Category: Opera

Unenchanted Evening

Monday January 30, 2012 – The Met’s Baroque pastiche ENCHANTED ISLAND made for a dismal night at the opera. Placido Domingo as Neptune, in a Ken Howard production photo above, gave the performance one of its few perk-up moments. His voice, though aged, remains a distinctive instrument and he brought a real personality to his relatively brief appearance, something no other singer in the cast was able to do.

The Playbill featured a two-page synopsis. Drawing on two complex and brilliant Shakespeare masterpieces, THE TEMPEST and MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, the plot is a mishmash of characters and situations that do not engage us emotionally, and rarely even theatrically. The libretto is cheesy and stilted; avoiding Shakesperian style, it has a contemporary feel at odds with the setting and the music. Forced humour abounds, and the characters are made to sing uncomfortably-structured sentences. Unable to understand much of the diction, I flipped on my Met Titles and regretted it because reading the script added to a sense of deflation as the first act progressed.

The opera is much too long. The 90-minute first act seemed to have reached a pleasant climax with the Neptune scene, but then there was another prolonged slow aria for Prospero. Oddly, the house lights suddenly came on at full brightness during the postlude of this aria, then were dimmed and turned off again.

Slow arias in fact abound; but that proved as well since none of the singers had the needed vocal facility to astonish us with their coloratura. The annoying voice of Danielle DeNiese as Ariel went in one ear and out the other; she made no vocal impression at all. Anthony Roth Costanzo, replacing David Daniels as Prospero, seemed over-parted in the big house; pushing for volume, his sustained notes sometimes took on a steady beat. At other times the voice vanished behind the orchestra. Joyce Di Donato was announced as indisposed but she had “graciously consented…blah, blah, blah.” Please singers: if you are unwell enough to need an announcement, don’t sing. We don’t pay Met prices to hear sick singers. At any rate, Di Donato only had one bad low note, but her voice – even in full health – lacks a distinctive colour, the sort of personal timbre that made singers like Teresa Berganza, Dame Janet Baker and Frederica von Stade so instantly identifiable. Luca Pisaroni tended to be over-emphatic in his fiorature which verged on barking at times. Lisette Oropesa sang attractively as Miranda as did Paul Appleby as as Demetrius. The libretto did them no favors, but they – and in fact everyone onstage – went at the words gamely enough, even if they felt foolish doing so.

The idea of doing a Baroque pastische is not a bad one but it seemed to me that between the tedious libretto, too many ‘laments’, and the too-busy plot, ENCHANTED ISLAND was going nowhere. Two 45-minute acts with a 20-minute intermission should have sufficed; instead there were expendable arias, unnecessary da capos, and overdrawn recits as the first act stretched onward. We left at half-time and so, it seems, did lots of other people.

January 30, 2012
Balanchine in Paris
BALANCHINE IN PARIS, a film by Dominique Delouche, was shown at the Walter Reade Theater on Monday afternoon, January 30th. In the movie, we see footage of Ghislaine Thesmar (above), Alicia Markova, Nina Vyroubova and Violette Verdy coaching dancers of the Paris Opera Ballet and the Bayerische Staatsballett in Balanchine repertoire:

Le Palais de Cristal/Symphony in C
Musique de Georges Bizet, chorégraphie Balanchine (1947/1949)
Ghislaine Thesmar coaching Isabelle Ciaravola et Hervé Moreau, étoiles de l’Opéra de Paris

Le Rossignol
Musique Igor Stravinsky, chorégraphie Balanchine (1929)
Dame Alicia Markova coaching Myriam Ould Braham, première danseuse de l’Opéra de Paris

La Somnambula
Musique Rieti, chorégraphie Balanchine (1960)
Nina Vyroubova et Milorad Miskovitch coaching Muriel Hallé et Valery Colin, sujets à l’Opéra de Paris

Liebeslieder Walzer
Musique Brahms, chorégraphie Balanchine (1960)
Violette Verdy coaching Lucia Lacarra et Cyrille Pierre, étoiles au Bayerisches Staatsballett

