Oberon's Grove

Porpora: Alto Giove ~ Meili Li/Shanghai Camerata

Countertenor Meili Li sings Porpora's 'Alto Giove' with the Shanghai Camerata at a concert given in 2019.

Watch and listen here.

Milanov & Björling ~ BALLO IN MASCHERA

Above: Metropolitan Opera General Manager Edward Johnson and the cast of the Met's 1940 broadcast of Verdi's UN BALLO IN MASCHERA. Listen to the performance here.

Zinka Milanov is Amelia and Jussi Björling is Riccardo, with Alexander Svéd (Renato), Stella Andreva (Oscar), and Bruna Castagna (Ulrica). Ettore Panizza conducts.

National Symphony Orchestra @ Carnegie Hall

Above: Gianandrea Noseda, photo by Stefan Cohen

~ Author: Ben Weaver

Monday February 12th, 2024 - All season long, Carnegie Hall has been featuring music composed during the Weimar Republic (Germany from 9 November 1918 to 23 March 1933) in many of its concerts. This evening,  the National Symphony Orchestra opened its program with one of the greatest composers of that period: Alban Berg's Three Pieces from the Lyric Suite. The suite was originally composed for string quartet in 1925-26, and then three of its movements were arranged for string orchestra in 1928. This arrangement was heard in this concert.

Berg composed the Lyric Suite using the twelve-tone technique created by his teacher Arnold Schoenberg, and used the signature motifs A-B-H-F, which - we learned only in the 1970s - were his own initials and the initials of one Hanna Fuchs-Robettin. Turns out Berg and Fuchs-Robettin were madly in love, but as they were both married their relationship could never be. It was to her that Berg gave a printed score of the work with extensive hand notations, and in the 1970s Fuchs-Robettin’s daughter gave it to Berg’s scholar George Perle. (More historical context: Fuchs-Robettin’s brother married Alma Mahler, and it was Alma who introduced Berg to the family.)

I think most people associate twelve-tone music with harsh dissonances and, well, nails scraping a chalk-board. But of composers who utilized this composition method, Alban Berg found a way to make it sound like the height of Romanticism in ways I don’t think anyone else matched. Berg’s doomed love for Fuchs-Robettin fuels and fills the Lyric Suite. Parts of it soar like a Douglas Sirk melodrama. But there’s angst and fear too. The restless violins that open the second movement, Allegro misterioso, would one day become staples of Hitchcock’s horror (Bernard Hermann was never shy about acknowledging his musical influences.) The string section of the National Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of its musical director Gianandrea Noseda, were on extraordinary form. From the most hushed whispers to screaming agony to ravishing love themes, they mined fearlessly this complex score that musicians will continue to explore for many years to come.

Transitioning from Berg to Erich Wolfgang Korngold is a most natural progression. Korngold was a child of the same life and culture that raised Berg (Berg was only 12 years older). But Korngold, whose youthful compositions were declared by Gustav Mahler “genius!” lived much longer. Berg died in 1935. In 1934 Korngold left Austria for Hollywood - and settled there permanently after Germany invaded Austria in 1938 - where he became a very productive and beloved composer of film scores.

Korngold began composing his Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35 while he still lived in Austria in 1937. He returned to it in the mid-1940s in Hollywood, and finally completed it in 1945, dedicating it to Alma Mahler. Jascha Heifetz gave the world premiere performance in 1947. Filled with breathtaking melodies, this highly Romantic concerto may have been sneered at by critics, but its beauty and charm could not be denied, and it is staple on the concert stages. Violinist James Ehnes was the soloist in this Carnegie Hall concert.

Above: James Ehnes, photo by Stefan Cohen

The solo violin enters immediately with the orchestra, playing a memorable melody Korngold composed for the 1937 film “Another Dawn.” It’s one of those tunes that you feel like you have known your entire life. Listening to Mr. Ehnes launch into this music I was reminded of just how big and full the sound of his violin is. It is fascinating to me how an instrument like the violin - which is essentially the same no matter who made it - can sound so remarkably different in the hands of different virtuosos. Last week I heard Isabelle Faust play the Brahms Concerto and Faust has a light, almost brittle sound you listen for. Ehnes is like an orchestra onto himself: the sweet, rich tones of his Stradivarius fill the hall effortlessly.

