Prima la musica, poi le parole

I mistrust popularity pretty much automatically. Bandwagons don't appeal. Even when, despite excessive hype, they're bandwagons worth hopping aboard. Harry Potter, Gillian Welch, Magdalena Kozena and — perhaps most notably — Natalie Dessay were all parties I was both late and reluctant to join. But once I got there, and got over myself and my silly biases, I had an absolutely wonderful time and even fell in love, or at least in deep like.

It has happened again and it's all terribly predictable. I have found — excuse the delay — Diana Damrau. Welcome! choruses the rest of the world. I'm late, but at least I'm here. Now that I've heard her, it's patently obvious she was the next logical step in my adventures among contemporary sopranos. If you love, as I do, Natalie, Sandrine Piau and Carolyn Sampson, you love Diana.

Her Arie di bravura is a programme of showpieces by Mozart, Salieri and Righini. She's terrifying. I mean that as a totally bowled over compliment. I don't know when I've heard so many notes in so little time. She takes "Parto, m'affretto" at an even more rattling pace than Sandrine, which really, if you think about it, shouldn't be possible. I mean, who in the world hears that, and thinks — oh, it's a bit slow, let's do it faster. Yet it works. It's fabulous. There's probably a better word. (I checked. Diana's is 56 seconds shorter. Madness.)

Salieri is Salieri, run after run after run. In the liner notes, she mentions that the idea for the CD came to her as early as 1998. This perhaps translates as: I'm not copying Cecilia, honest I'm not! They did share a musicologist of course, the one and only Claudio Osele. However there's zero overlap in their respective programmes, not to mention entirely different approaches to the repertoire. Righini is, well, Righini I suppose, not that that actually means anything, since I'd never heard of him until this CD. The two arias from his Il natal d'Apollo are sort of pretty and kooky, not so much of the fiercely florid writing.

These lesser known contemporaries of Mozart are all very well, and it's nice to hear something different, but still, all they really do is point out once again why Mozart is Mozart and they are not. Coloratura for me is like calorie-free candy and I will eat it up endlessly, so I love all the virtuosity and fireworks of the other two; but they fade away a bit once she launches into the Queen of the Night's two arias. Dio mio, no wonder she's lauded so incessantly as the Queen of the Night of her generation. "O zittre nicht" actually brought a tear to my eye; "Der Hölle Rache" caused me to swear at one point, and then I just wanted to run away and hide before the bad lady killed me. Again, this is all praise. And while I have nothing but the greatest, most undying love for my Natalie (you might have noticed), having a native German speaker in this role really does make quite a big difference.

So as always, having overcome my irrational aversion, the unanimously praised Diana Damrau turns out to deserve all her hype. And also turns out to be just my kind of singer. This is good news; the more the merrier.

Elsewhere

Bits and pieces from around the place that need sharing. Nothing blazingly new, so you might have already seen/heard/read it all, but if not, voilà.

• Lord knows I have raved enough about Cheryl Barker here, but rarely have I been able to offer any evidence of her fabulousness to those who haven't had the good fortune to experience her. So now, for any who might have doubted the truth of my words — Musica Viva has posted a short excerpt from her Butterfly for Opera Australia. Watch it and tell me she's not beautiful. Go on, I dare you. Me, I can watch it five times in a row and my knees go weak every time. One week until Arabella opens!
• The link to this video was posted to the Opera Australia Facebook group (the one whose moderator hates this blog was once quite unkind about this blog but evidently [see comments] does not, in fact, hate it). Comedian Rainer Hersch provides surtitles for Carmen. Very clever and very funny.
• Surely anyone who reads this blog must also read the blog of Glorious Joyce DiDonato, where she writes beautifully and posts gorgeous photos. But just in case, a couple of recent favourites of mine that you need to see: I absolutely love this photo (and covet that dress); and I just have to share this admirable sentiment.
• A commenter has pointed out this site, dedicated to Kathleen Battle. It's not an official site, but all the important information is there. It is so nice to see something current, and even nicer to see that my adored Kathy is still performing. I hope her Carnegie Hall recital is wonderful. Her Baroque Duet is on my iPod and it's all I can do not to burst into tears on the ferry to work.
• Vivat Kiri. She's already been taken out of context and vilified, and will no doubt continue to be. But I'm with her all the way. See Ross Browne's comment at the top of this page.
• And of course, since this is one of those posts, the obligatory NatalieTube link: an interview with Laurent Ruquier. If she told me to jump off a bridge, I might just do it; I'm totally under this woman's spell. Oh, and this too. Natalie sings Poulenc! (audio only)
  

