PERFORMANCE REVIEW: Ludwig van Beethoven – FIDELIO (M. Katzarava, A. Richards, R. Suarez Groen, B. Arreola, A. Funk, K. Pfortmiller, D. Boye; Opera Carolina, 25 October 2015)

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770 – 1827): Fidelio, Opus 72—Maria Katzarava (Leonore), Andrew Richards (Florestan), Raquel Suarez Groen (Marzelline), Brian Arreola (Jaquino), Kyle Pfortmiller (Don Pizarro), Andrew Funk (Rocco), Dan Boye (Don Fernando), (Erster Gefangener), (Zweiter Gefangener); Opera Carolina Chorus; Charlotte Symphony Orchestra; James Meena, conductor [Tom Diamond, Director; Michael Baumgarten, Director of Production & Lighting Designer; Dejan Miladinović, Set Designer; Martha Ruskai, Wig & Make-up Designer; A T Jones and Sons, Inc., Costume Designer; Opera Carolina, Belk Theater, Blumenthal Performing Arts Center, Charlotte, North Carolina; Sunday, 25 October 2015]

​If, as Charles Dickens suggested with his affection for David Copperfield, those artistic progeny that cost their creators the greatest effort are the most beloved of their creations, Fidelio surely occupied a prominent place in Ludwig van Beeth​oven's heart. Premièred in its first, three-act form in Vienna's Theater an der Wien in 1805, Fidelio underwent extensive revisions that ultimately spanned nearly a decade of the composer's career. Reduced via Georg Friedrich Treitschke's amendments to Joseph Sonnleithner's libretto, already modified in 1805 – 1806 by Stephan von Breuning, to the two-act form in which the score is most familiar today, the opera was reintroduced to the Viennese public in 1814. Even in its earlier, more florid guise, which now hovers on the periphery of the repertory as Leonore, Fidelio was immediately recognized not only as a work of genius—what else might have been expected from the mind of Beethoven?—but also as a seminal work in the artistic representation of conjugal love. That it utterly eclipsed similar works like Ferdinando Paer's 1804 dramma semiserio Leonora and Johann Simon Mayr's 1805 farsa sentimentale L'amore coniugale ossia Il custode di buon cuore, both of which were, like Fidelio, adaptations of Jean-Nicolas Bouilly's French libretto for Pierre Gaveaux's 1798 opera Léonore ou L'amour conjugal, is indicative both of the profundity of Beethoven's setting and the extraordinary quality of the music. The effectiveness of the unmarried Beethoven's depiction of the sanctity of marriage is evidenced by the fact that it was once customary for newly-engaged German-speaking couples to attend performances of Fidelio as a primer in the art of becoming devoted, well-integrated spouses. In the same manner as Tchaikovsky's Yevgeny Onegin, it is ironic that a man with as anguished an association with the institution of matrimony as was Beethoven's lot should have produced an archetypal representation of spousal commitment, but perhaps there is in Fidelio an essence of what Emily Dickinson meant when she wrote that 'Success is counted sweetest / By those who ne'er succeed.' It was not by luck of the draw that it was Fidelio that was chosen to re-inaugurate the Wiener Staatsoper in 1955, when that fabled house, the stage and auditorium of which were destroyed in World War II, symbolically and literally returned to its rejuvenated home. Fidelio is something special, a phoenix in its own right that has endured the flames of changing fashions. Transporting the opera's drama from Beethoven's Spain to Berlin on the eve of the destruction of the Wall that seemed to figuratively divide humanity as a whole, Opera Carolina's thoughtful, often riveting production of Fidelio took risks that recalled another of Emily Dickinson's iconic conceits: ''Tis not that Dying hurts us so — / 'Tis living — hurts us more.'

When taken at face value, the de facto mission statement cited on Opera Carolina's website for this production is a worrying manifestation of the currently-fashionable predilection for prioritizing efforts at making opera superficially accessible for modern audiences above honoring composers' wishes. 'The fact that Fidelio is the great Beethoven's only opera is unique enough,' the statement begins. 'How do you make it even more fresh and meaningful?'​ How can an opera that deals with a wife who disguises herself as a man in order to gain access to and subsequently liberate her husband from unjust political imprisonment be made more relevant to a society besmirched by wars among power-hungry factions, refugee crises, unfettered corruption, and basest inhumanity? In Opera Carolina's production, insightfully directed by Tom Diamond and expertly lit by Michael Baumgarten, who also created the evocative projections, the endeavor to increase Fidelio's ability to engage the audience prompted relocating the action from Beethoven's and his librettists' Eighteenth-Century Spain to Berlin in the days leading up to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Opera Carolina's 2014 production of Verdi's Nabucco went wrong temporarily when anachronistically referencing the Nazi-perpetrated Holocaust in the context of an otherwise traditionally Biblical setting, but this Fidelio shouldered the burden of its new identity without transferring any of the weight of reinterpretation onto the audience's backs. Via the aptly drab costumes by A T Jones and Sons, Inc., Martha Ruskai's wig and make-up designs, and the stark backdrops of Dejan Miladinović's sets, Beethoven's characters convincingly became citizens of 1989 Berlin. The magnanimous Don Fernando, Fidelio's deus ex machina, was Walter Momper, the first mayor of newly-reunified Berlin. The malevolent Stasi official Walter Ulbricht stood in for Beethoven's Don Pizarro, and his political nemesis Florestan was represented in the Twentieth Century by advocate for democracy Kurt Wismach. Young Jaquino was metamorphosed into Chris Gueffroy, one of the last people killed whilst attempting to scale the Berlin Wall. The production was tasteful and moving, but the source of the emotional power was always Beethoven's music. Recorded contributions by Presidents Kennedy ('Ich bin ein Berliner') and Reagan ('Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall') prefaced the opera's first and final scenes, respectively, and perhaps the most successful departure from tradition was staging Leonore's physical transformation into Fidelio during the Ouvertüre. Transplanting the action into 1989 Berlin gave the opera an atmosphere remembered by most of the audience, but changing characters' names went slightly too far. In practical terms, how many people are more familiar with the names Wismach, Ulbricht, and Momper than with Florestan, Pizarro, and Fernando? If a Twentieth-Century setting was deemed necessary, why not relocate the opera to Franco's Spain and thereby retain the characters' names and fidelity to the text that Beethoven set? Concerns about textual changes notwithstanding, the production proved that Beethoven's score, one of the true masterworks of Western civilization, is eternally 'fresh and meaningful.' In this regard, the production was an unmitigated triumph. [For this review, Beethoven’s original character names and the text as it appears in the score are used.]

O welch ein Augenblick: the Company of Opera Carolina’s production of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Fidelio, October 2015 [Photo by Jon Silla, © by Opera Carolina; used with permission]

With Opera Carolina's General Director and Principal Conductor James Meena on the podium, the task of upholding musical values in this production of Fidelio was entrusted to one of America's ablest conductors of opera, one whose versatility reflects encyclopedic knowledge of repertory and trial-by-fire experience extending back to his formative engagements in Toledo and Pittsburgh. This broad experience is of particular importance when conducting Fidelio, a score in which musical traditions intersect. The music for Marzelline and Jaquino inhabits the world of Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail and Die Zauberflöte, whereas the writing for Rocco and Don Pizarro combines elements of the Baroque, Classicism, and Romanticism. Leonore is both a heroine in the tradition of Händel's Rodelinda and Deidamia and a prototype for the leading ladies of Weber and Wagner, and Florestan, introduced in Act Two by music that could have been composed by Wagner, Mahler, or Richard Strauss, is an intriguing hybrid, equal parts bel canto and Heldentenor. The act finales are, like Beethoven's Choral Fantasy and the last movement of the Ninth Symphony, sui generis. A conductor who lacks exposure to all of the disparate ingredients that Beethoven combined in the score is at risk of being out to sea in the tempestuous waters of Fidelio, but in this performance Meena masterfully tamed the savage challenges of the music. Spurred by Meena's leadership the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra musicians provided a spirited performance of the opera's familiar Ouvertüre, the writing for horns and woodwinds inspiring the musicians to feats of commendable virtuosity. The Marsch that introduces Don Pizarro in Act One was also vigorously played. The crucial but often-blundered horn parts in Leonore's 'Abscheulicher!' scene were fantastically done except for an all-too-audible mistake in the second statement of the fanfare that introduces 'Ich folg' dem innern Triebe,' and the plangent oboe phrases in Florestan's scene at the start of Act Two were beautifully played. Meena proved refreshingly adept at conveying the grandeur of Beethoven's music without miring the score in pseudo-Wagnerian pomposity. In both his attentive support of the singers and his management of the orchestra, he facilitated appreciation of the fact that Beethoven, though unquestionably a visionary, was also a contemporary of Cherubini, Mayr, and Spontini.

