Boito: Mefistofele. Ildar
Abdrazakov, Ramón Vargas,
Patricia Racette; San Francisco Opera Chorus and Orchestra conducted by Nicola
Luisotti. EuroArts. $39.99 (2 DVDs).
James MacMillan: Clemency.
David Kravitz, Michelle Trainor, Christine Abraham; Boston Lyric Opera
Orchestra conducted by David Angus. BIS. $21.99.
Janáček: Glagolitic Mass;
The Eternal Gospel. Soloists, Prague Philharmonic Choir and Prague Radio
Symphony Orchestra conducted by Tomáš
Netopil. Supraphon. $19.99.
Ensemble LaCappella: Shimmering.
Rondeau. $18.99.
Eric William Barnum: Choral
Music. Choral Arts conducted by Robert Bode. Gothic Records. $18.99.
Arrigo Boito’s version of
the Faust legend is not performed
particularly often, and the San Francisco Opera’s version on DVD, released on the
EuroArts label, helps show why. Boito was a fine librettist – for Verdi’s Otello and Falstaff, Ponchielli’s La
Gioconda, and other works – and his book for his own opera is well done, even
including the latter part of the story, in which Faust travels back to the
ancient world to encounter Helen of Troy. Furthermore, Boito had some skill as
a composer, creating an opening scene for Mefistofele
in which the music mounts up and up, seeming to rise to impossible heights
before eventually settling, as it must; a moving death scene for Margherita;
and some fine choral writing. But the opera is woefully uneven, with more pages
of uninspired music than engaging ones. It takes a really excellent Mefistofele
to smooth over the many rough edges and hold the work together. Unfortunately,
Ildar Abdrazakov is not up to the task: his voice is neither powerful enough
nor of sufficient intensity to sweep the audience into the story and captivate
listeners. And Ramón Vargas, as
Faust, has a too-tight high register and some difficulty in phrasing in a
number of his arias – although his dying aria is very effective, as if he has
saved his best for last. The most consistent performer here is Patricia Racette
as Margherita (and Helen, called Elena in the opera). She manages to sing with
naïveté, nobility, grandeur and remorse as required, and her pronunciation and
phrasing are first-rate. Unfortunately, even she is at the mercy of the rather
flabby conducting of Nicola Luisotti, who dwells far too long on far too many
unremarkable elements of the music, resulting in a performance that too often
simply drags (the DVD set runs 145 minutes). The visuals do not really make up
for the musical lacks here, although they too have their moments. This is an
updated version of a Robert Carsen production from 1989 (restaged in 1994). But
the new version is directed by Laurie Feldman with altogether too much
ponderousness. The Prologue has the best setting to go with its wonderful
music: it takes place in God’s private opera house. A similar touch of offbeat
almost-comedy would serve other parts of Mefistofele
well, but that is not what the production delivers: pretty much everything is
taken very much at face value, and unfortunately, this opera’s face value is
not of the highest. Certainly this is a worthy recording of a work that
operagoers may have few chances to see in a live performance – but it is simply
not a terribly compelling production of an opera that also, alas, is not
terribly compelling.
Religion gets a different,
Old Testament treatment from James MacMillan and librettist Michael Symmons
Roberts in the chamber opera Clemency,
now available on BIS in a live recording of a Boston Chamber Opera production.
Even without visuals, the opera’s intimate setting and its concerns are easy to
follow: Abraham and Sarah are visited by three strangers, who reveal that when
they return in a year, Sarah will have a child – something she finds hard to
believe, given her age. Asked where they are going, the strangers reveal
themselves as angels and say they are on the way to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah
– leading Abraham and Sarah to argue with the angels and try to save the
townspeople in what is ultimately a futile attempt. David Kravitz and Christine
Abraham sing well in this world première
recording, and the string orchestra under David Angus provides a fine
accompaniment. MacMillan’s work is paired with an English translation of
Schubert’s Hagars Klage (“Hagar’s
Lament”), in which Hagar (sung by Michelle Trainor), mother of Abraham’s
firstborn child, sings of her sadness and anger after the two of them are
abandoned in the desert. Bible readers will know that Hagar’s story ends better
than that of Sodom and Gomorrah: God miraculously produces a well with water
for Hagar and Ishmael, who survives to marry and settle in the land of Paran.
Schubert’s song ends before this happens, but listeners who know these Bible
tales will see how well the Schubert and MacMillan works fit together, both
dealing with aspects of clemency – granted or not. The quietly contemplative
conclusion of MacMillan’s work is its most attractive element; by and large,
the music is chant-like and faintly Middle Eastern in flavor, pleasantly
unchallenging to hear and more than adequate to the story.
