SINGER SPOTLIGHT: Mezzo-soprano ELIZABETH DESHONG, Adalgisa in North Carolina Opera’s concert performance of Bellini’s Norma, brings 21st-Century star power to old-fashioned bel canto

Belle of bel canto: internationally-acclaimed mezzo-soprano Elizabeth DeShong, whose critically-lauded interpretation of Adalgisa anchors North Carolina Opera’s concert performance of Vincenzo Bellini’s Norma on 21 October 2018
[Photograph © by Kristin Hoebermann; used with permission]

Her beauty, her voice, and her dramatic genius [have] long been the theme of universal admiration. The successor of Pasta, the rival of Malibran, and the contemporary of Jenny Lind...

It was with these and a plethora of additional words that the editors of The London Review and Weekly Journal of Politics, Literature, Art, and Society, in an article dated 27 July 1861, reverently bade farewell to the legendary Milanese singer Giulia Grisi, who had announced her retirement from staged opera. Almost three decades earlier, on 26 December 1831, Grisi chiseled her name in the annals of operatic history when she created the rôle of the Druid priestess Adalgisa in the world première of Vincenzo Bellini’s Norma. Although it was not as Adalgisa but as Norma that Grisi was heard in London, her British admirers’ parting paean echoed the plaudits that greeted her inaugural Adalgisa, a part in which many of her artistic successors have struggled. A century-and-a-half after Grisi’s death on 29 November 1869, however, those auspicious words of praise for the traits that defined Grisi in the hearts of her devotees—‘her beauty, her voice, and her dramatic genius’—might be used with equal validity to describe one of the few singers who embody Grisi’s legacy in the Twenty-First Century: American mezzo-soprano Elizabeth DeShong.

Virtually every aspect of making a career as an internationally-renowned singer has changed drastically since Grisi left the stage, but a keystone of the native Pennsylvanian DeShong’s artistry that her illustrious predecessor would recognize is an uncompromising commitment to performing every rôle in her repertoire with musical fidelity and dramatic sincerity. ​Her technical acumen was undoubtedly shaped by her early study of the piano and later honed by her tenure at the prestigious Oberlin Conservatory of Music, but the innate musicality exhibited by DeShong’s singing cannot be taught by the most gifted mentor. Recipient of Washington National Opera’s 2010 Artist of the Year award, a distinction proved by her portrayal of Ruggiero in the company’s 2017 production of Georg Friedrich Händel’s Alcina [reviewed here] to have been wholly justified and a harbinger of triumphs to come, this glamorous lady has delighted audiences with the kind of electrifying singing that is now often feared to be endangered or even extinct. In the decade since her Metropolitan Opera début as Suzy in Giacomo Puccini’s La rondine, DeShong has joined the rosters of many of the world’s iconic opera companies, including the Wiener Staatsoper and London’s Royal Opera House. The Chicago Tribune asserted that ‘her velvety, focused and pliant vocalism supported a credible characterization’ of Adalgisa in Lyric Opera of Chicago’s 2017 production of Norma. On 21 October 2018, her Adalgisa comes to Raleigh for North Carolina Opera’s concert performance of Norma, offering Triangle-area bel canto aficionados a singular opportunity to hear a significant singer in a rôle that has often been compromised by insignificant singing. Milan had Grisi: felicitously, Raleigh has DeShong.

Far more advanced in experience than in years, DeShong exudes—both in performance and in conversation—comprehensive understanding of her goals, her methods of striving to meet them, and the importance of adapting them to reflect the realities not only of the voice but also of her emotional health. Surveying the path that she has traveled in her career to date, she is mindful of obstacles that she and other singers confront in the formative years of their professional lives. Not least among these challenges is the necessity of determining whether a singer’s career is an vocation or merely an avocation. Thinking of how she would counsel fellow singers questioning the wisdom of pursuing artistic careers, she says, ‘I would ask if they can picture doing anything else with their lives. If the answer is “yes,” I’d say that they should consider the alternate path. If the answer is “no,” my next question is, “Why do you sing?”’ This, she intimates, must be a critical element of an artist’s endeavor to attain self-awareness. She continues, ‘Even when [or] if you are successful in this business, you will have days, weeks, months, even years, when you will question [whether] the sacrifices are too great. This is a truth for me and a truth that I’ve heard from many, if not most, of the singers [whom] I know. We love the music, we are dedicated to our art and sharing it with others, and we see the tremendous advantage that living a global existence can provide to our personal worldview and overall human experience.’

Having garnered myriads of critical praise for her performances of a broad repertory of operatic rôles and concert pieces, DeShong is also uncommonly aware of the rewards that await a thoroughly-rehearsed, insightful artist. ‘There are moments of pure musical and dramatic magic that you will experience on stage, moments so joyful and blissful that the sacrifice of time and comfort will seem well worth it,’ she says. Still, she cautions, ‘the sacrifices are many, and, if you are discouraged at the beginning stages of your career, you may be in for a long and difficult journey.’ Heeding one’s own instincts is paramount, she insists, and fulfillment can only be achieved when one’s decisions are guided by an inviolable consciousness of one’s best interests. ‘Well-trained singers and instrumentalists have a lot to offer in areas other than performance. Your love of music and musical training can be channeled into so many valuable positions in artistic fields. Many of the best managers, directors, stage managers, artistic advisors, costume designers, et cetera come from performance backgrounds. Changing course is not a failure, and it doesn’t mean that your talent is “less-than.”’

Prima donna as primo uomo: mezzo-soprano Elizabeth DeShong as Ruggiero in Washington National Opera’s 2017 production of Georg Friedrich Händel’s Alcina
[Photograph by Scott Suchman, © by Washington National Opera]

Stylistic versatility is a hallmark of DeShong’s work. There are many historical precedents for singers essaying very different rôles—in DeShong’s case, Händel’s Ruggiero and Suzuki in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, for example—and, like Grisi in Norma, eventually taking on multiple rôles in some operas. A principal consideration in DeShong’s repertory deliberations is whether an engagement is vocally, dramatically, and emotionally appropriate, such contests being decided by a multi-faceted analysis of suitability. ‘“Can I” versus “Should I” is tricky,’ the mezzo-soprano confides. ‘My particular instrument falls a bit outside of the normal framework, and it has afforded me the great luxury of having choices in repertoire and the timing of those choices.’

DeShong concedes that this luxury is not free from pitfalls. ‘I won’t pretend that this is always an easy choice for a singer to make,’ she states. ‘One has to pay the bills, so when the choice is “sing this role or starve,” there is little option. That said, there is also a mindset that can get singers into trouble. Emotions and desires can be tricky for an artist and can lead to decisions that make the heart/ego immediately happy but put vocal health in danger.’ Is there a template that she follows when assessing potential engagements? ‘My process, if you want to call it that, goes something like this: the rôle offer comes in; I head to the piano with the score and sing through the rôle,’ she states. Then, the self-interrogation begins. ‘How did my voice feel after [singing the rôle]? Which rôles am I scheduled to sing before and after this project? What size is the theatre [in which] I am being asked to sing the repertoire? Is the character as appealing as the music? [With whom] will I be singing the music?’

Answering these questions to her own satisfaction enables DeShong to retain a remarkable degree of control over the course of her career, adding new rôles to her operatic repertory according to her level of comfort with the music and the conditions under which she will sing it. That she sings a wide array of rôles compellingly indicates that DeShong’s philosophy is emphatically right for her. ‘Much of the dramatic mezzo and contralto repertoire is comfortable for me now,’ she says. ‘I will sing Amneris, Erda, Azucena, et cetera.’ After pausing for a moment, she elaborates with an air of contemplation. ‘I won’t go as far as to say I wouldn’t sing these rôles now, but the timing and surrounding factors would have to be right. It has always been my intention to sing as young as possible, as long as possible. If the option is there, why not explore as much repertoire as I can, while keeping my voice as healthy as possible?’

