ARTIST PROFILE: Prince of the Piano — Italian pianist LUDOVICO TRONCANETTI

Principe del pianoforte: Italian pianist Ludovico Troncanetti [Photo © by the artist; used with permission]

​The acclaimed American thespian Kelsey Grammer, not only television’s beloved Dr. Frasier Crane but also a lauded interpreter of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, is quoted as having said that ‘praying is when you talk to God. Meditation is when you’re listening. Playing piano allows you to do both at the same time.’ Whether or not one prays or meditates, it cannot be denied that both playing and hearing the piano can be exercises in purest spirituality. Indeed, to hear Arthur Schnabel play Beethoven or Ivan Moravec play Chopin can be akin to a spiritual experience, one with potential both to calm and to excite. Since the development of the instrument in the Eighteenth Century, the piano has occupied positions of particular prominence in all genres of Classical Music. At virtually any given time in the past quarter-millennium, there have been enough Classically-trained pianists in the world to fill Stadio Giuseppe Meazza, but there are hardly ever enough truly good ones to man a proper football match. The second decade of the Twenty-First Century is an age in which passion and proficiency are often subservient to promotion, and it is sobering to contemplate how many extraordinary artists, how many Schnabels and Moravecs, are unappreciated because some money-hungry agent or record label executive has not instructed music lovers to notice them. Solely being one of the world’s most accomplished pianists is no longer enough to sustain a successful career: one must perform, not merely play. In the esteem of those for whom music is still primarily defined by exchanges among composers and artists, there will always be room for pianists who play because they love playing, pianists for whom constant study and drive for improvement of technique and interpretation is at the service of music, not fame. Italian pianist Ludovico Troncanetti is an artist who personifies Kelsey Grammer’s insightful elucidation of the dual nature of the piano. He is a consummate performer whose endeavors at the keyboard exude theatricality, but he is first and foremost an introspective artist whose intensity is the offspring of an omnipresent commitment to refining not just his technique but also his ability to communicate with composers and audiences. His music-making listens as palpably as it speaks.

Unlike many musicians (or many musicians’ claims), Troncanetti was not an acknowledged prodigy from an early age. ‘I don’t think we can talk about childhood as I started playing the piano at thirteen—by chance!’ he recalls with a laugh. ‘I remember [that] I was listening [to] much more symphonic music rather than [music] for piano solo. I really loved Horowitz and Cziffra, and nowadays my taste [hasn’t] changed at all!’ Still, he developed rapidly as both a technician and an artist, his raw talent refined by fastidious study and self-imposed discipline. ‘As far as I’m [now] much more mature, I can say [that] I appreciate and understand more pianists than before,’ he shares. After pausing for a moment, he smilingly adds, ‘I don’t have a favorite one!’

This rejection of favoritism also extends to his choices of repertory. Troncanetti eschews specialization, wisely seeking to avoid being confined artistically by identification with any one niche of the piano’s extensive repertoire, but he possesses an unmistakable affinity for interpreting the music of Franz Liszt. One of the most ill-informed injustices in the Classical Music community is the continuing perception of Liszt’s piano music as a series of emotionally-barren virtuoso display pieces. ‘Unfortunately, this thought about Liszt is very common, sometimes as a compliment [and] sometimes as a defect,’ Troncanetti opines. ‘Amateurs should know [that] Liszt used his virtuosity in order to convey his own feelings, thoughts, moods, and sensitiveness through the music; not the contrary. In other words, according to Liszt, technique is the means and not the aim.’ In Troncanetti’s view, many modern listeners recognize Liszt more as a musical circus act than as a practicing artist and pedagogue—a musician primarily concerned with what Shakespeare called ‘outward shows.’ ‘As a teacher, Liszt offered his students little technical advice, expecting them to “wash their dirty linen at home,” as he phrased it,’ the passionate young Italian intimates. ‘Instead, he focused on musical interpretation with a combination of anecdote, metaphor, and wit. In my personal opinion, a good and clear example of all this is the Grosses Konzertsolo (S.176), in which the composer perfectly combines his piano skills and [an] avalanche of tormented feelings.’ His mention of Liszt’s teaching style turns Troncanetti’s thoughts to the lessons that he would seek to impart to his own students. ‘If I were a teacher,’ he begins, ‘first of all, I’d recommend [that] my pupils make sure that what they’re playing corresponds to what they feel inside themselves. Secondly, I’d suggest not to abuse the pedal and to do their best to play “legato” with it as little as possible.’ This leads to contemplation of what Troncanetti perceives as one of the greatest vices of contemporary pianism. ‘As [my] last advice,’ he muses, ‘I’d [share that I’d] appreciate if they didn’t “run” on the keyboard too much. Musicians are not sprinters!’ He is the rare artist who takes his own advice: two of the greatest joys of his playing are the liquidity of his legato playing and the unhurried articulation of his phrasing, each note granted its full weight in the line regardless of its duration.

When asked from which composer he would most like to commission a piece fashioned to exhibit his unique gifts, he says without hesitation, ‘That’s [a] very funny and curious question! For sure, I’d ask Liszt and [Swedish pop group] ABBA for a piece specially-tailored for me! It would be a sort of mix of the Liszt personal mood and ABBA’s unforgettable musicality and joy!’ The choice of Liszt is natural, the composer’s music having launched Troncanetti’s public career. He remembers, ‘The first piece I played in public was the First Mephisto Waltz (S.514), when I was seventeen. It’s still in my repertoire, and, comparing to the first time I played it, I certainly say [that I now] play it definitely more slowly, more clearly, and [highlighting] all the harmonies that interweave and make the piece so amusing!’ His description of his approach to Mephisto Waltz No. 1 is, in fact, representative of the way in which he seeks to play all repertory, whether a piece was composed two centuries or two weeks ago. How does he define what it is that he tries to achieve with his playing? ‘I’d say the balance between virtuosity and sound,’ he summarizes. ‘I always do my best to try to balance them perfectly and make the sound as clear as possible and use the pedal just where it's necessary.’

In molding his career as a concert pianist, Troncanetti is a solo artist in the truest sense of the designation. He does not have formal management or representation, preferring to make his own decisions and allow his playing to serve as the persona that agents are so keen to fabricate for their clients. He has the boon of being as handsome as the leading men of Hollywood’s gilded past, but he is also cognizant of the difficulties of pursuing a career without a manager's guidance through the business aspects of an artist’s life. Nothing distracts him from the music, however. ‘The greatest challenge in [artists’] careers is the concert itself!’ he exclaims. ‘Every single time we perform, we always test ourselves! It doesn’t have anything to do with the time you spend practicing: that’s utterly a personal question. Whether you practice twenty-four hours or just one per day, you'll always have that crisp, inevitable, and funny feeling which makes you feel responsible and ready to face the audience—and yourself, too. It’s a never-ending challenge which lasts during all your career. No choice; each of us has to deal with it. That’s the special thing of our job.’

His unpretentious embrace of this ‘special thing of [the] job’ sets Troncanetti's playing apart from that of his colleagues. Perhaps it seems counterintuitive to suggest that his performances are more complete, more interpretively fully-formed experiences for listeners because the pianist himself regards them as works in progress, but this pianist’s dedication to perpetual self-improvement makes every performance a part of a journey that has as its ultimate destination not perfection but profoundest connection with both music and hearer. It is this quest that is the hallmark of Troncanetti’s playing, whether in the rehearsal room or the concert hall. For him, playing is a means of sharing aspects of his psyche with audiences in a manner that words could never accomplish. ‘I want [audiences to] remember my capacity to share my feelings, to be emphatic; just the way I go straight to their souls without showing off,’ he says. ‘If they remember me for this, I’d feel so immensely grateful—the happiest man in the world!’

Happiness is a state that is sadly rare in the lives of many artists. In some cases, this is perhaps because the choice to pursue a career as an artist is a surrender to external pressures rather than a response to internal desires. When playing the piano, the fingers either sound the right notes or they do not, but a pianist's artistry is defined by less-tangible qualities. When carefully-groomed dilettantes are celebrated as important artists because their publicists insist that it should be so, it can be difficult to discern a legitimate artist among the throngs of pretenders. Artists are men who view life from the inside out, and this perspective can blind those incapable of seeing the smiles among the scowls and tears. It is impossible to overlook the smiles in Ludovico Troncanetti’s playing. More remarkably, it is impossible to overlook the composers’ smiles that emerge from the sound worlds he creates as he plays their music. Happiness is perhaps the most elusive of human emotions but also among the most contagious. It is also cyclical, and the happiness with which Ludovico Troncanetti infuses his playing, happiness derived from forging friendships with and via music, is returned and redoubled by the joy that hearing his performances inspires.

