I love opera, bluegrass, burger joints and fictional detectives. Mostly, but not always, in that order. Formerly of Dunedin, formerly of Sydney, now travelling the world with the tenor in my life (Stuart Skelton) and blogging as I go.
The season of Die Walküre at the Opéra Bastille is more than halfway through as of yesterday evening. I celebrated the occasion by turning traitor and descending into the depths, not of Nibelheim, but of the Musée d'Orsay, for a concert by Bernarda Fink and the Academy of Ancient Music. More on that anon (short version: it was wonderful) but by way of recouping some of my lost Wagnerian Brownie Points, here's a particularly excellent chunk of Walküre for you.
Oh, Eva Maria, Eva-Maria. My favourite Sieglinde. Truly excellent Siegmunding from Cliff Forbis, too; you see, even I, with my all consuming biases, am not completely deaf to other contenders. In fact I should point that my own personal Siegmund, himself not exactly shabby at the whole "Ein Schwert..." business, rates Cliffs "Wälse"s at the Met in 2008 among the most thrilling he's ever heard. "Better than yours?" I ask, disbelievingly. "Better," he insists. "With daylight in between." Tenors don't do false modesty, so that's some seriously high praise.
Speaking of Ms Westbroek, I discovered today – late to the party as ever – that the fine folks at La Monnaie have made her recent Manon Lescaut available to stream in its entirety. I've just watched it, and while the production – which sets the action in a present-day subway station and in which Manon may well be nothing more than a series of projected late night fantasies from the obsessive brain of a businessman Des Grieux – is probably not everybody's cup of tea, it has some very clever moments and, above all, a veritable flood of fabulous singing from Eva-Maria. It's nice to see something halfway plausible and sympathetic made of Des Grieux, too, sung here by Brandon Jovanovich. The video is available until March 4th. Recommended.
I read about Anja Harteros all the time – mostly either paeans to her fabulousness on stage, or laments at her fairly frequent cancellations – but it struck me last night that I'd never actually heard her sing, either in person or via recordings. She's respected and adored by many of the operapeople I trust most, so I've never doubted her brilliance, but somehow I've also never got around to investigating the nature of that brilliance. You can get a vague sense of somebody's artistry from reviews and a look at their repertoire, but not much more than that.
So, off to YouTube – the font of all diva knowledge – where the first morsel to tempt me was this very beautiful "O mio babbino caro" in concert.
But I fancied something a bit more intense and theatrical, so my next step was this, "D'Oreste, d'Ajace" from Idomeneo. A slightly oddball production by the looks of it but the manic intensity of her Elettra is gripping and she sings the daylights out of it.
Maybe you think this blog post is going to be an Anja Harteros Gala, and it might have been, had this not caught my eye among the linked videos in the sidebar.
Well, wow. The production is everything Anja's wasn't: hypertraditional, static and let's face it, potentially very very dull...except that Behrens is here to prove that it's the singer, not the staging, who brings a performance to life. She's riveting and terrifying and completely wonderful and it all comes from within: that is one raging inferno of an inner fire. I don't for a minute mean to diminish the marvellous Anja, but this performance edged her out for my Revelation Of The Night.
It also started me thinking about other exciting Mozart sopranos, from which it was a very short leap to – who else? – Carol Vaness. I was hoping for my third scary Elettra of the night, but YouTube didn't seem inclined to oblige, and since I actually own that one on DVD anyway I was happy to be sidetracked by something very different, though still Mozart:
Parsifal and Peter Grimes might have supplanted Don Giovanni at the top of my favourite operas list but I will never ever not love Mozart, and while Così has its longueurs, the above isn't one of them. Neither is this...
...although that might have a little something to do with the supreme adorability of Cecilia Bartoli. I was nine when, fascinated by her incredibly mobile eyebrows, I declared her my favourite and while she might not be quite at the centre of my diva universe any more, I haven't stopped loving her; and I doff my hat completely to her having maintained a top level operatic career on what appear to be almost entirely her terms. No mean feat, that. The sheer joy and love of music which radiates from her is, to me, irresistible – especially when she goes and does something like this:
[moment of silence]
Where to from there? Oh, I know. MIRELLA.
