Deserted Island CD: Ashkenazy & Philharmonia do Beethoven's 5th & 7th

You would need to have been born deep in a jungle and die young to not be familiar with the opening chords of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony. And though his 7th Symphony isn’t all that popular among those who don’t listen to classical music regularly, its 2nd movement shows up in surprising numbers of film (though non-classical-music-fans would likely be unable to identify it). That naturally means that there are bus loads of recordings of these two pieces... Though if you have experimented with different recordings of the same piece of classical music before, then you would realize that such a notion that ‘the goal of classical music is to intone the music exactly as written by its composer’... or 'to replicate the ideal sound of the piece,' as if anyone aside from the composer can actually claim to have the perfect knowledge of what this ‘ideal’ sounds like, is completely preposterous. Any ‘objective’ notes written on the sheet of the music inevitably takes on a subjective quality the moment it is played by a living musician.

Just exactly how loud should the note be played? Or how long? At what speed? And how should the music be phrased to convey ‘what’ feeling? Or to portray ‘what’ emotion? Unless you are the composer, you don’t really have the final word on it... And I am willing to bet that many composers would find that their ideas about their own music can actually change upon returning to it after having gone off to experience something else for a while. Every performer brings his/her own experience and perspective to the piece of music they play... And this performance by the Philharmonia Orchestra under Vladimir Ashkenazy resonated with me so much when I first bought a cassette tape of it back in the mid 90's that no other recordings of the Fifth Symphony would satisfy me when I lost the cassette during a move in 1998. I spent years listening through all the recordings of this symphony at various music stores until finally stumbling on this Decca Label CD of it... Aside from my first encounter with Vesselina Kasarova’s Rosina in 2005 which converted me to an opera-fanatic, no other piece of music had affected me so much as this one.



Symphony No. 5 in C-minor, "Fate"
1. Allegro con brio
2. Andante con moto
3. Allegro - Scherzo
4. Allegro
(Recorded in 1982)
The first movement, Allegro con brio, is famous for its 8 jolting opening beats from the heavy strings (basses and cellos) that are thought to symbolize ‘fate knocking on the door.’ The imperious pounding that calls its listeners to gather up their arms and prepare for war (or revolution... or an uprising against tyranny), propels the music forward into a storm as the lighter strings (violins and violas) answer the call and pass the words around. The same opening call transforms itself into a less insistent but even more persuasive melody that alludes to a higher, nobler calling that makes it practically impossible for anyone to refuse to follow Beethoven’s music in its drive into the sinister bank of dark clouds gathering up ahead. The woodwinds provide an assuring glow of light from behind the clouds that render the prospect of a heroic death on the battlefield welcoming.

Being cut down in this divinely inspired combat doesn't even seem a possibility anyhow, thanks to Vladimir Ashkenazy and the Philharmonia’s sleek no-nonsense approach to the piece. Every note counts as if everything has been taken care of, leaving no room for philosophizing or melodramatizing... We’re heading off to battle, and we couldn’t care less whether we’ll come out of it alive or not!

The melancholic second movement, Andante con moto, perhaps my all time favorite chunk of symphonic music, sees us all in the calm before the storm. All the military preparation has been made. Now we have a bit of quiet time to reflect on things a bit, to anticipate what would happen, and to pay a brief tribute to Death... who is surely watching over the battlefield eager to reap our heroic offerings. Ashkenazy does a wonderful job in not letting this movement turn melodramatic or lapse into self doubt or pity. The ‘hero’ is fully aware of his mortality and 'how quiet it can all get when the crickets die', but... like Albus Dumbledore and those other wizards who don’t think that death is the worst possible thing in life, he isn’t afraid of it.

This performance haunted me for years with its beautiful balance between the brighter theme of the hero's determination and the insistence of the fate (basses) that awaits its fulfillment. Ashkenazy's no nonsense vision jived so mesmerizingly with the Missourian electrical storms I had to drive through while going to work in the middle of the night that when I finally found this CD of the same performance after many years of listening through entire shelves of Beethoven 5th at music stores (was too dumb to note the names of the performers when I had the cassette), it was like Christmas in July!

The final two movements, Allegro- scherzo and Allegro-finale are connected. The settled strings opening finishes up the contemplation over the prospect of death before the hero is called back by the horn and brass calls, in a variation of the ‘fate’ theme of the first movement, to focus more on the presence as active battle draws near. The agitated double-basses stir up the charged atmosphere with a sonic adrenaline rush before it all settles into a watchful quietness that gives way as the battle commences with the drum rolls and the swiping strings under the watchful eyes of Fortuna, who hovers over the scene in the form of the French horns. The triumphal outcome is never in doubt in the sound of the Philharmonia under Ashkenazy, whose phrasing of each musical statement draws such vitality out of Beethoven’s heroic score that the air in my den turns electric every time I put this CD on the stereo. Everything is done just right (well, for yours truly, anyhow... which was why I kept hunting it down for years after I lost my first recording of this performance).

Symphony No.7 A-major
1. Poco sostenuto - Vivace
2. Allegretto
3. Presto
4. Allegro con brio
(Recorded in 1984)
In a stark contrast to the previous symphony, which to me, is a romanticized vision of war by someone who has never participated an armed conflict in real life and who is so brimmed with the conviction of certain victory as to exude the air of invincibility. The 7th Symphony was composed by a man who has known sufferings, who has experienced the gore and has smelled Death as it brushed past him to snatch the last breath from the fellow he was standing next to... and who is now determined to make the time that he has count. The opening movement, Poco sostenuto - vivace, with its pastoral dance beginning, will likely remind some of Beethoven’s 6th Symphony, the “Pastoral.” Unlike that work, though, the 7th doesn’t come with a composer-provided program specifying exact ‘images’ being depicted in the music... which is one of the reasons why I like this work more.

