Benchmark Gluck that does the composer proud
Berta Joncus delights in this live recording of Orfeo ed Euridice from David Bates and La Nuova Musica
Gluck
Orfeo ed Euridice
Iestyn Davies, Sophie Bevan, Rebecca Bottone; La Nuova Musica/david Bates
Pentatone PTC 5186 805 88:33 mins
Created in 1762, Christoph Willibald Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice gave 18th-century opera a makeover: instead of stopping and starting, the action flows continuously; instead of long solos, numbers are a dense weave of solo, chorus and band; instead of pure opera seria, Italian and French traditions combine within a score that’s vast, but led by only three soloists.
Conductor David Bates is, like Gluck, wonderfully radical. Where other directors smooth over disjunctions, he revels in rupture: warping standard tempos, switching mood abruptly, releasing massed forces to wash away solo lines. Recorded at St John’s Smith Square, London, this live performance has to negotiate the space’s acoustic in real time, and Bates adjusts gesture to optimise note decay. This is directorship at its most alert, and aiding Bates is an optimal cast.
The qualities of countertenor Iestyn Davies’s voice – warm, rich, yet pure – vivify the particular Orfeo of this opera, one who, because the gods have forbidden him to gaze on his wife, is then accused by her of being unfaithful. Davies radiates Orfeo’s impassioned tenderness, changing vocal colours as the drama demands. Sophie Bevan’s Euridice swings, with blazing bravura and increasing intensity, from anguish to narcissism, lengthening top notes and compressing runs as her thoughts swirl.
Rebecca Bottone as Amore, who reunites the lovers for a happy ending, captures the cool, thirdeye view that Gluck hard-wired into the goddess’s rational vocal phrasing and harmonic progression. It is also thanks to the choir, whose moods register as loudly as those of the soloists, that this production is a benchmark. It’s the stuff of Gluck’s dreams. 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
Gounod
Faust
Benjamin Bernheim, Véronique Gens, Andrew Foster-williams, Jean-sébastien Bou; Les Talens Lyriques; Flemish Radio Choir/ Christophe Rousset
Bru Zane BZ 1037 173:48 mins (3 discs) The Centre for French Romantic Opera now presents the original
1859 version of Gounod’s operatic masterpiece Faust. This – unlike the more familiar Grand Opera incarnation of 1869 – contains extensive spoken dialogue, occasionally to musical accompaniment, which, on the whole, the cast delivers with credibly dramatic flair.
Performing on original instruments, Les Talens Lyriques produces lean string sound and some splendidly pungent wind and brass playing. Christophe Rousset has a strong feeling for the pace of the drama which, in Act IV, reaches heights of eloquence in an Apotheosis as the soul of the much wronged Marguerite enters heaven. As a whole, this is a fine ensemble performance. The soloists are uniformly excellent: Benjamin Bernheim’s tortured, occasionally heroic, Faust is well matched by Andrew Foster-williams’s oily and sinister Mephistopheles; Marguerite may not be the most rewarding role in the opera, but Véronique Gens manages to bring to it both fragility and dignity. Superbly presented with excellent accompanying essays, this excellently recorded performance, while not flawless, is a handsome addition to an impressive series. Jan Smaczny
PERFORMANCE ★★★★★
RECORDING ★★★★
Mozart
Sophie Bevan’s Euridice has blazing bravura and increasing intensity
Zero to Hero: Opera arias
Daniel Behle (tenor); L’orfeo Baroque Orchestra/michi Gaigg
Sony Classical 19075964582 69:12 mins Daniel Behle’s Mozart roles on operatic stages across Europe have included Tamino in Vienna, Belmonte in Berlin, and, at Covent Garden, Ferrando and Don Ottavio. Oddly the booklet
for this recording contains almost no information about him even though his interpretations clearly demonstrate a dramatic immediacy born of live performance.
