(ainda) Mehta's Handel

Parece que o The New York Times concorda comigo, no tocante à mestria do trabalho de Mehta, Ombra Cara!

«MORE than 25 years have passed since the release of Bejun Mehta’s celebrated debut album, made when Mr. Mehta was a boy soprano of nearly supernatural refinement and insight. Mr. Mehta, now 42, has turned up occasionally on record since his emergence as one of the most commanding, exhilarating countertenors of the modern era, in complete accounts of oratorios and operas by Handel, Mozart and Peter Eotvos. But with “Ombra Cara,” Harmonia Mundi finally showcases Mr. Mehta as the dynamic star that he is.

A stage animal whose New York City Opera “Orlando” and Met “Rodelinda” still inspire awe, Mr. Mehta here takes on a range of pyrotechnic showpieces and slow-burning ballads that demonstrate his fierce presence and broad expressive range. Familiar arias from those operas are included, along with worthy numbers from lesser-known works: the exultant “Sento la gioia” (from “Amadigi di Gaula”) and the intricate, flamboyant “Agitato da fiere tempeste” (from “Riccardo Primo”).

Mr. Mehta has exactly the right collaborators in the conductor René Jacobs and the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra. Listen to the agonized dissonances in the recitative preceding “Voi, che udite il mio lamento” (from “Agrippina”) or the biting strings and grotesquely snarling organ in an extended sequence from “Orlando,” and you comprehend precisely the emotional temperament of each scene before a word is sung. In “Per le porte del tormento,” the duet from “Sosarme” that closes the disc, Mr. Mehta is beautifully partnered by the soprano Rosemary Joshua.

On a bonus DVD included with the album Mr. Jacobs describes the qualities desirable in any would-be Handel sensation: “The singer has to be able to sing heroic and loud high notes from time to time, but he should above all be able to sing soft high notes.” Mr. Mehta achieves that distinction, and considerably more, throughout this absorbing, illuminating recital.»

Mehta's Handel

(HMC 902077)

Há uns bons dez anos, no Châtelet, assisti a uma produção memorável de Mitridate, Ré di Ponte (Mozart), dirigida por Christophe Rousset. Pouco depois, a DECCA comercializou esta ópera, dirigida pelo mesmo maestro, contando com um elenco substancialmente diferente, mais estrelar, porventura. Verdadeiramente, fora o Farnace, interpretado por Bejun Mehta, quem mais me entusiasmara na récita. Demasiado jovem, à época (???), na gravação comercial cedeu o lugar a Brian Asawa. Muito me decepcionou tamanha manobra…

Desde então, Mehta entrou para o meu top 5 de contra-tenores contemporâneos – onde figuram os incontornáveis Daniels, Lesne, Jaroussky e Scholl.



Mehta (sobrinho do maestro Zubin Mehta, por sinal) tem uma técnica muito segura e sólida, interpretando as passagens de bravura com assinalável mestria. A voz goza ainda de certa extensão e flexibilidade.



Apesar de contar com uma carreira lírica de primeira água - Aix, Met, Salzburgo, Innsbruck -, em termos de edição discográfica, o contra-tenor americano sempre foi desafortunado.



Recentemente, pela mão do mestre Jacobs, Mehta estabeleceu uma ligação comercial – que se pretende duradoira! - com a notável Harmonia Mundi. O presente registo constitui, pois, o début de Bejun Mehta nesta casa.

Em Ombra Cara, o artista (à semelhança dos seus contemporâneos) não resiste a revisitar o repertório em que se notabilizou Senesino, o castrato oriundo de Siena, para quem Handel escreveu algumas das mais célebres árias. Mehta intercala passagens que demandam uma extrema agilidade – Agitato da fiere tempeste (Agrippina) -, com árias imensamente lírica, profundamente recatadas - Stille amare (Tolomeo, Re d’Egitto). Triunfa em toda a linha, apenas evidenciando uma dificuldade: a articulação tende a esbater as consoantes, sublinhando em demasia as vogais. A musicalidade permanece imaculada, já a expressão, nem tanto.



Apenas lhe falta o cristal!
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* * * * *
(4.5/5)

Bejun Mehta!!!

Degustando Mehta' Handel...

Notícias operáticas relevantes

Dentro de 54 dias, ao cabo de 1699 posts, este blog fará 6 anos de vida ;-)
É obra, não?!

Mathis o pintor

Na sequência desta notícia, eis o registo áudio disponível, com Fischer-Dieskau no papel titular.

News so, so...

Contrariamente ao entusiasmo de muitos melómanos, não creio que, nem o Boccanegra de Domingo, nem a Floria Tosca de Mattila, constituam interpretações de referência. Contudo, aqui estão os testemunhos das prestações dos dois monstros, cujo visionamento tirará a prova dos 9.

"Uma biografia sonhada", ossia Mathis o pintor

(Retablo de Isenheim, de Matthias Grünewald)

Olivier Py encena, em Paris (Bastilha), Mathis o pintor, de Hindemith. A ópera centra-se na figura de Matthias Grünewald, autor do Retablo de Isenheim, que reproduzimos acima. No papel titular, encontramos o magistral Matthias Goerne, o mais legítimo herdeiro de Fischer-Dieskau.