In performance: Italian pianist Ludovico Troncanetti in his natural habitat [Photo © by the artist; used with permission

Ludovico Troncanetti is based in Milan, Italy. To learn more about this incredible artist’s work or to make booking inquiries, please contact him via email.

Sincerest thanks are extended to Mr. Troncanetti for his time and candor in responding to questions for this profile.

CD REVIEW: Richard Wagner — DAS RHEINGOLD (M. Goerne, M. DeYoung, D. Humble, K. Begley, P. Sidhom, A. Samuil, K. Youn, S. Milling, D. Cangelosi, C. Reid, O. Pushniak, E. Nakamura, A. Varak, H. Haselböck; NAXOS 8.660374-75)

RICHARD WAGNER (1813 – 1883): Das Rheingold—Matthias Goerne (Wotan), Michelle DeYoung (Fricka), Deborah Humble (Erda), Kim Begley (Loge), Peter Sidhom (Alberich), Anna Samuil (Freia), Kwangchul Youn (Fasolt), Stephen Milling (Fafner), David Cangelosi (Mime), Charles Reid (Froh), Oleksandr Pushniak (Donner), Eri Nakamura (Woglinde), Aurhelia Varak (Wellgunde), Hermine Haselböck (Floßhilde); Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra; Jaap van Zweden, conductor [Recorded during concert performances in Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall, 22 and 24 January 2015; NAXOS 8.660374-75; 2 CDs, 153:35 (also available in Blu-ray Audio format); Available from ClassicsOnlineHD, Amazon (USA), jpc (Germany), Presto Classical (UK), and major music retailers]

NAXOS’s new recording of Richard Wagner's Das Rheingold is a celebration of new beginnings. In addition to preserving the rôle débuts of two of today's most lauded singers, this recording launches a complete Der Ring des Nibelungen that will be the first such effort by an orchestra in Hong Kong and all of mainland China, as well as its conductor’s inaugural Ring. Were those its only virtues, it would be a worthwhile addition to the Rheingold discography, but the strengths of this Rheingold extend far beyond these impressive firsts. Recorded in the Hong Kong Cultural Centre’s state-of-the-art Concert Hall during two widely-lauded concert performances in January 2015, the recording is a technological triumph overseen by producer and engineer Phil Rowlands, whose expertise has produced a recording that satisfies both as a faithful reading of Wagner’s sonically thrilling score and as a memento of the frisson of this important occasion. Neither performances nor recordings of Das Rheingold are rare, but performances and recordings of the quality of this one, distinguished by the participation of a splendidly-selected cast, are no more common than giants and Rhinemaidens. One of the most prevalent themes in Classical Music during the past decade has been the primacy of NAXOS releases among the finest new recordings, and this Rheingold is an exceptionally musical variation on that theme.

Founded in the last decade of the Nineteenth Century as an amateur ensemble, the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra assumed the form in which it is heard in this Rheingold as recently as 1974. Under the direction of esteemed Asian and Western-born Music Directors including Ling Tung, Kenneth Schermerhorn [familiar to NAXOS aficionados as the much-lamented Music Director and Principal Conductor of the Nashville Symphony], David Atherton, Samuel Wong, and Edo de Waart, the HKPhil has grown into one of the world’s finest orchestras and a beacon for native and international talent. The orchestra’s current Music Director, Dutch violinist [the breadth of his talent is intimated by his having become the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra’s youngest concertmaster at nineteen], conductor, and composer Jaap van Zweden, established his credentials as a Wagnerian on disc with a compelling performance of Parsifal with the Radio Filharmonisch Orkest on the Challenge Classics label, also recorded in concert. The insightful management of orchestral textures and psychological depth that characterized van Zweden’s conducting of Parsifal also course through this recording of Das Rheingold. The HKPhil musicians respond to his leadership with feats of virtuosity that rival the best playing of the Staatskapelle Dresden and the Wiener Philharmoniker. Whether by virtue of near-perfect playing or judicious editing of material from the pair of performances, the orchestra’s contributions to this performance would be welcomed with fervent ‘Bravi’ at Bayreuth. The opera's Vorspiel here develops, as it should, from a silent abyss—hardly an easy accomplishment in the context of a live recording!—into the primordial clamor of disrupted nature, lusty giants, and obstreperous deities, and there is no mistaking in this performance the fact that the seeds of the scene-change music in Richard Strauss's Die Frau ohne Schatten and the Interludes in Britten's Peter Grimes were sown by Wagner in the Einleitung before Scene Two and the Verwandlungsmusik before Scene Three of Das Rheingold. Van Zweden's tempi are occasionally idiosyncratic, the pacing sometimes seeming slightly deliberate, but momentum is maintained impressively, creating a pervasive sense of dramatic tension despite the inherent stasis of the concert format. Van Zweden is attentive to Wagner's differentiations of the sonic landscapes of the Rhinemaidens, the giants, and the gods, limning the musical boundaries of each realm with taut rhythms for the mortals and expansive phrasing for the denizens of the newly-built Walhalla. The machinery of the Nibelung dwarves’ sweatshop, famously represented in Wagner’s score by eighteen tuned anvils, here sounds more like the clinking of cutlery in a well-appointed kitchen, but the orchestra’s playing, bolstered by marvelous performances by brasses and woodwinds, is consistently on an aptly Wagnerian scale, and van Zweden paces a performance of grandeur and gravity.

Substantially completed by the autumn of 1854 but not performed until 1869, Das Rheingold both brought the precepts outlined in Wagner’s 1851 tome ‘Eine Mittheilung an meine Freunde’ to fruition and broadened the scope of the Ring as a whole, which Wagner had originally conceived as a trilogy rather than the tetralogy that it became with Das Rheingold. For modern audiences, Rheingold introduces the characters and themes that shape the dramas of the three subsequent works, Die Walküre, Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung. First heard are the sometimes playful, sometimes portentously prophetic Rhinemaidens, the guardians of the gold fashioned into the ring that brings gods’ and men’s destinies into conflict. With soprano Eri Nakamura as Woglinde and mezzo-sopranos Aurhelia Varak and Hermine Haselböck as Wellgunde and Floßhilde, the performance begins with the tuneful frolicking of an appealing trio of Rhinemaidens. The ladies' euphonious singing of 'Weia! Waga! Woge, du Welle' sparkles like sunlight on the water's surface, and each voice is both individually and collectively ideal for the music. The good-natured teasing of Alberich has in this performance an obvious core of vulnerability, but there is nothing insecure in the ladies’ singing. Their voicing of 'Lugt, Schwestern! Die Weckerin lacht in den Grund' crackles with girlish verve, and the avidity with which they sing 'Nur wer der Minne Macht entsagt' is telling. Nakamura’s, Varak’s, and Haselböck’s vibrant exclamation of 'Haltet den Räuber!' evinces panic without being undermined by vocal flaws. In the final scene, the trio’s shimmering 'Rheingold! Rheingold! Reines Gold!' ends the performance with a surge of truly golden sound, the demands of the tessitura met with unassailable conviction by all three ladies.

The giants Fasolt and Fafner are sung with sonorous malevolence and subtle hints of humor by basses Kwangchul Youn and Stephen Milling. Youn brings to Fasolt’s 'Sanft schloß Schlaf dein Aug'!' a voice that sounds as though it was mined of the earth’s sturdiest ore, and the power with which he projects 'Was sagst du? Ha! Sinn'st du Verrath?' is gladdening. In Scene Four, Youn sings ‘Halt, du Gieriger! Gönne mir auch was!' with steely authority that is the hallmark of his performance as a whole. As Fafner, Milling is a blood-curdling thug from the start, already very nearly a dragon! The reptilian smugness of his delivery of 'Du da folge uns!' is matched by the explosive intimidation of his 'Hör' Wotan, der Harrenden Wort!' In Scene Four, Milling hurls out 'Gepflanzt sind die Pfähle nach Pfandes Maß' and 'Nun blinzle nach Freia's Blick!' with abandon. Fasolt and Fafner do not require vocal beauty, but hearing their music sung so capably, without allowances having to be made for lapses in stability and intonation, heightens appreciation of the care with which Wagner gave life even to these hateful characters.

