Best Recordings of 2020

After a hiatus last year, it is time for a list of classical CDs that were outstanding this year. This is the ionarts list of the Best Classical Recordings of the Year:

Preamble

I’ve been doing some form of “Best of the Year” list since 2004. 2019 was the first time I slipped. Here’s my attempt at redemption. Granted, my overview of new releases is no longer quite what it was in the days I worked at Tower Records. But the idea of a “Best of the Year” list, if one clings too literally to the idea of “Best” is daft even under the most ideal of situations. It’s of course just short for: “These are a few of the things that I liked” and used, as I’ve been fond of writing in past iterations of this list, because “10 CDs that, all caveats duly noted, I consider to have been outstanding this year” just doesn’t roll off the tongue as easily. Because I skipped 2019, I will include some releases from that year on this list. If you are looking for past lists, here they are:

2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2008—"Almost" | 2009 | 2009—"Almost" | 2010 | 2010—"Almost" | 2011 | 2011—"Almost" | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018

Pick # 10

L.v.Beethoven, Symphonies 1-9, Adam Fischer, Danish Chamber Orchestra, Naxos 8.505251

L.v.Beethoven, The Symphonies Adam Fischer, Danish Chamber Orchestra, Naxos

I wanted these to be on the aborted 2019 list and they definitively belong on it. Yes, we have way too much Beethoven – and 2020 was one of the worst offenders, with it being the 'Beethoven Year' and every artist with ten fingers or access to a baton bringing out a cycle of the sonatas or the symphonies. In the concert halls, at least, Corona saved us from a Beethoven overkill that would have ruined our appreciation of the composers for decades. But just before all that happened, Adam Fischer and his now privately funded Danish Chamber Orchestra come out with something that stands out from the 178+ other cycles we can choose from. These are unpretentious, lively, quick-witted yet totally sober readings that manage to be free of any exaggeration and superbly exciting at the same time. Fischer situates his Beethoven in the near-ideal middle between the stale routine of playing these damn things over and over again on one side and the interventionist re-inventors of the wheel on the other. This is roughly the space Jukka-Pekke Saraste and his West German Radio Symphony Orchestra occupy (review: Precious Vanilla), or the fairly recent and excellent second Blomstedt cycle with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. Except that Fischer’s band is smaller, more nimble, and a touch more alert which – as might be expected – shifts the focus of strengths towards the earlier symphonies. Like Blomstedt and most other conductors these days, Fischer chooses swift tempi. More to the point: Fischer opts for mediating tempi: quicker slow movements and moderately paced fast movements. The result is Beethoven unassuming and disheveled, and very lovable. A more detailed review will follow on ClassicsToday eventually. But it’s definitely the Beethoven Cycle of the Beethoven year!

Pick # 9

R.Schumann, Rare Choral Works, Aapo Hakkinen, Helsinki Baroque Orchestra, Carolyn Sampson et al., Ondine 1312

R.Schumann, Rare Choral Works, Aapo Hakkinen, Helsinki Baroque Orchestra, Carolyn Sampson et al., Ondine

Here’s an all ‘round terrific disc of off-the-beaten-path Schumann from Ondine, coupling his Ballade op.140 for soloists and chorus with the Adventlied and – an intriguing filler in the middle – Schumann’s reworking of the Bach Cantata BWV 105. The Adventlied is, inexplicably, a world premiere recording. Where has it been hiding? It is Schumann at his most Mendelssohnesque. Meanwhile it’s good to know that even Schumann agreed that Bach’s stupendous Cantata BWV 105 is a masterpiece among masterpieces. Creating this performing version he certainly suggested as much. And he didn’t super-juice it: he held back and limited himself to modernizing the instrumentation to suit his players. It’s not adding to Bach but as the imaginative buffer between the two marvelously Schumann pieces is very welcome. With Carolyn Sampson participating, deftly accompanied by the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra and the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir under Aapo Hakkinen, this disc is a winner that I’ve been wanting to write about for over a year. Consider this the teaser.

Pick # 8

J.S.Bach, Christmas Oratorio , Rudolf Lutz, soloists, Bach Stiftung Orchestra & Chorus, Bach Stiftung B664

J.S.Bach, Christmas Oratorio, Rudolf Lutz, soloists, Bach Stiftung Orchestra & Chorus, Bach Stiftung

Befitting the season, a Christmas Oratorio makes this list. The new release from the St. Gallen Bach Stiftung is perfect in just about every way. Perfection – in a technical sense – isn’t everything, of course, especially when it’s closer to anodyne than riveting. But in this case, the live recording (you’d never know!) has all the spirit of most of this outfit’s releases and absolutely terrific singers starting with alto Elvira Bill (who has appeared on the last three Christmas Oratorios I have reviewed) and tenor Daniel Johannsen who has established himself to the point where neither “young” nor “up and coming” still apply. (I’ve just checked: He’s older now than Werner Güra was when he recorded “Schöne Wiege meiner Leiden”.) A review will follow on ClassicsToday soon and be linked then. By the way: if you haven’t sampled their Cantata-cycle het, but want to, you would do well to start here, with volume 30!

Pick # 7

Hans Zender, Winterreise Re-Composed, Ensemble Modern, Blochwitz, Ensemble Modern 043/44

H.Zender, Winterreise Re-Composed, Ensemble Modern, Blochwitz Ensemble Modern

This year I am not splitting the list up into new and re-releases. But as a nod to the tradition, I must include this re-release of a classic recording which I am so glad to have back in the catalogue: The premiere (and still best) recording of Hans Zender’s Winterreise with Ensemble Modern. My review for ClassicsToday here: Best Remembrance Of Hans Zender

Pick # 6

Richard Strauss, Enoch Arden, Bruno Ganz, Kirill Gerstein, Myrios MYR025

Richard Strauss, Enoch Arden, Bruno Ganz, Kirill Gerstein Myros

When Swiss actor Bruno Ganz and Kirill Gerstein performed Enoch Arden at Vienna’s Konzerthaus in late 2014, it was a quiet high-point of the season. The disc is about as good. Granted, the text of Strauss’ monodrama is quite important, so English-speakers not inclined to read along in the booklet will probably want to look to Glenn Gould and Claude Rains version for Sony. But for the rest: they’ve got a new reference version. The declamation of Ganz is worth hearing even just for how its musical and dramatic qualities, senza parole so to say. A fitting musical memorial for Ganz, who passed away in early 2019. My ClassicsToday review here: Granitic Enoch Arden From Bruno Ganz And Kirill Gerstein.