Travesties

People want to know what they're listening to, the why and wherefore of it. Audience development and education are positive things. I won't dispute that. So to pre-performance talks, I say a hearty yes. But talks during the performance? Must we? I support pre-performance talks, but I've never been to one. I know what I want to know (and what I don't want to know) about the music I'm about to hear, and I go in search of it myself if necessary. That works for me. It doesn't work for other people, and that's fine. However, assuming there are others in the world like me (and I concede that this can't necessarily be assumed...), making the talk part and parcel of the concert seems to me ever so slightly unfair, not to mention a bit of a moodkiller.

I've been at a concert by Andreas Scholl and the Brandenburg Orchestra. He's gorgeous, the orchestra is totally fantastic and their director Paul Dyer is one of my very favourite Australian musicians. Paul tends to introduce the concerts, and that part I love. In fact, if he wanted to provide commentary throughout, I dare say I'd be happy with that. However, what this concert presented (along with a few baroque concerti and a new setting of the Stabat Mater by Marco Rosano) was a selection of arias for Senesino, interpersed with commentary on the life and career of Senesino and castrati in general.  The speaker, musicologist Alan Maddox, is charming, intelligent and articulate. I'm sure he could give a fascinating pre-concert talk. But in the midst of Handelian fabulousness I was not in the mood for Britney Spears jokes or assurances of Andreas Scholl's, shall we say, anatomical completeness. Frankly, I was not even in the mood for informed analysis or fascinating historical fact. I just wanted to listen to the damn music.

Besides which, for all his appeal and obviously vast knowledge, Maddox — probably unwittingly — did a pretty good job of perpetuating all the fallacies, half-truths, myths and misconceptions which exist about castrati, countertenors and who can and should sing what.

Am I alone in objecting to the use of the word "falsetto" in explaining the countertenor voice? Whether it's meant to or not, it implies artificiality. Which as far as I'm concerned is not the case. Years ago, I used to think that it was; I've since found evidence only to the contrary. You cannot (or at least, I cannot) listen to a singer like Philippe Jaroussky, or Michael Chance, or Graham Pushee, or Scholl himself, and think that there's anything fake or artificial about it. An artificially produced voice surely would not have the resonance, expressive capacity or longevity of these and other voices. I suspect the word is used to give a broadly understood impression of the sound itself, rather than of its method of production — but the connotation remains.

Then there's this idea that the act of castration somehow produced or guaranteed the extraordinary voice. It didn't, of course, and I'm sure Alan Maddox knows this; but conversations I've overheard and read and even participated on the edges of suggest that many people don't, and his words on the subject did nothing to correct them. Castration, as I understand, was performed almost on the off-chance. If the boy proved to be a magnificent singer, castration ensured a continued career in the treble register. If he didn't, too bad — and for many boys, the latter fate proved true.

I take issue, too, with his suggestion that, among the three options for modern day casting, both tenor/bass transpositions and mezzo sopranos fail to provide satisfactory "sound quality". It's true they can't come near the fabled castrato sound, but countertenors themselves would point out to you that they can't either. They're both men singing in the soprano register, but the production and "sound quality" (as Maddox himself pointed out elsewhere) are quite different. There are various arguments for casting a countertenor in a castrato role, but I don't believe the "sound quality" one really stands up.

