CD REVIEW: Francesco Maria Veracini – ADRIANO IN SIRIA (S. Prina, A. Hallenberg, R. Invernizzi, R. Basso, L. Cirillo, U. Guagliardo; Fra Bernardo fb 1409491)

FRANCESCO MARIA VERACINI (1690 – 1768): Adriano in Siria—Sonia Prina (Adriano), Ann Hallenberg (Farnaspe), Roberta Invernizzi (Emirena), Romina Basso (Sabina), Lucia Cirillo (Idalma), Ugo Guagliardo (Osroa); Europa Galante; Fabio Biondi, conductor [Recorded in conjunction with a concert performance in the Grosser Saal of the Wiener Konzerthaus, Vienna, Austria, 17 – 19 January 2014; Fra Bernardo fb 1409491; 3 CD, 172:00; Available from Amazon (USA), Amazon (UK), jpc, Presto Classical, and major music retailers]

Thanks to the efforts of artists as diverse as Luisa Tetrazzini, Richard Tucker, Maurice André, and Frans Brüggen, the name and music of Francesco Maria Veracini have never fully disappeared as have those of many composers of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Accounts of Veracini’s life are almost certainly blends of fact, fiction, and the ridiculously fanciful: different sources suggest that, based upon their chronologies of the composer’s life in the public eye, he possessed the admirable ability to be in two distant parts of Europe simultaneously. The son of an affluent family of musicians and artists, Veracini was one of the most admired violinists of his generation, one whose bowing technique allegedly shamed even the great Tartini. As a composer, his reputation among his contemporaries seems to have been more variable: Charles Burney, who was never more prolific or imaginative than when being nasty, thought Veracini’s music unimpressive and his temperament even less attractive. What he lacked in charm he surely had in artistic merit, however, and the enduring presence of his work, albeit a minute fraction of his output, is suggestive of musical craftsmanship of the first order. In this performance of his opera Adriano in Siria, recorded by Fra Bernardo with clarity that combines the precision of recording in studio with the verve of live performance, the neglected brilliance of Veracini is polished to diamond-brightness by the efforts of a team of extraordinary musicians. In truth, the cast assembled for this performance could make the most banal music seem important, but in Adriano in Siria they find music worthy of their best efforts.

Rediscovered and meticulously prepared for performance by insightful musicologist Holger Schmitt-Hallenberg, Adriano in Siria is a fascinating score, this recording of which is a considerable milestone in the appreciation of Veracini’s artistry. Premièred by the Opera of the Nobility at the Haymarket Theatre in London in 1735 by a cast that included Farinelli, Senesino, and Francesca Cuzzoni, the opera enjoyed acclaim that, like that of many celebrated operas in the first half of the Eighteenth Century, was short-lived. Even superb scores were shelved as tastes changed, and this was particularly true in London, where, by the time of the first performance of Adriano in Siria, interest in Italian opera was already waning. In the case of Veracini’s opera, this was perhaps fortuitous: it is difficult to fathom a cast in subsequent generations matching the musical prowess attributed to Farinelli, Senesino, and Cuzzoni. Mr. Schmitt-Hallenberg has produced a performing edition of the opera that reveals the splendor that it surely possessed when it was first heard in 1735. His thoughtful management of the surviving musical material provides a score with impressive consistency of inspiration and dramatic impetus that, in the hands of alert singers, generates excitement and organic continuity even in the contexts of concert performances and a recording. Vitally, Mr. Schmitt-Hallenberg has given Veracini the gift of a performing edition of Adriano in Siria in which not one note seems superfluous.

A rejuvenated Baroque opera could not hope for better handling than Adriano in Siria receives from Fabio Biondi and Europa Galante. Many of Maestro Biondi’s baton-wielding colleagues have intriguing ideas about infusing Baroque scores with historically-informed practices, but Maestro Biondi has confirmed in a progression of lauded performances and recordings that his guiding philosophy as a conductor is that, whether a score was composed by Bononcini or Bellini, the fundamental element of any piece is rhythm. In this performance, the commitment to following the lead of the composer’s rhythmic patterns is especially apparent, and Maestro Biondi and the Europa Galante musicians follow Veracini’s blueprints expertly, constructing a compelling musical edifice. Giangiacomo Pinardi’s playing of the theorbo and the harpsichord playing of Paola Poncet give the continuo variety and unflagging momentum, and the Europa Galante string and wind players produce sounds of stylish beauty that complement the kaleidoscopic emotional colorations of the music. As ever, Maestro Biondi and Europa Galante collaborate to create a musical environment in which the composer’s requirements and the singers’ needs, both musical and dramatic, are fused in a way that preserves the integrity of historically-informed performance values without jeopardizing the vitality of the performance or the freshness of the dramatic feast prepared by the cast.

Unfortunately, many singers seemingly still believe that successful performances of music of the vintage of Adriano in Siria require special vocal modifications. While it is a gross oversimplification to suggest that a singer either can or cannot sing music like Veracini’s, there is a measure of truth in the assertion that a singer either has or has not the technical acumen needed for Baroque opera. The mistaken assumption made by a number of singers is that artificially altering the inherent qualities of voices trained to sing other repertories constitutes approaching Baroque music informedly. Whitening the tone and gingerly pecking at notes do not render a performance stylistically appropriate: rather, these devices make a performance dull and unfocused for both artists and audience. In terms of fostering a successful international career with aspirations to longevity, specialization is dangerous in today’s opera environment, but the unnaturally broad versatility forced on young singers is even more perilous for vocal health. The singers engaged for Adriano in Siria offer examples of the most intelligent blends of specialization and versatility. Just as Maestro Biondi understands that the bones that support musical flesh are rhythms, these artists truly understand that successfully singing Baroque music does not depend upon singing nothing else. The key is technique, which until the last performance of a singer’s career should be a work in progress. What these singers comprehend is that building the technical foundation needed to sing Baroque music is not restricting: wrapping the voice around music like Veracini’s unlocks artistic doors that singers with less cognizance of their own voices can only force open with great risk.

Bass Ugo Guagliardo brings to his portrayal of the Parthian king Osroa a sturdy voice with an imposing presence that does not inhibit flexibility in coloratura. In Osroa’s aria in Act One, ‘Sprezza il furor del vento,’ he sonorously imparts the majestic power of the elements described by the text. The regal authority of the character is grandly served by Mr. Guagliardo’s singing of Osroa’s aria in Act Two, ‘Se mai piagato a morte.’ The vigor of his singing of ‘Non ritrova un'alma forte’ in Act Three is very effective, the singer clearly almost tasting the words. It is often dismaying to observe how lazy singers are when singing in their own languages, but Mr. Guagliardo enunciates the Italian text with brio. He shares with all of the singers in this cast a flair for animating secco recitative. Rousingly as he sings his arias, Mr. Guagliardo’s most valuable contribution to this recording is perhaps his leadership of the cast in their creation of a credible drama in which characters interact and respond to one another.

The captive Parthian princess Idalma receives from mezzo-soprano Lucia Cirillo one of this excellent singer’s most enjoyable recorded performances. She, too, makes much of the text, coloring her native Italian vowels to reflect the moods of the words. ‘Per punir l'ingrato amante,’ Idalma’s aria in Act One, is sung with great depth of feeling, and her aria in Act Two, ‘Saggio guerriero antico,’ inspires Ms. Cirillo to particularly effective singing, her technique making light of the difficulty of the music. In Act Three, the power of her singing of the aria ‘Più bella al tempo usato’ is startling. Ms. Cirillo shepherds her resources very shrewdly, saving the most arresting hues of her vocalism for moments of greatest dramatic significance. This singer has graced a number of valuable recordings with her singing, but in this performance she achieves new heights of technical and histrionic excellence.