Pick # 5

Ossesso, Ratas del Viejo Mundo, Floris De Rycker, Ramée RAM1808

Ossesso, Ratas del Viejo Mundo, Floris De Rycker, Ramée

Here’s another album that scores on memorability over perfection. It’s over the top, in some ways, and fabulous for it. Ancient music keeps it grounded; the wild acoustic makes it ring in your head like you’re in a grand gothic cathedral. Or a well. Depending on your mindset. What the Old-World Rats (what a name!) deliver here, singing a variety of Italian Madrigals belaboring the subjects of Love and Affliction, is glorious and just the right touch of weird. “The inflection of notes, the tuning, the character of old instruments like psaltery and kanklės… it all contributes to a sense of gentle alienation. Is this Orlando di Lasso, Vincenczo Galilei, Friulian traditional music (sung in the old language) or are we already on to Arab or even African shores? You could let yourself be distracted by any numbers of unorthodoxies on the album “Ossesso” but it’s much easier and more gratifying to sit back and indulge.” To quote my review at ClassicsToday: Obsessed Rats—Wondrous Voices from Olden Times.

Pick # 4

J.S.Bach, Keyboard Works and Transcriptions, Víkingur Ólafsson, DG 4835022

J.S.Bach, A Recital, Víkingur Ólafsson, DG

Like the Beethoven Symphonies , this is a release that would have been on last year’s list, also… and it’s too good and memorable to miss out on. It’s really just a supremely tasteful Bach recital by a wonderfully talented pianist who is just as satisfying in recital as he is on disc. But that’s enough. As I’ve said in my ClassicsToday review (Icelandic Bach With Heart and Panache): “It’s taken 13 years for a Bach-on-piano recital disc to have come along to match Alexandre Tharaud’s.” That is the hightest praise I can give. As a bonus, not that this need matter for your purely musical enjoyment: Víkingur Ólafsson won’t annoy you on Twitter, if you follow him, which you should at @VikingurMusic.

Pick # 3

L.v.Beethoven et al., Works for Mandolin, Julien Martinean, Vanessa Benelli Mosell et al., Naïve 7083

L.v.Beethoven et al., Works for Mandolin, Julien Martinean, Vanessa Benelli Mosell et al., Naïve

This is a recording I don’t think I’ll ever forget – and if it’s for the mandolin variant of that 1970s Hot 100 smash hit of Walter Murphey’s: A Fifth of Beethoven (also known for its notable appearance in Saturday Night Fever). But no, actually, this is good and memorable all around, elevating some of Beethoven’s B-Music to A-levels. And a recording that memorable deserves a high entry on this list, even if it isn’t perfect. My review at ClassicsToday here: Beethoven for the Mandolin.

Pick # 2

H.G.Stölzel, Ein Lämmlein geht und trägt die Schuld (Passion oratorio 1731), Purcell Choir, Orfeo Orchestra, Glossa 924006

H.G.Stölzel, Passion oratorio, Purcell Choir, Orfeo Orchestra, Glossa

This is such terrific music and so sympathetically performed and well recorded that it is bound to be the first of many Heinrich Gottfried Stölzel works you will want to hear. If, in fact, this is your first one. There is no (baroque) composer other than Bach that wrote no weak pieces. But at their best the Telemanns and Hasses and Zelenkas can be as good and, for being different, offer some extra enjoyment. And the same goes for Stölzel and this Passion oratorio in particular. Listen to “Ein Lämmlein geht und trägt die Schuld”. Treat yourself! My review at ClassicsToday here: Good Enough for Bach, Good Enough for Us.

Pick # 1

Antonio Vivaldi, Il Tamerlano, Accademia Bizantina, Ottavio Dantone, naïve 7080

Antonio Vivaldi, Il Tamerlano, Accademia Bizantina, Ottavio Dantone, naïve

Vivaldi operas have lagged behind those of Handel’s in appreciation and Il Tamerlano a.k.a. Bajazet (RV 703) perhaps even more, because its pasticcio composition style did not fit in with the Urtext and unity-of-the-artwork type of musicological purity that reigned in the last few decades. This perception might have begun to change, slowly, after Fabio Biondi’s fabulous 2005 recording came out. It turns out that it’s a masterpiece and the custom of stitching an opera together from previous hits of his own, newly written music, and arias from other composers – mainly Hasse and Giacomelli – doesn’t hold it back, it aids this work! Vivaldi giving his music, in the Venetian style, to the good guys but his colleagues’ more flashy Neapolitan-style music to the baddies adds welcome variety. Vivaldi’s intended point about the superiority of the former is, alas, undermined by the Red Priest having been too fair and using the finest that his rivals’ had on offer: two of the absolute show-stealing arias aren’t his. But we don’t care, the music is great and this new recording of the Accademia Bizantina under Ottavio Dantone is just what the opera deserves; rivalling (or complementing) Biondi’s, easily. A must-listen for 2021, if you haven’t yet. Review forthcoming.


OK, let’s cheat. Or make up for the lost year of 2019. I simply have to mention a few more recordings, now that I’ve started. Here they are:

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Briefly Noted: Christmas in the Pandemic Summer

Christmas Carols, SWR Vokalensemble, M. Creed (released on August 10, 2020) SWR Classic SWR19094CD | 59'10"

How keenly music's absence is felt during the pandemic struck me recently listening to this little disc. It is nothing spectacular in terms of programming: an hour's worth of English Christmas carols. The singing is excellent, done in beautiful sound by the SWR Vokalensemble, about thirty voices in size, under the direction of Marcus Creed.

A German choir stealing the lunch of their British colleagues is fair payback for the perennial "Christmas Around the World" programs heard every year, and the English pronunciation here is impeccable. A tribute, this, to the teaching of their English-born director, an alumnus of both King's College, Cambridge, and Christ Church, Oxford, whose tenure with this distinguished radio choir ended this summer.

The group's women sound better on their own (in Emily Elizabeth Poston's rich Jesus Christ the Apple Tree, for example) than the men, who are featured less. The same applies in solo voices heard, although on this account the more demanding writing, as in The Fayrfax Carol of Thomas Adès, taxes both equally. The echo quartet in Britten's gorgeous A Hymn to the Virgin, happily, is top-notch. The effect of this simple but effective carol service is a sweet reminiscence of the days before coronavirus (the recording was captured in the fall of 2018). Sadly, it is also a bitter reminder that we may spend a bleak Christmas without "the playing of the merry organ" or "sweet singing in the choir," in the nostalgic words of the The Holly and the Ivy.

Contemporary Valentine from the JACK Quartet and Ursula Oppens

Charles T. Downey, JACK Quartet offers lively interpretations of new music at Library of Congress series
Washington Post, February 17, 2014

Feldman, Spring of Chosroes, P. Zukofsky, U. Oppens (CP2, 1991)

An important mission of the concert series at the Library of Congress is to commission and present new works of contemporary music. Both aspects of that role were showcased Friday night, as the JACK Quartet, leading specialists in new music, performed a program of music mostly from the last half-century, including two pieces commissioned by the Library of Congress.

