CD REVIEW: LE BESTIAIRE–Songs by Caplet, Herscher-Clément, Ibert, Sauget, de Séverac (Céline Ricci, soprano; Daniel Lockert, piano; Sono Luminus DSL-92149

ANDRÉ CAPLET (1878 – 1925), GABRIEL GROVLEZ (1879 – 1944), JEANNE HERSCHER-CLÉMENT (1878 – 1941), JACQUES IBERT (1890 – 1962), HENRI SAUGUET (1901 – 1989), DÉODAT DE SÉVERAC (1872 – 1921): Songs – Céline Ricci, soprano; Daniel Lockert, piano [recorded at Skywalker Sound, Marin County, California, ; Sono Luminus DSL-92149]

It is alleged that the great artist Michelangelo once said, ‘I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.’  Likely apocryphal, the statement might justifiably also be applied to the endeavors of Lieder singers, whose task it is to reveal the jeweled hearts of words and music.  It is true that some composers make the task easier than others, but even in the most straightforward song repertory a disconcertingly high proportion of singers fail to penetrate the surfaces of the songs that they sing, especially on recordings.  It is evident when listening to this disc that soprano Céline Ricci’s voice is a chisel of rare precision, as in the space of two or three minutes she can reveal the sparkle of mélodies.

In an age of limited attention spans, programmatic albums can be dangerous territory, even for quite accomplished artists.  Threads of artistic, emotional, or philosophical continuity threaten to distract the casual listener.  A wonderful quality of Le Bestiaire is that one need not listen intellectually to enjoy the disc, so to speak: unlike many recital discs that seek to pursue a common theme, Le Bestiaire is musically engaging even if one ignores the examination of the relationships among animals and men presented through the music.  It should be stated that this is not the sort of music that seeks to amuse with mimicry of animal noises.  Where this disc treads, and where Ms. Ricci’s artistic curiosity guides the listener, is into the most elemental interactions between animals and humanity.  Central to the journey taken on this recital is the reminder that humans, too, are animals; a reminder that all creatures are participants in a shared Nature.

The music on this disc, though unified in theme, is wonderfully varied, and it is a testament to his skills as a pianist that—in both accompaniment and his solo pieces—Daniel Lockert succeeds in offering playing that is uniformly excellent and supports Ms. Ricci’s musical journey from start to finish.  Mr. Lockert’s playing places him among the ranks of pianists such as Gerald Moore and Erik Werba, artists whose poetic accompaniment of Lieder recitals revealed the collaboration between sensitive singers and pianists in song repertory to be an intimate interaction akin to that shared by instrumentalists in chamber music.

The disc opens with Henri Sauguet’s settings from ‘Les animaux et leurs hommes,’ an intriguing series of poems by Paul Éluard, unfortunately known to most English-speaking readers only as the first husband of the exotic Gala Dalí.  Éluard’s lines, like those of many of his French-speaking contemporaries, are deceptively simple, conveying multiple layers of meaning in the simplest language as perhaps is more possible in French than in any other Western language.  Sauguet’s music, too, is rich in half-perceived meanings and insinuations.  Ms. Ricci touches every subtle dramatic point in these songs without lingering over any of them, giving every sentiment its due without exaggerating anything.

Perhaps the most interesting selections on the disc are those from Renée de Brimont’s ‘Le Bestiaire du Paradis,’ set by Jeanne Herscher-Clément, who is remembered primarily for her associations with Darius Milhaud (Herscher-Clément accompanied Milhaud at the piano when he premiered Charles Koechlin’s Viola Sonata in 1915) and the Ballets Russes.  Herscher-Clément’s songs are mostly light in tone, but she shared Sauguet’s ability to hint at hidden things through subtle harmonic shifts and rhythmic variations.  These, too, are mastered by Ms. Ricci, whose chameleonic vocalism adapts as readily to these petits trésors as to the arias of Händel that she also regularly sings.

