ARTS IN ACTION: Australia’s Pinchgut Opera expanding season

In a rare instance of positive news from an Arts organization, Sydney-based Pinchgut Opera have announced that, beginning in 2014, their annual operatic presentations will be doubled from the current offering of one production each year to two productions of the seldom-heard 17th- and 18th-Century repertory to which the Company is dedicated.  Acclaimed for the uncompromising musical integrity of their performances, for which much credit must be granted to Artistic Directors Antony Walker—who is also integral to the success of Washington Concert Opera—and Erin Helyard, and the innovative brilliance of their productions, Pinchgut Opera have given one opera per year for the past dozen years.  ‘Our audience trust us to bring to life works that have fallen unjustly into neglect,’ says Pinchgut’s General Manager Genevieve Lang Huppert.  On the expansion of Pinchgut’s season, she remarks, ‘We’ve been thinking about this for a few years.  Lots of our audience members have asked when are we going to add another show.’  With such rich lodes of underexplored repertory ripe for mining, Maestros Walker and Helyard had little trouble in identifying scores to place in queue for Pinchgut productions; some scores which have never been heard in Australia.  ‘The time is right,’ Ms. Huppert adds.

Founded in 2002, Pinchgut Opera have provided some of the world’s most thrilling performances of Baroque repertory during the past decade.  A particular delight, especially for local audiences, is the participation of top-flight native Australian talent in Pinchgut’s productions.  This was never more successful than in their 2011 production of Antonio Vivaldi’s Griselda, in which the rôle of Ottone—created in the opera’s 1735 première by castrato Lorenzo Saletti—was sung by Sydney-born countertenor David Hansen, of whose performance Peter McCallum wrote in The Sydney Morning Herald that he ‘made a minor sensation with his wide range, agility at gear changing in Vivaldi’s treacherous leaps and penetrating brilliance of sound, particularly in the upper register.’  Mr. Hansen reprises his triumphant engagement with Pinchgut in December with performances of the title rôle in Chas Rader-Schieber’s production of Pier Francesco Cavalli’s Giasone.  ‘It is fantastic news that Pinchgut Opera are expanding from one to two productions each year,’ Mr. Hansen commented, ‘especially considering the lack of Baroque opera being performed by the national company in Australia.’  As in Griselda, Mr. Hansen will share the stage in Giasone with Miriam Allan and Christopher Saunders, and Celeste Lazarenko will take the rôle of the fire-breathing Medea.  ‘With so many talented Australian Baroque musicians, both singers and instrumentalists, it is great to see Pinchgut consolidating and building on the talent they have,’ Mr. Hansen said.  ‘May the company continue to go from strength to strength!’

Highlights of previous Pinchgut Opera seasons include acclaimed productions of Rameau’s Dardanus (2005), Mozart’s Idomeneo (2006), Charpentier’s David et Jonathas (2008), Cavalli’s L’Ormindo (2009), Haydn’s L’anima del filosofo (2010) and Rameau’s Castor et Pollux (2012).  To the excitement of lovers of Baroque music who reside beyond the borders of Australia, all save one of Pinchgut’s productions have been recorded in performance and released either on ABC Classics or Pinchgut’s own label.  [A Voix des Arts review of the Pinchgut LIVE recording of Vivaldi’s Griselda is forthcoming.]  Dominy Clements wrote of the Pinchgut recording of Dardanus on Musicweb-International that ‘with recordings of this opera being thin enough on the ground this has to be a welcome addition to the catalogue, and is certainly worth seeking out.’  In fact, Pinchgut’s recording compares very favorably to both the ERATO recording with such accomplished singers as Christiane Eda-Pierre and Frederica von Stade and the Archiv recording with Marc Minkowski pacing a cast including Véronique Gens and Mireille Delunsch.  Indeed, this is typical of Pinchgut’s recordings: their largely Australian casts almost always equal and sometimes even surpass performances by the British and French ensembles listeners in Europe and America are accustomed to hearing in Baroque repertory.

Pinchgut Opera’s 2014 projects are productions of Antonio Salieri’s Der Rauchfangkehrer, premièred in Vienna in April 1781 (three months after the first performance of Mozart’s Idomeneo in Munich) with a cast including Caterina Cavalieri and Ludwig Fischer (the first Konstanze and Osmin in Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail), and Christoph Willibald von Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride, first performed in Paris in January 1779.  Maestro Helyard, a dedicated advocate of the music of Salieri, will preside over the performances of Der Rauchfangkehrer, which are scheduled for July, and Maestro Walker will lend his celebrated affinity for the music of the French Baroque to the December performances of Iphigénie en Tauride.

To learn more about Pinchgut Opera, visit their Official Website and subscribe to their Twitter feed.

All photographs are used with the kind permission of Pinchgut Opera.  Photos are by Simon Hodgson, © Pinchgut Opera

CD REVIEW: FAMOUS OPERA ARIAS – Pedro Lavirgen, tenor (EMEC E-109)

VINCENZO BELLINI (1801 – 1835), GEORGES BIZET (1838 – 1875), GAETANO DONIZETTI (1797 – 1848), OSMÁN PÉREZ FREIRE (1880 – 1930), UMBERTO GIORDANO (1867 – 1948), AGUSTÍN LARA (1900 – 1970), RUGGERO LEONCAVALLO (1857 – 1919), GIACOMO PUCCINI (1858 – 1924), TOMÁS BARRERA SAAVEDRA (1870 – 1938), and GIUSEPPE VERDI (1813 – 1901): Famous Opera Arias—Pedro Lavirgen, tenor; Orchestras and Conductors not identified [Recorded ‘live’ in various unspecified venues, 1967 – 1978; EMEC Distribución, E-109; 1CD, 70:41; Available from Amazon, ClassicsOnline, and other major music retailers]

Aside from a much-circulated live recording of Verdi’s Aida prized by collectors because of a rare performance of the title rôle by Jessye Norman, a near-unknown recording of a thrilling Barcelona performance of Montemezzi’s L’amore dei tre re, a Buenos Aires Vespri siciliani opposite Martina Arroyo, and a few zarzuela recordings never widely available in North America, the career of Spanish tenor Pedro Lavirgen is little documented on records.  Born in Córdoba in 1930, Mr. Lavirgen launched his career, as have many Spanish singers, with performances of zarzuela, Spain’s unique género chico, though it was in Emilio Arrieta’s opera Marina that he made his professional début as a singer.  In addition to great stars of the genre like Leda Barclay who enjoyed little recognition beyond Spain’s borders, the great zarzuela recordings of the 1950s and 1960s were populated by some of the greatest singers of the 20th Century, recorded at the dawns of their careers: Teresa Berganza, Montserrat Caballé, and Pilar Lorengar, in particular.  Among the tenors heard in many zarzuela recordings, there were Mr. Lavirgen and the incomparable Alfredo Kraus.  Despite the power of his singing and an especially firm, vibrant upper register, Mr. Lavirgen never enjoyed the opportunities in the recording studio that benefited the careers of his countrymen, among whose ranks Plácido Domingo and José Carreras should also be included.  Like sopranos whose recording careers could never take flight in the vacuum created by the dominance of the major record labels by Maria Callas, Renata Tebaldi, and Dame Joan Sutherland, it was Mr. Lavirgen’s lot to sing in a time in which, even in its ‘Golden Age,’ the Classical recording industry could promote and sustain only a limited number of ‘star’ tenors, and del Monaco, Bergonzi, Corelli, and, later, Pavarotti were already the darlings of the opera-buying public.  Fortunately, tapes were rolling when Mr. Lavirgen gave some of the finest performances of his career, and sixteen selections from those tapes are here compiled and reintroduced to the public by Madrid-based EMEC Distribución.