The oldest music in the concert was composed by Morton Feldman, beginning with “Spring of Chosroes,” commissioned by the Library’s McKim Fund in 1977. Pianist Ursula Oppens premiered the work with its dedicatee, violinist Paul Zukofsky, and she performed it here with Ari Streisfeld, one of the JACK violinists. Like Feldman’s “Structures” for string quartet, from 1951, this is understated, heavily repetitive music, but it diverts rather than bores because Feldman introduces unexpected, minute variations into those repetitions. [Continue reading]

JACK Quartet and Ursula Oppens, piano
Feldman, Spring of Chosroes / Structures
Ferneyhough, Exordium: Elliotti Carteri in honorem centenarii
Carter, Piano Quintet
Adès, Piano Quintet
Julian Anderson, String Quartet No. 1 ("Light Music," U.S. premiere)
Library of Congress

PREVIOUSLY:
Charles T. Downey, JACK Quartet @ NGA (June 4, 2012)
Michael Lodico, Library of Congress Begins Carter Tribute (May 31, 2008)
---, Brentano's Late Style (May 3, 2008)

'Et in Arcadia ego': Adès on Mortality

T. Adès, Arcadiana (inter alia), Endellion Quartet

It was time last night for the first Musicians from Marlboro concert on the free concert series at the Freer Gallery of Art. Some of the most engaging performances (and their performers) are selected to be sent on tour around the country between summers, when the festival is held in Vermont. In the case of this program, featuring a piano trio and a string quartet that shared some members, it was almost certainly Arcadiana, a fascinating work for string quartet by British composer Thomas Adès, that was the reason for this program being sent on tour.

The most recent string quartet by Adès, Four Quarters from 2011, struck me as a major work when it was performed by the Arditti Quartet here last year. His first attempt in the genre, from 1994, was new to my ears in this performance, and it was perhaps more obtuse but just as fascinating to unravel. Adès has a way of eliciting unexpected sounds from instruments, often combining them in surprising ways, a talent that goes back at least as far as this work, completed when he was still in his early 20s. Glissandi and percussive barking attacks gave a growling, sometimes human vocal quality to many of the movements, with sounds like sighs in sliding pizzicato notes. He makes some outrageous demands on the players, like the flautando, ultra-high harmonics in the first violin in the second movement. This group -- violinists Scott St. John and Michelle Ross, violist Emily Deans, and cellist Matthew Zalkind -- does not perform regularly as a quartet, but the luxury of several summer weeks in Vermont made possible an astounding grasp of the work.

Adès took his title not just from Arcadia, the name of a region of Greece held up by classicizing scholars in the 17th and 18th centuries as the ideal location of a golden age of poetry. Adès references the painting by Poussin known as Et in Arcadia ego (at left), which explains much of what he is trying to do with the piece. The phrase "Et in Arcadia ego" goes back to a painting made by Guercino in 1621, and Poussin's famous variation on it in the same way shows shepherds discovering a tomb with the words as an epitaph. The meaning, as if spoken by the dead person -- or by Death itself -- is that death, too, is in Arcadia. As M. Owen Lee put it, in Death and Rebirth in Virgil's Arcadia: "Even in the enclosure where all is supposedly timeless happiness, death is present." Adès seemed to evoke this idea by quoting music -- a section of Mozart's Magic Flute, a Schubert song, Elgar's Nimrod variation -- well, really, processing more than quoting, as it often seemed to have gone through a food processor and was now a sort of sonic purée. For all of its quizzical effect, one was left with a feeling of nostalgia, as if to say that death has claimed all those composers, too, and perhaps even their music, one day, will ultimately die.

Other Reviews: Robert Battey, Music From Marlboro program returns to Freer Gallery (Washington Post, November 22)

The other three pieces on the program were far less extraordinary, both in terms of the music and the performance -- still pleasant, but there were no other real delights until the encore, which brought together all five musicians for the Scherzo movement of Dvořák's piano quintet. Beethoven's Variations for Piano Trio on Wenzel Müller's dippy song Ich bin der Schneider Kakadu, op. 121a, was a reminder of Beethoven's fondness for weaving great things from the humblest of fabric. Fauré's D minor piano trio (op. 120), completed in the year before the composer died, has pretty moments but is episodic and more than a little saccharine, especially given that it was composed almost a decade after Rite of Spring. Its third movement uses a short motif that is an (unintended?) quotation of the words "Ridi, Pagliaccio!" from Vesti la giubba, the famous aria in Leoncavallo's Pagliacci. In Mendelssohn's E minor string quartet (op. 44/2), all four musicians produced a beautiful tone and played with energy, if not always a taut sense of ensemble, but the result still felt a little sterile.

The other two Musicians from Marlboro concerts at the Freer are planned for the spring, on April 10 and May 10, 2014.

Kahane and Andres, Dual-Piano Act

T. Andres, Shy and Mighty, T. Andres and D. Kaplan (2010) G. Kahane, Where Are the Arms? (2011)

Gabriel Kahane's flexibility in the pop idiom, which he mixes with an interest in classical music old and contemporary, has made him the darling of many critics. The same is true of composer-pianist Timothy Andres, which made their dual appearance on the free concert series at the Library of Congress on Friday night something to hear, even if the appeal of their music has yet to sway me. The program they performed, with both of them playing piano and Kahane singing for some of the selections, mixed some examples of their own music with that of other composers, all of it brief. The central part of the concert, a series of very short pieces that Kahane described as a "live mix tape," was the sort of programming made to appeal to the iPod generation.

Kahane should be headlining a piano bar somewhere, the right kind of forum for his songwriting gifts. The excerpts from his Craigslistlieder were hilarious, the texts of personal ads fitted to equally ephemeral pop gestures in songs of great appeal. The same qualities were evident in other songs of a slightly more serious nature -- Merritt Parkway, North Adams, and Side Streets -- but this just does not feel like the sort of music that requires focused listening in silence. It is a special talent to be able to accompany oneself at the piano, but little about Kahane's performances of other music was extraordinary. The comparison is perhaps not fair, but we heard the four-hands arrangements of Bach included here, by György Kurtág, played with exceptional beauty by the Kurtágs themselves a few years ago. Kahane received his first musical training as a child chorister (he still had a pretty good boy treble hoot in Andrew Norman's Don't Even Listen), but he required a microphone even in the relatively small space of the Library's auditorium. His voice was a little rough and unsatisfactory for Benjamin Britten's gorgeous folk song arrangements from the 1940s and for a set of Ives songs.

Other Articles: Anne Midgette, Gabriel Kahane makes classical music jaunty, and, happily, no one seems to mind (Washington Post, April 8) ---, Gabriel Kahane, a genre bender musician (Washington Post, March 30) Zachary Woolfe, Gabriel Kahane Is a One-Man Cultural Cuisinart (New York Times, April 27, 2012

Andres made a more favorable impression as a pianist, with a retiring style at the keyboard -- twin Yamaha pianos were brought into the auditorium for the event -- but with plenty of flexibility and flair in his fingers. He was a suave accompanist in the Britten and Ives sets, and his charming way with the three Chopinesque Mazurkas by Thomas Adès (op. 27, 2009) was one of the evening's high points. Adès is a composer who has intrigued much more than either Andres or Kahane -- Andres himself has written that these pieces "are, I believe, the finest Mazurkas yet to be written in the 21st century" -- and if the Library of Congress is going to feature a living composer, I would frankly rather it be someone like him, or Georg Friedrich Haas, Lera Auerbach, or Kaija Saariaho, to name just a couple. When Andres played his own music at the piano, it most reminded me of Debussy, not always the harmonies, but the descriptive leanings: Pierrot on 88th Street like the Debussy prelude Minstrels, and Please Let Me Sleep, both from the collection It Takes a Long Time to Become a Good Composer. At the River was reminiscent of something an organist would improvise, harmonic block after harmonic block enlivened by figuration, capped by a quotation of Shall We Gather by the River in Messiaen-like extended chords.

