Briefly Noted: Pichon's 1610 Vespers (CD of the Month)

Monteverdi, Vespro della beata vergine, Pygmalion, Raphaël Pichon (released on September 1, 2023) Harmonia Mundi HMM902710.11 | xx'xx

Claudio Monteverdi is a favorite composer, and there is no piece of his greater in my estimation than the Vespro della beata vergine. The Vespers of 1610, as the piece is sometimes known, has been reviewed in these pages many times, both in recordings and live. In other words, it would take a lot for me to be surprised by a new recording of this piece, but that is precisely what conductor Raphaël Pichon and his ensemble, Pygmalion, have done in their newly released recording. The opening movement, in which Monteverdi interweaves his brilliant brass fanfare from Orfeo with the opening versicle of the Vespers service, is adorned with added brass riffs. Then, just when I thought that Pichon was going to omit the final statement of "Alleluia" from this compact section, his forces delivered it, after a long pause, with expansive delicacy.

Pichon's St. Matthew Passion was a CD of the Month last year, and this release is no less fulfilling a listen. An older version of the Vespro, led by Frieder Bernius, remains my favorite because it is presented liturgically, rounded out with exquisitely performed chant. Pichon's approach could not be more different: where Bernius favors reserve and propriety, Pygmalion goes for spectacle, with a big chorus on many numbers, clarion brass, and splashy surprises of sound.

Not surprisingly, Pichon says in his booklet interview that he feels that "the Vespro is the first cinematic work in the history of music. Monteverdi’s dramatic genius means that each psalm (and especially the first three) is presented as a genuine scene of dramatic action. He sets the scene, and makes us feel, visualise, even touch it!" This situates the work in that most dramatic of stylistic periods, the Baroque, the same era that created the genre of opera. The experience Pichon wants is "immersive," and it is: as he puts it, "to attend a performance of Monteverdi’s Vespers is to experience ecstasy," in a way similar to a viewing of a room-filling work by Bernini.

Many elements will strike a listener familiar with the work as quite different. Pichon opts to eschew the "chiavette" system, by which the often high tessitura of some music of this period was transposed down by a fourth, as heard on many recordings. By not only adhering to the original keys, but also resorting to the high pitch standard of Italian tunings of the time (A set somewhere between 440 and 465 Hz), the singers add further virtuosic, one might say "operatic," intensity to many key climaxes.

Like most conductors, Pichon shuffles the order of numbers slightly in the work's final section. The most significant change is the interpolation of another piece by Monteverdi, Sancta Maria, succurre miseris (SV 328) from Promptuarium musicum, published in 1627, to serve as the "antiphon" to the Magnificat. (In his "liturgical" recording, Bernius added a chant antiphon with an almost identical text in this position.) The motet is followed by the litany-like Sonata sopra Sancta Maria, with which it shares intriguing melodic elements, as if the composer were alluding to one in the other. The concluding number is also a nod to cinematic style, as the Orfeo fanfare that opened the work returns, retrofitted to the closing formulas of Vespers.


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Briefly Noted: Tiranno

Handel / A. Scarlatti / Monteverdi / Monari, Cantatas, K. Lindsey, Arcangelo, J. Cohen (released on May 28, 2021) Alpha 736 | 75'34"

The latest solo recital disc from mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey, released last year, is just now reaching my ears. She partners again with Jonathan Cohen and the early music ensemble Arcangelo, the same as her previous album, with Ariadne-themed pieces by Handel, Alessandro Scarlatti, and Haydn. This new recording is devoted to the Roman emperor Nero, again with secular cantatas by Handel and Scarlatti père, as well as one by Bartolomeo Monari (1662-1697) and excerpts from Monteverdi's opera L'Incoronazione di Poppea.

The program ingeniously traces an arch between the two Scarlatti cantatas, Il Nerone and La morte di Nerone, which serve as bookends. In between, we get glimpses of the women who loved Nero and were betrayed by him: his mother, Agrippina, whom he had assassinated; his wife, Octavia, foisted on him by the scheming Agrippina, whom he divorced, exiled, and then executed; and his mistress and second wife, Poppea, whose death he caused either by poisoning her or causing her to miscarry a child after he kicked her in the abdomen.

The Richmond-born mezzo-soprano remains in good form in this remarkable disc. The bottom range has become richer, although a few high notes sound squeezed and slightly off in the aria "Veder chi pena" in the first Scarlatti cantata, perhaps intended to show Nero's loss of mental stability as he relishes the suffering of his people while Rome burns. Her voice still displays amazing virtuosity overall; the melismatic technique is in a class of its own, with runs so clearly delineated, as in Handel's showpiece "Orrida, oscura" from the cantata Agrippina condotta a morire. Cohen's ensemble adds outstanding instrumental contributions all around.

In the Monteverdi selections, Lindsey matches well with tenor Andrew Staples's Lucan in "Or che Seneca è morto" and gives dramatic force to Ottavia's lament "Addio Roma!" The duet "Pur ti miro," with soprano Nardus Williams, is a less suitable pairing in some ways, but still lovely. Never has that love duet of emperor and mistress rang more hollow than when it is followed by Bartolomeo Monari's fine cantata La Poppea, on Nero's murder of his great love. The cycle of bad karma comes full circle with Scarlatti's La morte di Nerone - both of these last two cantatas are given world premiere recordings on this disc. Nero finds himself abandoned by all and, depending on the telling, commits suicide or forces someone to kill him, dying on the anniversary of Octavia's death.

Lindsey, who was born in Richmond, has been gracing these pages since 2005, when she was a young artist with Wolf Trap Opera Company. She has returned to the area the last few years mostly with Washington Concert Opera, most recently in Gluck's Orphée last month. She will come back to Wolf Trap this summer, in a recital combining Schumann's Frauenliebe und Leben and Fauré's La Chanson d'Ève on July 8.

