Violons du Roy at the Terrace Theater

Snow in Washington—real snow like what fell yesterday (you can see the results)—always makes me a little nostalgic for the Michigan of my boyhood. As an expatriate from the Great Lakes State (and someone born in mid-winter, which I like to think has something to do with it), I am one of those crazies who actually enjoy snowy winters. Why do I live in a normally snow-deprived place like Washington, D.C., you ask? Well, what I do not miss is the lesser cultural calendar of my home state. In places like East Lansing, Ann Arbor, and Detroit, you can hear good music, but nothing like the gluttonous feast we enjoy here. As I wrote here on Thursday, I would be attending one and sometimes two excellent musical events every day this weekend, if I had my way. Now, family commitments come first, so I am not going to be able to follow my insane cultural dream schedule, but I could! (This reminds me of what a friend in Paris said when I called her on a Sunday morning. No, she was not actually asleep, "Mais j'aurais pu!" [But I could have been!]. That was what offended her about my call.)

When I ran into fellow Ionarts music critic Jens Laurson at the Kennedy Center last night, he was waiting to see the Kirov Opera's performance of Boris Godunov (see his thoughts on the performance). Would I see that, or the Glass 7th Symphony with the National Symphony (see Jens's review)? Not even I really knew until I got there and bought a ticket. I went back and forth but ultimately decided that, as a Baroque specialist, I should follow my original plan and go up to the Terrace Theater to hear Les Violons du Roy with soprano Karina Gauvin. The fact that Jens's response was "Who?" indicates that my choice was the most obscure, something that also gives me some perverse satisfaction.

You might think, given their Bourbon-inspired name (not the spirit, which is an inspiration of its own wonderful kind, but the royal family of France), that Les Violons du Roy is a French group. In fact, Bernard Labadie founded the group in Québec City in 1984, along with La Chapelle de Québec the following year. They came to Washington to perform an all-Bach and Handel program, with the assistance of soprano Karina Gauvin. (Labadie and Gauvin recently collaborated on Handel's Messiah, combining La Chapelle de Québec with a chamber-sized selection of players from the Los Angeles Philharmonic, at Disney Hall last month. See the very positive review from LA Weekly.)

Although I had been able to get a fairly good single seat at the last minute, the Terrace Theater was nearly full that evening and buzzing with languages other than English. The orchestra is small, with eight violins (strangely, all women) balanced by three violas, two cellos, and one bass (strangely, all men). The wind group was represented only by two oboes and one bassoon (strangely again, all women), and a theorbo and harpsichord (both men) provide continuo realization. Many of the players seem young, which is not any sort of judgment on their talent or experience. However, it did get me to thinking about how this sort of specialized ensemble offers opportunities to younger players, perhaps on their way to more traditional sorts of jobs. Will there be a time when the concept of an "early music" playing style is not unusual, when most instrumentalists will have spent at least some time playing this kind of repertoire? Perhaps we are already there?

Les Violons du Roy play on modern instruments, which gives them a lot of sonic power in spite of their smaller size (that one bass player alone can really reinforce the bass side of the texture). What really makes their performances stand out is the tempi chosen by Labadie, often extraordinarily fast, their accuracy and unity of sound, and the sense that musical gesture has been clearly thought out and strictly implemented. I heard only two instances of slightly off intonation the entire evening, and only one passage that did not seem quite rhythmically unified. It was a whisker short of technically perfect, and that accuracy does not come at the cost of passionate playing. The program opened with a suite of instrumental music from Handel's Alcina (1735), one of those operas that should be performed a lot more than it is. The French-style ouverture set the tone for the evening, with crisp dotted rhythms in the slow section and remarkable control in the fast section. The dance movements all made me want to dance, the lilting Musette, a very fast Menuet, a Gavotte with nice contrast of short notes and legato playing, and another Gavotte with a bouncy solo for bassoonist Nadina Mackie Jackson. This was only the first piece of the night in which Ms. Jackson, with her short spiky hair (in places tinted red), bipped and bopped her way through a Baroque love of rhythm. She was the talk of many at intermission.

There was also charming ballet music, for Songes agréables (Pleasant dreams) and Songes funestes (Bad dreams), who frighten their pleasant counterparts. Then there is a combat between the two groups. A sinfonia and a final entrée for dancing conclude the suite. It's incredible that Handel took a German education at the organ, added the best of what Italian opera and French Baroque orchestral and ballet music had to offer, and produced a series of great operas for English audiences. It's even more incredible that it is only now being rescued from oblivion, first through recordings and now, gradually, in opera houses (even the Met).

For her contribution, Karina Gauvin jumped on the Handel bandwagon with Lorraine Hunt Lieberson (reviewed by Alex Ross) and Renée Fleming (reviewed by Jens Laurson), both of whose Handel aria recordings were on many of the 2004 year's best lists. However, her first two selections struck me as pedestrian. "Oh! Had I Jubal's Lyre" from Joshua and "Where'er You Walk" from Semele are two of those English-language arias that get performed a lot, so you have to do something new with them. Labadie and Gauvin's solution for both was to choose a breakneck tempo, especially for the former. This showcased Ms. Gauvin's deft handling of the melismas, as well as the nice addition of ornamentation, especially in the latter.

Ms. Gauvin moved on to more original choices, with "Piangarò la sorte mia" from Julius Caesar and "Lusinghe più care" from Alessandro. These pieces revealed her highest range to be better suited to graceful, softer situations. Occasionally, one missed some raw power up there, at least that night. However, the ornamentation was brilliant and daringly original, which is how this music is meant to be sung. The best discovery of the program was J. S. Bach's Sinfonia from the cantata Am Abend aber desselbigen Sabbaths (BWV 42), for the First Sunday after Easter. The program notes compare it to the Brandenburg Concerti, and that is how it came across in performance. For this piece, the favoriti group of both oboes and the bassoon were seated closer to the front. This performance totally convinced me of the possibility of presenting such pieces from the vocal works outside of their original context. All the better, since the second half began with a groundbreaking rendition of something that gets a lot more play, Bach's first Orchestral Suite in C major (BWV 1066). This is how you can take something you think you know and make it fresh.

Ms. Gauvin's best moments came in her last selections and encore. We returned to Handel's Alcina, with two arias. At the end of the B section of "Ah! mio cor!" Ms. Gauvin accomplished the da capo return with a breathtaking mini-cadenza. With panting and breathlessness (an artifice belied by perfect breath support when she actually sang), she brought an excellent sense of Alcina's outrage at being betrayed. She sang "Tornarmi a vagheggiar" in a rapid 3, with the most beautiful sustained high singing of the night. The sense of drama that Ms. Gauvin brought to these arias was continued in a truly emotional encore performance of "Lascia ch'io pianga" (from Rinaldo), again with exquisite ornamentation. Mine were not the only moist eyes in the auditorium.

This program of music will receive only one other performance this winter, at Cal Tech's Beckman Auditorium in Pasadena, California, next Sunday, January 30, at 3:30 pm.

UPDATE:
See also the review (Les Violons du Roy, January 24) by senior music critic Joseph McLellan for the Washington Post.

Briefly Noted: Gauvin's Mozart Arias

Mozart, Opera and Concert Arias, K. Gauvin, Les Violins du Roy, B. Labadie (released on March 25, 2014) Atma ACD22636 | 63 min

After the most recent local concert by the Violons du Roy, last year at Strathmore, I was ready to declare the Québec-based group the best historically informed performance ensemble in North America. The group has a long history with Canadian soprano Karina Gauvin, who toured with them here in 2005, a collaboration featured again on this recent release devoted to concert and opera arias by Mozart. My opinion of Gauvin's voice has not changed much since that 2005 concert: she continues to sound at her best here when a slow, sustained tone is called for, especially gorgeous at piano dynamics. In that category is the striking "Ch'io mi scordi di te," a lengthy concert aria with a second solo part for pianoforte, played here with grace by Benedetto Lupo, as well as "Non più di fiori," Vitellia's gorgeous slow aria from La Clemenza di Tito, with a solo part for basset horn, played by André Moisan. Gauvin's feisty character comes through in other ways in the faster pieces, even in the few moments where her voice is not perfectly suited. Music director Bernard Labadie also leads crisp performances of two lesser-known Mozart overtures.