The Library of Congress has an otherwise remarkable month in store, with concerts by harpsichordist Christophe Rousset (April 13), Stile Antico (April 17), and the Keller Quartet (April 18).

Inon Barnatan in WPAS Solo Debut

Darkeness Visible I. Barnatan (released on April 10, 2012) Avie AV2256 | 69'27"

Pianist Inon Barnatan gave his well-deserved Kennedy Center Terrace Theater solo debut Saturday afternoon, under the auspices of the Washington Performing Arts Society's Hayes Piano Series. Now in his early thirties, Barnatan is transitioning from first-call collaborative piano partner -- read: accompanist -- to first-call piano soloist. The first half of the program featured works based on poems, often contrasting light and dark. Barnatan prefers a wet sound with lots of pedal, and he is a master at building and maintaining resonance in his instrument. While this worked beautifully in the Prelude and rather dark-night-of-the-soul Clair de Lune from Debussy's Suite Bergamasque, a bit of dryness in the Menuet movement, akin to Walter Gieseking, would have been welcome.

The action onstage was not at the keyboard with the performer hitting notes, but from wide sound emanating from the length of the instrument. Barnatan's effortless technique was at the forefront of Ronald Stevenson's picturesque, then tragic Peter Grimes Fantasy. In this brief work, Stevenson has the performer rise over the instrument while holding the resonance of a chord with the damper pedal and hauntingly pluck a few strings by hand as if the instrument were a giant harp. After last month's Cage Festival, it was nice to see extended techniques used in such a magically musical way. Barnatan's lengthy verbal comments from the bench assisted the audience in comprehending the story of Aloysius Bertrand's poems, which inspired Ravel's Gaspard de la nuit. This explanation gave the listener the tools to decide for himself when the seductive water sprite gives an outpouring of laughter, or to imagine how the face of the bizarre goblin might look, walk, or even take flight.

Other Reviews: Charles T. Downey, Pianist Inon Barnatan’s intelligence, musicality impress at Kennedy Center (Washington Post, October 15) James McQuillen, Inon Barnatan distinguishes himself with delicate, powerful playing (The Oregonian, October 10, 2011)

The second half of the program comprised a deconstructed Dowland song -- Darknesse Visible by Ionarts favorite Thomas Adès -- and Schubert's monumental Sonata in A, D. 959. Barnatan is a fantastic Schubert interpreter who has even performed the Fantasy in C with violinist Liza Ferschtman from memory. The oldest and longest work on the program, the Schubert, was saved for last, and the key of A just might be the loveliest key imaginable for such long, lovely thoughts. The drawbacks of this performance were a number of split notes in the first movement, an over-the-top "mad" scene in the second movement that included some unwanted banging, an underwhelming tempo in the third movement (Scherzo: Allegro Vivace), and an overwhelming tempo in the final movement (Rondo: Allegretto). Barnatan seemed to portray the final movement's theme as folk-like, with a brisk tempo and bouncy repeated notes that detracted from its supreme elegance. Schubert's serene Impromptu in G-flat served as an encore to this thoughtful program by a most sincere artist.

The next major piano event in the WPAS classical series will feature András Schiff performing the second book of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier (October 30, 8 pm), at Strathmore.

Orchestral Works by Adès

T. Adès, Tevot / Concentric Paths (inter alia), Various Ensembles (released on March 23, 2010) EMI 4 57813 2 | 66'43"

Since hearing The Tempest, the recent opera by Thomas Adès, in Santa Fe, we have been impressed with the strength of the British composer's musical ideas. These four recent pieces give more reasons to admire his inventive orchestration: if none of them turns out to be a masterpiece, they are endlessly fun and varied listening. We heard Adès himself conduct his violin concerto ("Concentric Paths") with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra a couple years ago, with the same violinist, Anthony Marwood (who premiered the work), featured here in a worthy performance with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. The theme that links the three movements is circular motion, leading Adès toward a sort of minimalist style, using motoric repetition in overlapping cycles or phases. The same ensemble also offers a minor work worth hearing, Three Studies from Couperin, a 2006 adaptation of three of François Couperin's keyboard pieces (Les amusemens, Les Tours de passe-passe, and L'Âme-en-peine), reconceived for orchestra as music that somehow remains Couperin but becomes thoroughly modern in color. For example, the first movement, cast as a sort of wheezy old squeezebox, just runs out of power and slows almost to a complete halt in an extreme, drawn-out rallentando Adès added; the second spins in a sort of Coplandesque Shaker dance, with the embellishments on the repeats allowing Adès to explode the original reserved orchestration from within.

Last year Hannu Lintu led a performance of the Overture, Waltz, and Finale from Powder Her Face with the National Symphony Orchestra, an augmented version of those three parts of the composer's first opera, on the scandalous life of the Duchess of Argyll. The performance on this disc, by the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, is the least polished of the three ensembles featured here, but something about the slightly slipshod exuberance of the performance suits the boozy humor of these fizzy, jazz-filled episodes. The main work on the disc, a single-movement tone poem called Tevot, reached my ears for the first time in this gargantuan performance by the Berlin Philharmonic under Simon Rattle. The title is taken from the Hebrew word for 'ark,' and Adès has said that the image that he had in mind was of the earth floating through space as an ark for humankind. As such it is a sort of post-Straussian exploration of the massiveness of space, with the orchestra deployed to circumscribe something infinite. Hints of Britten's sea interludes in Peter Grimes are heard here and there, but much of the language, especially exploiting treble and bass extremes, is now easily thought of as pure Adès. It is a grand, calamitous noise.

Contemporary English Music

This review is an Ionarts exclusive.

Composer Tarik O'Regan

One week ago, the Evolution Contemporary Music Series presented a program titled Across the Pond, featuring works by Knussen, Harvey, Birtwistle, Adès, and a world premiere by Peabody professor Oscar Bettison. The Evolution Series uses the intimate space of Baltimore’s An Die Musik LIVE!, where instead of cramped seating, rows of pink overstuffed chairs help create the intimate atmosphere of a salon. Evolution Series director Judah Adashi mentioned that English contemporary music, as with its predecessors, characteristically calls for a high degree of quiet introspection, making this venue particularly well suited for this program. To set the mood, Vaughan Williams’s instrospective Fantasia on a Theme by Tallis was quietly piped through onstage speakers prior to the performance.