Briefly Noted: Triduum at Notre-Dame (CD of the Month)

Pâques à Notre-Dame, Maîtrise Notre-Dame de Paris, Yves Castagnet, Henri Chalet (released on April 1, 2022) Warner 190296396892 | 63'45"

On April 15, 2019, fire destroyed the spire and vault of the most beloved Gothic church in the world, the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris. This new release from Warner Classics is devoted to the last polyphonic works to be performed in the cathedral before the fire, which occurred in the days leading up to Easter. The children and adults of the Maîtrise Notre-Dame de Paris, under conductor Henri Chalet, recorded this program in the neo-Gothic Basilica of Sainte-Clotilde.

Since the fire, the Maîtrise has continued its liturgical service at the older Église Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois. A training choir for young voices, from children up to age 30, they perform at the highest professional level. Various combinations of the group's voices sing music that was prepared for the feasts of the Triduum, from Holy Thursday to Easter Sunday. Yves Castagnet accompanies many of the pieces on Sainte-Clotilde's venerable Cavaillé-Coll organ, once played by César Franck, Gabriel Pierné, Charles Tournemire, and Jean Langlais, to name just the most famous of the church's celebrated organists.

About half of the disc consists of music performed on these sacred days by choirs around the world, including two of Maurice Duruflé's celebrated Quatre Motets sur des thèmes grégoriens, proper to Holy Thursday and sung with gorgeous subtlety. Antonio Lotti's complex Crucifixus for eight voices, proper to Good Friday, revels in its massive pile-up of dissonant suspensions, balanced by the joy of Jehan Revert's metrical arrangements of the beloved Easter tune O filii et filiae and the Easter sequence Victimae paschali laudes. The concise Missa Octo vocum by Hans Leo Hassler goes nicely with a motet by Monteverdi and Dextera domini, César Franck's gentle, pastoral offertory proper to Holy Thursday and the Easter Vigil.

Quite pleasingly, the disc also features recent liturgical music composed by three living French composers. Two hymns on French texts and the intriguing Messe brève showcase the compelling style of Yves Castagnet (b. 1964), titulaire of the orgue de chœur at Notre-Dame, where he regularly accompanied Vespers. (From 2010 to 2013, Castagnet published seven books of his Heures de Notre-Dame, bringing together the music he oversaw for Vespers at the cathedral.) Jean-Charles Gandrille (b. 1982) is represented by a simple, rather hypnotic setting of the Marian sequence Stabat Mater for organ and treble voices, which cranks up in intensity towards its ecstatic conclusion. There is also a striking new piece by Lise Borel (b. 1993), one of the choir's assistant directors and a rather interesting composer. Her Regina caeli, for seven women's voices accompanying themselves with murmuring repetions of "regina regina," can be heard in the video embedded below.

Briefly Noted: Christie's latest, best "Poppea" (CD of the Month)

Monteverdi, L'incoronazione di Poppea, S. Yoncheva, K. Lindsey, S. d’Oustrac, C. Vistoli, Les Arts Florissants, W. Christie (released on August 30, 2019) Harmonia Mundi HAF8902622.24 | 186'38"

Claudio Monteverdi is something of an obsession of mine, particularly his final opera, L'incoronazione di Poppea. It is a work under review here in myriad versions, somehow never tiresome to these ears. William Christie and his ensemble Les Arts Florissants have performed and recorded the work before, not among my favorite interpretations. This live recording, made at the Salzburg Festival in 2018, finally captures the American conductor's best work on this seminal piece. Its release coincides with the ensemble's 40th anniversary celebrations.

Christie has assembled a cast this time that is not merely optimal for each role but that blends together in a pleasing whole. As the amoral principal characters, Poppea and Nerone, soprano Sonya Yoncheva and mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey have a collective vocal luster that seduces, especially in the famous duet "Pur ti miro" at the opera's conclusion. Mezzo-soprano Stéphanie d’Oustrac makes a biting Ottavia, with baritone Renato Dolcini as a resonant, moralizing Seneca.

In a booklet interview, Christie explains why he does not always want to use countertenors in castrato roles, although he has found an alluring examplar of this voice type in Carlo Vistoli for his Ottone. The instrumental component, reduced to minimal forces, turns on a dime to move with the singers, with Christie leading from the harpsichord rather than conducting. Operas in this period rely so heavily on recitative that it can be quite boring if not performed with instrumental variety and lively unpredictability. For example, in the third scene of the first act, when Poppea and Nero waken after a night of love-making, Yoncheva's handling of the lines beginning "Signor, deh, non partire" purrs with sleepy desire.

Besides the rich continuo section, pleasing and virtuosic solos come from a few instruments added to the texture, especially Sébastien Marq on recorder and crisp, focused cornetto playing by Jean-Pierre Canihac and Marie Garnier-Marzullo. While occasional misalignments are to be expected in a live recording, especially in this chamber-like arrangement without a conductor, the verve of live performance makes up for the occasional problem. Although the pictures of the production by Jan Lauwers are beautiful, it was clearly not for everyone.

Briefly Noted: No. 9, No. 9, No. 9...

Monteverdi, Madrigals, Book 9 / Scherzi Musicali, Delitiæ Musicæ, M. Longhini (released on March 8, 2019) Naxos 8.555318 | 74'37"

We noted the first part of Marco Longhini's complete recording of the madrigals of Claudio Monteverdi over a decade ago. That project has finally come to its conclusion with this final volume, recorded in 2006 but oddly only made available now. Longhini's cycle is unusual in that he leads an all-male vocal ensemble, with excellent support from a small consort of instruments. The results may not be perfect musically, but the effect is quite charming to the ear.

Longhini's edition of these last madrigals, as well as the sometimes madrigal-like "jests" of the collection called Scherzi musicali, thus had to accommodate the range of male voices. Countertenor Alessandro Carmignani has to reach to the top of his range (at least up to E, for example in Bel pastor, or Handsome Shepherd, whose fair eyes) and bass Walter Testolin down to the basement of his. All six men are versatile and skilled in adding daring ornaments to their lines, including in elaborate scales.