The gentle second movement, Romance, quotes from Korngold’s score to the 1936 film Anthony Adverse, and there are hints of his great opera Die tote Stadt. The violin soars in the highest reaches over a hushed orchestra, then suddenly plunges into its lowest depths, and then up again. For all its Romantic grandeur, this work is also quite difficult, Korngold does not spare the soloist. (He originally wrote it at the urging of and for the legendary Bronisław Huberman, who was unable to perform it due to ill health. Heifetz premiered it and remained an enthusiastic advocate.)

One of the remarkable things about Korngold’s writing in the concerto is that he allows the violin to take center stage, orchestration under the solo parts remains light. The exposed solo writing leaves little room for error, and it presented no worries to Ehnes, who plays not only with technical perfection, but with remarkable feeling and style.

The breathless final movement, Allegro assai vivace, opens with a staccato jig, which leads to a melody based on a tune Korngold wrote in 1937 for “The Prince and the Pauper.” The virtuoso finale is, perhaps, just a tad long. That is my only complaint about this extraordinary work: there are several endings before the concerto finally ends.

The exploding applause for Mr. Ehnes’ marvelous artistry lasted long enough to receive two superbly played encores: Eugène Ysaÿe’s Violin Sonata No. 3 and the Andante from J.S. Bach’s Violin Sonata No. 2.

Second half of the program featured Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, Op. 55: Eroica. There isn’t much left to say about the Eroica that hasn't been said before. One of the most important works of Western art music, it rarely fails to leave the listener in awe. (Though some conductors have managed.) I’m sure one reason Maestro Noseda included it on the program is that the National Symphony’s in-house record label just released a set of the complete Beethoven symphonies, recorded over the past few years. Does one need another set of the Beethoven Symphonies? I think so, yes, when it is played as beautifully as the National Symphony Orchestra does. This evening’s live performance of the Eroica was a thrilling. Noseda - as he typically does - played the whole thing quite briskly, but for the most part not relentlessly so, and the orchestra kept up with the Maestro every step of the way. The Marcia funebre was sombre, but not heavy, its emotional climax was shattering. Special mention to the lively woodwind section whose contributions here were invaluable.

The Scherzo of the Eroica is one of the more difficult movements to pull off in Beethoven’s symphonies, sitting as it does between the monumental Marcia funebre and the Finale. How does one make this brief interlude not seem frivolous? Noseda made it work, largely by connecting its more dramatic moments to what will come in the Finale.

Alas, the Finale was the one spot Noseda’s brisk pacing did not pay off. As the movement builds to its famous March - a lively tune Beethoven lifted from his ballet The Creatures of Prometheus - because Noseda played everything up to it in the same crisp pace, the March simply blended in with the rest and got lost in the shuffle. But the build to the closing pages was exciting, and the final notes thundered through the hall, bringing the audience to its feet.

Performance photos by Stefan Cohen, courtesy of Carnegie Hall.

~ Ben Weaver

Love Duet

Leontyne Price and Luciano Pavarotti sing the love duet from Act II of Verdi's UN BALLO IN MASCHERA at the Metropolitan Opera's 100th anniversary concert in 1983.

Watch and listen here.

Happy Valentine's Day!!

Wagner's Death in Venice ~ 1883

February 13th, 2024 - On this date in 1883, Richard Wagner died at the Palazzo Vendramin in Venice. The above photo of the palazzo is by my beloved friend Kokyat, who visited Venice and took several photos there for me in 2012.

Richard and Cosima Wagner had left Bayreuth for Italy in September of 1882, following the premiere performances of PARSIFAL; they were seeking a warmer clime. Cosima was very worried about Wagner's health, as he had been experiencing heart spasms, sometimes quite severe. But once they'd settled in at the palazzo, they enjoyed Venice, and many friends came to visit them.

On Christmas Eve, Wagner surprised Cosima with a concert he had arranged at the Teatro La Venice; he had located the music parts of a symphony he had written at the age of 19, and he had gathered a group of musicians, rehearsing them in the days leading up to Christmas. Cosima was aware that something was afoot, but as her husband often planned special gifts for her birthday (which fell on Christmas day), she asked no questions. (His most famous and enduring gift to her was the Siegfried Idyll; read about it here.)

At La Fenice, the celebration commenced. After the symphony was played, Wagner went to Franz Liszt, who was present for his daughter's birthday, and said: "Do you love your daughter? Then go to the piano and play!" Liszt did so, to everyone's joy.

