ARTIST PROFILE: Sébastien Guèze, tenor

It was with a performance of Charles Gounod’s Faust that the Metropolitan Opera was launched on 22 October 1883.  This opening performance was sung in Italian translation rather than in Gounod’s French, but an important hallmark in the first half-century in the history of the MET was the establishment and maintenance of national ‘wings’ of performance.  During the first few decades of the Twentieth Century, the MET’s ‘French wing’ brought to performances of French repertory the work of the greatest French-speaking artists, combining idiomatic singing, conducting, and direction for performances than transported audiences from Broadway to the Champs-Élysées.  The early Twentieth Century was also a veritable Belle Époque for the native music of France, where traditions refined by the Opéra and Opéra Comique in the previous century blossomed into an unique musical culture that coincided with the dawn of recording technology.  The voices of Pol Plançon, Maurice Renaud, Victor Maurel, Marcel Journet, Yvonne Gall, and Emma Calvé epitomized the best of the Gallic school of singing in the early decades of the Twentieth Century.  In 1924, the Opéra welcomed Georges Thill, a tenor who for many audiences and listeners represented the zenith of French singing, his repertory spanning many of the great works of the French repertoire as well as Puccini roles and Wagner’s Lohengrin.  After Thill’s retirement, however, French repertory increasingly fell victim to the internationalization of opera.  While French repertory continued to delight and move audiences in all the world’s opera houses, performances were more and more frequently entrusted to singers with non-native French.  By the 1970s, many audiences and critics would hail Alfredo Kraus—a Spaniard with Austrian parentage—as the finest ‘French’ tenor on the international circuit, highlighting the extent to which opera had become an ‘international’ genre, largely discarding the national ‘wings’ and traditional schools of singing that had flourished in the prior century.  There were in the gifted and supremely elegant Léopold Simoneau and Alain Vanzo guardians of the golden standard of French singing, however, and—not unlike Alfredo Kraus—they both sang with reliable style and tonal beauty throughout their careers.  When both Simoneau and Vanco passed away in the first decade of the new millennium, it seemed that the tradition of honeyed, heady French tenor singing inherited from the formidable artists of the Nineteenth Century was consigned to extinction.  Anyone who has heard the young tenor Sébastien Guèze during the past few years rejoices that the endangered species of French tenors has at least one savior, a singer whose voice reminds listeners of the glories of French singing of the past.

Born in Lyon, Sébastien Guèze studied music while also working to earn a Masters Degree in International Business.  After making the decision to devote himself exclusively to music, Mr. Guèze entered the prestigious Conservatoire de Paris, where his studies prepared him for a career in opera by exposing him to all aspects of music-making.  ‘It was a little different [than some music programs],’ Mr. Guèze recollects.  ‘We did more general skills, not specifically opera roles, but also mélodies, Lieder, chorus, theatre…including all the periods.  It’s not like a [young artists] program in an opera house, where you are a part of each production.  It’s a general school of teaching, with, of course, each year one [operatic] production!’  This, Mr. Guèze feels, was crucial to his development as an artist.  ‘It’s in this way that [I] learned a more global vision of the different music possibilities,’ he says.  ‘You start [as a] generalist, [and] the next step is to become a specialist!’

It is interesting to note that, when reminiscing about the singers whose work inspired his interest in opera, Mr. Guèze mentions no French singers.  ‘I discovered opera with ‘Con te partiro’ by Andrea Bocelli!’ he laughs.  ‘Thanks a lot [to] the crossover!’  [In a tenuous nod to his influence on Mr. Guèze, it is interesting to note that, in the coming months, DECCA will release CD and DVD recordings of a production of Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette featuring Mr. Bocelli.]  His appetite for opera whetted, he next encountered the marketing juggernaut that introduced many people throughout the world to tenor singing: The Three Tenors.  After Pavarotti, Domingo, and Carreras, Mr. Guèze turned to the historical models of Franco Corelli and Mario del Monaco, supplemented by the more recent examples of Roberto Alagna, Rolando Villazón, and Jonas Kaufmann.  ‘One who is killing me every time [is] Fritz Wunderlich,’ Mr. Guèze confides.