The Opera Carolina Chorus sang splendidly, giving strong but heartfelt performances of some of the most difficult choral writing in opera. The charge was often made during the composer's lifetime that Beethoven never truly learned how to write effective, singable music for the human voice, but the choristers' singing in this performance verified that, when adequately rehearsed and sung with gusto, Beethoven's choruses in Fidelio are unforgettably satisfying. The haunting chorus that launches the Act One finale, 'O welche Lust,' was stirringly sung, and the prisoners' poignant 'Leb wohl, du warmes Sonnenlicht, schnell schwindest du uns wieder' touched the heart. In the Act Two finale, the choristers' exclamations of 'Heil! Heil! Heil sei dem Tag, Heil sei der Stunde' seemed to resound with the collective voice of humanity. The jubilant 'Wer ein holdes Weib errungen, stimm in unsern Jubel ein,' a rather banal tune like the principal themes of the finales of the Choral Fantasy and the Ninth Symphony, was performed with unfettered joy befitting a paean to newly-won liberty. It is unfortunate and unfair that the tenor and bass who emerged from the chorus to sing the First and Second Prisoners' solo lines were not identified and granted the notice that their singing deserved. Both the tenor's 'Wir wollen mit Vertrauen auf Gottes Hülfe' and the bass's 'Specht leise, haltet euch zurück, wir sind belauscht mit Ohr und Blick' were confidently, appealingly done.

Under the guise of Walter Momper, bass-baritone Dan Boye was a Don Fernando of firm-toned magnanimity. He delivered 'Des besten Königs Wink und Wille führt mich zu euch' with the ceremonial pontification of a career politician, but his words rang with sincerity and emotion. Directing 'Du schlossest auf des Edlen Grab, jetzt, jetzt nimm ihm seine Ketten ab; doch halt' to Rocco, his voice seemed to grow in authority as the on-stage populace reacted to his words. Then, addressing Leonore, he sang 'euch, edle Frau, allein, euch ziemt es, ganz ihn zu befrein' with true feeling, restoring to Leonore and Florestan the happiness for which they have suffered so direly.

Sein Weib: Soprano Maria Katzarava as Leonore in Opera Carolina’s production of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Fidelio, October 2015 [Photo by Jon Silla, © by Opera Carolina; used with permission]

Thankfully, Opera Carolina's production spared Jaquino the fate of the historical Chris Gueffroy, who was fatally shot in 1989 as he attempted to flee East Berlin at the age of only twenty. Looking dashing in his Stasi uniform and sounding even better, Opera Carolina stalwart tenor Brian Arreola was a silver-throated bundle of nerves. In the Act One duet with Marzelline, Arreola voiced 'Jetzt, Schätzchen, jetzt sind wir allein' handsomely, and he conveyed Jaquino's increasing exasperation with body language rather than stridency in the voice. In the exquisite quartet, one of the finest ensembles in opera, he sang 'Mir sträubt sich schon das Haar' with sincerity and star-in-the-making tone. Here and in the finales of both acts he was always audible. He excelled at spoken and sung German, and he again displayed what an asset he is to Opera Carolina's roster.

Soprano Raquel Suarez Groen lent Marzelline measures of humor and humanity that made her part in the opera more vital that many singers have made it. Beginning with the charming duet with Jaquino that opens Act One, she took advantage of every opportunity for detailed characterization that Beethoven gave to her. She sang 'Es wird ja nichts Wichtiges sein' delightfully, the repeated top Gs and coloratura cresting on top A employed to impart Marzelline’s growing frustration with Jaquino’s refusal to accept that she is in love with Fidelio. Suarez Groen sang Marzelline’s Mozartean aria 'O wär' ich schon mit dir vereint, und dürfte Mann dich nennen!' deftly, and, unlike many Marzellines, she ensured that her presence was noticed in the quartet by phrasing 'Mir ist so wunderbar, es engt das Herz mir ein' imaginatively and dexterously negotiating the coloratura. Joining Leonore and Rocco in their fantastic trio, she declaimed 'Dein gutes Herz wird manchen Schmerz in diesen Grüften leiden' beautifully and ascended to the top C with spot-on intonation. Suarez Groen’s reaction to learning Fidelio’s true identity in the opera’s finale provided a precious moment of levity. The soprano’s lovely tones occasionally could not be heard when she descended into the lower octave of her range, but she sang sweetly and illuminated the stage with her radiant smile.

The unshakable cornerstone of Opera Carolina's Fidelio was bass Andrew Funk, whose paternal, dignified incarnation of Rocco was worthy of comparison with legendary performances of the rôle by singers such as Alexander Kipnis, Ludwig Weber, Gottlob Frick, Franz Crass, and Kurt Moll. From his first note, there was no doubting that Funk is a true bass, and his vocalism went from strength to strength as the performance progressed. In the Act One quartet with Leonore, Marzelline, and Jaquino, Funk sang 'Sie liebt ihn, es ist klar, ja, Mädchen, er wird dein' cheerfully, and his performance of the aria 'Hat man nicht auch Gold beineben, kann man nicht ganz glücklich sein,' often a low point in performances of Fidelio, was musically and dramatically invigorating, not least in the allegro section that begins with 'Doch wenn's in den Taschen fein klingelt und rollt.' The cleverness with which Funk as Rocco the eager father sought to bring Marzelline and Fidelio together in their trio was endearing, and he voiced 'Gut, Söhnchen, gut, hab immer Mut' winsomely. Funk wholly avoided the bumbling silliness that many Roccos inflict upon audiences in the duet with Pizarro, uttering 'So sagt doch nur in Eile, womit ich dienen kann' with surety of pitch and purpose. Persuaded by Fidelio to permit the prisoners a turn in the yard in the Act One finale, Funk's Rocco was the personification of noble-hearted decency. In the series of ensembles in Act Two, the bass continually deepened the humanity of his characterization. In the duet with Leonore, his reluctance to obey Pizarro's orders developed into genuine kindness towards Florestan, his hesitant, almost embarrassed singing of 'Nur hurtig fort, nur frisch gegraben' ardently expressing his moral reservations. The solemnity of his shaping of 'Ich labt ihn gern, den armen Mann' in the subsequent trio was telling, and his bewilderment in the quartet as Rocco discovered that his intended son-in-law was actually Florestan's wife in disguise was unexpectedly touching. Too many singers portray Rocco as befuddled rather than benevolent, but Funk made him an intelligent, caring, laudably serious man. Not one note of Rocco's music was outside of Funk's comfort zone, and not one word of the part was spoken or sung haphazardly.

It may seem ridiculous to suggest that the most enjoyable aspect of baritone Kyle Pfortmiller’s portrayal of Don Pizarro was not how he sang the rôle but that he sang it. Singing the music is apparently far less attractive to many Pizarros than shouting it, but Pfortmiller was the exception to this rule, and the performance was all the better for it. In his entrance in Act One, he swept across the stage like a wintry wind, and he sang the aria 'Ha! Ha! Ha! welch ein Augenblick!' with considerably greater depth than the standard cardboard villainy, encountering no difficulties with the profusion of top Ds and E♭s. In the subsequent duet with Rocco, Pfortmiller left no doubt of Pizarro’s murderous intentions in his cold-blooded articulation of 'Jetzt, Alter, Alter, jetzt hat es Eile!’ In the Act Two quartet, he roared 'Er sterbe! Doch er soll erst wissen, wer ihm sein stolzes Herz zerfleischt' frighteningly without abandoning Beethoven’s pitches or his own consummate musicality. The pleasure of hearing Pizarro’s music truly sung, not snarled, cannot be overstated, and the performance was greatly enhanced by having as fine a voice as Pfortmiller’s in the part.

Considering his importance to the plot of Fidelio, Florestan, who does not appear in Act One, has surprisingly little to sing. When he opens Act Two with his recitative 'Gott! welch Dunkel hier!' and adagio cantabile aria 'In des Lebens Frühlingstagen ist das Glück von mir geflohn,' however, his significance both to Fidelio and to the tradition of German music for the tenor voice is immediately established. In Opera Carolina’s performance, it was also immediately apparent that tenor Andrew Richards was a Florestan for whom the rôle’s punishing tessitura was challenging but not damning. After a tiny crack on a descending phrase in the recitative, he coped manfully with the frequent top As and B♭s in the aria and drew the audience into his vision of his ‘Engel, Leonoren.’ Richards’s voice rang out beautifully on 'Euch werde Lohn in bessern Welten' in the trio with Leonore and Rocco, and the fortitude that his Florestan displayed despite his weakness in the face of Pizarro’s treachery was rousingly manifested in the quartet, his voicing of 'Ein Mörder, ein Mörder steht vor mir' possessing singularity of purpose that compensated for his physical frailty. In the frenzied duet with Leonore, 'O namenlose Freude,’ a duet that clearly exerted a potent influence on Wagner when he was composing the cataclysmic love duet for Tristan and Isolde, Richards traded gleaming top Gs and As with his Leonore, and his lines in the opera’s finale were imposing expressions of profound joy and relief. Richards’s singing was not without effort, but the effort was repaid by an uncommonly effective, affecting portrait of Florestan.

