Oberon's Grove

Julia Varady ~ Vier Letze Lieder

Julia Varady sings Strauss's Vier Letze Lieder in a 1992 concert with the Gewandhaus Orchestra conducted by Kurt Masur. Watch and listen here.

The Crossing: James Primosch ~ CARTHAGE

Newly released by Navona Records, CARTHAGE features works by composer James Primosch performed by the choral group The Crossing. This music came my way during the isolation of the pandemic in May of 2020. 

From the opening phrase of the opening piece, Journey, a spell was cast over me. Listening to the men of The Crossing intoning these words drawn from the work of 13th-century monk and mystic Meister Eckhart - “There is a journey you must take. It is a journey without destination. There is no map. Your soul will lead you. And you can take nothing with you.” - was all it took to draw me in. Not just the evocative words themselves, but the particular beauty of the voices created a mood that is sustained throughout the span of the album.

While the title track, Carthage, evokes for me visions of the lost city of Carthage, where Dido died of despair after being abandoned by Aeneas, it's Marilynne Robinson's novel Housekeeping that is the source of the text. James Primosch provides wondrous harmonies which feel at once ancient and vividly of our time. Individual voices sometimes rise from the ensemble as the music veers from pensive to ecstatic. After listening, I ordered a copy of Ms. Robinson's book. 

Following is Mass for the Day of St. Thomas Didymus. Comprised of five movements, this work employs four soloists singing the traditional texts from the Latin mass whilst the main choir of The Crossing sing from Denise Levertov’s cycle of poems which inspired the work's title.

In Kyrie, the solo voices are deeply affecting, the choir's harmonies alive with dynamic and rhythmic shifts. The Gloria is appropriately more animated and upbeat, whilst the Credo opens thoughtfully, with especially marvelous harmonies in a variety of moods. The Sanctus opens with  solo voices, each on its own trajectory and finally meshing; following a dense harmonic burst, the word "Sanctus" is repeated. The music then becomes lullaby-like. Agnus Dei, the final passage of this Mass, opens with the beloved "Lamb of God" text gently voiced; later, an emotional rise subsides into a fading finish, a quiet plea for peace.  

The album's notes so accurately describe this work honoring St. Thomas Didymus - known as “doubting Thomas”  - as "...plumbing the depths between unbelief and faith in which true spirituality so often resides." That is the exact place I have dwelt for so many years.

spiraling ecstatically has a vivid spatial sense, a drifting loveliness followed by a high-rising passage of animation to a sustained finish. Two Arms of the Harbor opens thoughtfully, the voices soft and reflective. A female voice explores some high-range coloratura, leading to a brief energy surge. The music then subsides to a gentle coda, drifting into silence. 

The album closes with One with the Darkness, One with the Light. In this brief track, a feeling of reverent acceptance pervades. The text, from poet Wendell Berry, is so simple and heartfelt, and composer James Primosch has given it a dreamlike setting in which the voices of The Crossing quietly reach us in the depths of the soul.

"At night make me one with the darkness
In the morning make me one with the light
When I rise up, let me rise joyful like a bird.
When I fall, let me fall without regret, like a leaf.
Let me wake in the night and hear it raining and go back to sleep."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Above: composer James Primosch; photo by Deborah Boardman

Mr. Primosch was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1956. He studied at Cleveland State University, the University of Pennsylvania, and at Columbia University. Among his teachers were Mario Davidovsky, George Crumb, and Richard Wernick, In 1988, the composer joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania. His website is here.

The Crossing (above, in a Becky Oehlers photo) is a Grammy Award-winning chamber choir. Under the direction of Donald Nally, the ensemble have commissioned over one hundred choral works. Visit The Crossing's website here.

~ Oberon

Montserrat Caballé: NORMA @ The Bolshoi 1974

A performance of Bellini's NORMA from the Bolshoi in 1974 with Montserrat Caballé, Gianni Raimondi, Bruna Baglioni, and Ivo Vinco. Watch and listen here.

Régine Crespin ~ O ma lyre immortelle

Régine Crespin sings the great final aria from Gounod's rarely-heard opera SAPHO:

Régine Crespin - O ma lyre immortelle ~ SAPHO

"O my immortal lyre,
often when tears I have shed...
My voice has been the portal
thru which my sorrows fled.

