Prima la musica, poi le parole

Rodelinda

There's something very strange going on here.

I appear to have found Renée Fleming, and in the last place I ever expected to. Handel.

All the signs suggested I wouldn't enjoy her Rodelinda and I believed them, but the moment arrived, she launched into "Ho perduta il caro sposa" and I did enjoy it. A lot. Why? And why now? Perhaps I've spent so long assuming I couldn't deal with her and not actually listening to her that I was pleasantly surprised. Perhaps it was a reaction to her ever shoddier treatment chez Parterre. Or perhaps I've just mellowed.

Lord knows I've had a turbulent relationship with The Beautiful Voice.  And it's not that I'm no longer hearing all the things which used to be problematic for me, all the tics and mannerisms that bother people so much. They're there. They're just not a problem any more. From somewhere in that tangled mess o'Renée emerged, for the first time really, that spark which says, just shut up and enjoy. So I did. More than I ever have before. And, more significantly I think, with greater ease than ever. Because this isn't the first time I've liked Renée. But in the past it was something of a grand mission, where I tried to teach myself to love her. It worked for a time but didn't stick. I've gone back and forth and back and forth. And because it's been so tempestuous I'm hesitant even now to declare anything just yet. Still, it's different this time somehow: effortless, spontaneous, involuntary. Sitting down to her various recital discs determined to understand why her adorers loved her so dearly, I never quite got there; approaching Rodelinda with skepticism and a little dread, she took me quite beautifully by surprise.

Will it last. Non lo so. But since the broadcast (admittedly only a day and half) there's a new feeling, a sort of a craving for her voice. I don't remember this in the past. Craving is perhaps a little strong. Just, instead of feeling a duty to listen to her, or worse, a desire not to listen to her, I think of Renée and think — yes please. Back when I was making such a deliberate concentrated effort to figure her out, a wonderful woman sent me a "care package" full of Renée CDs. Right now I'm more grateful than ever to have them. I'm sitting here listening to the one simply titled Renée Fleming and for the first time I'm actually excited about it. No need to convince myself, it's just there. I don't want to push this too hard for fear it will all fall apart. I'm wary still of the Handel CD. But perhaps it's all in the mind: forget my trepidation and I'll be free to enjoy it all as much as I like. After all there was a time when I sat at the computer and typed paragraphs of praise for that very CD.

But now's not the time to be hasty. Are you enjoying watching me vacillate in real time? We just had "Je veux vivre" and oh I like this woman so much. And in "Io sono l'umile ancella", the tenderness in her voice as she reached the words "la mia voce" was just beautiful. Even at the height of my previous, slightly forced pro-Renée phase, when I was declaring myself a fan and spending all my money on the right CDs and DVDs, I was never so spontaneously thrilled by her as I am now. I really do hope this endures — and that I haven't just jinxed it by saying so. Oh, however it turns out, I'll just do my best to enjoy the moment. At this point I'd far rather be someone who likes Renée Fleming than someone who doesn't. It's a much nicer feeling.

And now, where was I? Rodelinda. There are other people in it apparently. Actually I did notice this. Andreas Scholl! The only singer I've heard on a Met broadcast whom I can claim to have met. (Except for Grace Bumbry but that happened out of order.) I never actually wrote anything here about his recital which I saw in Sydney but it was spellbindingly beautiful. Likewise as Bertarido he was gorgeous as can be. I had the same feeling here as listening to his CD of arias for Senesino: that he's excellent everywhere but at his best in the slow and floaty arias than the coloratura filled warrior-like ones, a lover rather than a fighter. Nothing wrong with that. Stephanie Blythe was fiery and fantastic. Kobie van Rensburg was commanding and quite appealing really but seemed at times a little undone by all the coloratura; John Relyea's Garibaldo a touch too blustery for my tastes. Christophe Dumaux sounded like a girl. Now obviously there's nothing wrong with sounding like a girl but in this case he didn't sound like a particularly engaging one. Whereas Andreas was much prettier and still sounded like a man. As for Renée's Rodelinda, she was expressive and exciting and beautiful. I never expected I'd be writing that but it seems I have. And all the stuff I did expect, all the difficulties I've had with her Handel, all the issues I was anticipating: all of it was there. So I can't explain my unexpected reaction. But who needs explanations anyway? I have some Renée Fleming to go and listen to. (Bel Canto, if you're interested. Fabulous stuff, and I love the ornamentation for "Ah, non giunge".)

