Che penna infame!

Last week's riotous indulgences in opera have been replaced by a whirl of scholarly activity. Monday: presenting to classmates a German article on "Theological Phenomenology of the Liturgical Commemoration of Saints"; Wednesday: lecturing; Thursday: lecturing and working in the history department; Friday: more working, and co-leading a seminar. Tomorrow and Sunday: an academic conference on medieval Scandinavia to attend. Meanwhile, celebrating Magda Olivero's 100th birthday, with the help of YouTube user Onegin65, and this clip (I love the photographs!) from MedeAilinel:



(The recording from which that is taken is available for purchase here. My mouth is watering.) Another joyous discovery this week was a new addition to the local library holdings: Lieder from Kasarova; my favorite of the lot was probably Schumann's "Widmung," of which I never tire. Another activity: listening to my cherished Fritz Wunderlich CDs a lot. Wunderlich is one of my love-at-first-note singers. I fall into adjectival clichés when trying to describe his voice: golden, honeyed, creamy. Maybe it's partially memories of Sunday afternoons with my father and his phonographs, but the beauty of Wunderlich's voice soothes me like few other sounds. Hearing him sing "Viens, gentille dame," or "Dies Bildnis," or "Dalla sua Pace," (all in German, creating a slew of exceptions to my sing-it-in-the-original-language-dang-it purism) is like receiving reassurance that everything, really, will be okay. There are times I want opera to set my pulse racing, and other times I need it to help me take deep, slow breaths. This week was one of the latter.

Mein Ruh' ist hin

The middle of the academic term is a time of reckoning: a time of completing some projects; a time of realizing that it really is time to start serious work on others; a time of staying in and reading/writing instead of jaunting down to the Met. Fortunately, this can also be a time of listening to recital CDs to soothe and stimulate. Firstly, there's the panache of Vesselina Kasarova's Rossini arias and duets, filled with vocal fireworks for every emotional occasion. (Thanks are due to Se Vuoi Pace, whose own healthy obsession with Kasarova cannot but whet interest in the reader-listener.) Secondly, there is the Lieder recital of Waltraud Meier featuring Brahms, Schumann, and Schubert. Waltraud Meier is not only (in my opinion) an extraordinary musician; she also strikes me as being one of those rare human beings who seems as though they would have been at home--and in command--in whatever century and situation fate chose to put them. I suspect she could have made a success of behind-the-scenes political agency in the seventeenth century, among other things. And I am wowed by the album art for this record, where she channels 1930s screen goddess glamor in black lace and flawless lipstick:



Alas, I will never be that fabulous. But revenons à nos moutons: the Brahms Ziegeunerlieder are fiery and seductive. "Frauenliebe und -leben" is deliciously expressive, full of personality which I often struggle to find there. And with the Schubert, transcendence is reached. Maybe it's partially my own temperament which predisposes me to find resonance here; but I have listened to these untiringly. And I learn, in the bland language of Amazon, that the item has been discontinued by the manufacturer! Mein Herz ist schwer. Ah well... for this, as for so much else, I will rely on the NYPL... and trust that "Gretchen am Spinnrad"--and "Die Junge Nonne," and "Der Tod und das Mädchen"!--are not actually essential to the process of research... even if it feels like it.