The singers whose performances have influenced Mr. Guèze reflect the international nature of opera in the Twenty-First Century.  Despite his youth, Mr. Guèze is keenly aware of his place in the lineage of French artists, as well as the demands and expectations of pursuing an international career as an opera singer.  ‘Of course, I feel very comfortable singing in French, more close [to the text], playing on each word,’ he shares.  ‘In French [repertory], I have some roles that I feel so strong inside me.  I don’t know why, especially because I don’t want to sing [them] today or tomorrow, but they are here—like Werther.’  Mr. Guèze first captured the notice of opera lovers throughout the world when he sang Gounod’s Roméo opposite the Juliette of acclaimed Georgian soprano Nino Machiadze in a broadcast performance at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, a performance that announced the arrival of a beautiful, genuinely French tenor voice.  Building on the momentum created by the reception of that performance, Mr. Guèze acknowledges that he has been fortunate in his career to date in terms of realizing artistic goals.  ‘I [have] sung most of the roles that I wanted to do: Roméo, Faust, the Duca in Rigoletto, Lenski in Yevgeny Onegin, Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly, and Alfredo in La Traviata,’ he says.  Nemorino in L’Elisir d’Amore is a favored role because, as Mr. Guèze characterizes it, he has the opportunity ‘just to be crazy and have a lot of fun on stage!’  Recent performances of L’Elisir d’Amore in São Paulo, Brasil, found Mr. Guèze on brilliant form, winning ovations from audiences and words of praise from critics.  In choosing which roles to sing, Mr. Guèze is very attentive to maintaining a careful balance during each season.  ‘I try to find a mix to keep the flexibility of the voice and my mind fresh,’ he says.  His goals for each season are specific but logical: ‘four or five productions with different roles that I [have] already sung; one creation [of a new role] or a forgotten opera (finding forgotten pieces is my second passion); and one or two new roles from the repertory (bel canto or Romantic period).’  He acknowledges, though, that he cannot always exercise complete control over his realization of these goals.  ‘There is no rule!’ he laughs, noting that the role that he has sung most often in his career to date is Rodolfo in Puccini’s La Bohème.  His performances of Rodolfo in Graham Vick’s production of Bohème for Greek National Opera garnered rave reviews in the European press, further establishing him as a singer that audiences are excited to hear.

The challenges of an international career are also apparent to Mr. Guèze, who works to adapt his artistry to the realities of being in demand throughout the world.  ‘Now with the airplane,’ he reflects, ‘you are singing one day in Europe and the next day in the USA!  Specifically when the role is very intense, I know that sometimes I am doing too much; too much in the season with some last-minute calls.  But I love that, I love the stage, the improvisation, being surprised and reacting every second to find the best solution.’  Reflecting on his transition from an intended career in international business to one as a singer, he says, ‘I was a singer by accident, so I am just taking the bonus.  So, I conclude that I’ll be a lion, and when it [is] enough, I will do something else!’  Even for a singer as gifted as Mr. Guèze, tackling the challenges of a career as an artist came with a learning curve.  ‘At the beginning, I tried to protect myself,’ he says, ‘but I was sad, loosing my motivation.’  These feelings are swept away by the joys of singing.  ‘When you are on stage and the time is suspended, stopped, you can do everything.  You feel the maestro and the orchestra totally with you, without anyone looking; the audience in a beautiful silence of listening, impatient.  That’s magic, and I think that’s why people love opera so intensely when they taste these kinds of moments!’

