Tannhauser - Royal Opera House

First things first - Tannhauser is not Wagner's strongest opera dramatically. In fact, in some respects, it seems a step back from Der Fliegende Hollander. Neither Venus or Elisabeth is drawn with the same depth as Senta and at no point does Tannhauser's inner conflict rival that of the Dutchman's. The only character who stands out for me as a fully rounded creation is Wolfram, Tannhauser's equivalent of Erik (who I never feel much for). In this instance Wolfram's cause was done no harm whatsoever by the singer, but more of that later.

Second things second - despite the above the Royal Opera's new production of Tannhauser is incredible. I would happily go again tonight (OK, maybe tomorrow, I need a night off) if I could. The opera may not be in the league of many of Wagner's other mature operas but it's, in many ways, one of his most consistent in terms of pacing. Four and a half hours in the theatre flew by.

The cast for this run is as follows:

Conductor - Semyon Bychkov
Tannhäuser - Johan Botha
Elisabeth - Eva-Maria Westbroek
Venus - Michaela Schuster
Wolfram von Eschinbach - Christian Gerhaher
Herrmann, Landgrave of Thuringia - Christof Fischesser

Despite much criticism of Botha for his size you can't really fault the voice, especially his diction, which was remarkable. He may be a big man with a big voice but he does act the role as well as sing it. For me the real stars of the show though were Semyon Bychkov, the ROH orchestra and chorus - all of whom got as big a cheer at the end as (almost) any of the singers. I love the fact that the Covent Garden audiences are willing to applaud the orchestra and chorus as much as they do. In this case, as is often the case with Wagner here, the conductor gets the orchestra on its feet before the opera has even begun, in recognition of the work they're about to put in.

The shock of the night, for me and (judging by the reviews) for everyone else too, was just how good Christian Gerhaher is. His Wolfram was incredibly sung and, especially in act III, dramatically stunning. If you can get to Covent Garden and find (and afford) one of the few remaining tickets, it's worth going just to hear him. Otherwise I believe the opera will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 over Christmas so tune in.

Calling all opera singers...

Having finished my first novel and sent it out to agents I've been keeping myself busy by starting work on a second. The main character of this book will be an opera singer (lyric soprano with a tendency towards Mozart & Strauss in case you're wondering).

I know quite a bit about opera and am busy reading up on singers and singing technique but could really do with some input from people who either sing themselves or work with singers (repetiteurs, coaches, conductors etc). I'm interested in hearing from people at all points of their career - whether just starting out, auditioning for jobs, establishing a career, bringing the house down at the Met or whatever - anything can and will prove useful!

So, if you're an opera singer or work with singers and would be prepared to spend 10-15 mins answering a few questions then email me and I'll send you a short list. Let me know who you are and what you do when you get in touch so I can send you relevant questions.

Apologies for using a graphic version of my email address (making it tricky to cut and paste) - it saves me from getting loads of spam from bots trawling the web and picking up email addresses

Cheers in advance

Matt

L'Isola Disabitata - Linbury Studio Theatre

Haydn's L'Isola Disabitata, premiered in December 1779 is a short piece, clocking in at around 90 minutes (including an interval). This run of three performances (the first at the Royal Opera House) is part of the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme week and proved a wonderful chance to hear four new singers and see a rare opera by a well-known composer - plus, at £5 for my standing ticket, it was a bargain to boot.

The first obvious point of interest is that the opera makes use of accompanied recit throughout (so no harpsichord in the pit). Each of the four singers gets an aria or two and the piece is tied up by a final quartet. The whole thing turned out to be an absolute treat - simple yet engaging and entertaining. Anna Devin as Sylvia was the standout performance of the night although, to be fair to the other three, she did have rather more to work with in terms of character. Nevertheless her characterisation was superb, never slipping into the cloying 'little girl' acting so many actresses go for out of laziness or lack or ability (all hair twirling and cocked head). If this is anything to go by her Papagena in next year's Zauberflote will be a treat.