Mr. Lavirgen made an auspicious entry into the international opera arena with an acclaimed portrayal of Radamès opposite the Aida of Antonietta Stella and the Amonasro of Robert Merrill in Mexico City’s Palacio de Bellas Artes, to which he returned for a still-discussed production of Puccini’s Turandot with Birgit Nilsson in the title rôle and Montserrat Caballé as Liù.  His sole performance at the Metropolitan Opera was as Cavaradossi in Puccini’s Tosca in 1968, but his Wiener Staatsoper début as Canio in Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci inaugurated a long and successful tenure with that house.  His Don José introduced him to audiences at London’s Royal Opera House in 1975, when his Carmen was Ruza Baldani, and he returned to Covent Garden three years later to sing Pollione to Caballé’s Norma.  From the time of his 1964 début there in Carmen, Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu was Mr. Lavirgen’s artistic home: his appearances in twenty seasons at the Liceu convey something of the esteem in which he was held.  Statistics of a singer’s career are enlightening, but it is the voice that is the proverbial proof of the pudding.  The voice heard in these recordings, made between 1967 and 1978, during the best decade of Mr. Lavirgen’s career, is a gloriously full-throated spinto tenor with an exhilarating upper register, the burly machismo of the timbre not reducing the impact of Mr. Lavirgen’s more introverted singing.  Though there are inevitable concessions to be made owing to the quality of the recorded sound, which has been remastered by Sean Murray with obvious concern for preserving an accurate reproduction of the voice’s timbre, it is wonderful that the selections on this disc were recorded in performance: hearing Mr. Lavirgen’s voice more or less as it sounded to audiences in the theatres in which he sang, the listener gains an ever deeper appreciation of the travesty of this singer’s recordings being so few.

The disc opens with two Puccini arias, and these selections illustrate the fluidity of Mr. Lavirgen’s singing of an Italianate line.  The start of ‘E lucevan le stelle,’ recorded in 1973, is almost startling: the playing of the solo clarinet is so immediate that the instrument seems to be mere inches from the listener.  The voice is recorded from a slightly greater distance, but Mr. Lavirgen’s performance is gripping.  There are little in the way of pianissimo effects as the line ascends, but the ‘ping’ of Mr. Lavirgen’s top A is irresistible.  So impressive was his singing of ‘Nessun dorma’ in a 1972 performance of Turandot that the audience seemingly demanded—and received—an encore of the aria; seemingly because it is impossible to judge with certainty whether the two performances of the aria, which are contained in a single track, are sourced from a single performance of the opera.  Regrettably, the performance sounds as though it was recorded in the Lincoln Tunnel at rush hour.  In the principal performance of the aria, the orchestra and chorus are virtually inaudible: in the encore, the orchestra and chorus emerge from the murk with greater clarity.  If anything, the encore is the stronger performance of the aria.  In both performances, Mr. Lavirgen sings manfully, phrasing idiomatically.  He does not linger over the top B in the encore, but he produces the note with far greater ease than many more famous tenors.  Here and in all of the Italian selections hints of a Castilian delivery of c’s and z’s reveal that the singer is not a native Italian, but in every other aspect of his singing Mr. Lavirgen beats most of the Italians among his contemporaries at their own game.

The rôle of Don José in Bizet’s Carmen was central to Mr. Lavirgen’s career, and the 1973 performance of the ‘Flower Aria,’ ‘La fleur que tu m’avais jetée,’ offered on this disc gives a glimpse of the singer in one of his best parts.  The last word in French stylishness is not spoken in Mr. Lavirgen’s singing of the ‘Flower Aria,’ but his diction is generally good.  Contrary to Bizet’s instructions in the score, the aria’s climactic top B-flat is taken in full voice, and Mr. Lavirgen’s Don José is seemingly almost as martial in making love as in making war, but the strength and security of the voice cannot be dimmed by slight stylistic concerns.

One of the highlights of Mr. Lavirgen’s American career came in 1969, when he partnered the indomitable Magda Olivero in Cilèa’s Adriana Lecouvreur in Hartford, Connecticut.  A recording made from the audience occasionally circulates, and it is evident through the atrocious sound that Ms. Olivero was on blazing form and that Mr. Lavirgen kept pace with her.  The legitimacy of Mr. Lavirgen’s verismo credentials is verified by the sterling performances on this disc of ‘Vesti la giubba’ from Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci (1973) and the ‘Improvviso’ (‘Un dì all’azzuro spazio’) from Giordano’s Andrea Chénier (1972).  Mr. Lavirgen’s laughter in ‘Vesti la giubba’ is rather stagey, but he thankfully does not mar the performance with Gigli-esque sobs.  In fact, Mr. Lavirgen maintains a firmer line than many singers manage in the piece.  In Chénier’s ‘Improvviso,’ he perfectly conveys the rhapsodic nature of the music and again rises to top notes with rapturous confidence.

As might be expected of a gifted spinto tenor with charisma and a voice of Mediterranean exuberance, the operas of Verdi provided Mr. Lavirgen with some of his most memorable portrayals and greatest triumphs.  The technique that he developed during his youthful work in zarzuela enabled him to maintain the flexibility of the voice while also fully exploring its capabilities in heavier repertory, clearing the way to amassing wide experience in the Verdi canon.  Mr. Lavirgen’s singing of ‘Celeste Aida’ in a 1973 performance is as ardent as could be desired, though there is no diminuendo on the rock-solid final high B-flat.  Recorded in the same year, his singing of Otello’s ‘Niun mi tema’ bristles with the horror of an enraged man who is awakening to the fact that he has murdered his own wife.  Histrionically, Mr. Lavirgen is not a meek Otello, but his vocalism soars.  From 1970 come performances of two of the Duca di Mantova’s melodically prodigious numbers from Rigoletto, ‘Parmi veder le lagrime’ and the inevitable ‘La donna è mobile.’  There is genuine tenderness in Mr. Lavirgen’s approach to ‘Parmi veder le lagrime,’ which is inflected with subtlety and crowned with a superb interpolated top B-flat.  ‘La donna è mobile’ is buoyantly phrased, one of the finest, most insouciant expressions of the Duca’s chauvinistic credo ever recorded; and of course the coda is capped with a starburst of a top B.  Macduff’s ‘Ah, la paterna mano’ from a 1973 Macbeth is shaped by an emotional directness that is quite moving.  Mr. Lavirgen’s finest achievement among the Verdi selections is his 1975 performance of Alvaro’s ‘O tu che seno agli angeli’ from La forza del destino.  This scene calls forth the best of Mr. Lavirgen’s artistry, the muscular masculinity of his singing giving way to a very appealing simplicity of approach.  Though many musicologists argue that Verdi laid bel canto to rest in Luisa Miller, elements of bel canto are present in his later operas as surely as they are in Oberto, Un giorno di regno, and Nabucco.  Mr. Lavirgen taps the vein of bel canto that flows in Alvaro’s music, and he shows himself fully capable of matching the refulgence of his voice with genuine, open-hearted dramatic insights.