These moments are impossible without a firm technical foundation, and Mr. Guèze takes the development of his technique very seriously.  His seriousness does not preclude enjoyment of the art of singing, however.  Asked to summarize his approach to the technical aspects of singing, he responds with typical frankness and humor.  ‘When I am a sweet boy studying, I’ll tell you flexibility and sun.  But when I am on stage, passion and cinema!’  Instruction is very important but must also be approached with a degree of caution, he suggests.  ‘Listening to all [the] teachers and different techniques in the world is good,’ Mr. Guèze opines, ‘but each body, each face, each person is different, so [you must] find your own way.  A good teacher is not a guru, just a friend giving his hand when you need it.’

A performance by Mr. Guèze is a display of the essence of opera.  Not surprising in a native Frenchman are his clear diction and attention to text, regardless of the language in which he sings.  What is exceptional in a singer of any nationality is the beauty of his voice throughout his range, from a burnished lower register that suggests power in reserve for roles like Werther in future to a gleaming, floating upper register that seems to have been distilled from Mediterranean sunlight.  Though still in the early seasons of what seems certain to be a long and uncommonly distinguished career, Mr. Guèze possesses the kind of technical assurance, emotional engagement, and self-cognizance that are necessary for longevity in the business of singing.  Most importantly, perhaps, is Mr. Guèze’s enjoyment of his vocation.

‘At the end [of a performance], there is no book, no sculpture, no painting, just a [series] of vibrations that came and left,’ Mr. Guèze says of opera.  ‘It’s a curious form of art!’  The audience is as much a part of a performance as the artists on stage, he feels.  ‘To be [a] spectator is to take part in it,’ he shares.  ‘Seeing and imagining our own lives through the story…we are coming for that, to dream and to remember that our souls are part of humanity.’  This shared experience is an aspect of opera that Mr. Guèze finds very rewarding.  ‘Everybody can feel it, from the audience to the stage.  It’s starting full of fears, and—like the phoenix—at the end everybody feels alive.’

Achieving this sense of life and fears overcome is the most vital element of Mr. Guèze’s artistic endeavor.  Whether enacting comedy or tragedy, he has been recognized by critics for the directness and emotional truth of his performances, and this is a gratifying validation of Mr. Guèze’s personal philosophy of performing opera.  ‘It’s not about small or big,’ he reflects.  ‘It’s doing something true!  All your ideas must have an origin and an issue.  If your soul feels it, your body will feel it, and your heart will send it to the audience.  For me, this is the key of the presence on the stage.’  Mr. Guèze responds adroitly to the efforts of opera directors to increase the ‘relevance’ of opera by updating the settings of major-repertory operas to times and places more familiar to modern audiences.  ‘The secret of a magical performance is in the emotion,’ Mr. Guèze suggests, ‘so I can understand that you want to make a modern set to change things since the last productions and to create a new point of view, but the leading idea must be shaped by the question, How will we give smiles and tears?’  He feels that updating an opera’s setting without a valid emotional perspective drawn from the score itself is a dangerous and potentially damaging undertaking.  ‘If it’s helping to have a new set, why not?’ he says.  ‘Let’s go!  But if it’s just to create sensation by provocations, it will only work for five minutes, and so what if that is the only [thing] that you have to say?  Give me depth and not an easy, superficial work!’

‘When I go to see an opera, I like to see a show like a movie,’ Mr. Guèze says.  It is important, though, that the music be the source of the spectacle.  ‘I invent nothing,’ he says of his dramatic instincts.  ‘It’s very logical!  How can I give something that I don’t have?’  What Mr. Guèze has is a dedication to the art of singing that is refreshing, whether pursuing repertory in his native language or the major roles in other languages.  It is rare to encounter a Rodolfo in La Bohème who both possesses the voice for the role and displays an emotional sincerity that suggests that he might well be a poet and a young lover on the brink of starvation.  His easy command of the musical idioms of his native country mark him as a legitimate savior of the waning art of French singing, and for this alone he is an artist whose performances are gifts to those who lament the decline of the French school of singing.  Whatever the provenance of the music that he sings, Mr. Guèze identifies as his great challenge in singing the drive ‘to give the shiver every day, every time.’  He says that, in his view, opera is a curious art because, at the end of a performance, nothing tangible, nothing lasting has been created.  In the case of a performance by Sébastien Guèze, this is not true.  Anyone who hears him carries a lasting memory of having heard something wonderful.

