Prima la musica, poi le parole

Toujours Mozart

Sur les fils de la pluie,
Les anges du jeudi
Jouent longtemps de la harpe.
Et sous leurs doigts, Mozart
Tinte, délicieux,
En gouttes de joie bleue.
Car c'est toujours Mozart
Que reprennent sans fin
Les anges musiciens,
Qui, au long du jeudi,
Font chanter sur la harpe
La douceur de la pluie.

("Les anges musiciens". Maurice Carême.)

Originally I had no plans for any particular celebration because every day is Mozart day. Then I thought maybe I'd spend the day with Concert FM, who were devoting the whole day to him. However the majority of the day's programme was given to a 12 hour musically-illustrated biographical feature, full of people reading letters and reflections from experts. I heard the beginning and the end, but biography and historical context, as interesting as they are and as well-executed as this feature seemed to be, were not how I wanted to spend the day.  I wanted to spend it with him himself, so I did it in the best way I knew how: sopranos. Five hours of 'em. Beginning with Barbara Bonney's exquisite disc of Mozart Lieder, followed by Mozart Arias discs from Véronique Gens, Vesselina Kasarova, Yvonne Kenny and Kiri Te Kanawa. Then a Requiem. Then NZ Opera's Don Giovanni courtesy of Concert FM. Still on radio, half an hour of "Mozartiana" and now, to finish off with, another Requiem.

That's something like 12 hours out of 24 spent with Mozart. Not only that, but 12 hours of only vocal music. Four or five of them nothing but soprano arias. But you see, you can limit it all you like and he remains limitlessly, miraculously beautiful. There's infinite variety here. I was never bored, never fed up. Saturation point? I don't know. Perhaps, yes, I've had enough Mozart for today. But only for today. This Requiem hasn't finished yet, and will continue past midnight, and if there were more Mozart after it (there isn't) that would be just fine. Maybe when it does end, I'll drink in some Così or Mitridate, re di Ponto.

I've heard some incredible singing today from some incredible women. Vesselina's Mozart disc was new to me today and she's terrifying. In the best way. Of course, terrifying isn't exactly the adjective you want to apply to a Zerlina; but as Vitellia, Sesto, Idamante, Farnace, the hurricane force of her voice is quite something. I still can't get past how impossibly gorgeous Kiri's Concert Arias CD is, or how long it took me properly to realise this. Barbara's Mozart Lieder are incomparable. And Yvonne is Yvonne, and in "Ch'io mi scordi di te" (both versions) will make you - yes, you - feel very guilty when you can't answer her heartbreaking "Perchè?". But don't come too close to her "Per pietà". It burns.

The Don Giovanni on Concert FM was an unexpected delight and one I very nearly missed. This is the NZ Opera Don Giovanni I saw three times and in two cities. I didn't find out until yesterday that it was to be broadcast tonight. Interesting to revisit it after all these months. With distance comes perspective and I have to be honest: I think Wyn Davies' was a rather superficial and at times insensitive treatment of the score. There are such depths to be plumbed in Don Giovanni and nobody could be expected to explore them all, but I felt like he didn't even let that depth be hinted at. Everything taken at such a gallop, no time to pause and breathe the music in. There's no point in Giovanni's serenade if it seems almost as quick as his "Finch'han del vino", and no room for any humour in Zerlina's arias when she's obliged to rush through them so. I still take issue, too, with Donna Elvira's characterisation one-dimensional conventional coquette here. I don't know why "Mi tradi" was cut, and it's a shame that it was, because I adore it: but on the other hand, it wouldn't have made any sense coming from this particular Elvira. Ah, but what does all this really matter when there's Patricia Wright's Donna Anna in the world? She was the reason - the only reason - I saw this production three times; I spent more than I should have to see it in Auckland and with just "Non sperar se non m'uccidi ch'io ti lasci fuggir mai" she paid me back tenfold; she's one of the singers I love best in all the world - and yet somehow, somehow, I was still surprised by just how damned fabulous her Donna Anna really was. She outshone the lot of 'em, including that applause-stealing Ottavio. It really is just terribly lucky for me that she lives in this country: if she were based anywhere else I'd be bankrupt by now.

Once again, as always, I've been sidetracked into the praise of sopranos. But it all comes back to the unbelievable gift that is Mozart, to the darling boy I'm so very attached to. Impossible and beautiful and utterly inexplicable. Glaubt mir, er muß ein Zaub'rer sein.

