Prima la musica, poi le parole

New

I don't seem to be posting much lately. That's at least in part because I've been posting far too much on my other blog — an over-thought series dissecting Streetcar in the run up to opening night. However I need variety, so here I am. (Besides which, Typepad has apparently broken said blog. The address still works but I can't post to it. So far the helpdesk's only solution was the helpful offer to delete the blog. Awaiting further assistance.) Not much posting, as I say; but plenty of shopping. Two sprees. Among them, the following.

Natalie Dessay — Vocalises. This had been the only one of Natalie's solo discs I didn't own. I've never really felt too terribly compelled to buy it, because the whole concept seems to sort of defeat the purpose of Natalie. She's not just a pretty voice. However, I heard an excerpt from her Proch variations and realised I needed this CD in order to maintain a full and happy existence; and then I found it secondhand for ten dollars. So much the better. It's brilliant, and I was wrong. It doesn't defeat the purpose of Natalie. Natalie is multipurposed. She's all kinds of spectacular. And while I love to hear her act, I also love to hear her just fly brilliantly through all kinds of ridiculous coloratura, which is what much of this CD is about. The Proch variations, as mentioned, are a particular delight, especially when she uses a bit of Lucia as one of her ornaments. The disc covers both kinds of vocalise — those designed to show off agility and high notes, and those designed to celebrate vocal beauty. Ravel's Vocalise en forme de habanera is delicately spun and wonderful.

Lucia Popp — Slavonic Opera Arias. One of the great tragedies of my move to Australia was that none of "my" Lucia Popp CDs were actually mine. I had to leave them all at home with their rightful owner, and so now I find myself utterly bereft of my beloved operatic mother. I did manage to pick up her Operetta Arias a while ago, thank god and now — thanks again to EMI Red Line — I have her Slavonic arias. Another recital to sell one's soul or first-born for. At least that's what I would say if it didn't feel a little odd to speak of one's mother in such passionate terms. Every time I look at the tracklist for this CD, I think I don't know anything on it except Rusalka's Song to the Moon and Tatyana's Letter scene and probably something from The Bartered Bride. Then I play it and realise that in fact I know every moment. My knowledge of the Slavonic repertoire is, shall we say, not vast — but because of Lucia, there are at least these ten arias which are old friends.

Richard Strauss — Récital de Lieder. French title because it's from EMI France. I bought this for two reasons. One, I wanted to hear Margaret Price, who sings the first seventeen songs. I've never really given Margaret much thought one way or the other, but then I read an interview with Sandrine Piau in which la belle Sandrine named Margaret Price among her absolute idols.  Which surprised me, so I thought she was worth a try. And she probably is, but not on this CD. Strauss Lieder are the best thing ever (or almost) but her performance here is just a bit laboured and plain for me. However, the second reason paid off much better. Tracks eighteen to twenty-nine are Lucia Popp. I'd no idea this recording existed. Now she makes Strauss Lieder sound the way I want them. Magical.

Don Giovanni — Hans Rosbaud, Orchestre de la Société ds Concerts du Conservatoire. Mono recording from the late fifties. It came doubled with a Figaro which I haven't listened to yet. Honestly, it's a pretty average, plodding kind of Don Giovanni. But it comes with a few rather special performances. Lovely Suzanne Danco is a surprisingly full and fascinating Elvira. Nicolai Gedda is my kind of Ottavio. Teresa Stich-Randall is weird as Donna Anna. And an especial treat — Anna Moffo, at her magnetic best, as a delicious Zerlina.

Mitridate, re di Ponto — Christophe Rousset, Les Talens Lyriques. Allow me to cast my mind back. I have wanted this recording for...five years? About that. Originally I wanted it because I was an aspiring Cecilia Bartoli completist. I was also, however, a miser and this set is invariably overpriced. So I never bought it. But it has continued to hover in the background. As the years have passed, it seems, the cast of this Mitridate has, one by one, entered my life. So that now, alongside Cecilia are three more singers I adore. Natalie. Sandrine. And Juan Diego. Oh my. Obviously it was meant for me. And then I contrived (shan't tell how) to buy it new at a highly reasonable price; more like what you might expect to pay for a single CD. So, is it worth the wait? Yes and no. I'm ambivalent about Cecilia here. I prefer her in true mezzo territory and Sifare is soprano castrato stuff. Natalie is MAGNIFICENT. Of course she is. Natalie is Natalie. Sandrine is as crystalline and perfect as she always is. And Juan Diego? Juan Diego manages to be more beautiful in a few lines of functional recitative than just about anything else in the opera. No wonder his aria, which could easily be cut (and I think mostly is cut) is left in. I'm more and more his swooning, sighing fan. Naturally I am emerald with jealousy at all those who have seen the La fille du régiment which Natalie and Juan Diego have been doing all over the place. It isn't fair.