Sonatine
Musique Ravel, chorégraphie Balanchine (1975)
Violette Verdy coaching Monique Loudières, étoile de l’Opéra de Paris

The entire film is a delight for ballet fans, and for Balanchine’s admirers in particular. The most moving segment for me was Thesmar coaching Palais de Cristal. And the refinements of Liebeslieder Walzer as coached by Violette Verdy make me more appreciative than ever of that perfumed masterpiece. I certainly hope this film will be released on DVD in the USA.
The showing was prefaced two films by Gabrielle Lamb: En Dedans is a ten-minute reverie on dancers’ dreams which she created for Philaelphia’s Ballet X and which I like especially because my friend Colby Damon is in it. Gabrielle showed me a raw copy of this film on her computer one day last year down at Gibney Dance Center. The finished work is truly dreamlike, the dancers moving in a studio that seems to be drifting through the clouds.

The jewel-like miniature Figment may be viewed on Gabrielle’s website here. Evolving from a dream that she had about a woman with a sword dancing in a tall, slender space this movie has an eerie charm. I also enjoyed hearing Gabrielle, a dancer with a powerful dramatic resonance, speaking about her filmworks.

From Figment
Gabrielle Lamb (2010)
January 30, 2012
Three Robbins Ballets @ NYCB

Tuesday January 24, 2012 – Three works by Jerome Robbins, each featuring an ideal ballerina in its central role, were performed tonight at New York City Ballet. The music? Ravel, Berg, Chopin. What a great way to spend a cold Winter’s evening! In the Paul Kolnik photo at the top, Wendy Whelan borne aloft by Jared Angle and Ask LaCour at the end of IN MEMORY OF…

The evening opened on a beach where the dancers, in pastel 1920s beachwear, cavorted to the Ravel piano concerto IN G MAJOR. Maria Kowroski (above in a Paul Kolnik) gave a radiant performance and Tyler Angle was a frisky young god in his solo. In the ballet’s central adagio, the two dancers found a fine rapport and a sense of freshness that kept the audience spellbound as they shaped their long limbs into a series of beautiful snapshots. The final lift, as Maria’s leg sweeps heavenward and her pointed foot seems to brush the sky, was thrilling. Excellent corps dancing: a neat moment when Maria is partnered by the tall and slender Austin Laurent made me wish that principals and corpsmen could dance together more extensively. IN G MAJOR has a striking backdrop by Erté , a designer perhaps forgotten nowadays but whose work resonates with Art Deco elegance. His set features a fanciful sunburst and dark outlines suggesting clouds and waves: a remarkably classy beachscape.

With George Manahan (of New York City Opera) as a guest conductor bringing out some lovely nuances in the score and pianist Susan Walters giving a polished performance at the keyboard, the musicians and dancers conspired to make this a wonderfully gratifying performance in every regard.

Mr. Manahan also took up the baton for IN MEMORY OF…, the poignantly dramatic work that Robbins set to the violin concerto of Alban Berg. The composer crafted this, his only concerto for solo instrument, in reaction to the death from polio of Manon Gropius (daughter of Alma Mahler and Walter Gropius) at the age of 22. Berg was deeply shaken by the girl’s demise and wrote “To the Memory of an Angel” on the score’s title-page. Tonight the City Ballet‘s concertmaster Kurt Nikkanen gave the work a lustrous performance.

Robbins sets the ballet in a three-part narrative where we first see the young woman dancing with her beau, later joined by friends. Signs of the girl’s illness begin to manifest and as the corps stride in unison across the stage, the figure of Death appears.

In a long and intense pas de deux, Death stalks the girl (Ask LaCour and Wendy Whelan, above). She puts up a mighty struggle but in the end she is bested by his implacable strength. Her crumpled body is borne away as the stage fills with the corps, now white-clad angels, who eventually welcome the young woman to the celestial realm.

