CD REVIEW: Agostino Steffani – NIOBE, REGINA DI TEBE (K. Gauvin, P. Jaroussky, A. Forsythe, A. Sheehan, T. Wey, J. Blumberg, C. Balzer, C. Immler, J. Lemos; ERATO 0825646343546)

AGOSTINO STEFFANI (1653 – 1728): Niobe, regina di Tebe—Karina Gauvin (Niobe), Philippe Jaroussky (Anfione), Amanda Forsythe (Manto), Christian Immler (Tiresia), Aaron Sheehan (Clearte), Terry Wey (Creonte), Jesse Blumberg (Poliferno), Colin Balzer (Tiberino), José Lemos (Nerea); Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra; Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs, Musical Directors [Recorded in the Sendesaal, Bremen, Germany, 1 – 14 November 2013; ERATO 0825646343546; 3 CDs, 223:44; Available from Amazon, fnac, jpc, Presto Classical, and major music retailers]

It is one of the great ironies of music in the new millennium that an opera like Agostino Steffani’s Niobe, regina di Tebe should languish in obscurity, not heard for centuries until produced in the late Twentieth and early Twenty-First Centuries by enterprising historically-informed institutions, and then, as if by the sort of magic so beloved by opera audiences in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, not one but two commercial recordings of the score should appear within only a few months. The rival to ERATO’s fantastic souvenir of the Boston Early Music Festival production, which in addition to its 2011 Festival outing has recently toured Europe in concert form, is a ‘live’ recording of the 2010 Royal Opera House production featuring the Balthasar-Neumann-Ensemble and Thomas Hengelbrock. Despite engineering superior to that heard on many recordings made during live performances at Covent Garden and the participation of an excellent cast including one of the world's finest sopranos, the divine Véronique Gens, the Opus Arte recording falls short of the benchmark set by ERATO’s impeccably-engineered, thoughtfully-presented recording. Indeed, by today’s standards Steffani’s score receives suitably royal treatment. The critical question that a production or recording of a forgotten work like Steffani’s Niobe, regina di Tebe ultimately must answer is whether the score is truly worthy of the effort and expense required to revive it. A little-remembered 1977 performance in New York’s Alice Tully Hall by Newell Jenkins and his Clarion Music Society hinted that Niobe deserved the attention. The Covent Garden and BEMF productions furthered the case for the opera’s renaissance, and this recording offers an opportunity for listeners to hear Steffani’s music performed with the flair and finesse so missed in performances of later repertory. Niobe, regina di Tebe cannot be claimed to be a rediscovered masterpiece of the lasting significance of Mozart’s Così fan tutte, Wagner’s Parsifal, or Verdi’s Falstaff, but when revisited in 2365 how many of today’s operas will have anything like the lasting enchantment of Steffani’s gem of a score?

First performed in Munich in 1688, Niobe is among the plethora of Baroque operas with subject matter drawn from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, in this case adapted by librettist Luigi Orlandini. Already a figure with a centuries-old tradition by the times of her mentions in texts by Homer, Sophocles, and Aeschylus, Niobe is reputed to have been the daughter of Tantalus. Her early chroniclers depict her as a proud woman whose boastful claims of superiority led to the slaying of her fourteen children by the twins Apollo and Artemis, acting on orders from their mother Leto. Both in the literary milieu of Antiquity and in a much later work like Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Niobe was an archetype of the grieving mother akin to Clytemnestra and Hecuba, and the character created by Steffani and Orlandini is in certain respects not unlike Händel’s Semele. In essence, this Niobe is the protagonist in a cautionary tale ideally summarized by the familiar words of Psalm 16:18: ‘Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.’ The destruction that Niobe’s actions inflict upon her family had as many parallels in the Seventeenth Century as there are in the Twenty-First. Only forty years before the première of Niobe, central Europe was devastated by the Thirty Years’ War, a conflict on a gargantuan scale propagated by clashes among empires, nationalistic ambitions, and Catholic and Protestant interests: it is not difficult to imagine that the symbolic relationships among the characters in Niobe resonated with composer, librettist, and contemporary audiences. From a Twenty-First-Century perspective, the aftermath of the events of 11 September 2001, a day that now seems almost mythological, lends an unique profundity to the conceit of the decisions of people in positions of power upending innocent lives. As recorded, this performance focuses on performing Steffani’s score as stylishly as possible and allowing the individual listener to form opinions about the opera’s topicality. At the very least, Niobe is a piece with a social conscience, but this recording rightly presents the opera as a musical journey, not a manifesto ripe for political interpretation.

The musical language of Niobe is a cosmopolitan idiom that combines elements of the Italian traditions inherited from Monteverdi and Cavalli with north-of-the-Alps trends guiding musical discourse in German-speaking Europe. The assertion that Steffani’s work in general represents a crucial step in the transition from the early opera of Monteverdi to the mature Baroque of Händel is justifiable, but Niobe inhabits a singular sound world. Händel was a toddler when Niobe was first performed, but Steffani’s score sounds as though it could have been a suitable nursemaid during the younger composer’s operatic infancy. Building upon Cavalli’s development of contrasting recitative, arioso, aria, and ensemble, Steffani engendered a style that resembles the young Händel’s Venetian opera Agrippina with its succession of plot-advancing recitative and brief, emotionally-specific arias. In Niobe, at least, Steffani’s gifts as a musical dramatist do not equal those of Monteverdi, Cavalli, or Händel at their best, but a considerable talent for tailoring music to particular situations and moods is readily apparent. The brevity of individual numbers notwithstanding, Niobe is a sprawling work, and without visual cues and the benefit of watching singers interact not even the peerless cast assembled for this recording can wholly overcome the burden of having to sustain the listener’s interest over what is, particularly by modern, post-Puccini criteria, a long haul. That this recording succeeds so capitally is a testament to the exceptional work of everyone involved with it.

Led by Paul O'Dette and Stephen Stubbs with the stylistic affinity that their names have come to represent, the musicians of the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra give an account of Steffani’s score that is nothing short of authoritative in terms of virtuosity, understanding of the inner and outer structures of each scene, and teamwork, not only among their own ranks but also with the vocal cast. In music such as this, the continuo is of vital importance—nothing short of the central nervous system of a performance. Vital to the continuity and histrionic effectiveness of the performance on these discs is the outstanding playing of Luca Guglielmi on harpsichord and organ, Maxine Eilander on Baroque harp, and Erin Headley on viola da gamba: their endeavors, spurred by Maestri O'Dette’s and Stubbs’s predictably inventive playing of theorbo and Baroque guitar, propel the performance forward, giving consistently organic impetus to the characters’ exchanges and inviting the listener into the drama as a silent participant rather than a distant observer. Likewise, the gorgeous sounds made by the viol consort in Act One, Scene 13—Christel Thielmann, Hille Perle, Frauke Hess, and Ms. Headley—add a dimension of musical variety to the performance. Interestingly, some of the finest playing on this recording is done in the ballet music by Melchior d'Ardespin. Throughout the performance, the musicians play masterfully, however, and Maestri O'Dette and Stubbs pace an account of the opera that provides the singers with ideal support of their collective efforts at bringing Steffani’s music and Orlandini’s words to life for the listener.

Among a large cast of reliably stylish, engaging singers, the astounding voice of countertenor José Lemos is unforgettable. His singing of the rôle of Nerea, the sort of part that can quickly annoy the listener when entrusted to a careless singer, is remarkable for its integration of an endearingly vibrant personality with a natural instrument of extraordinary beauty. Nerea’s trio of arias in Act One—'Quasi tutte,' 'Che agli assalti degli amanti,' and the delightful 'Assistetemi'—provide Mr. Lemos with fodder for exhibiting both his vocal eloquence and his unerring dramatic instincts. The nobility with which he shapes ‘Quasi tutte’ grants the duplicitous nurse greater depth of character than she deserves, but the dignity of Mr. Lemos’s singing is most welcome. His arias in Acts Two and Three, 'Questi giovani moderni' and 'Che alla fè di donne amanti,' are oases in a landscape drained of humor, and Mr. Lemos rises to the occasions with vocalism of focus and panache. A few notes at the top of line strain him, but as a singer and an actor he finds in Nerea’s meddling opportunities to uplift Steffani’s music with the best of his artistry.