The program began austerely with Tarik O’Regan’s Darkness Visible (2008) for countertenor, tenor, and harp, which features repeated harp motifs, played by Jacqueline Pollauf, along with carefully framed dissonances from the singers, Curtis Adamson and Deven Mercer. Pianist Timothy Hoft’s objective approach to performing new music was especially successful: by treating Oliver Knussen’s Variations, op. 24 (1989), as uncomplicated, Hoft allowed the work to be perceived as equally rhythmic, harmonic, and (importantly) pianistic. Though intriguing on many levels by the set of variations, most of the audience – including your reviewer – likely missed its actual theme. The first half of the program concluded with a stage occupied solely by speakers projecting Jonathan Harvey's Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco (1980), an eerily playful composition with spontaneous dynamic shifts able to lull the listener into a calm trance with tones at times resembling church bells and boy choristers, then turning to expectedly shake one into rapt attention.

Hoft opened the second half of the program with Harrison Birtwistle’s first movement of Harrison’s Clocks (1998). Again, Hoft’s precise control of dynamics and quiet approach to the keyboard with a perfect technique led to a beautiful automatic sense of music making in a work that used the highest note on the piano and resembled something like a mix of the Prokofiev Toccata and a microprocessor. The world premiere of Oscar Bettison's (b. 1975) experimental Neolithic Airs (2008) for solo violin (Courtney Orlando) with each string tuned to ‘D’ drew much excitement from the audience, primarily made up of Peabody students enthusiastic for their faculty member's piece. Due to the different tensions on each string tuned to the same pitch, each contained a unique timbre, which Bettison exploited by having the violinist repeat the same note on different strings that created an effect of multiple instruments. Some sounds were nearly painful to hear, grating, and yet absolutely purposeful, particularly Orlando’s experimental technique of descending clusters of non-vibrating harmonic bow circles in “Otherworldly,” the work’s last movement.

The program concluded with Thomas Adès' Darknesse Visible (1992) for piano (Stefan Petrov) -- Baltimore readers may recall the Baltimore Symphony’s presentation of Adès works a few years back. Adès created a vast 3-D sonic scape by having the pianist, with pedal down, play repeated notes high and low that later became clusters. He additionally teases the listener with hints at formal harmony while carefully controlling the decay of the layers of sound created.

The compelling Evolution Contemporary Music Series will present two more programs this season.

Christopher O'Riley at Wolf Trap

We welcome this review from guest contributor Anne Marie McMahon.

The Barns at Wolf Trap, with a stage set against bare wooden beams, was an appropriate venue for a piano recital by Christopher O'Riley, on Saturday night, that mixed classical tradition with repertoire rooted in the vernacular. Reflections of that unusual melange were visible even in the dressy attire paired with blue jeans, of the audience and O'Riley alike. The majority of O'Riley's program showcased his own works -- "re-imaginings" of Radiohead, Elliot Smith, Portishead, Nirvana, Tears for Fears, Pink Floyd, and Tori Amos. Lasting approximately two hours, including three encores, his program interspersed classical works, including Scriabin's Vers la Flamme and the first movement of Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit, with the popular music arrangements.

The oldest song to find its way onto the program was titled Darknesse Visible, a virtuosic adaptation by Thomas Adès of a John Dowland song. Noting the melancholic nature of the original song, O'Riley humorously dubbed Dowland "the Robert Smith of the 1610s." More than once O'Riley proceeded straight from a classical work to a transcription, or vice-versa, without taking a break for applause, creating a pairing effect that left mysterious and undefined the relationships between the two works. O'Riley sometimes engaged the audience between pieces, providing both insight about the repertoire and anecdotes to provide comic relief. A "Steinway person," he praised warmly the Yamaha piano on which he performed. The piano certainly returned the compliment, despite the damp turn of weather, accommodating his pool of musical tone colors, of which there were hundreds. On one hand, the gossamer trill fluttering throughout Darknesse Visible tested the extreme sensitivity of the instrument, while the "jangly" chords in the abyssal registers of Nirvana's Heart Shaped Box (see video embedded below) were shocking in their explosive force.

Other Reviews: Robert Battey, O'Riley offers questionable crossover at Wolf Trap (Washington Post, October 19)

Some have found that O'Riley's transcriptions played seriatim give an unattractive sense of sameness, but that complaint rings false in this reviewer's experience. Each work opened up a new world, and whether or not I recognized the original song, I was drawn into each work with a sense of discovery. Most pieces contained complex textures and strenuous passagework for both hands. Remarkably, O'Riley played all of the pieces with focused, often driving energy, which was impressive given the enormity of the program.

The next pianist scheduled to play at Wolf Trap is Haochen Zhang (November 13, 8 pm), gold medalist at this year's Van Cliburn Competition.

'Tempest' on CD

Adès, The Tempest, S. Keenlyside, C. Sieden, I. Bostridge, K. Royal, T. Spence, P. Langridge, Covent Garden, T. Adès (released on June 30, 2009) EMI 50999 6 95234 2 7

At the American premiere of The Tempest, the appealing new opera by Thomas Adès, I wrote at some length about its strengths and weaknesses as it was presented at Santa Fe Opera (follow the links in the right column of that review for the related posts). One performance of the world premiere production, at Covent Garden in 2004, was recorded for a BBC broadcast, but an indisposed Ian Bostridge had to be replaced for that performance. The official word from EMI is that a DVD of the opera is not planned, for now at least. What is finally available is this two-CD set, recorded over two evenings at the 2007 revival of the opera at Covent Garden. As well as providing me a chance to become more familiar with what is, to my ears, one of the most successful and worthy new operas of the last 20 years, the recording opens a different window on the work. Most of the original cast appeared again at this revival: of the six principals, only Kate Royal did not create her role (Miranda -- it was Christine Rice in 2004), although the supporting cast was completely different at the premiere. Unlike the Santa Fe performance, the composer himself is at the podium, which can only heighten one's interest.

The sounds of stage movement, occasional odd balances and vocal blemishes, and audience noise are an unfortunate fact of live recording. Toby Spence, who does beautiful, lyrical things with the role of Ferdinand, has admitted that, at first, many of the singers who created the opera were not sure that what Adès intended for them to do was even possible. This is especially true of the outrageous role for the air spirit Ariel, so memorably created in a frothy, even at times squeaky -- entirely otherworldly -- way by fearless soprano Cyndia Sieden. Hearing her live was a heart-stopping experience, something that is not possible to capture in recording. The monster Caliban had similar challenges, with some of the extremely high notes rendered in an almost hissing falsetto by Ian Bostridge. The one slightly weak link in the Santa Fe cast was Prospero, here sung with magisterial authority by the role's creator, Simon Keenlyside, who will reportedly also take the role in the production of The Tempest planned for the fall of 2012 at the Metropolitan Opera, with (one can only hope) a DVD to follow. As good as it would be to have a studio recording of better quality for this gorgeous opera, it is unlikely to happen anytime soon.