The author is deeply indebted to Mr. Guèze for his kindness, candor, and great humor in responding to questions for this article.  All photographs are used with Mr. Guèze’s permission.

To learn more about Sébastien Guèze’s career and find information about upcoming performances, please click here to visit Mr. Guèze’s beautifully-designed website.

BOOK REVIEW: Chinwe D. John – TALES OF FANTASY AND REALITY (ASIN B008J8ERAY)

One of the greatest debacles facing readers today is the matter of distinguishing legitimate literature from the work of the present generation of pretenders in print. While it is perhaps inaccurate and prejudiced to suggest that there are fewer works of literary merit being newly published now than in years past, it cannot be denied that a good book receives less attention in 2012 than it might have garnered in years before readers’ attention spans were shaped by chat shows and text messages. There can be little debate that, in Tales of Fantasy and Reality (published in July with illustrations by James Browne and available on Amazon), Chinwe D. John has provided modern readers with an engaging, exhilarating work of literature that challenges, beguiles, and impresses with tales delivered by a skilled and unique mistress of contemporary storytelling.

A child of the world whose formative years were divided among four continents, the author brings to Tales of Fantasy and Reality deep understanding of diverse cultures and traditions, and one of the most fascinating aspects of the book is the way in which she brings 21st Century sensibilities to tales originating in ages-old lore. Especially enlightening are her explorations of the folktales of Africa, a rich vein of complex, compelling mythology far too little tapped by Western writers, especially those writing in English. The author is not afraid of addressing the macabre, but the humor and poetry with which she does so are refreshing: these are stories that are meant to provoke self-study and enjoyment, not shock and dissociation. Like the plays of Shakespeare, Chinwe John’s poems and stories reveal the surprising extent to which all peoples, past and present, are related by common emotions, struggles, and successes.

Linguistically, Tales of Fantasy and Reality displays an eloquent command of the English language, allied with a gift for nuance born of the kind of raw insightfulness that only comes from exposure to varied cultures. The rhythmic construction of the author’s poetic verses contains great power, manipulating the reader’s streams of consciousness and conscience by focusing attention and sympathies on themes that often turn preconceptions on their heads. The author’s appreciation of music is apparent in the almost operatic way in which she uses language to bend phrases away from the conclusions that the reader expects, and this renders her stories—whether told in poetry or prose—vibrant and delightfully chameleonic: read the same story multiple times, and its layers of meaning shimmer and change under the light of differing moods. This is an accomplishment achieved only by uncommonly gifted writers.

In this age of e-mails and sound bites, it is rare that even a very good author can create a work of literature that interests and intrigues from the first page to the last. This talented writer succeeds in spinning tales that confront and cajole, drawing the reader into worlds that are mysterious but comfortingly familiar. Reading Tales of Fantasy and Reality is like spending an evening with a dear friend, sharing remarkable stories of lives lived and imagined over the finest cognac. Chinwe John is an author whose maiden literary voyage is one of both triumph and promise; one which is sure to mark the beginning of a circumnavigation of the world of our Century’s true literature.

To learn more about Chinwe John’s work, and to enjoy video recordings of her recitations, accompanied by Classical guitar, please click here to view her Facebook artist profile. Her YouTube channel can be accessed by clicking here.