In a way, given the masculine viewpoint in the texts of these pieces, even when written in a woman's voice, the all-male voicing seems apt. The instrumental playing is, if anything, even better, starting with a sinfonia by Biagio Marini that opens the disc. Two violins are including not that frequently, but the continuo realization, divided among harpsichord, organ, theorbo, and Baroque guitar, adds considerable variety. Longhini's direction focuses on rhythmic vivacity and clarity of polyphonic imitation, making for many dancing delights.

Briefly Noted: Von Otter's Baroque Dream

Sogno barocco, A. S. von Otter, S. Piau, S. Sundberg, Ensemble Cappella Mediterranea, L. García Alarcón (released on August 28, 2012) Naïve V 5286 | 71'

Anne Sofie von Otter is a versatile singer. She was an asset to an otherwise mixed performance of Mahler's third symphony with the National Symphony Orchestra earlier this month. She returns to Washington this evening in an entirely different repertory, lute songs and Baroque pieces with Thomas Dunford and Jonathan Cohen, at the Library of Congress (November 17, 8 pm). This is the same selection of music she has performed earlier this week, at the Frick Collection and in Philadelphia. Apart from an ill-advised set of songs by Simon and Garfunkel, it will hopefully have an effect similar to that heard from Iestyn Davies when he partnered with Thomas Dunford last year.

By way of introduction, revisiting von Otter's rather lovely recital disc of Baroque duets and solos with Ensemble Cappella Mediterranea is a listening pleasure. Von Otter has previous credentials in Monteverdi, and here she has three exquisite duets with the equally delectable soprano Sandrine Piau, two from Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea and one from Cavalli's La Calisto. The famous duet from the former, Pur ti miro, is almost certainly not originally by Monteverdi, but this is a rendition to be treasured. Von Otter is also beautifully matched with contralto Susanna Sundberg in another Monteverdi duet, "Di miseria regina" from Il ritorno d'Ulisse. Von Otter has the musicality and care with diction to hold interest in the long recitative solos by Cavalli and Luigi Rossi. On the instrumental side, Leonardo García Alarcón's forces are all in top form, with especially gorgeous work by Gustavo Gargiulo.

Gardiner's 'Orfeo' on the Road

C. Monteverdi, L'Orfeo, English Baroque Soloists, Monteverdi Choir, J. E. Gardiner (Archiv, 1990) [Survey of Recordings]

Washington is a city overrun with choral singers and early music-heads, as well as the audiences that keep them afloat. Where were all of those people on Tuesday night for the rare performance of Monteverdi's L'Orfeo? Presented by Washington Performing Arts in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, it was doubly rare because it was part of the tour of the English Baroque Soloists and Monteverdi Choir, under legendary conductor John Eliot Gardiner. This was not the first time that we have reviewed the opera live, since it celebrated its 400th anniversary in 2007, when we heard performances by Concerto Italiano and Concerto Vocale Gent, both in Europe.

Gardiner, who turned 72 on Monday, formed his Monteverdi Choir over fifty years ago to give a performance of the composer's Vespro della Beata Vergine, a masterpiece even greater than L'Orfeo. In only two cities on this tour, Gardiner will lead a performance of the so-called 1610 Vespers alongside L'Orfeo -- sadly, not including the District of Columbia. The Gardiner recording of L'Orfeo was crucial in my musical formation, but it is no longer my favorite. Likewise, while Gardiner's approach to the work has changed somewhat since that recording, made in London in 1985, this performance was good, but not necessarily great. The forces were essentially the same here as on the recording, with slight number changes in recorders, trumpets, cornetti, and theorbos: there were even a few senior players in the ensemble who took part in that landmark recording.

Other Articles: Anne Midgette, Gardiner leads pastoral celebration with memorable ‘Orfeo’ (Washington Post, April 23) Janos Gereben, It's News to Me: No Hint of Aging for Orfeo (San Francisco Classical Voice, April 22) Georgia Rowe, Monteverdi's great 'Orfeo' gets the classic John Eliot Gardiner touch (San Jose Mercury News, April 16)

Tenor Andrew Tortise was a fine Orfeo, one of the first virtuoso roles in operatic history, with rhythmic delight in Vi ricorda o bosch'ombrosi (an early example of the serenade aria type) and effortless beauty of tone and control of fast runs in Possente spirto (perhaps the first true operatic showpiece). The tone of his voice is quite pretty, flexible and light but with a satisfying resonance, casting a spell over the listener in that latter aria sung to Charon. (He did have one rather extensive memory slip in the second stanza of Qual onor, which we can chalk up to travel fatigue, something that may also account for the occasional scratchiness in his voice.) Francesca Aspromonte brought a clarion soprano and playful stage presence to the music of the Prologo and the Messagiera. Soprano Mariana Flores had a darker, somewhat softer tone as Eurydice and La Speranza. Bass Gianlucca Buratto made an imposing Caronte and Plutone, with impressive low notes, and Francesca Boncompagni was a silvery- light Proserpina.

The performance added up to about twenty minutes more than the length of the recording, this with no intermission and no pauses allowed for applause. The recitatives and in some cases the metered music was allowed a little more room to expand, but by and large Gardiner has stuck with his reading of Monteverdi's score, leading with a consistent and gracious hand. On the instrumental side, generally excellent, the cornetti had a bit of a rough night, right from the crucial opening Toccata, and there was an early solo violin entrance in the shepherds' scene. The addition of tambourine and drum, as well as vigorous hand clapping, enlivened many of the the choral and ballet scenes, danced by a few singers from the polished and puissant Monteverdi Choir as part of a rather successful semi-staging. The harp solo in the middle of Possente spirto was particularly fine, with harpist Gwyneth Wentink giving voice to the lyre of Orpheus.

The tour of these Monteverdi performances continues on to California (Costa Mesa and San Francisco), Princeton, and New York. The Carnegie Hall performance of the 1610 Vespers will be broadcast on WQXR (April 30). Do not miss it.

