April 29, 2011
April 24, 2011
Jane Archibald — Haydn arias
Jane Archibald, a singer who is popular with visitors to this blog, has recorded an album of Haydn arias. The CD is being released on April 26, 2011, at amazon.com, amazon.ca, and amazon.co.uk.
April 23, 2011
April 23, 2011
The Friday afternoon (April 22, 2011) performance of Bach’s St. John Passion by the Boston Symphony Orchestra was something of a disappointment. With the singers the orchestra had contracted, most of the arias were boring and unpleasant, things to be gotten through, not moving or satisfying in any way.
Masaaki Suzuki, who is supposed to be an expert at this sort of thing, was the conductor. The orchestra was greatly reduced in size. About sixty members of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus made up the chorus. Their singing was excellent and their enunciation very clear.
Christoph Prégardien was the Evangelist. His singing also provided one of the excellent aspects of the performance, although he was said to be recovering from a cold. After the Thursday night performance, a decision was made to bring in William Hite to sing two tenor arias instead of Prégardien. Hite’s singing of the arias was not quite the pleasure that I would have expected, since his voice has lost the attractive freshness that it had when I heard him in the past in live performances and in Emmanuel Music’s recording of the St. John Passion. He does sing with a certain intelligence, but that is not quite enough to make up for the lack of freshness.
Hanno Müller-Brachmann was the bass who sang the part of Jesus and also the bass arias. I found his singing to be adequate, but not much more, certainly not very interesting. At times his facial expressions seemed self-conscious and inappropriate.
Hanna Blazikovà and Ingeborg Danz were the two female soloists. Neither had an attractive sound, neither was very interesting, though Danz was slightly moving at moments in her second aria. At times Blazikovà sounded more like a boy than an adult woman. Maybe that is supposed to pass as historically informed performance, but I find the idea dubious. Danz was not always quite loud enough, sort of a 40-watt light bulb where one would have wanted 100 watts but might have been happy to settle for 60.
Less prestigious organizations with much smaller budgets have put on much more successful performances of this work.
April 20, 2011
April 20, 2011
19 April 2011 at 20:30
Barbican Hall, London
Debussy: Pelléas et Mélisande, concert performance
Orchestre de Paris
Louis Langrée, conductor
Natalie Dessay, Mélisande
Simon Keenlyside, Pelléas
Marie-Nicole Lemieux, Geneviève
Laurent Naouri, Golaud
Alain Vernhes, Arkel
Khatouna Gadelia, Yniold
Nahuel Di Pierro, Doctor
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“Laurent Naouri's superb Golaud captured the character's pain and anger so poignantly that one could not but empathise with his suffering. Simon Keenlyside similarly invested Pélleas [sic] with a vivid identity: his declaration of love for Mélisande in Act 4 was electrifying. The roles of Arkel and Geneviève were admirably taken by Alain Vernhes and Marie-Nicole Lemieux.
“Which leaves the problematic Mélisande of the highly regarded Natalie Dessay. She alone buried her head in the score — a monosyllabic 'Oui!' as she hastened onto the stage was one of the few lines delivered from memory. The result was unengaging in the extreme, but at the same time too studied. Dessay may perhaps have been trying to suggest Mélisande’s almost psychotic introversion but in the process she sacrificed her affecting, childlike simplicity.”–Barry Millington, thisislondon.co.uk, 4 stars
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“Keenlyside was a profoundly moving Pelleas, full of humanity. Yes, he’s getting a little old for the role, but who cares when its sung like this. His relations with Dessay’s Melisande quivered beautifully with unspoken depths. That is the delight of this opera; the dialogue is matter of fact and natural, but much is implied and requires a sort of restraint from the singers. Something all of them understood, under Langree’s capable direction.”–Planet Hugill–Classical Music blog from Robert Hugill
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Review, Rupert Christiansen, The Telegraph, 5 stars
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A latecomer says he received a grumpy look from Simon Keenlyside as he sat down.