The Tiresia of bass Christian Immler is a stern, vocally granitic presence whose oracular tidings are proclaimed with solid, bronze-hued tone in the Act One arias 'Amor t'attese al varco' and 'Di strali, e fulmini.’ In Act Two, Mr. Immler sings 'Confuse potenze' and 'De numi la legge' with grandiloquence befitting a seer. Mr. Immler’s voice is stronger at the upper extreme of Tiresia’s range than at the bottom, but his impersonation is forceful throughout the character’s musical and dramatic compasses.

As Tiberino, Canadian tenor Colin Balzer sings powerfully, his flexible voice and complete security in the lower octave of the part contributing to a vivid portrayal that radiates strength and sensuality. His sings Tiberino’s Act One aria 'Alba essulti, e il Lazio goda' with insurmountable technical acumen, and the subsequent arias 'Tu non sai che sia diletto' and 'Quanto sospirerai' inspire him to singing of stirring immediacy. 'Il tuo sguardo o bella mia' and 'Ci sei colto mio cor' in Act Two are delivered with similar impact, the unstilted refinement of his elocution all the more impressive because of the magnetism of the timbre. In Act Three, Mr. Balzer voices the aria 'Hor ch'è mio quel vago labro' with delicious sophistication. His burnished, burly tone distinguishes him from his male colleagues in this performance, and the adroitness of his singing identifies him as one of the most gifted exponents of repertory of Niobe’s vintage.

Young baritone Jesse Blumberg is a singer of astonishing versatility who seems capable of singing virtually any repertory authoritatively. A Lieder singer of a high order, his performance as Poliferno in Niobe confirms that he is also a potent presence in Baroque music. The imagination with which he sings the very different 'Nuovo soglio, e nuova bella' and 'Fiera Aletto' in Act One makes a potent impression, the alacrity with which he differentiates the arias indicative of expert musicality and dramatic intelligence. The swagger with which he executes the difficulties of 'Numi tartarei' in Act Two harmonizes with his rousing performance of the aria 'Gioite, godete' in Act Three. His vocal lines sometimes take him just below the lower boundary of his comfort zone, but the only real disappointment is that Steffani did not allocate more music to the malicious Poliferno: perhaps he never envisioned an artist as talented as Mr. Blumberg singing the rôle.

Swiss countertenor Terry Wey portrays the hapless Creonte with dignity and an unaffected display of technique and tonal allure. A gifted artist still too little represented on disc, his performance in Niobe is evidence of the fine singing of which he is capable. In the Act One arias 'Dove sciolti à volo i vanni' and 'Anderei fin nell'Inferno,' his command of the idiom and warm tone are obvious in every phrase that he sings. Likewise, Creonte’s arias in Act Two, 'Del mio ben occhi adorati' and 'Lascio l'armi, e cedo il campo,' receive from Mr. Wey traversals of glistening charm. His duetting with Niobe in 'T'abbraccio mia diva' is wonderfully evocative, and his lustrous account of 'Luci belle' in Act Three is one of the highlights of the recording. Indeed, Mr. Wey’s every appearance in the course of the opera prompts gratitude, both for his polishing singing and for his thoughtful vocal acting.

In the rôle of Clearte, this performance benefits from the work of one of America’s finest singers in any repertory, tenor Aaron Sheehan. With a voice and dramatic demeanor as piercingly lovely as his glacial blue eyes, he creates a three-dimensional character even in the context of a studio recording. In Act One, his singing of the aria 'Son amante, e sempre peno' is unutterably beautiful, his enunciation of the text touched by a throbbing melancholy. He complements this with a performance of 'C'hò da morir tacendo' that embodies the elusive art of bel canto. The phenomenal effectiveness of his portrayal of Clearte is heightened in Act Two by his singing of 'Voglio servir fedel' and 'Non mi far pianger sempre,' both of which he sculpts with the strokes of a master craftsman. There is an exuberance in his enunciation of 'Tutta gioia, e tutta riso' in Act Three that increases the emotional temperature of the performance, and the intensity of expression in his intoning of the accompagnato 'Ma lasso' is electrifying. The faculty with which Mr. Sheehan scales the heights of Clearte’s haute-contre tessitura is awe-inspiring, but the foremost pleasure of his singing is its unforced comeliness.

Here singing the rôle of Manto, the radiant soprano Amanda Forsythe sang the title rôle in the 2011 BEMF staging of Niobe. She is a singer for whom Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century repertory is completely natural territory, and her polished-silver voice possesses reserves of power that enable her to sustain fastidiously-nuanced characterizations throughout the course of a performance of a score as demanding as Steffani’s. Her technique enables her to toss off the Act One aria 'Se la vita à me donasti' with aplomb, followed by an account of the aria 'Vuoi ch'io parli, parlerò' that is notable for its singularity of dramatic purpose. The simplicity of her enunciation in 'Nel mio seno à poco à poco' transforms her portrayal from one of a delicate, naïve girl into a study of a sensitive but strong-willed young woman. In Act Two, she shapes her accounts of the arias 'Tu ci pensasti poco' and 'Hò troppo parlato' with unfettered ingenuity, her upper register pealing with the freshness of youth. Like several of her colleagues in this performance, Ms. Forsythe is at her best in Act Three, in which she sings 'Chiudetevi miei lumi' lusciously. She must have been a very moving Niobe, but she cannot have been more convincing than she is as Manto in this performance.

It is no exaggeration to state that French countertenor Philippe Jaroussky has not only achieved the pinnacle of success for a modern singer of his Fach but has also contributed indelibly to the expansion of the reach, reception, and sheer appeal of countertenor singing. His assumption of the title rôle in Stefano Landi’s Il Sant'Alessio with Les Arts Florissants restored to that opera the authenticity of its original casting, and he has brought to a wide array of parts composed for legendary castrati both the appropriate gender identity and historically-informed instincts bolstered by the training and preparation of a modern singer. It is also no exaggeration to suggest that, with a discography containing many valuable recordings, Mr. Jaroussky has done nothing finer on disc than this portrayal of Steffani’s Anfione. In the proud monarch’s Act One duet with his obdurate consort, 'Sollievo del mio seno,' the countertenor’s voice gleams, and his singing of the aria 'Miratemi begl'occhi' is exquisite. Then, the concentrated emotion that he evinces in the accompagnato 'Dell'alma stanca' is contrasted with the subtlety of his performance of the aria 'Sfere amiche.' The grandeur that courses through Mr. Jaroussky’s account of 'Come padre, e come dio' recurs in his ardent singing in the duettino with Niobe, 'Mia fiamma, mio ardore.' In Act Two, self-righteousness emanates from his assured navigation of the vocal lines in the aria ‘Ascendo alle stelle,' and he phrases 'Dal mio petto o pianti uscite' with tremendous feeling. In terms of unadulterated virtuosity, the summit of Anfione’s musical Everest is the aria 'Trà bellici carmi.' The almost insouciant ease with which Mr. Jaroussky dispatches the frenzied coloratura is dazzling, as well as appropriate to the character’s psychological profile, but it is the pair of arias in Act Three—‘Hò perduta la speranza' and 'Spira già nel proprio sangue' with Niobe—that reveal the full spectrum of his gifts. The bright patina of Mr. Jaroussky’s voice is ideally suited to Anfione’s incandescent music: other singers might sing the part as well as he does on this recording, but it is impossible to imagine the rôle being sung better.