The true bel canto that so influenced Verdi might seem slightly strange territory for Mr. Lavirgen, but his mastery of the music of Bellini and Donizetti is revealed by performances of scenes from Norma and Lucia di Lammermoor.  Recorded in 1978, Mr. Lavirgen’s performance of Pollione’s aria ‘Meco all’altar di Venere’ and cabaletta ‘Me protegge, me difende’ is appropriately chest-thumping.  Unlike most tenors who sing the rôle in staged performances, he does not omit the top C that Bellini included in the aria, firing it into the theatre like a rocket, and he duplicates the note at the end of his pulse-quickening account of the cabaletta.  Edgardo’s ‘Tombe degli avi miei’ throbs with the pain of a man who has lost his beloved, and the anguish that Mr. Lavirgen expresses in his performance is heartbreaking.  Mr. Lavirgen is not the unimpeachable bel canto stylist that his countryman Alfredo Kraus was, but he sings these selections with unflinching commitment and laudable efforts at legato.

Mr. Lavirgen’s career began in the zarzuela repertory of his native Spain, so it is fitting that the final three selections on the disc are devoted to music in Spanish.  Agustín Lara’s over-familiar ‘Granada’ has become hackneyed thanks to the mindless performances of virtually every singer with the ability to sing it.  Mr. Lavirgen sings the song with such abandon and unapologetic sentiment, as though his voice is produced not merely by his own body but by the very soul of España, that any doubts about the artistic merit of the song or its inclusion on this disc are swept aside.  The gorgeous ‘Adiós, Granada’ from Tomás Barrera Saavedra’s zarzuela Los Emigrantes also receives a monumental performance, the flamenco-like figurations in the vocal line executed by Mr. Lavirgen with brio.  Osmán Pérez Freire’s breezy ‘¡Ay, ay, ay!’ was memorably recorded by Peruvian tenor Luigi Alva.  The song is typical of Argentina rather than Spain, but Mr. Lavirgen sings it as if to the manner born, the music receiving from him a sunny, quicksilver performance.

One of the greatest misfortunes in opera today is that the legacies of so many superb singers either are already or are daily journeying steadily more towards being forgotten.  Sadly, opera is not subject to the aphorism that suggests that an ignorance of history dooms the ill-informed to repeat it.  Great artists are not born of neglect of the past, and the young soprano who has never heard the voice of Claudia Muzio will not achieve that legend’s brilliance via the turning of some miraculous cycle.  Originality is a worthy quality in an artist, but how is originality measured if there is no cognizance of what has come before?  This disc is a potent reminder of how significant the artistic legacy of an overlooked singer can be.  Thankfully, Pedro Lavirgen enjoyed the major career on the world’s stages that his electrifying voice deserved.  This release does not redress the neglect of this marvelous singer by major record labels, but it contributes to the discography an awesome example of some of the finest tenor singing of the 20th Century.  The listener who spends seventy minutes with this disc will have nothing to say but, ¡Muchas gracias!

CD REVIEW: Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny – LE ROI ET LE FERMIER (T. M. Allen, W. Sharp, D. Labelle, T. Dolié, J. Thompson; NAXOS 8.660322)

PIERRE-ALEXANDRE MONSIGNY (1729 – 1817): Le Roi et le fermier—T. M. Allen (Le Roi), W. Sharp (Richard, le fermier), D. Labelle (Jenny), T. Dolié (Rustaut), J. Thompson (Lurewel), D. Ziegler (la Mère), Y. Van Doren (Betsy), D. Newman (Charlot), T. Boutté (le Courtisan); Opera Lafayette; Ryan Brown [Recorded at Dekelboum Hall, Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, University of Maryland, on 23 and 24 January 2012; NAXOS 8.660322; 1CD, 72:12; Available from Amazon, ClassicsOnline, and all major music retailers]

Contemplation of rediscovered gems of French music from the middle of the 18th Century prompts thoughts of quaint pieces composed for occasions celebrated by long-forgotten aristocrats.  The circumstances of the genesis of Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny’s Le Roi et le fermier, an opéra comique in three acts (here recorded without its dialogue), lack the noble patronage bestowed upon many operas of the age, but the score nonetheless has an extraordinary royal pedigree.  First performed at the Comédie italienne in Paris in November 1762, Le Roi et le fermier was performed in French—still the language of the Imperial Court—in Vienna a year later, where it may well have been heard by the seven-year-old Archduchess Maria Antonia, the fifteenth child of Empress Maria Theresa.  A dozen years after Le Roi et le fermier took Vienna by storm, that little Archduchess became queen consort of France, and she brought with her to Versailles the impeccable music training that she obtained in her youth at the Austrian Court, where her tutor was no less than Gluck.  Accomplished as a dancer, singer, and instrumentalist, the first spectacle mounted at Versailles in 1780 by the music-loving Marie-Antoinette was Le Roi et le fermier, in which the rôles of Jenny and Rustaut were performed by the Queen and her brother-in-law, the eventual King Charles X.  Remarkably, the sets for Marie-Antoinette’s presentation of Le Roi et le fermier for the Royal Family survive and were restored for Opera Lafayette’s performances of the opera at the Théâtre de la Reine, the small theatre near the Petit Trianon where Marie-Antoinette staged her elaborate musical entertainments.  The French Revolution dealt the same destruction to the popularity of Monsigny’s music that it wrought on the monarchy, but even as his music increasingly lay in obscurity the composer’s importance to the transition in French music from the Baroque models of Lully and Rameau to the fully-fledged opéra comique of Grétry and Auber was recognized by both Monsigny’s contemporaries and subsequent generations.  Now, Ryan Brown, Opera Lafayette, and NAXOS do for Le Roi et le fermier what they have done for several of the tarnished treasures of 18th-Century French music by releasing a recording that treats the score not like a dusted-off artifact but as a vibrant, still-fresh work that has simply been awaiting the emergence of a group of musicians capable of giving it the brilliance it enjoyed when a Queen masqueraded as a country girl.

