers. He proves to be best suited here to Don Carlos and the two Puccini arias, in which the rich, Germanic warmth of his tenor is heard to fine effect and there is some gloriously burnished singing.

Despite all this, the big interest of this disc lies in the German operas. His ‘Durch die Wälder’ from Der Freischütz could hardly be bettered today, and the Prize Song gives us the first glimpse of Kaufmann on disc in Die Meistersinger, which he essayed in concert at the Edinburgh Festival in 2006. Here is surely a Walther set to win first prize, starting out dreamily as if in a trance of inspiration and ending with a ringing series of easy top notes that must be the envy of other aspiring tenors in this repertoire. The Prague Philharmonic Orchestra is not among the world’s best, but Marco Armiliato supports his soloist convincingly throughout. Kaufmann himself is no tenor of promise. This is the finished article.

(c) 2008

JANUARY 2008
Voices: Inga Nielsen (CD)
George Loomis

Scenes and arias from Athalia, Idomeneo, Fidelio, Lucia di Lammermoor, La traviata, Faust, Manon, Tannhäuser, Die Frau ohne Schatten, Elektra, Die lustige Witwe, Showboat, Stabat Mater (Pergolesi); Erwartung; songs by Reger, Brahms, Strauss, Nielsen, MacGimsey and Fraser-Simson; concert aria ‘Ch’io mi scordi di te’ (Mozart). Various orchestras, conductors and pianists. Chandos 10444 (two CDs)

I count it my loss that I have heard Inga Nielsen only once, in a 2000 concert performance of Carl Nielsen’s Saul and David in Salzburg, despite an international career that has taken her from Denmark to most of the world’s leading opera houses (though not the Metropolitan). She was named Kongelig Kammersanger in 1998, one of only two currently active singers (Stig Andersen is the other) to hold the title. The Nielsen opera is not represented here, nor are two of her most famous portrayals, Constanze and Salome (both available on DVD). But these live and studio recordings, from 1952 (sic) to 2007, embrace a staggering range of material. A couple of peripheral items might just as well be mentioned first because of the light they shed on her artistry. Jerome Kern’s ‘Can’t help lovin’ dat man’ (Showboat) is entirely free of operatic stiltedness; she delivers the dialect without a hint of a foreign accent and with such natural ease that you’re hardly aware of it. She obviously learned the habits of good singing early: three songs were recorded before she reached age ten. Nine-year-old Inga’s rendition of Harold Fraser-Simson’s ‘Christopher Robin is saying his prayers’, flawless in pitch and English diction, is a real charmer.

In Salzburg I was impressed by the luminous clarity of the voice and the precision of her singing, qualities much in evidence here. You sense that she has thought about how every note should go, yet the result never sounds mannered or over-interpreted. And she seems to know no linguistic limits. Lucia’s Mad Scene, sung with pristine legato at a daringly slow tempo and with a sensible cadenza (rather than the usual rubbish with flute), has real pathos. Violetta’s ‘Dite alla giovine’ scores for similar reasons. Elettra’s ‘Tutto nel cor vi sento’ teems with controlled energy. And, paired with Plácido Domingo, she proves herself to be quite the captivating Manon in the duet from the St Sulpice scene.

As her career progressed, she took on heavier roles. ‘Dich teure Halle’ is a bit of a stretch, but the voice has the right silvery quality for the Empress’s big Act 2 scene, as well as for ‘Im Abendrot’ (Four Last Songs). She repeats here her Covent Garden success with Erwartung, which benefits handsomely from the femininity of the voice as well as her scrupulous musicianship. A fine and thorough tribute to a splendid singer.

(c) 2008

DECEMBER 2007
Juan Diego Flórez—Arias for Rubini (CD)
Patrick O'Connor

Arias from Bianca e Fernando, La donna del lago, Elisabetta, regina d’Inghilterra, Guglielmo Tell, Marino Faliero, Il pirata, Il turco in Italia. Chorus and Orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, c. Roberto Abbado. Decca 475 9079 (one CD)

The title is slightly misleading: not all these arias were composed for Giovanni Battista Rubini (1794-1854), the ‘King of tenors’, although he almost certainly sang them all. Rubini studied with Andrea Nozzari, one of Rossini’s favourite singers in Naples, and the first Leicester in Elisabetta, regina d’Inghilterra. Rubini took the other tenor lead, Norfolk, in an 1820 revival, conducted by the composer. In this substantial extract, Flórez suggests the split personality of the treacherous Duke.