«Peu de gens connaissent Mathis der ­Maler, donné dès cette semaine à ­Bastille dans la nouvelle mise en scène d'Olivier Py et sous la direction de Christoph Eschenbach. Pourtant, ce sommet opératique de Paul Hindemith marqua l'histoire de la musique allemande. Et demeure l'une des aventures les plus passionnantes du siècle dernier. Une aventure esthétique, tout d'abord. En se penchant sur le destin du peintre Matthias Grünewald, auteur du prodigieux Retable ­d'Issenheim conservé à Colmar, Hindemith entreprend au début des années 1930 de traduire sur le plan musical le génie pictural de l'un des plus grands maîtres de la Renaissance. L'impossible fait opéra : plus qu'une simple biographie, c'est une « biographie rêvée », souligne Olivier Py, qui rappelle que le compositeur a tenu à en écrire lui-même le livret. De nombreux aspects rapprochent cet opéra en sept tableaux (comme une succession de panneaux) de l'œuvre picturale elle-même. À commencer par son allure de fresque sonore, dont témoigne le soin apporté aux chœurs et à l'orchestre. Une aventure politique, ensuite. La création mouvementée de l'œuvre est indissociable de la montée du nazisme. En 1934, avant que Hindemith n'ait apposé la touche finale à sa fresque lyrique, Furtwängler lui commande pour le Berliner Philharmoniker une symphonie tirée des principaux thèmes de l'opéra. Après son audition, le régime nazi ne tardera pas à classer cette musique au rang des « dégénérées ». En dépit d'un plaidoyer de ­Furtwängler en sa faveur dans le Deutsche ­Allgemeine Zeitung, la création de l'opéra sera interdite en Allemagne, et le chef déchu de l'Opéra de Berlin. La première représentation de l'ouvrage n'aura lieu que trois années plus tard. Si l'œuvre a à ce point cristallisé les rapports conflictuels du nazisme à la musique, c'est qu'elle est aussi porteuse d'une dimension philosophique indéniable. « Comme Grünewald a pu s'interroger sur la nécessité de continuer à peindre en pleine guerre des paysans, dit Olivier Py, Hindemith se demande à quoi sert de composer un opéra entre la révolution bolchevique d'un côté et la montée du nazisme de l'autre. Ils se rendront finalement compte que leur engagement est dans l'art lui-même. »

De Matthias Grünewald à Matthias Goerne

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau immortalisa au disque le peintre du retable d'Issenheim dans un enregistrement de référence qu'EMI vient de ressortir dans la collection « Home of Opera ». Son digne successeur chez Schubert, Matthias Goerne, reprendra le rôle à Bastille : il retrouvera ainsi l'Opéra de Paris pour la seconde fois, et trois ans après son Wolfram dans un Tannhaüser déjà très pictural, puisque Robert Carsen y avait transposé l'intrigue dans le monde de l'art, à la fin du XIXe siècle»


«(...) l'ouvrage lyrique le plus connu de son auteur n'a pas été représenté en France depuis 1951, à l'Opéra de Strasbourg. Gerard Mortier, prédécesseur de M. Joël, avait préféré un autre opéra d'Hindemith, Cardillac (1926), aussi vif et condensé que Mathis le peintre (1934-1935) est épais et interminable : 3 h 15 de musique en sept tableaux, un langage musical d'une intimidante maîtrise polyphonique et contrapuntique, un livret un peu "grand genre" mais de haute qualité (signé Hindemith). En empruntant un langage "impersonnel", le musicien semble constamment parler entre guillemets et s'abriter derrière des citations de gestes, de styles, d'époques.

Ce "formalisme" esthétique soulève l'une des vraies questions à propos d'un compositeur qui écrivit, en sa jeunesse, des opéras expressionnistes absolument renversants, dont le plus connu d'entre eux, Sancta Susanna (1921), fut controversé en raison de l'audace et du soufre de son livret. Dans Cardillac, comme dans beaucoup de ses oeuvres néoclassiques des années 1920, il témoigne encore d'une vitalité communicative qui disparaît presque totalement dans Mathis : la voix si personnelle, si forte de ses premières oeuvres (qu'elles soient élégiaques ou ludiques) semble se mettre au service d'une cause esthétique et éthique pontifiante. Hindemith ira plus loin encore dans l'abstraction impersonnelle avec L'Harmonie du monde (1956-1957), une rareté ignorée par les maisons d'opéra (mais gravée sur disque, par Marek Janowski, pour Wergo), car elle pourrait sans mal mener au sommeil les insomniaques les plus irréductibles.

Il faut en fait attendre le dernier tableau de Mathis pour retrouver l'inspiration supérieure du compositeur : la musique, qui semble alors faire un sublime voeu de pauvreté, devient géniale et prenante et l'on parierait que Benjamin Britten s'en est souvenu dans la berceuse funèbre du rôle-titre de son Billy Budd (1951)...

Si Mathis attire l'attention, c'est surtout par sa thématique et les circonstances de sa composition. Hindemith le compose en pleine période nazie - qu'il évoque avec un minimum de fard, par le filtre commode d'événements du temps passé : révolte/soumission du peuple et des puissants, querelles et idéaux religieux, autodafés, place de l'art et rôle de l'artiste dans la société à travers l'évocation du peintre Matthias Grünewald (1475-1528). Mathis sera interdit en Allemagne et créé en Suisse, à Zürich, en 1938, année de l'exil d'Hindemith, banni depuis 1936 des instances culturelles du Reich.

