Lawrence Brownlee, classical voice

Donizetti & Bellini: Allegro io son, L. Brownlee, Kaunas City Symphony, Kaunas State Choir, C. Orbelian (2016)

The Kennedy Center is skewing toward more popular forms of entertainment. It has turned out to be the hallmark of the tenure of the organization's new president, Deborah Rutter. In a formula familiar from many concert presenters, Renée Fleming has been called in to offer some star advice, for a set of concerts unimaginatively called "Renée Fleming VOICES." (Capital letters make it different!) The new series kicked off with its sole classical performance, by tenor Lawrence Brownlee. The rest of the season features jazz, musical theater, and cabaret.

It always takes my ears a few moments to adjust to the active vibrato in Brownlee's voice. Not unpleasant in any way, it is a prominent flutter, tightly coiled, but after some time passes my ear adjusts to it and can still perceive the center of the pitch. True to form Brownlee's strongest work came in arias from bel canto operas. Brownlee hit the first big high notes of the evening in "Seul sur la terre," from Donizetti's Dom Sébastien, Roi de Portugal. That vibrato, among other advantages, gives a high-energy buzz to Brownlee's notes off the top of the staff, which do not sound floated, in the sense that there is intensity and effort in them. This was more apparent in the even higher notes in "Terra amica," from Rossini's Zelmira, which was truly thrilling as Brownlee showed off the virtuosity of his runs and top notes. A close second was the closing set of spirituals, in classic arrangements by H. T. Burleigh.

A set of Strauss songs was more successful than seemed likely given Brownlee's strengths. The German diction was not always clear but especially in subtle songs like "Breit' über mein Haupt" he brought the same silky clarity and gentle phrasing that make his bel canto singing so pretty. With "Morgen" and "Die Nacht" pianist Justina Lee, for much of the evening merely a competent accompanist, was integral to the beauty of the performance. Finally with "Cäcilie," both artists cranked up the excitement for the song's dramatic climax, which was thrilling. An opening set of Liszt songs, some of which were heard more beautifully from Angela Meade in August, impressed less. With all due respect to i nostri amici italiani, if I never hear a set of these Italian art songs again for a decade, that would be fine by me. All was forgiven, however, by the choice of encore, a plangent rendition of Donizetti's Una furtiva lagrima.

The best news of the evening is that the Kennedy Center has fixed the buzzing sound that plagued concerts in the Family Theater earlier in the fall. The sound, something like a vibrating light fixture, was absent on Tuesday evening, although there was still just a whisper of unwelcome noise, perhaps from the ventilation system.

Lawrence Brownlee stars in Washington National Opera's upcoming production of Donizetti's La Fille du Régiment (November 12 to 20, but in only five of the eight performances), in the Kennedy Center Opera House.

At Washington Classical Review

Charles T. Downey, Washington Concert Opera marks 30 years with a bel canto feast (Washington Classical Review, September 19)

---, Critic’s Choice for 2016-17 season (Washington Classical Review, September 13)

Ionarts in Santa Fe: Angela Meade

The Festival of Song series from Performance Santa Fe continued on Sunday afternoon. Although she is not featured on the Santa Fe Opera season this summer, soprano Angela Meade is in town, and her recital at the Santa Fe Scottish Rite Center was an affair not to be missed. Since Meade is not singing opera here this year, series director and accompanist Joe Illick allowed as how she could sing some opera arias along with the art songs.

Meade's is not a voice naturally suited to the more rarefied demands of art song. Two simple and slow songs by Bellini, Vaga luna and Ma rendi pur contento, were pretty but bordering on nondescript. In other cases, like Strauss's Zueignung, she just did not need the sort of vocal power applied to the music. These were only minor flaws in what was an intense, almost overwhelming recital that reinforced the preeminence of this extraordinarily gifted soprano. Meade brought subtlety to Liszt's song Oh! quand je dors, with a pearly control of her diminuendo and a longing turn of phrase in the memorable final phrase. At the keyboard Illick was right on the money in following Meade's twists and turns of rubato, and his left hand provided plenty of dynamic drive in larger songs like Liszt's Enfant, si j'étais roi.

In songs and especially opera arias where more squillo was needed, Meade excelled, the power of her voice and plenteous breath support like a thrilling electric surge. The restlessness of Strauss's Cäcilie, the soaring high parts of Korngold's Mariettas Lied, the soaring conclusion of Strauss's Zueignung -- all hit the right mark. When composers drew on the strengths of a voice like hers, it was the best of all, as in the intense crescendo and diminuendo at the opening of Pace, pace, mio Dio, from Verdi's La forza del destino, and especially the shrieked curses at the end of that piece ("Maledizione!"). Ebben?...Ne andrò lontana from Catalani's La Wally, music used to such memorable effect in Jean-Jacques Beineix's crazy 80s film Diva, made for an equally exciting conclusion. Most sopranos who sing Victor Herbert's Art Is Calling for Me (I Want to Be a Prima Donna) as an encore would get an Ionarts Eye-Roll Award, but Meade has earned it.