The score of Le Roi et le fermier occupies an intriguing niche in 18th-Century French music.  The legacy of Lully is audible, as is the manner in which Rameau fused the French style that he inherited from his musical ancestors with elements of the Italianate traditions that were laying siege to Paris during his career.  The fantastically evocative ‘Orage’ in Le Roi et le fermier would not sound out of place in Rebel’s Les Élémens or even in Mozart’s Idomeneo.  Not surprisingly for a French opera that premièred in 1762, the same year in which Orfeo ed Euridice was first performed in Vienna, there is an inescapable kinship with Gluck, though Monsigny’s music already leans in the direction of Gluck’s ‘reform’ operas of a decade later.  What is surprising for a composer whose music has not enjoyed wide exposure, at least outside of France, in the two centuries since his death is that Monsigny’s work in Le Roi et le fermier displays such originality.  Dramatically, the opera is hardly unique: its plot of a King taking refuge among his subjects, a descendent of the Arcadian intermezzi of the Baroque in which deities pursued their agendas in the guises of common folk, was popular throughout the 18th and 19th Centuries.  The British setting is unusual for a French opéra comique composed prior to the spread of the influence of Sir Walter Scott’s work beyond the British Isles, but Monsigny was unafraid of offering his audience pointed social satire with an English accent.  In the basic elements of the drama, Le Roi et le fermier is not unlike Rossini’s La donna del lago, adapted from Scott’s The Lady of the Lake.  Monsigny’s vocal lines are typically French, but there are frequent flowerings of Italian-influenced cantilena.  Monsigny is thought to have studied with Pietro Giannotti, an Italian composer and teacher resident in Paris about whom little is known except that he seemingly was a disciple of Rameau, and it is suggested that it was a performance of Pergolesi’s La serva padrona in 1752 that compelled Monsigny to devote his career to composition.  The diverse ingredients that Monsigny assembled for his creation of Le Roi et le fermier produced a savory dish that far exceeds the quality of many of the frothy confections of 18th-Century French music.

As in all of their NAXOS recordings, the Opera Lafayette Orchestra and Opera Lafayette Artistic Director Ryan Brown again prove incomparably stylish interpreters of music like that of Le Roi et le fermier.  Though Maestro Brown avoids imposing any damaging idiosyncrasies on the music, he clearly understands that music of this vintage requires specific elements of grace and balance.  Foremost among the qualities necessary to give Le Roi et le fermier an opportunity to glow as brightly as it did at Versailles in 1780 is carefully-controlled but naturally-shaped rhythms.  Maestro Brown’s gifts for accurate but flexible articulation of the dance rhythms that serve as the foundations of the musical numbers in Monsigny’s score are apparent from the first note of the Ouverture to the last note of the final ‘Refrain à Grand Choeur.’  Under Maestro Brown’s direction, lyrical numbers flow with pliancy and poise, and the three showpieces for the orchestra—the Ouverture, the ‘Orage,’ and the ‘Air de Chasse’—ripple with energy and propulsion.  It is perhaps coincidental that music depicting a tempest and a hunt also figures prominently in Berlioz’s Les Troyens, but both the esteem in which Monsigny’s music was still held by connoisseurs throughout the 19th Century (Monsigny had been dead for less than four years when Berlioz made his first visit to Paris and heard Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride at the Opéra) and the similarities between the music in Le Roi et le fermier and the work of Gluck hint that Berlioz may well have been acquainted with Monsigny’s music.  The twenty-eight players of the Opera Lafayette Orchestra completely surrender their strings and reeds to Monsigny’s music, playing with verve and responding faultlessly to Maestro Brown’s beat.  Andrew Appel’s playing of the harpsichord continuo is noticeably clever but never distracts attention away from the singers.  It is difficult to imagine that even Marie-Antoinette could have assembled a finer group of instrumentalists than the Opera Lafayette Orchestra or engaged a more dedicated, knowledgeable conductor than Maestro Brown.

Well-trained as she was, it is doubtful, too, that Marie-Antoinette could have sung the rôle of Jenny more effulgently than Québécoise soprano Dominique Labelle.  In the ariette ‘Ce que je dis est la vérité même’ and, especially, the duo with Richard that follows, Ms. Labelle sings with total command of both the music and the character, making the most of her every appearance with singing of dash and charm.  She gives an appropriately sunny account of her Romance in Act Three, ‘Que le soleil dans le plaine.’  Likewise, her tone blends beautifully with her colleagues’ voices in the ensembles with Betsy and la Mère in Act Three.  Betsy is sung by soprano Yulia Van Doren with a disarming sense of youthful naïveté that in its way is as beguiling as Ms. Labelle’s more mature elegance.  Ms. Van Doren’s timbre is easily distinguished from Ms. Labelle’s in ensembles, and her singing of her ariette ‘Il regardait mon bouquet’ glitters with confused delight.  La Mère is sung with amusingly uncertain authority by veteran mezzo-soprano Delores Ziegler, who in addition to her very successful career in the world’s opera houses is now the Chair of the Vocal and Opera Division of the School of Music of the University of Maryland, on the campus of which this recording was made.  Ms. Ziegler here sounds slightly wobbly, especially as her vocal lines climb, but she anchors ensembles with Jenny and Betsy effectively and proves a deft comedienne with perfect timing.

Richard’s ariette in Act One, ‘D’elle-même et sans effort,’ an eloquently-appointed rondeau, is as beautiful a piece as any composed in the 18th Century, and baritone William Sharp—a familiar presence in performances and recordings of Early Music and Baroque repertory and a lauded participant in Opera Lafayette’s NAXOS recording—sings it with firmness, spot-on intonation, and no little suavity.  Mr. Sharp is a vital presence in the drama throughout the performance, and his singing never falters from the high standard that he sets at his first entrance.  A few of Richard’s lowest notes take him below his vocal comfort zone, but the voice retains its intense focus from start to finish.  Importantly, Mr. Sharp portrays Richard, the farmer of the title, with an earthy conviviality that makes his actions in the opera wholly credible.  Baritones Thomas Dolié and David Newman are similarly effective as Rustaut and Charlot, their voices lean but unfailingly filling Monsigny’s vocal lines splendidly.  One of the great innovations of Monsigny’s score is his closure of Act Two with a quartet for two baritones and two tenors, in which Rustaut and Charlot are joined by the Lurewel of Jeffrey Thompson and the Courtisan of Tony Boutté.  Mr. Thompson, a specialist in the unique haute-contre rôles of the French Baroque, takes high lines in ensembles in Le Roi et le fermier with panache, his upper register having a taste of stylishly tart (and authentically French) citron pressé.  He sings Lurewel’s ariette, ‘Un fin chasseur qui suit’ with manly, slightly repulsive swagger, all too eager to recount the details of Lurewel’s abduction of Jenny.  Mr. Boutté has less to do as the Courtisan—and it should be mentioned that this translates to ‘courtier,’ lest it be thought that this gentleman in Monsigny’s opera is a vocational cousin of Verdi’s Violetta—but all that he does is attractively congenial.

