Opera
George Hall is impressed by both casting and conductor in this finely textured new recording
Massenet
Thaïs
Erin Wall, Joshua Hopkins, Andrew Staples
Nathan Berg, Neil Aronoff, Liv Redpath, Andrea Ludwig, Stacey Tappan, Emilia Boteva;
Toronto Mendelssohn Choir; Toronto Symphony Orchestra/andrew Davis
Chandos CHSA 5258 (hybrid CD/SACD) 132:08 mins (2 discs) Whatever his colleague Vincent d’indy meant when he described one of Massenet’s musical characteristics to be ‘a discreet and semi-religious eroticism’, such a trait finds its apogee in Thaïs (1894), which tells the ironic tale of a fanatical monk converting a courtesan only to lose his own faith in the process. Much of the opera is interior, as we look deep inside the two main characters who pass each other on their opposing spiritual trajectories.
To Thaïs herself Erin Wall brings a clean, pliant soprano used with discretion and judgement, following Massenet’s markings carefully as she charts her character’s emotionally charged vocal journey. Dark of presence, Joshua Hopkins makes a vehement Athanaël, riven by an inner conflict that causes him to destroy the object of his love and then despairingly to recognise his own faith as a lie.
Andrew Staples’s graceful tenor represents the standpoint of the hedonistic Nicias, while Nathan Berg is imposing as Palémon, the wise leader of Athanaël’s ascetic community.
Andrew Davis presents a perceptive account of one of Massenet’s best creations, the Canadian orchestra offering fine-textured playing as they respond with assurance to the composer’s unerring gift for scene painting. Like all previous recordings the Chandos set gives us the second (1898) version of the 1894 score while including just one of the seven ballet movements added to the revision of the second act; yet it surpasses many earlier efforts not only in terms of casting and conducting, but also in taking one of Massenet’s finest scores seriously. PERFORMANCE ★★★★★
RECORDING ★★★★★
Hear extracts from this recording and the rest of this month’s choices on the BBC Music Magazine website at www.classical-music.com
Alwyn
Miss Julie
Anna Patalong, Benedict Nelson, Rosie Aldridge, Samuel Sakker; BBC Symphony Orchestra/sakari Oramo Chandos CHSA 5253 (hybrid CD/SACD) 115:02 mins (2 discs)
Renewed attention to the long-neglected William Alwyn makes this second studio recording of one of his major operas, composed in 1973-6, especially welcome.
The score is intoxicated with waltz rhythms, including distinct echoes of Ravel’s La valse; but Alwyn’s late-romantic heritage runs deeper, with the impact of Wagner, Strauss, Mahler, Scriabin and Janá ek all apparent in the heady mix.
Alwyn’s extensive experience of composing film scores stood him in good stead: his subtlyflavoured orchestral writing intensifies the atmosphere, his sense of pacing is accomplished and there’s psychological depth to the well-constructed libretto – his own, adapted and altered from Strindberg’s dark tale of human destructiveness and perversity (1889), whose plot centres on class and gender conflict taken almost to the level of domestic warfare. Though not all the musical ideas are equally strong, the finelycrafted result possesses undeniable tension and dramatic potency, rising at moments to real romantic sweep while at others registering as overwrought.
Vocally relying almost entirely on the two hugely demanding central roles, the performance itself conveys clear conviction. Anna Patalong sketches in a troubled, vacillating Miss Julie while Benedict Nelson provides a forceful presence as the superficially good-natured valet, Jean – underneath a brutish bully. Rosie Aldridge is spirited as his on/off fiancée Kristin, while Samuel Sakker makes a couple of striking interventions as the devious gamekeeper Ulrik (a character created by Alwyn).