Orphée aux enfers — Marc Minkowski, Orchestre de l'Opéra National de Lyon. Speaking of ridiculously starry casts, how's this one. Natalie Dessay. Patricia Petibon. Véronique Gens. Ewa Podles. All together in one opera. Which turns out to be unbelievably hilarious. When the overture is followed immediately by Ewa Podles declaiming melodramatically in French, you know you've discovered a Very Good Thing. Natalie is Eurydice is just so wonderful it hurts. I never expected to hear Véronique sing Offenbach but of course, being Véronique, she's by definition ideal. Patricia Petibon was of course born to sing Cupid. She does so in the serious Gluck Orphée as well. But it's not just the presence of four of my girls which makes this recording is utterly brilliant. It's all fantastic. The cast, the conducting, the opera itself. The quotes from Monteverdi and Gluck are priceless. It's my new favourite thing. Well, perhaps second favourite — there is a DVD as well which I want to own yesterday.

There's more to come but I have to listen to them first. A Sinopoli Ariadne auf Naxos with dream cast — Deborah Voigt, Anne Sofie von Otter and Natalie. And Lucie de Lammermoor with — surprise! — Natalie. The eagle-eyed may notice a pattern emerging. Lately I'm crazier about Natalie than ever before. So crazy I'm not even going to start writing about her tonight because I really will never stop and it's almost bedtime.

Floridante

Generally I tend to think the plot of an opera matters quite a lot. Even if it's stupid (and I don't necessarily think operatic plots are as frequently or extravagantly stupid as people sometimes make out) I do think it's important to know, at least roughly, what's going on. If some gorgeous singer is up there emoting his or her heart out, one ought to know what it's all about. But then I come across something like Handel's Floridante, and I wonder. I have, at last, made it all the way through the synopsis and so I think I vaguely know what happens now. But I only did so just this evening — whereas I've spent the last couple of weeks falling in love with the opera, oblivious to its bizarre intricacies of plot. I think with Handel, though, this is something you can get away with. The arias aren't about advancing the plot — they're about the expression of a given emotion. So you can comprehend and appreciate them while remaining all but clueless about the plot. In this way, I prevent myself from feeling guilty. It's not just a case "aren't they pretty sounds, who cares what they mean". I know what they mean. Handel makes sure we can hear what they mean. I just don't necessarily know how they fit into the mindboggling mess that is Floridante — prisons, poison, a Persian satrap, everyone in disguise, children swapped at birth, star-crossed lovers, treason, state politics and (almost) incest.

As I say — this is music well worth falling love with. I know I have. How is that I've been oblivious until now to the existence of Alan Curtis? You would think I'd have found him years ago and yet, no. But now I have discovered him and he's clearly a man after my own heart. This whole opera just bursts with baroque exquisiteness, it's Handel the way I dream of hearing it. Even at this stage of the Handel renaissance, Floridante remains a bit of an obscurity. This is its first full recording. It doesn't contain any of the big hits which show up on every second Handel Arias recital disc. So why does it sound so familiar. Partly, I suppose, because it's Handel, and Handel does always sound like himself. The arias follow familiar forms. We know what kind of accompaniment signals a storm metaphor, we know when someone's about to compare themselves to a bird and so on and so on. Still I don't think that's the whole explanation. I think there's something in Alan Curtis' approach which makes this opera seem like such an old, adored friend. He gives it such grandeur and such brilliance it simply doesn't seem possible that an opera like this could have languished in oblivion. Sometimes when you hear an obscurity, you can't help but think — there's a reason this is obscure. Not so here. It's not likely Floridante will enter the standard repertory any time soon. Of course it won't, and that's probably fair. But this recording could make you believe, for three hours at least, that it should.

And then there's Joyce. Have I mentioned lately how mad I am about Joyce DiDonato? Yes? Well there's more to come. Here she sings Elmira who, despite the title, is the real star of the opera. And not just because she's sung by Joyce, although that helps. A lot. I feel as if every single time I listen to Joyce sing, I hear something new to adore. With this recording, she has become one of those singers — the ones who make me sigh their name every few minutes while they're singing. The shimmer and sparkle and unearthly lightness in her voice take my breath away. I've known from the start that she was superb in Handel — the first time I heard her was her operatic duets with Patrizia Ciofi. What's special, though, is her adaptability within that repertoire. With Patrizia, she took all the male parts. Soldiers and princes. And was thoroughly persuasive throughout. Now as Elmira it's she who is the beleaguered heroine and she's just as vivid and just as beautiful, in an audibly different way — retaining all the mezzo richness and not a trace of the machismo. Her voice goes all the way from a deep golden lower register to a fairy floss top, seamless and agile and, well, just lovely. I think she's wonderful. This you can probably tell.