MORE MIRELLA.
Thus it might easily have continued for hours (or all eternity) but you have to stop somewhere, I suppose, and this where I stopped last night. The only name I searched all night was Anja's; every other video was just a recommendation thrown up by the previous one. Interwebz, you are a grand and glorious thing.
And so, as it turns out, is the woman who started the evening's adventures, so let's finish more or less where we started, with Anja Harteros being glorious.
The banner of this blog says "adventures in and out of opera" but I don't often live up to the second half of that. So in honour of tonight's blue moon, here's one of my favourite out-of-opera people singing a song I just love.
One of the many, many things I love about the United States is the existence of Classic Arts Showcase. When all other television is a wasteland – and it happens with disturbing frequency – CAS is always there to rescue me, with its constant supply of fine arts video clips. It's like YouTube without the need to make decisions and without my own personal bias, showing me wonderful stuff I might never have found, or thought to watch, on my own. And all with the stated mission of encouraging viewers eventually to turn off their TVs, go out, and experience these art forms in the flesh.
Classic Arts Showcase has become a bit of a standby in our household when we're back in the U.S., and particularly on those nights when jetlag has us awake at stupid hours, in need of entertainment. And one night last week, it gave us this lovely woman: American contralto Eula Beal. Maybe you've heard of her; I certainly hadn't. Her career was fairly shortlived and localised – though she did manage to sing "Kindertotenlieder" in its LA Phil premiere – and might well have left no recorded legacy, had it not been for the film Concert Magic, from which CAS's two excerpts were drawn. I can't seem to find either of them on YouTube, but there are others, so allow me to share a couple.
"Erbarme dich" (in English) with Yehudi Menuhin playing the violin, and Antal Dorati conducting the Symphony Orchestra of Hollywood.
Schubert's "Erlkönig", accompanied by Marguerite Campbell.
Lately, the "S*** [insert group of people here] Say" meme has apparently been doing the rounds of the Internet, although to be honest I only owe this knowledge to suggestions (on one of the sillier blogs I frequent) that it was about to die out anyway. Know Your Meme has a better explanation than I could muster, should you be hungering for some context, but the reason I've brought all of this up is because – and this sort of thing always makes me happy – the meme now has an operatic incarnation. Two, in fact.
This one showed up on my Facebook feed this afternoon.
And when I, in turn, shared it, this one was brought to my attention by the excellent Mr Andrew Finden. It's from a slightly less student-y perspective than the first, and a bit more slickly produced.
I do love the blonde wig. This video also had the bonus of reminding me about Jennifer Rivera (the mezzo in the video, in case you've not watched it). Jennifer (aka Sestissimo) has been blogging for years, but I fear I've neglected her wonderful blog something chronic. There's no good reason for this: over the years, I've landed there on many occasions, loved it, promised myself to keep up with it, and then...not done so. Hopeless. But I've just been catching up with the last six months or so (less impressive than it sounds, as her posts have been brilliant but sparse) and I hope that maybe this time I Will Be Good, and stick with her. You should too. Maybe you already do.
And now that we've had Jennifer (and the similarly hilarious Will Ferguson) in comic mode, here she is in serious Handelian mode, singing up a storm as Nerone in Handel's Agrippina at the Berlin Staatsoper.
As I write this, it's Christmas Day in two of my home countries and Christmas Eve here in my third. So, Merry Christmas everyone! Here's some Christmas music for you all: some of it operatic, some of it not, all of it pretty wonderful. Enjoy.
Karina Gauvin is habit-forming. I first encountered her in the Alan Curtis Alcina, with Joyce DiDonato in the title role. Actually, that may not be true. I have a sneaking feeling that Karina and I first crossed paths some years earlier, when I happened to hear her recording of Knoxville: Summer of 1915 on the radio. At least, I think it was hers. I can't claim — wish I could — that she hooked me then, but she certainly has hooked me now.
