Bruckner in Wellington

Just back from this most excellent concert. The only work on the program was the 80 minute long Bruckner 8th symphony in C Minor. Lawrence Renes masterfully conducted our most excellent New Zealand Symphony. This very important monument of the symphonic repertoire was given A no. 1 treatment. It has been a favorite of mine for like 30 years now so I know it really well. It is a great work but it needs care. A performance of it can go wrong especially in the slow movement if the conductor does not know what he is doing. But rest assured that Renes knows what he is doing. He tapers the sound to nothing (and has about seven different levels of nothing that he asks for and gets from our god-like orchestra) and he also gets the most delightful grand sounds where needed. A sense of the large-scale structure of this work was everywhere present.

Yes this is a rave. It was totally awesome.

The shattering climax at the end of the first movement was, well, shattering (Mission accomplished) and the coda that followed it, which feature broken bits and pieces of various themes, was so appropriately perfectly desolate. This work is just great here: there is this big climax and then it is like everything is broken, ruined, lost, destroyed, FUBAR, perditum, deletum (you get the idea) and so the movement limps to an ending with these fragments trying to say something, anything and yet all there is to be said is the fact that there is nothing to be said. From this dark spot the symphony rebounds of course and we have at the very end of the symphony a blaze of C major that has been earned and which is transfiguring. Good good stuff.

Keep your eyes out for Renes and run to hear him in anything at all I think but especially in Mahler and Bruckner.

Concert Report: Kiri in Mozart and Strauss and Renes and Kiri in a Mahler 4th

Well, as I write this post I am sitting at my lovely desk while the enchanting stylings of Myslivecek's opera seria Il Bellerofonte are rawking de house [Myslivecek 4evah!!!!111!!! (I experience things that don't happen to everyone everyday, clearly)]. Anyway, last night's concert was a nice thing if mildly frustrating in places. Lawrence Renes is a super conductor. He excelled in his accompanying of Kiri in three Mozart concert arias and in three Strauss songs. The Figaro overture which opened the program was delightful. And, most importantly, the Mahler fourth was pastoral where it needed to be, gently sarcastic where it needed to be, passionate, too, where it needed to be. The symphony breathed and his view of the work felt natural and right and was totally engrossing. He is, TRH and I agree, pretty easy on the eyes too:



We see him in Bruckner's 8th symphony tonight. The stars might very well be in alignmnent for something really good.

At 63, Kiri is in the sunset years of her career. She looks like a million bucks and played the role of cool yet impeccably gracious diva to perfection. The beauty of her preternaturally beautiful voice is still in evidence. There were no issues with intonation worthy of mention. Her ability to edge her tone or makes it smooth as creme is still hers to do as are her always tasteful and beautifully judged portamenti. But (and you were waiting for that, were you not?), she was underpowered. We were not far back and we could not hear her at times especially when she needed to do a little bit of coloratura. Also, in spaces where you wanted her to let the tone free [Rawk de house Kiri!!11!!! Let the big dog hunt!!], she seemed to hold it back. I sensed that she could have filled the hall on a number of occasions but then chose not to. But you know, she may know best. I just teach Latin and think about monks and sex, while she is still singing in her sixities and quite well, all things considered. We will admit that perhaps the Dame knows best. I was glad to see her again.

Trebs Mania -- Part the [who's counting?]

This is really very nice. This is Elettra's final aria from Idomeneo. It is a mini mad-scene and an opportunity for a soprano to chew the scenery to a fare-the-well. I saw the divine Carol Vaness do it so so so so so so so so so so so so well in SF in the late 90s [sotto voce to Carol: you got that somewhere on video? Send it to me and I will post it right here. k?luvuthnxbi.]--- as I was saying, Vaness does well and so does La Trebs.

Minus first: a tad bit of hoarseness (?) in the lower register. But whatever.

She ducks out of like two of staccati at the end of the twin runs at the end (you will note them when she goes up and then seems to go down in a figuration that suggests maniacal laughter). She should not have done that.

[Over at Parterre Box, there are some who will figure she needs to go to Sing-Sing and break up rocks for 30 years for this--- but I am not talking about those pedants, oh no, I am not mentioning those bitter people, oh no, I am not thinking of those ____ (because I am not thinking of them I will not say what I am thinking!) at all. Oh. No. Not. At. All.]