CD REVIEW: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart—DON GIOVANNI (I. D’Arcangelo, L. Pisaroni, D. Damrau, J. DiDonato, R. Villazón, M. Erdmann; DGG 477 9878]

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756 – 1791): Don Giovanni, K. 527—I. D’Arcangelo (Don Giovanni), L. Pisaroni (Leporello), D. Damrau (Donna Anna), R. Villazón (Don Ottavio), J. DiDonato (Donna Elvira), M. Erdmann (Zerlina), K. Wolff (Masetto), V. Kowaljow (Commendatore); Vocalensemble Rastatt, Mahler Chamber Orchestra; Yannick Nézet-Séguin [recorded during concert performances in the Festspielhaus, Baden-Baden, in July 2011; Deutsche Grammophon 477 9878]

‘Deutsche Grammophon is now…recording all seven great Mozart operas from Idomeneo to La Clemenza di Tito with hand-picked singers, orchestras and conductors, just as the Yellow Label did in the 1960s and 1970s with the finest interpreters of their day under the direction of Mozart’s “representative on earth,” the Austrian conductor Karl Böhm.’  This statement in the present recording’s introductory essay by Manuel Brug creates a context for this new Don Giovanni but also dangerously raises expectations.  The Böhm-led Don Giovanni in the earlier DGG series is a powerful performance, not least in its preservation for the second time on a commercial recording of Birgit Nilsson’s Donna Anna, a woman of whom the Devil himself might justifiably be wary.  Under the best of circumstances, and in the best of times, recording Don Giovanni is a risky business, and Deutsche Grammophon are to be congratulated for offering what, on balance, is one of the strongest casts that could be assembled today for Mozart’s and da Ponte’s tale of seduction and retribution.  This is a strong beginning to a series of recordings that will hopefully prove, collectively, an effective and musically meritorious memorialization of international Mozart style in the Twenty-First Century.

A defining element of the recordings in Deutsche Grammophon’s new Mozart cycle is that each opera will be recorded in concert, with ‘patch’ sessions to correct any mistakes and record any stretches of secco recitative that are marred by ambient noises.  In this recording of Don Giovanni, in addition to the performance having benefited from the frisson of ‘live’ occasions, it is delightful to hear ripples of laughter during recitatives, though as in many performances there are occasional suspicions that the audience is not laughing at the moments at which da Ponte and Mozart might have intended.  In general, the sound in this recording is very good if not quite of the demonstration quality for which Deutsche Grammophon’s engineers are renowned.  Importantly, the continuo—pianoforte (played by Benjamin Bayl) and ‘cello (played by Konstantin Pfiz)—is placed in a natural acoustic, supporting the singers in secco recitative without seeming artificially enhanced.

The choral forces of the Vocalensemble Rastatt sing with gusto in their scenes, especially the penultimate scene of Don Giovanni’s demonic encounter and demise.  The players of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra are a virtuosic group, and if they lack the sort of authority brought to Mozart’s music by ensembles like the Staatskapelle Dresden and Wiener Philharmoniker they bring an engaging youthfulness to their playing, spurred by the conducting of Yannick Nézet-Séguin.  Maestro Nézet-Séguin is one of the promising young conductors who have taken the podiums of the world’s opera houses by storm in recent seasons, and in Don Giovanni he conducts with the energy and enthusiasm familiar from his appearances at the MET and elsewhere.  The music of Mozart is very different from the Romantic repertory over which Maestro Nézet-Séguin has most frequently presided, however, and a firmer stylistic hand would have been beneficial in this performance.  It can be argued that each character in Don Giovanni has his or her own musical style and that this contributes meaningfully to the drama, but having all of the singers in a performance of Don Giovanni on the same musical page produces an environment in which the listener can appreciate the composer’s genius for musical characterization without sorting through the various approaches brought to the music by the singers.  Maestro Nézet-Séguin does not yet bring the kind of authority to Don Giovanni that would justify comparison with Karl Böhm, but this is a recording that exhibits all the promise of a gifted young conductor, and he is to be congratulated for bringing a full-blooded, standard-repertory approach to the score rather than treating it as a ‘period’ piece that requires special handling.