Briefly Noted: New from Les Arts Florissants

Music for Queen Caroline (Handel), Les Arts Florissants, W. Christie (released on January 13, 2015) AF004 | 72'17" Monteverdi, Madrigals, Vol. 2, Les Arts Florissants, P. Agnew (released on November 11, 2014) AF003 | 74'03" Le Jardin de Monsieur Rameau (Campra, Montéclair, Rameau, Dauvergne, Gluck), Les Arts Florissants, W. Christie (released on April 1, 2014) AF002 | 81'03"

William Christie and Les Arts Florissants inaugurated a private recording label in 2013, followed by two releases last year and one more this month. The most recent disc is devoted to music that George Frideric Handel composed for official events honoring Caroline of Ansbach, the wife of King George II and a close friend and supporter of the composer. Two shorter pieces begin the disc, the "Caroline" Te Deum, performed for Caroline's arrival in England in 1714 as Princess of Wales (although composed for an earlier occasion), and one of the choral anthems, The King Shall Rejoice, composed for the coronation of George II and Queen Caroline at Westminster Abbey in 1727. Neither of these pieces is all that interesting, not helped by undistinguished performances, with the choir sounding less than optimal in terms of intonation and tone quality, perhaps not helped by the way the singers were miked. Solo performances here, featuring a tenor and countertenor, are not noteworthy either.

The release is of value principally because of the major work featured on it, the substantial funeral anthem The Ways of Zion Do Mourn, composed for Caroline's funeral at Westminster Abbey in 1737 -- she died unexpectedly at age 54, to the great sadness of the public who held her in high esteem. This extraordinary piece, three-quarters of an hour in length, quotes some German chorale melodies: Queen Caroline, like Handel, was raised as a Lutheran, and indeed did not marry the Austrian archduke who became Emperor Charles VI because she refused to convert to Catholicism. It is a gorgeous, mostly choral piece, not unknown on disc (John Eliot Gardiner, among others, has recorded it) but basically unknown to my ears, and well worth discovering. The title section has a devastating sadness, which speaks volumes of the composer's personal connection with and regret for its dedicatee: with its weaving in of the chorale melody Herr Jesus Christ, ich weiss gar wohl and extended harmonic vagaries it often sounds more like Bach than the more cosmopolitan Handel. In its other sections the piece also incorporates other music, some in a lovely and mostly unaccompanied section extolling the queen's virtues, here with limpid solo voices from the chorus, sort of like a survey of historical music as a tribute to Caroline's musical background and patronage.

Thanks to the phenomenon of Internet concert streaming, we have followed a series of concerts devoted to Monteverdi's books of madrigals presented by members of Les Arts Florissants at the Cité de la Musique in Paris over the past couple years. Selections from these concerts, directed by Paul Agnew and recorded live, are being released in three volumes, with the second installment (Books 4-6, from the composer's time in Mantua) released first for whatever reason. The remaining volumes, focused on Cremona (Books 1-3) and Venice (Books 7 and 8), will follow this year and next. This is music to be relished, tracing the historical development of compositional style from the prima pratica into the seconda pratica, as the Renaissance yielded to the Baroque. There are a few good Monteverdi madrigal cycles already -- by Concerto Italiano and Marco Longhini's Delitiæ Musicæ, among others -- and complete ones, which this is not. Still, the performances are at a consistently high level, with beautiful voices and instrumental contributions (including beautiful theorbo from Thomas Dunford in the Lamento di Arianna), although I will reserve my final judgment until I have heard the complete set. A number of complementary videos related to this recording project can be accessed online.

The specialty of Les Arts Florissants remains the French Baroque, and this was the focus of the second release on the group's new label early last year. Derived from a concert created in 2013 at the ensemble's base in Caen, it features the young singers of Christie's Jardin des Voix program, in a program crafted (by Paul Agnew) for the Rameau anniversary last year. It opens with Montéclair's opera Jephté, the wildly successful work that launched Rameau on his mid-career shift into opera composition, as well as music by other composers who influenced Rameau. The most delightful curiosity is two exquisite canons from Rameau's Traité de l'harmonie, the music theory treatise that brought Rameau to national attention in France (along with a reputation for pedantry that he fought all his life to shake). The ear-bending chromaticism of the canon at the fifth Ah! Loin de rire, pleurons almost makes Gesualdo sound tame, and Réveillez-vous, dormeur sans fin, a canon at the unison, is enlivened by a hilarious bugle motif passed around the voices.

Vox Luminis Debut @ LoC

D. Scarlatti, Stabat mater (inter alia), Vox Luminis (re-released on June 24, 2014) Ricercar RIC258 | 61'42" [REVIEW]

Charles T. Downey, In D.C. debut, vocal ensemble Vox Luminis offers moments of beauty despite hiccups (Washington Post, October 31, 2014)

The series of free concerts at the Library of Congress this week offered contrasting examples of rather old and rather new music.

On Wednesday night Vox Luminis, a recently formed vocal ensemble from Belgium in their Washington debut, performed a program of mostly baroque music from Italy. Though one could hardly complain about the unusual selection of rarely heard pieces, the execution, while generally fine, showed signs of vocal fatigue.

An unseen soprano opened the evening starkly with the unaccompanied “Lamentation de la Vierge au pied de la Croix”... [Continue reading]

Vox Luminis
Music by Monteverdi, D. Scarlatti, others
Library of Congress

Briefly Noted: San Marco Vespers

Vespri solenni per la festa di San Marco, Concerto Italiano, R. Alessandrini (released on August 26, 2014) Naïve OP30557 | 79'34"

Rinaldo Alessandrini has led his historically informed performance ensemble, Concerto Italiano, in fine performances of large swaths of Claudio Monteverdi's music, including Orfeo, the madrigals, and the monumental 1610 Vespers. For the group's 30th anniversary, he has made an unusual recording that is both gorgeous and of musicological significance, if rather speculative in nature. Their new disc contains one possible reconstruction of a solemn Vespers service for the Basilica di San Marco in Venice, combining various pieces by Monteverdi from the 1610 Vespers, which represents the fruit of Monteverdi's work in Mantua, and especially from the Selva morale e spirituale, a compilation of pieces made for the forces and acoustic space of San Marco, as well as one of his motet collections. One eight-part canzona by Giovanni Gabrieli and plainchant antiphons and responses from a 17th-century source of the San Marco liturgy make an appropriate nod to the glorious past of the basilica.