Lucia lucente

If just once in the two years (and four months) I've been writing this blog, you've found even one second of pleasure, it is to Lucia Popp that your gratitude is ultimately due. Lucia is my operatic mother; if there had been no her, there would be no me, or at least no me the opera devotee. So it's not just your gratitude (if you feel any) that's due to her, but mine as well.

And with all of that already set in stone, last night I experienced her at the absolute top of her game, almost too exquisite to be believed: and I say almost because when it's Lucia we're dealing with, no level of excellence can truly surprise. The performance in question is her Susanna, in a 1980 Le nozze di Figaro filmed in Paris and evidently released in Japan. Lucia recorded Susanna a couple of years later and that performance is itself gorgeous enough; but the atmosphere of a live performance, and the opportunity to see and not just hear, add a million layers of loveliness. Sweet and sparkling, but strong-minded and canny as well, her Susanna is effortlessly the heart of the opera, and could remain so with just a fraction of the stage-time. Naturally it goes without saying that she her singing is straight from heaven, so terribly beautiful that she'd break your heart, were she not so busy swelling it with love and joy. Unsurpringly, her "Deh vieni" is quite literally a show-stopper.

Though not, it has to be said, the only one. Though in my eyes the brightest, Lucia is not the only star in this production. José van Dam is her rather wonderful Figaro, possessed of a kind of careless elegance which has him at times a more naturally noble figure than the Count himself. No peasant servant he, and his warm and graceful way with both text and music is a joy to behold. Cherubino is Frederica von Stade — what more can I say? She's all one could ask and more besides, adorable and shy and, oh yes, vocally magnificent. The applause and shouts for both her arias is near deafening and must add a good few minutes to the running time. Gabriel Bacquier makes a (mostly) amiable kind of lecher as Almaviva and Kurt Moll is at his growly teddy-bear best as Bartolo. And just when you think Act I has been so full of brilliance there can't be anything left in the magic bag: along comes Act II and with it, the sublime Contessa of Gundula Janowitz, serene and regal but with a twinkle in her eye that recalls her days in Seville. Audience reaction to her "Dove sono" is so passionate and so prolonged she's obliged to return and bow not once but twice before the opera can continue. She's heartbreakingly beautiful in the serious moments and a charming comedienne as well — I think she won me over for good when she rushed to let her suspicious husband into her room, humming to herself in a hilarious attempt to feign nonchalance. Adorable isn't a word I necessarily immediately associate with Contessa Almaviva but in this case it's the right one.

The rest were excellent too. However, this DVD came from House of Opera and only those principals I've named are credited on the label. So the identities Marcellina, Barbarina, Don Curzio and Antonio remain a mystery to me: but they were all very good indeed. Truly a delight from top to bottom. And you know, though I'm grateful she's surrounded by such a worthy and dreamy cast, Lucia as Susanna would have been more than enough on her own. This must surely rank among her best performances; certainly it's one of the best I've experienced, on a level with her to-die-for Sophie. She's really just irresistably gorgeous. I adore Lucia unconditionally and, thank god, she's been in my life basically since I was born, so that I've never had to go to the trouble of discovering her. But if I had to discover her now, I'd say this Susanna would be a brilliant way of doing so.

Voilà la chanson gentille

Oh Natalie, Natalie, Natalie.

There was a time, a while after the first flush had calmed itself a little, that I feared perhaps I'd got a bit over-excited in the heat of the moment. Indeed, search my archives for "dessay" and you'll find that between August 2005 and March 2006, she makes not one solitary appearance. Shameful. Which is not too say I abandoned her entirely in that period: but obsessions wax and wane and a soprano can fade into the background. But Natalie could never fade away too much — she's Natalie Dessay after all. Some time ago I managed to pick up, at a more than reasonable price, the CD which constituted my first encounter with Natalie, the second of her two French Arias discs. As I think I mentioned in the meme the other day, you haven't lived until you've heard her sing "Vive amour qui rêve" from Massenet's Chérubin. Or for that matter another of the Massenet selections, "Rire toujours", an alternative to Manon's Gavotte. I'm pleased to hear of her "Ah non credea mirarti" at Joseph Volpe's farewell gala. This is an aria with a special place in my heart, simply because it chanced to be one of the first arias I ever really really knew. It was also more less my introduction to the world of bel canto.