Of the many and varied roles in Wendy Whelan’s repertory, the central character in Robbins’ dramatic IN MEMORY OF… suits her most particularly well. Here she is able to convey the girl’s passionate love of life, her confused state as Death begins to attack her, her frantic attempts to stave off the inevitable, and her luminous vulnerability as she succumbs. In the ballet’s final moments, Wendy re-appears, now in virginal white with her hair down, moving among the spirits. Every element of technique, dramatic instinct and expression that Wendy embodies are filtered into this character and her performance is a complete marvel in every sense.

Ask LaCour, towering over the ballerina, brings an interesting sense of nobility to the Death figure. As he gains control over the girl’s soul, Ask uses his long arms and expressive hands to keep her in his thrall even as she tries to escape. An excellent portrait. Jared Angle was handsome and gently ardent as Wendy’s mortal lover, and I was especially happy to see Faye Arthurs back onstage – after a long hiatus – dancing with the very attractive corps ensemble.

Sterling Hyltin talks about her role in THE CONCERT here.

No performance at the ballet or opera these days can ever be free of audience distractions. I had such a nice seat for the evening but on returning from the intermission two idiot girls sitting a couple of seats away had brought in snacks and a bottle of water which they decided to enjoy during IN MEMORY OF… they were just far enough away so that shushing them was to no avail.

I therefore decided to move for the closing ballet; but having heard that the ushers now don’t allow people to move to another part of the house (even if you’ve paid $100 and want to sit in an unused $29 seat), I decided to try watching THE CONCERT on the screen on the Promende. This did not work out too well, but at least got to watch Sterling and Joaquin de Luz for a while.

The saddest aspect of the evening was seeing the vast emptiness of the 4th Ring which was open but occupied by only 2 or 3 spectators. I’m simply at a loss to comprehend what the administration is doing to my favorite dance company. It’s disheartening and alienating. They can spin it however they want, but empty seats are empty seats. It’s especially depressing because the Company are dancing so well.

January 25, 2012
Rita Gorr Has Passed Away

Another colossal figure from my early days as an opera lover has passed away: the Belgian mezzo-soprano Rita Gorr died on January 22, 2012 at the age of 85. The great singer had a relatively brief but busy career at the Metropolitan Opera; from 1962 thru 1966 she sang 42 performances in New York City and on tour, including Amneris, Eboli, Dalila, Santuzza, Waltraute in GOTTERDAMMERUNG and Azucena. It was in the last-named role that I heard her live for the only time, at the Old Met:

Metropolitan Opera House November 25, 1965
IL TROVATORE {350} Giuseppe Verdi Manrico.................Bruno Prevedi Leonora.................Gabriella Tucci Count Di Luna...........Robert Merrill Azucena.................Rita Gorr Ferrando................Bonaldo Giaiotti Ines....................Lynn Owen Ruiz....................Charles Anthony Messenger...............Hal Roberts Gypsy...................Luis Forero
Conductor...............Georges Pretre

Her singing was powerful and intense, and all evening long she and her colleagues received vociferous applause and bravos. What a great evening for a young opera buff!

Rita Gorr extended her career into the 21st century; her final stage performances were in 2007 as the Old Countess in Tchaikovsky’s QUEEN OF SPADES at Ghent and Antwerp.

Only recently I acquired a copy of the Leinsdorf recording of Wagner’s LOHENGRIN and have been listening to it over the past few days. It now takes on greater significance since Ms. Gorr is the majestic Ortrud, singing in the grand manner. In the great duet for husband and wife which open Act II, William Dooley as Telramund expresses his fear that his defeat by Lohengrin in Act I was a sign from God. “Gott????!!” Gorr/Ortrud responds ironically, then lets out a daemonic laugh. Brilliant!

Rita Gorr’s classic EMI solo disc of arias seems to be unavailable now; I owned it on LP as a young man and literally wore out the grooves. But several tracks can be found on YouTube. Here is her Liebestod from TRISTAN UND ISOLDE, sung with an Old World grandeur that seems to have vanished as opera moves away from its voice-centric uniqueness into a more generalized feeling of being mere entertainment.