Alan Curtis Signs Almost Definitive 'Alcina'

Handel, Alcina, J. DiDonato, M. Beaumont, K. Gauvin, Il Complesso Barocco, A. Curtis (released on April 14, 2009) Archiv 477 7374 Online full score: HWV 34 (old complete works edition) Libretto (.PDF file, adapted from libretto of L'isola di Alcina, by Riccardo Broschi, the brother of the castrato Farinelli)

Preceding their release of Handel's Ezio, reviewed last week, Alan Curtis and Il Complesso Barocco rang in the Handel anniversary year with a long-awaited recording of Alcina. Although this opera more or less died with Handel, not to be revived again until the 20th century, it has been one of the favorites of the Handel revival. We have reviewed two stagings of it in the last three years, by Opera Vivente in 2007 and by Wolf Trap Opera in 2008. (La Scala even mounted the opera earlier this year.) Likewise a new recording of the work does not automatically find itself in control of a field empty of competitors. The natural competition is William Christie's stunning (if not universally liked) recording of the opera from a decade ago, combining his historically informed performance ensemble, Les Arts Florissants, with mainstream opera stars Renée Fleming, Susan Graham, and Natalie Dessay. The embellishments and cadenzas were (quite appropriately for Baroque opera) out of control, and while Fleming especially is no great Handelian, it makes for an exciting listening experience.

We cannot recommend the Christie version as the reference recording to own, however, because he did not include the ballet music (conceived by Handel for the French dancer Marie Sallé) and made some cuts to the vocal music, although now that Warner Classics UK has re-released both Christie's Alcina and Orlando as a bargain-price 6-CD set ($31.98), the Handel enthusiast would be crazy not to buy it. Joan Sutherland's various recordings of the role, for which she was rightly acclaimed, are interesting to hear and quite beautiful in their own way, but all with many cuts to the complete score and not performed on historical instruments. Prior to the Curtis version, the recording to own was the one featuring the incomparable Arleen Auger in the title role, with the late Richard Hickox leading the City of London Baroque Sinfonia. A stellar conductor, Hickox recorded the entire score (and I mean everything, including the controversial ballet scene at the end of Act II), and while the rest of the cast, although good, is not up to Auger's level, it is a beautiful recording, now heavily discounted in its re-release from EMI Classics.

Alan Curtis's Handel: Ezio (2009) Tolomeo (2008) Floridante (2007) Radamisto (2006) Rodelinda (2005)

The cast assembled by Curtis is outstanding, beginning with the unusual decision to have a mezzo-soprano, Joyce DiDonato, sing the soprano title role. DiDonato wrote about her anxiety in taking on the role at her blog Yankeediva (along with many interesting posts on the recording sessions), but the results are uniformly impressive. One might wonder why Curtis did not cast Karina Gauvin, whom we heard sing excerpts of the title role with Les Violons du Roy a few years ago. Quite brilliantly, Curtis gave Gauvin the role of Morgana, much more a true soprano role (created by the English soprano Cecilia Young), in which she gives a performance of breath-taking clarity and innocence (Winton Dean describes the role of the sorceress's sister as one of the most sincere in the opera). It was the Italian singer Anna Maria Strada del Pò who created the role of Alcina, an Italian distinguished by her hideous looks (Charles Burney records that one of her nicknames was The Pig) and a voice that at first was compared to Faustina Bordoni (a mezzo-soprano) and eventually burnished and extended by the efforts of Handel and others. DiDonato's voice has just that grain and tension in this more dramatic role.

The soprano Laura Cherici, although lovely in tone, could perhaps be a bit more boyish in the role of Oberto, the son of Astolfo looking for his father on the island, a role created by the boy soprano William Savage (Handel often refers to him only as "The Boy" in his score). Maïté Beaumont is consistently silken in the equally demanding role of Ruggiero, created by alto castrato Giovanni Carestini, giving some impression of the agility and clarity of that legendary voice type. As Bradamante, created as a trouser role by Maria Caterina Negri, Sonia Prina is the more intense of the two mezzos. The virtues of the male supporting cast, tenor Kobie van Rensburg (Oronte) and bass Vito Priante (Melisso), are familiar from other recordings. The members of Il Complesso Barocco play with all of their accustomed ensemble precision and stylistic panache, with fine obbligato turns by lead violinist Elizabeth Blumenstock, cellist Nils Wieboldt, and the recorders, as well as the flauto piccolo solo in the Tamburino dance from the end of the third act. The continuo is enlivened considerably by Pier Luigi Ciapparelli's theorbo.

Curtis has created his own performing score from the sources, available from Novello, something he would have likely done even if the score had been published in the new Hallische Händel-Ausgabe, which it has not yet. He includes all of the vocal music, even reinstating Ruggiero's Bramo di trionfar, a virtuosic aria that Handel cut from Act I before the premiere (eventually incorporating it into the revived version of Athalia). Curtis also keeps the second version of the Act I chorus Questo è il ciel (Handel also reused the first version in the Athalia revival). The only music that Curtis does not include, somewhat oddly, is the little ballet divertissement of the Songes agréables, funestes, et effrayés at the end of Act II. Here is what eminent Handel authority Winton Dean has to say about this music (Handel's Operas, 1726-1741, pp. 325-26):

At the end of Act II Handel imported the composite dance finale written for Act II of Ariodante but excluded from that opera. This has been doubted, but its presence in several copies authenticates its performance in Alcina. The entire section, including the end of Ginevra's previous aria and her concluding accompagnato, was transferred from the performing score of Ariodante to that of Alcina. The 'späterer Schluss' added by Handel in faint pencil is difficult to account for; it does not appear anywhere else. The sequence is a powerful example of ballet d'action, but more effective in its original context, where it represents the dreams of the sleeping Ginevra, than in Alcina.

The end of Act II certainly has more dramatic punch without the ballet scene (the omission seems to be at least tacitly approved by Dean), and it does seem like a clumsy graft onto its new branch in Alcina. I think Curtis made a mistake in this case, however, by not including these entrées, at least as an appendix at the end of the third disc, where there is plenty of room. Not only in the interest of making this superb recording as complete as possible (Hickox did record them, remember), but because, as remarked of a performance of them by Les Violons du Roy a few years ago (along with a few of Alcina's arias by Karina Gauvin), the music is gorgeous.

203'16"



Alan Curtis (0:40) -- "Today, many people still have the prejudice of thinking
that the oratorios are the great pieces -- [fake adoring tone] 'The Messiah!'"

David Alden's La Calisto at the Bavarian State Opera: A Dreamboat Production

Picture courtesy Bavarian State opera, © Wilfried Hösl

See also my 2007 review of this production.

The Bavarian State Opera’s David Alden production of La Calisto are the three shortest hours I’ve enjoyed anywhere in an opera house. The wild story about Jupiter's lust for the nymph Calisto, who is eventually turned into a bear by his jealous wife, Juno (and then into the big dipper) is such a romp and such pure entertainment, it’s like going to the movies. All the signature items of an Alden production are there: loud colors, creative costumes, polished floors, zebra-striped walls and curved laminated wood paneling—courtesy Paul Steinberg’s set and Buki Shiff's wildly diverse costumes, which range from a Tin Woodman-business suit for Mercury to a beautifully realistic Chameleon-butler to a salaciously detailed faun costume for Satirino, a creature half goat, half countertenor Dominique Visse (who has played the part in every of the now four runs of La Calisto).