All of this is really just a lengthy segue into a you must see this immediately link. To this video chez YouTube. We already know that the best thing about YouTube is its capacity for providing devastatingly gorgeous video footage of Natalie Dessay in action. This one, of Natalie as Offenbach's Olympia, I stumbled across only today. She is mesmerising. And that final note!

Speaking of Natalie Dessay: Renée Fleming. I listened to highlights from the William Christie/Les Arts Florissants Alcina the other night, for the first time in quite a while. Natalie of course is a dazzling delight. Renée in Handel is somewhat less of a guaranteed joy but here she's truly ravishing, surprisingly stylish and, particularly in "Si, son quella" truly touching. Perhaps she ought to have had William Christie in charge of her own recording of Handel arias, which, though it has its moments of chocolatey goodness, isn't nearly so lovely. As for the Rodelinda broadcast on Sunday, well, we shall see. It's mostly morbid curiosity, given the reviews I read from bloggers whom I trust implicitly; but I'm also looking forward to hearing the Bertarido of Andreas Scholl whose recital in Sydney in February was so terribly beautiful. Though whether any two people on the planet can out-do the "Io t'abbraccio" of Joyce DiDonato and Patrizia Ciofi, I sincerely doubt.

Lohengrin

The thing is that I almost feel like Wagner is beyond the scope of this blog, because the experience is so different from all my other opera listening, and because I doubt the ability of words — my words especially — to articulate it. Which is not to say I don't find equally ecstatic experiences in other music — but they're differently ecstatic. The darkened room and the headphones and the high volume probably help of course. But then, during last year's broadcast season, I listened to quite a few that way and nothing else transported me the way the Wagner did. And I don't just mean transports of delight; I mean a near physical sense of having been transported elsewhere for the duration. In other broadcasts I may sometimes have felt I'd been taken to the world of the theatre, of the performance. Here though it's the world of the opera — wherever that is — that I've ended up in, and no amount of Met quizzes, roundtables or interjections from Margaret "brought to you today by the letter R" Juntwait can really interfere with that trip. What is it in this music? Discuss ad nauseum all of Richard Wagner's nasty ideas and repellent personality but the truth, as I see it, is that as awful as he may have been (and certainly he was awful) he nevertheless had to be precisely the person he was in order to write precisely the music he did. It's not even about the beauty of the music compensating for whatever defects elsewhere — the music is independent of all the muck, of all the warts-and-all of biography: a transcendent, glorious and necessary creation.

Somewhere along the line I did manage to notice that René  Pape is everything everyone says he is, that Luana DeVol is the best kind of frightening, that Karita Mattila is pretty much the best kind of everything. This aren't incidental details: even in the throes of Wagner, fantastic singing matters greatly to me. But even if the singing had been in every way unremarkable, I daresay I'd still be here saying all that I've said. That's just the way it is: casts change, but as along as the music is treated with a decent degree of respect, Wagner remains Wagner.

Can I be called a devotee? I'm not sure. Reading what I've just written I certainly sound like one. But I don't act like one at all. One Tannhäuser, one Walküre and this Lohengrin — that's all the Wagner in my life so far. All of them Met broadcasts: I've never bought a single recording and I've never seen one staged, either on film or in person. Proper Wagnerians devote their lives, or a sizeable portion thereof, to the music, to absorbing it and knowing it. I don't do any of that; I can't even claim to have made the effort. But then there's joy, too, in approaching each opera more or less uninitiated. The way the music sweeps me up is not a surprise but it is, at least, a pleasantly rare delight. And because I don't spend my life, or anything close to it, submerged in the stuff, I can react to it like this, think about it the way that I do. I love Mozart just as deeply — much more in fact — but Mozart is an essential part of my life, almost a given. Wagner is an occasional, mind-altering trip away from life. My devotion mightn't be full-time or life-encompassing, but in the moment of listening it is complete. I think that probably counts for something.