Die Macht der Hoffnung: Tenor Andrew Richards as Florestan (left) and soprano Maria Katzarava as Leonore (right) in Opera Carolina’s production of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Fidelio [Photo by Jon Silla, © by Opera Carolina; used with permission]

​There were suggestions of the young Éva Marton in the Leonore of Mexican soprano Maria Katzarava. The 1984 Metropolitan Opera Saturday matinée broadcast performance of Fidelio in which the Hungarian soprano was partnered by Jon Vickers, whose singing as Florestan Richards’s performance fleetingly resembled, is as fine a performance as Marton ever sang of any rôle, and Katzarava very nearly surpassed the unexpected brilliance of her predecessor. In a sense, Katzarava's excellence was also surprising. She made a petite prison guard, but big, bold tone poured out of her like a geyser forcing its way through a small crevice in the earth. In the Act One quartet, the soprano exclaimed 'Wie groß ist die Gefahr! wie schwach der Hoffnung Schein!' with fervor, and her statement of 'Ich habe Mut, mit kaltem Blut, mit kaltem Blut will ich hinab mich wagen' in the trio was heartening. There were a few suspect pitches along the way, and notes below the stave were slightly compromised by Katzarava's otherwise admirable avoidance of chest register, but the voice was both attractive and impactful from E4 to B5, where most of Leonore's music is centered. She dove into the famous recitative 'Abscheulicher! wo eilst du hin? was hast du vor?' with controlled zeal, and she molded the adagio section of the aria, 'Komm, Hoffnung, laß den letzten Stern,' with bel canto delicacy that made the rise to top B an organic climax. Bolstered by the horns, she mastered 'Ich folg' dem innern Triebe,' little troubled by the two-octave compass extending from low B♯ to top B. The top A♭s and B♭s in the Act One finale held no terrors for her, and her voice was discernible in even the largest ensembles without being over-prominent, which is to say that she consistently achieved balances between power and poise that suited the music. In Leonore's duet with Rocco in Act Two, Katzarava emoted 'Ihr sollt ja nicht zu klagen haben, ihn sollt gewiß zufrieden sein' with passion, fearlessly executing the difficult triplets, and her glowing reading of 'Wie heftig pochet dieses Herz es wogt, es wogt in Freud und scharfem Schmerz' in the trio was bewitching. Compelled in the quartet to take action in order to save her husband's life, this Leonore's 'Zurück! Durchbohren, durchbohren mußt du erst diese Brust' pierced the torso of the drama as sharply as the dagger with which Pizarro meant to murder Florestan. The top B♭ that crowned her statement of 'Töt erst sein Weib!' was like dynamite: in a moment, the perilous threats to life and happiness were blown apart. The still-cautious euphoria of Leonore's and Florestan's reunion exploded in 'O namenlose Freude,' the soprano's climactic top Bs filling the auditorium with the sound of victory. Katzarava's voice soared in the opera's finale, the concentration of her singing of 'O Gott! o Gott! welch ein Augenblick!' meaningfully elucidating Leonore's response to a course of events she was hardly able to believe. The rise to top B♭, on which she was joined by Marzelline, was a musical catharsis, a sort of vocal representation of warming sunlight at last penetrating dense clouds. A marvel of Katzarava's performance was that she was able to summon such impressive vocal amplitude without heaviness: she maintained flexibility even when singing with the weight of a Reiza or Senta. The company of wholly successful Leonores has ever been small, but Katzarava distinguished Opera Carolina’s Fidelio by adding her name to that roll of distinction.

To those who love opera, the world's opera houses are the temples in which the rites of this incredible genre are practiced. Great composers are the prophets, and great singers are the priests who proselytize in efforts to recruit new audiences without shunning existing audiences, especially those individuals with deep pockets. On the rare occasions when whichever cosmic conditions affect the performance of opera are in proper alignment, opera can be a near-religious experience, and few scores in the international repertory are vessels more suited to celebration of the sacrament of opera than Beethoven’s Fidelio. It is a difficult score, and in too many performances its merits, the qualities that set it apart, must be taken on faith. Staged with tenderness, conducted with perceptiveness, and performed with honesty and beauty, Opera Carolina’s Fidelio was to those who love this opera an inspiring answer to prayers.

PERFORMANCE REVIEW: Giuseppe Verdi – RIGOLETTO (R. Overman, A. Maples, R. Barbera, B. Banion, K. Schwecke; Piedmont Opera, 23 October 2015)

GIUSEPPE VERDI (1813 – 1901): Rigoletto—Robert Overman (Rigoletto), Amy Maples (Gilda), René Barbera (il Duca di Mantova), Brian Banion (Sparafucile), Kristin Schwecke (Maddalena, la contessa di Ceprano), Jaclyn Surso (Giovanna), Donald Hartmann (il conte di Monterone), Cody Monta’ (Marullo), Simon Petersson (Matteo Borsa), Joshua Conyers (il conte di Ceprano), Patrick Scully (Un usciere di corte), Lindsay Mecher (Un paggio della Duchessa); Piedmont Opera Chorus; Winston-Salem Symphony Orchestra; James Allbritten, conductor [Steven LaCosse, Stage Director; Elizabeth Fowle, Choreographer; David P. Gordon, Scenic Designer; Norman Coates, Lighting Designer; Martha Ruskai, Wig and Make-up Designer; Piedmont Opera, The Stevens Center of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Friday, 23 October 2015]

130 years after his death, Victor Hugo is still widely—and rightly—regarded as one of France's most important writers. Acclaimed for his poetry, plays, and the genre-defining novels Notre-Dame de Paris, Les Misérables, and, perhaps his finest but certainly not most familiar work, Les Travailleurs de la mer, Hugo was accustomed to political and cultural adversity but not to seeing his work eclipsed. Set in a fanciful incarnation of the court of François I, where one of the king's mistresses, Françoise de Foix, was intriguing enough to inspire an opera by Donizetti, Hugo's Le roi s'amuse created a sensation when it premièred on 22 November 1832—a sensation significant enough to ensure that the regime of Louis Philippe I, ostensibly responding to perceived insults to His Majesty, banned the play before its second performance. Le roi s'amuse would ultimately wait fifty years to take the stage for the second time. By that time, it could have been debated whether the impetus for the revival was wholly an homage to the esteemed Hugo or at least partially curiosity about the long-unseen play that inspired one of the most successful operas of the mid-Nineteenth Century, Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto. Verdi's opera had its own troubles with the Austrian censors in Venice in advance of its first performance: Francesco Maria Piave's libretto, as faithful an adaptation of its source as has even been prepared for the operatic stage, was deemed as offensive to the the crowned heads in Vienna as Hugo's play was to those in Paris. Though his 1844 Ernani was lauded as an uncommonly adroit setting of the writer's work, it was Rigoletto that solidified Verdi's reputation as the ideal composer to unite Hugo's words with music. Not even the cloud of bureaucratic disapprobation that relocated the drama from France to Mantua could tarnish the brilliant sheen of the première of Rigoletto at Venice's Teatro La Fenice on 11 March 1851, however. So certain was Verdi that he had written a hit tune that would be immediately commandeered by gondoliers and street musicians that he sequestered Raffaele Mirate, the rôle's creator, for rehearsals of the Duca's Act Three canzone 'La donna è mobile.' He was correct, of course, but, in truth, Rigoletto was revealed to be a work of incredible beauty and power from the score's first page to its last. Anyone who has bothered to read it would be unlikely to dispute that Hugo's Le roi s'amuse is a well-written work worthy of its creator, but Verdi's transformation of Hugo's Triboulet and Blanche into Rigoletto and Gilda is the foundation of one of opera's most enduring masterworks. In recent years, it has often seemed that an astonishing number of productions of Rigoletto have sought to convince audiences that their affection for the opera is predicated upon misjudgments of the score's merit. History recounts that Hugo envied the skill with which Verdi delineated each character’s voice and perspective in Rigoletto's iconic quartet, 'Bella figlia dell'amore,' but it is unlikely that a man as dedicated as Hugo to preserving artists’ individuality and creative freedom at all costs could have witnessed the contrasting popularity of Verdi’s opera and neglect of his own play without disappointment. Winston-Salem-based Piedmont Opera offered a Rigoletto on the stage of the Stevens Center that could not have failed to delight both Verdi and Hugo. For all its complications, Rigoletto is essentially a simple tale of distorted love. By focusing not on reimagining Rigoletto from some arbitrary, ‘modern’ point of view but on recreating the opera as it emerged from Verdi’s imagination, Piedmont Opera’s production allowed the audience to appreciate in Rigoletto the Shakespearean majesty that Verdi recognized in Hugo’s Triboulet.

Bella figlia dell’amore: Soprano Kristin Schwecke as Maddalena in Piedmont Opera’s production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto, October 2015 [Photo © by Traci Arney Photography; used with permission]

Hugo’s countryman Molière wrote that ‘of all the noises known to man, opera is the most expensive.’ Opera is indeed a commodity that is extraordinarily expensive to produce, promote, and enjoy, but Piedmont Opera’s Rigoletto confirmed anew that the extensive budgets of large opera companies do not necessarily facilitate productions richer than those created by America’s regional companies. Directed by Steven LaCosse and choreographed by Elizabeth Fowle, the production provided enough detail to conjure a specific atmosphere without cluttering the opera's physical or ephemeral spaces with distractions. The purest requirement of blocking is placing characters where they are meant to be, when they are meant to be there, and Piedmont Opera's production was particularly commendable for drawing inspiration foremost from Verdi’s score. Only the vicious beating of Giovanna during the courtiers’ abduction of Gilda seemed a misguided and unnecessary extrapolation. David P. Gordon's sets gave the Duca di Mantova's testosterone-infused court suitably decadent surroundings, framing the action effectively but unobtrusively and picturesquely bringing the sights of Mantua to the Stevens Center stage. The costumes by Malabar Limited successfully employed bright primary colors for the Duca and his attendants, earthy tones for Rigoletto and Sparafucile, and virginal blue and white and, in Act Three, opulent emerald for Gilda to draw visual parallels with the characters' functions in the drama. These elements of the staging, as well as Martha Ruskai’s wigs and make-up, seemed extensions of the polished work in the pit by Allbritten and the Winston-Salem Symphony Orchestra. The conductor presided over a taut, unsentimental reading of Verdi’s score, executed with laudably few mistakes by the Symphony’s instrumentalists. Allbritten supported the singers with obvious understanding both of the mechanics of singing and of the singular demands of singing Rigoletto. The choristers matched the achievements of their colleagues in the pit with lusty, dexterous singing. Wholly convincing as the hard-partying companions of the Duca, the choristers gave a superb performance of one of the score’s finest inspirations, the storm scene in Act Three. With Allbritten building an unshakable foundation, the orchestra and chorus providing a frame of reliable accomplishment, and the production team decorating that frame enchantingly, Piedmont Opera’s Rigoletto unmistakably conveyed what so many larger companies’ productions conspicuously lack: the spirit of Verdi.

