Oberon's Grove

The Unknown Island

Jose van Dam ~ Berlioz - L'Ile inconnue

"Tell me, my pretty lass,
where would you like to go?
The sail billows,
and the breeze is rising!

The oar is of ivory,
the pennant of silk,
the rudder of pure gold;
I have an orange for ballast,
for a sail, an angel's wing...
and as our cabin boy: a seraph.

Tell me, my pretty lass,
where would you like to go?
The sail billows,
and the breeze is rising!  

Is it to the Baltic..
or to the Pacific Ocean...
to the island of Java?
Or maybe is it to Norway,
to gather snow flowers?
Or the blossoms of Angoska?

Tell me, my pretty lass,
where would you like to go?
The sail billows,
the breeze is rising!

Take me, said the fair girl,
to the faithful shore
where love is forever true.

That shore, my darling,
is hardly known
in the realm of love.

Where would you like to go?

The breeze is rising!"

~ translation of Théophile Gautier's poem L'Ile Inconnue

Yvonne Naef

Yvonne Naef sang wonderful performances as Fricka and Waltraute at The Met 2004 to 2009; she also sang Amneris there, which I inexplicably missed. How I would love to hear her here in New York City again.

Ms. Naef is an impressive Sieglinde on Simone Young's recording of DIE WALKURE, with Stuart Skelton as Siegmund:

Yvonne Naef - DIE WALKURE ~ Der Manner Sippe - Simone Young cond

And here's Yvonne Naef in a more intimate setting:

Yvonne Naef ~ Als ihr geliebter schied - Zemlinsky

My Only Meyerbeer

To date, this concert performance of LES HUGUENOTS presented at Carnegie Hall in 1969 is the only Meyerbeer opera I have experienced live. Listening to Lisette Oropesa's recent performance of the aria "Robert, toi que j'aime" from ROBERT LE DIABLE put me in mind of that Carnegie HUGUENOTS which marked one of many high points in the era of Beverly Sills Mania.

Die-hard Meyerbeer admirers continually clamor for more productions of his operas, yet to me they always seems like musically sprawling works wherein a few stimulating arias or ensembles are to be found amidst much that is merely workaday. Here is New York City, Meyerbeer fared quite well during the first 50 or so years at the Old Met, where productions of ROBERT LE DIABLE, LE PROPHETE, L'AFRICAINE and especially LES HUGUENOTS (the fabled 'nights of the seven stars') were given fairly regularly; but by the mid-1930s they all seem to have faded away. A production of PROPHETE - starring Marilyn Horne, Renata Scotto, and James McCracken - was given at the New Met in 1977 and repeated in 1979 before vanishing. 

Over the years, I have made numerous attempts to connect with these antique operas: a recording of ROBERTO IL DIAVOLO from the Maggio Musicale 1968 with Scotto and Boris Christoff held by attention for a while, as did a video from San Francisco of L'AFRICAINE with Placido Domingo and the sultry-voiced Shirley Verrett. I bought the commercial recording of LE PROPHETE but never made it past the first LP before turning it over to the library.

Sutherland had her HUGUENOTS at La Scala (with Corelli and Simionato driving audiences to distraction), and ROBERT LE DIABLE has been revived for Samuel Ramey and, more recently, for Bryan Hymel. 

But, getting back to that 1969 HUGUENOTS at Carnegie Hall, my opera diary (volume 1) reveals that Licia Albanese, Régine Crespin, Bidu Sayão, and Dame Alicia Markova were among the audience.

The evening essentially was a Sills triumph. She wore a queenly white and gold gown and sang all of Marguerite de Valois' fanciful coloratura brilliantly, tossing off strikingly clear notes in alt and driving her fans to distraction. Here is a sample of Sills in this music:

Beverly Sills - O beau Pays ~ LES HUGUENOTS

There was also excellent singing from Justino Diaz as Marcel (who intones the old Lutheran hymn 'A Mighty Fortress is Our God'), and fine work from Thomas Jamerson (de Nevers) and Joshua Hecht (St Bris). As the desperate lovers, Angeles Gulin (Valentine) and Tony Poncet (Raoul) were less impressive. Despite some attractive passages, Gulin's "almost painfully huge" voice was beset by pitch problems. Poncet, who had had an estimable career singing demanding roles from the French and Italian repertoire starting in 1957, had been in vocal decline. This performance was viewed as something of a comeback, but it was not very successful.