Rossini did not compose any roles specifically for Rubini, but for the 1825 Paris production of La donna del lago he rewrote the cavatina ‘Tu sorda ai miei lamenti’. This has been reconstructed by Philip Gossett specially for this first ever recording of the aria, including some of Rubini’s own ornamentation. It is a lovely piece, with a beautiful ‘weeping’ string figure in the accompaniment, depicting the Scottish King James’s passion for the heroine. Narciso in Il turco in Italia—Rubini sang in a revival at Her Majesty’s as late as 1841—is more the sort of role we associate with Flórez, and he brings a good deal of charm to the slow aria in which the boy hopes for his dream to come true, the florid section that follows having the usual opportunities for show-off high notes. We have come to expect a heavier voice for the role of Arnold in Guillaume Tell, but Flórez makes a tremendous impression in ‘O muto asil’ (Rubini sang it in Italian in London in 1839) and the rousing call to arms that follows, marred very slightly by him clinging on to the final note just a bit too long for comfort.

Both Bellini and Donizetti composed several roles for Rubini, and perhaps the best thing on the disc is Flórez’s melting account of ‘All’udir del padre afflito’ from Bianca e Fernando. Rubini sang in both versions of this neglected work. It’s a bit of a jolt to hear the soldiers’ chorus preparing their weapons to the same tune as Bellini later used for the Druids in Norma. (The cabaletta also has a distinct pre-echo of the finale from Beatrice di Tenda.) Flórez is also excellent in the big scene for Gualtiero in Il pirata; again, we think of this as a role for Corelli or Labo, and whether or not Flórez would attempt it on stage, he makes a suitably anguished pirate. Surprisingly, he does not essay ‘Vivi tu’ from Anna Bolena, the sole piece by Donizetti being ‘Di mia patria o bel soggiorno’ from Marino Faliero. This was encored every night during the first series of performances in Paris in 1835, when Donizetti wrote, ‘Rubini sang as I’ve never heard him’. Roberto Abbado accompanies throughout with a fine sense of urgency. This is an exceptionally well-planned recital, and one of the best things Flórez has done so far. There are of course two Rubini roles that he was born to sing, and has already appeared in on stage: Elvino in La sonnambula and Arturo in I puritani. DVDs to come?

(c) 2007

OCTOBER 2007
Moses und Aron, Schoenberg (DVD)
George Hall

Ildikó Raimondi (Young Girl), Janina Baechle (Sick Woman), Ileana Tonca, Ildikó Raimondi, Cornelia Salje, Margareta Hintermeier (Naked Virgins), Thomas Moser (Aron), Peter Jelosits (Young Man/Youth), Johann Reinprecht (Naked Youth), Morten Frank Larsen (Another Man), Georg Tichy (Ephraimite), Franz Grundheber (Moses), Alexandru Moisiuc (Priest), Jens Musger, Johannes Gisser, Jeong-Ho Kim (Elders), Slovak Philharmonic Chorus, Chorus and Orchestra of the Vienna Staatsoper, c. Daniele Gatti, p. Reto Nickler, d. Wolfgang Gussmann and Susana Mendoza, video director Claus Viller. Arthaus 101 259 (134 minutes)

Schoenberg’s incomplete opera is presented here in a staging from the Vienna Staatsoper (2006) by Reto Nickler, who inherited the set designs after an indisposed Willy Decker withdrew. Whatever the circumstances, he did a remarkable job. The work’s origins lay in oratorio, and Nickler capitalizes on rather than capitulates to the relatively static nature of much of the result. The chorus and the central duo are dressed sombrely for most of the action, though the suitcases they initially carry, presumably at that point defining them as Jewish refugees of Schoenberg’s own period, turn out to contain the glad-rags they put on to celebrate their orgiastic worship of the golden calf. The miracles are shown on a pillar made up of video screens. At the back of the stage, the people write the word ICH, which later expands to ICH BIN GOTT in vast letters, brought on stage at the height of the celebration of the false idol. At its blood-soaked climax this scene is accompanied by further videos on a larger bank of screens featuring cruel and violent acts (though also, for some reason, chest surgery), as well as scenes of conspicuous consumption (including the Vienna Opera Ball). Aspects of contemporary celebrity culture are highlighted when the people, dressed ostentatiously in gold or related colours, take photographs of what they see on screen on their mobile phones.