The pastoral opening dance graduates into a burst of enthusiasm 5 minutes into the movement, and it is a different sort of enthusiasm than the one heard in the 5th Symphony. It is sustained by the unsinkable oboe, whose perk rubs onto the other instruments. It is like watching a mellow crowd of drinking buddies in a pub taking turn ad lib-ing a tale that one had started, with each new improvisation in the story introducing another orchestral modulation... Each one more fantastic than the previous, until they somehow land back on the E that leads everyone back to the original idea that started the whole thing in the first place. From then on any illusion of incoherence is banished in a blaze of glory.

It is to Ashkenazy and his Philhamonia Orchestra’s credit that one doesn’t feel a distractingly abrupt gear-change from the end of the first movement to the very dark premonition that begins the second movement, Allegretto. If you have seen the film, Mr. Holland’s Opus, this is the thing you hear in the movie as the devastated Mr. Holland describes the deafness that Beethoven suffered as he penned this composition (devastated because his son has just been born deaf). With the strings intoning the subdue and poignant main melody which then weds with the violas’ hovering theme as the basses pulse beneath them as if they are night creatures lurking just outside of the ring of the campfire, intending on swallowing the little blaze of light whole. But the little fire inside the ring of darkness is a persistent one. I don't know what exactly sustains this weary soul so that it would dare to overpower the suppressive bout of a depression as the one this music demonstrates, but this music really shows how to brood properly. You can indulge in the dark mood a bit as long as you refuse to let it rule your life!

Even the brooding Beethoven doesn't stay immortally depressed and 'snaps out of it' by the energetic third movement, Presto. It begins without much conviction... As if the weary soul is strong-arming himself out of the funk by manufacturing a burst of enthusiasm out of thin air. But it works, as the horns pick up the cue and the artificial quality of the enthusiasm turns vivid and real. Though there are several mini-relapses, the music wills itself out of it, dispatching the reeling demon (horns) with the strings’ final decisive chords.

Victory! Bright and sweet taste of victory snatched from the terrible jaws of defeat (as depicted in the 2nd movement)! The final movement, Allegro con brio, is literally a victory dance... and perhaps a slightly drunken one at that! The Philharmonia under Ashkenazy never lapses into incoherence, however. It is a victory well earned. Considering that this symphony was first performed in 1813, after the defeat of Napoleon, I can just imagine the crowd of audience getting up from their seat and dance around to celebrate their escape from tyranny all over again.



If you are still awake after all this rambling, then perhaps I don’t have to tell you if I recommend the purchase of this recording or not. The sound is beautifully well balanced and clean. And though there are equal performances of the 7th Symphony, Ashkenazy and the Philharmonia’s reading of the 5th is nothing short of definitive for me.

Beethoven Symphonies No. 5 & 7 (Ashkenazy/Philharmonia Orchestra)
1 CD. Play-time: 77:05 min. Case-lining includes track list and a brief note on the conception and premiere performance of the music (in English) by Kenneth Chalmers.

Another Deserted Island Recording: RCA Red Seal’s Complete Opera CD Set of Rossini’s TANCREDI

Premiered on February 6th, 1813 at Teatro la Fenice in Venice, Tancredi (based on Voltaire’s 1760 tragedy, Tancrède) was Gioacchino Rossini‘s first successful foray into the realm of opera seria. The title character was based on a Norman knight called Tancred of Hauteville (not the Tancredi of Lecce whose star-crossed battle with Clorinda appears in Monteverdi’s 1624 madrigal). The plot is quite holey and the story progresses slowly, which is typical of opera seria: dramatic works where the action only takes place during long and boring accompanied recitative (sung speech)… when it isn’t interrupted by lengthy arias expressing a character’s (seemingly endlessly) specific thoughts. When sung well, one might actually wish for the character to think a little longer and a bit more often. When sung ill, though…. Bleh!

The music Rossini bestowed on this show is marvelously beautiful and dramatically apt. The overture was borrowed (this is Rossini, so what did you expect?) from his earlier opera called La pietra del paragone - a work sadly without enough paragon to keep it from disappearing into obscurity shortly after its premiere. At any rate, it serves Tancredi well (and vice versa, since it probably is the only bit of music from La pietra del paragone you’ll ever get to hear now. It is a minor miracle that there are recordings of this thing available!). The three main roles of Tancredi, Amenaide, and Argirio require nothing short of super-singers just to cope with their range and the virtuoso requirement - which is the main reason why the opera is so hard to stage these days. Three super-singers cost a lot of money!

The title role requires a true mezzo or contralto (he‘s gotta really bloom down there!) with great top extension and enough vocal agility to make your local auctioneers wonder why they can’t fit in as many words per second as the singer can fit notes into a musical beat… and sounds graceful while she is at it. Amenaide really requires a lyric soprano who can chirp with the best of the coloratura soprani out there (which is to say….an outsized helium-overdosed canary with a real voice). And then there is the unconscionably thankless role of Argirio: all the high notes and ringing tones and vocal acrobatics, and still only thirdly appreciated after the opera’s main couple.

And the story is:
Set in Syracuse, Italy circa 1005 AD: Tancredi, the young knight exiled since childhood from the city when his father (who ruled the city state) was deposed of by political rival, Argirio, returns to his homeland unannounced and incognito intended on helping to defend it against Solamir and his besieging Saracens (Moors)… And also to reunite with his sweetheart, Amenaide, Argirio’s beautiful only daughter. A complication arises, though, when Amenaide’s hand is promised to brash young General Orbazzano in return for his acceptance of Argirio’s status as the leader of Syracuse. Panicked by the notion of being married off to a brute she doesn’t love, Amenaide composes a letter to Tancredi - pleading for her rescue and deliverance and posts it in haste (and without addressing the envelope for fear of interception).