Vocal health is a boon that must be continually nurtured and safeguarded, DeShong believes. ‘Singing a lot of Händel, Rossini, Donizetti, and Bellini has kept my voice flexible, even, and focused. The Humperdinck, Puccini, Strauss, Berg, Dvořák, Verdi, and other rôles have given me the variety that I crave and opportunities to prove that I am up for a challenge and refuse to be boxed into any one style.’ Many young singers rely upon platitudes as the defining precepts of their artistic personalities, but DeShong rejects generalities, preferring to devise her own specific artistic parameters.

Looking beyond the musical immersion that is a vital component of her method of learning new rôles, DeShong is also attentive to the practical motivations that fuel her drive to diversify her repertory. ‘I’ve touched on why I focus so much energy on variety. The challenge in doing this is, for me, primarily one of time and energy,’ she says. ‘There are moments when I envy singers who have three or so “go-to” leading rôles that they take all over the world. I’ve done my share of Suzukis and Hermias [in Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream], and it is always lovely to return to them. Aside from the fact that I love both of those characters dearly, they provide much-needed mental and physical breaks from the demands of the bel canto heroes [who] make up a larger and larger portion of my repertoire. Constantly adding new roles is exciting but exhausting.’

Turning her thoughts to Norma and the opera’s performance history, a history of which she is now so salient a part, DeShong is appreciative of the different qualities that celebrated interpreters have brought to the daunting title rôle. If she could sing Adalgisa alongside any of the great Normas of the past, who would she choose? ‘May I create a hybrid of two singers?’ she asks with characteristic candor. ‘I would take the dramatic intensity and use of text that Callas brought to Norma and infuse it with the poise, clarity, and warmth of sound that Caballé produced. Should we call her “Caballas”...Wait, doesn’t that translate to “mackerels” in Spanish?’ she laughs. Sí, ¡es verdad! ‘Okay, forget that!’

Mira, o Norma: mezzo-soprano Elizabeth DeShong as Adalgisa in Lyric Opera of Chicago’s 2017 production of Vincenzo Bellini’s Norma
[Photograph by Cory Weaver, © by Lyric Opera of Chicago]

Its drama propelled by the fallout of two resilient women’s betrayal by the same man, Norma wields uncanny relevance in today’s atmosphere of hyper-charged sexual politics. In some performances of Norma, Adalgisa is little more than a second Norma, lacking depth and individuality. In her studies of the rôle, DeShong has examined Bellini’s score and Felice Romani’s libretto in search of Adalgisa’s true identity, and she expresses her conclusions with obvious affection for the lady she portrays. ‘Adalgisa is a young girl who knows that her person is defined by the strength of her character,’ she suggests. ‘She sees that the greater value is always in what does the most good for the most people, even at her own expense. She knows that her own happiness can never be gained at the expense of another.’

DeShong is astonishingly successful at imparting this sense of Adalgisa’s psyche in staged productions of Norma, but North Carolina Opera’s concert performance facilitates intensified concentration on revealing Adalgisa’s soul via her words and music. ‘For me, good singing can only happen with complete connection to the text,’ DeShong relays. ‘The text informs my vocalism, so that I can paint colors into my vocal line that best convey my character’s intention. Vocally, my Adalgisa in concert will be every bit as focused and dramatically driven as in a staged version. A benefit of concert versions of operas, especially of Norma, is that you can fully utilize your color palette. By avoiding some of the stage action, you are able to devote every bit of your physicality to the sound you are producing, which adds greater varieties of tempi and dynamics that are sustainable.’

As an intelligent, independent, proudly spirited woman, DeShong is sensitive to the chauvinistic implications of many of the operas that she sings, but she maintains that cognizance of the historical contexts of art is the sole means of reconciling the bothersome societal dilemmas of opera with modern notions of gender and personal responsibility. ‘It can be difficult to make peace with some of the toxic masculinity that drives many operas,’ she admits. ‘The stories represent bygone eras and the socially-accepted inequalities that were present at those times. That said, if you look closely at the characters, you can often find more complexities in the characters and plots than are explored in many productions.’ She sees this as one of opera’s most exciting avenues of continued growth. ‘We can find ways to present these stories that don’t lazily fall back on weak stereotypes and gender-biased comedy.’

What does this discerning artist perceive as her part to play in the ongoing evolution of opera as a cultural entity? ‘In a way, my voice type has freed me from portraying “victims,”’ she muses. ‘In fact, looking at the characters I’ve played, I don’t see any of them as being truly at the mercy of their male counterparts. For me, I just try to find the core being of the character I am playing. Gender is often a tertiary consideration. Calbo [in Gioachino Rossini’s Maometto secondo] can easily be played as a feminist. Arsace [in Rossini’s Semiramide] is an extremely sensitive guy. These men can be played as victims of their circumstances, forced to become soldiers in spite of their true desires and natures. It would be easy to simply assume a wide stance, grab a weapon, and create an one-dimensional portrayal. We are only as confined by the stereotypes as we want to be, in many instances.’ Nothing is more apparent in her performances than the fact that neither DeShong’s singing nor her thinking are confined by stereotypes.

Revisiting Adalgisa in preparation for North Carolina Opera’s Norma, in which performance her Adalgisa will be partnered by Leah Crocetto’s Norma and Chad Shelton’s Pollione, DeShong faces one of opera’s preeminent unanswered questions: how does Adalgisa’s story continue after Norma’s ends? ‘I’d like to think that some young composer is writing a feminist tale that shows Adalgisa returning to take Norma’s children and Clotilde away from the tragedy and starting a new life together,’ the mezzo-soprano declares. ‘Perhaps, together, Adalgisa and Clotilde would reinvent the ancient tenants of Druid priestess-hood by eschewing sacrifice by fire, revoking abstinence based [upon] devotion to deities, and reimagining the magic of the forest as a call to conservationism. The children would grow up to be thoughtful and progressive future leaders.’ Moreover, DeShong has a request for the composer who accepts this assignment: ‘Call me. I want to première that piece!’

That Giulia Grisi was an artist of enduring consequence and not merely the first but a definitive Adalgisa must now be taken on faith, but Elizabeth DeShong displays on and off the stage that she is an artist who, like the late Tatiana Troyanos, dedicates herself not to performing but to fully living music. She articulates this with typical humility and honesty. ‘In every performance, it is my goal to give the audience every bit of my being.’ Addressing her audience, she adds, ‘It is my hope that you will be consumed by the story, music, and character so much that you will forget Elizabeth DeShong in the moment. There are many who would probably advise against this goal. You’ll know it is me by my voice, but I hope we go to places none of us recognize, together.’ Every artist’s journey is unique, but, when asked whether there is a message that she would communicate to all young singers striving to find their own places in the operatic community, she responds, ‘Trust that you belong.’ Whether surrendering herself to music by Händel, Bellini, or Puccini, Elizabeth DeShong unequivocally belongs.

Figlio ed amante: mezzo-soprano Elizabeth DeShong as Arsace in The Metropolitan Opera’s 2018 production of Gioachino Rossini’s Semiramide
[Photograph by Ken Howard, © by The Metropolitan Opera]

To learn more about Elizabeth DeShong’s career and upcoming engagements, please visit her official website.

Please click here to access more information or to purchase tickets for North Carolina Opera’s concert performance of Norma in Raleigh’s Meymandi Concert Hall.

Sincerest thanks to Ms. DeShong for her time, frankness, and wit and to Mindi Rayner of Mindi Rayner Public Relations for her invaluable assistance with this interview.

PERSONAL PERSPECTIVES: Adiós, La Superba — remembering MONTSERRAT CABALLÉ, 1933 – 2018

 Prima donna del cuore: soprano Montserrat Caballé (1933 – 2018) in the title rôle of Francesco Cilèa’s Adriana Lecouvreur at The Metropolitan Opera in 1978
[Photograph by James Heffernan, © by The Metropolitan Opera]

IN MEMORIAM
MONTSERRAT CABALLÉ
12 April 1933 – 6 October 2018

​

In an era in which ‘alternate facts’ are employed in battles of veracity that render the very notion of truth irrelevant, it is not surprising that Art, itself essentially a sort of alternate fact in too-literal society, is undeniably divisive. After the death of an individual who was almost universally acclaimed as a great artist, it is sadly inevitable that someone with opinions and a forum via which to share them feels compelled to cite all of the reasons why the departed individual was not great. That this has transpired in the wake of the passing of Catalan soprano Montserrat Caballé is indicative of the precarious nature of humanity’s grasp on civility. No one can or should be forced to share the view that Caballé was an important singer, but what harm is there in choosing to remember her at her best?