In Veracini’s music for Sabina, Italian mezzo-soprano Romina Basso uses her smoky timbre like a dagger, penetrating the heart of the drama with her every utterance. The fire that she ignites in her accompagnato in Act One, ‘Io piango? Ah, no,’ and the aria that follows, ‘Numi, se giusti siete,’ blazes until the last note that she sings in this performance, and she exploits every facet of her remarkable musicianship to portray the wronged woman with depth and dignity. Sabina’s aria in Act Two, ‘Ah, ingrato m'inganni nel darmi speranza,’ receives from Ms. Basso a performance of tremendous musicality and spine-tingling intensity. In Act Three, her account of ‘Digli ch'è un infedele digli che mi tradì’ boils with justified indignation, and she resplendently blends her voice with that of her Adriano in their duetto ‘Prendi, o caro, mio sostegno.’ Ms. Basso is the kind of singer whose performances reveal unexplored aspects of familiar music. In performance of a rediscovered score like Adriano in Siria, she makes new magic with each subsequent phrase. She is a busy singer but one who could never be heard often enough.

In the part created by Francesca Cuzzoni, Emirena, soprano Roberta Invernizzi provides singing of a quality that furthers her reputation as one of today’s preeminent leading ladies of Baroque opera. Hers is singing that is unfailingly stylish without being a pretentious display of exaltedly artful vocalism. Rather, she sings what the composer has given her—sings at all levels, musical, emotional, and psychological. She is unafraid of occasionally producing an unlovely sound if the drama of her rôle demands it, but this only increases the beauty of her performances. In Emirena’s music, she provides a glorious exhibition of appropriately-scaled singing that highlights the intelligence of Veracini’s vocal writing. The wrenching ‘Prigioniera abbandonata’ in Act One is sung with the sort of vehemence that leads many singers to destroy their voices: Ms. Invernizzi tears the passion from the words, not from her throat. Emirena ends Act One with ‘Un lampo di speranza,’ one of the finest numbers in the score and one that Ms. Invernizzi sings movingly. Both of Emirena’s arias in Act 2, ‘Per te d'eterni allori’ and the stirring ‘Quell'amplesso e quel perdono,’ are given traversals worthy of comparison with Renata Scotto’s singing of Puccini heroines. The concentration of her singing of ‘Quel cor che mi donasti’ in Act Three is unflappable, and her performance of this aria crowns a subtle but sparkling characterization of a rôle in which Cuzzoni herself could hardly have been more memorable.

Any singer with Baroque or bel canto inclinations, no matter the progress of the career, should adopt as a critical component of her (or his) training regimen frequently listening to Swedish mezzo-soprano Ann Hallenberg. In Farinelli’s rôle of the Parthian prince Farnaspe, she demonstrates in this recording of Adriano in Siria what a great voice in its prime allied with a technique continually subjected to refining can achieve in Baroque music. Her rôle’s association with Farinelli raises expectations of feats of bravura gallantry, and Ms. Hallenberg does not disappoint. Not even her most extravagant bursts of coloratura are mere displays of her formidable technique, however: she manages to find the dramatic significance of every run, roulade, and trill. Farnaspe’s arias in Act One, ‘Già presso al termine de' suoi martiri,’ ‘Parto, sì, bella tiranna,’ and ‘Ascolta idolo mio dell'alma il bel desio,’ make daunting but widely varying demands upon the singer’s vocal resources, and Ms. Hallenberg responds with uncompromising expertise, differentiating her negotiations of the vocal lines according to Veracini’s requirements but always maintaining dedication to upholding the nobility of the character. After giving a beguiling recital of her abilities in ‘Quel ruscelletto va mormorando,’ she closes Act Two with a heart-stopping performance of ‘Amor, dover, rispetto, nell'agitato petto.’ She, too, soars to the summit of her artistry in Act Three with her singing of ‘Son sventurato ma pure, o stelle,’ in which she paints melodic landscapes with the shimmering emerald and sapphire tones of her voice. Sadly, it is impossible to know how Farinelli might have sounded in this part, but it is possible to imagine that he might have preferred to listen to Ms. Hallenberg sing Farnaspe rather than singing the rôle himself.

It was to Senesino that Veracini entrusted the title rôle of the opportunistic Roman emperor Adriano in 1735, and the part receives from contralto Sonia Prina an interpretation in this performance that honors the great castrato’s legacy. In a pair of arias in Act One, ‘Dal labbro che t'accende’ and ‘E' vero che oppresso,’ the singer throws herself into the part with febrile energy and dexterity, conveying the emperor’s masculinity without resorting to unmusical growling. The darkness of the voice’s timbre gives Adriano an immediately-identifiable persona, and Ms. Prina’s technical acumen enables her to bring laudable authority to the sometimes awkward vocal lines customized by the composer for Senesino’s singular capabilities. ‘La ragion, gli affetti ascolta,’ the first of Adriano’s arias in Act Two, is sung with intriguing simplicity, and the bracing sentiments of ‘Tutti nemici e rei’ are expressed in an explosion of bravado. The emotions of the aria ‘Va', superbo, e del tuo fato’ in Act Three are also resolutely communicated through song, but the apogee of Ms. Prina’s realization of Adriano is the duetto with Sabina, ‘Prendi, o cara, in questo amplesso,’ in which she and Ms. Basso—ladies possessing voices so alike yet so different—unite in absolute stylistic and expressive synchronicity. Like her colleagues in this performance, Ms. Prina is not exclusively a Baroque-specialist singer, but her endeavors in Veracini’s music are exclusively adroit.

It is rare that a recording of an opera composed in any era in the genre’s history can boast of a cast with no weak links, but Fra Bernardo’s world-première recording of Francesco Maria Veracini’s Adriano in Siria can do just that. The cast of singers for whom the composer created the six rôles in his opera brought together on the stage of the Haymarket a sextet of the most celebrated singers of the Eighteenth Century: the Twenty-First-Century equivalent electrified the storied environs of Vienna’s Konzerthaus with a magnificent performance of Adriano in Siria. The singing preserved on this recording warrants many words of praise, but the two words that are ultimately the most precious are those that this performance inspires for Veracini and Adriano in Siria—welcome back.