Alas, the fact that this is an operatic plot dictates that the letter just has to be intercepted and the addressee misconstrued to be Solamir (THE enemy!). Amenaide’s condemnation is led by Orbazzano and even seconded by her extremely (unjustifiably) disappointed father, who must now sign her death warrant for the crime of treason. Though he (idiotically) believes the charge against her to be true, Tancredi (still unrecognized for his true identity) promptly volunteers to defend her by challenging Orbazzano to a duel… and then proceeds to dispatching the brute so speedily that he doesn’t even get to sing about it (the chorus does that for us, which probably helps keeping this show from getting Wagnerian in length… And who would want THAT, eh?) before leading the Syracusians off into battle against Solamir and the besiegers.

There are two ways to end this tale on an operatic stage: the original Venetian audience loved the ‘happy ending’ where Tancredi returns triumphant after having slain Solamir and heard from the mouth of the dying man that Amenaide’s letter was actually meant for him (don’t ask me how Solamir would know for whom the letter was meant when he never got to see it in the first place. Since when is opera logical?). His reunion with Amenaide prompts a celebratory ensemble closing number that is sure to have the audience humming to themselves as they leave the theater.

Rossini (and other more dramatically aware folks), had a second thought and returned to the tragic ending that Voltaire’s novel dictates when he re-arranged the opera for its Ferrara premiere a few weeks later. In this ‘tragic ending’ Tancredi is victorious against Solamir but returns to Syracuse mortally wounded and learns that Amenaide’s letter was really meant for him as he lays dying on the stage - leaving the audience drenched in flood of tears (shed either in sympathy with the hero or in lamentation of the end to a musically spectacular evening… undoubtedly).

Whichever version is used, this opera is sure to wow you with its gorgeous music. Tancredi’s entrance aria, O patria, was a major hit - so much so that the exasperated Wagner parodied its cabaletta (the virtuoso final part), di tanti palpiti, in the Act III Tailor’s Song of his own opera, Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg. In fact, this very cabaletta is also known to opera buffs as the Rice Aria according to the urban legend that Rossini dashed this little tune off in the same amount of time it would take to boil rice for dinner. Below is three successive servings of this thing from 3 different singers (they are identified at the bottom of this article).



These are all from live performances of the opera, of course (not recitals, but the whole thing), and all three mezzi are premier bel canto singers of their generations… I must admit, though, that I have a weakness for #3, who appears as a jaw-droppingly perfect acoustical incarnation of the mythical Syracusian young blood on the RCA Red Seal label’s 3CDs box set recording of this opera. If she sounds good here in the live clip, she is downright flawless in the stereo recording (which, of course, benefits from retakes and sound engineering…. And, this being Vesselina Kasarova we are talking about, there isn’t the usual trade off at the expense of dramatic commitment either).

Of course, Kasarova has a rather happy history when it comes to Tancredi. It was her taking over of the role, sight unseen and music unheard, on two weeks notice for Marilyn Horne at the 1992 Salzburg Summer Festival (commemorating Rossini’s 200th birth year that season), that proved to be her big breakthrough onto the operatic A-list. She also sang the part to critical acclaims (and audience raptures) when she debuted at Carnegie Hall in 1997 with Eve Queler and the Opera Orchestra of New York… from whence the live recording clip came. The RCA Red Seal set, though, was recorded in 1995 when the singer was only 30 years old and had a clear clarinet-like voice with a rather intoxicating tinge of smoky melancholy mixed into its polish port wine-ish texture. She could have just simply sung the music with that mesmerizing voice and the CD set would still be worth paying more than $50 for even if all the other cast members suck (which they emphatically don‘t), but the lass was already a consummate professional then and decided to also give us perhaps the most dramatically believable portrayal of the role available on commercial recordings, too.

Hers is an introspective and psychologically convincing character who suggests many more aspects of Tancredi than one would expect just reading the libretto and perusing the score. His heroic credential is so secure to him that he doesn’t feel the shallow need to broadcast it by the volume of his voice; instead it is in Kasarova’s pensive piano singing that convinces of the knight’s security and blue-bloodedness. Her ringing forte when Tancredi has his moments of Italian hot-blooded eruptions seals the deal regarding the character’s alpha-manhood. The swirl of vocal coloration and easefully natural dynamic variations and rubato (at times employing all of the above on a single sung word!)… This is no singer singing rehearsed music, this is a live person consolidating his own thoughts aloud for us to shamelessly eavesdrop on. And that, is a hard illusion to pull off, especially when all we can hear is her voice! Listen to this clip below and weep in gratitude of Sony Music (who owns RCA label) for making this performance available to us all for posterity!



Her Amenaide on this CD set is the Italian soprano (and another regular at Opernhaus Zurich, Kasarova’s de facto artistic home theater) Eva Mei. I should confess that her pinched sounding voice doesn’t usually strike my imagination, but here she is very fine indeed as the designated tragically misunderstood heroine - and it sure doesn’t hurt that her voice blends splendidly with Kasarova’s during their 2 gorgeous duets.

Listening to the CD I often can’t help musing if Rossini wouldn’t have seriously considered writing a longer part for Argirio to sing had he someone like Ramon Vargas, the tenor-with-the-voice-to-melt-even-gay-girls’-heart, at his employ when he sat down to compose the opera. To be sure, Pietro Todràn, the original Argirio, must have been a fine singer… But Vargas is just…. Vargas. Even straight guys drool all over themselves by the 2nd bar of his Pensa che sei mia figlia! Then we get to the 2nd act and he and Kasarova launch into their characters’ duet, M’abbraccia, Argirio/ Ah se de’ mali miei, and the drooling positively escalates to a pandemic condition, affecting wide enough a spectrum of gender identities that Dr. Kinsey himself would have founded a new branch of sexual psychology just to study the phenomenon (okay, okay, I exaggerated a bit… But that doesn‘t mean that it is advisable to listen to this dude sing this music without a good supply of bibs and towels on hand!).