Francesco Cavalli, La Calisto PERFORMERS LABEL

Only the plastic machine gun of Giove’s was new to this revival and pathetic as every fake machine gun on stage must invariably be. That prop has never worked and won’t likely ever will. That’s annoying, as are the fake smoking of fake cigarettes and drinking from empty plastic glasses. I might expect such cheap cardinal sins of staging from more provincial houses, but not the Bavarian State Opera. Pet peeves of mine though those are, what can they matter when compared to the saucy joviality of the work, and the beguiling music of Pietro Francesco Caletti-Bruni (1602-1676), better known as Francesco Cavalli.

The best of Alden’s productions are acts of light genius, ever straddling the fence between high camp and cleverness, and always coming down on the right side. That’s certainly true for this one, and his deft touches show everywhere. One example: When Giove (Luca Tittoto, dashing between bravado, bluster, and meekness) impersonates Diana (to get Calisto, the chaste follower of Diana into the sack) Anna Bonitatibus’s sings from the darkened pit in front of the stage while Tittoto acts and lip-syncs with aplomb on stage, flimsily disguised as Diana. There is one exception: Giove sings his part in falsetto when conversing with Karina Gauvin’s Giunone when he clings to his disguise even though his act is obviously up.

Nikolay Borchev’s Mercurio—Giove’s Leporello of sorts—started a little congested but came through in stalwart manner. Anna Bonitatibus, as Diana (on and off stage) championed a fruity mezzo with vibrato and volume to fit a performance that played everything up. For comedic effect, she would channel an Erika-Köth-memorial-vibrato that challenged the goat bleating of Dominique Visse, but as Diana she went back to a plainer gorgeousness. In the love-quest sideshow, maybe-not-so-chaste-Diana-after-all falls hard for her tall dark stranger Endimione who convinced vocally and visually with rare boyish-yet-manly countertenor charm and sonority.

Sally Matthew created the role of Calisto for Alden and so threw herself into her part, that it seemed impossible to repeat the success with subsequent casts. I was proven wrong by a fine second cast some years ago, and again on January 15^th, when Danielle de Niese and her colleagues on stage showed that this production will make any good singing actor shine. De Niese is a brilliant young operatic plaything who wiggles and struggles like Penelope (Pepe le Pew’s love interest in the Warner Brothers cartoons) while making big innocent eyes that would put Bugs Bunny to shame. It’s a different kind of act than Matthew’s: more visceral, with a warm, pretty, and slightly forgettable voice, but she certainly filled Calisto’s leotard with aplomb.

Ivor Bolton, the linchpin of Munich's Baroque revivals, uses a specially created edition of the score by Álvaro Torrente which applies much appreciated and very prudent cuts. The band, which performed entirely on period instruments for the first time when this La Calisto was first shown in 2005, was in fine fettle and just a little kick and jolt shy of a perfect night. Let’s hope the set gets a good shine and another few revivals.

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January 2014

Cast list:

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Briefly Noted: Streams of Pleasure

Streams of Pleasure, K. Gauvin, M.-N. Lemieux, Il Complesso Barocco, A. Curtis (released on September 27, 2011) Naïve V 5261 | 1h15

Not long after the Handel aria discs were flooding the market, recitals of Handel duets began to appear: Rosemary Joshua and Sarah Connolly, with Harry Bicket and the English Concert (Chandos, 2010); Sandrine Piau and Sara Mingardo, with Rinaldo Alessandrini and Concerto Italiano (Naïve, 2009); Carolyn Sampson and Robin Blaze, with Nicholas Kraemer and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (BIS, 2006); Natalie Dessay and Véronique Gens (and friends), with Emmanuelle Haïm and Le Concert d'Astrée (Virgin, 2002). Alan Curtis, after a lovely selection of duets from Handel's operas, with Patrizia Ciofi and Joyce DiDonato (Virgin, 2004), has released a follow-up recording, this time of arias and duets from the English-language oratorios, dating from 1744 to 1750 (including the rarely heard Joseph and His Brethren and Alexander Balus). The results are equally hard to resist, especially with singing by two Ionarts favorites, contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux and soprano Karina Gauvin. Curtis's instincts in Handel, as usual, are spot-on, neither underplaying nor overselling the music's emotional punch. Minor pronunciation tics that mark the singers as non-native English speakers (the word "the" is a dead giveaway), but one can listen without the booklet texts and understand every word. Lemieux sings with forthright and broad tone, the chest voice burnished and full, and Gauvin is as shimmering and sparkling as ever. All the duets are carefully balanced between the two voices. Solo highlights include Lemieux's seraphic "As with rosy steps the morn" (Theodora) and Gauvin's heart-rending "Can I see my infant gor'd?" (Solomon).

What to Put under the Tree

Here at Ionarts Central it is Advent -- and not Christmas -- until the evening of December 24. One does need to think about presents at this time of year, however, and for that culture-loving person in your life, here are some gift ideas, a few discs and films I most enjoyed over the past year -- five each in the sacred music, secular music, and movie categories. A gentle reminder: if you buy something we recommend by clicking on the Amazon link provided, a part of the proceeds goes to support Ionarts. Happy shopping!

CHRISTMAS AND OTHER SACRED MUSIC
École de Notre-Dame: Mass for Christmas Day, Ensemble Organum, M. Pérès (Re-release, Harmonia Mundi)

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Celebrate the New Year with this exquisite recording, which was re-released this year at an excellent price. Since first hearing this disc, shortly after it was first released in 1985, I have recommended it to everyone who would listen as the most beautifully performed and ingeniously programmed cross-section of liturgical music in the Romanesque period. Rather than neatly divided ages of chant and polyphony, forms of the latter are found in written sources nearly as old as those containing the former. A compilation of pieces making up a Christmas Mass, this program mingles chant and polyphony -- ordinary, propers, tropes, parallel organum, and more complicated polyphony, all transcribed from original sources -- in a seamless way. The performances are just as stylish as the musicology behind them.
[READ REVIEW]

The Christmas Story, Theater of Voices, Ars Nova Copenhagen, P. Hillier (HMU 807556)

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The gift of CDs of Christmas music is a gauche gesture, because for the most part the music they contain is, at best, passably performed and, at worst, painfully banal. The only exception to this rule is the occasional disc of exquisite historical music performed with such delicacy and musicality that it is impossible to resist. This new recording from Paul Hillier’s two choral ensembles -- Theatre of Voices and Ars Nova Copenhagen -- is a handsomely packaged disc, complete with a thoughtful essay by Hillier and carefully edited texts and translations. Gregorian chant from the feast of Christmas is a winning choice of programming in these cases, and the selections here, like the introit for the Fourth Sunday of Advent, Rorate caeli desuper, that opens the disc, and the Christmas introit Puer natus est, are beautifully performed.
[READ REVIEW]

Sacred Music by Robert Parsons, The Cardinall's Musick, A. Carwood (Hyperion CDA67874)

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This is a recent release of beautifully recorded music by Robert Parsons (c. 1535-1572), a highly regarded composer who met an early death, by drowning in the River Trent, to be succeeded as a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal by none other than William Byrd. Not much music survives by Parsons (see this collection of online scores), but it has been recorded before, especially piecemeal for anthology-type discs. An Australian group, The Parsons Affayre, recorded all nine of the Latin pieces two years ago, but this recording includes all of those pieces, plus two brief works in English, and in better performances, for both the quality of singing and recorded sound. Like the image of Queen Mary I, the Catholic daughter of Henry VIII, on the cover, the choice to make this recording in the Fitzalan Chapel of Arundel Castle, which maintained its Catholic identity distinct from the local Anglican parish, underscores the music's Romish leanings.
[READ REVIEW]