The opera’s most substantial number, the Act Two scene ‘Dans les combats,’ is given to the King, and tenor Thomas Michael Allen performs it in a manner befitting a royal personage.  Without the opéra comique’s original dialogue, le Roi seems a slightly peripheral figure in the drama, his presence more felt by the other characters than it is heard.  Still, he also has in Act Three the ariette ‘Le Bonheur est de la répandre,’ which Mr. Allen sings alluringly.  Like Mr. Thompson, Mr. Allen has won acclaim in the haute-contre rôles of 17th- and 18th-Century French opera, and his experience in both the operas of Monteverdi and the French Baroque repertory perfectly prepared him for Le Roi et le fermier.  Nothing in the King’s music is as challenging as Monteverdi’s great monologue for Orfeo, ‘Possente spirto,’ but Mr. Allen clears each of Monsigny’s obstacles with technique to spare.  He is also convincing in the King’s magnanimous emergence as the opera’s Deus ex machina in the penultimate scene.  Having a compelling farmer in Mr. Sharp, the performance should have been unbalanced without a regal, winningly benevolent King.  Fortunately, Mr. Allen fits that bill gallantly.

One of Klaus Heymann’s principal goals in founding the NAXOS label was to give forgotten composers the incredible gift of recording their works with world-class artists.  The NAXOS catalogue of more than six thousand titles is ample proof of the realization of Mr. Heymann’s goal, but this recording of Le Roi et le fermier reveals much about the guiding spirit of NAXOS and the dedication of the people who manage the label.  Monsigny is perhaps not completely forgotten, but which label other than NAXOS would have devoted resources to producing a recording of this quality of Le Roi et le fermier or any of Monsigny’s music?  The relationship between Opera Lafayette and NAXOS has yielded groundbreaking, opinion-changing results, and even among strong competition solely from their own collaborations this recording of Le Roi et le fermier is a marvel.  With this recording, the uncompromising musical integrity of NAXOS once again offers the public a crème brûlée for the price of a Hershey Bar®.

CD REVIEW: Engelbert Humperdinck – KÖNIGSKINDER (D. Behle, A. Majeski, N. Borchev, J. Juon; Oehms Classics OC 943)

ENGELBERT HUMPERDINCK (1854 – 1921): Königskinder—D. Behle (Königssohn), A. Majeski (Gänsemagd), N. Borchev (Spielmann), J. Juon (Hexe), M. Baldvinsson (Holzhacker), M. Mitterrutzner (Besenbinder), C. Bäuml (Sein Töchterchen), F. Mayer (Ratsäleste), D. Volle (Wirt), N. Tarandek (Wirtstochter), B. Gibson (Schneider), K. Magiera (Stallmagd), T. Charrois (1. Torwächter), G. Hovsepian (2. Torwächter), C. Grunwald (Eine Frau); Chor der Oper Frankfurt; Frankfurter Opern- und Museumorchester; Sebastian Weigle [Recorded ‘live’ during staged performances at Oper Frankfurt in September and October 2012; Oehms Classics OC 943; 3CD, 166:02; Available from Amazon, ClassicsOnline, and other major music retailers]

Premièred at the Metropolitan Opera in 1910 with a cast that included Geraldine Farrar as the Gänsemagd and Herman Jadlowker as the Königssohn, Engelbert Humperdinck’s Königskinder received sixteen performances in its début season in New York.  Audiences were utterly charmed by the simplicity, dignity, and humor of Farrar’s impersonation of the guileless goose-girl, and aside from finding a few too many echoes of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg in Humperdinck’s score critics, too, granted Königskinder a warm welcome.  There was in the course of three seasons a reversal of the opera’s fortunes, however: the MET gave the Company’s thirty-ninth performance of Königskinder in April 1914, and in the century since Farrar last pursued her prince in that performance the opera has not been heard at the MET.  Humperdinck’s score was also admired at its 1911 European première in Berlin, but Königskinder has remained in the shadow of Humperdinck’s most celebrated creation, Hänsel und Gretel, with which it shares the composer’s designation of ‘Märchenoper,’ or ‘fairy-tale opera.’  Hänsel und Gretel is unquestionably the more famous and frequently-performed piece, but Königskinder is the more musically substantial score, a fact confirmed inarguably by this elegant, heartfelt performance from Oper Frankfurt.

The liner notes that accompany this Oehms Classics release are meticulous in relaying that this is a ‘live recording of the staged opera’ made during performances in September and October 2012.  It is well that this is emphasized, for so clean is the sound that the uninformed listener might take this for a recording of concert performances.  There are noises to be heard, of course, inevitable in live performances, but absent are the clunking of scenery and heavy footfalls that mar many live recordings of operas, as well as noticeable intrusions from the audience.  The production is perhaps to be thanked for this, at least in part: the photos of the staging reproduced in the liner notes reveal a dreary, colorless staging with virtually all of the characters dressed in rags.  People seemingly pop in and out of manholes like prairie dogs, and there is an abundance of cardboard swords and foil crowns.  The great benefit of an audio recording is that it enables the imaginative listener to conjure his or her own staging in the mind’s eye, and this performance provides ample fodder for creating in the space beyond sight and hearing a compelling production of Königskinder all of one’s own.

Sebastian Weigle, Principal Music Director of Alte Oper Frankfurt, has proved himself to be an unusually versatile conductor, leading thrilling performances of repertory as different as Wagner’s Ring, verismo, and the operas of Aribert Reimann.  In this performance of Königskinder, he convincingly identifies and celebrates the individual aspects of Humperdinck’s artistry, downplaying the influence of Wagner.  Conducting with an ideal blend of drive, keeping the performance moving, and expansiveness, never hurrying lyrical passages that need a broad approach in order to make their full effects, Maestro Weigle glories in the mystery of Humperdinck’s sound world, especially in Act Two.  There is a sadness—or, perhaps more appropriately, a wistfulness—lurking even in the most jovial pages of the score, and Maestro Weigle’s sensitive pacing of the opera allows this melancholy to perceptibly flow through each scene without bogging down the performance.  Maestro Weigle’s efforts are brilliantly seconded by the singing of the Chor der Oper Frankfurt, including the children of the Kinderchor, and the playing of the Frankfurter Oper- und Museumorchester.  The Orchestra’s concertmaster is not identified by name, but the solo violin playing—critical to the performance—is consistently lovely.  There are occasional passages featuring high strings and harp that could almost find homes in Lohengrin or Parsifal, and these are both gorgeously played and sumptuously recorded.  Much of Humperdinck’s music in Königskinder is of an almost chamber music-like delicacy, which inspires Maestro Weigle and the Orchestra to playing of great refinement.  When large outpourings of tone are required, as in ‘Vivat, der Holzhacker! Vivat, der Besenbinder!’ in Act Two, chorus and orchestra respond unreservedly, sending javelins of sound hurtling into the rafters.  The playing of the extended ‘Einleitung’ that launches Act Three reaches lofty heights of emotional engagement.  From beginning to end of the recording, it is wonderful to hear the Frankfurt forces lavishing on Humperdinck’s music the same dedication and musical integrity that made their Ring unforgettable.