PERFORMANCE REVIEW: Gaetano Donizetti – LA FILLE DU RÉGIMENT (A. Emerson, R. Barbera, S. Nicely, D. Hartmann; Greensboro Opera – 9 January 2015)

GAETANO DONIZETTI (1797 – 1848): La fille du régiment—Ashley Emerson (Marie), René Barbera (Tonio), Susan Nicely (la Marquise de Berkenfield), Donald Hartmann (Sulpice), Scott MacLeod (Hortensius), Derek Gracey (un Caporal), Jacob Kato (un Paysan), Linda Carlisle (la Duchesse de Krakenthorp); Jesse Herndon (le Duc de Krakenthorp); Chorus and Orchestra of Greensboro Opera; Joel Revzen, conductor [Directed by David Holley; Lighting by Jeff Neubauer; Greensboro Opera, Aycock Auditorium, University of North Carolina at Greensboro; Friday, 9 January 2015]

In the years since her first march upon the stage of Paris’s Opéra-Comique on 11 February 1840, Gaetano Donizetti’s eponymous daughter of the regiment has laid siege to many of the world’s opera houses when her sisters—even the regal ones like Anna Bolena and Maria Stuarda—were far shyer. First heard at the Metropolitan Opera in 1902, when—remarkably—it was partnered with Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana as a double bill [later performances paired Donizetti’s work with either Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci or Ethel Smyth’s Der Wald], La fille du régiment has managed to maintain an ageless attractiveness to audiences that has eluded many gems of bel canto. An element of that allure is surely the thrill of hearing tenors attempt the infamous nonet of top Cs in ‘Pour mon âme,’ but this alone is not sufficient to explain the opera’s endurance. There is something very poignant in the story of Marie, Donizetti’s rugged-as-cannonballs but tender-as-edelweiss vivandière, that resonates with audiences; something, in fact, that may be different for every listener and in every performance. In the hands of Marcella Sembrich and Frieda Hempel, the MET’s early Maries, the opera was a vehicle for joviality expressed in vocal pyrotechnics. For Lily Pons, a daughter her regimental ‘fathers’ might have carried in their pockets, Marie offered an ideal forum for celebrating her innate vivacity and paying homage to her native France. Beverly Sills’s Marie was a good-humored, gun-toting cousin of Minnie in Puccini’s La fanciulla del West, and Dame Joan Sutherland portrayed an innocent but endearingly mischievous tomboy. Amidst the flurries of top notes (both written and interpolated) and the comic high jinks, it is all too possible to overlook the quality of Donizetti’s score. Set pieces are fewer in La fille du régiment than in the composer’s Italian operas, but the level of melodic distinction is very high. One of the most notable successes of Greensboro Opera’s past was a beautifully-sung production of Lucia di Lammermoor with an eight-months-pregnant Jennifer Welch-Babidge as a stylish and wonderfully moving heroine. The company’s excellence in Donizetti repertory was renewed in this performance of La fille du régiment. It was an evening of laughter and exalted spirits, but there was no doubting that the impediments to the love of this Marie and Tonio were deadly serious. Above all, it was a grand evening for the art of bel canto and a very welcome return to staged performances for Greensboro Opera.

Directed by the company’s Artistic Director David Holley, Greensboro Opera’s production of La fille du régiment was, on the whole, a triumph. Presenting an opéra comique with spoken dialogue in the audience’s vernacular and the musical numbers in the librettists’ original language is a tricky affair, but Greensboro Opera managed alternating the dialogue in La fille du régiment in English with singing in French with aplomb. The lovely Alpine backdrops ably evoked Tonio’s native Tyrol, and the Château de Berkenfield was cleverly represented in Act Two by the gilded traces of a grand house, the backdrops from Act One serving as the vistas visible from the château’s windows. The costumes, especially those for the Marquise and Duchesse, were colorful and delightfully fanciful, and the lighting was simple—and all the better for it. Focus was always on whichever character was singing at any given moment, as it should be. The blocking, too, was effective, though the singers’ movements sometimes placed them so that the auditorium’s strange acoustics made projection difficult. The sense of fun that permeated the production was infectious, and it was fantastic to hear from the audience both waves of laughter and, in moments of dramatic seriousness, attentive silence.

Musically, the performance got off to a shaky start, with a handful of misfires from the wind instruments making the playing of the Ouverture somewhat sloppy. Thereafter, the orchestra’s performance improved markedly, and conductor Joel Revzen mostly maintained dramatic momentum, displaying obvious knowledge and appreciation of the score. The cor anglais obbligato in Marie’s aria ‘Il faut partir,’ played by Hannah Senft, was handsomely and movingly phrased without the line being distorted for saccharine effects. Led by Chorus Master Welborn E. Young, the chorus sang sonorously, launching Act One with a strong account of ‘L'ennemi s'avance.’ The ladies made a good showing in their Prière, ‘Sainte Madone! Douce patronne!’ Impersonating Marie’s regimental fathers, the gentlemen of the chorus enjoyed themselves immensely, thundering out their ‘Allons, allons, march', march', marche à l'instant!’ and ‘Rataplan, rataplan, rataplan’ with glee. Though their regiment was small in numbers, it was large in heart, and their sadness at the loss of Marie in the Act One finale was convincing without seeming silly or overwrought. When they stormed the Château de Berkenfield in Act Two in order to ‘rescue’ Marie from an arranged marriage, the robustness of their singing was imposing. Emerging from the ranks of the chorus, baritones Jacob Kato and Derek Gracey were effective as the Paysan and Caporal, and Jesse Herndon was a suitably unnerved Duc de Krakenthorp, as shocked by the details of his parentage as his mother was by its public revelation.

​​Linda Carlisle brought to her portrayal of the Duchesse de Krakenthorp in the opera’s finale a hearty dose of the deadpan hauteur of the Dowager Countess of Grantham on Downton Abbey. Her entrance was as self-consciously pompous as that of the most glamorous Musetta in Act Two of Puccini’s La bohème, and there was clearly a suggestion of sadistic pleasure in her ultimate repudiation of the House of Berkenfield. This was Ms. Carlisle’s first appearance in opera, and though her voice lacked the richness that her part demands her final exclamation of ‘Scandalous!’ was unanswerably authoritarian. Her Duchesse was less of a harridan than the character often becomes in performance, but hers was the comically magisterial attitude of a grande dame who expected to be both revered and obeyed.

Baritone Scott MacLeod was a joy as Hortensius, the Marquise’s long-suffering servant: indeed, he could have been more charming only if Donizetti had given him more to do. In his Act One entrance with the Marquise, he was atremble with barely-concealed trepidation and a healthy hint of scorn for his employer’s condescension, and his voicing of ‘Allons, madame la marquise, remettez-vous et faites un effort!’ was appealing. Dr. MacLeod’s announcement of the interestingly-named guests at what was intended to be Marie’s wedding was hilarious, and he was a consistently engaging presence in ensembles. His skills as a raconteur were confirmed by his recounting of his unfortunate mistake after being charged with the upbringing of the roving Captain Robert’s children. Only an accomplished singing actor could have so amusingly summarized the sub-plot of La fille du régiment with a single, well-timed ‘Oops!’

Mezzo-soprano Susan Nicely was a dramatic force of nature as the Marquise de Berkenfield. She swept into Act One like an avalanche hurtling down one of the distant mountains. Vocally, her work was less consistent. She sang ‘Par l'ennemi se voir ainsi surprise!’ winningly, but the voice sounded far stronger in its lower reaches than at the top of the range in her couplets, ‘Pour une femme de mon nom.’ She whizzed through the difficult triplets with the chorus, however. In Act Two, she was a riot, her euphoria at the notion of a socially-advantageous match for Marie complemented by her unmistakably amorous designs on Sulpice. [The pianist in me was enchanted by her reaction to the plonking wrong notes in her pantomimed accompaniment to Marie’s singing lesson: naturally, these were misprints in her score rather than mistakes!] Ms. Nicely’s best singing of the evening was in the trio with Marie and Sulpice, ‘C'est bon, c'est bon recommençons.’ Throughout the performance, even when her vocalism was imperfect, she legitimately earned her laughs, and she proved a spirited mother for a boisterous daughter.

