CD REVIEW: Francesco Cavalli – GIASONE (D. Hansen, C. Lazarenko, M. Allan, C. Saunders, D. Greco, A. Goodwin, A. McEniery, N. Dinopoulos, A. Oomens; Pinchgut LIVE PG004)

FRANCESCO CAVALLI (1602 – 1676): Giasone—David Hansen (Giasone), Celeste Lazarenko (Medea), Miriam Allan (Isifile), Christopher Saunders (Demo), David Greco (Oreste), Andrew Goodwin (Egeo), Adrian McEniery (Delfa), Nicholas Dinopoulos (Ercole), Alexandra Oomens (Alinda); Orchestra of the Antipodes; Erin Helyard, conductor [Recorded ‘live’ in City Recital Hall Angel Place, Sydney, Australia, on 5 and 7 – 9 December 2013; Pinchgut LIVE PG004; 2CD, 150:40; Available from Pinchgut Opera and major music retailers]

​The listener for whom this enthralling recording of Francesco Cavalli’s masterful 1649 opera Giasone is a first introduction to Australia’s Pinchgut Opera might reasonably surmise that this is the best opera company in the world. Without question, the endeavors of Pinchgut Opera represent all that can be right with opera in the Twenty-First Century. Focusing on specific niches in the operatic repertory not out of necessity but with true advocacy, Pinchgut’s productions unite enthusiasm with musicological expertise, rich veins of indigenous talent, and community involvement. Every opera company faces extraordinary challenges in today’s climate of budgetary hostility towards the Performing Arts, but Pinchgut’s efforts succeed when so many other companies’ fail because their initiatives present opera at its most democratic: of the people, by the people, and for the people. Dedication to under-appreciated music of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries is a dangerous gamble in any market, but the arresting quality of this recording of Giasone that explodes from the discs in every moment of the performance is the complete refusal to approach the music with the kind of stolid reverence granted to a tired exhibit in a museum. No, this Giasone is a mate with whom one might share a few pints of Foster’s on a Saturday night. Opera for the masses is an inherently condescending notion, but Pinchgut Opera’s productions lead the way in making even long-forgotten scores accessible and memorable. It is not about making an opera premièred in 1649 ‘relevant’ to modern audiences: Pinchgut’s performances aim to be revelatory, and this recording of the 2013 production of Giasone reveals that the real magnificence of opera continues to be, as it has always been, in the earnest performance of great music by singers and musicians who love what they do.

Musically, Cavalli’s compositional idiom is markedly advanced from the more familiar style of Claudio Monteverdi, whose operas for the insular Mantuan court are the headwaters from which the streams of operatic creativity have flowed in the subsequent four centuries. Writing for the more resourceful theatres of Venice, Cavalli lavished on his scores melodic prodigality that continues to impress and adventurous harmonies that sometimes sound surprisingly modern. A master of dramatically momentous chromaticism, Cavalli expanded the lean Monteverdian recitative into musically prodigious progressions of arias and arioso. Still, the recording of staged performances of a continuo-driven opera like Giasone presents an array of pitfalls to engineers. The closed-minded listener accustomed to the antiseptic tidiness of studio recordings may intermittently find this recording slightly hard going. There are stage noises galore in this performance, but this is recorded opera at its most visceral: every footstep, every clang and clatter enhances the sense of absorption evinced since the first bar of the opera’s Sinfonia. Hearing the audience’s laughter is delightful and provides contrast with the score’s more contemplative numbers, during which the histrionic probity of the singing silences every cough and chat. The meticulously-balanced acoustics of the recording ensure that musical details are never obscured, and a very welcome sense of space is maintained without voices losing focus. Unlike many recordings of live performances, Pinchgut LIVE’s Giasone offers the listener an opportunity to experience the production almost as audiences in Sydney must have done: with sound of this immediacy, these discs enable the listener to hear a real performance of Giasone rather than merely a recording of one.

Under the direction of Pinchgut’s co-Artistic Director Erin Helyard, the playing of the Orchestra of the Antipodes matches the highest standards of historically-informed performance practices without ever seeming inhibited by them. Indeed, this recording is as vibrant an example as has ever appeared on discs of the extent to which understanding and respect of the musical traditions of the past can secure opera’s future. The musicians’ adherence to the style of the time of Giasone’s creation is unswerving, but this consistency is crucial to the evocation of the effervescent atmosphere in which this performance plays out. Tuned to modern concert pitch (A = 440 Hz), the orchestra’s playing is such a vital, scintillating part of the performance that the musicians deserve to be cited individually as members of the cast. The bar-raising performances by violinists Julia Fredersdorff and Matthew Greco,​ violists John Ma and James Eccles, cellist Anthea Cottee, Laura Vaughan on gamba and lirone, Kirsty McCahon on violone, Simon Martyn-Ellis on Baroque guitar and theorbo, James Holland on theorbo, Kamala Bain on recorders, Neal Peres Da Costa at the Italian harpsichord, Donald Nicholson at the Neapolitan harpsichord, and percussionist Brian Nixon (he rumbles and chimes smashingly on timpani, tenor and bass drums, tambourine, and Turkish cymbals) have their own distinct life, and they blend their unique timbres in a glorious noise that produces song without words. Presiding from the continuo organ and regal, Maestro Helyard carefully but unobtrusively manages the hairpin turns in the drama with humor and an utterly disarming lack of hubris. The orchestra’s playing and Maestro Helyard’s conducting are so unaffected that nothing seems artificial: in this setting, singers carrying on conversations and sorting out dilemmas in arioso seem the most ordinary things in the world.