The secondary characters in Königskinder all contribute significantly to the drama, whether they are given two lines or two scenes in which to make their marks.  Oper Frankfurt assembled a world-class supporting cast for this production, led by the Holzbacker (Woodcutter) of Icelandic bass Magnús Baldvinsson and the Besenbinder (Broom-maker) of German tenor Martin Mitterrutzner.  Both singers’ performances are built upon sharply-defined portraits of their characters, organically derived from the text, and both gentlemen sing excellently.  Also singing with complete mastery of their music, bass-baritone Franz Mayer as der Ratsälteste (the Elder), baritone Dietrich Volle as der Wirt (the Innkeeper), mezzo-soprano Nina Tarandek as die Wirtstochter (the Innkeeper’s daughter), tenor Beau Gibson as der Schneider (the Tailor), alto Katharine Magiera as die Stallmagd (the Stable Maid), bass Thomas Charrois and baritone Garegin Hovsepian as the Gatekeepers, and mezzo-soprano Claudia Grunwald as a Lady all get inside their rôles, creating intriguing vignettes.  Chiara Bäuml, a member of the Kinderchor, is spirited and ardent as the prophetic young girl who warns the indignant people of Hellastadt that they have rejected their rightful king and queen by expelling the Gänsemagd and Königssohn.

Any opera with a prominent rôle for a witch, especially one who is alleged to be the lead character’s grandmother, inspires dread of tired, wobbly singing; a fear that too often proves warranted.  The Hexe in Hänsel und Gretel is arguably the more enjoyably quirky character, but her kinswoman in Königskinder is the more interesting creation, an enigmatic figure with links to Wagner’s Erda.  A singer’s opportunities to make a lasting impression in the part are limited to Act One, the Hexe having been unceremoniously burned at the stake at some time between the end of Act One and the beginning of Act Three, when the Spielmann is found to have taken up residence in her vacated hut.  The singing of Swiss mezzo-soprano Julia Juon, an acclaimed Wagnerian, is delightfully free from wobble and the insipid cackling and vocal distortion that many singers seem to consider appropriate to the depiction of an operatic witch.  There are hints of an almost motherly concern in her otherwise menacing exchanges with the Gänsemagd that make Ms. Juon’s performance strangely alluring.  Her voice remains a sturdy, attractive instrument, and she brings unexpected depth to her winning characterization.

Russian baritone Nikolay Borchev sings handsomely as the Spielmann, alternately given in translation as the ‘Fiddler’ or the ‘Minstrel.’  He shares with his fellow fiddler in Delius’s A Village Romeo and Juliet an inexplicable prescience that makes him a central player in the drama.  It is to the Spielmann that resolution of the opera is entrusted, reminiscent of the manner in which Wagner gave the final pages of Meistersinger to Hans Sachs.  Possessing a lyric voice of considerable beauty, Mr. Borchev delves into the complexities of the Spielmann’s rôle with freshness and unfailing musicality.  There is a charming suggestion that he is slightly awed by his own remarkable understanding, and the uniformly alert way in which Mr. Borchev’s Spielmann interacts with other characters contributes to the vibrancy of his portrayal of his rôle.  In the final scene, weariness, sorrow, and hope are all discernible in Mr. Borchev’s performance, and the eloquence of his singing increases the impact of the opera’s tragic dénouement.

The rôle of the Königssohn in the fully operatic version of Königskinder was created by Latvian-born tenor Herman Jadlowker, whose other rôles at the MET, in New York and on tour, included Gounod’s Faust (the rôle in which he made his début), Verdi’s Fenton, Puccini’s Rodolfo, Cavardossi, and Pinkerton, Mascagni’s Turiddu, and Wagner’s Lohengrin, and after his return to Europe he created the rôle of Bacchus in Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos.  Jadlowker’s recordings, most of which date from the 1910’s and 1920’s, reveal a lovely timbre and an astonishing mastery of bravura technique that was little explored during his tenure with the MET.  Beauty of timbre is also immediately apparent in the singing of German tenor Daniel Behle, whose performances of Mozart rôles have deservedly won praise.  Having given notice of his excellence in florid music in the DECCA recording of sacred music by Agostino Steffani, in which he sang alongside Cecilia Bartoli, Franco Fagioli, and other fine artists, his singing in this recording of Königskinder suggests that his voice is expanding beyond the quintessential lyricism heard in his earliest performances.  The Königssohn’s tessitura is troublesome, centering around the passaggio but requiring frequent, exposed excursions into the upper register.  There is greater freedom in Mr. Behle’s highest notes than in any of his other recordings to date.  His top B in his performance of Schubert’s ‘Der Hirt auf dem Felsen’—seldom sung by tenors—on a disc of Schubert and Schumann Lieder was seemingly achieved more by will than by right of possession, but his upper register, up to top C, is magnificently bright and secure in this performance.  The ringing trueness of his intonation on high enhances the poetry of his conception of the Königssohn, and despite seemingly having been given a physical setting that undermines the character’s nobility Mr. Behle puts across dignity befitting a prince via vocal means alone.  The admirable forthrightness of his phrasing—aided in no small part by his native German diction—shapes a performance of great cumulative power, the pervasiveness of the Königssohn’s love for the Gänsemagd fervently conveyed.  Whether Mr. Behle’s vocal growth will ultimately permit him to explore heavier repertory as did Jadlowker and another of his great predecessors as the Königssohn, Peter Anders, is uncertain, but the histrionic completeness of his performance on this recording is indisputable.  Solely as a preservation of Mr. Behle’s extravagantly beautiful singing of a rôle that unexpectedly engages the best of his artistry, this Königskinder is invaluable.

In the recorded legacy of Königskinder, the singing of Helen Donath as the Gänsemagd in the EMI recording conducted by Heinz Wallberg has never been surpassed for limpid, ethereal beauty of tone and disarming characterization.  No higher praise could be offered to soprano Amanda Majeski than stating that, in this performance, she comes very near to equaling the standard set by her fellow American.  A performance of Hänsel und Gretel can survive a poor Gretel, as too many performances have exhibited, but Königskinder cannot be successful without an appealing Gänsemagd.  This performance has in Ms. Majeski a committed, compelling Gänsemagd whose voice shimmers with emotion in every phrase that she sings.  In Act One, the gentility with which Ms. Majeski expresses the Gänsemagd’s burgeoning love for the Königssohn is especially euphonious, the details of her vocal acting matched to the golden-toned tenderness of her singing.  In Acts Two and Three, Ms. Majeski’s performance radiates the joy of a young woman in love: so absolute is her Gänsemagd’s devotion to her prince that she occasionally sounds unnerved by it.  That her performance brims with youth and hope makes the eventual tragedy all the more portentous.  Though her diction is understandably less sharp than his, the interactions between Ms. Majeski and Mr. Behle are appropriately engrossing.  She matches his every well-sculpted phrase with elegantly-turned lines of her own, her voice combining in duet with Mr. Behle’s impeccably.  The lack of strain in Ms. Majeski’s traversal of the Gänsemagd’s tessitura is superb, particularly in her supremely confident voicing of exposed top notes, but it is the unaffected genuineness of her portrayal that is ultimately the most enjoyable aspect of her performance.  Fairy tales are meaningful only if they contain characters or situations that resonate with the reader, and the same logic applies to fairy-tale operas: without the soul that can only be animated by singers who care about their work, even the finest opera is little more than a lifeless body of notes.  Ms. Majeski’s Gänsemagd is the soul of this performance of Königskinder, and her singing gives Humperdinck’s music the potency to reach the heart of the listener.