Bella salvatrice: Soprano Amy Maples as Gilda in Piedmont Opera’s production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto, October 2015 [Photo © by Traci Arney Photography; used with permission]

In filling the ranks of supporting characters, Piedmont Opera's production tapped North Carolina's bounteous lodes of native and adopted vocal talent. Fellows of the A.J. Fletcher Opera Institute of the University of North Carolina’s School of the Arts made especially strong showings, led by soprano Kristin Schwecke, who sparred seductively with the Duca as the Contessa di Ceprano in Act One and returned in Act Three as a beguiling Maddalena. Schwecke delivered ‘Somiglia un Apollo, quel giovane, io l’amo, ei m’ama…riposi…nè più l’uccidiamo,’ Maddalena’s plea for Sparafucile to spare the Duca’s life, with alluring tone, lacking only complete solidity at the bottom of the line. The Duca's courtiers were in this production a raucous lot who nonetheless preserved a measure of the decorum befitting a duke's court. The Duca is a libertine, to be sure, but a married one, and there is nothing in the score to suggest that his Duchessa would suffer her household to be run both inwardly and outwardly like a bawdy establishment. Baritone Cody Monta’ sang Marullo with unstinting force complemented by the vivacity of tenor Simon Petersson’s depiction of Borsa. Recently acclaimed for his portrayal of the title rôle in Opera Wilmington's production of Rigoletto, baritone Joshua Conyers was in Winston-Salem a Conte di Ceprano who could not be ignored. His garnet-hued voice hurled out every note that Verdi allocated to him with tonal focus and dramatic purpose: the Duca who would dare to toy with this Count's Countess is an unscrupulous fool without the good sense to fear for his own safety. Soprano Jaclyn Surso was a model of good-natured perturbation as Giovanna, Gilda’s duenna, and Lindsay Mecher deployed her attractive mezzo-soprano impressively as the Duchessa’s page. Following his colleagues’ examples, bass Patrick Scully made the most of the usher’s brief contribution.

Equally at home in Rossinian comedy and Verdian tragedy, bass-baritone Donald Hartmann was a Conte di Monterone who made the embittered old man's curse far more than an opportunity for vaguely-pitched shouting. His singing of ‘La voce mia qual tuono vi scuoterà dovunque’ boiled with righteous indignation and an unquenchable longing for revenge for his daughter’s disgrace. Hartmann rose to the top F in Monterone’s curse with galvanizing force. In Act Two, his flinty voicing of ‘Poiché fosti invano da me maledetto, né un fulmine o un ferro colpisce il tuo pette’ was the catalyst that sent the drama hurtling over the precipice to its tragic conclusion. Hartmann was a phenomenal antidote to the seemingly endless parade of tired, wobbly Monterones.

Assassino sonoro: Bass-baritone Brian Banion as Sparafucile in Piedmont Opera’s production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto, October 2015 [Photo © by Traci Arney Photography; used with permission]

Brian Banion's ironclad bass-baritone voice found a near-ideal outlet in Verdi's music for the assassin-for-hire Sparafucile, via which the singer disclosed a facet of his artistry unlike those that have coruscated in his performances of less-deadly parts. In the wonderful duet with Rigoletto in Act One, Banion portrayed an eerily menacing figure who sang of taking lives as though he were describing sunrises over Arcadian landscapes. His low F when repeating Sparafucile’s name was chilling—and, unlike similar efforts by many singers, audible. In Act Three, Banion’s nonchalance when preparing to murder the Duca was starkly imposing but not without a suggestion of dark comedy. Like Hartmann’s Monterone, his Sparafucile was a source of vocal fortitude all the more welcome for being atypically dependable.

Duca seducente: Tenor René Barbera as il Duca di Mantova in Piedmont Opera’s production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto, October 2015 [Photo © by Traci Arney Photography; used with permission]

Having thrilled local audiences with his vibrant bel canto singing as Tonio in Greensboro Opera's January 2015 production of Donizetti's La fille du régiment [reviewed here], tenor René Barbera, an alumnus of the UNC School of the Arts, returned to the Triad to portray the womanizing Duca di Mantova in Piedmont Opera's Rigoletto. The same people who assume that Calàf does nothing of interest in Turandot until he sings 'Nessun dorma' in Act Three perhaps also think that the Duca is dormant until being roused to sing 'La donna è mobile' in Rigoletto's Act Three. In the first few minutes of the opera, Verdi encapsulated the Duca's predictably philandering character in an irresistibly tuneful ballata, ‘Questa o quella per me pari sono.’ Leaving no doubt about the nature of the Duca's designs on the Contessa di Ceprano, Barbera sang the number insouciantly, phrasing the ebullient melody with playful sensuality. In the Duca’s duet with Gilda, Barbera’s voice radiated the golden smile of a young man in love. His ‘Uscire!…adesso!…Ora che accendene un fuoco istesso!’ was charming, and the tenor’s timbre gleamed in his voicing of the cantabile ‘È il sol dell’anima, la vita è amore, sua voce è il palpito del nostro core.’ Taking leave of his beloved, this Duca could barely contain his boyish ardor in his rapturous ‘Addio! speranza ed anima sol tu sarai per me,’ Barbera joining his Gilda on a glorious unison top D♭. Opening Act Two with a fervent account of the recitative ‘Ella mi fu rapita,’ he catapulted the scene to a sublime performance of the Duca’s aria ‘Parmi veder le lagrime scorrenti da quel ciglio,’ Verdi’s finest music for the character. Barbera managed to elicit appreciation of the Duca’s noble qualities without ignoring the vein of depravity that precipitates the opera’s tragedy. Thankfully, Piedmont Opera’s production allowed Barbera to sing a verse of the Duca’s cabaletta, ‘Possente amor mi chiama,’ and it was among the evening’s musical pinnacles. In this performance, the over-familiar Act Three canzone ‘La donna è mobile’ sounded winningly spontaneous, and Barbera launched the traditional interpolated top B into the house exhilaratingly. His ‘Un dì, se ben rammentomi, o bella, t’incontrai’ wooed Maddalena with zeal that persisted into the quartet. He traced the supple bel canto lines of ‘Bella figlia dell’amore, schiavo son dei vezzi tuoi’ with elegance and agility, rising effortlessly to the top Bs on which so many tenors flounder. The same tone resonantly crowned the reprise of ‘La donna è mobile’—in Verdi’s score this time round—that awakened Rigoletto to the sickening reality that it is not the Duca’s body that Sparafucile has delivered to him. Barbera is the rare singer who uses projection as ably as volume to fill a space with sound. He sang the Duca’s music without forcing his lyric instrument, but his Duca was a formidable presence whose personality leapt over the footlights.

Speranza ed anima sol tu sarai per me: Soprano Amy Maples as Gilda (left) and tenor René Barbera as il Duca di Mantova (right) in Piedmont Opera's production of Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto, October 2015 [Photo © by Christina Holcomb Photography, LLC; used with permission]