C'est ce qui a convaincu Olivier Py de faire figurer sur scène nazis, maîtres-chiens et bergers allemands, chars d'artillerie, drapeaux rouges révolutionnaires - un peu à la manière de Günter Krämer dans la redoutable Tétralogie en cours à l'Opéra de Paris. En dépit de cette tarte à la crème dramaturgique, Py se révèle d'une extraordinaire inventivité et il faut rendre avant tout hommage à l'habileté de la scénographie de Pierre-André Weitz, qui assure un stupéfiant accord entre monumentalisme et mobilité. Py et Weitz ont joué avec génie la carte des grands moyens qu'autorise la technologie du grand plateau de l'Opéra Bastille tout en parvenant à préserver de l'intimité. Le public de la première, qui d'ordinaire hue à peu près tout, a salué comme il se doit ce prodige.

Nicolas Joël n'a pas réuni une distribution inoubliable : Melanie Diener n'a pas les moyens du rôle d'Ursula, Martina Welschenbach est une Regina qui chante bas et sans qualité de timbre particulière. Les ténors sont pour la plupart assez ingrats de voix et l'on s'étonne de la présence d'une chanteuse à la voix aussi défaite que celle de Nadine Weissmann en Comtesse. Il manque à Matthias Goerne (Matthis) le métal, le mordant du timbre de Gregory Reinhart (Riedinger) pour "passer" la lourde orchestration d'Hindemith. Mais l'on connaît peu d'interprètes qui pourraient se hisser au génie du dernier tableau et bouleverser autant qu'il le fait alors, accompagné merveilleusement par Christoph Eschenbach, pour la première fois dans la fosse de l'Opéra de Paris. Après un premier tableau un rien instable et imprécis, l'ancien directeur musical de l'Orchestre de Paris s'est révélé un interprète idéal de Mathis.»

Don Pasquale - Live from the Met, via Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 13 de Novembro de 2010

(Anna Netrebko, como Nemorina, em Don Pasquale - Met Opera House, Novembro de 2010)

O fascínio da opera buffa belcantista reside num ponto central, incontornável: a sagacidade triunfa sobre a linhagem e força bruta. Aliás, a tradição do final do classicismo – Mozart, em particular – introduziu este aspecto estruturante, apoiando-se, nomeadamente em Beaumarchais. Figaro constitui, assim, o paradigma do novo herói dramático, cuja inteligência triunfa sobre a perversidade aristocrática.

A tradição buffa, belcantista – e não só! -, contém, ainda, outro aspecto muito característico. O derrube do anti-herói – Mustafá, Pasquale, Falstaff, Bartolo, etc. - demanda uma colaboração conjunta de parte das demais personagens que, por força da urdidura e intriga, expõem ao ridículo o senhor. Pelo meio, há identidades truncadas, volte-faces e peripécias mil, movidos por um ritmo frenético, envoltos em momentos de humor singelo, e muito acessível.

Don Pasquale, de Donizetti, que é uma peça lírica buffa – e não uma ópera cómica, como erradamente se diz por aí (a Carmen é, essa sim, uma ópera cómica, com diálogos falados, que intercalam com a árias), reitera a força destas premissas.

A produção luxuosa que o Met difundiu sábado passado contou com a assinatura de Otto Schenk, encenador austríaco que a sala nova-iorquina muito respeita. Schenk é um hiper-realista, com um traço megalómano. Relembra Zeffirelli, embora seja menos dado ao mau gosto. Algumas das suas encenações mantêm-se no activo. Há para todos os gostos: um Parsifal que bordeja o sublime (que me fascinou, perto de 10 anos após a estreia), um Os Mestres Cantores de um realismo caduco e empoeirado, um Der Ring kitsch, kitsch (doravante substituído pela montagem de Lepage)…

No caso de Don Pasquale, o encenador seguiu a lógica de sempre, ditada pelo realismo faustoso e acelerado, mas altamente coerente. Tudo é imenso, até a decadência do protagonista, caracterizada com particular finura: criados descuidados, Pasquale emporcalhado e seboso, palácio e entourage decrépitos. Nos antípodas, emergem as esbeltas figuras dos sagazes Nemorina, Ernesto e Malatesta: Netrebko lasciva e libidinosa, Polenzani pueril e apaixonado e Kwiecien dandy malandro e astucioso. Cada um en su sitio, como manda a peça.

Por vezes, o retrato fiel d’a coisa não é sinónimo de vistas curtas! É que os rasgos ultra-criativos, com frequência, roçam o delírio… Realismo assim, sim!

Em matéria de prestação interpretativa e vocal, a fasquia esteve à altura da mise-en-scène: soberba!

Netrebko apenas encerra uma fragilidade: 5kg a mais! Há fogo, lava e vísceras na sua graciosa Nemorina, ora dócil e terna, ora astuta e ardilosa. A voz está deslumbrantemente aberta e colorida (apesar de estruturalmente escura), segura e ágil, como se pretende. A figura… é o que se sabe: um monumento.

Polenzani mantém o cristal que o celebrizou: um timbre imaculado e límpido, com uma ousadia pirotécnica magistral. A personagem presta-se a menor riqueza expressiva que as demais, tendo o tenor explorado – e bem – a dimensão lírica e apaixonada da personagem. Há uns anos, no Met, vi-o como Don Ottavio e adivinhei-lhe um futuro promissor. Não me enganei!