Alberich is portrayed with snarling menace by baritone Peter Sidhom, who, despite being unafraid of distorting the voice in service to his depiction of the character’s agenda, ultimately sings the part with greater fidelity to Wagner’s score than many recorded Alberichs. In the opera’s first scene, he dispatches 'Hehe! ihr Nicker' with the forcefulness of a gunshot, and Sidhom’s increasingly agitated, unsettling articulations of 'Garstig, glatter glitschriger Glimmer!' and 'Der Welt Erbe gewann'ich zu eigen durch dich?' are electrifying. Here and especially in Scene Three, the part’s highest notes trouble Sidhom, who must sometimes resort to shouting, but his portrait of the embittered Nibelung is laudably consistent. The baritone’s account of 'Hehe! Hehe! Hieher! Hieher! Tückischer Zwerg!' is invigorating, and in both 'Schau, du Schelm!' and 'Die in linder Lüfte Weh'n da oben ihr lebt' Alberich’s nefarious intentions scintillate in Sidhom’s singing. The opera’s final scene prompts Sidhom to give broad expression to Alberich’s frustration. His 'Wohlan, die Niblungen rief ich mir nah' and 'Gezahlt hab' ich nun laß' mich ziehn!' exude hatred and a burgeoning quest for vengeance. Sidhom is an Alberich who epitomizes villainy without caricature, and his considered, confident singing inspires sympathy for the character’s suffering.

Tenor David Cangelosi is, as he has been in a number of Ring productions, a wily, wheedling Mime who sings the rôle more comfortably than many Mimes heard in recent years. Throughout the performance, Cangelosi’s Mime is like a live wire, showering every scene in which he appears with dramatic sparks. The tenor’s tones are not always conventionally attractive or ideally-placed, but the Mime that he portrays is an appropriately unpleasant figure who is tolerated by the other characters only with considerable restraint. Cangelosi sings 'Nehmt euch in acht! Alberich naht!' obsequiously but with ringing tone, and his use of text throughout the performance is masterly. Cangelosi manages to make Mime interesting rather than merely repulsive, and his vocalism is gratifyingly fluent.

Though the voice has tremendous presence, baritone Oleksandr Pushniak is unfortunately only a partially successful Donner, his stentorian singing of 'Heda! Heda! Hedo!' and 'Bruder, hieher! Weise der Brücke den Weg!' when summoning the thunderstorm in Scene Four impaired by unsteadiness. Vocal instability is perhaps a family trait, as tenor Charles Reid's alert, verbally sharp-witted Froh is also weakened by tremulousness, especially above the stave. Both gentlemen create sharply-defined characters whose parts in the drama they uninhibitedly fulfill, but their intelligent, accurately-tuned performances are too often compromised by vocal unevenness in moments of significance.

As Freia, the object of the giants' disgusting desire, soprano Anna Samuil’s effervescent singing leaves no doubt of why she is such an irresistible prize for Fasolt and Fafner. The golden apples that preserve the gods’ youth seem to glisten in Samuil’s singing, but the terror that emanates from her pleas to be rescued from the giants’ unmistakable designs is bracing. Unlike many Freias, Samuil scales the upper reaches of her music without shrillness. Her singing of ‘Schwester! Brüder! Rettet!' pierces the musical tapestry of the performance like a dagger. Offering tones of meteoric allure, Samuil’s Freia is a woman any self-respecting brothers would move heaven and earth to save from the clutches of libidinous oafs.

It no longer seems possible that this abused, broken planet could sing with a voice as strong and beautiful as that of Australian mezzo-soprano Deborah Humble, and the direness of her Erda's warnings to Wotan are all the more chilling for being so splendidly sung. Humble invests troves of rich, burnished tone and unerring dramatic instincts in her performance of 'Weiche, Wotan, weiche!' The result is one of the most compelling recorded accounts of the brief but crucial rôle, one in which every note of the part is wholly in the voice and no compromises are required. Humble rivals Lili Chookasian and Oralia Domínguez for sheer vocal quality and uses German text as imaginatively as Maria von Ilosvay and Marga Höffgen. Arrogant and foolish indeed is the Wotan who fails to heed the counsel of such an Erda!

British tenor Kim Begley is the uncommon veteran of Wagner and Richard Strauss rôles whose carefully-honed technique and well-judged performances have preserved the beauty and flexibility of the voice, and he sings Loge in this performance with nimbleness and finesse which many younger singers should envy. Ever an imaginative artist, Begley makes much of the text, his diction giving his singing of 'Immer ist Undank Loges Lohn!' additional bite. He infuses 'Ein Runenzauber zwingt das Gold zum Reif’ with unexpected nuances, establishing Loge as the sole fount of reason and understanding in Das Rheingold. In Scene Three, Begley's reading of 'Nibelheim hier: durch bleiche Nebel' is appealingly forthright, and he shapes both 'Ohe! Ohe! Schreckliche Schlange' and 'Dort, die Kröte! Greife sie rasch!' with the intuition of a born Wagnerian, accentuating key words without altering the emphases in Wagner's phrasing. He unleashes a world-weary fury in 'Da, Vetter, sitze du fest!' in Scene Four, furthered by his bright enunciation of 'Ist er gelöst?' Begley phrases 'Lauschtest du seinem Liebesgruß?' with bel canto grace, the voice flowing through the music with far greater pulchritude than many listeners might think possible in Wagner repertory. This is one of Begley's finest recordings and a Loge that rivals the best interpretations on disc.

Solely among recorded performances of Das Rheingold, American mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung must endure comparisons with many of the greatest Wagnerians of the past century as Fricka. Having recently garnered acclaim for her vocally and dramatically voluptuous Venus in the Metropolitan Opera's revival of Tannhäuser, DeYoung here establishes her Fricka as a worthy successor to celebrated interpretations of the rôle by Elisabeth Höngen, Ira Malaniuk, Rita Gorr, and the incomparable Kirsten Flagstad, whose Fricka in the DECCA studio recording conducted by Sir Georg Solti remains one of the most-debated performances on disc. DeYoung's vocalism is ungainly to a degree, and she is most effectively in her element when under greatest stress, but the voice is a legitimate Fricka instrument that possesses metal and femininity in equal measures. The mood that she conjures with her granitic 'Wotan, Gemahl, erwäche!' is one of consummate political dominance, Fricka's moral authority outweighing Wotan's ambition. DeYoung deploys mountains of tone in 'So schirme sie jetzt' and 'Wotan, Gemahl, unsel'ger Mann!' In the lower register, where Fricka's music often takes her, she can summon the focus of a contralto with velvety sumptuousness that contrasts stunningly with the laser-like upper register, the top of the voice essentially that of a dramatic soprano. In Scene Four, DeYoung envelops her rousing statement of 'Lieblichste Schwester süsseste Lust!' with sisterly concern and spousal scorn. DeYoung's performance leaves nothing to chance, her first effort at portraying Fricka disclosing a commendable absorption of the rôle. A number of Frickas have credibly conveyed the aggrieved wife's contempt for Wotan's misadventures, but few singers have given voice to her protestations as unfalteringly as DeYoung does in this performance.

As a Wotan admired for remarkable perspicacity as an interpreter of Lieder rather than Wagnerian declamation, baritone Matthias Goerne has much in common with his storied countryman Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Goerne shares his illustrious predecessor's poetic approach to text and seemingly boundless palette of vocal colors, but in his first portrayal of Wotan it is George London rather than Fischer-Dieskau whose example Goerne's singing brings to mind. Unlike Fischer-Dieskau, who encountered passages in Wotan’s music that required more voice than he could supply, Goerne possesses the range and the orotundity of tone for the part, which he plays with machismo and bristling pride. Having waited to sing Wotan until he had experience with a character like Berg’s Wozzeck under his belt, Goerne here makes one of the most auspicious rôle débuts in recent memory. The soaring sovereignty with which he phrases 'Endlich Loge! Eiltest du so,' a passage of which many Wotans make little, is indicative of his intuitive grasp of both the character and his music. Throughout the first half of the opera, Goerne alternates petulance with pure muscle in depicting Wotan’s shifting allegiances and thirst for power. Facing Fricka’s withering disdain and the bungling turpitude of the giants and Nibelungs, Goerne’s Wotan assumes the capacity of unanswerable supremacy, taking command in​ Scene Four with an imposing account of 'Soll ich sorgen und fürchten.' Greeting Walhalla, his perceived refuge from the perils and responsibilities of wielding the ring, Goerne sings 'Abendlich strahlt der Sonne Auge' stunningly, complemented by a poised but pointed 'So grüss' ich die Burg.’ Few singers have elucidated the motivations and flaws of the Rheingold Wotan at any points in their careers as Goerne here does in his first attempt. Heartening as the profundity of his interpretation of the rôle is, it is his singing that wins the greater share of the laurels. Any listener who continues to believe that tired barking is the trademark of a successful Wotan should hear this performance. Goerne’s singing harkens back to past generations, when Wotans like Friedrich Schorr, Hans Hotter, and George London revealed that brawn need not impede beauty.