The supporting cast is all well done, of course, and Roberto Abbado’s work with the Munich Radio Orchestra and the Chorus of the Bavarian Radio is superb. I would say more about them (because they really do deserve a lot more than just a sentence’s worth of praise each), but isn’t this essay already long enough to wrap around the globe twice (with a few inches left to spare)? Really, if I haven’t convinced you of the purchase-worthiness of this recording of this opera, then a thousand or so more words would likely not make any difference (though perhaps the knowledge that the CD set‘s high price is really a bargain considering how it comes with BOTH versions of the opera - in their entirety - would?). Tancredi’s popularity faded toward the end of the 19th century when it fell completely out of the standard repertoire at all major opera houses…. and was only revived with the rebirth of bel canto enthusiasm in the mid 20th century, thanks in no small part to Marilyn Horne and colleagues. Now we are blessed with the likes of Bernadette Manca di Nissa, Daniella Barcelona, Ewa Podles, and the scintillating-beyond-words Vesselina Kasarova…

I am not sad to have missed Viardot-Garcia, Malibran, Pasta, and even Ferrier. I have heard the current crop of spectacular bel canto singers and I dare say that even Rossini himself would likely be thrilled to death to hear his music reverberating through operatic halls and even private dens (thanks to the stereo) today with them as media. If you have a passion for opera and exquisitely sung music, go out and buy a recording of Rossini’s Tancredi today. There are a few good ones around now, but if I could needle you a bit more for it, the one CD set of the thing that you can’t afford to not have is the RCA Red Seal box set with Roberto Abbado presiding over Kasarova, Mei, Vargas, Peeters, Paulsen, and Cangemi.

If you arrived here from my AssociatedContent’s Tancredi’s O Patria article, click here to return there… or not.

Mystery Tancredis from the sample clip: (1) Daniella Barcelona, (2) Marilyn Horne, (3) Vesselina Kasarova.

My deserted island DVDs: Kasarova as Gluck's Orphée

Gluck's Orphée et Eurydice (Munich 2003 - I Bolton/ Kasarova, Joshua, York):
If there was a single point in time where opera shifted from the Baroque into the Classical period, it was when Christoph Willibald Gluck premiered his operatic take on the myth of Orpheus in Vienna in 1762. Rather than being a string of spectacular arias to show off the vocal ability of his star singers, Orfeo ed Euridice is all about story telling. Every note of the music is there to relate the text, and to conjure up a convincing atmosphere in the audience's head.

This French version of the opera benefited from some judicious editing by Hector Berlioz, who will forever hold a favorable place in the heart of the mezzo-phil opera lovers for his tailoring of the title role to the voice of the extraordinary soprano sfogato, Pauline Garcia - Viardot, guaranteeing a juicy trouser role for the deep voiced mezzo-sopranos of subsequent generations (and at least one opera in the standard repertoire that is completely free of any solo male voice!).
Most of us would already be familiar of the story, I think. The opera opens with the grief-stricken Orphée (the famous Thracian musician, Orpheus, whose musical language is said to be so eloquent that trees and boulders would uproot themselves to follow him around, assuring him the title of the most hated by gardeners on the lively side of the Styx) lamenting the death (by snake bite) of his wife, Eurydice, as the sympathetic crowd look on. His mournful melody is so devastating that Jupiter sends Cupid down to offer him a deal: Orphée will be allowed to enter Hades and try to convince the god of the dead to return Eurydice to him - though he mustn’t, under any circumstance, look back at her (nor can he tell her why) until after they have both crossed the Styx back to the land of the living... or she will be lost to him forever. The musical Orphée proves himself up to any task but coping with his wife’s tears (the lass has a temper tantrum when her beloved husband repeatedly refuses to even look at her). If you want to know how it ends, you’ll have to buy or rent this DVD to find out (the myth of Orpheus has many different endings... And, actually, even this performance shows 2 different ones. The opera ends one way and the ballet ends another way).

(Clip posted by pockhair)
This production at the Bavarian State Opera is staged by Nigel Lowery and Amir Hosseinpour as a minimalistic theater that does a good job of focusing on the wonderfully theatrical cast and getting across the psyche of the story. It doesn't seem to set the story in any specific time or place, which is just as well considering the timelessness of the original myth. And when you’ve got a Vesselina Kasarova as your main man who has to remain on the stage for more than 75% of the length of the time, stage props are mere luxuries rather than necessities. The lass can do with just her eyes and a little turn of her glances what many can't achieve with a stage-ful of dragons and laser pyrotechnic. I’m afraid I lack a good enough vocabulary to describe how effective Kasarova is as a male character in an opera. Unlike some other mezzos who require second or third looks to confirm their true gender when they are in a male suit, Kasarova never looks or acts butch or manly. She is, rather, something harder to pin down...

One doesn’t fully grasp what androgeny is until one has experienced this woman in a trouser role. She transcends the notion of gender and just simply is Orphée... whatever he is - male, female, gay, lesbian, transgender - it doesn’t matter. You know he loves his Eurydice and literally runs through a whole gamut of emotions in the course of his supernatural adventure. Many opera singers can act well to the live audience, but there aren’t many who can deliver the drama to both the live audience and those looking in via the television cameras! I don’t know how she does it, but it is uncanny how Kasarova can always find the camera to focus her eyes on at key moments of the performance... without ever abandoning the live audience.