Musically, the centerpiece of the disc is de Séverac’s setting of ‘Les hiboux’ from Baudelaire’s Fleurs du mal, a beautiful, picturesque piece that captures the strange power of Baudelaire’s poem.  Ms. Ricci brings precisely the right timbre to the ominous final stanza, shrouding the piece in mystery and elusive humor.

Ms. Ricci’s timbre is bright, even metallic when appropriate to the text that she is singing, and she is unafraid of taking the voice to its limits in order to remind the listener that, domesticated or not, the beasts of this recital are not quaint barnyard residents of children’s stories.  These creatures have their dramas, their comedies and tragedies after the manner of their human neighbors, but Le Bestiaire does not attempt to offer a pseudo-operatic Animal Farm.  Through careful shading of tone and pointed delivery of text, Ms. Ricci reveals the playfulness and pathos of this music, short-changing nothing but never stretching any of the songs beyond its scope.  Ms. Ricci also succeeds in reminding listeners for whom the music in this recital is uncharted territory that obscurity can be a result of inattention rather than a symptom of dubious quality.

The perils of putting a programmatic recital disc before the public are conquered delightfully in Le Bestiaire.  The talents of Ms. Ricci and Mr. Lockert unite in a performance that meaningfully explores a complicated thematic link between the worlds of animals and men, but this is accomplished without sentimentality or saccharine impositions upon the music.  For the casual listener, this is a delightful recital of engaging music, masterfully performed.  For those willing to spare an hour for deeper thought, this is a recital that enriches one’s appreciation of humanity.  Whatever the context of the exploration, is this not the most basic aim of art?

 

[Note: The author provided English translations for a few of the French texts of the songs performed in this recital, and these translations appear in the liner notes that accompany the disc.  Heartfelt thanks are offered to Céline Ricci for the opportunity to participate, even in this small way, in this wonderful project.]

Finding Fischer-Dieskau

   Obituaries for famous singers are not unlike shareholders’ reports for Fortune 500 companies in that those who are likely to read them almost invariably know the contents before grappling with the first sentence. This is perhaps doubly true for remembrances of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, the legendary German baritone and champion of the Teutonic Lieder repertory who died at the age of eighty-six on 18 May. Cited as the most recorded singer in history and as central—and controversial—in discussions of the art of singing in the Twentieth Century as Maria Callas, Fischer-Dieskau is an artist whose four-decade career coincided with what many observers deem a disintegration of artistic standards in the world’s opera houses, concert halls, and recital venues. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau’s voice aged along with the body by which it was produced, as voices do, but the singer’s adherence to his goals of shaping musical phrases through attention to text and imperturbable technique was consistent and, ultimately, monumental.

As a teen studying violin and just beginning to explore opera, I discovered Fischer-Dieskau in a Deutsche Grammophon studio recording of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice; unusual territory for me and, as I learned, also for Fischer-Dieskau. Knowing nothing about Gluck and perhaps even less about voices and singing, something nonetheless seemed inherently wrong. The Orfeo possessed a superb voice, of that I was certain, but whereas Euridice and Amore floated streams of sound above an orchestral foundation Orfeo suffered by a reversal of those means, the voice pulling at the accompaniment from below. The term castrato was to me merely an unfortunate cognate then, so the provenance of Orfeo ed Euridice eluded me. Interested but dissatisfied, I moved on.