117'24"

NSO Powders Its Face

Conductor Hannu Lintu

The folks at Detritus Review do not generally like critics to make this observation, but there had to be some connection between this week's 20th-century program from the National Symphony Orchestra and the paltry audience in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall on Friday night. Conservative listeners can latch onto certain names in a program and decide that this is the week to stay home. That's a shame, because it was one of the best programs heard from the NSO in quite some time -- they are on a roll this month -- full of unexpected delights and references to American popular music. Any program that combines two works never before played by the orchestra with two pieces last performed over a decade ago presents a welcome change to these ears.

The adventurous program was apparently already in place when rising Chinese-American conductor Xian Zhang, a protegée of Lorin Maazel's at the New York Philharmonic, was slated for the podium. Zhang withdrew from these concerts, due to "the need to extend maternity leave" according to the Kennedy Center Web site, but her appearances in January and February have included guest spots with the Dresden Staatskapelle and the Orchestra of St. Luke's at Carnegie Hall. The NSO was able to keep the program intact by bringing in Hannu Lintu, the 40-something Finnish maestro who will take over as Chief Conductor of the Tampere Philharmonic this fall, as Zhang's replacement. He is apparently a quick study and, in fact, just conducted one of the works on the program, the Divertimento arrangement from Stravinsky's Le baiser de la fée, last week with the Houston Symphony.

The Divertimento, drawn from Stravinsky's attempt to compose a Tchaikovsky ballet for Ida Rubinstein's new ballet company, received the strongest performance. My aversion to Tchaikovsky's music can be lessened if it is conducted in as clear-cut and non-soupy way as possible: in short, if you conduct Tchaikovsky as if it were actually Stravinsky, which is what the Divertimento is (Stravinsky used scraps of Tchaikovsky scores as the basis for his music), it really works. The ensemble was extremely tight, with memorable sounds from the low winds and brass in the heavy-footed Dances suisses section and a lustrous, long-lined solo from Principal Cellist David Hardy, over bell-like harp accompaniment, in the pastoral final movement. At times Stravinsky's mimicry is truly startling, as in the Scherzo, whose enigmatic chords create as menacing a feel for the eponymous fairy as anything in Sleeping Beauty.

Other Reviews: Robert Battey, From the NSO, an Unbalancing Act (Washington Post, February 27)

The most exciting work on the program, one of those debuted by the NSO this week, was the Overture, Waltz, and Finale from Powder Her Face by the accomplished British composer Thomas Adès. This opera on the scandalous life of the Duchess of Argyll relies on snippets of American jazz to evoke the subject's posh life in the 1950s and 60s, from a trashy tango and boozy, Gershwinesque standard (after too much gin) in the overture to the swing strains run through a musical blender in the finale. The middle movement, a waltz of brittle sounds from staccato flutes and piccolo, harp, pizzicato strings, and the clatter of metallic percussion like dropped utensils in a hotel kitchen, showed again how the composer of The Tempest is a masterful orchestrator. Here, in the shifting accents of that waltz, Lintu seemed less sure-handed, but the impression of a performance just at the edge of his control only furthered the impression of a life teetering at the brink.

Popular music also was prominently featured in the Suite from Kurt Weill's Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny, with the strains of Whiskey Bar and the sentimental Moon of Alabama featured prominently. As you may recall, the Los Angeles Opera's new DVD of the full opera won a Grammy earlier this month. It is a work that could be rather unlikeable if it were not for all the memorable and fun music, and especially the guest players on saxophones, guitar, and banjo made this performance pleasing. Least satisfying of all was the generally toneless, scratchy performance of Stravinsky's violin concerto, in which the orchestra often overpowered the solo part of Gil Shaham. The work's neoclassical asperity can make it difficult listening, which was made worse by Shaham's often dodgy intonation high on the E string and in the many harmonics and multiple stops, especially in the first two movements. The Coplandesque dance-like gait of the conclusion was better but ultimately the performance did not convince. That is no reason, however, not to take advantage of the chance to hear this daring program for yourself, at the final performance tonight at 8.

After a couple of weeks off, the NSO returns next month with pianist Jonathan Biss and conductor Herbert Blomstedt in a program of Brucker's ninth symphony and Mozart's 27th piano concerto (March 19 to 21).

Adès Leads the BSO

Thomas Adès, composer (b. 1971)

We have been generally impressed by the music of British composer Thomas Adès, from his piano music to his unforgettable recent opera, The Tempest. For a composer not yet 40, he has received some heady accolades, and his turn at the podium of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra was one of the more keenly anticipated events on my calendar this month. During the Saturday night performance at Strathmore, Adès confirmed those expectations, not only with his new violin concerto but with some dashing and sharply etched Beethoven. It fell to Adès to notch off the last two symphonies in the BSO's Beethoven cycle before Marin Alsop concludes the season, predictably, with the Ninth Symphony (June 19 to 22).

The orchestra was reduced to classical proportions for the Beethoven, with a compact assortment of strings (with concertmaster Jonathan Carney away this week, associate concertmaster Madeline Adkins took his place). The pairs of winds and timpani were separated by a short distance at the back (of course, the arrangement may not have been decided by Adès). Adès' precise, jumpy style of gesture is part of how he uses his body as an expressive device, sometimes lunging, twisting, hunching down. With a careful control of the relative weight of each section, Adès allowed the wind solos or accents to be heard and marshaled those reserve resources for booming crescendi. The first symphony had a balletic slow movement, emphasizing the con moto over the cantabile, and a decidedly scherzo-like menuetto with parallels to the rhythmic distortions in triple meter heard later in the Eroica. Although underplayed, the first is an impressive achievement for the 30-year-old Beethoven, with many nods to symphonic tradition and just as many hints of more ground-breaking changes to come.

Other Articles: Anne Midgette, The BSO, Awkward Now and Then (Washington Post, May 17) Tim Smith, Beethoven frames Ades' rich concerto (Baltimore Sun, May 17) Molly Sheridan, Composer Thomas Adès, Trading Pen for Baton In BSO Performances (Washington Post, May 15)

The playing of the BSO continues to excel, with only a horn slip here and there and an early trumpet entrance to criticize. If the first was welcome, the fourth symphony, reserved for the second half, is my personal favorite of the less-played corners of the Beethoven corpus. After a gloomy Adagio introduction, the first movement was fleetly paced, with that same control of dynamics underscored by the reinforcing tone of the trumpet. Adès torqued up a sense of tension leading to the recapitulation by extending the muted rolls on the timpani. The second movement seemed overly agitated, as Adès insisted repeatedly on a restless edge to the driving accompanying motif in the second violins. He slowed down to something closer to the right tempo at times, especially to luxuriate in exposed wind passages, including a particularly fine high clarinet solo. In the closing measures of a joyfully relentless fourth movement, Adès prolonged the solo lines that delay the triumphant conclusion (in the score those lines are not marked with any tempo change, although they are set off from one another by fermatas).

