Lise Davidsen at la Scala

 

Lise Davidsen successfully made her La Scala debut last night in a concert with her as the featured soloist.  These days Lise starts everything at the top.  The above film shows the orchestra on the floor with the audience in the boxes above. Riccardo Chailly conducted.  I remember him primarily as the conductor of Cecilia Bartoli's La Cenerentola recording.

Program
Giuseppe Verdi	From Macbeth  "Patria oppressa"  [chorus]
Henry Purcell	From Dido and Aeneas  "When I am laid in earth" with Lise
Richard Wagner	From Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg  Vorspiel (Prelude)
Richard Strauss	From Ariadne auf Naxos  "Es gibt ein Reich, wo alles rein ist" with Lise
Giuseppe Verdi	From La forza del destino Sinfonia "Pace, pace mio Dio"  with Lise
Richard Wagner	From Tannhäuser Ouvertüre "Dich, Teure halle"  with Lise
Giuseppe Verdi	From Nabucco  "Va’, pensiero" [chorus]

Only "When I am laid in earth" was something I had not heard Lise sing before.  It was good but unspectacular compared to the other things.  She wore black in the first half and looked radiant.  These songs are basically all tragic, so black was ok.  For the second half she wore a beautiful pastel outfit which brightened the mood.  Her hair is enhanced with an extension down to her waist. 

The two pieces in German are Lise's signature pieces, both of which I love dearly in her voice.  The most spectacularly sung of all was the Verdi "Pace, pace mio Dio".  It would not do for her to omit the Italian language.  All of her languages were beautiful.

I was intrigued by the interplay between Chailly and Davidsen.  He seemed to be looking to her for expressive cues.  This is something singers long for.  I felt it allowed Lise to feel secure and give her utmost.  As a result she made the greatest impression in the great Italian aria "Pace, pace mio Dio."  They were a magical pair.  This is La Scala after all.

I found this to be one of the most intense and spectacular vocal concerts I've ever seen.  The audience stood up a lot.  It's out there.

Sacramento Music

I have recently attended a couple of concerts in Sacramento by groups I have not seen before.  It is becoming increasingly difficult for me to get out of town, so I am trying to know more about the place where I live.

Carlos & Brennen are a duo consisting of Brennen Milton on clarinet and Carlos M. Fuentes on piano.  For their recent concert at Crocker Art Museum they added soprano Robin Fisher.  Concerts at Crocker involve associating the repertoire to the current exhibits which in this case are landscapes.  When instrumental groups add a singer, they must track down repertoire for this specific combination.  So they needed pieces for clarinet, piano and soprano which illustrate the outdoors. For this concert we heard:

O Lady Moon by Alan Hovhaness, an American composer.  In this piece a cat and a rat are carrying a barrel of sake over Mount Fuji.

Coty by Quincy Hilliard, from Mississippi.  Daybreak, Sunset, Dance.  This is for only clarinet and piano.  The composer said it reminded him of his home.

Hirtenlied by Giacomo Meyerbeer.  Meyerbeer is most famous as a French opera composer, but this song is in German and translates to Shepherd Song.  The whole trio perform.  Again we are outdoors.

Three Vocalises by Ralph Vaughn Williams.  Prelude, Scherzo, Quasi menuetto.  This features only the soprano and clarinet and has no words.

Silentium Amoris by Carlos McMillan Fuentes, our pianist.  Seduction, Infatuation, Silentium Amoris.  The first two movements are instrumental and the third is the full trio on a poem by Oscar Wilde.

I very much enjoyed the variety of repertoire in this concert.  I'm always ready for something new.  Our clarinetist played from a score on a tablet (iPad?) with a foot pedal to turn pages.  I have a complaint:  they provided a sheet with English texts but did not provide sufficient light to be able to read it.  AND they specifically requested that people not use flashlights.

Sinfonia Spirituosa, a new group directed by Lorna Peters, harpsichord, performed at Clara.  This concert while all from the Baroque, was also varied.

Six movements from the Suite "La Bizarre" by Georg Philipp Telemann.  Overture, Gavotte en Rondeau, Sarabande, Fantasie, Minuet I and II, Rossignol.

Passamezzo and Gagliarda for Two Violins and Continuo by Johann Vierdanck.  I had never heard of this composer, but he was a student of Heinrich Schütz and died young.  For continuo we expected the usual cello and harpsichord, but got only the cello part.  This was very pleasing.