As Sulpice, UNCG faculty member Donald Hartmann enhanced the very positive impression he made with his singing of the Gamekeeper in North Carolina Opera’s 2014 performance of Dvořák’s Rusalka. Possessing a ruggedly attractive timbre, the bass-baritone evaded the lure of mindless tomfoolery without shortchanging the comedy of his rôle. In Sulpice’s Act One duet with Marie, ‘La voilà! la voilà! mordieu qu'elle est gentille,’ he interacted with the adopted daughter of his regiment with the awkwardness of a father with a daughter on the brink of womanhood, and his hostility towards Tonio was brusque but born of sincere concern. In his scene with Marie and the Marquise at the start of Act Two, he was the very embodiment of ennui, and his singing of ‘Rataplan, rataplan, rataplan’ in their trio was vividly droll. In the subsequent trio with Marie and Tonio, ‘Tous les trois réunis, quel plaisir, mes amis,’ Dr. Hartmann made easy going of his long-held D at the top of the staff, and his outburst of ‘C'est bien morbleu! j'crois qu'si j'osais’ in the final ensemble was terrific. In terms of militaristic prowess, Dr. Hartmann’s was a Sulpice who may not have been on the fast track for promotion, but he took command of every scene in which he appeared with firm singing and well-judged acting.

Though still in the early years of an international career that promises to take him to all of the world’s foremost opera houses, tenor René Barbera has already established himself as a paragon of bel canto singing. His acclaimed performances in Rossini’s La Cenerentola with Palm Beach Opera and La donna del lago with Santa Fe Opera revealed an emerging artist with a lyric voice of tremendous quality and burgeoning technical flair. Hearing his performance of Donizetti’s music in Greensboro, it seemed only natural that he celebrated his victory in the 2008 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions by singing Tonio’s Act One aria and Nemorino’s ‘Una furtiva lagrima’ from L'elisir d'amore in the finalists’ concert. At Tonio’s entrance in Act One, Mr. Barbera made it clear that being a country boy is not the same as being an unsophisticated yokel. His singing of ‘Je le veux bien!’ sparkled with boyish wonder, and his phrasing of ‘Le beau pays de mon enfance’ in the duet with Marie was poetic, the unison top A♭s produced with ease. It is Tonio’s cavatine ‘Ah! mes amis, quel jour de fête’ that audiences eagerly anticipate in any performance of La fille du régiment, and Mr. Barbera’s singing of it justified the expectations. He rose to the aria’s top B♭ with panache. There was apparent affection in his shaping of ‘Messieurs son père, écoutez-moi, but the real fireworks were reserved for the famed ‘Pour mon âme quel destin,’ in which he sailed through the infamous nine top Cs as comfortably as though he were singing his solfège exercises. This paved the way for a predictably rousing performance of ‘Oh! mes amis je vous en prie,’ but the ringing top D in unison with Marie with which he brought down the curtain on Act One was a fine surprise. The Act Two trio with Marie and Sulpice, ‘Tous les trois réunis, quel plaisir, mes amis,’ drew from Mr. Barbera singing of musical and dramatic acumen, but the pinnacle of his performance was his singing of the gorgeous romance ‘Pour me rapprocher de Marie,’ crowned by a superb interpolated top C♯. How is it possible that this piece has so often been omitted from performances of La fille du régiment? In the final ensemble, Mr. Barbera sang ‘Ils viennent la sauver... car on la sacrifice’ with gushing jubilation. Though he rarely sang at dynamic levels quieter than mezzo forte, Mr. Barbera’s tone was unfailingly focused and beautiful, and his was a portrayal of Tonio that would have been a credit to any of the world’s greatest stages.

Part Elly May Clampett, part young Dolly Parton, Ashley Emerson depicted a spitfire Marie who bounded about the stage with unflagging energy. Though she looked as if the recoil from the rifle she brandished would have knocked her over, she gesticulated in the martial manner with gusto. In Marie’s Act One duet with Sulpice, ‘Mon régiment... j'en suis fière vraiment,’ Ms. Emerson sang with zest, but the top B and C in ‘Au bruit de la guerre j'ai reçu le jour​’ proved problematic. She gamely attempted the trills, but the results of her efforts were variable. In the larghetto ‘Un soir, au fond d'un précipice’ and couplets ‘Chacun le sait, chacun le dit,’ she sang securely, but the top C in the marziale, ‘Il a gagné tant de combats,’ was brittle. She gained strength in the duet with Tonio, the top B♭ and unison top A♭ in ‘De cet aveu si tendre’ steady and more potently-projected. The romance ‘Il faut partir mes bons compagnons d'armes’ inspired Ms. Emerson to her finest singing of the night. She sustained the prolonged top A well, and her breath control was admirable. In the Act Two trio with the Marquise and Sulpice, she proved her comedic savoir faire with hysterical antics in her singing lesson. She handled the repeated trills on F♯ and frenzied coloratura in ‘Le jour naissait dans le bocage’ deftly, and the air ‘Par le rang et par l'opulence’ was beautifully sung. The elation of her ‘Salut à la France!’ was rather muted, but her happiness and relief in the trio with Tonio and Sulpice, ‘Tou les trois réunis, quel plaisir, mes amis,’ were palpable. ‘Mais, ô ciel! quel bruit et quel éclat!’ and ‘Quand le destin, au milieu de la guerre’ in the final ensemble challenged her technique, but she coped admirably, and the reprise of ‘Salut à la France!’ was appropriately exuberant. At this point in her career, which has already taken her to the Metropolitan Opera for a number of performances, Marie does not seem to be Ms. Emerson’s natural vocal territory, but she possesses a lyric voice of considerable quality. Still, she faced the challenges of Donizetti’s music courageously, and she created an adorable character who had the audience in the palms of her hands from start to finish.

The assertion, attributed to Enrico Caruso, that a successful performance of Verdi’s Il trovatore requires the participation of the four greatest singers in the world might also be applied to several of Donizetti’s scores. If the musical demands of La fille du régiment as a whole are more modest, the rôles of Marie and Tonio are two of the most daunting in the bel canto repertory. A poor Marie or Tonio can ruin a performance of La fille du régiment, but it is truly an ensemble piece. Greensboro Opera’s production assembled an ensemble of artists who seemed to genuinely enjoy working with one another. More importantly, they seemed to honestly enjoy bringing Donizetti’s score to life. Musical perfection is swell, but the occasionally flawed joie de vivre that coursed through Greensboro Opera’s performance was so much better; but, years from now, will our children and grandchildren believe us when we tell them that we heard René Barbera’s Tonio in Greensboro in 2015?

CD REVIEW: Alun Hoddinott – LANDSCAPES: SONG CYCLES & FOLK SONGS (C. Booth, N. Spence, J. Huw Williams; A. Matthews-Owen, M. Pollock; NAXOS 8.571360)

ALUN HODDINOTT (1929 – 2008): Landscapes: Song Cycles and Folk Songs—Claire Booth, soprano; Nicky Spence, tenor; Jeremy Huw Williams, baritone; Andrew Matthews-Owen and Michael Pollock, piano [Recorded at the Menuhin Hall, Yehudi Menuhin School, Cobham, Surrey, England, on 14 October 2009 (One Must Always Have Love and Towy Landscape), 29 October 2009 (Landscapes, The Silver Hound, and Six Welsh Folksongs), and 18 February 2010 (Two Songs from Glamorgan); NAXOS 8.571360; 1 CD, 60:09; Available from ClassicsOnline, Amazon, jpc, Presto Classical, and major music retailers]

When Alun Hoddinott died in 2008, the loss not only deprived Wales of her most gifted native-born composer but likewise diminished the global music community in ways that perhaps even now are only vaguely appreciated and understood. Like the great composers of the past, Hoddinott was a master of forms great and small, a melodist of sublime talent, and a brilliant but humble inheritor of the legacy of composition in the British Isles that extends from William Byrd and his contemporaries into the Twenty-First Century. Like Elgar and Vaughan Williams, he was the musical Everyman of his native land, communing with the collective musical psyche of Wales with unique insights, and like Percy Grainger he was the champion of folksong traditions scorned by many ‘serious’ composers. As a composer of songs, Hoddinott did not shrink from melody, a sin for which many advocates of contemporary Classical Music permit no absolution. Recorded in 2009 and 2010 by the British Music Society and now reissued by NAXOS, Landscapes is a disc that explores some of Hoddinott’s most fastidiously-crafted songs for voice and piano. Songs such as these are like musical prisms: when lyric voices wielded by intelligent singers shine upon them, the patterns of their interpretive reflections are virtually limitless. The colors and shapes that flash through the performances on Landscapes are invigorating. If the magnificent landscapes of Wales sang, these would surely be their songs.