Staging Bach

As part of a continuing effort to remind myself that there a great deal more than two opera singers in the world, I've been listening to a few of the CDs that have been lying silent for the last few months - in particular things I bought in my manic April shopping spree. And today, to the divine Lorraine Hunt Lieberson's Bach CD. I hadn't forgotten how much I like Lorraine, but in a way I'd forgotten just why I like her, and so it's nice to hear her again. Well, nice isn't really the word is it? Not when it's Lorraine doing gutwrenching Bach cantatas in her beautiful, soulful way. I leave the CD playing, carry on doing what I'm doing - and then these jaw-dropping moments come when all one can do is stop and stare at the CD player and think "Lorraine." Besides which, as you know, I'm a Bach fiend.

What troubles me slightly though, is the mention in the liner notes for the CD that these two cantatas were staged - with Lorraine - by Peter Sellars. Staged? I'm not sure how I feel about that. From the descriptions given, I imagine they probably did make rather compelling theatre. But theatre. Musically I somehow don't think it's quite necessary. Do we need to spell out in this way the contemporary relevance and universal applicability of the emotions expressed? I don't think that we do because I think all of that - and more besides - is in the music. After all, that's one of the miracles of Bach, the intense and, what's more, the intensely recognisable emotions portrayed. I think, for instance, of 'Mache dich, mein Herze, rein' from the St Matthew Passion, which I consider one of the most perfect pieces of music ever created and which I find it incredibly difficult and emotionally draining to listen to - in fact I haven't made it all the way through since hearing the Passion live in March this year. Bringing the two cantatas into that theatrical setting would, I'm sure, have been a fascinating thing but would it actually add anything to them? Surely there's nothing left to add. 

Ein sonderbar Ding

(This was going to be a review of the Met broadcast of Der Rosenkavalier but, well, it turned to something else. I'll get to the broadcast tomorrow, along (I hope) with the rather lovely Xerxes which was on TV tonight.)

I've enjoyed sort of an odd relationship with Der Rosenkavalier, and with Richard Strauss in general. Before my devotion to opera was properly begun, I spent a summer in the company of The Radiant Voice of Barbara Bonney. From that resulted a conviction that 'Mir ist die Ehre widerdfahren' was one of the most beautiful pieces of music written; but nevertheless at that point I had little or no idea of its context or even its era. The name really meant nothing to me other than the composer of Rosenkavalier - and Rosenkavalier meant little to me other than the Presentation of the Rose, and the video starring Lucia Popp which was in our house, but which I'd never watched.

Eventually last year I decided it was time I watched the darn thing. I was prepared for inaccessability, because that's about all I'd picked up in the brief bits I'd read about Richard Strauss. And while you might be waiting for me to tell how surprisingly accessible I then found Rosenkavalier, the truth is quite the opposite. I found it hard going: I just didn't 'get' it. I didn't know why but I knew nevertheless that I didn't. I even posted a sort of plea on the blog for others to reassure me that they too found it less than easy to engage with. It seemed to me that I should have been captured immediately by it: I kept hearing about how Strauss loved the soprano voice and made it do such beautiful things, in Rosenkavalier particularly, but even when I heard the parts which I knew should have been examples of this, I somehow still couldn't find it as transcendant as so many reviewers apparently had. I loved Lucia to pieces, and adored every note she sang: but my bliss was in Lucia and not in Strauss, and much as I wished to understand the beauty of the opera, I felt acutely that I did not.

The same was true of Strauss more generally. There were a few of his songs on Kathleen Battle's Salzburg Recital, the other CD I spent that summer with, and I knew them so well that they weren't a problem, and I loved them. But the Vier Letzte Lieder were a challenge for me, and a guilty one too. Because everybody loved them. Everybody but me. I couldn't connect somehow. I read someone's suggestion that they might be some of the most beautiful music ever written by anybody and I just couldn't grasp how that might be so. And it all made me feel like a philistine of the first degree.

Muoia!