There is nothing that can be written about Caballé’s life that has not already been extensively documented. Listing her achievements is pointless: those who care are acquainted with them, and those who do not care are unlikely to be converted to appreciation of the singer and her work by reading a litany of her notable performances. Her reputation for withdrawing from performances was wholly earned, but her singing repeatedly affirmed the legitimacy of her artistic significance. Her method of vocal production could be mannered, even lazy, but she made sounds that continue to remind listeners of the visceral appeal of opera. Like Zinka Milanov, she possessed the ability to project pianissimi that hung in the air with remarkable resonance. Like Leyla Gencer, she could hurl dramatic thunderbolts in passages like ‘Giudici! Ad Anna!?’ in Donizetti’s Anna Bolena without wholly disrupting the bel canto line. Such was her breath control that she could accomplish feats like the long-held top B with which she triumphed over the Metropolitan Opera Don Carlo—and the MET’s Don Carlo, Franco Corelli—of 22 April 1972.

I do not recall when or in what context I first heard Caballé. Her final performance at the MET—in the title rôle of Puccini’s Tosca on 10 October 1985—was more than a decade before I first attended a performance there. Less than a year after her departure from the MET, she sang Cleopatra in a Paris concert performance of Händel’s Giulio Cesare that was recorded for broadcast by Radio France. Venturing into repertory in which she had little experience, at a time in her career at which she might have honorably eschewed unfamiliar music, she sang superbly. Delivered with a voice heavier and less agile than in past, it was not a performance destined to please advocates of historically-informed practices, but it was a performance in which Cleopatra sprang to life, at once both crushingly imperious and sweetly vulnerable. This is almost certainly not the first Caballé performance that I heard, but it continues to convince me that she was an inquisitive, engaging artist who occasionally disappointed but frequently surprised.

I had the privilege of hearing Caballé only once, many years after the tremendous successes of her career. The magic was faded, but it still enchanted. Rather than merely singing, she seemed to disappear into the music and find her way back to reality by following the sound of her voice. Perhaps that was not greatness, but it was Montserrat Caballé.

 

Caballé on the record...

​These are the recordings to which I listen when I want to temporarily escape from my mediocrity by being reminded of Caballé’s greatness; and which I therefore recommend to others who seek the essence of Caballé’s artistry.

    • Bellini’s Norma with Bianca Berini and Pedro Lavirgén; Philadelphia, 18 April 1972 — The 1974 Orange Norma in which Caballé was joined by Josephine Veasey, John Vickers, and the Mistral is rightly celebrated, but, like many singers, she was inspired by singing in Philadelphia. Caballé lacked Callas’s poetic temperament and Sutherland’s formidable accuracy, but she was often a thrilling Norma.

    • Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia with Alain Vanzo, Jane Berbié, and Kostas Paskalis; New York City, 20 April 1965 — It was in this performance, in which she substituted in the title rôle for expectant mother Marilyn Horne, that Caballé made her American début. Like Callas’s 1959 American Opera Society Pirata and concerts in the last year of Elvis Presley’s life, many more people than Carnegie Hall accommodates claim to have been present for this performance. It was an occasion that warrants hyperbole.

    • Massenet’s Manon with John Alexander and Louis Quilico; New Orleans, 13 and 15 April 1967 — It was in another French rôle, Marguerite in Gounod’s Faust, that Caballé débuted at the MET on 22 December 1965. That was, in fact, her only MET performance of a French rôle. This New Orleans Manon reveals how persuasive she could be in French repertoire. Like her fellow Catalan Victoria de los Ángeles, Caballé allied incredible timbral beauty with a captivatingly feminine demeanor in a moving portrayal of Massenet’s mercurial heroine. Unlike de los Ángeles, Caballé also sang Puccini’s incarnation of Manon.

    • Puccini’s Tosca with José Carreras, Ingvar Wixell, and Samuel Ramey; Philips studio recording — Dramatically, this Tosca pales in comparison with Callas’s 1953 studio recording and many live performances, including Caballé’s own MET broadcasts. Tosca’s music has never been sung more unflinchingly or alluringly than by Caballé on this recording, however, and, despite the rôle ideally requiring slightly greater vocal amplitude than nature granted him, this Cavaradossi is among Carreras’s finest performances on disc.

    • Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier with Teresa Żylis-Gara, Edith Mathis, and Otto Edelmann; Glyndebourne, 30 May 1965 — Though she sang and recorded Strauss’s Salome to great acclaim and was a radiantly-vocalized Ariadne at the MET in 1976, the Marschallin—the rôle of her Glyndebourne début—is not a part typically associated with Caballé, but she was very touching as the still-young Princess who ponders her mortality and desirability.

    • Verdi’s Giovanna d’Arco with Plácido Domingo and Sherrill Milnes; EMI studio recording — This is Caballé in the full glory of youth, singing with astonishing beauty and ease, alongside colleagues in similar vocal estate.

    • Verdi’s Luisa Miller with Richard Tucker, Sherrill Milnes, Giorgio Tozzi, and Ezio Flagello; The Metropolitan Opera, 17 February 1968 — Caballé’s gorgeously-voiced and refreshingly unaffected Luisa is paired with an uncommonly ardent Rodolfo from Richard Tucker.

    • Verdi’s Il trovatore with Ludovic Spiess, Irina Arkhipova, and Peter Glossop; Orange, 23 July 1972 — Several fine performances of Trovatore featuring Caballé’s quintessentially Spanish Leonora are widely available, but this is a rare performance in which she went for—and, after a search, found—the D♭₆ traditionally interpolated in the Act One finale.

    • Vives’s Maruxa with Ana Riera, Vicente Sardinero, and Pedro Lavirgén; Alhambra studio recording — To hear Caballé‘s portrayal of Rosa in this recorded performance of Amadeo Vives’s 1914 zarzuela Maruxa is to experience singing that can only be described as exquisite.

 

Muchas gracias, La Superba.

Vissi d’arte, vissi d’arte: soprano Montserrat Caballé (1933 – 2018) in the title rôle of Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca at The Metropolitan Opera in 1985
[Photograph by James Heffernan, © by The Metropolitan Opera]

September 2018 RECORDING OF THE MONTH: Georg Friedrich Händel & Philip Glass — ARC (Anthony Roth Costanzo, countertenor; Les Violons du Roy; Jonathan Cohen, conductor; Decca Gold 481 7190)

GEORG FRIEDRICH HÄNDEL (1685 – 1759) and PHILIP GLASS (born 1937): ARC — Anthony Roth Costanzo, countertenor; Les Violons du Roy; Jonathan Cohen, conductor [Recorded in Salle Raoul Jobin, Palais Montcalm, Québec City, Québec, Canada; Decca Gold 481 7190; 1 CD, 61:49; Available from Amazon (USA), iTunes, jpc (Germany), Presto Classical (UK), and major music retailers]

Much as musically-inclined people lament current standards of interpretation and performance and long for distant eras populated by artists whose names instigate arguments among observers who never experienced their work, it cannot be claimed with any degree of veracity that any one moment in human history has been more richly blessed with the presence of truly great artists than another. There are in any era many accomplished, admirable personages whose efforts distinguish them from their earnest but uninspired contemporaries, but the genius of a Michelangelo, Molière, or Mozart is exceptional in any age. Arguably, the surest foundation of genius is universality: beauty in almost any work of art can be discerned by senses conditioned to identify it, but recognition of the expressions of humanity in Michelangelo’s Pietà, Molière’s Tartuffe, and Mozart’s Così fan tutte requires no special conditioning. There is perhaps some irony in the fact that a touchstone of artistic genius is that the observer need not be a genius in order to appreciate it. Important art does not demand to be noticed: it conveys its message, and even those who do not wholly understand it are aware of having experienced something remarkable.