Nearly two hundred years ago, many of the finest works of Johann Sebastian Bach had been forgotten until Felix Mendelssohn rediscovered and revitalized them. Though Hoddinott’s legacy is far fresher in audiences’ minds now than Bach’s was in the first half of the Nineteenth Century, there is no question that Welsh pianist Andrew Matthews-Owen is Hoddinott’s Mendelssohn. An indefatigable advocate for Hoddinott’s music, Mr. Matthews-Owen here offers the composer, who was aware of the initiative that produced Landscapes but sadly did not see it come to fruition, an extraordinary tribute with warm-toned, imaginative, and heartfelt playing. An insightful musician who displays great sensitivity to both the nuances of each song and the individual interpretations of the singers he accompanies, Mr. Matthews-Owen proves at least as thoughtful a champion of Hoddinott’s music as Mendelssohn was of Bach’s. His understanding of the inner structures of the music is obvious, but it is his unmistakable affection for these songs that makes hearing Landscapes such a gratifying experience, just as it clearly made his collaborations with the dedicated singers featured on the disc so rewarding.

Composed in 1975 to texts by Emyr Humphreys​, Landscapes (Ynys Môn, Op. 87) is a deeply personal cycle examining themes of love reflected in nature, the recurring imagery of rough-hewn paths, mirrors, and flowers solidifying the continuity of the songs. In Landscapes and all of his performances on this disc, tenor Nicky Spence has the sound of Gower​ sunrises in his voice, the timbre as fresh as the dew-kissed blossoms of spring. There is an almost unsettling quality in the immediacy of his response to text: when he sings piano and pianissimo in the higher reaches of the music, his resonant shaping of Hoddinott’s melodic phrases is like thought upon which the listener is somehow intruding. In the opening ‘Mynydd Bodafon,’ the elasticity of Mr. Spence’s timbre as he sings the lines ‘This is a complex mountain’ and ‘We must show it respect / Take off our shoes / And use the path like a carpet’ is splendidly expressive, and he devotes equal resources of focused, flexible tone to the lovely ‘Someone has planted daffodils among you / And in springtime / They are flowers on all your graves’ in ‘Din Lligwy,’ in which he and Mr. Matthews-Owen trade phrases with the subtlety of violinists playing Bach’s D-minor Double Concerto. The emotional significance of the lines ‘The minstrel gallery / She had built with love is broken’ in ‘Llys Dulas’ is palpable, and tenor and pianist shape a starkly emotional performance of ‘Traeth Bychan.’ There is a subdued melancholy in the lines ‘We have counted the stones / And measured them / But nothing can teach them to sing’ in ‘Hen Gapel,’ and Mr. Spence descends into the meaningful depths of both music and text without artificially darkening or distorting his tone. He also sings the Two Songs from Glamorgan, composed in 1990, with languid sensuality that perfectly suits the sentiments of the texts, the English translations of which are by Geraint Lewis. The contrasting but strangely similar sentiments of ‘In Pontypridd dwells my true love’ and ‘Oh Llangyfelach fare thee well’ are given sagacious treatment by both Mr. Spence and Mr. Matthews-Owen.

The expansiveness of their musical cooperation finds a perfect outlet in Hoddinott’s 1985 settings of texts by Ursula Vaughan Williams, The Silver Hound (Op. 121). The sparseness of the sound world conjured in ‘Prologue’ ideally conveys the mood of the crucial line ‘Memory is my silver hound stalking days that time has hidden,’ and here and in ‘Lullaby’ and ‘The Schoolboy’ Mr. Spence infuses an element of mystery into his tone. In ‘The Soldier,’ he and Mr. Matthews-Owen unleash the operatic power of ‘My shadow, / My brother, / My youth, / My loss, / All history’ without exaggerating either the vocal line or the accompaniment. Mr. Spence delves directly into the heart of ‘Do you understand this, / Beauty, / As I speak to you in the words of other lovers?’ in ‘The Lover,’ and the aura of learned sincerity that he and Mr. Matthews-Owen impart as the text examines the benefits of experience in ‘The Statesman’ is potently understated. The bleakness of the line ‘I am my own ghost now’ in ‘The Old Man’ sets the tone for this song and ‘Epitaph,’ both of which are delivered by Mr. Spence with intellectual probity that never inhibits his mellifluous vocalism.

The 1994 cycle One Must Always Have Love (Op. 152, No. 3) is one of the most solemnly beautiful marriages of words and music conceived in the Twentieth Century, and soprano Claire Booth and Mr. Matthews-Owen devote to it an outpouring of restrained romantic cogency. The opening song, ‘Sonnet,’ is a setting of a text by Christina Rossetti, and Ms. Booth exhibits a dreamy ambivalence in the line ‘I wish I could remember that first day.’ She and Mr. Matthews-Owen build to a stirring climax in ‘Daisy,’ giving Emily Dickinson’s words a light but impactful reading, cresting on the rousing ‘We are the flower, Thou the sun!’ Alice Bliss’s ‘Tasmanian Poem’ possesses an enigmatic literary profile that Hoddinott deciphered in music of exotic colorations. The soprano weights every syllable of the line ‘And I cling to the thought of you’ with heartbreaking simplicity. The shading of her tone in ‘The Ragged Wood’ lends W. B. Yeats’s text a chilling directness that grows more pointed with each stanza. Both she and Mr. Matthews-Owen recognize the importance of Yeats’s conceit of mining the increasing isolation of the lines ‘Would none had ever loved but you and I,’ ‘O that none ever loved but you and I,’ and ‘No one has ever loved but you and ​I​.’ Unlike many song cycles composed in the past forty years, One Must Always Have Love is a true cycle in its depiction of an emotional journey, and Ms. Booth and Mr. Matthews-Owen provide the listener with a panoramic account of this superb music.

Towy Landscape (Op. 190), composed in 2006, transforms a text by Eighteenth-Century poet John Dyer into a fascinating scena for soprano, baritone, and two pianos. Mr. Matthews-Owen is joined by Michael Pollock, whose playing of the piano secondo part matches the level of his colleague’s performance. Ms. Booth sings astoundingly, maintaining absolute control and the rounded beauty of her tone throughout the wide range of the music. Baritone Jeremy Huw Williams makes valiant efforts at being an equal partner for Ms. Booth, but though he sings capably on the whole there is a plainness to his performance that is all the more apparent alongside Ms. Booth. In unison passages, he occasionally loses focus in terms of phrasing and breath control. Ms. Booth’s musicality carries the day, however, and the electricity of the music is sonorously discharged.