Enthralled as I am, I nevertheless have noticed the rest of the cast. They're hard to miss in fact. The impossible to type Marijana Mijanovic is excellent in the title role — a proper boyish contralto to match Joyce's pretty mezzo. She has the only two arias I recognised. "Bramo te sola" and "Se dolce m'era gia" both triggered my memory immediately. I knew I'd heard them somewhere but couldn't think where until I started mentally scanning my CD collection for Handel contraltos. Not Ewa. Nathalie! Both arias appear on Natalie Stutzmann's Handel disc, which I'd only listened to a few times — but Handel tends to stick with me, it seems. Sharon Rostorf-Zamir is our seconda donna, the adorable Rossane. Her pretty, fluttery sound took a little time to grow on me, but only a little. I don't know that it's a voice I would love in everything, and I wouldn't necessarily recognise it in a crowd, but for this role she's just the right choice. Roberta Invernizzi as Timante I liked straight away, but sadly she gets very little to sing. Vito Priante is brings nobility edged with lechery to the seriously badly behaved king Oronte. Oronte is the Woody Allen of Persia, creating all kinds of turmoil and trauma by attempting to marry his own adopted daughter. She, understandably enough, wants none of it — especially as he makes his move while she still thinks he's her biological father. Not clever. But Priante's singing makes him at least compelling, if not at all sympathetic.

I would like to create the illusion of credibility and impartiality by finding something to criticise about this Floridante, but I just can't. Maybe after I've lived with it a few months, or years, a flaw or two might emerge. This does happen sometimes with the things I fall in desperate love at first note with. For the moment though, there's nothing. I just love it, every moment of it.

Dreamgirls

Louis Langrée's recording of Mozart's Mass in C minor is gorgeously inspired. Clean and elegant and wholly idiomatic; tangible urgency balanced and illuminated by beautiful precision. Le Concert d'Astrée is sounding just magnificent; though of course they would anyway. I've known this Mass in pieces but haven't owned a recording until now. I love it. And there's no original way left of declaring one's desperate love for Mozart so I probably shouldn't try. The point is not so much that I love him — that's a given — but rather that this recording reminds me of that every few seconds. Generally a good sign. But wait, there's more. This isn't just fantastic Mozart. It's fantastic Mozart with Natalie Dessay. But no,that's still not the end of it. It's fantastic Mozart with Natalie Dessay and Véronique Gens.

That sound you hear is my cup of joy as it runneth over. Natalie and Véronique. Both of them. And in duet. There's nothing better. Especially since both women are (as usual) in outrageously ravishing voice. It's wonderful to hear Natalie given a chance to sing music which explores her enchanting middle and lower registers — further proof that her magic is not exclusive to the stratosphere. Véronique is her usual flawless and quietly astounding self. Here, as in absolutely every other facet of her repertoire she is totally ideal. Besides which her voice just might have actually gained in sheer sonic loveliness since her last recording, which I wouldn't have thought humanly possible. Together they're a desperately perfect pair — not just in terms of my own personal wish fulfilment but in terms of Mozartian excellence as well.

Can there be even more to celebrate? Of course. I bought the special edition, which includes a 56 minute DVD of the recording sessions. Natalie is charming and slightly mad. The filmmaker is evidently fascinated with her, zooming in on her eyes and her mouth as she speaks. She reads from Mozart's letters and discusses singing sacred music as a non-Christian. I thought maybe I couldn't get any more smitten but every word makes me love her a little bit more. Louis Langrée is totally engaging in his enthusiasm— and conducts the whole thing with a broken arm. I think I expected Véronique to be slightly intimidating and Parisienne but in fact she's just totally normal and sweet — and then sings like that.

Were I better behaved, I would finish now with some suitably sweeping bit of praise for the recording as a whole, for its interpretative insight and aural glory. That's all there. But I have to be my shameless self — I would love it anyway, but what pushes me into bliss is unquestionably Sopranos I and II. You'd think they organised it with me specifically in mind — another triumph for my musical Fairy Godmother. Two triumphs really, because frankly having just one or the other of them would probably have been happiness enough. Both? Heaven. Just don't make me pick a favourite.