And neither, if it comes to that, does the "believability" argument. I cannot agree with Alan Maddox that a mezzo soprano or contralto singing the role en travesti necessarily lacks the correct stage presence. I have seen women in those roles who were far more persuasive than some of their male counterparts. Sarah Connolly's Xerxes and Cesare are both of them extraordinary; Ashley Putnam is a totally boyish Sifare; Bernadette Manca di Nissa has all the swagger you could ask for as Tancredi. It is not all about having the right facial hair or body parts, or a John Wayne walk. Acting and so-called believability have to do with a penetrating, insightful portrayal which gets to the heart of the character and makes that character live. Being A Man does not necessarily make one the perfect choice for every male role. If we want the part beautifully acted as well as beautifully sung, it should go to the person best able to act it within the pool of those qualified to sing it — in Verdi, Puccini, Wagner et al we are usually confined to one fach and one gender. In the baroque repertoire we have a far more varied and fascinating array from which to choose, so let us take advantage.

Don't misunderstand me. I have no quarrel with Alan Maddox himself, nor do I doubt his knowledge or passion. I wouldn't dare. I hope the above doesn't read as a tirade against him, because it isn't. I was in no state of mind to enjoy his commentary tonight, but it obviously appealed to many, and while I am absolutely and unabashedly an elitist (in a positive sense), I bow to the majority. However, his comments and the response to them have reminded me of issues over which I've been stewing for quite some time. Wherever there's a countertenor, or a castrato role, I hear and/or read the same comments; the same troubling, misguided or downright irritating ideas held by some (possibly many) on all these related subjects.

This isn't a manifesto or a declaration of war. Just a plea for fairness, truth, informed opinions and openness to beauty in its infinite variety, really. Not much to ask, is it?

PS: Happy Mardi Gras, Sydney.
 

Birth opera

The moment of this meme has passed, perhaps, but I'm participating just the same. Except that apparently September 22nd, 1984 was not a bountiful day, opera-wise. Tried the Met archive — nothing. The Salzburg Festival had shut up shop by then too. The San Francisco Opera was my last hope and, thankfully, it delivers.

With this:

Which is not too shabby, I suppose, though I'm not sure it suggests anything particularly significant regarding my operatic self. All I know of Ernani is "Ernani, Ernani involami". But at least it's a pretty illustrious kind of cast; and was supposed to be even more so — a note on the cast page indicates that Nunzio Todisco was a late replacement for Luciano Pavarotti. There's a problem, however. I was not born in San Francisco. I was born in Dunedin, New Zealand, and when it was September the 22nd there, it was still September 21st in San Francisco. So my real birth opera is in fact:

Now this is a little more meaningful. Frederica von Stade was among the first opera singers I'd ever heard of, on account of her outstanding collaboration with Garrison Keillor on Songs of the Cat. And Amina's "Ah, non credea mirarti" was one of the few arias I became familiar with before I was an opera fanatic — Ana James sang it at the 2002 Lexus Song Quest finals, and I liked it enough to download the sheet music and play it badly on the piano, a change from my usual diet of easy classics and the Great American Songbook. Both Frederica and Samuel Ramey appear on the Solti Figaro which was my introduction both to Figaro and to the concept of familiarising oneself with an opera. These days, of course, I run a mile from Samuel Ramey and his world's widest wobble. And Dennis O'Neill is someone I've seen live a couple of times recently, as part of a gala concert and then as Luigi in Il Tabarro. He also sings Otello for OA this year, which I confess I have difficulty visualising, but no doubt he'll sound pretty good.

So, all in all, not a bad birth opera. I'd have preferred a Rosenkavalier or an Alcina, perhaps. But at least it wasn't La bohème.

Antoinette Halloran Appreciation Society

Le dirò con due parole:

Antoinette Matters.

