Vocal and Choral

Wagner – Parsifal
Royal Opera House; Antonio Pappano
Opus Arte OA 1158 D

The sacred forest of the Grail a sterile hospital ward... Parsifal’s bow a broken bicycle wheel… The symbol of the Holy Grail a bleeding innocent young boy... The Knights look like a bunch of football hooligans. These and more are some of the disturbing images of this latest incarnation of Parsifal from the Royal Opera House, conceived by British director Stephen Langridge and Britain’s sole contribution to Wagner’s 200th anniversary. A controversial new production aimed to shock and wake up a supposedly smug, complacent audience to realities of today’s world? Perhaps, but nevertheless Parsifal is still a Bühnenweihfestspiel (“A Festival Play for the Consecration of the Stage” – Wagner) that must transcend the mundane into an exalted domain, as certainly achieved recently by the Met. Whether achieved here visually I am not so certain although the hypermodern cubistic set (by designer Alison Chitty) does morph ingeniously into an impressive, luminous cathedral in the Transformation Scene of Act I. 

But if you are worried at all, please “Have no fear,” I heard Gerald Finley say, because this is indeed a glorious Parsifal thanks mainly to Antonio Pappano’s insightful, deeply felt and thoroughly understood musical direction. The faultless, mostly English-speaking cast has Simon O’Neill, a strong heldentenor from New Zealand (Parsifal), Sir Willard White, the formidable bass-baritone from Jamaica (Klingsor) and legendary English basso Robert Lloyd as Titurel. From Germany comes René Pape, today’s best Gurnemanz and the great singer-actress Angela Denoke whose radiant portrayal of Kundry is somewhat marred by her pronounced vibrato.

The biggest surprise and a great sensation, however, is Canadian baritone Gerald Finley creating a lasting impression as a newcomer to the incredibly difficult central role of the suffering sinner, Amfortas.

Robert Bruce – Songs of Light and Shadow, Vol.1
Various Artists; Robert Bruce
Independent (robertbrucemusic.com)

Robert Bruce is the composer, lyricist and pianist in nine pieces which border on new age, easy listening sentiments while exploring minimalism, simple harmonies and uncomplicated melodies.

Listening to Bruce perform his own work on piano is such a joy, and a perfect example of compositions played just the way the composer intended them to be performed. Sure he wrote them, but this is no easy task even for the composer himself. Bruce the performer plays with an appropriate degree of detachment to make Bruce the composer’s works elegant, unaffected and clear. Vocalists Janet Obermeyer, Amy Dodington and Karen Barrett-Grignon perform clearly and musically to Bruce’s accompaniment. The additional occasional instrumental inclusion of harpist Elizabeth Eastwood, oboist Nancy Neeson and percussionist Dave Simpson add much appreciated aural depth.

Bruce’s Songs explore love, dreams and the female life experience. The words may not be to everyone’s taste but are a tight fit to the carefully composed constructed lines and, like film music, image-evoking harmonic colours. Especially enchanting and beautiful are the repeated oboe line in Spirit of Song and the closing repetitive piano line of The Candle of Love. Too bad A Little Bit of Neptune ventures a little bit too much into the pop music planet for this reviewer, but that’s the only one which does.

Excellent production values, mix and levels complete the package. The haunting, enigmatic and ethereal tonal music of Robert Bruce makes this a satisfying listening experience.

Handel – Messiah
Gillian Keith; Daniel Taylor; Tom Randle; Summer Thompson; Handel and Haydn Society; Harry Christophers
CORO COR16125

The Boston Handel and Haydn Society has had a long and distinguished history. It was founded in 1815 (these recordings mark its 200th anniversary), at a time when Handel represented the old and Haydn the new. Messiah has been important for many years: the Society performed excerpts in 1815, gave the first American performance of the complete work in 1818 and began its annual performances in 1854.

On this recording the soprano (Gillian Keith) and the alto (Daniel Taylor), both Canadians, are superb. I also liked the baritone, Summer Thompson, who is imposing in exactly the right way. I have reservations about the tenor, Tom Randle, who sings with great involvement but also with a great deal of vibrato. The very good orchestra of the Society is now led by “our own” Aisslinn Nosky, who in the past has given us so much pleasure as a member of Tafelmusik, I Furiosi and the Eybler Quartet. Harry Christophers conducts with real momentum and the choir is terrific (just sample them in All we like sheep).