Pluses: the line is pulled so nice and tight all the way through (as is so so so so so so so so so so so so so so appropriate to this character at this point in the opera). Contrast with Renee Fleming's indulgences--swoops and croons. Trebs goes for and achieves a severe classic grandeur here. So tense. So intense. Yes!! I just love that! Score!! Go team!!

There is the touch of the slavic in the tone but the execution is all done to the highest of international standards, if you get what I mean. She is a playa.

Check out the drama in the voice--- it is there independent of the her acting with her face and body. Close your eyes; don't even look and it still is happening. It is really something how she does both. But all the same, do look. The arm coming up slowly as the aria is coming to its explosive conclusion is electrifying and it comes down so slowly even as the applause still continues.

Gosh I sure liked this!!

Something good in prospect...

... and more than likely in reality.

March 30 and 31, this coming Friday and Saturday, we have some good music down at the New Zealand Symphony.

Lawrence Renes (a conductor with whom I am not familiar) will be conducting both concerts.

Here is the program for Friday night:

MOZART Overture to The Marriage of Figaro

MOZART Arias including:
Vado, ma dove?
Chi sà, chi sà qual sia
Nehmt meinen Dank, ihr holden Gönner!

STRAUSS Lieder including:
Morgen
Standchen
Zueignung

MAHLER Symphony No 4 in G Major

And the soprano will be Kiri Te Kanawa. [!] It will be interesting to hear how her voice is doing. I have not heard her since a Capriccio in San Francisco back in the 90's some time. My understanding is that she is still in pretty good shape.

AND then on Saturday night, we have the rich over-the-topness of Bruckner's titanic Symphony #8.

It is going to be a lovely weekend.

Here is the inside of the Michael Fowler Centre (generally the home of the excellent New Zealand Symphony when it is in Wellington):

I play bridge...

...and as a newbie and one who at times is NOT that good at hiding his reactions to the hands the deals reveal... well, shall we say that Antonietta Stella here in this clip from La Fanciulla Del West by Puccini...um... erk... shall we say that I know how she feels AND that I have a better notion of how I must look at times? Shall we say that? Sure. Let's.



Of course, she is quite happy at the end because she has saved her lover's life through this card game. In my imagination she could be singing in those final glorious broad and high lines the following:

"I bid five and got one over-trick AND we were vulnerable!"

[Which happened last night!! Buona Notte indeed!!]

[[Via NYC Opera Fanatic]]

[[[P.S. I think I need to get more Antonietta Stella in my life.]]]

Looking for Catharsis? I give you the Act 3 Finale of La Juive!!

We saw this production a few years back when it was in New York at the MET. It was one of the best evenings I have ever spent at the opera. The scene here, if I remember correctly is when it has been discovered that Prince Leopold has been consorting with a jewess. In the course of the scene, you will see him rejected-- anathematized, actually, by Cardinal Brogni.

The gentiles are above in white and Rachel (the eponymous Jewess) and her father Eleazar are in black below. I find particularly effective how Eleazar just gets back to work while the Christians above work themselves up into a blood-libel frenzy. He knows that what will be, will be and that he might as well ignore it, cuz what else can he do--- and besides there is work to do. He wraps the leather straps around his wrists so that he can get back to jewelry making.

Halevy, the composer, by the way, is nothing less than a genius. The music that is bringing this curtain down with a bang [in a most passionate G minor] is some of the most exciting and cathartic music I know. As Princess Eudoxie collapses (right at the end), what music is this for a collapse! It all makes my eyes water in the best way.



When we saw this scene at the MET, I remember being quite at a loss for words afterwards. It was also fun going into Tower Records and other places that weekend after the performance. Everyone seemed to be talking (or so I thought) about how dramatic and involving this opera had been... and they were also saying how suprising it had been that the MET had produced something riveting (these were in the days before the teh sexy reign of Gelb, of course).

Netrebko Fever Bollywood Style

Please to click here. Anna Netrebko controversy is unabated in its intensity and, it would seem, unbounded in its extent.

Anna Leese Recital and an Operatic Round-Up

Things buzz along here, actually. We saw a production of Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti about a month ago that was pretty darn nice. A modest little company of young singers put it on with a piano. This is a fine chamber opera (two leads and a chorus of three) by Bernstein and I encourage you to see it if it is ever around. The baritone (Brendan Casey) who played the male lead was pretty hunky (and had a good voice). He also did some one-armed push-ups at one point. What a guy! Here he is with the chorus:



The piece is about a marriage that is some trouble in the 50s and it is a series duets and solos for the husband and wife with interjections and by-play from the chorus of a woman and two men who sing in close harmony that is definitely jazz influenced. Barbara Paterson, who played the wife, did a nice job too. She shone in her aria that relates the plot of a movie she saw that was set in the South Seas and which gives this opera its name. She was very funny. All in all this opera is a clever piece.