That American countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo is an extraordinary artist and ARC, his début recital disc for Decca Gold, a work of once-in-a-generation significance is apparent from one glimpse of the disc. Gazing at the listener from a kaleidoscopic, mosaic-like painting by George Condo, Costanzo opens a portal into a private world in which images, words, and tones collide in bursts of artistic fusion. Venturing into the singer’s introductory essay, the reader meets a man of disarming honesty and wit, assured but never arrogant, confident in the integrity of his artistic choices but willing to concede that some listeners may be skeptical about the wisdom of a recital in which music by Georg Friedrich Händel is partnered with pieces by Philip Glass. Above all, he is grateful for the listener’s company on an expedition that, like a trek on Europe’s Camino de Santiago, exposes unfamiliar vistas along the path to heightened understanding of the intersections of traditions past and present. Costanzo addresses the listener not as an anonymous entity but as a fellow pilgrim, a seeker of renewed equilibrium amidst uncertainty, and an equal whose responses to the performances on this disc are genuinely valued.

Vocally, the performances on ARC are characterized by an evocative synthesis of suavity and virility, qualities exuded by Costanzo’s artistry in any repertoire that he sings. Not one moment of his work on ARC is in any way didactic, but his is singing from which much can be learned. ARC is a disc that unmistakably affirms that tonal beauty and expressive sincerity are valid traits in performances of music of any vintage. Moreover, Costanzo resurrects the spirit of individuality that was formerly such a vital aspect of artistic personalities but is now conspicuously absent from the work of too many of today’s singers. Though ARC abounds with alluring tones, it is apparent that the production of beautiful sounds is neither the sole nor the foremost objective of Costanzo’s singing. Rather, communicating the words and their meanings is the ultimate destination of his artistic journey. Particularly in the context of ARC, what makes Costanzo a compelling artist is trust: he trusts the probity of poets’ words and composers’ music, he trusts the support provided by his colleagues, and he trusts his own intelligence and vocal acumen to establish connections among poets, composers, musicians, and listeners.

Under the leadership of the ensemble’s incoming Music Director, British cellist, keyboardist, and conductor Jonathan Cohen, the musicians of Les Violons du Roy play with involvement that renders them participants in, not just accompanists of, the performances on ARC. The vigor and virtuosity of the ensemble’s historically-appropriate playing of Händel’s arias are not surprising, but the finesse and panache of their handling of Glass’s music, much of it arranged for these performances by Michael Riesman, are two of ARC’s greatest strengths. The timbre of each instrument resounds with clarity, but the textures woven by the ensemble en masse are astonishingly intricate, not least in the repetitive figurations of Glass’s music. Paced by Cohen with an unerring sense of balances between emotion and momentum, the orchestra’s music making echoes the sensibilities of both the composers’ word settings and the singer’s realizations of them. In the Glass selections, it is the modernity of the sounds produced by the instrumentalists that is most striking. Cohen shares Costanzo’s affinity for seeking the essence of a piece within the music instead of in perceptions of it. With their performances on this disc, Cohen and the Les Violons du Roy musicians eradicate any suggestion that the playing of period instruments is period-specific.

First performed in 1715, Amadigi di Gaula (HWV 11) is not among Händel’s best-known operas, but it contains in Dardano’s sarabande ‘Pena tiranna’ one of the composer’s most exquisite arias. Composed not for the star castrato Nicolini, who created the title rôle, but for Venetian contralto Diana Vico, a singer whose gifts were sufficient to garner primo uomo parts even in casts that included Farinelli, the aria’s vocal line intertwines with languid writing for oboe and bassoon, here gorgeously played by the Violons du Roy musicians. The gnawing ache of Dardano’s unrequited love courses through Costanzo’s urgent, long-breathed phrasing, and his plangent tones credibly enliven the character’s despair. The name part in Flavio, re de’ Longobardi (HWV 16) was composed for alto castrato Gaetano Berenstadt, who was also the first Tolomeo in Giulio Cesare and Adelberto in Ottone, re di Germania, and he inspired another of Händel’s most memorable arias, ‘Rompo i lacci,’ sung by Costanzo with ease that belies the music’s difficulty. The countertenor’s invaluable ability to spotlight the dramatic impetus of bravura passages is wonderfully apparent in this piece, each accurately-pitched, fully-articulated note fitted into its proper place within the aria’s musical and psychological structures.

Though it was first sung in the opera’s 1711 première by soprano Isabella Girardeau, Almirena’s aria ‘Lascia ch’io pianga’ from Act Two of Rinaldo (HWV 7) has since the release of Gérard Corbiau’s 1994 film Farinelli been a sort of countertenor anthem. In truth, the aria’s tessitura is awkward for many countertenors, a reality tacitly acknowledged by the sometimes clumsy technological amalgamation of the voices of a countertenor and a soprano employed to produce Farinelli’s singing voice for the cinema. No trickery is involved in Costanzo’s singing of ‘Lascia ch’io pianga,’ however: the magic that he creates is authentically mesmerizing. His singing offers a lesson in the hypnotic power of purity of line and interpretive simplicity, the words caressed without ever being crooned. The contrast with the bravado with which he detonates the explosive fiorature of Bertarido’s ‘Vivi, tiranno’ from Rodelinda, regina de’ Longobardi (HWV 19) is therefore all the more effective. His Bertarido is convincing as a deposed monarch sparing the life of the usurper of his throne, but the heart of a loving husband cruelly separated from his wife also beats palpably in Costanzo’s vocalism.

Crafted to exploit the histrionic prowess of one of Händel’s most frequent collaborators, the renowned castrato Senesino, the powerful scene for the long-suffering titular king from Act Three of Tolomeo, re d’Egitto (HWV 25) benefited from the complete engagement of its composer’s theatrical flair. In this performance, the disc’s title is confirmed to represent more than its leading man’s initials. Traversing the emotional shifts of ‘Inumano fratel,’ Costanzo fashions an arc of ardor that reaches its apex in the arioso ‘Stille amare,’ voiced with yearning and directness via which the fates of kings and kingdoms become movingly personal. In this singer’s performance, the title character’s much-abused ‘Ombra mai fu’ from Serse (HWV 40), one of its composer’s most innovative scores, is neither saccharine nor exaggeratedly sultry. A king’s ode to his favorite tree, it is evocative enough on its own terms, without a singer imposing a post-Freudian subtext upon the music. Here, too, Costanzo achieves an uncommon degree of intimacy by approaching both words and music with manifest honesty. A countertenor’s proficiency in singing Händel repertory is not unexpected, but the excellence of this countertenor’s singing of the Händel arias included on ARC exceeds all expectations.

It may seem nonsensical to propose that Philip Glass is to some extent the most Baroque of contemporary American composers, but, like the term Baroque, Glass’s singular musical language defies easy definition and classification. As practiced by Händel, the animus of the Baroque aesthetic was the carefully-wrought amalgamation of ancient and contemporary styles, and Glass’s work can be said to adapt a similar philosophy of anticipating the future by building upon the past. It is no coincidence that Glass has often been inspired by mythological and historical figures, his musical depictions of them and their modern incarnations shaped by contemplation not only of his own reactions to them but also of which musical accents suit them. Thus, the prescient plainspokenness of Mahatma Gandhi permeates Satyagraha, and the pragmatism of its subject pulses in the music of Galileo Galilei. Glass’s musical portraits sound nothing like Händel’s, but they often feel much alike. Scrutinized with tremendous insight, these feelings form the nucleus of ARC.