The BBC Symphony Orchestra proves unfailingly adept. Sakari Oramo charts a secure course through the score’s heady, hot-house emotional world. George Hall PERFORMANCE ★★★★ RECORDING ★★★★★
This is a perceptive account of one of Massenet’s best creations
David Hertzberg
The Wake World
Maeve Höglund, Samantha Hankey, George Sommerville, John David Miles, Maggie Finnegan, Veronica Chapman Smith, Joanna Nelson Gates, Jessica Beebe, Andrew Bogard; Steven Franklin (trumpet), Bryn Coveney (horn), Eunice Kim (violin), Edward Babcock, Bradley Loudis (percussion), Euntaek Kim (Fender Rhodes), Grant Loehnig (piano)/ Elizabeth Braden
Tzadik TZ-4030-2 86:33 mins (2 discs) David
Hertzberg’s The Wake World takes the fairytale written by occultist Aleister Crowley for his daughter into a realm as narcotically debauched as the sex magic he’s said to have indulged in – and as darkly gothic, as Lola undergoes a series of otherworldly tests before she can unite with her Fairy Prince.
Like a carnal Bluebeard’s Castle with a happy outcome, Hertzberg’s libretto drips with extreme, symbolist imagery while his score conjures echoes of Debussy, Mahler and Wagner – and especially Schreker – in its lush, opulent chromaticism. Yet his forces are worlds away from Schreker’s vast Die Gezeichneten. An ensemble of just seven players supports two principals and ten further characters – sung here by soloists who emerge from the Philadelphia Opera Chorus – to tempt, beguile, aid and torment Lola (sung by soprano Maeve Höglund) as she traverses depraved scenes in the palace of the Fairy Prince (mezzosoprano Samantha Hankey).
Human sacrifice, cannibalism, vampiric seduction: all are described in orgiastic waves as
Lola follows her trail of lust and animal instinct in pursuit of inner truth. It’s a journey that risks overblowing in the extended ecstasy of the final scene – and it raises questions about torture porn, and the manipulation of women in thrall to a sexual overlord. But Hertzberg’s score is astonishingly imaginative and well-written, and the musicians on this recording prove fine advocates under their conductor Elizabeth Braden.
Steph Power
PERFORMANCE
RECORDING
★★★★
★★★★
Mozart
Die Zauberflöte (DVD)
David Portillo, Sofia Fomina, Björn Bürger, Brindley Sherratt, Caroline Wettergreen; Glyndebourne
Chorus; Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment/ryan Wigglesworth; dir. André Barbe & Renaud Doucet (Glyndebourne, 2019)
Opus Arte DVD: OA1304D;
Blu-ray: OABD7268D 164 mins Producer/designer duo Barbe and Doucet confront the racism and the sexism that contemporary audiences have detected in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte. Though whether Vienna’s Hotel Sacher at the beginning of the 20th century, where Sarastro as the head chef appears to have wrested ownership of the establishment from the widow Sacher, aka The Queen of the Night, a suffragette fighting for votes for women, was the best place to play out Tamino and Pamina’a journey to correct thinking is another matter. In the first half, André Barbe’s exquisitely drawn and then enlarged interiors magic the eye, and the cutout guests that people the hotel are a delight. But when we reach the trials in the second half, comedy becomes Saturday Night TV with a cookery competition and a washing up tournament replacing the journeys through fire and water.
Many a wayward production of Mozart’s last masterpiece has been rescued by the singers, and Glyndebourne fields a decent cast for this production. David Portillo is a diffident Tamino, who discovers an inner steel and is well matched vocally by Sofia Fomina’s Pamina, though there is more to the role than simply singing beautifully. Björn Bürger’s cheeky chappie Papageno excels at broadbrush comedy, while Caroline Wettergreen’s Queen of the Night produces a top note in her opening aria that surely shattered every Glyndebourne champagne flute. And is there a more satisfying Sarastro around at present than the magnificent Brindley Sherratt? Ryan Wigglesworth keeps the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment on their Mozartian toes. Christopher Cook PERFORMANCE ★★★★ PICTIRE & SOUND ★★★★
Puccini
Turandot (DVD)
Iréne Theorin, Gregory Kunde, Yolanda Auyanet, Andrea Mastroni; Orchestra and Chorus of Teatro Real/ Nicola Luisotti; dir. Robert Wilson (Madrid, 2018)
Bel Air Classiques DVD: BAC170;
Blu-ray: BAC570 122 mins
The set is starkly minimalist. The characters are automaton-like, expressionless, and – save for the three Masks – largely immobile. The colourful lighting effects are mesmerising. All the hallmarks of a Robert Wilson production are present in this slow-motion Turandot for the Teatro Real in Madrid.
