Disturbing juxtapositions in a dream-like Magic Flute
The trio from the Vienna Boys Choir carry the show
Anthony Pryer welcomes a staging which embraces the unsettling ambiguities of Mozart’s final masterpiece Mozart
Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) (DVD) Matthias Goerne, Mauro Peter, Albina Shagimuratova, Christiane Karg, Adam Plachetka, Maria Nazarova; Wiener Staatsopernchor; Vienna Philharmonic/ Constantinos Carydis; dir. Lydia Steier (Salzburg, 2018) C major DVD: 749708; Blu-ray: 749804 144 mins
Die Zauberflöte is problematic to stage. It starts like a folk tale. A fairy queen gives a portrait of her daughter to a handsome prince and sends him off to rescue her from a wicked magician. Mozart and the librettist Schikaneder then turned the wicked magician into an agent for good, and the fairy queen became a representative of evil – though unsettling ambiguities remain. Moreover, the plot is overburdened with masonic and Egyptian references, and unfolds via a gaggle of odd characters and effects (a serpent, a magic flute, bells, etc).
In this Salzburg Festival production, director
Lydia Steier offers brilliant and convincing solutions. Everything is seen through the eyes of the three boys who are on stage throughout. Instead of the original dialogues between the musical items, their grandfather reads them the plot as a bedtime story. In their imaginations their mother becomes the Queen of the Night, their sister Pamina, one of their toy soldiers Tamino, and the family butcher Papageno. Sarastro appears like a ring-master accompanied by real circus performers. The whole sweeps along with the fluency and disturbing juxtapositions of a child’s dream. Albina Shagimuratova (Queen of the Night) seems less secure than in her impressive 2016 Vienna performance, and slows up in the runs of her arias. Pamina (Christiana Karg), Tamino (Mauro Peter) and Papagena (Maria Nazarova) acquit themselves well, though Papageno (Adam Plachetka) is somewhat ponderous. Matthias Goerne is miscast as Sarastro – his low notes lack sonority. The trio from the Vienna Boys Choir carry the show, supported by the Vienna Philharmonic’s silky warmth. PERFORMANCE ★★★★
PICTURE & SOUND ★★★★★
Hear extracts from this recording and the rest of this month’s choices on the BBC Music Magazine website at www.classical-music.com
Jon Gibson
Violet Fire
Scott Murphree, Marie Mascari, Solange Merdinian, Greg Purnhagen, Katie Geissinger, Peter Stewart;
Violet Fire Orchestra/
Mick Rossi (piano, organ)
Orange Mountain Music OMM 7018
78:03 mins (2 discs)
The archetypal inventor tends to be portrayed in a rather similar way to the composer: wild-eyed, wild-haired and prone to mono-mania (think Emmett ‘Doc’ Brown in Back to the Future, or Caractacus Potts in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang). The eccentricity of Nikola Tesla (1856-1943), the Serbian-american futurist, electrical engineer and hopeful creator of a groundbreaking broadcasting system, is to the fore in Violet Fire (2006), an operatic biopic by Jon Gibson. Miriam Seidel’s dream-like libretto focuses on Tesla’s regular trips to feed the pigeons, and his relationship with one bird in particular, White Dove.
In this, the first studio recording of the work – produced and conducted by Mick Rossi – tenor Scott Murphree shines as Tesla. We move from 1920s New York (with subtle allusions to jazz in the score) to decades earlier, when Tesla’s broadcasting system was in full flow, only to be cancelled a few years later. Then, Tesla’s beloved White Dove (soprano Marie Mascari) dies, an obvious symbol for the loss of hope and peace. The final scene sees Tesla on his death bed, reminiscing about his first experiments with electricity, and then eventually reunited with White Dove.