Hoddinott’s 1982 settings of Six Welsh Folksongs in translations by his wife Rhiannon receive from Mr. Spence performances of wide-eyed wonder, his boyish tones giving the songs an alluring air of spontaneity. Both ‘Two Hearts Remain’ and ‘O Gentle Dove’ sparkle with uncomplicated feelings in which Mr. Spence revels. His singing of ‘If She Were Mine’ is movingly wistful, and ‘Ap Shenkin’ and ‘The Golden Wheat’ draw from both singer and pianist performances of compelling tenderness. Mr. Spence brings the picturesque spirit of a troubadour to his singing of ‘Fairest Gwen.’ He and Mr. Matthews-Owen reveal the astuteness of Hoddinott’s folksong settings, their performances confirming that these gems of Welsh lore deserve inclusion in the canon of the composer’s Art Songs.

A man of integrity and generosity, Alun Hoddinott was unstinting in his support of fellow composers and artists. That his own work deserves equal promotion is affirmed by the quality of the songs on Landscapes. From Mozart to Wolf, any composer of Lieder might dream of hearing his or her songs performed with the endearment that Hoddinott’s receive on this disc. The sole disappointment of Landscapes is that the composer who inspired such fondness, both personal and musical, was taken before he could hear a disc that is as much a paean to his importance to the music and musicians of Wales as a recording of twenty-six of the most graceful songs of the past forty years.

BEST ARTISTS OF 2014: Sarah Connolly, Ann Hallenberg, Heidi Melton, Michael Fabiano, Steven LaBrie, and David Pershall

Whether one’s involvement in the Performing Arts is as an active participant, an observer, or, as in my case, a complex combination of both rôles, it is impossible to overlook the fact that great voices are not always possessed by great people. For so many singers, particularly those in the early years of major careers, the world’s stages collectively constitute a sadly hostile work environment. The camaraderies that existed among singers of previous generations, even those who competed for assignments in the same repertories, are now sparser, and the increasing emphasis on how singers look rather than how they sound has intensified the stress of making a career in opera. Unfortunately, tragically even, this lessens the appeal of opera both for those who perform it and for those who listen. I have been disheartened on a number of occasions by discovering that some of the voices I most admire belong to people with loathsome personalities. Nonetheless, I passionately reject the notion that there are no great voices among us today, and I rejoice in the fact that there are still among the rarefied ranks of those who make their artistic homes in the world’s opera houses genuinely kind people who take their craft very seriously and themselves somewhat less so. The six ladies and gentlemen selected as the Voix des Arts Best Artists of 2014 are singers who not only care deeply about their artistry but also infuse their work with palpable affection for music itself and commitment to the audiences who assemble to hear them. Individually, these six people are all artists of uncompromising preparedness and integrity: collectively, they are, in short, the finest essence of the present and future of opera.

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BEST ARTIST OF 2014: Mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly [Photo by Peter Warren]

In February 2010, I had the pleasure of attending a performance of the beautiful Elijah Moshinsky production of Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos at the Metropolitan Opera [reviewed here]. It was an auspicious occasion: in addition to being a Saturday matinée broadcast performance in which all participants were expected to give of their best, it was a then-rare appearance in the United States by soprano Nina Stemme. It was indeed a superb performance in which Ms. Stemme sang excellently, but the portrayal that remains engraved in my memory in finely-etched detail is the Komponist of British mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly. This Komponist’s dedication to his craft was all-consuming, and his blossoming, touchingly desperate passion for Zerbinetta was more vividly but movingly, serenely conveyed than in any performance known to me, even those featuring the greatest Komponists of the past—Seefried, Jurinac, Stratas, Troyanos, and Żylis-Gara. Four years later, Händel’s Theodora—one of the composer’s most inspired scores—brought Ms. Connolly to Chapel Hill, where she sang the title heroine’s friend and confidante Irene with an unerring command of Händel’s style [reviewed here]. Many of today’s singers are undone by the requisite versatility of their repertories; not Ms. Connolly, who can limn the delicate vocal lines of an arioso by Monteverdi as impeccably as she can soar above the orchestra in Brangäne’s Watch or ​plumb the depths of a Mahler Lied or Symphony.​ Her singing of the Angel in the Chandos recording of Sir Edward Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius, as well as the accompanying performance of Sea Pictures [reviewed here], confirms that her exquisite vocalism is but one component of her compelling artistry. The most powerful weapon in her arsenal is the humanity that her performances exude, transforming her into a vessel for communication of the sentiments with which composers of all eras imbued their scores directly to the hearts and minds of Twenty-First-Century listeners. Whether one hears her as Nerone, Sesto, Fricka, or Octavian, one never hears Sarah Connolly’s ‘takes’ on these characters: one hears them as Monteverdi, Mozart, Wagner, and Strauss and their librettists imagined them.

www.sarah-connolly.com

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BEST ARTIST OF 2014: Mezzo-soprano Ann Hallenberg [Photo by Nancy Glor]

Swedish mezzo-soprano Ann Hallenberg is a singers’ singer in the best sense. Were she not the guardian of one of the greatest voices in the world, she would still be one of the most special artists on the international scene. I have never encountered a fellow musician who has accompanied or shared the stage with her who does not adore Ms. Hallenberg as both a lady and an artist. In the eyes of her colleagues, she has perfected the art of living graciously on and off the stage. Beyond her personal warmth and kindness, however, there is that voice—that gorgeous timbre allied to technical prowess that defies belief in the explosive pyrotechnics of music ranging from the castrato repertory of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries to the force-of-nature coloratura of Rossini. As Ottavia in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea, she takes her leave of Rome with the crushing despondency of a woman for whom the Eternal City represents security, happiness, and life itself. In the title rôle of Vivaldi’s Juditha triumphans, she is a seductress to whom any hero might lose his head. As Teseo in Händel’s Arianna in Creta, she is a diverting hero who woos with bravura machismo. As Isabella in Rossini’s L’italiana in Algeri, she never relinquishes her grasp on her own fate. In sacred repertory, she is the rare singer who imparts the nuances of text without artifice. Rather than fabricating idiosyncratic concepts of the rôles that she sings and then adapting the music to conform with her creations, Ms. Hallenberg picks up a score, absorbs every note into her psyche, translates every word into emotions, and pours from her throat and her soul streams of tone that seem newly-minted even if the music was composed three hundred years ago. Nothing that she does is dryly academic, but her trills and gruppetti are the stuff of textbooks. It was as Händel’s Agrippina that I first heard Ms. Hallenberg, and so natural was her execution of even the composer’s most demanding passages that she might have been composing them herself as the performance progressed. Nevertheless, it was one of the most pin-point accurate performances of Händel that I have heard. Ms. Hallenberg is the kind of artist—the rarest kind, that is—whose performances are unforgettable in ways that can hardly be imagined. With most singers, one remembers either the details or the overall impression, what was there or what was not there. When hearing Ms. Hallenberg, every aspect of her performance captures the imagination. Years after an evening in her company, one might hear a fragment of a melody, a series of roulades, or a line of text and think, ‘Ah, yes, I remember how Ann Hallenberg sang that.’

http://www.artefact.no/Artists/HallenbergAnn/tabid/856/Default.aspx

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BEST ARTIST OF 2014: Soprano Heidi Melton [Photo by Simon Pauly, courtesy of CAMI]