Chaconne in G Minor by Henry Purcell for the full ensemble.  The members of the ensemble varied quite a lot.  Then suddenly came "Curtain Tune on a Ground" from Timon of Athens.  Our version was very uptempo and jazzy sounding.  "Where am I?"  I love Henry Purcell best.

From the tragedie lyrique "Les Boreades" by Jean-Philippe Rameau.  Entree de Polimnie, Gavotte pour les heures et les zephirs, Minuet I and II, Contredanse en rondeau.

Sinfonia Spirituosa in D Major by Telemann.  Spirituoso, Largo, Vivace.  This is the group's theme music.

They are new and in only their second season.  It interests me how much is going on in the provincial city of Sacramento.  I wish them good luck.  If I have a complaint, it is the constant tuning.  This may be necessary with period instruments.

Dido and Aeneas

Christopher Hogwood conductor
Wayne McGregor choreography, stage director

Lucy Crowe (Belinda)
Sarah Connolly (Dido)
Anita Watson (Second Woman)
Lucas Meachem (Aeneas)
Sara Fulgoni (Sorceress)
Eri Nakamura (First Witch)
Pumeza Matshikiza (Second Witch)
Iestyn Davies (Spirit)
Ji-Min Park (Sailor)

There is a film of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas on medici.tv which can be viewed through Amazon prime. I performed the spirit as a freshman in college and am always surprised by the level of detail I can remember.  Except now everyone does ornaments that are not in the score.  I doubt sincerely that they are extemporized.

Lucy Crowe and Sarah Connolly are worth the visit.  One of the odd features of this performance is that the First Witch and Second Witch are portrayed as Siamese twins joined at the side. 

Since I left college, I have only seen this opera staged by choreographers.  It would be nice to see it done as an opera.
 #ad

Dioclesian

I'm weirdly inadequate as a critic.  A real critic forms his opinions, throws around a few adjectives and goes on the the next thing with no backward looks.  I always want to know why I liked it, or why I didn't like it.  If I can't figure out why, I'm uncomfortable.  It's the systems analyst in me.

So today I am mentally comparing last night's performance of Purcell's Dioclesian by the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra in Berkeley, conducted by Nicholas McGegan, with Cecilia's Mission.  Purcell (b. 1659) and Steffani (b. 1654) are very close in age.  With Steffani we get mostly arias and duets with bits of orchestra and chorus, while with Purcell we get arias, duets, choruses, trios and all manner of instrumental numbers.

What we don't get in either context is the formal structure of a late Baroque aria, such as those by Handel, Bach or Vivaldi, where an instrumental soloist shares the aria with the singer.  In the late Baroque the da capo aria with its A section of instrumental solo followed by vocal solo, B section, followed by repeat of the entire A section, including the instrumental solo, dominates everything.  It is these long instrumental solos that make Baroque operas so hard to stage in a way that is acceptable to a modern opera audience.

Purcell and Steffani often separate out the instrumental and vocal parts into separate numbers with completely different music.  It is quite common for an aria to have only continuo accompaniment, which nowadays means a realized figured bass played on harpsichord, cello, and theorbo.  And that's it.  No winds or violins, a very thin sound, like recitative.  Which we mostly don't get in either environment.  Purcell is writing for a play, so instead of recitative there would be talking, omitted in our performance but summarized in the program.

The ornaments come in unpredictable places to illustrate the words, and not in the da capo repeat.  Because there isn't one.

I find this all fascinating, but you are probably nodding off.  I am surprised to see so much structural similarity between the two composers.  Purcell shows a lot of French influence with lots of dotted rhythms.  I am surprised that they sound so similar to each other.  Except one has Cecilia and the other doesn't.

Purcell writes all kinds of duets--duets for countertenors, baritones, soprano and tenor, and most interesting for me--two tenors.  Why do we never hear this?  Of the soloists, I most enjoyed the two tenors Brian Thorsett and Jonathan Smucker.

And now I am all Baroqued out and listening to Beethoven.  Whose arias are structured like Rossini.

Mark Morris' Dido

I would like to get all complaining out of the way quickly. There were no supertitles and the room was too dark to read the text to Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas at Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall this afternoon.

Don't get the wrong idea. I remember precisely every single word of this wonderful text. Who could resist...

"Oft she visits this lone mountain.
Oft she bathes her in this fountain."

or

"No repentance shall reclaim
The injured Dido's slighted flame;
For 'tis enough what e'er you now decree
That you had once the thought of leaving me."

or

"Harm's our delight and mischief all our skill."