Kwiecien – cujo Enrico impressionou tudo e todos – impregnou Malatesta de elegância e malícia. Quando foi necessário – por ocasião do célebre e implacável dueto com Del Carlo, verdadeira prova de fogo belcantista -, exibiu com mestria a sua agilidade e disciplina.

John Del Carlo, vero basso buffo, foi Pasquale até ao âmago: fanfarrão, atontalhado e deliciosamente ridículo. O timbre não será dos mais belos, mas a riqueza expressiva da sua criatura… Pasquale será o equivalente donizzettiano de Falstaff. Pago para ver o seu Verdi derradeiro, genialmente buffo!

Encerro com uma referência a Levine & The Met Orchestra. Apreciei o ritmo frenético impresso à leitura orquestral, mas James Levine é pouco subtil e refinado. A orquestra cumpriu com brilho, mas faltou-lhe picante e malícia.

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* * * * *
(4,5/5)

Don Pasquale

This afternoon, you'll be mine, Anuska, right here!

Universal Barenboim

«Deutsche Grammophon and Decca Classics are delighted to announce the signing of a wide-ranging recording agreement with conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim. Music director of Berlin's Staatsoper and Staatskapelle and Maestro Scaligero at Milan's Teatro alla Scala - with projects including a new Ring production at both houses - Barenboim will record with both labels in extensive plans stretching beyond 2012, when the artist celebrates his 70th birthday.»

Permiti-me transcrever, apenas, a parte mais suculenta da notícia relativa à colaboração de Barenboim com o grupo Universal: justamente a que se refere ao registo de uma interpretação de Der Ring, de Wagner!

Sounds great!

Disse-me um passarinho...

...que as novidades não cessam de brotar! Claro está, Mahler leva a melhor!

Jaroussky - Caldara in Vienna

O Princípio do Prazer determina que o tempo de espera - que, em linguagem psicanalítica, se designa por tolerância à frustração - seja nulo...

Saber esperar é uma virtude. A paciência é uma aquisição tardia, na espécie humana. Enquanto educadores, paulatinamente, vamos introduzindo a frustração como aquisição fundamental ao crescimento e maturidade das nossas crianças.

Quem - como eu - lida com as patologias adictivas, sabe que a tolerância à frustração (por regra, diminuta) constitui um dos eixos essenciais que definem a dinâmica toxicodependente.

Pois bem... seja... O que importa, verdadeiramente, é que, por vezes, podemos contornar os penosos tempos de espera e fruir mais cedo de uma obra!

Por artes heterodoxas - if you see what I mean... -, veio parar-me ao Imac este novo registo de Jarrousky.

Por quê esperar, com uma paciência infinita -, se posso escutá-lo JÁ?!

Shirley Verrett (1931-2010) - II

(Shirley Verret em Os Troianos, Met - 1973)

Shirley Verrett foi uma extraordinária intérprete lírica, que marcou o mundo operático com soberbas incarnações, ora no registo mezzo – Dalila, Carmen, Eboli, Amneris, Adalgisa -, ora no registo soprano – Norma, Tosca, Lady Macbeth e Aïda. À semelhança de Bumbry – outra black Diva -, sua rival assumida, Verrett enveredou pelo mundo soprano numa fase de plenitude.

Era, essencialmente, uma cantora drammatica di agilità, com meios poderosos. Ousou o belcanto, com alguns êxitos – Donizetti e Bellini. Possuía uma volume assinalável e uma capacidade interpretativa notável, que enobrecia as suas interpretações.

Mezzo ou soprano, who cares? Brilhava, tout court!

Pessoalmente, entrou-me no coração via Verdi, compondo uma Lady Macbeth absolutamente magistral, apenas ladeada pela Callas, como referi.

«Shirley Verrett, the vocally lustrous and dramatically compelling American opera singer who began as a mezzo-soprano and went on to sing soprano roles to international acclaim, died Friday morning at her home in Ann Arbor, Mich. She was 79.

The cause was heart failure after several months of illness, said her daughter, Francesca LoMonaco.

In her prime years Ms. Verrett was a remarkably complete and distinctive operatic artist. She had a plush, rich and powerful voice, thorough musicianship, insightful dramatic skills, charisma and beauty. If she never quite reached mythic status, she came close.

After singing the soprano role of Lady Macbeth in a landmark 1975 production of Verdi’s “Macbeth” at La Scala in Milan, demanding Milanese critics and impassioned Italian opera fans called her La Nera Callas (the Black Callas) and flocked to her every performance.

Her Lady Macbeth is preserved on a classic 1976 Deutsche Grammophon recording, conducted by Claudio Abbado. And in the early 1980s, she was so popular in Paris that she lived there with her family for three years.

In the early days, like black artists before her, she experienced racial prejudice, as she recounts in her memoir, “I Never Walked Alone.” In 1959 the conductor Leopold Stokowski hired her to sing the Wood Dove in a performance of Schoenberg’s “Gurrelieder” with the Houston Symphony, but the orchestra’s board would not allow a black soloist to appear. To make amends, a shaken Stokowski took Ms. Verrett to the Philadelphia Orchestra for a performance of Falla’s “Amor Brujo,” which led to a fine recording.

By her own admission, Ms. Verrett’s singing was inconsistent. Even some admiring critics thought that she made a mistake by singing soprano repertory after establishing herself as one of the premiere mezzo-sopranos of her generation, riveting as Bizet’s Carmen and Saint-Saëns’s Delila. A contingent of vocal buffs thought that her voice developed breaks and separated into distinct registers.