A few years later, as a budding baritone, the music of Verdi became a source of fascination, solace, and enlightenment, and through it I ‘met’ Lawrence Tibbett, Leonard Warren, Robert Merrill, Tito Gobbi, Giuseppe Taddei, Sesto Bruscantini, Piero Cappuccilli, Cornell MacNeil…and there, too, was that Fischer-Dieskau fellow again. Hearing the DECCA Don Carlo was a revelation, particularly after reading the accepted wisdom of decades of amateur and professional critics (which told me that Tebaldi was too old, Bergonzi too polite, Bumbry too wild, Solti too Germanic, and Fischer-Dieskau—well, too much Fischer-Dieskau). I found that, by transcribing what I heard from Bergonzi, I could recreate Don Carlo’s music almost exactly as it was noted in Verdi’s score. The mature Tebaldi was hardly the teenaged Elisabetta di Valois of history, but Verdi’s Elisabetta she was to the life, regal and turning the strain in the voice to dramatic effect. Bumbry breathed fire but with a voice of genuine star quality, and one can hardly accuse Eboli of being a wan character. Fischer-Dieskau, whose operatic career began with a performance of Don Carlo in Berlin, was not a ‘traditional’—which is to say Italiante—Posa, but listening intently, finding all of the role’s technical hurdles cleared with élan, I could not imagine that Fischer-Dieskau’s performance was one with which Verdi would not have been thoroughly pleased. This led me to the Deutsche Grammophon Rigoletto, which has the distinction, thanks to the work of the brilliant Rafael Kubelík, of being among the best-conducted Rigoletto recordings. To the elegance and tonal refulgence of Bergonzi’s Duca was added the plangent, poignant Gilda of the young Renata Scotto. After hearing Gobbi and Taddei as Rigoletto, how could the lighter, utterly different voice of Fischer-Dieskau compare? Indeed, it could not compare, but an utterly different voice produced an utterly different performance, one in which nuance triumphed over vocal weight. There audibly were different tones for public and private utterances; a nasty, hectoring jester among the Duca’s courtiers and a sad, tender, even slightly claustrophobic presence with Gilda. Musically, there perhaps are too many compromises to pronounce Fischer-Dieskau’s Rigoletto a complete success, but the tragedy is more palpable than in many authentically Italianate performances.

It is this drive for emotional engagement that is, for me, the greatest element of Fischer-Dieskau’s artistry. This is not to say that there are not examples of truly magnificent vocalism in Fischer-Dieskau’s discography, not least in his scores of Lieder recordings, some of which have not been equaled in the years since their preservation. His Wolfram in the Otto Gerdes recording of Tannhäuser on Deutsche Grammophon is as fine an account of that role—musically and dramatically—as has ever been recorded, the famed ‘O du, mein holder Abendstern’ sung with exquisite grace and bel canto phrasing. Early-career recordings of Lohengrin and Tristan und Isolde reveal an atypically thoughtful Wagnerian who, sure of the sufficiency of his technique to meet the demands of the music, offers unique characterizations. Later, Fischer-Dieskau’s Rheingold Wotan for Herbert von Karajan and Deutsche Grammophon, arguably lacking the vocal amplitude required for the music in live performance, offered a veritable master class in the shaping of Wagner’s musical phrases, breathing life into the Walvater’s dignity, nobility, and inner conflict. No other Wotan on records conveys quite the depth of heartbreak that Fischer-Dieskau brings to Wotan’s farewell to Brünnhilde in the final pages of Walküre, recorded for Bavarian radio under Kubelík’s baton.

His prowess in Lieder repertory is rightfully regarded as unsurpassed, but for me the pinnacle of Fischer-Dieskau’s work as a singer and an artist is his concept of the role of Barak the Dyer in Richard Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten. In the interest of full disclosure, I should admit that I esteem Frau ohne Schatten above all of Strauss’s operas and above almost all other operas, so it should not be surprising that any singer who can deliver a credible performance in this uncommonly daunting score can make a lasting impression. Barak is, in essence, a cousin of the literary Everyman, an ordinary man of no special intellectual distinction whose existence as a laborer, protector of deformed brothers, and husband of a difficult woman seems banal in comparison with those of the gods, kings, and heroes who are the usual operatic subjects. The finest accomplishment of art is not to impose the heroic upon the unexceptional but to recognize and celebrate the poetry inherent in even the greatest simplicity. Fischer-Dieskau emphasized the nobility of Barak, expressing the humanity of a man who endures his wife’s cruelty and petulance because he loves her; not, as some singers portray him, because he is perceptibly at the end of his tether, not because he feels that he has no other options, not because he submits to an unkind destiny, but because he genuinely and unconditionally loves the woman who shares his life. Fischer-Dieskau’s Barak exulted in this devotion, making it the defining aspect of the character. Rather than pitying Barak when he falls victim to his wife’s coldness and rejoicing when, in the opera’s final act, she realizes—or, more accurately, accepts—that she loves him, the listener senses from Barak’s first appearance the inevitability of his ultimate fulfillment. The eloquence with which Fischer-Dieskau sang the role achieved the fusion of poetry and simplicity that, at its heart, makes of the complicated relationship between Barak and his wife a story of love against odds as approachable and touching as that of Rodolfo and Mimì or Roméo and Juliette. For this alone, but also for so many similar moments of revelation and comprehension in music spanning three centuries, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau is an artist whose work will never be forgotten.