Fusing elements of the original structure of the opera at its 1649 première with something of the ethos of the revised version of the opera performed in Rome in 1671, when Cavalli’s score was likely supplemented by arias composed by Alessandro Stradella, the edition of the score used for Pinchgut’s production omits the allegorical Prologue and tightens the drama by streamlining minor characters. In a real sense, though, there are no minor characters in this production of Giasone. Every figure in this story has something to lose, and each singer gives a performance that compellingly suggests absolute dedication. As the cynical Alinda, soprano Alexandra Oomens sings charmingly, the bemused irony of her performance of the Despina-like ‘Per prova sò che infonde Amor nell'alme aspro’ rippling with wit. In the third scene of Part Two, she hurls out the text of ‘Quanti soldati, o quanti’ and the aria ‘Gradite tempeste, procelle adorate’ with controlled exuberance, and her phrasing in the duet with Ercole, ‘Non più guerra, non più furore,’ is wonderfully unruffled. If tenor Adrian McEniery is not having a grand time portraying Medea’s geriatric nurse Delfa, he pretends very convincingly. Having renounced fickle love in her dotage, Delfa expounds her credo of sorts in ‘Voli il tempo,’ pronounced with gusto by Mr. McEniery. He fumes and fusses through ‘Godi, godi, bella coppia’ and ‘Qual hor su queste guancie’ with brio. Vocally, he husbands his resources with obvious self-knowledge, minimizing the use of wearying mannerisms, and he brings comedy to every scene in which he appears. Tenor Christopher Saunders’s jaunt through Demo’s music is similarly strong of technique and sentiment. Mr. Saunders sings ‘Son gobbo, son Demo, son bravo’ very handsomely, and his boundless energy makes the character more of a true presence in the opera than an occasional source of comic relief. Tenor Andrew Goodwin also revels in his creation of a subtle but strikingly individual Egeo, and his lines in the duet with Demo, ‘Alla nave, alla nave,’ are sung with great comic timing and focused tone.

The rôles for low-voiced gentlemen are sung with epic technical control by bass-baritone Nicholas Dinopoulos and baritone David Greco. As Ercole, Mr. Dinopoulos lacks none of the burly masculinity of this legendary hero. His famous labors behind him, Ercole lent his brawn to the Argonauts’ expedition to seize the golden fleece, and Mr. Dinopoulos lends his resonant voice and charismatic self-assurance to this performance of Giasone. His singing of the opening scene, ‘Dal’Oriente porge l'alba,’ is suitably robust, and his annoyance with Giasone’s amorous dalliances is amusingly evident throughout the performance. His dueting with Isifile in Part Two is extraordinarily charming, and he impresses in every scene in which he appears with his uncanny combination of firm, ringing tone throughout his range and great flexibility. Mr. Greco’s performance of Oreste’s ‘Fiero amor l’alma tormenta’ in Part One is entrancing, and the sincerity that he devotes to ‘Adoriamoci in sogno, anima mia’ in Part Two is endearing. Like Mr. Dinopoulos, Mr. Greco displays unflappable technical affinity for Cavalli’s music, and his lovely timbre gives Oreste a distinct musical and dramatic profile.

Soprano Miriam Allan’s portrayal of Isifile, the put-upon Queen of Lemnos, is one of the greatest joys of this recording and one of the most purely beautiful performances of Seventeenth-Century vocal music ever preserved on discs. The timbre is one of polished gold from the bottom to the top of the voice, and, not content to rely solely upon the beauty of the voice to carry her character’s emotions to every heart in the audience, she sings with perpetual imagination. Ms. Allan’s phrasing of Isifile’s lament in the tenth scene of Part One, ‘Lassa, che far degg’io’ is dignified and thoughtful to the point of being unbearably poignant, but the sting of her words is healed by the dulcet balsam of her singing. In Part Two, the variety of her singing is brilliant, her characterizations of Isifile’s shifting sentiments conveyed via a deftly-handled palette of vocal colors. The tremulous elation of ‘Gioite, festosi, miei spiriti amorosi’ shimmers in Ms. Allan’s voicing of the music, particularly as she ascends into her sparkling upper register, and her scene with Ercole draws from her singing of ardor and wit. In the opera’s final scene, as Isifile’s confusion and dismay give way to hard-earned happiness, Ms. Allan’s singing of ‘Infelice, ch’ascolto’ assumes an even greater brilliance, the serenity of her delivery infusing the opera’s final moments with an aura of genuine resolution. By any standard, Ms. Allan’s singing is exquisite: in the context of recorded performances of Cavalli’s music, she sets a standard that will be virtually impossible to surpass.

Cavalli’s Medea is not quite the fire-breathing virago depicted by Cherubini and Mayr, but she is no wilting flower. Adventurous soprano Celeste Lazarenko takes no prisoners in her volatile, scene-stealing impersonation of Medea in this performance, and her darker, more sinewy timbre contrasts handily with Ms. Allan’s voice. In ‘Se dardo pungente,’ Medea’s strophic aria in the third scene of Part One, Ms. Lazarenko’s singing boils with inner agitation, but in the invocation of Plutone later in Part One, ‘Dell’antro magico,’ she unleashes a formidable discharge of temperament. Cavalli’s genius seems transported for a few moments to the world of Gluck, and the unrestrained force of Ms. Lazarenko’s singing blows through the performance like a cyclone. Still, every note that leaves her throat is unpretentiously stylish. The psychological depth that she imparts in ‘Sotto il tremulo ciel di queste frondi,’ Medea’s exchange with Giasone in the sixth scene of Part Two, is intriguing. After so much strife, there is a fantastic ‘If you can’t beat them, join them’ aspect to Ms. Lazarenko’s singing in the last minutes of the opera. Ms. Lazarenko is a singer who holds nothing back, musically or dramatically, in her performances. In many singers, this can lead to inconsistency: for a singer as gifted as Ms. Lazarenko, it is the portal to vocal and theatrical luminosity.