To Ms. Verrett the problem was not the nature of her voice but health issues. During the peak years she suffered from allergies to mold spores that could clog her bronchial tubes. She could not predict when her allergies would erupt. In 1976, just six weeks after singing Adalgisa in Bellini’s “Norma” at the Metropolitan Opera (a role traditionally performed by mezzo-sopranos), she sang the daunting soprano title role on tour with the Met, including a performance in Boston that earned a frenzied ovation. In his Boston Globe review, the critic Richard Dyer wrote that “what Verrett did added her Norma to that select company of contemporary performances that have enlarged the dimensions of operatic legend.”

Yet, in 1979, when New Yorkers finally had the chance to hear Ms. Verrett’s Norma at the Met, her allergies acted up and undermined her singing, as Ms. Verrett recalled in her memoir. Among her 126 performances with the Met, however, were many triumphs.

In 1973, when the company opened its historic production of Berlioz’s “Troyens,” starring Jon Vickers as Aeneas, Ms. Verrett sang not only the role of Cassandra in Part I of this epic opera, but also Dido in Part II, taking the place of the mezzo-soprano Christa Ludwig, who had withdrawn because of an illness, a tour de force that entered Met annals.

In his New York magazine review the critic Alan Rich wrote that Ms. Verrett was “glorious to behold, and her luscious, pliant voice is at this moment in prime estate.” And in the Met’s 1978-79 season Ms. Verrett sang Tosca to Luciano Pavarotti’s Cavaradossi in a production of Puccini’s “Tosca” that was broadcast live on public television, which is available on a Decca DVD.

At her best, Ms. Verrett could sing with both mellow richness and chilling power. Her full-voiced top notes easily cut through the orchestral outbursts in Verdi’s “Aida.” Yet as Lady Macbeth, during the “Sleepwalking Scene,” she could end the character’s haunting music with an ethereal final phrase capped by soft, shimmering high D-flat.

Shirley Verrett was born on May 31, 1931, in New Orleans, one of five children. Her parents were strict Seventh-day Adventists. Her father, who ran a construction company and moved the family to Los Angeles when Ms. Verrett was a young girl, was a decent man, Ms. Verrett recalled in her book, though he routinely punished his children by strapping them on the legs.

Her parents encouraged Ms. Verrett’s talent, but wanted her to pursue a concert career in the mold of Marian Anderson. They disapproved of opera. When they made their first trip to Europe in 1962 to hear their daughter sing the title role in “Carmen” at the Spoleto Festival, they “got down on their knees and prayed for forgiveness,” Ms. Verrett wrote.

In 1951, she married James Carter, who was 14 years her senior and proved a controlling and abusive husband. Ms. Verrett left that impulsive marriage when she discovered a gun under her husband’s pillow. During the first years of her career she was known as Shirley Verrett-Carter.

In 1963 she married Lou LoMonaco, an artist, who survives her, along with her daughter, who was adopted, and a granddaughter.

Her happy marriage came two years after she won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, having studied at the Juilliard School. Carmen was the role of her 1968 Met debut. Other important roles with the Met included Azucena from Verdi’s “Trovatore,” Eboli from Verdi’s “Don Carlo” and Leonora in Donizetti’s “Favorita” in 1978, a new production mounted for Ms. Verrett and Pavarotti.

During the late 1970s and 1980s, Ms. Verrett had a close association with Sarah Caldwell, the conductor and stage director who ran the Opera Company of Boston, winning devoted fans among Boston opera buffs for her Aida, Norma, Tosca and other roles.

In 1981, in what was then a bold act of colorblind casting, Ms. Caldwell had Ms. Verrett sing Desdemona in Verdi’s “Otello,” opposite the tenor James McCracken in the title role. Ms. Verrett’s skin color was only somewhat lightened to portray Desdemona. The intensity and vulnerability of her singing cut to the core of the character of the winsome, naïve Desdemona.

Ms. Verrett also sustained a lively rivalry with another black mezzo-soprano-turned-soprano, Grace Bumbry. In later years, she was a professor of voice at the University of Michigan.

In 1994, about to turn 63 and with opera well behind her, Ms. Verrett made her Broadway debut as Nettie Fowler in the Tony Award-winning production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Carousel” at Lincoln Center. Nettie’s defining moment comes when she sings “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” which Ms. Verrett adapted for the title of her memoir.»

LA Lulu!

(Petibon e Holland, em Lulu, no Liceu de Barcelona)

Depois do triunfo de Genève e Salzburgo, Petibon apresenta, no Liceu, a sua leitura (soberba) da anti-heroína, Lulu. Confirmam-se, à terceira, as expectativas: Patricia Petibon é a Lulu assoluta da actualidade.