Thoughtful phrasing is no less crucial to the efficacy of performances of Glass’s music than to those of Händel arias, especially in the wordless effusions of ‘The Encounter’ from 1000 Airplanes on the Roof. Many singers’ enunciations of verbose texts impart less emotion than Costanzo’s intoning of the ‘ah’ that is the lone verbalization of ‘The Encounter.’ In his singing of this syllable are streams of recognition, interaction, and affection, propelled by the voice’s tonal fluidity. The voice also flows hauntingly through David Byrne’s text in ‘Liquid Days.’ Artifice would destroy the impact of lines asserting that ‘Love watches Television / Love needs a bath / Love could use a shave,’ but the guilelessness of Costanzo’s performance heightens the poignant relationship between Glass’s effortlessly eloquent music and the touchingly ordinary imagery of the words.

Its text drawn from the writings of Thirteenth-Century Persian poet and scholar Rumi, ‘In the Arc of Your Mallet’ from Monsters of Grace epitomizes the perspicacity of capitalizing on the innate of musicality of words found in Glass’s best work. In a piece like this, he seems almost to have composed nothing at all, having merely listened with ears and heart and transcribed the sounds of the poetry. This is a hallmark of Glass’s ingenuity, and Costanzo is an ideal conduit for the composer’s expressive energy, here singing ‘In the Arc of Your Mallet’ with a spectrum of colors rarely wielded by a countertenor voice. Still, it is his performance of ‘How all Living Things Breathe’ from The Fall of the House of Usher that is the sentimental climax of ARC. The straightforward pathos of his plea ‘Don’t go anywhere without me’ is unforgettably affecting, and the quiet intensity with which he sings ‘You’re the road and the knower of roads, more than maps, more than love’ is arresting. Controverting the Dante’s frequently-quoted observation about the pain of recalling past happiness in times of misery, Costanzo’s voice is most enchanting when expressing anguish, his vocalism injuring and healing at once. To hear him is to suffer the wounds of life and also receive the balm to soothe them.

No fewer than three of Händel’s operas—Tolomeo, the frequently-performed Giulio Cesare, and Berenice—are swayed by Egyptian characters, the strife within their own land and conflicts with other cultures in which they are embroiled having captivated the composer’s imagination. Glass, too, has looked to Egypt for creative stimulus and most notably channeled his inventiveness into bringing episodes from the Eighteenth-Dynasty reign of the pharaoh Akhenaten to the stage. The title rôle in Akhnaten, Glass’s cautionary tale of the dangers of ambition and religious fervor and the culmination of his biographical trilogy launched with Einstein on the Beach and continued with Satyagraha, was originated in the opera’s 1984 première in Stuttgart by British countertenor Paul Esswood, to whom Costanzo has proved in productions in London and Los Angeles to be today’s best-qualified successor. He furthers that impression with a performance of the controversial ruler’s ‘Hymn to the Sun,’ the pivotal scene that ends Act Two of Akhnaten, that is a fitting finale to ARC and, more momentously, a definitive account of the piece. Subtly emphasizing the gravitas of the transitions from major to minor modes, Costanzo portrays a man of prodigious charisma, his voice radiating the security of a visionary. As in every piece that he sings on ARC, his intonation and rhythm are flawless. Singing of this caliber is worthwhile for its own sake, but, allied with the kind of expressivity that Costanzo brings to this music, it is inestimably precious.

Nonsensical though the notion may seem, individuality can be an obstacle in today’s musicians’ endeavors to balance artistic fulfillment with solvent careers. It is alarming to consider when assessing the legacies of artists of past generations how their careers might be different in the Twenty-First Century. The quality of their vocal capital notwithstanding, would Beniamino Gigli and Jussi Björling now be sent to gyms before being welcomed into opera houses? Would Lily Pons be told that the highest reaches of stardom are beyond the grasp of a lady of very petite stature? Would Cristina Deutekom be counseled that success depends upon sounding more like some other, more conventional singer? The concept of the fascinating multimedia project effectuated in conjunction with the planning and release of ARC would likely have bewildered Gigli, Björling, Pons, and Deutekom, but they would hear in Anthony Roth Costanzo’s singing the same level of musical mastery that contributed to their own artistic triumphs. By the standards of any era, ARC is a triumph of individuality, musicality, and artistic inquisitiveness. Blazing one’s own artistic path is not always the safest, most profitable choice, but Anthony Roth Costanzo chooses the road less traveled by, and, in the case of ARC, that has indeed made all the difference.

ARTS IN ACTION: Baritone BRIAN MULLIGAN and Vocal Arts DC bring the world première of Gregory Spears’s Walden, alongside Dominick Argento’s From the Diary of Virginia Woolf, to Washington’s Kennedy Center on 16 September 2018

September Songster: Baritone Brian Mulligan, who joins pianist Timothy Long in Vocal Arts DC’s world-première performance of Gregory Spears’s Walden, paired with Dominick Argento’s From the Diary of Virginia Woolf, in Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater on Sunday, 16 September 2018
[Photograph © by Dario Acosta]

‘Music, once admitted to the soul,’ the Victorian author and politician Edward Bulwer-Lytton wrote, ‘becomes a sort of spirit, and never dies.’ In the realm of Art Song, ‘the Soul selects her own Society,’ as Emily Dickinson opined, each listener’s individual experiences, personality, and preferences dictating the constitution of that musical soul. Whether a listener’s foremost loves are German Lieder, French chansons, Italian canzonette, or Art Songs in English, there is an universal sense of euphoria sparked by hearing great music for the first time—the euphoria that transforms sounds into the eternal spirit of which Bulwer-Lytton wrote. On Sunday, 16 September 2018, dynamic baritone Brian Mulligan joins pianist Timothy Long in a Vocal Arts DC recital in Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater that both introduces new music and enables listeners in the nation’s capital to revisit a lauded work of America’s recent musical past. Thankfully, Art Song recitals remain plentiful, even beyond America’s metropolises, but opportunities to witness the début of new music by artists of uncompromising integrity are infrequent events. With this Kennedy Center recital, Vocal Arts DC patrons have the chance to join the ranks of musical pioneers like those who first heard Schubert’s Winterreise, Schumann’s Dichterliebe, and Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder.

A native of New York’s Triple Cities region, Mulligan possesses a voice that flows with the power and beauty of the Susquehanna. An alumnus of both Yale University and the Juilliard School, the baritone has established himself as a master of an extraordinarily broad repertoire, his engagements at the Metropolitan Opera including rôles in Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia, Gounod’s Faust, Saint-Saëns’s Samson et Dalila, Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra, and Richard Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten. In this Vocal Arts DC recital, he further expands his acquaintance with contemporary music with the world-première performance of Gregory Spears’s Walden, a setting of texts by Henry David Thoreau. In a recent conversation, Mulligan disclosed that a telling sense of responsibility guides his preparations for the first performance of Walden. ‘Being a part of a world première helps remind me that all of my artistic interpretations can be unique and meaningful, even if the music I usually perform is over 100 years old,’ he confided. ‘The greatest reward of singing a world première is the feeling of being a true creator. As a singer, it’s sometimes a challenge to remember that you are a creator, not just an instrument.’

First published in 1854, Henry David Thoreau’s Walden; or, Life in the Woods is a pillar of the American literary canon, its endorsement of quintessential Yankee virtues and the basic tenets of Emersonian transcendental philosophy lending Thoreau’s words an aura of prophecy that seems ever more visionary in the modern era. More reactionary than truly radical, the writer’s ideas are presented without artifice, yet, unlike the symbolism-laden novels of Ernest Hemingway, Walden cannot honestly be said to be a ‘good read’ on a superficial level. The irregular meters and syntactical idiosyncrasies of Thoreau’s writing do not facilitate musical adaptation, but the humanistic message imparted by the author’s words finds an expert conduit in Spears, whose critically-acclaimed opera Fellow Travelers, premièred by Cincinnati Opera in June 2016, similarly asks audiences to confront uncomfortable political, societal, and spiritual prejudices. Mulligan’s reflections on his involvement in furthering Walden’s genesis divulges the organic proficiency of Spears’s handling of Thoreau’s words. ‘The greatest challenge in any world première is handling the revisions that inevitably come up in rehearsals,’ the baritone states. ‘It’s part of the process of creating a new piece of music, but it can get very confusing for a singer to remember all of the revisions!’ In this music, however, writer, composer, and interpreter have achieved symbiosis with minimal alternations. ‘Happily,’ Mulligan says, ‘there were very few changes made to Walden—thank you, Greg!’