Actually the Alcina didn't quite do that either. It put her name back at the front of my brain, and made me take notice, but let's face it: that Alcina was too busy feeding my Joyce habit to be creating any new addictions. No, what hooked me on Karina was her disc of Porpora arias. How, I ask you, could any sopranophile resist singing like this?
You see what I mean. I loved her in the Alcina but partly, I must confess, in a "wow, a second Sandrine Piau" kind of way. Now I hardly hear the resemblance: she just sounds like Karina and I love Karina. No doubt it helped that I was listening to that Porpora disc on pretty much a daily base for quite some time. In fact it still hasn't left my iPod — which is saying something, because my iPod is tiny and I'm constantly deleting music in order to add new stuff.
So now is where the addiction kicks in I may have been living under a rock, living a soprano-addicted life for lo, these many years and never running into Karina Gauvin, but the record industry has not been nearly so oblivious. They've been recording her. A lot. Song recitals, aria discs, operas and symphonies and oratorios and it all must be mine.
Eventually it will. Weirdly, I am a completist in theory but fairly slack in practice, so while I drool and drool over the various Karina fixes on offer to me, I only rarely get around to acquiring any of them. It's partly laziness, partly a stubborn, sentimental attachment to the physical CD buying process — flicking through shelves, buying discs over the counter, and building them into a pile which I can walk into and curse for being made of pointy plastic corners. But I have made a start.
And meanwhile, the albums keep coming. I've just finished a review of the latest, a disc of Handel arias and duets with Karina and another awesome French-Canadian singer, Marie-Nicole Lemieux. Gorgeous singing from both of them — I love Marie-Nicole — but with Karina, these days, it's something more. She's like, to introduce a clumsy simile which I will immediately regret, a giant bowl of M&Ms. Every note is sweet and delicious and I always need more.
Best if I stop before comparing her to junk food again. (I do love junk food, though.) How about some singing instead? Here are Karina and Marie-Nicole singing a duet from Solomon. Warning: may be a gateway drug.
Welcome to my addiction.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Can't help but post this. I suspect I saw the person filming it.
Parsifal - Zurich Opera House - October 2nd 2011 - Final curtain call (zoom) (by FanaticosdaOpera)
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
And speaking of things I should have blogged earlier, here are a couple of snippets from rehearsals for the Hong Kong Philharmonic Das Lied von der Erde earlier this month.
I've recently started reviewing opera DVDs for Limelight. It's a nice gig, although if they'd the height of my "unwatched" pile back in Sydney, they might have thought twice about trusting me. Deadlines work wonders, however, so I've watched more opera on DVD than I usually would, and then attempted to summarise them in 250-300 words. Amazingly, given that word limits are usually my bête noire when it comes to opera, this has not so far been a problem.
But that's because I've been just a little bit cursed. Only a little bit. Nothing I've watched has truly hurt my brain or eyes — in fact most of them have been reasonably entertaining — but none of them has seemed to require more than 300 words. Until yesterday. I watched Handel's Belshazzar, and I've already submitted my review, but it turns out that this time, there's more to say.
This is a production from the 2008 Aix-en-Provence Festival, directed by Christof Nel and conducted by René Jacobs. I have to be honest. The thought of a staged Belshazzar wasn't exactly thrilling me to the core, and the rather grey cover image didn't much help. Well, insert proverb about DVDs and judging here. It's actually quite wonderful.
I mean, it's Handel, so there's a level of musical gorgeousness which goes without saying. Then you have the particular musical forces involved: René Jacobs, the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, the RIAS Kammerchor and, oh yes, some fairly sensational soloists, including my current favourite countertenor, Bejun Mehta. So that's the musical side of things sorted, but what lifts this to the next level is that everybody on stage — soloists and chorus — is acting their heart out. A fairly standard Biblical oratorio is transformed into an incredibly intense human drama.