In this performance more than in any of his other recordings to date, David Hansen proves that he is precisely as he cheekily describes himself: a ‘guy who sings high.’ That he sings splendidly will come as no surprise to those acquainted with his work, but it is impossible to overstate the electric impact with which his magnetic stage presence charges through this recording. He is no androgynous-sounding overgrown choirboy singing opera to pay the rent: he is, in terms of sensual physicality and white-hot vocalism, the Franco Corelli of countertenors, and, simply put, what he brings to his portrayal of Giasone is sex in the mezzo-soprano range. From his first entrance in Part One, ‘Delizie e contenti che l’alme beate,’ Mr. Hansen rockets through this performance with grit and grandeur, and his voice, always an instrument of superb quality, has in the past couple of years grown richer and more integrated throughout his uncommonly extensive range. The brief ‘Dolor, ahi non m’uccidere’ inspires him to exalted expressivity, and the tenacity of his singing of ‘Affetti singolari’ elevates his portrayal of Giasone from heroic resilience to indisputable stardom. The sizzling sultriness that Mr. Hansen exudes in Giasone’s encounter with Medea in the second scene of Part Two, ‘Scendi, o bella, vieni al porto,’ deserves a parental guidance classification rating. His emotional directness in ‘Ovunque il piè rivolgo’ is riveting, but it is the nobility of his singing with Isifile in ‘Non ho più core in petto’ in the final scene that is rightly the summit of his performance: from such a height of musicality, the listener can survey the whole history of opera, and it is unimaginable that the greatest castrati of the Seventeenth Century could have sung Giasone as thrillingly—and touchingly—as Mr. Hansen does in this recording.

It is unlikely that more than a few people who entered Sydney’s City Recital Hall Angel Place to see the Pinchgut Opera production of Cavalli’s Giasone that produced this recording were acquainted with the music, but it is less likely that any of them departed without having been unforgettably entertained and enlightened by Pinchgut’s visionary presentation of this kaleidoscopic score. Opera companies of the world, learn from Pinchgut’s example: focus on discovering what you do well, and then devote yourselves to doing it better than anyone else. Cavalli’s Giasone is unquestionably a denizen of ‘fringe’ repertory, but if performances of the quality on display in this recording were being achieved in the music of Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, or Puccini would anyone be speaking seriously of the demise of opera?

CD REVIEW: Richard Strauss – ELEKTRA (E. Herlitzius, A. Schwanewilms, W. Meier, R. Pape, F. van Aken; DGG 479 3387)

RICHARD STRAUSS (1864 – 1949): Elektra, Op. 58—Evelyn Herlitzius (Elektra), Anne Schwanewilms (Chrysothemis), Waltraud Meier (Klytämnestra), René Pape (Orest), Frank van Aken (Aegisth), Peter Lobert (Der Pfleger des Orest), Romy Petrick (Die Vertraute), Christiane Hossfeld (Die Schleppträgerin), Simeon Esper (Ein junger Diener), Matthias Henneberg (Ein alter Diener), Nadine Secunde (Die Aufseherin), Constance Heller (1. Magd), Gala El Hadidi (2. Magd), Simone Schröder (3. Magd), Rachel Willis-Sørensen (4. Magd), and Nadja Mchantaf (5. Magd); Sächsischer Staatsopernchor Dresden; Staatskapelle Dresden [Recorded in concert at the Berlin Philharmonie, Berlin, Germany, on 28 January 2014; Deutsche Grammophon 479 3387; 2CD, 104:15; Available from Amazon, iTunes, jpc, Presto Classical, and major music retailers]

​Sadly, celebrations of the Verdi and Wagner Bicentennials in 2013 left little doubt about the validity of the oft-repeated laments for the paucity of fully-qualified singers of these composers’ scores. Almost unbelievably considering that the operas of Verdi and Wagner remain the foundations of the repertories of nearly all of the world’s important opera houses, a Violetta, Aida, Brünnhilde, or Isolde to the appropriate manner born is far rarer than an accomplished Alcina or Rodelinda. With extraordinary stylistic versatility ranging from the Wagnerian bombast of the early scores to the Mozartean refinement of the final operas, the music of Richard Strauss might be thought to be a crossroads at which many singers’ techniques find suitable opportunities for success, but a great Marschallin or Färberin is no more common than her Verdian and Wagnerian cousins. In this year in which the sesquicentennial of Strauss’s birth is marked, it is painfully apparent that a plethora of prejudices still limit appreciation of his music among some circles of aficionados. It is argued that the earliest operas still in circulation—Guntram, Salome, and Elektra—are either sophomoric or gargantuan for the sake of impressing beyond their young composer’s means; that the alleged mid-career masterpieces—Der Rosenkavalier, Ariadne auf Naxos, and Die Frau ohne Schatten—are inescapably sentimental or incomprehensible pseudo-psychobabble; and that the wistful, often ironic products of Strauss’s artistic autumn—Capriccio and Intermezzo—are uninspired farces of domestic drudgery. The Strauss who described himself as a first-rate second-rate composer might have agreed with some points of the dismissive criticism to which his operas have been subjected, but something, some fascinating combination of things, keeps these operas on all of the world’s great stages. Jeritza’s Kaiserin, Lehmann’s Färberin, Cebotari’s Salome, Reining’s Ariadne, Schwarzkopf’s Marschallin, Güden’s Daphne, della Casa’s Arabella, and Nilsson’s Elektra are rightly part of the collective operatic consciousness, the equals of Flagstad’s Isolde, Mödl’s Brünnhilde, and Callas’s Violetta, and it is not insignificant that the career of Leonie Rysanek, one of the most important singers of the Twentieth Century, was indelibly shaped by the music of Richard Strauss. At their best, Strauss’s operas possess an irresistible ambiguity that draws in both performers and audiences, and the duality of hedonism and heroism is the essence of the power of Elektra. The decadence of Elektra’s quest for vengeance is uneasily answered by the righteousness of her motives, and she is an unhinged free spirit who plots monstrosities in big-boned waltzes. Unlike Carmen and La bohème, none of Strauss’s operas can survive uniformly poor singing, but in recent years they have proved their resilience during an unmistakable drought of true Strauss singers. Beauty and cleverness are wonderful, but Elektra is a score that demands true voices. Deutsche Grammophon’s new recording, a birthday gift to the composer featuring an orchestra with which his music has long enjoyed a special relationship, is forceful even when it is most flawed, and it recognizes as much in its failures as in its triumphs that great singing is no less vital in Strauss than in bel canto.

