GIUSEPPE VERDI (1813 – 1901): Simon Boccanegra—Dmitri Hvorostovsky (Simon Boccanegra), Barbara Frittoli (Amelia Grimaldi/Maria Boccanegra), Ildar Abdrazakov (Jacopo Fiesco/Andrea Grimaldi), Stefano Secco (Gabriele Adorno), Kostas Smoriginas (Pietro), Marco Caria (Paolo Albiani), Eglė Šidlauskaitė (Ancella), Kęstutis Alčauskis (Capitano); Kaunas State Choir;Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra; Constantine Orbelian, conductor [Recorded at the Kaunas Philharmonic, Kaunas, Lithuania, 1 – 7 August 2013; Delos DE 3457; 2 CDs, 129:55; Available from Delos, ClassicsOnlineHD, Amazon, Presto Classical, and major music retailers]

Captured in spacious sound with balances that occasionally seem artificial, this recording of Simon Boccanegra reunites several singers who have participated in revivals of the score at New York's Metropolitan Opera. This experience is evident in the performance preserved by Delos. On the podium, Constantine Orbelian presides with the assurance of one who knows and loves the score from cover to cover. He supports the singers instinctively but also neglects none of the oft-overlooked details of Verdi's orchestrations. In response to Orbelian's leadership, the strings of the Kaunas City Symphony often play with intimacy more typical of chamber music, their textures lean but full-bodied. The wind players also take care to blend their tones sonorously, their refinement not inhibiting the unleashing of torrents of sound when Verdi asks for them. The suspense of the Prologue's deceptively alluring opening scene is built to a crashing climax, and the mysterious sound world of Fiesco's great aria is conjured without distortion of the composer's prescribed rhythms. Here, Orbelian's acquaintance with Baroque repertory is beneficial: the ethereal atmosphere of Händel's Orlando is surprisingly close at hand. The very different moods of the successive duets in Act One are subtly but unmistakably limned by conductor and orchestra, and the monumental architecture of the Council Chamber scene is grandly but not excessively highlighted. Particularly in the Prologue and Act One, the singing of the Kaunas State Choir is an integral component of the success of Orbelian's approach to the score. The raw power of the choristers' singing in the public scenes is complemented by the carefully-managed blending of voices, especially in passages in which they are heard from offstage. Orchestra and chorus collaborate with Orbelian with the naturalness of friends assembled to make music for their own enjoyment. The conductor's tempi enable soloists, choristers, and instrumentalists alike to focus on giving of their best. Numbers like the magnificent duet for Simone and Amelia in Act Two are granted appealing lyrical flexibility but are not allowed to wallow in sentimentality. The prevailing qualities of this performance, shared by conductor, orchestra, and chorus, are unforced musicality and good sense.

In addition to the wonderful Kaunas orchestra and chorus, three native Lithuanian artists make valuable contributions to this performance of Simon Boccanegra. As Amelia's maid, mezzo-soprano Eglė Šidlauskaitė sings warmly and manages to convey sisterly concern despite the brevity of her part. Tenor Kęstutis Alčauskis is a flinty, strong-voiced Capitano, his proclamation of 'Cittadini! per ordine del Doge s'estinguano le faci e non s'offenda col clamor del trionfo i prodi estinti' in Act Three ringing with martial authority. Baritone Kostas Smoriginas is a stirringly incisive Pietro, a conspirator with a misguided but not unredeemable heart. The character is perhaps bullied by Paolo, but there is nothing weak about Smoriginas’s vocalism. Moreover, he displays considerable dramatic intelligence that marks him as a young singer to watch.

As portrayed by baritone Marco Caria, the wicked Paolo Albiani is a demonic fellow made all the more dangerous by how attractive he makes evil sound. In the opera’s Prologue, he voices the Allegro moderato 'L'atra magion vedete?.. de' Fieschi è l'empio ostello' with reptilian slyness, and he conducts his seditious affairs with solid intonation and unrelenting intensity. In the Act Two duet with Fiesco, he voices 'Me stesso ho maledetto!' vigorously. There are no regret or remorse in this Paolo as he is led to his well-deserved execution except for those of a man who has not accomplished as much mischief as he might have done. Caria's, too, is a name to remember.

Musically and dramatically, Jacopo Fiesco is one of Verdi's most demanding rôles for bass. Fiesco's hatred for Boccanegra has transformed him from a pillar of Genovese society into a broken man capable only of plotting revenge. Russian bass Ildar Abdrazakov gives the character an innate dignity that fosters a measure of sympathy for the old man. His scene and aria in the Prologue, 'A te l'estremo addio, palagio altero' and 'Il lacerato spirito del mesto genitore era serbato a strazio d'infamia e di dolore,' constitute one of Verdi’s most exquisite inspirations. Abdrazakov enunciates the recitative with great focus, and he phrases the aria eloquently. The concluding low F♯ lacks resonance, and his lowest notes are the weakest part of his singing throughout the performance. He unsparingly trades jabs with Boccanegra in their scene, and he haunts the Prologue like the specter of a restless wanderer. Abdrazakov's vocal steadiness—a trait too seldom heard in Fiesco's music—is especially welcome in Act One, in which he sings the duet with Gabriele with impressive sensitivity. He phrases the Sostenuto religioso, 'Vieni a me, ti benedico nella pace di quest'ora,' with genuine tenderness, and the contrast with his imperious singing in Fiesco's Act Two duet with Paolo could not be greater. In Act Three, Abdrazakov's pointed voicing of the throbbing Largo, 'Delle faci festanti al barlume cifre arcane, funebri vedrai,' is very touching, the line punctuated by the singer's easy rise to the top F. A few strange vowels notwithstanding, Abdrazakov uses text with near-native sophistication, but it is the voice that makes the greater impact. Other singers have made Fiesco's implacability more palpable, but few have sung his music more securely.

Gabriele Adorno is, in comparison with most of the mature Verdi's parts for tenor, a thankless rôle. Throughout much of the opera, he both is misled and misinterprets the situations in which he finds himself. He has some fantastic music, however, and uncomplicated musicality is the defining precept of Stefano Secco's performance on this recording. From his entrance in Act One, his bright timbre and straightforward interpretation of the rôle give pleasure even when the actual singing is less ingratiating. There is an engaging boyishness in his singing of 'Cielo di stelle orbato, di fior vedovo prato, è l'alma senza amor' in the duet with Amelia, and his top B♭s in unison with his beloved in 'Sì, sì dell'ara il giubilo' are tossed off with panache. Of a wholly different demeanor is Secco's singing in the duet with Fiesco, in which he voices the Allegro moderato section, 'Tu che lei vegli con paterna cura a nostre nozze assenti,' with distinction. The voice rings with impetuosity in the Council Chamber scene as Gabriele rashly accuses Boccanegra of abducting Amelia. Secco ably imparts the character's confusion and embarrassment as events he does not fully comprehend play out before him. He does not comply with Verdi's request that Gabriele should double Amelia's final trill in the scene, but he holds his own in the vast ensemble without forcing the voice too perilously. The Allegro sostenuto aria in Act Two, 'Sento avvampar nell'anima furente gelosia,' is passionately sung, and the simplicity and sincerity of the tenor's delivery of the aria’s Largo section, 'Cielo pietoso, redila, redila a questo core,' are unexpectedly poignant. In the subsequent duet with Amelia, Secco devotes an outpouring of lyrical tone to 'Parla, in tuo cor virgineo fede al diletto rendi.' Gabriele's trembling uncertainty as he contemplates murdering the sleeping Boccanegra in the opening pages of the Act Two finale is evinced by Secco's singing of 'Ei dorme!... Quale sento ritegno?' In the marvelous trio, another precious blossom of Verdi's genius, the ardor of Secco's singing of 'Perdon, perdon, Amelia, indomito geloso amor fu il mio' heightens the emotional impact of the scene. Finally knowing the truth about Amelia's parentage and past, Secco's Gabriele comforts both Amelia and the dying Boccanegra in Act Three with the compassion of a man who has at last recognized his destiny. Secco's voice is not a malleable, easily-produced instrument, but he is a shrewd singer who projects tones evenly and effectively. Ultimately, his heartfelt Gabriele is more gratifying than other tenors' self-conscious efforts at puffed-up heroics.

A versatile singer whose acclaimed operatic portrayals include rôles by Mozart, Donizetti, and Puccini, Italian soprano Barbara Frittoli follows in the tradition of singers such as Mirella Freni and Katia Ricciarelli, singers whose natural lyric voices were capable, when managed with caution, of successfully taking on parts requiring larger voices. Amelia's music is difficult to categorize: the tessitura is centered in the middle of the soprano range like that of a rôle written for a dramatic or spinto voice, but she also has trills—as does Wagner's Brünnhilde, of course. Like Secco, Frittoli manages her part in Simon Boccanegra without excessive strain. She starts Act One with a graceful but somewhat plain account of the aria 'Come in quest'ora bruna, sorridon gli astri e il mare!' Her top B♭ is secure, but the upper register often has a tremulousness that gives the voice a hard edge. In the duet with Gabriele, she soars to a blazing top B on 'gioia!' before voicing the Andantino, 'Vieni a mirar la cerula marina tremolante,' with compelling sensitivity. She and Secco combine artfully in 'Sì, sì dell'ara il giubilo,' the patina of her top B♭s blending well with the tenor's. The duet with Boccanegra is the beating heart of Act One, and Frittoli phrases 'Orfanella il tetto umile m'accogliea d'una meschina' and 'Padre! vedrai la vigile...figlia a te sempre accanto' with gleaming Italianate fervor, her long-held top B♭ cathartically crowning the duet’s final bars. Her top B♭ on 'Ferisci?' as she rushes to shield Boccanegra from his would-be assassins in the Council Chamber scene is explosive, but the terror and shame that shape her narrative in 'Nell'ora soave che all'estasi invita' are even more gripping. The crucial trills are more approximated than truly executed, but the effort is admirable. In the Act Two duet with Gabriele, Frittoli spins a silken thread of tone in 'Sgombra dall'alma il dubbio.' Her finest singing is in the trio in the Act Two finale, in which her plea for her dead mother's protection, 'Madre, che dall'empireo proteggi la tua figlia,' is deeply moving. Amelia's burden is the pain of finding her father only to lose him again, and Frittoli depicts a woman forever wounded by this pain. Hers is an imaginative portrayal only occasionally betrayed by vocal frailty.

The Boccanegra of Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky is a characterization heard in many of the world's important opera houses. A strikingly handsome man with one of the few legitimately significant baritone voices to have emerged in the past three decades, Hvorostovsky has gradually added the celebrated Verdi baritone rôles to his repertory as he felt that they became comfortable fits for his voice. In larger houses, he is sometimes forced to push his fine-grained instrument to ensure that he is heard, but recording a part like Boccanegra in studio enables him to sing without the necessity of projecting to the last row. In the Prologue in this recording, there is a suggestion of genuine surprise in his articulation of 'Suona ogni labbro il mio nome,' and his nuanced reading of the Andantino in the scene with Fiesco, 'Del mar sul lido tra gente ostile crescea nell'ombra quella gentile,' is insightful. Reluctant to ascend to the Doge's throne, not least after discovering the death of his dear Maria, this Boccanegra bows to the will of the people with humility. Hvorostovsky is resplendently in his element in the Act One duet with Amelia. He is almost playful in 'Dinne...alcun là non vedesti?' as he grows more certain that Amelia is his daughter. The expansiveness of his phrasing of 'Figlia! A tal nome palpito qual se m'aprisse i cieli'—is there any more heart-stopping melody in opera?—is evidence of the baritone's formidable breath control, and his soft top F—more piano than Verdi's ppp, admittedly—on the final voicing of 'Figlia!' is superb. The declamatory style in the Council Chamber scene does not come as naturally to Hvorostovsky, but he copes manfully, the voice sounding robust but not hard-driven. The pinnacle of his singing in Act Two is his bitter utterance of 'Doge! ancor proveran la tua clemenza i traditori?' This is seconded by a bracing account of 'Deggio salvarlo e stendere la mano all'inimico?' in the trio. Hvorostovsky's performance in Act Three is epitomized by his unexaggerated enacting of Boccanegra's death. Here, as throughout the performance on this recording, he sings the part on his own terms. They are terms that Verdi would surely have endorsed enthusiastically.

Simon Boccanegra has been a frequent visitor to the world's opera houses during the past decade, and this familiarity has bred the contempt of realizing that standards of Verdi singing have declined precipitously since the era—not so long ago—when the dedicated Verdian could hear Leonard Warren, Giuseppe Taddei, Tito Gobbi, and Cornell MacNeil as Boccanegra. The magnetism of Simon Boccanegra is such that a poor Boccanegra, Amelia, or Gabriele is more willingly endured than a poor Rigoletto, Gilda, or Duca di Mantova, but this Delos recording of Simon Boccanegra is a heartening reminder that the art of singing Verdi is injured but not dead. It is not perfect, but neither are the opera itself nor those who hear it.

JENNI BRANDON (born 1977), DAVID ANGELO CIANCAGLINI (born 1983), DEVIN FARNEY (born 1983), and GREG STEINKE (born 1942): Elements– Contemporary Music for Bassoon—Susan Nelson, bassoon; Solungga Fang-Tzu Liu, piano; Jennifer Goode Cooper, soprano; Nermis Mieses, oboe; Jeffrey Barudin, marimba; Stephen Miahky and Christina McGann, violin; Matthew Daline, viola; Jacqueline Black, cello [Recorded in the Donnell Theatre, Wolfe Center for the Arts, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio, USA, 19 – 21 May and 27 September 2014; MSR Classics MS 1477; 1 CD, 44:43; Available from MSR Classics, Amazon, and major music retailers; WORLD PREMIÈRE RECORDINGS]

David Angelo Ciancaglini's 2012 Seikilos Quartet for Oboe, Bassoon, Marimba, and Piano is a work that exudes imagination and a delightful propensity for reshaping centuries-old traditions with both modern idioms and timeless sensibilities. The composer's command of interweaving the timbres of the very different instruments is fascinating, and the Quartet exhibits a melodic fecundity missing from much Twenty-First-Century music. Nelson's expert playing is matched by the sterling efforts of oboist Dr. Nermis Miese and pianist Dr. Solungga Fang-Tzu Liu, but the 'star' of this piece is Dr. Jeffrey Barudin, who plays the marimba with joy that cascades from every note. Ciancaglini's Quartet is well-crafted music, here very well played. The four musicians interact with one another with every hallmark of a practiced camaraderie, trading phrases with the naturalness of conversation. This, in fact, is the essence of the Quartet: in its interplay of ideas among the instruments, the composer fosters a musical conversation in which each participant has an equal voice.

Completed in 2014, Jenni Brandon's Colored Stones for Solo Bassoon is a work in which simplicity evolves into complexity in unexpected ways. Nelson's unimpeachable rhythmic crispness lends the three movements of Colored Stones sharply-contrasted moods that are nonetheless closely related. The stark figurations of 'Smoky Quartz' receive from Nelson resonant executions, her phrasing and breath control as impressive as those of a great singer. In all three movements but especially in 'Lapis Lazuli,' the influence of Ravel is omnipresent, Brandon's manipulations of chromaticism and Jazz-inflected tonal pattens building upon the foundations laid in scores like Boléro and Daphnis et Chloé. The opalescent striations in the titular gemstone are reflected in 'Tiger's Eye,' and the hypnotic overtones of Nelson's playing are enhanced by the rich hues that she coaxes from her instrument, particularly in the earthy bottom octave. If Ciancaglini's Quartet is a conversation, Brandon's Colored Stones is a cheeky soliloquy worthy of Shakespeare's Beatrice.

A setting of Robert Frost's familiar poem, Devin Farney's 2012 Fire and Ice for Soprano, Bassoon, and Piano reunites Nelson with Liu and introduces soprano Jennifer Goode Cooper. Structurally, the piece is not unlike the highly-stylized French Baroque chamber cantatas by composers like Clérambault. Farney sets Frost's words with attention to unconventional nuances of their meaning, demanding unflagging concentration from both performers and listeners. Cooper’s voice is an ideal conduit for the kinetic energy of Farney's music and Frost's text, her scorching upper register offsetting the frigidity of the poet's imagery. Nelson’s playing is again a fount of elegant virtuosity. Liu's pianism is first-rate: she deals with some tricky writing without upsetting the intelligently-wrought balances among instruments and voice. Frost's poetry is difficult to meld with music because the cadences of the language are often peculiar, but Farney's setting of 'Fire and Ice' and this performance of it illuminate the inherent musicality of the poet's verse.

Dedicated to both the victims and the survivors of Hurricane Katrina, Greg Steinke's 2005 Suspended for Bassoon and Strings was inspired, at least in part, by K'os Naahaabii's 1974 poem with the same title. The acerbic sounds of suffering pierce the instrumental writing, but Steinke quells the tense atmosphere with streams of comforting but strangely disquieting tranquility. Nelson is joined in her evocative performance of Suspended by violinists Stephen Miahky and Christina McGann, violist Matthew Daline, and cellist Jacqueline Black. The string players respond to the music with visceral energy, the elongated strands of the music passing among the instruments with ominous fluidity. Against this backdrop, Nelson's playing has the dramatic force of a voice struggling to be heard in a storm-tossed cacophony. The voice's song, suspended in time, is ultimately one of hope and the power of tiny victories to upend immense tragedies. As played by this quintet of musicians, Suspended is also a reminder of music's faculty for communicating emotions that words simply cannot convey.

In the century-long history of recorded music, each decade has produced a handful of recordings via which the boundaries of instruments have been redefined by exceptional musicians. Joining Casals's and Milstein's Bach, Schnabel's Beethoven, and Segovia's Rodrigo, Susan Nelson enlarges and ennobles her instrument's presence on disc. In the case of Elements, this exceptional musician has opportunities to work not only with gifted colleagues but also with recent compositions that proclaim the bright future for contemporary music and that wonderful woodwind behemoth, the bassoon.

Thumbs up to ArtsQuest at SteelStacks: Rich Spina (left, background) and Peter Noone of Herman’s Hermits starring Peter Noone in concert at ArtsQuest Center at SteelStacks in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 28 May 2015 [Photo from 2014 by the author]

Listeners hearing Noone 'live' for the first time—or for the first time after a long absence—are apt to be surprised by hearing him sounding in 2015 so similar to how he sounded on records, on television appearances, and in concert in the '60s. A product of a musical family, the Mancunian Noone is the atypical pop star of his era who, after achieving fame with hit records and cinematic rôles, acquired the solid technical foundation that enables him to sing his repertory with the familiar boyish timbre and flair—and in the original keys—heard on his classic records. Noone often jokingly refers to Herman's Hermits starring Peter Noone as an ‘Oldies but Goodies’ group, but the regrettable fact is that many of his colleagues from the '60s British Invasion scene can no longer claim the 'goodies' half of that designation. Noone is also quick to remind today's audiences that the gems of the Herman's Hermits songbook were never intended to be musical manifestos laden with symbolism and encoded messages. The songs are uncomplicated, tuneful romps through the concerns of youth, and this is how Noone sings them. That he sings them so captivatingly is evidence of his dedication to his craft and the shrewdness and technical acumen with which he has cared for the voice throughout a career that has taken him not only to every imaginable setting in which Rock 'n Roll is heard but also to Broadway and West End stages.

Following a mostly enjoyable opening set by The Large Flowerheads, Herman's Hermits starring Peter Noone took the stage with one of their signature numbers, 'I'm Into Something Good,' embarking on a ninety-minute tour of highlights of the band's catalogue notable for its unflagging energy and toe-tapping musicality. Strong accounts of perennial favorites like 'Leaning on a Lamppost,''Can't You Hear My Heartbeat,''Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter,' and 'I'm Henry the Eighth, I Am,' illuminated by the sunny timbre of 'Herman himself,' alternated with less-frequently-heard material like the brilliant 'Hold On,' sung with gusto by Noone, whose voice soared in the song's high lines. In every number, Noone received splendid support on guitars and vocals—and spiffy dance moves, as well—from Vance Brescia and Billy Sullivan, both gifted performers and songwriters in their own rights. Brescia's high-kicking stage antics heightened the playful atmosphere of the show, and as both a guitarist and a singer there seems to be almost nothing beyond his abilities. Sullivan's guitar licks have restored some of the defining sounds familiar from the original Herman's Hermits recordings but missing from previous incarnations of Noone's traveling troupe. Also a talented tunesmith, Rich Spina tore into the keyboard riffs in ‘Sea Cruise’ with vigor to rival Jerry Lee Lewis in his prime. The rhythmic heart of the band is native Pennsylvanian Dave Ferrara, who, simply put, is one of the best drummers in the business. It is easy to underestimate drummers' significance to bands until hearing a great one at work, and Ferrara's mastery of the drum kit contributes indelibly to the pulse-quickening vitality of this band's performances.

After offering rollicking traversals of 'Love Potion Number Nine' and 'Wonderful World,' Noone convincingly sharpened the edge of his vocal storytelling in a stirring rendition of the angst-filled ‘A Must to Avoid,' taking the last-stanza modulation in stride. His management of the high tessitura of the ballad ‘Listen, People' was especially confident, and his assured readings of 'Silhouettes,''No Milk Today,' and 'The End of the World'—regularly cited as his personal favorite among the many songs recorded by Herman's Hermits—rightfully impressed the audience. In these songs, the wonderful condition of Noone's voice was particularly apparent. Except in terms of increased strength, cultivated through the acquisition of a solid education in the art of husbanding vocal resources, Noone's voice is little touched by time. The sole disappointment of the band's glowing performance of 'There's a Kind of Hush' was that it brought the show to a close.

It is disheartening for those who appreciate music of diverse genres to observe how few of today's recording artists truly warrant having the term artist associated with them in any context. Every era in musical history has had its showmen and its shams, competing artists and peddlers of artifice. Whether in opera or Rock 'n Roll, the performers deemed important artists have rarely been those who merely occupy a space upon a stage and emit streams of perfect tone. The true artist demands perfection of himself and his colleagues, but the essence of artistry is not a pursuit of perfection. There are occasional missed notes and flubbed words in Herman's Hermits starring Peter Noone performances. Charlatans blame colleagues' foibles, audience distractions, sound technicians, and a thousand other circumstances of live performances. Peter Noone and his band members revel in sharing with an audience the experience of real, live music, not the clinical perfection of cardboard 'recording artists' who only laugh if doing so is included in their scripts and approved by their PR handlers. Whether hearing Tosca at Covent Garden or Herman's Hermits starring Peter Noone at ArtsQuest, a listener can discern musicians who perform in order to repay their mortgages from those for whom performing is a necessary mode of communication. What an artist has to say need not always be deadly serious: no less meritorious are statements of uncomplicated exuberance that temporarily relieve the stresses of lives that are already too serious. Evolved from a pop star into an entertainer of a quality now all too rare, Peter Noone respects audiences too much to rest on his laurels, but he knows his craft too well to sacrifice his love for performing in a quest for phony pomposity. Combining evergreen vocalism with artistry that drew enthusiastic ovations from his ArtsQuest audience, his was a performance that said, 'Let's forget everything for a while and enjoy ourselves!'

Scene of the crime: the Musikfest Café at ArtsQuest Center at SteelStacks in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where Herman’s Hermits starring Peter Noone appeared in concert on 28 May 2015 [Photo from 2014 by the author]

ANTONIO SALIERI (1750 – 1825): The Chimney Sweep (Der Rauchfangkehrer) [Sung in English]—Stuart Haycock (Volpino), Alexandra Oomens (Lisel), Amelia Farrugia (Mrs. Hawk), Janet Todd (Miss Hawk), Christopher Saunders (Mr. Wolf), David Woloszko (Mr. Bear), David Hidden (Tomaso); Sydney Children’s Choir; Orchestra of the Antipodes; Erin Helyard, conductor [Recorded ‘live’ during performances in City Recital Hall, Angel Place, Sydney, Australia, 5 – 7 July 2014; Pinchgut LIVE PG005; 2 CDs, 91:28; Available from Pinchgut Opera] and WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756 – 1791) & SALIERI: Arias and Overtures—Sen Guo, soprano; Kenneth Tarver, tenor; Musikkollegium Winterthur; Douglas Boyd, conductor [Recorded in Stadthaus Winterthur, Switzerland, 1 – 8 September 2014; MDG Scene MDG 901 1897-6; 2 CDs, 104:15; Available from Arkiv Music, jpc, and major music retailers]

First performed at Vienna's Burgtheater on 30 April 1781, slightly more than a year before the première of Mozart's seminal Die Entführung aus dem Serail in the same theatre, Salieri's Singspiel Der Rauchfangkehrer was a considerable success, heard throughout German-speaking Europe until disappearing from the repertory in the first decade of the Twentieth Century. Leopold Auenbrugger's cunning libretto, adapted for Pinchgut Opera's production with English lyrics by Andrew Johnston and dialogue by Mark Gaal, is certain to have appealed to the enlightened sensibilities of Hapsburg Emperor Joseph II, by whom it was commissioned: in the course of the obligatory amorous intrigues typical of Italian opera buffa, which Auengrubber and Salieri lampooned in Der Rauchfangkehrer, there are celebrations of archetypal Teutonic character and the superior quality of German music. Still, Salieri was able to flex his native operatic muscles by composing Italian arias for his star pupil, soprano Caterina Cavalieri, who, contrary to what some sources suggest, was born in Vienna and both created the part of Konstanze in the first production of Die Entführung aus dem Serail and sang Donna Elvira in the first Viennese performances of Don Giovanni. Adapting a hybrid work like Der Rauchfangkehrer for the modern stage is not an easy proposition, and this recording, thoughtfully engineered to preserve many of the benefits of live performances and minimize the pitfalls, reveals that Pinchgut Opera's production of the rechristened The Chimney Sweep did not iron out all of the creases in a score that, from Twenty-First-Century perspectives, presents many challenges. Much of the comedy is genuinely funny, but the efforts at matching the opera's spirit to modern sensibilities are occasionally taken slightly too far. Conductor Erin Helyard and the Orchestra of the Antipodes ensure that the sonic landscape of The Chimney Sweep is that of Salieri and late-Eighteenth-Century Vienna, Helyard's tempi logical and the musicians' playing consistently stylish. The Chimney Sweep is perhaps rather like Mozart's Die Zauberflöte in the sense that the music being said to have been composed in the 'popular' style of its time leads to the erroneous belief that it is not difficult. There are fiendish pages in The Chimney Sweep, and it is for the deft handling of them that this recording is most valuable.

Singing the rôle of Tomaso, young baritone David Hidden has few opportunities to display his attractive voice, but he makes the most of his moments in Act Three, the brief aria with chorus of apprentices, enjoyably sung by youngsters of the Sydney Children's Choir, 'You've got all your stuff,' his lines in the ensemble 'Ah, such pain on you inflicted,' and the final aria with chorus 'Long life to all women, all men, and all creatures.' It is hardly unexpected that he has been acclaimed as Mozart's Papageno. Here, Hidden sings very capably, his handsome timbre clearly at the service of astute dramatic instincts.

Composed for celebrated bass Ludwig Fischer, who would go on to create Osmin in Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Mr. Bear's music takes the singer to D2, and the sonorous bass David Woloszko discloses few signs of discomfort with the tessitura. In his Act One duet with Mr. Wolf, 'Oh thou ecstasy of beauty,' Woloszko grumbles and growls effectively, all while managing to maintain a seamless Classical line. Mr. Bear's aria 'To be a singer of finesse' is a clever homage to music in the vein of Mozart's music for Papageno, but the bass's first-rate patter singing is offset by distracting non-musical 'effects' that are dramatically sensible but musically unnecessary. Again duetting with Mr. Wolf in Act Two, Woloszko sings Mr. Bear's part in 'Let fate use us as she chooses' delightfully, the contrast between his raucous upper and cavernous lower registers put to thrilling comedic use. He voices the aria 'Two thousand guilders placed on trust' with the mock gravity of a basso profundo, and his singing in the trio with Lisel and Mr. Wolf, 'Do you still have reservations,' is engaging. Woloszko is a worthy successor to Ludwig Fischer whose natural aptitude for buffo singing finds an ideal outlet in Salieri's music.

As Woloszko's partner in comedic crime, tenor Christopher Saunders is a light but lithe Mr. Wolf. In the Act One duet with Mr. Bear, 'Oh thou ecstasy of beauty,' Saunders sings with an airy grace, and his lean voice makes a fascinating narrative of his nightmare aria, 'The forest's black.' The duet with Mr. Bear in Act Two, 'Let fate use us as she chooses,' is artfully done, Woloszko and Saunders proving as effective a team as French and Saunders. Saunders the tenor provides a splendid account of the aria 'When the storm has raged for hours,' the voice shimmering. The trio with Lisel and Mr. Bear, 'Do you still have reservations,' finds Saunders at his best. Neither his technique nor his temperament is upset by Mr. Wolf's music, and he is impressively stylish as both a singer and a vocal actor.

Tenor Stuart Haycock brings to his portrayal of Volpino boundless energy and a lively presence that is sure to have been wonderfully effective in the theatre. In Volpino's Act One duet with Lisel, 'Lovely Lisel, my obsession,' Haycock sings affectionately but with a slyness that suggests that obsession may be the most appropriate term for his attention. His traversal of the aria 'Fino fino sopra fino' is assuredly managed, but the excursions into falsetto in the aria 'Augelieti che intorno cantate' are unpleasant for both singer and listener. Haycock ably negotiates the vocal line of the aria 'Questo core sta per voi,' and his performance of 'She and I, we fit so easy' in Act Two is endearing. There are passages in Volpino's music that take the tenor to the boundaries of his technical faculties, but he makes earnest efforts and earns appreciation even when the results are less admirable than the intentions.

Soprano Alexandra Oomens depicts Lisel with glistening tone and well-honed dramatic instincts that contribute to a sweet but sassy characterization. She blends handily with Volpino in their Act One duet, 'Lovely Lisel, my obsession,' and she voices the arias 'My Volpin! I'm feeling flustered' and 'We servants for our pains' with technical acumen to spare. 'Gentle sirs, so kind and caring' in Act Two is lovingly phrased, and Oomens's singing sparkles in the trio with Mr. Bear and Mr. Wolf, 'Do you still have reservations?' In the ensemble that ends Act Two, her resolute delivery of 'To be a master of your fate' is a cornerstone of the scene, and her masterful singing of 'Ah, such pain on you afflicted' in Act Three uplifts the emotional significance of the ensemble. Lisel's aria 'My heart feels so light' receives from Oomens a performance that conveys precisely the spirit of which she sings. The soprano's artistry is a boon to every scene in which Lisel appears, and her voice gives great pleasure throughout the range of the part.

Singing Mrs. Hawk, soprano Amelia Farrugia faces some very challenging music, and the solidity of her technique is evidenced by the assurance with which she traverses the rôle's difficulties. In Mrs. Hawk's Act One aria with 'corrections' by Volpino, 'Se più felice oggetto,' Farrugia executes the complex coloratura dazzlingly except at the very top of the line, and the over-elaborate cadenza takes her beyond the upper extremity of her vocal comfort zone. The aria in Act Three, 'In the grey and gloomy waking,' draws from Farrugia vocalism of the utmost poise. Like Oomens's Lisel, Farrugia's Mrs. Hawk is a joy each time that she perches herself in the drama

Miss Hawk's music was composed to order, as it were, for Caterina Cavalieri, one of the most celebrated singers in Vienna in the last quarter of the Eighteenth Century. She, too, is the victim of a fanciful cinematic depiction: far more people likely think of her as the amiably conceited dolt fabulously portrayed by Christine Ebersole in Forman's Amadeus than as Mozart's first Konstanze. Judging by the music composed for her by Mozart, Salieri, and other contemporaries, Cavalieri obviously was an exceptionally gifted singer, and in this performance soprano Janet Todd gives her all to singing Miss Hawk with elegance and exuberance with which Cavalieri would surely be pleased. In her Act One aria 'Basta, vincesti, eccoli il figlio,' which, like her mother's aria in the same act, also receives corrections from Volpino, Todd shapes beautiful cantilena lines into which bursts of coloratura are integrated with artless fluidity. In both the aria 'Is there any greater crime' and the ensembles at the end of Act One, she sings commandingly, leaving no doubt that even among such a gifted cast of female colleagues Miss Hawk is the opera's prima donna. The English translation makes the wordplay of the Act Three aria 'When the hawk makes her arrival' rather blatant, but Todd's singing restores to the piece a hearty dose of the composer's and librettist's witty humor. In the ensemble 'Ah, such pain on you inflicted,' Todd proves an accomplished stylist and reliable presence above the stave. She distinguishes herself with a performance of precision and pizzazz, her musical and dramatic instincts in near-perfect synchronicity.

Each of Pinchgut Opera's productions reveals new facets of this unique company's resourcefulness, and the founding of the Pinchgut LIVE label for the purpose of preserving their productions on disc is an incalculably rich gift to opera lovers, especially those of us for whom traveling to Australia to witness Pinchgut performances first-hand is impossible. The Australian première of The Chimney Sweep was an event worthy of documentation, and this recording is a riotous souvenir of a grand theatrical event. Its greatest achievement, however, is prompting the listener to think, 'There is some really ripping music in this opera. What treasures are buried in Salieri's other operas?'