Québécoise soprano Karina Gauvin is one of the brightest stars shining in the Early Music firmament, and her performance of the title rôle in Niobe is often celestial. There are fleeting moments in which the voice sounds slightly heavy for the music, the singer’s deft handling of even the most fleet passagework notwithstanding. The prevailing sensibilities of her portrayal seem borrowed from the Nineteenth Century rather than the Seventeenth, but as the performance progresses it becomes ever clearer that this is a dramatic advantage. Instead of an over-complicated but ultimately one-dimensional heroine in the fashion of the ladies who populate Seventeenth-Century operas, Ms. Gauvin creates within the confines of Steffani’s music and Orlandini’s words a nuanced character who would not be out of place in a masterpiece of Donizetti’s maturity. This is not to imply that there is anything anachronistic in Ms. Gauvin’s singing: she consistently matches her colleagues’ stylishness but on a somewhat larger scale. In the Act One duet with Anfione, ‘Sollievo del mio seno,’ Ms. Gauvin and Mr. Jaroussky spar with legitimate regality, and the soprano’s assured singing of Niobe’s arias 'È felice il tuo cor' and 'Vorrei sempre vagheggiarti' sets the stage for the understated, self-serving eroticism of her voicing of her lines in the duettino with Anfione, 'Mia fiamma, mio ardore.' The stream of contempt that flows through the Act Two aria 'Qui la dea cieca volante' floods Ms. Gauvin’s singing without disturbing the tonal quality, and she soars through 'Stringo al seno un nume amante' with the words thrown like knives into the listener’s ears. The duetto with Creonte, 'T'abbraccio mia diva,' finds her at her most demure, the text wafted on a gentle zephyr of song. Niobe’s formidable dramatic challenges are in Act Three, and Ms. Gauvin proves a shrewd artist with untold stylistic resources at the ready. She produces a golden river of tone in the aria 'Amami, e vederai' before unleashing tempests of sentiment in 'Contro il Ciel' and 'In mezzo al armi.' She again unites with Mr. Jaroussky in 'Spira già nel proprio sangue,' their very different voices conveying conflicting emotions that in turn both bring Niobe and Anfione together and drive them apart. Ms. Gauvin assumes the dramatic weight of a Gluckian doomed heroine in her pained but controlled reading of 'Funeste imagini.' On the page, Orlandini’s Niobe is a woman who warrants only slightly more sympathy than Ovid’s, but in Ms. Gauvin’s performance she earns the mien of tragedy.

It must sometimes seem strange, especially to those observers whose primary musical interests are centered in later repertory, that such wealths of time, talent, and funding are devoted to the rediscovery and resurrection of operas like Agostino Steffani’s 1688 Niobe, regina di Tebe. Like any other aspect of life on earth, opera is cyclical: in terms of interest in a particular niche of operatic repertory, what goes around comes around. There are very practical factors contributing to the rebirths of forgotten operatic progeny of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, however. Foremost among those factors is the presence of singers like those heard on this recording, singers not only capable of singing music like Steffani’s but committed to singing it as Flagstad and Melchior sang Wagner and Tebaldi and Bergonzi sang Verdi. When recordings of standard repertory so often disappoint [perhaps Warner Classics’ forthcoming Aida with Anja Harteros and Jonas Kaufmann will defy this trend!], it is a recording like this superb encounter with Niobe, regina di Tebe that reminds Twenty-First-Century listeners that we do not dwell in a musical dessert parched of great singing. The watering holes are now perhaps a bit farther from the established trails and, rather than being named Elisabeth and Tannhäuser on the operatic map, are called Niobe and Anfione.

CD REVIEW: Giuseppe Verdi – IL TROVATORE (F. Labò, A. de Cavalieri, M. Morquio, J. Botto, J. Carbonnell; Bongiovanni HOC 085/86

GIUSEPPE VERDI (1813 – 1901): Il trovatore—Flaviano Labò (Manrico), Anna de Cavalieri (Leonora), María Mercedes Morquio (Azucena), Jorge Botto (Il Conte di Luna), Juan Carbonnell (Ferrando), Marita Perdomo (Ines), César Vicciconte (Un vecchio zingaro), José Luis Parma (Ruiz); Coro y Orquesta del Teatro Solís; Nino Stinco, conductor [Recorded ‘live’ in performance at the Teatro Solís, Montevideo, Uruguay, on 13 September 1964; Bongiovanni HOC 085/86; 2 CDs, 126:10; Available from Bongiovanni, ClassicsOnlineHD, Amazon, iTunes, jpc, Presto Classical, and major music retailers]

Once upon a time, composers composed, conductors conducted, singers sang, and musicians made music. These personages did these things in inevitable pursuits of livelihoods, but Verdi composed Falstaff, Mascheroni conducted it, Victor Maurel sang it, and the La Scala orchestra played it for reasons more noble than the necessity of earning paychecks. Also once upon a time, when the gorgeous Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires was an inevitable port of call on virtually every great singer’s grand tour, artistic merit frequently drifted across the Río de la Plata from Argentina to the less-pretentious Uruguayan capital, Montevideo, where many of the great performers that made the Teatro Colón an operatic Mecca also shared their gifts with Montevideo audiences. This 1964 performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s Il trovatore assembled in Montevideo’s Teatro Solís an international cast that in the 1960s might have seemed unexceptional to Londoners or New Yorkers but today epitomizes the clichéd suggestion that a performance with such a cast would now be the gold standard. Listening to this performance, it is obvious that this cast’s goal was providing the Montevideo audience with a memorable encounter with Verdi’s swashbuckling score. Can these dedicated performers have suspected that their goal would be achieved anew fifty-one years later?

Some sources indicate that this performance was conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini, whereas other sources state that Maestro Giulini was likely already in London for rehearsals of the watershed Covent Garden production of Il trovatore with Bruno Prevedi, Dame Gwyneth Jones, and Gulietta Simionato at the time of this performance in Montevideo. This release names Nino Stinco as the conductor of this Trovatore, and, contemporary documentation being elusive [the sole authoritative tome on musical life in the Uruguayan capital does not offer details about the 1964 Trovatore production], this is a credible attribution. In any event, the performance preserved on these discs sounds little like extant Giulini-led performances. Fortunately, the sound quality, while not high-fidelity, is good enough to permit appreciation of the vigor with which the performance is conducted. Neither the orchestral playing nor the choral singing is world-class, but Il trovatore does not need absolute perfection to make its points. The orchestra musicians play energetically, and the choristers sing the familiar Anvil Chorus, 'Vedi! le fosche notturne spoglie ​de' cieli sveste l'immensa vôlta,’ with gusto. No one attends a performance of Il trovatore solely to hear the orchestra or chorus, but the Montevideo forces do their national musical tradition proud.

In supporting rôles, Marita Perdomo, César Vicciconte, and José Luis Parma are reliably musical presences as Ines, the Old Gypsy, and Ruiz. [Mr. Parma is credited by Bongiovanni with having sung the part of the Messenger, while no singer is listed for Ruiz. Mr. Parma’s usual part in Il trovatore across the river in Buenos Aires was Ruiz, so it is more plausible that sources that allot him that rôle in the Montevideo performance are correct.] Bass Juan Carbonnell is an occasionally unsteady ​Ferrando who sometimes sounds like a refugee from a performance of a Rossini opera buffa. His singing of 'Di due figli vivea, padre beato, il buon conte di Luna' and 'Abbietta zingara, fosca vegliarda!'​ in Act One is spirited, and his and the choristers’ reaction to the tolling of midnight during his spooky storytelling is hilarious. A few imperfections notwithstanding, Mr. Carbonnell’s Ferrando is amusing and menacing in turn—just as Verdi surely intended him to be.

As the Conte di Luna, Uruguayan baritone Jorge Botto has nothing to fear from comparisons with the finest recorded interpreters of the rôle. As recorded here, the voice seems slightly small for the core Verdi baritone repertory, but Mr. Botto was an acclaimed Boccanegra in both Buenos Aires and Montevideo in an era in which audiences knew how an authentic Verdi baritone voice should sound. From his first entrance in Act One, he never emits an unattractive sound: in that regard, he is the rare Conte di Luna who is a suitor not unworthy of Leonora’s attention. He is also among the few recorded Conti who manage to successfully balance bluster and nobility in the Act One finale. Mr. Botto voices the impactful 'Di geloso amor sprezzato arde in me tremendo il fuoco!' with ideal stamina and style, making easy going of the high tessitura. Few—if any—audiences who hear performances of Il trovatore in 2015 will hear 'Il balen del suo sorriso d'una stella vince il raggio,' the Conte’s celebrated aria in Act Two, sung as well as Mr. Botto sings it here. The top Fs and Gs are produced with ease, and the bel canto melodic line is sculpted with unaffected artistry. Likewise, few baritones succeed as Mr. Botto does in making the de facto cabaletta 'Per me ora fatale, i tuoi momenti affretta, affretta' as effective in performance as ‘Il balen del suo sorriso.’ Act Three makes no demands of this fine singer that he fails to meet with charisma to spare, but, despite his superb rendition of his aria, Mr. Botto is at his best in Act Four. In the duets with Leonora, his handsome voice moves through the music with complete confidence, and in the opera’s final scene the suggestions of desperation and regret that his singing reveals indicate that this Conte truly loves Leonora rather than merely loving the notion of possessing her. Mr. Botto proves not only one of the most sympathetic Conti di Luna on disc but also one of the most musical.