​An astonishing array of voices have successfully sung Gilda in the years since Rigoletto's première, ranging from high coloraturas in the tradition of Dame Nellie Melba, Amelita Galli-Curci, and Lily Pons to more substantial voices like those of Maria Callas and Dame Joan Sutherland. The voice of Teresa Brambilla, the soprano who created Gilda for Verdi at La Fenice in 1851, was perhaps of dimensions that placed it somewhere near the center of the spectrum between those extremes. Intriguingly, one of Brambilla's most admired portrayals prior to the first performance of Rigoletto was her Agnese in Bellini's Beatrice di Tenda, a seconda donna rôle composed to complement Giuditta Pasta's singing of the title rôle and, like her cousin Adalgisa in Norma, now traditionally assigned to a mezzo-soprano. Perhaps there was greater validity in Arturo Toscanini's preference for a dramatic voice in Gilda's music—he famously engaged Zinka Milanov to sing the part in a 1944 Madison Square Garden concert performance of Act Three of Rigoletto—than many commentators have been willing to acknowledge. Many of the high notes associated with Gilda in listeners' minds are interpolations, after all, and in moments of direst histrionic duress she has propulsive orchestrations with which to contend. Still, the trills, flexibility, and limpidity of tone demanded by the music necessitate the casting of singers with exemplary technical prowess. Piedmont Opera's production benefited tremendously from the participation of Tennessee-born soprano Amy Maples, a youthfully comely Gilda who met every technical challenge unflinchingly, mostly offered sufficient power when required, and from her first appearance commanded observers' sympathy with acting that made even stock gestures actions of emotional meaning. Bounding onto the stage at the beginning of Gilda's duet with Rigoletto in Act One, Maples met her stage father with a ‘Mio padre!’ that was breathless with excitement but perfectly-placed vocally. The anticipation that shone in her starlit articulation of ‘Voi sospirate! che v’ange tanto?’ established an atmosphere of concentrated emotion in which she unfurled a velvety ribbon of tone in ‘Lassù in cielo presso Dio veglia un angiul protettor.’ Few Rigolettos and Gildas make the connection between father and daughter, who is the sole tangible reminder of her mother, more heartbreakingly tender than it was in this performance. Trading the protective but oppressive arms of her father for those of her suitor, Maples's Gilda seemed a different person in the duet with the Duca, at once a naïve girl and a woman of blossoming sexuality. She wedded her luscious tones with Barbera's in their exuberant ‘Addio! speranza ed anima sol tu sarai per me,' the rocketing top D♭ an organic expression of the love swelling her heart. After a recitative in which she strayed from a few of Verdi’s indicated pitches, Maples’s performance of Gilda's E-major aria ‘Caro nome che il mio cor festi primo palpitar’ was an intimate reverie that she distinguished with sparkling trills and crystalline top Bs. Having produced a beautiful top D♯ in the aria's cadenza, she preferred Verdi's written ending to a gaudy top E, her expertly-sustained trill proving more memorable than any interpolated high note might have been. Of a completely different ethos was the ‘Mio padre!’ with which the abused Gilda greeted Rigoletto in Act Two. The arching, achingly lovely melodic lines of ‘Tutte le feste al tempio mentre pregava Iddio’ inspired Maples to vocalism of impeccable poise and time-stopping expressivity, the sheer beauty of her singing enhancing her demonstration of the pain of lost innocence. The top E♭ with which she brought down the curtain on Act Two was the exclamation of a gentle soul who hoped that her heartfelt singing of ‘O mio padre, qual gioia feroce balenarvi negli occhi vegg’io!’ might succeed in soothing her father’s lethal ire. In Act Three, the despair of the quartet, capped with a dulcet top D♭, gave way to unchangeable determination in her declaration of ‘Che! piange tal donna! né a lui darò aita!’ in the trio with Maddalena and Sparafucile. Only here did she struggle to be heard above Verdi’s orchestrations. The pathos of the final duet, in which Maples phrased ‘Ah, ch’io taccia! a me, a lui perdonate’​ with unerring assurance, was gripping. The deaths of operatic characters are often fodder for derision, but Maples’s Gilda expired without melodramatics. In that, she died as she lived, eloquently and candidly.

Padre e figlia: Baritone Robert Overman as Rigoletto (left) and soprano Amy Maples as Gilda (right) in Piedmont Opera’s production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto, October 2015 [Photo © by Traci Arney Photography; used with permission]

Rigoletto is a fundamental point in the astounding progression of Verdi's music for the baritone voice that extended from Nabucco and Macbeth to Jago and Falstaff. The ambivalence of individuals' struggles with dueling public personas and private anguishes that captivated Verdi throughout his career is at the core of his characterization of Rigoletto, and it was the central pedestal upon which baritone Robert Overman balanced his performance of the rôle. It was apparent at his first entrance that Overman's Rigoletto was a quick-tempered opportunist with an insult on the tip of his tongue for every person he encountered. His taunting of Monterone culminated in a piercing cry of 'Quel vecchio maledivami,' the sting of the old man's curse having penetrated his verbal armor.  Overman intertwined his voice with Banion's mesmerizingly in the duet with Sparafucile, Rigoletto's distaste for his new acquaintance's vocation turning to shock as, in the course of the first of his monologues, ‘Pari siamo! io la lingua, egli ha il pugnale,’ he reflected on the similarities between the character assassination of his own trade and Sparafucile's literal murders. Overman's whole demeanor changed with the first 'Figlia!' in the duet with Gilda. Rigoletto the doting father received from the baritone an impersonation of rapt concentration and dedication: that Gilda was this Rigoletto's sole reason for fleeting happiness was touchingly apparent. In the duet's expansive andante, Overman phrased ‘Deh, non parlare al misero del suo perduto bene’ with fluidity that heightened the emotional devastation of the text. Instructing Giovanna to guard Gilda closely, his stern singing of ‘Ah, veglia, o donna, questo fiore che a te puro confidai’ was underpinned by a disquieting presentiment of looming tragedy. Realizing at last that his comrades at the Duca's court had abducted Gilda, Overman's cries of ‘Ah! ah! ah! la maledizione!’ ended Act One explosively. Generally secure and impactful, Overman's tone was occasionally pushed at the top of the range, but the results that the effort achieved were pulse-quickening. He delivered the potent Act Two oration ‘Cortigiani, vil razza dannata, per qual prezzo vendeste il mio bene?’ with startling gravity and animalistic drive that were tempered arrestingly by the heartbreak of his wounded, wistful voicing of 'Miei signori, perdono, pietate!’ The last vestige of this Rigoletto's pride was annihilated by his reunion with his now-dishonored daughter, his own shame resounding in Overman's voice as he declaimed 'Ah! Solo per me l’infamia a te chiedeva, o Dio.’ Even as he comforted Gilda with a gorgeously unhurried ‘Piangi, fanciulla, piangi,’ the lust for vengeance blunted the edges of this Rigoletto's paternal compassion. Overman launched ‘Sì, vendetta, tremenda vendetta di quest’anima è solo desio’ as though firing notes and words from a mortar, his rejections of Gilda's entreaties for mercy evoking the inexorable resolution of the opera. His top A♭ rang with the brilliance of a Robert Merrill or Cornell MacNeil. At the start of Act Three, Overman's singing was infused with the frustration of a parent whose child will not listen to reason, and he shaped Rigoletto's lines in the quartet with a sense of burgeoning panic. The near-sadistic glee with which he enunciated ‘Ora mi guarda, o mondo! Quest’è un buffone, ed un potente è questo!’ after collecting from Sparafucile what he assumed to be the corpse of the murdered Duca shimmered with irony. Discovering that the figure in the bloody sack is not the Duca but Rigoletto's own daughter, Overman lent his utterance of ‘Mia figlia!…Dio! mia figlia!’ an unforgettable poignancy. The rawness of his pleading ‘No, lasciarmi non dêi, non morir’ was juxtaposed with the brawny loveliness of the tones with which he sang the line. Then, Gilda dead in his arms, he detonated a volcanic 'Ah, la maledizione!’ that thundered through the auditorium. Too often, a Rigoletto's success is measured solely by the parameters of his singing of the two monumental arias or his mastery of the injurious tessitura. Singing the arias well and scaling the heights of the range that they require are surely estimable feats, but there is more to Rigoletto than a pair of viscerally invigorating scenes and stimulating top notes. Overman’s performance revealed that his physical deformity is perhaps the least of Rigoletto’s challenges. The greatest tragedy of this Rigoletto was that, though he was cognizant of his own shortcomings, he was clearly powerless to change himself or his environment: barbed words were the sole defense left to this broken soul. Overman’s dramatic sincerity and musicality should be models to many a Rigoletto, but the foremost joy of his performance was that it was a portrait of a man, not an archetype.

Pari siamo: Baritone Robert Overman in the title rôle in Piedmont Opera’s production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto, October 2015 [Photo © by Traci Arney Photography; used with permission]

This is a world in which the scorn of some supposedly enlightened personages compels listeners who love Rigoletto to feel that they must apologize for what is perceived as a shamefully unsophisticated affection. In truth, there have been many productions of the opera in recent years that warranted apologies to singers, audiences, and, above all, Verdi and Hugo. Opera is a wondrous study in implausibilities, and Rigoletto is not and was surely never meant to be a history of people that audiences are expected to recognize or accept as familiars. When performed with respect for the depths of feeling that Verdi instilled in its characters, however, Rigoletto is a work of real insight and sagacity. Its realism is not that of trips to the supermarket and unread emails: it is the universal condition of loving and hoping to be loved. Piedmont Opera's Rigoletto achieved the relevance for which so many productions strive by granting love for the music primacy from the smallest nail in the sets to the grandest bellow from the timpani. It is no coincidence that it was Victor Hugo who wrote that ‘the greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.’ Nearly as great was the happiness born of experiencing Rigoletto so lovingly performed.