«Enorme Patricia Petibon. Su debut en el Liceo se saldó con un rotundo éxito, todo lo rotundo que permite la Lulú de Berg, ópera a cuyo final se llega por extenuación de artistas y de público. Hubo las habituales deserciones en los entreactos, pero los que resistieron ovacionaron a la soprano hasta donde les alcanzaron las fuerzas. Se lo merecía. Su Lulú es cautivadora, dúctil, arriesgada, vibrante, sensual y cerebral a la vez, en lo escénico y lo vocal. Tras haber incorporado el personaje este mismo año en Ginebra y en Salzburgo y retomarlo ahora en Barcelona, Petibon dice que necesita volver con urgencia a las heroínas barrocas y mozartianas. Se comprende: Lulú a la fuerza te vacía. Ella misma es un agujero negro en el que convergen los peores instintos de una sociedad corrupta, materialista, moralmente inane, que Frank Wedekind retrató sin piedad en El espíritu de la tierra (1895) y La caja de Pandora (1904) y que Berg concentró en su poderosa ópera. El vértigo que produce esta femme fatale viene de su absoluto nihilismo, de la naturalidad con la que seduce al hijo en el sofá en que ha matado al padre (su marido) o de la asepsia con la que describe la homosexualidad de la condesa de Geschwitz, enamorada de ella ("No eres un ser humano como los demás. No hay suficiente materia para hacer de ti un hombre y tienes demasiado cerebro para ser mujer", le dice). Dar esa frialdad cortante, ese vacío, a través del canto, la manifestación más cálida del alma, requiere un esfuerzo interpretativo en el que Petibon estuvo inconmensurable. Se comprende que necesite reposo.

El éxito fue compartido con el director Michael Boder, quien sacó de la orquesta de la que es titular, hasta donde pudo, una lectura clara, transparente, equilibrada. La dureza del lenguaje serialista se ve en esta obra compensada por el uso de números cerrados -canción, lied, himno, coral-, de aliento melódico por más que atonal, que Boder tradujo con fuerza comunicativa. El resto del reparto estuvo a notable altura. Tal vez a Ashley Holland (Doctor Schön / Jack el Destripador) le faltara dar más de gramaje a su papel y Paul Grove (Alwa) superara forzando los temibles escollos de la parte, pero a cambio, Franz Grundheber (Schigolch), Julia Juon (Geschwitz), Andreas Hörl (domador / atleta) y demás bestiario estuvieron bien.

La única, mínima, contestación para la puesta en escena. Los siete cuadros constituyen un gran fresco urbano-circense, en el estilo de la Nueva Objetividad de Otto Dix y George Grosz, por el que entran y salen novias de blanco, prostitutas de colores, proxenetas marcando paquete, burgueses ociosos, cabezudos, gorilas, payasos, militares e incluso Papá Noel. Operación estilística en el espíritu de la obra que da por resultado escenas de gran plasticidad. Pero el problema viene del exceso, por querer decir demasiadas cosas. ¿Hace falta rotularle al espectador tantas frases? Es como si esta producción no se fiase de su capacidad de comprensión, con el añadido de frenéticos movimientos de decorados que ya están en la música y acaban por distraerte de ella. Lulú pertenece a la categoría del mito y como tal reclama un mayor libertad para que cada cual lo llene con sus propios fantasmas.»

E pensar que começou - pateticamente - como soubrette...

A maturidade pô-la nos eixos! Ainda nos vai dar grandes surpresas!!!

Garanca's Carmen

Aqui, tive ocasião de manifestar as minhas reservas diante da interpretação da protagonista de Carmen, proposta por Elina Garanca. É certo que a mezzo do Báltico já abordou este papel no Met, tendo-se notabilizado, aos olhos da crítica.

Por ocasião de uma reprise, no Met, de Carmen, eis o veredicto do respeitável The New York Times:

«The sensuous wiles of Elina Garanca’s Carmen would drive most men to distraction. Singing with an alluring and nuanced mezzo-soprano, she eschewed castanet clichés for a rawer portrayal, manipulative and hypersexual from her first moments onstage, when she languidly washes her legs from a bucket of water.»

For the moment, fico na minha...

Shirley Verrett (1931-2010)

A devida homenagem virá em tempo útil. Rest in peace...

Pereceu a única Lady Macbeth que rivalizava com A Grega...

John Ford & «Sergeant Rutledge»

Que belo serão, na Barata Salgueiro, na companhia de um Ford maduro...

Joan Sutherland: Veramente Stupenda, ossia “If there is perfection in singing, this is it.”

Mais vale tarde, que nunca!

Joan Sutherland - ossia La Stupenda -, tal como se noticiou aqui, faleceu a 10 de Outubro último, aos 83 anos de idade. Era uma cantora miraculosa, tout court.

O leitor avisado conhecerá as minhas reservas diante das prestações e legado de Dame Joan: consoantes inaudíveis e superficialidade da interpretações. Sinon, era perfeita, tecnicamente.

A Callas era divina, não pela técnica - bem falível -, mas pelo génio dramático. Sutherland era estupenda pela coloratura e mestria da disciplina.

O mundo lírico dividia-se, diante de ambas: os anglo-saxónicos tomavam o partido de Dame Joan, enquanto os latinos optavam pela Callas.

Ambas geniais, embora, em tudo, diferentes. Sutherland era uma senhora recatada e singela, pouco dada a excessos de vedeta. Já Maria Callas...

Bref, é hora de, justamente, prestar homenagem à mais técnica das geniais artistas líricas.

Pela parte que me toca, recordo-a na Mad Scene de Lucia (Bonynge, 1972), um dos maiores momentos líricos de sempre, que me escuso de adjectivar...

«Aimée de ses partenaires, dotée d'un caractère d'une grande gentillesse et d'une trop grande modestie, celle qui fut l'une des divas les plus admirées de la planète se retirera, à 63 ans, dans son chalet près de Vevey, en Suisse, à deux pas de son ami le compositeur et auteur dramatique Noel Coward (1899-1974). Les dernières années de sa vie seront consacrées à des classes de maître, des jurys de concours internationaux et à sa passion pour le... crochet et la broderie.»