Listeners who are acquainted with the much-discussed Azucena of Sylvia Sawyer, the elusive benefactress of complete recordings of Il trovatore, Aida, and Un ballo in maschera in which she sang the lead mezzo-soprano rôles, will know what to expect, at least to some extent, of the Azucena of María Mercedes Morquio. In this performance, Ms. Morquio’s vocalism is rarely poised or polished, but as the unhinged Azucena—as Pedro Almodóvar might put it, a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown—she is undeniably effective. There are no trills in her singing of ‘Stride la vampa,’ but she unleashes some exciting sounds above the stave; sounds, it must be admitted, that do not always reach Verdi’s indicated pitches. Still, the unforced power that she brings to ‘Condotta ell' era in ceppi al suo destin tremendo'​ is undeniably exhilarating. She ducks the written top C in 'Perigliarti ancor languente per cammin selvaggio ed ermo!' but veritably erupts with love and fear for her adopted son. In Act Three, the mounting agitation that Ms. Morquio evinces in her singing of 'Giorni poveri vivea, pur contenta del mio stato' and 'Deh! rallentate, o barbari, le acerbe mie ritorte' foreshadows the opera’s tragic conclusion. Her duet with Manrico in Act Four is crowned with an understated but evocative account of 'Ai nostri monti ritorneremo.' Few performances of Il trovatore seem to build to Azucena’s piercing cry of 'Sei vendicata, o madre!' in the opera’s final moments as inexorably as this one, and Ms. Morquio’s ferocious top B♭ ends the performance heartstoppingly.

​​Anna de Cavalieri (1924 – 2012)​, née Anne McKnight in Aurora, Illinois, is a steely, persuasive, and surprisingly moving Leonora. Introduced to the public by her brassy Musetta in the famed 1946 NBC performance of La bohème in which Arturo Toscanini paced Licia Albanese’s Mimì and Jan Peerce’s Rodolfo, she was a bonafide prima donna in Italian parts at New York City Opera before making her career in Italy, where her large repertory included rôles as dissimilar as Imogene in Bellini’s Il pirata and Puccini’s Turandot. Despite her near-native diction, she makes little of Leonora’s introductory recitative in Act One of this performance of Il trovatore, but when she sings ‘ascolta’ to Ines before launching her aria there is no question that she is to be obeyed. That aria, ‘Tacea la notte placida e bella in ciel sereno​,’ is sung ardently, the singer’s comfort with Verdi’s style growing with every successive phrase. ​She rushes the cadenza to avoid lingering at the top of the range, but the Allegro giusto cabaletta 'Di tale amor, che dirsi mal può dalla parola'​ finds her on confident, risk-taking form. When she reaches the Act One finale, Ms. de Cavalieri is soaring through Leonora’s music, and she and her colleagues bring the curtain down on Act One with singing that thrillingly combines virility with elegance. In the last minutes of Act Two, her voicing of 'E deggio e posso crederlo?' and the fine-spun 'Sei tu dal ciel disceso, o in ciel son io con te!' radiates femininity and the contrasting sensuality and religiosity that land Leonora in such a quandary. The performing edition used for this performance reduces Leonora to a stander-by in Act Three, but she opens Act Four with the aria 'D'amor sull'ali rosee vanne, sospir dolente,' one of the most demanding pieces in the Verdi canon. Ms. de Cavalieri gives a powerful account of the aria, making credible efforts at the trills and rising to a gritty but solid top C. Like many Leonoras, she opts out of the top D♭, cruelly approached from an interval of a tenth, but she delivers the cadenza ably. Her singing is filled with trepidation and fervor in the inventive ‘Miserere,’ making the excision of the cabaletta 'Tu vedrai che amore in terra mai del mio non fu più​ forte' particularly regrettable. Duetting with Mr. Botto’s lustful Conte in 'Mira, di acerbe lagrime spargo al tuo piede un rio!' and 'Vivrà​​! Contende il giubilo,'​ Ms. de Cavalieri wields spot-on staccati and white-out emotions. She is a Leonora for whom, like Ponchielli’s Gioconda (another part in which Ms. de Cavalieri excelled, incidentally), death is an act of defiance rather than defeat. In the haunting andante 'Prima che d'altri vivere io volli tua morir!' in the finale, nothing more than a fascinatingly-manipulated ascending scale, Ms. de Cavalieri completes Leonora’s transformation from haughty Spanish noblewoman to tragic heroine. Like Mr. Botto, she fosters a portrayal of her rôle that succeeds musically and dramatically more memorably than many more famous singers have managed to create.

A few months before traveling to Montevideo for this performance, Italian tenor Flaviano Labò (1927 – 1991) alternated with Richard Tucker, James McCracken, and Franco Corelli as Manrico at the Metropolitan Opera. Possessing a lean, sinewy voice with compelling squillo and technical prowess that allowed him to sing both lyric and spinto rôles without abusing the natural instrument, Mr. Labò was equally capable of sweetly wooing Mimì in La bohème, rejoicing at revolutionary victories in Tosca, and melting the title heroine’s icy heart in Turandot. As Montevideo’s Manrico, he combines the ringing masculinity of Pertile and Lauri-Volpi with the chivalry of Björling and Bergonzi. His clear, Italianate tone glistens even from afar in the romanza in Act One, 'Deserto sulla terra, sul rio destino in guerra,' which he caps with a sterling interpolated top B♭. He complements Ms. de Cavalieri’s and Mr. Botto’s mercurial singing in the the trio that ends the act. His marmoreal performance of 'Mal reggendo all'aspro assalto' in Act Two is searing, the top A hurled out with the brilliance of a meteor entering the earth’s atmosphere, and his lines in the Act Two finale are voiced with velvet-clad iron. The Mozartean aria in Act Three, 'Ah sì, ben mio, coll'essere io tuo, tu mia consorte,' is handled with manly finesse by Mr. Labò, who even bothers to approximate the trills for which Verdi asked. He also sings the ubiquitous cabaletta 'Di quella pira l'orrendo foco' at Verdi’s pitch, interpolating secure, pulse-quickening top Cs. Though the quality of his singing is very high throughout the performance, the tenor is on especially impressive form in Act Four. His despondent lines heard from offstage during the ‘Miserere’ are beguiling, and his interactions with Ms. Morquio’s Azucena are tender and resigned. It is apparent that this Manrico’s burst of anger when he believes that Leonora has betrayed him is born of love rather than pride and petulance. Mr. Labò ends the performance in the same fashion in which he started it: his Manrico faces execution as courageously as he first came to Leonora’s defense and sings spectacularly all the while.

It seems unfathomable that this thoroughly satisfying Trovatore would likely have been deemed provincial a half-century ago: as Mary Hopkin sang in 1968, those were the days, my friends. Perhaps along the banks of the Río de la Plata in 1964 it was thought that they would never end. Now, hearing a performance as quenching as this Montevideo Il trovatore, how distant they seem!