I find Steven Ebel (Gernando) intriguing, he's got a very distinctive voice that drags you in. I'd love to hear him in a lieder recital as I have a suspicion he could be superb.

I really hope that the ROH decides to revive this production in the near future as it was a success on pretty much every level and it would be a shame if three nights is all it's going to get.

Disc of the Day #21 - James Levine's 25th anniversary gala

James Levine's 25th Anniversary Metropolitan Opera Gala
A few years ago I submitted a question for the Met's live Saturday night broadcast interval quiz - the question had to do with opera characters who are first heard off-stage (Tosca, Mimi, Siegfried etc). It was used during a broadcast and I got an email letting me know that I should expect a package of goodies through the post - it never came. I let them know and another was posted - again, nothing. I think they were about to give up on me but, luckily, decided to try a third time.

A week or two later I received a box containing complete recordings on CD of Met productions of Carmen and Figaro, DVDs of Carmen and Don Giovanni, the Complete Kobbe's Opera Book and several other CDs! This disc was one of them.

I can only imagine what it must have been like to attend the gala - as a collection of singing this disc is unbelievably good (and so it should be, given the list of talent).

We have:

Pearl Fishers duet - Alagna/Terfel
Depuis le Jour (Louise) - Renee Fleming
Act 1 duet from Faust - Domingo/Ramey
Meine Lippen... (Giuditta) - Cotrubas
O Don Fatale (Don Carlos) - Dolora Zajick
Act 2 sextet (Don Giovanni) - Fleming/Te Kanawa/Hei-Kyung Hong/Hadley/Terfel/Julien Robbins
Juliet's Waltz - Ruth Ann Swenson
Watch Duet (Fledermaus) - Mattila/Hagegard
Pourquoi me Reveiller (Werther) - Kraus
Mon Coeur... (Samson et Dalila) - Bumbry
Dich Teure Halle (Tannhauser) - Voigt
Ah quel Diner (La Perichole) - von Stade
Rosenkavalier act 3 trio - Fleming/von Otter/Heidi Grant Murphy

(oh, and a tribute to Jimmy Levine from Birgit Nilsson)

Wonderful stuff!

Rigoletto - Royal Opera House, Covent Garden 11/10/2010

This was the first time I've seen Rigoletto in the theatre, despite having been a fan of the opera for several years (it was, in fact, the opera that changed my mind about the genre - see Disc of the Day #11). I did have a ticket to one of the early performances of this production a few years ago but was ill and couldn't attend. As you might imagine I was pretty excited by 7.25 last night.

The first thing to say is that I love the staging. The fact that the Duke's palace spins round to become Rigoletto's house is wonderfully simple yet illuminating. Like many Verdi operas (Aida is a prime example of this) much of the tension comes from a character placed in a situation that demands two different things of him. Whether this is public figure/private figure (Aida) or father/court member (Rigoletto), the opposing pulls created make the drama. So here we have the palace, all hard, flat lines offset against the broken lines of Rigoletto's home. Simple, wonderful, enlightening.

Then we have the cast. Dimitri Hvorostovsky has the same wonderful quality I hear when I listen to Jessye Norman - that is I always get the sense there's another gear there if it's needed. Singing Rigoletto this in no small miracle.

I must admit that I wasn't bowled over by Wookyung Kim's Duke - I couldn't help feeling there was a bit of...well...welly missing. Howwever, I absolutely loved Patrizia Ciofi as Gilda - on a night where the performance was dedicated to the memory of Joan Sutherland it must have been difficult to sing this role but sing it she did and brilliantly.

Special mention should also go to Raymond Aceto and Daniela Innamorati as Sparafucile and Maddalena, both of whom were excellent.

The cast has a couple of variations over the run:

Conductor

Dan Ettinger
Christopher Willis

Duke of Mantua

Wookyung Kim

Rigoletto

Dmitri Hvorostovsky
Paolo Gavanelli

Gilda

Patrizia Ciofi
Ekaterina Sadovnikova

Sparafucile

Raymond Aceto

Maddalena

Daniela Innamorati

Having waited a while to see Rigoletto I didn't want to wait long to see it again so I'm going again, with a friend who knows nothing about opera, next week. I'm seeing the same cast which is, in part, a shame as I'd like to see the other lot. However, if last night again is what I'm getting then bring it on.