January 23, 2012
The Angel

December 23, 2011 – Today is the birthday of Mathilde Wesendonck (above) who wrote five poems which Richard Wagner set to music in 1857-1858; the cycle became known as the Wesendonck Lieder. At the time, Wagner and his wife Minna lived together in the Asyl, a small cottage on the estate of Otto Wesendonck, Mathilde’s husband. It is unclear whether Wagner and Mathilde actually had an intimate physical relationship but the composer certainly was infatuated with her, causing his mentally unstable wife to erupt in jealous fits.

The poems themselves are wistful and dreamlike; their language reflects the emotional intensity of the Romantic style which by that time was highly developed. Wagner called two of the songs in the cycle “studies” for TRISTAN UND ISOLDE: in Träume we hear the roots of the love duet from the opera’s second act, and Im Treibhaus uses themes later developed in the prelude to Act 3. The chromatic-harmonic style of TRISTAN suffuses all five songs and creates the musical unity of the cycle.

Wagner initially wrote the songs for female voice and piano alone, but later produced a fully orchestrated version of Träume, which was performed by a chamber orchestra under Mathilde’s window on the occasion of her birthday in 1857. The orchestration of the whole cycle was later completed by Felix Mottl, the famed Wagnerian conductor.

Tiana Lemnitz sings the cycle’s opening song, Der Engel here.

“An angel came down to me
on shining wings
and bore my spirit heavenward.”

December 22, 2011
HANSEL & GRETEL at The Met

Wednesday December 21, 2011 – The presence of a number of intriguing names in the cast (led by Kate Lindsey, above, as Hansel) drew me back to the Met’s dark and not very pleasing production of HANSEL & GRETEL which is playing during the holiday season. It’s a far cry from the Met’s older production with its fanciful gingerbread house and jolly, green-tongued witch, Rosina Daintymouth. In the current incarnation the characterizations of both the witch and the parents are based on infamous British serial killers. There’s little magic to be found visually…

…though a couple of nice images crop up here and there, like the phalanx of chefs (above) who serve a feast to the starving children. But for the most part the production is earthbound and lacking in fantasy.

What drew us to see it again – in addition to the singers – was the music itself (Humperdinck greatly admired Wagner), as well as a conductor new to the Met podium: Robin Tacciati . He provided appealing orchestral textures all evening and his interpretation brimmed over with emotionally satisfying colours. Unfortunately, his first act seemed rushed and he often let the large orchestra overwhelm the voices.

As the two children, Alexandra Kurzak and Kate Lindsey (above) entered fully into the demanding staging of the work which calls for lots of physicality, dancing and mime…and getting plastered from head to toe with foodstuffs from the witch’s kitchen. Kate was virtually slathered in pudding and jam, then plentifully dusted with cocoa and powdered sugar. Alexandra staggered around the set with a huge platter of melting chocolate cookies and a bowl of custard. She continues to sing while stuffing various sweets into her mouth. Sticky fingers? Who needs Mick Jagger?

Despite all the things they are called on to do and eat, both Alexandra and Kate managed to sing very well into the bargain. Alexandra’s voice has girlish, lyrical appeal and even though the orchestral volume forced her to push the voice in a couple of spots, her Gretel was very prettily sung, especially in her exquisite vocalizing of the famous prayer. Kate has one of the truly distinctive voices in the opera business these days and her singing is impeccably tailored, warm and clear. As hansel, she is a truly convincing boy onstage, expanding her repertory of trouser roles: her Cherubino and Nicklausse were perfect, her Siebel’s coming up, and I’m longing for her Octavian. But she shouldn’t spend her whole life in pants, she’s far too pretty: so I hope we will have her Rosina and Dorabella soon, and I’d love to see her as Berlioz’s Beatrice.

Robert Brubaker, a teriffic Mime in SIEGFRIED at the Met a couple of seasons back, was a huge-voiced and creepy Witch. It’s so eerie to hear his voluminous character-tenor sound emanating from the frumpy old biddy in a fat-suit. Robert was superb and, like Kate and Alexandra, simply threw himself into the production’s food fantasy. Photo above: Robert Brubaker and Alexandra Kurzak.