CD REVIEW: Maurice Ravel – DAPHNIS ET CHLOÉ and PAVANE POUR UNE INFANTE DÉFUNTE (Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra; Yannick Nézet-Séguin; BIS BIS-1850)

MAURICE RAVEL (1875 – 1937): Daphnis et Chloé [complete ballet] and Pavane pour une infante défunte—Netherlands Radio Choir (Daphnis et Chloé); Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra; Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor [Recorded in De Doelen Hall, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, in June 2012 (Daphnis et Chloé) and March 2014 (Pavane pour une infante défunte); BIS Records BIS-1850; 1 CD, 63:27; Available from ClassicsOnlineHD, Amazon, jpc, Presto Classical, and major music retailers]

In an age in which acclaim often has little to do with quality, how does one make one’s mark as a conductor without betraying individuality and one’s own unique cultural identity? With Classical Music ever more a commodity rather than a community, a young musician is sometimes required to devote greater attention to the business of making a career rather than following where his musical instincts lead. Sadly, colleagues are competitors in the nonsensical but perhaps necessary game of garnering ‘likes’ and ‘followers’ on social media rather than kindred spirits to be cherished and supported. This life of a serious young artist in the Twenty-First Century is a crushing business that scoffs at the notion of building and maintaining a successful career on one’s own terms, but this is what Québécois conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin has done and continues to do. He is a master of the trappings of modern notoriety, but his love for music and respect for those with whom he collaborates in creating it are joyously apparent in every performance over which he presides. A recent, already infamous Saturday matinée performance of Verdi’s Don Carlo at the Metropolitan Opera exemplified Maestro Nézet-Séguin’s defining ethos as a conductor. With a host of challenges tearing the performance apart, he calmly used his baton as a needle to reinforce the opera’s seams, sewing a golden thread into the tattered fabric of a poorly-fitted garment. Through the struggles, the dignity of Serafin, the grand but heartfelt gestures of Giulini, and the sweep of Karajan were present in his pacing of the gargantuan score. Too sensitive a musician and, by all accounts, too kind a man to ignore his colleagues’ distress, he found in Verdi’s music the strength to uplift the performance and hold back the tide of negativity that threatened to flood stage, pit, and auditorium. These were not actions intended to inspire hashtags and retweets: they were a committed musician’s responses to his sense of camaraderie with fellow artists. These were the actions of an important conductor for whom greatness is measured not by social media chatter or even by applause but by the knowledge of having given his all to the composer, his colleagues, and his audience.

This recorded performance of Maurice Ravel’s ballet Daphnis et Chloé, composed between 1909 and 1912, is a product of Maestro Nézet-Séguin’s directorship of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, and the quality of the music-making on this disc is evidence of the serendipitous symbiosis of the relationship between conductor and orchestra. Throughout the performance, the orchestral personnel play sonorously and with legitimate Gallic sophistication, personified by the slyly seductive solo lines of flautist Juliette Hurel. Ravel christened Daphnis et Chloé as a ‘symphonie choréographique,’ and Maestro Nézet-Séguin’s pacing of the piece on this recording is decidedly more symphonic than balletic in scope. Commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev and premièred by his Ballets Russes at Paris’s Théâtre du Châtelet on 8 June 1912, the score is an inventive hybrid, the offstage, wordless chorus—here the Netherlands Radio Choir, creating eerily atmospheric effects with superbly-blended singing—employed with the sort of enigmatic beauty familiarized by similar writing in the celebrated Méditation in Massenet’s Thaïs. A particular strength of Maestro Nézet-Séguin’s work in general is his affinity for preserving lean textures even in passages with dense orchestrations, enabling details to emerge with uncommon clarity. Compared with the classic account led by Pierre Monteux, who conducted the score’s première, Maestro Nézet-Séguin’s recording of Daphnis et Chloé is notable for his measured approach, his tempi indicative of a profound understanding of the score’s lush sensuality. Maestro Nézet-Séguin’s concept of Daphnis et Chloé is one of sultry, unfulfilled desires rather than noisy but ultimately meaningless climaxes. In this performance, the work’s three parts are presented as unique but interrelated paragraphs in a single narrative, and commitment to Maestro Nézet-Séguin’s vision seems to be shared by every musician under his direction.

Launching the Première Partie, the opening whispers of the Introduction (Lent – Très modéré) arise hesitantly, almost uncertainly, from primordial silence, the effect not unlike that of the beginning of Wagner’s Das Rheingold. Maestro Nézet-Séguin encourages beautiful rather than overtly dramatic playing, enhancing the music’s latent eroticism. This is especially true in the Danse religieuse (Modéré) and Danse des jeunes filles (Vif), the rhythmic profiles of which are shaped by attention to sustaining mood without sacrificing textural lucidity. The masterfully-contrasted strains of the Danse grotesque de Dorcon (Vif – Plus modéré – Très modéré – Pesant), Danse légère et gracieuse de Daphnis (Assez lent – Animé – Vif), and Lyceion entre (Lent – moins lent – Très libre)—decidedly sounds of the Twentieth Century—are given very distinct but strangely complementary auras, each tempo change heightening the restlessness of Ravel’s harmonic centers of gravity. The shimmering Nocturne is performed with a disquieting simplicity that seems both supplicating and sinister, the genius of Ravel’s writing for the orchestra never more perceptible.

Maestro Nézet-Séguin paces the Interlude that opens the ballet’s Deuxième Partie with eloquence derived from rhythmic freedom, and the Rotterdam Philharmonic musicians respond with unmistakably affectionate playing. The ferocity of the Danse guerrière is startlingly realized by both conductor and orchestra, but the poetry of the Danse suppliante de Chloé is recited with equal fluency in Ravel’s compositional idiom. A century after the music was first performed, the young conductor and his Rotterdam musical family communicate both the emotions that have become familiar through lauded performances and recordings and passions unique to this performance.

Perhaps the most familiar music in Daphnis et Chloé is Ravel’s Impressionistic representation of dawn in ‘Lever du jour’ in the ballet’s Troisième Partie. In this performance, the restoration of light to the slumbering earth is in Maestro Nézet-Séguin’s handling a genuine musical catharsis. The colors that he extracts from the orchestra scintillate in the burgeoning light of Ravel’s depiction of the awakening world, a symbolic partner of the music of the ballet’s first scene. The expansive sentimental canvas of the Pantomime (Les amours de Pan et Syrinx) is filled with stirring imagery drawn directly from Ravel’s score. Throughout the performance, the string, woodwind, and percussion playing is luxuriously beautiful, but the musicians reach new peaks of virtuosity in the final Danse générale (Bacchanale). Here, too, Maestro Nézet-Séguin’s dual attention to the singular needs of the Bacchanale and the cumulative impact of the score is discernible. The jubilant conclusion of the ballet inspires an exhibition of the artistry possible only with complete comfort with and dedication to the music.

Originally composed for piano solo in 1899, orchestrated by the composer in 1910, and ultimately denounced owing to what he perceived as an unacceptably pervasive indebtedness to Emmanuel Chabrier, the Pavane pour une infante défunte is understandably one of Ravel’s most enduringly popular works, its Spanish flavor produced by some of the same ingredients that spice Boléro and L’heure espagnole. Horn player Martin van de Merwe’s solo lines are the foundation upon which Maestro Nézet-Séguin and the Rotterdam Philharmonic players form a traversal of the piece that evinces deep feeling without wallowing in dumb-show pathos. As in their performance of Daphnis et Chloé, this team’s playing of Pavane pour une infante défunte is distinguished by ebullient musicality that cascades through Ravel’s score.

Recordings of Maurice Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé and Pavane pour une infante défunte are numerous, and many of them preserve the work of conductors and orchestras whose endeavors to fashion unique interpretations of these great scores led them away from rather than into the music. This recording by the Rotterdam Philharmonic and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, whose tenure as the orchestra’s Principal Conductor will end in 2018, is unique in its fidelity to Ravel’s inspiration. How wonderful it is to hear on this disc an honest rendering of this stimulating music rather than idiosyncratic variations on Ravel’s unforgettable themes. Careers are changeable creatures, but Art, when executed at this level, is eternal.