The centerpiece of the evening was a new violin concerto by Adès, op. 24, given the title Concentric Paths. Premiered in Berlin in 2005, the work is a flirtation with minimalism, or at least with the technique of motoric repetition in overlapping cycles or phases. The first movement, Rings, opens with an oscillating motif and is oriented toward the treble colors, with some tinkling percussion that briefly reminded me of the Banquet scene from The Tempest. British violinist Anthony Marwood, who also plays as part of the Florestan Trio, assayed the solo part's stratospheric challenges with the ease one would expect from the musician who premiered the work. In the weighty second movement, Paths, a spiraling series of chords cycled its way through the orchestra, weaving around the solo line, with the menace of bass trombone, tuba, and double bass and the dull thud of pitchless percussion. The third movement, Rounds, had the feel of a cross-footed bossa nova. It was not what one might call a masterpiece, but it would be worth hearing again.

Next weekend, the BSO will focus on the music of Gershwin (May 22 to 24), with Marin Alsop back at the podium. Jean-Yves Thibaudet will play both the Concerto in F and the original orchestration of Rhapsody in Blue, made for the Paul Whiteman Band. Throw in Ravel's Tombeau de Couperin for good measure.

Thomas Adès at Présences Festival

We are fans of Thomas Adès at Ionarts, after hearing his opera The Tempest in Santa Fe, as well as some of his piano music played by Louis Lortie. This month the 30-something British composer is being honored at the 17th Présences Festival in Paris (recent honorees include Krzysztof Penderecki, in 2006, and Marc-André Dalbavie, in 2005). An article by Pierre Gervasoni (Thomas Adès, jeune tête d'affiche du festival Présences, February 9) for Le Monde has the details (my translation):

Who is Thomas Adès really? This Englishman is one of the headliners of the 17th edition of the Présences Festival, whose average age he has lowered considerably, from February 9 to March 4 at Radio France. Born in 1971, Adès has dominated, for more than a decade, the racetrack of contemporary music as composer and performer. The young composer refuses to give any interviews. His work is published by two companies (Faber for score and EMI for recordings) that hold exclusive contracts. So, it is only through his music that one can hear Thomas Adès' voice. Or rather his voices, so much does the composer's style change from work to work. Not through militant eclecticism, but as a way of finding in each case the appropriate form of expression for a specific project. In this sense, Adès represents the archetype of today's composer, precocious, brilliant, prolific, and more concerned with serving an idea promptly than a cause globally. [...]

At the heart of Adès' already full catalogue is Powder Her Face (1995), the first of his two operas, which drew attention to the English prodigy, not always for strictly musical reasons. Based on the true story of the Duchess of Argyll, whose sexual escapades shocked the world, this stage work as licentious in its libretto (which requires the lead female role to intone an air "with mouth closed" because it simulates fellatio) as by its instrumentation (rich in accessories like fishing rod reels) sums up the problem with this composer without ever answering it, while always whispering into the listener's ear: who is Thomas Adès really?

The program has more music by Thomas Adès than you could shake a stick at, much of it with Adès conducting or playing the piano. Ah, France.

Ionarts in Santa Fe: The Tempest Revisited

This is a follow-up to my review of The Tempest (2004), an opera by Thomas Adès, now in its American premiere at Santa Fe Opera. These remarks are based on a second hearing of the work last night.

New Mexico has been having a strange summer, at least in comparison to recent ones. My memory of previous summer visits has been of bone dryness, to the point that it took several days for my eyes to adapt to the lack of humidity and not feel like they were going to dry up and turn to dust. Family members here assure me that this is normally the "monsoon season" in northern New Mexico, meaning that there are regular spells of rain, usually in the afternoon. The mountains divide up the area into small microclimates, and we can often see from one place rain falling on another place. On the way down to the Santa Fe Opera last night, for the second performance of The Tempest, I saw seven separate rainbows shimmering over small storms, through none of which my car actually passed. I am sorry to report that it is very difficult for an amateur to take a digital photograph of a rainbow, especially from a car pulled over to the side of a freeway.

Fellow Washingtonians, there is another reason that I love to leave the District of Columbia for New Mexico this time of year, and that is the cool, dry nights wearing a jacket to stay warm in the Crosby Theater. After several episodes of drenching rain near where I am staying, I was hoping that the New Mexico climate would oblige the premiere of The Tempest with a thunderstorm. Alas, it was not to be, although there were a few flashes of lightning in the distance. Last night, that wish came true, and most members of the audience took their seats a little soggy from a cloudburst that hovered over Tesuque for most of the evening. At the moment that the pre-curtain announcement ended, the traditional reminder to turn off cell phones and pagers was punctuated with a flash of lightning and rumble of thunder, followed by a nervous twitter of audience laughter. In spite of the nuisance of rain at intermission, the mild storm added a perfect atmospheric background.

Rod Gilfry as Prospero and Cyndia Sieden as Ariel, "Farewell to Ariel," The Tempest, Santa Fe Opera, set and costumes designed by Paul Brown, photo by Ken Howard © 2006

After a second listening, none of the opinions I expressed in my review, positive and negative, have changed. It is an exquisite opera, one that I expect to listen to many more times when a recording and/or DVD becomes available. I noticed more of the details, spending some time looking at the instrumentation in the orchestra pit: heavy on the bass (two bassoons and contrabassoon) and the treble and metallic (flute, piccolo, harp, celesta, glockenspiel, piano). There was even a rather large tree branch in the percussion section, meant to be shaken, I guess, or perhaps rustled over a snare drum. Hopefully some day, Ionarts will be so famous that opera houses will let me sit in the orchestra pit one night.

The other thing that has been rumbling around in the back of my brain was a comment that Adès made at the symposium I attended. He said that he used 18th-century music as a model for the music of The Court in the opera. In particular, he had Baroque dance music in mind, I think, music that for one page, as he put it, sets a mood and then on the next page there is a completely different mood. I am working on a theory about Shakespeare's play The Tempest, that it could actually be about a court ballet, or masque, as they were called in England. In fact, Louis XIII and Louis XIV both hosted any number of court ballets, in which the guests were given costumes and masks and the whole court pretended to be in an imaginary world, often on an enchanted island. During the period of the entertainment, often just a day but up to as many as three days, all sorts of things could happen and all bets were off.

The time of the first performance of Shakespeare's play is thought to be in 1611. Shakespeare was certainly familiar with the court masque, since at this time Ben Jonson was the principal author of masques in the English court. In fact, in 1616, Jonson created a masque at Whitehall, which was attended by Pocahontas (see this post for more information). The theme of colonialism now usually analyzed in The Tempest (Caliban claims to be king of the island that Prospero rules as overlord by his superior power) has an alluring source in that occasion. In fact, I wonder if the Jamestown settlement was at all in Shakespeare's mind as he wrote The Tempest. He apparently had read some accounts of shipwrecks on Caribbean islands.