So unexpected is the emergence of a legitimate Wagnerian today that, when it occurs, the marvel invites skepticism. How often are one’s first experiences with young singers disappointing because the voices one hears do not live up to the hype that precedes them? Having heard her first as the Foreign Princess in Dvořák’s Rusalka [reviewed here] and then as Isolde in Act Two of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde [reviewed here], both with North Carolina Opera in Raleigh, I no longer doubt the veracity of this phenomenon: soprano Heidi Melton is better than the best things that have been said about her. North Carolina Opera’s Rusalka was presented in semi-staged form, the Tristan und Isolde in concert, but Ms. Melton commanded the stage with the assurance of a veteran Broadway thespian. The haughtiness of her Foreign Princess leapt off the stage like a starved lion released from its cage, and it tormented her poor Rusalka mercilessly. Still, it was the ferocity of a threatened, vulnerable woman, and her sadness as she accepted that her Prince was lost to her was uncommonly sympathetic. Her Isolde, too, was a girl drowning in a sea of circumstances beyond her control. Upon the crests of the drama, her comet-like voice shone with penetrating brightness. The pair of top Cs in Isolde’s great love duet with Tristan streaked through the theatre with the gleam of shooting stars, and she achieved the force required by the music—Dvořák’s and Wagner’s—without pushing her natural instrument. When her Sieglinde in Die Walküre is heard soon in Toronto, Canadian ears will be greeted by the beguiling, entrancing sounds of a true dramatic voice. When she hurls out ‘O hehrstes Wunder!’ into the Four Seasons Centre, she will be singing of Brünnhilde [aptly, as her Brünnhilde will be 2013’s Voix des Arts Best Artist, Christine Goerke], but the audience must be forgiven for hearing those words and assuming that Wagner presciently wrote them in description of Heidi Melton’s voice.

www.heidimeltonsoprano.com

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BEST ARTIST OF 2014: Tenor Michael Fabiano [Photo by Arielle Doneson]

​The recipient of both the 2014 Richard Tucker Award and the 2014 Beverly Sills Artist Award, tenor ​Michael Fabiano—the first artist to earn both awards in a single year—needs no introduction. His 2010 début at the Metropolitan Opera as Raffaele in Verdi's Stiffelio heralded the arrival of a young artist who seemed to possess every quality needed to be one of the finest singers of his generation, not the least of which is a strong, Italianate voice​​ touched by ​rays of sweetness and sunshine. His Cassio in Otello in 2012 was the personification of youthful romanticism, and his lovesick, genuinely funny Alfred was rightly the ‘hit’ of the production of Johann Strauß II's Die Fledermaus that opened on New Year's Eve 2013. Just three weeks ago, on 10 December 2014, Mr. Fabiano sang his first MET performance of Rodolfo in Puccini’s La bohème, and by the conclusion of ‘Che gelida manina’ it was apparent that a star had become a supernova. In astronomy, a supernova is expected to burn itself out relatively quickly: in the case of Mr. Fabiano, the brilliant conflagration seems destined to continue for years to come. When I heard him as the title swashbuckler in Washington Concert Opera’s performance of Verdi’s Il corsaro in March 2014 [reviewed here], his fire was burning resplendently. It consumed Glyndebourne’s production of La traviata, in which it was his Alfredo rather than Violetta who set the East Sussex air ablaze. His return to Glyndebourne in 2015 to sing the title rôle in Donizetti’s Poliuto is already the talk of Britain, and his poetic but ruggedly masculine account of Gounod’s Faust in Amsterdam ignited expectations for his forthcoming appearances in Faust in Sydney and Paris. Elegant in bel canto and heart-stopping in Verdi and Puccini, riotous in comedy and devastating in tragedy, he is an operatic Renaissance man. It is impossible to devise praise for Mr. Fabiano that has not already been granted him—far more eloquently—elsewhere, but he is an artist and a gentleman who inspires the invention of new ways to extol his gifts.

www.michaelfabianotenor.com

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BEST ARTIST OF 2014: Baritone Steven LaBrie [Photo by Devon Cass]

​It is not often that the Schaunard in a performance of Puccini’s La bohème commandeers an observer’s imagination in a way that heightens rather distracting from the bittersweet interactions between Mimì and Rodolfo, but it is not often that an artist sings Schaunard as well as baritone Steven LaBrie sang the part at Washington National Opera in November 2014 [reviewed here]. This was not only singing, though: Mr. LaBrie was Schaunard—happy-go-lucky but deadly serious, boisterous yet barely able to contain his sorrow. I have seen a number of performances of La bohème and in them some very fine singers in the rôle of Schaunard, but no singer drew me into Schaunard’s unique world as viscerally—or as movingly—as Mr. LaBrie managed to do. In 2013, his portrayal of Don Alvaro in Rossini’s Il viaggio a Reims at Wolf Trap revealed a flair for comedy that served him well in WNO’s La bohème, but even in the most frolicsome stage business there is a tender heart that pulses unmistakably in his work. His singing of Schubert’s Die Schöne Müllerin in Jessica Lang Dance’s The Wanderer at Brooklyn Academy of Music conveyed more facets of Schubert’s music and Wilhelm Müller’s poetry than many singers disclose in a lifetime’s experience with the cycle. In March 2015, Mr. LaBrie returns to his native Dallas for La bohème with The Dallas Opera. The designation of ‘an artist to watch’ has become clichéd, but it is difficult to imagine looking away from a singer as mesmerizing as Steven LaBrie. By all means, watch him: a Schaunard who can expose the ethos of La bohème with the simplest of gestures and uncomplicated tonal beauty has the operatic world at his feet.

www.stevenlabrie.com

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BEST ARTIST OF 2014: Baritone David Pershall [Photo by Arthur Cohen]

Those who lament the current state of Verdi baritone singing are certain to not yet have heard American baritone David Pershall. I made the acquaintance of his splendid voice with his surprisingly vibrant Manfredo in Montemezzi’s L’amore dei tre re [reviewed here], a Polskie Radio recording of a 2013 concert performance in Warsaw. From his first note, it was evident that this young man was not just a bar-raising Manfredo but, even more excitingly, one with the potential to rain down with biblical grandeur upon the drought in idiomatic Italian baritone singing. His Conte di Luna in Sarasota Opera’s Il trovatore was an early port of call in a journey through Verdi’s baritone rôles that is poised to restore to the Italian repertory the stylishness that has been been in danger of extinction since the glory days of Robert Merrill, Sherrill Milnes, and Giorgio Zancanaro. Like several of his most eminent predecessors in Verdi repertory, Mr. Pershall has built his technique upon a solid mastery of bel canto. In Opera Orchestra of New York’s June 2014 concert performance of Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux, he achieved with his singing of the Duke of Nottingham the extraordinary feat of holding his own opposite the legendary Mariella Devia on sparkling form. His Belcore in L’elisir d’amore at the Wiener Staatsoper exposed the informedly finicky Viennese to singing of a quality all too unfamiliar in the rôle: it was a start to a season that finds him singing Sharpless in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, Figaro in Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia, and Sebastian in Thomas Adès’s The Tempest, in addition to covering several of the greatest baritone rôles in the Verdi and Wagner repertories. The 2015 – 2016 Season will take him to the Metropolitan Opera for La bohème and Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda: where he will take audiences with his awe-inspiring singing in the years ahead is one of the most spectacular questions in opera. Ringing in a new year should be an occasion for remembering the best of the past and reveling in hope for the future. This is precisely the spirit that David Pershall’s singing evokes. Auld acquaintance should never be forgot, but the singing of artists like Sarah Connolly, Ann Hallenberg, Heidi Melton, Michael Fabiano, Steven LaBrie, and David Pershall brings such joy and anticipation of yet-to-be-discovered wonders to mind.