As steals the morn

My first introduction to Mark Padmore was via Harmonia Mundi's La clemenza di Tito last year. Among René Jacobs' many virtues is the gorgeous casts assembled for his recordings; this was no exception. I was prepared for a boring, blustery and imperious kind of Tito — and wouldn't necessarily have been disappointed if I'd got one. Because Tito as a character doesn't interest or appeal to me a great deal; all that clemency is difficult to credit. Give me a nice Sesto and/or a gorgeous Vitellia and I'm happy. But Mark's Tito was different. Sung with delicacy and elegance, so adorably beautiful that Tito became a human being  — and one I liked. From the point of view both of character and pure sound, he was no longer just a necessary plot device but a positive pleasure for me. I've remembered that.

Which is why, even though he is, after all, a tenor, I let out a little squeak of excitement when I saw he was releasing a disc of Handel arias. I even thought I'd probably buy it. As it turned out I didn't need to — an occupational perk. I'm happy to say, he has not disappointed me. I've been listening to this CD (beautifully titled As steals the morn...) every day for a week, and I'm a bit in love really. Transfixed might be a better word. His Handel is hypnotic. Technically sound, obviously — that goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway. Every theoretical difficulty is in practice effortlessly assailed; one of those occasions where I cease to think of coloratura as coloratura — it's just easily assimilated into the music in its entirety. The sound of his voice is fascinating, full of sweetness but with enough grit to keep things (very) interesting. His "Where'er you walk" is a radiant lullaby and it could make you think that such quiet prettiness was his forte. But he does cheery and bright just as well — the opening aria from Alceste for instance. If his invitation to "Enjoy the sweet Elysian groves" doesn't hook you,  I despair of you. However the centrepiece of this recital, its stunningest moment, comes with the scene from Tamerlano. It's Bajazet's death scene and he actually dies, singing his final speech with the kind of death throes phrasing we expect in verismo but perhaps not so much in Handel, whispering, rasping and choking on poison. In the wrong hands such an approach could just turn into unconvincing excess but he knows how to make it work and the result is spellbinding. 

I've just pulled out a few select highlights. I could have mentioned every track because I love them all. What I love even more though, beyond individual glories, is the mesmerising effect of the whole recital. His singing is surpassingly lovely but it also surpasses lovely;  the softly lit beauty comes with dark shadows too and it's this which makes his performance so beguiling.

Re-Joyce

Apologies, I couldn't resist the cringeworthy pun. Anyway, yes — another post about Joyce DiDonato. Can't be helped. And yet, I'm starting to run out of decent adjectives. It isn't that she leaves me breathless and inarticulate. Rather it's because she doesn't. My response to Joyce is not the incredulous ecstasy which leads me to into diva obsession; it's a quieter, softer kind of happiness. For that, my usual florid hyperbole doesn't seem quite the right note to strike; but words like "lovely" and "wonderful" are too plain and definitely inadequate.

As planned, I brought Joyce's live Wigmore Hall recording home on Monday and have been listening to it all week. Evidently she's a mezzo after my own heart. Her recital has a theme. I love themes. Hers is "A Journey Through Venice" — four song cycles dealing with the city. First of these is Rossini's "La regata veneziana" — the three songs sung by a girl watching her boyfriend in a boat race. Of course she's ideal for Rossini; effervescent and charming, but unaffectedly so — so that all that Italianate enthusiasm comes across quite genuine. Nevertheless it's in the following cycle that she really comes into her own. Michael Head's Three Songs of Venice. Head dedicated them to Janet Baker and though it may just be the power of suggestion, I think you can hear echoes of her voice in what he's written. That's as may be; Joyce takes complete possession of these songs. Her natural warmth is well suited to their tranquil beauty and her diction is quite stunningly clear. In Fauré's Cinq Mélodies de Venise she achieves such a sense of intimacy you'd hardly believe she was performing in a concert hall full of people. Hahn's Venezia allows her to let her hair down, and her sense of humour and colourful singing are irresistible — little wonder the very well behaved audience can't help applauding halfway through the cycle.

After all of which she gives us two encores. Both of them totally unVenetian. Firstly an indescribably exquisite "Cara speme". It seems a little unfair, after she's gone to the trouble of planning her Venice theme, to name the unrelated encore as the recital's greatest moment — but it probably is. As before, she evokes a captivating intimacy — the sense almost that she is singing by herself. But note —that's  by herself, not for herself. A large part of what makes her so engaging is the simple and generous way in which she communicates what she's singing. No overstatement or self indulgence; she trusts her composers and their music, and offers that music up to us, untampered with. Her final encore again draws on that sincerity. Of course seeing as it's  "Non piu mesta" from La Cenerentola it displays a few of her other attributes too — she handles  its coloratura perils fearlessly and imaginatively, the virtuosity underpinned at every turned by a glowing daydream of a voice.