Perhaps a few more words. I didn't mean to be a sappy cliché, I just wanted to see Antoinette's Mimi as soon as possible, so I booked for the next performance, which happened to be Valentine's Day. Even worse, I cried. But that wasn't the opera. It was Antoinette. She sang her first note through the door and — this is not artistic license — my jaw actually dropped. And I was a tearstained mess. I had crazily high expectations for her but evidently they weren't high enough. I don't know what else to say. She was incredible. How anyone could tear their eyes or ears from her I don't know, I certainly couldn't. Her "Si, mi chiamano Mimi" had me totally entranced. Early on, I thought — I want to get in as quick as I can with the rapturous applause once she's done. But by the time she finished I was hanging on her every note, oblivious to the world around, and it took somebody else's in-quick applause to bring me back to reality. That aria does not do that to me. I've seen three casts in this production and she's one of the few singers who have remembered that it's a contemporary setting and thus moved and behaved accordingly. No out of place nineteenth century gestures. And the woman can sing. She was sublime. This voice was as much a physical experience as an aural one, it enveloped me, saturated me. I'll remember this. Halfway through her aria, I had the terrifying thought that I might actually have to see it a third time. Were it cheaper, I probably would. I might anyway.

Except for a couple of drawbacks. One, it's Bohème, and I still don't like it. Two, Creepiest Rodolfo Ever. The most beautiful thing about his "Che gelida manina" was the back of Antoinette's head as he sang it to her. Otherwise it just looked like some kind of maniacal raving (Your tiny hand is frozen...in a jar in my underground laboratory). He seemed to have no concept of Rodolfo as a person; or if he did, a physical inability to express that personality. He was stiff, leering and totally charmless; his singing likewise, really. I found myself suddenly reconceiving the relationship — Mimi as the victim of a controlling, manipulative, nasty Rodolfo, who steals her key and has her trapped by the time she sings "Obbedisco, signor". It was more Bluebeard than Bohème. I wanted to stage an intervention to get her away from that man. It is to Antoinette's infinite credit that she responded so convincingly, with such gorgeousness and sincerity. She transcended him, and was believable enough for the both of them.

To my knowledge she's singing nothing else in Sydney this year. The sound you hear is my heart breaking.

Various

• There are more reasons every day for me to love Alice Coote. The latest — her recital on the EMI Début label, released in 2003. I heard this for the first time perhaps a year ago, but only the first half, and I never got to hear it again. This week I bought it at a bargain bin price and swooned anew. I remembered that it was drop dead gorgeous, but remembering that is one thing; drowning in it is another. What perplexes me is that she doesn't appear to have recorded another solo album since this one. She ought. Just for me.
• I'm so devoted. Despite the higher prices (yes, I'm still bitter about that) I went on Monday afternoon to book myself in for second helpings of two operas I don't much like or want to see again, in order to see somebody I do like sing in them. Antoinette in La bohème tomorrow night (and, as a bonus, lovely Taryn Fiebig as Musetta) and Joshua Bloom as Escamillo on the 28th. I really had to push myself into the Carmen — I had at least hoped I could make it to one of the few performances where Joshua and Kirsten Chavez coincide, but they're sold out. (That's Carmen for you. The reviewers — by which I mean The Mighty McCallum and (hah) myself — were not enthusiastic.) However missing out on my third Joshua Bloom Dandini (yes, still bitter about that, too) persuaded me; it will also be nice to see Catherine Carby as Carmen — about time I saw her in a proper role, not the Bela Lugosi role in Streetcar — and Tiffany Speight as Micaela.
• While looking for something else — I forget what now — I stumbled across the information that Opera Australia will stage Fidelio in 2009. That prompted me to do a little more Googling, from which I've gleaned (look away now if you'd prefer to be surprised in August) that the 2009 season will also include Madama Butterfly, a Cav/Pag and an Aida, the last of these with imported principals, which is hardly surprising. There may or may not be a Manon Lescaut. And of course, there's presumably the Dido & Aeneas I posted about the other day, which I'm already breathlessly anticipating.
• I really, really, really like Alice Coote (and I must be a Handel geek, because my brain said Alice but my fingers typed Alcina). I'm listening to the CD while writing. She's too gorgeous to be believed. And this is five years ago. Need. More. Alice.

Fortune smiles

Lest by my last post, you think me sharper than a serpent's tooth — this evening I am overflowing with gratitude. My fairy godmother has been hard at work, and two wishes have been granted.