Complementing Pinchgut Opera's foray into Salieri's work for the stage is MDG's superb recital of arias and instrumental music by Salieri and Mozart featuring the dauntlessly virtuosic Musikkollegium Winterthur, conductor Douglas Boyd, Chinese soprano Sen Guo, and American tenor Kenneth Tarver. The repertory for this pair of discs could not have been more judiciously selected to show both composers and performers to advantage, and MDG's engineering provides a warm acoustic in which the listener feels relocated to a seat in one of the salons of Eighteenth-Century Vienna in which many of Salieri's and Mozart's works were first heard.

Salieri's skills at composing and orchestrating instrumental music are represented by incisive performances of two of his finest opera overtures, those from his 1785 La grotta di Trofonio, an innovative and often exquisitely-crafted score that deserves to be played far more frequently, and the 1788 Axur, re d'Ormus, also a fine work that merits this further exploration. Under the Scottish-born Boyd's baton, the Musikkollegium Winterthur players perform their parts with unstinting period-appropriate technique, unafraid of emitting discordant sounds when the emotional intensity of the music demands them. Likewise, the spirited accounts of inventive instrument music by Mozart—the 1788 Adagio and Fugue in C minor (KV 546), Sechs Landlerische for two violins and bass (KV 606), the Overture from La clemenza di Tito (KV 621, 1791), and the ballet music from Act Three of Idomeneo, re di Creta (KV 367, 1781)—are marked by stylistic unity that does not interfere with pronounced but unexaggerated differentiation among the varied forms employed by the celebrated Salzburger. It is particularly apparent in these performances that Salieri, though not Mozart's equal as a melodist, certainly was not the insurmountably inferior, unimaginative tradesman that modern depictions have suggested that he was.

Anyone who has heard his performances in recently-released recordings of Händel's Joshua, Mozart's Così fan tutte, and Rossini's La gazza ladra will not be surprised by Tarver's beauty of tone, easy negotiations of high tessitura, and courageous confidence in bravura passages in music by Salieri and Mozart. In Ford's recitative 'Ah vile' and aria 'Or gli affannosi palpiti' from Salieri's 1799 Falstaff, ossia Le tre buffe, he shapes the vocal line with faultless accuracy and absolute control of his technique. In Volpino's 'Augelletti che intorno cantate' [the spelling of 'augelieti' preferred by Pinchgut Opera conforms with Auenbrugger's libretto and Salieri's manuscript, though 'augelletti' is correct in modern Italian] from Der Rauchfangkehrer, Tarver's ascents to the dementedly stratospheric passages are stunning, the kind of singing that earns an operatic 'Do not try this at home' designation. Guo gives radiantly-voiced and magnetically-phrased accounts of Aspasia's recitative 'Come fuggir' and aria 'Son queste le speranze' from Axur, re d'Ormus and the fearsome 'Ah! Lo sento' from L'Europa riconosciuta, the opera that inaugurated Teatro alla Scala. Guo and Tarver unite in a stirring performance of 'Qui dove ride l'aura,' also from Axur, re d'Ormus and one of Salieri's most inspired pieces, their voices intertwining beguilingly.

Composed by Mozart in 1783 for insertion into Pasquale Anfossi's opera Il curioso indiscreto and adapted from a text by Cervantes, 'Vorrei spiegarvi, oh Dio' (KV 418) is a ferocious beast of bravura writing. The soprano sings it winsomely and braves the ascents to D6 and E6 with vocal security and spot-on intonation. Here and in the recitative 'Mia speranza adorata' and rondo 'Ah, non sai' (KV 416), also products of 1783, Guo's upper register occasionally takes on a slight shrillness, perhaps accentuated by the fullness of the middle octave of her voice. She and Tarver collaborate in one of the finest recorded accounts of 'Spiegarti non poss'io,' the duet for Ilia and Idamante composed in 1786 for a private Viennese performance of Idomeneo: this performance alone renders this MDG release indispensable. The manner in which these artists use their voices, individually and in ensemble, to communicate the most profound nuances of Ilia's and Idamante's love and distress is an ideal example of what makes opera so powerful. With only a few notes, two gifted singers take from Mozart's score undiluted humanity and dispense it to the listener in sounds all the more poignant because they are so alluring. Interacting with Guo as though they were on stage rather than in studio in the recitative 'Non più, tutto ascoltai,' Tarver duets with the violin obbligato in 'Non temer, amato bene' (KV 490, 1786) with equal eloquence, singer and violinist intuitively matching their phrasing. As displays of both superb technique and complete comprehension of Mozartean style, Tarver's singing of the 1783 recitative 'Misero! O sogno, o son desto?' and aria 'Aura, che intorno spiri' (KV 431) is not only the apogee of this pair of discs but one of the most memorable specimens of Mozart tenor singing available on CD, worthy of comparison with legendary recordings by Peter Anders, Julius Patzak, Anton Dermota, Léopold Simoneau, Ernst Häfliger, and Fritz Wunderlich. Tarver's voice flows through the music on this disc with the freshness of the Salzach as it winds its way from the Kitzbühel to Mozart's native Salzburg.

Many Twenty-First-Century listeners who know Antonio Salieri only from his appearances in the cinema and Pushkin's and Rimsky-Korsakov's literary and operatic fantasies on the themes of his life and relationship with Mozart may be surprised by musicologist Alexander Wheelock Thayer's assessment in his book Salieri: Rival of Mozart that, at the time of the death of Emperor Joseph II in 1790, 'to the general operatic public Salieri was certainly the greatest of then-living composers.' The composer Ignaz Franz von Mosel, a pupil of Salieri in Hapsburg Vienna, wrote that his teacher was generally 'in good spirits and full of life; his politeness, his joyous disposition, his jovial and always harmless wit made him one of the pleasantest of companions.' Both Pinchgut LIVE's The Chimney Sweep and MDG's collection of arias and overtures confirm that the qualities that endeared Salieri to his student and biographer are similarly prevalent in his music. These recordings are indeed the pleasantest of companions.

There are in the cumulative history of opera many chapters that are sadly incomplete or can only be interpreted with the aid of ingenious musical gumshoeing. The path from Peri to Heggie has covered such extensive terrain that it is inevitable that even some vitally important landmarks have vanished from surveys of operatic topography. Nearly 340 years after the composer's death in 1676, the assertion that Pier Francesco Cavalli exerted influence on the development of opera as great as that wielded by Claudio Monteverdi is now unlikely to be contested. Indeed, not unlike the manner in which the pervasiveness of Mozart's innovation has been reassessed as the work of composers like Mysliveček has emerged from centuries of neglect, scholarship in the past quarter-century has awarded Cavalli a far greater share of credit for guiding opera into its adolescence than he enjoyed in previous generations. Born in Lombardia in 1602, Cavalli, like Monteverdi, had an exceptionally long life for a man of his time: having joined the choir of Venice's Basilica di San Marco in 1616, his career as a musician spanned six decades. Cognizance of Cavalli's operas has increased as performances and recordings of his La Calisto, Ercole amante, L'Ormindo, and Statira, principessa di Persia have engaged listeners' imaginations during the past three decades, but it was not until the 2015 Spoleto Festival USA that the composer's 1652 political allegory Veremonda, l'amazzone di Aragona reclaimed its rightful place in the annals of operatic progress. Brought to the stage of Charleston's Dock Street Theatre, where the production benefited from a venue that in many ways replicates the spatial ambiance for which the opera was created, by an uncommonly well-matched team dedicated to the endeavor's success, Veremonda besieged Spoleto with extraordinary charm and vitality. The notion of resurrecting a forgotten opera often suggests the exhumation of a corpse and an attempt at resuscitating a thing so long dead that it seems never to have been alive. Veremonda sprang to life as though she had only been sleeping—sleeping, it might be said, with her eyes open, one focused on the past and the other on the future.

Whether one's involvement with music is as a participant or an observer, the earnest opera aficionado must acquire the ability to discern passion from posturing. A successful performance renders this an easy task, and Tuesday evening's [2 June] Veremonda was clearly the culmination of a long journey through libraries and archives, unanswerable questions, and hours upon hours of advocacy, preparation, refinement, and rehearsal. Assuming the rôle of a musical Sherlock Holmes, Australian-born conductor and musicologist Aaron Carpenè managed to reassemble the pieces of the Veremonda puzzle with startling immediacy. Composed in 1652 to a libretto by Giulio Strozzi that was adapted from earlier texts, Andrea Cicognini’s Il Celio and Don Gastone Moncada, Cavalli’s Veremonda, l’amazzone di Aragona was almost certainly first performed in the Nuovo Teatro del Palazzo Reale on 21 December 1652—almost certainly, that is, because some sources cite Venice, where Veremonda was heard in 1653, as the city of the opera’s début. An opportunistic artistic response to the Spanish quashing of Catalan uprisings in the mid-Seventeenth Century, Veremonda depicts the conquering of Gibraltar, the last stronghold of Moorish Granada, and the ousting of the Moors from Spain by Fernando II of Aragón and Isabel I of Castilla y León. In the fashion typical of Seventeenth-Century Neapolitan opera, Cavalli’s and Strozzi’s concoction blends elements of the quintessentially Italian commedia dell’arte with somber themes of regal authority, infidelity, betrayal, gender identities, and religious intolerance. As reconstituted by Carpenè, the score of Veremonda is a fertile environment in which the antics of comedic characters reminiscent of those in L’Ormindo are contrasted with the dire plights of lovers like those in La Calisto and Artemisia. Musically, the score contains love scenes as evocative as those for Diana and Endimione in La Calisto, and the effects of the superlative scholarship with which Carpenè prepared Veremonda for modern performance never outweighed his obvious joy in undertaking the task. This Veremonda is a thriving organism, not an academic treatise unleashed from its ivory tower without benefit of acclimation into the often discombobulating domain of greasepaint and theatrical hazards.

With Seussian sets and costumes in primary colors by world-renowned Italian artist Ugo Nespolo, Spoleto’s production of Veremonda, l’amazzone di Aragona ushered the opera into the Twenty-First Century with intelligence and ingenuity. Nespolo’s designs, Stefano Vizioli’s insightful direction, and Pierluigi Vanelli’s savvy choreography engendered a galvanizing atmosphere in which the opera’s drama played out with alternating gaiety and gravity, adroitly illuminated by John Torres's lighting designs. Veremonda’s band of amazon warriors received from dancers Kristen Burgsteiner, Ashley Concannon, Darli Iakovleva, Katharine Irwin, Bailey McFaden, and Starla Wood nimble performances, and their dexterity was matched move for cramp-inducing move by male dancers Tim Brown, Anton Iakovleva, Maurice Johnson, Jon-Michael Perry, Blake Pritchard, and David Vick. The exhilarating, Moorish-style Dance of the Bulls was a highlight of the evening, as was the enchanting dance for the whole cast that closed the opera. Working closely with Carpenè, Vizioli brought Veremonda to life with shrewd fusions of period-appropriate dramatic devices and modern sensibilities. The primary focus of the production was not on an ostentatious revelation of Veremonda as a reclaimed masterpiece but on allowing both the musical personnel to perform the score with artistic freedom and the audience to approach the opera without prejudices or preconceptions.

Amazzoni in missione: (from left to right) Countertenor Andrey Nemzer as Alfonso, mezzo-soprano Vivica Genaux as Veremonda, tenor Steven Cole as Don Buscone, bass-baritone Joseph Barron as Roldano, and dancers as amazon warriors in Pier Francesco Cavalli’s Veremonda, l’amazzone di Aragona at Spoleto Festival USA, 2 June 2015 [Photo © by Julia Lynn Photography]

Giacutte, the captain of Zelemina’s guards, entered in Parte Seconda like a storm blowing into Charleston Harbor. Enacted by bass-baritone Jason Budd with rotund, hirsute menace that quickly evolved into good-natured bumbling in the fashion of Osmin in Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail, the character was strangely endearing, a sort of kindly uncle with a scimitar. Budd’s imposing voice boomed like thunder in his singing of 'Donna, che malaccorta non può tener celato,’ but Giacutte’s tempestuousness was short-lived: the only disappointment was that the rôle, too, is short-lived.

With the part sung with such sincerity by bass-baritone Joseph Barron, it was impossible not to sympathize with Roldano’s predicament. Thinking that his son has betrayed both father and king and having been exiled from court, Roldano’s quest to right the wrongs to himself and his royal patron lead to mistaken conclusions and near-fatal errors in judgment. Whether inciting Alfonso to war or railing against Delio’s duplicity, Barron sang boldly, little troubled by the frequent descents to and beyond the bottom of the stave. His 'Signor, non ti doler de' lunghi indugi' was the argument of a battle-wizened soldier, but it was his singing of 'Dove Delio soggiorna, vanne, vanne Roldan, vola e trapassa, offeso parti e vendicato torna'—the outcry of a frustrated father—that was most impactful. The granitic solidity of Barron’s voice lent Roldano authority and made his every utterance assertive.

Una regina e la sua nutrice: Countertenor Michael Maniaci as Zaida (left) and soprano Francesca Lombardi Mazzulli as Zelemina (right) in Pier Francesco Cavalli’s Veremonda, l’amazzone di Aragona at Spoleto Festival USA, 2 June 2015 [Photo © by Julia Lynn Photography]

The tessitura of Cavalli's music for Zelemina's nurse Zaida did not often allow American countertenor Michael Maniaci to deploy the lustrous upper octave of his natural soprano voice, but the musicality and dramatic uninhibitedness of his performance were fantastic. Travesti rôles like Zaida were common in Seventeenth-Century opera, but they can only rarely have been sung as well as Maniaci sang Zaida in Charleston. The gag of hooking a violin whilst angling in the orchestra pit was managed with panache, and the singer was as light on his feet in dance numbers as Fred Astaire—or, in this context, Ginger Rogers. It was Maniaci’s opalescent voice that was most notable, however. Every note of Zaida’s music was sung with poise, and his phrasing of 'Il rifutar gli amanti non è ragion di stato' was shaped by the command of bel canto for which the singer is acclaimed. Responding to the non-piscine product of Zaida’s fishing expedition, Maniaci sang ‘Oh, oh, mal abbia, mal abbia il pescare’ with droll exasperation. He is the kind of singer who can make an indelible impression with a single line, and his Zaida was a memorable intersection of vocal sangfroid and dramatic cunning.

The rôle of the Sergente maggiore, the regimental leader of Veremonda’s amazon legion, is the source of one of Veremonda’s most bizarre mysteries. In manuscript sources, the character is inexplicably transformed from a bass into a soprano in the course of the opera. Determining whether to transpose half of the part for a bass or soprano was only one of the choices that had to be made in the planning of this production, and the opportunity to hear the shimmering voice of Danielle Talamantes prompted gratitude for Carpenè’s decision to allocate the rôle to a soprano. Like Zaida, il Sergente maggiore does not offer the singer a plethora of possibilities for histrionic display, but Talamantes shone in 'Sorella non sai, ch'è cosa diversa dall'empier un fuso sparar l'archibuso?' Resembling a svelte young Marilyn Horne as Händel’s Rinaldo, she mirrored Maniaci’s talent for enriching every moment of her part with vocal gold.

Commedia in un cappello brillante: Tenor Steven Cole as Don Buscone in Pier Francesco Cavalli’s Veremonda, l’amazzone di Aragona at Spoleto Festival USA, 2 June 2015 [Photo © by Julia Lynn Photography]

Portraying the jester Don Buscone with riotous physicality that encompassed cartwheels and bounding about the stage with the spryness of an Olympic hurdler, tenor Steven Cole provided levity whenever dramatic situations seemed destined for irreversible calamity. In the first part of the opera, he sang 'Ala, ala, o Guerrieri, fate largo, o Soldati' with the counterfeit pomposity of a man for whom war is a tremendous inconvenience. Cole’s phrasing of 'Il giorno a caccia di selvaggie belve il nostro re sen va' revealed that the depths of his artistry extend far beyond comedy. The self-important glee with which he delivered 'Da caccia il re tornò di cornuti animali' to the audience in the second part, relaying the report of Veremonda’s dalliance with Delio, was boisterous, but the foremost joy of his performance was the quality of his singing. His bright timbre allied with technical acumen that failed him in none of the difficulties of his music, the sheer mirth with which Cole enacted Don Buscone’s shenanigans was infectious.

As il Crepuscolo in the opera’s Prologo, tenor Brian Downen sang ‘Voi, lieti in feste e in gioco’ sensationally, the bravura writing negotiated with aplomb, and he joined il Sole in an incandescent account of ‘Belle donne però sovvenga a voi.’ Still, it was as Zeriffo that Downen unleashed the best of his artistry as a singing actor. In Parte Prima, he voiced 'Nascer libero che vale se dura povertà' with crackling energy, and his Zeriffo interacted with his beloved Vespina with teasing insouciance. The teary-eyed irony of his 'La trista mia sorte mi avezza servendo a star con la morte' was keenly portrayed. Downen brought both more and more appealing tone to Zeriffo’s music than many singers invest in similar rôles, epitomized by his broadly-sung 'Della nave del core, quand'è nocchiero amore.’ With a cheeky smile always at the ready, Downen’s Zeriffo braved every indignity unflinchingly and emerged as one of the opera’s most lovable characters.

Una barca per il destino: Tenor Brian Downen as Zeriffo (left) and countertenor Raffaele Pè as Delio (right) in Pier Francesco Cavalli’s Veremonda, l’amazzone di Aragona at Spoleto Festival USA, 2 June 2015 [Photo © by Julia Lynn Photography]

​Vespina erupted onto the Dock Street Theatre stage in the person of French mezzo-soprano Céline Ricci, whose singing combined the combustive thrust of Vesuvio with the cosmopolitan sophistication of rue St-Honoré. As a comedienne, she mugged with the jocularity of Lucille Ball, but it was the potency of her singing that made her performance unforgettable. In the opera’s first part, she voiced 'Quest'è bella ch'ognun voglia l'impossibile da me!' with unstoppable charisma, and she made the farcical 'Troppo gridan tutti quanti "con gli zoccoli il puoi far”’ truly funny. Even the effervescent Vespina has a streak of seriousness, and Ricci sang 'Bella fede, ove sei gita?' with probity that transcended comedy, expanding the scope of the rôle from one solely of absurdity to a detailed, involved characterization. The devotion of Ricci’s Vespina to both Zeriffo and Veremonda was unexpectedly touching, and there was a suggestion of tenderness in her voicing of 'Delio sen va la notte, amor gli è duce.’ Throughout the performance, she commandeered attention no matter with whom she shared the stage, and Vespina grinned, danced, and, above all, sang her way into the audience’s collective heart.

​First heard as il Sole in the Prologo, countertenor Andrey Nemzer unfurled steady, dark-hued tone in ‘Ubbidente anch’io d’Ercole ai segni’ and the ensemble with il Crepuscolo, ‘Belle donne però sovvenga a voi.’ Subsequently assuming Alfonso’s regal mien, he portrayed the intellectual monarch with boyish guilelessness. The bookish sincerity of his singing of 'Adora, quasi nume, ciascun di rege il nome' was complemented by a traversal of 'Riformar a voglia mia, s'io potessi la Natura' that radiated an intense fascination with the natural world. Nemzer’s timbre shone in his singing of 'Son l'arti che seguo, sì dure, sì gravi, se teco mi stringo fa sì che soavi.’ Such a passive king seemed slightly ridiculous as a warrior, but there was nothing foolish in the countertenor’s declamation of 'Delio, Delio fellone, malvagia Veremonda,’ the king’s heartbreak showing through the steely resolve. Both this and Alfonso’s subsequent reconciliation with Veremonda were in Nemzer’s hands profoundly moving. The baritonal sheen of his lower register contrasting effectively with his sunlit upper register, his Alfonso was a man whose head-in-the-clouds abstraction was indicative of strength rather than weakness of character.

La regina ed il suo guerriero: Countertenor Raffaele Pè as Delio (left) and mezzo-soprano Vivica Genaux as Veremonda (right) in Pier Francesco Cavalli’s Veremonda, l’amazzone di Aragona at Spoleto Festival USA, 2 June 2015 [Photo © by Julia Lynn Photography]

As portrayed by Italian countertenor Raffaele Pè, Delio was the quintessential pretty boy whose vanity was tempered by a noble spirit that prevented his actions from decaying into utter baseness. The voice is an instrument of incredible beauty over which its owner has finely-honed control, and the singer found in Delio’s music fuel that he ignited with his incendiary performance. In the opera’s Parte Prima, Pè’s singing of 'Sia teco in eterno, dovunque tu sia, quest'anima mia' with Zelemina throbbed with youthful passion, his voice combining with Lombardi Mazzulli’s with the naturalness and inevitability of a river flowing into the sea. Pè did not overplay the humor of 'Gran tormento è l'esser bello,' in which it seems that Delio must be a less-treacherous ancestor of Verdi’s Principessa Eboli, but his perfectly-timed delivery was greeted by well-deserved laughter from the audience. His stirring 'Come spira bravura e leggiadria quella Amazzone mia!' and 'Bella bocca, perché tante dolci voglie a me chiudesti' were executed with the ardor of an ambitious Shakespearean lover. Joining first with Veremonda in 'Alma ad alma insieme stretta fortunata goderà in amor gioia perfetta,' with Zelemina in 'Qui le grazie e gl'amori oggi si trovano,' and then with Veremonda again in 'Aura che sibila, fonte che mormora,’ Pè judiciously adapted his phrasing and vibrato to complement those of his leading ladies. The dramatic sagacity of his portrayal of Delio was exemplified by his articulation of a single line, 'Padre, chi qua ti vuole!' The exclamation of a thwarted lover whose amorous adventures are disrupted by the untimely arrival of his father, the line drew from Pè a delivery worthy of Groucho Marx. Credible as a comedian and a lover, this young artist sang Delio’s music with unshakable mettle and a voice redolent of silver and starlight.

​The Zelemina of Italian soprano Francesca Lombardi Mazzulli was a delicate creation whose gossamer femininity disguised an iron will that blossomed when the character came under fire. In the opera’s first part, the singer’s velvety voice and bewitchingly beautiful face shone with love for Delio, with whom she sang a ravishing account of 'Sia teco in eterno, dovunque tu sia, quest'anima mia.’ In the scene at the start of Parte Seconda that found her in the bath, she caressed 'Riedi, riedi agl'occhi miei' with the tranquility of a spring breeze. Lombardi Mazzulli and Pè sang 'Né meste più, né più dolenti siano le voci mie' with intensity that would have been equally at home in Act Three of La bohème. The towering climax of the evening was the vanquished Zelemina’s plea for her life, 'Invitta Veremonda, re fortunato Ibèro, a' vostri piedi io sono, perdono io non dispero.' Accompanied only by the positive organ, the soprano’s voice soared through the theatre, melting the hearts of Alfonso and Veremonda and enrapturing the ears of the audience. The sweetness of Lombardi Mazzulli’s tone was bolstered by a solid technical core, and not one note, ornament, word, or emotion of the part was beyond her abilities.

​Singing the titular amazon of Aragón, mezzo-soprano Vivica Genaux looked phenomenal in Nespolo's costumes and sounded even better in Cavalli’s music. From her first entrance, she portrayed a character desperate to be the foremost star in her husband's firmament. The sadness that she evinced as Veremonda struggled to divert Alfonso's attention from his celestial musings was deeply poignant, depicted by the singer with disarming simplicity. She was no less convincing as the sword-toting commander of her amazon corps. In the opera’s first part, the indignation that exploded from her 'Delle Amazzoni force il numero è prescritto?' incited her fiery articulation of 'Son l'armi che cingo sì dure, sì gravi se teco mi stringo fa sì che soavi' and 'Oh tradimento atroce!' The current of despair that surged beneath the surface of Genaux’s singing of 'Vada pur dotto marito a contar vada le stelle' swept through every crack in the queen’s intrepid demeanor like a geyser. Even when manipulating Delio’s passion with her own ambivalent designs, this Veremonda’s love for Alfonso was omnipresent. Genaux made of 'Finga, finga d'amare, se vuol donna regnare' an artistic as well as a political credo: the woman born into power must prove her suitability for it, and the singer entrusted with the title rôle in an unknown opera must prove deserving of it. If there was any doubt of Genaux’s suitability for the part, it was erased by her intoxicating account of 'Ti adorava questo core,’ in which her ornamentation exploited the unassailable security of the voice and integration of her upper and lower registers. She and Pè traded vocal blows and embraces in their ideally-blended performances of 'Alma ad alma insieme stretta fortunata goderà in amor gioia perfetta' and 'Aura che sibila, fonte che mormora.’ The smile that brightened Genaux’s Veremonda’s face when she realized that Alfonso had come to her rescue, even with the intention of denouncing her for infidelity, scintillated like a comet viewed through her husband’s telescope. In 2014, Genaux marked the twentieth anniversary of her professional operatic début, but the voice sounded fresher and more effortlessly-produced than those of many ‘green’ singers now emerging from conservatories. Among her gallery of celebrated impersonations of Händel and Rossini characters, her portrait of Cavalli’s Veremonda acquired a merited place of prominence. On the page, Veremonda is an ambiguous, equivocal lady: in Genaux’s performance, she was truly a captivating, multi-faceted heroine whose motives were guided by a primal need to be appreciated.

The accusation frequently made is that an opera like Veremonda, l'amazzone di Aragona does not proffer opportunities for the vocal and dramatic gestures necessary to make lasting impressions on average listeners—if, in the fantastical menagerie of opera, such creatures actually exist—primarily familiar with the recitative/aria/cabaletta formulae of Nineteenth-Century opera. Perhaps that is true if a production of an opera like Veremonda has to its discredit a cast of dullards who neither appreciate nor understand the score. Reviving an opera dormant for more than three centuries is a bit like restoring an antique automobile: it is necessary to completely comprehend the original design, preserve every part still in working order, and fabricate replacement parts to unobtrusively fill gaps for which authentic elements can no longer be procured. This Aaron Carpenè accomplished with the devotion of a Picasso rejuvenating a canvas by da Vinci or Botticelli. If there was a lady or gentleman involved with Spoleto Festival USA's production of Veremonda who did not have genuine affection for the score and the opportunity to stage it, the apathy was disguised with rare success. The acting in this production was not employed in deceiving the audience, however. The actions of every person upon the stage, in the pit, in the theatre, and in Spoleto Festival USA's headquarters were pledged to reinstating the prestige that Veremonda, l'amazzone di Aragona enjoyed three centuries ago. Musically and dramatically, the performance prompted the response that any warring monarchs and their subjects long to hear: mission accomplished.

Vespina e la regina: Mezzo-sopranos Céline Ricci as Vespina (left) and Vivica Genaux as Veremonda (right) as Veremonda in Pier Francesco Cavalli’s Veremonda, l’amazzone di Aragona at Spoleto Festival USA, 2 June 2015 [Photo © by Julia Lynn Photography]

FRANCESCO GASPARINI (1661 – 1727): Il Bajazet—Leonardo De Lisi (Bajazet), Filippo Mineccia (Tamerlano), Giuseppina Bridelli (Asteria), Ewa Gubańska (Irene), Antonio Giovannini (Andronico), Benedetta Mazzucato (Clearco), Raffaele Pè (Leone), Giorgia Cinciripi (Zaida); Auser Musici; Carlo Ipata, conductor [Recorded in Chiesa del Crocifisso, Barga, Italy, 29 June – 6 July 2014; Glossa GCD 923504; 3 CDs, 205:08; Available from Glossa, ClassicsOnlineHD, Amazon, jpc, Presto Classical, and major music retailers; WORLD PREMIÈRE RECORDING]

Perhaps the first question that will occur to those who encounter this recording of Il Bajazet in their local music shops—such things still exist in some fortunate corners of our world—or in the ether of digital media will be, ‘Who was Francesco Gasparini?’ Like many of the composers of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries whose names gradually disappeared among footnotes in musicological texts, Gasparini exerted considerable influence on musical life in and beyond northern Italy in the first quarter of the Eighteenth Century. Born in Tuscany in 1661, he is known to have studied in Rome with the acknowledged masters Arcangelo Corelli and Bernardo Pasquini, and the reach of his music extended to Britain and German-speaking environs, where Johann Sebastian Bach knew and learned from his liturgical works. In addition to having taught the younger composers Benedetto Marcello, Johann Joachim Quantz, and Domenico Scarlatti, in his rôle as maestro di musica at the famed Ospedale della Pietà in Venice he was responsible for the hiring of a colorful young would-be prelate, Antonio Vivaldi. A survey of Gasparini’s operas, the scores of a number of which are not known to have survived unto the present day, reveals that his reputation was sufficient to secure performances of his music in all of the important operatic centers of Italy and in the music-loving capitals Dresden and Vienna. Premièred in Reggio Emilia in 1719, the composer’s second setting of Agostino Piovene’s and Ippolito Zanelli’s impassioned treatment of the conflict between the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I and the infamous Timur the Lame—too much of Gasparini’s first and third settings, respectively first performed in Venice in 1711 and 1723, is lost to permit credible reconstitution of the scores—reveals a compositional voice very different from but meritorious of comparison to that of Georg Friedrich Händel, whose familiarity with Gasparini’s settings of Il Bajazet can be sensed in virtually page of his own Tamerlano, the libretto for which was in part adapted by Nicola Francesco Haym from Piovene’s libretto. Not unlike the manner in which Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia eclipsed Paisiello’s earlier setting of the Beaumarchais-inspired tale and the sage of Pesaro’s own Otello suffered the same fate after the début of Verdi’s version of the Shakespeare epic, the survival of even a very fine score in direct competition with a masterwork like Händel’s Tamerlano is unlikely at best. Recorded in conjunction with a staged production mounted in Barga's Teatro dei Differenti in July 2014, likely the opera’s first since the opening quarter of the Eighteenth Century, Glossa’s performance of Il Bajazet is a sparkling introduction to a score richly deserving of revival. This, however, is no mere revival: it is a glorious return worthy of the legendary figures Gasparini’s music brings to life.

Beginning with a bustling account of a Sinfonia borrowed from Gasparini's opera Ambleto, premièred in Venice in January 1706, performed in London in 1712, and thought to have been the first operatic setting of the story of Hamlet (though not based on Shakespeare's play), the musical trailblazers of Auser Musici and their leader Carlo Ipata guide the listener on an edge-of-the-seat journey through the opera’s emotionally-charged drama. Guided by the continuo playing of harpsichordist Alessandra Artifoni and theorbist Giovanni Bellini, the Auser Musici musicians provide performances of their parts that accompany, support, and interact with the singers, the wind players carefully matching the vocalists’ phrasing and the strings’ sparing use of vibrato highlighting the many felicities of Gasparini’s prodigious chromatic harmonies. Ipata’s leadership exhibits a thorough understanding both of Gasparini’s unique idiom and of his stylistic kinship with Händel and his northern Italian contemporaries. This is not pedantic conducting, however: in Ipata’s execution of every page of the score, there is the sense of a performance playing out, the drama felt as keenly by the conductor as by the cast. The real marvel of this performance is the seamless naturalness with which Ipata and Auser Musici elucidate every intricacy of Gasparini’s music on scales both broad and intimate. When music like Gasparini’s is the foundation upon which every subsequent generation of composers of Italian opera built, why is this organic authenticity of approach missing from so many performances of well-known repertory from Donizetti to Dallapiccola?

As Zaida, soprano Giorgia Cinciripi has only recitative and a single aria in which to assert her musical and dramatic strengths, and she captivates with every note of her part. Slight shrillness is mitigated by a vivid dramatic personality that propels the character to the center of every scene in which she appears. Zaida’s lone aria, ‘Solo i vaghi, i lusinghieri, i sereni, i bei pensieri sono i fior di verde età’ in Act Three, is sung by Cinciripi with alluring femininity and stylish finesse. Hers is a performance that impresses despite its relative brevity.

The sublimely beautiful voice of countertenor Raffaele Pè is too little heard as Leone in Il Bajazet, but he grasps every bar of his part with unsparing dramatic sensitivity that mines every kernel of substance from his music. In his Act One aria, ‘Non cangiasi per poco amor di salde tempre, no,’ Pè sings commandingly, meeting every bravura demand of the music with panache and differentiating repetitions to telling dramatic effect. An incendiary force in recitative throughout the performance, he shapes the Act Two aria ‘Rondinella che si vede tolto il nido’ with the aural grace of a sculptor handling Carrara marble. The loveliest of Gasparini’s music for Leone is the Act Three aria ‘Dolce lampo di speme gradita,’ a piece that Pè finesses with dulcet, perfectly-focused tone and delicate but well-defined handling of the words. The immediacy of Pè’s characterization of the flinty Leone leaps from the discs, but the evenness of his singing discloses unexpected depths of serenity amidst the waves of steely resolve. Which label will now provide this phenomenal young singer with the opportunity to complement his Leone with a recording of Händel’s Andronico?

Mezzo-soprano Benedetta Mazzucato creates a multi-faceted Clearco whose motives never seem as straightforward as the sentiments of his arias suggest. In Act One, Mazzucato sings the aria ‘Dolce è l'amar ma quel poter regnar’ elegantly, injecting subtle inflections of irony into her quick-witted use of text. The imagery of the aria ‘La farfaletta se al primo lume’ is vividly drawn by the singer’s intelligent manipulations of the colorations of vowel sounds. In fact, there is often more textual acuity than vocal opulence in Mazzucato’s singing, but she is a consummate professional who does not force the voice beyond the boundaries of comfort. The aria ‘Su gl'occhi del mio bene le pene del morir’ in Act Two is truly performed, not just sung, the emotional profile of the music sharply etched. ‘Morte non è agli amanti ambi insieme morir’ in Act Three is delivered with the acuity of a great actress of the Broadway stage. Mazzucato makes Clearco a crucial participant in the drama of Il Bajazet, and her negotiations on her own terms of Gasparini’s musical requirements produce a very satisfying portrayal.