The only shortcoming of this reconstruction is that it was not recorded in San Marco itself, not available to the performers "for obvious reasons," according to Alessandrini's program essay. Whatever those obvious reasons may have been, the substitute space, the palatine basilica of Santa Barbara in Mantua, has a gorgeous acoustic. Monteverdi's music, which trades on rapid alternations between loud and soft dynamics, full and spare textures, is captured in crisp sound, with the full blossom of those magnificent "concerto" combinations of instruments and singers. Only occasionally does Alessandrini's tendency toward extremely fast tempi trip up his singers in their melismatic passages. In physical release, the disc comes with a DVD (not reviewed) of a movie about Alessandrini's work with Concerto Italiano, directed by Claudio Rufa.

Briefly Noted: La Figueras

La Voix de l'Emotion, M. Figueras, La Capella Reial de Catalunya, Hespèrion XX-XXI (released on March 13, 2012) AVSA 9889A+B | 153'43"

When soprano Montserrat Figueras died in 2011, a trailblazing career came to an end. Jordi Savall, the Catalan viola da gambist Jordi Savall who was married to Figueras for 47 years, told an interviewer that she would always remain his muse: "She understood things about singers from their behavior, their appearance, toward which repertories their taste could lead them. This was more than a musical gift: she was interested in other people, for their humanity above all." In tribute to her, Alia Vox released a 2-CD compilation of tracks recorded over the course of her singing career, from 1978 to 2009. The last time that I heard her sing, at the Kennedy Center in 2010, she did not sound well, but these discs are a reminder that her long career was full of reasons why she was so magnetic as a performer: the verve of her tone, her ease and naturalness of pronunciation and musicality, the versatility with languages. She did indeed sing so much music in so many styles -- Baroque motets and secular songs in French, Italian, Spanish; Renaissance madridgals and sacred music; Catalan, Moroccan, and Sephardic folksongs; medieval monophonic pieces; modern songs (Pärt, Musorgsky) -- and it is all featured here, both solo pieces and polyphonic music where she is part of La Capella Reial de Catalunya. Some irritating vocal tics had crept into her performances in recent years -- scooping, bending -- and the tone was not always pleasing, but this is a consistently moving listen, concluding with Manuel de Falla's touching lullaby Duérmete, niño, duerme.


"Io la musica son" -- Montserrat Figueras as the Prologue in L'Orfeo

Briefly Noted: Drama Queens

Drama Queens (Handel, Hasse, Monteverdi, et al.), J. DiDonato, Il Complesso Barocco, A. Curtis (released on November 6, 2012) Virgin 5099960265425 | 67'54"

We are longtime fans of mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, especially for her contributions to the series of Handel opera recordings from the historically informed performance ensemble Il Complesso Barocco and conductor Alan Curtis. Sadly, the concert tour coinciding with the release of her new album of Baroque arias did not come through Washington this time: the experience of DiDonato's charming stage presence in live performance would likely increase one's enjoyment of this new disc. Certainly, it is all music beautifully performed, both the blazing vocal pyrotechnics of DiDonato, with florid embellishments worked out to maximum effect, and the refined, perfectly scaled sound of Il Complesso Barocco, all sensitively brought together under Curtis's direction. No complaints about the choice of repertory, either, as beyond two familiar arias by Handel (from Alcina and Giulio Cesare in Egitto), one from Haydn's Armida, and Octavia's showstopping "Disprezzata regina" from Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea, the selection consists of composers rarely recorded, including Giuseppe Orlandini (two arias from Berenice, recently rediscovered), Giovanni Porta, Reinhard Keiser, Johann Hasse, Antonio Cesti, and Geminiano Giacomelli. At the same time, this disc does not strike me as standing out that much from what DiDonato has done before, certainly not to the degree that the many rapturous reviews thus far have seemed to indicate. It is a voice with many delights to offer, including pinpoint accuracy in the rapid passages, a simple, warm tone that can float at pianissimo, and also powerful zing at the top when it is at full bore -- in some ways, powered by the slightly obtrusive vibrato flutter that can mar intonation in the middle range and at softer dynamics. Worth a listen, definitely, but not a must-hear.

Briefly Noted: Per la Vergine Maria

Per la Vergine Maria, Concerto Italiano, R. Alessandrini (released on June 28, 2011) Naive OP 30505 | 1h03

We enjoy Concerto Italiano's releases of lesser-known 18th-century sacred music -- the last one was a pairing of Mass settings by Pergolesi and Alessandro Scarlatti. This disc, from last year, brings together settings of Latin Marian texts: Claudio Monteverdi's Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a 6 voci; three 8-voice settings of the Magnificat by Pietro Paolo Bencini (c. 1675-1755), Padre Soler (1729-1783), and Giacomo Carissimi (1605-1674); two settings of the Salve Regina, for nine voices by Alessandro Melani (1639-1703) and for four voices by Alessandro Scarlatti; and Stravinsky's 4-voice setting of the Ave Maria. The settings are all rather simple, in mostly homophonic textures, performed with one singer to a part and the continuo accompaniment realized by organ and two theorbos. The sound is magnificent, capturing some, but not too much, of the generously resonant acoustic of the location, the Basilica of Santa Barbara in Mantua. The musical performances are all top-notch, too, with an ensemble of nine lovely voices blended into a cohesive ensemble of various combinations. There are some passages that feature one or more solo passages, with only one long solo, rendered plangently by soprano Monica Piccinini, in Melani's lovely Salve Regina. Bencini's virtually unknown setting of the Magnificat, with its meditative repetitions of two-chord patterns and affecting chain sequences, should be on every choir conductor's radar, as should the pieces by Scarlatti and Carissimi. Concluding with the Stravinsky miniature is a clever way to trace the connection between the beginning and end of the tonal era.

