Vocal and Choral

Rimsky-Korsakov – The Tsar’s Bride
Peretyatko; Rachvelishvili;Kränzle; Cernoch; Kotscherga; Tomowa-Sintow; Staatkapelle Berlin; Daniel Barenboim
BelAir Classics BAC105

This production was a highlight of the 2013 season in Berlin. One of the reasons was Russian director-genius, Dimitry Tcherniakov (creator of the COC’s unorthodox and spectacular Don Giovanni last February) who has since become a very desirable commodity all over the world. Tcherniakov’s modern concept targets the world of media bosses inventing computer-generated heroes and rounding up beautiful women (remember The Bachelor?) to be chosen against their will to be their wives. His concept chimes in nicely with the gruesome original story and is also very engaging, colourful and spectacular to look at.

Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera The Tsar’s Bride is largely unknown in the West and it is the true story of Ivan the Terrible’s chosen bride who was poisoned soon after their marriage. The opera is strongly dramatic with beautiful melodic invention and is profoundly moving, especially in the hands of Daniel Barenboim, who is packing in sold-out performances one after the other in Berlin and in Milan – at La Scala where Verdi was discovered and where he is referred to these days simply as “The Maestro.”

The celebrated cast is headed by Russia’s latest export, the gorgeous high soprano Olga Peretyatko, still a bit of an unknown quantity to most, but already a star. I’ve watched her in Rossini literally charming the Pesaro audience with her conquering hair-raisingly difficult vocal acrobatics and her spectacular stage presence. It’s almost impossible to outdo her, yet mezzo Anita Rachvelishvili’s deeply felt, heartbreaking performance as the wronged woman gets even more applause at the end. Of the men, German bass-baritone J.M. Kränzle, who is also a great character actor, makes a big impression as a larger-than-life and complex Boyar Grigory. Opera at its best.

Parry – I Was Glad; Coronation Te Deum
Choir of Westminster Abbey; Onyx Brass; Daniel Cook; James O’Donnell
Hyperion CMA68089

Sir Hubert Parry’s most famous Church of England standards such as Jerusalem, Dear Lord and Father of mankind (on his hymn tune Repton), the ode Blest pair of sirens, his “Mag and Nunc” (Magnificat and Nunc dimittis) and coronation pieces I was glad and Te Deum are featured alongside lesser-known early works in this excellent recording by the gentlemen and boys of Westminster Abbey. Though some contemporaries saw Parry as overly conventional, one must admit that his music can be rousing and has graced many a royal occasion, not just in his own time but in ours as well.

While I was glad and Te Deum served for coronations throughout the 20th century, Blest pair of sirens – Parry’s setting of Milton’s ode At a Solemn Music, was performed by the Westminster Abbey Choir for the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (William and Kate). By employing the Onyx Brass, this recording pays tribute to the many times brass was introduced in arrangements of Parry’s work, notably those by Grayston Ives. The choir performs as if born to this music and an excellent solo quartet for the Magnificat emerges from its ranks, including a treble solo of great clarity by the young Alexander Kyle. Organist Daniel Cook veritably shines, having been given the over 11-minute Fantasia and Fugue in G Major.

Rufus Wainwright – Prima Donna
Janis Kelly; Kathryn Guthrie; Antonio Figueroa; Richard Morrison; BBC Symphony; Jayce Ogren
Deutsche Grammophon 479 5340

Rossini – Aureliano in Palmira
Michael Spyres; Jessica Pratt; Lena Belkina; Raffaella Lupinacci; Dimitri Pkhaladze; Orchestra Sinfonica G. Rossini; Teatro Comunale di Bologna; Will Crutchfield
ArtHaus Musik 109073

Twenty-one-year-old Rossini’s early attempt at opera seria was a flop in Milan, at La Scala, and subsequently disappeared from the stage until recently when American musicologist/scholar Will Crutchfield dug it up from obscurity and reconstructed the score to be performed in Pesaro (Rossini’s birthplace) where it became a well-deserved success. The story dates back to the fourth century A.D. when the Roman emperor Aurelianus led a campaign against Palmyra (in today’s Syria) with its warrior queen, the beautiful Zenobia, with whom he predictably falls in love. There are complications with the queen’s Persian lover, so it becomes a love triangle and the opera is rather long (three and a half hours), but the music is ravishingly beautiful as we hear it now, so one wonders what kind of performance it must have been back in 1813 (Verdi’s year of birth) for the picky Milanese to have rejected it. It didn’t bother the enterprising Rossini much, though. He simply took some of the best music and recycled it into his Barber of Seville.

Here in Pesaro where singing is sacrosanct (and would put most big name opera houses to shame), the opera is performed with the best forces available today. The wonderful Michael Spyres, heroic Rossini tenor, ideal in the title role, is suitably imperial, yet sympathetic and compassionate with a voice of tremendous power. The stupendous Australian soprano, Jessica Pratt has no equal today in coping with the immensely difficult range and glass-shattering high notes of Queen Zenobia. She is certainly the darling of the mainly Italian, connoisseur crowd. The third principal, Arsace the Persian prince, is the youngest, Ukrainian-born mezzo Lena Belkina, who is making big waves in Europe today with her mellifluous deep notes and spectacular range. Italian soprano Raffaella Lupinacci is charming, stylish and thoroughly competent in the lesser role of Publia.