Ionarts in Santa Fe: The Tempest

Also on Ionarts: Ionarts in Santa Fe: The Tempest Revisited (August 3, 2006) More on "The Tempest" (July 30, 2006) The Tempest (July 29, 2006) Preview: Santa Fe Opera, Summer 2006 (July 19, 2006) Other Reviews: Craig Smith, Ades brings telling sea change to 'Tempest' (Santa Fe New Mexican, July 31) [The cranky comments on this article are not to be believed.--Ed.] J. A. Van Sant, Strong Tempest at Santa Fe (Opera Today, July 31) Scott Cantrell, New take on 'The Tempest' (Dallas Morning News, August 4) James R. Oestreich, Santa Fe Opera Offers Love on a Stormy Island (New York Times, August 5) Joshua Kosman, Thomas Adès' American premiere of 'Tempest' opera is a magical marvel of sound (San Francisco Chronicle, August 5)

The plays of Shakespeare may seem like the perfect sort of dramatic work for operatic adaptation, with memorable characters, moments of grand expression, and marvelous scope of setting. There are basically two models for past success: Verdi's late masterpieces, which are distant from their sources because the libretti are in Italian; and Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream, the best example of a Shakespeare opera in English, which uses the original text almost verbatim. The main drawback in The Tempest, the 2004 opera by British composer Thomas Adès, is that it is in English, but the retelling of the story in simpler language reads and sounds sadly like Shakespeare's homespun cousin. After a few days before the first performance of the opera, now in its American premiere at Santa Fe Opera, spent reading and studying Shakespeare's play again, the lightly rhymed, short-lined libretto by Meredith Oakes was a disappointment.

Shakespeare's play is a confusing aesthetic experience. It is a complicated story that does not necessarily leave you with any clear message. By removing its subtleties, the libretto also bleaches out most of the interest. You will not recognize Shakespeare's characters in the operatic version. Prospero is no longer the omnipotent thaumaturge: in Shakespeare, he directs Ariel to bring Ferdinand and his daughter, Miranda, together and is happy to see love blossom between them, having already announced his plan to see his child married to the son of his mortal enemy. In the opera, Prospero is helpless to stop the two young people from falling in love, and it seems to be against his plans.

Ariel is not explicitly a male spirit, but the possessive pronoun applied by Shakespeare is "his" instead of "her," while Adès and Oakes cast Ariel as one of the most striking coloratura roles ever conceived for the stage. The host of other spirits in the masque scenes of Shakespeare's plays almost disappear in the opera, to be replaced by a chorus identified as "The Court," a host of well-heeled people who land on the island with Antonio, Sebastian, and Gonzalo. The opera enhances the roles of Prospero's enemies, while diminishing the characters at the center of the play. Nothing happens in Shakespeare's play without being part of Prospero's ultimate plan, while in the opera the action seems to overwhelm Prospero, leaving Ariel and Caliban the apparent victors, in possession of the island.

The Tempest, Santa Fe Opera, set and costumes designed by Paul Brown, photo by Ken Howard © 2006

Nevertheless, while I think that there are better ways to adapt The Tempest as an opera, Adès has composed something that deserves to be remembered, recorded, and performed widely. The score is paced very well, never dragging and always creating interest for the listener. Each act is more or less one continuous scene, although there are a few sections we might call arias and ensemble pieces that are set off by changes in style. At the symposium I attended on the morning of the premiere, the moderator asked Adès if he was most attracted by or sympathized with any one particular musical style or –ism; he paused for a well-timed moment, leaning toward the microphone, and said very dryly and to much laughter, "No." The Tempest veers between thorny dissonance (in the opening storm scene) and lush consonance (Ariel's agonizingly beautiful aria "Five fathoms down"), between contrapuntal complexity (the Act III sextet) and diaphanous orchestration (the clanging, sonorous masque scene). One could suggest similarities with the work of other composers, but this young composer (b. 1971) has found a unique voice, making such comparisons beside the point.

Director Jonathan Kent and set/costume designer Paul Brown wanted to flood the orchestra pit, a plan that was, wisely, not approved. They did incorporate a small pool of water at the front of the stage. In the dissonant eponymous storm that begins the opera, the chorus members of the Court rise up from an opening and pass through the pool, walking like zombies out of the water and across the yellow sand of the island. The basic set does not change through the opera's three acts, a raked island covered with yellow material that shines brightly under the lights. Several trap doors allow characters to sink into the island, as if in quicksand, or rise out of it, as Ariel does on a ladder. A large, leafless tree grows from the upstage corner, where Ariel and Prospero often hover over the proceedings. The costumes play with the juxtaposition of the desert island fantasy world with modern reality. The members of the Court look more or less like the British royal family and retinue. Ariel, spirit of the air, is a blue-plumed bird, and Caliban's "costume" consists mostly of a few splashes of mud.

Toby Spence as Ferdinand and Patricia Risley as Miranda, The Tempest, Santa Fe Opera, set and costumes designed by Paul Brown, photo by Ken Howard © 2006

Certainly, the triumph of this opera is the role of Ariel, an insanely strenuous use of the coloratura, truly birdlike, and not only in limited sections but with terrifying consistency. Toby Spence confided that many of the singers who created the opera were not sure that what Adès intended was even possible. The remarkable soprano Cyndia Sieden, reprising the role in Santa Fe after a triumphant premiere in London, arrived at a most satisfying approach, which involves a lightness that captures Ariel's inhuman quality. Quite rightly, she received the loudest ovation at the curtain call, and I found myself longing for her next entrance and shaking my head in admiration when she finished yet another incredible performance. Here she was directed to emphasize the avian nature of the role, made clear by her bright, lovely costume.

Cyndia Sieden as Ariel, The Tempest, Santa Fe Opera, costume designed by Paul Brown, photo by Ken Howard © 2006

No one in the cast was anything less than good. Special mention must be made of William Ferguson, who had the unfortunate task of stepping into Ian Bostridge's shoes in the role of Caliban. He excelled as the pathetic, earthly monster that Adès and Oakes made of Caliban, evoking an otherworldly delight in the final scene of the opera, as Ariel echoed from the wings his plaintive calls over the empty island. Toby Spence and Patricia Risley were a handsome couple as Ferdinand and Miranda, both physically and vocally, the unity of the pair represented in the closeness of their ranges. Bass Wilbur Pauley (Stefano) and countertenor David Hansen (Trinculo) made a charming Mutt and Jeff, distanced as they were in range, as the pair of clowns. The valiant Rod Gilfry seemed to struggle the most as Prospero, both with the numerous high-range demands of the role as well as the strain of being on stage and singing for so much of the opera. Santa Fe Opera music director Alan Gilbert conducted the fine orchestral ensemble, which after a slightly rocky start in the tempest scene (with percussion and other parts not quite lining up rhythmically), played very well. The strength of Thomas Adès, in my opinion, is his magical use of the orchestra to evoke countless colors and timbres, with a special favoring of glassy string chords, tinkly percussion, and the rumbling bluster of low instruments like the contrabassoon and low brass, which now and then poke their massive, mossy heads out of the orchestra.

The Santa Fe Opera has scheduled only three more performances of The Tempest, on August 2, 11, and 17. I will hear the first of those, but if I were in New Mexico through the end of August, I would be happy to hear all of them.