I think it's very likely that there's a Puccini devotee lurking within me, waiting for a chance to reveal itself. So far, I've heard surprisingly little Puccini in my life, outside of the standard arias that appear on everyone's solo discs. I have yet to see or hear a complete Bohème or Tosca. (Did I really just admit that?). Same goes for Rondine and Fanciulla too. I've seen Madama Butterfly but I don't own a recording of it. But this isn't like my (steadily disappearing) fear of Wagner; I listen to Puccini willingly, and always like it a lot. It's just that, with so much of my time spent in the eighteenth century, I've never yet quite managed to do the Puccini thing properly. But, as I say, I've a feeling that when I do, I'll be won forever. After all, the CD which heralded the beginning of my true immersion in opera was none other than Puccini Gala: Famous Arias. I'd always enjoyed whatever opera was thrown at me (and there was a lot of it) but not until I started listening constantly to this CD did I start to feel the urge to explore the world of opera on my own: and, as you can see, I've never looked back. So there's obviously some power which that music has held over me since the start. What's more, the very first aria I ever obsessed over was 'Signore, ascolta' from Turandot. For a while, with no idea of who Liu was or what she was singing, I was listening two or three times a night to Ruth Ann singing 'Signore, ascolta'. And Anna Leese's performance in the Mobil Song Quest final had me fascinated by 'Chi il bel sogno di Doretta' as well (I've still never heard anyone sing the words 'Folle amore' more beautifully than Anna did.)

And there's something else besides. Turandot. The only Puccini opera I own, the only one I've listened to repeatedly. And I love it like you wouldn't believe. I didn't expect to, necessarily: I bought it because it was secondhand and had Elisabeth Schwarzkopf in it. But that music! With no effort on my part, that music invaded my brain, and it's stayed there ever since. I didn't even notice, until I was in Melbourne and saw it there. I was a million miles from the stage, the Turandot, Maria Dragoni, was having serious vocal problems, the stage was far too busy and the orchestra was a little on the erratic side. But I was hanging on every note. It's the sort of opera I would love even in an orchestra-only arrangement; the thrills and the goosebumps I get come more from the notes written than anything else. The xylophone at the very beginning; the opening bars of 'Tu che di gel sei cinta'; the words 'mio piccolo Liu'; even the tune of 'Nessun dorma', which by rights I should be sick to death of - in every case, no matter who's playing or singing the notes, and no matter how well or how badly they're doing it, I think about the existence of that music, those notes, sitting there on the pages of the score and I adore it.

Certainly Puccini was good at tearjerkers and listenable stand-alone arias; there's noone better if you want something for your Opera in the Park concert. But, even though it gave the world 'Nessun dorma', Turandot is something much more complex and fascinating than a few hits and lots of exciting choruses. What I love about it is the sense of unity. We move from Calaf's mad passion, to Liu's desperate pleas, to Turandot's icy murderousness, and everything else that comes in between, but even the sharpest contrasts are linked beautifully. There's echo after echo, themes which appear and reappear, while the story and its characters continue to develop. Take the riddle scene, for instance: the things we heard at the very beginning, as the Prince of Persia was lead to his execution, are back; but now with the addition of Calaf, everything is changing, and so we get new sounds as well. Arias have been successfully extracted for the Greatest Hits CDs, but when you hear the opera complete, you realise how few pauses there are in it: neither 'Signore, ascolta' nor 'Nessun dorma' allows an audience much chance to applaud, and 'In questa reggia', a serious star turn, still only reaches its climax after becoming a duet. Puccini creates a whole musical world (or a city at least), which he never lets disappear. And whether it's really there or just a psychological thing, I do think I can hear all this slip away a little at the point where our maestro lays down his pen and Franco Alfano picks it up again. Perhaps it's because I don't want it to be, but I can't help but feel that in that final scene, a little of the magic has disappeared. Of course, the plot at this point doesn't help: I think this opera has one of the worst endings ever. Calaf really does not deserve to get the girl; and I think Turandot's sudden transformation is utterly unconvincing. Actually I don't much like any of the plot, but does that matter? Not one little bit.

There is actually a reason for this sudden outpouring, in case you were wondering: yesterday's Met broadcast on Concert FM was the Turandot from January 29th. For the first time, I managed to get myself organised and do what I've been wanting to do since the broadcasts started: follow the vocal score. In fact, I even went a step further, and spent my Saturday evening playing it through on the piano (not that anyone would have recognised my hideous bangs and twangs as Turandot, but I enjoyed myself.) Which is no doubt why my mind is principally tied up with the music, rather than the singers. They were, however, very good indeed.