Typical. I said floridity was inappropriate and yet look what I've gone and done. "Glowing daydream of a voice". Well, I'm me after all — no use fighting it. In any case I think the description more or less fits the gradual, happy way she's entered my world. Not in a flash of lightning; not instant insanity. I just love her voice and the way she sings, so I'm glad I found her. And I think I'll probably keep her.

Various

Recital discs

Anna Netrebko is tormenting me slightly. I surrendered to her. Then the Puritani broadcast made me reconsider. Now I've started listening to her Duets with Rolando and I'm back to thinking she's rather wonderful. Maybe she's more comfortable in the studio and with her friend. Also it's better repertoire than Elvira was, mostly. I love the Roméo et Juliette selection; there's something a little odd about the Manon duet — I'm not sure what — but it works all the same. I can't hear the Leila/Nadir duet without also hearing the questionable Opera in English translation, which includes the immortal words "For both our sakes, please go away". Rolando I like more and more all the time. I think there's a sort of old-fashioned appeal to this CD. For lack of a better description, it sounds like opera. Not just opera in the intimate sense we know it but opera as it exists in popular consciousness as well. If that makes any sense. I suspect it doesn't.

Another Deutsche Grammophon project — Elina Garanča's label debut, Aria Cantilena. I own her Mozart arias from Virgin Classics, which I suppose is a few years old now. Her voice has softened and lightened somewhat since then and there are more colours in it too, all positive developments for the moment; only the very top of her voice worries me a little but not in any world shattering sense. The programme here is rather wildly varied — Rossini, Villa-Lobos, Richard Strauss plus some Offenbach and some zarzuela for good measure. It shows her off well for the most part but I think a more focused programme would be even more satisying and do her truer justice. But she's gorgeous. Photogenic, too, it has to be said — you might remember one of the main reasons I bought her Mozart CD was the colour of her eyes; pity the back cover photo of Aria Cantilena makes her look like Gumby.

But the one I really love is Joyce DiDonato's ¡Pasión! Is this really the same woman as sang the swaggering male interest to all Patrizia Ciofi's silvery heroines on their Amor e gelosia? That alluringly dark vein is still there but what this repertoire (all Spanish songs) really capitalises on is the sunshine in her voice. Her love for these songs is obvious and terribly infectious — she transmits all the deliciousness she finds in them while steering clear of self indulgence. It's not a case of listening to her enjoy them — rather she offers them up, simply and beautifully, for us to taste and discover. And fall in love with too.

And in other news

Every now and then I get a definite sign that moving here was a good idea. One came just yesterday.. The Sydney Symphony has announced that when its current chief conductor finishes his term, his replacement (in a modified role) will be — Ashkenazy.

And everyone everywhere seems to have something to say about the Washington Post's Joshua Bell experiment, in all kinds of ways. My favourite response is Jeremy Denk's, hands down; there's also been some brainmeltingly absurd PC ranting which I'm trying to ignore. I shan't try and add anything intellectual to the discussion but I did want to share one tiny little story. A day or two after the article, I served a customer who, as he told me, knew nothing about classical music and had never bought a classical CD in his life. But he was so fascinated by the article he came and bought a Joshua Bell CD so he could understand better what it was all about and find out if this was a musical avenue he felt like pursuing. Make of that what you will.

New toys

One of my semi regular secondhand haunts has laid its hands on what I suspect is part of a deceased estate — almost an entire bookshelf full of CDs, most of them vocal recital discs and most of those by mezzos and sopranos. Yes. You can imagine my glee; and now you can wonder at my superhuman self restraint. I only bought six. They are —

La traviata. Joan Sutherland, Carlo Bergonzi, Robert Merrill; conducted by John Pritchard. This one of the series which Decca re-released last year in their midprice range to celebrate Joanie's 80th. I, however, was too stingy even for that. Ten dollars, on the other hand, I can definitely cope with. Of course it's worth far more. Everything I can say about Joan's Violetta is just stating the obvious. I mean, we're not expecting the kind of shattering credibility of, say, Anna Moffo (still my One True Violetta) or, if she's your cup of tea, Maria Callas. But as a sheer sonic experience this must be unparalleled. It just cannot be possible for one human being to produce so much beauty from within herself; where in the world (or outside of it) does that sound come from? This is bliss. No, it's not hugely involving as drama; but as a transcendent musical experience she's beyond compare. And even when Joanie's not around, it ain't half bad. Bergonzi? Yes, please. And I love Robert Merrill. 