As the parents Peter and Gertrude, Dwayne Croft and Michaela Martens (above) excelled. They have authentic Met-size voices and took the waves of sound coming up from the pit in their stride. I’ve always loved Dwayne Croft’s voice since I first heard him as Puccini’s Marcello at Glimmerglass many moons ago. He sounded fabulous tonight. Dmitry and I are very fond of Ms. Martens and she sang with power and attractive tone as the desperate mother. If the Met management had any imagination, Michaela would be doing roles like Fricka, Venus, Brangaene and the Berlioz Cassandra here. I could even imagine her as a very fine Sieglinde.

Ashley Emerson (above) was a delicious Dew Fairy, a petite elfin maiden with tiny Sylphide wings. Her singing was bright and light-filled, a perfect wake-up call. She carries on a tradition – both in-house and on recordings – of casting wonderful singers in the opera’s two cameo solo roles. Her evening counter-part was the Sandman of Jennifer Johnson Cano who sang very nicely indeed.

The musical pleasures of the evening were offset by the overall drabness of the production. There were lots of empty seats throughout The Met so word must have gotten out that this is not a festive holiday treat with an underlying moral message but rather a grotesque take on a story and score which should be heart-warming but instead leaves us slightly nauseous.

A major failure of stagecraft comes hear the end when the many children who had been under the witch’s spell are set free. The director apparently couldn’t think of any better way to handle this than to lower the curtain on an empty set and then bring it up again 30 seconds later on a stage filled with two dozen urchins. Then the uplifting melodic benediction launched by Peter as the work comes to an end failed to resonate because there was no context of religiosity anywhere else in the production.

Act I takes place in a desolate kitchen where Hansel and Gretel seem like manic-depressives and where Gertrude is on the verge of committing suicide. The scene in the forest is instead set in a large empty hall with green-leaf wallpaper. It’s too dim, and nothing seems to be happening til the old Sandman and – later – the chefs arrive. The witch’s kitchen is drably industrial and she is played like an over-the-top drag version of Julia Child, flingling flour and powdered chocolate all over the place. Candy, pudding and strawberry preserves are smeared on Hansel and Gretel, and Hansel is trussed up for roasting. The scene is vulgar and not funny in the least though it is broadly played.

The English translation is very Brit-oriented and, thanks largely to the over-enthusiastic conducting, much of it didn’t register. I’d like to see the Met dump this production and give us a more attractive, kid-friendly look at this opera. It should cast a Christmastime spell of hope and familial love; instead it only reminds us of the American knack for wasting food while children right here in Gotham don’t have enough to eat.

Production photos: Mary Sohl/Metropolitan Opera.

Metropolitan Opera House December 21, 2011 In English
HANSEL UND GRETEL Humperdinck Hansel..................Kate Lindsey Gretel..................Aleksandra Kurzak Gertrud.................Michaela Martens Peter...................Dwayne Croft Witch...................Robert Brubaker Sandman.................Jennifer Johnson Cano Dew Fairy...............Ashley Emerson
Conductor...............Robin Ticciati

The evening ended on a sweet note when I went backstage to see Kate and Ashley; I met both of them when they were in the Lindemann Young Artists Development Program at the Met and I’m very pleased to be following their successful careers. It was also nice to wish happy holidays to Michaela Martens and Dwayne Croft.

December 21, 2011
Alto Rhapsody: Mildred Miller

Above: Mezzo-soprano Mildred Miller as Cherubino in LE NOZZE DI FIGARO. Photo: Sedge LeBlanc.

Every year ar Christmas approaches I find myself wanting to hear the Alto Rhapsody of Johannes Brahms. I am not quite sure what it is about this unusual and unique vocal/choral work that suggests Christmas to me because the text has nothing to do with Christ’s birth. But it is about a Winter journey, and about hope and spiritual refreshment; maybe those are thoughts that should come to mind this time of year.

