À vos jeux, mes amis

Although Carmen is still under my skin, I had a pleasant musical interlude on Saturday: the graduate recital of one my oldest friends, no less! A soprano, she chose madness as the theme of her recital, and it was tremendous fun, as well as, for me, a surprising experience to sit and hear someone whom I know quite well open their mouth, strike an attitude, and create a vivid characterization through difficult repertoire. (I have talented friends... so thrilling!) A standout was, unsurprisingly, the mad scene of Ambroise Thomas' Ophelie; you can find Mady Mesplé singing it here.

This recital was also the occasion of a discovery for me: Richard Strauss' Ophelia-Lieder which (Really Shameful Confession) I did not know at all, despite my love for Strauss, Shakespeare, and Lieder. Shocking. Searching for them to hear again via YouTube, I found surprisingly little, but I did find a gripping rendition of all three ("Wie erkenn' ich mein Treulieb," "Guten Morgen, 's ist Sanktvalentinstag," "Sie trugen ihn auf der Bahre bloß") by Camilla Tilling. Which brought me to the question, who is Camilla Tilling? IMG Artists tells me that she is a Swedish soprano in a still young career, a "versatile concert artist and committed recitalist." Poaching on White Shirt territory, here she is in "Si io non moro a questi accenti" with Joyce DiDonato, and here she is singing "Saper vorreste," in what strikes me as a pleasingly stylized production by Gilbert Deflo for the Opera National de Paris:

I still remember listening to Ballo for the first time, absolutely cold, and thinking: Oscar, no, don't taunt him; you're going to die!!! I do believe that Ballo was the opera which started me on the path to Verdi-love, first through the recording above, and then through Callas, Di Stefano, and Bastianini live at La Scala. A few clicks of research reveal that this production only seems to be available on DVD under less-than-completely-official circumstances. It also appears to be on YouTube, having been broadcast on French television. All very mysterious.

Strauss discoveries and Verdi productions are all I have for now, except for a very warm welcome to readers who have found their way here from the Carmen review at Likely Impossibilities (recommended generally for a more musically savvy and hilariously irreverent take on all things operatic than my own.) I hope you stick around (and say hello, if you feel like it.) If you have found your way to this post while searching for reviews of Jonas Kaufmann's recent performances at the Met, here are my Tosca and Carmen reviews; Carmen now has audio, thanks to YouTube user Macbett0. Wenn deutsche Zusammenfassungen oder Übersetzungen von diesen (oder sogar anderen!) Rezensionen wunschenswert wären, bitte sagen Sie es in den "Comments"! A closing tidbit: at the reception on Saturday, I was asked by a friendly acquaintance (with whom I was animatedly discussing Jon Vickers), "Warum bist du keine Musikerin? Du strahlst ja!" Why am I not a musician, when opera (apparently) makes me glow? Well, the answer to that question is possibly that, when I was supposed to be practicing the piano, there was always a book I wanted to be reading. So I turned into an opera-going medievalist.

Update: just as I was going back from the world of opera news to the world of medieval monasticism, what should I find (via Intermezzo) but THIS:

...I'm still not sure whether I'm excited or afraid, but I think I'm excited. And I like the costumes.

Fach Schmach

The title of this post is intended to be read in German, as a confession of shame [Schmach] rather than a dismissive splutter of indifference. Yes, among the Really Shameful Confessions which seem to be piling up is that the concept and limits of fach have been a source of confusion to me. Of course, I've done enough opera listening to understand that a tenore di grazia and a Heldentenor are on opposite ends of a spectrum where lirico and spinto come somewhere in between. But what about a lirico spinto? What about singers who transition into (predominantly) one type of repertoire from another? What about Placido Domingo? When more experienced devotees (usually in the line for Rush Tickets at the Met) started talking about a singer's fach, I remained shyly silent, trying to understand what was going on and what the disagreements were about.

Like the protagonist of Daddy-Long-Legs, however, I usually cope with not understanding things by quietly going and reading up on them. The faithful branch libraries of the NYPL provided me with Fred Plotkin's Opera 101 (clearly mendacious subtitle: "a complete guide to learning and loving opera.") I found it less patronizing than I had feared (hooray), frequently entertaining, and on pages 125-43 (sneakily viewable through Amazon), informative about fach. What about Placido Domingo? may be a question for the ages, but I feel better informed now. Whew!

Una tempesta in cielo...

To start this post off, yet another Shameful Confession: Rigoletto had until this week belonged to the category of Great Operas which I didn't really connect with. I would have had far less shame if my confession were "I strongly disliked Rigoletto..." followed up by musically and dramatically justified reasons. But I just didn't connect. It seemed disjointed: a charming Duke who alienates powerful men while remaining surrounded by toadying courtiers, a jester who is the abused underdog but seems like a horrible person, a "trusted nurse" character who can be bought off with a single gesture, a sheltered girl who takes fearlessness even from feigned love. Oh, and a man with a curse. One minute carefree choruses, the next dramatic imprecations and impending doom... I just didn't get it.