The queen's page Urbain was beautifully sung by mezzo-soprano Kay Creed (above, after singing Angelina in LA CENERENTOLA at NYC Opera). At the time, I had a huge crush on Ms. Creed, who in 1960 had been named Miss Oklahoma. I saw her many times at NYC Opera: as Suzuki, and as Maddalena, Siebel, Mlle. Clairon in CAPRICCIO, Cherubino, Annina in ROSENKAVALIER, and as Nancy in a delightfully-cast performance of ALBERT HERRING.

The St. Lawrence Quartet @ CMS

Above: the players of The St. Lawrence Quartet are Christopher Constanza, Lesley Robertson, Owen Dalby, and Geoff Nuttall; photo by Marco Borggreve

Author: Scoresby

Wednesday April 25^th 2017 – On this rainy, dreary evening, the St. Lawrence String Quartet presented by Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, played a recital in Alice Tully Hall. Despite their notoriety, this was the first time I had the opportunity to hear the St. Lawrence String Quartet live. I’ve heard their recent recording of John Adams’s concerto Absolute Jest, so was intrigued to hear them perform Mr. Adams’s second string quartet.

Luckily contrasting the weather outside, the first piece on the program was Haydn’s Quartet in C major for Strings, Hob. III:32, Op. 20 No. 2. In the opening moderato they had a light, tight style of playing. The playing was robust and resonant, it almost sounded like they were miked at time due to the quartet’s vibrato being well in sync.

During the second movement of particular note was Mr. Constanza’s beautifully dark color, which blended well into the rest of the quartet. They seemed to savor the silences in the music, giving lots of space to the thick chords. The fugal fourth movement was the most satisfying, played with a large dynamic range leading to close out the piece. The playing was quick, light, and precise – though textually changed into a drier sound.

Above: composer John Adams

The piece I was most curious about on the program was John Adams’s Quartet No. 2 for Strings, composed in 2014. The St. Lawrence String Quartet has had a long standing relationship with Mr. Adams in the past, writing his first string quartet, Absolute Jest, and this quartet for them. As a longtime John Adams fan, it was interesting to see how he continues to stylistically change even at the age of seventy. The first movement is based on the Scherzo from Beethoven’s penultimate piano sonata. Mr. Adams takes a fragment of the melody and puts it through a kaleidoscope of key, timbre, and rhythmic transformations with the music rarely seeming to slow. There are a few rhythmic and textual nods to the Große Fuge as well as small references to the last piano sonata and other late Beethoven works.

While I typically think of Mr. Adams’s soundscape as open, here the writing was spidery and dense. For the most part, the instruments kept in similar ranges, never using extreme highs or lows. The cumulative effect felt claustrophobic. I appreciated Mr. Adams’s humor in taking these small fragments from Beethoven’s late period (which many scholars believe pushed tonality, rhythm, and structure forward) and pushing them through the wringer of different styles, expanding them further than Beethoven could have conceived. The players did well exhibiting all of the textual and rhythmic shifts – they performed in a wry way which made it easy to hear all of the textures in the dense writing.

The second movement is based around a fragment from the opening of Op. 111. The start of the movement is much quieter than other parts of the piece, and the writing seems to open up a little here. They played with subtlety during the first part of the movement, before switching to an impressively nimble style for a virtuosic finish based around one of the Diabelli Variations.

The second half of the program was also a work completely new to me: Saint-Saëns Quartet in E minor for Strings, Op. 112. Here the quartet was at their best. One of the most transporting moments of the concert were the opening chords of the first movement. Full of resonance with a mute on and playing the small ornamental flourishes that sounded like wisps from a cloud, the quartet managed to capture the French panache of Saint-Saëns’s writing.

The performers painted the two contrasting themes in the first movement well, managing to be both sweet and dark. The St. Lawrence has impeccable pianissimos – really being able to make their instruments sing while being utterly clear. The writing of this quartet is both highly structured and romantically rich – a nice blend of two different styles. There are also hints of modernity peppered in, which seems unusual for Saint-Saëns.

The third movement was performed beautifully, the most impressive part being the blending of the viola, second violin, and cello lines. While for the first part of the movement the instruments aren’t given more than accompanying lines – they managed to create a shifting backdrop for the solo violin line. Each chord was reminiscent of a master painter mixing and testing the gamut of colors. The pulsing finale was played with a muscly and full tone closing out the piece with flair.

As a sweet encore, the Quartet offered the slow movement of Haydn’s Op. 20 No. 1.