Boasting of a century-long association with the composer’s music, Staatskapelle Dresden has an unassailable claim on being the world’s preeminent Strauss orchestra, and in their playing in this performance of Elektra—recorded in concert in the Berlin Philharmonie and committed to disc with sonic clarity that continues DGG’s legacy of technological wizardry—the Staatskapelle’s musicians honor their ensemble’s reputation. The passing years have in no way diminished the celebrated brilliance of the Staatskapelle’s playing, and the levels of accuracy and sheer dedication that the musicians impart in the music of Strauss are unchanged since the days when their efforts were guided by the greatest of Strauss interpreters, Karl Böhm. All sections of the orchestra contribute unfailingly musical readings of their parts, and Strauss’s most astringent harmonies retain tonal beauty that makes them all the more emotionally pungent. Nothing is exploited in pursuit of cheap effects, and the precision of ensemble and clarity in even the most explosive passages are especially remarkable in the context of a recording of a live performance. Christian Thielemann, regarded by many opera lovers as the only true successor to the important Wagner and Strauss conductors of the past, seems to have dutifully absorbed both the gravity and the grandeur of the Staatskapelle’s traditions. Stewarding the orchestra’s sterling playing and the strong singing of the Sächsischer Staatsopernchor Dresden, Maestro Thielemann shapes a performance that offers the soloists a fertile musical garden in which to cultivate a compelling account of Elektra. The strengths of Maestro Thielemann’s musical interpretation are not consistently duplicated in his dramatic momentum, however. Chosen tempi are generally logical, but in those passages in which the conductor’s intervention is required in order to keep the opera’s theatrical fire burning Maestro Thielemann allows energy to wane. This increases the pressure on the singers, and the performance as a whole is fortunate in that the principals take charge when scenes threaten to stall. Were Elektra one of Strauss’s tone poems, Maestro Thielemann’s pacing of it would be little short of perfect, but, being an outrageous beast of an opera, Elektra needs greater attention to balancing musical supremacy with dramatic involvement.

The supporting cast in this performance is reliable without being exceptional. Most notable is the presence of soprano Nadine Secunde as the Overseer. Herself a memorable Chrysothemis in the Boston Symphony performances of Elektra recorded commercially by Philips, Ms. Secunde is as acquainted with Strauss’s music as any singer in this cast. Her familiarity with the score reveals itself in an insightful use of text, and she sings powerfully if occasionally unsteadily. As the quintet of gossiping Maids, Constance Heller, Gala El Hadidi, Simone Schröder, Rachel Willis-Sørensen, and Nadja Mchantaf sing impressively, and their performances are paralleled by the subtly-characterized Young and Old Servants of Simeon Esper and Matthias Henneberg. Romy Petrick and Christiane Hossfeld make much of little as Klytämnestra’s Confidante and Trainbearer. Peter Lobert creates a spirited vignette as Orest’s tutor: his animated performance personifies the ‘ein starker Greis mit blitzenden Augen’ (‘powerful old man with flashing eyes’) described in Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s libretto.

​It is unusual for Aegisth to enjoy the services of an acclaimed Siegmund in the prime of his career, but the rôle benefits in this performance from the solid singing of Frank van Aken, whose performance is mostly free from the caricatures to which the part has been subjected by character tenors. Missing, too, are distortions of the vocal line. Like Herod in Salome, Aegisth is a nasty piece of work with few if any redeeming qualities, but the most sinister portrayals are those that avoid the traditional sneering in favor of more alluring tones. There is little true beauty in Mr. van Aken’s singing in this performance, but he phrases Aegisth’s serpentine utterances with pointed insinuation that lends the character credible rather than merely situational creepiness. Particularly in ‘Was hast du in der Stimme? Und was ist in dich gefahren,’ it is refreshing to hear an Aegisth who does not sound stretched to the limits of his resources; and one who does not sound as old as the mythological House of Atreus itself. In the context of the history of interpretations of Aegisth, Mr. van Aken is neither a Set Svanholm nor a Max Lorenz, but he easily assumes a place among the most satisfactory Aegisths on disc.

The most surprising aspect of René Pape’s Orest is that, being the work of a significant singer, it is a performance of no great significance. The music is superbly, indeed almost ideally sung, but Mr. Pape’s Orest sounds little engaged by his long-anticipated reunion with his sisters and decidedly half-hearted in his quest for vengeance. Vocally, Orest’s music scarcely challenges Mr. Pape, and his is one of the most evenly-sung performances of the rôle on disc. Perhaps it is his ease in the music that undermines the dramatic effectiveness of his depiction of the starkly heroic prodigal son twisted by an unrelenting desire for retribution: never heard in Mr. Pape’s expansively-phrased performance is the life-or-death determination of a man who has made peace with the objective of slaying his own mother. Though his firm, resonant voice delivers the music with complete competency, the emotional maelstrom of the Recognition Scene is a disappointingly tepid affair from Mr. Pape’s perspective. The beauty of tone that he invests in crucial exclamations like ‘So haben sie dich darben lassen oder—sie haben dich geschlagen’ is fantastic, but where are the shock and horror? It is not unrealistic to suppose that a loving brother’s resolve to obtain reprisal would be further bolstered by the maltreatment suffered by his sister, but Mr. Pape’s Orest’s awakening to the reality of Elektra’s life since his departure goes for little. Despite his crucial part in the opera’s violent dénouement, Orest has relatively few opportunities to make his mark on a performance, and Mr. Pape mostly leaves his chances to seize the dramatic upper hand from Elektra unrealized. It seems especially ungrateful to find fault with such a fluent, uncommonly attractively-sung performance, but in an opera that reeks of blood in every moment of its duration a bloodless Orest is disfiguring.

Anne Schwanewilms has emerged as one of the finest Strauss sopranos of the new century, her 2002 performance of the title rôle in Die Liebe der Danae in Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw having been lauded as one of that venue’s most thrilling Strauss performances and her Metropolitan Opera début as the Kaiserin in Die Frau ohne Schatten celebrated as a superb piece of singing. Ms. Schwanewilms’s voice is a study in contrasts, the leanness of the sound allying with surprising power. Ms. Schwanewilms seems to have been marginally off her best form at the time of this performance of Elektra, but she contributes a securely-sung Chrysothemis on the whole. Her opening cry of ‘Elektra!’ is strangely chilling, and her voice bristles with apprehension and frustration as she tells her sister of Klytämnestra’s and Aegisth’s colluding. The top B♭s to which Chrysothemis’s line rises as she sings of her desire to flourish as a wife and mother tax Ms. Schwanewilms, but her steadiness in the upper register is appreciable. She brings palpable sadness and unexpected temperament to her voicing of Chrysothemis’s lament for the supposedly-dead Orest, ‘Gestorben in der Fremde! Tot! Gestorben dort in fremden Land, von seinen Pferden erschlagen und geschleift,’ and she conveys bracing trepidation and uncertainty when refusing Elektra’s entreaties to aid her in taking revenge on their mother. Ms. Schwanewilms’s singing grows more heated as the performance progresses, and she ably supplies the four top Bs required of her in the opera’s final minutes. She is not a girlish Chrysothemis, but neither was Leonie Rysanek. Ms. Schwanewilms does not have the ease and resplendence in the upper register that Rysanek brought to Chrysothemis’s music, but her high-octane assumption of the character is a worthy continuation of her great ancestor’s praxis.