Die Walküre is the Ring opera that works best beyond the context of the complete Cycle, but Das Rheingold is in many ways the most accessible of the four works that comprise Der Ring des Nibelungen. There is a concentrated circumspection in Rheingold’s uninterrupted narrative that is not duplicated elsewhere in Der Ring, and Wagner’s music at once occupies a lofty plane of inspiration and exemplifies effective theatricality. The observer who suggests, perhaps because of its less-daunting dimensions, that Das Rheingold is an ‘easier’ piece than Die Walküre, Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung has surely never been involved with performing, producing, or recording it. This NAXOS recording of the Hong Kong Philharmonic’s Rheingold, the first installment in a complete Ring Cycle scheduled for realization in increments by the end of 2018, is an achievement for which every participant and all Wagnerians must give thanks. Its weakest link is far from ruinous, and its foremost strengths—the Wotan of Matthias Goerne, the playing of the Hong Kong Philharmonic, and the conducting of Jaap van Zweden—foretell a Ring to challenge notions of great Wagner performances being solely things of the past.

CD REVIEW: Frédéric Chopin & Sergey Rachmaninov – MUSIC FOR CELLO & PIANO (Alisa Weilerstein, cello; Inon Barnatan, piano; DECCA 478 8416)

FRÉDÉRIC FRANÇOIS CHOPIN (1810 – 1849): Sonata for cello and piano, Op. 65; Étude, Op. 25, No. 7 (arranged by Auguste Franchomme); Introduction et Polonaise brillante for piano and cello, Op. 3 and SERGEY RACHMANINOV (1873 – 1943): Sonata for cello and piano, Op. 19; Vocalise, Op. 34, No. 14—Alisa Weilerstein, cello; Inon Barnatan, piano [Recorded in Teldex Studio, Berlin, Germany, 21 – 23 November 2014; DECCA 478 8416; 1 CD, 80:54; Available from DECCA Classics, Amazon (USA), iTunes, jpc (Germany), Presto Classical (UK), and major music retailers]

On the heels of a thoughtfully-planned, superbly-produced Deutsche Grammophon recording of the composer's Variations on themes by Arcangelo Corelli and Nicolò Paganini, Universal again honors the artistic legacy of Sergei Rachmaninov with a lovingly-presented DECCA recording of his Opus 19 Sonata for cello and piano and the exquisite Vocalise (Op. 34, No. 14), contrasted by a trio of works in similar veins by Frédéric Chopin. Hearing the music of both composers with this degree of proximity, it is impossible to overlook the extent to which Rachmaninov's part writing was influenced by Chopin's example, and the two geniuses shared a gift for creating melodies that, once heard, never leave the mind. Indeed, the pieces on this disc, played by American cellist Alisa Weilerstein and Tel Aviv-born pianist Inon Barnatan with a level of musical symbiosis that transcends casual partnership, are of that variety of music that lurks in the subconscious like memories waiting to be relived. The spirit of this collaboration is reflected in the music: Chopin had been dead for nearly a quarter-century when Rachmaninov was born, but the older composer's artistic soul might be said to have been resurrected in the work of the younger man. To the extent that composers' souls are enshrined in their music, the spirits of both Chopin and Rachmaninov sing in the selections on this disc, their voices enthrallingly projected by the playing of a pair of exceptionally talented musical communicators.

Completed and premièred with the composer at the piano on 2 December 1901, less than two months after the first performance of his titanic Second Piano Concerto, Rachmaninov's G-minor Sonata for cello and piano—so designated at the composer's urging because of the equality of the music for both instruments in terms of difficulty and importance—is among the composer's most introspective and quietly moving works. Weilerstein and Barnatan begin the opening Lento – Allegro moderato movement with an aura of uncertainly, the shifting harmonies executed with a light touch that conjures an atmosphere not unlike the discord of the opening bars of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. From that start, however, cellist and pianist progress to a reading of the movement's development that is strangely electric and sensitive. There is nothing quaint about Weilerstein's and Barnatan's playing, and they do not shrink from overtly Romantic expansiveness. The complex patterns shared by the instruments in the Allegro scherzando movement are phrased by the musicians with uncanny synchronicity that never inhibits individuality: naturally, a cello cannot play a passage identically to the way in which it is played on the piano, and Weilerstein and Barnatan complement one another's approaches without engaging in unimaginative mimicry. The interplay of their sharing of thematic material makes the Andante movement a legitimate conversation in music, almost a love duet, and the lyrical eloquence of their playing provides numerous moments of spine-tingling emotional impact. Rachmaninov does not seem to have been a sentimental man, but it is logical to presume that he allowed feelings to which he did not grant words to speak through his compositions. The passions of the concluding Allegro mosso movement are ambiguous, and the unexaggerated sincerity with which Weilerstein and Barnatan convert them into sound heightens the ambivalence. Rachmaninov was no less accomplished in the art of blending instrumental timbres in his chamber music than in his larger-scaled, imaginatively-orchestrated works, and the robust sounds that Weilerstein and Barnatan coax from their instruments often give the impression that far more than two players are at work. The melodic figurations, as sumptuous as they are sensual, are executed by both musicians with keen focus on the organic cadences of the music. This is also true of Weilerstein's and Barnatan's performance of the rhapsodic Vocalise (Op. 34, No. 14), a piece in which cello and piano interact playfully but with galvanizing unity of purpose. As technicians, Weilerstein and Barnatan are unfailingly nimble-fingered, but it is the keen intelligence of their playing of Rachmaninov's music that refuses to relinquish its grasp on the listener's ears and heart.

Composed in 1846 and dedicated to the widely-acclaimed cellist Auguste Franchomme, Chopin's Sonata for cello and piano in G minor (Opus 65), the last of his works to appear in print before his untimely death, is an ideal companion for the Rachmaninov Sonata. The Sonata is one of a handful of surviving works in which Chopin composed for other instruments in combination with piano, and in it his complete understanding of the tonal possibilities of the piano is proved to have extended to the cello. From the first bars of the Allegro moderato movement, there is a wistfulness, familiar from the Nocturnes, that flows through the Sonata, almost a Leitmotiv that unites the movements like a silent melody. To their credit, Weilerstein and Barnatan immerse their playing in Chopin's latent melancholy without wallowing in it. The rhythmic crispness of their playing alleviates the somberness of the music, revealing the glimpses of sunlight that peer through the clouds. In both the Scherzo and its boisterous Trio, the musicians offer playing that exemplifies technical brilliance, but the zenith of their interpretation of Chopin's Sonata is their performance of the Largo movement. Like Mozart and Beethoven, Chopin possessed an extraordinary gift for creating slow movements that remarkably unite emotions of near-operatic intensity with confessional intimacy. In the Sonata's Largo, cellist and pianist leave no expressive path unexplored but maintain absolute control on rhythm and phrasing, allowing the listener to contemplate Chopin's music on its own terms without imposing an idiosyncratic interpretation of their own devising. It is often far bolder to allow a piece to speak its own language than to attempt to translate it, and Weilerstein and Barnatan further disclose the depths of their artistries by sagaciously respecting Chopin's music. The sense of joy in making music that beams from Weilerstein's and Barnatan's playing of the Sonata's Finale is gladdening, and the precision of their performance is enhanced by the insightfulness of their phrasing. Every smile, sigh, and furtive sorrow that inspired Chopin resounds in this reading of his beautifully-crafted Sonata.

Arranged by the dedicatee of the Sonata, Auguste Franchomme, the Étude in C sharp minor (Op. 25, No. 7) is, as played by Weilerstein and Barnatan, a piece that combines virtuosity with vulnerability. Franchomme’s mastery of the cello enabled him to retain the Étude’s unique structure, and his friendship with Chopin surely contributed to the faithfulness of his preservation of its ethos. Weilerstein gives a stirring account of Franchomme’s cello part, and Barnatan matches her every feat of prowess with his own unassailable finesse. The Introduction et Polonaise brillante for piano and cello in C major (Opus 3)​ is among Chopin’s many miniature masterpieces, fully meriting its ‘brillante’ designation. Weilerstein’s and Barnatan’s performance likewise merits the distinction, their shared affection for the music cascading through their playing of the Introduction et Polonaise brillante—as it does through their playing of every piece in this recital.