CD REVIEW: Eviscerating the Eastern Bloc – DGG explores music by Witold Lutosławski (K. Zimerman; DGG 479 4518), Sergei Rachmaninov (D. Trifonov; DGG 479 4970), & Dmitri Shostakovich (BSO; DGG 479 5059)

[1] WITOLD LUTOSŁAWSKI (1913 – 1994): Concerto for Piano and Orchestra / Koncert na fortepian i orkiestrę (1987 – 88) and Symphony No. 2 / II Symfonia (1965 – 67)—Krystian Zimerman, piano; Berliner Philharmoniker; Sir Simon Rattle, conductor [Recorded ‘live’ (Symphony) and under studio conditions (Piano Concerto) in Großer Saal, Philharmonie, Berlin, Germany, in September 2013; Deutsche Grammophon 479 4518; 1 CD, 52:22; Available from Amazon (USA), iTunes, jpc (Germany), Presto Classical (UK), and major music retailers]

[2] SERGEI RACHMANINOV (1873 – 1943): Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Opus 43, and Variations on a Theme of Corelli, Opus 42, and DANIIL TRIFONOV (born 1991): Rachmaniana—Daniil Trifonov, piano; Philadelphia Orchestra; Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor [Recorded in Academy of Arts & Letters, New York City (Variations, Rachmaniana) and Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, Verizon Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (Rhapsody) in March 2015; Deutsche Grammophon 479 4970; 1 CD, 79:36; Available from Amazon (USA), iTunes, jpc (Germany), Presto Classical (UK), and major music retailers]

[3] DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH (1906 – 1975): Passacaglia (Interlude from Act II of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk) and Symphony No. 10 in E minor, Opus 93—Boston Symphony Orchestra; Andris Nelsons, conductor [Recorded ‘live’ in Symphony Hall, Boston, Massachusetts, in April 2015; Deutsche Grammophon 479 5059; 1 CD, 64:52; Available from Amazon (USA), iTunes, jpc (Germany), Presto Classical (UK), and major music retailers]

One of the particular wonders of music is the manner in which it provides panoramic views of the full spectra of peoples' cultural and social identities. From this vantage point, oblivious to politics and rhetoric, the intersections of cultural byways can be perceived with clarity. Contemplating the relationships among the 'roots' musics of different communities, kinships not always apparent to the eyes are revealed to the ears. From Scottish and Irish origins, for instance, Celtic musical traditions expanded to Spanish Galicia and thus to Argentina; to Brittany and thus to maritime Canada, Québec, Ontario, and modern Acadian Zydeco; to Appalachia and thus to contemporary Bluegrass, Country, and Southern Gospel. Pub musicians in Dublin, balladeers in Santiago de Compostela, bandoneonistas on the avenidas of Buenos Aires, fiddlers along the boulevards of Nantes, pipers on Cape Breton, Louisiana bayou bands, and banjo pickers in the Blue Ridge may have nothing in common to the eyes, but the ears detect in their differently-accented musical languages a mutual mother tongue. In many ways, this is also true of Classical Music, which in its purest form is itself essentially a 'roots' music that draws its lifeblood from the cultures that are its parents. However disparate their individual styles, there are in the works of Bach, Brahms, Bartók, and Barber, Chopin, Chou Wen-chung, and Mieko Shiomi more similarities that unite than differences that divide them. Aesthetically, this is also true of the music of Witold Lutosławski, Sergei Rachmaninov, and Dmitri Shostakovich, three very dissimilar composers whose careers nonetheless intersect at the crossroads of Twentieth-Century events and artistic innovations. New discs from Deutsche Grammophon dedicated to music by Lutoławski, Rachmaninov, and Shostakovich elucidate the depths of these composers' cultural identities with performances that provide encouraging glimpses of the continuing legacies of their work. The trials that Lutosławski, Rachmaninov, and Shostakovich faced as men are manifested in sometimes surprising ways in their music, and the artists involved with these discs, all of which engage the listener with sonics of excellence typical of Deutsche Grammophon, intertwine their own sensibilities with those of the composers to create performances that take root with equal durability whether heard along the Volga, the Danube, the Delaware, or the Charles.

Born in Warsaw in 1913, Witold Lutosławski came to composition as a student of mathematics, and, like Johann Sebastian Bach two centuries earlier, he often crafted scores in which mathematical formulae are, whether by conscious design or by intuitive inclination, the cornerstones of the music. Written for and premièred by him at the 1988 Salzburger Festspiele, pianist Krystian Zimerman here returns to Lutosławski's Piano Concerto with the backing of the Berliner Philharmoniker and Sir Simon Rattle, who has shown himself in performances of scores like Karol Szymanowski's opera Król Roger to possess an affinity for interpreting the music of Polish composers. The first-rate playing by the Berliner Philharmoniker, producing a leaner, more pointed sound under the British conductor's lead than during the tenure of Herbert von Karajan, comes as no surprise, but this is among Rattle's finest efforts on disc. Rattle's work before microphones has not been consistently distinguished, but his conducting of both the Piano Concerto and Lutosławski's Second Symphony, the latter recorded during live performances, is unerringly planned and executed. Rhythmic solidity, sometimes lacking in Rattle's conducting, is here omnipresent, and the conductor's firm grasp on the way in which Lutosławski's piquant harmonies propel both individual movements and works as a whole is commendable. Zimerman's approach to the Concerto has grown both darker and more gossamer in the twenty-seven years since he premièred and first recorded it. The dramatic sweep that permeates Zimerman's playing of the rhapsodic opening movement highlights Lutosławski's virtuosic writing, but the pianist now finds many moments of delicacy amidst the din. Pianist, conductor, and orchestra heighten the contrasts that shape the Presto – Poco meno mosso – Lento movement, not by over-accentuating the changes of tempo but by giving each of the evolving tempi its due, seeking within the music the logic of the progression. Zimerman makes the Largo an intimate monologue, its meandering thoughts united by the pianist's conscientious attention to the easily-overlooked flow of thematic material. Zimerman and Rattle collaborate in a performance of the Concerto's concluding Presto that crackles with energy and inspiration. Zimerman's response to a score of which he was the first interpreter has intensified without losing any of its crucial novelty, and he and his colleagues on this recording offer an account of the Concerto that both sounds utterly 'new' and verifies the score's eminent place in the piano's concert literature.

Rattle's and the Berliner Philharmoniker's performance of Lutosławski's Second Symphony is a model of a live recording. As sure as is Rattle's grip on the Piano Concerto, his pacing of the Symphony finds him on even more confident footing, virtually every detail of Lutosławski's music receiving from his stable but stirring advocacy attention and comprehension. In the first movement, Hésitant, the uncertainty that undulates beneath the treatment of subjects and countersubjects courses through every section of the orchestra, the conductor maintaining the pounding pulse of the piece without ignoring the quirky, quixotic twists in the unconventional exposition. The playing of the second movement, Direct, is no less definitive. Rattle achieves a mesmerizing equilibrium between electricity and emotionalism, and the Philharmoniker players follow his beat with implicit trust of both the music and their conductor's understanding of it. The Second Symphony is a challenging work that does not unveil its beauties to those who approach it nonchalantly, whether conductors, musicians, or listeners. In this performance, Rattle channels his still-volatile energy into a profound realization of the rhythmic and harmonic details of Lutosławski’s score. In the contexts of both the Piano Concerto and the Second Symphony, this disc is one of the finest recorded achievements of Rattle’s tenure at the helm of the Berliner Philharmoniker.

The Variations on a Theme by Paganini (Opus 43) constitute one of Sergei Rachmaninov's most enduringly popular scores and an instance in which familiarity is a result of near-universal recognition of quality. Premièred in 1934 with the composer at the piano, the work is a series of twenty-four widely-varying manipulations of the principal subject of Nicolò Paganini's Caprice No. 24 in A minor, regarded as one of the most technically demanding pieces in the solo violin repertoire. Rachmaninov was far from the only composer to discern the suitability of the Caprice's familiar theme for fanciful variation: composers ranging from Liszt and Brahms in the Nineteenth Century to Szymanowski and Lutosławski in the Twentieth employed Paganini's theme as a springboard for their individual creativity. None of them was more successful than Rachmaninov at identifying and then thoughtfully transforming the essence of Paganini's spritely melodic figurations into new guises, however, and few pianists have played Rachmaninov's Variations as affectionately as Daniil Trifonov. The young pianist, still only in his mid-twenties, has the great benefit in this recording of working with today's incarnation of the ensemble with which Rachmaninov introduced the Variations, The Philadelphia Orchestra. Even more integral to the tremendous success of this performance is the presence of Yannick Nézet-Séguin on the podium. His work in the world's opera houses has confirmed the jet-setting Québécois maestro to possess an exceptional natural aptitude for managing ensembles, and his conducting of the music of the still too-little-appreciated Florent Schmitt places him among the foremost exponents of Twentieth-Century repertory. In the context of this recording of Rachmaninov's Variations, he is an ideal partner for Trifonov, sharing the pianist's indisputable experience and youthful exuberance. Photographs and first-hand accounts portray Rachmaninov as a rather dour, Kafka-esque figure, but his music and especially his own performances of it—he recorded the Paganini Variations in RCA's Camden, New Jersey, studio not long after the work's first performance, but even more revealing are the piano rolls that he made in New York, characterfully playing his music for solo piano—disclose a keen wit. The same might be said of Trifonov's playing and Nézet-Séguin's conducting. The preparation, study, and concentration give way in performance to an appealing playfulness, seconded by the elastic playing of the Philadelphia musicians. Trifonov and Nézet-Séguin delve into the nuances of Rachmaninov’s variations with compelling intensity that never robs the performance of its inherent spontaneity. This combination of focus and fancy also characterizes Trifonov’s playing of the Opus 42 Variations on a Theme of Corelli. Here, too, the pianist employs subtlety and sweeping phrasing in equal measures, elucidating each variation’s individual shape and its logical position within the broader architecture of the Variations. It is not surprising that Trifonov plays his own homage to the composer whose music is of such significance to his career and artistic development, Rachmaniana, with fluidity and the unfettered imagination of absolute mastery, but the controlled expressivity of his performance of the piece recalls Rachmaninov's own precious piano rolls. As a composer, Trifonov pays tribute to Rachmaninov's style without engaging in piecemeal regurgitation of his idol's music, and as a pianist he honors himself and Rachmaninov by playing all of the music on this disc powerfully and poignantly. Trifonov, Nézet-Séguin, and Rachmaninov prove to be a serendipitous confederation. Perhaps, spurred by the extraordinary artistic success of this disc, Deutsche Grammophon will reunite them for recordings of the four Piano Concerti.