As celebrated for her searing performances as Isolde and Sieglinde as for her tormented Kundry and poetic Waltraute, Waltraud Meier is a singer whose voice and career have defied simplistic categorizations of Fach and range. The tremendous technical acumen of her singing notwithstanding, her portraits of some of the most troubled women in opera have often seemed as much lived as sung: once the essence of a character is in her heart, the notes are in the voice. It cannot be denied that there now are signs of wear in the voice, but it also cannot be overlooked that this extraordinary singer dominates this performance with stirringly original journeys through both Klytämnestra’s music and her psyche. From her first entrance, this Klytämnestra is for all her understandable insecurity every inch a queen. An unnatural, unfeeling mother, perhaps, she knows—and knows with practiced mastery how to manipulate—her station in the royal household. Her venom is more potent because she does not spend her time on stage baring her fangs: she treads lightly, and her carefully-placed steps crush the weak in her path. The irony of her insouciant voicing of ‘Und das lass ich frei in meinem Hause lauften’ (‘And I allow that thing [Elektra] to roam free in my house’) is exponentially more effective than the snarling delivery used by many singers. Unusually, there is in this Klytämnestra a palpable sense of her treachery having been born of wronged maternal instincts. For once, she is a credibly wounded woman whose hatred for Agamemnon stemmed from his apparent sacrifice of their daughter Iphigenia, not an unrepentant harlot whose murder of one husband was motivated by the desire to bed another. Eschewing all of the traditional unmusical sound effects of her rôle except for the bloodcurdling screams when she makes the acquaintance of her resurrected son’s axe, Ms. Meier adopts the unorthodox approach of actually singing Klytämnestra’s music. The voice is strongest at the upper end of the part’s range, but Ms. Meier never cheats or resorts to approximated pitches. There are a few moments in which she might have sacrificed accuracy for steadiness, but she is too musical and has too much respect for the composer and his wishes to compromise. The integrity and specificity with which she enunciates Klytämnestra’s text would be just as apt for portraying Sappho, and, even taking into account her still-magnificent singing, the foremost achievement of her performance is the humanity that she lends to this most clichéd of operatic termagants.

Under the best of circumstances, the most technologically-advanced and meticulously-monitored microphones encounter challenges in the recording of large voices. Hailed as one of today’s most successful exponents of Strauss’s rôles for dramatic soprano, Evelyn Herlitzius possesses the sort of columnar, slightly unwieldy voice that troubles microphones. Unfortunately for such a singer’s recorded legacy, microphones tend to overemphasize vibrato and suggest a measure of unsteadiness that would not be apparent in the ‘open’ acoustics of an opera house or concert hall. Basic physics imparts that the intensity of sound produced increases with the amplitude of a voice, and the most sophisticated engineering—which is certainly what DGG’s recording of this performance employed—can but approximate the actual aural impact of a Hochdramatischer voice. As recorded, Ms. Herlitzius’s voice can sound somewhat ungainly, but this is almost certainly a result of the natural size of the instrument. At any rate, it is of little consequence in a performance of the cumulative quality that Ms. Herlitzius achieves here. Elektra’s opening monologue, ‘Allein! Weh, ganz allein,’ is one of the most formidable entrances for any character in opera: without the benefit of warm-up, Elektra must introduce herself to the audience in nine minutes of concentrated vehemence strewn with top Gs, A♭s, As and B♭s. Ms. Herlitzius’s cries of ‘Agamemnon’ are ferocious in their visceral grief and anger, and she descends to the lower reaches of the music with rounded tone. The climactic top C is not managed without effort, but it is steady and on pitch and illustrative of legitimate emotional release. In her scenes with Chrysothemis and Klytämnestra, Ms. Herlitzius’s Elektra never cedes the emotional advantage, but when Elektra is reunited with the brother she has been told is dead the sentimental gates are thrown open, not just to jubilation at the reunion but also to an eruption of redoubled commitment to avenging her father. The ringing authority of Ms. Herlitzius’s singing in the Recognition Scene is tremendous. Like Ms. Meier, however, she penetrates far beneath the surface of her rôle. Digging deeply into the nuances of Hofmannsthal’s text and the wonders of Strauss’s music in passages like ‘Schleppst du dich hierher in meinen traurigen Winkel, Herold des Unglücks’ and ‘Ich will nicht wissen, wer du bist,’ she uncovers a seldom-glimpsed vulnerability in Elektra. The exhilaration that Ms. Herlitzius conveys in the opera’s final scene is not that of a bloodthirsty creature whose lust for retaliation has been consummated: instead, she is at last a woman fulfilled. Rather than seeming as in many performances that, deprived of her reason for living, she simply ceases to do so, this Elektra’s final act of defiance and of filial duty is death. In an instant, she witnesses the restoration of justice to the only world she knows and, her longing satisfied, returns to the primordial murk from which she emerged. Vocally, Ms. Herlitzius covers her music’s two octaves with vigor and panache, and she strives diligently to create a character who is more maligned than manic and who is discernibly both her father’s and her mother’s daughter.