DIETRICH FISCHER-DIESKAU

28 May 1925 – 18 May 2012

CD REVIEW: Baldassare Galuppi – SACRED MUSIC (R. Invernizzi, R. Basso, K. Adam, S. Foresti; dhm 88697895982)

 

BALDASSARE GALUPPI (1706 – 1785): Sacred Music [Dixit Dominus, Nisi Dominus, Kyrie, Gloria, Credo] – R. Invernizzi (soprano), R. Basso (contralto), K. Adam (tenor), S. Foresti (bass); Ghislieri Choir & Consort; Giulio Prandi [recorded in the Aula Magna, Collegio Ghislieri, Pavia, Italy, 26 – 29 June 2010; deutsche harmonia mundi 88697895982]

Born in 1706 on the island of Burano in the Venetian Lagoon, Baldassare Galuppi is among one of the ‘forgotten generations’ of composers, in his case that which spanned the valley between the peaks of the Baroque and early Classical periods.  Consequently, the music of Galuppi, even when approached with fresh ears, is condemned to always sounding vaguely familiar without remaining firmly in the memory, with its echoes of Vivaldi mixing with suggestions of Paisiello, Salieri, and even Haydn.  That Galuppi was a master craftsman is never in doubt, whether one’s exposure is to his operatic, sacred vocal, or instrumental music: he was celebrated throughout his life, after all, holding posts as prestigious as Director of Music at Venice’s landmark Basilica di San Marco and Court Composer at the Imperial Court of Tsarina Catherine the Great.  Whether Galuppi was a composer of true genius is less apparent, however, his music proving almost unfailingly pleasing but lacking the indisputable hallmarks of an individual style.  There is certainly an element of advocacy in Ghislieri Consort’s new recording of sacred music by Galuppi, but the recording succeeds most audibly in the sense that is vital to any recording, that of producing high-quality music-making that expands the strengths of the music at hand.

The works on this disc—an undated Dixit Dominus, the Nisi Dominus of 1777, the Kyrie originally composed in 1746 and extensively revised in 1782, the Gloria of 1779, and the Credo of 1781—owe much to the Venetian School of the late Baroque, especially the sacred music of Vivaldi.  [Several notable works previously attributed to Galuppi have, upon academic scrutiny, been re-attributed to Vivaldi, in fact.]  On the surface, it seems surprising that music dating primarily from the last quarter of the Eighteenth Century is so comparatively little influenced by Classicism as it was then developing north of the Alps.  It should be remembered, though, that the model of Alessandro Scarlatti remained a large influence on sacred music throughout Europe well into the first decades of the Nineteenth Century.  What is remarkable in the works of Galuppi on this disc is the mastery of form and melodic shaping displayed by a composer who, at the times at which most of these pieces were created, was in his eighth decade of life.  To ears accustomed to the contemporaneous Masses of Mozart, these pieces by Galuppi sound undeniably old-fashioned, but they are enjoyable, often beautiful examples of the stile antico-infused church music that remained popular in Italy throughout the Eighteenth Century.  Judging from the perspective of the pieces on this disc, Galuppi’s sacred music was more original than that of many of his Italian contemporaries, and this originality combined with the obvious sincerity of the music makes acquaintance with these pieces very welcome.