The incisive vocalism and effervescent timbre of platinum-voiced countertenor Antonio Giovannini create an Andronico who woos and wages war with equal propensities but is also a proud, suitably aristocratic prince to the life. He buzzes through recitatives with the stinging crispness of an agitated hornet, the voice shimmering and the characterization displaying a different ‘face’ depending upon with whom Andronico is conversing. In his first aria in Act One, ‘Solea dir all'Idol mio,’ Giovannini sings beguilingly, the young prince’s affection for Asteria coursing through his poetic handling of the melodic line. Then, the singer’s assured performance of ‘Infedele, ingannator, questo mio cor mai non sarà’ sizzles with indignation expressed in spot-on bravura singing. To the aria ‘Con dolci prieghi e pianti’ in Act Two he devotes a wonderful display of concerted expressivity, the prayers and tears invoked by the text audible in the voice. The nobility of ‘No, che del tuo gran cor io sono l'offensor’ is also splendidly served by Giovannini’s traversal, and he sings ‘No, no, non discende no, sì fiero e sì crudel un fulmine dal ciel’ in Act Three with technical and dramatic mastery. Virtually every performance that Giovannini has sung on disc is fantastic, but his portrait of Andronico in Il Bajazet is representative of his best work to date.

The initially diffident but justifiably magisterial Irene receives from mezzo-soprano Ewa Gubańska an appealingly concrete impersonation that ignores none of this complex lady’s idiosyncrasies. Formally introducing Irene in the Act One aria ‘Vieni, vola, e sul mio viso,’ Gubańska indeed invites the listener to come and witness what she can accomplish in a score like Gasparini’s. Allying an impressive bravura technique with centered, amethyst-hued tone, she reaches exalted heights of emotional directness in the aria ‘La violetta, va timidetta, dove la rosa, troppo orgogliosa,’ the timbre evoking the floral allusions. Irene’s arias in Act Two, ‘Ti sento, sì, ti sento ancor nel tradimento’ and ‘No, no: il candor della tua fè quel non è che mi tradì’ are effectively contrasted by both composer and singer, the latter infusing her singing with flashes of warmth in moments of tension. Gubańska leads her colleagues in making the recitatives in this performance genuine conflicts and conversations rather than strings of notes connecting one aria with the next, and this involvement is extended in her solo numbers, as well. The first of her arias in Act Three, ‘Non è si fido al nido dell'usignolo il volo,’ is dispatched with absorbing sincerity. Gubańska’s artistry soars in Irene’s final aria, ‘Un'aura placida, e lusinghiera dopo le pene a recar viene,’ a number that the mezzo-soprano interprets with histrionic simplicity but technical alchemy. Especially in recitative, Gubańska’s singing discloses a gift for turning leaden text into dramatic gold, and a few momentary defects in her vocalism, mostly resulting from pushing the voice in ornamentation, are of little cumulative consequence.

Singing Asteria, Bajazet’s sweet-spirited but ultimately strong-willed daughter who is a pawn in intrigues both amorous and political, mezzo-soprano Giuseppina Bridelli offsets a few uncertain passages with a depiction of contrasting resilience and refinement. Loved by Tamerlano, in love with Andronico, and sworn to filial fealty to Bajazet, Asteria is essentially a property in machismo maneuvering. In many ways, however, Gasparini’s Asteria is a less accepting character than Händel’s incarnation though also less interesting. Bridelli clearly means to craft an intriguing study of a lady wearied by perennially being the damsel in distress. Starting with ‘Parti sì: no: ferma, ascolta’ in Act One, she uses each of Asteria’s arias as an unique weapon in the character’s battle against tyranny and the perpetuation of gender stereotypes. The swarms of fury that she unleashes in ‘Vendetta, sì, farò contro un ingrato cor’ are startling, but in Act Two Bridelli gradually transforms the character into one of three-dimensional relativity, aided by Gasparini’s carefully-wrought music. She employs both the aria ‘Vanne alla belle Irene’ and Asteria’s lines in the terzetto with Bajazet and Tamerlano, ‘Voglio strage,’ as unmistakably personal statements of survival and self-worth. The equivalent of Gasparini’s aria ‘Cor di padre e cor d'amante’ ends Act Two of Händel’s Tamerlano, in which context it is the opera’s climax. The aria is also a high peak in Gasparini’s range, and Bridelli sings it persuasively, her delineation of Asteria’s conflicting loyalties touching the heart. Hers is not unblemished singing. The vocal registers are not consistently integrated, and there are rough patches in the voice in which tonal production seems to be achieved more by will power than by proper technique. These are problems that are easily corrected, however, and Bridelli is clearly a singer dedicated to excelling. In truth, she excels in this performance: in her least-confident moments, she is a memorable, demonstrative Asteria.

The court of the Tamerlano portrayed by countertenor Filippo Mineccia was surely one of unrestrained hedonism. Originated by the castrato Antonio Maria Bernacchi, who became de facto primo uomo in London after Senesino's return to Italy, creating for Händel the title rôle in Lotario and Arsace in Partenope, Gasparini’s Tamerlano is a character almost as oily as Händel’s, and Mineccia revels in slinking through the performance with smarmy sexiness, vocal smirks and innuendos always at the ready. Still, the countertenor’s smoldering-embers timbre lends him almost indecent credibility as a lover. Few singers of any Fach are as successful at viscerally conveying arousal and libidinous appetite as Mineccia is in this performance. In Act One, he phrases the aria ‘Co' sguardi la mia bella’ with the lithe surety of a dancer, and the restrained exuberance of his singing of ‘Se la gloria ai tuoi bei lumi’ is captivating. Act Two is an exercise of Tamerlano’s skills for deceptive love-making, the arias ‘Sarà più amoroso quel dolce sguardo’ and ‘Questa sola è il mio tesoro’ inspiring Mineccia to singing of stirring musicality and unctuous eroticism. Like Bridelli, he uses Tamerlano’s lines in the terzetto with Asteria and Bajazet, ‘Voglio strage,’ to explicate the character’s stimuli. The fearsome aria ‘A dispetto d'un volto amoroso più sdegnoso già freme il mio cor,’ another number that shines in Händel’s setting, is similarly barnstorming in Gasparini’s. Mineccia’s performance veritably trembles with annoyance and exasperation. The operatic Tamerlano brings to mind Oscar Wilde’s quip suggesting that the only real tragedies in modern life are not getting what one wants and getting it. Gasparini’s Tamerlano is a man of voracious desires but limited patience, and Mineccia’s frenetic, prismatic singing not only heightens the dramatic effectiveness of the character but, more importantly, contributes to the high musical standards of the performance.

Interpreting the title rôle, first sung by Francesco Borosini, who was also Händel’s first Bajazet in Tamerlano in 1724, tenor Leonardo De Lisi rightly dominates the performance, singing with a near-ideal blend of heroism and sensitivity. The grandeur of his traversal of ‘Forte, e lieto a morte andrei,’ Gasparini’s setting even more exciting than Händel’s, is imposing, and the irrepressible energy and dignity with which he voices ‘Il suo fasto e il suo furore’ are invigorating. In Act Two, De Lisi tears the beating heart from the aria ‘Dalla fronte all'orgogliosa la corona io strapperò’ and holds it up for the listener’s scrutiny without placing a single note outside of the boundaries of good taste. This Bajazet undauntedly asserts his regal authority in the terzetto with his daughter and Tamerlano, ‘Voglio strage,’ and germinates the seeds of tragedy in his rich voicing of the arioso ‘No, il tuo sdegno mi placò.’ Listeners primarily acquainted with Nineteenth-Century opera may think it strange that the depictions of Bajazet’s suicide in Gasparini’s and Händel’s operas were considered almost scandalous in the Eighteenth Century. Händel’s resolution of Bajazet’s destiny in Act Three of Tamerlano is somewhat more musically accomplished, but Gasparini’s effort, casting glances back to the serious operas of Cavalli, Steffani, and Alessandro Scarlatti, is more moving. De Lisi prods both music and text in the aria ‘Quando il fato è più spietato’ in the fashion of a rider spurring his horse, not abusing the music but using his own talent to fully exploit the inherent power of the music. Prefacing Bajazet’s suicide, his singing of the arioso ‘Figlia mia non pianger, no’ seems intended solely for Asteria’s ears: hearing it seems an intrusion into an exchange between a father and his daughter too intimate for any medium but music. Casting impoliteness aside, it cannot be denied that there have been a few Bajazets in productions of Händel’s Tamerlano in the past quarter-century whose suicides far earlier than Act Three would have been welcomed. De Lisi inspires such sympathy for Gasparini’s Bajazet that the character’s demise is a lamentable loss—and that the lieto fine seems vaguely perfunctory and really rather inappropriate.

Though debates rage about many aspects of the Performing Arts, not least the continued viability of the Classical recording industry, it is frequently alleged that opera as an institution has enjoyed admirable success during the first fifteen years of the Twenty-First Century. With even very gifted singers struggling to find engagements, that success seems worryingly precarious, but an institution that has enabled modern listeners to hear a neglected opera as rewarding as Francesco Gasparini’s Il Bajazet has at least that triumph to its credit. Expertly produced by Carlos Céster, Glossa’s recording of Gasparini’s score is a grand achievement in its own right. Il Bajazet is not a flawless opera, and this recording of it is not without faults. Some of the most enjoyable performances in the history of recorded opera are those with foibles, though, and the singing of an uncommonly well-matched cast ushers this account of Il Bajazet into their ranks.

SIR WILLIAM SCHWENCK GILBERT (1836 – 1911) and SIR ARTHUR SULLIVAN (1842 – 1900): Iolanthe; or, The Peer and the Peri—Robert Wells (The Lord Chancellor), Jacob Kato (George, Earl of Mountararat), Michael Gonzales, Jr. (Thomas, Earl of Tolloller), Baker Lawrimore (Private Willis of the Grenadier Guards), Brent Byhre (Strephon, an Arcadian shepherd), Brittany Griffin (Queen of the Fairies), Jeanette Luna (Iolanthe), Emily Armstrong (Celia, a fairy), Mackenzie Crim (Leila, a fairy), Michaela Kelly (Fleta, a fairy), Alicia Reid (Phyllis, an Arcadian shepherdess and Ward in Chancery); Chorus and Orchestra of Greensboro Light Opera and Song; David Holley, conductor [Produced, directed, and choreographed by David Holley; Lighting designs by Lucas Klingberg; Greensboro Light Opera and Song, Aycock Auditorium, University of North Carolina at Greensboro; Sunday, 21 June 2015]

​‘Some things get lost in translation, I think.’ Thus was the relative paucity of successful productions in the United States of the works of Sir ​William Schwenck ​Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan once explained by an eminent interpreter of these gentlemen’s concoctions that, 140 years after the inauguration of their collaboration, still inspire widespread​ jocularity in Britain. Naturally, the words are the same for American speakers of English, but the language is not: many of the specific social and political situations lampooned in Gilbert’s libretti are as foreign to American listeners as Cantonese and Tagalog. Still, it seems counterintuitive that comedic depictions of peculiarities of Victorian Britain, especially those in the vernacular, are less relevant—surely the most dangerous word in opera—to contemporary American audiences than more serious examinations of episodes in Norse and Teutonic mythologies, ill-fated marriages among European royal houses, and idiosyncrasies of the courting customs of Eighteenth-Century Viennese aristocracy. ​Unless one's linguistic skills are very poor indeed, it is impossible to imagine anything being lost in translation in ​Greensboro Light Opera and Song’s production of Gilbert’s and Sullivan’s seventh collaboration, Iolanthe, as faithful a recreation of any of the pair's works as one is apt to encounter anywhere in the world. Who could be more familiar to today's observers on either side of the Atlantic than inept politicians, ambitious social climbers, and lovers separated by circumstances beyond their control, whether they speak with Cockney or Carolina accents? Perhaps what eludes audiences not steeped in the traditions that shaped the genesis of a work like Iolanthe is why the characters one meets merit interest deeper than that granted to stereotypes. The foremost success of this performance of Iolanthe was the manner in which the ladies and gentlemen upon the stage transformed the symbolic archetypes they portrayed into people of flesh, blood, and real emotions who sang their way into the audiences' hearts.

GLOS's production placed Iolanthe in a visually-stimulating setting that, contrary to many stagings encountered in the world's theatres today, enhanced rather than distracted from the impact of the music. Because of the populist vein of much of his music, it is easy to overlook what a gifted composer Sir Arthur Sullivan was. Via John Goss, with whom he studied in his teens at the Royal Academy of Music, he benefited from a direct artistic lineage extending back to Mozart, and the quality of his work, whatever its ethos, far exceeded the imitation and dilettantism exhibited by the music of many of his contemporaries. Produced, directed, choreographed, and designed by GLOS's Artistic Director David Holley, who also conducted the performance, this Iolanthe enabled the biting wit of Gilbert's text and the considerable pulchritude of Sullivan's music to weave their spells uninhibitedly. Lucas Klingberg's lighting designs bathed Holley's attractive sets and the handsome cast in a warm, flattering glow that focused attention on the production's subtleties. Introduced to London in 1882, Iolanthe was the first of Gilbert's and Sullivan's works to be premièred in the newly-opened Savoy Theatre in the Strand, the world's first theatre lit wholly by electricity. GLOS's production charmingly paid homage to the groundbreaking scenic effects engendered by the Savoy's innovation with illuminated wands for the fairies and their queen, and Holley's scenic designs made excellent use of every millimeter of space available on—and beyond—Aycock Auditorium's stage. Still, there were a few scenic inconsistencies. When the characters, particularly Phyllis and Strephon, looked like refugees from Hogarth prints, it was strange to note that the royal monogram on the guard's house in Act Two settled the drama​ in the reign of the current Queen, Elizabeth II. Likewise, why was Private Willis standing guard on the South Bank, across the Thames from the Palace of Westminster? Considering that the Lord Chancellor's residence is also located within the Palace of Westminster, his sleepless wanderings having led him to the opposite bank of the river introduced a significantly-increased peril of misadventure of the riparian variety! The production was a model of employing adherence to the librettist's and composer's intentions to draw the audience into the soul of their work, however, and its scenic and musical glories were testaments to the intrinsic value of a score that, along with her siblings, is too often dismissed as frivolity.

​​His obvious virtues as administrator, director, designer, and, above all, tireless advocate for opera notwithstanding, it was on the podium that Holley contributed most indelibly to the success of this performance of Iolanthe. Under his baton, rhythms remained taut but never confining, and he infused the composer's melodies with the rubato for which they veritably cry out. Sullivan's orchestrations are far cleverer than the composer's reputation as a purveyor of gaiety suggests, and Holley and the GLOS Orchestra—violinists Naiara Sanchez and Galen Tim, violist Theresa Fox, cellist Karl Ronnevik, double bass player Rebecca Marland, flautist Amanda Mitchell, oboist Thomas Pappas, clarinetist Mark Cramer, trumpeter Chris Underwood, percussionist Andrew Dancy, and pianist Rachel AuBuchon—darted and danced through the energetic Overture. Sullivan's music for Iolanthe contains humorous echoes of a broad assortment of fellow composers' handiwork: Purcell makes an appearance in the Fairy Queen’s utterances, Offenbach's jollity shines through the Peers' and Fairies' choruses, the spirits of Mozart and Rossini soar over ensembles, and Sullivan's beloved Mendelssohn peeks around the corners of the music for Phyllis and Strephon. In Holley's handling, every affectionate tribute, wry allusion, and well-intentioned jibe was given its due, but the prevailing sentiment was not one of parody. Rather, the performance undulated with an unapologetic Romanticism that sharpened the edge of the satire. The surprisingly bold sexual innuendo—though a child of Victorian decorum, Iolanthe was also a contemporary of John Addington Symonds and Oscar Wilde, after all—was timed to perfection, with the conductor as attentive in dialogue as in musical numbers. [I observed similar concentration when I saw Kirill Petrenko conduct Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos at the Metropolitan Opera in 2010, and what a difference the Maestro’s 'pacing' of Hofmannsthal's dialogue made!] Every member of the orchestra performed his or her part with distinction, the playing marred by almost no lapses in intonation or ensemble. Holley’s tempi were obviously meticulously chosen but had the air of spontaneity about them, and even with interruptions of dialogue the music flowed organically. Holley earned special praise for his precise but unobtrusive cuing of all musical personnel. Why has this most basic element of conducting opera become a near-dead art?

The chorus that opens Act One, 'Tripping hither, tripping thither,' immediately revealed one of the production's unmistakable strengths, its cast of talented, enthusiastic youngsters for whom Gilbert's words and Sullivan's music were anything but alien territory. The merry band of fairies, anchored by the appropriately spritely Celia and Leila of Emily Armstrong and Mackenzie Crim, were a source of delight throughout the performance, the lovely voices of these ladies blending ravishingly with those of Michaela Kelly's Fleta, Chandler Clarke, Leary Davis, Mary B. Safrit, Lara Semetko, Georgia Smith, and Shelby Thiedeman. This was followed by 'Iolanthe! from thy dark exile thou art summoned​,​'​the Fairy ​Queen​'s invocation to the banished Iolanthe. Costumed with a suggestion of Elizabethan finery that established a link between Gilbert's and Sullivan's character and Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene, reinforced in Act Two by Gilbert's homage to the Golden Age of 'good Queen Bess,'Brittany Griffin brought the ​otherworldly authority of the Sorceress in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas to the Queen's magisterial pronouncements. The ethereal mood of the scene was intensified with the entrance of Iolanthe​, whose 'With humbled breast, and ev'ry hope laid low' drew from Jeanette Luna singing of​ focused simplicity, her warm mezzo-soprano inspiring the wish that Sullivan might have given his title character more music.

With a beguilingly innocent 'Good morrow, good mother,' the Strephon of baritone Brent Byhre bounded onto the stage with irrepressible boyish charisma. His ebullient spirit was not always matched by vocal security or comfort in Strephon's music, but the tender-hearted sincerity of his acting made amends. There was a bizarrely touching hint of wistfulness in Griffin's phrasing of the Queen's 'Fare thee well, attractive stranger,' and she and her subjects took leave of their newly-discovered, half-mortal relation with truly beautiful singing.

Having proved a very capable harpist in the opera's opening scene, Alicia Reid returned as an equally engaging Phyllis, lovingly joining Strephon in 'Good morrow, good lover.' Their Andante non troppo lento Duet, 'None shall part us from each other,' was shaped by both singers with the boundless imagination of young love. Like her earnest swain, Reid's Phyllis was sometimes more effective dramatically than vocally, her tone inconsistently projected and shrill at the top of the stave. She projected Phyllis's love for Strephon across the footlights like a ray of pure light, however, and her wiliness left no doubt that this Ward in Chancery was no one's shrinking violet.

The Entrance and March of Peers, 'Loudly let the trumpet bray,' was a vehicle for the steamrolling of the stage by the grimacing, scowling, and preening assemblage of Peers impersonated with salacious glee by Jason Barrios, Derek Jackenheimer, Lucas Johnston, John Jones, Baker Lawrimore, Zachary Pfrimmer, James Austin Porzenski, and Benjamin Ramsey. Like their Fairy counterparts, the Peers sang splendidly, producing a wall of chest-poundingly masculine sound. The sheer fun of the young men's singing was brilliant and set the stage for the arrival of the larger-than-life but smaller-than-he-imagines Lord Chancellor. Robert Wells burst onto the stage as though fired from a canon, and his voicing of the Lord Chancellor's 'The law is the true embodiment of ev'rything that's excellent' was no less comically volatile. In this performance, Wells was the epitome of the Gilbert and Sullivan leading man: rubber-faced as Red Skelton and limber as a ballerina, he both was unafraid of making a fool of himself in order to elucidate the Lord Chancellor's foibles and sounded as though he could have sung Rigoletto had he been asked to do so. Words rolled off of his tongue like fireflies released from a child's hand.

Combining with Reid's annoyed Phyllis in the trio 'My well-loved lord and guardian dear,' Lords Tolloller and Mountararat were portrayed with the swagger and easy camaraderie of rowdy frat boys by tenor Michael Gonzales, Jr. and baritone Jacob Kato.​ Gonzales sang the mustachio-twirling ​Tolloller's ​B​arcarole​,​ 'Of all the young ladies I know, this pretty young lady's the fairest​,' with the assurance of a dandy as convinced of his own attractiveness as of that of his beloved. Kato answered with a robust performance of ​Mountararat's 'Though the views of the house have diverged on ev'ry conceivable motion​,​' but Reid silenced both of her would-be suitors with Phyllis's 'I'm very much pained to refuse, but I'll stick to my pipes and my tabors​,​' uproariously delivering the lines, ​'I can spell all the words that I use, and my grammar's as good as my neighbours.' Gonzales responded to Phyllis's 'Nay, tempt me not, to wealth I'll not be bound' with a heartfelt delivery of Tolloller’s 'Spurn not the nobly born.’ His glistening, heady singing was one of the performance’s constant enchantments.

Wells proclaimed the Lord Chancellor’s parable in song to the despondent Strephon, 'When I went to the Bar as a very young man, said I to myself—said I,' with superb self-righteousness, utterly oblivious to Strephon’s distress. The young man’s despair poured out in Byhre’s singing of 'When darkly looms the day, and all is dull and grey,' and Luna’s warmly maternal comforting of the lad ideally triggering the scene of affection understandably misinterpreted by Phyllis and her regiment of aristocratic fops. Inconvenient as the reality of being a man of five-and-twenty years with a mother whose visage appears not a day past seventeen may be, who would deny an eternally-youthful mother as gorgeous as Luna’s Iolanthe? Expressing the befuddled and enraged Phyllis’s response to witnessing what she misinterpreted as Strephon’s amorous rendezvous with another woman, Reid took advantage of the ‘long cadenza’ indicated in Sullivan’s score with a rocketing interpolation of a portion of the cadenza from the Mad Scene in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor. The Act One finale, a battle of wills between the Fairies and Peers, was waged with the confidence of parties certain of their victory. In truth, Act One runs slightly long, but in this performance it seemed to whiz by like the crack of a whip.

Lawrimore launched Act Two with a traversal of ‘When all night long a chap remains,’ the song of Private Willis of the Grenadier Guards, that lacked only the last word in rolling basso profondo resonance. The ensemble’s singing of the Fairies’ and Peers’ chorus 'Strephon's a member of Parliament!' wanted for nothing, the choristers’ voices combining riotously. Their vigor extended to Kato’s performance of Mountararat’s song 'When Britain really ruled the waves,’ which this gifted young singer dispatched with excellent diction and ringing top notes. He and his partners in the peerage melted in the glimmer of Celia’s and Leila’s duet with chorus 'In vain to us you plead—Don't go!' Arguments posed by such appealing ladies can hardly be resisted! Griffin’s sonorous lower register was heard again with pleasure in the Queen’s song 'Oh, foolish fay, think you because his brave array my bosom thaws,’ one of those moments in which the modern listener might justifiably ask whether Her Majesty is endeavoring to convince herself or her frolicsome followers of her imperviousness to manly magnetism. Similar emotions were the foundation upon which Phyllis, Tolloller, Mountararat, and Private Willis built their Quartet, 'Tho' p'rhaps I may incur your blame,' the singers’ voices intertwining appealingly. Gonzales and Kato made Tolloller’s and Mountararat’s paean to friendship more than a comic exercise: like the Queen’s farewell to Strephon in Act One, there was something strangely moving in the daft earls’ devotion to their bond.

Wells intoned the Lord Chancellor’s recitative 'Love, unrequited, robs me of my rest' with consummate artistry, making the scene seem like a truly funny hybrid of related scenes in Händel’s Orlando and Bellini’s La sonnambula. His Allegro ma non troppo song 'When you're lying awake with a dismal headache, and repose is taboo'd by anxiety,’ one of Gilbert’s and Sullivan’s signature numbers, was chirruped with the rousing vivacity of Figaro’s ‘Largo al factotum’ in Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia, Wells’s mastery of the song encompassing almost every syllable of its breakneck patter. His skills as a comedian were complemented by those of Gonzales and Kato in their coltish account of the Trio for the Lord Chancellor, Tolloller, and Mountararat, 'He who shies at such a prize.’ The physicality of their droll interactions was paralleled by the excellence of their singing.

Their misunderstandings sorted out, Reid and Byhre restored to Phyllis’s and Strephon’s duet 'If we're weak enough to tarry ere we marry' the sweet tones of besotted youths. Their singing was here at its strongest, their diaphanous voices uniting entrancingly. The hopes of her son and his betrothed in danger of being dashed, Iolanthe is compelled to again break her fairy vows and reveal herself to the Lord Chancellor, who proves to be none other than her husband. Having long believed Iolanthe to have died and never even having known that he has a son, the Lord Chancellor is at once bewildered and utterly altered. Luna’s voice was like a tsunami sweeping across the open sea in Iolanthe’s recitative 'My lord, a suppliant at your feet I kneel' and the Andante non troppo lento Ballad 'He loves! If in the bygone years thine eyes have ever shed tears.’ Here, finally, was the opportunity to shine that Luna deserved, short-lived though it was. Accepting the inevitability of attraction, the ensemble exclaimed the waltz finale, 'Soon as we may, off and away,’ with unfettered jubilation. It was for this cast of dedicated young artists precisely as Gilbert’s own words indicate: ‘Happy exchange—House of Peers for House of Peris!’

It is easy to dismiss Gilbert's and Sullivan's operas—and operas they are and nothing less—as fare too British for the American palate. As Britons of a certain age might reply, What rot! In his libretto for The Gondoliers, Gilbert wrote that 'when everyone is somebody, then no one's anybody'; a clever conceit, that, but one with unique pertinence to today's operatic milieu. Both the empty-headed praise lavished on productions with the admirable intention of ensuring opera's survival and the undeviating rejection by some connoisseurs of all but artists of purportedly-glorious pasts disregard the genuinely exceptional work being done by regional opera companies from Atlantic to Pacific. Lamenting the current state of this or that once-great institution is an inexcusable waste of time and resources when a company like Greensboro Light Opera and Song offers audiences feasts as delectable as this production of Iolanthe. Reluctant as our society is to admit it, everyone cannot be somebody; not in the lecture hall, the workplace, or the opera house. GLOS's Iolanthe made no self-congratulatory pretensions at being 'somebody,' which is perhaps the most cogent reason why it was.

I am the very model of a modern…Wait, wrong show: Baritone Robert Wells as the Lord Chancellor in Greensboro Light Opera and Song's production of Gilbert's and Sullivan's Iolanthe; or, The Peer and the Peri, 21 June 2015 [Photo by Martin Kane, © by UNCG University Relations]

TRI NGUYEN and DIMA TSYPKIN: Consonnances– Music for Vietnamese Ɖàn Tranh and String Quartet—Tri Nguyen, Ɖàn Tranh; Quator ‘Ilios [Recorded in Studio Sequenza, Montreuil, France, in April 2013; Lunelios LNL 888 1001; 1 CD, 63:29; Available from Amazon (digital), iTunes, and major musical retailers]

If there is one abiding lesson that every tragedy and ill-conceived response of the past year should have seared in the conscience of humanity it is the dismaying fact—indeed, a tragedy in its own right—that the expansion of our abilities to interact with one another regardless of distance and difference has engendered not the expected synergy among cultures but rather illogical but zealous drives to isolate and segregate. Somehow, the compulsion to look beyond one’s own social boundaries, to embrace what one does not fully understand because doing so enriches the experience of living in a complicated but marvelous world, has become in the insecure psyche of modern society a betrayal rather a responsibility of one’s individuality. Robert Kennedy wrote that ‘the answer to the intolerant man is diversity,’ but that diversity largely remains a concept rather than a reality as much in the Arts as in any other realm of life. The repertory of Western Classical Music is as rich a legacy as exists in Art, but what, in truth, remains to be said with the same idioms that have defined music in the West since melody was first borrowed by man from the mouths of nature? It is every man’s inclination to be comfortable with that with which he is familiar, but unimagined rewards often await those curious and courageous enough to peer over the walls of their self-imposed confinement—rewards like those that greet listeners who set aside preconceptions and submerge themselves in Consonnances with open ears, open minds, and open hearts. A degree of cultural integration that would render the notion of the assimilation of elements of Eastern and Western musics an essential component of the future of Classical Music is perhaps only a dream, but this disc offers tantalizing glimpses of the possibilities of music truly without borders. As a confluence of cultures, Consonnances is a revelatory disc. In realistic terms, however, revelations and artistic value are also merely concepts. What makes hearing Consonnances such an enjoyable experience is that it simply is a disc that documents very fine musicians making sublime music together. When musicians unite, diplomacy requires neither words nor politics.

Educated both in his native Vietnam and in France, where he assumed a place in an artistic legacy that encompasses the artistry of celebrated Romanian pianist Clara Haskill, Tri Nguyen is both a composer and pianist trained in the Western tradition and a virtuoso on the đàn tranh, a sixteen-stringed cousin of the zither that likely evolved from the Chinese guzheng, an instrument familiar from many cinematic depictions of Chinese culture. Here collaborating with Quator 'Ilios, Nguyen and the Quartet’s cellist, Dima Tsypkin, fuse both the sounds of the đàn tranh and the aural atmosphere of Vietnamese folk music with the particular sonorities of the Western string quartet. Rather than distorting the textures of either component, their work capitalizes on the ways in which the unique capabilities of the đàn tranh and the string quartet intersect. Though the musical languages are very different, it is impossible when hearing Consonnances not to think of Johann Strauß II’s G'schichten aus dem Wienerwald and its prominent zither solos. Nguyen shares Strauß’s affinity for translating music for what is considered a ‘folk’ instrument into the parlance of mainstream concert music with results that seem wholly appropriate rather than quaint. The 'Ilios players—violinists Buynta Gorya​eva and Iryna Topolnitska, violist Caroline Berry, and Tsypkin—are ideal co-celebrants in this cross-cultural homage to shared musical propensities, their own sensibilities reflecting Nguyen’s Panglossian artistic heritage. These five individuals have clearly absorbed almost every nuance of one another’s styles, enabling them to approach the pieces on Consonnances as dialogues rather than đàn tranh works with string quartet obbligato. The quartet’s playing, guided by Tsypkin’s emotionally-charged performance, matches insightfully-managed tonal textures with phrasing that is unerringly attuned to melodic strands. It is apparent from the first notes on the disc that Consonnances is anything but a pedagogical experiment: this is the music of earnest conversation, cooperation, and the sort of cultural cross-pollination upon which the continued blossoming of global music depends.

Drawing inspiration from their respective cultural heritages, Nguyen’s as a child of an aristocratic Mandarin family in Vietnam and Tsypkin’s as a product of Soviet Belarus, these visionary artists have created music that seduces the listener with sounds both eerily familiar and quite new. The burgeoning romance of ‘Khóc Hoàng Thiên’ (‘Complaints to the Sky in the Falling Dust’), conveyed in throbbing melodic figurations, will be recognized by any listener who has ever gazed into the sky, wondering whether a distant beloved looks upon the same celestial bodies. The wistfulness of ‘Trăng Thu Dạ Khúc’ (‘Autumn Moon Lullaby’) cascades from the instruments’ timbres, and the laments of young lovers separated by circumstance echo through the beautifully-arranged strains of ‘Lý Giao Duyên’ (‘Exchange of Love’). A suggestion of the inevitability of nature permeates ‘Lưu Thủy Đoản’ (‘Waterdrops’), the unsettling gurgling of rain falling into a stream lulled by the union of man and nature in the evocative ‘Lý Con Sáo’ (‘Song of the Blackbird’).

In the vein of the overtly erotic music that opens Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier and the thorny, gamelan-influenced presence of the silent Tadzio in Britten’s Death in Venice, ‘Sương Chiều’ (‘Twilight Mist’) contrasts the oppressive din of the physical world with the frenetic utterances of lovers in congress in inventive counterpoint that draws from Nguyen and Topolnitska playing of stormy brilliance. The Orphic associations of ‘Khỗng MinhTọa Lầu’ (‘Strategist Khỗng on the Fortress’), the music depicting the serene musicality of a master tactician juxtaposed with the cacophony of disorganized martial aggression, are elucidated with stirring clarity by Nguyen’s virtuosic but tranquil mastery of the đàn tranh. He and Tsypkin envelop the quiet contemplativeness of ‘Nam Ai’ (‘Sadness of the South’) in tones that inhabit the realm of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde. The sentimental discernment of their partnership shines in every bar of this performance.

The bashful, hesitant interaction of newlyweds on their wedding night in ‘Lưu Thuỷ Hành Vân’ (‘Move with Water, Walk on Clouds’) conjures the scented aura of the end of Act One of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, but Nguyen’s paramours address one another with sweet words of mutual respect and spiritual fulfillment rather than carnal desire. The grandeur of ‘Ái Từ Kê’ (‘Emperor’) establishes a mood that could hardly be more different, the magnificence of the imperial court invoked by the broad strokes of suspended harmony. An air of celebration also infuses ‘Tử Quy Từ’ (‘The Joy of Coming Home’) with a distinct musical profile that exudes the exquisite pleasures of belonging and acceptance. ‘Rao Buổn’ (‘Melancholy’) and ‘Hoài Xứ’ (‘Nostalgia’) are, in a sense, the most profoundly personal pieces on Consonnances. Here, the myriad of influences on Nguyen’s artistic development are synthesized into a singular mode of expressivity both intrinsically Eastern and unmistakably universal. If an important artist’s worldview can be concentrated into the intoxicating elixir of two pieces of music, these surely capture the essence of Nguyen’s aesthetic.