«She wasn't a great actor or a great beauty. Critics said they could never hear the words either, because consonants were not her strength. But it didn't matter. Sutherland possessed the most secure and compelling soprano voice of the age, based on her rock-solid technique (about which she spoke fascinatingly when I interviewed her in 2002, when she was 75).

Listen to her great roles – Lucia di Lammermoor has to have pride of place, though her Norma, Elvira and Lucrezia Borgia come close – and it's the once-in-a-lifetime combination of instrument, ambition and technique that makes her such a complete artist. Of course, it was the amazing security of her top notes and the dazzling accuracy of her coloratura that always brought the house down. But it was Sutherland's soaring, flowing line that really marked her out from the others, and that remains imperishably in the mind now that she has gone.»

«It was Italy’s notoriously picky critics who dubbed the Australian-born Ms. Sutherland the Stupendous One after her Italian debut, in Venice in 1960. And for 40 years the name endured with opera lovers around the world. Her 1961 debut at theMetropolitan Opera in New York, in Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor,” generated so much excitement that standees began lining up at 7:30 that morning. Her singing of the Mad Scene drew a thunderous 12-minute ovation.

Ms. Sutherland’s singing was founded on astonishing technique. Her voice was evenly produced throughout an enormous range, from a low G to effortless flights above high C. She could spin lyrical phrases with elegant legato, subtle colorings and expressive nuances. Her sound was warm, vibrant and resonant, without any forcing. Indeed, her voice was so naturally large that at the start of her career Ms. Sutherland seemed destined to become a Wagnerian dramatic soprano.

(...)

Her abilities led Richard Bonynge, the Sydney-born conductor and vocal coach whom she married in 1954, to persuade her early on to explore the early-19th-century Italian opera of the bel canto school. She became a major force in its revitalization.

Bel canto (which translates as “beautiful song” or “beautiful singing”) denotes an approach to singing exemplified by evenness through the range and great agility. The term also refers to the early-19th-century Italian operas steeped in bel canto style. Outside of Italy, the repertory had languished for decades when Maria Callas appeared in the early 1950s and demonstrated that operas like “Lucia di Lammermoor” and Bellini’s “Norma” were not just showcases for coloratura virtuosity but musically elegant and dramatically gripping works as well.

(...)

“Richard had decided — long before I agreed with him — that I was a coloratura,” she said.

“We fought like cats and dogs over it,” she said, adding, “It took Richard three years to convince me.”

In her repertory choices Ms. Sutherland ranged widely during the 1950s, singing lighter lyric Mozart roles like the Countess in “Le Nozze di Figaro” and heavier Verdi roles like Amelia in “Un Ballo in Maschera.” Even then, astute listeners realized that she was en route to becoming something extraordinary.

In a glowing and perceptive review of her performance as Desdemona in Verdi’s “Otello” at Covent Garden in London in late 1957, the critic Andrew Porter, writing in The Financial Times, commended her for not “sacrificing purity to power.” This is “not her way,” Mr. Porter wrote, “and five years on we shall bless her for her not endeavoring now to be ‘exciting’ but, instead, lyrical and beautiful.”

She became an international sensation after her career-defining performance in the title role of “Lucia di Lammermoor” at Covent Garden — its first presentation there since 1925 — which opened on Feb. 17, 1959. The production was directed by Franco Zeffirelli and conducted by the Italian maestro Tullio Serafin, a longtime Callas colleague, who elicited from the 32-year-old soprano a vocally resplendent and dramatically affecting portrayal of the trusting, unstable young bride of Lammermoor.

Mr. Porter, reviewing the performance in The Financial Times, wrote that the brilliance of Ms. Sutherland’s singing was to be expected by this point. The surprise, he explained, was the new dramatic presence she brought to bear.

(...)

Her distinguished Decca recording of “Lucia di Lammermoor,” with an exceptional cast conducted by John Pritchard, was released in 1961, the year of her enormously anticipated Metropolitan Opera debut in that same work, on Nov. 26.

At Ms. Sutherland’s first appearance, before she had sung a note, there was an enthusiastic ovation. Following the first half of Lucia’s Mad Scene in the final act, which culminated in a glorious high E-flat, the ovation lasted almost 5 minutes. When she finished the scene and her crazed, dying Lucia collapsed to the stage floor, the ovation lasted 12 minutes.

Reviewing the performance in The New York Times, Harold C. Schonberg wrote that other sopranos might have more power or a sweeter tone, but “there is none around who has the combination of technique, vocal security, clarity and finesse that Miss Sutherland can summon.”

(...)

Paradoxically, Mr. Bonynge contributed to the sometimes dramatically uninvolved quality of her performances. By the mid-1960s he was her conductor of choice, often part of the deal when she signed a contract. Trained as a pianist and vocal coach, he essentially taught himself conducting. Even after extended experience, he was not the maestro opera fans turned to for arresting performances of Verdi’s “Traviata.” But he thoroughly understood the bel canto style and was attuned to every component of his wife’s voice.

(...)

Joan Alston Sutherland was born on Nov. 7, 1926, in Sydney, where the family lived in a modest house overlooking the harbor. The family garden and the rich array of wildflowers on the hillside near the beach inspired her lifelong love of gardening.