The Antoinette Halloran/Rosario La Spina Puccini CD made it to iTunes today. The CD in its entirety is significantly cheaper online than in the flesh, but even so, all I wanted was Antoinette and so that's all I downloaded. Just as I expected, she's beautiful. And not just generically beautiful; Antoinette gives a series of intelligent, vivid and individualised performances. Her Mimi and her Tosca are easy to tell apart. (The Rodolfo and Cavaradossi she's paired with sound pretty identical.) Magda and Cio-Cio San are both singing of dreams, essentially, but they're very different kinds of dream and Antoinette makes the distinction clear. Every now and then, there's a turn of phrase which is quite startling in its beauty. At the end of "Si, mi chiamano Mimi", she manages the final, self-deprecating words — "Altro di me non le saprei narrare. Sono la sua vicina che la vien fuori d'ora a importunare" — without a trace of the irritating little-girlishness I've heard in others.  The climax of her "Un bel di" is quite alarmingly moving, determined optimism suddenly giving way to a savage, heartrending release of long pent-up fear and desperation. This kind of idiomatic and totally committed performance leaves recent bland releases by one or two other "stars of Opera Australia" I might mention quite in the shade. Right now her name tends to come preceded by the words "rising soprano". May she rise and rise, just as high as she wishes; should she desire it, I think she'd conquer hearts around the globe.

To the second wish. This one took a little longer in the granting.

Almost two years ago, I wrote a rambling post about the Dido operas of Cavalli and Purcell. It concluded with these words:

"I've been a fool for Purcell ever since The Fairy Queen introduced us. And, to keep this paragraph going in circles, I encountered The Fairy Queen on account of Yvonne. All of which makes me think that what I really would like is Yvonne Kenny as Purcell's Dido. Except that then, of course, you'd probably never shut me up."

Well, it looks as if you're never going to shut me up. In the course of various internet wanderings, I found this sentence at the end of Yvonne's Askonas Holt bio:

"Future engagements include Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas” for Opera Australia."

Usually if I express these wishes in writing, I figure it's a guarantee they won't be granted. This time, however, a cherished dream has come true. How cherished? Consider:

Dido's Lament was one of the very first operatic arias I came to know; when I started playing the piano again for fun, I had begun with showtunes, but when I ran out of them, I returned to "easy classics" books I'd used when I was taking lessons. Dido's Lament was one of my favourite pieces to play; all the more so when I realised it appeared on Barbara Bonney's Fairest Isle, another musical love which predates my proper conversion to opera fanaticism.

Purcell is among my favourite composers.

The reason I really started loving Purcell was the DVD of the ENO's Fairy Queen, starring Yvonne, which I loved so much I structured a semester long research paper around it.

One of the many reasons I really started loving Yvonne was, therefore, Purcell.

I'd rank Dido and Aeneas among my top five favourite operas.

I adore the character of Dido in any incarnation, musical or otherwise.

I already know Yvonne makes an astounding Dido. She is Cavalli's Didone. (I'm no longer anything like as indifferent to Cavalli's opera as I was when I wrote the above-linked post.) And I'm prepared to state, as somebody who is only about five recordings short of owning her complete recorded output, that her Didone is quite possibly the best recording she has ever made — electrifying, musically glorious and completely devastating. She inhabits that character with majesty, grace and breathtaking emotional intensity. If she brings that same glorious power to Purcell's Dido, then forget funeral pyres — she'll set the stage alight.

That makes two wishes. According to tradition, that leaves me with a third. I'll make it this — that the above news is linked to these paragraphs, from a recent article about Philip Picket, currently at the Perth International Arts Festival with the New London Consort:

"Pickett's research into music of the pre-classical period has led to some fascinating collaborations. With Peter Holman, a Purcell specialist, he has created a full-evening version of Dido and Aeneas.

The best-known version of the opera is that performed at Josias Priest's school for young gentlewomen in 1689 or 1690: a little masterpiece lasting about an hour. Pickett and Holman have reconstructed performances given in 1700 at Lincoln's Inn Theatre in London, which had extra music by the theatre's music director John Eccles. It included, for example, a prologue for Mars and Peace, a whole scene for the witches, trumpets, and all the spectacle of 18th-century opera.