CD REVIEW: THE 5 COUNTERTENORS – Eighteenth-Century Opera Arias (M.E. Cenčić, Y. Mynenko, V. Sabadus, X. Sabata, V. Yi; DECCA 478 8094)

JOHANN CHRISTIAN BACH (1735 – 1782), FERDINANDO BERTONI (1725 – 1813), BALDASSARE GALUPPI (1706 – 1785), CHRISTOPH WILLIBALD GLUCK (1714 – 1787), GEORG FRIEDRICH HÄNDEL (1685 – 1759), JOHANN ADOLF HASSE (1699 – 1783), NICCOLÒ JOMMELLI (1714 – 1774), JOSEF MYSLIVEČEK (1737 – 1781), and NICOLA ANTONIO PORPORA (1686 – 1768): The 5 Countertenors – Eighteenth-Century Opera Arias—Max Emanuel Cenčić, Yuriy Mynenko, Valer Sabadus, Xavier Sabata, and Vince Yi, countertenors; Armonia Atenea; George Petrou, conductor [Recorded in Dimitris Mitropoulos Hall, Megaron, The Athens Concert Hall, Athens, Greece, 12, 13, and 15 – 18 July 2013; DECCA 478 8094; 1 CD, 63:46; Available from Amazon, iTunes, jpc, Presto Classical, and major music retailers]

When Alfred Deller and Russell Oberlin expanded the focus of their work sixty years ago to include not only the liturgical repertory and Elizabethan lute songs considered the only natural territory for their voices but also the Baroque opera and oratorio arias long commandeered by contraltos and mezzo-sopranos, it is unlikely that even these visionary artists foresaw that, by the turn of the Twenty-First Century, countertenors would be winning major prizes and competitions, singing leading rôles in many of the world’s opera houses, and making recordings for major labels of repertory ranging from Cavalli to Cage. Though the male alto or countertenor voice, a painstaking refinement of a man’s natural falsetto register, has been a distinct vocal classification from the beginnings of opera and vocal music in the modern sense, much of the music with which countertenors are now associated was originally composed for castrati. The quintet of voices heard on DECCA’s The 5 Countertenors could not have been better chosen to illustrate the differences among singers of this voice type, and the ten arias on the disc span nearly seventy years of repertory. Presenting music originally composed for both male and female singers, this disc offers perspectives on the development of voice types in opera and on the part that countertenors have played in music during the past sixty years. Before the revival of interest in Baroque opera, Benjamin Britten’s composition of the rôle of Oberon in his Midsummer Night’s Dream for Alfred Deller ushered countertenors back into the world’s opera houses and initiated a renewed energy for writing for the countertenor voice that has continued into the Twenty-First Century. Furthered by pioneering singers such as James Bowman, Michael Chance, Gérard Lesne, and Derek Lee Ragin, the Countertenor Revolution is now led by accomplished singers from all parts of the world. Recorded in Athens with DECCA’s usual technical flair, The 5 Countertenors is a fun disc on which five talented singers, expertly supported by Armonia Atenea and George Petrou, show off their vocal and histrionic virtuosity. This is not a recital of shallow displays of ego in aria form, however. The 5 Countertenors is a banquet of a style of singing at once old and new, served by five of its finest exponents.

Born in South Korea, raised in California, and an alumnus of the University of Michigan, where David Daniels’s countertenorial gifts were discovered and polished, Vince Yi is a cosmopolitan gentleman with a beautiful voice of silvery delicacy. His performance of the title character's ‘Ti parli in seno amore' from Josef Mysliveček's Farnace, first sung in 1767 in Naples by soprano castrato Carlo Reina, is soft-grained but incisive. Reminiscent of the young Mozart’s music for the character of the same name in his Mitridate, rè di Ponto, Mysliveček’s vocal writing puts Mr. Yi’s technique to the test, and while the relative weakness of his lower register is a liability his confidence on high is a decided strength. His mastery of the coloratura is not yet complete, but he gives his all to the performance and earns respect for the earnestness of his efforts. The hero’s ‘Ah, non è ver, ben mio’ from Johann Adolf Hasse's 1768 Ovid-inspired intermezzo Piramo e Tisbe in handled capably by Mr. Yi. By Eighteenth-Century standards, the composer was an old man when he wrote Piramo e Tisbe for private performance on an estate near Vienna, but his creative genius was unimpaired by time. Mr. Yi’s basic timbre makes Hasse’s sensitive Piramo sound rather wan, more in the fashion of Shakespeare’s and Britten’s rustics’ comically inept but ultimately profoundly touching telling of the story than of Ovid’s. Here, too, the young countertenor sings enthusiastically, however, the vowels on the breath and the consonants crisp but unexaggerated. The natural vocal material is of great quality, and he will surely prove an even more valuable artist as his craft is refined through experience.

Xavier Sabata’s piquant Catalan spirit emanates from every note that he sings, whether emitted in plaintive sorrow, gnawing perfidy, or sultry seduction. He makes a specialty of portraying Baroque operatic villains, but the smoky sexiness of his singing grants him a disquieting credibility as a musical lover and dashing hero. As Agamennone in Nicola Porpora’s Ifigenia in Aulide, created in London in 1735 by Senesino, he plumbs the melodramatic depths of the recitative ‘O di spietati numi più spietato ministro!’ The bursts of coloratura in the aria ‘Tu, spietato, non farai cader vittima’ are dispatched with with awesome ease, but the explosive tones at the crests of phrases sometimes upset the balance of the vocal line. Still, he is the despondent father to the life, and the tessitura of Porpora’s music suits him perfectly, his singing notable for the absence of the awkwardness that male and female singers often cannot avoid in parts written for Senesino. Ottone in Georg Friedrich Händel’s Agrippina was sung in the opera’s first production in Venice in 1709 by contralto Francesca Vanini-Boschi, a singer who worked with Händel in Italy and in London despite being described by contemporaries as having possessed an unremarkable voice. Ottone is quite a rôle to have been entrusted to a singer with a less-than-first-rate voice! Mr. Sabata reveals what a singer with a first-rate voice can achieve in Ottone's music. The bracing power of his articulation of the recitative ‘Otton, Otton’ prepares the listener for the incredible expressivity of his voicing of ‘Voi che udite il mio lamento,’ one of the young Händel’s finest inspirations. Even removed from the context of the full opera, Mr. Sabata’s affectionately-shaped singing and concentrated emotion garner sympathy for Ottone’s plight. The opportunity to observe this aspect of the singer’s artistry is most welcome and will hopefully engender many more similar opportunities in future. How wonderful it would be to occasionally hear Mr. Sabata as characters who get the girls and live happily ever after rather than exclusively as those who live and die by the sword!

A native of Arad, Romania, Valer Sabadus has emerged as one of the leading interpreters of the daunting music in the gallant style of the neglected generation of composers active in the years between the waning of the Baroque and the height of Classicism. This is an extremely rich and still largely untapped reservoir of great music. Though modern performances rarely feature countertenors in music composed after 1770, castrati maintained a considerable though diminishing presence in Italian opera until the 1820s, Rossini and Meyerbeer writing prominent rôles for castrati in the tradition extending back to Gualberto Magli, one of the first operatic castrati. Like Mysliveček, Niccolò Jommelli was an innovator whose musical language was considerably more advanced than that of many of his contemporaries. In the bravura writing and wide intervals of Manlio's ‘Spezza lo stral piagato’ from the 1746 Venetian version of Jommelli's Tito Manlio, first sung by the castrato Gioacchino Conti (better known as Gizziello), Mr. Sabadus makes a vivid impression. Braving the divisions without hesitation, he gives evidence of a well-honed artistic intelligence with his alertness to the shifting nuances of text, and his sparse vibrato in passagework allows the composer’s chromaticism to make its full effect. Written for Felice Salimbeni in Venice in 1742, the title character’s pensive ‘Non so frenare il pianto’—sung whilst he is disguised as Alceste—from Gluck's Demetrio is imaginatively sung by Mr. Sabadus, his excellent breath control facilitating stunning feats of phrasing. The unadorned simplicity of the principal theme contrasts meaningfully with the brief but robust B section, and Mr. Sabadus maximizes the dramatic significance of the da capo. His voice is a fine instrument over which he wields meticulous control, and his performances on this disc are exemplary examples of the transitional musical idioms of an unjustly-overlooked period in operatic history.