Harnoncourt's Vintage 'Poppea'

C. Monteverdi, L'Incoronazione di Poppea, H. Donath, E. Söderström, C. Berberian, G. Luccardi, P. Langridge, Concentus Musicus Wien, N. Harnoncourt (1974, re-released 2009) Teldec 022924254765 | 3h35

There were some performances of Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea, undertaken without a scholarly consideration of the source problems and on modern instruments, before Nikolaus Harnoncourt undertook this famous version with Concentus Musicus Wien. As I wrote of this preeminent HIP conductor's Orfeo a few years ago, it is no exaggeration to attribute the beginning of the Monteverdi revival to Harnoncourt's traversal of the Monteverdi cycle in the 1970s at the Zurich Opera, in stagings by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle. When he staged Poppea in Zurich, captured on DVD, Harnoncourt cut over 45 minutes of music and used a mostly different cast, but for this ground-breaking audio recording, he used his own ultra-complete edition of the score, with every scrap of recitative accounted for. For all of its monumental status in the history of the Monteverdi revival, this set -- recently re-released with the original four discs squeezed onto three, at a discounted price -- sounds ridiculously dated now. Harnoncourt responded to the absence of indications for instrumentation in a way opposite from Hickox, by over-orchestrating the score most fancifully for a vast consort of instruments that do not always sound all that good. Every time the honking shawms come out of their cage, one just cringes. The wedding cake of extraneous instruments cluttering up "Pur ti miro" at the end, like gobs of icing, ruins one of the great moments in music history.

Harnoncourt's conducting, again as much as I respect him, just seems too clunky and edge-focused by comparison to the superior recordings of the last two decades. That being said, after a few decades of performances with transpositions of Nerone and Ottone for lower male voices, Harnoncourt cast countertenor Paul Esswood as Ottone, with mixed results by today's standards. He also kept Poppea and Nerone in the same high register, pairing Helen Donath's Poppea with the late Elisabeth Söderström's Nerone, although neither is competition for some of the singers on those later recordings. The principal rewards of this recording, besides its historical importance, are the chance to hear Cathy Berberian, the soprano who was Luciano Berio's muse, sing Ottavia's A dio, Roma, and young English tenor Philip Langridge as Lucano in that duet with Söderström. Giancarlo Luccardi rumbles away as a somewhat arrogant Seneca, with the broad vibrato creating many unpleasant intonation issues. Harnoncourt, who famously used boys' voices for his Bach cantata cycle with Gustav Leonhardt, has selected a beautiful treble voice for Amore, which is one of the highlights.

PREVIOUSLY:
Ivor Bolton (Munich)
William Christie (Madrid)
Harry Bicket and David Alden (Barcelona)
René Jacobs (Concerto Vocale)
Arleen Auger and Richard Hickox (London)


"Pur ti miro" (from L'Incoronazione di Poppea), Rachel Yakar and Eric Tappy (conducted
by Nikolaus Harnoncourt, for Zurich staging -- not the version under review)

Poppea: Hickox in London

C. Monteverdi, L'Incoronazione di Poppea, A. Auger, D. Jones, S. Leonard, L. Hirst, J. Bowman, City of London Baroque Sinfonia, R. Hickox (re-released on June 5, 2012) Virgin 5099955984454 | 3h13

In the same 90s wave of Poppea recordings with Alan Curtis and René Jacobs, was a version made by legendary conductor Richard Hickox in 1988. Just re-released last month at a budget price, this set is well worth listening to again, a good choice for someone looking for a historically informed performance that is more faithful reconstruction than recreation. Hickox went for an extremely literal interpretation of the sources, using mostly just continuo, not writing out accompagnato arrangements or adding sinfonias or ritornelli. Hickox, of course, was an extravagantly gifted conductor who brought illumination to all the music he touched, from Britten and other English composers to Handel (a beautiful Alcina, also with Arleen Auger), and although he was never known as a seicento specialist, he draws out a lithe and idiomatic performance from the City of London Baroque Sinfonia. While the measured music is kept to cello and continuo realization only, the recitativo sections feature harpsichord, chamber organ, and theorbo in alternation.

This is one of the best Poppea-Nerone pairings on disc, again cast in the best way possible, with two women. Arleen Auger, not long before her diagnosis with a fatal brain tumor, is a seraphic Poppea, a choice that helps the listener believe in the sincerity of the love she has for Nerone. Welsh mezzo-soprano Della Jones is a forceful Nerone, masculine enough in sound to play up Monteverdi's snarly characterization of Nerone as excited (really, guilty) in the confrontation with the calm, assured Seneca. (Ellen Rosand explores the composer's use of text repetition and characterization through musical style in that scene.) Jones also shows an intense lyricism in the love duets with Auger, though, making for one of the sweetest, slowest performances of "Pur ti miro" (listen below). James Bowman, always one of the most polished countertenor voices, makes a rather pretty Ottone, matched by the fine Seneca of Gregory Reinhart, with good agility and a lot of weight to the voice. The only disappointment is Linda Hurst, awfully shrill as Ottavia, perhaps Hickox's shrewish counterweight to the sweet Poppea, but with a nobly restrained "A dio, Roma" in the third act. The supporting cast shows interesting choices, too, with the pert Drusilla of Sarah Leonard, tenor Adrian Thompson convincing in Arnalta's comic scenes (if unable to give the necessary beauty to Arnalta's more tender moments), a low-set female voice for the Nutrice, and the immature hoot of a child treble as Amore.