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Review, Classical Iconoclast
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Review, Igor Toronyi-Lalic, The Arts Desk
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April 19, 2011
April 19, 2011
Two more of the songs that Sarah Connolly performed at a recital at Wigmore Hall, London, 8 April 2010. Eugene Asti was the pianist at the Wigmore Hall recital. She also performed these songs at a recital in Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center, New York on 14 April 2011.
April 18, 2011
April 18, 2011
Superb British mezzo-soprano, Sarah Connolly, accompanied by pianist Eugene Asti, sings “By a Bierside” composed by Ivor Gurney to words by the poet John Masefield. This song was written by Gurney in 1916 in the trenches of WWI.
From a recital at Wigmore Hall, London, 8 April 2010.
Superb British mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly, accompanied by pianist Eugene Asti, sings “Sleep” composed by Ivor Gurney to words by John Fletcher. This song forms part of the set “Five Elizabethan Songs” written by Gurney in 1913.
From a recital at Wigmore Hall, London, 8 April 2010.
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Renaud Machart, writing for Le Monde, says that he heard what may be, in
terms of conducting, the most beautiful Pelléas et Mélisande in memory.
He goes on to say that “le Pelléas de Simon Keenlyside est sonore,
testostéroné, et peut se jouer du puissant flot orchestral
derrière lui.”
April 17, 2011
April 17, 2011
Vocal Supporter reviews Sarah Connolly’s recent recital at Alice Tully Hall, New York.
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ConcertoNet.com reviews a recent concert performance of Pelléas et Mélisande in Paris with Natalie Dessay, Simon Keenlyisde, and Laurent Naouri.
April 16, 2011
April 16, 2011
Zachary Woolfe, for the New York Times writes about Sarah Connolly’s recital last Thursday, that “she achieved profound ends through the simplest of means, showing the instincts and communicative power of a born performer during a masterly recital on Thursday at Alice Tully Hall, accompanied by the excellent pianist Malcolm Martineau.
“Ms. Connolly's voice was strong and steady through its range, velvety, but with a soft, subtle graininess that gave weight and presence to even her most ethereal floated notes. Her diction was clear, her phrasing natural. You were not aware of any calculated artistry. She just sang.”
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L’Orchestre de Paris has posted a video clip from rehearsals of Pelléas et Mélisande.
Jouer un opéra en concert, c’est dévoiler les gestes des musiciens qui seraient invisible dans la fosse, voir en même temps qu’on écoute comment le compositeur a articulé le chant aux instruments. Pour cette mise en lumière, l’expérience est toujours intéressante. Elle l’est encore plus quand les chanteurs — comme Laurent Naouri ou Alain Verhnes — ont interprêté leurs personnages en scène et les livrent ici concentrés dans quelques expressions du visage. Avec Natalie Dessay, Simon Keenlyside, Marie-Nicole Lemieux, ils rejoignent pour deux soirs l’Orchestre de Paris et le chef d’orchestre Louis Langrée pour Pelléas et Mélisande de Debussy au Théâtre des Champs Elysées, avant une reprise à Londres.
April 15, 2011
Sarah Connolly at Alice Tully Hall
Delightful recital last night at Alice Tully Hall, New York, from Sarah Connolly, mezzo-soprano, and Malcolm Martineau, piano. The program was a little different from what Lincoln Center had previously announced. The program was as follows:
SCHUMANN Three Lieder from Myrthen
Widmung
Die Lotosblume
Hochländisches Wiegenlied
SCHUMANN Gedichte der Königin Maria Stuart
SCHUMANN Frauenliebe und -leben
Intermission
HOWELLS Come Sing and Dance
King David
GURNEY By a bierside
Sleep
BRITTEN A Charm of Lullabies
BENNETT A History of the Thé Dansant
Encores:
POULENC Hôtel
MULDOWNEY In Paris with You