The score combines ideas taken from minimalism (Gibson is a founding member of the Philip Glass Ensemble) with dance structures (such as Margaret Storm’s appearance in scene four) and electronic sound effects (scene five). Violet Fire doesn’t have the same transformative effect of, say, Glass’s Akhnaten or the grabbedby-the-collar quality of Nico Muhly’s operas, but there’s plenty to recommend it, nonetheless. Claire Jackson
PERFORMANCE ★★★★
RECORDING ★★★
Gounod
Faust
Alja Farasin, Carlo Colombara, Marjukka Tepponen, Lucio Gallo, Diana Haller, Ivana Srbljan, Waltteri Torikka; Croatian Rijeka National Theatre Opera Chorus & Orchestra/ Ville Matvejeff
Naxos 8.660456-58 188:40 mins (3 discs) Once the opera of first choice on both sides of the Atlantic with the old Metropolitan Opera in New York nicknamed the Faustspielhaus, Gounod’s Faust has rather fallen by the wayside. But if it’s too sugary for some tastes and too steeped in a particular French religiosity, it seems to have converted audiences in the 21st century, who relish its tunefulness and the opportunities it offers great singers.
However, this recording of the 1864 London version is not about stars. It’s an ensemble production from the Croatian National Theatre in Rijeka led by the Finnish conductor Ville Matvejeff, with a cast that doesn’t include a single French singer among the principals. And frankly you can hear it. Alja Farasin’s Faust fights with the French libretto and loses as he strives to produce the head tone and vocal timbre of a French tenor. Lucio Gallo’s Valentin is similarly linguistically challenged. Marjukka Tepponen struggles manfully as Marguerite but finds little light or shade in the role – the ‘Ballad of the King of Thule’ is sung no differently from her excitement at finding Faust’s gift of a casket of jewels. It’s hard to believe in her innocence and innate goodness. Only Diana Haller’s soubrettish Siébel seems to have the measure of her character.
For Carlo Colombara’s Méphistophélès, evil is indeed banal. Where’s the wicked glee that brings this agent of darkness to light? That dark satanic laugh at the end of Act III goes for nothing. And frankly, Marguerite’s apotheosis has all the thrills of a children’s nativity play. Christopher Cook PERFORMANCE ★★
RECORDING ★★★★
Puccini
Madama Butterfly (DVD)
Olga Busuioc, Joshua Guerrero, Michael Sumuel, Elizabeth Deshong; Glyndebourne Chorus; London Philharmonic Orchestra/omer Meir Wellber; dir. Annilese Miskimmon (Glyndebourne, 2018)
Opus Arte DVD: OA 1167 D;
Blu-ray: OA BD7166 D 151 mins
There’s a veritable swarm of Butterflies out there on
DVD, virtually indistinguishable in their identikit kimonos and sliding doors. Madama Butterfly is an opera that directors struggle to do much with, so firmly fixed is it in a particular time and place. But Annilese Miskimmon’s updated concept for Glyndebourne gives new layers of resonance without compromising the original’s spirit.
The action is shifted to the early 1950s, a moment when many American servicemen were bringing Japanese wives back to the United States. Act I opens not at the house Pinkerton has rented but at Goro’s marriage bureau, next to a tattoo parlour. This intensifies the message that Cio-cio San is a commodity, the latest in a long line of nervous-looking Japanese brides who watch a projection of an authentic 1950s newsreel with titles such as ‘Learning to be an American wife’ and ‘Journey to a new life’.
This footage acts as a deeply affecting Leitmotif throughout the production. Pinkerton puts it on during the love duet and Butterfly later re-watches it on a flickering television as she waits endlessly in the chic modern suit he gave her.
An unattractive or boorish Pinkerton can make the viewer wonder why Butterfly bothers. Joshua Guerrero is suitably handsome and has both a creamy voice that exudes tenderness and power and the acting skills to make you believe that he genuinely comes to care for Cio-cio San.