Brahms wrote this work – I suppose we could call it a cantata – in 1869 as a wedding gift for Julie Schumann, daughter of Robert and Clara Schumann. Brahms is thought to have been in love with Julie. It was first performed privately but in 1870 it was heard by the public for the first time in a concert at Jena where the soloist was Pauline Viardot. (Viardot looms large in my musical imagination; hers is the one voice from out of the past that I most dearly wish I could hear; and how I would love to have met her…her, and Lillian Nordica!).

The Alto Rhapsody begins with a sort of narrative for solo voice in a minor key; it seems a bit bleak, well-suiting the poetic image of a lost soul wandering in the desolation of a lonely landscape. The mood lifts as the chorus joins in, hymnlike and now in major-key mode. The music is tranquil, luminous, joyful in a calm way. The solo voice intones the melody against the choral harmonies – gorgeous – and the piece ends with a sort of benediction that has the effect of an amen.

The Alto Rhapsody is not often performed in concerts these days. For symphony orchestras it means hiring a chorus in addition to the soloist, and for choral societies it’s a little difficult to program as it is a bit too short to be half of the bill, and you need to think of something else for your guest soloist to sing during the evening. I’ve only experienced it once in a concert hall.

Many great singers have recorded the Alto Rhapsody: Kathleen Ferrier, Marian Anderson, Dame Janet Baker, Christa Ludwig, Marilyn Horne. I have Ludwig’s lovely rendition, and up til a couple years ago I would often break out Sigrid Onegin’s recording. But that magisterial performance is somewhat dampened by the singer’s tendency to be ever-so-slighly off-pitch at times. This year I decided I wanted a different recording and so I went to Amazon to peruse the listings and very quickly settled on the SONY recording with mezzo-soprano Mildred Miller, conducted by Bruno Walter. I got it for a bargain price, paired with the same composer’s Deutches Requiem.

When I had a bit of free time the other day, I slipped the disc in and found the recording to be just perfect in every regard. The sound is warm, full and plush, Maestro Walter is perfectly in his element, the chorus sounds heavenly and Mildred Miller is a complete delight. She doesn’t falsely weight her lower range; her timbre is feminine and not overly-maternal, and she avoids overdoing the angst of the opening passages.

Mildred Miller sang at The Met for 23 years, making more than 300 appearances. She made her debut as Cherubino in 1951 and went on to sing Suzuki, Nicklausse, Octavian, and the Composer in ARIADNE AUF NAXOS. By the time I encountered her in the 1960s she had settled into a repertoire of ‘major-secondary’ roles; I loved her as Annina in ROSENKAVALIER and the Second Lady in the Chagall ZAUBERFLOETE. She was my first ‘Lene in MEISTERSINGER in 1968, when she signed the cast page of my program:

December 18, 2011
Met’s 1961 TROVATORE on SONY

The Metropolitan Opera on SONY series recently issued the famous February 4, 1961 TROVATORE broadcast with Leontyne Price and Franco Corelli which followed by a week their wildly acclaimed joint Met debut in the Verdi opera. The 1960-61 Met broadcast season was happening without my knowledge, otherwise I would certainly have been glued to my radio. But I did not discover the Met broadcasts until the following season when the fabled Sutherland ‘debut’ LUCIA was the first time I tuned in. From then until just a couple of years ago, I hardly ever missed a broadcast.

I heard Price and Corelli many times at The Met – Leontyne I actually heard at the Old Met as Fiordiligi in COSI FAN TUTTE (in English) and Franco sang in the first performance I saw at the New Met (as Calaf in TURANDOT). I loved them both in those golden years though I knew Franco could be sloppy at times and Leontyne, over the years, developed some annoying idiosyncrasies. I’d never heard the 1961 TROVATORE so I set aside time to concentrate on it; I must say, it is a very erratic performance.

Fausto Cleva, a favorite conductor of Renata Tebaldi, takes much of TROVATORE at a breathless clip. For the most part the singers manage to keep up though there’s some scrambling here and there. Aside from Leontyne Price, who strives throughout for thoughtful musicality, the principal quartet of singers tend to sing TROVATORE in verismo style rather than treating it like a god-child of the bel canto era. I suppose there’s a temptation to snarl and bluster in the opera’s dramatic utterances and in a live performance there is no recourse other than to let the singers do what they will in declaiming the text. But it becomes a bit tiresome after a while.