"It's a full-length evening with a big orchestra, and it's very theatrical indeed," Pickett says. "Rather than being a gentle court masque, it's much more like our idea of an opera, with a lot of colour and drama. It's incredibly vivid.

"You can't appreciate some of these early works unless you hear them in different ways. They were performed in different ways almost every time they were performed. There was no such thing as one set way."

The opera has been performed in concert and will be fully staged by director Jonathan Miller for the Chelsea Festival in London in June. Pickett says there is talk of a possible tour of Dido to Australia in 2009."

I live in hope. And in the meantime, am very, very, very happy.

Lamento

I am a fanatic more sinn'd against than sinning.

Injury the First. Opera Australia — light of my life, apple of my eye, immortal beloved, etc. — has gone and raised its prices on me. Only C-reserve is left untouched, a luxury I indulge in when I think I need to see the whole stage once (Alcina was the only such occasion last season). Premium reserve is up by $12, A-reserve by $7 and B-reserve by $5. That seems to me not such a big deal, because they were already seriously expensive, and if you're willing and able to pay that much then another $12 probably doesn't make too much difference. But the staple of my existence, the best and cheapest food for my addiction, D-reserve, has been raised from $54 to $65. And I know it's only $11, and that that's not exactly a fortune but just the same, it does make a difference. $54 ain't cheap, but it seemed sort of close to it. $65 somehow is a more sizeable investment. Besides, let's face it, the seats were possibly a bit overpriced at $54. They're great for people like me, who want to obsess over the sounds of an Alcina or a Dandini, but objectively speaking, even the best D-reserve seats are not good seats. No surtitles and you won't see the whole stage. Sometimes not a big deal; sometimes quite inconvenient — the first time I saw Suor Angelica, I didn't realise the Virgin Mary had actually appeared on stage, and all the elaborate mirror tricks for Alcina were utterly lost on us in the cheap seats.

Now don't misunderstand me. I know opera is massively expensive and that it has to fund itself. I support to the death its right to do that. But ... I feel a little hurt and mistreated just the same. I love and adore that company, would be happy to spend several (or seven!) nights a week there, and yet their pricing structure makes absolutely zero provision for me to do so. Even the cheapest-of-the-cheap seats, standing room and E-reserve, are $40 and besides which, are out of the question for anybody with a job — you have to be there, in person, at 9am on the morning of the performance. Not going to happen. 

Other organisations offer $30 tickets for under-30s. Whether that's viable or desirable for Opera Australia, I've no idea. I suppose not, or they'd be doing it. All I can say is that if that programme, or something similar, were in place, they would probably end up getting more money per month from me than they do. Meanwhile I may have to start spending less. Oh, who am I kidding. She's a cruel and demanding mistress but I'm hers, and I'll pay her upkeep no matter what. Still, I wish we could find a compromise.

Injury the Second. ABC Classics clearly had a meeting and took the decision to torment me. They've put a CD out called Puccini Romance. Certain aspects of this release are beyond excellent — a disc of pretty Puccini, featuring the drop dead gorgeous Antoinette Halloran. The cover also is beautiful. The selection is, yes, pretty predictable, but I'd listen to Antoinette sing anything. However all is not sunshine, lollipops and rainbows. Antoinette is not alone. She is partnered by one Rosario La Spina. I would pay money not to own a CD by Rosario La Spina. His recent moderate success as Don José notwithstanding, I find him as a rule painfully unlistenable, and never more so than in Puccini. Presumably Antoinette holds him in far higher regard than I do, which is her absolute right. Personally, I think she deserves a far worthier partner. Had she been paired with Aldo di Toro, this CD would already be mine. As it is, I'm not sure I can fork out the cash for a whole CD when all I want is half; fingers crossed for an iTunes release.

