Vocal and Choral

Schubert – Winterreise
Matthias Goerne; Markus Hinterhäuser
Cmajor 738008

It is fascinating to observe how new pressures from audiences and technology constantly induce change in the way we consume art. Vinyl and tape having been first supplanted by CD, DVD and Blu-ray, quickly gave way to live streaming and playing hi-fi music on definitively low-fi smartphones. None of this has ever happened without controversy – remember the brouhaha accompanying the introduction of surtitles in most opera houses of the world?

Here is a recording of a conventional voice and piano performance augmented, or diminished (choose your side), by visual projections designed by William Kentridge. Only vaguely related to the music, these graphic designs and animated images seek to appease the multisensory needs of modern audiences. Or are they designed to stop them from checking their Twitter feed or Facebook updates during the concert? Whatever their purpose, they surely did not work for me, detracting from the performance, rather than enhancing it. And what a performance! Goerne, who is surely one of the world’s leading singers of Lieder, especially by Schubert and Mahler, is in fine voice here. Compared to previous recordings, his voice sounds rounder, more velvety and supported across the tessitura, while developing a darker, more intriguing timbre. So, this is a great performance, whether you close your eyes (me) or keep them wide open (some of my ADHD, millennial, image-hungry colleagues).

Puccini – Complete Songs for Soprano and Piano
Krassimira Stoyanova; Maria Prinz
Naxos 8.573051

In the booklet that accompanies this CD Robert Ignatius Letellier writes that these simple song settings “could hardly be more different from [Puccini’s] operas.” Perhaps so; yet it seems to me that an unsuspecting listener, when confronted with any one of the songs here, would immediately cry out: “Puccini!” While the writing of songs must always have been a by-product of his main work, it is remarkable that they date from so much of his creative life. The two oldest are from 1875, when Puccini was in his 17th year; the last is a pompous proto-fascist song which hymns Rome and Victory and which dates from 1919. Of the songs presented 17 are solos, the remaining two are soprano-mezzo duets. Here modern technology allows the soprano to sing both parts.

Krassimira Stoyanova is a Bulgarian soprano, who has sung in many of the world’s leading opera houses. Her repertoire includes Dvořák’s Rusalka as well as the Marschallin in Strauss’ Rosenkavalier and the title role in Ariadne auf Naxos, but the centre of that repertoire is clearly the music of Verdi (and definitely not Puccini). On this recording her voice comes across as full and warm. She does justice to the demands of these songs. Even if Puccini’s songs can never be seen as holding the centre of his work, it would be a pity to be without this recording. Many of the songs are attractive. They would often lead Puccini to further explorations in his operas as the essay in the booklet suggests and documents.

Buxton Orr – Songs
Nicky Spence; Iain Burnside; Jordan Black; Edinburgh Quartet; Nikita Naumov
Delphian DCD34175

The works of the Scottish composer Buxton Orr (1924-1997) were not previously known to me. That is clearly my loss as the songs on this recording are attractive and show an interesting range. The disc opens with a lush setting of a lush poem by James Elroy Flecker. It then progresses to settings of early Scottish poems by Blind Harry, Dunbar, King James I, Robert Burns and John Skinner before turning to the comic worlds of Edward Lear and the Cornish poet Charles Causley. The record then ends with a group of six songs, Songs of a Childhood, again set to Scottish texts. There is an informative essay in the accompanying booklet (by Gary Higginson) but the reference to Burns is misleading. Higginson writes that the words of Tibby Fowler were collected by Burns but it is the tune that is traditional and Burns wrote the words himself (though they may incorporate some traditional elements).

These are all tenor songs and the singer, Nicky Spence, has an attractive lyric voice. He is also sensitive to the different demands of the various songs. There are small accompanying ensembles; the pianist (Iain Burnside) and the clarinetist (Jordan Black) are especially good.

Temps Nouveau
Michèle Losier; Olivier Godin
ATMA ACD2 2720

Aida Garifullina
Aida Garifullina; ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien; Cornelius Meister
Decca 478 8305

Saverio Mercadante – Francesca da Rimini (Pier Luigi Pizzi, direction; Gheorghe Iancu, choreography)
Soloists; Orchestra Internazionale d’Italia; Fabio Luisi
Dynamic 37753

Saverio Mercadante composed some 60 operas, but unlike his contemporaries Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini, he’s completely unrepresented in today’s active repertoire. Francesca da Rimini wasn’t even performed until this world-premiere production at the 2016 Valle d’Itria Festival.