I just wish these operas didn't fly by so damned quickly. Don Pasquale the week before last dragged; Figaro was marvellous but seemed to go on all day. Lohengrin seemed to exist apart from time. I remember feeling the same way at the end of Die Walküre: that if they offered me another four-and-a-half hours immediately afterwards, I'd take them up on it without hesitation.

PS: I seem to have timed this to coincide with Wagner's birthday. How nice.

La meme chose

This meme is the latest one doing the rounds and though I've not been tagged I thought I'd just be presumptuous and do it anyway. It's rather a broad one but I've avoided all the deep and meaningful possibilities and kept it nice 'n' musical.

• I am counting down sleeps until Fedora. (Twenty-seven!)
• I am not happy about the deterioration of Parterre's comment boards into a forum for vitriole, vicious personal attacks and verbal diarrhoea.
• I want far more CDs than I can possibly afford, starting with recent releases by three French sopranos with an infuriating ability to record precisely what I want to hear them sing. (Natalie in Handel, Véronique in French baroque, Sandrine in Vivaldi.)
• I wish I'd been old enough to appreciate what was going on when I saw Marilyn Horne in recital. Marilyn Horne!
• I hate seeing classical singers' voices described (and dismissed) as "artificial".
• I love Yvonne Kenny's voice more than I could ever have foreseen.
• I miss Trrill the way it used to be.
• I fear Natalie Choquette. Please make her stop.
• I hear Patricia Wright singing "Lua descolorida", one of Osvaldo Golijov's Three Songs for soprano and orchestra. Both singer and song are head-spinningly beautiful and I am beyond priviliged to own this on CD. And to have heard her perform it live. *Swoon*.
• I wonder why on earth the DVD of Cecilia's "Live In Italy" recital, released seven years ago, was only this week reviewed in the NZ Listener. Or why somebody felt the need to title the whole section (which also includes reviews of Ayre and a new release by The New Zealand Trio) "Carmen electric".
• I regret not having seen anything at the Met during the three days I spent in New York.
• I dance along to the finale of this production of Rameau's Les indes galantes.
• I sing worse than abysmally.
• I cry listening to Yvonne sing Edwige in Offenbach's Robinson Crusoe, and since the whole thing is adorably silly I'm not entirely sure why. So as you might imagine...
• I am not always emotionally equipped to listen to her stunning and gut-wrenching recording of Gorecki's Third Symphony.
• I make with my hands sounds barely recognisable as music when I play the piano.
• I write this blog because if I couldn't somehow express my love for all this incredible music I'd surely go mad — and a blog seems a (marginally) more sane outlet than approaching strangers in the street to explain the wonders of Natalie Dessay's "Vive amour qui rêve".
• I confuse Marilyn Richardson with Marilyn Hill Smith.
• I need a halfway decent stereo system to do justice to all the beautiful recordings I own.
• I should address the gender imbalance in my CD collection. (But won't.)
• I start to go round the bend if I spend too long at Parsons in Wellington. The combination of their extensive selection of operatic CDs and DVDs with their slightly nasty prices and lack of air conditioning is not exactly conducive to sensible and considered shopping. So I tend to leave dazed, thirsty and desperately poor.
• I finish, or try to finish, 99% of the posts I write in one sitting — saving drafts gives me too much time to consider (and re-consider) what I've written and I tend to delete them before they see the light of day.
• I tag anyone who feels the urge.

Ah, la mia lista...

Time again for the Regent Theatre's annual 24 hour secondhand book sale. In the past I've hung around until late at night but I guess I must be getting old: I swooped in this afternoon, picked up a healthy stack of records, and departed while it was still daylight. This year's haul (the best yet):

Leontyne Price: Prima Donna. Volume 3. "Great Soprano Arias from Gluck to Poulenc". The latter name was the hook for me, though I bought this as much as anything else for the fabulous mock-Mucha cover art.

Anna Russell Sings?; Anna Russell Sings! Again?; Anna Russell in Darkest Africa. I love Anna Russell. Most of the contents of  these records I've heard before, but haven't owned till now. I have a semi-signed copy of her autobiography somewhere too.