Cherubini, Masses, Overtures, Motets, R. Muti, N. Marriner (re-release, EMI 6 29462 2)

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EMI marked the 150th anniversary of Cherubini's birth last year with this 7-CD set of mostly older recordings of Cherubini's Masses (only about half of what Cherubini finished, plus the two settings of the Requiem), overtures, motets (only a fraction of the two-score examples), and a few other miscellaneous pieces, priced to move at $30. Riccardo Muti's admiration for Cherubini is second to none, and these performances gleam with the loving care lavished upon them, with the Bavarian RSO, the Philharmonia Orchestra, and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. My own tastes would tend toward a performance on period instruments, like that of Boston Baroque, but it is difficult not to love these suave, heartfelt, Romantic (occasionally overblown) renditions. The Missa in F, dubbed the "Messe de Chimay" because it was composed after a visit to a village church in Chimay, where he was staying with the local prince, marks the beginning of the composer's late efflorescence in sacred music, after experiencing disappointment as an opera composer. In Chimay, Cherubini reportedly rediscovered his earliest training in counterpoint and the works of Palestrina, later writing a treatise on the subject.
[READ REVIEW]

A Worcester Ladymass, Trio Mediaeval (ECM New Series 2166)

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We are great admirers of the singing of Trio Mediaeval, having reviewed these three Scandinavian women in concert in 2005 and 2008 and enjoyed their recordings. Their new disc returns to their best territory, late medieval polyphony juxtaposed with modern music, and their sound is as pristine as it ever was. This program is centered on some of the pieces of the so-called Worcester Fragments, a partial collection of music, mostly three-part polyphony, sung at Worcester Cathedral. The book was destroyed in the Protestant Reformation, cut up into pieces used to bind other books: the fragments were pieced back together and transcribed by musicologist Luther Dittmer from groupings at Oxford's Bodleian Library, with other shards of the manuscript still in the Worcester Cathedral Library. What makes this disc of interest, besides the refined, ethereal singing, is that it is a hypothetical reconstruction of a Mass for the feast of the Assumption of Mary, on August 15.
[READ REVIEW]


SECULAR
Streams of Pleasure, K. Gauvin, M.-N. Lemieux, Il Complesso Barocco, A. Curtis (Naïve V 5261)

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Alan Curtis, after a lovely selection of duets from Handel's operas, with Patrizia Ciofi and Joyce DiDonato (Virgin, 2004), has released a follow-up recording, this time of arias and duets from the English-language oratorios, dating from 1744 to 1750 (including the rarely heard Joseph and His Brethren and Alexander Balus). The results are equally hard to resist, especially with singing by two Ionarts favorites, contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux and soprano Karina Gauvin. Curtis's instincts in Handel, as usual, are spot-on, neither underplaying nor overselling the music's emotional punch. Minor pronunciation tics that mark the singers as non-native English speakers (the word "the" is a dead giveaway), but one can listen without the booklet texts and understand every word. Lemieux sings with forthright and broad tone, the chest voice burnished and full, and Gauvin is as shimmering and sparkling as ever. All the duets are carefully balanced between the two voices. Solo highlights include Lemieux's seraphic "As with rosy steps the morn" (Theodora) and Gauvin's heart-rending "Can I see my infant gor'd?" (Solomon).
[READ REVIEW]

D. Terradellas, Sesostri, re d'Egitto, Real Compañía Ópera de Cámara, J. B. Otero (RCOC Records 1102.3)

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Domènec Terradellas (1713-51) was a Spanish composer who left his Barcelona home to make his fortune in Italy, first as a student at the Conservatory in Naples and then for a short tenure at the church of San Giacomo e San Ildefonso degli Spagnoli in Rome. He had a few operas performed in Rome (as well as other cities, including Naples, Florence, and London), although evidence of them and their musical sources is scarce. The Real Compañía Ópera de Cámara has released this premiere recording of one of those operas, his last, Sesostri, re d’Egitto, performed at the Teatro Alibert o delle dame in Rome in 1751, the year of the composer’s death. It received one other known performance, back in the composer’s native Barcelona, at the Teatre de la Santa Creu, in 1754.
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Manto and Madrigals, T. Zehetmair, R. Killius (ECM New Series 2150)

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Thomas Zehetmair is a serious violinist. He has the chops to play the war horse concertos but is known for playing meatier modern concertos by the likes of Karol Szymanowski, Leos Janacek, Heinz Holliger and Karl Amadeus Hartmann. Like many of his adventurous recordings for the ECM label, Zehetmair’s new disc is not for the listener who cannot abide music more recent than Debussy. It will be a welcome diversion, however, for those who like to have their ears pulled in other, even uncomfortable directions. The four-dozen duos by Bartok are among the most famous works for violin duet, and Zehetmair and his wife, Ruth Killius (also the violist in the Zehetmair Quartet), play a youthful Bartok duo arranged for violin and viola. The score, reproduced in the booklet, with a thoughtful essay by Paul Griffiths, is 22 simple measures in G major for the first violinist. Turn the score upside down and it is to be read by the second violinist. It is an ingenious idea that makes for a pleasing little trifle when played.
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J. S. Bach, Die Kunst der Fuge, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin (HMC 902064)

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Joseph Kerman stands by the assessment of most specialists that Bach conceived The Art of Fugue -- and intended its performance -- for the harpsichord. As Kerman puts it quite wisely, "for this composer learned display was inseparable from practical performance" (p. 34). Many of the recordings we have enjoyed have been for keyboard instruments, like those by Pierre-Laurent Aimard (piano), André Isoir (organ), and Gustav Leonhardt (harpsichord). In this recent recording by the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, the instrumentation changes with each movement, ranging from solo harpsichord or organ, to small chamber groups (string quartet, combinations of winds with brass or harpsichord), to the full ensemble. This is in line with some irresistible transcriptions of other Bach keyboard works, for various sizes of instrumental ensemble.
[READ REVIEW]

C. Brewer, Great Strauss Scenes, E. Owens, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, D. Runnicles (TELARC 31755-02)

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This disc had me with its opening sounds, Elektra's shriek ("Sei verflucht!" -- up to an earth-shattering B-flat) as Chrysothemis runs back into the house, frightened by her sister's plan to kill Klytämnestra. It makes for a dramatic introduction to the scene actually recorded, with Eric Owens' Orest appearing at the doorstep but only gradually being recognized by Elektra, some of the heroine's most sensuous, tender music in an otherwise rather disturbing opera. Like that opening wail, the excerpt ends on Elektra's ecstatic realization that Orest will act on her long-desired revenge against their mother. So much of the disc's appeal is contained in that first searing vocal flight: the force and power of Brewer's voice, in all of its unaccompanied glory and later glowing effortlessly through the amassed orchestra.
[READ REVIEW]


DVD
The Debt, H. Mirren, J. Chastain, dir. J. Madden

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One of the worst criminals of the Holocaust, Josef Mengele, infamous for his medical experimentation on prisoners at Auschwitz-Birkenau, managed to avoid capture in South America until his death in 1979. The Mossad reportedly had a chance to abduct Mengele when he was in Argentina, but already had its hands full catching Adolf Eichmann. What if a team of Mossad agents had managed to capture and kill Mengele instead of letting him go? What if the story they told after the mission did not turn out to be quite true? This is the conceit of John Madden's new film The Debt, which follows three Mossad agents in the 1990s as they look back on their mission, in the 1960s, to abduct a Mengele-like Nazi war criminal -- Dieter Vogel, with the nickname "The Surgeon of Birkenau" -- from East Berlin.
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Jane Eyre, M. Wasikowska, M. Fassbender, dir. Cary Fukunaga