It is no coincidence that Richard Strauss’s Elektra has been so infrequently recorded during the past quarter-century. Though the opera remains popular in the world’s opera houses, it is a score that demands far greater expenditures of vocal and theatrical capital than it typically receives. This is not a perfect Elektra, but Elektra is an artistic behemoth that scoffs at the very notion of perfection. Of what value is perfection in the telling of a tale of such vastly imperfect people? The grand success of this impeccably-prepared, expertly-executed, and masterfully-recorded performance is the manner in which the cast, especially Evelyn Herlitzius and Waltraud Meier, portray these brutal figures of myth as people rather than cold archetypes. They might be residents of any place or time with an appetite for families with sordid secrets and rotting skeletons in their closets. This is surely what Strauss and Hofmannsthal envisioned, and is this universality not also the very soul of opera?

CD REVIEW: Richard Wagner – Selections from GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG, TANNHÄUSER, & TRISTAN UND ISOLDE (Heidi Melton, soprano; Musicales Actes Sud ASM 22)

RICHARD WAGNER (1813 – 1883): Overture, Venusberg-Szene (Bacchanal), and ‘Dich, teure Halle’ (Aria, Elisabeth – Act II) from Tannhäuser; Prelude (Act I) and Liebestod (‘Mild und Leise’ – Isolde, Act III) from Tristan und Isolde; and Trauermarsch and ‘Starke Scheite schichtet mit dort!’ (Immolation Scene, Brünnhilde – Act III) from Götterdämmerung—Heidi Melton, soprano; Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine; Paul Daniel CBE, conductor [Recorded in concert at Salle Dutilleux, l’Auditorium de Bordeaux, France, 9 and 11 October 2013; Musicales Actes Sud ASM 22; 1CD, 76:52; Available from harmonia mundi, fnac, jpc, Presto Classical, and major music retailers]

​While those primarily concerned with selling copies of out-of-touch periodicals and instigating ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ via social media comment on singers’ waistlines, exacerbate conflicts among Arts institutions, and revel in their own eulogies for Classical Music, what those who genuinely love opera long to hear is great singing. There is no growth without innovation and no innovation without ideas, but without great singing there is no future either for opera or for any other genre of vocal music. The most extraordinary production of Götterdämmerung without a Siegfried capable of dying with integrity in glorious song and a Brünnhilde who seems to give a damn when he is gone is little more than reality television with a pretty soundtrack. Exasperatingly, much contemporary criticism suggests that the listener should assess opera primarily with the eyes rather than the ears. Virtually every aspect of human life is a balancing act, but it is difficult to accept that opera, an art that is predicated upon the unlikely, relies primarily upon visual beauty for its preservation. To reject a middle-aged Mimì or a barely-shaving Gurnemanz is to obliterate the very essence of opera: imagination. Great singing enables the listener to see not what a director seeks to impose on the music but what the composer intended. On this disc, the sublime singing of Spokane-born soprano Heidi Melton introduces the listener to the barely-contained excitement of Wagner’s Elisabeth, the ecstasy of Isolde’s transmutation, and the unbending resolve of Brünnhilde’s sacrifice. Let those for whom music is merely an industry debate the superficial failings of opera in the Twenty-First Century: those who embrace opera as a divine art of song rather than trivialities can rejoice in this performance by a ravishing new prophetess of Wagner singing.

Recorded during a pair of concerts celebrating the Wagner Bicentennial and reproduced in bright, spacious sound that eschews efforts at artificially smoothing out the wrinkles that inevitably occur in live performances, this disc announces the emergence of the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine as an ensemble with unquestionably strong Wagnerian credentials. Opening with a robust but refined account of the Overture to Tannhäuser, the Orchestre’s players display complete affinity for Wagner’s compositional style and a degree of comfort in his music that has traditionally eluded many French orchestras. Gallic influences on Wagner are highlighted with telling emphasis, particularly by the woodwinds, but Teutonic discipline and accuracy are laudably maintained. The great thematic arcs of the Tannhäuser Overture and the energetic largesse of the Bacchanal from the opera’s ‘Venusburg’ Scene are constructed by the Orchestre with secure intonation guided by the firm beat provided by conductor Paul Daniel. Not least owing to his stewardship of English National Opera, Maestro Daniel possesses experience with an unusually extensive repertory, and unlike many conductors he has proved an effective interpreter of virtually all of the styles with which he has contended. In the performances on this disc, he occasionally adopts tempi that are slightly too broad, momentum being imperiled as the musicians endeavor to sustain melodic strands and rhythmic precision. The Prelude to Act One of Tristan und Isolde is rousingly played, the mysterious, vaguely sinister quality of the celebrated ‘Tristan chord’ conveyed with ethereal impact. The splendor of the Orchestre’s accompaniment of Isolde’s Liebestod is undermined only by Maestro Daniel’s too-deliberate pacing of the concluding bars, which extends the lines just beyond the wind players’ abilities to sustain accuracy of pitch. The pinnacle of the Orchestre’s full-bodied, lovingly-phrased playing is achieved in the music from Götterdämmerung. The Trauermarsch that accompanies the corpse of the slain Siegfried to the Gibichung Hall receives from the musicians a performance of true power, not just empty volume, and the brass fanfares are formidably sure of intonation and ensemble. This recording offers the perfect setting for a memorable account of the postlude to Brünnhilde’s Immolation, the live concert provenance enabling the inimitable frisson of interaction between musicians and audience but eliminating the roars and rumbles of staged productions of the opera in which Walhalla noisily implodes. The Orchestre and Maestro Daniel seize this opportunity with flair, and the halos of sound suspended by the strings over the coruscating tide of sound in the critical statements of Sieglinde’s motif are stirring. Solely in the outpouring of sincerity in the conducting and orchestral playing, this is a performance in which the universal absolution of Brünnhilde’s self-oblation is especially evident.