The production has its oddities but it is, despite its literal colour, full of life, and its sharpest edges are nicely smoothed out by the neverending loveliness of the music — there are no big hit arias, but the score is full of inventive music and the libretto is probably one of the best Handel ever had to work with. (It's certainly better than Joseph and his Brethren, with its aria about a pelican.) Nel's production certainly left me with the impression that it had some profound things to say about politics and human nature, and whether that's true or not, it still reflects well on the work and on Nel's staging.
Bejun Mehta in action lived up to the expectation set by Bejun Mehta on record — his Handel arias is still the only CD I've given a five star review (clearly I haven't reviewed Joyce DiDonato's Diva/Divo yet) and he's five star Cyrus here too. Voice just as beautiful and acting remarkably good. He lives every inch of that role. Kenneth Tarver as Belshazzar is less human and much more animal. Deliberately overplayed, I think; I kept thinking he was the embodiment of all the evil qualities than any group at war naturally ascribes to its enemy, if only for propaganda purposes. He's so creepy that it's a surprise, when he finally sings, to hear such a clear, attractive voice.
Right. But. Rosemary Joshua. That's really why I'm here. I've known her name for a long time, and heard her occasionally on disc (she's even on Bejun's CD) but she'd never registered with me as somebody to actively pursue. Then she arrived on my screen with her extraordinary opening monologue and ... wow. As strong as all the acting in this show is, she still tops everybody for intensity, for beauty, for all round amazingness. She's scintillating, and her voice will apparently do anything she asks it to. So dignified and so fragile, with an uncanny ability to make even the most gossamer da capo ornament sound like an essential part of her character.
Seriously, she's so completely my type it's not funny, and I can't account for my delay in falling for her. No excuses. I just need more Rosemary. There's a box in Sydney somewhere which contains my copy of her Handel duets CD with Sarah Connolly (I know), a CD I only managed to hear once before packing everything up and putting in storage. I'll get it back eventually. In the meantime, YouTube is my friend, and there are a couple of Handel operas I might need to own.
Trailer. No Rosemary, but plenty of Bejun, and how fantastic is that choir?
Monday, August 08, 2011
I've known her name for years and years, so why did it take until this evening for me to fall in love with her?
Facebook challenge: The first aria you fell in love with
Thanks to Barbara Bonney's CD of the same name, which I fell in love with even before my operatic obsession had really begun, it's "Fairest Isle", from Purcell's King Arthur. And lo and behold, here's a clip of her singing it in a production of the opera. A very weird production, by the looks of it, but hey, it's Barbara, I'm not complaining.
An Acquired Taste: The most attractive artist ever
Female or male? Never mind, I can answer both with one photo. Here are Franco Corelli and Anna Moffo. Both outrageously attractive, and as it happens, both favourite singers of mine.
An Acquired Taste: Take your favourite opera and assemble your dream cast
My favourite opera is Peter Grimes, but I've already seen my dream cast in that. But I do dream of a Rosenkavalier with Soile Isokoski as the Marschallin, Joyce DiDonato as Octavian, Diana Damrau as Sophie, Kristinn Sigmundsson as Ochs and Thomas Allen as Faninal. That would not, I suspect, be terrible. Nor is it actually beyond the realm of possibility. Peter Gelb, are you listening?
In my case, the answer is pretty much all of them — I've always been a fan of going solo to the opera, whether by choice or compulsion, or because my steady date is, you know, up there singing. However, I do recall actively discouraging company when I saw a string of Butterflys with Cheryl Barker — I wanted to keep all that wonderful trauma to myself and not dilute it with socialising and stuff — so let's go with that.
Facebook challenge: Aria which perfectly exemplifies anger
An Acquired Taste: An opera you'd sell a kidney to see
Salome with Cheryl Barker in the title role. Luckily, I understand I won't need to pay nearly so dearly.
DAY 22
Facebook challenge: Famous operatic chorus
An Acquired Taste: Best opera to see with a friend
Surely that depends pretty heavily on the friend? But I guess most people would struggle to have a terrible time at Tosca. (And it's certainly the best opera to take my best friend to.)