Listening to this disc again and again, it seems utterly ridiculous that some of Classical Music's most influential advocates perpetuate the falsehood that there are no musicians at work today who are capable of consistently rivaling the performances and interpretations of artists of the past. Boasting of performances by distinguished pairings such as Edmund Kurtz and William Kapell, Zara Nelsova and Artur Balsam, and Sviatoslav Knushevitsky and Lev Oborin, the discography of Rachmaninov’s Sonata for cello and piano, though still an underappreciated work, contains many fine traversals, and the Chopin Sonata has been even more fortunate on records. Still, neither piece has been more blessed in the recording studio than when Alisa Weilerstein and Inon Barnatan met before the microphones in Berlin. Yet again in the long history of recorded sound a DECCA release restores confidence in the integrity of contemporary artists. More fundamentally, this is a ravishing recording of fantastic music.

PERFORMANCE REVIEW: Giacomo Puccini – MADAMA BUTTERFLY (T. Trevigne, M. Brandenburg, M. Sumuel, L. Ammann, I. McEuen; North Carolina Opera, 30 October 2015)

GIACOMO PUCCINI (1858 – 1924): Madama Butterfly—Talise Trevigne (Cio-Cio San), Michael Brandenburg (Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton), Michael Sumuel (Sharpless), Lindsay Ammann (Suzuki), Ian McEuen (Goro), Wei Wu (Lo zio Bonzo), Jesse Malgieri (il Principe Yamadori), Charles Hyland (Il Commissario Imperiale), Kate Farrar (Kate Pinkerton), Jacob Kato (Lo zio Yakusidé), Tom Keefe (L’Ufficiale del Registro), Annette Stowe (La madre di Cio-Cio San), Margaret Maytan (La zia), Austenne Grey (La cugina), Ella Fox (Dolore); North Carolina Opera Chorus and Orchestra; Timothy Myers, conductor [E. Loren Meeker, Director; Mark McCullough, Lighting Designs; Alice Bristow, Costume Designs; David P. Gordon, Set Designs; Sondra Nottingham, Wig and Make-up Designs; North Carolina Opera, Memorial Auditorium, Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh, North Carolina; Friday, 30 October 2015]

Writers are often told that the surest path to success is writing about situations and sensibilities that they know from their own experiences. In a pragmatic sense, perhaps the best advice for composers is that they will find greatest inspiration in contemplation of that which cannot be known, those realms of thought and feeling for which words alone are inadequate. There is no better argument in favor of the veracity of this counsel than the genesis of Giacomo Puccini's Madama Butterfly. When in the summer of 1900 the composer first encountered David Belasco's dramatization of John Luther Long's 1898 story 'Madame Butterfly,' itself an adaptation of Pierre Loti's Madame Chrysanthème, on the London stage, his knowledge of English extended little beyond 'Hello.' The play's atmospheric setting and the demeanor of the long-suffering Butterfly herself engaged Puccini's emotions and creative instincts in ways that transcended language, however, and the transformation of the delicate heroine of Long's story and Belasco's play into the operatic Cio-Cio San began in earnest. Considering not only the straightforward evidence of his correspondence but also interpreting his music, it is no exaggeration to state that Puccini fell in love with the ill-fated ladies who populated his scores. Lingering criticism of Puccini's skill and originality as a composer notwithstanding, the uncanny emotional potency of his scores is derived in large part from the fact that audiences, too, fall in love with the proud Manon Lescaut, the idealistic Mimì, the despondent Suor Angelica, and the selfless Liù. Even among her sisters in the Puccini canon, Cio-Cio San is unique. Manon Lescaut dies in her beloved's arms, Mimì is sustained by the boundless love of her friends until disease will be put off no longer, Angelica expires in an ecstasy of absolution and reunion with her child, and Liù gives her life as the purest declaration of devotion. Her wings broken by the betrayal of a man for whom she rejected her own culture, Butterfly dies alone, reclaiming her identity by committing the sole act via which, in the social order into which she was born, the honor of a compromised woman might be restored. There are no sentences of exile imposed by indifferent judges, no ravages of disease, no longing for the company of a departed loved one, no secret more valuable than living: deserted by hope, happiness, and the illusions upon which they were founded, only Cio-Cio San's own hands possess the power to free her. Pinkerton's distant cries of 'Butterfly!'—perhaps the most heartrending instance in opera of too little, too late—serenade a soul already liberated from its purgatory. Psychologically, perhaps the final scene of Madama Butterfly resonates so intensely with many observers because Cio-Cio San's suicide controverts Western philosophies’ unremitting dedication to preserving life at any cost. Emotionally, though, the blade that pierces audiences’ hearts is wielded by Puccini’s music. Treating the score not as a nostalgic postcard from Nagasaki but as a blueprint for crafting upon the stage a cyclorama of humanity, North Carolina Opera’s production of Madama Butterfly sharpened that blade to an acute level of dramatic musicality.

Musically and scenically, Madama Butterfly is very difficult to get right. Though Puccini's intentions were undoubtedly wholly respectful of the ancient customs and traditions of Japan, the opera walks on the edge of the precipice overhanging uncomfortable stereotypes and misguided, ill-informed representations of a timeless culture. In reality, criticism of his sentimentalized use of Japanese folk tunes and 'The Star-Spangled Banner' ultimately possessing little validity, Puccini engaged in very little musical moralizing in Madama Butterfly. There is no doubt that his sympathy was with Cio-Cio San, but there is sufficient beauty in his music for Pinkerton to make the sailor as charming as he is caddish. Charm was an essential component of North Carolina Opera's production, which placed the drama in a Nagasaki of delightful but deceptive natural beauty. Natural imagery is of tremendous importance to the plot of Madama Butterfly, and David P. Gordon’s sets, effectively and sometimes stunningly illuminated by Mark McCullough’s lighting designs, impressively recreated Imperial Japan on the Memorial Auditorium stage. A production of Madama Butterfly need not take every word of Puccini’s and his librettists’, Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica, staging instructions literally, but the opera demands a greater degree of specificity of time and place than many of its companions in the standard repertory. Unfathomably, the notion of 'traditional' productions continues to be anathema to the decision-makers at many opera companies despite the manifold indications that audiences respond as readily to composers' original thoughts as to today's directors' rethinkings. E. Loren Meeker's direction of North Carolina Opera's Madama Butterfly focused attention precisely where it must be centered if the opera's drama is to realize its full potential to enthrall the senses, on the relationships among the principal characters. There are in a tale of collisions between Eastern and Western cultures so many possibilities for insensitivity, but Alice Bristow's costumes and Sondra Nottingham's wigs and make-up gave every individual upon the stage a clearly-defined rôle in a thoughtful manner that avoided sensationalized exaggeration of the societal chasm between Cio-Cio San and her relations and Pinkerton’s Americanism. Too many productions of Madama Butterfly are an act of jigai away from being The Mikado, but North Carolina Opera’s detailed, discerning production was traditional in the best sense: the audience was privy to a performance of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, not someone else’s.

Madama Butterfly is a musical chimera that assumes vastly different appearances according to the constituent parts of the score that conductors choose to emphasize. In this performance, North Carolina Opera’s Artistic and Music Director Timothy Myers facilitated a reading of Puccini's score in which the music's lyricism, tinges of verismo, and Twentieth-Century modishness were all given their due. Composed in 1903 and revised to the form known today after an unsuccessful première at Teatro alla Scala in 1904, Puccini’s score is both a continuation of the modes of expression that proved cogent in Manon Lescaut and La bohème and an expansion of the direction in which he traveled in Tosca. The modernity of the music is often overlooked, but Myers unveiled the almost-Stravinskian pungency of many of Madama Butterfly’s harmonies, heightening the significance of the opulently Italianate melodies. One of Voix des Arts' Best Artists of 2015, Myers is a conductor whose approach to music is dedicated in equal proportions to content and context. In exploring the latter, he reminded the casual listener that Madama Butterfly is a contemporary of Richard Strauss's Salome and Claude Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande. During his tenure in Raleigh, Myers has nurtured exponential increases in the confidence and capabilities of the North Carolina Opera Orchestra, and the musicians joined him in making of the notes on the pages before their eyes a vibrant world in sound. String playing was consistently well-balanced, especially in the gossamer writing in the love duet, and the brass and woodwind players alternated cacophony and caresses as the score required. The prevalence of poorly-executed performances should eradicate the misconception that Puccini's operas are not as demanding as the scores of many of his non-Italian contemporaries, but Myers and his orchestra gave the impression of effortlessness in their mastery of Madama Butterfly. Equally heartening has been the artistic growth of the NC Opera Chorus in recent seasons, and Chorus Master Scott MacLeod's fastidious training of the ensemble was apparent in the world-class choral singing in this performance. As Cio-Cio San's attendants and relations in Act One, the choristers sang with precision, and their traversal of the famous 'a bocca chiusa' humming chorus that bridges Acts Two and Three was bewitching, sopranos and tenors alike braving the top B♭s fearlessly. Whether singing from the stage, playing from the pit, or presiding from the podium, North Carolina Opera's personnel acquitted themselves with consummate professionalism and the passion for their collective craft that makes Raleigh one of America's foremost destinations for opera lovers.