Olga Busuioc, vocally more steely than sweet, does a fine job of conveying Butterfly’s journey from teenage naivety to maturity beyond her years. There are strong performances from the supporting roles, notably Elizabeth Deshong as Suzuki, and the LPO under Omer Meir Wellber is on superlative form. The dénouement is harrowing, even by the usual standards of this devastating work. Alexandra Wilson PERFORMANCE ★★★★ PICTURE & SOUND ★★★★
Rossini
Eduardo e Cristina
Kenneth Tarver, Silvia Dalla Benetta, Laura Polverelli, Baurzhan Anderzhanov, Xiang Xu; Camerata Bach Choir, Pozna ; Virtuosi Brunensis/gianluigi Gelmetti
Naxos 8.660466-67 141:24 mins (2 discs) One of the last of the centone – opera stitched together from the highlights of other operas – Rossini’s Eduardo e Cristina was a smash hit on its premiere at the Teatro San Benedetto in Venice in 1819, written in haste to fulfil a contract. Romping successfully through the opera houses of
Europe and America for 20 years, it disappeared from the repertoire, along with most other centone, with the rise of the Romantics, despite sporting a plot which climaxed in a lovers’ reunion effected by a rogue cannon ball.
The libretto itself was pinched from an earlier opera by Pavesi, with its clashing operatic tropes of clandestine domestic arrangements and heroic melodrama. But if the piece is patchwork in style, it is full of thrilling music, with long stretches repurposed from Rossini’s Ermione (which had flopped in Naples a month before), Ricciardo e Zoraide and Adelaide di Borgogna.
The modern-day resurrection of this 19th-century curio is almost single-handedly down to the Rossini in Wildbad Festival, for whom this 2017 live concert recording is their second. The evocative background noise is sometimes intrusive, but after the somewhat turgid overture, a driven, passionate performance, if occasionally lacking finesse, emerges from conductor Gianluigi
Gelmetti, the Virtuosi Brunensis and the Camerata Bach Choir. Kenneth Tarver’s King Carlo is the pick of the soloists, with Laura Polverelli and Silvia Dalla Benetta well-matched as Eduardo and Cristina respectively. Highlights include the electric finale in Act I, Cristina and Carlo’s Act II duets, and a thumping battle scene lifted from Mosè in Egitto, complete with wayward ordnance. Sarah Urwin Jones PERFORMANCE ★★★
RECORDING ★★★
Tchaikovsky
Pique Dame (The Queen of Spades) (DVD)
Brandon Jovanovich, Evgenia Muraveva, Vladislav Sulimsky,
Igor Golovatenko, Hanna Schwarz; Vienna State Opera Choir; Vienna Philahrmonic/mariss Jansons; dir. Hans Neuenfels (Salzburg, 2018) Unitel DVD: 801408;
Blu-ray: 801504 183 mins
From the 2018 Salzburg Festival comes this production of Tchaikovsky’s operatic chiller by ageing enfant terrible Hans Neuenfels. On the vast, awkwardlyshaped stage of the Festspielhaus his lavish enterprise employs enormous choral crowds, always identically dressed, and their activities scrupulously regimented. Catherine the Great’s appearance comes as a giant skeleton. The fantastical/ grotesque result is artificial to a degree, yet also curiously ineffective, despite the money clearly spent on it; the result is certainly not the intense psychological experience it’s meant to be.
With the exception of American Brandon Jovanovich’s Hermann, the cast is almost entirely Russian. His is a substantial tenor with the capacity to be lyrical or heroic according to need, and the ability to cut through pretty well any texture. Nevertheless, with a tone that doesn’t match the colours of the rest of the cast, he doesn’t quite fit vocally, while the odd top note eludes him. Dramatically, he goes along with everything Neuenfels requires of him, though as with the remainder of the show there’s a distancing effect to the result.
Not always in tune, Evgenia Muraveva’s vulnerable Lisa suffers from moments of insecurity and could do with richer tone. On good vocal form at the age of 75, Hanna Schwarz presents the Countess as a mature woman rather than the standard issue elderly grotesque; she’s clearly sexually attracted to Hermann.
There’s a metal core to Vladislav Sulimsky’s vibrant baritone which helps his Tomsky make an unusual impact. Igor Golovatenko‘s Yeletsky is nobly sung: during his outpouring of love to Lisa, Neuenfels has their imaginary future children take their places at the family table.