The performances preserved on this disc also reveal that Heidi Melton is the uncommon soprano who has both the vocal thrust needed to soar over Wagner’s leviathan orchestrations and the beauty of tone to make the results of her efforts sounds that audiences will actually want to hear. She sails through Elisabeth’s ‘Dich, teure Halle’ from Act Two of Tannhäuser with an ease that belies the fact that it is an entrance aria of a level of difficulty for which even prodigiously-gifted sopranos might long to throttle the composer. Ms. Melton captures the girlish excitement of the music with charisma to spare, and she makes the ascent to top B—managed with the energy of an erupting geyser—an organic, even orgasmic resolution of the vocal line. The contrast with her singing of Isolde’s Liebestod could hardly be more gripping. This selection she begins in a perfectly-supported mezza voce, the opening phrases revealing the pallor of death already in the voice. As the vocal line ascends, however, the dark-hued resignation of the opening brightens into first acceptance and finally welcoming of the journey to reunion with Tristan. Ms. Melton conjures an Isolde who, rather than being impersonally transfigured by death, by her own will transforms physical dissolution into spiritual rejuvenation. She sings the Liebestod with complete technical mastery, and her disembodied voicing of the final F♯5 is the parting sigh of a soul already embracing immortality. Transition is likewise central to Ms. Melton’s sculpting of the Immolation Scene from Götterdämmerung. The sting of Siegfried’s guileless betrayal and the trauma of his death simmer in Ms. Melton’s singing of the opening bars of the scene, and she insightfully conveys the development of Brünnhilde’s comprehension of the global implications of her deeply personal destiny, completing the metamorphosis started in Act Three of Die Walküre. The top A♭s, A♮s, and B♭s to which Brünnhilde’s vocal line climbs seem to trouble Ms. Melton very little, and though the climactic B♮5 on the phrase ‘Lockt dich zu ihm die lachende Lohe’ makes a greater demand upon her resources the effort expended is rendered dramatically apt by the psychological potency of her delivery. Her calmly enraptured singing of ‘Ruhe, ruhe, du Gott’ makes this passage the catharsis that it should be, and she manages to create a Brünnhilde who greets the flames as both Valkyrie and Woman. This is an extraordinary achievement in a staged performance of Götterdämmerung: in a concert performance of only the Immolation Scene, it is a feat that only a Wagnerian in the tradition of Lehmann and Nordica, Flagstad and Traubel, and Varnay and Nilsson can bring off.

For earnest music lovers starved for performances of the music of Wagner that are memorable for the right reasons, this disc from Musicales Actes Sud and the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine is a veritable feast. In the pair of concert performances that produced this recording, the Orchestre, Paul Daniel, and Heidi Melton paid homage to Wagner with complementary eloquence and exuberance. Ultimately, this disc’s greatest gift to the composer is the manner in which it proves to the listener that great Wagner singing is not exclusively in the past.

IN MEMORIAM: Carlo Bergonzi, 1924 – 2014

Elegance personified: Italian tenor Carlo Bergonzi as Manrico in Verdi’s Il trovatore at the Metropolitan Opera, 1959 [Photo by Louis Mélançon, © The Metropolitan Opera]

CARLO BERGONZI

13 July 1924 – 25 July 2014

When Carlo Bergonzi débuted at the Metropolitan Opera as Radamès in Verdi’s Aida on 13 November 1956, it was apparent to both the audience and the press that a singer of extraordinary artistic stature had arrived in New York. Even at the age of thirty-two, he possessed both an appealing voice and the technique needed to guide it through a long career in some of the most demanding music ever composed for the tenor voice. His career at the MET would ultimately extend to just one day short of thirty-two years, his final performance being as Edgardo in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor on 12 November 1988. In those three decades, he was truly a man for all seasons: a paragon of grace in bel canto, the poise and emotive simplicity of his singing of Nemorino’s ‘Una furtiva lagrima’ in L’elisir d’amore have never been surpassed; a more poetic Rodolfo in Puccini’s La bohème has not been heard in all the years of the MET’s history; the Verdi canon, ranging from the lyric Luisa Miller to the dramatic La forza del destino, has known no more devoted servant. His was a voice of satin and silver that conquered the cavernous spaces of the world’s largest opera houses with projection rather than volume. Even at his most extroverted, he was virtually incapable of vulgarity. As an artist, he was a prince among paupers: as a man, he was an oasis of humility in a vast, ever-expanding desert of arrogance.

As an aspiring young singer, I encountered Mr. Bergonzi on two occasions, both in Italy, when he was in every way more like an encouraging grandfather than one of the finest tenors of his or any generation and perhaps the single greatest Verdi singer of the Twentieth Century. In my experience, brief as it was, he taught not by lecturing and criticizing but by prodding the student to discover the voice of the composer speaking through the music. Not merely in the sense that it is communication of text, singing is a conversation, he suggested—a conversation with the composer, the audience, and oneself. The aural manifestation of this philosophy can be heard in any of Mr. Bergonzi’s recordings, whether made in studio or taped in performance. In the celebrated 1969 Trovatore from the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, the love of Mr. Bergonzi’s Manrico for Leonora, his fear for Azucena, and above all his respect and affection for Verdi resound across the years. Easy, refulgent top Cs were not his to dispense, but he had complete cognizance of every specific limitation of his voice and employed that knowledge to craft a technique that was founded upon a desire to meet rather than circumvent musical challenges. This he imparted to those fortunate enough to spend an hour or a decade under his tutelage. To him, singing without placing the tone properly is nothing more than tuned shouting, and singing without heart is the greatest offense to which music can be subjected.

Having admired Mr. Bergonzi’s singing since first hearing the DECCA studio recording of Verdi’s Don Carlo with Renata Tebaldi, Grace Bumbry, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Nicolai Ghiaurov, and Martti Talvela, I was nonetheless unprepared for my first encounter with the performance that transformed my appreciation for him into unrestrained idolization: the 1970 MET broadcast of Bellini’s Norma. Not heard at the MET since 1956, when the title rôle was sung both in New York and on tour in Philadelphia by Maria Callas, Norma in 1970 had the distinction both of introducing Dame Joan Sutherland’s portrayal of the Druidess to New York and of witnessing the house début of Marilyn Horne. Alongside the powerhouse partnership of Sutherland and Horne, already perfected via DECCA’s 1964 studio recording and the 1967 Covent Garden production of Norma, even the most accomplished Pollione might justifiably have been expected to seem inconsequential. From his first note, however, Mr. Bergonzi’s Pollione exudes confidence, masculinity, and complete comfort with Bellini’s bel canto idiom. He ducks the written top C in ‘Meco all’atar di Venere’—as do most tenors in staged performances and which a number of those who attempted the note should have done—but phrases the aria with all the grandeur of imperial Rome. His burly swagger in the cabaletta, ‘Me protegge, me difende,’ is all the more effective for being unexpected, and he brings fire and finesse to the great duet with Adalgisa and the monumental trio that brings down the curtain on Act One. He matches Sutherland note for golden note in ‘In mia man,’ and the dignity of his voicing of Pollione’s lines in the opera’s finale heightens the impact of the tragic dénouement. Before hearing this performance, I liked Mr. Bergonzi’s singing: after hearing it, I longed to sing like him.