High points: there are many, but I especially enjoyed the soprano’s precision in Rejoice greatly, the alto’s He was despised (beautifully decorated in the return of the opening section in a way that never obscures the vocal line) as well as the alto-soprano duet He shall feed his flock. Handel originally wrote the duet as a soprano aria and his revision was well judged: the entry of the soprano is magical. When I was asked to review these discs, my first thought was: another Messiah – who needs it? I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Strauss – Arabella
Renée Fleming; Thomas Hampson; Dresden State Opera; Christian Thielemann
Cmajor 717208

Fleming – Hampson – Thielemann. Salzburg Easter Festival certainly did well by getting this team for a new Arabella for the Strauss anniversary season. Director Florentine Klepper overcame the challenge for something new and different yet in immaculate taste by traversing the scene into the 20th century, the Art Deco period with a gorgeous, panoramic set fitting nicely onto the wide stage of the Grosses Festpielhaus. Being a woman, she had the right feeling and empathy for the female characters; so important in this opera.

Not that she had a difficult time. For the title role, Renée Fleming has been the reigning diva of Straussian heroines. Her uncanny ability to delve her entire self into the character has been legendary and her soprano voice has all the delicacy and nuance for this very demanding role. Arabella is in the midst of a difficult decision of choosing a husband from a trio of rich, bumbling suitors and hopes for the right man to miraculously appear, and he does.

The right man, American baritone Thomas Hampson (Mandryka) is having some difficulty in becoming this gauche, shy provincial fellow, but his handsome physique, stamina and vocal power amply compensate. The two fall into each other’s arms and the opera would be over, but unfortunately that’s where all the trouble begins, caused by the younger sister and her lover, who provide a lot of sparkle to the story.

Highest praise goes for Thielemann who conducts with beautifully sustained broad tempi, relishing in the beauties of the score, keeping it as an undercurrent, but coming to the fore just at the right moments and towards a ravishing finale.

Vienna at the Turn of the Century – A Recital with Renée Fleming
Renée Fleming; Maciej Pikulski
ArtHaus Musik 102 196

In an age of instant gratification and overnight (YouTube) success, enduring artists like Renée Fleming are a rare breed. The singer, currently in her mid-50s, epitomizes the slow-burn. At the age when many sopranos are considering retirement, Fleming is in peak form, defying any tarnishing of the upper register as well as the visual impact of middle age. I was not always a fan. In fact, some two decades ago I dismissed her as a lightweight. What I did not recognize then was that this was a singer on her way to greatness. The proof came a few seasons ago, at the Met, where she conquered the role of Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier. Immediately inviting (and challenging) comparisons with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, her erstwhile teacher, Fleming has firmly established herself as the pre-eminent soprano of our times.

This glittering concert at the acoustically perfect Golden Hall of the Musikverein hall Vienna is a virtual compendium of lieder over almost 50 years. From Mahler and Zemlinsky to Korngold and Strauss, Fleming’s recital tells in music the story of the Golden Age of the great city on the Danube. Polish pianist Maciej Pikulski offers sensitive, Gerald Moore-like piano support. This beautiful disc may prompt listeners to get dressed in their Sunday best before pressing the start button.

Galicians 1: The Art Songs
Pavlo Hunka et al.
Ukrainian Art Song Project (ukrainianartsong.ca)

For the past decade the British-born bass-baritone Pavlo Hunka has made it his life’s work to share the art songs of his Ukrainian heritage with the entire world. In partnership with Roman Hurko, composer, opera director and producer, he has previously recorded three CDs of this repertoire and has recently unveiled a 6-CD collection of music from the Galician (Western) region of Ukraine with even more yet to come.

The first disc in this set also serves to introduce us to the team of celebrated Canadian vocal artists that has given life to this ambitious project. In addition to Hunka’s own powerful voice, they include sopranos Monica Whicher, Nathalie Paulin and mezzo-soprano Krisztina Szabó, tenors Benjamin Butterfield and Colin Ainsworth, and baritone Russell Braun, with additional support from pianists Carolyn Maule and Serouj Kradjian. This initial volume is devoted to the art songs of Denys Sichynsky (1865-1909) which date mainly from the twilight of romanticism. They are typically declamatory, earnest minor key laments with often quite elaborate keyboard parts, dispatched with panache by the expert pianist Albert Krywolt, who accompanies the lion’s share of the songs in this anthology.