Injury the Third. I intended to see my third and final Cenerentola tonight. I bought a ticket for it two weeks ago, from my box office nemesis. Yes, I have one. She has served me several times. Apparently the very act of booking tickets for somebody puts her right on edge, which would suggest she made an odd career choice; and when faced with a person like me, who sometimes has detailed and slightly odd requests, she's downright frantic. Doesn't listen to me, talks over me, points out the wrong seats as being free then speaks to me like I'm an idiot when I ask to reserve those very same seats. So I should have known better than to trust her with the basics of ticket booking, and I should have checked the ticket she'd given me. I didn't. Until this morning, when I discovered it was for January 31st. Great. Rang the box office a few times, nobody answered the phone, but frankly I doubted they'd be willing to do anything for me — who's to say I'm not lying? So no Cenerentola for me. No more of Joshua Bloom's Dandini. It may return, years from now; but by then he will, I suspect and hope, be far too starry and important to return with it.

Balm for the Beleaguered. Mine is a tale of woe. Thankfully, though, I know just the way to heal my wounds. Putting aside my hurt feelings over the price hike, and learning once again to trust the box office, I will take myself to hear beautiful Antoinette — from tomorrow, she takes over as Mimi in Opera Australia's La bohème. Where she leads, I shall follow, and once more be happy and carefree.

Qui la voce

Outside, grey skies and endless rain. Inside, all is bliss and sunshine, because I have Natalie. Or, more to the point, Natalie has me. Music to go mad to. You wouldn't want to be in the fragile state of Lucia or Elvira — Natalie's singing of their mad scenes would assist you, smiling to the abyss. I'm transfixed. How many times have I heard "Ah, fors'è lui" or "Caro nome"? But supernatural Natalie makes everything sound like the first time.  Her Maria Stuarda takes my breath away. Her high notes turn me into Pavlov's dog, I cry on command. And there's the other stuff — brilliant ornamentation, the weird and wonderful sounds produced by Concerto Köln, the glass harmonica for her Lucia (and the unexpectedly absent cadenza like at the Met, the cadenza that's only in our heads, and hers), a phrase or two from a typically overwrought Alagna. But the blood in all those veins is her inexplicable and bewitching essential Natalieness. Cataloguing her special talents and strengths, praising her vocal acting or her agility or her high notes or her fatally gorgeous timbre, that's all beside the point. WE KNOW ALL THAT. Natalie is singular, Natalie is magical, Natalie is opera, Natalie is perfect. Natalie, Natalie, Natalie.

Heia

Australia's Favourite Soprano™ heads into the studio with Richard Bonynge and the MSO this week, to record the long-promised disc of operetta favorites. In different circumstances I might be bored and/or scathing about this. As it is, of course, I'm elated. And present herewith my own predicted/desired tracklisting.

Kalman
"Heia, in den Bergen ist mein Heimatland"
"O, jag dem Glück nicht nach"

Lehar
"Vilja-Lied"
"Hör ich Cymbalklänge"
"Meine Lippen, sie küssen so heiss"
"Warum hast du mich wachgeküsst?"
"In einem Meer von Liebe"
"Einer wird kommen"

Zeller
"Schenkt man sich Rosen im Tyrol"

Stolz
"Wien wird schön erst bei Nacht"
"Mein Liebeslied muss ein Walzer sein"

Strauss
"Klänge der Heimat"
"Draussen in Sievering"

Sieczynski
"Wien, du Stadt meine Träume"

Gershwin
"By Strauss"

Half of these are easy to predict — they're the arias included in the free concert which Maestro Bonynge and AFS™ will give later this month. "Vilja" is a given, though frankly I'd be happy never ever to hear it again. I wouldn't have included "Klänge der Heimat" except that, unless I've misunderstood, it appears she's to sing Rosalinde at West Park Green this year, which, if true, is a bit of a surprise. Rosalinde is one of my all time favourite operatic women; I wouldn't necessarily have thought she was on the horizon of AFS™, however. Most of the others are selected from Lucia Popp's operetta disc, the most wonderful operetta album of all time. "By Strauss" is just a wild guess. Of all the arias listed above, the one I'd love most for her to sing — and one I suspect shan't be on the CD — is "Warum hast du mich wachgeküsst", which has a bit less schmalz and a bit more genuine allure than most of the others. If she can pull off Rosalinde's Csardas, though, it will likely automatically become my favourite track. "In einem Meer von Liebe" would also be a lot of fun. As it's pretty certain "Wien, du Stadt meiner Träume" will be included, I'm also looking forward to that, as it's just the right kind of gorgeousness for her voice as is.