One of the inalienable rights about which tongues are ever wagging is the freedom to like what one likes without explanation or justification, and Art is an ideal arena in which to figuratively let that freedom ring. The peril against which all artists who deserve that distinction fight is the perversion of the right to like indiscriminately into a license to dislike discriminately. Ignorance is pardonable as it can be remedied, but uninformed dismissal and disrespect are the slippery slopes down which society tumbles into intolerance and unredeemable stupidity. Few children faced with steaming portions of toxic-looking vegetables never heard from their mothers, ‘You might like it if you try it.’ The ethos of artistic nurturing should be no different. Consonnances is a disc via which five musicians exclaim to the reluctant listener, ‘Try it! You just might like it.’ Without artists like Tri Nguyen, Dima Tsypkin, and the members of Quator 'Ilios, without discs of the uncompromising integrity and phenomenal beauty of Consonnances, without the celebrations of identity and community that this disc represents, of what legitimate value is the continued life of Classical Music for which its practitioners and supporters strive?

[1]GIUSEPPE VERDI (1813 – 1901): La traviata—Virginia Zeani (Violetta Valéry), Bruno Prevedi (Alfredo Germont), Robert Merrill (Giorgio Germont), Marcia Baldwin (Flora Bervoix), Charles Anthony (Gastone de Letorière), Ron Bottcher (Il barone Douphol), Gene Boucher (Il marchese d’Obigny), Louis Sgarro (Il dottor Grenvil), Karan Armstrong (Annina), Lou Marcella (Giuseppe), Peter Sliker (Un domestico di Flora); Chorus and Orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera; Georges Prêtre, conductor [Recorded ‘live’ in performance at the Metropolitan Opera, Lincoln Center, New York, on 12 November 1966; St-Laurent Studio Opera Volume 6 YSL T-267; 2 CDs, 115:28; Available from St-Laurent Studio] & [2] VINCENZO BELLINI (1801 – 1835), GAETANO DONIZETTI (1797 – 1848), GIACOMO PUCCINI (1858 – 1924), and VERDI: Operatic Recital—Virginia Zeani, soprano; Orchestral del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino; Orchestra dell’Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Roma; Gianandrea Gavazzeni and Franco Patanè, conductors [Recorded in Teatro della Pergola, Florence, Italy, 8 – 15 September 1956 (tracks 5 – 8), Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Rome, Italy, 25 – 31 July 1958 (tracks 9 – 18); DECCA Most Wanted Recitals! 480 8187; 1 CD, 79:41; Available from Amazon, ArkivMusic, jpc, Presto Classical, and major music retailers]

It seems logical to begin an assessment of any recording featuring the Romanian-born soprano Virginia Zeani by stating that this exceptional singer needs no introduction, but the distressing reality is that this is perhaps no longer the case. The propensity in opera in the Twenty-First Century for substituting praise for adequate singers of today for remembrance of extraordinary singers of yesterday is nearly as confounding as the genre itself, but an environment in which mention of Virginia Zeani is met with blank stares on the faces of young singers and opera lovers—an environment inconceivable not so long ago—is endemic of an Art form that cannot possibly know where it is going because it no longer cares about where it has been. The neglect of no one singer or listener will destroy the future of opera, but the attitude that it represents is a greater threat to the genre than funding shortfalls or aging populations. It is hardly insignificant that Dame Joan Sutherland wrote that both she and her husband, the conductor Richard Bonynge, regarded Zeani’s voice as the finest natural instrument they heard during their storied careers in opera. Aside from a few indifferently-engineered titles recorded in her native Romania and recordings of widely-varying quality of live performances, in many of which she partnered her husband, bass Nicola Rossi-Lemeni, Zeani’s is a voice scarcely documented on recordings. For this reason alone, the releases of St-Laurent Studio’s edition of a 1966 Metropolitan Opera performance of Verdi’s La traviata and Zeani’s installment in DECCA’s Most Wanted Recitals! Series are invaluable, but the greater reason for jubilation is the quality of the singing enshrined on these discs. Disheartening as it is to realize that a career as significant as Zeani’s could be neglected by subsequent generations, especially as her dedication to teaching has contributed to the development of some of today’s most accomplished singers, there are at least these releases to which to point as examples of the sound of one of the Twentieth Century’s most purely beautiful voices.

It was as Violetta in the 12 November performance of La traviata preserved on St-Laurent Studio’s discs that Zeani made her début with the Metropolitan Opera, for which she would ultimately sing only three performances [two as Violetta in New York and one as Elena in Verdi’s I vespri siciliani on tour in Newport, Rhode Island]. It is an exasperatingly scant MET legacy for a singer of Zeani’s stature, but hers was the misfortune of emerging in an era in which Sir Rudolf Bing had Sutherland for Zeani’s coloratura parts, Leontyne Price for her Verdi repertory, and Renata Tebaldi for her verismo rôles. [Her consort Rossi-Lemeni fared little better, amassing only a dozen performances with the company during the 1953 - 1954 Season.] Her Electrocord studio recording of La traviata, made in Romanian in 1968, is a worthy memento of her Violetta, but this MET performance is a still more compelling document of the bewitching artistry of which she was capable in Verdi’s music. Zeani was, to a great extent, one of the most ‘complete’ Violettas in memory. As dashingly lovely as Vivien Leigh and Elizabeth Taylor​, she possessed the extraordinary physical beauty for Violetta that must often be taken on faith, but, hearing this MET performance, it is the absolute suitability of the voice for the rôle that i​s​ immediately and consistently enthralling. In Act One, there are occasional ​signs of the inevitable nervousness that is part of a début in a house like the MET, but from her first lines in the Brindisi, 'Tra voi saprò dividere il tempo mio giocondo,' the voice gains markedly in security and easily-projected resonance. Unlike many Violettas, she makes much of a conversational line like 'Un tremito che provo,' highlighting the dramatic significance of the text without overemphasizing its musical prominence. Likewise, there is unmistakable sincerity in her voicing of 'Solo amistade io v'offro: amar non so, né soffo un così eroico amore.' The soprano's breath control in her imaginatively-phrased account of 'Ah, fors'è lui che l'anima solinga ne' tumulti' is a marvel, but her coloratura in 'Sempre libera degg'io folleggiare di gioia in gioia,' in which the pair of D♭​6s are barely touched and there is no interpolated E♭​6, betrays​​ intermittent uncertainty. Few Violettas manage to portray as sympathetic a character in the context of Act One, however, and by any standard except her own best work Zeani’s vocalism is remarkable.

It is in the Act Two scene with Germont that Zeani irrefutably proves her mettle.​ The probity with which she delivers 'Donna son io, signore, ed in mia casa; ch'io vi lasci assentite più per voi che per me' reveals the delicate heart of her Violetta​, and the simplicity of her singing of 'Il previdi – v'attesi – era felice troppo' is heartbreaking. Zeani accentuates the almost rigid rhythmic profile of 'Non sapete quale affetto vivo, immense m'arda in petto' to startling effect, effectively elucidating the terrible price of the sacrifice that Germont is demanding of her. 'Ah! dite alla giovine sì bella e pura' surges from her with the force of ​a thunderbolt. The unaffected sadness with which this Violetta bids Germont farewell is profoundly moving, and the sheer vocal poise of Zeani's singing of the arching 'Amami, Alfredo, quant'io t'amo' is arresting. Zeani declaims 'Alfredo, Alfredo, di questo core non puoi comprendere tutto l'amore' in response to Alfredo's denunciation of Violetta at Flora's ball with undiluted emotion, the words illuminated by her glistening tone. After the frequent ascents into the upper register in Act One, Violetta's tessitura in Act Two hovers at the top of the stave, and this lower center of vocal gravity provides Zeani with steadier technical footing. This increased confidence fosters singing and vocal acting of special eloquence.

The knell of death resounds in Zeani's voice from her first note in Act Three. Violetta's reading of Germont's letter is often one of the most muddled scenes in opera, sopranos either preserving their resources by reciting the letter as though it were a shopping list or over-emoting with the extravagance of Sarah Bernhardt’s infamous portrayal of Sardou's Fédora. In this performance, Zeani makes a plausible attempt at reading the letter without resorting to embarrassing melodrama. Her cry of ​'È​ tardi!'​ after reading Germont's words is piercing, however, the whole weight of Violetta's suffering borne by those two words. Zeani’s voicing of 'Addio, del passato bei sogni ridenti' rivals the most rapturous accounts of the aria on disc, her top As utterly solid and supported with tonal placement and breath control that should be models for all aspiring Violettas. She phrases 'Parigi, o caro, noi lasceremo, la vita uniti transcorreremo' in the duet with Alfredo with conviction that imparts a concerted effort to defy the ravages of disease. In the final scene, there are genuine shock and rage in Zeani's 'Ah! gran Dio! Morir sì giovine, io che ho penato tanto!'​ and 'Se una pudica vergine degli anni suoi sul fiore,’ but it is again the combination of technical acumen and tonal luster rather than histrionic effects that facilitates the dramatic verisimilitude of this Violetta. Comparing this Metropolitan Opera performance, recorded from the audience [none of Zeani’s MET appearances were broadcast performances] in generally good if occasionally distant sound that Yves St-Laurent has restored with admirable attention to faithfully preserving the timbres of the voices, with the familiar Covent Garden Traviata broadcast from January 1960, Zeani was marginally off her best form on the evening of her MET début, but she remained a Violetta of genuinely stunning style, substance, and sentimental effectiveness. [An additional, even finer perspective on Zeani’s Violetta will be furnished by the forthcoming release by Celestial Audio (catalogue number CA1740) of a beautifully idiomatic 1963 RAI Roma broadcast featuring Zeani, Luigi Infantino as Alfredo, and Antonio Boyer as Germont.]

The Lombard tenor Bruno Prevedi (1928 – 1988) is a singer whose work truly justifies the too-familiar cliché: were he singing in 2015 as he did in 1966, he would occupy a place of prominence in Italian repertory that few of today’s tenors could rival. Having débuted at the MET in 1965 as Puccini’s Cavaradossi, Prevedi was largely dismissed by the New York press for failing to be Bergonzi, Corelli, or Tucker, but his portrayal in this performance with Zeani is not unworthy of comparison with Bergonzi’s Alfredo, one of his best rôles. Prevedi’s is not a youthful-sounding Alfredo, but the freshness of his vocalism is impressive. His voicing of ‘Libiamo, ne’ lieti calici che la bellezza infiora’ is buoyantly light-hearted, contrasting with the seriousness of his statement of ‘Oh, se mia foste, custode io veglierei pe’ vostri soavi dì.’ Prevedi suffuses ‘Un dì felice, eterea, mi balenaste innante’ with all the hope of young love, and his ‘Oh, quanto v’amo!’ is an intensely private admission. The tenor’s pitch sags from time to time, most noticeably in the first half of Act One, but his intonation in his part’s moments of greatest stress is generally accurate. In Act Two, the legitimately Italianate fervor of Prevedi’s singing of ‘Lunge da lei per me non v’ha diletto!’ and Alfredo’s aria, ‘De’ miei bollenti spiriti il giovanile ardore’ is wonderful. Unlike many Alfredos of similar vintage, Prevedi was allowed one verse of his cabaletta, ‘O mio rimorso! O infamia e vissi in tale errore,’ which he sings strongly despite a bizarrely truncated ending that makes the number seem more than usually perfunctory. The desolation and anger that shape his exchange with his father are also the core of his Alfredo’s public shaming of Violetta at Flora’s ball. Prevedi’s articulation of ‘Ogni suo aver tal femmina per amor mio sperdea’ has the slashing edge of a dagger, contrasting tellingly with his despondent ‘Ah sì che feci! ne sento orrore.’ In Act Three, he phrases both ‘Parigi, o cara, noi lasceremo’ and ‘Oh mio sospiro, oh palpito, diletto del cor mio!’ affectionately, seemingly clinging to a desperately idealistic belief that Violetta will recover and resume their idyllic coexistence. In his five seasons at the MET, Prevedi was heard alongside stalwarts of the company—Martina Arroyo, Dorothy Kirsten, Anna Moffo, Leontyne Price, Gabriella Tucci—in several of Verdi’s and Puccini’s most popular tenor rôles. His singing lacked the aristocratic grace of Bergonzi, which it resembles in the lower octave, and the raw power of Corelli, but his Alfredo in this performance is a sonorous-voiced Latin lover in the tradition of Marcello Mastroianni who exudes affection for his Violetta and for Verdi’s music: what more is required?

Giorgio Germont was the rôle of Robert Merrill’s (1917 – 2004) MET début on 15 December 1945, when his Violetta and Alfredo were Licia Albanese and Richard Tucker. It was also as Germont that Merrill celebrated his twenty-fifth anniversary as a MET artist in 1970, on which occasion he was reunited in a ceremony following Act Two of the Halloween performance of La traviata with eight of his MET Violettas, an illustrious sorority that included singers as diverse as Bidú Sayão, Eleanor Steber, Victoria de los Ángeles, Dame Joan Sutherland, and Teresa Żylis-Gara. Merrill recollected that, at the time of the 1946 NBC broadcast performances recorded by RCA Victor, Arturo Toscanini advised him that Germont is a rôle that a singer can master only after he is a father himself, and the ‘greenness’ of Merrill’s early interpretations of Germont had ripened by the time of this 1966 performance into a knowing, keenly-felt portrait of a man whose actions are driven by a commitment to upholding his family’s honor. Merrill’s performances were often more memorable for the quality of the vocalism than for psychological insights, but his Germont in this 1966 La traviata is an elegant, emotionally vital presence. In Act Two, Merrill and Zeani communicate more of Germont’s and Violetta’s feelings solely through thoughtful execution of Verdi’s score than many singers manage to do with more overtly dramatic effects. Merrill phrases ‘Pura siccome un angelo iddio mi die’ una figlia’ with a father’s love for his daughter, and that affection is shared with Violetta in his comforting performance of ‘Sì, piangi, o misera – supremo, il veggo, è il sacrificio – ch’ora io ti chieggo.’ Unlike many Germonts, even those who sing well, Merrill seems to actually listen to Zeani’s enunciation of Violetta’s counterarguments. The aria ‘Di Provenza il mar, il suol’ defeats many otherwise capable Germonts, but this performance preserves one of Merrill’s most effective recorded accounts of it, the tone steady and attractive throughout the wide range of the music. His ‘Di sprezzo degno se stesso rende chi pur nell’ira la donna offende’ in response to Alfredo’s spiteful condemnation of Violetta exhibits as much hurt as ire. At the sides of his son and the dying Violetta in Act Three, Merrill’s Germont intones a moving ‘Di più non lacerarmi troppo rimorso l’alma mi divora,’ and his caressing ‘Cara, sublime vittima d’un disperato amore’ bears the weight of an enormous guilt. With many beloved studio recordings and broadcast performances in circulation, it is possible to take for granted what an important singer Merrill was. This performance reminds the listener of the wonders of which he was capable when in his prime.

Georges Prêtre presides over a performance that integrates finesse with full-throated singing, the cumulative power of the drama minimizing the significance of moments of sloppy ensemble and indifferent singing and playing by the Metropolitan Opera Chorus and Orchestra. In the casting of secondary rôles, the performance confirms Sir Rudolf Bing’s success in building a true company during his tenure as the MET’s General Manager: Marcia Baldwin as Flora, Karan Armstrong as Annina, the evergreen Charles Anthony as Gastone, Ron Bottcher as Barone Douphol, Gene Boucher as Marchese d’Obigny, Louis Sgarro as Dottore Grenvil, Lou Marcella as Giuseppe, and Peter Sliker as Violetta’s servant all sing ably, contributing to the overall high musical standards of the performance. The spatial configurations of the Alfred Lunt production of La traviata, first seen at the MET less than two months before this performance [it opened on 24 September 1966], aurally impacted the recording of the voices, resulting in greater clarity in Acts One and Three than in Act Two. The opera’s Preludio is missing from the recording, but, composing for Venice’s Teatro La Fenice in 1853, Verdi likely did not expect the Preludio to be heard by a majority of the audience. This indispensable St-Laurent Studio release supplies a marvelous glimpse into a brief chapter in the history of the Metropolitan Opera now inexcusably at risk of being forgotten.

Artfully and lovingly remastered and prepared for CD release in Universal’s Most Wanted Recitals! Series by Victor Suzán Reed, Zeani’s 1956 and 1958 DECCA recordings of arias by Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, and Puccini offer evidence of the soprano’s exceptional versatility, a quality in possession of which her only true rivals in the Twentieth Century were Maria Callas and Renata Scotto. Like Callas, whose Isolde, Brünnhilde, and Kundry were admired alongside her celebrated bel canto portrayals, Zeani won acclaim not only as Bellini, Donizetti, and Verdi heroines but also as Senta in Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer, albeit sung in Italian. It was upon bel canto repertory that Zeani’s early success was founded, however; and which undoubtedly inspired the recordings here restored to the catalogue. Of ​unknown provenance, the arias from Lucia di Lammermoor, La sonnambula, and I Puritani permit appreciation of the bravura technique that won Zeani the ardent appreciation of Trieste and London audiences for her revelatory 1957 performances as Donizetti’s Lucia and Bellini’s Elvira. Here elucidating the delicacy of Lucia’s mental state from her first entrance in Act One, Zeani sings the aria 'Regnava nel silenzio' captivatingly, the divisions dispatched with disarming naturalness. Her trills lack the crispness of Callas’s and Sutherland’s, but, unlike many of her rivals in this repertory, she at least bothers to attempt them. In Lucia’s Mad Scene, some of the highest notes, including the traditional interpolated E♭6, seem to have been produced with strong-armed willpower rather than ideal technical control. Though not devoid of expressivity, these performances are the work of a very gifted young singer who had not yet fully honed the interpretive skills that later portrayals evinced. Still, Zeani’s phrasing of Amina’s 'Ah, non credea mirarti' from Act Two of Bellini’s La sonnambula radiates girlish melancholy, and her impeccably-voiced 'Qui la voce sua soave,' the aria from Elvira’s Mad Scene in Act Two of Bellini’s I Puritani, is second only to Callas’s performance in her 1953 studio recording as an exposition of the character’s despair.

Most illuminating ​among these early recordings are the studio account​s​ of Violetta’s scene that ends Act One and 'Addio del passato' from Act Three​ of La traviata, recorded a decade before her MET début and skillfully accompanied, like the Lucia, Sonnambula, and Puritani excerpts, by the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and Gianandrea Gavazzeni. The basic construction of Zeani’s 'Ah, fors'è lui che l'anima solinga ne' tumulti' is much as it was at the MET in 1966, but even in the relative comfort of studio sessions she did not linger over the D♭​6s in the cabaletta—not that Verdi asked her to, of course. Her ‘Addio del passato,’ though not yet the emotional exegesis that it would later be at Covent Garden and the MET, is already a potent promulgation of the fading Violetta’s inner torment. Not surprisingly, the aria is searingly, exquisitely sung, as it was in the 1956 Naples performance of La traviata also preserved on disc five months before she created the rôle of Blanche de la Force in the world première of Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites at La Scala.

​Also dating from 1956 are the recordings of Mimì's 'Sì​, mi chiamano Mimì' from Act One and 'Donde lieta uscì' from Act Three of Puccini’s La bohème. Both arias are sung with obvious understanding of Puccini’s melodic structures, and the texts are declaimed with the vowels on the breath in the now-extinct fashion of Rosetta Pampanini. The balance of Zeani’s Puccini recital, stylishly supported by the Orchestra dell’Accademia di Santa Cecilia and Franco Patanè, was recorded in Rome in 1958, slightly less than a decade before her Cio-Cio San, Mimì, and Suor Angelica were exalted in Barcelona. Lauretta's 'O mio babbino caro' from Gianni Schicci is standard fare for any soprano’s Puccini programme, but Zeani’s performance actually justifies its inclusion. Hers is a passionate rather than a naïve plea, but it is one that few fathers could resist. Innocence is the hallmark of her performances of Liù's 'Signore, ascolta' and 'Tu che di gel sei cinta' from Turandot, however, but it is the simple beauty of the vocalism that inspires awe. Zeani’s singing of Cio-Cio San's 'Un bel dì vedremo' and 'Tu, tu, piccolo iddio!' from Madama Butterfly is characterized by audible responses to the character’s feelings that are rare for studio performances of arias removed from their contexts. The top B♭s that crown ‘Un bel dì vedremo’ and the climactic top A in ‘Tu, tu, piccolo iddio!’ are unforgettable tones. The soprano refuses to wallow in the anguish of Suor Angelica's 'Senza mamma,’ focusing instead on mourning for the nun’s dead child with near-perfect management of line. In the theatre, Manon Lescaut proved one of Zeani’s finest parts, not least in a magical 1969 Rome production that partnered her with the Des Grieux of Richard Tucker. On this disc, her accounts of Manon’s 'In quelle trine morbide' and 'Sola, perduta, abbandonata' fuse the temperament of Maria Zamboni, Mafalda Favero, and Clara Petrella with the dulcet femininity of Licia Albanese and the sumptuousness of Renata Tebaldi. Her singing of 'Vissi d'arte, vissi d'amore’ summons memories of the Toscas of Dorothy Kirsten and Antonietta Stella, the sweetness of the voice allied with a strength that lends credibility to her impersonation of a woman who sings a gorgeous lyric aria and a moment later plunges a knife into the heart of a tyrant. The punishing tessitura of Magda's 'Chi il bel sogno di Doretta' from Act One of La rondine does not prevent Zeani from forging a performance as notable for poetic use of text as for perfectly-placed high notes. These selections are an intriguing preview of the committed, often triumphant Puccinian that Zeani would ultimately prove to be.

It will perhaps seem counterintuitive to suggest that both Studio St-Laurent’s terrific La traviata and Universal’s superb Operatic Recital featuring Virginia Zeani incite a dogged woe. The splendors of these discs force contemplation of the evolution of opera in the last quarter of the Twentieth Century and the first fifteen years of the new millennium. Without question, there are talented, well-trained singers at work in the world’s opera houses today, some of whom sing rôles like Verdi’s Violetta, Alfredo, and Giorgio Germont persuasively. In many cases, the visages are now younger, the waists slimmer, the diction better, and the emotions less aggrandized, but how can ignorance and dismissal of the work of Verdians like Maria Caniglia, Zinka Milanov, Anita Cerquetti, Dorothy Kirsten, and the ravishing Virginia Zeani be regarded as anything resembling progress?

Bella Violetta: Soprano Virginia Zeani as Violetta in Giuseppe Verdi’s La traviata at the Metropolitan Opera in 1966 [Photo by Louis Mélançon, © by The Metropolitan Opera]

[1]GASPAR SANZ (circa 1640 – circa 1710): Sones de palacio y danças de rasgueado de Instrucción de música (Zaragoza, 1674)—Laberintos Ingeniosos: Xavier Díaz-Latorre, five-course guitar; Pedro Estevan, percussion [Recorded in Chiostro della Chiesa di S. Michele a Voltorre, Varese, Lombardy, Italy, in November 2003; Cantus Records C 9630; 1 CD, 65:16; Available from Amazon, iTunes, jpc, Presto Classical, La Quinta de Mahler, and major music retailers] and [2]ISAAC ALBÉNIZ (1860 – 1909), FRANCISCO GUERAU (1649 – 1722), SANTIAGO DE MURCIA (circa 1685 – after 1732), GASPAR SANZ, and FERNANDO SOR (1778 – 1839): La Guitarra dels Lleons—Xavier Díaz Latorre, historical guitars; Pedro Estevan, percussion [Recorded in the Sala de Teclados, Museu de la Música de Barcelona, Catalunya, Spain, in November 2011, February 2012, and February 2013; Cantus Records C 9623; 1 CD, 60:30; Available from Amazon, iTunes, jpc, Presto Classical, La Quinta de Mahler, and major music retailers]

Released in 1971, the American band Three Dog Night’s album Harmony contained a Hoyt Axton-penned tune with lyrics, subsequently crooned by singers ranging from Elvis Presley and Waylon Jennings to Cher and Ike and Tina Turner, that said, 'I've never been to Spain, but I kinda like the music.' Pinning down lucid meanings for the lyrics of popular songs of the 1970s can be as easy as solving quadratic equations, but the literal sentiment of Axton's song is straightforward: there are indeed many people who have never visited Spain who know and love the country's indigenous music. If one surrenders oneself to the music on this magnificent pair of Cantus recordings featuring guitarist Xavier Díaz-Latorre and percussionist Pedro Estevan, Sones de palacio y danças de rasgueado de «Instrucción de Música sobre la Guitarra Española» and La Guitarra dels Lleons, though, the listener feels transported to Spain without traveling a single mile. In the performances on these discs, presented with superbly-written (and excellently-translated) liner notes by José Carlos Cabello that provide proper historical and musical frames of reference by discarding erroneous traditions and looking into rather than beyond the music, the aromas of marcona almonds and pajarero figs infuse the air with an atmosphere of the real Spain, the Spain of proper ladies donning mantillas and peinetas during Semana santa and old men playing escoba in public parks. Among the recumbent cultures of modern Europe, their singularities subjected to the suppression of the drive towards an unified continent, the defiantly individual culture of Spain, itself an amalgamation of wildly diverse elements, remains strong, and the guitar is as emblematic of the proud history and customs of Spain as afternoon tea is of cherished English formality. Cabello’s notes are strikingly informative in their revelations of how much ‘knowledge’ about the Spanish guitar as a musical phenomenon is based upon misinformation and mistaken assumptions, but the true education offered by these discs is in the undiluted art of the instrument itself, an art now as ephemeral as legitimate bel canto. Xavier Díaz-Latorre confirms with his playing on these discs that he is not merely a guitar virtuoso: in these performances, encompassing more than two centuries of creative output for the guitar, he is an oracle receiving from the spirits of composers remembered and forgotten the concentrated essence of the Spanish guitar. The listener who hears these discs may never have been to Spain, but this music instills an invigorating sentido of Spain in the listener.

Likely baptized in Aragón on 4 April 1640, Francisco Bartolome Sanz y Celma received theological education at the Universidad de Salamanca, Spain’s oldest university and one of Europe’s most prestigious centers of higher learning, before pursuing musical studies in Italy, where his tuitional path likely led him to Naples, Rome, and Venice—if, that is, the gentleman about whom this information is recorded was actually the composer of the music on these discs. Little verifiable information about Sanz exists, and the autobiographical sketch of the author included in Instrucción de Música sobre la Guitarra Española is too flattering to be wholly trusted. During his time in Italy, whoever he was, he obviously acquired sufficient skills to qualify him as both an acknowledged pedagogical authority on playing and composing for the Baroque guitar and as master of the instrument at the court of Don Juan José de Austria, the illegitimate son of Felipe IV. With the publication of his Instrucción de Música sobre la Guitarra Española, first appearing in Zaragoza in 1674 and eventually extending to three volumes issued as a single publication in 1697, the enigmatic Sanz essentially standardized tablature for the guitar and organized the Spanish school of composition for the instrument that persists unto the Twenty-First Century. In a similarly pioneering vein of ​musical trendsetting, the ensemble Laberintos Ingeniosos was launched with an impetus for not only perpetuating but actively revitalizing the punteado (plucked) and rasgueado (strummed) styles of playing that guitarists such as Andrés Segovia sought to purge from Classical Spanish guitar as vestiges of undesired gypsy influences. In their performances of Sanz’s music on this disc, reissued to celebrated a decade of innovation and tireless dedication to the founding principles of Laberintos Ingeniosos, Díaz-Latorre and Estevan create an authentically Seventeenth-Century sound world that is also astoundingly modern. This duality is one of the wondrous peculiarities of Spanish music in general: works of broadly contrasted vintages can rub shoulders with uncanny stylistic compatibility.

Playing a five-course guitar built in 1997 by Australian luthier Peter Biffin, fitted with gut strings by Sofracob and d'Aquila, Díaz-Latorre exploits the instrument’s timbre to produce an entrancing spectrum of colors that finds cleverly-manipulated echoes in the battery of sounds made by Estevan’s mastery of riq, adufe, tamburello, pandereta, darbouka, dumbek, and kántharos. The contrasts among the Piezas por la E y C are realized with extraordinary dexterity by both gentlemen, the courtly formality of the opening Xácara (Diez y seis diferencias y algunas dellas con estilo de Campanelas) giving way to the brilliant flights of fancy of the Paradetas (Improvisación). The aesthetics of Seventeenth-Century Spain and Johann Sebastian Bach momentarily intersect in the Passacalles (con variedad de passages), phrased by Díaz-Latorre with an air of elegant formality that brings to mind the spirit of Bach’s familiar BWV 582 C-minor Passacaglia and Fugue. The Zarabanda española (Improvisación), reminiscent of the beautiful sarabandes in Jean-Philippe Rameau’s music for harpsichord, inspires Díaz-Latorre to playing of deeply satisfying virtuosic variety. Canario (Quince diferencias escogidas) is one of the most enjoyable pieces on the disc, here played with the unmistakable zeal of true affection.

Beginning with a galvanizing account of the Preludio y Fantasía (con mucha variedad de falsas y una sesquiáltera para los muy diestros), Díaz-Latorre and Estevan craft performances of the Piezas por la O that sizzle with energy but also permit appreciation of the wide sentimental expanses of the music. The sublime—or, in the parlance of its fitting sobriquet, serene—Alemanda (La Serenissima) is delivered with marked sensitivity and delicacy of approach, juxtaposing jarringly with the all-stops-out frenzy of the succeeding Jiga al ayre inglés. The inventive maneuvering of the principal theme of Passacalle (Veinte y ocho partidas de mucho arte)—achieved by both composer and musicians with much art, indeed—provides a dizzying display of the full panoply of the techniques espoused by Sanz. The four Piezas por la D are as ingeniously characterized as the movements of Georg Philipp Telemann’s 1733 Tafelmusik. His playing of the Pavana al ayre español (Cinco partidas con mucha novedad) reveals the great cogency of Díaz-Latorre’s articulation of melodic units, a trait also evident in his performance of Xácara. The aural canvases of both the Passeos por el cuarto tono y una giga por el mismo punto (Improvisación) and Tarantella (Improvisación) are daubed with the immediacy of Picasso’s Guernica, the colors in the music derived from interpretation of the unaffected gestures of the musicians.

The quintet of Piezas por la Cruz constitute a sequence of numbers that delightfully epitomize the heterogeneity of Sanz’s art. The Capricho arpeado y una sesquiáltera de mucho arte receives from Díaz-Latorre a reading of unflappable poise, and the alluring Alemanda (La Preciosa con Campanela) is finessed to beguiling effect by the players’ subtle but red-blooded demeanor. The Corrente and Zarabanda francesa are, like similar movements in the harpsichord suites of Georg Friedrich Händel, clever treatments of original thematic material in the guises of the popular dance rhythms of the time, and Díaz-Latorre reacts to Estevan’s rollicking percussion with his own exuberant playing. This sense of collaboration is also the lifeblood of their performance of the Giga (Improvisación), in which grace and gusto join hands and dance to Sanz’s serendipitous inspiration.

Represented by the Marionas por la B (Veinte y ocho diferencias) the Piezas por la B adhere to the same high standards of the other collections excerpted in Díaz-Latorre’s and Estevan’s voyage through Sanz’s work. The unhurried but blade’s-edge spontaneity of their playing discloses every nuance of Sanz’s writing and engenders the stimulating finale to which every similar disc should aspire.

La Guitarra dels Lleons, a true celebration of the storied history of composition for the Spanish guitar, is in its repertory, preparation, and quality of performance as magnificent an homage as has been committed to disc in tribute to any niche in music. The palpable singularity of purpose apparent in Díaz-Latorre’s and Estevan’s work on the Sanz disc is continued on La Guitarra dels Lleons with equally stunning results. Both in terms of impressively adaptable technique and the insightful use of instruments from different periods in the development of the Spanish guitar, this disc summarizes more than two hundred years of ingenuity in an hour of pulse-quickening, ear-caressing music-making.

For his performance of the music of one of Spain’s greatest composers, Isaac Albéniz, Díaz-Latorre plays a smooth-toned guitar made in Seville in 1859 by Antonio de Torres. The instrument veritably sings beneath the guitarist’s fingers in the ‘Preludio: Asturias (Leyenda)’ from the 1892 Chants d'Espagne (Opus 232), a piece redolent of Albéniz’s urbane but distinctly Spanish cosmopolitanism. The melodic figurations and smoky harmonies evoke both the immediately-recognizable soul of Spain and a slyly accessible modernism. The electrifying ‘Cádiz,’ an episode from Albéniz's 1890 Sérénade Espagnole (Opus 181), is played with the intensity that makes even an hour spent in that city an experience that the senses never forget.

Díaz-Latorre and Estevan revisit the music of Gaspar Sanz with spirited performances of four pieces that affirm that their comprehension and love of Sanz’s standard-setting idiom have blossomed with even greater beauty and histrionic authority with the passage of time. These are anything but carbon copies of their earlier interpretations. Díaz-Latorre here plays the guitarra de los leones, an instrument of Iberian origins dating from circa 1700 that is as much an artistic as a musical treasure. The same might be said of Díaz-Latorre’s and Estevan’s performances. The boundless imagination of their playing of Xácaras (Diez y seis diferencias y algunas dellas con estilo de Campanelas) facilitates a textural lightness through which the ubiquitous sounds of small-town Spain reverberate. The cloudless vistas of Canario (Quince diferencias escogidas) are complemented by the starlit meanderings of Passeos por el cuarto tono y una giga por el mismo punto (Improvisación), mesmerizingly played by both Díaz-Latorre and Estevan. The unbridled elation of their rendition of La Tarantella y Improvisación​ is utterly infectious.