The long life of Stanyslav Liudkevych (1879-1979) requires two CDs to tell his story. Though the majority of the 28 songs on offer date from the early 20th century, the composer was still active into the mid-1960s. His harmonic language is often daring and freely modulatory and the ingenious textures of his piano accompaniments suggest an orchestral conception. Eclecticism aside, it’s nonetheless clear that a major talent is on display here. The first CD is so totally dominated by male voices that the sole exception sung by Nathalie Paulin comes as quite a relief. Fortunately the second CD is more judiciously shared between the genders.

A tragic figure, Vasyl Barvinsky (1888-1963) was the director of the Lysenko Institute of Music and its successor institution the Lviv Conservatory and maintained a commanding profile both locally and internationally. In 1948 however, political intrigues brought him crashing to earth. He was arrested, his musical scores were publicly burned in the Conservatory courtyard and he was sentenced to spend the next decade toiling at a labour camp in the backwaters of Mordovia. He spent the remainder of his life attempting to reconstruct his musical legacy, which is stylistically indebted to Debussy yet always strikingly lyrical. Fortunately compositions he had considered lost forever are slowly coming to light from Western sources. The majority of the selection of 17 songs are shared between Hunka and the excellent soprano Szabó and include some beautifully rendered violin passages by Annalee Patipatanakoon.

Though described as a “modernist,” there is little to fear from the passionate and often deeply autobiographical music of Stefania Turkewich (1898-1977). Stylistically it does not go far beyond the extended tonality of the earliest works of Alban Berg. A pupil of Barvinsky, she went on to study with Schoenberg and Schreker in Berlin in the 1920s and subsequently worked in Lviv. Acclaimed as the first Ukrainian woman composer, she emigrated to England in 1948, where she sought recognition in vain within the intensely insular post-war British musical establishment. Hunko and company make just emends for her neglect in this extensive selection of 20 songs, including two winning and resolutely tonal English-language nursery rhymes.

A sixth compilation disc completes the set. The recordings are accompanied by a lavish booklet with texts and translations in four languages. Seamless and consistent audio editing throughout is credited to veteran producer Doug Doctor at the helm in Glenn Gould Studio. A most welcome and innovative aspect of the project includes making newly engraved editions of the scores of these neglected gems freely available through ukrainianartsong.ca. The album may also be ordered there as well as through iTunes.

Mozart – Requiem
Soloists; Accentus; Insula Orchestra; Laurence Equilbey
naïve V 5370

There are many recordings of Mozart’s Requiem. My own favourite is the live recording made in 2001 by Les Violons du Roy and La Chapelle de Québec, conducted by Bernard Labadie, with Karina Gauvin, Marie-Nicole Lemieux, John Tessier and Nathan Berg as soloists, and with a brilliant cameo part by the trombonist Alain Trudel (on Dorian; at present only available as an MP3).

The Requiem was unfinished when Mozart died and was subsequently completed by his student, Franz Xaver Süssmayr, with some input by Jakob Freystädtler and Joseph Eybler. It is likely that they based their work on sketches by Mozart himself but, since these sketches no longer exist, we cannot be certain about that. Most performances adopt the Süssmayr completion: it may not be all Mozart but it is the closest we can get to Mozart’s conception of the work. The Labadie performance, however, uses a revision and completion by Robert D. Levin.

The version on the present recording is more traditional. It features a new period ensemble, the Insula Orchestra, and a very fine choir, Accentus, which has been in existence for 20 years. The soloists are Sandrine Piau, soprano, Sara Mingardo, contralto, Werner Güra, tenor, and Christopher Purves, bass-baritone. They are also very good. The booklet that comes with the CD has a useful chart outlining what Mozart completed and what was completed by others. I could, however, do without passages like: “And so he laid down his pen after the first eight bars of the ‘Lacrymosa’ ... For he was not God, but a man, and could bear no more.”

Although my allegiance is still to the Labadie performance, I liked the new one and recommend it.