Disc of the Day #20 - Le Nozze di Figaro ROH

Mozart - Le Nozze Di Figaro [DVD] [2006]
Disc of the Day #20 is odd for two reasons: it's two discs not one and, more importantly, it's a DVD.

This particular Figaro is the Royal Opera House's current David McVicar production and is quite possibly the most complete realisation of an opera I've ever seen (I saw it at Covent Garden three times but it works just as well on DVD). The drama is full of comedy, wit and - vitally - humanity.

Our cast, which is uniformly excellent both vocally and dramatically, is:

Figaro - Erwin Schrott
Susanna - Miah Persson
Count Almaviva - Gerald Finley
Countess - Dorothea Roschmann
Cherubino - Rinat Shaham

the ROH forces are conducted by Antonio Pappano.

Schrott is a vigorous, passionate Figaro who gets the balance just right between being nobody's fool yet not quite the brains of the operation. That role goes to Susanna, who is delightfully played by Miah Persson. She combines a delicate sweetness with a clear love for both Figaro and the Countess without falling into the trap of over-sweetness (she is, after all, the central figure in this opera, no matter what the title tells us).

Gerald Finley's count is an intelligent, dark character who knows exactly what he's doing. The age-old question of whether he truly repents at the end is answered (as it always is) by the orchestra - Mozart's sublime, human melody leaves no room for anything other than true humility and repentance on the part of the Count. Whether he feels the same way in the morning is another matter...that's life though, just because you feel something to the exclusion of anything else one day doesn't mean that's how things will be in perpetuity. My guess is that he's off chasing the ladies again by the end of the run.

Opera directors dealing with 18th (and 19th century) repertoire face a similar dilemma to their theatrical counterparts when faced with Shakespeare; with so many years of performance history out there should they do something new and thought-provoking or rely on the traditional? Happily McVicar manages the perfect balance here, highlighting the inner workings of the drama within a traditional production and adding a whole host of deft touches that help the text sparkle anew. This DVD is a wonderful document of a brilliant production and the perfect argument to counter all those who would have us believe that opera is no longer relevant or necessary. It is both and so much more.

Disc of the Day #19 - Dvorak - Russalka

Dvorák - Rusalka
I've had a copy of this knocking about for ages now and never got round to listening to it so, as a result, all I really knew of the opera was the famous 'Song to the Moon'. I've got a soft spot for folksy and/or myth-related opera anyway (e.g. Der Freischutz, Smetana's Bartered Bride, Hansel und Gretel, Tristan..., Orff's Der Mond and so on) so it should be up my street.

I have to say I'm loving it so far (on first couple of listens). There's something about the old state-run labels (Melodiya, Hungaroton and, in this case, Supraphon) that often means you get a great recording complete with good singing and an overall air of authenticity that results in a fantastic first experience of an opera written in the language native to the country in question. There's also a really strong tie-in to the themes of the second novel I'm writing but I'll say no more about that at this point as I have no idea where it's going to end up yet (my first started as a story about a group of five kids who make up their own mythology and ended up as nothing of the sort).

Anyway, I'll keep listening. I suspect I'll only have a better idea of just how much I like the opera once I get a chance to see it in the theatre so here's hoping that chance comes sooner rather than later.

#18 Juan Diego Florez - The Tenor

The Tenor
I used to belong to one of those CD clubs where you start by getting half a dozen things you want really cheap and end up paying £14 each for a load of things you don't want just because you're too lazy to go to the post office or too disorganised to return the slip that says 'no thanks'.

This was one of the discs I didn't order but arrived anyway - luckily I liked the look of it.