Twenty voices strong, the Ghislieri Choir (containing, as one might expect of an Italian ensemble, female rather than male altos) sing with ample power but the requisite clarity for fugal passages.  The blend of the voices is excellent, as often is not the case in ensembles specializing in ‘period’ performance, and the Choir is particularly impressive in the grand fugue on ‘Cum Sancto Spiritu’ which ends the Gloria.  The Ghislieri Consort, consisting of twenty-two players including theorbo and organ and led by Giulio Prandi, play with graceful tone and the easy virtuosity required by music of Galuppi’s era.  Choir and Consort respond effortlessly to Maestro Prandi’s idiomatic leadership, giving Galuppi’s music the same enthusiasm they might offer to that of an undoubted master.  The result of their labors is a recording that makes a strong impression without overstating the value of the music.

The fours soloists who all contribute capably to the recording are frequently encountered in performances of Baroque repertory.  Bass Sergio Foresti, a familiar presence in many productions of Händel’s operas, sings with his customary security of tone, firmness of technique, and dedication of purpose.  Unlike his Northern European contemporaries, in whose works darker sonorities were growing more popular, Galuppi gave the bass soloist relatively little to sing, but Mr. Foresti acquits himself with his usual aplomb.

The tenor soloist has more to do, not least in the Domine Deus Rex Caelestis section of the Gloria.  Krystian Adam brings to this music impressive flexibility and a voice of silvery purity.  These qualities are complemented by the elegant singing of soprano Roberta Invernizzi, by whose contributions many recordings of Early Music and Baroque repertory have been improved considerably.  Taking perhaps the largest role in these works by Galuppi, Ms. Invernizzi displays all of the talents for which she is admired: bright, lovely tone; facile brilliance of technique; and vibrato that is slight in adherence to accepted theories of period practice but far more attractive than the straight-toned approach of many Baroque specialists.  Ascents into her shining upper register are handled by Ms. Invernizzi with clarity but caution to avoid undue emphasis on higher tones that would disrupt the balance of the vocal lines.

The artistry of contralto Romina Basso is also familiar from many acclaimed performances and recordings of Baroque repertory.  The darkness of Ms. Basso’s voice lends a certain element of mystery to the sound: in Galuppi’s music, this mystery easily translates into an implicit mysticism.  Though the challenges that she faces in Galuppi’s music are not as imposing as those that she regularly meets in her Händel roles, the strength and beauty of Ms. Basso’s singing are as impressive as ever.  Her contributions to this recording are exceptional, true gifts to the composer.

If his sacred music is not of the same quality or inspiration of the greatest composers with whose careers Galuppi’s own compositional tenure intersected, it is indeed the work of a master craftsman, firmly in the Italian tradition of the early Eighteenth Century but also adopting attitudes of emerging Classicism.  The performances on this disc bring fine achievements by all of the artists involved, proving once again that committed musicianship produces impressive music.  Successful on its own terms, this disc whets the appetite for more of the ‘lost’ music of Baldassare Galuppi.

ARTS IN ACTION: North Carolina native conquers the Metropolitan Opera

 

Countertenor and Durham native Anthony Roth Costanzo, who made his début at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in December as Unulfo in Georg Friedrich Händel’s Rodelinda, enjoyed a second success with the Company on New Year’s Eve as Ferdinand in The Enchanted Island, Jeremy Sams’s ‘Baroque fantasy’ using music by Händel, Vivaldi, Rameau, Campra, Leclair, Purcell, Rebel, and Ferrandini.  Created especially for the MET at the request of General Manager Peter Gelb, the production—a pasticcio after the fashion of composite works popular in the 18th Century—is conducted by Baroque specialist William Christie, founder of Les Arts Florissants, and features a superb cast including countertenor David Daniels, mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, sopranos Danielle de Niese and Lisette Oropesa, bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni, and, in the rôle of the god Neptune, Plácido Domingo.  Writing in The New York Times, Anthony Tommasini praised Mr. Costanzo’s ‘sweet-toned Ferdinand.’  The Associated Press’s Mike Silverman was particularly impressed by Mr. Costanzo’s singing in the duet ‘I have dreamed you’ (with music lifted from one of Händel’s cantatas) with Ms. Oropesa, which he described as ‘sublime.’