There are quirky humors infused in the staging and not all of them can be easily understood. All the same, they don’t (or perhaps I should say that up against the charisma of Kasarova, they fail to) distract from the running pathos of the story. I actually find it nice to get to laugh a bit at the notion of ever running into a polar bear in the Valley of the Blessed. If humans can have a happy afterlife, well, why can’t animals too? It keeps the show from being too serious, which isn’t a bad practice when staging an opera from the baroque - classical period.

Supporting Kasarova are the marvelous Eurydice of the Welsh soprano, Rosemary Joshua, and the delightfully spunky Amour (Cupid) of Deborah York. The Orphée - Eurydice duets are as much the highlights of the show as Orphée’s famous 2 arias are. The chemistry between the lovers is palpable and nothing is overdone (no unnecessary nudity or sex scene here). I must confess to being a little befuddled about Amour’s performance, though. I’m not sure that York sings the whole role in this DVD (it seems to be spliced from a few different performances, and one of them has this curly brunette singing Amour’s final act lines from the pit. The curly brunette also appears on the stage for the curtain call but isn’t given credit in the cast).

In the pit with the Orchestra of the Bavarian State Opera is the delightfully supportive maestro Ivor Bolton. I think he could have conjure up more fire and doom in the famous Hades scene, but that is really a minor complaint considering how ably he keeps the story moving and his perfect pace-setting during Orphée's famous lamentation, J'ai perdu mon Euridice (I've lost my Eurydice). If there is any quirk in Gluck's composition, it is how he assigned this supposedly mournful tune to the bright and cheerful key of C major... Many an able conductor have fallen into the trap of setting such a brisk tempo to the tune that not a shred of sorrow is left around to express itself in the opera's supposedly most tragic moment. Some, on the other hand, are so careful to preserve the sorrow that the end up dragging the tempo to the point where even the most sympathetic of listeners have to fight off sleep rather than tear half way through the thing. Here... it is simply perfect.


(clip posted by Arashi110)
There are a few good DVDs of Orphée et Eurydice around, but this one tops my list by a long shot so far. That isn't to say that the other DVDs aren't good... They just don't communicate to me anywhere nearly as convincingly as this one does. If only Studio Farao could have put in a little extra like cast interview and stuff...

Vesselina Kasarova: Mozart Arias (Mozart-Arien)

Among many opera singers and classical musicians, the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is regarded as the ultimate test. One just can't claim to have mastered one's musical ability until one has successfully mastered his music. But the rub is... most of it is so understatedly graceful and dramatically perfect that when you are successful at performing a Mozart aria well, well, you'll end up blending right into the story so that the audience may be excused for not being appropriately aware of all the vocalizing skills and control that you had put into the performance in order to achieve this easy-sounding music. To love Mozart is to never say 'look at me!', I guess... at least not when you are on the stage.

With old Wolfie demanding the highest level of technique and control in the performance of his cruelly exposed music (it is so lightly orchestrated that the audience can notice even the slightest bit of any wavering in the voice... among the many other things that keep singers awake at night), most singers have all they can handle just to sing his music - hitting all the right notes in the right sequence at the right tempo. And that is often good enough for many (after all, Mozart's music is nothing if not easy on the ears).

RCA Red Seal CD: Vesselina Kasarova - Mozart Arias

Once in a long while, though, we are lucky enough to encounter a singer who can not only recreate what Mozart had written on the score, but who can actually bring vividly to life the characters that Mozart's musical notations are meant to try to describe. The dark-voiced Bulgarian-Swiss mezzo soprano Vesselina Kasarova is one such artist... The voice is very alluringly plumb (with that ever present Slavic sad/mellow tinge to its basic clarinet-like timbre) and intriguingly androgenic... being equally compelling in male roles as in female ones. It is a very distinctly recognizable voice - if not conventional in its beauty. And one that is astoundingly adept at expressing emotion, able to shift into many different colors with endless shades of chromatic and dynamic nuances. Kasarova can bewitch you with a smooth-as-silk legato line, cause you to purr contentedly with her caressingly breath-taking soft singing, chill you from inside out when she takes away that warm vibrato in the voice, and then blow you right off the continent with her tornadic rage of her blasted fortissimo.



This CD of 12 Mozart opera arias and 2 orchestral interludes captures musical story-telling of the sort that leaves one with the impression of having been with Dorabella, Cherubino, Idamante, Farnace, Zerlina, Donna Elvira, Cecilio, Sesto, and Vitellia as they live through the events of the opera where the arias occur - so vividly that one nearly compulsively duck as the frenzy Dorabella flies about the room flinging her arms and tossing things she knows she wouldn't break about in a show of temper that is as exasperatingly fake as it is adorable (#1, Ah, scostasi/ Smanie implacabili). We all know she hasn't a prayer at not cheating on poor Ferrando at the first chance she gets, but we are compelled to admire her effort to convince herself that she wouldn't anyhow.

Perhaps her assumption of young Cherubino (#2, Non so piu cosa son) is a little ..er.. assertively hormone-driven (ahem!) than many opera lovers would be familiar with, but this is just the Cherubino that could grow into the tragic hero of Beaumarchaise's third part of the Figaro trilogy (The Guilty Mother) rather than the much assumed 'Don Juan in the making' mold. The profuse passion produced in this rendition is too sincere for me, at least, to foresee a cynical womanizing cad as the young lad's future incarnation.


Of another sort of character altogether is Kasarova's portrayal of the adamantly chivalric and noble (if youthfully sensitive) hearted Idamante (#3. Non ho colpa & #5. il padre adorato). The tessitura (average pitch) of this part is quite high for Kasarova and there is a biting edge to her high notes that somehow works to enhance Idamante’s indignation even more. It isn’t a malicious indignation, but there’s quite a bit of royal anger in it, too. The voice retains its richness very well even in higher passage (quite unusual for this role since he is usually sung by more light-voiced high mezzo or a soprano... unless the tenor version is use).