DAY 23
Facebook challenge: An evil character you'd like to play
(Speaking of Tosca.)
An Acquired Taste: Best opera to see with a lover
Peter Grimes. No, really. As a test. I mean, if you don't fundamentally agree about Grimes (either positively or negatively) then maybe you need to reconsider the whole relationship. Or is that just me?
I think this really depends on the production. In which case, I pick Rameau's Les indes galantes, on account of the insane Les Arts Florissants production.
In all honesty, I think the answer is probably Verdi if it's anyone, though all my real favourite composers are from everywhere but Italy. For variety's sake, however, and because I love how he got it so right, so early, I'm going with Monteverdi.
Marie and Tonio. Nobody dies, there are no massive misunderstandings or accusations, and it all ends happily. I've already posted a clip of Natalie, so here's the excellent Mariella Devia (and Paul Austin Kelly) instead.
I'm going to cheat a little here and go with a singer-specific answer. In the hands of its writer, Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You" is a song I like very much indeed. Translated into Italian, dressed up with a syrupy orchestral backing, and sung by Katherine Jenkins, it definitely falls into the category of HATE.
Here's my beloved Dolly singing it. Let's try and pretend KJ never touched it.
Having already picked you-know-who as my favourite tenor, I figure he's hors concours for this one, so I'm opting for my another of my favourite Australians, Peter Coleman-Wright. Here he is as the Count in Opera Australia's recent Figaro. I'd rather have a clip of just him, but this will have to do.
This probably upset somebody, but Sir Arthur Sullivan. I know plenty of people who swear by it, but I've just never understood the musical appeal of Gilbert & Sullivan.
Hate is far too strong a word. But Zerlina irritates me, and this aria (particularly when annoyingly staged) doesn't help. Until, that is, I hear it sung like this, and wonder how I ever dared to say a word against it.
Perhaps the most biased answer ever, but no less true for that. Yes, as far as I'm concerned, the best tenor is my tenor. (Though I think he'd tell you it was James King.)
(Third Peter Grimes clip in six days, I know. But it's the best opera ever, or close to it.)
My esteem (or otherwise) for bel canto has more to do with who happens to be singing it at me than the relative merits of its composers — frankly I could probably live without it, if only it didn't give people like Joyce DiDonato and Beverly Sills a chance to be insanely wonderful. Anyway, for argument's sake, I'll say Rossini. If only so I can post this:
I racked my brains for a while on this, then realised I was missing the blindingly obvious. Ellen's Embroidery Aria from Peter Grimes. Clip from Opera Australia's production, naturally; still the best thing I've ever seen in any theatre, ever.
So many possibilities. I nearly said Joyce. I could also say Marilyn. Or countless others. But I'm going to say Lorraine. I mean, was she even of this earth?
Best, rather than favourite? Not that I'm sure it makes a difference. Mirella's definitely one of my candidates, but since I've just posted her above, I'll pick my operatic mother, without whom my love of opera might never have happened. Lucia Popp.
I can never pick just one favourite anything. There are plenty of contenders for this one, but in the end I couldn't quite go past the Te Deum from Tosca. Last year, when I thought I'd seen enough performances of Opera Australia's Tosca, it was the chance to hear John Wegner sing this one more time which convinced me to go a fifth time. Here's George London. Audio only; there's video too but I can't embed it.
Yes, this question is in the other challenge too, and I answered it yesterday. All part of my cunning plan. I have several favourites. Yesterday I picked Richard Strauss. Today, Mozart. Obvious, maybe, but inevitably true. Especially in face of this sort of thing:
Parterre helpfully points out that today is Tosca Day, the day in 1800 on which the events of Sardou's play take place. I'd never have known otherwise. I know May 20th is Eliza Doolittle Day and that yesterday was Bloomsday, but Tosca trivia is not really my strong point. Maybe it would be if I'd known it longer, but I was late coming to Tosca. I mean, I knew the basic contours of the opera — they're hard to avoid, once you're living the operatic life — but it's only been in the last eighteen months or so that I've really got to know it properly.