The music is thornier and
more complex in Leoš Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass, heard in the world première recording of its original 1927 version on a new Supraphon
release. There are a number of differences between this version and the 1928
one usually performed, but nothing that reduces the impact of the music or its
vibrant, rhythmic writing for soloists and chorus. The highlight remains the
penultimate movement, a fascinating organ solo that does not draw on any
particular church precedents and that practically explodes with wild,
continuous energy in a kind of perpetuum
mobile that is challenging for organists and surprising to anyone hearing
this mass for the first time. The organist here, Aleš Bárta, plays
skillfully and with feeling, although perhaps a little too matter-of-factly –
indeed, the whole performance under Tomáš Netopil is reverent enough, maybe
even a little too narrowly so: a touch more fiery enthusiasm would have been
welcome. Nevertheless, this is a fine reading of this major Janáček work, and it is accompanied by a
piece that is much less known: The
Eternal Gospel, a four-movement “Legend for Soloists, Mixed Choir and
Orchestra after the Poem by Jaroslav Vrchlický” that dates to 1914. This is nothing less than a cantata,
featuring soprano and tenor soloists in a work in which the composer transforms
overt religiosity into an expression of the contemporary world’s need for reconciliation
(the piece was first heard during World War I, in late 1917). Forthright and
direct, filled with lyricism and expressiveness, The Eternal Gospel is in some ways more accessible than the Glagolitic Mass, although the
better-known work is unquestionably more ambitious and innovative. The chance
to hear the two pieces together is one that all listeners interested in Janáček’s music will welcome.
Music that is mostly
religious and mostly more recent than Janáček’s is offered by the ensemble LaCappella (Antonia Bieker ,
Marie Tetzlaff, Rosalie Schüler, Magdalena Bauer, Madeleine Röhl and Karen
Tessmer) on a new CD entitled Shimmering.
The attraction here is as much the beauty of the voices and the overall subject
matter of the disc – explorations of facets of Mary, mother of Christ – as it
is the specific works, which vary in quality and level of interest. There is
little repertoire for female choir before the Romantic era, but one piece here
is quite old: Sancta et immaculata by
Francesco Guerrero (1528-1599), which is quite beautifully harmonized. From
later times, there are three pieces by Schumann: Im Meeres Mitten, Der Bleicheren Nachtlied, and Das verlassene Mägdlein. And there are three early-20th-century
works: Reger’s Mariae Wiegenlied and
Ravel’s Toi le Cœur de la Rose, both
arranged by Clytus Gottwald, and Maurice Duruflé’s Tota pulchra est. The pieces are not presented chronologically or
with any apparent reason for the sequence in which they are offered – a
weakness in a generally strong presentation that features particularly fine
ensemble cooperation. In addition to the seven works of the early 20th
century or before, there are eight more-recent ones: Shimmering—Ave generosa by Ola Gjeilo (born 1978); Ave Maria by Simon Wawer (born 1979); Assumpta est Maria by Vytautas Miškinis
(born 1954); De Angelis by Petr Eben
(1929-2007); Lux aeterna by Wolfgang
Drescher (born 1990); O magnum mysterium
by Colin Mawby (born 1936); O salutaris
hostia by Ēriks Ešenvalds (born 1977); and, as a final offering, Es saß ein klein wild Vögelein arranged
by Morten Vinther (born 1983) and Magdalena Bauer (born 1990). The selections
show that even in the modern age, Latin is generally the favored language for writing
works about Mary; and even in our largely secular time, aspects of her story
continue to resound with composers from many places and many backgrounds. There
is a certain uniformity both to the works and to the performances, lending the
disc a sense of evenness and timelessness that sometimes threatens to become
dull but never quite does – probably because the individual pieces are
generally short, and the entire CD lasts only 47 minutes. This Rondeau release
will appeal mainly to fans of female chamber choirs – a rarefied group, to be
sure, but one that will quickly warm to the skill with which LaCappella
performs this repertoire.
Listeners who prefer a mixed chorus and
works with a secular orientation will enjoy the very fine performances of 11
pieces by Seattle-based Choral Arts on a new CD of the music of Eric William
Barnum (born 1979). The LaCappella disc about Mary focuses on transcendent,
sacred love, while the Gothic Records release of Barnum’s music has a
distinctly secular flavor. Although Requiescat
and, in a different way, Remembered Light
have spiritual elements, other pieces here have a certain worldly abandon: Jenny Kiss’d Me, Afternoon on a Hill,
Moonlight Music and more. As a totality, these pieces look at aspects of
love under various circumstances and at different times of life – the CD
progresses through its 55 minutes more or less chronologically in terms of the
ways in which people’s attitudes toward and experiences of love change. Choral
Arts features great purity of tone, a fine blending of different voice ranges,
sure and solid ensemble work, and a pacing under Robert Bode that brings out
the varying elements and effects of Barnum’s music. The music itself is
interesting enough to sustain hearing and occasional rehearing, having elements
of folk and pop orientation within settings that are primarily classical in
style. None of the individual works is a particular standout, but as a whole,
the disc provides a warm and pleasant feeling of imagining and reimagining love
in its many mostly secular guises.
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