Turning to the music of the too-little-remembered Fernando Sor with the sweet but robust timbre of an 1806 guitar by Cádiz-based maker Josef Pagés, Díaz-Latorre takes on one of the composer’s most enduringly popular and challenging works, his Variations on ‘Das klinget so herrlich’ from Act One of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte (Opus 9). Published in London in 1821, the Variations quickly entered the recital repertories of virtually every guitarist capable of playing them; and more than a few not fully capable of playing them, to be sure. It is unlikely than any guitarist in the work’s nearly-two-century history played the Variations more dazzlingly than Díaz-Latorre. Good performances of Bach’s harpsichord and organ works often give the impression that the music requires more than ten fingers and, in the case of the organ music, two feet. So fleet is Díaz-Latorre’s execution of passagework in Sor’s music that it would be no surprise to discover that he possesses a few extra digits to employ in his playing. In his performance, the basic structure of Mozart’s theme never entirely disappears in the whirlwinds of Sor’s variations. The banal tune that serves as the spine of the Introduction et Variations sur l'air „Marlbrough s'en va-t-en guerre“ (Opus 28), composed in Paris in 1827, also remains in the foreground even when Sor’s inventions are at their most fantastical. That funny little melody was most familiar in the Napoleonic era during which Sor was active as a composer as the accompaniment for bawdy lyrics written in 1709 in celebration of the erroneous news of the death of the first Duke of Marlborough: many modern listeners know it as 'For He's a Jolly Good Fellow.' In his Introduction and Variations, Sor made silk from a sow’s ear, and in playing the piece Díaz-Latorre makes delectable jamón ibérico from rather tough meat, the sunny overtones of the Pagés instrument gleaming beneath his touch.

Díaz-Latorre again coaxes from the guitarra de los leones cascades of golden sources in his playing of the music of Santiago de Murcia. The animated Zarambeque is enlivened by the bright tones of the instrument and the ways in which the guitarist channels them through the streams of melody, bolstered by Estevan’s exhilarating rhythms. Díaz-Latorre is especially successful at balancing subjects and countersubjects with naturalness that avoids allotting undue prominence to any note or phrase. Inner voices sing as cogently as primary themes in his playing, inviting the listener into the recesses of the music that often remain hidden. Díaz-Latorre’s jaunt through Cumbées is a study in wedding insurmountable technical wizardry with the inimitable joy of playing that cannot be faked by even the most talented artists.

Francisco Guerau’s Diez y ocho diferencias de Mariona are played on an Italian-crafted instrument dating from circa 1700, and it is fascinating to note the somewhat metallic, more rustic sound of the Italian guitar in comparison with the polished-ruby tones of the Spanish instruments. Even in the quintessentially Spanish patterns of Guerau’s music, the sonorities are noticeably different from those in the other selections on La Guitarra dels Lleons—different but no less ingratiating. Díaz-Latorre navigates the hairpin turns in the music with laudable concentration that focuses the prismatic rays of his own genius. Listeners for whom this selection is an introduction to Guerau’s work could hope for no better.

Veterans of the battles waged by ensembles like Hespèrion XXI to restore in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries authenticity, technical validity, and proper contexts to music of previous centuries and diverse cultures, Xavier Díaz-Latorre and Pedro Estevan devote to both of these discs the kind of demonstrative musicality that is ‘historically informed’ in performances of works of any period. These performances are anything but generic, however. From Sanz to Albéniz, the pieces on Sones de palacio y danças de rasgueado and La Guitarra dels Lleons span more than two centuries of music for Spanish guitar. The playing of Xavier Díaz-Latorre and Pedro Estevan is both a chronicle of the evolution of Spanish music and an irrefutable elucidation of its growing preeminence in global culture.

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770 – 1827): Missa solemnis in D major, Op. 123—Genia Kühmeier (soprano), Elisabeth Kulman (mezzo-soprano), Mark Padmore (tenor), Hanno Müller-Brachmann (bass-baritone); Anton Barachovsky, violin; Chor und Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks; Bernard Haitink, conductor [Recorded ‘live’ in Herkulessaal der Residenz, Munich, Germany, 25 – 26 September 2014; BR Klassik 900130; 1 CD, 79:22; Available from BR Klassik, Amazon, iTunes, jpc, Presto Classical, and major music retailers]

Almost every listener with particular affection for Ludwig van Beethoven’s magnificent behemoth, the Missa solemnis, has amidst the work’s extensive discography a single favorite recorded performance from which affection could not be deviated except by the discovery of recorded interpretations by God or Beethoven himself. The demands of the score are so extravagant that mere survival is admirable, but the qualities that define an effective performance of Missa solemnis are prioritized differently by each individual listener. Enrico Caruso’s famous quip about Verdi’s Il trovatore requiring the four best singers in the world, logic validated by countless dismal performances of the opera, might be expanded and applied with equal credibility to Beethoven’s Missa solemnis: all that a performance of the work requires to be successful is the participation of four extraordinary soloists, the world’s best chorus and orchestra, and a conductor who is both poet and platoon commander. Mastery of Bach’s, Händel’s, Mozart’s, and Haydn’s contrapuntal writing does not guarantee success in Beethoven’s music. Whereas the fugues in Bach’s Matthäus-Passion, Händel’s Saul, Mozart’s Requiem, and Haydn’s Die Schöpfung call for finesse, the gargantuan fugues of the Missa solemnis need the brute authority of a traffic cop who can marshal resources with unflinching determination and clear direction. Well into his ninth decade, Dutch conductor Bernard Haitink might not be assumed to be the most likely candidate for taking up badge and whistle and leading a wholly successful performance of Missa solemnis, but one of the peculiar joys of music is the complete obliteration of assumptions. Remarkably, this recording of Missa solemnis, the product of a pair of performances in Munich’s Herkulessaal der Residenz preserved in wonderfully spacious and admirably clear sonics by Bayerischen Rundfunks producer Michael Kempff and balance engineer Ulrike Schwarz is Haitink’s first. Documenting his concept of the monumental score with a lifetime’s experience with the Symphonies, Concerti, and Fidelio to his credit, the conductor does not allow his reputation as a Beethoven interpreter to be the core of his reading of Missa solemnis. In short, this recording is not a gap-filler in the discography of an important conductor but an insightful artist’s meticulously-honed view of one of the greatest works in the Western liturgical canon.

When Haitink recorded Fidelio some years ago with Jessye Norman in the title rôle, the performance was notable for being perhaps the only recording to have emerged in the years since the release of Karl Böhm’s Deutsche Grammophon recording with Dame Gwyneth Jones and James King that is a bonafide performance of Beethoven’s opera rather than a statement of a conductor’s idiosyncratic concept of it. On the whole, this is also true of Haitink’s recording of Missa solemnis. The Maestro’s pacing of the work is not without an apt air of reverence, but the prevailing ethos of the performance is musical, not dogmatic. Beethoven’s relationship with religion was notoriously complicated, but the sentiments in Missa solemnis speak for themselves when allowed to do so. Haitink permits them the use of their own voices, and his performance is ultimately more moving than many readings that attempt to be overt paeans to indoctrinated faith. The musical forces of the Chor und Symphonierchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks respond to Haitink’s leadership with the unambiguous enthusiasm of fellow musicians who share or at least understand the conduction’s vision. The orchestra’s musicians, players collectively and individually as talented as any of their colleagues in Europe’s most renowned orchestras, deliver one of the most accurate traversals of Beethoven’s score on records, achieving studio-quality precision without losing the do-or-die intensity of live performance. When the music calls for rafter-rattling volume, the musicians supply it unabashedly, but these musicians comprehend what many of today’s singers do not, that producing notes loudly is not the same thing as playing music passionately. This was a critical distinction to Beethoven, and it must also be in the performance of his music.

From the first bars of the ‘Kyrie eleison,’ the finest qualities of Haitink’s interpretation of Beethoven’s daunting music are apparent. Foremost is clarity of line, maintained even in the most grandiose ensemble passages. Indeed, it is remarkable to observe the extent to which Haitink sustains chamber-music-like textures when both orchestra and choir are in full cry. To this is added an intuitive command of dynamics. Neither loud nor soft volumes seem exploited for easy effects: taking his cues from the score, Haitink intelligently exposes Beethoven’s intentions rather than imposing his own. The well-judged tempo adopted for the beginning of the Mass is appropriately measured but not sluggish, establishing the grandeur of the music without being sunk by it. The pointed, still-youthful voice of tenor soloist Mark Padmore emerges from the fabric of the expertly-balanced choral singing with the impact of sunlight breaking through storm clouds, the urgency of his phrasing and diction minimizing the difficulties encountered by a light, lyric voice in this music. It was for a Tamino and not a Siegfried that the part was conceived, however, and the consistently attractive sounds that Padmore emits, projecting rather than forcing the voice, are far more effective than the rough-hewn noises of larger instruments. Soprano Genia Kühmeier’s luscious but lean voice sounds more comfortable in Beethoven’s music than almost any other voice of similar weight recorded in the Missa solemnis, and her singing in the ‘Kyrie’ gleams attractively, hoisted above the stave by Haitink’s supportive management of the string figurations that accompany her. Mezzo-soprano Elisabeth Kulman brings heartening fullness of tone in the middle octave to her singing, and she is among the handful of exponents of the alto part who are not weak links in their respective recordings. In this performance, Kulman’s well-integrated, secure singing is a decided strength. The solo quartet is completed by bass-baritone Hanno Müller-Brachmann, another impeccably-trained singer whose work in this performance exceeds the quality of singing by famous basses whose participation in competing recordings of Missa solemnis seemed inspired primarily by efforts at selling records. Considered one by one, the soloists yield certain points to their colleagues on other recordings: Dame Elisabeth Schwarzkopf more readily evinced the mysticism of the text, Christa Ludwig offered more seamless transitions between registers, Nicolai Gedda had more thrust at the top of the range, and Gwynne Howell and Kurt Moll had greater resonance in the bottom octave of their voices. As an ensemble, however, Haitink’s singers constitute as fine a solo quartet as might be assembled today. They alternate majestically with the choir in both the ‘Kyrie eleison’ and the ‘Christe eleison,’ their efforts highlighting the solitary and the universal implications of supplicants’ pleas for divine mercy.

The surging opening subject of the ‘Gloria’ makes ferocious demands upon the choristers’ throats, the sopranos in particular suffering from being taken repeatedly to the G and A at the top of the stave. The Munich singers hold their own, producing laudably reliable intonation even when singing at full volume at the extremes of their ranges. The soloists make a beautiful oasis of ‘Gratias agimus tibi,’ Kulman singing with especially fine tone that brings to mind the singing of the little-remembered Mary Jarred in Sir Thomas Beecham’s 1937 Leeds Town Hall performance of Missa solemnis. The compactness of the vocal writing for the soloists in ‘Domine fili unigenite’ draws from the singers performances of splendid focus. The choristers’ singing of the Larghetto ‘Qui tolllis peccata mundi’ is lovely. The tenors soar to the top A that launches ‘Quoniam tu solus sanctus,’ trumped in short order by a veritable litany of top As from the sopranos. The stately fugue on ‘In gloria Dei patris, amen,’ marked Allegro, ma non troppo e ben marcato by Beethoven, has in Haitink’s handling precisely those qualities. All of the singers, choristers and soloists, handle their passagework impressively, not least when the soloists’ voices intertwine above the basses’ intoning of ‘Cum sancto spiritu,’ detonating the explosive resolution of the frenetic counterpoint.

It is also to the basses that Beethoven entrusted the first words in the ‘Credo,’ and Haitink’s is among the few performances on disc that meticulously observe the composer’s subito forte indications. Beethoven here demands top B♭s of the sopranos, which the ladies provide without undue stress. Padmore begins ‘Et incarnatus est’ ravishingly, the baritonal colorations of the lower octave of his voice lending the text a pronounced element of unanswerable authority. The choral tenors manfully brave the high tessitura of ‘Et resurrexit tertia die secundum scripturas,’ and the altos display formidable strength in ‘Credo in Spiritum Sanctum qui ex patre filio que procedit,’ an Allegro ma non troppo section that leads the sopranos to another fearsome top B♭. The closing pages of the ‘Credo’ are among the most difficult ever composed for choir, and after the deceptively simply Allegro con moto respite shared by the first violin, flute, and oboe, the pace and momentum are relentless until relieved like the discharge of lightning by the startling alternations of pianissimo and fortissimo in the concluding Grave. Soloists, chorus, orchestra, and conductor scale the heights of the music without once losing their footing.

The ‘Credo’ is the pensive cerebrum of the Missa solemnis, and the ‘Sanctus’ is its throbbing heart. Haitink takes the ‘Mit Andacht’ marking at the start of the movement very seriously but does not ignore the subtle touches of irony in Beethoven’s word-setting. The soloists create an atmosphere of hushed awe in the hesitant opening passage and then unleash a maelstrom of bravura singing in ‘Pleni sunt cœli et terra gloria tua, osanna in excelsis.’ The Sostenuto ma non troppo Preludium to the ‘Benedictus’ is lushly played, the basses’ statement of ‘Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini’ seeming to emerge from the depths of the earth. Symbolizing the ascent of the Trinity into heaven​ in the form of the Holy Spirit, represented as a dove​, ​the solo violin part in the ‘Benedictus’ is among Beethoven’s most exquisitely beautiful melodic inspirations: neither in concert works nor in his sonatas for violin did the composer fashion a sustained melody of a quality that surpasses that of the solo line in the ‘Benedictus.’ Following Haitink’s lead, Anton Barachovsky phrases the violin solo with eloquence. His tone occasionally sounds slightly anemic, perhaps resulting from microphone placement, but Barachovsky’s playing eschews the excessive vibrato that mars many performances. His phrasing is matched by the soloists’ articulations of text, as well as by the orchestra’s caressing of their music. The powerful crescendo to the subito forte on the central syllable of the final ‘excelsis’ and the subsequent decrescendo to the piano G-major chord that closes the movement are compellingly realized.

In the dolorous opening subject of the ‘Agnus Dei,’ Müller-Brachmann’s steady, handsome bass-baritone voice cannot provide the orotundity of tone at the bottom of the compass that a bass has—or should have—at his disposal, but this thoughtful singer phrases the descending melodic line with utter simplicity and sincerity, making of the text an intensely personal statement that amounts to a confession made directly into the ear of Providence. When the melancholy of the bass line is transformed into an expression of desperate angst by the entrance of the alto and tenor, Kulman’s Ferrier-like timbre joins with Padmore’s thin but unbreakable thread of silvery tone in winding through the music with the organic surety of a river forging its course through a canyon. Kühmeier’s voice floats above the ensemble stunningly, her top Gs glowing like beacons in Saint John of the Cross’s ‘dark night of the soul.’ The Allegretto vivace ‘Dona nobis pacem,’ famously described by Beethoven as a ‘Bitte um innern und äussern Frieden,’ is a devotion into which the disorder of conflict intrudes, and Haitink conducts it as an exposition of the power of compassion to quell doubt, hopelessness, and sorrow.

Conducting Beethoven’s Missa solemnis is surely one of the most terrifying tasks in Classical Music. Composing this gargantuan score must have been no less intimidating even for the steel-willed Beethoven. Completing the score occupied nearly four years of his life, and the work’s first performance in 1824, documented as a bewildering experience for the audience, introduced Beethoven’s masterwork to a musical milieu that perhaps was not yet ready for it. Many conductors also grapple with the Missa solemnis before they are ready to dedicate to it the study, submersion, and surrender that the music demands. With this recording, Bernard Haitink crowns a storied career including countless triumphs in Beethoven repertory with a performance of Missa solemnis that exhibits a mastery of the piece that eludes all but a select society of conductors. It is an achievement for which this conductor prepared for more than sixty years, leading critically-acclaimed performances in Chicago and Zürich before taking the podium before the microphones in Munich. Beethoven deserves no less.

HENRY PURCELL (1659 – 1695): Dido and Aeneas, Z. 626—Rachael Lloyd (Dido), Robert Davies (Aeneas), Elin Manahan Thomas (Belinda), Roderick Morris (Sorceress), Eloise Irving (Second Woman, First Witch, Spirit), Jenni Harper (Second Witch), Miles Golding (Drunken Sailor); Armonico Consort; Christopher Monks, Musical Director [Recorded in the Church of St Augustine, Kilburn, London, England, on 20 and 21 October 2014; Signum Classics SIGCD417; 1 CD, 50:45; Available from Signum Classics, ClassicsOnline HD, Amazon, jpc, Presto Classical, and major music retailers]

In August 1940, as the tide of war swept across the Europe and over the English Channel into Britain, Sir Winston Churchill famously rallied his countrymen with unforgettable words of gratitude for the awe-inspiring efforts of the Royal Air Force: ‘Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.’ If the field under consideration were opera in Britain and the entity deemed so few a simple quantity of notes, a related sentiment might justifiably be expressed about Henry Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas. Frustratingly, so much of what is ‘known’ about Purcell’s concentrated operatic masterpiece is actually conjecture for which factual substantiation is scant and often subject to individual interpretation. A matter of certainty is that the libretto for Dido and Aeneas is a simplification of Book IV of Virgil’s Aeneid undertaken by the Dublin-born eventual Poet Laureate of England, Nahum Tate, who when not occupied with putting figures from Antiquity upon the theatrical and operatic stages was all too happy to tinker with Shakespeare. Precisely where, when, and by whom Dido and Aeneas was first performed cannot be ascertained with any degree of certainty, but the impact of that inauspicious beginning on the development of opera in and beyond the British Isles is indisputable. What is known with relative sureness is that Dido and Aeneas, Purcell’s first opera and only through-composed vocal work for the theatre, had been performed in dancing-master Josias Priest’s school for young ladies at Gorge’s House in Chelsea—one of the most fashionable addresses in Seventeenth-Century suburban London—by July 1688. No manuscript score survives, and the sole authentic Seventeenth-Century source, a printed copy of Tate’s libretto, may or may not have been published in conjunction with the opera’s première, but since the opera’s resurrection for commemorations in 1895 of the bicentennial of the composer’s death, Dido and Aeneas has a place of deserved prominence in the annals of opera in English. A singer as important as Kirsten Flagstad deemed Purcell’s Dido worthy of inclusion in her repertory alongside Wagner’s Elsa, Elisabeth, Brünnhildes, and Isolde, singing the Carthaginian queen in performances in Bernard Miles’s 200-seat Mermaid Theatre in the St. John’s Wood section of London and recording the rôle for HMV. Nancy Evans and Dame Joan Hammond had already recorded Dido before Flagstad’s surprisingly stylish interpretation was committed to vinyl in 1952, ushering in an era of rediscovery that continues to periodically redefine standards of performance of Purcell’s music in the Twenty-First Century. From the revival of interest in Dido and Aeneas in 1895 unto the present day, a progression of accomplished ladies ranging from Britons Dame Janet Baker, Josephine Veasey, Dame Emma Kirkby, and Sarah Connolly to Americans Tatiana Troyanos, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, and Vivica Genaux have given the ill-fated Dido a legacy as multi-faceted as that of any heroine in opera. Approaching the opera on the scale on which it is likely to have been staged in Purcell’s time, Signum Classics’ studio recording featuring Armonico Consort offers an uncomplicated reading of Dido and Aeneas that serves as a well-timed reminder that, whether an opera was written in 1688 or 1988, the foremost historically-informed, period-appropriate performance practice is sincerity.

Armonico Consort’s Artistic Director Christopher Monks presides from the harpsichord over a performance notable for both its seriousness and the consistency of its musical accents. Purcell was an unsurpassed master of stylistic assimilation, his scores synthesizing aspects of trends from Continental Europe and the British Isles into an unique musical language. In Dido and Aeneas, the influence of John Blow’s roughly contemporaneous opera Venus and Adonis is apparent alongside recognizable traits honed from familiarity with French and Italian models. Hearing this recording not long after witnessing Spoleto Festival USA’s production of Pier Francesco Cavalli’s Veremonda, l’amazzone di Aragona made Dido’s kinship with the Italian composer’s mature operas especially conspicuous. Adhering to the Venetian customs of their time, Busenello’s libretto for Cavalli’s 1641 Didone discarded the tragic demise of Virgil’s account in favor of a lieto fine in which Dido is ‘rescued’—rather chauvinistically, modern observers might be inclined to think—by another suitor’s marriage proposal after Aeneas’s departure, but Purcell’s Dido shares with Cavalli’s Didone an imperturbable dignity that qualifies them as two of operas earliest tragic heroines. Viewing Dido and Aeneas from an anachronistic perspective, Dido is not unlike Bellini’s Norma and Richard Strauss’s Ariadne in being discarded by a ‘foreign’ lover. Just as Pollione’s music in Norma is of a martial character that contrasts with the lunar glow of the music for Norma and her community, Purcell’s music for Aeneas often sounds thorny in comparison with the sensual writing for Dido and her Carthaginian subjects. Monks and the Armonico Consort musicians—first violinist Miles Golding, second violinist Ben Sansom, violist Nichola Blakey, cellist Gabriel Amherst, double bass player Andrew Durban, and theorbist Robin Jeffrey—explore the dramatic significance of this polarity, rejecting the foolish but frequently-indulged temptation to depict Aeneas as an one-dimensional symbolic affront to feminine constancy. Monks’s continuo playing is unobtrusively inventive, and Jeffrey coaxes beguiling sounds from the strings of his instrument. There are many passages in this performance in which the fine playing prompts appreciation of how effective a small ensemble can be in music like Purcell’s: not one bar of the score here sounds undernourished, and the ingenuity and subtle beauty of the music command attention in virtually every phrase.

Following the example of the orchestra, the Armonico Consort chorus employs eight voices, sopranos Jenni Harper and Eloise Irving, altos Sarah Denbee and Roderick Morris, tenors Ruairi Bowen and Guy Simcock, and basses Francis Brett and Michael Hickman. Remembering that the choruses in Händel’s operas, in vogue in London a generation after the creation of Dido Aeneas, were typically sung by the soloists in ensemble, Armonico Consort’s use of a chorus of eight is likely a close approximation of what Purcell expected to hear. As Dido’s countrymen, the choristers sing 'When monarchs unite, how happy their state, they triumph at once o'er their foes and their fate' with optimism, the subjects’ devotion to their queen obvious. Their knowing smiles are seen in the mind’s eye as they suggestively intone 'Cupid only throws the dart that's dreadful to a warrior's heart' and ‘To the hills and the vales, to the rocks and the mountains.’ Assuming more sinister identities, they make the witches’ 'Harm’s our delight and mischief all our skill’ as villainously effective as Scarpia’s ‘Credo’ in Puccini’s Tosca, and their sonorous singing of ‘In our deep vaulted cell the charm we’ll prepare, too dreadful a practice for this open air’ is chilling in its devious intensity. Resuming their Carthaginian guises, the ladies and gentlemen phrase 'Great minds against themselves conspire, and shun the cure they most desire' with woeful inflections. Despite the compact dimensions of the ensemble, their singing of the despondent final chorus, ‘With drooping wings ye Cupids come, and scatter roses on her tomb,’ lends the piece the force of the great choruses of lamentation in Händel’s Israel in Egypt.

The Sydney-born Golding, a veteran of distinguished ensembles of both period and modern instruments, is also heard in this performance as the Drunker Sailor, whose 'Come away, fellow sailors' and 'Take a boozy short leave of your nymphs on the shore' he sings raucously in tandem with the chorus. He is unlikely to be invited to sing Rodolfo in La bohème at the Royal Opera House, but his Everyman singing here is mostly inoffensive, largely owing to the brevity of his music. His is hardly the strangest performance of a rôle that has been subjected to some very bizarre concepts.

Emerging from the chorus as the Second Witch, Harper revels in the opportunity to deliver a gem of a line like 'Our plot has took, the Queen's forsook,’ and she takes part in the witches’ cawing, which admittedly quickly outstays its welcome, with every appearance of delight. Her fellow chorister Irving proves a mistress of disguise as the Second Woman, the First Witch, and the deceptive Spirit. She sings the Second Woman's 'Oft she visits this lone mountain, oft she bathes her in this fountain' with girlish freshness, and she later credibly impersonates Mercury’s vexation in the Spirit’s 'Stay, Prince! and hear great Jove's command' and 'Tonight thou must forsake this land.'

Beginning with a memorable performance by Arda Mandikian on the HMV set with Flagstad, the best recorded Sorceresses have imparted that an ugly voice is not necessary to successfully convey the character’s enmity. Entrusting the rôle to a male singer as Purcell might have done has become increasingly preferred in recent years, and Morris, pairing this assignment with his choral duties, is a potent countertenor Sorceress. He spits out 'Wayward sisters, you that fright the lonely traveller by night' with the acrimony of a provoked cobra, and there is no questioning the candor of the sentiment of this Sorceress’s 'The Queen of Carthage, whom we hate, as we do all in prosp'rous state.' The euphoria that sweeps through Morris’s singing of 'See, the flags and streamers curling, anchors weighing, sails unfurling' is nefariously fetching. Always thinking ahead, Morris’s Sorceress rallies her coven with a pointed articulation of 'Our next motion must be to storm her lover on the ocean!' Morris’s soft-grained, pewter-tinged timbre is a suitably ethereal instrument for the Sorceress’s music, but his earthy singing creates a portrait of a creepy character of flesh and blood.

The debonair voice of Welsh soprano Elin Manahan Thomas contributes to one of the finest performances of Belinda’s sweet, sisterly music on records. In Thomas’s singing, Purcell’s idiom seems as natural as everyday conversation. The good-natured communicativeness of her singing of 'Shake the cloud from off your brow, fate your wishes does allow' is endearing: who could ignore her entreaty to allow contentment to prevail? More than meddling inspires Thomas’s Belinda’s utterance of 'Grief increases by concealing,' and the soprano declaims 'Then let me speak; the Trojan guest into your tender thoughts has press'd' with unmistakable innuendo. The open-hearted glee in her singing of 'Fear no danger to ensue, the hero loves as well as you' with the Second Woman and chorus is charming. Thomas’s voice glides over the chorus in 'Thanks to these lonesome vales, these desert hills and dales' and 'Haste, haste to town, this open field no shelter from the storm can yield,’ organically guiding the drama. Many singers seemingly view Belinda as a simple lass to whom Purcell allotted some nice music, but Thomas amplifies the expressivity of this Dido and Aeneas with her portrayal of a Belinda fully worthy of her queen’s confidence.

Colchester native baritone Robert Davies is a refreshingly uncomplicated, masculine Aeneas. There are no pretensions of philosophical depth or self-conscious intellect in this fellow: he is a soldier and adventurer through and through, though one who has the good manners to be at least temporarily unnerved by his betrayal of Dido’s trust. The insinuation with which Davies voices 'When, Royal Fair, shall I be bless'd with cares of love and state distress'd?' is witty, and his emphatic 'Aeneas has no fate but you!' leaves no doubt about the virility of this demigod. Davies voices 'If not for mine, for Empire's sake, some pity on your lover take' with touching emotional directness. He makes the double meaning of 'Behold, upon my bending spear a monster's head stands bleeding' as plain as Wagner’s incessant extolling of Siegfried’s testosteronic sword. A vein of dismay courses through Davies’s phrasing of 'Jove's commands shall be obey'd, tonight our anchors shall be weighed,' and the tenderness limned in his 'But ah! what language can I try my injur'd Queen to pacify' is unexpectedly touching. A crucial component of the success of Davies’s performance is his refusal to pursue stylishness by altering his basic method of vocal production. He sings Purcell’s music without affectation, and his rugged, attractive tone molds an Aeneas who more than usually deserves his half of the opera’s title billing.

From her opening statement of 'Ah! Belinda, I am press'd with torment not to be Confess'd' to the last note of the celebrated lament, mezzo-soprano Rachael Lloyd is a Dido whose inexorable trajectory towards tragedy is enacted with honesty and thoughtfully-shaded tone. Lloyd pronounces 'Whence could so much virtue spring?' with the disbelief of a woman whose injured heart is reluctant to admit affection. That Dido’s happiness is destined to be short-lived in no way reduces its potency, and Lloyd’s cry of 'Your counsel all is urged in vain; to earth and heav'n I will complain!' tenably expresses the character’s doubt and fear. Dido’s doubts and fears ultimately prove justified, of course, and Lloyd unlooses avalanches of fury in 'Thus on the fatal banks of Nile, weeps the deceitful crocodile' and 'No, faithless man, thy course pursue; I'm now resolv'd as well as you.' Dido’s longing for death can seem immoderate, even reckless, but Lloyd shapes the queen’s expiry as an act of defiance, in effect defying the stasis imposed upon the character by Tate’s libretto. She sings 'To Death I'll fly if longer you delay' and 'But Death, alas! I cannot shun; Death must come when he is gone' without exaggeration, and she voices 'Thy hand, Belinda, darkness shades me' with determination rather than despair. Her performance of the imposing lament, 'When I am laid in earth,' reverberates with relief and singularity of purpose, her solid top Gs hurled like clenched fists at the unjust gods. Lloyd develops Dido’s death as a sort of Baroque Liebestod: it resolves but does not define her characterization. Like Davies’s Aeneas, Lloyd’s Dido is not an act of posing and posturing. She is not an ostentatiously glamorous queen, but she is all the more moving for being a flawed, nobly human one.

In this performance, shorn of artifice and psychological baggage that has more to do with Proust than with Purcell, the distance between Dido and Aeneas and the vocal music of contemporary British composers like Thomas Adès, Jonathan Dove, and Joseph Phibbs seems very small. This is neither because Purcell was in some exceptional way sophisticated beyond his contemporaries nor because today’s most gifted composers are old-fashioned: the proximity is explained by the manner in which Purcell perfected the art of uniting English words and music. Assessed solely as a recital of Purcell’s vocal lines, this is a very good but not a great Dido and Aeneas, but it exudes an intelligibility missing from many performances. A vital part of the success of this recording is its confirmation of the reality that Dido and Aeneas constitutes fifty of the most momentous minutes in the history of opera.

KARL AMADEUS HARTMANN (1905 – 1963), MIECZYSŁAW WEINBERG (1919 – 1996), and DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH (1906 – 1975), : Wartime Consolations– Music for Violin—Linus Roth, violin; José Gallardo, piano; Württemberg Chamber Orchestra Heilbronn; Ruben Gazarian, conductor [Recorded at Kulturforum Saline, Offenau, Germany (Hartmann and Weinberg), and Motormusic Studios, Mechelen, Belgium (Shostakovich), 22 – 24 January 2015; Challenge Classics CC72680; 1 CD, 55:28; Available from Challenge Classics, Amazon (UK), jpc, Presto Classical, and major music retailers]

No matter how many discs one hears in the course of a week, a month, a year, or a lifetime, there are occasionally discs that one immediately recognizes as special, discs to which one turns again and again, always sensing that they are significant, sometimes universally and sometimes individually, in ways that the vast majority of recordings cannot emulate. There are performances like Pau Casals’s Bach recordings that are now perceived as hopelessly unstylish but nonetheless possess a magnetism and an abiding musicality that are never outmoded. There are performances like Kirsten Flagstad’s Fricka in the DECCA Das Rheingold that are indispensable in spite of—or perhaps because of—flaws. There are performances like Arthur Rubinstein’s Chopin recordings that forever alter perceptions of the interpretive relationships among composers, musicians, and instruments. In the context of today’s Classical recording industry, what Dickens might justifiably have described as at once the best of times and the worst of times, a disc like violinist Linus Roth’s Wartime Consolations is a much-needed oasis of pure oxygen—and, indeed, an oasis and not a mirage that ultimately disappoints—amidst a smog-smirched desert clouded by a continuing sandstorm of aimless recordings of over-exposed standard repertory. For all their attractiveness and perhaps even necessity in the marketing of recordings, thematic concepts are a deceptive danger to artistic achievement. Too often, the drive to partner works that adhere to an unifying concept produces programmes of poorly-matched music and haphazard performances: pairing two pieces on a themed disc solely because of their relationship to a common concept, ignoring the quality and stylistic symmetry of the music and artists’ ability to perform it, defrauds composers, musicians, and listeners. Exploring the shared associations of music for violin by Karl Amadeus Hartmann, Mieczysław Weinberg, and Dmitri Shostakovich, Wartime Consolations establishes a template for insightfully-planned and meaningfully-executed concept discs. As in so many aspects of Music and Art in general, ego cannot sustain a recording, however intelligently planned. Only fervor born of understanding, preparation, and acquiescence to the power of the music at hand can do that, and in the discerningly-chosen music on Wartime Consolations Linus Roth’s fervor hoists this disc into the company of those special recordings that educate and enchant in equal measures.