Hailing from Ukraine, Yuriy Mynenko is one of the foremost discoveries of recent seasons. With a bright timbre and exceptional comfort in music of fiendish difficulty, he promises to make an enduring impact in the realm of countertenor singing. His negotiation of the punishing pyrotechnics of the title character's ‘Crude furie degl'orridi abissi’ from Händel's Serse, débuted in 1738 in London by Caffarelli, is sure of intonation and rhythmic accuracy, and the gleaming edge on the tone aids him in creating a sharp dramatic profile in the duration of a single aria. The rôle of Lisimaco in Johann Christian Bach’s 1772 Temistocle was created in the opera’s Mannheim première by soprano castrato Silvio Giorgetti, who was obviously a fantastic singer. The stirring ‘Ch'io parta?’ is delivered by Mr. Mynenko with consummate gusto and vocal freedom. Like Mr. Yi and Mr. Sabadus, he brings to his work a soft-grained voice anchored by an impenetrably strong technical foundation, and he succeeds in appealingly conveying the swaggering masculinity of the music without hardening his lovely tone quality.

The links between the great castrati of the past and countertenor singing present and future are thrillingly exemplified by Max Emanuel Cenčić. Born into a musical family (his mother is a gifted soprano and teacher, his father an esteemed conductor, and his sister a powerhouse chanteuse), he was a participant in a centuries-old musical tradition from an early age as a member and frequent treble soloist with the Wiener Sängerknaben. His early recordings as a Sängerknabe and an adolescent male soprano reveal surprising artistic maturity. Not yet forty, he is one of the world’s greatest singers—not merely among countertenors—owing both to his exceptional voice and to interpretive sensibilities that lend his work uncommon dramatic and expressive power. Beyond the confines of Baroque repertory, he made the supporting rôle of the Herold in Aribert Reimann’s Medea a vitally important one in the opera’s 2010 world première at the Wiener Staatsoper, but it is in his Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century repertory—a gallery of handsomely-drawn portraits ranging from Monteverdi’s Nerone and Ottone to Händel’s Andronico and Sesto and Hasse’s Siroe—that his endeavors are unfailingly unforgettable. Premièred by Angelo Maria Monticelli in London in 1741, Telemaco's exquisite ‘A questa bianca mano’ from Baldassare Galuppi's Penelope is a superb vehicle for Mr. Cenčić, the meandering melodic line enabling full appreciation of the uncommon evenness of his voice. Sounding slightly darker than in past, his timbre is uniquely poised for exploring conflicting emotions, and his moving account of Telemaco’s aria, notable for his tastefully understated ornamentation, is resolved by a restrained, poetically-phrased cadenza. Most known for its appearance in Gluck’s 1774 Paris version of Orphée et Eurydice (as ‘L’espoir renaît dans mon âme,’ later adapted again as ‘Amour, viens rendre à mon âme’) for the famous haute-contre Joseph Legros, the name part’s showpiece aria ‘Addio, o miei sospiri’ from Ferdinando Bertoni's 1767 Tancredi is another piece that was first interpreted—in Bertoni’s setting, at least—by Carlo Reina. [Scholars continue to debate the true origins of the aria. Whilst in London in the 1770s, Bertoni vehemently asserted that the aria was his own work, lifted by Gluck from an earlier score, but surviving evidence suggests that the music first appeared with different text in Gluck’s serenata Il Parnasso confuso, performed at Schönbrunn on 24 January 1765, when it was sung by one of the young Hapsburg archduchesses, and was subsequently reused in the central portion, Aristeo, of the 1769 Le feste d’Apollo.] Neither Reina nor Legros could have sung the number more authoritatively than Mr. Cenčić, who commands both the fiorature and the tessitura demanded by the music with unassailable assurance. The exhilarating precision of his coloratura is only one facet of his shimmering performance: equally pulse-quickening is the immediacy of his enunciation of text, which is not disrupted by even the most challenging passages. Considering his youth, it seems stupid to suggest that Mr. Cenčić is the ‘elder statesman’ of The 5 Countertenors, but among his colleagues here he is the seasoned veteran. Having already been a serious artist at an age at which most people are concerned with schoolhouse gossip and wearing the right brands of clothes, he is now a prime example of a man whose life is dedicated to his art.

For some listeners, the countertenor voice will perhaps always be an acquired taste. What The 5 Countertenors makes marvelously apparent is that ‘the countertenor voice’ is, in fact, a kaleidoscopic array of colors and patterns, no more defined by the singular sound of a particular singer than any other Fach. As much as it is impossible to know to what extent today’s countertenors echo the sounds produced by the castrati of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, it is difficult to imagine whether Alfred Deller and Russell Oberlin imagined that some of the world’s most acclaimed singers in 2015 would be countertenors. The 5 Countertenors is a sensational souvenir of this musical brave new world.

CD REVIEW: Antônio Carlo Gomes – IL GUARANY (M. Patassini, N. de Castro Tank, J. Perrotta, P. Raymundo, P. Fortes, J.C. Ortiz, R. Lotti, W. Furlan; Andromeda ANDRCD 9115)

ANTÔNIO CARLO GOMES (1836 – 1896): Il Guarany—Manrico Patassini (Pery), Niza de Castro Tank (Cecilia), José Perrotta (Don Antonio de Mariz), Paschoal Raymundo (Don Alvaro), Paulo Fortes (Gonzales), Juan Carlos Ortiz (Il Cacico), Roque Lotti (Ruy-Bento), Waldomiro Furlan (Alonso); Orquestra e Coro do Theatro Municipal de São Paulo; Armando Belardi, conductor [Recorded in the studios of the Theatro Municipal de São Paulo, Brazil, in August 1959; Andromeda ANDRCD 9115; 2 CDs, 147:11; Available from ClassicsOnlineHD, Amazon, jpc, Presto Classical, and major music retailers]

Though it is perhaps the most magnificently fanciful and diverting entertainment devised by mankind, opera nonetheless reflects many of humanity’s darkest shadows. There is greater diversity in opera in 2015 than at any other time since Monteverdi’s L'Orfeo was first heard in the Seventeenth Century, but it cannot be denied by anyone who cares enough for the art form to be honest that prejudices are no less prevalent in opera now than when the color of artists’ skin or their sexual preferences were criteria unapologetically used in assessing the value of their work. Great progress has been made in the integration of the personnel of opera, but the music itself remains almost exclusively the realm of Europeans. North American and Australian composers have gained momentum during the past half-century, but where are their African, Asian, and South American counterparts? Opera in the form of Monteverdi, Mozart, or Massenet is an inherently Western art, one that pretends to ignore gender and ethnicity unless they are dramatically relevant, but it has effectively expanded its influence to envelop the globe. Even now, when artists from every corner of the world are heard in opera houses large and small, it remains rare for an opera by a composer not from Europe or America to be performed on the international circuit. In that sense, the triumphant March 1870 première of Brazilian composer Antônio Carlo Gomes’s Il Guarany at Milan’s iconic Teatro alla Scala was an unprecedented event. Gomes, who was regarded as a peer by no less a master of the genre than Giuseppe Verdi, would surely have preferred that the primary focus of attention be the quality of his score, however. As a pioneering operatic liaison between the Old and New Worlds, Gomes’s significance is tremendous, but the restoration of this winsomely authentic recording of Il Guarany to widespread circulation confirms that the composer not only deserved the esteem in which he was held by his contemporaries but also merits a fair-minded reappraisal in the new millennium.