Does it work? Well, sort of. For any other Puccini opera this emotionless approach would make for a pretty excruciating couple of hours. For the anti-realist Turandot, however, it does have a certain logic. By the early 1920s, Puccini knew that to be mechanical was to be modern and used the Turandot subject’s stylised artificiality as a deliberate strategy to update his compositional approach. But this is also a work in which he appears to reflect on the present and the past, via the juxtaposition of the icy Turandot and the sentimental Liù. Thus, a performance in which everyone is a robot rather misses the point.
Iréne Theorin, noted for her Wagnerian roles, provides the requisite vocal heft as Turandot, and Gregory Kunde is an equally powerful Calaf: the riddle scene in Act II is musically thrilling. Yolanda Auyanet sings Liù prettily enough but, straitjacketed by the production, cannot hope to pull at the heartstrings. The orchestra and chorus of the Teatro Real under conductor Nicola Luisotti make a consistently impressive contribution to the musical whole.
Ultimately though, and through no fault of the performers, this feels like a park-and-bark performance masquerading as a ‘concept’. As such it left me rather cold. Though that was perhaps the intention. Alexandra Wilson
PERFORMANCE ★★★
PICTURE & SOUND ★★★★
Telemann
Miriways
André Morsch, Michael Nagy, Dominik Köninger, Robin Johannsen, Sophie Karthäuser, Lydia Teuscher, Anett Fritsch, Marieclaude Chappuis, Paul Mcnamara; Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin/ Bernard Labadie
Pentatone PTC 5186 842
154:23 mins (2 discs)
Telemann’s three-act opera, Miriways, was premiered in Hamburg’s Goosemarket Theatre in 1728. The libretto, by Johann Samuel Müller, headmaster of the Johanneum grammar school where Telemann taught, unusually had nothing to do with ancient
myth or legend but is loosely based on events which had taken place earlier in the century. Miriways, or Mir Wais, was an Afghan chieftain who had liberated Kandahar from Persian rule in 1700. He offers the Persian crown to Sophi, son of the deposed Shah, but on condition that he marries a bride of Miriways’s choice. That bride – spoiler alert coming up – is in fact Miriways’s daughter, though this is not at once disclosed. Elements of rivalry and intrigue are provided by duplicitous Persian prince Zemir and nice Afghan Murzah before all is happily resolved and a rousing chorus confirms a ‘lieto fine’.
This live recording, with applause, sparkles with life throughout. Musically, it is a piece of considerable melodic appeal. The arias, several of them with Italianate coloratura elements, are wonderfully varied in character and in instrumental colour. Not everything comes off quite as well as it should. The natural horns are sometimes wayward, occasional excessive vocal vibrato is present and recorded sound is not always ideal. These are, however, quickly taken in our stride and the overall experience is pleasurable. Bernard Labadie’s direction is vital and stylish and Telemann gives us some memorable music and notably perhaps a well-sustained duet (Act III), and two ravishing arias, Sophi’s ‘Nenn ein Herz’ (Act II) and Miriways’s ‘Lass, mein Sohn’ (Act III), both in E minor, a key which often brings out acute sensibilities in his music. Nicholas Anderson PERFORMANCE ★★★★ RECORDING ★★★
Vinci
Veni, Vidi, Vinci – countertenor arias from Il trionfo di Camilla; L’ernelinda; Siroe, re di Persia; Gismondo, re di Polonia; La Rosmira fedele; Alessandro nelle Indie; Il Medo
Franco Fagioli (countertenor); Il Pomo d’oro
DG 483 8358 69:44 mins
This is the latest recording by the Argentinian countertenor Franco Fagioli of items from 18th-century operatic repertoire. He has chosen well here. They are all taken from the last decade of the life of the underrated composer Leonardo Vinci (who seems to have been poisoned by a jealous husband in 1730), and are full of lyrical elegance, dance-like wit and ravishing ornament.
Fagioli is best in bravura displays such as those found in ‘Vil trofeo d’un’alma imbelle’, a brilliant contest between voice and trumpets. His voice is also capable of touching tenderness, as we hear in ‘Sento due fiamme’, though his higher notes occasionally produce a certain scratchiness. Two of the tracks (‘Sembro quell’usignuolo’ and ‘Quell’usignolo’) contain ‘birdsong’ arias where the singer imitates a nightingale: both seem to be performed rather fast so the effect is not enjoyed, and the first is barely distinguishable from a bravura aria.