Walden is partnered in its first performance with music by American composer Dominick Argento. When circumstances delegated the inaugural performance of music commissioned for a 1975 recital sponsored by Minneapolis’s Schubert Club first to one American soprano, then to a very different American soprano, and finally to widely-acclaimed British mezzo-soprano Dame Janet Baker, the changes in personnel led Argento on a search for material suited to each successive recitalist’s particular gifts. With the aim of engaging Baker’s interpretive savvy, the composer ultimately chose as his texts selections from A Writer’s Diary, a 1953 compendium of excerpts from the diaries of Virginia Woolf. The song cycle created for and premièred by Baker in Minneapolis on 5 January 1975, From the Diary of Virginia Woolf, garnered the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for Music for Argento, rightly rewarding the psychological depth and emotional immediacy of his settings of Woolf’s candid words.

Manifested in a wonderful 2016 Naxos recording, Mulligan’s advocacy of From the Diary of Virginia Woolf has offered fresh interpretations of this vibrant music to Twenty-First-Century audiences. Now, he brings to Kennedy Center a singular perspective on the parallels and intersections among Thoreau, Woolf, Spears, and Argento. Contemplating the similarities between the pieces that he will sing in Washington, Mulligan identifies a common nationalism in the cores of both From the Diary of Virginia Woolf and Walden. ‘Dominick and Greg both compose music that, to me, sounds uniquely, proudly, beautifully American,’ he suggests. ‘The texts of these two cycles are both deeply emotional introspections, but they are each expressed very differently. Woolf’s diary is devastating, sometimes manic, and Argento wrote music that is a visceral expression of her text.’ This, he explains, establishes an emotive contrast between the works. ‘Thoreau’s words in Walden are calm and collected, and Spears’s music is a quiet, cerebral expression of his text—to me, anyway!’ Committed to safeguarding listeners’ right to form their own conclusions, he quickly adds, ‘That’s just how I experience this music, but [they] may experience it differently. I do think the two cycles complement each other, musically and thematically. They are both gorgeous contemplations.’

The abiding difference between Walden and From the Diary of Virginia Woolf might be best characterized as one of basic attitudes towards the tribulations of human existence. Mulligan is keenly sensitive to this polarity. ‘While Thoreau’s Walden is full of hope and wonder, Woolf’s diary is mostly wrought with an inescapable despair,’ he contends. ‘Thoreau once wrote that he had “a real genius for staying at home,” and I think Woolf shared that clever sentiment. Woolf was born twenty years after Thoreau’s death, and she was a great admirer of him and his work. In July 1917, The Times Literary Supplement published Woolf’s essay “Thoreau,” and it is a beautiful tribute to him. [Click here to read an edited version of Woolf’s ‘Thoreau’ on the TLS website.] They were very different people, but I think they both relied on solitude in order to clearly observe both society and themselves.’

More than a century and a half after Thoreau’s death and nearly eighty years after Woolf ended her life, Mulligan recognizes the paradox of withdrawing from society in order to better understand it that they exemplified as a vital component of the analytical acuity wielded by Thoreau and Woolf. ‘One of the things I like best about Thoreau and Woolf is that they were both so brilliantly introspective,’ he asserts. ‘They were both so conscious and present, always aware of what was going on around them. The way that they processed their life experiences into their art is incredibly inspiring to me—and something I strive to do in all of my performances.’ Retreating inward in order to sharpen one’s outward perspicacity is an action that is very familiar to the singer. ‘That solitude, or aloneness, helped to unburden their minds and distill their thoughts,’ he says of Thoreau and Woolf. ‘It’s a practice I regularly turn to as an artist when I’m learning new music or creating a complex character.’

When asked to which aspects of Spears’s and Argento’s music he would entreat the Kennedy Center audience to be especially attentive, Mulligan exclaims, ‘I don’t believe in asking audiences to prepare to be entertained! At the recital, sit back, experience the performance, listen to the words, hear the music, and allow yourself to feel something. After the performance, if you want to learn more, go to my website. Listen to the music again, reexamine these texts, and discover more about the creators who brought this all together. [Among] Argento, Spears, Thoreau, and Woolf, there’s just so much art and history to enjoy.

Listeners are certain to feel something when hearing Brian Mulligan sing. The energy of his singing is felt by the body, and the sincerity of his emoting is felt by the soul. He does not demand that audiences agree with his artistic choices, but he makes them with the expectation of being heard with the same openness and concentration with which he performs. In this, his work recalls the crafts of both Henry David Thoreau and Virginia Woolf. In her final novel, Between the Acts, Woolf wrote, ‘Music wakes us. Music makes us see the hidden, join the broken.’ Giving first life to Gregory Spears’s Walden and new life to Dominick Argento’s From the Diary of Virginia Woolf, Mulligan’s Vocal Arts DC recital promises to awaken, reveal, and restore.

EVENT INFORMATION AT A GLANCE:
Vocal Arts DC presents Brian Mulligan, baritone, with Timothy Long, piano
Sunday, 16 September 2018, 2:00 PM
Terrace Theater
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Please click here for more information or to purchase tickets for this performance.
Click here to learn more about Vocal Arts DC’s exciting 2018 – 2019 Season.

Brian Mulligan’s and Timothy Long’s Naxos recording of Dominick Argento’s The Andrée Expedition and From the Diary of Virginia Woolf
Naxos 8.559828
Available from Naxos Direct, Amazon, and major music retailers

CD REVIEW: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart — LA CLEMENZA DI TITO, K. 621 (R. Villazón, J. DiDonato, M. Rebeka, R. Mühlemann, T. Erraught, A. Plachetka; Deutsche Grammophon 483 5210)

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756 – 1791): La clemenza di Tito, K. 621—Rolando Villazón (Tito Vespasiano), Joyce DiDonato (Sesto), Marina Rebeka (Vitellia), Regula Mühlemann (Servilia), Tara Erraught (Annio), Adam Plachetka (Publio); RIAS Kammerchor, Chamber Orchestra of Europe; Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor [Recorded during concert performances in Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, Baden-Baden, Germany, in July 2017; Deutsche Grammophon 483 5210; 2 CDs, 140:36; Available from Amazon (USA), fnac (France), iTunes, jpc (Germany), Presto Classical (UK), and major music retailers]

1791 was a remarkable year for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. After celebrating his thirty-fifth birthday in January, he produced three of his most enduring and influential compositions: the E♭-major String Quintet (K. 614), the Clarinet Concert (K. 622), and his opera Die Zauberflöte. In July, he and his wife welcomed the second of their children who would eventually reach adulthood, their son Franz Xaver Wolfgang. Sadly, the infant would need to survive only a few months in order to outlive his father. When Mozart died on 5 December 1791, the works dating from his final year, including the unfinished Requiem and the motet ‘Ave verum corpus,’ essentially became characters in a drama that grew ever more fantastical until the Mozart known to the musical denizens of Enlightenment Vienna was little more than a shadow in his own spectacle.

Until the second half of the Twentieth Century, a little-read chapter in the story of the last months of Mozart’s life recounted the genesis of La clemenza di Tito, an opera seria of the type that was a relic of earlier generations, though still a respected and in some circles, like that of which Mozart’s supporter Gottfried van Swieten was the center, beloved one. The death of the Hapsburg emperor Joseph II in February 1790 closed Vienna’s theatres whilst Mozart was at the zenith of his faculties, but the ascension of Joseph’s brother Leopold II to the throne made amends with an opportunity to write an opera to celebrate the new monarch’s coronation as King of Bohemia. The contract for arranging the composition and performance of the opera was granted to Prague impresario Domenico Guardasoni, whose invitation to participate in the project was declined by Antonio Salieri. The tremendous success of the inaugural production of Don Giovanni, staged in Prague in October 1787, made Mozart a viable candidate to substitute for Salieri, and, despite being immersed in the preparation of Die Zauberflöte, the younger composer accepted the offer and started his work—and how he worked! Less than two months separated Guardasoni’s receipt of the contract on 8 July and the world première of La clemenza di Tito in Prague’s Stavovské divadlo on 6 September.