Especially revealing to me is her incarnation of Farnace from Mitridate (#6. Venga pur, minacci e frema and #8. Gia dagli occhi il velo e tolto), an opera seria that Mozart wrote when he was only 14 yrs old. Somehow this epitome of murderous prodigal son is nearly always sung by a male countertenor now, even though the alto castrato who originated the part obviously lived on his lower register (Mozart, unlike the modern composers, wrote his music to fit specific singers rather than voice types). As politically incorrect as this may sound... Kasarova sounds like she has enough testosterone in her voice to turn any countertenor into a basso profundo. But that isn't even the best part about these two tracks!

Her laughing passages in 'Venga pur' are disturbingly deliciously deranged... and my blood freezes when her second pass on ‘l’ira sua mi rendera’ in the slow middle section of the piece just dissolves into blood-chilling coldness that convinces me that I wouldn’t want to be within a mile of this lass when she’s having a fit. This makes Farnace's turn around in the brilliant long aria of repentance, 'Gia dagli occhi', even more touching as a contrast. It is taken at a rather slow tempo, and it is a credit to Kasarova’s exemplary breath-control that no strain shows in her long drawn out really low passages... or even in those jumpy coloratura passages.

Zerlina the peasant girl may be a minor role in Don Giovanni, but Kasarova's Zerlina (#7. Vedrai, carino) carries a big stick when it comes to showering her man with some loving tender (disguise as bruise remedy). Many a Zerlina have made me smile with her rendition of this slick little sexually suggestive aria, but none had managed to make me blush beet red and steam up my glasses the way this Zerlina does... with just her voice! There is something seriously sensual about her use of vibrato and the rubato she employs that gets the message across even if you don't understand the Italian lyrics being sung. If one can ever successfully intone a quaking bout of sensual desires while delivering a melody... I'll just say that it is always a good idea to have some smelling salt handy when you listen to this CD... and leave it at that.

As far as I know Kasarova has never sung the batty Donna Elvira (#9. Mi tradi, quell' alma ingrata) on the stage. Listening to the hurricane force of this vocal tempest of a track, I wonder why not... She obviously wants to (has said so in interviews), and, by Jove, what Don Giovanni would have a prayer at dodging this insistent a stalker? I've heard many fittingly loony Donna Elvira, but Kasarova's Elvira comes with a twist... She is willfully loony. The Commendatore Statue really ought to leave Giovanni to this gal. She'd be a sorer punishment for him than any flame of hell would, I reckon (totally meaning this as a compliment, by the way).

Cecilio in Lucio Silla isn't one of my favorite opera characters by a long shot. He is usually not much more than a dream boat character who spends the opera being overshadowed by just about everyone else (the high tessitura of the role and its coloratura demand often reduce its singer to just singing the music). It is so refreshing to finally hear a Cecilio who doesn't sound like he is singing a set of written notes during the coloratura part of this aria, but that the coloratura is just his way of expressing his near delirium - of voicing his exuberant happiness. And, boy, do we all need to hear it before we get to the final two opera characters to appear on this CD.


Vitellia (#11, Non piu di fiori), the impetuous princess who longs for the imperial throne, is perhaps the juiciest role Mozart ever had the pleasure to musically characterize in his operas. Her final rondo carries the weight of the entire opera about love, lust, betrayal, and clemency, and it is one that requires a great singing actress to really carry out its dramatic potency. With an absurdly simple melodic line, Mozart endows his soprano with a chance to convince the audience that the vicious character who had spent the entire opera up to these final minutes of it scheming to murder and riot all for her own gain actually has a real conscience... and that she actually listens to it. Kasarova's deep and dark sound and her willingness to explore the ugly places in Vitellia's self-inspection along with her interplay with the bassett-horn obbligato create such a compellingly humane scene of how deciding to do the right thing can be such a trial to one who isn't accustom to self-sacrifice that suddenly you find yourself requiring Tito to be just as merciful as he would need to be to forgive such a wreck of a woman... rather than the usual contempt for the emperor's absurd obsession with clemency.

And to go from that Vitellia to this Sesto (#13. Deh, per questo istante solo), the model of a walking sorrow whose life would be willingly sacrificed in the name of love... One has to amaze at how such drastically different psyches can be so convincingly portrayed by the same soul. Here, more so than in the other arias on this CD, is where one really gets a good glimpse of the famously soul-shattering Kasarova pianissimo... the sort of softly sung phrases that float on the breath so that one can almost reach out and wave one's hand through Sesto's broken spirit. His self-loathing (totally justified, by the way) is so sincerely rendered that one feels barbarous to have to agree with his guilty verdict. The death penalty might just be more merciful for him than a pardon would be indeed.

And so, we come to the final track (#14), the concert aria Io ti lascio, oh cara, addio, originally written for a bass, and are asked by this serenely melancholic voice singing in perfectly silk-like legato to "Pensa che a te non lice, il ricordarsi di me, (Remember that you are not allowed to remember me)" ... Yeah, uh-huh, good luck with that... Listening to a CD like this you can either love or hate this singer, but to not remember her forever afterward is simply a non-starter! Utterly impossible!

Vesselina Kasarova is truly one of the most exciting opera singers around. She takes risks and her daring keeps you interested. Most of the times she pulls it off, and sometimes she doesn't but if there is one thing she isn't, it's being boring. And the most wonderful thing is she never sounds like Vesselina Kasarova is showing off her technical brilliance, but always like the character she is portraying expressing some thoughts or emotions. It also helps that she is wonderfully accompanied by the magnificent Staatskapelle Dresden under Sir Colin Davis. They are so in sync with each other that they make you forget that you are listening to choreographed music rather than being caught in a real conversation between composer and characters for the last hour or so it takes to play the entire disc.