Königskinder is the sort of opera that, under the right circumstances, can reward the curiosity of a listener with a surprisingly enriching experience of the joys of young love tempered by misunderstanding.  At its core, Königskinder is a tale of idealists pitted against a society that does not understand them and that they do not understand.  The tragedy of the Königssohn and his Gänsemagd is not so much in their deaths but in the failure of the society they were meant to lead to accept them.  This has perhaps never been more apparent than in this performance, in which it is clear from their first notes that the Gänsemagd and Königssohn are figures too beautiful for the ugly world they inhabit.  It is rare that a recording captures the essence of an opera as palpably as this Oehms Classics release recreates the strange world of Königskinder.  Then again, it is rarer still that musicians take a composer’s score not just into their hands but also into their hearts and make of notes and rests a journey through a world all too familiar to anyone who has known the fear and frustration of being on the outside, looking in.

Herman Jadlowker (left) as the Königssohn and Geraldine Farrar (right) as the Gänsemagd in the world première of Engelbert Humperdinck’s Köningskinder at the Metropolitan Opera, 1910 [Photo by White Studio; © the Metropolitan Opera]

CD REVIEW: Giuseppe Verdi – REQUIEM (A. Harteros, E. Garanča, J. Kaufmann, R. Pape; DECCA B0018946-02)

GIUSEPPE VERDI (1813 – 1901): Messa da Requiem—A. Harteros (soprano), E. Garanča (mezzo-soprano), J. Kaufmann (tenor), R. Pape (bass); Coro ed Orchestra del Teatro all Scala; Daniel Barenboim [Recorded ‘live’ during concert performances at Teatro alla Scala, Milan, on 27 and 28 August 2012; DECCA B0018946-02; 2CD, 85:59; Available from Amazon and all major music retailers]

Since the première of the work in Milan’s Chiesa di San Marco in 1874 and its first performance on the stage of the Teatro alla Scala three days later, on 25 May 1874, the Messa da Requiem has sometimes been cited—only slightly ironically—as Verdi’s finest opera.  Originating with the ‘Libera me’ that Verdi composed as his contribution to a proposed Requiem for Rossini, a project launched by Verdi soon after Rossini’s death in 1868 that incorporated music by several of Italy’s most celebrated composers of the time (including Carlo Coccia, Federico Ricci, and Lauro Rossi), the Messa da Requiem developed into Verdi’s most ambitious effort in the realm of liturgical music.  It was also in 1868 that Verdi met Alessandro Manzoni, arguably Italy’s greatest 19th-Century novelist and the author of I Promessi Sposi, a seminal work in modern Italian literature and the inspiration for an opera by Amilcare Ponchielli.  Not unlike Verdi’s music, Manzoni’s writing was important to the Risorgimento, the political movement that led to Italian unification in 1870.  Verdi’s distrust of the traditional teachings of the Church is prolifically documented and expressed in many of his operas, perhaps most memorably in the malicious machinations of the Grand Inquisitor in Don Carlos.  Inspired by his respect for Manzoni and the ideals to which the writer’s work aspired, Verdi tapped a vein of warm-blooded spiritualism in the Messa da Requiem; or else emulated genuine feeling with uncommon alacrity.  Despite the pervasive emotionality encountered in the Messa da Requiem, the score pulses with drama: it is no coincidence that the quartet of soloists who sang in the first performance of the Messa da Requiem were also involved—or, in the case of the tenor soloist, intended to be involved—in the première of Aida.  The Messa da Requiem is unashamedly operatic and all the better for it.  In composing the Requiem, Verdi followed the advice given to virtually every struggling writer by responding to the liturgy in a very individual manner that engaged his imagination at an exceptionally high level of invention: in short, in crafting his Requiem Verdi used the tools with which he was best acquainted.  With the Messa da Requiem, Verdi not only offered an aptly monumental homage to Manzoni and the founding spirit of modern Italy but also a vivid exploration of the intricacies of humanity and one of the enduring masterworks of the choral repertory.

The present recording, derived from two performances of the Requiem at La Scala in August 2012, is not Daniel Barenboim’s first recorded performance of the work.  His 1993 recording of the Requiem with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the solo quartet of Alessandra Marc, Waltraud Meier, Plácido Domingo, and Ferruccio Furlanetto, also recorded in performance, won praise for its combination of contemplativeness with open-throated singing by fulsome-voiced soloists who shrank from none of the score’s overtly operatic passages.  In the two decades since the Chicago performances, Maestro Barenboim’s response to Verdi’s score seems to have deepened, his conducting of the Milan performances recorded by DECCA producing an even more rapt atmosphere of sincerity and contemplation.  The personnel of the La Scala Chorus and Orchestra enjoy a direct lineage with the Requiem extending back to the second performance of the work, and this legacy is evident in singing and playing of evident naturalness.  The choristers’ piano and pianissimo singing is often sublime, and the massive sunbursts of sound at climaxes are predictably arresting.  Fugal passages, especially those for double chorus in the ebullient ‘Sanctus,’ offer no challenges that the choristers are not eminently capable of meeting with technical aplomb, but the singers are happiest in the go-for-broke moments of the ‘Dies irae’ and the melodically idyllic ‘Agnus Dei.’  In the hands of the La Scala Orchestra, instrumental textures are rich but clear, the playing poised but passionate.  The secure intonation of the trumpets in the ‘Tuba mirum’ is fantastic, and the chorus and orchestra storm the heavens in this movement not just with volume but also with palpable emotion.  Under Maestro Barenboim’s leadership, orchestral sonorities are leaner than might be expected, lending the music an air of modernity that highlights the freshness of Verdi’s invention.  Maestro Barenboim lacks the natural command of rubato brought to the Requiem by conductors of previous generations, most notably Toscanini, de Sabata, and Serafin, but his conducting of this performance displays greater rhythmic vitality and precision than have been heard in much of his work.  There are occasional concerns for the maintenance of ensemble, particularly in the tricky contrapuntal settings of ‘Quam olim Abrahae’ in the ‘Offertorio,’ but the La Scala musicians are too experienced in this music to lose their way.  Maestro Barenboim has the dubious distinction of having begun his career as a Wunderkind: this performance confirms that, after nearly five decades on the podia of many of the world’s finest orchestras, the Wunder remains intact, and the engineers and production team who prepared this recording captivatingly captured the magic of the occasion.