This was an unusual Madama Butterfly in that there were no singers in supporting rôles who were not up to their tasks. Austenne Grey's Cugina, Annette Stowe's Madre, Margaret Maytan's Zia, Jacob Kato's Zio Yakusidé, and Tom Keefe's Ufficiale were all ably-sung, carefully-acted portraits. Baritone Charles Hyland conducted the wedding ceremony  handily, voicing the Commissario's 'È concesso al nominato Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton' authoritatively, and fellow baritone Jesse Malgieri created a Yamadori of vocal means equal to his wealth with a resonant voicing of 'Tra le cose più moleste è l'inutil sospirar.' Bass Wei Wu roared chillingly as Zio Bonzo, detonating 'Cio-Cio-San! Cio-Cio-San! Abbominazione!' with ferocious muscle and a voice of granitic eloquence. Special mention must be made of Ella Fox, who without singing a single note stole every heart in the theatre with her adorable portrayal of Cio-Cio San's and Pinkerton's child Dolore.

To suggest that Kate Pinkerton is a thankless rôle is an understatement. Audiences are understandably predisposed to vilifying the 'other woman,' but her music, though hardly redolent of empathetic motivations, is not devoid of kindness and sincere concern for the welfare of Pinkerton's child. Mezzo-soprano Kate Farrar was a prepossessing 'sposa americana' who sang her few lines admirably. Both her 'Glielo dirai?' and her 'E le darai consiglio d'affidarmi?' throbbed with reluctance and genuine interest in Dolore's well-being. One of the production's most touching details was the image of Kate hiding herself outside Butterfly's house, weeping for the the poor girl's sad fate and her own unwitting part in it.

It is perhaps when his music is poorly sung that audiences most appreciate what a crucial rôle Goro plays in Madama Butterfly. Inexplicably, the part often seems to be regarded as an opportunity for whining, wheezing, and indulging in embarrassing pseudo-Oriental babbling. By contrast, it is astonishing to note how significantly a good Goro can heighten the impact of a performance of the opera, and North Carolina Opera had in tenor Ian McEuen a singer who upheld the seldom-equaled standard of Piero de Palma. Having recently garnered notice in Nashville Opera's production of Turandot, McEuen came to Raleigh's Madama Butterfly with a battle-tested familiarity with Puccini's style of fast-paced, mock-Asian writing, and his portrayal of Goro was distinguished by a refusal to sacrifice musicality in pursuit of cheap humor and an attractive, well-integrated instrument that required no faking of notes at the range extremes. Propelling the start of Act One with the nervous energy of a salesman eager to please (and to have his commission), McEuen sang 'Vanno e vengono a prova, a norma che vi giova nello stesso locale' with clear, well-placed tone that fell all the more dulcetly upon the ears for being free of caricature. Goro's ramblings have considerably more words than actual content, and McEuen carried on with the glee of an orator who fancies the sound of his own voice. His statement of 'Una stella dai raggi d'oro' disclosed the presence of an imagination far more extensive than many Goros bother to suggest. Furthermore, McEuen's singing in Act Two, when in 'Il ricco Yamadori. Ella è povera in canna' Goro attempts to facilitate a match between the abandoned Cio-Cio San and the affluent Principe Yamadori, was too cordial to be solely commercial in nature. No, this Goro, lurking at the periphery and observing everything, was sensitive to his surroundings and to Butterly's silent suffering, and McEuen's resourceful, splendidly-sung performance displayed the prime quality of Puccini's writing for the character.

North Carolina Opera's Madama Butterfly had in contralto Lindsay Ammann a Suzuki not just capable of singing the rôle—a trait more precious than might be supposed—but also unusually adept at being not merely a companion but a genuine comfort and confidante for her Butterfly. She was the epitome of nervous energy in Act One, rattling through 'Sorride Vostro Onore? Il riso è frutto e fiore' with girlish elation. She voiced 'Ecco! Son giunte al sommo del pendio' beguilingly. Suzuki's prayer at the start of Act Two, 'E Izaghi ed Izanami, Sarundasico e Kami,' received from Ammann firm, focused tones, and there was compassion even in her stark 'Mai non s'è udito di straniero marito che sia tornato al nido,' reminding Cio-Cio San that foreign husbands who return to their distant wives are an unknown species. The contralto's 'Vespa! Rospo maledetto!' was Wagnerian in scope, her top Fs and G♭s flashing like lightning bolts. In Act Three, Ammann's declamation of 'Già il sole!' was a crestfallen acknowledgement that Suzuki's fears were well-founded, and she sang 'Come una mosca prigioniera l'ali batte il piccolo cuor!' heartbreakingly. Ammann projected notes in chest register of which a baritone would have been proud, and she portrayed an animated, poignantly sisterly Suzuki.

Bass-baritone Michael Sumuel was a Sharpless who was unafraid of chastising his friend Pinkerton and was visibly shaken by Butterfly's noble suffering. Dressed in a drab suit, he was the prototypical low-level American bureaucrat to the life. Entering in Act One with a brawny 'E suda e arrampica!' that coursed through the theatre excitingly, Sumuel sang excellently throughout the performance. There was true admiration in his 'Miss Butterfly...Bel nome, vista a meraviglia,' and his blandishments to the unheeding Pinkerton were all the more dire for being so handsomely sung. In his Act Two scene with Butterfly, this Sharpless was virtually crippled by the pain that his visit was inflicting on the proud woman. When quizzed by Cio-Cio San about when robins nest in America, his responses of 'Mi rincresce, ma ignoro' and 'Non ho studiato ornitologia' were infused with tenderness. Unnerved by the interruptions to his well-planned delivery of the news of Pinkerton's abandonment, Sumuel's Sharpless sang 'Ora a noi. Qui sedete, legger con me volete questa lettera?' ponderously, but his quiet pronouncement of 'Quanta pietà!' was the cry of a man who could bear no more. His 'Sovente a questa siepe veniste a riguardare lungi' was a profound moment, the significance of which many Sharplesses ignore. Sumuel was marvelous in Act Three, voicing 'Scegliemmo quest'ora mattutina per ritrovarti sola' and 'Io so che alle sue pene non ci sono conforti!' with rich tone. The kinship between Sharpless and Marcello in La bohème was especially apparent in Sumuel's deeply-felt performance. A thoughtful Marcello conveys that he loves Mimì almost as much as Rodolfo loves her, and Sumuel left no doubt that his Sharpless cared for Butterfly in a way that was far more enduring and pervasive than Pinkerton's infatuation. Sumuel made a character whose level-headedness can seem callous the emotional spine of the performance.