The ill-fated 13th-century adulterous lovers, Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta, have been depicted in Dante’s Inferno and many operas, notably by Zandonai and Rachmaninoff. Historically, Lanciotto Malatesta killed his wife and brother upon discovering them in flagrante. In Mercadante’s version, Lanciotto instead sentences them to death. Francesca’s father, Guido, rescues them but when Lanciotto tracks them down, they commit suicide.

There’s some lovely music here, particularly Francesca’s Act One aria recalling past pleasures, and her love duet with Paolo, both episodes enhanced by prominent harp arpeggios. Soprano Leonor Bonilla (Francesca), mezzo Aya Wazikono (Paolo) and tenor Merto Süngü (Lanciotto) are dramatically convincing while negotiating the score’s coloratura demands. Bass Antonio Di Matteo adds forceful stature as Guido.

A grey architectural backdrop serves as a wall of the palace, the dungeon and the convent where the lovers die. Wind-blown, flowing robes, gowns and curtains create incessant stage movement. Conductor Luisi keeps the music moving as well, but Francesca still takes over three hours to unfold. What the booklet notes call “Mercadante’s propensity to a slower theatrical pace” likely contributed to posterity’s neglect of his operas. There’s enough good music, though, to make Francesca worth watching and pique curiosity about Mercadante’s many other forgotten works.

Andrea Andermann presents 3 Live Films: Rigoletto in Mantua; La Traviata in Paris; Tosca in Rome
Various Artists; Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale RAI; Zubin Mehta
Rada Film Production 2.110374-77

Firstly a large marquee credit must go to Andrea Andermann who produced these three made-for-television films of Verdi’s Rigoletto and La Traviata, and Puccini’s Tosca. Dreaming big with an uncompromising attention to detail Andermann brought together the finest production team, found classic locales and a stellar cast featuring Placido Domingo, Julia Novikova, Eteri Gvazava, Catherine Malfitano, and of course, the great Zubin Mehta to conduct and a legend, Vittorio Storaro to film it all. Still, one must also confess to wondering how on earth the producer, and directors Marco Bellocchio (Rigoletto) and G.P. Griffi (Traviata and Tosca) were going to make the grandeur of design and scale work for the small screen. More than anything the solution came in the form and miracle of Storaro for it is the cinematographer who made the grandeur of locations look equally grand for television – and therefore DVD as well. His use of lighting to bring lifelike proportion to characters on screen was no less extraordinary as was his ability to make long shots and big close-ups leap out at you.

You absolutely cannot go wrong with perfect scores and librettos in the hands of Mehta, who brought all of this to life aided and abetted by superb (film) direction, casting and the creation of atmosphere so transcendent that it felt as if you had been teleported to the Italy of a time long gone by. And then there was the conjuring of Verdi in the Mantua of Rigoletto, and the Paris of the real Marie Duplessis, the fallen woman Violetta Valery of La Traviata.

In both cases the intense melodrama of Verdi’s works becomes the very epitome of the word “operatic” as he addresses themes of love, betrayal, violence, power and death. Above all there is his genius for matching unforgettable melodies to moments of high drama that sustains his name even today. Of course there seems no one better suited than Domingo to play Rigoletto despite having to sing well below his preferred tenor range, for Verdi cast his principal character here as a baritone. Domingo pulls it off with aplomb. Still he is almost completely upstaged by the pristine soprano of Novikova. A more perfect Gilda there will not be in this lifetime nor is there likely to be a La donna è mobile as devastatingly wonderful as Vittorio Grigolo’s Duke of Mantua.

The music of La Traviata cannot be faulted although it flopped at its Venice premiere on March 6, 1853. And yet the opera – based on the life of Marie Duplessis, written by Alexander Dumas fils in La Dame aux Camélias (1852), grew to become one of the world’s favourite operas. Griffi’s film is just as lyrical and dramatic as the arias, including opera’s most famous brindisi, Libiamo ne’ lieti calici, sung here by José Cura (Alfredo Germont), Violetta’s lover. The extended duet between Violetta and Giorgio Germont and Violetta’s swooning last testament are perfectly nailed by Rolando Panerai and Eteri Gvazava.

Another casting coup appears in the form of Catherine Malfitano who plays the lead in Puccini’s memorable opera and appears to be as inspirational to Griffi in the role of Tosca as Sarah Bernhardt was said to have been for Puccini himself. Her fiery temperament that powers Act II as Tosca confronts Il Barone Scarpia (Ruggero Raimondi) as each uses sex as a weapon until Scarpia dies at her feet is the high point of the opera. Keeping pace with the action, Puccini’s orchestration is at its stormiest forever after as passion is substituted for poetry.