The next concert in the Festival of Song series will feature soprano Leah Crocetto (August 4, 4 pm), sadly after my departure from Santa Fe.

Lawrence Brownlee Returns to Wolf Trap

Rossini, Virtuoso Arias, L. Brownlee, Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra, C. Orbelian (Delos, 2014)

The last time that Lawrence Brownlee returned to his old stomping ground at Wolf Trap Opera, to help celebrate the company's 40th anniversary, he sang to his strengths, in Italian bel canto opera. When the American tenor appeared on Friday night, for the latest in the series of Wolf Trap alumni recitals on Friday night, the repertory was Italian, but less challenging and, frankly, less interesting art songs that paled in comparison. On the other hand, one can understand Brownlee's decision to take it easy on himself, as he is in the midst of preparations to reprise the role of Charlie Parker in Philadephia Opera's new opera Yardbird, this weekend in New York.

Anyone who has ever taken voice lessons, including yours truly, has sung at least one of the first four songs on this program, working from Schirmer's classic collection of Twenty-Four Italian Songs and Arias. They are sturdy, overdone pieces, hardly scintillating fare, and Brownlee did nothing to make them stand out in any particular way, reinforcing my impression that he is not really a natural recitalist. His busily intense vibrato went a little haywire on the first one, Torelli's Tu lo sai, although that may have just been nerves, since in other slow pieces, like Scarlatti's O cessate di piagarmi, the vibrato was less noticeable. As in his opera repertory, he excels in fast pieces with lots of runs, so Legrenzi's Che fiero costume was better suited to him, although Rossini's careening La Danza posed some challenges to his accompanist, company director Kim Pensinger Witman, although in all other respects, she was a sensitive musical partner, as always.

Other Reviews: Joan Reinthaler, Here’s why Lawrence Brownlee is a rising opera star (Washington Post, March 29) Peter Benecke, Stunning Brownlee Recital in Weill Capped by High C's (Classical Sonoma, March 11)

High notes, for which Brownlee is renowned, were few and far between, starting with a high A in a lovely rendition of Bellini's Malinconia, Ninfa gentile and even higher in Rossini's La lontananza. He took his time phrasing the delicately sad lines of Bellini's La Ricordanza, reworked by the composer from the soprano aria Qui la voce in I Puritani, and in Rossini's L'esule, with the beautiful refrain "ma questo suol non è la Patria mia" (but this soil is not my Fatherland). Brownlee is working on a crossover album of popular song favorites, which he tried out for the first time in the second half of this recital (not reviewed). While I would have welcomed another listening to Brownlee's Gospel arrangements instead, this set did not yet sound quite fully formed.

Capulets and Montagues at WCO

Kate Lindsey (Romeo), Nicole Cabell (Giulietta), Antony Walker (conductor), I Capuleti e i Montecchi, Washington Concert Opera (photo by Don Lassell)

Vincenzo Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi is an ideal opera for concert performance, a work that features gorgeous singing but is not all that stage-worthy. In fact, I have heard it live only in concert form, most recently on Sunday evening at the Washington Concert Opera's season opener, presented at Lisner Auditorium. The libretto, by Felice Romani, is based not on Shakespeare's play but on the earlier Italian tales that were Shakespeare's sources. The Montecchi and Cappelletti were not families but political factions, from Verona and Cremona, respectively (as mentioned by Dante in the sixth canto of Purgatorio), and Romani's libretto aligns the two families instead with the Guelfs and Ghibellines. Tebaldo here is not Juliet's cousin but the man chosen to marry her, and Lorenzo is not a well-meaning friar but Juliet's doctor. Romeo offers a peace settlement between the two factions if Juliet's father will instead allow Romeo to wed his daughter, a truce that the proud Capellio rejects. For his cruel obstinacy he bears most of the tragic weight of the opera's conclusion.

The cast was led by mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey, whom we followed through her years apprenticing at Wolf Trap Opera, Opera Theater of St. Louis, and Santa Fe Opera. All of the promise that seemed so remarkable in her then has come to fruition, and her Romeo showed an admirable increase in the strength of her low range, tested considerably by this score, with no weakening of her pretty top, lovely pianissimo tone (making for a gorgeous, anguished tomb scene, for example), or graceful agility in scales and figures. Soprano Nicole Cabell, who stepped in as a last-minute substitute for Giulietta, continued to rise in my estimation as a musician, with a warm tone that amply filled the hall. The other standout was tenor David Portillo, who also came to our ears first at Wolf Trap Opera and here made a confident, powerful Tebaldo with a beautiful messa di voce.