​Born in Munich in 1905, Karl Amadeus Hartmann was a pupil of Anton Webern and Joseph Haas, himself an accomplished composer and a fearless champion of music banned by the Third Reich. Following the example of his mentor Hermann Scherchen, who relocated to Switzerland and refused to conduct in his native Germany during the Second World War, Hartmann forbade performances of his music in Germany whilst the Nazi regime remained in power. Composed in 1939, the work that would eventually be known as his Concerto funebre was first performed by violinist Karl Neracher in 1940: after undergoing minor revisions by the composer, the piece was premièred in its final form in 1959 by acclaimed violinist Wolfgang Schneiderhan, husband of the great soprano Irmgard Seefried. Playing the 1703 Antonio Stradivari violin that belonged in the Nineteenth Century to French violinist and composer Charles Dancla, Roth phrases the violin solo in the concerto’s first movement, Introduktion (Largo), with boundless imagination, contrasting the confidence of the solo line with the agitation in the orchestra, sonorously imparted by conductor Ruben Gazarian and the musicians of the Württemberg Chamber Orchestra Heilbronn. Hartmann often ventures to the boundaries of tonality but stops short of diving headlong into the dodecaphony of Schönberg and Webern, utilizing an individual musical language that proves to be a native tongue for Roth. He responds to the broad construction of the Introduktion with a controlled expansiveness wholly appropriate to the soloist-centric nature of the music. Under Gazarian’s sympathetic baton, the uncertainty that permeates the Adagio lurks just beneath the surface, Roth’s subtle playing washing over the restless accompaniment with the stilling effect of twilight on rough seas. In the Allegro di molto, soloist and orchestra spar urgently, the immediacy of the solo line complemented by the disquieting agitation in the orchestra. Roth, Gazarian, and the Württemberg players interact as though engaged in mortal combat conducted in chamber music. The thematic material of the closing movement, Choral (Langsamer Marsch), is derived from ‘Unsterbliche Opfer,’ a German song of remembrance to which Hartmann was likely introduced by Scherchen, who made its acquaintance whilst in Russia during the First World War. Shostakovich also used the melody in his Eleventh Symphony, an homage to the victims of the Revolution of 1905. In Hartmann’s setting, the tune undergoes a transformation from an elegy for victims of conflict into a statement of unconquerable hope. Roth finds in the arching, lyrical lines of his part music to which his faultless intonation, superb legato, and understated vibrato are ideally suited. It is lamentable that playing beautifully is often not esteemed as an element of virtuosity as it deserves to be: the gorgeous tones that Roth draws from his violin are certainly a prime trait of his superlative technique.

So great is his love for the Warsaw-born composer’s music that Roth facilitated the establishment of the International Mieczysław Weinberg Society with the goal of remembering, promoting, and celebrating this neglected master and the legacies of suffering and survival that shaped his artistry. The depths of the violinist’s advocacy for Weinberg’s music are never more apparent than when he plays works like the Opus 42 Concertino. Completed in July 1948 during a holiday that, like Mahler’s retreats to Steinbach am Attersee, enabled the composer to temporarily shed his melancholic sophistication amidst the impersonal equality of nature but never performed in Weinberg’s lifetime, the Concertino taps a stratum of guardedly optimistic lyricism. In the Allegretto cantabile first movement, Roth and Gazarian again cooperate with remarkable symbiosis, the subtle accents of the violinist’s playing answered by similar emphases in the orchestra. The central movement, Cadenza (Lento – Adagio), bristles with uncomplicated tunefulness that Roth translates into compelling assertions of humanity. The taxing solo writing in the ​Allegro moderato poco rubato final movement is supported by surprisingly simplistic orchestral accompaniment, delivered by the Württemberg musicians with impeccable ensemble. The spellbinding pyrotechnics display of Roth’s playing is an outstanding finale to a work that should be performed far more often.

Weinberg’s Rhapsody on Moldavian Themes (Op. 47, No. 3), originally composed for orchestra alone and performed here in an arrangement for violin and orchestra by violinist and composer Ewelina Nowicka, was written in 1949 and can be viewed as a piece intended to conform to the burgeoning effort to celebrate the USSR by assimilating the folk musics of constituent nations into the sanctioned concert works of the Soviet state. This apparent bow to Soviet dictates was a ruse, however: the themes rhapsodized by Weinberg are Moldovan in name only, their origins being in the ethnic Jewish community rather in a defined nationalistic vein. Being Jewish themes, it is hardly surprising that they are splendidly tuneful or that Weinberg dealt affectionately with them. Alongside the Symphonies and works like the Concertino, the Rhapsody is a lighter, sunnier piece. Perhaps this, too, is an element of its purposefully placatory constitution. Roth reacts as energetically to Weinberg’s brighter idiom as to his bleaker Concerto and chamber music for violin, previously recorded for Challenge Classics. The appealing melodies are sensitively but stirringly rendered by Roth, who plays the Rhapsody not as a frivolity but as a little-known vista of an atypically untroubled episode in Weinberg’s creative life.

Like Franz Schubert’s Eighth Symphony—or the Seventh, if one prefers: modern society cannot agree even on a matter such as the numbering of a symphony—and Ernest Hemingway’s The Garden of Eden, Dmitri Shostakovich’s Unfinished Sonata for Violin and Piano is a work that possesses tremendous expressive power even in its limbless form. The single Moderato con moto movement, composed only days after the end of World War II in 1945 and here recorded for the first time, is a profoundly personal piece, roughly contemporaneous with the composer’s extroverted, diaphanous Ninth Symphony. Collaborating with Argentine pianist José Gallardo, Roth’s playing immediately gets at the heart of Shostakovich’s music, and violinist and pianist manage to convey a full spectrum of emotions in the course of the five-and-a-half minutes of surviving music. Indeed, the completeness of their performance of the Moderato con moto mitigates the regret that Shostakovich never finished the Sonata.

The music of Karl Amadeus Hartmann, Mieczysław Weinberg, and Dmitri Shostakovich performed on Wartime Consolations illustrates the capacity of Art to alleviate the anguish of the darkest periods in human history. Seventy years after the end of the Second World War, the unparalleled destruction of those horrific years are still felt. They are felt in Linus Roth’s playing on this disc, but this is music-making that heals the wounds of war and its aftermath. The work of one of the Twenty-First Century’s most perceptive artists, Wartime Consolations is a fittingly tender tribute not only to three important composers but also to happy memories of the family, friends, and colleagues they—and we all—lost to inhuman aggression.

RICHARD WAGNER (1813 – 1883): Tristan und Isolde—Lauritz Melchior (Tristan), Kirsten Flagstad (Isolde), Margarete Klose (Brangäne, Acts I & II), Karin Branzell (Brangäne, Act III), Herbert Janssen (Kurwenal, Acts I & II), Paul Schöffler (Kurwenal, Act III), Sven Nilsson (König Marke), Booth Hitchin (Melot), Parry Jones (Stimme eines jungen Seemanns), Octave Dua (Ein Hirt), Leslie Horsman (Ein Steuermann); Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Sir Thomas Beecham, conductor [Recorded ‘live’ in performance at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, UK, on 18 June 1937 (Acts I & II) and 22 June 1937 (Act III); Immortal Performances IPCD 1042-4; 4 CDs, 295:27; Available from Immortal Performances and major music retailers]

Oh, to have been in London in the Spring of 1937, when the Royal Opera House celebrated the coronation of King George VI with as much operatic pomp and circumstance as could be created upon the Covent Garden stage! In the span of ninety days, fashionable Londoners—and, in some cases, wireless listeners—heard a mind-boggling company of the best singers and conductors from Britain, America, and Continental Europe in operas both familiar and unfamiliar. Contemporary press not unexpectedly focused on who was there and what they wore, but the Coronation Season was not merely a see-and-be-seen affair: Immortal Performances’ releases of the 1937 broadcasts of Der fliegende Holländer [reviewed here] and Tristan und Isolde confirm that the musical personnel were committed to honoring His newly-crowned Majesty with performances of extraordinary quality. The romantic leads of the Coronation Season Tristan und Isolde, Lauritz Melchior (1890 – 1973) and Kirsten Flagstad (1895 – 1962), were in their incomparable primes in 1937: they were frequently heard in these rôles during the next decade, both together and separately, but never again quite as they were in the broadcast performances preserved on this Immortal Performances release. Superlatives are often meaningless in opera, every pair of ears hearing voices and performances differently, but it is impossible to overstate the significance and sheer glory of this performance, particularly when it can finally be heard in sound that enables full discernment not just of the magnificent climaxes but also of the countless minutiae that foster them. Is this the finest Tristan und Isolde on disc? Each individual listener must answer that question for himself, but here is a piece of friendly advice: if your answer is ‘No,’ be prepared to defend it when this writer asks, ‘Which, then, is better?’

The earnest Wagnerian laments few of the cruelties of operatic fate more than the failure of broadcasters and record labels to preserve a substantially-complete Tristan und Isolde with Frida Leider, the preeminent Isolde of the entre-deux-guerres years. Leider sang the first Isolde of Covent Garden’s Coronation Season on 14 June, a performance in which contemporary accounts reported her to have been on near-best form, but, as Richard Caniell writes in the typically extensive and lavishly informative liner notes that accompany this painstakingly-remastered recording, the sole focus of British HMV’s recording efforts was on preservation of Flagstad’s Isolde. With an Isolde such as Flagstad’s captured at its vocal and dramatic summit, it seems unpardonably ungrateful to bemoan the missed opportunity of memorializing Leider’s interpretation of the part. Still, considering HWV’s almost comically inept endeavors, perhaps it is better to have no Leider Isolde than to be subjected to an exasperatingly poor one. Owing to Caniell’s technical and musical erudition, the Coronation Season broadcasts—in the context of this release, a complete performance compiled from Acts One and Two of the 18 June broadcast and Act Three of the 22 June outing—can now be heard in clear, properly-pitched restorations that shame many broadcast recordings of decades later. With original source materials now more than seventy years old, there are unavoidable imperfections, but what is perfection in the context of performances such as these? The beauty of Melchior’s timbre, surpassed by no other Tristan heard in the sixty-five years since he last sang the rôle at the Metropolitan Opera in 1950, and the amplitude and opulence of Flagstad’s voice are magnificently evident on Immortal Performances’ discs: that alone is an achievement that transcends clinical notions of perfection.

Substantively, Tristan und Isolde is no less evocative of the sea than Der fliegende Holländer, and this has rarely if ever been more apparent than in Sir Thomas Beecham’s (1879 – 1961) management of this performance. The lapping of the waves against the hull of the ship is felt in Act One, though not via the nausea-inducing fluctuations in pitch that afflict other labels’ editions of this performance, and the chill of the Cornish climate slashes in the orchestra during Brangäne’s Watch in Act Two. So attuned are Beecham’s tempi to nuances of both text and orchestration that the listener can virtually sense, even after seventy-eight years, the sloshing of Brangäne’s fateful potion in the cup, the night air caressing the faces of Tristan and Isolde in their love duet, and the cold penetration of Melot’s sword. As in most recordings of Covent Garden performances of similar vintages, neither the orchestral playing nor the choral singing is absolutely first-rate in these performances [in addition to a complete performance consisting of the combined music from the 18 and 22 June broadcasts, Caniell provides an embarrassment of riches by also including the complete Act Two from the 22 June performance], but the standards that Beecham achieved are often little short of miraculous. Few conductors whose approaches to Tristan und Isolde are preserved on records have mastered both the nuances and the broader construction of the score as Beecham does in these performances, and appreciation of this is intensified by the fact that the momentum that builds in Acts One and Two from the 18 June performance continues unabated in Act Three from the 22 June performance, there being virtually no indications in terms of dramatic impetus that the opera’s concluding Act is drawn from a different show. This should not suggest that there are any deficiencies of spontaneity or individuality in Beecham’s conducting. Rather, there are abiding consistencies of emphasis and dramatic thrust that are possible only with absolute familiarity with the score. In Beecham’s handling, the famous Tristan chord seems not so much a musical innovation as an inevitable musical linchpin in the tonal construction of the opera as a whole. The dramatic significance of the augmented intervals and harmonic suspension throughout the score is intuitively highlighted by Beecham, and his conducting of the Vorspiel that begins the opera spawns incredible tension that persists until the last bar of the Liebestod. Were there no other recordings of Beecham’s conducting, neither his groundbreaking Berlioz nor Händel, no Zauberflöte with Lemnitz and Rosvaenge or Bohème with de los Ángeles and Björling, this Covent Garden Tristan und Isolde would more than suffice as proof of Beecham’s genius.

When first heard as the Stimme eines jungen Seemanns in ‘Westwärts schweift der Blick; ostwärts streicht das Schiff’ at the start of Act One, Welsh tenor Parry Jones (1891 – 1963), a versatile singer who both was a member of the D’Oyly Carte company and sang parts as heavy as Waldemar in Schönberg’s Gurre-Lieder and Wagner’s Tannhäuser, sounds slightly out of sorts, but his forwardly-placed timbre makes a strong impression in his voicing of ‘Wehe, wehe, du Wind! – Weh, ach wehe, mein Kind! – Irische Maid, du wilde, minnige Maid!’ The voice of Flagstad spreads into the auditorium like the wings of a great eagle with her exclamation of ‘Wer wagt mich zu höhnen?’ Who, indeed, might dare to mock such a woman? Berlin-born mezzo-soprano Margarete Klose (1899 – 1968) was among the few singers of the Twentieth Century endowed by nature with a voice appropriate for Brangäne, and she here sings the rôle splendidly, often stunningly, beginning with a beautifully-projected ‘Blaue Streifen stiegen im Osten auf’ that shudders with enigmatic unease. She responds to Flagstad’s volcanic singing of ‘Zerschlag es dies trotzige Schiff, des zerschellten Trümmer verschling’s!’ with frenzied intensity in her voicing of ‘O weh! Ach! Ach des Übels, das ich geahnt!’ Their interview is interrupted by the Seemann, whose ‘Frisch weht der Wind der Heimat zu’ Jones sings lyrically. As Isolde gazes at Tristan, Flagstad’s phrasing of ‘Mir erkoren, mir verloren, hehr und heil, kühn und feig!’ is magical, the meter and Leitmotiv already unmistakably foreshadowing the Liebestod. The innocence of Klose’s ‘Frägst du nach Tristan, teure Frau?’ is answered by the harsh determination of Flagstad’s ‘Der zagend von dem Streiche sich flüchtet, wo er kann, weil eine Braut er als Leiche für seinen Herrn gewann!’ There is poetry even in Kurwenal’s brief warning to Tristan as Brangäne approaches, ‘Hab acht, Tristan! Botschaft von Isolde,’ as sung by Herbert Janssen (1892 – 1965), who—unsurprisingly to anyone who has heard his Holländer in Immortal Performances' recording of the Coronation Season Der fliegende Holländer—is an uncommonly thoughtful Kurwenal. From his first ‘Was ist? Isolde?’ as he receives the nervous Brangäne, Melchior’s Tristan is, even alongside Flagstad’s Isolde on standard-setting form, the true glory of this recording. The layers of meaning in Tristan’s ‘Was meine Frau mir befehle, treulich sei’s erfüllt’ are conveyed by the sheer loveliness of Melchior’s tone. Taking his cue from Melchior, Janssen devotes attractive sounds to Kurwenal’s goading, dispatching the top Fs in his song with sonorous ease.

In the third scene of Act One, Klose and Flagstad interact with utter synchronicity as the enraged Isolde launches her Narration and Curse. Flagstad seems barely able to contain her fury as she sings ‘Wie lachend sie mir Lieder singen, wohl könnt auch ich erwidern!’ Klose misses none of the irony of ‘O Wunder! Wo hatt’ ich die Augen? Der Gast, den einst ich pflegen half,’ Brangäne’s coy disbelief contrasting with the stinging bitterness of Isolde’s ‘Da Morold lebte, wer hätt’ es gewagt uns je solche Schmach zu bieten?’ Something near the full power of Flagstad’s voice is unleashed in ‘O blinde Augen! Blöde Herzen! Zahmer Mut, verzagtes Schweigen!’ The pair of top Bs on ‘mit ihr gab er es preis!’ and ‘mir lacht das Abenteuer!’ are struck like hammer blows, the intonation spot-on. Unlike many Brangänes, Klose has no need to resort to faking the top A on ‘O Süsse! Traute! Teure! Holde! Goldne Herrin! Lieb’ Isolde!’ A profound sadness flows through Flagstad’s voicing of ‘Ungeminnt den hehrsten Mann stets mir nah zu sehen, wie könnt ich die Qual bestehen,’ the simplicity of her utterance reflected in the girlish lilt of her phrasing. The horror of Brangäne’s cry of ‘Der Todestrank!’ when Isolde reaches for the death potion is startlingly enacted by Klose. The sailors’ ‘Ho! he! ha! he! Am Untermast die Segel ein!’ has rarely seemed more intrusive than in this performance.

Even in the jaunty ‘Auf! Auf! Ihr Frauen! Frisch und froh! Rasch gerüstet! Fertig nun, hurtig und flink!’ Janssen’s Kurwenal is a hearty but not unrefined fellow. He meets with a decidedly haughty Isolde, epitomized by Flagstad’s defiant delivery of ‘Du merke wohl, und meld es gut! Nicht woll ich mich bereiten, ans Land ihn zu begleiten.’ There is the slightest hint of amusement in Janssen’s rejoinder of ‘Sicher wisst, das sag’ ich ihm: nun harrt, wie er mich hört!’ Isolde’s mood hardly improves upon Tristan’s arrival, Flagstad lashing him with her singing of ‘Wüsstest du nicht, was ich begehre, da doch die Furcht, mir’s zu erfüllen, fern meinem Blick dich hielt?’ The ferocity with which Melchior and Flagstad spar as Isolde recalls her vow to have vengeance for the slain Morold is thrilling, but even this is dwarfed by the vehemence of Flagstad’s declamation of ‘Siech und matt in meiner Macht, warum ich dich da nicht schlug?’ Klose braves the high tessitura of ‘Wehe! Weh! Unabwendbar ew’ge Not für kurzen Tod! Tör’ger Treue trugvolles Werk blüht nun jammernd empor!’ unflinchingly. Anyone who maintains that Flagstad was a matronly singer of unthawing Nordic coolness should hear the tingling eroticism that surges through her singing as Brangäne’s potion alters Isolde’s disposition. She and Melchior intone ‘Wie sich die Herzen wogend erheben!’ expressively, their ringing expressions of love giving way to panic as they realize at once that their bodies are in thralls of passion, not impending death, and that the Cornish shore is before them.

As in the Vorspiel, Beecham ignites a blaze of menacing sensuality in the opening pages of Act Two. The duality of the first scene, Brangäne’s desperation growing as Isolde’s longing for Tristan’s return blossoms, is indelibly imparted by Klose and Flagstad, the latter’s voice taking on the bright gleam of the torch of which she sings in ‘Zur Warte du: dort wache treu! Die Leuchte, und wär’s meines Lebens Licht, – lachend sie zu löschen zag ich nicht!’ Melchior’s adrenalized ‘Isolde! Geliebte!’ and Isolde’s animated ‘Tristan! Geliebter!’ commence an impeccably-vocalized, intoxicatingly expressive exposition of the majestic love duet. The top Cs famously supplied by Elisabeth Schwarzkopf in the 1952 studio recording conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler held no terrors for Flagstad in 1937, the notes produced in this performance—and in Act Two from the 22 June performance—with virtually no stress. The tenor and soprano sing ‘O sink hernieder, Nacht der Liebe, gib Vergessen, dass ich lebe’ hypnotically, again revealing the gravity of the music’s relationship with the Liebestod. Klose fills the long lines of Brangäne’s Watch with firm, focused tone, her diction in ‘Einsam wachend in der Nacht, wem der Traum der Liebe lacht’ enhancing the impact of her warning. Melchior and Flagstad phrase ‘O ew’ge Nacht, süsse Nacht!’ with tremendous tenderness.

The panic of Janssen’s articulation of Kurwenal’s ‘Rette dich, Tristan!’ proves justified when Booth Hitchin, about whom little is documented except that he sang frequently throughout the British Isles in the 1920s and ‘30s and was variously billed during his career on stage and in recording studios as tenor, baritone, and bass, snarls Melot’s ‘Das sollst du, Herr, mir sagen, ob ich ihn recht verklagt?’ The antidote to Hitchin’s petulant Melot is the solemn Marke of Swedish bass Sven Nilsson (1898 – 1970). The fortitude of Nilsson’s singing of ‘Tatest du’s wirklich? Wähnst du das” Sieh ihn dort, den treuesten aller Treuen’ is rousing, but his heartbroken elocution of ‘Mir dies? Dies, Tristan, mir? – Wohin nun Treue, da Tristan mich betrog?’ is profoundly moving. His singing of the towering monologue, ‘Wozu die Dienste ohne Zahl, der Ehren Ruhm, der Grösse Macht, die Marken du gewannst,’ is imposing, the voice not always perfectly steady but the interpretation unerringly dignified. Melchior’s Tristan is crushed by the weight of his betrayal, and the tenor communicates ‘Wohin nun Tristan scheidet, willst du, Isold’, ihm folgen?’ with sorrow that is only partially remedied by Flagstad’s resolute statement of Isolde’s ‘Wo Tristans Haus und Heim, da kehr Isolde ein.’ Hitchin’s ‘Verräter! Ha! Zur Rache, König! Duldest du diese Schmach?’ is capably sung and wholly repulsive. Melchior voices ‘Mein Freund war der, er minnte mich hoch und teuer’ plaintively before precipitating the tragedy to come.

The performance of Act Three on this recording dates from 22 June, when Brangäne was sung by Karin Branzell (1891 – 1974) and Kurwenal by Paul Schöffler (1897 – 1977). The first voice heard is that of the Hirt, however, and tenor Octave Dua (né Leo van der Haegen; 1882 – 1952) sings ‘Kurwenal! He! Sag, Kurwenal! Hör doch, Freund!’ and ‘Eine andre Weise hörtest du dann, so lustig, als ich sie nur kann’ effectively. Schöffler’s gruff Kurwenal declaims ‘Endlich! Endlich! Leben, o Leben! Süsses Leben, meinem Tristan neu gegeben’ resonantly but without the sensitivity that Janssen likely brought to the passage. Melchior and Schöffler converse with the camaraderie of old friends as Tristan’s delirium deepens, both gentlemen coping with the demands of Wagner’s music with little strain. The emotional tempest that Beecham conjures in Tristan’s death scene roars through Melchior’s and Flagstad’s singing. Tristan is one of those characters whose death throes often seem to go on longer than is credible even in opera, but Melchior makes every word, every resplendently-sung top A indispensible. His final ‘Isolde!’ is piercing: it penetrates the listener’s heart as palpably as it shatters Isolde’s. Like Hitchin, baritone Leslie Horsman is little remembered, but he sings the Steuermann’s brief interjection ably. Branzell’s Brangäne is surprisingly of a piece with Klose’s, her ‘Isolde! Herrin! Glück und Heil! Was seh’ ich! Ha! Lebst du? Isolde!’ abounding with sisterly concern. [In the recording of Act Two from the 22 June performance generously included on this release, Flagstad and Melchior sing with immediacy equal to that heard in their 18 June traversal of their music, and Branzell sings Brangäne’s Watch almost as idiomatically as Klose. Schöffler’s is a vastly different, considerably sterner Kurwenal than Janssen’s. Also included is an enlightening excerpt from a BBC discussion by John Steane about Covent Garden’s seasons between the World Wars and a grandly ceremonial performance of Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Flourish for a Coronation by the London Philharmonic Chorus and Orchestra, conducted by Beecham in April 1937.] Nilsson extracts every modicum of feeling from Marke’s lines ‘Du treulos treuster Freund!’ and ‘Die Ernte mehrt’ ich dem Tod: der Wahn häufte die Not.’

Flagstad’s singing of the Liebestod in this performance is perhaps her finest extant elucidation of a scene to which she brought awe-inspiring singing and emoting throughout her career. When she sings ‘Mild und leise wie er lächelt,’ Tristan’s smile seems to materialize in the mind’s eye, and her vision of ‘Immer lichter wie er leuchtet, sternumstrahlet hoch sich hebt’ is caressed with such a prodigious outpouring of tone that the glow of her love ascending to the heavens seems almost tangible. ‘Hör ich nur diese Weise,’ Isolde asks, but Flagstad renders the wondrous, gentle melody audible to the listener with excruciatingly beautiful tone. The final F♯ at the top of the stave is like a teardrop falling back to earth from the height to which Isolde has flown on the back of love that cannot, will not die. Flagstad the great singer is in this performance, and especially in this Liebestod, undeniably, unforgettably Flagstad the great artist.

In many cases, the fervent eulogies orated by opera lovers for bygone eras of great singing are little more than peevish words that bemoan the failures of individual predilections. There are great singers at work in 2015: many of them now sing Monteverdi or Händel rather than Verdi or Wagner, but changing tastes and evolving technical capabilities grant opera a resiliently cyclical life—not the life for which those who love operas like Tristan und Isolde above all others hope but a life nonetheless. Hearing Immortal Performances’ recording of Covent Garden’s 1937 Tristan und Isolde is nothing short of a spiritual experience. This is a performance that confirms that, even if only for a season, there was a Golden Age of singing not so long ago. To a degree, it is damning to contemplate the reality that artists like Beecham, Melchior, and Flagstad cannot be replicated in conservatories, rehearsal rooms, or lecture halls, but knowing this Tristan und Isolde is not to grieve for the impossibility of surpassing it: it is to rejoice in the ability to strive in every performance that one hears, sees, or gives to honor it. Hearing this Tristan und Isolde disseminates through music the knowledge that Shakespeare deemed ‘the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.’

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Though music from the opera was performed on the company’s stage as early as 1883 and its short-lived touring National Company included the score in its repertory, it was not until 1997 that Gioachino Rossini’s 1817 gem La Cenerentola, ossia La bontà in trionfo received its Metropolitan Opera première. Since that time, Rossini's bittersweet take on the familiar tale of Cinderella and her dashing prince has been heard at the MET only thirty-eight times, a strangely brief history for an opera that at least since its triumphant outing at Glyndebourne in the early 1950s has been one of its composer’s most popular works. [In comparison, Rossini’s until-recently-little-heard Guillaume Tell has been performed thirty-one times by the MET in New York and on national tours, though not since 1931. The final performance of Il barbiere di Siviglia of the 2014 – 2015 Season was the company’s 613th presentation of that work.] Introduced to MET audiences by Cecilia Bartoli, Angelina’s music has since been sung by a sextet of distinguished but very different Rossinians: Jennifer Larmore, Theodora Hanslowe, Sonia Ganassi, Olga Borodina, Elīna Garanča, and Joyce DiDonato, whose most recent performances were announced as her last portrayals of the eponymous heroine. In terms of appreciation of the demands that it makes of singers, La Cenerentola is in danger of being a victim of its own growing popularity: not only is the opera now performed by companies with resources insufficient to assemble casts capable of meeting Rossini’s requirements but the sheer familiarity of the story—anyone expecting glass slippers and a fairy godmother will be disappointed—can also create an illusion of simplicity. From this perspective, the Greensboro Opera production of La Cenerentola coming to Aycock Auditorium in August is poised to offer both regional and major companies throughout the world a vitally important lesson in the thoughtful production of the opera: combine clear-sighted management of available resources, uncompromising musicality, and the kinds of diligence and hard work so habitual to poor Cinderella, and the result is opera that does not lugubriously strive to be relevant for modern audiences but simply, mesmerizingly is relevant.

The Bloke with the Baton: Maestro Willie Anthony Waters, conductor of Greensboro Opera’s production of Gioachino Rossini’s La Cenerentola, August 2015 [Photo uncredited, © by Pinnacle Arts Management]

The vision of Greensboro Opera Artistic Director David Holley is to bring opera to the Gate City community with a level of professionalism that rivals the work of companies with larger markets, larger stages, and larger budgets. This Greensboro Opera’s Cenerentola is likely to achieve even more completely than the company’s impressive January 2015 production of Donizetti’s La fille du régiment [reviewed here]. A conductor’s importance in a stylish performance of a bel canto score is too often underestimated, perhaps because too many conductors’ efforts are underwhelming, but this is sure not to be the case with Willie Anthony Waters on the podium for Cenerentola. Formerly Artistic Director of Connecticut Opera, one of the most lamentable casualties of the economic difficulties of the first decade of the present century, Waters is a conductor whose versatility is an offspring not of necessity but of natural aptitude and musical adventurousness. Having honed his skills in opera houses large and small, his work has encompassed acclaimed performances in cities as musically diverse as San Francisco and Miami, where his leadership of a 1990 production of Bellini’s Norma with Carol Neblett was rightly legendary. Central to Waters’s artistry is an innate comprehension of the bel canto core of virtually all repertory: whether pacing Norma’s ‘Casta diva,’ Sieglinde’s ‘Du bist der Lenz,’ or Tosca’s ‘Vissi d'arte, vissi d'amore,’ Waters seeks—and invariably finds—the rhythmic pulse of the music and uses it as a tool to develop and maintain stylistic consistency and support singers. His command of ensembles is among the most notable characteristics of his work with Martina Arroyo’s Prelude to Performance training program for young singers. The real pity is that, thus spoiled, few young singers are privileged to work with conductors as gifted as Waters in the early years of their professional careers. His inherent mastery of the obvious and more clandestine constructions of ensembles qualifies him as an ideal conductor for Cenerentola. Despite well-documented laziness and a laissez-faire attitude towards repurposing music from his own scores (the secco recitatives and three often-omitted concerted numbers in Cenerentola were composed by Luca Agolini, and the opera’s famous Overture originated in Rossini’s charming but now-forgotten La gazzetta), the Pride of Pesaro was a careful craftsman, but many performances are content to substitute blindly manic energy for properly-channeled intensity. Indeed, far too many performances treat Cenerentola as a two-and-a-half-hour prelude to its famous rondo finale. With Waters at the helm, Greensboro Opera’s Cenerentola has special potential to be one in which Rossini’s genius is uncommonly apparent from beginning to end, with every bel canto felicity given an opportunity to emerge from the zany drama.

Charming Cenerentola: Mezzo-soprano Sandra Piques Eddy, Greensboro Opera’s Angelina in Gioachino Rossini’s La Cenerentola, August 2015 [Photo by Cory Weaver; © by Sandra Piques Eddy]

As the long-suffering Angelina and her regal rescuer, Greensboro Opera’s production partners two of America’s most gifted young singers, mezzo-soprano Sandra Piques Eddy and tenor Andrew Owens. Coming to Greensboro with a triumphant turn as Angelina in Opera Saratoga’s production of Cenerentola mere days in her past, Eddy is a singer who possesses physical and vocal beauty—which is to say a natural Angelina. With a repertory of acclaimed interpretations of rôles in operas ranging from Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea to Muhly’s Two Boys [I first heard her in the season of her MET début as a sapphire-voiced Dienerin in Richard Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten], the native Bostonian brings to her Greensboro performances an impressive Rossinian résumé that includes Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia and both Isabella and Zulma in L’italiana in Algeri. Of her Opera Saratoga Angelina, critic Joseph Dalton wrote in The Times Union that ‘her legato phrasing could suggest a demure presence but the rich bloom of her upper range revealed the princess in waiting.’ With an exceptional blend of tonal sheen and technical brilliance, Eddy’s Angelina needs only a prince with similar traits to complement her. In Greensboro as in Saratoga Springs, Owens guides her to fulfillment of her magnanimous destiny. A student of the unjustly-overlooked tenor Enrico Di Giuseppe, Owens honed his craft in the now-endangered Grand Tradition as a member of the young artists’ ensemble of Vienna’s Theater an der Wien, where he shone even among such high-wattage luminaries as Plácido Domingo. Recently, he lent greater attractiveness than might have been thought possible to the awkwardly-written music for Chevalier Léon in Darius Milhaud’s La mère coupable. His portrayal of Don Ramiro in La Cenerentola was among his most admired Vienna rôles, and he pledged his troth to Eddy’s Angelina at Opera Saratoga with what Joseph Dalton described as ‘soaring high notes.’ Owens is the rare artist who fully deserves the distinction of tenore di grazia: unlike many pretenders to Ramiro’s throne, Owens is both graceful and a true tenor.

Prince of Tate Street: Tenor Andrew Owens, Greensboro Opera’s Don Ramiro in Gioachino Rossini’s La Cenerentola, August 2015 [Photo by Igor Bakan, © by Andrew Owens]

For the parts of the wily Dandini and curmudgeonly Don Magnifico, Holley strikes vocal and comedic gold with the casting of baritone Sidney Outlaw and bass-baritone Donald Hartmann. Already a celebrated Figaro in Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia, his inaugural interpretation for Atlanta Opera praised by Andrew Alexander in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution for its ‘fresh sense of playfulness,’ Outlaw makes his rôle début as Dandini in this production. Hailing from Brevard, North Carolina, Outlaw shares Owens’s experience in the music of Darius Milhaud, having sung Apollo in the University of Michigan performances of L’Orestie d’Eschyle that yielded the GRAMMY®-winning NAXOS recording. His repertory ranging from Mozart’s Così fan tutte to Dallapiccola’s Il prigioniero and Adams’s The Death of Klinghoffer, Outlaw returns to North Carolina with an ironclad technique and stirringly handsome voice refined through education and experience. A highlight of Greensboro Opera’s Cenerentola is bound to be Outlaw’s Dandini’s Act Two encounter with Hartmann’s Magnifico. A splendidly animated Sulpice in Greensboro Opera’s La fille du régiment, Hartmann is a droll comedian to the Rossinian manner born, his Magnifico contributing grandly to the success of Opera Roanoke’s March 2015 production of Cenerentola. In addition to anchoring performances throughout the United States with his granitic voice and assertive stage presence, Hartmann is an esteemed member of the UNCG School of Music, Theatre, and Dance voice faculty, in which capacity he imparts elements of his stagecraft to the next generation of memorable singing actors. With Outlaw’s Dandini and Hartmann’s Magnifico sparring, Eddy’s Angelina and Owens’s Ramiro romancing, Waters presiding, and Holley guiding, Greensboro Opera’s Cenerentola is anticipated to be an event that Rossini would have enjoyed as much as North Carolina audiences are certain to do.