Handel Opera Arias — Nathalie Stutzmann. Handel arias + contralto + Hanover Band = combination I can't resist. I read the tracklisting on the back and figured, there's just no way this can fail. And I was right. She's not someone you'd sell your firstborn to hear, like Ewa Podles, but it's still a thoroughly excellent CD. The programme is suitably varied, a few well known arias alongside slightly more unusual choices and (I always give bonus points for this) no "Ombra mai fu". Interestingly, the second track is "Qui l'augel di pianta in pianta", from Aci, Galatea e Polifermo, which Natalie-without-an-H takes on in her Delirio — but the difference between the two is so vast you'd hardly recognise them as the same aria. All in all, the whole thing's an object lesson in repertoire choice, an interesting and well chosen programme which showcases her perfectly.

Rossini — Marilyn Horne. Well, what more is there to say? Peerless.

Bellini & Verdi Opera Arias — Montserrat Caballé. This is actually the second time I've bought this CD. I picked it up at the Dunedin Public Library sale but years of borrowing had damaged it beyond repair and it played no further than the third track. Like Joanie, a flood of impossibly gorgeous sound to just get lost in. I love Montserrat; I always forget how much until I hear her again. Those inevitably cited pianissimi — there's a reason nobody can mention her without bringing them up, they're heaven. And do you think Desdemona's Willow Song and Ave Maria might just be among the most distressingly beautiful pieces of music ever composed? That scene makes me feel much as the Four Last Songs do — thank god it occured to somebody to tangibly compose what, in some celestial sense, must always have existed. And I don't often feel like that in Italian opera but that scene is something else.

Chant d'amour — Cecilia Bartoli. Another one I already owned, except I didn't really and I've lost it anyway. About time I owned it properly, since I've suggested it may just be my favourite of all Cecilia's solo recordings. Not that I could ever choose just one. This is an amazing CD though, so unlike anything else she's done before or since — and yet, she's so well suited to it. No, perhaps not the most idiomatically French singer in the world but who cares? I don't think anyone conveys sincerity, simplicity and total joy in the way Cecilia can. The three Viardot songs are each of them absolute treasures. Maybe it is my definitive favourite after all; it comes close. She looks gorgeous on the cover too, very serious and française; of course on the back she's wearing one of those huge bows in her hair.

Viennese Operetta Arias — Lucia Popp. I grew up with this CD. To what extent, however, I didn't realise until it began playing. At which point it dawned on me — this CD was my introduction to, and definition of, opera. My beginning. When I was still very small, years before I could have put a name to it, this CD made me aware of the concept of opera. So I find I know this recording in the way one knows a first language; it's just there, too deeply ingrained and essential to recall or even conceive of a beginning. About Lucia herself, I find it hard to say much of any use; she's my operatic mother and you can't listen to family members critically. Still, filial obligation aside, has anyone ever sung anything so perfectly ever in the world ever? Ever?

Delius Songs - Yvonne Kenny

For the first time since I fell, Yvonne has a new solo CD out — a disc of Delius songs on Hyperion. And I tried but failed to find a more normal way to deal with it. So here it is, a track by track celebration.   