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As directed by Cary Fukunaga, in his first major feature after Sin Nombre, this is a stylish film that plays heavily on the ghost-story associations of the source novel, long on Gothic gloom and happily short on mawkish sentiment. There is nothing about the film as an adaptation of an over-adapted story that demands viewing, but it is beautifully shot (cinematography by Adriano Goldman), well acted, and the novel's long, sprawling narrative is convincingly streamlined. Anyone who enjoys watching English history pictures will enjoy this one, too. We are clearly going to be seeing more of the young, Australian-born actress Mia Wasikowska, last noted as a relative newcomer and the best part of The Kids Are All Right. Now she has the title role in Jane Eyre, and her performance and look are quite similar to that of Ruth Wilson in the 2006 TV series: with hair framing her face too close and an emotionless pallor, one might forget how pretty Wasikowska really is. She brings the same impassive calm she had in The Kids Are All Right and Alice in Wonderland, with emotional reserves that lurk just around corners.
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Copie conforme (Certified Copy), J. Binoche, W. Shimell, dir. Abbas Kiarostami

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At an English writer's book reading in Tuscany, we see a mother, unnamed, and her son, Julien, who go off to have lunch but leave information for a meeting afterward. The language of the conversation shifts, only one of many things in the film that are not necessarily as they seem. As the mother, Juliette Binoche (who won Best Actress prize at Cannes last year) switches easily between French, English, and Italian; her son, the German-born Adrian Moore, speaks impeccable French; and British baritone William Shimell speaks English and (we learn later) French. Miller meets the woman at her antiques shop, and they set off in her car for the hill town of Lucignano and its Museo Civico, on a voyage that consists of little more than the two of them driving, walking, and talking in squares and cafés. What exactly is going on between the two of them, and how reality can shift from one thing to the next, is for the viewer to determine. Are we looking at a copy or the original?
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Of Gods and Men, L. Wilson, M. Lonsdale, dir. Xavier Beauvois

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We took note of Xavier Beauvois's film Des hommes et des dieux when it was released in France last year. The film, a retelling of the story of the assassination of a group of monks in Algeria in 1996, won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Catholic dioceses around France sponsored screenings of the film, followed by discussions of the film to promote Catholic-Muslim dialogue. The monastery featured in the film, Notre-Dame de l'Atlas, was established by the Trappists near the village of Lodi, itself founded by French colonists in the agricultural region of Tibhirine. It was only a priory in the late 20th century, and its prior, Frère Christian de Chergé, led a faith exchange between Christians and Muslims. Played with solemn intellect by Lambert Wilson, he guides the monks in his care as the civil war between Islamic fundamentalists and the government worsens, making the threat to the safety of the monastery more and more imminent.
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Rabbit Hole, N. Kidman, A. Eckhart, dir. J. C. Mitchell

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This is likely the best Oscar-nominated film from last year that you did not see. Nicole Kidman received a nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role (Kidman's company bought the movie rights to the play, and she is also credited as producer), for her portrayal of Becca, a woman who is struggling to bear the worst loss imaginable: her young son ran into the street in front of their house, chasing his dog, and was struck by a car. Kidman's performance is the strongest of the nominees for the award (with Michelle Williams in Blue Valentine also in the running), but the media attention paid to Black Swan is likely to swing the voting to Natalie Portman [and indeed did so -- Ed.]. No less moving is Aaron Eckhart as Becca's husband, Howie, who helplessly watches his wife retreat into a Stepford Wife-like coldness and is tempted by a kindred spirit (Sandra Oh) at their support group. Finally, there is the screenplay, which plays its cards so subtly and with so few cliches that it would be a shame to spoil any of its details.
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Briefly Noted: 'Giove in Argo'

Handel, Giove in Argo, A. Hallenberg, K. Gauvin, A. Z. Giustiniani, Il Complesso Barocco, A. Curtis (released on April 9, 2013) Virgin 50999 72311622 | 156'50" Previously: Berenice | Alcina | Ezio

The Handel opera revival continues apace, with the latest work rediscovered being Giove in Argo, first performed at the King's Theater in London on May 1, 1739. The less said about the libretto, a conflation of two of the love affairs of Jupiter in disguise, the better. The performances given by Alan Curtis's ensemble Il Complesso Barocco in 2007 required some reconstructive surgery on a score found only in incomplete sources. The work was carried out for the Hallische Händel-Ausgabe by scholar John H. Roberts, who laid his hands on the two arias known to be part of the opera from its libretto but which until recently had been lost. They turned out to be the work of an Italian composer, Francesco Araja (b. 1709), and Roberts restored them to the score and recreated the bulk of the recitatives, which also are found in no surviving musical source. Price may be enough to tip the scales in favor of this discounted 3-CD set, over the competition by Concert Royal Köln and Kammerchor Würzburg (Musicaphon, 2007), made around the same time as Il Complesso Barocco's first live performances (Alan Curtis did not lead this recording until 2010). Curtis and his ensemble create lithe, beautifully detailed and textured readings of the score, rich in instrumentation for Handel (oboes, bassoons, flute, horns, and trumpet plus strings). Tenor Anicio Zorzi Giustiniani makes much more favorable sounds as Jove than he did in Curtis's recording of Handel's Berenice, Regina d'Egitto, and there are first-rate contributions from pithy mezzo-soprano Ann Hallenberg and celestial soprano Karina Gauvin. Mezzo-soprano Theodora Baka has some nice moments in the role of Diana, mostly when she keeps her tone as simple and clean as possible, and bass Vito Priante is pleasingly forceful.

Psyché in Boston

Lully, Psyché, C. Sampson, K. Gauvin, Boston Early Music Festival, P. O'Dette, S. Stubbs (released July 29, 2008) cpo 777 367-2 Online scores: Psyché (full score, ed. Nicolas Sceaux)

The fine series of operas from the Boston Early Music Festival, recorded by Radio Bremen, continues with this 3-CD set made during last year's performance of Lully's Psyché. Lully had a life-long fascination with the story of Cupid and Psyche, setting it first as a court ballet with Isaac Benserade in the 1650s and then turning to it again for a 1670 ballet, whose divertissements were reworked as the framework for the full opera recorded here. Les Arts Florissants has recorded some excerpts, but this is the first complete recording. Last year's BEMF release, Lully's Thésée was very good, but this production strikes my ears as even better, largely because of a stronger cast.

The production drew a remarkable confluence of music critics, with reviews published by Jeremy Eichler (Boston Globe), Anne Midgette (New York Times), John Yohalem (Opera Today), Heidi Waleson (Wall Street Journal), and George Loomis (Financial Times). The photographs of the staging make one wish for a DVD instead of a CD. The thorough and excellent booklet includes essays about the opera by Gilbert Blin, Rebecca Harris-Warwick, John S. Powell (the musicologist who provided the performing edition of the music), and other specialists, which give the listener more information than most probably want or need. These essays explain the parallels intended to be drawn between the story and the court in which it was performed. The god L'Amour (Cupid -- Louis XIV) falls in love with the most beautiful mortal woman, Psyché (Athénaïs de Rochechouart, known as Madame de Montespan, the second of Louis's official mistresses, after Louise de la Vallière). He builds her a palace, as Louis built the Château de Clagny, to keep La Montespan near him at Versailles. (Clagny was later demolished, and its bricks used to build an Ursuline convent at the edge of the village of Versailles.)

Lisa Hilton, Athénaïs: The Life of Louis XIV's Mistress, the Real Queen Of France

Psyché's story was associated with La Montespan in art and music, and the 1678 reworking of the opera was made to celebrate the return of the royal mistress to her former glory at court, after a period in disgrace. The score has a startling range of music, including one of the most extended lament scenes in Baroque opera, the so-called Plainte italienne, a scene sung in Italian and accompanied by extra recorder players on stage. There are also dance scenes for Cyclopes, chain-rattling demons in a celebrated underworld scene, and the Furies given voice by a trio of growling male voices). It is endlessly diverting music, presented in the best possible light by the BEMF Orchestra, led superlatively by theorbists Paul O'Dette and Stephen Stubbs from the continuo section. All of the players are leading players of historical instruments, with especially vigorous and sparkly playing from Kristian Bezuidenhout and Peter Sykes at the harpsichord. A number of bells and other tinkly percussion, as well as glissandi on harpsichord, help give fantastic color to the magical transformation scenes.