Most of that was the crash course I underwent towards the end of 2009. Reason? Cheryl Barker. She's the reason for quite a lot of my operatic choices. I moved to Sydney just a little bit too late to see her previous Tosca for Opera Australia, so when they announced her for the 2010 season, I had to prepare myself. And since I knew I'd be unwilling, in the immediate wake of her Tosca, to listen to anybody else's, I figured I'd better listen to plenty of them beforehand. So I did. I was buying (or acquiring) a new Tosca every week or so, listening to it constantly, getting to know that thing inside out — and then she cancelled on me.
For those of you who used to read my previous blog (is that most of you?) this is ancient history, of course. Cheryl pulled out of the show and was replaced by Takesha Meshé Kizart. Christopher Alden's modern, plot-altering production divided audiences; I liked it a lot on first and second viewings, but after five shows and two casts, never really need to see it ever again. I'd immersed myself in Tosca for the sake of Cheryl, but as it turned out, it was immersion for its own sake — and a good thing too. Soprano devotion might not be the loftiest, most intellectual incentive for study ever, but it's sure as hell an effective one.
When all's said and done, though, the sting of missing out on Cheryl's Tosca has never fully faded. To be fair, I've been spoilt rotten with opportunities to hear my favourite soprano — nearly sixty times now, I think — so I can hardly complain — but every time I listen to some Tosca, I remember. Which is why I'm oh so happy to have been given a second chance. Cheryl stars in Opera Queensland's Tosca in October this year, and despite my having made the curious decision to leave the country in which my Number One Diva resided, I won't miss this one. I have tickets for two performances, October 20th and 22nd. The production is John Copley's much-loved and very traditional staging — the one Opera Australia shunted out in favour of the Alden, and the kind of show which ought to be a wonderfully blank canvas for Cheryl's towering gift for characterisation.
Colour me happy. This doesn't entirely blot out the pain of missing her Capriccio, which opens in Sydney in just a few weeks — I still hate pretty much everyone who's going to see her as Madeleine — but given a choice between the two, it had to be Tosca, right? Of course it did.
Happy Tosca Day, everyone. If you've made it this far, here's some Corelli for you.
Right, well, Seattle Opera has now announced the details of its 2013 Ring Cycle, which means I can now point out to you that The Tenor In My Life will once again be their Siegmund. I've been excited about this for a while now: I've only seen YouTube snippets of the Seattle production but it looks gorgeous, and I know Ring-devotees in Australia who rave about it as one of the best. Plus, you know, TTIML is pretty good at this Wagner lark.
So, here, by way of a shameless plug is the video trailer for Seattle's 2009 Walküre. The first minute is my favourite bit, can't think why...
...and while I'm at it, I'll also point out that Seattle Opera's website has stacks of information, photos and even audio clips attached to many of the returning cast members' names (recorded during the 2009 cycle). And of course I'll particularly draw your attention to this bio, which includes an "Ein Schwert verhiess mir der Vater" that you simply gotta hear. Yeah, I know, I'm so unbiased. But seriously, that "Wälse" goes on forever.
Today is Richard Strauss's 147th birthday — or would have been. I think this calls for a small video celebration. Here are ten of my favourite Strauss moments. Trying to limit myself to one clip per opera, too, because frankly I could fill a list twice as long with just Rosenkavalier and Arabella excerpts.
"Allerseelen" Audio only. I did kind of want a video, but it's pretty hard to go past Elly Ameling in any format. This is pretty much my favourite Strauss song.
Final duet from Rosenkavalier. I'm picking this instead of the Presentation of the Rose. I think. Barbara Bonney is up there with Lucia Popp in the competition for Cutest Sophie Ever. And Felicity Lott's "Ja, ja" has to be one of the best.
"Und du wirst mein Gebieter sein" from Arabella. Had to have some Lucia in here. And this duet was where I had my Arabella epiphany, the first time I saw it live. Still one of the most exceptionally beautiful moments I've ever witnessed on stage. Arabella is my (not so) secret favourite Strauss opera, even though it should be Salome or Elektra or Rosenkavalier.