There are lots of Mozart arias CDs out there, but there are only a handful that are sung with such distinct personality as to worth remembering above the rest. This is one of those few. Kasarova is not stuff of background music, so if you're looking for relaxing singing, you've better look elsewhere. This singer commands attention.
 

Tracks:
*1. Cosi fan tutte: Ah, scostasi/ Smanie implacabili (Dorabella)
2. Le nozze di Figaro: Non so piu cosa son (Cherubino)
3. Idomeneo: Non ho colpa (Idamante)
4. Idomeneo: March of the Priests ( instrumental)
*5. Idomeneo: Ah, qual gelido orror/ Il padre adorato (Idamante)
6. Mitridate: Venga pur, minacci e frema (Farnace)
7. Don Giovanni: Vedrai, carino (Zerlina)
8. Mitridate: Gia dagli occhi il velo e tolto (Farnace)
*9. Don Giovanni: In qual eccessi, o Numi/ Mi tradi, quell' alma ingrata (Donna Elvira)
10. Lucio Silla: Il tenero momento (Cecilio)
*11. La Clemenza di Tito: Ecco il punto/ non piu di fiori (Vitellia)
12. La clemenza di Tito: March: Maestoso (instrumental)
13. La clemenza di Tito: Deh, per questo istante solo (Sesto)
14. Concert Aria for bass: Io ti lascio, oh cara, addio
Tracks 4 and 12 are orchestral pieces. I'd rather there being 2 more arias instead, but they fit well with the rest of the program.

1 CD. Sung in Italian. Booklet contains track list and printed libretto in Italian and English.

Vesselina Kasarova: Passionate Arias

I have been spending the last week in an acoustic bliss. Vesselina Kasarova's newest solo CD, Passionate Arias (on RCA Red Seal label), arrived in the mail... and it is even better than I had expected.

Those who are familiar with the state of the opera today probably already know her as one of the greatest Rossini and Mozart singers of her generation... and lately of Baroque music, especially in the trouser roles (male roles played and sung by female singers) due to that fascinatingly androgenic voice and look that she has. So, looking at the track list on this CD and one may be justifiably skeptical about the repertoire it present: dramatic vamps from the late Romantic Period: Principessa di Bouillon from Adriane Lecouvrer, Azucena from Il trovatore, Eboli from Don Carlo, Ioanna from Tchaikovsky's Maid of Orleans, Santuzza from Cavalleria Rusticana, Bizet's Carmen, and Dalila from Saint-Saëns' Samson et Dalila.

See... these days, the Baroque-Mozart-Bel Canto repertoire and the Italian-French Dramatic repertoire are sung by 2 rather different voice types. The BMBC singers are like the flight-footed sprinters. They have lighter voice of large range and incredible speed that can cope with all the virtuoso demand of the music. The IFD singers, on the other hand, have larger and fuller voice that can deliver the drama better while being able to pierce through a much larger and louder orchestra. Kasarova's voice is unusual... falling somewhere in between the two. It is sizable, full, and darkly colorful enough to make you dream about her in Verdi operas, but it is also a heck of a fast-moving voice (when she does virtuoso bravura aria, one fancies her as a heavy metal rocker.... check this clip out and see how exciting a bit of opera singing can be!). But, at any rate, she's spent the last 20 years of her professional career singing exclusively Baroque-Mozart and Bel Canto music, so a jump into the heavy dramatic repertoire is at the very least interesting.

Listening to the CD, all doubts are scorched right off the my mind from the first track to the last. Kasarova is so terrifyingly good that I'm having a hard time writing a review this CD... I'll just say for now that those people who like to go around clips of her on Youtube to say that her voice had been ruined or uglified or whatever really haven't got their ears screwed on straight. Either that or they don't know what the hell they're mouthing off about at all. Her voice is bigger and warmer than before, and with an even more alluringly dark tint to the basic tone that really adds to her already considerable ability to breathe new life into whatever she sings.

 
Yes, I've seen a negative review of it on Die Welt online. To that I'll say, that all opera fans will likely already have preconceptions about the operatic characters appearing on this CD... and likely an ideal singer of Azucena (Podles?), Eboli (Baltsa?), Santuzza (Obratsova?), and Carmen (Resnik? Domashenko?) firmly fixed in their mind. Experiencing this CD will likely cause one to choose: do you stubbornly renounce Kasarova's portrayal as 'mannered' for being her own woman who might not fit snugly into your own previously conceived idea of her, or will you allow yourselves to learn more about this surprisingly complex character whose feelings and convictions are just as strong as your own?

Kasarova is the singer who threads fervishly on the line that separates pure singer from pure actor. And though she will occassionally cross the line and emits off some sounds that make you go 'Ugh!', more often than not she is spectacularly successful at pulling off the illusion that sung speech is what people do to communicate in real life and that it is the proud and jaded (though really quite a bit more beautiful than you'd have expected) Azucena herself who is recounting her mother's unjust burning at the stake to you as if it had happened only 10 minutes ago. From the vengeful Princess of Bouillon to the repentent Princess Eboli to the rebellious-bird-like Carmen and the mesmerizingly seductive Dalila... 

No, Kasarova doesn't just simply sing anything. She is much more than just a beautiful woman with a beautiful voice. Hers is a voice that carries a strong and yet sensitive character. One that enables the many shades of humanity that compels you to sympathize with her - knowing full well that the character is a murderess or a seductress.


Here's a sneak peek at the final track on the CD. It is uncannily dramatically effective how she connects her first pass at 'a voler dan tes bras' to 'Ah! répond à ma tendresse' with that gorgeously controlled diminuendo... and then accentuate the end of the phrase with those chest tones.