Colourfully staged by Italian director Mario Martone in rich tones of burnt amber and translucent moving screens, and very ably conducted by Crutchfield, whose love of Rossini is manifest at every gesture, this production is highly recommended.

Peter-Anthony Togni – Responsio
Jeff Reilly; Suzie LeBlanc; Andrea Ludwig; Charles Daniels; John Potter
ATMA ACD2 2731

Composer Peter-Anthony Togni has brilliantly created a soundscape spanning the centuries. Togni follows in the compositional footsteps of medieval composers by borrowing, responding and drawing on Guillaume de Machaut’s medieval masterpiece Messe de Nostre Dame (circa 1365). The surprising success of Responsio lies in the strength of Togni’s writing as he then combines and contrasts this medieval groundwork with musical ideas from the intervening centuries.

The vocal quartet score features beautifully crafted four-part, chant-based writing that transcends stylistic periods, with especially dreamy harmonies and luscious counterpoint in the Machaut-based sections. The written and improvisational bass clarinet part moves the 12-section work through the musical centuries into the modern day in a part full of moving reflective passages and fragments of extended contemporary techniques. The best example is the Gloria where the vocalists swiftly and effortlessly switch stylistic tonalities of the centuries while the bass clarinet either supports the singers or works in musical opposition. The section ends with an unexpected yet gratifying bass clarinet blast!

Suzie LeBlanc (soprano), Andrea Ludwig (mezzo-soprano), Charles Daniels (tenor) and John Potter (tenor) are a cohesive vocal quartet with voices that blend tightly together in ensemble and shine as soloists. Bass clarinetist Jeff Reilly is a master of his instrument and the music, and also acts as the recording’s producer.

Dvořák – Alfred: Heroic Opera in Three Acts
Froese; Bothmer; Rumpf; Sabrowski; Mikuláš; Unger; Baxová; Prague RSO; Heiko Mathias Förster
ArcoDiva UP 0140-2 612 (arcodiva.cz)

Alfred is the earliest of Dvořák’s eleven operas. It is the only one with a German libretto. It remained unperformed until 1938, when (a few months before the German invasion) it was premiered, in a Czech translation, at Olomous. The performance on these CDs was recorded live in September 2014. It is the first performance to use the original German libretto.

Of Dvořák’s operas only Rusalka has held the stage and that largely because of the soprano aria, the Song to the Moon. I have, however, good memories of a production of The Jacobin by the Welsh National opera. Alfred was new to me as it will be to most. It presents a semi-historical account of the Anglo-Saxon resistance to the Danes under King Alfred in the ninth century. The musical idiom recalls French grand opera and early Wagner (the Wagner of Rienzi rather than the composer of Lohengrin). The CD booklet comes with a short essay by David R. Beveridge, who claims modestly, “Alfred is an uneven work, and nobody will claim that we have here a neglected masterpiece.” He then compensates for that comment by adding, “Yet it contains many passages of breath-taking beauty.” I am afraid these moments passed me by. Nevertheless this recording should be of interest to anyone who wishes to explore Dvořák’s earlier work. It is given a fine performance by singers and orchestra alike. The tenor, Ferdinand von Bothmer, is especially good in the role of the (fictional) Danish commander Harald.

Strauss – Feuersnot
Carbone; Henschel; Wawiloff; Amoretti; Teatro Massimo; Gabriele Ferro
ArtHaus Musik 109065

A handsome suitor unwisely steals a kiss from a girl in the heat of passion whereby she vows revenge and publicly humiliates the young man by leaving him hanging in a basket just below her window. The unfortunate young fellow (actually a wizard and a powerful magician) lays a curse on the town by extinguishing all fires and plunging it into eternal darkness. The young Richard Strauss’ second, almost unknown opera was chosen by Teatro Massimo, the beautiful opera house of Palermo, Sicily to celebrate the composer’s 150th birthday. This Italian production is inspiringly directed by the formidably talented Emma Dante who engulfs the entire stage in a burst of colour and incessant movement and dancing, because this is Midsummer Night, a night of love.

The opera is Strauss’ revenge on the philistine burghers of Munich who made Richard Wagner leave in disgrace and booed Strauss’ first opera off the stage. Strauss (another Richard!) also quit Munich and wrote Feuersnot (Lack of Fire) and triumphed with it in 1902, in Dresden. Sumptuous music, full of melody interspersed with sudden outbursts of waltzes, soaring into a glorious climax at the end when the lovers finally unite and embrace. Italian conductor Gabriele Ferro, 80 years young, makes the music shimmer and pulsate with passion. A cast of thousands, soloists, chorus, dancers plus an omnipresent children’s choir singing like angels, makes the show like a fairy tale. Soprano Nicola Beller Carbone, the haughty maiden, is alternately furious, mischievous and funny, eventually surrendering to love in this very taxing role. The handsome wizard cum lover Kunrad, acrobatic German baritone Dietrich Henschel, is a worthy foil to her who manages to carry a tune and roar over the crowded stage while hanging in a basket suspended high in the air.