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, Lindsey, Portillo shine in Washington Concert Opera’s “I Capuleti e i Montecchi” (Washington Post, September 30)

Bass Jeffrey Beruan, whom we also heard in the role of Capellio at Caramoor two years ago, had a big, rumbling sound, effective if sometimes a little woolly as far as being able to discern the center of the pitch. Bass Liam Moran, featured by WCO previously and by Wolf Trap Opera, was mostly effective as Lorenzo, forming the last part of the fine quintet that ends the first act. Music director Antony Walker gave the score his usual careful attention, with only a few ensemble problems in the otherwise unremarkable overture and a harp whose strings had gone slightly flat by the time the instrument was played in the first act for Giulietta's first scene. The male chorus had a virile and well-organized sound, and the four horns made some beautiful contributions that made one regret that only two of their names were printed in the program.

Briefly Noted: If It Ain't Baroque

Bel Canto (Rossini, Mercadante, Mozart, Monteverdi, Bellini, Verdi, Donizetti), S. Kermes, Concerto Köln, C. M. Mueller (released on October 29, 2013) Sony 886443810594 | 63'20"

It is probably enough to recommend German soprano Simone Kermes to say that she has been a favorite in Baroque music for conductors like Alan Curtis, Werner Erhardt, and Andrea Marcon. Let me add that, quibbles about a few odd vocal mannerisms aside, her compilations of Baroque arias have been among my all-time favorites, especially her Amor sacro disc, a collection of operatic motets by Vivaldi, which remains my favorite recording of that composer's vocal music ever made. So when Christoph M. Mueller and Concerto Köln release an album with Kermes, stretching from Monteverdi and Mozart into the bel canto repertory, I want to hear it. Kermes is a sometimes odd person -- see this interview for a sampling ("I sang a Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen in Paris once and as an encore I did a high C on the end. In Leipzig they would kill me for that.") -- and the eccentricity comes across in the singing at times, but while she may sometimes raise your eyebrows, she is always memorable. The willingness to go out on a limb will lead to some spectacular failures, as well as exciting triumphs, and this foray into the 19th century is one of the former. Kermes does not have the dramatic soprano weight to do the bel canto pieces justice: her straightened and compressed tone sounds merely coy in "Casta diva," "Dopo l'oscuro nembo" from Bellini's Adelson e Salvini, and "Tu del mio Carlo al seno" from Verdi's I Masnadieri, for example. Her runs and fireworks, so sparkling in the Baroque repertoire, sound labored here, with lots of breathiness to separate the notes, and the high notes are too often anemic. She is better in lighter comic arias, like "In questo semplice modesto asilo" from Donizetti's comic opera Betly, and in pure showpieces like the Queen of the Night's arias, a role she was to have undertaken with Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic in April (and at the Baden Baden Festival) but had to cancel.

Pelly's 'Puritani'

Entretien avec Laurent Pelly : I puritani by operadeparis
Stage director Laurent Pelly and his team have created a new production of Bellini's I Puritani, which opened at the Opéra National de Paris last week, the first one there in thirty-five years. Marie-Aude Roux has a report (Des « Puritains » figés dans leur prison de tourelles, November 28) in Le Monde (my translation):

Romantic bel canto, the work's most important element, brings little theatrical realism or dramaturgical progression. Knowing that, to offer to the singers on the immense stage of the Opéra Bastille an almost empty set, without any decorative element to help project the sound even a little...

There is in this an unconscious punishment on the part of the director: though Laurent Pelly is a wise man of the lyric theater, his elegant and painterly set of an ironwork neo-medieval castle has little surface area. It is in this prison of little turrets, spiral staircases, and lancet windows, that Elvira will live out her martyrdom as betrayed lover and her profound madness. Period costumes (a stylized 17th century) and superb lighting on fabric backdrops are not enough to save stereotyped acting direction, which leaves the singers to their bad habits and the crowd scenes to their sea-swell movement.

In the interview on the company's Web site (embedded above), Pelly acknowledges the dramatic challenges, with the hope that the staging would evoke the idea of an "immense cage" in which Elvira is imprisoned.
The singers were varied, according to Roux, with a robust Maria Agresta as Elvira who was "swallowed up in the space," and a steroid-driven tenor in Dmitry Korchak, who sang "with as little lyricism as possible, planting his high notes like a picador." Mariusz Kwiecien was shouty and "not always in control," while the only singer true to the Bellini style was the Giorgio of Michele Pertusi. The production continues through December 19.