Recorded under studio conditions in São Paulo in 1959, this performance of Il Guarany has been sporadically available in varying sound on other labels in past, but Andromeda mostly provides clean, slightly boxy acoustics on this release. Though the voices generally have good presence, there are moments in which distortion and peaking mar enjoyment of the performance. The 1959 engineering was far from state of the art even for its vintage, but this Andromeda release facilitates appreciation of Gomes’s craftsmanship without requiring excessive allowances for poor sonic reproduction. Despite the opera’s Italian origins [its first South American production followed the Milan première nine months later, in December 1870], it would be unfair and irrelevant to compare the São Paulo choral and orchestral forces to those of the great opera houses of Italy, but they give a compelling, idiomatic account of Gomes’s music that pulses with dedication and vivacity. Under the baton of Armando Belardi, the Chorus and Orchestra of the Theatro Municipal de São Paulo perform energetically and enthusiastically. The opera’s Overture, occasionally heard as a concert piece, is robustly played: full discernment of orchestral textures is compromised by the watery sound quality, but the instrumentalists’ good intentions are consistently audible. With voices given prominence in the soundscape, the orchestra’s efforts are relegated to the background whenever there is singing, but both the musicians’ fine work and the composer’s gifts for orchestration are apparent, not least in the finely-wrought ballet music. Throughout the performance, the choral singing is engaging if sometimes raw of tone and ensemble. ‘Dal piano al monte ognor’ in Act One establishes an atmosphere of unease, and the Coro di Aimorè in Act Three, ‘Aspra, crudel, terribile,’ is powerfully delivered. Musically, Gomes’s style owes considerable debts to the Donizetti of Caterina Cornaro, Maria di Rohan, and Dom Sébastien and the Verdi of Rigoletto, Il trovatore, and Un ballo in maschera. Clearly influenced by these titans, as well as by Meyerbeer’s Italian operas, Gomes’s style is an interesting hybrid of elements but is not derivative. Maestro Belardi’s tempi provide momentum without unduly rushing any of his personnel. He paces a stylish reading of the score that sounds like a performance of an opera premièred in 1870, which is to say that he takes the opera on its own terms and makes a delightfully uncomplicated argument on its behalf.

A tale of conflict among indigenous peoples and European colonists, Il Guarany has dramatic kinships with Delibes’s Lakmé, Meyerbeer’s L'Africaine, and Verdi’s Alzira, La forza del destino, and Aida. Much of the angst that courses through Verdi’s scores is also present in Gomes’s, and the melodic writing, though seldom as memorable as Verdi’s, is consistently distinguished. Particularly in ensembles, even secondary characters are given lovely music to sing. As the Spanish adventurers Alonso and Ruy-Bento, bass Waldomiro Furlan and tenor Roque Lotti sing capably if not unfailingly steadily, and their fellow Iberian, the Portuguese adventurer Don Alvaro, is portrayed with gusto and pinched, nasal tone by tenor Paschoal Raymundo. Bass José Perrotta sings handsomely as Dom Antonio de Mariz, launching the beautiful ‘Ave Maria’ ensemble with a nobly-phrased account of ‘Salve, o possente vergine.’

The quartet of principals is anchored by baritone Paulo Fortes, who as his surname suggests is a source of strength as the wily Spaniard Gonzales. He voices ‘Allor che annotti’ in Act One with considerable grandeur, and he delivers his lines in ensembles with unstinting power, pushing himself dramatically but maintaining tight control on the voice. In Act Two, Mr. Fortes contributes solid singing in both ‘Tutto è silenzio!’ and the duet with Cecilia, ‘Donna, tu forse l'unica.’ His account of the Congiura in Act Four, ‘In quest'ora suprema,’ crowns an alert, ardent performance in which the singer’s use of text as a roadmap for phrasing is exemplary.

The rôle of Il Cacico, chief of the Aymoré tribe, was originated by the celebrated French baritone Victor Maurel, Verdi’s first Iago and Falstaff and the creator of the part of Tonio—and thus the first interpreter of the famed Prologo—in Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci. Interestingly, Maurel was esteemed by his contemporaries as a singing actor of the highest order rather than as an extraordinary vocalist per se, and similar sentiments might justifiably be expressed about bass Juan Carlos Ortiz, who in this performance is a dominating presence as the implacable chief. He is appropriately pompous in the Act Three Canto di guerra, but he softens both his demeanor and his tone in the duet with Cecilia, ‘Giovinetta, nello sguardo.’ Mr. Ortiz is at his best in the Invocazione, ‘O dio degli Aimorè,’ which he shapes with the fervor of a religious incantation.

Singing Cecilia, Dom Antonio's daughter, soprano Niza de Castro Tank deploys a lyric coloratura voice with a delicate timbre and surprising resources of steely reserve. Born in Limeira near the eastern extremity of the state of São Paulo in 1931, she was educated in the Italianate tradition of Amelita Galli-Curci, whose voice hers resembles in the upper octave. Likewise, her timbre and manner of singing are fleetingly reminiscent of Toti dal Monte, Mercedes Capsir, and Mady Mesplé, as well as the American soprano Ruth Welting. Ms. de Castro Tank’s repertory included virtually every rôle appropriate to her Fach, in many of which she was lauded in both Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. Related in structure to the similarly-conceived number in Bellini’s I Puritani, Cecilia’s Polacca in Act One of Il Guarany, ‘Gentile di cuore,’ has a distinctly Brazilian flavor, and Ms. de Castro Tank revels in its rhythmic fizz. There is sometimes an idiosyncratic element to her management of coloratura that brings the Dutch diva Cristina Deutekom to mind, but the Brazilian soprano soars to—and through—every challenge. The most familiar music in Il Guarany is Cecilia’s duet with Pery, ‘Sento una forza indomita,’ a piece recorded by noted singers including Emmy Destinn and Enrico Caruso. Ms. de Castro Tank and her Pery sing the duet, not unlike the duet for Amelia and Gustavo in Act Two of Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera, winningly, nailing the climactic unison top notes. Verdi’s influence is again in evidence in ‘Oh! Come è bello il ciel!’ and the ballata ‘C'era una volta un principe’ in Act Two, Cecilia’s vocal lines recalling Gilda’s ‘Caro nome’ in Rigoletto. The sheen and limpidity of Ms. de Castro Tank’s singing are very effective, and her slightly edgy femininity is never overplayed. She takes on the mantle of a true tragic heroine in the Act Three duet with Il Cacico, and the steadiness of her singing is upset in only a few passages. There is a brittleness to the tone above the stave, but she ascends to D6 with minimal effort. Fine singers of previous generations surely tire of the suggestion that they would have hugely important international careers were they singing today, but Ms. de Castro Tank is is singer of whom this is almost certainly true: in this performance, at least, she is a last exponent of a style of singing that is now not only virtually extinct but also largely forgotten.

The aptly-named tenor Manrico Patassini is a firebrand in the Manrico-like rôle of Pery, son of the chief of the Guarany tribe. What little recognition Il Guarany has claimed in the past quarter-century is largely due to Plácido Domingo’s advocacy for the the score, and he sang Pery to acclaim in Europe and the United States in the 1990s. Despite the participation of singers with names more familiar to modern listeners than those in the 1959 performance, the Sony recording that documents Domingo’s Bonn performances of the opera is, as an introduction to Il Guarany, not markedly superior to this recording. Mr. Patassini lacks Domingo’s vocal glamor, but he has greater reliability and resilience in the upper register. From the opening strains of the Act One duet with Cecilia, ‘Sento una forza indomita,’ Pery’s music makes crushing demands on the tenor’s passaggio, but Mr. Patassini copes impressively. His foremost opportunity for vocal display is the Act Two aria ‘Vanto io pur superba cuna,’ and he holds nothing back. As recorded here, Mr. Patassini is something of an enigma. There are passages in which the voice sounds like that of an able but unexceptional character tenor, but these alternate with stretches in which his singing has the sturdiness and squillo of a near-world-class spinto. The voice is not a polished instrument, but Pery is not a sophisticated character. The earthiness of his singing is entirely credible, and his vocal inconsistencies never lessen the consistent success of his tough, touching interpretation of this volatile character.

Realistically, basic tenets of the economics of opera rather than any bias against South American artists continue to limit the exposure that Antônio Carlo Gomes’s music receives. Spending the money necessary to cast an opera like Il Guarany with singers qualified to sing it, an opera company is compelled to make decisions that are informed by the necessity of maximizing returns on investments. Shortsighted as it may be, it is a fact that a lackluster production of Il trovatore will sell more tickets than a fantastic production of Il Guarany. Especially in the case of music as satisfying as Gomes’s, thoughtfully-produced recordings are invaluable. Money is the single greatest source of prejudice, but Andromeda’s release of this classic performance of Gomes’s operatic masterpiece is a reminder that, in their enduring impact on society, important works of art are subject not to ownership that can be bought or sold but to appreciation that can only be shared.