Corelli is the most lachrymose Manrico I ever heard; he gives the same impression on his commercial recording of the role for EMI, though that is more artfully sung. Of course there is a lot of very powerful and exciting vocalism in his interpretation, but this is somewhat compromised by his melodramatic excesses. Upon receiving news that Leonora is to take the veil, Corelli has a little mad scene which wanders right off the musical map. But despite some slight variability of pitch at times, the utterly distinctive Corelli timbre and his sheer generosity of voice make him a Manrico on the grand scale. Interestingly, Corelli only sang this opera at the Met eleven times, retiring it from his repertory at the House in 1964. A new production in 1969 was reportedly planned for Corelli but in the event Placido Domingo was the Manrico.

Leontyne Price on the other hand kept Leonora in her repertoire for over twenty years; the great aria “D’amor sull’ali rosee” might be considered the soprano’s theme song and she sang it superbly at the gala that closed the Old Met in 1966. The warmth and shimmering beauty of her timbre provide the vocal high points of this 1961 broadcast where she manages to maintain the Verdian line while her colleagues wander into melodramatic over-accenting of certain passages. For my money, Price was not a soprano with a first-rate forte top; she was best in the floating upper phrases of a role. Corelli drowns her out on the final D-flat of Act I, and her high-C at the climax of the Act IV duet with di Luna doesn’t have any zing to it. But overall it’s wonderful to hear the soprano in all her freshness in this music. Over the ensuing years Price developed a vocal ‘style’ that could be off-putting: growling in the lower register and introducing some bluesy mannerisms that could spoil her performances for me. You don’t hear these on her commercial recordings so much, but in the House she could be very self-indulgent. Nevertheless her singing could still thrill, right to her farewell operatic performance.

I always loved the sound of Mario Sereni’s voice, so warm and attractive. For me he was at his best in verismo: his Marcello, Carlo Gerard and Tonio (PAGLIACCI) were all very fine; he did leave behind some wonderful studio recordings too, notably his Germont with de los Angeles and his Enrico on the RCA/Moffo LUCIA. But in this TROVATORE he seems way off form. I wonder in fact if he was actually originally scheduled for this broadcast since Robert Merrill had sung di Luna in the Price/Corelli debut performance and sang it again in the next performance following the broadcast. Whatever the case, Sereni seems unprepared. He sings the wrong entry line in the first scene of Act III and gets lost in the recitative on his entry in Act IV. Some handsome singing along the way is offset by serious pitch problems in the great aria “Il balen”. It’s sad that this particular broadcast should be chosen as a document of Sereni’s live Met performances; I know I can never listen to it again.

Irene Dalis was a great favorite of mine. She was a powerful stage presence and a singer who could be both passionate and subtle. Her performance is exciting but I feel of all the singers she may have been most put-off by Cleva’s fast tempi. In the Act III, Scene 1 finale Irene is pushed to the limits by the conductor’s absurdly rapid pace and it seems to me that she simply stops singing during the final bars of music. Her final scene is very impressive, though, with the quiet calm of her “Ai nostri monti” and a sustained high B-flat in her last triumphant, vindictive phrase. Ten years after this broadcast, I saw Irene’s Azucena at the Met during a June Festival performance. Despite the intervening decade of singing some of opera’s most demanding roles, she was in fact far more thrilling and vocally secure than on this 1961 broadcast.

It’s good to have a document of William Wilderman’s performance of Ferrando; his ample and darkishly dramatic singing gets the opera off to a strong start. Teresa Stratas sings the brief role of Inez and there is no mistaking her voice. She strives to make something lovely of her phrase bidding farewell to Leonora at the convent, but Price trumps her by coming in a shade early and stepping on the younger soprano’s tapering piano.

For all its flaws, listening to this recording reminded me of how much I love this opera. Despite its improbable plot, the vast treasury of Verdi melody makes TROVATORE essential.