The singing is led by two truly excellent sopranos, the luminescent Carolyn Sampson as Psyché and the velvety, fuller Vénus of Karina Gauvin. The chorus is one of the strongest in this sort of recording, made up of the fine singers in the supporting cast, including countertenor José Lemos, tenors Jason McStoots and Aaron Sheehan, and sopranos Amanda Forsythe and Yulia Van Doren. It is not only the sole recording of this important opera, it is hard to imagine it being surpassed by a superior version.

173'42"

Briefly Noted: L'Olimpiade

L'Olimpiade (pastiche of 16 composers), K. Gauvin, F. Gottwald, R. Basso, N. Phan, Venice Baroque Orchestra, M. Chryssikos (released on May 29, 2012) Naïve V 5295 | 2h03

The main reason that some opera composers in the 17th, 18th, and even 19th centuries could work so quickly and produce operas at such a startling rate is that they often recycled music -- their own, borrowing from earlier works that had failed or that were performed far away, or that of other composers. This fine new recording from the Venice Baroque Orchestra is a modern Frankenstein monster along those same lines, bringing together the most handsome bits of sixteen different composers' settings of the same libretto by Metastasio. The court poet to the imperial theater in Vienna, the Roman-born Metastasio was the most celebrated librettist of the 18th century. Almost all composers of Italian opera in the 18th and early 19th centuries, from Porpora to Gluck to Mozart to Mercadante, set one of his libretti at some point, and many of his libretti were set several times by different composers. None perhaps more than L'Olimpiade, known in "more than fifty" different versions, including those by the sixteen composers whose music is brought together on this new disc.

Metastasio wrote the libretto for a new opera by Antonio Caldara, performed at the Vienna court theater in 1733. The other versions excerpted here, each for an aria (or two or three), include some of those already recorded complete elsewhere: by Vivaldi (Concerto Italiano, among many others), Pergolesi (Academia Montis Regalis), Galuppi (Venice Baroque Orchestra, the research for which led to the idea for this new recording), Cimarosa (Venice Baroque Orchestra, no recording), and a few stray arias by others here and there. Most of the versions, however -- by Johann Adolf Hasse, Giuseppe Sarti, Josef Mysliveček, Giovanni Paisiello, Davide Perez, Florian Leopold Gassmann, Tommasso Traetta, Niccolò Jommelli, Luigi Cherubini, Leonardo Leo, Niccolò Piccinni, and Domenico Cimarosa, all requiring some musicological detective work around the world to track down -- you are unlikely to hear anywhere else for the foreseeable future. The pieces were selected around the changes to the text introduced by many composers as the libretto was adapted, so that all of the aria texts actually by Metastasio are included. No one will miss the recitatives that much: the story, drawn from Herodotus and involving two romantic pairings thwarted by deception and then set aright, all in the context of the ancient Olympic games in Greece, is not all that important, the connection to a certain athletic event in London this summer notwithstanding.

The singing features two robust mezzo-sopranos (Romina Basso and Franziska Gottwald) in the male castrato roles, two sopranos (Karina Gauvin and Ruth Rosique) as the women who love them, and the light tenor Nicholas Phan as the father who offers one of the women as the prize to the winner of the games. Countertenor Nicholas Spanos supports in the role of Aminta, the tutor of one of the friends. The conducting was turned over to Markellos Chryssicos, a Greek musician who was already working on a similar project when the project was begun by the Venice Baroque Orchestra, in excellent form as always.

Tolomeo from Il Complesso Barocco

Handel, Tolomeo, A. Hallenberg, K. Gauvin, R. Basso, Il Complesso Barocco, A. Curtis (released March 11, 2008) Archiv 477 710-6

Alan Curtis, a musicologist formerly at the University of California at Berkeley, has released a number of striking Baroque opera recordings with his group Il Complesso Barocco. Recent examples recommended here include Handel's Floridante (2007), Radamisto (2005), and Rodelinda (2005) and Vivaldi's Motezuma (2006), and we look forward to the forthcoming Alcina, with Joyce DiDonato in the title role (recorded last summer). The latest Handel to join the collection is this Tolomeo, Rè di Egitto, premiered in 1728, the last opera to be presented under the auspices of the failed Royal Academy of Music. The opera was meant to be produced on a small scale, with just five roles and only one concluding number for chorus. Handel pulled out all the stops for the premiere, casting his celebrated alto castrato, Senesino, in the title role, across from the dueling sopranos Francesca Cuzzoni and Faustina Bordoni as Seleuce and Elisa, respectively. Handel also mounted revivals of Tolomeo, with revisions for different casts, in 1730 and 1733.

For much of the opera, it feels like Handel is phoning it in, although recent scholarship has indicated that the lack of vocal and instrumental pizzazz represents Handel's attempt to create a more dramatically believable work. With singers as talented as this exceptional cast, there are still thrilling moments, especially with the often inspired embellishments on da capo repeats (presumably by Curtis). Worth mention is Elisa's Quanto è felice, with its high notes on short Ha's, by the brilliant soprano of Anna Bonitatibus, another singer in the mold of Simone Kermes, who has worked with Curtis several times. Given Curtis's apparent preference for mezzo-sopranos over countertenors for the castrato roles, the only male voice is the puissant bass of Pietro Spagnoli as Araspe.

Two of the most beautiful numbers in the opera are the duets between Tolomeo and Seleuce, Se il cor ti perde and Tutto contento (at the ends of Acts II and III, respectively), which feature the pure, blended voices of mezzo-soprano Ann Hallenberg (Tolomeo) and soprano Karina Gauvin (Seleuce). Both are splendid individually, too, as is Romina Basso in the role of Tolomeo's younger brother, Alessandro. The major conflict of the libretto (.PDF file) by Nicola Francesco Haym is a struggle of succession, between Tolomeo (Ptolemy IX) and his mother, Cleopatra, who favors his younger brother, who will become Ptolemy X. The opera begins like The Tempest, with a shipwreck, as Tolomeo's brother, Alessandro, washes up on the shores of Cyprus, where he falls in love with Elisa, the sister of the ruler, Adraspe.

Elisa has fallen in love with Tolomeo, who has been exiled to Cyprus and lives disguised as a shepherd. By chance, Tolomeo's wife, for whom he has searched in vain, is also living on Cyprus disguised as a shepherdess. Adraspe falls in love with her, and hilarity ensues. Improbably, all of these complications are, not unexpectedly, resolved into a lieto fine. This opera may not be the best option for the average listener, but for any fan of good Baroque playing and singing, it is highly recommended.

Handel's 'Ezio'

Handel, Ezio, A. Hallenberg, K. Gauvin, V. Priante, Il Complesso Barocco, A. Curtis (released on May 12, 2009) Archiv 477 8073 Online score: HWV 29

Alan Curtis's outstanding series of Handel opera recordings continues in the composer's anniversary year with two releases, an Alcina with Joyce DiDonato (review forthcoming) and the first complete studio recording of a much less known opera, Ezio from 1732. It was staged a few years ago at the London Handel Festival, and there is an older recording of most of the score, but Curtis's recording naturally sets a standard for this opera. Although Bärenreiter published Michael Pacholke's new edition of Ezio in its excellent new Handel collected works edition, Die Hallische Händel-Ausgabe, in 2008, Curtis made his own edition from the sources. The editorial problems are likely less pronounced than some other Handel operas, since Ezio was given only five performances and never revived during Handel's lifetime, meaning that the composer did not revisit the work and adjust it for new singers.