~ Scoresby

Mother and Daughter

Above: Elektra at the Tomb of Agamemnon by Frederick Leighton ~ 1869

ELEKTRA ~ scene - Eva Marton & Leonie Rysanek - Slatkin cond - Chicago 1992

EUGENE ONEGIN @ The Met

Above: Anna Netrebko as Tatiana

Author: Ben Weaver

Saturday April 22nd, 2017 matinee - Tchaikovsky’s operatic adaptation of Pushkin’s "Eugene Onegin” arrived this Spring at the Metropolitan Opera. Today, the season's final performance of the opera was telecast via HD to cinemas around the world. It’s a practice that has been contributing to the hemorrhaging of live audience attendance for the house. The Met auditorium has countless empty seats more often than not, and many of those that are filled are actually papered and subsidized by donors. Today's ONEGIN matinee was one of only two performances of the opera that actually sold out.

In the pit was the English conductor Robin Ticciati (above). He led a really magnificent reading the score, the Met Orchestra responding to Tchaikovsky’s superb orchestration with perfection. Ticciati was careful not to overwhelm the singers with sound (Tchaikovsky’s orchestral writing is often dense). There was a wonderful lightness to his interpretation, each musical strand rising magically out of the tapestry of sound. His energetic, forward moving pacing mostly worked well. Perhaps if Tatiana in her Letter Scene and Lensky in his Act II aria had been allowed to linger just a tad longer...but overall Tchaikovsky’s magical score danced and sighed superbly.

The cast assembled for the revival of this 2013 production was first rate. At the heart of it was Anna Netrebko as Tatiana. When Netrebko first sang the role at the Met in 2013 I did not think she made a great impression. Primarily I objected to her bland reading of the text, disappointing for a native speaker. She has certainly been able to deepen her understanding of the role. This afternoon she was a living, breathing heroine. Her Letter Scene was by turns wistful and sad, excited and terrified. Fear as she awaits Onegin’s arrival, and shame at his rejection, were palpable. Haughtiness, in a crimson gown at the royal ball in Act III as she sees Onegin for the first time in many years, was delicious. And the final scene revealed verismo-ish declarations that she will not betray her husband. I suddenly remembered that Netrebko has sung Lady Macbeth and intends to sing Tosca too. These flashes of pure steel were thrilling. Vocally she was excellent. There are occasional tendencies (not new to her) to stray off pitch in her middle voice. But her top was strong and gleaming, and the aforementioned steel in the final scene brought to mind Galina Vishnevskaya. The young, impressionable Tatiana is a woman now, royalty even. She won’t let Onegin forget this.

Peter Mattei as Onegin (above) was in stunning voice. Truly this is one of the most beautiful baritone sounds in the world. Soft and plush, but not lacking in volume. Mattei’s long-limbed figure undergoes a reverse transformation of Tatiana. Haughty and indifferent at first, he unravels as Tatiana grows in stature. While Mattei’s singing was beyond reproach, his Russian diction was quite poor. In Act 1 it was still recognizable as Russian. Alas, as the opera progressed I often wasn’t sure he was singing in Russian at all, or just making sounds intended to sound vaguely Slavic.

Russian tenor Alexei Dolgov was a terrific Lensky. His singing is effortless. Perhaps his neurotic, bordering hysteric Lensky would not be to all tastes, but it was believable, and – again – the singing was terrific. His Act II aria was heart-wrenching; his Russian diction crystal clear. Elena Maximova, as Lensky’s fiancée Olga, did everything right dramatically and musically. Perhaps the voice is a bit too monochrome and lacks warmth, but during the Act II ball she wonderfully conveyed a flirty, young woman who only too late realizes that her behavior towards her fiancée will lead to tragedy.

It is a great touch to have a young bass play Prince Gremin. Usually Gremin is seen as an old man, but a youthful Stefan Kocan, with the necessary low notes in full bloom, leaves no doubt why Tatiana would refuse to leave him for a now-pathetic Onegin. 

It was wonderful to see and hear two veteran Russian mezzos as the matriarchs. Elena Zaremba as Madame Larina showed off a still gleaming, forceful mezzo, effortlessly dominating ensembles. The great Larissa Diadkova, long one of my favorite singers, was a superb Filippyevna. There is still much voice left and dramatically her fussy Nanny was by turns funny and deeply moving as she recalls her own youth. My first live Filippyevna was the legendary Irina Arkhipova making a much belated Met debut in 1997. It is the highest compliment I can pay Diadkova to say that she is in the Arkhipova stratosphere of artists. 

There were wonderful supporting appearances by Tony Stevenson as Triquet (lovely singing of the birthday song; it’s a character that can be very grating, but Stevenson is a superb character singer/actor), Richard Bernstein as Zaretski, and David Crawford as a Captain. The chorus was in excellent form, under the leadership of Donald Palumbo. 