The next few weeks were quite peaceful; their guests had drifted away, and Wagner was working on an essay. Late in the evening of February 12, 1883, Richard Wagner sat down at his piano in the Palazzo Vendramin and played the Rhinemaidens' Song from DAS RHEINGOLD. Cosima was with him, of course, and as he finished playing he told her: "I am fond of them, these creatures of the deep with their longings."

The next day, February 13th, Wagner felt unwell and decided to stay in his room; Cosima heard him talking to himself and shuffling thru his papers. She went down to luncheon with the children but suddenly the maid rushed in saying that Wagner was calling for his wife. Cosima dashed blindly from the dining room, running head-long into a doorframe...which did not deter her. She reached her husband's side just as he was collapsing from heart failure. His pocket watch fell to the floor. "My watch!" he exclaimed as the life drained out of him. For hours on end, Cosima remained in the room, cradling Wagner's body. Her only act was to cut off her long hair and place it in Wagner's hands before the coffin was closed.

Incredibly, a telegram from her first husband, Hans von Bülow, may finally have jilted her back to reality. He wrote, simply: "Soeur, il faut vivre...". At last she was prevailed upon to face the realities of life for the sake of her children.

Wagner's coffin was transported back to Bayreuth, and he was buried in the garden at Wahnfried. Cosima did not attend the service, but when all the mourners had left, she emerged from the stately house they had built together as evening fell, and watched as the coffin was lowered.

Cosima lived on for nearly fifty years before joining her husband in his resting place.

25 Minutes of Great Tenor Singing

The inimitable Giuseppe Giacomini in excerpts from a concert given at Modena in 1994. The soprano in the OTELLO duet is Maria Chiara.

Watch and listen here.

SIEGFRIED ~ Act III ~ Bayreuth 2007

Above: Stephen Gould as Siegfried; he passed away in September 2023

The third act of Wagner's SIEGFRIED from a broadcast from the 2007 Bayreuth Festival.

Siegfried: Stephen Gould; Der Wanderer: Albert Dohmen; Erda: Mihoko Fujimura; Brünnhilde: Linda Watson

Christian Thielemann, conductor

Listen here.

Florent Schmitt ~ Psaume 47

Above: composer Florent Schmitt

A perfomance of Florent Schmitt's Psaume 47, with soprano soloist Joanna Borowska, and the Wiener Singakademie und Symphoniker, conducted by Vladimir Fedosejev, given in Vienna in 1997.

Listen here.

Isabelle Faust~Osmo Vänskä~Orchestra of St Luke's

~ Author: Oberon

Thursday February 8th, 2024 - The Orchestra of St. Luke's, under the baton of Osmo Vänskä (photo above), presenting a concert at Carnegie Hall concert which opened with Mozart's Symphony #40 and continued with violinist Isabelle Faust playing the Brahms violin concerto. This was one of the most purely enjoyable evenings I've ever spent in a concert hall. Everything about it was pleasurable: being surrounded by a large, attentive houseful of music-lovers; a stageful of very fine and committed musicians; an expert conductor who knew how to make the two familiar works seem fresh; a fascinating soloist; and the sheer comfort and joy of being at Carnegie Hall. To top it off, I ran into Alpert Imperato, who I've known since my days at Tower Records.

The programming of back-to-back masterpieces seemed to delight the enthusiastic audience. The Mozart 40th's restless introductory theme felt like hearing the voice of an old friend after a too-long hiatus. Immediately, I was on cloud nine: such nimble, tuneful playing from the St. Luke's artists, with Maestro Vänskä's sure hand on the pulse, and his intrinsically thoughtful management of dynamics making everything so congenial.

The symphony's gracious Andante brings the wind players to more prominence; numerous solo phrases and cordial harmonies were engagingly brought forward, and there's a sighing motif from the violins. The prevailing minor-key mood of the symphony lends a tinge of darkness to the Minuetto, whilst the concluding Allegro assai was swift, sure, and richly played. A repeated clarinet phrase - and a burnished horn summons - enticed the ear.

During the interval, I glanced thoughtfully about the venerable Hall; I hope this is what heaven will be like, though there's no guarantee I will end up there.