August 29, 2011
Gertrude Grob-Prandl

While I was working at Tower, I got into a discussion one day with my boss and a couple of the other ‘opera people’ who worked there. We were naming favorite singers and in one breath I mentioned Nilsson, Rysanek, Behrens and Dame Gwyneth Jones. “Oh, so you’re a size queen!”, Bryan laughed. Well, not really…since I also loved people like Reri Grist, Patricia Brooks, Lucia Popp and Kathleen Battle. But if you want to stereotype me, go right ahead: because I do love big voices.

The four ‘loud ladies’ I mentioned above were among the largest voices I ever heard live. I guess Dame Gwyneth’s was the biggest of all though I’d also have to mention Angeles Gulin who, in a concert performance of LES HUGUENOTS at Carnegie Hall (1969) unleashed an enormous voice in Valentine’s music. But there was one voice, often described as the largest of all operatic voices in living memory, that for some reason I had never heard: that of the soprano Gertrude Grob-Prandl.

Of course I’d heard people talking about her, and I read the article about her in Lanfranco Rasponi’s excellent book The Last Prima Donnas. But I’d never heard her sing a note until about a week ago when I was sampling different versions of Ortrud’s Invocation from LOHENGRIN on YouTube. Grob-Prandl’s rendition blew me away both in terms of the dimensions of the voice and the easy top.

So I ordered a Myto recital disc by the soprano on which she sings music of Weber, Halevy, Meyerbeer, Wagner and Strauss and it’s all pretty glorious. Now I’m trying to locate her complete recording of TURANDOT. The voice does tend to go off-pitch slightly here and there, and a few notes take a split second to tonalize after she hits them – an endearing quality she shared with Leonie Rysanek.

Grob-Prandl sings Isolde’s Narrative and Curse here.

August 18, 2011
Giorgio Tozzi Has Passed Away

I’m very sorry to learn of the death of Giorgio Tozzi, the basso whose voice was among the first that I became familiar with when I started listening to opera at a very early age.

My parents had presented me with a prophetic birthday gift: a two-LP set of Verdi and Puccini arias culled from various RCA Victor recordings. Tozzi was the featured basso (the other singers were Milanov, Albanese, Peters, Bjoerling, Peerce, Merrill and Warren…what a collection of voices to cut one’s operatic teeth on!) and I literally wore out the tracks of his performances of arias from NABUCCO and SIMON BOCCANEGRA. Once my voice changed I would try to sing along with Tozzi in these arias, and also with his rendition of “Some Enchanted Evening” which my mother loved so.

Giorgio Tozzi sang Don Giovanni in the very first performance I ever attended at the (Old) Met…

…and he was my very first Hans Sachs (at the ‘new’ Met). I saw him so many times over the years: as Daland, as Philip II, as Fiesco, as Colline, Mozart’s Figaro, Ramfis and and as Count Rodolfo in LA SONNAMBULA. He sang more than 500 performances with the Metropolitan Opera (in-House and on tour) between 1955 and 1975. He created the role of the Old Doctor in Samuel Barber’s VANESSA and sings in the classic recording of that opera. Tozzi sang in the final trio from LA FORZA DEL DESTINO during the gala concert that marked the end-of-an-era closing of the Old Met in 1966.

In 1978, a few years after he had left The Met, I saw Giorgio Tozzi onstage for the last time. He sang (an acted) grandly as Oroveso in Bellini’s NORMA in a performance at Hartford CT opposite the thrilling Cristina Deutekom as Norma.

Giorgio Tozzi’s voice became widely known outside the world’s opera houses when he sang the music of Emil de Becque for the soundtrack of the film SOUTH PACIFIC (Rossano Brazzi portrayed de Becque on-screen). Tozzi later appeared in stage productions of the musical and on Broadway in MOST HAPPY FELLA.

Giorgio Tozzi sings the Old Doctor’s aria from VANESSA here: “For every love there is a last farewell; for each remembered day an empty room.”

May 30, 2011