PREVIOUSLY:
Ivor Bolton (Munich)
William Christie (Madrid)
Harry Bicket and David Alden (Barcelona)
René Jacobs (Concerto Vocale)


Arleen Auger and Della Jones, Pur ti miro (from L'Incoronazione di Poppea)

Poppea: Classic René Jacobs

C. Monteverdi, L'Incoronazione di Poppea, D. Borst, G. Laurens, J. Larmore, Concerto Vocale, R. Jacobs (1991, re-released 2010) Harmonia Mundi | 3h17

The wave of historically informed performance (HIP) recordings of L'Incoronazione di Poppea began in the early 1990s, when Alan Curtis recorded the work with his ensemble, Il Complesso Barocco, a set hard to obtain these days. Perhaps the first classic HIP recording of the work was that made by René Jacobs and his ensemble, Concerto Vocale. Jacobs showed the range of what was possible in reconstructing the opera, since the lack of specificity in instrumentation in the musical sources -- and the many differences in sources of the libretto and score -- make performing the opera an act of re-creation. The deluxe packaging of this re-release, from 2010, has the full libretto and extensive program notes included as a little book. This includes all of the decisions Jacobs made in editing his own version of the score: using recorders as well as strings (even trumpets!), drawing from both the Venice and Naples versions ("I can no longer conceive of an Incoronazione without the spectacular coronation of the new empress by humans and deities," Jacobs writes), adding even more sinfonias and ritornellos by other composers into what was already a patchwork, casting choices, cuts.

Instrumentally, then, this is a beautiful and idiosyncratic version of Poppea, with some delightful realizations of the basso continuo accompaniment. Vocally, it is not ideal, with singers like Axel Köhler (Ottone), Guy de Mey (Lucano), and Dominique Visse (Nutrice) in some of the earlier renditions of these roles they performed many times. The top of the cast is quite good, with especially the puissant intensity of mezzo-soprano Guillemette Laurens as Nerone, matched by a sharp-voiced Poppea in Danielle Borst, neither with quite the ideal purity of tone for the famous concluding duet, "Pur ti miro." Jennifer Larmore is a caustic and patrician Ottavia, while tenor Christian Hornberger uses a lovely falsetto to give a funny but not over-the-top rendition of Arnalta. Michael Schopper's Seneca is a little tremulous and worn thin, perhaps a good characterization for the aging philosopher, but Franz-Josef Selig's Seneca in the new DVD reviewed last week was a greater moral center for the gravity of his voice. Jacobs gives the right air of sadness to Seneca's death scene, with a mournful trio of earnest students. Innocent joy comes across in the Valletto-Damigella duet, here cast with two lovely sopranos, Christina Högman and Maria Christina Kiehr.

PREVIOUSLY:
Ivor Bolton (Munich)
William Christie (Madrid)
Harry Bicket and David Alden (Barcelona)

Poppea: Alden in Barcelona

C. Monteverdi, L'Incoronazione di Poppea, M. Persson, S. Connolly, J. Domènech, F.-J. Selig, Gran Teatre del Liceu, H. Bicket (released on May 29, 2012) Opus Arte OA1073D | 3h03

One can count on David Alden to create striking, sometimes indelible images in his opera productions. Who could forget the leopard pincushions in his Radamisto in Santa Fe, or the Angelica as Paris Hilton in his Orlando in Munich? Alden's notorious production of Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea, which debuted in Cardiff and Munich (reviewed in live CD format last week) and later went to Paris, was recorded in the 2009 revival at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona.

Alden gives us one of those indelible images right at the first scene of the prologue, when the character of Fortune climbs up a staircase toward a bright red couch at center stage. The goddesses wear enormous platform shoes, with Fortune sporting a bald cap and lacy parasol and Virtue, aged, hobbling on crutches with her neck supported by a brace as if she had just been in a rear-end collision (costumes by Buki Shiff). The gods are all absurd, with costumes right out of horror and space movies: Mercurio as the Mummy with winged platform boots, exiting by falling into a hole; Pallas is like one of the sexy aliens who might have seduced Captain Kirk. For the first two acts the opera takes place in a sort of office building atrium or parking structure (sets by Paul Steinberg). In the opening scene a large street lamp protrudes from the wall, and Amore, with large bronze wings, sits atop a revolving door. This is whimsical enough for the prologue, which could take place just about anywhere, but then there is no set change for the opening of Act I, as Ottone walks in with a bouquet of flowers. He lies down on the sofa, folded out into a sort of bed, with the two guards asleep on it, and in the space of a few seconds, the staging turns mostly nonsensical.

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Poppea: In Munich with Ivor Bolton

C. Monteverdi, L'Incoronazione di Poppea, A. C. Antonacci, D. Daniels, K. Moll, Bayerische Staatsoper, I. Bolton Farao B 108 020 | 2h49

British conductor Ivor Bolton cut his teeth at the Glyndebourne Festival, before leading a celebrated series of productions at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich -- he now conducts the Mozarteumorchester Salzburg and the newly formed Dresden Music Festival Orchestra. Bolton's Poppea came across my desk a couple years ago, in a re-release, and there is much to enjoy, beginning with the title role in the dramatic hands and shattering voice of soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci. Her Italian diction and sense of the flow of the role, shifting so effortlessly between recitative and metered pieces, are impeccable.

This cast also featured a countertenor as Nerone, in this case the excellent David Daniels, but the role, created originally for a rather high soprano castrato voice, stretches Daniels (and Philippe Jaroussky, reviewed yesterday) to some shrill unpleasantness at the top. The musical requirements seem to justify the less satisfying solution dramatically in this case, casting a woman as Nerone. Ottone, a lower role, works better for countertenors, but not really for Axel Köhler here. Dominique Visse makes an acid-voiced Arnalta, Kurt Moll is a woolly, dignified Seneca with some puissant low notes. Other high points include Dorothea Röschmann as a manic, cute Drusilla, and the innocent sound of a child treble, from the Tölzer Knabenchor, in the role of Amore. There are enough disappointments in the other bit parts that go against this version, as well as tenor Claes-Håkan Ahnsjö, who as Lucan has an unattractive duet with Daniels in the second act.

David Alden staged this production (more about that later), recorded live at the Munich Opera Festival in 1997 in not outstanding sound. There is lots of rustling of costumes and clatter of shoes caught by the mikes, and too much distance and room in the overall sound. To be fair, that was one of the aims of the Farao label, according to a booklet note by Peter Jonas, Intendant of the Munich State Opera. Bolton leads an excellent reading of the score, conducting from the harpsichord, with fine variation in the sound of the continuo section, with none other than Christina Pluhar on harp and Baroque guitar. That variation of the continuo sound is a principal attraction of the Christie recording, too, which helps cut down on the monotony of the recitative. Unlike Christie, Bolton uses only strings plus his varied continuo group (Christie gave some parts to recorders -- the score says next to nothing about the instrumentation), and he takes some unusual but striking liberties, like the glacial tempo of the opera's glorious concluding duet ("Pur ti miro"), which gives the piece a sensual quality rather than making it stall.