An engaging young artist with an unusually beguiling timbre, Mr. Costanzo has proved his excellence throughout the United States and abroad in productions of repertory ranging from Early Music and Baroque to contemporary music.  He is a welcome addition to the Metropolitan Opera’s roster and hopefully one who will be given another opportunity to shine when Thomas Adès’s celebrated The Tempest has its MET premiere in the 2012 – 2013 season.

IN MEMORIAM: Soprano Sena Jurinac, 1921 - 2011

 

SENA JURINAC

24 October 1921 – 22 November 2011

The goal of writing for Voix des Arts which I pursue with both greatest pride and strongest zeal is that of objectivity.  There are subjects about which even the most dedicated of writers cannot maintain objectivity, however, and for me one such subject is the wondrous soprano Sena Jurinac, who passed away on 22 November at the age of ninety.  Few artists have shaped my musical perceptions or affected my understanding and appreciation of music as powerfully as Ms. Jurinac, whose voice will remain in my mind’s ear among the most priceless artistic treasures of the Twentieth Century.

I was only four years old when Ms. Jurinac gave her final performance and so never heard her ‘live,’ and I recall neither when nor in what music I first heard her voice.  What I shall never forget, derived solely from recordings of her performances, is the impact of her focused, gorgeous tone in music by Mozart and Richard Strauss.  As Tchaikovsky’s Tatyana, even singing in German, Ms. Jurinac combined the intellectual insights of Russian singers like Galina Vishnevskaya with vocal beauty and security seldom heard from Slavic singers.  As Puccini’s Cio Cio San, she was all the more moving and ultimately pathetic for carrying herself with such dignity, like a true Japanese, and soaring over Puccini’s dense orchestration with sounds of doomed triumph.  As Strauss’s Octavian, she poured out sound that was aurally equivalent to the gleam of the eponymous silver rose, proving the proud but passionate young aristocrat to the core.  As Tosca, she was magisterial, nagging but frail and the consummate prima donna, and as Jenůfa she was tormented and ultimately transcendent.

In the music of Mozart, Ms. Jurinac offered in virtually every performance that she sang a veritable masterclass in the art of poised rendering of the Salzburg prodigy’s music.  This affinity for the music of Austria’s most famous composer perhaps accounted in part for the affection for Ms. Jurinac that developed in music-loving Vienna, where she was for a generation one of the brightest stars of the Wiener Staatsoper and one of the artists whose brilliance resurrected the Company after the Second World War.  As Ilia in Idomeneo, she was from the start a broken woman in search of healing through renewed hope and new love.  As Elvira in Don Giovanni, she was too much in love to accept the betrayal she felt so keenly.  As the Contessa in Le Nozze di Figaro, she was sustained by memories of the wooing of her Conte.  In hindsight, what impresses most in Ms. Jurinac’s singing of Mozart repertory is her ability to be expressive, accurate, and unfailingly stylish without in any way altering the voice with which she sang the music of Beethoven and Wagner.  A ‘period’ approach is not required when timeless artistry informs a singer’s work.

For me, to hear the voice of Sena Jurinac is to understand why, after nearly three thousand years, the myth of Orpheus remains meaningful.  She was an artist for whom music was the natural expression of human emotion and the path to Olympus.  The integrity and intensity with which she sang were remarkable even in an age of superb singers.  On this day on which Americans express thanks for blessings of happiness, health, and comfort, fervent thanks are offered for the life and career of the irreplaceable Sena Jurinac.