Although his technique is good we rarely sense the emotions involved – in ‘Gelo di ogni vena’, for example, he tells us the events ‘fill me with terror’, though we would never guess from the sound. The orchestral playing is supportive, and sometimes delicately and effectively alert (‘Nube di denso orrore’). Anthony Pryer PERFORMANCE ★★★ RECORDING ★★★★
Wagner
Das Rheingold
James Rutherford, David Jerusalem, Bernhard Berchtold, Raymond Very, Katarzyna Kuncio, Sylvia Hamvasi, Ramona Zaharia, Jochen Schmeckenbecher, Florian Simson; Duisburg Philharmonic/axel Kober Cavi-music AVI 8553504
144:02 mins (2 discs)
A defective sprinkler system at the Duisberg Theatre stopped play on what was to have been two staged cycles of Oper-amrhein’s Ring cycle last year. While Düsseldorf, the other half of the partnership, went ahead Duisberg had to settle for this concert performance, now released on disc.
The performance is more work-a-day than carefully crafted dramatically and musically, with theatrical fireworks kept to a minimum: the Nibelungs don’t thunder at their anvils and Donner slaps his rock rather than giving it a hefty hammer blow to summon up a storm. As for the Alberich’s cowering dwarfs, they scream like schoolboys on a charabanc outing.
More seriously, Axel Kober and the Duisberg Phillharmonic offer a somewhat pedestrian reading of the score. Where‘s the orchestral glitter when the sun wakes the sleeping Rheingold, and that sense of urgency as Loge and Wotan descend into Niebelheim?
Yet there are good things. A young and firm Wotan from James Rutherford, who reminds us that this is a God in his prime and not the troubled figure of the later operas. The Rhinemaidens are properly coquettish, and Ramona Zaharia is a throaty Erde who ushers in a real sense of anxious mystery when we hear for the very first time the motif associated with the end of the Gods.
Best of all is the American tenor Raymond Very’s Loge. His tone may be a tad dry, but you listen to every word of his narration in Scene 2. We believe him when he hints that it will all end badly. Christopher Cook PERFORMANCE ★★★ RECORDING ★★★★
Desire
Arias by Bizet, Cilea, Dvoˇrák, Leoncavallo, Moniuszko, Puccini, Tchaikovsky & Verdi Aleksandra Kurzak (soprano); Morphing Chamber Orchestra/ Frédéric Chaslin
Sony Classical 19075883262 64:33 mins The Polish soprano Aleksandra Kurzak has issued several successful albums – Rossini, Gioia (Donizetti, Bellini, and others), Puccini in Love, etc – and is well established in the opera house. That said, this latest disc represents something of a change of direction for her: it explores a heavier and more searching repertoire, and it is also (she admits) meant to act as a kind of job interview – she has yet to be asked to perform the roles sampled here from Verdi’s Ernani, Il trovatore or Les vêpres siciliennes.
It is hard to miss Kurzak’s impressive vocal strength and projection. Her nuanced use of dynamics is well beyond the norm with some beautifully placed pianissimo top A flats and B flats at the end of ‘Signore, ascolta!’ (Tosca), and her quicksilver vocal arpeggios magically illuminate the melodic outlines of ‘Surta è la notte’ (Ernani). Just occasionally (as in ‘Timor di me?’ from Il Trovatore) her strident high notes can become breathy and sharp, not quite as technically under control as her normal range. This minor blemish is outweighed by her truly impressive characterisations which are both complex (every fluctuation of feeling is present in Cio-cio San’s ‘One fine day’ from Madam Butterfly) and deep (as in the tragic aria from the Polish opera Halka by Moniuszko). The rapport between singer and orchestra is consistently good. Those who have seen Kurzak on stage will vouch for her dramatic presence, and will hope that her ‘job interview’ is successful in relation to the role of Elvira in Ernani. Anthony Pryer PERFORMANCE ★★★★ RECORDING ★★★★★