Most of these arias are either lyrical or semi-heroic and both types come off well. The few strictly buffa tenor roles in Mozart – for example, Don Basilio from Figaro
– do not feature. What does emerge is Behle’s extraordinary technical ability. Not only is ‘Un’aura amorosa’ (from Così) sung with melting mellifluousness, but his handling of Mozart’s dynamics (in relation to the meaning of the text) is exemplary. He is also able to change moods in subtle ways as he does in the middle section of ‘Se all’impero’ (from Tito) and, in the same aria, he presents the dizzying vocal runs with the softest delicacy. Some of these items are often omitted or abbreviated in performance. The version here of ‘Wenn der Freude’ (Die Entführung), for example, restores all of the music crossed out in Mozart’s score. That said, Mozart marks this piece ‘Adagio’ and the performance here seems somewhat over reliant on its rather fast pace for its energy and drive. The orchestra is spirited and alert especially in the earlier pieces (La Betulia liberata, 1771). No texts or translations are provided. Overall some marvellous singing with a slightly less impressive supporting package. Anthony Pryer PERFORMANCE ★★★★★
RECORDING ★★★★
Musorgsky
Boris Godunov (1869 version) Alexander Tsymbalyuk, Maxim Paster, Mika Kares, Sergei Skorokhodov, Okka von der Damerau, Alexey Tikhomirov, Hanna Husáhr, Johanna Rudström; Gothenburg Opera Chorus; Brunnsbo Music Class Girls Choir; Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra/ Kent Nagano
BIS BIS-2320 (hybrid CD/SACD)
125:15 mins (2 discs)
Should we decide that there are not one but two Boris Godunovs by Musorgsky? Kent Nagano makes a powerful case for the original 1869 version being a different work from the 1874 revision with the Polish act. With the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Nagano conjures up a dark and brutal world of men in pursuit of power yearning for legitimacy, whether it’s Boris’s claim to the throne or Pimen’s wish to record the truth of what happened to the Tsarevitch Dimitry at Uglich before the opera begins.
Nagano is scrupulous in his attention to detail. The opera’s opening phrase for the oboe is all naked pity, the marching strings then suggesting the unrest and revolt that are ever-present in this medieval Russia. Nagano makes Musorgsky’s remarkable soundworld with its dark strings, growling brass and ever-present bells utterly compelling. The coronation scene is ironically jubilant and the death of Boris could wring tears from a stone.
Alexander Tsymbalyuk is a youthful Boris, lacking the gravelly weight of his predecessors. But his lyrical impulse somehow underscores the tragedy of a ruler haunted by the consequences of the means by which he achieved his ends. Mika Kares is a more traditional Pimen, fitting perhaps for a chronicler who has devoted his life to setting down the past as it really happened.
Of course the principal character in this great drama is the chorus, and the Gothenburg Opera Chorus are superb. You might almost be listening to a choir trained in the
Russian Orthodox church style – which is exactly what Musorgsky wanted. Christopher Cook PERFORMANCE ★★★★★ RECORDING ★★★★★
Stanford
The Travelling Companion David Horton, Pauls Putnins, Julien Van Mellaerts, Kate Valentine; New Sussex Opera Chorus & Orchestra/ Toby Purser
Somm Recordings SOMMCD 274-2 123:59 mins (2 discs)
In the autumn of 2018 the venturesome New Sussex Opera staged Stanford’s neglected final opera, performing it in various venues in southern England and recording it live in Saffron Walden Hall in December last year: this release is the result. As a performance undertaken by a blend of professional and amateur forces, the result is inevitably mixed, though overall a good idea is given of the piece’s merits.
Completed in 1916 but not performed until a year after Stanford’s death in 1924, the work itself is considered by some to be his finest for the stage – though that may not be saying a great deal. Despite the Irish composer’s excellent technical skills – not for nothing was he an admired teacher – in dramatic terms the postbrahmsian score can feel stodgy.
Based on a fairy-tale by Hans Christian Andersen turned into an effective libretto by Sir Henry Newbolt, the plot has a common element with Puccini’s Turandot.
A kindly, bold young man tempts fate by answering the riddle of a princess in order to win her hand – and succeeds in his quest partly due to being accompanied by the mysterious travelling companion of the title, who vanishes at the close.
The principals do their best by demanding vocal writing, particularly successfully so in the cases of Pauls Putnins as the King and Julien Van Mellaerts in the title-role. Orchestra and chorus are willing and often able, while conductor Toby Purser unerringly captures the music’s character and marshals his forces with confidence. George Hall PERFORMANCE ★★★
RECORDING ★★★