Television

A nice little show yesterday afternoon, John Eliot Gardiner rehearsing a Bach cantata with the English Baroque Soloists. I like John Eliot Gardiner. Not as unreservedly as I adore William Christie but still, he does excellent things and it's fascinating to watch him at work. His work with the chorus especially, his attention to the significance and the nuances of the German text, details like the best pronunciation of the vowel in "quälen" or the shades of meaning in the various ways the word "Strahl" is set: meticulous but never pedantic, and the results he gets from the choir are immediately evident and strikingly effective. Particularly fascinating for me, however, was watching Sara Mingardo in action. Slightly strange, this. It seems hardly possible that such a voice is in fact produced by a mortal, by a flesh-and-blood woman. You sit and watch a singer, apparently like any other, simply doing her job, singing Bach. But the sound of it. She may be of this earth but her voice surely is not. And she finishes, and the world goes on, and John Eliot Gardiner says "beautiful" and everyone keeps working - and nobody stops to say: just a moment, where in the world did that come from? Except me.

Then tonight, Monteverdi. Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria, from Glyndebourne, 1973. Featuring a cast of psychedelic Renaissance-Seventies-style suitors, Odysseus seemingly dressed as a teddy bear, a decidedly unheroic-looking Telemachus and in the midst of it all: the phenomenon that is Dame Janet Baker. Now, Janet Baker is a singer I've long admired but never entirely warmed to. Tonight, for once, the connection was made. Not only a glorious voice but a performance of near frightening intensity. As usual on the Arts Channel, no subtitles: but such power in her singing that even when I'd no idea what specifically she was saying, I felt beyond a shadow of a doubt that I had understood. She was surrounded by suitors dressed in ridiculous shades of pink and yellow and sporting outrageously hideous haircuts and she transcended it all, by turns terrifying and adorable. How any man could dare to continue his slimy advances after she declares her chastity - "Non voglio amar no no" - is quite beyond me. However perhaps best of all is the gradual and dignified ecstasy of the final scene, the reunion with Ulysses. In her singing and in her nuances of expression she reminds us that there is a world of difference between reunion after a short separation, and reunion after twenty years of hardship, uncertainty and hard-won chastity; to me she is a more convincing and more human Penelope than Homer's. Besides all of which, of course, she sings this music like nobody's business, and it burns.

Comments

[Mezzogregory]

Dear Lord. I didn't remember that that was Sara Mingardo. I've had that DVD for ages. When I saw her rehearse, I thought, ah. Nice. How much can change in two years. Note to self: watch again.

[vilaine fille]

You really must hear Dame Janet's recording of the final scene from "Les Troyens." It's one of my desert island discs, imbued with both the gravitas and the heart-rending tenderness of Berlioz and Vergil. Not even Crespin's gorgeous version comes close. If you have trouble locating it, please let me know.

bisous, v.f.

[Paul]

Those of us in the USA ultmately despair for scenes such as this on TV. Ever since the Met ran out of money to put its paltry one or opera performances per season onto public television, it's pretty much DVDs or Lawrence Welk -- that latter part's a joke, BTW. The last time I saw opera on broadcast TV was three yars ago when I was in Las Vegas on business and turned on the telly just in time for the second act of "Nabucco" from the Met-- what a pleasant surprise -- starring Samuel Ramey. I immediately called my client and delayed dinner for 90 minutes so that I could finish watching the program. Now THAT's devotion.

[Rozzie]

Well, if it makes you feel any better, you do have to pay for that channel. So if you don't have sky digital (like me,) you get pretty much diddly squat.

[Rozzie]

It's probably just as well though because I just know I'd never get anything done! I'd have to watch everything on that channel.

[Sarah]

Come now, everything? Four hundred features on Finnish architecture? Canadian interpretive dance? 21st Century Garden Art?

[Sarah]

P.S.-
v.f., your wish is as ever my command - it's on the list for my next trip to the library - who unbelievably enough (since usually they conspire against me) have the very disc.

[StuarT]

Surprised that you've never warmed to Janet Baker's ability to colour her voice, but agree with all of what you have written. Speaking for myself, I have been deeper into the heart of my beloved Schubert through the medium of Janet Baker/Gerald Moore and if you can get a copy (which is hard) listen to her with my other idol Fischer-Dieskau with Daniel Barenboim at a concert at Queen Elizabeth Hall in 1969. It is entitled 'An Evening of Duets'. If anyone would like a copy I can supply with pleasure.

Of course, the highlight for me was to see her in the flesh with one of the greatest accompanists to walk this earth, Australian, Geoffrey Parsons. I met them both after the concert at the Sydney Opera House in 1982, where we spoke for a while. One of the songs was the Gounod Serenade and I mentioned to her how I had enjoyed her French interpretation, to which she replied that singing in French was like 'the sun coming up'. What an evening, and on reflection, how right she is. A wonderful lady!

[Sarah]

She is wonderful indeed. The question of "warming to" her is more about personal affection and emotional attachment than anything on a vocal/talent level, and at the point when I wrote this, I hadn't become attached to her in that way. However this post is over a year old. Things have changed. And in fact in the last month or so I've totally fallen for her - to wit: http://primalamusica.typepad.com/primalamusica/2007/01/damn_it_janet.html

And I'm jealous you had the chance to meet her!