Violinist Isabelle Faust (above) was very warmly greeted as she walked onstage. The violinist was wearing a rather unusual gown, but as her performance progressed, I felt it suited her personality perfectly. She seems to be a woman of considerable mystery, with a spiritual connection to the music. Never showy, but always technically impeccable, she made the thrice-familiar Brahms concerto glow with an uncanny sense of newness, as if we were experiencing the world premiere. 

There was something especially moving about Ms. Faust's performance which is difficult to put into words. The opening theme of the Allegro non troppo had the familiar urgency, and then progresses thru alternating passages of turbulence and lyricism. Maestro Vänskä and the musicians were at every moment in perfect accord with the soloist, both musically and emotionally. Her playing was mesmerizing, drawing us in with a series of wide-ranging leaps as a sense of grandeur rises. The timpani heralds the cadenza, and we continue to hear its hushed beat as a subtle undercurrent while Ms. Faust carries us an ethereal journey to the stratosphere with her high, delicate playing. A long series of rising trills finds the violinist at her most bewitching.

The Adagio opens with an oboe melody, joined by the horns. Ms. Faust enters with a lovely variant of the oboe tune, and then her tenderly-expressed phrases entwine with the orchestra. Her playing is engrossing...other-worldly...as she spins out the line with a ravishing thread of pianissimo tone.

In the ultra-familiar finale, Ms. Faust dazzled with her mix of brilliance and subtlety; the orchestra gave truly admirable support to her revelatory playing.

The ensuing ovation was a perfect response to this uplifting performance, and Ms. Faust quietly introduced an encore: not a showpiece, but a poetic arrangement (by Oscar Strasnoy) of Brahms' thoughtful Romance in F-Major, Op. 118, for violin and orchestra. It was a charming way for the violinist to share her success with her colleagues onstage. 

It's been a while since I fell so thoroughly under the spell of a musician. Definitely an evening to remember!

~ Oberon

Wilhelminia Fernandez Has Passed Away

Wilhelminia Fernandez, best known for her iconic portrayal of the elusive soprano Cynthia Hawkins in the 1981 film DIVA, has passed away at the age of 75. Born in Philadelphia in 1949, she  studied at the Philadelphia Academy of Vocal Arts and later at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City.

Ms. Fernandez made her operatic debut in PORGY AND BESS at the Houston Grand Opera and later toured the production in the U.S. and Europe. She went on to make her Paris debut as Musetta in LA BOHEME alongside Plácido Domingo and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, in 1979, and also made her New York City Opera debut in that Puccini role in 1982. She sang both Carmen and Carmen Jones, and appeared in a production of AIDA staged at the pyramids. Among her other roles were Purcell’s Dido, Mozart’s Countess Almaviva and Donna Anna, Marguerite in FAUST, and Luisa Miller.

Above: a still from DIVA with Ms. Fernandez and Frédéric Andrëi

I saw the film DIVA when it was first released; I went with a fellow opera-lover who said the enthralled young Cynthia Hawkins fan, Jules, played by Frédéric Andrëi, reminded him of me in his sincere devotion to his diva, and his spontaneous weeping when he first hears Cynthia Hawkins sing " Ebben? Ne andrò lontana" from Catalani's LA WALLY. For the movie's plot hinges on this moment, where Jules surreptitiously records the aria despite Ms. Hawkins' famously and firmly stated wish that her voice never be recorded. There's no question that Wilhelminia Fernandez put this gorgeous aria on the map for a much wider public beyond the brotherhood of devoted opera fanatics. Watch the scene here.

In 1983, while we were living in Hartford, the comely soprano gave a recital in West Hartford; here are some excerpts, as recorded by a friend of mine...who was also a friend of hers.

Wilhelmenia Fernandez - O mio babbino caro - SCHICCHI - Hartford 1983

Wilhelmenia Fernandez - Schubert's An Die Musik - Hartford CT 1983

Wilhelmenia Fernandez - Schumann~ Widmung - Hartford CT 1983 - George Darden piano

Wilhelmenia Fernandez ~ Schubert's Nacht und Träume ~ Hartford CT recital 1983

Wilhemenia Fernandez - Ride On King Jesus - Hartford CT 1983

In 1992, Wilhelminia Fernandez sang an impressive Nedda in PAGLIACCI at The Bushnell in Hartford. One afternoon during the rehearsal period, while we were lunching at one of our favorite West Hartford spots, The Comet, she was dining there; we greeted her...such a striking woman.