In vain now does your sweet murmur
Seek to console me in my sadness
No, you cannot heal this final wound - 
a wound deep in my heart,
Only death can end my despair.

Farewell, flame of the world!
Sink down to the bosom of the sea.
Myself, I shall descend into the depths
to my eternal rest.

Another day, Faone,
will dawn for you.
But you will not think of me
As you watch the sun arise.

Open now, bitter sea,
open now!
I shall sleep forever
beneath the waves."

~ She flings herself into the ocean.

La Sconsolata

The only work Giacomo Puccini (above) is known to have composed for violin and piano, La Sconsolata dates from 1883.

Puccini - La Sconsolata - R Gniewek - R Woitach - 1989

Nadine Sierra @ The Met's At-Home Gala

Nadine Sierra sang Mimi's narrative "Mi chiamano Mimí" from LA BOHEME for the Metropolitan Opera's At-Home Gala on April 25th, 2020. Watch and listen here.

Plinio Clabassi

I only heard the Italian basso Plinio Clabassi live once: in 1968, he sang Elmiro in Rossini's OTELLO when the Rome Opera visited The Met. In my diary, I wrote that "...he made a big impression in a sort role..."

Born in 1919, Clabassi sang in an amateur men's chorus before serving in the military during the Second World War; at that time, he started singing on local radio broadcasts for the RAI. After the war, he began to be invited to sing both opera and concerts at various Italian theatres. His career, which lasted 30 years, eventually took the basso to many European countries, to North and South America, as well as to South Africa and Australia.

Clabassi sang operas in many styles, from Paisiello to Pizzetti, but his concentration was on the works of  Donizetti, Bellini, Verdi, and Puccini. His voice had a unique timbre, and he cut a fine figure onstage. Clabassi was married to opera singer Rina Gigli (the daughter of Beniamino Gigli), with whom he appeared on a number of occasions, including a 1966 production of TURANDOT at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples.

Watch the basso as Raimondo in LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR, announcing the murder of Lucia's newly-wed husband.

Clabassi appeared on many recordings, both studio and live. Here he is delivering Monterone's curse in RIGOLETTO:

Plinio Clabassi as Monterone ~ RIGOLETTO - with di Stefano and Gobbi

I always loved Clabassi's voice, particularly on the studio recording of GIOCONDA with Zinka Milanov:

Plinio Clabassi - Sì morir ella de'! ~ GIOCONDA

Plinio Clabassi died in 1984. In May 2012, a new theatre in his native city of Sedegliano was named in his honour.

 ~ Oberon

Ruxandra Donose as Adalgisa

Ruxandra Donose is Adalgisa in a production of Bellini's from Las Palmas, 2011. Dimitra Theodossiu is Norma, Fabio Sartori is Pollione, and Carlo Colombara is Oroveso.

Watch and listen here.

Souvenirs from Cardiff ~ Part III

Erin Wall, a native of Calgary, Canada, was a finalist at the 2003 Cardiff Singer of the World competition. She had made her international debut the previous year singing Britten's War Requiem in London. She spent three seasons building repertoire at Lyric Opera of Chicago, and made her Met debut in 2009 as Donna Anna. In 2014, I had the pleasure of hearing her as Strauss's Arabella at The Met.

Erin Wall's repertoire includes Freia, the 3rd Norn, Strauss's Daphne, Marguerite in Faust, Ellen Orford, Chrysothemis, Helena in Britten's Midsummer Night's Dream, Thais, and Mozart's Contessa Almaviva. She does a lot of concert work, most notably the Mahler symphonies 2, 4, and 8, and Strauss's Vier Letze Lieder.

Erin Wall - Vier letzte Lieder ~ Frühling

Counter-tenor Matthias Rexroth was born in Nuremberg and made his debut in Purcell's King Arthur at Stuttgart in 1999. Having won major voice competitions at Barcelona and Vienna, Mr. Rexroth was soon performing Bach and Baroque works all over Europe, and he represented Germany at the 2003 Cardiff Competition. He sang often with conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt, and also with Riccardo Muti and Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos. His operatic repertory covers numerous Handel roles and ranges from Monteverdi to Britten.