The big problem with the Met's ONEGIN, alas, is the mediocre-to-terrible production by Deborah Warner, sets by Tom Pye, costumes by Chloe Obolensky and lighting by Jean Kalman. Warner's boring conception is old-fashioned in the worst sense of the word. I’m as fond of a “period appropriate” production as anyone, but Warner’s staging contributes nothing to the work. The previous, gorgeous production by Robert Carsen showed more depth with a simple white box and autumn leaves than Warner and team manage with stuffy period detail. The silly “when in doubt, just lay down on the stage” trope should be made illegal. All of Act I is set in the Larin country home living room. Why the family would bring their entire farming staff in there, and then allow people to throw wheat on the living room floor, is a mystery. The Duel scene is the most effective, a moody wintry landscape. But the columns in all of Act III are simply too large, sitting like titans, distracting from any and all action on the stage. 

So it was the superb cast of singing actors, the orchestra, and thrilling conducting by Ticciati that made this ONEGIN a superb musical event.

~ Ben Weaver

Jonathan Biss|NY Philharmonic

Above: pianist Jonathan Biss in a Benjamin Ealovega portrait

Author: Scoresby

Thursday April 20th, 2017 - The promising young conductor Courtney Lewis shared his New York Philharmonic subscription debut (he was the Assistant Conductor there from 2014 – 2016) with the pianist Jonathan Biss. The program was split between two orchestral works bookending two piano concerti. While individually the pieces were interesting, it was a little unclear how the program fit together. It was my first time hearing Mr. Lewis live and my first time hearing Mr. Biss in an orchestral performance – though I have enjoyed his solo performances in the past.

The first selection on the program was Part Two Scene One of Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette, Dramatic Symphony after Shakespeare’s Tragedy, Op. 17. The scene is broken down into a tone poem of sorts with the subtitles: Romeo Alone, Sadness, Distant Sounds of a Concert and a Ball, and Great Festivities in the Capulet’s Palace. While a Berlioz fan, I had never heard this particular work before. After last night’s performance I immediately went home and listened to the full piece online – it is some of Berlioz’s most original composing.

Mr. Lewis (above) and the orchestra had superb dynamic control, starting from just a hush in the beginning that evoked a person meandering through a forest with the lighting shimmering and shifting under different trees. The music itself reminded me so much of the creeping chromaticism and lush sounds in Tristan and Isolde that I kept expecting to hear the famous Tristan Chord. Berlioz doesn’t go that far though, and instead the piece opens up into a great party scene.

Mr. Lewis led this change in atmosphere marvelously – shifting from a tragic meditative walk into a brash, almost militaristic ball. This wasn’t light dance music in Mr. Lewis’s interpretation; instead, there were crashes and thumps with the percussion implying the coming tragedy. It was satisfying to see that the players seem to have genuine affection for him and it felt like they wanted him to succeed.

Next on the program was the young composer Timo Andres’s The Blind Banister: Concerto for Piano and Chamber Orchestra with Jonathan Biss performing the piano part. The piece was composed as a companion piece to Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major, Op. 19 (on the program later), though as Mr. Andres admits in his notes there are few similarities other than a motif he takes from the cadenza of the Beethoven. Mr. Andres’s piece centers on downward/upward scalar motion and suspended seconds. It is tonal and has layers upon layers of atmosphere, with the piano a fabric holding it together. Mr. Lewis did a good job of highlighting different timbres in the score, while Mr. Biss gave the piece a dedicated performance. The woodblocks in the second movement were particularly fun to hear.

The second half started with the underappreciated gem of the Beethoven Piano Concerti: No. 2 in B-flat major, Op. 19. I have always had affinity for this piece, being dainty and expressive at the same time. Mr. Biss was at his best in the first and last movements, playing with a touch as light as a feather. It was impressive hearing how he could change the color of a particular phrase with his changes in articulation, ranging from buttery legatos to harpsichord-like plucking.

In the Adagio the orchestra shined – I thought the brass section sounded lovely with a warm sound. Mr. Biss played the dynamics of the adagio well, but didn’t have the same ease and gloss as he did in the first movement. The Rondo was played brusquely and with finesse; all of the structures were very tight. Mr. Biss did a good job of keeping the tune playful, making it sound like something someone could whistle. The orchestra gave an equally nimble performance.