Ezio is named for a Roman general, Flavius Aetius, in the waning years of the Western Roman empire. Under Valentinian III, he famously defeated Attila at the Catalaunian Plains in 451, saving the empire from the Huns and delaying the ultimate fall of the empire by a few more years. Fear of his general’s growing popularity, however, led the emperor to have Aetius murdered only three years later. Inevitably, amid the wild jealousy and bitter hatred of the declining empire, Valentinian III was himself murdered by Aetius’s friends the following year. The endless cycle continued as Petronius Maximus replaced Valentinian on the throne, only to be murdered within a matter of months.

Alan Curtis's Handel: Tolomeo (2008) Floridante (2007) Radamisto (2006) Rodelinda (2005)

While Monteverdi skewered this sort of poisonous political atmosphere in L’Incoronazione di Poppea, Handel adapted his libretto (.PDF file) from one by Pietro Metastasio, which he encountered in its musical setting by Pietro Auletta during a trip back to Rome. Metastasio, the 18th-century opera reformer, believed that his libretti should serve a didactic purpose, instructing both the average viewer and rulers, a moralizing style that was still influential as late as Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito, for example. Most of the bloody matter of political assassination is removed from the story, which is even given a happy ending. Thus the hard-knuckled ruthlessness of the late Roman empire becomes the province of castrati and trouser roles in Handel’s theater.

The alto castrato Senesino, simultaneously one of Handel’s greatest stars and a thorn in his side, created the title role, with the contralto Anna Bagnolesi taking the part of Valentiano. They were only part of a dream cast of singers, for whom Handel outdid himself in terms of crafting demanding music to each voice. The opera was recognized as a critical success but did not enjoy the wave of popularity that would guarantee more than the handful of performances it had. Few modern listeners are likely to find it all that absorbing as music drama either, but for Handel fiends and general Baroque addicts alike this recording is now the reference for this opera.

Sonia Prina has a molten, convincingly male sound as Valentiano, reminiscent in many ways of Marilyn Horne: she is one of Curtis's favorites, having also been cast in his Rodelinda. Ann Hallenberg has a gentler tone, appropriate to the more reserved and calmer Ezio. On the soprano side, Karina Gauvin, whom we have long admired, is a shimmering Fulvia. The rest of the cast is strong, many of them featured in other recordings from this conductor and generally adding striking embellishments to the score. Alan Curtis's instrumental forces are in fine form, with stalwart horns answered by hooty recorders and clean strings in Act III's Se la mia vita, for example, and the continuo line enlivened by varied sounds from harpsichord and theorbo. All in all, fine listening.

186'49"

Perchance to Stream: Fourth Day of Christmas Edition

Here is your regular Sunday selection of links to online audio and online video from the week gone by. After clicking to an audio or video stream, you may need to press the "Play" button to start the broadcast. Some of these streams become unavailable after a few days.

• You can listen to a recording of Mozart's La clemenza di Tito, recorded earlier this month at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, starring Kate Lindsey and Karina Gauvin, among others, and conducted by Jérémie Rhorer. [France Musique | Video]


• From last January, here is Wagner's Lohengrin performed at the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth. [RTBF]


• Mozart's Don Giovanni, from the production this month at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels. [RTBF]


• A rare performance of Robert Ashley's opera Improvement (Don Leaves Linda), recorded in 1995 for Austrian radio. [ORF]


• Simon Rattle conducts the Berlin Philharmonic in symphonies of Schumann and Brahms, recorded last September at the Musikfest Berlin. [ORF | Part 2]


• Listen to the Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge, and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment perform Bach's B Minor Mass. [BBC3]


• From the Grieg Concert Hall in Bergen, Neeme Järvi conducts the Bergen Philharmonic and Bergen Boys and Girls Choir in a performance of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker, recorded last December. [RTBF]


• The first half of Bach's Christmas Oratorio, performed by Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Concentus Musicus Wien, and the Wiener Sängerknaben, recorded at the Rasumowsky Palace in Vienna in 1973. [ORF]


• A lovely Christmas concert from the church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris, featuring the Choeur de Radio France, the Ensemble Sagittarius, and organist Daniel Roth on the church's Cavaillé-Coll. [France Musique]


• Caldara's Marian Vespers, plus music of Vivaldi, Manfredini, and Torelli, recorded at the cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta in Asolo. [ORF]


• Andrew Nethsinga leads the Choir of St. John's College, Cambridge, and harpist Erika Waardenburg in a Christmas concert of music by Tallis, Britten, Darke, and traditional carols, recorded last December at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. [RTBF]


• French Baroque Christmas music performed by Les Musiciens de St Julien and the Maîtrise de Radio France. [France Musique]


• Musica Amphion and the Gesualdo Consort Amsterdam perform Bach's Actus tragicus. [Avro Klassiek | Part 2]


• A concert by the Tapiola Sinfonietta, with conductor Osmo Vänskä and pianist Yevgeny Sudbin, in music of Beethoven, recorded last September in Espoo. [ORF]


• Rossini's Petite messe solennelle performed by the Choeur de Radio France and conductor Piero Monti. [France Musique]


• Listen to the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin play music by Tessarini, Vivaldi, Caldara, Porta, and Marcello. [RTBF]


• Violist Ruth Killius and violinist Thomas Zehetmair, with the Salzburg Camerata, perform That Subtle Knot, a new double concerto by John Casken, from a concert recorded last August at the Salzburg Festival. [France Musique]


• From the Cité de la Musique in Paris, Ingo Metzmacher conducts the SWR Symphony Orchestra Baden-Baden, with pianist Jean-Frédéric Neuburger and soprano Laura Aikin, in music by Hartmann, Maderna, and Nono. [France Musique]


• Yannick Nézet-Séguin leads the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Bartok's second violin concerto, with Gil Shaham, and Mahler's first symphony, recorded last June in Munich. [ORF | Part 2]


• Mariss Jansons conducts the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra in Prokofiev's fifth symphony. [Avro Klassiek]


• Pianist Éric Le Sage joins Les Vents Français for chamber music by Glinka, Mozart, and Auric, recorded at the Geneva Summer Music Festival. [ORF]


• Music of Mendelssohn performed by the Wiener Virtuosen, violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, and friends. [ORF]


• Thomas Hengelbrock leads the Balthasar-Neumann-Ensemble and -Chor in sonatas and psalms by Francesco Cavalli, recorded in Vienna in 1998. [ORF]


• From Temple Church in London, a concert of Baroque music by the Temple Players and Temple Church Choir, recorded a year ago. [France Musique]


• Pianist Roger Muraro joins the South Netherlands Philharmonic and conductor Kees Bakels in music by Franck (Variations symphoniques), Debussy (La mer), and Ravel (Daphnis et Chloé suite). [RTBF]


• The ensembles InAlto and Clément Janequin perform music by Samuel Scheidt, Michael Praetorius, and others. [France Musique]


• Cellist Andreas Brantelid and pianist Shai Wosner perform a recital of music by Beethoven, Janacek, and Brahms. [RTBF]


• Sisters Lidija et Sanja Bizjak perform three of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos in arrangements for piano, four hands, by Max Reger, recorded in the Auditorium du Musée d'Orsay in Paris. [France Musique]

Perchance to Stream: Tax Man Edition

Here is your regular Sunday selection of links to online audio and online video from the week gone by. After clicking to an audio or video stream, you may need to press the "Play" button to start the broadcast. Some of these streams become unavailable after a few days.