Mr. Bergonzi was not a perfect singer and was the first to admit it. He was also an artist for whom perfection was judged by achieving connections with music and audiences rather than by unerring executions of notes. If a singer’s legacy can be assessed by the affection he inspires in an opera lover who never heard him sing ‘live,’ this opera lover’s adoration of his artistry proves that Carlo Bergonzi was one of the greatest artists ever to make the world’s opera houses his home.

His Rodolfo was a poet, but his singing was true poetry: Carlo Bergonzi as Rodolfo in Puccini’s La bohème at the Metropolitan Opera, 1958 [Photo by Louis Mélançon, © The Metropolitan Opera]

PERFORMANCE REVIEW: Songstress Natalie Noone at the Evening Muse (Charlotte, NC), 24 July 2014

​ Musing at the Evening Muse: Natalie Noone in performance in Charlotte, NC, 24 July 2014 [Photo by June Newsome; used with permission]

One of the most exhilarating experiences in the Arts is witnessing the birth of a legitimate star. Whatever the genre, there is a collective thrill of discovery that every observer perceives as uniquely individual. Such is the pride in having encountered an engaging artist in his or her creative infancy that invariably far more people than the venues could accommodate claim to have seen Elvis Presley’s sole appearance at the Grand Ole Opry, Maria Callas’s début at the Metropolitan Opera, and Dame Margot Fonteyn’s first performance with the Royal Ballet. These were the sort of stars who shone both from the stages upon which they plied their trades and in the hearts of those who saw and never forgot them. Sadly, so many of today’s prominent performers embody an artificial stardom that is manufactured rather than earned. The public clamor for them because they are told that they ought to do, and they do as they are told until new instructions are given. Defying the machinations of popularity in the Twenty-First Century makes the already-difficult life of an artist even more crushing, but that defiance is what defines a star with the potential to be remembered when the notoriety-mongers push the next acid-voiced ingénue onto the stage. Defying the confining easy paths to success as an artist is what makes Natalie Noone a singer with a bright future, but it is raw talent that gives her the aura of an emerging star.

Raised in California and now resident in Nashville, Ms. Noone enjoyed in her chronological and artistic youths the example of her father, Peter Noone, front man of British Invasion hit-makers Herman’s Hermits. One of the few pretty-boy lead singers of any era in popular music to take care both to learn to sing properly and to master the business components of the Arts, Mr. Noone continues, now a half-century after he conquered global pop charts, to sell out venues large and small 150 days out of the year. This success is partially owed to the nostalgia movement in music but is substantially the product of Mr. Noone’s uncommon showmanship and wide-ranging savvy. Observing her self-effacing amiability and ease before an audience, it is apparent that Ms. Noone has both inherited and absorbed elements of her father’s artistic personality. She is unmistakably her own woman as a singer and musician, however, and her eclectic style is refreshingly free of obvious emulation. Though reminiscent of the young Dolly Parton, Joni Mitchell, and even the legendary chanteuses of her mother’s native France, Ms. Noone’s personal idiom is a fusion of American roots music and sophisticated threads of European music. Hers is not as much a traditional ‘Nashville’ or ‘Blues’ sound as an appealing synthesis of aspects of a wide array of styles and genres that she skillfully allies to the nuances of lyrics. A gifted guitarist whose playing far exceeds the level of many strum-as-they-sing musicians’ accomplishments, she is unafraid of sparse textures that highlight her abilities as a vocal storyteller. Many of her self-penned songs explore dark-hued emotions, but there is an insurmountable sunniness in her vocal delivery that mitigates melancholy. Above all, Ms. Noone radiates the unrelenting joy of singing that should be the life source for every musical star.

At her gig at the Evening Muse in Charlotte on Thursday evening, Ms. Noone offered the enthusiastic audience a selection of songs from her forthcoming studio album Midnight. An unaffected, playful presence on stage, she has a natural affinity for capturing the essence of a song and communicating it to the audience without gimmickry. The title track from Midnight is a beautiful ballad extolling the many shades of blue that cover an artist’s canvas and a lover’s heart, and the sheer loveliness of Ms. Noone’s timbre was wonderful. Written by Danny Flowers, the acclaimed session guitarist and songwriter who also produced Midnight, ‘Actions Speak Softer Than Words’ is a harmonically adventurous number that drew from Ms. Noone singing of special radiance. Her songs ‘What We Already Know’ and ‘Hold Me Down,’ both evocative pieces, were performed with muted intensity, the clarity of the singer’s diction uniting with her secure placement of vowels through register shifts. In her concluding song, ‘Loveliest Heartache,’ Ms. Noone built her vocals upon a Lila Downs-like core of silk-draped steel as the refrain’s melody ascended, but the dulcet pianissimo of her voicing of the last chorus brought her set to an unforgettably ruminant close. Rewarded by the audience with a reception of warmth equal to that which her singing exuded, Ms. Noone introduced herself to Charlotte with grace and unpretentious glamour.

Whichever musical genres young artists inhabit, far too many of them are devoured by the insatiable jaws of the behemoth that is the music industry in the new millennium. Success is measured in downloads and impersonal interactions, and deep pockets are often more critical to a fledgling career than deep wells of talent. Natalie Noone is the rare kind of musician who seeks affirmation in smiles and handshakes from those who hear her. Hers are the songs of a lover of singing, and hers is a path to stardom not of arena concerts and endorsement contracts but of the truest spirit of music. In short, she dares to be an artist among artifices.

To learn more about Natalie Noone, her forthcoming studio album Midnight, and upcoming performance dates, visit the Official Website for Natalie Noone and the Maybes.