The cycle of Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphonies by The Boston Symphony and Latvian conductor Andris Nelsons is among the lamentably few recent surveys of a composer's complete output in a specific genre that legitimately deserve to be recorded. Many are the ensembles that now play Shostakovich's symphonies, but few are those that play them with any degree of interpretive authority. Furthermore, there are few actions in Classical Music more dangerous on a plethora of musical and aesthetic levels than the anachronistic pursuit of programmatic contexts for individual scores, but the work of few artists has been more affected by an unique set of circumstances than was Shostakovich's music by the political climate in Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union. In the years between the start of World War II and the composer's death in 1975, Shostakovich endured virtually every conceivable manifestation of official Soviet espousal, rejection, and subsequent rehabilitation, his compositional output frequently caught in the crossfire of socio-political guerrilla warfare within the Communist Party. That Shostakovich's works in general are in many ways responses to this extra-musical meddling is inevitable, but full comprehension of the sentimental breadth of the music is jeopardized when focus is too narrowly applied solely to contemplation of its Soviet associations. The abiding marketing concept of Deutsche Grammophon's 'Under Stalin's Shadow' recording initiative notwithstanding, the central emphasis of the performance preserved on this disc is unmistakably on faithfully executing the demands of the score rather than miring the music in an explication of the societal circumstances of its genesis. Opening with the Passacaglia that serves as an evocative interlude in Act Two of Shostakovich's opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, Nelsons and the BSO players exhibit an unshakable concentration on uncovering the dramatic gestures within the music rather than regarding the music merely as accompaniment to social commentary. The impact of the boldness of Shostakovich's orchestrations is splendidly enhanced by the BSO's playing, the brass section in particular making a far finer impression than in the era of Erich Leinsdorf's directorship of the Symphony. The sprawling Moderato movement of the Tenth Symphony revels in the relative freedom that Shostakovich surely felt for the first time in his creative life in the wake of Stalin's death, and Nelsons's handle on the music never loosens in the twenty-six minutes of the movement's course. The string playing is superb throughout the performance, the musicians' intonation unfailingly secure, and the balances among both individual instruments and sections of the orchestra are continually marvelous. Nelsons draws sharp contrasts between the monumental first movement and the subsequent, smaller-scaled Allegro and Allegretto movements. In the second and third movements, the conductor's innate comprehension of Shostakovich's singular thematic development is of vital importance, and his rapport with the BSO musicians engenders profound but unexaggerated expressivity in passages in which less-prepared orchestras and less-insightful conductors are restricted to getting the notes and rhythms right. The pinnacle of this performance of the Tenth Symphony is the soulfully ambivalent reading of the final Andante – Allegro movement. It is perhaps hyperbole to suggest that this music was the forum in which Shostakovich excised some of the demons of Stalin and decades of Communist oppression, but the element of emancipation that resounds through the score—and, perhaps more significantly in this context, in this performance—is unmistakable. The Shostakovich discography contains admirable performances of the Tenth Symphony, but this recording is special. In it, the illumination provided by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Andris Nelsons seems to fully free Shostakovich's musical spirit from Stalin's shadow. Like the Lutosławski and Rachmaninov recordings, it is a disc that, in a sort of musical Socratic method, answers questions by asking new ones. Above all, it is a celebration of the unassailable resilience of music.

ARTS IN ACTION: North Carolina Opera’s 2015 – 2016 Season brings lovers from Japan, Russian, and Spain to life in Raleigh with first-rate casts

​If history portrays him truthfully, the life of Sir Walter Raleigh was worthy of the operatic stage. A favorite at the court of Elizabeth I, he was imprisoned along with his bride for having married without obtaining Her Majesty's consent, and still-debated participation in a plot to dethrone the Queen's less-virginal successor, James I, combined with the omnipresent necessity of placating the Spanish, cost him his head. Like many of the legendary dandies of history, much of the lore of Sir Walter Raleigh is likely apocryphal, but the fact that he inspired his own mythology attests to his significance in Elizabethan society. The city that bears his name has in North Carolina Opera a musical institution that appropriately honors and perpetuates the spirits of adventure, exploration, and discovery that drove Raleigh to glory. Under the guidance of General Director Eric Mitchko and Artistic and Music Director Timothy Myers, North Carolina Opera has in recent seasons, with world-class—indeed, often better-than-world-class—performances including Dvořák's Rusalka with Joyce El-Khoury, Act Two of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde with Jay Hunter Morris and Heidi Melton, and Verdi's La traviata with Jacqueline Echols, emerged as an enterprising force in the effort to keep opera vibrant and an energizing leader among America's regional opera companies. With an ambitious trajectory featuring three of the genre's most beloved scores, North Carolina Opera's 2015 – 2016 Season is destined to brilliantly honor the colorful legacy of the state's charismatic founding father.

Opening the Season proper in October 2015 after a triumphant Gala is a production of Giacomo Puccini's adaptation of John Luther Long's tragic tale of misguided love, shallow betrayal, and devastating sacrifice, Madama Butterfly. The daunting title rôle will be sung by resplendent soprano Talise Trevigne, whose comfort in Pip's challenging tessitura and affinity for effortlessly and unerringly projecting tones at the top of the range in Jake Heggie's Moby-Dick promise haunting beauty in Cio-Cio San's entrance music and the celebrated aria 'Un bel dì, vedremo.' Her Pinkerton will be dashing tenor Michael Brandenburg, and the compassionate American consul Sharpless will be portrayed by thrilling bass-baritone Michael Sumuel. The denizens of Nagasaki will be represented by mezzo-soprano Lindsay Ammann’s Suzuki, tenor Ian McEuen’s Goro, and bass Wei Wu. Performances of this picturesque, profoundly emotive production are scheduled for 30 October and 1 November in Memorial Auditorium.

On 24 January 2016, Myers will mount the podium in Meymandi Concert Hall to lead the company's concert performance of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's stirring Yevgeny Onegin, which will be sung in its original Russian. Returning to Raleigh, where she enchanted the capacity audience with her exquisite performance of the title rôle in Rusalka, beautiful soprano Joyce El-Khoury will portray the deeply-conflicted Tatyana. The title rôle will be sung by baritone Joo Won Kang, whose depiction of Giorgio Germont in NC Opera’s February 2015 production of La traviata was a rare instance of legitimate Verdi baritone singing. Another NC Opera veteran, tenor Eric Barry, will deploy the same silvery tone that touched hearts as Rodolfo in January 2014’s La bohème as Tchaikovsky’s and Pushkin’s idealistic poet Lensky. A trio of wonderful mezzo-sopranos—Zanda Švēde, Thomasville native Victoria Livengood, and Robynne Redmon—bring leading lady voices to Olga, Filippveyna, and Madame Larina. This performance of Tchaikovsky’s expressive masterwork, infrequently performed by America’s regional opera companies, is certain to be one of 2016’s most fulfilling musical events in the South.

NCO's 2015 – 2016 Season ends with hilarity in the best bel canto tradition courtesy of Gioachino Rossini's evergreen Il barbiere di Siviglia. Rising star baritone Liam Bonner wields Figaro’s humor and high notes, a perfect foil for matinée-idol tenor Andrew Owens, who returns to North Carolina after igniting vocal fireworks as Don Ramiro in Greensboro Opera’s August 2015 production of La Cenerentola. Lovely mezzo-soprano Cecelia Hall is Rosina, the witty ward of bass-baritone Tyler Simpson’s curmudgeonly Dottore Bartolo. A more delightfully musical Don Basilio than bass Adam Lau, who débuted with NC Opera as a boisterous Leporello in April 2015’s Don Giovanni, cannot be imagined. Productions of Il barbiere di Siviglia are anything but rare, but casts of the quality of the team assembled by North Carolina Opera are uncommon even in New York, London, Milan, and Vienna. Performances are scheduled for 1 and 3 April 2016, in Memorial Auditorium.

The survival of opera in the Twenty-First Century depends upon the efforts of companies like North Carolina Opera at expanding the audience into new communities and demographics. With performances of three of the genre’s most iconic scores featuring better-than-the-big-companies casts under the baton of one of America’s most gifted conductors, North Carolina Opera’s 2015 – 2016 Season has elements to captivate steadfast aficionados and convert first-time listeners into lifelong opera lovers.

To learn more about North Carolina Opera’s 2015 – 2016 Season, please visit the company’s website. Tickets can be purchased online or by phoning the box office at 919.792.3853.

All casting is subject to change without notice. Graphics © by North Carolina Opera; all rights reserved.