www.davidpershall.com

BEST CONCERTO RECORDING OF 2014: Benjamin Britten and Mieczysław Weinberg – VIOLIN CONCERTOS (Linus Roth, violin; Challenge Classics CC72627)

BENJAMIN BRITTEN (1913 – 1976): Concerto for violin and orchestra, Op. 15 and MIECZYSŁAW WEINBERG (1919 – 1996): Concerto for violin, Op. 67—Linus Roth, violin; Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin; Mihkel Kütson, conductor [Recorded at Jesus Christus Kirche Berlin – Dahlem, Germany, 26 – 29 August 2013; Challenge Classics CC72627; 1 CD, 62:50; Available from Challenge Classics, Amazon, jpc, Presto Classical, and major music retailers]

When writing about music, I am ever mindful of the words of Great War poet Robert Graves, published in his Fairies and Fusiliers: ‘Critic wears no smile of fun, / Speaks no word of blame nor praise, / Counts our kisses one by one, / Notes each gesture, every phrase.’ For me, Graves’s words are an ideal blueprint of how not to be a critic, for if I am not permitted to wear a ‘smile of fun’ whilst listening to the endeavors of an accomplished musician and then attempting to translate that sensation into words of praise it is not a worthwhile task. What makes certain artists and their work unique is their ability to transform a listener’s perceptions of a work of art, a fellow artist, or some facet of art itself. The performance by young violinist Linus Roth, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, and conductor Mihkel Kütson on Challenge Classics—magnificently committed to disc by the technical team of executive producers Anne de Jong and Marcel van den Broek, audio engineer Steven Maes, assistant engineer Sander Van Laere, and musical director Felicia Bockstael—was not my first acquaintance with Mieczysław Weinberg’s 1959 Opus 67 Violin Concerto, but it immediately changed not only my opinion of the Concerto but also greatly increased my esteem for the composer’s music in general. Most excitingly, noting ‘each gesture, every phrase’ of Mr. Roth’s playing, I deepened my acquaintance with one of the new century’s most inspiring violinists.

Born in Warsaw in 1919, Weinberg was the son of a family that maintained a prominent presence in the Yiddish theatres of Poland. Taking refuge in the Soviet Union as the destruction of World War II spread across​ Europe, the young composer lost much of his family to pogroms and death camps. Weinberg’s paths as a man and a composer were never to be easy, but his friendship with Dmitri Shostakovich was a defining influence in his life. Befriending the older composer gave him confidence both in his craft and in the value of his artistic vision, but stating that Shostakovich inspired and guided Weinberg is not to suggest ​that the latter’s originality was in any way lessened by exposure to his Russian colleague’s work. In fact, it was likely his interaction with Weinberg that prompted Shostakovich’s great interest in Jewish music in the latter half of his career. Without the intervention of Shostakovich, however, much of Weinberg’s music might have been lost or never composed at all. Whatever factors contributed to Weinberg’s artistic and personal resilience, hearing Mr. Roth’s playing of the Violin Concerto caused this listener to feel tremendously grateful for them.

Composed for Ukrainian violinist Leonid Kogan​, who shared the composer’s Jewish heritage, Weinberg’s Violin Concerto is a superbly-crafted piece that should be in the repertory of every violinist with sufficient technique to play it. Mr. Roth, who recently gave the first performance of the Concerto in his native Germany, might well have been the violinist for whom Weinberg conceived the work, so natural is his mastery of the music. His virtuosity is staggering, of course, but the true brilliance of his playing of Weinberg’s music is in his phrasing. Aided by the exceptionally responsive collaboration of Maestro Kütson and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Mr. Roth identifies and accentuates every melodic component of the opening Allegro molto movement, revealing the cleverness of Weinberg’s Classically-shaped but innovative thematic development. The boldness of the solo part receives from Mr. Roth warm-blooded treatment, both here and in the subsequent Allegretto and Allegro risoluto movements, in which the motivic links among the movements are tellingly explored. The violinist’s bowing is uncannily sensitive to the expressive as well as the technical demands of the music, and he exhibits sensibilities that bring to mind the luscious tones of Arthur Grumiaux and the poetic expression of Henryk Szeryng. The Adagio third movement is given a sense of wide-eyed wonder by Mr. Roth’s accurate, unexaggerated playing. This is the sort of music in which any manner of egotistical ‘interpretations’ might be cited as excuses for idiosyncratic playing, but Mr. Roth and Maestro Kütson derive the details of their performance solely from the score. Drawing from the ‘Dancla’ Stradivari—dated to 1703 and once owned by the French violinist and composer from whom it takes its epithet—in his hands sounds of both strength and tenderness, Mr. Roth lends the Weinberg Concerto an unmistakable air of novelty. That this performance caused me to feel as though I was hearing the Concerto for the first time is a testament both to the sagacity of violinist and conductor and to the quality of the music itself, revealed here as never before.

A far more familiar work, Benjamin Britten’s Opus 15​ Violin Concerto was composed in 1938 and 1939, after its creator’s arrival in the United States, and was premièred by Spanish violinist Antonio Brosa with Sir John Barbirolli and the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall in 1940. Though a relatively early work, the Concerto remains one of the most frequently-played solo concerti of the Twentieth Century and a work by which Britten’s legacy is defined for many concert-goers. It is a fine piece, one that deserves its popularity, but it is not consistently representative of Britten at his best. Structurally, the Concerto is very much of its time, the touch of Prokofiev felt throughout, and Britten’s restless grappling with tonality has not yet achieved the individuality that it would assume in his later, gamelan-influenced instrumental music. Still, it is a rewarding, often powerful work, and Mr. Roth and his colleagues extract from the tonal subtleties of the opening​ Moderato con moto movement a compelling essence of Britten’s musical ambiguity. This is the sort of music that entices many violinists into embarrassing sawing, but Mr. Roth maintains an invigorating finesse that reveals the fluidity of even the most angular melodic lines. This is especially true in the Vivace second movement, in which Mr. Roth’s playing of the celebrated cadenza is incredible. The variations over ground bass in the closing Passacaglia​ movement evoke the music of Britten’s beloved forebear Purcell, but the shifting tonalities firmly center the work in the Twentieth-Century avant garde. Maestro Kütson and the DSO Berlin musicians retain a significant degree of spontaneity in their realization of the evolving ground bass, and Mr. Roth complements their efforts with playing that combines lightness of touch with robustness of tone. The emotional uncertainty in Britten’s music is exposed without being over-emphasized. Above all, Mr. Roth audibly embraces the Britten Concerto as a work to be respected, studied, and absorbed rather than merely ticked off as an addition to his repertory.

Like today’s young singers, violinists can hardly fashion lasting careers in the Twenty-First Century by specializing in particular niches of their instrument’s repertory, but the requisite versatility that facilitates a successful international career often occasions stylistically unspecific, complacent playing. Linus Roth is too insightful and caring a violinist to accept anything from himself but the best musicianship of which he is capable. In this recording of the Violin Concerti of Benjamin Britten and Mieczysław Weinberg, he confirms that this music can be as effective in performance as the frequently-played concerti of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Mendelssohn. His example will hopefully lead to wider exposure for the Weinberg Concerto, but, in practical terms, the performance on this disc is unlikely to be challenged as the definitive interpretation of this marvelous score. How could anyone, critic or not, hear this disc without wearing a ‘smile of fun’?