Andrea Gruber is rather frightening. I can't imagine what she must be like in the flesh. That's one seriously powerful instrument she's got there. Not one which particularly appeals to me, but it was an excellent performance nevertheless. And although she wasn't a very icy Ice Princess, the passion of her hatred made the transition into passionate love a little more credible. Johan Botha's Calaf was a little too shouty for me, but otherwise didn't present any problems. Krassimira Stoyanova was an excellent Liu, a little more full-bodied and willful than I've been used to, but it worked well and she sounded wonderful. And Ping, Pong and Pang (I haven't the energy to check who sang them) were quite lovely and lyrical; their first appearance is (yet) another musical moment in this opera that I love to pieces.

So obviously I need to delve further into Puccini than I have. There's every chance I'll fall for the rest of his operas the way I have for this one. Here's hoping!

I'll finish now, but before I go, let me direct you to a couple of my favourite Turandot pictures (both chosen from Sandy Steiglitz's incredible opera gallery). Birgit Nilsson as the most nightmarish Turandot imaginable - have a look at those claws! And my darling Anna Moffo. I can't imagine how any prince could fail to listen to this Liu when she asked him to...

On Rossini

In the last few weeks I've seen or heard at least three people talk about their steadfast avoidance/dislike for Rossini. It's all backed up with intelligence and good reason, and they're certainly entitled to like or dislike whatever they want. But I've always had a soft spot for the man, so I thought I'd say a little something about why I do like him.

Have you ever seen one of Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney's "backyard musicals"? After the Andy Hardy movies, they made four of these at MGM under Busby Berkeley. Each of the four has pretty much exactly the same plot: Judy is or wants to be Mickey's steady girl; Mickey wants to be a performer; a fundraising challenge arises and suddenly Mickey says "Let's put on a show! Right here!" They sing and dance up a storm and raise more than enough money and everyone lives happily ever after. There's not a single moment where you don't know exactly what's going to happen; nobody's actions ever surprise you. They could very easily be boring, and I'm sure to many people they are. Personally I think they're fabulous. They're none of them masterpieces, and you mightn't want to see them more than once every few years, but they're wonderful fun and very entertaining.

I hope you can see the point I'm moving towards. Rossini's operatic writing is as predictable and immediately recognisable as it gets. Those who say it all sounds the same have a point - to a great extent it does. In fact a good deal of it is the same: the music for 'Non piu mesta' from La Cenerentola, for instance, appeared first in an aria for Figaro in Il Barbiere, and also shows up in one of the opere serie represented on Cecilia's Rossini Heroines. Rossini was nothing if not a master of self-plagiarism (or shall we be polite and call it economy?). But there's a pleasure and a comfort in all of this much like that which I find in the Mick'n'Joots movies. Jump in at any point and you know what's happened, what will happen, and how. In both cases you know what kind of music you're going to hear. It's not likely that anything unexpected will be thrown at you. But who's to say that this fact precludes genuine enjoyment? You can climb out on musical limbs and enjoy the thrill all you like, but there's no reason why you can't also come home and have a cup of Milo sometimes as well- and no reason why you should feel unsophisticated for it. Variety is the spice of life, but it's not the only element.

There's another backyard musical parallel to be drawn too. I might find those movies fatally boring too, if it weren't for the sublime talent of Judy Garland, who can take the slightest of plots and turn in something magical. The same is true of great Rossini singers. Cecilia for instance, or Marilyn Horne, or Juan Diego Florez, to name a few. It's safe to say that at least ninety percent of the arias on Cecilia's two Rossini CDs are absolutely typical Rossini arias, all with those especially recognisable endings. But I'm being entirely honest when I tell you that I don't notice it when I listen to the CD. The singing, the expression, the excitement, the combination of soloist and orchestra: that's what I hear. It all sounds similar, but it doesn't sound the same, because I can distinguish between arias and choose my favourites. Among which, incidentally, is 'Bel raggio lusinghier', the single most important aria in the growth of my love for opera. In fact, if you'd like to pinpoint my devotion down to a single second, listen to Cecilia sing it. The 'bel' in the first 'il bel momento': that's Cupid's arrow, piercing my heart. Thousands will tell you that enjoyment of opera shouldn't, mustn't depend so heavily on the individual performer, but who cares? If Rossini hadn't had Isabella Colbran and Pauline Viardot to work with, would he have written so much music for mezzo-soprano? The individual performer has always been influential and important in opera, and if that's more evident in Rossini than elsewhere, so be it.