Unlike many composers of his time, Mozart prized novelty in his writing for the stage, preferring to work with libretti prepared specially for him rather than perpetuating the tradition of using widely-traveled texts already employed by other composers. In this regard, La clemenza di Tito is an anomaly among Mozart’s mature operas, its libretto, an adaptation by Caterino Mazzolà of the work of the Eighteenth Century’s busiest librettist, Pietro Metastasio, having been previously set by nearly forty other composers including Antonio Caldara (1734), Christoph Willibald Gluck (1752). and Baldassare Galuppi (1759). For Prague, Mazzolà substantially streamlined and restructured the drama, reducing Metastasio’s three acts to two and eliminating many arias, only a few of which were replaced with new texts. In truth, the original goal of the commission was to serenade Leopold II with a wholly-new piece, but the writing of a fresh libretto would have left even less time for composition of the music. Nevertheless, the recycled tale of amorous intrigue, political upheaval, and royal magnanimity clearly inspired Mozart, who had fallen ill by the time that the opera reached the stage. His burden was lightened by the task of writing secco recitative being placed in other hands, but it is doubtful that, facing the pressure of such a deadline, the industrious Rossini or Donizetti could have crafted a score of the quality and significance of La clemenza di Tito under similar circumstances.

Expanding the cycle populated to date by recordings of Die Entführung aus dem Serail and Mozart’s three operas with libretti by Lorenzo da Ponte and to be joined in due course by a souvenir of this month’s Festspielhaus Baden-Baden concert performances of Die Zauberflöte, this Clemenza di Tito deepens Québécois conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s experience with the music of a composer in whose musical language he has demonstrated a notable fluency. It is hardly surprising that this young conductor, still only in his early forties, excels at leading performances of scores shaped by white-hot passions, but his fervent handling of the ‘formal’ style of La clemenza di Tito is tempered by commendable and period-appropriate restraint. The contrasts among fast and slow sections of arias are sometimes slightly exaggerated, but the opera’s emotional transitions benefit tremendously from the heightened sense of impending calamity that this engenders. On the whole, Nézet-Séguin’s tempi are both prudent and sensitive: the quickest passages are controlled, and slower music rarely languishes.

The conductor’s concerted efforts to keep the drama moving at a sensible, sustainable pace are supported by Jory Vinikour’s fortepiano continuo, played with technical and intellectual nimbleness, and expertly seconded in secco recitative by cellist William Conway. Likewise, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe musicians deliver performances that spur renewed admiration of Mozart’s skill as an orchestrator, not least in the brilliant—and, in this performance, brilliantly-played—Overture and the delightfully martial Maestoso Marcia in Act One. Some performances of La clemenza di Tito create the illusion that in this score Mozart’s creative genius took a step back from his achievements in the da Ponte operas and Die Zauberflöte, first performed in Vienna three weeks after Tito’s Prague première, but the performance incited by Nézet-Séguin corroborates the assertion that La clemenza di Tito is a by no means unworthy sibling of Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, and Die Zauberflöte.

Mozart’s operatic choral writing reached its apotheosis in La clemenza di Tito and Die Zauberflöte. In these works, the choristers genuinely participate in the drama rather than merely commenting on it. As the populace of Tito’s Rome, patricians and plebeians, the expert RIAS Kammerchor singers perform Mozart’s music with a balance of zeal and precision that complements Nézet-Séguin’s approach to the score. In Act One, they deliver ‘Serbate, o Dei custodi della Romana sorte’ with credible avidity, their plea for divine protection propelled heavenward on a torrent of accurately-pitched, perfectly-blended tone. The tumultuous music of the Act One finale could hardly be more different, and the mettle of their singing makes the fear and panic of the scene palpable. ‘Ah, grazie si rendano al sommo fattor’ in Act Two returns to a reverential manner, and the ensemble’s performance adapts accordingly. They preface the opera’s finale with a heartfelt account of ‘Che del ciel, che degli Dei tu il pensier,’ and their singing intensifies the catharsis of the final scene. Like Nézet-Séguin’s conducting, RIAS Kammerchor’s singing further spotlights the ingenuity that Mozart expended in the composition of La clemenza di Tito.

It is unusual to hear a singer of Czech bass-baritone Adam Plachetka’s abilities as Publio, the commander of Tito’s Praetorian guards, but the power of his singing gives the character a stronger presence than he typically commands. In the first of his trios, the ensemble with Vitellia and Annio in Act One, Plachetka is a rare Publio who is always noticeable. This is also true in the quintet, in which the bass-baritone voices Publio’s lines sonorously and energetically. Trios in Act Two unite him first with Vitellia and Sesto and then with Sesto and Tito: Plachetka makes a robust impression in both settings. Between these trios comes Publio’s aria, ‘Tardi s’avvede d’un tradimento,’ sung here with secure tone and solid technique. Plachetka’s voice remains audible and attractive in the opera’s closing ensemble, and his Publio sets a high standard both for his colleagues and for the performance of this rôle.

Irish mezzo-soprano Tara Erraught characterizes the young Annio with keenly-honed histrionic instincts and vocal technique that maintains the requisite style without sacrificing the emotive spontaneity of her singing. In the beautiful Andante duet with Sesto in Act One, ‘Deh, prendi un dolce amplesso,’ Erraught voices Annio’s words with obvious understanding of their meaning, and, here and in the subsequent duet with Servilia, ‘Ah, perdona al primo affetto,’ the mezzo-soprano imbues the rôle with significantly greater dramatic involvement than he wields in many performances. Like Plachetka’s Publio, Erraught’s Annio is engagingly conspicuous in both their trio with Vitellia and the momentous quintet that ends Act One.

The first of Annio’s arias in Act Two, the Allegretto ‘Torna di Tito a lato,’ is affectionately sung, but it is in the Andante aria ‘Tu fosti tradito’ that Erraught claims for herself a place alongside Brigitte Fassbaender and Frederica von Stade among the finest recorded interpreters of Annio. The appeal of her vocalism is consistent throughout the performance, but the parlous position in which Annio finds himself in ‘Tu fosti tradito,’ acknowledging that his friend Sesto’s deeds warrant a death sentence but entreating Tito to allow his deliberations to be guided by the mandates of his heart rather than the rule of law, inspirit Erraught’s depiction. In the opera’s finale, her Annio evinces the jubilation of having facilitated Sesto’s deliverance from an inglorious fate, and the magnetism of Erraught’s singing compels the listener to rejoice, as well.

In recent seasons, Swiss soprano Regula Mühlemann has rapidly established herself as one of her generation’s preeminent Mozart singers. Heard as Barbarina in Nézet-Séguin’s recording of Le nozze di Figaro and donning Papagena’s musical plumage in his Die Zauberflöte, she portrays Servilia in this performance of La clemenza di Tito with unforced charm and secure, often radiant singing. She does not over-accentuate the top As in the Act One duet with Annio, ‘Ah, perdona al primo affetto,’ instead emphasizing continuity of the musical line. She, too, utters her lines in the quintet with urgency and impeccable musicality. Mühlemann phrases Servilia’s Act Two aria in minuet time, ‘S’altro che lacrime per lui non tenti,’ liltingly, rising to a dulcet top A. Her tones gleam in the final scene, in which she resolves Servilia’s part in the drama with noteworthy comprehension of the intricacies of Mozart’s part writing.