Twilight Fancies and Young Venevil both appeared on The Salley Gardens. The versions here are both... what's the word I'm looking for? Oh, that's it — better. They just are. Her diction is better, they make more sense musically, their meaning is clearer. Hidden Love is gorgeous melodrama and the kind of song I might expect her to blur a little in making it as aurally beautiful as possible but it's crystal clear in fact, which is good because there's a story to tell, and she tells it. The Minstrel is among my new favourites. It makes fabulous use of her low low register which is stronger and more thrilling all the time. But what I love most about it is this pair of lines, written by Ibsen and translated by Peter Pears just for me to hear sung by her — "She'd listen to all of my singing / She'd follow me everywhere." Sound like anyone we know? The Bird's Story is perhaps where the normal reviewers start making tactful comments about her upper register but really it's only under the tiniest bit of pressure and any strain is pretty much diffused by her masterful dynamic control. Cradle Song is perfect peace. Ever since the "Wiegenlied" on her Wigmore Hall recital she's my number one singer of the Art Lullaby because she makes them just sound like lullabies sung to actual children. This is no exception, and sits in probably the easiest and most beautiful part of her voice. The Homeward Way has a slightly sappy text but she's sincere enough to mask that and at the same time proves her upper register isn't in quite such peril after all. In the Garden of the Seraglio isn't nearly as Oriental or exotic at you'd think but just her drenched violet "in drowsy air" is evocative enough. Irmelin Rose is a fun little fairytale miniature in which she takes clear delight. A bit of a metallic edge shows itself as the song progresses but it's expressive and quite appropriate really. Il pleure dans mon coeur is the first of four Verlaine settings. Languorous and semi-French, which I don't think is either Delius' forte or hers, but they both of them do quite nicely just the same. Le ciel est, par-dessus le toit is definitely more interesting though it's hard not to hear Fauré's "Prison". She's as expressively alive as ever, even without the latter's big, swelling "Qu'as tu fait". La lune blanche is a bit like "Il pleure" really. These settings if nothing else are nice opportunity to display her still-radiant (in fact maybe more radiant than ever) pianissimi, particularly on her "exquise" which is, indeed, exquise. Chanson d'automne is different from the other three, a bit more of a sway to it. It reminds me a little of Poulenc's "Violon" and in fact there are violins in this text too. Her French diction is limpid and clear; it's also less and less French (though still accurate) with every passing year but this of course is a part of her considerable charm. Summer Eve is a jolly, sunny sort of tune, which succeeds because she keeps things light and simple, sings with warmth but doesn't over-do it (either by taking it too seriously or by making it too cutesy). Longing is a bit unconvincing to be honest — I blame Delius. Too fast for that weary, Mariana kind of yearning but not exciting enough to sound desperate and impassioned either. Those acquired-taste high(ish) notes make another appearance but actually if you listen, it's still a beautiful sound. Sunset  (Delius' is a bit cheerier and less laden with death than Strauss' Abendrot) is another reminder to me of the extraordinary richness of her present day voice. Gold, mahogany, red wine — my kingdom for an original piece of imagery. The nightingale has a lyre of gold is a bright, straightforward, about-birds kind of song, and then at the end she sends a shiver up my spine with "sang / Our hearts and lips together". I-Brasil begins with the single most seductively sung "there's" in the history of recorded music, ends with a shimmeringly piano "away" and in between is the most intoxicating track on the CD. Among her most beautiful moments on record. Summer Landscape is just that, the point being that the colours and shades of her voice describe that landscape better even than the actual text. O schneller, mein Ross — I always love to hear her sing in German — is another of these perfectly balanced moments, semi-operatic ecstasy but which doesn't crush the song's lighthearted spirit. Aus deinen Augen fliessen meine Lieder I'm in love with. Before I'd even heard it to the end I felt it had always been in my life. So white, so soft, so sweet is she is terribly, terribly gorgeous — what business has anyone making such an amazing sound on words like "the nard in the fire" and "the bag of the bee"? To Daffodils surprises me every time with its variety and its wealth of opportunities for her to sing in ways that weaken my knees. Love's Philosophy doesn't match Quilter's but comes closer than I used to think; until I heard her sing it, I thought he'd missed the point completely but it seems that impression was down to the singers and not the song — in her hands it's spot-on. Summer Nights comes as the perfect conclusion. Everything I've praised above in one two-and-a-half minute song. Except a perfect conclusion is impossible — I'd rather no conclusion. Time she recorded the other thirty-eight songs he wrote.

My greatest joy in this disc is the radiant simplicity with which she has approached the whole programme, her willingness to scale down her voice and just let the essential, natural beauty of her singing speak for itself. You might say it's the serious, grown up version of The Salley Gardens. And I'd place it among her most musically and intellectually satisfying albums. Maybe that's because unlike The Salley Gardens and others, this isn't an ABC Classics "Australia's Favourite Soprano" venture. It's centred on the composer instead; she's there to serve him, functioning purely as an artist rather than an image or an icon. Which isn't to say her ABC recitals lack depth; she's incapable of anything but complete commitment. But this disc proves she doesn't need to be packaged like a star to shine like one. Shine she does; and for me she's the sun.

La clemenza di Tito

I just know I'm about to start repeating myself. A while back I wrote about Harmonia Mundi's pretty special La clemenza di Tito, led by the ever-brilliant René Jacobs. Now I've gone and bought myself the DG Tito which came out at around the same time — Charles Mackerras with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Magdalena Kozena in the lead. And I wonder how many original things there are to say at this point about a new(ish) Clemenza. Words like revelatory inevitably arise, but I think perhaps we're past all that and can just accept that, while it ain't Cosi or Die Zauberflöte and never will be, is nevertheless just not as boring and dry as we (or I, at least) have been accustomed to suggest. It's Mozart, after all — how dare I be mean to it?