On the surface, Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton is one of the most despicable characters in opera. As portrayed by young tenor Michael Brandenburg, he was particularly loathsome because he was also so captivating. Tall, handsome, and debonair in his Navy whites, he was a Pinkerton who surely set hearts in every port of call aflutter. Brandenburg launched Act One arrestingly with his boyish singing of 'E soffitto e pareti' and 'Gran perla di sensale!' In his first aria, the Allegro sostenuto con spirito 'Dovunque al mondo lo Yankee vagabondo,' he ascended to the top A and B♭ with fantastic ease, and he phrased 'Amore o grillo, dir non saprei' with true feeling, taking the three top B♭s in stride. His 'Vieni, amor mio!' radiated romance, but his defense of Butterfly against her relations' crushing denunciation raged in his athletic singing of 'Ehi, dico: basta, basta,' the top As piercing the din of the relations' scorn, and 'Sbarazzate all'istante. In casa mia niente baccano e niente bonzeria.' Brandenburg voiced the Andante affettuoso 'Bimba, bimba, non piangere per gracchiar di ranocchi' with hypnotic tranquility that was echoed in his seductive delivery of the Andantino calmo 'Viene la sera.' His fervent delivery of 'Bimba dagli occhi pieni di malìa' in the love duet coruscated with passion, and he was the rare Pinkerton whose decision to join Cio-Cio San on the top C at the duet's close was justified by the gleaming solidity of the tone. Creeping into Act Three with shame already crippling the youthful gait with which he bestrode Act One, Brandenburg voiced Pinkerton's aria 'Addio fiorito asil di letizia e d'amor' with sincerity, the character's regret finding resonant outlets in the top A♭s and B♭. In this performance, Pinkerton's off-stage cries on top F♯s of 'Butterfly!' as Cio-Cio San silently dies were emotionally torturous. Significantly, seeing Butterfly's lifeless body still upright according to the Japanese tradition of dying honorably, it was Pinkerton who collapsed, his virility capitulating to the weight of his carelessness. Brandenburg's vocal comfort in the music was unmistakable, and it was wonderful to encounter in Raleigh what is rare even in the world's largest opera houses: a young, attractive Pinkerton who sang as strikingly as he looked.

Puccini's music for Cio-Cio San brings to mind Richard Strauss's instruction that his Salome should be sung by a teenaged soprano with an Isolde voice. After contending with one of the most demanding entrance scenes in opera, Cio-Cio San playfully declares herself to be fifteen years old, and one of the greatest challenges for a singing actress is credibly depicting the evolution of the child bride of Act One into the mature woman who embraces the fatal mandate of her centuries-old culture in the opera's final scene. Visually, soprano Talise Trevigne was the ideal Cio-Cio San. A petite, delicately-featured lady of great beauty, she did not merely wear her costumes but truly gave them life, inhabiting Butterfly's physical identity to a degree that blurred the boundary between everyday reality and the alternate reality of opera. Indeed, there are native Asian singers who are not so wholly natural as Cio-Cio San as Trevigne was, but hers was a connection with the character and her music at the molecular level rather than a studied, Stanislavskian impersonation. Making her entrance in Act One with the gracefully tuneful 'Ancora un passo, or via,' she soared to top B♭ and thrilled with the freshness of her sound. In fact, not one note of her performance was strained, strident, or wobbly. The disarming sweetness of her 'Siam giunte' was invigorating, and there was not even the slightest hint of self-consciousness in her utterance of 'Nessuno si confessa mai nato in povertà,' the evenness of the bottom octave of the voice counting for much. Her guileless articulation of 'Morto' in response to the question about her father contrasted markedly with the radiance of her account of the beautiful Andante 'Ieri sono salita tutta sola in secreto alla Missione.' Both 'Non piango più' and 'Siete alto, forte' were shaped with the restraint expected of a well-bred Japanese lady, but Cio-Cio San's new-found sensuality blossomed in Trevigne's exquisitely-phrased account of the Andante sostenuto 'Vogliatemi bene un bene piccolino,' the line rising through top B♭s to the glorious top C with which she surrendered to Pinkerton's ardor. The soprano's artless enunciation of 'Pigri ed obesi son gli dèi giapponesi' in Act Two drew laughs from the audience, but there was nothing funny about the despair of her 'Suzuki, è lungi la miseria?' This Butterfly gave great meaning to 'Perchè con tante cure la casa rifornì di serrature' and 'Io te lo dico,' her voice ringing with the conviction of her words. Trevigne made the famous 'Un bel dì, vedremo' an intimate statement of her faith and devotion no less galvanizing than Tosca's 'Vissi d'arte, vissi d'amore,' rising to the top B♭s with seemingly limitless breath control. In the scene with Sharpless, her 'Io son la donna più lieta del Giappone' glowed with the joy of promises fulfilled, but the simplicity of Butterfly's happiness was upended in Trevigne's intense singing of the daunting Andante molto mosso 'Che tua madre dovrà prenderti in braccio ed alla pioggia e al vento andar per la città.' The climactic top B♭s poured from her throat like emotions that could no longer be controlled. The affection for her son that emanated from 'O mio piccolo amore, mia pena e mio conforto' was poignant, and few Cio-Cio Sans equal Trevigne's serenity in 'Scuoti quella fronda e dei suoi fior m'innonda.' She met the demands of Act Three without a trace of artifice, her voicing of 'Dormi, amor mio, dormi sul mio cor' eerily calm and comforting, not only quieting Dolore but restoring her own resolve. Her 'Tu Suzuki che sei tanto buona, non piangere!' was a clandestine final expression of love for her devoted maid and companion. Trevigne drained the color from her voice for the parlando 'Con onor muore chi non può serbar vita con onore,' but her singing of 'Tu, tu piccolo iddio! Amore, amore mio, fior di giglio e di rosa' was remarkable for the way in which the warmth of life gave way to the coldness of death. Few people in the audience are apt to have been unaware that Madama Butterfly ends with the heroine's suicide, but there were audible gasps when this performance's Cio-Cio San unaffectedly plunged her father's tantō into her neck. This was evidence of the singular force of Trevigne's portrayal of Butterfly. A beautiful sound is not all that is required to sing the rôle memorably, but the pure beauty of Trevigne's voice was unforgettable. In movement, in voice, and in expressivity, she was a Butterfly worthy of mention alongside Maria Callas, Eleanor Steber, Leontyne Price, and Renata Scotto.

There is an aphorism about even the blind squirrel occasionally finding acorns, and, applying the same logic, every opera lover occasionally witnesses performances that redefine their understanding and responses to composers, scores, particular rôles, or the genre as a whole. North Carolina Opera’s Madama Butterfly was a production that disclosed Puccini’s genius as a musician and man of the theatre in ways that in turns gladdened and broke the heart whether one was experiencing the opera for the first or the thousandth time. In truth, though, one might see Madama Butterfly a thousand times without ever seeing another performance as satisfying as this one.

Qui sedete, legger con me volete questa lettera: Sharpless reads Pinkerton’s letter in Act Two of Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly [Illustration by Leopoldo Metlicovitz, © by Casa Ricordi]

CD REVIEW: Maurice Ravel – L’ENFANT ET LES SORTILÈGES & MA MÈRE L’OYE (H. Hébrard, D. Galou, J. Pasturaud, J.-P. Fouchécourt, M. Barrard, N. Courjal, I. Perruche, A. Massis; NAXOS 8.660336)

MAURICE RAVEL (1875 – 1937): L’enfant et les sortilèges and Ma mère l’Oye—Hélène Hébrard (L’enfant), Delphine Galou (Maman, La libellule, La tasse chinoise), Julie Pasturaud (La bergère Louis XV, La chatte, L’écureuil, Un pâtre), Jean-Paul Fouchécourt (La théière, Le petit vieillard, La rainette), Marc Barrard (L’horloge comtoise, Le chat), Nicolas Courjal (Le fauteuil, Un arbre), Ingrid Perruche (Le chauve-souris, La chouette, Une pastourelle), Annick Massis (Le feu, La princesse, Le rossignol); Chœur Britten, Jeune Chœur symphonique, Maîtrise de l’Opéra National de Lyon; Orchestre National de Lyon; Leonard Slatkin, conductor [Recorded in Auditorium Maurice Ravel, Lyon, France, in September 2011 (Ma mère l’Oye) and 22 – 26 January 2013 (L’enfant et les sortilèges); NAXOS 8.660336; 1 CD, 71:52; Available from ClassicsOnlineHD, Amazon (USA), jpc (Germany), Presto Classical (UK), and major music retailers]

One of the most popular pastimes among opera lovers is lamenting the extinction of the nationalistic schools of singing that in near-mythic previous generations divided opera companies' rosters into adherents of the particular styles of French, German, and Italian opera. This new NAXOS recording of Maurice Ravel's exquisite masterpiece-in-miniature L'enfant et les sortilèges reveals in every second of its forty-five minutes that the death knell for the storied French school of singing was rung prematurely. Here, some of today's best French-speaking singers proclaim to the listener that, as Mark Twain might have said, the rumors of the demise of distinctive, distinguished French singing have been greatly exaggerated.