Then two weeks ago we saw an "Afternoon in Vienna" from the Vector Wellington Orchestra on the grounds of the Governor's House on a perfect day. Waltzes and stuff from Die Fliedermaus--- you get the idea. We had a soprano and a mezzo. The soprano, Andrea Creighton, is young and was somewhat overparted at times but had more and more success as the afternoon went on. Helen Medlyn (the mezzo) is a national treasure. She is able to infuse her voice with delightful sarcasm and then pull it all out and give you the cleanest lovliest classical line you could want. I love her!



The conductor Marc Taddei has something to say too. He made that totally overexposed Hungarian Dance by Brahms interesting. With him conducting this orchestra now, we plan to be attending more of their concerts.

Lastly, we attended a concert by Anna Leese (a soprano) last night. She is starting to make a name for herself in England. She had to go on, not too long ago, as Musetta in La Boheme for an indisposed Nuccia Focile at Covent Garden. She evidently did well.



She started off with two Mozart arias (Porgi Amore and the second biggie aria from Cosi). I thought the first went well but was somewhat distressed by the lack of confident control in the bravura bits of the Cosi aria. TRH was charmed and wanted another seven Mozart arias if he could have had them. Then a Brahmszzzzzzzzzzzzzz set followed. She sang it well, I suppose. I caught up on my rest a little. Then after intermission she came back with a new gown that was cut really really low in the back. Teh hott. A fine Strauss set followed. Her Der Rosenband was so nice with pretty solfeggio at the end. An English set and De Falla's popular songs followed and she had most of us in the palm of her hand. When she sang the Jota from De Falla, saucy characterization was aligned with lovely technique in a rendition that was ideally communicative. TRH was less happy in through here as he was still pining for Mozart. If I have this wrong, he will correct me and I will do an update, of course. NJ was pleased as punch to see her and was liking everything really well. I think he was even up for the Brahms. NJ is an example unto the nations. Yes.

Encores were Musetta's waltz song, which she sang beautifully. She was sexily flirtatious and she showed off her ability to taper the high notes to just the most lovely little beam of light (sorry about the 1/2 mixed and 1/1 half-baked metaphor there!). And the final encore was Danny Boy. She made me choke up and my eyes water. Who does she think she is? Rogatchewski?! TRH was charmed by Danny Boy and less so by the waltz song. NJ of course was thrilled. The charming SR was patient and good through it all.

We hear that she will be singing Musetta here in 2008. That will be a good good thing indeed!!

Trebs Fever Worsens (Now in Lucia!)

My new hobby is Anna Netrebko. Imagine that! I am more surprised than you are. Anyway...

As she is slated to do Lucia at the MET in, what, two years time, this video is of more than passing interest. Though from out here in NZ, it really is a matter of academic interest. Still though, one wants to participate. So look and listen (what do you think?):



This must be from a couple of years back? Not sure though.

Minuses first:

Trills = AWOL. One or two of them are kinda there, but she is up against the heavy hitters here and she falls short on this count, way short.

The top is not as powerful as it has clearly become now. But nice enough (oh yeah it is. The final high note is schu-weet.) And if you are missing that a bit here, she has got it for you now, in any case, baby.

Pluses:

Someone.Is.Home.And.In.Control.

Love the way she uses the language in the cabaletta. Her "per me"s at the end of florid passage work are delicious.

She is musical, in tune, and her low notes are so pretty! Like the timbre of her voice in general.

She acts with her face and with the voice!

(Oh, and yes, she is glamorous!)

You know, she is singing better now than she did when I first heard her about 10 years ago in the Russian rep. The middle and the top have focussed quite nicely.

Over to you, what do you think?

A Barely-Legal Salome! Finally!!

Well...perhaps not quite what Strauss had in mind. But never you mind; this lip-synching young man turns in a performance that is both extremely silly and dramatically acute. A dynamic combination in my (at times questionable-- but-hey-I-gotta-be-me-I-did-it-my-way) opinion:




Via Parterre Box, yet again!