It’s a striking modern parallel to the original presentation laid out in Schoenberg’s libretto, and works well in the context. The chorus’s movement, too, is here as impressive as its singing. The two main protagonists are both strong. In Franz Grundheber’s fierce and fiery Sprechgesang Moses emerges as solitary though determined, painfully aware of his moral and religious duty yet also of his inarticulacy. It’s a performance of considerable stature and conviction. Thomas Moser’s hefty tenor empowers Aron’s smoother, more palatable and often genuinely lyrical lines. In the pit Daniele Gatti delivers an account of the score that gives it a vivid sense of theatricality and displays its fascinating orchestral textures to their advantage. All in all, this is a remarkably successful attempt on one of the toughest nuts of 20th-century opera.

(c) 2007

SEPTEMBER 2007
Carlos Alvarez—Quijotes (CD)
Max Loppert

El retablo de Maese Pedro (Falla): Xavier Olaz Moratinos (El trujamán), Eduardo Santamaria (Maese Pedro), Carlos Alvarez (Don Quijote). Plus songs by Ibert and Ravel; Una aventura de Don Quijote (Guridi). Orquesta de la Comunidad de Madrid, c. José Ramón Encinar. DG 0028947630944 (one CD)

Carlos Alvarez, Malaga-born, in his early 40s, is a celebrated singer in his native land. While in my view he abundantly merits a place among the world’s leading operatic baritones, the same hasn’t quite happened beyond Spanish borders. In spite of regular appearances in most of the world’s leading houses, the front-rank international stature to which his abundant gifts should entitle him hasn’t yet been fully secured—nor, though he has figured in Mozart DVDs and CDs of zarzuelas and of operas by Gomes and Albéniz, as well as on a couple of recital discs, has his regular presence in the recording studio.

Maybe the publication of this richly rewarding DG disc devoted to four different musical ‘glimpses’ of Cervantes’s Don Quixote will alter the situation. As it demonstrates afresh, the voice is of wholly remarkable quality: dark (in ideal terms perhaps too dark for the Verdi roles in Alvarez’s repertory, but since these are starvation days for lovers of Verdi baritone singing one would have to be mad to niggle over the point), evenly distributed, possessed of an excitingly individual timbre that is nevertheless recognizably Iberian, also bulk and manoeuvrability at the extremes of his compass, and a general quality, easy to spot if less easy to define, of magnetism. He’s a powerful artist, and a sensitive, interesting one, as the disc also demonstrates.

The key work here—not least because it stands as one of the greatest tributes ever paid in one artistic medium to a masterpiece in a different one—is Falla’s puppet opera, which in the tiny space of 25 perfectly achieved minutes conjures up the ‘whole world’ of Cervantes’s literary colossus. Outside Spain, where the novel forms the core of every school syllabus, it’s unlikely that El retablo de maese Pedro could ever gain the degree of recognition, not to say reverence, it deserves: too much background knowledge is required of an audience, too close a familiarity with the larger outlines of the story and the characters. But of course that’s where recordings give inestimable service. DG’s exactly shaped, authoritatively paced new version from Madrid, less spectacularly recorded than Simon Rattle’s quarter-century-old Decca set, certainly adds flesh to one’s appreciation of Falla’s mastery—his unimprovably brilliant chamber instrumentation, his unyielding control of scale, style and purpose, and beyond that the banner of epic Spanishness that unfurls with miraculous assurance within his miniature dramatic conception. The tenor, Santamaria, is excellent; the narrator, Moratinos, is correctly a boy soprano, and a good, clear one who nevertheless struggles a bit to project and sustain the higher-lying phrases—this is where casting the role with an adult female soprano or mezzo inevitably scores.

That of Quixote, who intervenes gravely in the puppet-show narration but who gradually becomes stirred to ruinous frenzy by an inability to keep in check his ecstatic feelings for the world of chivalry, finds in Alvarez one of its finest interpreters: from first vocal utterance the bounds of the role are precisely observed, so that the darkly ringing grandeur and majesty of the final declaration are contained within the work’s slender frame. In my experience only Manuel Ausensi (on Eduardo Toldra’s 1953 EMI Retablo, still the most completely rounded account of all) equals him on disc—less vocally imposing, even more ruggedly and spiritually inside the impersonation. A word of enthusiasm for the vivid reading of Jesús Guridi’s 1916 tone poem, whose resources of colour and energy may well surprise those who, like myself, know the composer only via a handful of songs.

Release link: http://www.opera.co.uk/