The Vienna Philharmonic is invariably lush-toned and accomplished under Mariss Jansons, who offers plenty of detail while maintaining a steady momentum, though ensemble is oddly untidy, with the chorus frequently behind the beat. George Hall PERFORMANCE ★★
PICTURE & SOUND ★★★★★
Verdi
I due Foscari
Leo Nucci, Guanqun Yu, Bernadett Fodor, Ivan Magrì, István Horváth; Bavarian Radio Choir; Munich Radio Orchestra/ivan Repu ic
BR Klassik 900328 101:27 mins (2 discs)
If your impression of early Verdi is one of crudity, his sixth opera I due Foscari (1844) will make you think again. Almost unrelievedly sombre – something the composer later perceived as a weakness – the score is an appreciable achievement, already showing the master musical dramatist at work.
Recorded live in Munich and Budapest in November 2018, this performance centres on 76-year-old baritone Leo Nucci’s interpretation of the impotent Doge Foscari, whose son is exiled by the Venetian state and who is himself then deposed from office. It’s a great role, and for the earlier part of the work Nucci’s voice sounds in good condition – though there are passages that are clearly difficult for him and others he can barely articulate; worse, towards the end he becomes increasingly shouty and vague as to notes. In the final analysis the result must be considered unsatisfactory.
In the part of his wayward (or else much maligned) son Jacopo, tenor Ivan Magrì brings an appealing lyrical charge, shaping the line with sensitivity; in more engaged passages there’s the odd moment of stress at the top of his range.
The third major role is that of Jacopo’s wife Lucrezia, who spends the opera railing against the dismal fate allotted her family. Guanqun Yu brings a smallish voice and generally impressive facility to the part, though her diction is weak.
The orchestra is more than presentable and the chorus confident, while conductor Ivan Repu i captures the atmosphere of each and every scene. George Hall PERFORMANCE ★★ RECORDING ★★★★
Weber
Oberon
Clemens Kerschbaumer, Mirko Roschkowski, Dorothea Maria Marx, Karola Pavone, Grga Pero , Marie Seidler, Roman Kurtz; Giessen Theatre Choirs;
Giessen Philharmonic Orchestra/ Michael Hofstetter
Oehms Classics OC 984
111:28 mins (2 discs)
There’s no dearth of excellent recordings of Weber’s last flawed masterpiece, but then Oberon is a pivotal work in the history of 19th-century German opera. The trials and tribulations of the Knight Hüon and his beloved Rezia look back to Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte while the lashing storm seems to anticipate Der Fliegende Holländer and the magic three-note horn call which permeates the whole score hints at Siegfried.
The problem for any company – and here it’s the Stadttheater Giessen – is which Oberon to perform. Do you keep faith with what Weber created for the Covent Garden premiere in 1826, flirt with Mahler’s attempt to tidy up loose dramatic ends, or plump for some other choice? Michael Hofstetter and his German cast have opted for the version made in 1829 by Theodor Hell, a pseudonym for Karl Gottfried Theodor Winkler. The dialogue has mostly been replaced by a narrator, but the score is played on original instruments.
The Giessen orchestra sounds very good. Alas, not so everyone in the cast. Mirko Roschkowski is cruelly tested by Hüon’s high tessitura, particularly in his great Act II aria, and Clemens Kerschbaumer lacks authority as Oberon. If Dorothea Maria Marx’s Rezia rises to the challenge of ‘Ocean thou Mighty Monster’, she is generally eclipsed by her companion in distress, Fatime. Marie Seidler is magnificent, soaring above the stave in the finale to Act I. However, if it’s singing you want then go back to John Eliot Gardiner’s 2002 recording – also with narration not dialogue – and luxuriate in Jonas Kauffmann and Hillevi Martinpelto as the romantic leads. Christopher Cook PERFORMANCE ★★★
RECORDING ★★★★