Rollicking Rossinian: Baritone Sidney Outlaw, Dandini in Greensboro Opera’s production of Gioachino Rossini’s La Cenerentola, as Figaro in Atlanta Opera’s Il barbiere di Siviglia, April 2014 [Photo by Ken Howard, © by Atlanta Opera]

Greensboro Opera’s performances of La Cenerentola are scheduled for 28 and 30 August in Aycock Auditorium on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit Greensboro Opera’s website or phone the box office at 336.272.0160.

Magnificent Magnifico: Bass-baritone Donald Hartmann, Greensboro Opera’s Don Magnifico in Gioachino Rossini’s La Cenerentola, August 2015 [Photo uncredited, © by Donald Hartmann]

LEONARDO VINCI (circa 1696 – 1730): Catone in Utica—Juan Sancho (Catone), Franco Fagioli (Cesare), Valer Sabadus (Marzia), Max Emanuel Cencic (Arbace), Vince Yi (Emilia), Martin Mitterrutzner (Fulvio); Il Pomo d’Oro; Riccardo Minasi, conductor [Recorded in Villa San Fermo, Lonigo, Italy, 27 February – 7 March 2014; DECCA 478 8194; 3 CDs, 233:42; Available from DECCA Classics, Amazon (USA), fnac, jpc, Presto Classical, and major music retailers]

In order to meaningfully advocate for the music of a forgotten composer, generalities must be avoided at all costs. It is informative in the most basic manner to state that a composer was a contemporary of this or that more famous name, but does this motivate a listener to hear that composer’s music with intensified interest? In the case of Leonardo Vinci, generalities sadly must do. Not even the year of this gentleman’s birth is known with certainty, but the anecdotal evidence of his extant scores, particularly his operas, offers glimpses of an unexpectedly unique voice that seems likely to have been heard with no little pleasure and appreciation during the first three decades of the Eighteenth Century. Furthermore, accounts of Vinci’s death, surely too salacious to be wholly apocryphal, are themselves the stuff of opera: allegedly murdered by the jealous husband of a poorly-chosen paramour, the Calabrian composer was at most forty years old at the time of his death in May 1730. A life little longer than Mozart’s, a demise worthy of Don Juan, and a gift for composing for the stage that prompted the genesis of several of the famous Metastasio’s most persuasive libretti: what more could be needed to rekindle interest in Vinci’s music in the Twenty-First Century? Recent years have taught artists and audiences alike that not every excavation among the brittle pages of libraries and archives unearths an unheralded masterpiece deserving of exhibition, but Max Emanuel Cencic, Georg Lang, and Parnassus Arts Production have frequently proved to possess the musical Midas touch. In their hands and those of Il Pomo d'Oro, Riccardo Minasi, and a superb cast, Vinci’s Catone in Utica is indeed a golden treasure. In generations past, DECCA was the label of authoritative performances of the operas of Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, and Puccini: in the new millennium, it is the home of innovation that unites the rediscovered past with the ever-transitioning future. Perhaps verifiable knowledge of Leonardo Vinci is mostly confined to generalities, but the virtues of this recording of his Catone in Utica are very specific.

First performed in Rome in 1728, Catone in Utica fell victim to the papal ban on theatrical performances by female artists founded upon too-literal interpretations of Scripture dating from the Pontificate of Leo IV in the Ninth Century, reinforced by Sixtus V in the 1580s and Innocent XI in the 1680s. Further creative manipulations of scriptural and ecclesiastical opinions on the rôles of the sexes in musical performances both liturgical and theatrical instituted the phenomenon of the castrato. As in an earlier opera like Stefano Landi’s 1632 Il Sant'Alessio, in which Cencic was unforgettable as the Sposa (the title saint's abandoned wife) in a touring production with Les Arts Florissants, even the female rôles in the first production of Catone in Utica were assigned to male singers. Strange as it may seem when viewed from the perspectives of modern notions of gender in opera, the recreation of this aesthetic permits heightened appreciation of the timbral homogeneity that composers such as Landi and Vinci likely expected to hear in scores created for all-male casts. To the credit of everyone involved with this recording, the casting of male singers in female rôles is managed completely without affectation: indeed, reversing the gender paradigm, female Cherubinos, Tancredis, Octavians, and Komponists could learn much from this recording about allowing text and musical context to convey a character's sex. Still, there are passages in which the interchanges of male voices, exacerbated by the preponderance of secco recitative, introduce dramatic inertness: though the singers make admirable efforts to differentiate their timbres, it is possible if not listening carefully to lose track of the plot. The continuo created by Federica Bianchi’s harpsichord and Simone Vallerotonda’s theorbo is splendidly effective at sustaining momentum, but the task is a difficult one. On the whole, though, Catone in Utica is an inspired work, Vinci’s craftsmanship rarely falling below the level of that of his best-known contemporaries, and this recording introduces the opera to the listener with a performance from which emanates passion that, as Beethoven suggested, makes perfection inconsequential.

Directed by violinist and conductor Riccardo Minasi, the musical magicians of Il Pomo d'Oro cast enthralling spells in virtually every bar of their parts. The tripartite Sinfonia with which the opera begins is played with rapier’s-point rhythmic accuracy, establishing the taut metrical atmosphere of the performance as a whole. Minasi’s affinity for Vinci’s idiom is immediately apparent, his tempi bringing the moods of each aria into sharp focus even before the singers utter a line of text. Whatever the circumstances of his musical education were, Vinci acquired a consummate mastery of the orchestra of his time, and his instrumental writing in Catone in Utica discloses a cleverness that rivals the work of Telemann and Vivaldi. Minasi and Il Pomo d’Oro are clearly no less inspired by Metastasio’s libretto, the poet’s first for a Roman theatre, than was Vinci himself, the sounds with which they support the singers’ enunciations of the words judged to enable nuanced inflections. Equals among virtuosi, bassoonist Anna Flumani, oboists Emiliano Rodolfi and Federica Inzoli, trumpeter Jonatha Pia and horn players Dileno Baldin and Francesco Meucci garner admiration for the brilliance and pulchritude—not always qualities present in performances featuring period instruments—of their playing. The strings also deliver first-rate accounts of their parts, avoiding the acidic sounds and inflexible sawing inflicted upon many performances. In a garden of fruits as sweet as those cultivated on these discs, the work of Minassi and Il Pomo d’Oro is indeed a gilded apple of special savoriness.

In the title rôle, that of the Roman statesman Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis, Spanish tenor Juan Sancho contends with exacting music composed by Vinci for Giovanni Battista Pinacci, the Florentine tenor who created parts in Ezio and Sosarme, re di Media for Händel in London and sang Artabano in the 1731 revival of Vinci’s Artaserse. Continuing the legacy of Gasparini’s Il Bajazet and Händel’s Tamerlano, Catone in Utica was notable in the Eighteenth Century for depicting the suicide of a lead character, facilitating display of the acting skills for which Pinacci was renowned, not least in London, where his interpretation of Händel’s Bajazet was lauded by both the composer and his public. In Act One of Catone in Utica, Sancho battles manfully with the trumpet obbligato in the aria 'Con sì bel nome in fronte,’ the fine calibre of his singing jeopardized only by a final cadenza that takes him uncomfortably high. Competing with the horns in 'Si sgomenti alle sue pene il pensier di donna imbelle,' the tenor’s articulation of the unconventional vocal line occasionally makes the aria sound like a refugee from Vinci’s beloved Neapolitan opera buffa, but he dispatches the coloratura with absolute confidence. The contrapuntal writing in Catone’s Act Two aria 'Va', ritorna al tuo tiranno, servi pur al tuo sovrano,' the melodic line again punctuated with outbursts of frenzied coloratura, draws from Sancho singing of incredible technical acumen, something also devoted to his stimulating performance of the aria agitata'Dovea svenarti allora che apristi al dì le ciglia,' its music so reminiscent of Vivaldi. Catone has no arias in Act Three, but he here has the challenge of the emotionally-charged accompagnati with which Vinci limned the character’s suicide. In Sancho’s performance, Catone takes leave of a life that has become hateful to him with dignity that does not preclude blinding flashes of anger. There is just enough of an edge on Sancho’s tone in the upper register to sometimes make his Catone sound more sophomoric than stoic, but the ease with which the singer executes Vinci’s most daunting feats is imposing.

Having recently been signed to a long-term recording contract by Deutsche Grammophon, still a rare relationship among the few remaining major labels and singers within his Fach, Argentine countertenor Franco Fagioli here sings Cesare, the rôle created in 1728 by world-famous castrato Giovanni Carestini. More than any of the other rôles in Catone in Utica, Cesare was composed almost to order, as it were, with the goal of showcasing the astounding capabilities of Carestini’s voice. Some of the part’s bravura passages are beastly, but Fagioli tames them with singing that never deviates from the exalted standard set in his performance of the Act One aria 'Nell'ardire che il seno t'accende,' in which he makes love in music with delicate trills matched by the strings. No less captivating is his voicing of 'Chi un dolce amor condanna,' a bewitching number in the gallant style of Pergolesi. 'Soffre talor del vento i primi insulti il mare' in Act Two is a simile aria of the type frequently encountered in Baroque opera, its billowing horns and cascades of coloratura tempered by pregnant pauses that Fagioli infuses with a serenity almost as engaging as his rapid-fire coloratura. The breakneck roulades and punishing intervals of 'Se in campo armato vuoi cimentarmi' render the aria as much of an exercise for the singer as for the trumpeter and timpanist, but this singer is never outshone by his orchestral colleagues. With an arching violin obbligato that brings to mind the ravishing ‘Sovvente il sole’ from Vivaldi’s Andromeda liberata, Cesare’s 'Quell'amor che poco accende' in Act Three is as stunningly beautiful as any aria composed in the Eighteenth Century, and Fagioli’s performance of it is worthy of the music, the upper register glowing. As recorded here, his mezza voce has a ‘spin’ as alluring as those of Zinka Milanov and Michel Sénéchal.

Marzia, Catone’s fiery-spirited daughter, was sung in the première of Catone in Utica by the soprano castrato Farfallino (né Giacinto Fontana), the ‘little butterfly’ of Roman Baroque opera. When Catone in Utica was produced in Naples in 1732, the celebrated Faustina Bordoni assumed Marzia’s identity. Despite his gender, it is intriguing to conjecture whether the portrayal of Marzia in this performance by Romanian countertenor Valer Sabadus is more like Farfallino’s or Bordoni’s. Sabadus’s unique, silvery timbre causes Marzia to sound more petulant than she might if sung by a warmer, more conventionally feminine voice, but he sings the music so capably that the acerbic shadow cast by his vocalism seems justified by the character’s dramatic predicament. The necessity of negotiating the difficult vocal line of the Act One aria 'Non ti minaccio sdegno, non ti prometto amor' causes the words to be lost, and the aria’s close is undermined by a strange cadenza that leads nowhere, but the voice shimmers. The aria 'È follia se nascondete, fidi amanti, il vostro foco' receives from Sabadus a beguiling performance, and the gossamer strains of 'In che t'offende se l’alma spera' in Act Two are eloquently elucidated. The accompaniment of 'So che godendo vai del duol che mi tormenta' sounds as though borrowed from Vivaldi’s mandolin concerti, and Sabadus shapes the vocal line with poetic sensitivity. In Act Three, the aria 'Confusa, smarrita, spiegarti vorrei che fosti' is nobly sung, and the powerful accompagnato ‘Pur veggo alfine un raggio’ in the scene at the ancient aqueduct—deemed an inappropriate setting for evocation of the glories of Imperial Rome by Vinci’s audience—lures from Sabadus polished but dynamic vocalism. He soars in Marzia’s lines in the quartetto with Cesare, Catone, and Emilia, 'Deh! in vita ti serba,' interacting with his colleagues with unforced synergy. Throughout his performance, a few of Sabadus’s highest notes are slightly uncomfortable, and notes at the bottom end of resolved cadences tend to disappear. Nonetheless, there is no condescension in the artfully-conveyed femininity of his Marzia: he sings the music without artifice and trusts Metastasio and Vinci to communicate the character’s gender identity to the listener.

It was to Bolognese castrato Giovanni Battista Minelli, a widely-lauded singer who created rôles for virtually every Italian composer of importance in the first three decades of the Eighteenth Century, that Vinci entrusted the part of Arbace. It was recorded by his contemporary Giambattista Mancini that Minelli possessed a two-octave contralto voice of uncommon distinction, distinguished by near-perfect trills and mordents. One might think that Mancini was describing Max Emanuel Cencic. The Croatian-born countertenor complements the fantastic string playing in Arbace’s Act One aria 'Che legge spietata che sorte crudele' with formidable evenness of tone and tasteful ornamentation. Then, he responds to the whirling string figurations in 'È in ogni core diverso amore' with singing of sparkling sensuality. 'So che pietà non hai, e pur ti deggio amar' in Act Two is phrased with tremendous imagination. It is with 'Che sia la gelosia un gielo in mezzo al foco' that Arbace brings down the curtain on the second act, and it is difficult to imagine Minelli, for all his gifts, singing the aria more compellingly than Cencic. The grandeur of all that has come before notwithstanding, it is the Act Three aria 'Combattuta da tante vicende' that is the pinnacle of Cencic’s performance. He rockets through the fiendish coloratura with calm aplomb, but it is the sheer loveliness of his voice that refuses to be forgotten. Cencic’s presence on disc in general is exemplary, but his Arbace in this recording of Catone in Utica is the work of an artist with few peers in any Fach.

Christened Emilia by Metastasio and Vinci rather than the Cornelia familiar from Haym’s and Händel’s—and, by extension, Bussani’s and Sartorio’s—Giulio Cesare in Egitto, the rôle of Pompey’s widow was taken in the first performance of Catone in Utica by Giovanni Ossi, a star pupil of Gasparini. The Emilia of California-bred countertenor Vince Yi is a study in contrasts. At first, Yi's voice, though attractive and ably-produced, seems debilitatingly pale in comparison with Fagioli's, Sabadus's, and especially Cencic's instruments, lacking the weight of tone to meaningfully evince the grieving Emilia’s vengeful bloodlust, yet Yi's tones soon reveal a haunting ambiguity. In the Act One accompagnato ‘Io con quest’occhi, io vidi splender l’infame acciaro,’ the young singer is at once poised and perfervid, and the aria 'O nel sen di qualche stella' is voiced with authority despite the relative shallowness of the timbre. Yi's traversal of 'Un certo non so che veggo negli occhi tuoi' is tranquil but not complacent, his wonderful upper register heard to optimal advantage. The first of Emilia's arias in Act Two, 'Per te spero e per te solo mi lusingo e mi consolo,' is an unusual number that exploits the dramatic possibilities of accelerandi, and Yi tellingly explores the expressive possibilities of music and text. His voicing of 'Se sciogliere non vuoi dalle catene il cor' is no less fetching. Yi proves a model to his colleagues in the alternation of private and public sentiments: asides are handled with atypical credibility in this performance by all of the singers. Vinci’s Emilia is not as endearing and approachable a character as Händel's Cornelia, but Yi's subtle, unfailingly appealing singing invests her with a pragmatic determination that sighs when other, less insightful singers' portrayals might shout.

Tyrolean tenor Martin Mitterrutzner portrays Fulvio, created by Filippo Giorgi, Porpora’s preferred Varo in his setting of Metastasio’s Ezio, with dramatic vigor and vocal freshness. From the opening phrase of Fulvio’s Act One aria 'Piangendo ancora rinascer suole la bella aurora,' Mitterrutzner wields strikingly handsome tone, easy command of broad tessitura, and crisp trills. The diaphanous G-minor melodic line of 'Piangendo ancora' is caressed by the tenor's plangent tone, his elegant phrasing seconded by Minasi's aristocratic management of the minuet rhythm. The Act Two aria 'Nascesti alle pene, mio povero core' is voiced engrossingly. 'La fronda, che circonda a' vincitori il crine,' Fulvio's aria in Act Three is a bravura tour de force, and Mitterrutzner excels in it. The solid technical foundation upon which his well-integrated vocal registers are laid is heartening in a young singer, and the anticipation of future marvels—his Idomeneo is destined to be legendary—encouraged by this performance is thrilling.

In an age in which enterprising artists and ensembles have before them means of rediscovering and exploring neglected repertory that could hardly have been imagined just a generation ago, it is frustrating to note the frequency with which opera companies that might, even with relatively modest resources, mount unforgettable productions of rejuvenated operas like Leonardo Vinci's Catone in Utica forgo opportunities for innovation in order to put on tired, often badly-sung performances of Rigoletto, Carmen, and La bohème. These scores have of course earned their places in international repertory, but, more than many of their Twenty-First-Century admirers might suspect, Verdi, Bizet, and Puccini respected and honored the achievements of their operatic forebears. To suggest that Rigoletto, Carmen, and La bohème would have been impossible without Catone in Utica is to stretch the point, but this phenomenal recording of the opera proves that Vinci’s music is by no means undeserving of performance alongside the works of the best of his contemporaries. With Catone in Utica joining acclaimed recordings of Händel’s Alessandro and Hasse’s Siroe, re di Persia, the commitment of DECCA and Parnassus Arts Productions to retrieving wonderful music from the shadows of history is thriving. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it has achieved miracles for Catone.

GEORG FRIEDRICH HÄNDEL (1685 – 1759): Rinaldo, HWV 7a—Antonio Giovannini (Rinaldo), Gesche Geier (Armida, Sirena), Marie Friederike Schöder (Almirena, Sirena), Florian Götz (Argante), Yosemeh Adjei (Goffredo), Owen Willetts (Eustazio), Cornelius Uhle (Mago cristiano); Lautten Compagney Berlin; Wolfgang Katschner, conductor; Compagnia Marionettistica Carlo Colla & Figli [Directed by Eugenio Monti Colla; recorded in Ludwigsburg Palace Theatre, Ludwigsburg, Germany, during the Ludwigsburg Festival, 22 – 25 May 2014; Arthaus Musik 102207; 1 DVD (also available on Blu-ray) + 2 CDs, 137:00 + 10:00 bonus material; Available from Arthaus Musik, Amazon, jpc, Presto Classical, and major music retailers]

Since the days of the pioneering endeavors of Emilio de’ Cavalieri, Jacopo Peri, and Claudio Monteverdi, innovation has been as much a necessity in the contrived, labyrinthine world of opera as in any other artistic genre. Without near-perpetual cycles of reinvention and rejuvenation, opera would be no more interesting or engaging than a school of painting dominated by a single artist. In this spirit, Compagnia Marionettistica Carlo Colla & Figli's marionette production of Georg Friedrich Händel's Rinaldo, itself an innovation, having been the first Italian opera composed specially for London, recorded in performance in the lovely Eighteenth-Century theatre in Ludwigsburg's Residenzschloss, is a delightful testament to the efforts of artists, ensembles, and companies of varying resources to not only prolong but enrich opera's life. Performed in the past quarter-century in virtually all corners of the world into which opera has progressed, Rinaldo now rivals Giulio Cesare as Händel's most familiar opera. Its popularity is remarkably timely, the opera's subtext of conflicts among faiths resonating with the Twenty-First Century's struggles with bigotry and fanaticism, but the essence of Rinaldo, like all masterworks of the genre, is timeless. The greatest threat to the long-term survival of opera in the new millennium is neither disinterest nor disapprobation but the collective arrogance of artists, those who represent them, and those who support them. Art exists for its own sake, philosophers have opined, but opera cannot—indeed, should not and must not—exist in the elitist vacuum into which some of today's most gifted artists would force it. Opera was of course conceived as a diversion for popes and princes but in its adolescence made the vital acquaintance of less-exalted personages. The most encouraging aspect of this production of Rinaldo is its complete lack of artifice. Perhaps this seems counterintuitive in the context of a marionette production, but the observer here sees the opera's drama enacted and hears the music performed without the distractions of singers too worried about appearing fat, old, or unattractive to worry about Händel's characters and their motivations. It is disheartening in any context that a focus on voices rather than bodies is an innovation, but it is one that opera now direly needs.

Ancient sources suggest that string-controlled puppets have been used in theatrical performances for at least four thousand years. At the aristocratic courts of Eighteenth-Century Europe, a penchant for marionette opera introduced the centuries-old art of puppetry into the milieu of music's greatest spectacle. Though interest in marionette opera waned after the era in which scores were composed specifically for that purpose by Gluck and Haydn, the tradition was thankfully preserved by enthusiastic advocates, not least in Salzburg—an appropriate locale considering the young Mozart's appreciation for the hybrid art. In later generations, Manuel de Falla's masterful El retablo de maese Pedro and Ottorino Respighi's early La bella dormente nel bosco were composed for marionette productions, and a vestige of the art of marionette opera was honored in Anthony Minghella's much-lauded production of Puccini's Madama Butterfly, first seen at English National Opera in 2005 and subsequently presented at the Metropolitan Opera and elsewhere, in which Cio-Cio San's and Pinkerton's son Dolore was portrayed to heartrending effect by a puppet manipulated by black-clad handlers who virtually disappeared into the scenery. The many beauties of this marionette production of Rinaldo illustrate the love, goodness, and optimism that flow through Händel's score without ignoring the danger, violence, and extremism that lurk in its shadows. Realism is rarely the goal of puppetry, but the emotions of Rinaldo are often more visceral in this production than in many performances in which living, breathing singers occupy the stage. The movements of the marionettes are uncannily lifelike, and it is enlightening to discover as the performance progresses how an entertainment that is indelibly associated with children engenders one of the most mature accounts of Rinaldo in the catalogue. This is not a cartoonish production: the prismatic, detailed marionettes and sets evoke a fanciful but never foolish climate in which the opera plays out. So natural and graceful are the motions of the marionettes, maneuvered by artists no less gifted than those charged with performing Händel's music, that it is possible to forget that this is a marionette production. Whether depicting countesses or chambermaids, the goal of opera should always be to convince the audience that what transpires upon the stage is not a representation of something but the thing itself. That so many productions using people rather than puppets fail to meet this goal as memorably as this Rinaldo is indicative not of singers' ineptitude but of production values founded upon cheekbones and waistlines rather than timbres and techniques.

Led by Wolfgang Katschner with reliably appropriate tempi and an unerring cumulative sense of direction, the account of Händel's score given by Lautten Compagney Berlin is distinguished by a pervasive elegance that never inhibits the expression of red-blooded emotions. Shaped by the sonorous playing of lautenists Andreas Nachtstein and Hans-Werner Apel and harpsichordist and organist Mark Nordstrand, the continuo provides the ribs that resiliently protect the heart of the performance, passages of secco recitative enlivened by alternations of instrumental complement that follow emotional threads rather than simplistically contrasting the utterances of different characters. Partnering well-blended string playing, Martin Ripper coaxes beguiling sounds from recorder and flageolet, not least in the avian atmosphere of Almirena's 'Augelletti,' and Eduard Wesly and Christine Allanic produce streams of crystalline tone from oboe and recorder. The wonderfully characterful timbre of Jennifer Harris's bassoon affords great enjoyment whenever it is heard. In the opera's Ouverture, the Preludio in Act One, the Sinfonia in Act Two, and the Marcia and Battaglia in Act Three, as well as in obbligati in arias, the musicians take advantage of every opportunity to reveal the inventiveness of Händel's orchestrations. Hearing a performance as good as this one, it is all the more remarkable that Rinaldo is the work of a composer who was only twenty-six years old at the time of its première.

Formerly a member of the celebrated Dresdner Kreuzchor, young German baritone Cornelius Uhle has only one aria with which to characterize the Mago cristiano, 'Andate, o forti' in Act Three, but he makes every note of it count. There is a quiet dignity at the heart of his brief appearance, and his solid, youthful voice makes a most positive and promising impression.

The first Eustazio, Valentino Urbani, also created for Händel the parts of Silvio in Il pastor fido and Egeo in Teseo but was reputed according to contemporary sources to have been a stronger actor than singer. Händel did not give the character extensive vehicles via which to make his mark, but it is a luxury in this performance to hear his music at all, many productions excising the rôle altogether—indeed, Händel himself cut the part when Rinaldo was revived in 1717. The secure, shapely singing of British countertenor Owen Willetts emphatically warrants the character’s inclusion, however. He sings Eustazio's Act One aria, 'Col valor, colla virtù,' handsomely, and 'Siam prossimi' in Act Two cajoles Willetts to vocalism of great refinement. Had he heard as involved, sincere, and well-sung a performance as Willetts gives here, it is inconceivable that Händel would have suppressed any of Eustazio's music.

After creating Ottone and Pallante in Händel's Agrippina in Venice in 1709, spouses Francesca Vanini-Boschi and Giuseppe Maria Boschi followed the composer to London, where the wife took the part of Godfrey of Bouillon, leader of the First Crusade, in the première of Rinaldo. In this performance, Nürnberg-born countertenor Yosemeh Adjei impersonates Goffredo with vocal strength and an aptly conquering demeanor. He sings Goffredo's Act One arias 'Sovra balze' and 'No, no, quest'alma' with focused tone and technical mastery equal to the demands of the music. Better still is his performance of 'Mio cor' in Act Two. Like singers of yesteryear whose lot it was to be compelled to 'compete' with the Tebaldis, Nilssons, and Bergonzis, Adjei is an excellent singer in an age of world-renowned 'star' countertenors. His performance here confirms that he can hold his own among the best of them.

Having garnered praise for his Pallante in Agrippina, Boschi the husband went on to originate the rôles of Argante in Rinaldo, Achilla in Giulio Cesare, Garibaldo in Rodelinda, Lotario in Flavio, and Araspe in Tolomeo for Händel in London. The music composed for him suggests that, though billed as a bass, Boschi was actually more of a baritone in the modern sense. So, too, is Florian Götz, who is in this performance an Argante well-suited to the range and agility required by the music. In Act One, Götz is a robust if lightweight presence in Argante's aria 'Sibillar gli angui d'Aletto,' but his bravura technique is considerably superior to what many heavier voices can achieve. Götz's flexibility in fast-paced music is admirable, and he has no problems at either end of his range. His phrasing of the aria 'Vieni, o cara' is both affectionate and unmistakably masculine. The magnitude of his singing of 'Basta che sol tu chieda' in Act Two is forceful, and his wryly insinuating manner in recitatives is invigorating. What the voice lacks in raw power the singer proffers in precision, and such attractive, well-trained singing is infinitely preferable to brawny barking—and not only in Händel's music!

Like her colleagues in the inaugural production of Rinaldo, Elisabetta Pilotti-Schiavonetti, the first Armida, would prove a trusted exponent of Händel rôles, eventually also creating Amarilli in Il pastor fido, Medea in Teseo, and Melissa in Amadigi di Gaula. Händel's music for Armida is some of his most difficult, but Gesche Geier here confronts every challenge unflinchingly. In her first line in this performance, Geier demands to be noticed, her voice darting above the stave as though launched from a catapult. Once she has the listener's attention, she fires off a traversal of the aria 'Furie terribili' that leaves no doubt about the meaning of the text whether or not the ears into which her voice rockets understand Italian. Her subtler voicing of 'Molto voglio' is equally gripping, and she dominates Act Two with her scorching delivery of the accompagnato 'Dunque i lacci d'un volto' and aria 'Ah! crudel.' Strangely, her performance of the epic 'Vo' far guerra,' with which Armida duels with the harpsichord to bring down the curtain on Act Two, is tamer than it ought to be despite being very capably sung (and played by Nordstrand). Both Geier and Götz are at their respective bests in Armida's Act Three duetto with Argante, 'Al trionfo del nostro furore.' Soprano and baritone trade volleys of coloratura to stunning effect, proving that Händel's gift for ensemble writing was fully developed from the beginning of his London career.

Almirena was first sung by Isabella Girardeau, a soprano about whom little information survives. Likely born in Italy and married to a Frenchman, she is unknown to musical history prior to 1709 and, if her disappearance from the annals of critics and diarists is suitable evidence, seems to have retired from the stage in 1712. The sensational reception that greeted Almirena's music when Rinaldo was first performed suggests that Girardeau was at worst a very good singer and actress. In this Rinaldo, the only true flaw in soprano Marie Friederike Schöder's magnificently-sung Almirena is an occasional lessening of tonal quality at the very top of her range, where her intonation is sure but the voice is slightly wiry. She introduces herself in Act One with a confident 'Combatti da forte'  that she follows with a mesmerizing 'Augelletti, che cantate.' Her trills are of the Sutherland and Sills class—perfectly-timed, textbook alternations of adjacent pitches. She and Geier blend their voices magically in the Act Two aria for the Serene, 'Il vostro maggio.' The climax of Almirena's musical journey is the ubiquitous sarabande 'Lascia ch'io pianga,' its lilting melody adapted from a dance in Händel's youthful Hamburg opera Almira. Schöder sings the aria with golden tone and understated expressivity, the intensity of the character's emotion heightened by the subtlety of her ornamentation of the da capo. Schöder sings 'Bel piacere' in Act Three with the grace of a ballerina. Grace is the hallmark of her performance as a whole, in fact: wholly free from mannerisms, both her singing and her vocal acting are extraordinary.

The barnstorming rôle of Rinaldo was composed for the admired castrato Nicolini (né Nicolo Grimaldi), also Händel's first Amadigi, and revised in 1731 for the world-famous Senesino. Countertenor Antonio Giovannini shares his illustrious predecessors' legendary agility and, if the opinions of their contemporaries are to be trusted, is as successful at using the voice as a weapon in musical contests of will. In Act One of this performance, Giovannini sings Rinaldo's aria 'Ogn' indugio' handsomely, and he and Schöder intertwine their voices seductively in the duetto 'Scherzano sul tuo volto.''Cara sposa' is one of Händel's grandest outpourings of despair in song, and the long melodic lines disclose the shortcomings of the countertenor's technique. His breath control is laudable, but the security that makes his bravura singing thrilling temporarily deserts him in the extended phrases of 'Cara sposa.' His 'Venti, turbini' is predictably heart-stopping, however. Giovannini and Geier rip through Rinaldo's duetto with Armida in Act Two, 'Fermati!' The aria 'Abbruccio, avvampo e fremo' is also sung with vigor. Giovannini contributes his best singing in Act Three, the aria 'È un incendio' dispatched with aplomb. In the break-neck 'Or la tromba,' he is in favored vocal territory. The coloratura is effortlessly but dizzyingly tossed off, and the voice rings out spectacularly. Rinaldo is not a rôle to be sung on a whim, and Giovannini's performance reflects earnest conscientiousness. There are better voicings of 'Cara sposa' on disc, but there are few more pulse-quickening, sincerely touching Rinaldos than Giovannini's.

In recent years, opera has been assaulted by virtually every conceivable idiocy of staging, many of which were perpetrated in the name of ensuring the genre's artistic and financial solvencies. What so many directors, production designers, and managers seemingly fail or refuse to understand is that, whatever the intention, devoting piles of money to putting stupidity upon the stage is, in a word, stupid. Shock has its place in opera, but the shock must be to the heart and mind, not to the ephemeral senses. This production of Rinaldo, strikingly original and beautifully filmed, shocks not with cheap sensationalism but with an abiding commitment by everyone involved with the production to faithfully but imaginatively expressing every sentiment with which the famously difficult but deeply sensitive Händel enveloped his music. If only this were commonplace! In truth, though, performances of this quality are not, have never been, and never will be ordinary.

JOHN CAGE (1912 – 1992): Aria– Nicholas Isherwood performs John Cage—Nicholas Isherwood, bass-baritone and accompaniment [Recorded at Hofstelle Flammer, Küsten, Germany, during May 2014; BIS Records BIS-2149; 1 SACD, 44:53; Available from ClassicsOnline HD, Amazon (USA), fnac (France), jpc (Germany), Presto Classical (UK), and major music retailers]

The death of John Cage in 1992 not only silenced the singular voice of one of America’s most inventive composers but also deprived the world of one of the most unique creative personalities of the Twentieth Century. It is, by admission of even the most zealous advocates of the composer's work, a voice that will perhaps always be an acquired taste for many listeners most familiar with traditional veins of Classical Music but one that fairly demands to be acquired. Born in Los Angeles in 1912, Cage studied in his youth with fellow Californian Henry Cowell, Arnold Schönberg, and Lazare Lévy, all of whom influenced his artistic development, the latter by introducing him to the music of Twentieth-Century composers like and also fostering an acquaintance with the work of Johann Sebastian Bach, and spurred the boundless imagination that engendered Cage’s striking originality. Like many of his countrymen, it was a stint in Europe that kindled the composer’s lasting appreciation of the artistic heritage of the United States, a heritage to which he was to contribute indelibly in a career extending over six decades. Though having been active as a composer at least since 1932, it was his creation of 4’33” in 1952 that revealed the full panoply of Cage’s artistry, a spectrum that included colorful works for voice. Spanning more than forty years of compositional output, the selections on Aria afford an exceptionally rich view of Cage's development as a composer. More than two decades after his death, his music retains an uncanny ability to challenge the listener. The performances by bass-baritone Nicholas Isherwood on this disc also challenge, not in the sense of being unpleasant but with a spirit of uncompromising dedication to the ethos of Cage's ingenuity. This is a disc that takes no prisoners and makes no apologies for music that unravels the threads woven by Schubert, Mahler, and Berg and reassembles them with patterns and textures that transform and redefine the parameters of writing for the human voice.