The superb quartet of soloists is anchored by German bass René Pape.  Thus far, Mr. Pape’s contributions to this year’s celebrations of the dual operatic bicentennials have been primarily focused on the music of Wagner, with the releases of his performances of Wotan in Das Rheingold and Die Walküre in the Mariinsky Ring conducted by Valery Gergiev and his critically-acclaimed performance as Gurnemanz in François Girard’s new production of Parsifal at the Metropolitan Opera, recorded for release on DVD by Deutsche Grammophon.  Verdi’s Messa da Requiem offers Mr. Pape vocal territory that is more congenial for his lovely basso voice.  The forceful writing for the bass soloist in the ‘Tuba mirum’ suits Mr. Pape’s method of vocal production, and he delivers his lines with uncompromising power and secure intonation.  In the ‘Confutatis,’ too, the power of Mr. Pape’s singing counts for much, but he rises to true eloquence in the ‘Offertorio,’ the richness of his timbre making a splendid effect in the ‘Domine Jesu Christe.’  The best of Mr. Pape’s singing is heard in the ‘Hostias,’ in which his soft singing is particularly beautiful.  Mr. Pape possesses every technical element demanded by Verdi’s score, including a respectable effort at trilling, and he is among the few basses who sing the Messa da Requiem today who have the beauty of tone, finesse, and amplitude—rather than mere volume—required to perform the music memorably.

Especially since Wagner rôles have figured prominently in his recent engagements, Jonas Kaufmann has often been compared to Jon Vickers, with whose career the younger singer’s work has shared a number of parallels.  From a purely vocal perspective, the comparison is misleading, however, whatever similarities that exist between the two singers’ work marginalized by the significant differences in their voices.  Despite the intersections in their repertories, Mr. Kaufmann’s voice is considerably leaner than Vicker’s: in the opera house, Mr. Kaufmann largely achieves by projection what Vickers wrought with brute strength.  Under the baton of Sir John Barbirolli, Vickers recorded a surprisingly mellifluous account of the tenor solos in the Messa da Requiem.  Mr. Kaufmann proves even more successful in the music.  His voice lacks the Italianate slancio that can make such a powerful effect in the Requiem, but his security of intonation and tight vibrato are tremendously impressive.  In the ‘Ingemisco,’ arguably Verdi’s greatest test for the tenor soloist, Mr. Kaufmann sings expansively and with great expressiveness, his phrasing consistently insightful.  His mezza voce in the ‘Hostias’ is dulcet but ideally supported on the breath, and his pianissimo singing never relies on the crooning in falsetto to which many tenors resort.  Like Mr. Pape, Mr. Kaufmann bothers to attempt his trills, with credible results.  When power is required, Mr. Kaufmann responds with firm, ringing tone.  Perhaps the most extraordinary quality of Mr. Kaufmann’s singing in this performance is the skill with which he delivers the tenor solos spellbindingly without his dark timbre ever seeming unduly heavy or lugubrious.  In fact, the great success of Mr. Kaufmann’s performance is the way in which his voice soars through Verdi’s music with complete conviction, whether at full throttle or in hushed tones.

The real surprise in the singing of Latvian mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča is the wonderful strength and fruitiness of her lower register.  Ms. Garanča has confirmed in recent seasons that she is among the best young mezzo-sopranos appearing in the world’s opera houses today, her expert technique enabling her to offer thrilling performances of a wide array of rôles ranging from Sesto in Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito and Rossini’s Rosina and Cenerentola to Bizet’s Carmen.  The principal glory of her voice has been her upper register, with an extension to an easy, bright top C, but she digs into the opposite end of her voice with fearlessness in this performance of the Messa da Requiem.  Ms. Garanča’s chest register is not the sort of columnar, granitic instrument brought to Verdi’s score by an Italian mezzo-soprano like Fedora Barbieri, but the finesse with which Ms. Garanča adapts her unique vocal resources to the demands of the music is indicative of a very thoughtful musicality.  She makes the most of every opportunity in the ‘Liber scriptus,’ and her singing in the ‘Recordare’ is particularly beautiful.  Expectedly, there are no worries as Ms. Garanča ascends into her upper register, but the authority with which she takes the lower line in the ‘Agnus Dei,’ music in which correct intonation eludes many singers, is an unexpected joy of the performance.  That she projects such strength in the lower register without audible forcing suggests that Ms. Garanča’s gifts are evolving excitingly, opening doors to opportunities in the Verdi repertory that might have seemed unlikely at the start of her career.  Still, technical niceties are secondary in a work like the Messa da Requiem to the beauty of the singing, and Ms. Garanča provides honeyed sounds in every line that she sings.

Anja Harteros is increasingly laying claim to the legacies of Zinka Milanov and Leontyne Price as the leading Verdi soprano of her generation.  Even remembering that Milanov was Croatian and Price is American, it might be thought that a prerequisite for rising to the top of the roster of Verdi sopranos would be Italian nationality, particularly considering that a vital aspect of a Verdian’s credentials is the morbidezza that can be identified but not taught.  There is a certain Teutonic reserve evident in Ms. Harteros’s singing, but she also displays all of the qualities demanded by Verdi’s sopranos heroines: absolute security throughout the range extending from middle C to top C, good diction, a capable florid technique, and artistry that encompasses depictions of the full gamut of human emotions.  Ms. Harteros brings the same grace and musicality to her performance of the Messa da Requiem that she has shown in recent performances as Leonora in Il Trovatore and Elisabetta in Don Carlos.  The soprano soloist in the Requiem faces many challenges, none more daunting than the ‘Libera me,’ which she sustains almost singlehandedly, her vocal lines expanding over the chorus, and is asked to crown with a pianissimo top B-flat.  If Milanov, Price, and Montserrat Caballé were the mistresses of that floated B-flat, Ms. Harteros has little to fear by comparison.  Throughout the performance, her ability to fill Verdi’s melodic lines with blossoming tone without the slightest hint of shrillness is rewarding, not least in the soprano’s sustained entry in the ‘Hostias.’  Ms. Harteros’s top B and C ring out gorgeously, as well, and she, too, proves as effective in full cry as in a whisper.  Like Puccini, Verdi obviously had special affection for his soprano heroines, as much in the Requiem as in his operas—his secular operas, that is.  None of the soloists in the Requiem has an easy time of it, but to the soprano fall many of the moments for which the listener waits with special anticipation.  Unlike so many sopranos heard in the Requiem in recent years, Ms. Harteros never disappoints.

Though the work owns a prominent place in the repertory of virtually every professional orchestra and choral ensemble in the world, the Messa da Requiem is a difficult piece to bring off: the crispness of Verdi’s dramatic instincts is undermined if the score’s operatic trappings are ignored, and the performance that aims solely at the opera house falls flat.  Despite the presence of the La Scala Chorus and Orchestra, a performance with a Buenos Aires-born conductor presiding over a quartet of soloists comprised of German and Latvian singers might seem destined to lack much of the Italianate spirit, the ambiguities of faith and distrust of conventional religion that shaped Verdi’s composition of the Requiem.  In a sense, Music is its own religion, and those who believe in its power are welcomed into a brotherhood that transcends social orders.  Performances of the Requiem in which all elements of the musical execution are as capably rendered as in this recording are rare, and in a year in which so many of the releases timed to honor the composer’s bicentennial only disclose the disintegration of standards of performing his music, this recording of the Messa da Requiem does Verdi proud and gives the listener reason to celebrate at last.