Mirella Freni: Recital - Puccini & Verdi. Can you believe until now I haven't owned a single solo recording by Mirella?

Roberta Peters: Famous Operatic Arias. Just for you, Michael.

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf in Songs You Love. Because it's Elisabeth. And because several of them are Songs I Love.

Operatic Recital by Eileen Farrell. I love Eileen's Puccini LP which I bought a couple of sales ago; when I saw that this one included "Adieu, forêts" I was sold.

Kirsten Flagstad: Bach & Handel Recital. This is not repertoire I immediately associate with Kirsten Flagstad, whom I've liked a lot in the little I've heard of her — I'm intrigued. Especially by the prospect of her Semele in "O sleep".

Grace Bumbry singt Grosse Arien der Internationalen Oper. There's nothing here which isn't in the pink boxed set but I just wanted this one for its adorable cover, Gracie in her pearls looking ready for church.

Janet Baker & Gerald Moore : A Pageant of English Son 1597 - 1961. You just know it's going to be good.

Berganza Sings Rossini. Ditto.

Milanov: Operatic Arias. I've never actually heard a single note of Zinka Milanov so I thought it was about time I stopped feeling ashamed and did something about that.

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Sings Mozart Operatic Arias. I ended up with two copies of this in the pile and in the end chose the one with the prettier cover. (You might have noticed a recurring theme here.)

Gladys Swarthout: Chausson's Poeme de l'amour et de la mer & A French Song Recital. Everything else I selected based on artist, but this one I bought on account of the Chausson. I love Jessye's recording of it so I'm interested to hear another. And the French Song Recital includes a few Poulenc songs, always a bonus.

Régine Crespin: Italian Operatic Arias. Available on CD, one of those I've picked up and put back a dozen times. A 50c LP is rather easier to say yes to.

Kiri in Concert. Kiri recorded live in New Zealand and Australia, 1965-66. There are excerpts here from a couple of farewell concerts and from her performances at the Mobil Song Quest and the Sun Aria Contest, both of which she won of course. The notes on the back include these marvellous words: "Kiri, now studying at the London Opera Centre, is from all accounts making excellent progress, and informed observers consider she has great potential in the field of opera." You think?

When in the world will I ever find the time to listen to all of these?

Mozart et al at Marama Hall

Before Wednesday's lunchtime concert I'd never ever heard of Jan Ladislav Dussek. Having now heard two of his works for piano, well, that doesn't much surprise me. We heard "Vive Henri-Quatre" ("A setting of the old Bourbon Hymn of Royalist France") and then the very odd "The Sufferings of the Queen of France" ("A Musical Composition, expressing the feelings of the unfortunate Marie Antoinette, during her imprisonment, trial, etc.") This second piece even came with a narrator, introducing the piece's innumerable sections: "She reflects on her former grandeur", "She is separated from her children" and so on. It's a worry when one spends the duration of the piece wondering why anyone felt the need to compose the thing. Don't read this as a comment on the standard of playing, on which I'm wholly unqualified to speak but which no doubt was excellent. But honestly. It reminded me somewhat of a project we had to do in third form: write a short story and then, using the music department's flashy new electronic keyboards, "compose" a soundtrack to it. 25 musically illiterate thirteen year olds playing with sound effects and being accidentally atonal. Obviously Dussek is at a somewhat higher standard than this but still this was an altogether strange and strangely pointless piece of music to which I've devoted far too many words. Making matters worse (and better), the Dussek was followed immediately by Pascal Harris and Terence Dennis with the Andante from Mozart's Sonata for 2 Pianos in D major, K.448, glowingly beautiful. Oh right, that's what real music sounds like.

Enough piano! There was singing too. More Mozart: a nifty "Vedrò mentr'io sospiro" from Michael Gray. For some reason, though I'm an incorrigible sopranophile, every time I hear Figaro it's this damned aria which runs through my head for days afterwards. No sooner had it begun to fade after Sunday's Met broadcast than along comes Michael to revive it. Not that I mind of course. Following this, some very nice Mahler courtesy of Nicole Evans: "Scheiden und Meiden" and a very cute "Hans und Grete". And then Claire.