Watch Mr. Rexroth singing at the the 37th Concurso Francisco Viñas in Barcelona here.

Since 2014, Mr. Rexroth has been professor of voice at the Opera Academy of Warsaw; he also gives masterclasses internationally.

Parts of Ms. Wall's and Mr. Rexroth's 2003 Cardiff performances are heard here:

Cardiff 2003 - Matthias Rexroth - Erin Wall

Bucharest-born Ruxandra Donose came to prominence following an impressive showing at a voice competition at Munich in 1990. She soon joined the opera company at Basel, and - thereafter - the Vienna State Opera. Her international career has since continued apace, and lately she has taken on roles like Kundry and Sieglinde.

Above: Ruxandra Donose as Nicklausse in Contes d'Hoffmann; a Marty Sohl/Met Opera photo

I met Ruxandra in 2004 while I was working at Tower Records; she was singing Nicklausse at The Met and she stopped by at the opera room. We had a lovely chat.

Here's Ruxandra at the 1993 Cardiff competition:

Ruxandra Donose - Allerseelen - Cardiff 1993

And Roger Vignoles is the pianist for Ruxandra's lovely singing of Dalila's seduction aria from a 2014 London recital here.

Vasily Gerello was born in the village of Vaslovtsy, Ukraine. In 1991 he graduated from the Saint Petersburg State Conservatory, having already been invited - while still a fourth-year student - to join the company of the Mariinsky Theatre.

Gerello made his Mariinsky debut as Valentin in Faust. Shortly after, he appeared in the role of Onegin and as Rodrigo in Don Carlo. Gerello was the first baritone at the in Mariinsky to sing Germont in La Traviata in the original language.

He competed at the 1993 Cardiff Singer of the World:

Vasily Gerello ~ Cardiff 1993

Gerello's international debut was as Rossini's Figaro at the Dutch National Opera. With the company of the Mariinsky Theatre, he has performed in Spain, Italy, Scotland (Edinburgh Festival), Finland, France and Portugal. He has sung at the world's great opera houses, including the Bastille. Deutsche Oper Berlin, Berlin State Opera, Metropolitan Opera, the Vienna State Opera, Covent Garden, La Fenice, and La Scala. He speaks Italian, Spanish, English, Ukrainian and Russian fluently.

Above: Vasily Gerello as Napoleon Bonaparte in War and Peace

At the Metropolitan Opera, Gerello gave more than fifty performances, debuting in 1997 as Alfio in Cavalleria Rusticana and later appearing as Napoleon Bonaparte in War and Peace, Count Tomsky in Pique-Dame, Marcello in Boheme, and Sharpless in Madama Butterfly.

Mr. Gerello sings the beloved Pearl Fishers duet with tenor Ramon Vargas:

Ramon Vargas & Vasily Gerello - Au fond du temple saint ~ PEARL FISHERS

And here is a song from the baritone's homeland:

Vasily Gerello - Misjats na nebi (Moon in the Sky) ~ Ukrainian song

~ Oberon

Ewa Podleś ~ Gustav Mahler's Kindertotenlieder

Mahler's Kindertotenlieder, performed by the great Polish contralto Ewa Podleś with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Jacek Kaspszyk. The performance was recorded at the Warsaw Philharmonic Concert Hall in Warsaw. Poland, on February 19th, 2016. Watch and listen here.

I heard Ms. Podleś sing the Kindertotenlieder here in New York City in 1999, at Alice Tully Hall:

The program, offered by Leon Botstein's American Symphony Orchestra, also featured orchestral works by Webern and Schoenberg, and songs by Zemlinsky and Berg sung by soprano Edith Wiens. Ms.Podleś's thrilling rendering of the Kindertotenlieder closed the concert, her voice huge, rich, and extraordinarily expressive. The audience's reaction was heartfelt: the contralto was recalled for repeated bows.

It was one of the greatest evenings of music-making I've ever experienced, and I met Mmes. Wiens and Podleś, and Maestro Botstein, after the concert.

~ Oberon