It is indicative of her esteem not only for the composer's work but also for her own that, when the Opéra de Paris proposed to the celebrated French writer Colette that she write the text for a fanciful work for the stage, she was enthusiastic about no collaborator but Ravel. Her libretto for the piece that became L'enfant et les sortilèges took shape in only eight days—an ironic rapidity considering the snail's pace at which the notoriously unhurried Ravel, distracted by his service in the Great War and his mother's death, composed the score. Colette was among the first listeners to realize that Ravel's music was worth the wait: few writers in the history of opera have witnessed their words as lovingly integrated with music as Colette's are with Ravel's music in L'enfant et les sortilèges. Effective recreation of that integration of words and music must be the core of a performance of L'enfant et les sortilèges if it is to be successful, and the performance recorded by NAXOS—a souvenir of live performances, discreet coughs suggest, though this is not specified in the liner notes—balances verbal and musical values on equal footing.

Coupled with a nuanced, surprisingly touching performance of Ravel's 1911 fully-orchestrated ballet suite Ma mère l’Oye, the Orchestre National de Lyon and the ensemble's Music Director, American conductor Leonard Slatkin, collaborate in a reading of L'enfant et les sortilèges that journeys into the dark corners of music and text without getting lost in them. Slatkin's relationship with opera has been tempestuous, particularly in the wake of his widely-publicized withdrawal from performances of Verdi's La traviata at the Metropolitan Opera in 2010, when he alleged, in response to her suggestions that he was inept and unprepared, that his Violetta was insufferably unprofessional. [The often ridiculous politicking of opera is evident in the fact that Slatkin has not returned to the MET since 2010, whereas the soprano in question has appeared numerous times in the subsequent five years, on increasingly precarious form.] Conducting Ravel's and Verdi's scores are very different tasks, and if Slatkin does not achieve the authority and authenticity in L'enfant et les sortilèges that Ernest Bour and Ernest Ansermet exhibited in their recordings of the opera he manages to come very near to their high-water mark. The acoutics on this disc are not as spacious or well-defined as those on many NAXOS recordings, but the countless witticisms of Ravel's orchestrations are never obscured. On the whole, Slatkin's approach to the score is admirable, his tempi suitable for both the music and the personnel performing it. Under his direction, the Lyon musicians play with technical and sentimental virtuosity, unafraid of conveying a degree of saccharine eye-dabbing when Maman's naughty child unexpectedly binds the foot of the squirrel he injured. This is all to the good, for the moment is, somehow, incredibly poignant. Colette and Ravel clearly thought so: Slatkin and Company ensure that the listener thinks—and feels—so, too.

The ladies and gentlemen of all ages of the Chœur Britten, Jeune Chœur symphonique, and Maîtrise de l’Opéra National de Lyon bring their music to life with involvement that makes portraying inanimate objects and woodland creatures sound like the greatest fun in the world. The elegy for the casualties of the child’s assault on the Arcadian wallpaper, ‘Adieu, Pastourelles,’ is sung with an endearing element of sincerity. The various noises of the sylvan environment into which the child is plunged are produced with obvious relish: every hoot, howl, chirp, and croak is delivered with the same conviction with which the singers uniformly enunciate text. The menace that erupts from the choristers’ utterance of ‘Ah! C’est l’enfant au couteau!’ is genuinely frightening, and the contrast with the startled disbelief of their ‘Il a pansé la plaie’ when the denizens of the forest realize that the child has bandaged the squirrel’s wounded paw could hardly be more meaningful. The grand chorus that ends the opera, ‘Il est bon, l’enfant, il est sage,’ virtually a Baroque motet in which the animals find their own voices in order to call out for the child’s mother, is sung handsomely, but here, too, it is the spirit of the singing that is most impressive.

As entrancingly as her voice flickers in the coloratura and top Cs and D of La feu's ‘Arrière! Je réchauffe les bons,’ soprano Annick Massis shines even more brightly as La princesse, her singing of ‘Ah! Oui, c’est Elle, ta Princesse enchantée’ elucidating the impetus for the child's despair when he learns that, owing to his destructive misbehavior, there is no resolution to the princess's story. Massis is at her best as Le rossignol, warbling through the avian trills and top Ds with complete confidence. Simply put, Massis is one of the world’s most talented singers, one with acclaimed performances in the most important opera houses to her credit, but she inexplicably is not as familiar to American audiences and listeners as she deserves to be. For those who do not know her work, this recording will be a wonderful introduction. With refined, engaging accounts of Une pastourelle's ‘Pâtre de ci, Pastourelle de là’ and La chauve-souris's ‘Rends-la moi,’ soprano Ingrid Perruche nearly equals Massis's performance, differentiating her characterizations without deviating from her innate artistic integrity and loveliness of tone. Nicolas Courjal, an exceptionally gifted young bass, impresses with his imaginative singing of Le fauteuil's ‘Votre serviteur humble, Bergère’ and targets the heart with the skill of an expert marksman in his sonorous but sensitive phrasing of Un arbre's anguished 'Ah! Ma blessure...Ma blessure.'

As L’horloge comtoise, the grandfather clock deprived of its pendulum by the child's roughhousing, baritone Marc Barrard intones 'Ding, ding, ding, ding' with near-mechanical precision, but he gives one of the recording's most brilliantly uninhibited performances as Le chat in the riotous ‘Duo miaulé,’ an homage to Wagner's chromatically adventurous writing for Tristan and Isolde that only a pair of agitated felines could bring off. Tenor Jean-Paul Fouchécourt is a marvel of a singer in the tradition of Michel Sénéchal whose performances radiate very French sensibilities. That he chants as much as he sings in this performance is more to do with the nature of his music, in which Ravel gives him absurd writing rocketing to E♭5 and F5 in falsetto, than with the condition of the voice, which remains in fine fettle. Fouchécourt purrs La théière's ‘How’s your mug?’ with the snobbishness of a very proper English lord before whirling uproariously through the famous Foxtrot. He is even more in his element as Le petit viellard, spouting Old Man Arithmetic's drolleries in ‘Deux robinets coulent dans un réservoir!’ as though they were choicest lines from Shakespeare. Both gentlemen are complemented by the alert, well-honed singing of mezzo-soprano Julie Pasturaud, a Bergère Louis XV whose 'Votre servante, Fauteuil’ is noticed and a Pâtre whose 'L’enfant méchant a déchiré’ has both substance and subtlety. She matches Barrard meow for sultry meow as La chatte in ‘Duo miaulé.’ As L'écureuil, the much-abused squirrel, Pasturaud excels at infusing the little creature with humanity, articulating ‘Sauve-toi, sotte! Et la cage? La cage?’ with grace that highlights her tormenter’s inherent savagery.

Heard most frequently in Baroque repertory, contralto Delphine Galou creates a Maman whose profoundly expressive ‘Bébé a été sage?’ exudes maternal affection despite the exasperation caused by a disobedient child. When this mother sings of the hurt that she suffers because of her son’s recalcitrance, her pain stokes the listener’s sympathy. Galou metamorphoses into La tasse chinoise as if by the enchantment evoked in the opera’s title. She sings the mock-Chinese jibberish in ‘Keng-ça-fou, mah-jong’ as though she were quoting Confucius. Then, she gives the despondent La libellule a soul with her aggrieved voicing of ‘Où es tu, je te cherche.’ Mezzo-soprano Hélène Hébrard depicts an Enfant who is petulant and frustratingly puerile at the start but ultimately atypically poetic. The ennui of her ‘J’ai pas envie de faire ma page!’ and ‘Ça m’est égal!’ is unmistakable, but deeper emotions intrude in ‘Oh! Ma belle tasse chinoise!’ These emotions escalate in Hébrard’s impassioned exchange with the Princesse, ‘Ah! C’est elle! C’est elle!’ She etches the essence of ‘Toi, le cœur de la rose’ into the listener’s memory, and her exclamation of ‘Oh! Ma tête!’ is wrenching. The relief that Hébrard conveys with ‘Ah! Quelle joie de te retrouver, Jardin!’ is sweetly comforting, and her final ‘Maman’ breaks both the drama’s and the opera’s spells. Hébrard credibly portrays a child without endeavoring to sound conventionally childish, but this Enfant emerges from his ensorcelled forest with remarkable maturity.

NAXOS releases often illuminate aspects of scores that other recordings leave in the shadows, and this recording of Ravel’s Ma mère l’Oye and L’enfant et les sortilèges exposes these chameleonic works to the shimmering Lyonnais sun. Like ragtime and jazz, far more musicians perform the music of Maurice Ravel than actually understand it. This disc provides a rare encounter with two of Ravel’s most beautiful pieces that is guided by the efforts of musicians who both grasp the composer’s singular idiom and truly love the music. This is a L’enfant et les sortilèges to reawaken the incorrigible but good-hearted child in every listener—and the dormant love for true French opera that has longed for signs of life.