Claire! I get rather boring and repetitive about Claire Barton, but it can't be helped. Every time this woman sings I adore her voice more and more, so that she's no longer just my favourite among the voice students, or my favourite Dunedin singer, but truly one of my favourite singers anywhere. Hers is a voice which not only fills the hall but seems somehow to illuminate it too, a voice which I feel as well as hear. The tired old cliché about singing the phone book applies here: Claire wouldn't just make it beautiful, she could probably make it hilarious as well. Her "Ich lade gern mir Gäste ein" was a delight, the duet from Salieri's Falstaff ("La stessa, la stessissima" except in English) as lovely as ever, but most wonderful of all was her Marcellina in "Via resta servita". That duet is one my favourite things, and usually I'm on Susanna's side — but not this time. Glorious sound, spot-on characterisation. Fiona Henry was her partner for both duets, singing prettily but with no real distinction in colour or manner between her Alice Ford and her Susanna. Claire on the other hand moved easily from Russian prince to Merry Wife of Windsor to scheming spinster, three distinct characters brought deftly and beautifully to life. An absolute triumph.

Le nozze di Figaro

I have had my heart broken a hundred times over by Countess Almaviva, fallen head over heels for Susanna, been bewitched by Cherubino, charmed by Figaro and occasionally even a little bit swayed by the Count. But right now the most beautiful moment of all for me in Le nozze di Figaro, the moment which makes me love Mozart the best, is not one of the arias on everyone's Mozart Arias recital disc, not one of the famed ensembles, not even the impossibly gorgeous way he blends two soprano voices in "Sull'aria". Instead it's an aria which is barely an aria, which gets cut off before it's properly finished, which moves the plot along somewhat but carries no great emotional weight: Barbarina's "L'ho perduta". I adore it. A teenaged girl stressing because she's lost a pin and doesn't want her cousin to yell at her. It doesn't require an aria at all, really — let alone one so full of moonlight and so exquisite I wish it would never end. Except that part of its beauty is that it does disappear again so quickly, gone almost before you've grasped how gorgeous it is. In an opera which is already a miracle, Mozart can do this, throw in something extra which you mighn't have expected but now wouldn't be without — how could there be a world without this aria, or a world without Figaro?

All this has been brought on by this afternoon's Met broadcast. I drifted in and out somewhat, but then with Figaro, I can. Like Virginia Woolf's Orlando, I've been through it so many times I can enter at any point, know where I am and be endlessly happy to be there. There are maybe only half a dozen operas which, without libretto in hand, I can follow line for line, but Figaro for the most part is one of them. Strangely enough I owe that in part to the Opera in English venture. Having listed to Acts II to IV (guess why) of their Figaro numerous times, the gaps in my Italian are filled by the Chandos translations — and even if they're inexact, or inelegant, or stupid, they work as a kind of aural surtitle and I always know what's going on. As much as one ever can in Figaro: there are still subtleties of letters and pavilions that I'm sure I haven't yet wrapped my mind around.

A nice performance if not the most incredible: of course this opera has more competition among my collection than any other except perhaps Die Fledermaus. Soile Isokoski's Contessa impressed me a whole lot more once I cranked up the volume; Andrea Rost was a little too clipped and chirpy a Susanna for me but sweet enough. Peter Mattei as the Count I thought was fantastic. John Relyea's Figaro left less of an impression of me than I expected but that's likely my fault rather than his. Alice Coote was a wonderful Cherubino, especially once I realised that she wasn't Joyce DiDonato and could stop wondering why, though I'm still obsessed with Joyce and Patrizia Ciofi's Amor e gelosia, she didn't sound familiar. (Speaking of Joyce DiDonato, may I just say: if the Met wants a Handel opera as a star vehicle it should forget this Renée Fleming Rodelinda thing and build something fabulous around the far worthier Joyce instead. Preferably with Patrizia Ciofi as love interest. Told you I was obsessed.)

Next week, of course, is Lohengrin which I'm very much looking forward to. Met broadcasts are the only time I listen to Wagner apparently: this, after Tannhäuser and Die Walküre last year, will be my third. But despite the lack of experience I love it wholeheartedly, if love is the right word. People go on about the length of Wagner operas and "all that shouting". The former I've not yet felt, the latter I've not yet heard. Lohengrin ought to be magnificent.