Thematic Dissonance [updated]

Just when it appears that this is once and for all an opera blog, something happens to throw all calculations off. This happens so often in so many ways and so many places, as I (and you) have found. The universe has yet more mysteries to share.

O Magnum Mysterium, O Res Inexpectatas!

Right!

To the matter at hand:

In the last couple of years, I have been listening to some mixed CDs that have resulted from some parties at a club in San Francisco that I used to frequent in the late 70s and early 80s, The Trocadero Transfer. Anyway one of the cuts was this fun track from the final days of The Supremes. The earlier Supremes' cuts are over-exposed and I will never need to hear any of them ever again (though I will, oh yes, I will). But this one is from 1977 and it showed up on one of the CDs from a party in 2005, as I have said. This track has a sweetness and earnestness to it (check out the violin lines for example) that contrast tellingly with the high drama and at times intimidating brilliance of dance music of later decades. This video is a hoot and fun, you will want to let it load all the way before you play it. Also, Mary Wells evidently was pregnant and Scherrie Payne always was a diva:

The Supremes - Let Yourself Go (1977)
Uploaded by StarScream76

Check out the girls at "I'm feelin' good, I'm feelin' loose!"-- nice nice neck work. Wish I could do that.

[I felt about like this when I finished my dissertation, got my first job, and my permanent job, by the way.]

Hat-tip to Disco Delivery.

Disaster!

Well, no one died or anything, so I do have a little perspective--- BUT NOT MUCH... so we show up for the screening in the nice auditorium of that new DVD with Voigt of La Gioconda. This was going to be a nice thing and then on Saturday we were going to see a VHS cassette I have of Bumbry doing it from Spain in 1988. The deal was to be that with the nice up-to-date one in our ears and eyes--- the fact of Spanish subtitles on the 1988 cassette was not going to cause trouble (though not much for me as I read Spanish and know this opera like the back of my hand, or something) and it was going to be a La Gioconda spectacular for 48 or so hours. Husband is keen but he needs his subtitles or a recent performance that did. Well, anyway, in a major display of bush-league f!@#$%d-up-ness, the people who were showing the DVD forgot to check the speakers, for once the music started to play it was abundantly clear that the speakers were blown. Oh for crying out loud! How can such wedgedness occur? How? There will be a make-up date at some vague point in the future. Anyway opera friends will still come over on Saturday but Bumbry's (what promises to be a most) interesting performance will have to wait for later. I want to denounce somebody over this, or at least pitch them into a canal.

Anna Netrebko at the Vienna Operaball [updated] [and updated once more]

Pretty amazing actually--- a bit of hint of a suspicion of a cracked-tone at one point aside---just so you know I am not just all blinkered by all the glamourousness--- this performance is authoritative, secure, seductive, and, yes, quite glamorous AND, above all, musical. Lovely, just lovely. And yes I am surprised that I am saying this, but credit where credit is due. Enjoy:



Good on ya Trebs!!

Via Parterre Box [update: go there for wrangling with, as OperaChic might put it, the "haterz" who have been hitting the



while being lemmings with their "fingerz" in their ears.]

[[Newest Latest Update: Ok so I was over there being Anna's (what I like to think judicious) champion. I referred to what Massanet wrote-- talking about what is actually in the score, after someone said that she shamefully and consistently ducked out on some ornamentations. At that point, I was accused of being a vocal coach--- of trying to offer vocal coaching to Anna, I guess. When I said I was just referring to the score as means of illustrating my impression of the relationship between what Anna was singing and the score, this (evidently devstating) charge of me being a vocal coach was repeated. Wha?!

I noted too, by the way, that the haterz were not touching what was interesting and exciting in her singing (e.g., the thrilling high-notes and the sense of line) and were instead after what had tripped her up in Puritani at the MET (coincidence? I think not!!)--- even if the score will really not support the assertions. Dark things were also said about the grumbling mid-ranges and lower volume--- which again were things not in the excerpt you have here.

There is no dealing with these people. I knew it, but an evil spirit was with me today. A little voice was going, close that score. Don't hit publish on that comment. This is going to take a lot of your mental energy!! But did I listen, no!

If you catch me over there on that thread again or indeed in the comments for a while, please chide me and tell me that I should not come crying to you when those mean kids over there are mean to me. I will however read the actual entries--- La Cieca is great.]]