The final piece on this eclectic program was Elgar’s In the South (Alassio), Op. 50.  I’ve never had an affinity for Elgar before, but this unknown piece to me reminded me a lot of Strauss mixed with Italian folk tunes. Mr. Lewis played through the large swells of romanticism well. The quietest sections were the most memorable, with a charming duet between the harps and Associate Principal Viola Rebecca Young being a highlight of the evening. During the denser moments of the piece, some of the middle range instruments sounded muddy, but this is was due more to Elgar’s writing than Mr. Lewis’s conducting. Overall Mr. Lewis proved more than capable and demonstrated he is a flexible conductor well on his way to a major career. Mr. Biss lived up to his reputation as a fine Beethoven interpreter and a subtle artist. 

~ Scoresby

Kristine Jepson Has Passed Away

Above: Kristine Jepson as the Composer in ARIADNE AUF NAXOS at Covent Garden in 2008. Photo by Clive Barda.

It is very sad to note the passing of Kristine Jepson, a wonderful singer and stage presence, after a long battle with cancer. The mezzo-soprano made her Met debut in Britten's DEATH IN VENICE is 1994 and subsequently sang over 100 performances at The Met, where her roles included Cherubino and Octavian.

It was as the Composer in Strauss's ARIADNE AUF NAXOS that Kristine Jepson first intrigued me with the youthful glow of her voice and her wonderfully natural portrayal when she sang the role at Boston in 1991 - the very production that marked the ascendancy of Deborah Voigt, who sang the title-role. In 2003, Ms. Jepson again excelled in this role at The Met in a splendid performance that featured the Met debut of Christine Brewer.

In 2006, Kristine Jepson sang Idamante in Mozart's IDOMENEO at The Met; her performance was truly impressive, but sadly these were to be her last appearances on that stage.

Here is Kristine Jepson in the 'Presentation of the Silver Rose' from DER ROSENKAVALIER from a performance at Genoa in 2008. Patrizia Ciofi is Sophie, and Fabio Luisi conducts.

Kristine Jepson & Patrizia Ciofi - DER ROSENKAVALIER scene - Fabio Luisi cond - Genoa 2008

Nadine Denize as Geneviève

Currently enjoying my re-discovery of mezzo-soprano Nadine Denize, I was recalling the only time I saw her onstage: as Geneviève in Debussy's PELLÉAS ET MÉLISANDE at The Met in October 2000.

This was my diary entry, written the morning after the performance:

"The Met's PELLÉAS was a tremendous evening, the gorgeous score played with great clarity and haunting beauty by The Met orchestra. This is one of James Levine's best operas, and he wove the marvelous sound-tapestry with superb control. The production is exceptionally atmospheric: the slow, timeless world of Allemonde is ever in shadow; unanswered questions hang over the hyper-civilized, stifling palace like a brooding cloud.

In an outstanding cast, Dwayne Croft as Pelléas gave an outstanding performance: the warmth of his darkish sound seeped into the music, producing long stretches of incredible vocal beauty. Susanne Mentzer was not an innocent Mélisande but a young woman whose experiences have left her dazed and shell-shocked...an engrossing interpretation, exquisitely sung...so full of lyricism and vulnerability.

It was thrilling to see José van Dam on the Met stage again. He is one of our greatest singers, and his Golaud is perfection in its sheer naturalness of vocalism and austere, haunted presence. In the unaccompanied plea to his wife for forgiveness in the opera's final scene, the house was held enraptured as van Dam sustained a gossamer pianissimo welling up from the depths of his soul.

As Geneviève, Nadine Denize's wine-coloured contralto and splendid diction made her 'letter scene' a vocal highlight of the evening. Her dignified presence in the opera's final scene was so moving. Sheer vocal magnificence made Robert Lloyd's Arkel the anchor of the evening musically, his moving portrayal of the old king culminating in his wistful acceptance of Mélisande's death and his silent departure from the bed-chamber.

Alfred Walker sang well as the Physician, and James Danner did a fine job as Yniold. The singing all evening flowed over the orchestra with speech-like ease and natural, un-theatrical simplicity. A great evening!

Nadine Denize - Pelléas et Mélisande ~ Voici ce qu'il écrit à son frère Pelléas

Nadine Denize as Cassandra

In this rare recording from the 1978 Ravinia Festival, mezzo-soprano Nadine Denize sings Cassandra's monologue, "Malheureux roi!" from Berlioz's LES TROYENS. Following a brief pause, the final moments of the Cassandra-Chorebus duet are heard.

Nadine Denize as Cassandre ~ LES TROYENS - Levine cond - Ravinia 1978