The first point of vocal contact in Don Giovanni is Leporello, and in Luca Pisaroni this recording has an experienced practitioner of the role, his performances as Leporello in the Michael Grandage production at the Metropolitan Opera having garnered the plaudits of audiences and critics.  Mr. Pisaroni is a performer with charisma to spare, and it is possible when listening to this recording to wonder what he might have achieved in the title role.  As Leporello, Mr. Pisaroni plays capably to his Giovanni, even at the expense of his own vocal integrity.  ‘Notte e giorno faticar’ starts the performance winningly, but the comedy in ‘Madamina, il catalogo è questo’ is somewhat broad; a result of the ‘live’ recording, perhaps.  Mr. Pisaroni brings a genuine bass-baritone voice to the role, and if he ultimately lacks the point and pristine timing of a Salvatore Baccaloni—at this point in his career, at least—he has charm, excellent diction, and a well-schooled technique that should endear him to audiences for years to come.

The role of Don Giovanni was first sung by Luigi Bassi, who despite his surname and a relatively brief career was one of the greatest baritones of the last quarter of the Eighteenth Century, having also sung the Conte in the Prague premiere of Le Nozze di Figaro.  It is documented that Signor Bassi did not fancy ‘Fin ch’han dal vino,’ now considered one of the sharpest arrows in Giovanni’s quiver, and Mozart wrote—and re-wrote—‘Là ci darem la mano’ to humor his leading man.  As the decades passed, and perhaps as a result of opera houses growing larger and requiring singers with greater stamina and volume, Don Giovanni was increasingly appropriated by bass voices.  The MET’s first Giovanni in 1883 was Giuseppe Kaschmann, a ‘big sing’ baritone whose roles at the MET were as diverse as Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor and Telramund in Lohengrin.  In 1929, however, a new production of Don Giovanni ushered in an era of basso domination with the assumption of Giovanni’s wooing by Italian bass Ezio Pinza, still regarded as one of the best Giovannis heard in the Twentieth Century.  Then, in 1952, the inimitable Cesare Siepi made his role debut as Giovanni at the MET, creating a vocal and dramatic feast later documented in a classic DECCA recording.  [Two years before Siepi’s triumph as Don Giovanni, Italian baritone Paolo Silveri debuted at the MET in the same role, but his voice and performing temperament were better suited to later repertory.]  Until the efforts of baritones like Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Sherill Milnes (one of whose sizzling Salzburg performances under Böhm’s baton was also recorded by Deutsche Grammophon) reclaimed the role, Giovanni was the property in many opera houses of basses.  With the Italian bass-baritone Ildebrando D’Arcangelo in the title role of this performance, there is at least a partial return from the recent, higher-voiced trends of singers like Milnes, Sir Thomas Allen, and Simon Keenlyside to the traditions of Pinza, Siepi, Ghiaurov, and Raimondi.  Mr. D’Arcangelo brings to his performance a welcome intimacy, but this occasionally leads to crooning of a sort that undermines Mozart’s vocal lines, not least in ‘Là ci darem la mano.’  Having sung Baroque repertory throughout his career, Mr. D’Arcangelo encounters no difficulties in Giovanni’s music that his technique cannot surmount.  His rhythmic accuracy is impressive, as is the energy that he brings to his performance.  The basic tone color is quite dark, however, and this makes Mr. D’Arcangelo’s Giovanni seem more dreary than dangerous.  Mr. D’Arcangelo is at his best when interacting with Mr. Pisaroni’s Leporello, relishing the many ironies inherent in the master’s dealings with his servant.  This Giovanni seems slightly befuddled by the ladies he encounters, almost too sure of his success in seducing Zerlina, coy but unconvincing in his defiance of Anna, and so imperious with Elvira as to make the listener question why she should be so taken with him.  Vocally and dramatically, Leporello would seem the better fit for Mr. D’Arcangelo, but his Giovanni is a well-sung performance that distracts but does not ultimately disappoint.

Bass Vitalij Kowaljow is an effective Commendatore who misses the imposing standards set by basses of previous generations, not least the oily-voiced Ludwig Weber.  Konstantin Wolff and Mojca Erdmann are competent as Masetto and Zerlina, but they are more convincing individually than as a couple.  Ms. Erdmann’s Zerlina sounds like the sort of girl whose ambition trumps fidelity.  Having made her MET debut in the same role, she knows her way round the part, but she is more involved in her concerted surrender to Giovanni than in her comforting of her abused fiancé, and this lessens Zerlina’s—and, by association, Masetto’s—appeal to the listener.