Juan Diego Florez seems to be one of those singers (like Cecelia Bartoli) who polarizes people. I know a few people who can't stand his voice. Like it or not, however, his singing is incredible on a technical level. I happen to like it, although I need to be in the right mood. At least, that's true on disc, I'm always in the mood to hear him sing live. I've seen him a couple of times at Covent Garden: once in The Barber of Seville with the incredible Joyce Di Donato and once in Fille Du Regiment with Natalie Dessay, probably the most perfect opera experience I've ever had in the theatre.

I did make the mistake of listening to this on the way to work today - JDF has the kind of voice that my ears might need to wake up a little more to fully appreciate, especially in a disc of arias where there's a higher density of top notes than you'd get in an evening in an opera house (you'd also get other voices in the opera house).

I love this disc - it's also great to see a couple of non-operatic pieces (Amapola and Granada) that mix things up without feeling the need to go all crossover and sing something wildly inappropriate just to generate a few sales. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against crossover as such, I just think sometimes people chase sales at the expense of producing quality. Not here.

#11 Verdi - Rigoletto (Bruson/Gruberova/Shicoff/Sinopoli)

Verdi - Rigoletto
Rigoletto is the first opera I listened to, and I didn't really expect to like it. Ever since I was a child I hated opera singing or, to be more accurate, I hated big wobbly soprano voices (which is what I thought all opera singing was). I bought a few discs of orchestral excerpts from Wagner operas as a teenager but didn't go in for all the hoyotoho-ing of the full versions.

Skip forward several years to 2000. I started a job at a music publishing company administering royalties - part of my job was processing royalties for Ricordi, one of the biggest opera publishers of all time. I asked my boss if she'd lend me some opera to listen to as I thought I might as well know what I was dealing with and, in simple terms, I fell in love.

I love this recording of the opera. Bruson is a fine Rigoletto and I've always liked what I've heard of Niel Shicoff, who seems to have suffered from being a great tenor at a time when there were 3 much more famous tenors around. Maybe he wasn't quite in the same league but he's not far off.

The best thing about this recording for me though is Edita Gruberova's Gilda. Some people aren't too keen on her voice, saying it lacks warmth. However, we're not dealing with a worldly-wise Violetta here (although I believe her recording of Traviata is also excellent - I haven't heard it). Gilda is young and innocent and the cleanliness of Gruberova's voice is a great fit. Her Caro Nome is simply beautiful.

10 years on and I'm a huge opera fan - who'd have thought.

#10 Wagner - Tristan und Isolde (Domingo/Stemme/Pappano - EMI)

Wagner: Tristan und Isolde
I bough this on a whim second hand a few months ago (in its original release rather than the new version with e-libretto) for about £4 as it was missing the booklet and box.

I love Domingo but my main reason for buying this was Nina Stemme as I saw her as Isolde at Covent Garden recently and she was simply jaw-droppingly good (even with Ben Heppner walking the role of Tristan as - I think - Lars Cleveman sang it from the wings). She doesn't disappoint in this set either, although with a few more years (and a few more performances of Isolde under her belt) she's even better now than in 2005 when this set was released.

So, you get Nina Stemme and Domingo, who else? Rene Pape as King Marke, Olaf Bar as Kurwenal, Ian Bostridge as the shepherd and Matthew Rose (who I very much like) as the steersman (oh, and some bloke called Villazon as the young seaman). Not bad for £4 I don't think!

Admittedly I would pick the Bohm/Nilsson/Windgassen 1966 Bayreuth recording over this if you forced me to choose but you wouldn't do that...would you?

#5 Lehar - Die Lustige Witwe

Lehár: Die Lustige Witwe

The first Disc of the Day that hasn't been dug out of a cupboard or drawer. I bought this for a couple of pounds from Ebay the other day as I don't know it at all and this particular recording has had rave reviews pretty much everywhere over the years.

On first listen I love it - packed full of melody and with some delightful singing (especially from Cheryl Studer). Definitely something I will be returning to again and a pleasant surprise for me to hear John Eliot Gardiner in repertoire from this period.