RECORDING OF THE MONTH / October 2015: Alban Berg, Egon Wellesz, & Eric Zeisl – MUSIC FOR SOPRANO & STRING QUARTET (Renée Fleming, soprano; Emerson String Quartet; DECCA 478 8399)

ALBAN BERG (1885 – 1935): Lyrische Suite [with alternate version of Largo desolato movement with soprano]; EGON WELLESZ (1885 – 1974): Sonette der Elisabeth Barrett Browning, Opus 52; and ERIC ZEISL (1905 – 1959): ‘Komm, süßer Tod’ [arranged for soprano and string quartet by J. Peter Koene]—Renée Fleming, soprano; Emerson String Quartet [Recorded at Queens College, Flushing, New York, USA, 2 and 6 December 2014, and 11 – 12 February 2015 (Berg), and at Drew University, Madison, New Jersey, USA, 28 – 29 August 2014 (Wellesz and Zeisl); DECCA 478 8399; 1 CD, 56:28; Available from DECCA Classics, Amazon (USA), iTunes, jpc (Germany), Presto Classical (UK), and major music retailers]

Like the works of Leonardo da Vinci, the plays of Molière, and the designs of Sir Christopher Wren, the music of Alban Berg is a turning point in Western culture. Born in 1885, when the Austrian Hapsburgs were enjoying their final flourishes of popularity and Vienna remained the musical capital of the Family Strauß, Berg evolved into an indelible but not inflexible exponent of the Second Viennese School whose Wozzeck and Lulu traded the tonal opulence of Wagner and Richard Strauss for convoluted, post-Freudian psychology explored in free-form, twelve-tone scores that posed new challenges to conductors, musicians, singers, and audiences. The ideals that Berg pursued in the opera house also occupied his composition of concert music, the programmatic development of thematic material playing an important rôle in his creative process at all stages of his career. His latent radicalism notwithstanding, there are positively-charged protons of traditionalism darting through the atomic structures of even Berg's most experimental works, particles that some proponents of the composer's music ignore or reject outright as incompatible with the avant-garde propensities upon which his renown is founded. It seems ridiculous for occasional nods to Bruckner and Mahler to be construed as betrayals of the coven of Schönberg and Webern, but Music was never a congenial environment for logic or compromise. The pockets of lyricism deemed antiquated by his contemporaries are what now set Berg's music apart from the cacophonous scores of more hard-boiled adherents of Schönbergian aesthetics, promoting Berg from the ranks of masters of a singular idiom to acclaim as one of the most significant individual voices in the course of Western music's progress. In short, many of his similarly-inclined comrades in musical arms produced significant, landscape-altering scores, but Berg composed works that listeners for whom music should be tunes, not treatises, actually want to hear.

To state that Berg's Lyrische Suite is among his most accessible pieces is not to suggest that the music is in any way 'easy' for performers or listeners. First published in 1927, the Suite was the offspring of Berg's brief sojourn with a prominent industrialist, Herbert Fuchs-Robettin, and his family in 1925. Though it might colloquially be said that at the age of forty he was old enough to have known better, it was the sensitive composer's lot to fall in love with the lady of the house. The extent to which the affection was requited is a matter of debate, but the manuscript score containing written explications of the personal associations of the music—naturally omitted from the published edition—remained for many years in the collection of Lady Industrialist's daughter Dorothea, herself a subject of the Suite's musical portraiture. The gentlemen of Emerson String Quartet—violinists Eugene Drucker and Philip Setzer, violist Lawrence Dutton, and cellist Paul Watkins—here play the Suite straightforwardly, mostly allowing the music to makes its own points without imposing interpretive quirks on either the score or the listener. Though the sound that they craft is not always ideally homogeneous, especially in terms of bowing and phrasing among the individual players, the Emerson players largely avoid the hyper-Romantic vibrato that mars the playing of many of today's string quartets. The restless subject of the opening Allegretto gioviale movement is delivered with strong senses of its muscular, dodecaphonic angularity and abundant high spirits. This contrasts markedly with the retiring, almost embarrassed mood of the Andante amoroso that follows, conjured with eloquence that occasionally seems too considered for the shy sentiments of the music. Intonation is suspect in a few passages of the quartet's playing of the Allegro misterioso — Trio estatico movement, but the manic energy of the Trio is splendidly evinced. It is especially evident here and in each of the movements of Lyrische Suite that reliably solid playing of the viola part is absolutely crucial to the success of a performance of this music, and Dutton is thankfully up to the task. The quartet's performance of the Adagio appassionato unfurls the unsettling sensuality of the music in long swaths of densely-constructed melody. The tempestuousness of the music would not sound out of place in Beethoven's late Quartets, but Berg's ambiguous harmonies, influenced by the chromaticism of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, quoted in the Suite, place the sound world of the movement squarely in the Twentieth Century. The ambivalence of the Presto delirando — Tenebroso is imparted by the quartet with subtlety but unmistakable meaning, the gnawing anguish of Berg's misbegotten love resounding in the unconventional part writing. The closing Largo desolato movement is effectively an elegy for reckless passion, marked by a starkness of musical language that communicates much of what must have been in the composer's heart. Emerson String Quartet's playing delves into the emotional maelstrom of the music without drowning in desolation. Berg's twelve-tone style is at once compellingly modern and bizarrely approachable, and the Emerson musicians respond with obvious concentration. Ultimately, their reading of the Suite is more prose than poetry, but the lack of treacly sentimentality is laudable.

The long-disputed version of the closing Largo desolato with voice was restored only upon the discovery of the 1925 score in Dorothea Robettin's possession. The elusive text employed by Berg proved to be Stefan George's German translation of 'De profundis clamavi' from Charles Baudelaire's seminal Les Fleurs du mal, and the composer's handling of the provocative words shows the confidence that emanates from the scores of Wozzeck and Lulu. It is not solely for reasons of propriety that Baudelaire's text was suppressed when Lyrische Suite went to press: it is impossible to ascertain whether Berg truly wanted performances of the Suite to include a vocal soloist or he wrote the Baudelaire setting merely as an intimate exercise, a sort of exorcism of a deeply personal demon. Whatever the implications and intentions of its creation, the vocal rendering of the Largo desolato is sung by world-renowned soprano Renée Fleming with remarkable breadth of feeling. George's German words miss many of the nuances of Baudelaire's text, but Fleming finds lurking beneath the surface of Berg's music layers of meaning that heighten the voluptuousness of the composer's deceptively bare word settings. Fleming rises gloriously to the piece's climax, her voice almost becoming another sound produced by the quartet's instruments in the way that voice and orchestra unite in the final pages of Strauss's Daphne.

An exact contemporary of Berg, Egon Wellesz shared his colleague's refined Viennese sensibilities. Indeed, so pervasive was the composer's devotion to the musical precepts of his native city that not even four decades of exposure to British traditions, facilitated by a tenure at Oxford, unseated Wellesz's dedication to the Austrian models upon which his artistic identity was built. Composed in 1934 for soprano and string quartet, his Sonette der Elisabeth Barrett Browning (Opus 52), settings of five of the poet's Sonnets from the Portuguese in superb German translations by Rainer Maria Rilke, are a fittingly glowing homage to the literary legacy of the nation that eventually sheltered him after the Anschluss. The influences of Bruckner and Mahler are even more apparent—and even more unapologetically so—in Wellesz's music than in Berg's, and both Fleming and the Emerson String Quartet revel in the sometimes sinewy, sometimes soft-grained, always beautiful textures of the Sonnets. The bookish reticence that simmers in 'Und es geschah mir einst, an Theokrit zu denken' (Getragen) [Barrett Browning's 'I thought once how Theocritus had sung'] inspires Fleming to a performance of understated complexity that draws strength from the quartet's undulating accompaniment. It is the beauty of the voice that lofts 'Nur drei jedoch in Gottes ganzem All vernahmen es' (Sehr breit) ['But only three in all God's universe have heard'] into the realm of brilliance, the soprano's diction exhibiting an unaffected mysticism that makes the persona she derives from Wellesz's vocal lines suddenly seem like a German-speaking Ellen Orford. The Emerson musicians provide Fleming with a gleaming canvas upon which to paint a bold vista in 'Du bist da droben im Palast begehrt' (Moderato: Gemessen) ['Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor'], and she seizes the opportunity dazzlingly, applying vocal colors with the imagination of a singing Chagall. Gladdened should be the soul of the object of Fleming's musical thoughts in 'Ich denk an dich' (Andante) ['I think of thee!'], expressed with the wide-eyed passion that radiated from her singing of Massenet's Manon. The final Sonnet, 'Mir scheint, das Angesicht der Welt verging in einem andern' (Sehr langsam, zögernd) ['My poet, thou canst touch on all the notes'], emerges as an artistic credo as well-defined as Tosca's 'Vissi d'arte, vissi d'amore,' a mission statement of the muse's commitment to the divine instrument of invention. Fleming sings Rilke's words with affection that gives Barrett Browning's dulcet ardor flight. Alongside Fleming, the slight reservations about the quartet's playing of Berg's Lyrische Suite are marginalized in their well-balanced performances of Wellesz's Sonette.

Though she has excelled in the late-Romantic works of Richard Strauss and Maurice Ravel, as well as scintillating music composed specially for her by Henri Dutilleux, the music of Berg and Wellesz—and Eric Zeisl, an arrangement for soprano and string quartet by J. Peter Koene of whose wondrous setting of the chorale 'Komm, süßer Todd' ends this recital with a golden shimmer—seems unlikely territory for Fleming, but this disc illustrates how ill-conceived assumptions can be. This disc in fact preserves some of the best singing of Fleming's career before studio microphones to date. With the exception of her still-astounding portrayal of the title rôle in Dvořák's Rusalka at the Metropolitan Opera in the 2013 – 2014 Season, many of Fleming's operatic performances in recent years have promised greater enjoyment than they provided. Her singing of Berg, Wellesz, and Zeisl on this disc, expertly recorded and produced by DECCA, offers evidence to silence pessimists and naysayers. however. Partnering the Emerson String Quartet in searing, searching performances, she expands her artistry at a time in her career at which many singers are content to coast on safe, tired interpretations of over-familiar repertory. This disc is a return of Renée Fleming at her incomparable best.