One does not expect to encounter Mexican tenor Rolando Villazón in Mozart repertory, but since his forays into Baroque repertory with recordings of Händel arias and Vivaldi’s Ercole, Mr. Villazón has shown increasing interest in the music of Mozart.  In addition to his performance of Don Ottavio in this recording, Mr. Villazón will also sing Ferrando in Deutsche Grammophon’s forthcoming recording of Così fan tutte (as well as leading roles in the other Mozart opera recordings planned for the new DGG series) and recently sang Alessandro in Salzburg concert performances of Mozart’s early Il rè pastore.  Mr. Villazón’s vocal problems have been well publicized, and in Don Giovanni he faces in ‘Dalla sua pace’ and ‘Il mio tesoro intanto’ two of the most challenging arias ever composed for the tenor voice; challenging not so much in terms of tessitura but in the demands imposed upon breath control, bravura technique, and the ability to sustain melodic lines that look forward to the bel canto of Bellini.  Mr. Villazón confronts these challenges head on, and it is a testament to the integrity of his artistry that he offers such a compelling, ably-vocalized performance.  This is not the aristocratic Ottavio of a Dermota or Valletti but a fire-breathing, passionately Latin Ottavio bent on revenge, and in a performance that tends to drag occasionally Mr. Villazón’s every appearance is welcomed with enthusiasm.  Not unlike Mr. D’Arcangelo in the title role, Mr. Villazón’s basic tone is dark and slightly nasal, but the success with which he adapts his voice to the refined elegance of Ottavio’s arias is considerable.  There are no worries over either the coloratura passages or the exquisitely long phrases meant to be sung with a single breath.  It is an unconventional performance but in many ways all the more impressive for that.  Fine as the singers who specialize in period-appropriate Mozart performance are, it is an undeniable joy to hear one of the major tenor voices of recent years in a Mozart role on a commercial recording, and to hear Mr. Villazón singing so well and with such audible appreciation for the style is wonderful.

The principal glories of this Don Giovanni are its leading ladies, however, and in Diana Damrau’s Anna and Joyce DiDonato’s Elvira this recording boasts two of the finest pieces of Mozart singing recorded in the past half-century.  Ms. Damrau’s voice might be thought to be somewhat high and light for Anna, a role ideally interpreted by a singer like Elisabeth Grümmer—that is, a singer for whom both Mozart and Wagner are natural territory.  Ms. Damrau possesses an upper extension that is surely the envy of virtually every soprano in the world, and since her return to singing after her pregnancy she has displayed an increased warmth and power in the lower and middle registers.  The only advice that can be given to any naysayers who question her suitability for Donna Anna is very simple: listen.  Being so impeccably schooled in bel canto, Ms. Damrau takes greater liberties with embellishing her music than her colleagues attempt in theirs, but this is defensible to a degree by remembering that Anna is a figure siphoned from the grandiose opera seria of Baroque models, a style that was old-fashioned even in Mozart’s youth and arguably used in Anna’s music to set her apart from the other characters as a woman molded by centuries-old traditions.  Ms. Damrau’s command of the fiorature in ‘Non mi dir, bell’idol mio,’ one of those magnificent arias that seem to suspend time, is hardly surprising, but the fury and expansiveness of voice that she brings to her description of Giovanni’s assault on her honor and the following ‘Or sai chi l’onore’ are very exciting.  The explosiveness of Anna’s rage and righteous indignation never obscure the beauty of Ms. Damrau’s voice, though, and she sings with melting lyricism in ensembles.  Dramatically, Ms. Damrau’s Anna manages to be haughty without being a shrew: when, in the opera’s final moments, she entreats Ottavio to grant her one more year of freedom before claiming her hand in marriage, it is possible to believe that this is actually because she is mourning her slain father.  Ms. Damrau’s dulcet duetting with Mr. Villazón justifies the inclusion of the vaudeville finale, so frequently cut in years past.  From an historical perspective, Ms. Damrau likely offers a Donna Anna closer to the vocal dimensions that Mozart would have expected (the role was first sung by Italian soprano Teresa Saporiti-Codecasa, whose voice was almost certainly far less robust than those of powerhouse Annas like Birgit Nilsson and Dame Joan Sutherland).  In comparison with the historical Don Giovanni discography, Ms. Damrau offers a Donna Anna worthy of comparison with the very best and superior to many fine performances.