Composed in 1958 and performed by Isherwood using a recent realization by Gianluca Verlingieri of the optional underlying Fontana mix tape, the title track, Aria, benefits as does every selection on the disc from the superb sonic balance achieved by producer and sound engineer Stefan Tiedje. Isherwood's vocalism deserves nothing less. A treatment of vowels and consonants taken from Armenian, English, French, Italian, and Russian, Aria epitomizes Cage's approach to facilitating unconventional but effective, even deeply touching veins of expression via manipulations of the capabilities of the voice. In the composer's musical language and Isherwood's interpretations of it, the voice is confirmed to be the most startlingly versatile of instruments. Hearing Isherwood's performance, it is hardly surprising that Aria was written for Cathy Berberian, a tireless proponent of new music whose technical expertise encompassed four centuries of vocal repertory with unerring stylistic acuity. The sounds of the children's toys employed to hypnotic effect in this account would have delighted the quixotic Berberian, who would also have recognized in the bass-baritone's sonorous, sinewy singing the work of a kindred spirit.

Likely composed in late 1942 and early 1943, A Chant with Claps was crafted for ethnomusicologist Sidney Robertson Cowell, who by marrying Cage's predominantly gay teacher Henry Cowell became a textbook example of a 'beard.' Regardless of that fact, A Chant with Claps—the latter delivered by Isherwood with the rhythmic élan of the musical component of a rural religious revival meeting—is one of Cage's most straightforward, unambiguous works. Here, it is a paean to the unfettered enjoyment of creativity, Isherwood's voice soaring and grumbling as required. Celebration of the liberation of individuality is also at the core of Isherwood's performance of the 1985 piece Sonnekus², its text derived from the Biblical Book of Genesis​. Isherwood's voice throbs with the pain of isolation, alleviated by the burgeoning joy of creation as a peculiar sort of companionship. Whether enunciating poetic texts or emitting primal sounds, the flinty solidity of his tone is matched by the stark simplicity of his diction. His is emoting that permits no artifice or foolishness.

Eight Whiskus of 1984 is an octet of mesostics mined from 'whistlin is did,' the first three words of a text by Chris Mann​. In this piece, Isherwood manages to make Cage's highly contrived method of expression sound not only efficacious but appealingly natural, as well. He accomplishes this by eschewing histrionics and allowing the voice to convey the intersecting strands of meaning. Each successive part is shaped by the singer like a variation on a common theme, lending the work both variety and continuity and unifying the disparate elements into a molecular structure of cogent musical impact.

Drafted in 1950, the wordless 'A Flower,' the first of the Three Songs for Voice and Closed Piano, receives from Isherwood a performance that revels in the bizarre humanity of its ornithological atmosphere, his voice intoning the birdsong with childlike innocence that belies the darkness of his timbre. Both 1942's 'The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs' and 'Nowth Upon Nacht,' written in 1984 in response to Berberian's untimely death, are settings of words extracted from James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake. Both are powerful songs, insightfully managed by Isherwood, but the stinging bitterness of 'Nowth Upon Nacht' lunges from his throat with an acidic burn. He again honors Berberian's memory by offering the listener a performance of a quality that she would have appreciated. She, Cage, and the poet would also have enjoyed the sensitivity with which Isherwood handles E. E. Cummings's words in Experiences No. 2, dating from 1945 – 48. Verse and voice are in perfect harmony, the words used by composer and singer as the metrical and interpretive cores of the music. The multifaceted imagery of conceits such as 'one pierced moment whiter than the rest' is painted by Isherwood in hues that take their glow from the text. In music that many singers would abuse through ignorance, he sings Cage's lines no less eloquently than he might deliver the lines of the Sprecher in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte or Amfortas in Wagner's Parsifal.

Cage's enigmatic 'garden of sounds'Ryoanji, conceived in the first half of the 1980s, is presented by Isherwood in the version for voice and percussion, the latter part played by the singer on a crystal wine glass after the fashion of Benjamin Franklin's glass harmonica​, the unusual instrument for which Donizetti wrote the obbligato, now typically reassigned to flute, in the title character's Mad Scene in Lucia di Lammermoor. The rewards of the singer providing his own accompaniments are too numerous to be counted in music like Cage's but are especially evident in Ryoanji. By turns ethereal and earthy, the vocal and crystalline sounds in which Isherwood cloaks Cage's music are indicative of a profound understanding of the writing. Moreover, his is the abundant, unmistakable comprehension possible only with complete, voluntary immersion in the music.

As in any artistic genre, there is always in music—or, more accurately, among its would-be avant-garde practitioners—a pernicious penchant for being different solely for the sake of difference. The importance of the rôle of artist as intellectual is often overinflated, but inquisitiveness must be at the heart of change if it is to be progress. In a context as far removed from the inventive sound worlds of John Cage as might be imagined, hearing Nicholas Isherwood's performances of the composer's music on this disc evokes the spirit of the 1960s television band The Monkees, elucidated in their Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart-penned theme song: 'We're the young generation, and we've got somethin' to say.' Whether visual art, poetry, or music, a project with nothing to say is merely a splattering of paint upon a canvas, words upon a page, or notes upon a stave. The superb vocalism notwithstanding, the finest aspect of Arias is the abiding sense of purpose—the composer and the performer having something to say, as it were. The designation 'authoritative' is seldom used and even less frequently merited, but Nicholas Isherwood's performances of John Cage's vocal music on Aria are truly authoritative.​

[1] Great Singers Series – Inge Borkh: Operatic Recital—Inge Borkh, soprano; London Symphony Orchestra; Wiener Philharmoniker; Anatole Fistoulari, Rudolf Moralt, and Josef Krips, conductors [Recorded in Kingsway Hall, London, UK, 27 – 29 November 1957 (tracks 1 – 5) and in Sofiensaal, Vienna, Austria, June 1956 (tracks 11 – 12) and 3 – 4 November 1958 (tracks 6 – 10); DECCA Most Wanted Recitals! 480 8139; 1 CD, 77:57; Available from Amazon (USA), Presto Classical, and major music retailers]; [2] Scenes from Verdi: Gwyneth Jones—Dame Gwyneth Jones, soprano; Maureen Lehane, mezzo-soprano; George Macpherson, bass; Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Wiener Staatsopernorchester; Sir Edward Downes and Argeo Quadri, conductor [Recorded in Kingsway Hall, London, UK, 26 January – 12 February 1968 (tracks 1 – 5) and in Sofiensaal, Vienna, Austria, 1 – 9 March 1966 (tracks 6 – 8); DECCA Most Wanted Recitals! 480 8161; 1 CD, 79:45; Available from Amazon (USA) and major music retailers]; and [3] Nancy Tatum: Operatic Recital—Nancy Tatum, soprano; Geoffrey Parsons, piano; Wiener Opernorchester; Argeo Quadri, conductor [Recorded in Sofiensaal, Vienna, Austria, 1 – 9 June 1965 (tracks 1 – 8) and in Kingsway Hall, London, UK, 5 – 8 December 1968 (tracks 9 – 18); DECCA Most Wanted Recitals! 480 8183; 1 CD, 79:29; Available from Amazon (USA), jpc, Presto Classical, and major music retailers]

Big is beautiful. The origins of that platitude of course have nothing to do with music, but the affirmative sentiment expressed by those three words can quite naturally be applied to opera, to the voices that populate the genre as well as to the physiques that support them. There exists now a maddening proneness to mistake a voice's volume for its size: often, a loud singer is confused with one in possession of a large-proportioned instrument. In truth, how many opera lovers currently under the age of forty have heard a legitimately big voice? With theatres growing ever larger and acoustics ever crueler to Classically-trained singers, why are big voices now so little cultivated? Seemingly gone are the days in which Gino Penno sounded as robust when facing the back of the Metropolitan Opera stage as when projecting directly to the audience and Gertrude Grob-Prandl could be heard by passengers on trams passing along the Ringstraße as she sang Isolde's Narration and Curse at the Wiener Staatsoper; gone not only because these singers are dead but, more crucially, because their ways of singing expired with them. One of the most remarkable aspects of a 2010 MET Saturday matinée performance of Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos attended by this listener was the manner in which soprano Nina Stemme—one of a few singers I have heard who possesses a natural instrument worthy of the MET in terms of vocal amplitude—filled the house with sound without singing at full power or volume in more than a handful of passages. Voices like Stemme's, Kirsten Flagstad's, Helen Traubel's, Birgit Nilsson's, Éva Marton's, and even Dame Joan Sutherland's are subject to damage by forcing, but these ladies had the technical wherewithal to understand that the health and effectiveness of large voices are just as dependent upon proper projection as are those of more lyrical endowments. The careers of Inge Borkh, Dame Gwyneth Jones, and Nancy Tatum illustrate both the splendors and the stumbling blocks of managing powerful voices. These sopranos' entries in DECCA's Most Wanted Recitals! series, lovingly prepared by Víctor Suzán Reed for compact disc release in sound superior to many modern digital recordings, are relics from an era scarcely more familiar to today’s observers than those of castrati and Falcons. In a recording like the sterling account of Leonardo Vinci's Catone in Utica, DECCA's endeavors facilitate appreciation of a notion of how castrati may have sounded: this trio of discs from the label's archives restores to the enjoyment of the modern listener a veritable explosion of sounds from ladies whose tones might have caused those testosterone-deficient castrati to cower in fear.

Born in Mannheim [whether in 1917 or 1921 remains a matter of debate] and primarily trained in Italy, Inge Borkh is unique in having enjoyed a significant career in opera bookended by lauded stints as a thespian upon the theatrical stage. She is also unique in having displayed throughout the years of her singing career a thorough cognizance of her vocal resources. Though she was acclaimed as Senta in Der fliegende Holländer, Elsa in Lohengrin, and Sieglinde in Die Walküre, she was not lured into singing the Brünnhildes or Isolde, all of which she might have managed with far greater facility than many interpreters of the parts could muster. Regrettably, though, her few commercial recordings—including a thrilling Elektra conducted by Karl Böhm on Deutsche Grammophon, an underrated Turandot opposite Mario del Monaco and Renata Tebaldi on DECCA, and a ‘live’ Die Frau ohne Schatten, also on Deutsche Grammophon, in which Borkh’s Färberin is both tough and touching—insufficiently document her exceptional versatility. Recorded in London in 1957 and ​in Vienna during the preceding and following years, the selections on Borkh's Most Wanted Recitals! disc not only honor the broad scope of her artistry but also preserve her vocalism at its freshest and most secure. The first three numbers on the disc could hardly be more different in style, but Borkh’s vocalism provides an uncanny symmetry. The account of ‘Měsíčku na nebi hlubokém,’ the familiar Song to the Moon from Antonín Dvořák’s (1841 – 1904) ​Rusalka, here sung in German, that opens the disc is striking, both in terms of the actual singing and in the manner in which Borkh finesses the phrasing, up to the gleaming top B♭, as effectively as the finest lyric exponents of the music—Gabriela Beňačková, for instance. Then, still singing in German, Borkh rivals the most inspired interpreters of the title rôle in Christoph Willibald Gluck’s (1714 – 1787) Alceste with her urgent, Classically-sculpted ‘Divinité​s du Styx,’ the ringing, secure top B♭s again commanding admiration. Singing ‘Voi lo sapete, o mamma’ from Pietro Mascagni’s (1863 – 1945) Cavalleria rusticana with power that heightens the emotional intensity of the aria, she confirms that, with the exception of Giulietta Simionato, Santuzza is best served by a dramatic soprano.

A surviving recording of a Frankfurt performance reveals that Borkh was a potent presence as the dastardly heroine of ​Giuseppe ​Verdi's (1813 – 1901) Macbeth. Split between recording sessions in London and Vienna, the selections on this disc provide tantalizing vistas of the soprano's portrayal of the wayward Thane's power-hungry consort. From the first notes of 'Ambizioso spirto,' it is clear that few Macbeths could withstand the onslaughts of this Lady's ambition. Vocally, Borkh's grasp on the style of Verdi's music is not as tight as Callas's, but she comes very near to matching la Divina's unstoppable drive in this part. The lower reaches of 'Vieni t'affretta' draw from Borkh snarls of malevolent glee as Lady Macbeth contemplates her rise to the throne, and the top notes shine like comets. The coloratura in the cabaletta 'Or tutti sorgete' is not completely comfortable for Borkh, but the voice gushes through the vocal line with the force of a geyser. The dulcet femininity of her voicing of 'La luce langue' is thus quite surprising and all the more captivating. Singing with clear-sighted dramatic purpose and technical aplomb, she discloses the more precious metal beneath Lady Macbeth's brassy façade.

The most unusual offering among the selections on Borkh's disc is the Air de Lia from Claude Debussy’s (1862 – 1918) cantata L'enfant prodigue, 'L'année en vain chasse l'année.' A veritable tour de force that in both structure and its repeated top As hearkens back to Donna Anna's 'Or sai chi l'onore' in Mozart's Don Giovanni, the aria is here sung as a mother's ardent plea for relief from her suffering. The Gallic largesse of Borkh's singing brings Berlioz's Cassandre to mind—a rôle in which the soprano might also have enthralled. Recorded during sessions in Vienna in 1958, Borkh's traversals of 'La mamma morta' from Umberto Giordani's (1867 – 1948) Andrea Chénier and 'Io son l'umile ancella' from Francesco Cilèa's (1866 – 1950) Adriana Lecouvreur simmer with verismo passion, the soprano's phrasing withstanding comparison with the most renowned of her Italian colleagues. Two years earlier, she was wholly in her element in 'Ozean! Du Ungeheuer!' from Carl Maria von Weber's (1786 – 1826) Oberon, one of the most demanding arias in the German Romantic canon. Her performance is notable for the ease with which she sings the music, even in her negotiations of the awkward tessitura and climactic top C. She seems to actually enjoy singing the piece. Enjoyment is also the defining characteristic of her wonderful performance of Ludwig van Beethoven's (1770 – 1827) 'Ah perfido!' (Opus 65​​); both the listener's enjoyment and her own. Borkh makes an opera in miniature of the scene, unearthing and faithfully depicting every emotional hairpin bend in Beethoven's music. Like many large instruments, Borkh's voice was difficult to capture with studio microphones, but she never sounded better on records than in the DECCA sessions on this disc.

Still a divisive artist two decades after singing her final Brünnhildes at Covent Garden and the MET, Dame Gwyneth Jones continues to use her voice in celebration of Richard Wagner in her capacity as President of Britain's Wagner Society. This disc focuses not on her legendary prowess as a Wagnerian but on her less-remembered but no-less-considerable achievements in Verdi rôles, however. It was as Leonora in Verdi's Il trovatore that the Welsh-born Jones enjoyed early triumphs at Covent Garden and the Wiener Staatsoper, where she was also acclaimed as Elisabetta di Valois in Don Carlo and Aida. Inexplicably except for the fact that her Italian spinto repertory was already well-served on disc by Callas and Tebaldi, Desdemona in Otello was the only one of Jones's very portrayals recorded in studio. This disc is an extremely valuable memento of Jones's vital work as a Verdian.

Recorded in London in 1968, four years after her career-making Covent Garden Leonora under Carlo Maria Giulini, the performances of arias from Aida, Don Carlo, Macbeth, and Otello on this disc preserve tonal beauty and liquidity of phrasing that might surprise listeners acquainted only with Jones's Wagner singing. Her accounts of Aida's 'Ritorna vincitor!' and the recitative 'Qui Radamè​s verrà’ and ubiquitous aria ‘O patria mia' are technically solid, the tricky breath control in the former and the ascent to the formidably exposed top C in the latter managed with tremendous poise and only the faintest hint of the beat that would evolve into the hotly-contested wobble. As evidenced by extant broadcasts from London, Vienna, Buenos Aires, and Tokyo, Elisabetta in Don Carlo was one of Jones's best rôles, and she here voices 'Tu che le vanità' with the regal manner of a legitimate queen consort. The delicacy and naïveté of her singing—qualities not often attributed to this artist—as Elisabetta recalls her native France are unexpectedly touching, and her breath control and piano singing are equal to the those of the finest recorded Elisabettas. On this disc, Jones's is not the ugly voice prescribed by Verdi for Lady Macbeth's music, but the power that she unleashes in 'Nel dì della vittoria io le incontrai' is bracing, there being no doubt of her command of the two-octave range. Her full-throttle 'Vieni, t'affretta' combines dramatic abandon with precision in passagework superior even to Borkh's achievements in this music. Considering Jones's mezzo-soprano origins, it is enlightening to scrutinize her infrequent negotiations of chest resonance: the skill with which the vocal registers are integrated is remarkable for a voice of such dimensions, only an ungainliness in the lower octave betraying a slight deficiency in the voice's technical foundation. Sampling the rôle that she recorded commercially with Sir John Barbirolli, Jones sings Desdemona's 'Era più calmo?' and 'Piangea cantando' with the sweetness of a thoughtful woman resigned to accepting a fate that she foresees but is powerless to alter. Her devout, demonstrative 'Ave Maria' is as beautifully sung as any on records, her mastery of quiet dynamics in the upper register rivaling Milanov's and Tebaldi's.

The three selections that close Jones's disc were recorded in Vienna in 1966. As stated before, Leonora in Il trovatore was a rôle in which she excelled, and she here sings the Act Four aria 'D'amor sull ali rosee' confidently. Missing are Cigna's temperament, Callas's stylishness, the utter suitability of Leontyne Price's timbre for the music, and the crispness of Sutherland's trills, but Jones introduces herself into exalted company with an admirable rendition of the piece. Better still is her monumental voicing of another Leonora's big moment of concentrated dramatic utterance, 'Pace, pace, mio Dio!' from La forza del destino. Few sopranos in the opera's history have hurled out 'maledizione' more convincingly or launched the aria's concluding top B♭ more compellingly.

Perhaps, then, it seems unjust to suggest that the finest singing on a disc devoted to fantastic performances of music by Verdi is heard in Jones's phenomenal voicing of Beethoven's 'Ah perfido!' Following Borkh's top-quality performance of this music, the superiority of Jones's showing in Beethoven's daunting scena is unexpected. It should not be: Jones recorded a near-definitive Leonore—it must have been something about that name!—in Fidelio under Karl Böhm's direction for Deutsche Grammophon and also proved an expert interpreter of Cherubini's Medea on a DECCA studio recording, after all. Even alongside her storied Wagner recordings, this 'Ah perfido!' may well be the single best example of Jones's singing on records. Where Borkh impresses, Jones exhilarates. In recitative and aria, cantilena and roulade, Jones sails through Beethoven's music as though it were written for her. With this number alone, appreciation of Jones's artistry is enriched immeasurably.

Distressingly, such is the neglect to which Nancy Tatum has been subjected even by her countrymen that very few details of her life and career are now documented. Most sources agree that her San Francisco Opera début was in 1969 as Leonora in La forza del destino, a recording of which has periodically circulated in ‘unofficial’ channels, but there continues to be debate about whether she was born in 1934 or 1937, in Memphis (seemingly the more preferred locale) or Nashville. Her sole appearance at the Metropolitan Opera was in the title rôle of Puccini’s Turandot on 4 October 1974, opposite Franco Corelli, Lucine Amara, and James Morris. In a sense, Tatum seems to have been an American counterpart of the inconsistent but undeniably thrilling Greek soprano Elena Souliotis, whom she partnered in a near-disastrous 1967 Carnegie Hall concert performance of Bellini's Norma. Whatever her faults, Tatum's incendiary singing in that performance hinted at temperamental proclivities that would have made her Adalgisa very alluring to a virile, slightly predatory Pollione. Perhaps the best example of Tatum's artistry currently available is a recording of a 1966 performance of Verdi's Attila from the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires in which her Odabella is by no means an inadequate partner to the Attila of Jerome Hines and Ezio of Peter Glossop. Much of the excitement of that performance also permeates her singing on this DECCA disc, the principal flaw of which is the failure of the reproduction of the original LP jacket that accompanies the disc to expand the listener's knowledge of this intriguing singer.

Opening with an athletic traversal of 'Dich, teure Halle, grüß ich wieder' from Wagner's Tannhäuser capped with a steady, shimmering top B, Tatum also sings Elisabeth's prayer from Act Three, 'Allmächt'ge Jungfrau, hör mein Flehen!' Though not as smoothly vocalized as by a singer like Kirsten Flagstad in her prime, the American soprano's performance is capably phrased and suitably heartfelt if occasionally vague of pitch. Her singing of 'Ozean! Du Ungeheuer!' from Weber's Oberon offers an opportunity to compare her artistry, side by side, with Borkh's. Borkh expectedly makes more of the text and has easier going in the approach to the top C, but Tatum's wilder, less-polished singing is more visceral: she generates more excitement because there is just enough insecurity to permit doubt about whether she can ultimately fully manage the music. She is on somewhat safer ground in Agathe's 'Und ob die Wolke sie verhülle' from Weber's Der Freischütz, and she is comfortable with the text. This is her most subtly-characterized number on the disc, a gnawing uncertainty lurking beneath the surface of her assured vocalism. Few sopranos since the heady days of Claudia Muzio and Rosa Ponselle have enjoyed great success with Elvira's 'Surta è la notte' and 'Ernani! Ernani involami' from Verdi's Ernani, and the earnestness of Tatum’s singing does not disguise the effort. Coloratura seemingly did not come naturally to her: the go-for-broke style of Odabella’s music suited her better than the more gossamer mode of Elvira’s vocal lines. Still, she produces engaging sounds. More comfortable aside from the fearsome top C are Aida’s ‘Qui Radamès verrà’ and ‘O patria mia.’ She phrases the aria alluringly, caressing the final statement of ‘mai più ti rivedrò’ with a moving evocation of the character’s paralyzing sadness. Though the basic construction of the voice as recorded suggests that Laura would have been the more appropriate part for her, Tatum sings the name part’s ‘Suicidio! In questi fieri momenti tu sol mi resti’ from Amilcare Ponchielli (1834 – 1886) La Gioconda grandly, tapping the vein of tragic eloquence that courses through the music. Her diction is better here than in any of the other selections in Italian, and her affinity for Ponchielli’s idiom is unmistakable. Tatum’s is a more plebeian reading of Leonora's 'D'amor sull'ali rosee' than Jones's, but she, too, successfully employs musical portraiture to depict the character’s aristocratic, uniquely Spanish bearing.

The selections from Tatum's homage to American Art Song make strange bedfellows for the operatic arias, but there is ever tremendous pleasure to be had from hearing a voice of size and thrust in Art Song repertory. Tatum's accompanist, Geoffrey Parsons, plays Edward MacDowell's (1860 – 1908) 'To a wild rose' (Op. 51, No. 1; 1896) elegantly and then joins the soprano in a surging account of 'The sea' (Op. 47, No. 7), Tatum using the sharply-defined cadences of William Dean Howells's words as the backbone of her performance.

Ernest Gold's (1921 – 1999) 1963 Songs of love and parting were famously recorded by Marni Nixon, the mellifluous singing voice of Deborah Kerr in The King and I, Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady, and Natalie Wood in West Side Story. Tatum's voice could hardly be more different from Nixon’s. In the Shakespeare setting 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day,' she is not completely successful at conveying the romance of the text, but the music is ably sung. More finely-honed are her readings of the Emily Dickinson songs, 'Parting' and 'Peace,' both of which she delivers with understated austerity. Tatum and Parsons devote their most thoughtful work to 'Time does not bring relief,' Edna St. Vincent Millay's words inspiring singer and pianist to expressivity of a high order.

Kathleen Lockhart Manning (1890 – 1951) supplied both text and music for 'Shoes,' and Tatum and Parsons honor her as poet and composer with a performance that radiates open-hearted communicativeness. The blind composer John W. Bischoff's (1850 – 1909) setting of Walter Learned's 'Five little white heads' is bathed in this performance in subtlety and good-natured irony, and the simplicity of the singer's reading of the traditional 'He's gone far away' is a welcome departure from typical opera singer antics in this sort of repertory. 'Cowboy composer' David W. Guion's (1892 – 1981) 'Mary alone' is a charming setting of a text by Lucile Isbell Stall, and charm defines Tatum's singing of it: without condescending, she adapts the scale of the voice to the architecture of the song. Always a considerate partner in performances of Lieder, Parsons complements Tatum's sensibilities and avoids seeming at odds with her in passages in which voice and material are not ideally matched. Tatum perhaps never fully realized her exceptional potential, but this disc enables the listener to recognize what a valuable voice she possessed.

A celebrated singer once reminisced about singing Chrysothemis in Richard Strauss's Elektra opposite Dame Gwyneth Jones in the title rôle by stating that, despite the considerable size of her own voice, she could only hope that she was on pitch when singing with Jones because, owing to the power of Jones's tone even when not singing at full volume, she could not hear herself until she reached high B♭. How can the impact of such a voice be reproduced on vinyl or plastic? Recording technologies have advanced during the past three quarters of a century to such an extent that pioneers from the early days of preserving singers' voices in the ether, as Caruso described it, perhaps would not recognize many of today's sonic engineering methodologies. The difficulty of recording large voices with fidelity to their timbres and overtones remains largely unchanged since the earliest days of documenting the artistry of singers like Erna Denera and Leo Slezak, but these three discs in DECCA’s Most Wanted Recitals! series verify that, with voices like those of Inge Borkh, Dame Gwyneth Jones, and Nancy Tatum, the resulting recordings more than justify every frustration and expenditure of technical effort. In the cases of these voices and these discs, big is indeed beautiful.

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770 – 1827): A Beethoven Odyssey, Volume 4 – Piano Sonatas Nos. 9 in E major (Op. 14, No. 1), 15 in D major (Op. 28), 24 in F-sharp major (Op. 78), 25 in G major (Op. 79), and 27 in E minor (Op. 90)—James Brawn, piano [Recorded in Potton Hall, Suffolk, UK, on 22 July 2013 (Op. 78), 18 – 20 August 2014 (Opp. 79 & 90), and 27 – 28 November 2014 (Opp. 14, No. 1 & 15); MSR Classics MS 1468; 1 CD, 72:24; Available from MSR Classics, Amazon (USA), and major music retailers]

Henry James wrote in The Portrait of a Lady that ‘there are moments in life when even Beethoven has nothing to say to us. We must admit, however, that they are our worst moments.’ For all his sagacity in insightfully describing the human condition in all of its social manifestations, James cannot have been right in this. No, it is especially in the worst moments of life that Beethoven speaks most profoundly. So it must have been for the composer himself, the starkest moments of his worsening deafness enlivened by the discourse of some of his most poignant and torturously-written music. In that regard, Beethoven’s thirty-two piano sonatas, composed between 1795 and 1822, constitute a near-comprehensive conversation among this creative genius, generations of interpreters, and listeners with every imaginable prejudice. Both in recital and in recording studios, many pianists have essayed traversals of the complete cycle of sonatas, but few of them have exhibited connection with the music to rival James Brawn's submersion in the music over the course of his Beethoven Odyssey. Like Ulysses's epic journey of Antiquity recounted by Homer, Brawn's odyssey through Beethoven's sonatas is not a trek from a clearly-defined start to a distinct terminus but a microcosmic exploration of the intricacies of individual and collective humanities. Playing a splendidly even-toned Steinway and Sons instrument prepared by Ulrich Gerhartz and tuned by Graham Cooke and Peter Law, Brawn delights in the unique character of each of the five sonatas on this disc while also securing the ties of stylistic kinship that unite them. Just as even the greatest journey begins with a single step, Beethoven's most extravagant sonic landscapes are painted with simple notes. In the performances on this disc, Brawn gives every note its due: in these vistas, the pebbles are rightly as significant as the peaks.

Composed in 1798 – 99, Sonata No. 9 in E major is a work in which the Viennese Classicism of Haydn and Mozart is fused with the proto-Romanticism of Beethoven's early mature style. Haydn's formality and Mozart's playfulness can still be heard, but the young Beethoven, not quite thirty years old, infused the Classical poise of his predecessors with the vehemence and volatility of his own artistic temperament in order to fashion a style both steeped in tradition and wholly original. In the opening Allegro movement, played by Brawn with rhythmic bounce that makes the magnificent instrument beneath his touch sound like an impeccably-preserved period fortepiano, the taut flesh of the music is becomingly attired in jewels of sound. Throughout the performances on this disc, Brawn's fingering and phrasing are exemplary, his articulations of Beethoven's ornaments wholly natural, but it is the unbridled joviality of his playing of the Allegretto and Maggiore second movement that captures the imagination. Here and in the Rondo (Allegro comodo) that ends the sonata, Beethoven and Brawn smile delightfully, the uncomplicated joy of the composer's creativity dancing from the tips of the pianist's fingers.

The vernal zephyr that flutters through the pages of the 1801 Sonata No.15 in D major, nicknamed the 'Pastorale,' perfumes the music with fragrances of dew-kissed blossoms and new grass. Brawn evokes scenes of bucolic freedom in his handsomely-conceived playing of the introductory Allegro, complemented by the Arcadian freshness of his delivery of the wistful Andante. It is unusual for the links among movements to be as apparent without exaggeration as Brawn makes them on this disc. Not only thematic material but also emotional links are examined and explicated, the voices of one movement found within the countersubjects of its brethren. The Scherzo (Allegro vivace) and Trio are joyously handled by Brawn, rhythmic contrasts put to subtle dramatic use. In the sonata's final movement, the Rondo (Allegro ma non troppo) – Più allegro quasi Presto, the pianist interprets Beethoven's tempi very faithfully, finding the impetus for the exuberant transitions within the music itself. As in Sonata No. 9, Brawn discerns and communicates both the unique qualities of the music at hand as well as the elements of the place that the sonata occupies within the context of the progress of Beethoven's artistic evolution. This, of course, can only be achieved when a pianist is as masterful a technician as Brawn unfailingly proves to be.

Sonata No. 24 in F-sharp major, a product of 1809 known as 'À Thérèse' owing to its dedication to Countess Thérèse von Brunswick, is a concentrated font of expressivity as remarkable in its smaller-scaled way as Fidelio, the Missa solemnis, and the late string quartets. Here, the poet in Brawn finds an eloquent outlet. The singing quality of his rendering of the Adagio cantabile - Allegro ma non troppo is exquisite, his shaping of the melodic line as alluringly expansive as Callas's singing of Norma's 'Casta diva.' It is apparent when hearing the fluidity of Brawn's playing that he has absorbed the lessons of great interpreters of the past, pianists such as Schnabel, Brendel, and the recently-departed Moravec, but has come to Beethoven's sonatas without prejudices or preconceptions. Indeed, compared with a century of recorded Beethoven interpretations, Brawn's readings on this disc synthesize qualities that recall the most noble performances of past generations but are very much his own. The scintillating individuality of his execution of the vibrant melodic figurations of the Allegro vivace engenders a marriage of tempo and technique that, like Karl Böhm's conducting of Fidelio, defies easy explanation: it simply sounds right for the music.

The untroubled—which, from the perspective of the prospective performer, is not to say undemanding!—brilliance of Sonata No. 25 in G major, dating from 1809, coruscates in the glow of Brawn's playing. The pseudo-Teutonic strains of the Presto alla tedesca benefit terrifically from the sprightliness of the pianist's bass line, his left hand providing the solid foundation upon which an opulent edifice is built. The difficult divisions are dispatched with unassailable virtuosity, Brawn's fingers and wrists equal to every challenge the wily Beethoven devised. The subtleties of the Andante are highlighted by the nuanced treatment that they prompt from Brawn, and his skill at optimizing the piano's resonance with thoughtful use of the pedals should be studied by all pianists who aspire to performing this repertory. Only in the Vivace is there a momentary lapse in Brawn's cumulative excellence: the ambiguities of the music are muted by an avoidance of extremes. The musicality is predictably admirable, but the music's cutting edge is blunted by the middle-of-the-road approach.

Dating from 1814, the two-movement Sonata No. 27 in E minor is the most progressive of the sonatas on this disc: indeed, in certain passages the piano music of Schumann and Brahms seems very close at hand. Brawn follows Beethoven's meticulous instructions to the letter but, like the most imaginative artists, derives interpretive liberation from the composer's parameters. His scrutiny of the first movement, prefaced by Beethoven with the stipulations 'Mit Lebhaftigkeit und durchaus mit Empfindung und Ausdruck,' imparts a notion of restlessness in the music, the perfect coordination between his hands permitting the listener to appreciate how greatly Beethoven utilized the interplay of melody and harmony to enhance the sentiments he sought to elucidate. The second movement, marked 'Nicht zu geschwind und sehr singbar vorzutragen​,' pulses with life in Brawn's hands. The cascades of melody flow over the keys and saturate the charged atmosphere conjured by the music. The small details of Brawn's playing never threaten to shift focus away from the broad structure of the sonata as a whole, but he succeeds as few pianists have managed to do on records at making every bar an intriguing world of its own.

There are more recordings of Beethoven's piano sonatas than most listeners will ever have time to hear. Nearly two centuries after the publication of the master's final effort in the genre, the sonatas individually and en masse appeal to pianists of all ages, breadths of insight, and levels of ability. To the earnest young pianist, there is an euphoria in successfully performing a Beethoven sonata that is surely something like summiting Everest or hiking the Appalachian Trail end to end. More than almost any others known to this listener, the performances on this installment in James Brawn's Beethoven Odyssey exude this elation. There are numerous recordings of artfully-played, intuitively-interpreted accounts of Beethoven's sonatas, but few discs invite the listener into the processes of discovery and discussion as palpably as does this one. The odyssey is not solely shared between Beethoven and Brawn: every listener, too, is invited to learn, luxuriate, and love.