Her mother, Muriel Sutherland, was a fine mezzo-soprano who had studied with Mathilde Marchesi, the teacher of the Australian soprano Nellie Melba. Though too shy for the stage, Ms. Sutherland’s mother did vocal exercises every day and was her daughter’s principal teacher throughout her adolescence.

Ms. Sutherland’s father, William, a Scottish-born tailor, had been married before. His first wife died during the influenza epidemic after World War I, leaving him with three daughters and a son. Ms. Sutherland was the only child of his second marriage. He died on the day of Ms. Sutherland’s sixth birthday. He had just given her a new bathing suit and she wanted to try it out. Though feeling unwell, he climbed down to the beach with her and, upon returning, collapsed in his wife’s arms. Joan, along with her youngest half-sister and their mother, moved into the home of an aunt and uncle, who had sufficient room and a big garden in the Sydney suburb of Woollahra.

Although Ms. Sutherland’s mother soon recognized her daughter’s gifts, she pegged her as a mezzo-soprano. At 16, facing the reality of having to support herself, Ms. Sutherland completed a secretarial course and took office jobs, while keeping up her vocal studies. She began lessons in Sydney with Aida Dickens, who convinced her that she was a soprano, very likely a dramatic soprano. Ms. Sutherland began singing oratorios and radio broadcasts and made a notable debut in 1947 as Purcell’s Dido in Sydney.

In 1951, with prize money from winning a prestigious vocal competition, she and her mother moved to London, where Ms. Sutherland enrolled at the opera school of the Royal College of Music. The next year, after three previous unsuccessful auditions, she was accepted into the Royal Opera at Covent Garden and made her debut as the First Lady in Mozart’s “Zauberflöte.”

In the company’s landmark 1952 production of Bellini’s “Norma,” starring Maria Callas, Ms. Sutherland sang the small role of Clotilde, Norma’s confidante. “Now look after your voice,” Callas advised her at the time, adding, “We’re going to hear great things of you.”

“I lusted to sing Norma after being in those performances with Callas,” Ms. Sutherland said in a 1998 New York Times interview. “But I knew that I could not sing it the way she did. It was 10 years before I sang the role. During that time I studied it, sang bits of it, and worked with Richard. But I had to evolve my own way to sing it, and I would have wrecked my voice to ribbons had I tried to sing it like her.”

In 1955 she created the lead role of Jenifer in Michael Tippett’s “Midsummer Marriage.”

During this period Ms. Sutherland gave birth to her only child, Adam, who survives her, along with two grandchildren and Mr. Bonynge, her husband of 56 years.

Immediately after her breakthrough performances as Lucia in 1959, Ms. Sutherland underwent sinus surgery to correct persistent problems with nasal passages that were chronically prone to becoming clogged. Though it was a risky operation for a singer, it was deemed successful.

In the early 1960s, using a home in southern Switzerland as a base, Ms. Sutherland made the rounds, singing in international opera houses and forming a close association with the Met, where she ultimately sang 223 performances. These included an acclaimed new production of “Norma” in 1970 with Ms. Horne in her Met debut, singing Adalgisa; Mr. Bonynge conducted. There was also a hugely popular 1972 production of Donizetti’s “Fille du Régiment,” with Pavarotti singing the role of Tonio.

Though never a compelling actress, Ms. Sutherland exuded vocal charisma, a good substitute for dramatic intensity. In the comic role of Marie in “La Fille du Régiment,” she conveyed endearingly awkward girlishness as the orphaned tomboy raised by an army regiment, proudly marching in place in her uniform while tossing off the vocal flourishes.

Ms. Sutherland was plain-spoken and down to earth, someone who enjoyed needlepoint and playing with her grandchildren. Though she knew who she was, she was quick to poke fun at her prima donna persona.

“I love all those demented old dames of the old operas,” she said in a 1961 Times profile. “All right, so they’re loony. The music’s wonderful.”

Queen Elizabeth II made Ms. Sutherland a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1978. Her bluntness sometimes caused her trouble. In 1994, addressing a luncheon organized by a group in favor of retaining the monarchy in Australia, she complained of having to be interviewed by a foreign-born clerk when applying to renew her passport, “a Chinese or an Indian — I’m not particularly racist — but find it ludicrous, when I’ve had a passport for 40 years.” Her remarks were widely reported, and she later apologized.

In retirement she mostly lived quietly at home but was persuaded to sit on juries of vocal competitions and, less often, to present master classes. In 2004 she received a Kennedy Center Honor for outstanding achievement throughout her career. In 2008, while gardening at her home in Switzerland, she fell and broke both legs, which led to a lengthy hospital stay.

Other sopranos may have been more musically probing and dramatically vivid. But few were such glorious vocalists. After hearing her New York debut in “Beatrice di Tenda” at Town Hall, the renowned Brazilian soprano Bidú Sayão, herself beloved for the sheer beauty of her voice, said, “If there is perfection in singing, this is it.”

In retirement she mostly lived quietly at home but was persuaded to sit on juries of vocal competitions and, less often, to present master classes. In 2004 she received a Kennedy Center Honor for outstanding achievement throughout her career. In 2008, while gardening at her home in Switzerland, she fell and broke both legs, which led to a lengthy hospital stay.

Other sopranos may have been more musically probing and dramatically vivid. But few were such glorious vocalists. After hearing her New York debut in “Beatrice di Tenda” at Town Hall, the renowned Brazilian soprano Bidú Sayão, herself beloved for the sheer beauty of her voice, said, “If there is perfection in singing, this is it.”»