I've listen fifteen arias above but I'm sure the real thing shan't be so generous. Besides, as it's an ABC Classics release, and as ABC Classics seems unable to conceive of anyone putting up with a vocal recital which features the singer on every single track, we have to leave room for two or three overtures, ballets, intermezzi etc. (Yawn.) The title, I imagine, will either be something totally left field like "Sings Operetta" or "Operetta Favorites" or else will be, like the Music Bowl concert, "Operetta Magic". Or else something incorporating Vienna. I fear the cover will involve a seriously extravagant frock and a glass of champagne, but hope springs eternal for something a little subtler. And now all I have to do is wait until it's released, some time later this year, to find out just how wrong I am.   

Not particularly rebellious bird

Opera Australia has got its hands on the Francesca Zambello Carmen, the one which premiered at Covent Garden a couple of years ago. The one with live animals in it. There's a donkey in the market in Act One, and Escamillo rides a big black horse. The horse gets the most enthusiastic applause at the curtain call — because he bows, beautifully, and probably more gracefully than Don José. Anyway, I reviewed this at some length for The Opera Critic and am a bit sapped on energy to write much more about it, but production-wise it pretty much boils down to this — all the livestock in the world does not, in and of itself, make for riveting theatre.

Kirsten Chavez is pretty fantastic, though, which helps. She strikes the right balance between sounding like a gypsy and sounding like an opera singer, as a proper Carmen should. There seemed to be a bit of a war over tempi going on with Hickox, but she came through it pretty well. (And I have completely forgiven her for not being Rinat Shaham; but we still want you here, Rinat!) Otherwise, though, there are really no other blazing standout performers. Except, oddly enough, Mercédès. Usually if I notice either of Carmen's friends, it's Frasquita. But Sian Pendry makes something almost meaty of a slightly negligible kind of role. More importantly, the role shows her off to brilliant advantage. She gives the impression that, were it required, she could step into the lead role and totally pull it off. I foresaw glittering things for her back when I heard her as the Kitchen Boy in Rusalka. She had more to sing here, and reinforced everything I already thought; so I hope there's a bit of stardom in her near future. I'm all for the fostering of excellent Australian mezzos, there aren't enough of them.

I guess budget isn't everything. I'm no great fan of this opera, but I saw the Otago University production three times and kept enjoying myself. Once is enough for this one. (Except that it isn't, because Joshua Bloom is taking over as Escamillo and I couldn't possibly miss that.) I think Annelise Miskimmon managed a far more meaningful (and disturbing) staging than Zambello. Especially the murder scene — in Dunedin it was shocking, prolonged and chilling; here it's pure cliche, an few unconvincing pushes and shoves then a swift thrust of the dagger and down she goes.

I'd like to mix and match the two and make a SuperCarmen. Keep the costumes and sets from the Zambello production, but put Miskimmon in charge of the people. Kirsten Chavez stays as Carmen, but we'll swap in Rebecca Ryan from the Otago production as Micaela, instead of OA's Sarah Crane (who is fine, and very sweet; but Rebecca was a whole different kind of lovely, in her quiet, pious way as commanding a presence as any Carmen). Definitely import Roger Wilson and Brendan Mercer as Le Dancairo and Le Remendado; I barely noticed that those two characters existed here, whereas Roger and Brendan made a whole fabulous double act of them. And I think I'd take Dwayne Jones as Don José; though I have to confess, wonder of wonders, that Rosario La Spina was really not too bad. Much improved — quite listenable, really. French music seems a reasonably good place for him, he was bearable in Hoffmann too. As Escamillo? José Carbo for Otago beats Michael Todd Simpson for OA, hands down. But when Joshua takes over the role? Different story. Joshua conquers all.