The same might be said of Joyce DiDonato’s Elvira, another creation by a singer for whom it seems that almost anything is possible.  Even as she expands her repertory to include roles like Richard Strauss’s Octavian and Komponist, Ms. DiDonato brings to her performance as Elvira style and vocal technique, derived from her mastery of Baroque repertory, that are precisely right for Mozart.  Each of Elvira’s arias presents its own unique set of hurdles, all of which Ms. DiDonato clears comfortably.  Perhaps more perilous than her vocal stunts are Elvira’s dramatic twists.  It is evident from Mozart’s and da Ponte’s depiction of her that she is a few ingredients short of a paella, but she is not completely parted from her faculties.  Ms. DiDonato avoids the easy temptation of applying post-Freudian psychology to Elvira’s actions and simply sings the music without manic implications.  Being in love makes anyone a bit crazy, she seems to suggest, and her Elvira is only slightly more extreme in expressing this than any other Spanish lady who might find herself in love with a cad.  Were the cad of this performance somewhat more audibly worthy of her unbending devotion, the performance as a whole should have been decidedly more engaging.  The tessitura of Elvira’s arias has defeated many singers, being ungainly for most sopranos and high for most mezzo-sopranos who have attempted the role.  It is a role that Ms. DiDonato seems to have been born to sing, however, and the gleam of her tone as she confidently moves from bottom to top of the voice is arresting.  As mentioned before, the stylishness with which she sings Mozart is splendid: this is period-appropriate singing that manages to convince the listener that it is not because the music itself, brought to the fore by Ms. DiDonato’s tangy execution of it, sizzles with Spanish heat.  This is an Elvira to be taken seriously and one who will surely give her Sisters at the convent much trouble.  As with Ms. Damrau’s Anna, one is tempted each time that Ms. DiDonato’s Elvira enters a scene to shout, ¡Olé!

For an opera that is so perennially popular, Don Giovanni is a difficult piece to bring off.  The music is magnificent, some of its composer’s finest, but the dramaturgy is problematic.  Are these lusty Spaniards to be taken at face value, interpreted as a lot of inescapably human figures trapped in a cycle of betrayed values and hormonal excess, or are they archetypes, symbolic representations of facets of society that are manipulated almost like marionettes by the hands of an unseen destiny?  The great genius of Mozart is that, unlike almost any other composer, he was capable—solely through music—of breathing life into characters as beyond reality as a king contemplating the sacrifice of his own son at the command of an oracle and a strange fellow in bird costume who collects specimens for the amusement of a deranged queen.  An audience pities Idomeneo because Mozart causes them to feel the pangs of his guilt and sorrow.  Papageno wins hearts in every performance because, even if he does not sing well, his aspirations and disappointments are so like those of the people watching him.  The characterizations in Don Giovanni are undeniably darker, but approaching the music on its own terms yields the same results: an audience recognizes in Mozart’s characters elements of themselves.  Deutsche Grammophon’s new recording provides a faithful rendering of Don Giovanni that documents the beginning of a new era in Mozart performance and, in the work of Diana Damrau and Joyce DiDonato, the singing of Mozarteans equal to the standards of the greatest Mozart interpreters of generations past.  ¡Olé!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

Finding Fischer-Dieskau

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

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

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

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

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

DIETRICH FISCHER-DIESKAU

28 May 1925 – 18 May 2012