And the music shapes these words in a way that approaches divine perfection

Stephanie Blythe was an amazing Dido:  strong, thoughtful, emotional, sensitive.  Perhaps, like Christa, she searches for the perfect performance.  She was also a very nice sorceress.

Philip Cutlip's Aeneas was also excellent.  His voice has a wonderful quality.

But this is Mark Morris's Dido.  He would want nothing to distract us from watching the dancers.  Morris also conducted.  The Philharmonia Baroque, the chorus, and all the soloists were crowded into the small pit below the virtually empty stage.

The troop of dancers, male and female, all dress the same in unisex skirts or briefly in unisex shorts.  They dance barefoot, and their feet slap against the smooth floor.  The angularity of their movements suggests pre-classical Greece.

There are several numbers where no one sings, and I have always thought they needed dancing in these spots.  I was right.

The great works of music can be created again and again, each time with the insight of the individual artists bringing us to see it anew.  It helps to know every word, every note.  You see and hear every gesture in stark relief.  I wouldn't have imagined this dance, but it expanded my idea of the work.  It was very beautiful.

[See Kinderkuchen History 1670-95]

O Solitude

👍🏻
I can't believe I'm writing this.

I bought Andreas Scholl's O Solitude because Borders was going out of business, and it was cheap.  I also bought Hilary Hahn's Higdon and Casals' Bach cello suites.

Henry Purcell deserved his title Orpheus Brittanicus.  For me he is divine.  Music reached a state of perfection in the middle Baroque, and here in this English music there is no Italian showing off or German intellectualizing.

It's a wonderful recording.  The phrases sweep with such grace.  Just think of the countertenor as a new, somewhat strange instrument.  "Music for a while shall all our cares beguile."  Perhaps it is the ideal postlude to a practically perfect Fairy Queen.

What have all these centuries been for when already such perfection has been achieved?
#ad

The Fairy Queen

This DVD of Henry Purcell's The Fairy Queen from Glyndebourne, 2009, with William Christie conducting is a treat. Actually, it's my first experience of the English masque, a form that does not survive into the present. A theater like the Ulmer Theater could have done it, I suppose, but it would have taken all the employees and maybe a few outsiders. There is a full cast of actors who basically present Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Then there is a full orchestra, dance troupe and group of singers.

One aspect of the ensemble we could not have duplicated: their astounding physical beauty. The acting troupe who perform Pyramis and Thisbe were middle aged men, as usual, but everyone else was slim and gorgeous, including Adam and Eve dressed only in carefully placed fig leaves. You could honestly not tell the dancers from everyone else. You know this never happens at the opera.

The costumes were confusing. The fairies were dressed in black. Theseus was in 1690's attire. The lovers were dressed in a kind of romantic 30's look, while some ladies appeared dressed like 50's housewives. The beautiful naked pair put on clothing that made them look like hippies. You just have to go with it.

The masque is a rather formless form. Perhaps plays without music were no longer as popular as plays with music. In opera with spoken dialog, the dialog replaces the recitative of Italian opera. Here Shakespeare's lines are left spoken, and the added music is all to added text. It's just anything with dancing and singing, like Adam and Eve and people in bunny costumes. Apollo appears briefly, as well as spring, summer, fall and winter. The actual plot is all spoken. We of the more formal operatic tradition are frowning and looking down our noses.

I have long been a Purcell fan, and William Christie is a great representative for him. I think the arias are more florid than I expected, and filled with dotted rhythms. I love the middle baroque. Things are not quite formed, not quite slicked up as they are in Bach and Handel. The effect for me is one of unique freshness and charm.

So we should just lighten up and enjoy it. Recommended.
#ad

Cold

Someone sent me a link to this:



It's an homage to this:



I have heard of Scholl, of course, but all the rest is new to me. It is two renditions of "The Cold Song" from Henry Purcell's King Arthur.

This is what they are saying:

What power art thou
Who from below
Hast made me rise
Unwillingly and slow
From beds of everlasting snow

See'st thou not how stiff
And wondrous old
Far unfit to bear the bitter cold

I can scarcely move
Or draw my breath
I can scarcely move
Or draw my breath

Let me, let me,
Let me freeze again
Let me, let me
Freeze again to death
Let me, let me, let me
Freeze again to death...

This is all unbelievably weird and of course cool.

I notice that Scholl has done a whole album of Purcell. There can never be too much Purcell.  I could easily go on a whole Purcell jag.