That Latvian soprano Marina Rebeka’s repertoire has expanded in the past two years to include the title rôles in Bellini’s Norma, Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda, and Verdi’s Giovanna d’Arco and Luisa Miller is indicative of this artist’s musical intrepidity. It is also evidence of her technical fortitude. With Vitellia in La clemenza di Tito, Mozart created a full-blooded sister for Elettra in Idomeneo, re di Creta and Die Königin der Nacht in Die Zauberflöte—and, though he did not know it, a fantastic part for Marina Rebeka. Vitellia’s duet with Sesto in Act One, ‘Come ti piace, imponi,’ offers the soprano an opportunity to exhibit her talents, and she seizes it with alacrity, bringing mellifluous sounds to the Andante and projecting resonant top notes in the Allegro section. She quarries the rich lode of expressivity in the shift from Larghetto to Allegro in the aria ‘Deh, se piacer mi vuoi,’ executing the fiorature unflinchingly. Rebeka takes control of the trio with Annio and Publio with the authority of an emperor’s daughter, hurling out ‘Vengo! aspettate!’ with vehemence echoed by her effortless top B and thrilling launch to the infamous D₆. As Vitellia’s plans spiral out of control in the final pages of Act One, Rebeka’s voice simmers with the heat of the flames that engulf the Campidoglio.

The Act Two trio with Sesto and Publio discloses a different dimension of Vitellia’s personality, and Rebeka voices her music with assurance. Words and notes erupt with the cataclysmic kinesis of Vesuvio in the accompagnato ‘Ecco il punto, o Vitellia,’ declaimed in this performance with Shakespearean perceptiveness. The plummets below the stave in the rondò aria ‘Non più di fiori vaghe catene’ are not easy going for Rebeka, but she shirks nothing, bravely traversing the two-octave interval to top A♭. As her quest for vengeance unravels and she confesses her treachery to the emperor, Vitellia leaves the world of Elettra and Die Königin der Nacht and enters the realm of Pamina, made worthy of mercy by tasting the bitter elixir of tragedy. The beauty of Rebeka’s singing makes this transformation especially apparent. Musically and dramatically, few singers manage to embody a character as completely as Rebeka animates Vitellia on this recording. Neither victim nor vixen, this Vitellia is merely, movingly human.

Among the many sparkling facets of Joyce DiDonato’s artistry, her singing of Mozart repertoire perhaps does not receive the attention that her performances of Baroque, bel canto, and contemporary music justifiably garner. This is an inexplicable injustice, as her depiction of Sesto in this recording of La clemenza di Tito is a performance of the sort of psychological depth and technical confidence that only a truly great singer can muster. In the past few seasons, the mezzo-soprano has sometimes discernibly worked harder to conjure the musical magic for which she is renowned, but her Sesto is a reminder of the wisdom of singers like Kirsten Flagstad and Birgit Nilsson, mistresses of other repertoire who insisted that periodically singing Mozart rôles is a soothing balm for the voice. Sesto’s music is daunting, but Mozart was too shrewd to write vocal lines that could not be sung.

After hearing DiDonato’s singing in the Act One Andante duet with Vitellia, ‘Come ti piace, imponi,’ doubting the veracity of Flagstad’s and Nilsson’s suggestion is unfathomable. Here and in the duet with Annio, ‘Deh, prendi un dolce amplesso,’ DiDonato’s vocalism is youthful, poised, and sincere: what artifice there is exists in the music. Weaving her voice into the colorful tapestry fabricated by Romain Guyot’s wonderful playing of the aria’s clarinet obbligato [his performance of the basset-horn obbligato in Vitellia’s rondò is equally superb], she delivers an astounding account of ‘Parto, parto, ma tu, ben mio,’ the crispness of her trills matched by the fluidity of her articulation of the triplet fiorature cresting on top B♭s in the fast-paced Allegro assai. Then, as Sesto wrests with his promise to slay Tito, she summons the potency of Greek tragedy in the accompagnato ‘O Dei! che smania è questa, che tumulto ho nel cor!’ The passage beginning with ‘Deh, conservate, o Dei, a Roma il suo splendor’ in the quintet is voiced with acute understanding of Sesto’s motivations and the conflicting loyalties that torment him.

Responding to Rebeka’s and Plachetka’s vocal sparks, DiDonato sings ‘Se al volto mai ti senti lieve aura che s’aggiri’ in the Act Two trio with Vitellia and Publio with imaginative nuance, followed by a subtle but steadfast reading of ‘Quello di Tito è il volto!’ in the subsequent trio with Tito and Publio. DiDonato’s performance of the Adagio rondò ‘Deh, per questo istante solo ti ricorda il primo amor’ affirms that this piece is in no way inferior to Sesto’s more famous aria in Act One. Interpreted by this singer, Sesto’s shame and self-loathing are uncommonly believable, not least when he declares ‘Tu, è ver, m’assolvi, Augusto, ma non m’assolve il core.’ There have been excellent recorded performances of Sesto’s music, foremost among which are Teresa Berganza’s portrayals for István Kertész and Karl Böhm, but DiDonato initiates a class of her own. So apt are her discreet embellishments that Mozart might have been whispering them in her ear. Her Donna Elvira in Nézet-Séguin’s Don Giovanni was a tremendous accomplishment, but this Sesto surpasses even her own best work.

In the first legs of Nézet-Séguin’s DGG Mozart journey, Mexican tenor Rolando Villazón surprised many listeners who questioned the wisdom of his Mozartian forays with vibrant, mostly stylish performances as Belmonte in Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Don Curzio in Le nozze di Figaro, Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni, and Ferrando in Così fan tutte. [Villazón’s rôle in the forthcoming Die Zauberflöte is Papageno.] Here mounting the imperial throne as the troubled but ultimately level-headed Tito Vespasiano, he does not fully rise to the level of those previous impersonations, but this is music in which many valiant efforts have fallen short of success. A cinematic stereotype of Roman emperors—either exasperatingly haughty or vulgarly libidinous and unfailingly speaking with a pompous British accent—persists in today’s cultural consciousness, and Villazón turns this paradigm on its head. His is a Tito more likely to be found among his subjects, devouring the marvels of Rome, than cloistered behind palace walls. He sculpts the lines of the Andante con moto aria ‘Del più sublime soglio l’unico frutto è questo’ with the steady hand of a master craftsman, little bothered by the frequent treks to G at the top of the stave. The reliability of the tenor’s G₄ is further tested in Tito’s Allegro aria ‘Ah, se fosse intorno al trono,’ and Villazón again passes without cheating, laudably confronting every difficulty with determination.

There is an aura of a celebrant’s interactions with his congregation in Villazón’s singing of Tito’s Act Two scene with the chorus, his pronouncement of ‘Ah no, sventurato non sono cotanto’ ringingly regal in tone. His smoky timbre enables a probing explication of the emperor’s predicament in the accompagnato ‘Che orror! che tradimento!’ Villazón’s bold but calm demeanor is touchingly effective in this music and in the trio with Sesto and Publio. The aria ‘Se all’impero, amici Dei!’ is a veritable obstacle course, the tranquil contemplation of its Andantino section disrupted by a return to the galloping Allegro. When a singer as stylistically deft as Nicolai Gedda was unable to negotiate the aria’s dizzying fiorature cleanly under studio conditions, Villazón earns leniency, but no apology needs to be made for his performance. The pitches are there, and the top B♭s present no problems. The accompagnato ‘Ma che giorno è mai questo?’ is ideal territory for him, and he enlivens music in which leaner voices can sound feeble. Villazón’s voicing of ‘Il vero pentimento di cui tu sei capace’ in the finale scene proclaims that this Tito’s mild manner is a manifestation of courage, not weakness. Musically, this is not a flawless performance, but it is as thoughtful and enjoyable a portrayal of Tito as has been recorded.

Mozart’s correspondence divulges a fascinating profundity of self-awareness, but it is impossible to know whether the composer was cognizant as he left Prague after the première of La clemenza di Tito to return to Vienna and resume work on Die Zauberflöte that he had said his farewell to Italian opera. As is the case with Pergolesi, Schubert, Bellini, Mendelssohn, Chopin, and other composers who died young, later generations of musicians, listeners, and scholars ponder what these artists might have achieved had they lived longer. Many long-lived composers would undoubtedly savor a final effort in any genre as inventive as La clemenza di Tito and a performance of it as superlative as this one via which to be remembered.