Something else. The songs. I know he didn't think of them as serious work, and not many people do. They're not. But I do think that those decrying his constant lack of musical variety owe at least a passing mention to these. They're quite different from his operatic writing, and they're also different from one another. The best example, in my opinion: "Mi lagnero tacendo". It seems as if whenever he had nothing else to do, Rossini set this text: there are, I think, more than a hundred different settings. The text gets a little overfamiliar after five or six versions in a row, yes, but the music doesn't. 'Il Risentimento' and 'Il Sorzico' are two settings of the poem which you'd hardly think sprang from the same words.

No, I don't bask in Rossini like I do in Handel, nor do I see in him anything approaching genius of Mozart. I'll probably miss his birthday. But I definitely like him. I couldn't live by Rossini alone- but I like to throw a little bit in the mix. And life without La Cenerentola? No thankyou.

I'm off to Nelson tomorrow

I'm off to Nelson tomorrow to see the glorious Patricia Wright sing Bach.In the meantime, Happy Birthday to a man whom I adore beyond words and reason; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is 249 years old today. How could we ever live without him?

G&S

The annual Really Authentic Gilbert and Sullivan Performance Trust (aka R.A.G.S.) production starts this weekend: Patience. They've been happening for a few years now but this is the first one I'm going to see. I don't have an opinion on Gilbert & Sullivan yet really. The snob in me is a little dismissive of it all; on the other hand there are two soprano songs from Gilbert & Sullivan shows: 'Poor Wand'ring One' from Pirates of Penzance and 'Tis done, I am a bride' from Yeoman of the Guard- and they're both just gorgeous.

'Poor Wandering One' is an mp3 I somehow ended up with, possibly accidentally. In any case- and much to my dismay- I can't seem to discover who the soprano singing it is. There are no track details for it, and there are so many recordings of the show (a lot of them without Amazon sound clips) that it seems unlikely I'll be able to figure it out. Such a shame, because whoever she is, she's very very good. And I love the song. Very cute, possibly rather silly (I don't know the story of Pirates of Penzance) but lovely nonetheless. I heard 'Tis done, I am a bride' on a Sylvia McNair CD. It's much more serious than 'Poor Wand'ring One', although I did sit and play (abysmally) through the Yeoman of the Guard vocal score and got a sense of another ridiculous plot (pretty standard for Gilbert & Sullivan I think). Sylvia sings it just beautifully.

So I suppose that for me, the music of Gilbert & Sullivan is a little like Wagner (can't imagine that's been said before!)- I've heard very little of it, and have the idea in my head that I don't want to hear much of it, and yet everything I do hear, I like. I'm very very Wagner-ignorant and can't seem to convince myself to change the situation, even though I've heard Kirsten Flagstad, Julia Migenes, Karita Mattila and Lucia Popp all sing Wagnerian arias, and loved every minute of it. And as I've said, it's the same with G & S. The two songs I've mentioned are all I've heard (unless you count Anna Russell's hilarious 'How to Write Your Own Gilbert & Sullivan Opera' routine). But they're both excellent, and both sung by very pretty soprano voices, so I think that this bodes well. And in any case, I am going to Patience. I think it'll be good.

CD du jour is the CD containing Sylvia's song from Yeoman of the Guard. I cannot for the life of me remember what it's called, and I can't find it on Amazon (or anywhere else for that matter). It's essentially a 'Best Of' CD, but includes a few new recordings as well. It covers most of her repertoire: Mozart, French music, Stravinsky, the American songbook- it's all there. This CD made me like Sylvia McNair, and deservedly so I think. It's funny though: I didn't enjoy her Rêveries CD at all. It's not unpleasant, her voice can't help but sound good, but somehow I just found the whole album unappealing. It's possible this was due in part to the fact that the CD has some songs in common with Cecilia's Chant d'amour: you can imagine how entirely different their approaches are. But I don't think that's the only reason. Maybe it's closer to how the songs are intended to sound (they're mostly early 20th century I think) but I wanted them to sound a little more like opera and a little less like Jerome Kern. Jerome Kern has his place of course but I don't think it's in Debussy. However, the Rêveries experience hasn't put me off Sylvia. Her Mozart is very pretty, her aria from Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress is just fabulous and I still adore this CD, whatever it might be called.