Anyway. Charles Mackerras — who I'll see here in Sydney later this year, conducting Mozart and Strauss — does gorgeous things. This Clemenza lacks the electric energy and urgency of the Jacobs recording, but makes up for it in sheer wallowable beauty. Jacobs gives us surprising Mozart; Mackerras gives us the gloriously familiar version — I'm happy with both. Magdalena as Sesto is... well, she's Magdalena, and I've already made my position clear in this respect: Magdalena Is Perfect. She is. I don't think I'll even try to come up with any other adjectives. Rainer Trost as Tito, however, made me miss Mark Padmore, who sang the role on the Harmonia Mundi recording. Trost is fine, I suppose, but just a bit too strained and one-dimensional for me. Hillevi Martinpelto is the kind of Vitellia I want — suitably dramatic, a little bit nasty, but still Mozartian through and through — but not, I have to say, in a way which I found particularly exciting. Still, I liked her well enough. Christine Rice and Lisa Milne as Annio and Servilia respectively are both them pretty much ideally cast. Christine's Annio is a nice vocal complement to Magdalena, the voices (which aren't too dissimilar) blending beautifully but always easily distinguishable from one another. Lisa Milne is lovely of course, as she was in the Zauberflöte Met broadcast way back when. And she beats Sunhae Im (Servilia for Harmonia Mundi) hands down, singing with all the requisite sweetness and light but with none of the latter's oddly soubrettish mannerisms. Im, though not without her appeal, made Servilia sound like Zerlina; Lisa, on the other hand, makes her sound like what she is — young and pretty, yes, but also the kind of Roman aristocracy Tito could consider marrying. Oh, and we can't forget the token compliment for Publio. I expect I've said this about every Publio I've heard, and will continue to do so in future, but too bad. Here it is: John Relyea was excellent as Publio. Enough? Probably not, but it will have to do.

When the two recordings of La clemenza di Tito arrived so close together, reviewers seemed to feel obliged to declare one or t'other superior. Me, I declare victory on neither side. Why choose?

Neruda songs

When Lorraine Hunt Lieberson died, the blogosphere was overwhelmingly filled with tributes from every person whose life she had even slightly touched. And indeed it seemed there was nobody whose life she had only slightly touched — anyone who had encountered her voice or her spirit, however briefly, felt it long afterwards and profoundly. I know that every time I listened to her I was in awe of her. Still, when she died I tried to be careful, and not to claim a stronger link than existed. I've always been bothered by the tendency among some, when an artist dies, to only at that point become a follower and a fan, to mourn them with a passion umatched by anything one expressed when that person was alive. No singer should have to die to be adored. So I posted a tribute, a brief one, and I did nothing else. Lorraine Hunt Lieberson was a singer I thought the world of but the truth, after all, is that I owned one CD (her Bach arias) which I only occasionally had the strength to listen to; and had borrowed her Handel arias from the library once, gloried in them for two weeks and then never heard them since. When I signed up to iTunes, I downloaded a track from a much earlier Handel arias disc. Nothing more. She was magnificent but I cannot claim devotion, worthy though she was (and is) of it. It might come, with time, but it would be disingenous — and do her no justice — to manufacture it.

All this is by way of attempting to explain the position from which I come to her recording of her husband's Neruda Songs, which I've listened to for the first time this afternoon. There are different kinds of responses which a work created in these particular personal circumstances might evoke. I know that for some they may prove too much to bear, that for those close to Lorraine (and I suspect you need not ever have met her to feel close to her) the response will be — and rightly so — wholly emotional. And nobody could remain wholly detached; if you knew neither of their names and none of their history until buying this CD, you still could not fail to grasp the beauty and the heartbreak of this song cycle.

Still I want to write about these songs as songs too. We can't separate them from their own particular story — but if that story didn't exist, and the songs still did, they would matter just the same, and be just as disarming, just as strikingly beautiful. They would be differently extraordinary but they would, nevertheless, be extraordinary. Lieberson's music sways and glows, languid and peacefully summery without ever becoming lazy or insubstantial. It's underpinned by a radiant and determinedly passionate energy, its emotional world defined positively and fearlessly. The songs are inseparable from their singer — Lorraine is as much their creator as her husband. Her voice of course is of uncommon beauty, incandescent,  and the palette of expression she draws from more varied, more subtly shaded than could be imagined. She is limitless. What makes her performance aoll the more arresting is that everything flows so utterly naturally. There's not a trace of artifice, of calculation or of self-indulgence; she's patently incapable of all three. Text and music are heavy with strong feelings and she expresses every one with complete and exquisite sincerity. To call her ideal for this music is both obvious and inadequate; she simply is this music.

Beauty is beauty is beauty I think. Lorraine created beauty constantly and effortlessly. These songs have a particular kind of emotional weight because she died. Were she still alive, the nature of that weight might be different — but it would be just as heavy, and the songs just as beautiful.