Dido

My friend J, who is 88, and I were thinking this was the first time we had ever been to a concert devoted entirely to Henry Purcell (1659-1695). Coming into the Mondavi Center to hear Philharmonia Baroque last night, the usher asked, “What’s his first name?” I said Henry, and another usher said, “That’s spelled ‘H-E-N-R-I.'” Oh heavens no. He’s English, not French.

How can this great composer be so little known? I have always been especially fond of the middle Baroque, that most neglected of all style periods. But thinking about it now, perhaps it is only the great Purcell I am especially fond of.

Nicholas McGegan, the conductor of Philharmonia Baroque, talked before the concert and spoke about the French influence on Purcell – King Charles II was raised in France – and the roughness of English harmony compared to the French. I think it is this roughness that I love, the way the lines bounce against one another, the liveliness of the rhythms, the astounding beauty of the English text setting, never heard before or since.

Purcell is my man. Let’s have an All-Purcell-All-The-Time festival. We would probably be criticized for performing inferior repertoire. [Sorry. This is currently a sore point for me.]

There were questions after the talk, and I wanted to ask, “Why aren’t you famous?” This would have been unfortunate because McGegan probably already regards himself as famous.

I asked about Elizabeth Blumenstock, the concertmistress of the Philharmonia Baroque and was told she was in Italy this month. She has a life that is larger than her orchestra. Philharmonia Baroque is an early instruments orchestra, but the orchestra listing was missing from the program.

The first half of the program was devoted to an instrumental piece called Chacony, a couple of anthems and a fascinating Suite from Abdelazer, or The Moor’s Revenge. These are isolated movements to be played between scenes of a play. In the center is the text:

Lucinda is bewitching fair.
All o’er engaging is her Air.

In ev’ry Song Lucinda’s Fam’d.
She is the Queen of Love proclaimed.
To all she does a Flame impart
Expiring Victims feel her Dart.

Strephon for her has Love expressed,
Philander sighs too with the rest;
Wracked with Despair each one complains,
Unmov’d, untouch’t She all disdains.

This small aria was performed sweetly by Celine Ricci--all with the wonderful Purcellian expressive ornamentation.

The second half of the program was devoted to the most perfect piece of music ever composed, the small opera Dido and Aeneas.

As is the case with all music from the Baroque, these modern performers ornamented beyond the written score, especially in the repeats. My old-fashioned ears enjoyed it very much.

There is simply too much to write. The excellent chorus transformed into a group of hags for the witches choruses. Cynthia Sieden transformed magically from Belinda to first witch and back again. Celine Ricci sang both the second woman with her amazing aria “Oft she visits this lone mountain,” taken at a very fast clip, and the second witch. “She” in this aria refers to the goddess Diana. Jill Grove was an excellent, evil sorceress. William Berger was the most intense Aeneas I’ve ever heard.

This performance was semi-staged. A throne was provided for Dido, and people moved about, good guys stage right, bad guys stage left.

Susan Graham brought us Dido. I found her voice to be just right for the role, enough weight for the deep sadness of the character, enough lightness for the ornaments. The entire performance was a joy--lively, dramatic and fun.

[My protestations that I did not wish to be famous may be in vain. McGegan kept looking at me and smiling. He does seem to smile all the time, so maybe I imagined this. Or maybe he was just happy we stopped coughing.]

Hunt and McGegan

Undoubtedly I was living in the San Francisco Bay Area when Lorraine Hunt Lieberson began her career there and knew nothing about it.

The extensive discography for Nicholas McGegan and the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra includes several recordings by Lorraine, including a lovely version of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas. It's charming and very theatrical. Lorraine ornaments a lot more than Janet Baker.

The other people on the recording don't quite achieve Lorraine's heaven. The sailor and even the following chorus are done with heavy lower class English accents. Cute. Silly. I like the witches. The incredible theatrical viability of this work are everywhere apparent in this recording.
#ad

Dido and Aeneas

When I was a sophomore in college, I played the spirit in a production of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas. We used the same Thurston Dart edition of the score as they are using in this "Legends" edition with Janet Baker. Every note is familiar. All goes exactly as it should.

Janet Baker is wonderfully serious. It is the deep character of the heroine that keeps this unique short opera in the repertoire. The charm of each number is simply irresistable, and the entire recording is excellent. The style of performance seems exactly right, something I have not thought about other recordings of this piece.
#ad