Poppea: 'Di questo seno i pomi?'

C. Monteverdi, L'Incoronazione di Poppea, D. de Niese, P. Jaroussky, Les Arts Florissants, W. Christie (released on April 3, 2012) Virgin 07095191 | 180' E. Rosand, Monteverdi's Last Operas: A Venetian Trilogy

Claudio Monteverdi is the father of opera, and L'Incoronazione di Poppea, his final opera, is a twilight masterpiece, the Magic Flute, the Falstaff, the Parsifal of the early Baroque period. The problem is that, while no one doubts the ingenuity and dramatic force of this opera, it may not be by Monteverdi at all. As Ellen Rosand has written in her masterful survey of Monteverdi's Venetian operas, the source situation for Poppea is by far the most complicated of any Venetian opera of the period -- two distinct and rather different manuscripts, multiple versions of the libretto. The libretto's approach to characterization, its moral ambiguity, strikes us now as particularly modern, and the proliferation of productions and recordings of the opera in recent years (René Jacobs, Emmanuelle Haïm, William Christie at the Opéra de Lyon, David Alden, to name just a few) has only amplified the study of the work. As Rosand puts it, "no modern performance could be attempted without coming to grips with the numerous variant readings" of the score.

A number of new recordings of Poppea have crossed my desk recently, the first to consider being this DVD of a staging by Pier Luigi Pizzi, recorded at Madrid's Teatro Real. It is another production featuring Les Arts Florissants and William Christie in the pit, which means that the playing and the scholarly consideration given to the score are a known quantity (here using a new edition of the Venetian version of the opera, edited by Jonathan Cable, who plays violone in christie's continuo group). Christie returned again to Danielle de Niese for the title role, after grooming her for the role in his production in Lyon in 2005, and for once Christie's taste in voices seems way off base. On one hand de Niese, a beautiful woman, is an obvious choice to play Poppea -- according to Tacitus, one of the most beautiful women of her age but also one who would focus her lust on whatever object was most to her advantage. Poppea has to seduce the viewer, yes, but more importantly she has to seduce the listener, and de Niese's voice, if not her looks, falls short -- too many mannerisms (straight tone popping into vibrato, as if she were singing Whitney Houston), questionable Italian pronunciation, and shallowness of tone. De Niese also starred as Poppea at Glyndebourne, where she is now mistress of the house, a performance released on DVD by Decca a couple of years ago (with Emmanuelle Haïm conducting a production by Robert Carsen) and with the same issues.

There are other problems, too, beginning with the rest of the casting, a group of high-profile names that do not really mesh with one another, beginning with the boyish Nerone of countertenor Philippe Jaroussky (in Lyon, Christie cast Nerone as a tenor rather than a countertenor), who strikes no sparks with de Niese. This is at least partially due to the ridiculous costuming and makeup (design all credited to Pizzi) that in the first act makes him look like a Goth vampire-gorilla, but here Nerone's most sultry duet is not with Poppea but in the little scene with Lucano in the second act, where Nero is supposed to be rhapsodizing in poetry with his court poet (Lucan) -- about Poppea -- interpreted here as its own sort of love scene, with the two men singing the words to one another. Bass Antonio Abete, who has an odd way of singing out of one corner of his mouth, is a sententious Seneca, while the Ottone of Max Emanuel Cencic and the Ottavia of Anna Bonitatibus are sharp-edged and sometimes shrill, musically satisfying in a way but not creating much sympathy for either character. In the uneven supporting cast (so many bit parts!), countertenor José Lemos has a charming turn in en travesti role of the Nurse (matched by the less vocally attractive but high-kitsch Arnalta of Robert Burt, in a bright purple Dame Edna moment in the bizarrely timed comic scene near the end of Act III). The one standout is soprano Ana Quintans as a coquettish Drusilla, the sort of clean but potent voice that would actually make a much better Poppea. The set, a sort of Baroque version of Rome, with modernized costumes, is somber and mostly nondescript.

Twelve Days of Christmas: Sonia Wieder-Atherton

Vita (Monteverdi / Scelsi), S. Wieder-Atherton, S. Lancu, M. Lejeune (released on March 29, 2011) Naïve V 5257 | 1h08

We have been following the work of cellist Sonia Wieder-Atherton, rewarding for both her playing and her daring programming. After an absorbing 2009 release, Chants d'Est (a "journey of 24 hours" through Slavic music), she has combined the music of two Italian composers, Claudio Monteverdi and Giacinto Scelsi, from opposite ends of the history of tonal music. I have my doubts about Scelsi, although his music is at the very least perplexing and therefore fun to unravel. As expected of Wieder-Atherton, the approach is a personal one, with the title of Vita derived from her first thought about the program (about "Life and Fate"). In the program notes, she writes that the combination of Scelsi and Monteverdi was inspired by her feeling "that both of them explored the forces within human nature. Both in their own particular way attempted to reach out to what binds human beings to the cosmos, to the worlds beyond." Wieder-Atherton's impassioned performances of four Scelsi movements, from the "large fresco cycle" of Trilogy (sections from the "Three Ages of Man"), are interspersed with her arrangements of Monteverdi pieces (partial credit given also to experimental composer Franck Krawczyk, who helps Wieder-Atherton design her projects), mostly from the eighth book of the composer's madrigals, on warlike and amorous subjects (joined by two younger cellists, Sarah Lancu and Mattheiu Lejeune). Wieder-Atherton has imagined a narrative to accompany the selection of music, some story about a male character and a female character, Angel and Angioletta, who are actually the same person in different periods of history, followed throughout the three ages of life. One can ignore it completely and still enjoy this diverting and rewarding disc.