Then on her last pass of the same bridge she does the conventional little 'break' between the verses and smoothens the pass through the lower passagio because she knows by then that Samson is now hooked. He isn't going anywhere and will tell her what she wants... she just has to keep him transfixed). Kasarova doesn't sing any note just for the sake of sounding it. She does it in a certain way because what is coming out of her is meaning something. That's what separate a real artist from just singers!

And... the Dalila tracks aren't even the most impressive ones on this CD. Kasarova is accompanied by Maestro Giuliani Carrera and the Munich Radio Orchestra. The Serbian tenor Zoran Todorovich appears on 2 tracks (as Jose in the dance scene from Carmen and as Samson in Dalila's final aria).

So... you know what to do after glimpsing what a tour de force recital this CD is. Amazon has it for a very reasonable price!

Smorg's Favorite CD: Kasarova Does German Lieder

'Musik ist eine lebende Kunst', dieses Klischee wird von Sängern oft und gerne wiederholt. Doch obwohl sich viele Vokalisten bemühen, dem Gesungenen auch Leben einzuhauchen, gelingt eine Umsetzung dieses Mottos nur sehr wenigen. Kunstlieder werden üblicherweise so gesungen, als ob es sich um schöne Gemälde handelt, die man nur aus einer gewissen Distanz betrachten und bewundern darf. Gewandtere Liedsänger verwenden dabei die etwas lebendigeren Farben. Wenn Ihnen aber der bulgarisch-schweizerische Mezzosopran Vesselina Kasarova ein Begriff ist, dann wissen Sie, dass der Zugang dieser Vokalistin keinesfalls herkömmlich ist. Ihr eingetragener Beruf lautet zwar Opernsängerin, doch wenn man ihr zuhört, schwindet jegliche Distanz. Ihr Gesang gleicht der Erzählung persönlicher Erlebnisse. Man betrachtet keine Gemälde an der Wand, sondern wird von Kasarova auf einer Reise durch die Szenerien der Bilder begleitet.

Der Vortrag eines jeden Liedes wirkt derart persönlich und vertraut, dass mich diese CD jedes Mal in eine rustikale Blockhütte bei sternenklarer Waldnacht versetzt. Es gibt kaum etwas Gemütlicheres, als sich nach dem Abendessen vor dem prasselnden Kamin auszustrecken und einer weit gereisten Kusine zuzuhören, die voller Begeisterung von ihren vielen Abenteuern erzählt (22 an der Zahl). So viel ich weiß, sind alle Geschichten erfunden, doch das ist mir ganz egal. Ich fühle mich wieder jung, wenn meine Jugenderinnerung an die ersten Erzählungen am Kamin so intensiv zum Leben erweckt wird.

Diese Sängerin hat bei der Darstellung unterschiedlicher Stimmungen wahrlich ein goldenes Händchen. Sie klingt nie als würde sie bewusst phrasieren, um dem Zuhörer eine bestimmte Emotion zu vermitteln. Vielmehr sind ihre eigene Begeisterung, Leidenschaft, Unschuld (oder deren Gegenteil) und Melancholie dermaßen natürlich und ansteckend, dass sie nicht einmal des Deutschen mächtig sein muss, um ihren Geschichten Authentizität zu verleihen.

Im Gegensatz zum Französischen ist ihre Aussprache des Deutschen klar und ohne schlampige Silben. Diese wunderbar ausdrucksstarke Stimme ist für das Singen in dieser Sprache wie geschaffen. Der Klang ist dunkles Burgunderrot, das in allen Lagen ihres erstaunlich großen Stimmumfangs gleichmäßig ertönt. Glanzvolle und gelöste Höhen, sinnlich runde und strukturierte Mitten und an Kirschholz gemahnende, volle Tiefen zeichnen diese Aufnahme aus. Der rauchige Brustton, den sie beim Operngesang oft einsetzt, bleibt hier aus. Der beeindruckend feinfühlige Pianist Friedrich Haider präsentiert sich hier als geübter Komplize, der Frau Kasarovas Fest der Geschichten gekonnt mitträgt. Sowohl musikalisch als auch in punkto Interpretation harmonieren beide perfekt und keiner versucht den anderen in seinen Schatten zu stellen. Von der ansteckend eindringlichen 'Fischerweise' über das beschwörende 'Im Abendrot', das freche 'Der Wanderer an der Mond', das vielschichtige Minidrama 'Von Ewiger Liebe' bis zum jugendlich anmutenden 'Aufträge' das Gute an einer CD im Vergleich zu einem Konzertbesuch sind die vielen Zugaben, die man sich gönnen darf.

Das Album wurde mit viel Gefühl zusammengestellt. Es folgt keinem einheitlichen Thema die Auswahl der Stücke orientiert sich eher nach musikalischen Gesichtspunkten. Keine drei Lieder in Folge haben ein ähnliches Tempo oder Leitmotiv und immer genug Kontrast, um meine Aufmerksamkeit aufrecht zu erhalten und insgesamt den musikalischen Fluss nicht zu stören. Diese CD hat mich in einen solchen Traumzustand versetzt, dass Lied Nr. 22 überraschend früh erklingt. Im Nu vergeht die Zeit, wenn man gut unterhalten wird.


Wenn ich etwas kritisieren darf, dann die Tatsache, dass das Aufnahmemikrofon zu nahe an Frau Kasarova platziert wurde, sodass sie zeitweilig klingt, als würde sie direkt in die Ohren des Zuhörers singen. Die CD wird dadurch keinesfalls ruiniert (ich denke sogar, dass das Hörerlebnis zusätzlich an Intimität gewinnt), doch Zuhörer mit sehr empfindlichem Gehör könnten diese Aufnahmetechnik als störend empfinden.

The English version of my review is available at: Epinions.com