• From the Wiener Staatsoper, a performance of Puccini's Tosca starring Angela Gheorghiu (Tosca), Jonas Kaufmann (Cavaradossi), Bryn Terfel (Scarpia), and others. [ORF]


• Watch the production of Berlioz's Béatrice et Bénédict from Brussels. [De Munt]


• Gustavo Dudamel leads the Vienna Philharmonic in music by Rachmaninoff, Reger, and Musorgsky. [ORF | Part 2]


• Listen to a performance of Bruckner's eighth symphony and Messiaen's Couleurs de la cité céleste, with Simon Rattle conducting the London Symphony Orchestra, recorded at the Barbican Hall in London. [BBC3]


• Mikko Franck leads the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, with soloists Roberto Alagna, Karina Gauvin, Sabine Devieilhe, and Jean-François Lapointe, in performances of Debussy's L'Enfant Prodigue and Ravel's L'Enfant et les Sortilèges. [France Musique]


• Music by Strauss and Beethoven performed by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Manfred Honeck, with pianist Nelson Freire, recorded in Helsinki in January. [ORF]


• Listen to a recital by mezzo-soprano Susan Graham and pianist Malcolm Martineau, with Schumann Frauenliebe und -leben, Grieg, and others, recorded in March at the Wiener Konzerthaus. [ORF]


• Music by Maurice Duruflé performed by the Choeur de Radio France and organist Yves Castagnet, with conductor Florian Helgath. [France Musique]

Read more »

Perchance to Stream: School's Out Edition

Here is your regular Sunday selection of links to online audio and online video from the week gone by. After clicking to an audio or video stream, you may need to press the "Play" button to start the broadcast. Some of these streams become unavailable after a few days.

• From the Latvian National Opera in Riga, watch the world premiere of Valentina by Arturs Maskats, in a production directed by Viestur Kairish, conducted by Modestas Pitrenas, and starring Inga Kalna in the title role. [ARTE]


• Mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly sings arias by Handel at the Göttingen Festival. [ARTE]


• Listen to the world premiere of Edith Canat de Chizy's Voilé, dévoilé with Mireille Delunsch, with Joshua Weilerstein also leading the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France in Chausson's Viviane and Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances. [France Musique]


• Mezzo-soprano Bernarda Fink and the Academy of Ancient Music, under Rodolfo Richter, perform music by Francesco Maria Veracini, Tarquinio Merula, Antonio Vivaldi, Tomaso Albinoni, and Giovanni Battista Ferrandini at the Musée d'Orsay. [France Musique]


• Esa-Pekka Salonen leads performances of Debussy's La damoiselle élue and Messiaen's Turangalîla Symphony with the Philharmonia Chorus and Orchestra, soprano Sophie Bevan, mezzo-soprano Anna Stéphany, pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard, and Valérie Hartmann-Claverie on the Ondes Martenot. [BBC3]


• Raphaël Pichon leads Ensemble Pygmalion in a performance of Rameau's Dardanus, recorded earlier this month at the Opéra Royal du Château de Versailles, starring Mathias Vidal and Karina Gauvin. [France Musique]


• Il Ballo performs Cavalieri's oratorio La Rappresentatione di Anima e di Corpo at the Festival Sinfonia. [France Musique]


• Watch Salue pour moi le monde, the new ballet by Joëlle Bouvier to music from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, performed by dancers from the Grand Théâtre de Genève at the Bâtiment des Forces Motrices. [ARTE]


• You can watch (or listen to) the twelve finalists in this year's Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels: Tobias Feldmann, William Hagen, Bomsori Kim, Ji Yoon Lee, Ji Young Lim, Fumika Mohri, Thomas Reif, Kenneth Renshaw, Oleksii Semenenko, Stephen Waarts, Xiao Wang, and William Ching-Yi Wei. It is for violinists this year, and the South Korean Ji Young Lim (b. 1995) won. [Concours Reine Elisabeth | RTBF]


• Christoph and Julian Prégardien, joined by harpsichordist Jos van Immerseel and musicians from Anima Eterna Brugge, perform music by Monteverdi and Schubert, at the Salzburger Pfingstfestspiele. [ORF]


• Neeme Järvi conducts the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, in a concert recorded earlier this month in Geneva, with music by Rossini, Frank Martin, Stravinsky, and Ravel. [ORF]


• Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic perform music by Rossini, Sibelius (the violin concerto with Leonidas Kavakos as soloist), and Schumann's third symphony at a concert recorded earlier this month in Athens. [ORF | Part 2]


• Listen to a performance of Mozart's Così fan tutte from the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, starring Juliane Banse (Fiordiligi), Maite Beaumont (Dorabella), Joel Prieto (Ferrando), and Joan Martín-Royo (Guglielmo), conducted by Josep Pons. [Radio Clásica]


• Soprano Barbara Vignudelli, the Choeur de Radio France, and organist Mathias Lecomte perform music by Pierre Villette, Yves Lafargue, and Gabriel Fauré. [France Musique]


• Matthias Pintscher leads the Ensemble Intercontemporain and soprano Yeree Suh in a concert recorded last February at the Philharmonie de Paris. [France Musique]


• Listen to Christoph Eschenbach conduct the Webern Symphonie Orchester in Mendelssohn's Reformations-Symphonie and Bruckner's sixth symphony, recorded in Vienna. [ORF]


• From 2013, a concert recorded at the Eglise Abbatiale de Fontfroide as part of the VIIIème Festival Musique et Histoire pour un Dialogue interculturel, Jordi Savall leads a performance by soloists from La Capella Reial de Catalunya and Hespèrion XXI of music from the age of Erasmus, by Dufay, Josquin, Sermisy, and others. [France Musique]


• Eduardo Portal leads the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in the overture to Smetana's The Bartered Bride, Dvorak's Cello Concerto with Natalie Clein as soloist, and Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade. [BBC3]


• Concentus Musicus Wien, led by violinist Erich Höbarth, perform music by Johann Joseph Fux, Johann Heinrich Schmelzer, Alessandro Poglietti, and others earlier this month at the Internationalen Barocktage Stift Melk. [ORF]


• Listen to a recital of music by Debussy, Respighi, Szymanowski, and Elgar performed by violinist James Ehnes and pianist Andrew Armstrong, recorded at the Wigmore Hall in London. [BBC3]


• Music of Bernstein, Milhaud, and new music by Schnyder and Daugherty, with Kristjan Järvi leading the Orchestre National de France. [France Musique]


• From the Chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge, the Yale Schola Cantorum and Juilliard415, directed by David Hill, perform Beethoven's Mass in C, plus music by Daniel Kellogg, Roderick Williams, and Haydn. [BBC3]


• Listen to the May 2 performance of Verdi's Un Ballo in maschera from the Metropolitan Opera, starring Ricardo Tamura (Gustavo), Sondra Radvanovksy (Amelia), Dmitri Hvorostovsky (Renato), Heidi Stober (Oscar), and Dolora Zajick (Ulrika). [ORF]


• From La Folle journée de Nantes, the Sinfonia Varsovia plays music by Mozart, Chopin, and Bach. [France Musique]


• From St Laurence's Church, Ludlow, for the Ludlow English Song Weekend, baritone Roderick Williams and pianist Iain Burnside perform music by Vaughan Williams, Robert Saxton, and Gerald Finzi. [BBC3]


• Enrique Mazzola leads the Orchestre National d'Ile de France at the Philharmonie de Paris in music of Philip Glass and David Bowie. [France Musique]


• The King's Singers perform a concert at the Salle Gaveau in Paris, with music by Thomas Morley, Thomas Weelkes, Claude Debussy, Camille Saint-Saëns, James MacMillan, and more. [France Musique]


• From Vienna in 2002, a concert by William Christie and Les Arts Florissants, with music by Lully and soprano Sophie Daneman, among others. [ORF]


• A 2002 performance of Handel's oratorio Jephtha from Vienna, with Concentus Musicus Wien, Dorothea Röschmann, Bernarda Fink, and Gerald Finley. [ORF]