"Grossmächtige Prinzessin" from Ariadne auf Naxos. Natalie, clearly.
Part I:
Part II:
"Ständchen" Yes, I know all the stories. No, they don't stop me thinking Kathleen Battle has one of the prettiest voices ever, and besides, she (along with Barbara Bonney) introduced me to Strauss Lieder.
"Falke, mein Falke" from Die Frau ohne Schatten Not entirely sure I should count this as a favourite, since it was only just pointed out to me by the Tenor In My Life (who has also sung it) but I figured I needed a token male-voice moment in here, and it's fairly extraordinary. Again, audio only.
"Ich kann nicht sitzen" from Elektra. Deborah Voigt as Chrysothemis, way back in 1993, with a rather frightening Marilyn Zschau as Elektra.
Presentation of the Rose, from Rosenkavalier. OK, so I changed my mind. Of course I did. Plus, Joyce. And also Diana. And Joyce's great story — which I remember reading on her blog at the time — about where her outfit came from.
"Hab mir's gelobt" from, yes, Rosenkavalier So sue me. I said one per opera but it's Rosenkav. You can't only pick one. And you can't not pick the trio. If only the whole of Opera Australia's production were floating about YouTube already, I'd post that version, since it shattered me in person eight times over. But Nina, Vesselina and Malin are not exactly a shabby lineup; and I remember coming home one Sunday afternoon just in time to catch this much of this production, getting soppy and tearful immediately, and wishing I'd seen the whole thing.
"Im Abendrot" How else could I finish such a list?
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Sarah Connolly sings "In Paris with You" (by melodiaavis)
I forgot to mention, this was Sarah Connolly's second encore at Alice Tully. Yet another reason to like her.
Monday, April 04, 2011
Vivaldi: O servi volate (Juditha Triumphans) (by carosaxone)
The opposite of Wozzeck. (Dress rehearsal was this morning. Very good, of course, but not the kind of thing you come away from wanting to keep listening to all day. Besides, I heart Karina Gauvin.)
Today is Handel's 326th birthday – or would have been, if he'd ever run into Hieronymus Makropulos. So, in celebration, here are five of my favourite Handel moments.
1. "Myself I shall adore."
I suppose my introduction to Handel was probably Messiah, but it was another oratorio entirely which got me hooked – the decidedly secular Semele. Ruth Ann Swenson and Kathleen Battle between them taught me to love this aria, but here's another absolute favourite of mine, the gorgeous Carolyn Sampson, singing it at the Proms in 2009.
2. "As with rosy steps the morn."
It's pretty much impossible not to be spellbound by Lorraine Hunt Lieberson here.
3. "I know that my redeemer liveth."
You may or may not like the video – it's from a staged, modern dress Messiah – but I love Susan Gritton in this aria, one of the most beautiful moments in the whole oratorio.
4. "Un cenno leggiadretto."
At the opposite end of the spectrum, a bit of madcap fun from Serse, courtesy of Sandrine Piau, who never met a florid aria she couldn't ace.
5. "Destero dall'empia dite."
I couldn't not include some Joyce DiDonato on this list – her Handel is some of the most brilliant to be found these days. Here she is, live in concert (with a broken leg, which is why she's seated) singing this militant number from Amadigi di Gaula.
Bonus: "O, ruddier than the cherry" and "Cease to beauty"
It occurs to me that all the clips above are of female singers. Which probably says something about Handel's biases as well as about mine, but at any rate, here's something much more manly. Owen Brannigan – who created a number of Britten roles – sings two arias from Acis and Galatea. Audio only this time, but still fairly impressive; and that's one Joan Sutherland shunning him so prettily between the arias.
Of course, a list like this could easily run to fifty; that's why I like Handel so much. But at any rate, thanks for all the above and more, caro Sassone, and happy birthday.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Previous video led me to this one. How could you not love this woman?
Q. What could possibly keep me away from Parsifal #2 at the ENO?