...glaub' ich blind zu sein

When I thought that, post-Falstaff, I wouldn't see my diva live again until A Touch of Venus in August, I realised that counting down the days to that would be rather too depressing and decided to break it up by thinking in terms not just of the performance I'd see, but those  I wouldn't see. Indeed, the bizarre mental goings-on of a devotee. Of course I found a far more effective way to cut down on the waiting time: taking myself to Fedora in London in between. But today one of those other dates marked in my mind as milestones has arrived: Yvonne performs A Touch of Venus at the Wigmore Hall at 4pm.

Naturally I'm beyond green with jealousy that London sees this before I do. After discovering by accident that Wigmore Hall had published the programme on its website, I determined not to read it. And kept that up for a month or too and then succumbed. What a programme. Again I can't help but congratulate myself that, having chosen (been chosen by?) a favourite soprano on the basis of a Hanna Glawari and a Handel arias disc, I now discover that she just happens to be among the classiest, most versatile and most devastatingly intelligent performers the world has to offer. Must have been some kind of sixth soprano sense. How could I fail to adore a soprano who not only includes a Victoria Wood song in her recital, but follows it with Handel? And this only one of innumerable delights on the programme. Tom Lehrer's "Masochism Tango".  Purcell's "I attempt from love's sickness". Hahn's "A Chloris" which, even in the hands of a tenor I can't get through dry-eyed. "Lorelei": not Schubert ("Ich weiss nicht, was soll es bedeuten"), but Gershwin (" I want to bite my initials on a sailor's neck").

And more besides. Listen (that's an order) to Wednesday's In Tune on BBC Radio 3. I thought I'd heard "Seit ich ihn gesehen" before and feel now as if this was the first time. There's the warm glow of "All the things you are", so gorgeous on Make Believe I didn't imagine it could be better.  (It can). And the title song, Kurt Weill's "One Touch of Venus". One can only love a song which rhymes "women" with "persimmon".

Gush, gush, gush. I know. But what can I say? I take such extraordinary delight in simply contemplating this recital that the fact that I'll actually experience in in August seems almost icing on the cake. Not that that's really true; it might feel that way now, but if there were no Australian tour, if London and London only saw this recital — I'd be very unhappy. However that, thank god, is not the case, and so all that's left is to wait. Patience is not always my strong point: but with so assuredly glorious a reward at the end, it's definitely manageable.

Don Pasquale

Not much to say. I basically enjoyed Anna Netrebko's Gilda on the broadcast of Rigoletto. Having read all manner of criticism of her Norina I decided I'd go in with a good attitude rather than bad, determined to like her despite it all. But no. Too dark and heavy, too over the top. I'm still undecided over the voice generally. For the most part, though — and this includes today's Don Pasquale — I do like the sound she makes. Just, I didn't like it in light, frothy Donizetti. I used not to like it at all, and I'm glad that's changed but why oh why this leaden Norina? Beautiful Juan Diego Florez, straight from heaven: you deserve a far lovelier bride. Every moment Ernesto was making any sort of sound, all was well. If only he had more sound to make in this opera. You know me: it's not often I wish away an opera's only soprano but this afternoon I could have done without. I can't hear Beverly Sills' "Quel guardo" without grinning like an idiot; this afternoon I was very nearly scowling. Il Barbiere is a boy-heavy opera and that can frustrate me slightly; no such problems here, with such a mellifluous male line-up, even apart from the sublime JDF. Interesting preparation, this: I've not heard Don Pasquale before (shameful given that I own a studio recording with the incomparable Lucia in the title role) but it's a-comin' to Dunedin in August, a touring NZ Opera production. Conal Coad sings the title role and directs, an infinitely promising prospect given his fantastic Leporello last year; Norina is sung by the cutely rhyming Lorina Gore. At least I can stop rolling my eyes at the prospect of Donizetti comedy (though I'd still far rather something much meatier) — I know now there's plenty to interest me musically in this opera, as long as I don't go crazy listening to it a million times beforehand. Nasty little plot though. Ma che importa?