More 'Norma'

Angela Meade in Norma, Washington National Opera, 2013 (photo by Scott Suchman for WNO)
Even theater and cinema require a suspension of disbelief, a surrendering of the doubts of everyday perception to the narrative tide presented to the senses. Opera, however, is in a class by itself in this department, as "the extravagant art" (in the memorable phrase of scholar Herbert Lindenberger) -- "an exotic and irrational entertainment," as Samuel Johnson put it. Anyone who wants to enjoy opera has to accept that in the world on that stage, people sing instead of speak, to the accompaniment of an orchestra. All sorts of far-fetched things happen, including plot twists few would be willing to accept in theater or cinema, but somehow the emotional heightening achieved by music makes it all satisfying, in a way that has little to do with realism, theatrical or otherwise. Different viewers will have different limitations on just how much they can accept visually, but with many opera lovers, including your reviewer, if the singing is excellent, many other shortcomings can be easily overlooked -- like the Norma of Angela Meade, who is in her 30s, addressing the Adalgisa of Dolora Zajick, who is twice Meade's age, as "giovinetta."

The singing in Washington National Opera's current production of Bellini's Norma, all critics agree, is excellent, indeed more than excellent. I have already written about both the cast and the production, by theater director Anne Bogart, in my review of opening night, and Robert R. Reilly added a second opinion about the second performance. The chance to hear the third and fourth performances this past week, on Friday and Monday nights, offered a chance to reassess the production. If I could have heard all six performances, I would have, solely for the opportunity to hear this cast, which is top-notch. Further hearings confirmed that Angela Meade is one of the voices you will want to hear in years to come, supported with consummate power and professionalism by Dolora Zajick as Adalgisa and bass Dmitry Belosselskiy as Oroveso. Tenor Rafael Davila actually got better as Pollione later in the run, with more security and legato smoothness at the top of his range, if still not that much sound at the bottom. Unfortunately, when I wrote that Mauricio Miranda "had a very off night as Flavio," I was being kind. It was somewhat surprising to me that he was not replaced later in the run: surely the company can produce a better singer to round out this otherwise excellent cast.

First Performance: Charles T. Downey, Meade and Zajick, Trionfo in 'Norma' (Ionarts, March 11) Anne Midgette, Washington National Opera’s ‘Norma’ takes all that symbolism rather literally (Washington Post, March 11) Second Performance: Robert R. Reilly, Second Opinion: WNO 'Norma' — Good Opera, Bad Theater (Ionarts, March 15)

If Anne Bogart's production -- static, ritualized, abstract -- did not really grow on me, it did not grate on me more either, even by the end of the third performance I saw. The libretto places the action in one of the groves sacred to the Druids (foresta sacra de' druidi), but Oroveso's first line instructs the Druids to go up the hills ("Ite sul colle, o Druidi!"), and Neil Patel's organic set provides just such a steeply raked incline. Not much later, Pollione sings of a demonic power that seems to be leading him into a yawning pit ("l'abisso aperto"), which may have inspired the sort of pit that opens up on the right side of the stage. After having sat house right at the first and third performances, I saw the show from house left on Monday night, and it is much less flattering visually, because the scene is dominated by the more squared-off façade to the right representing the Roman occupiers.

The sound is also better from the right side of the house, with the singers more direct and exposed on the left, and the two powerful crescendos at the end of the opera's final number not sounding as perfectly balanced from that position in relation to the orchestra. Conductor Daniele Rustioni settled into the score later in the run, hitting the right tempi with greater assurance and fewer histrionic gestures. The orchestra continued to sound quite good, with some bad intonation issues in the trumpets appearing during the third performance, including the off-stage banda effects. The orchestra remained in its new seating arrangement, introduced by music director Philippe Auguin in the performances of Manon Lescaut, with the strings and harp at the center, the woodwinds on the left and the brass and percussion on the right. The intention is to create a better balance in the house, and it seemed to work much better on the right side of the house than on the left.

Two performances of this production remain, on Thursday night and Sunday afternoon, in the Kennedy Center Opera House. Readers who hear any of the later performances are invited to share their thoughts in the comments section.

Second Opinion: WNO Norma—Good Opera, Bad Theater

Many thanks to Robert R. Reilly for this review from The Kennedy Center.

Tuesday evening, the Washington National Opera presented a vocally splendid but dramatically inert version of Vincenzo Bellini’s Norma. The production seemed to harken back to an earlier era of opera when the star singers simply planted themselves down-stage and sang with minimal regard for acting or the other dramatic verities. The drama was solely vocal, rather than fully theatrical.

Soprano Angela Meade, who sang the title role, first gained acclaim in a concert version of Norma. It is easy to understand why. She has a very powerful voice which she can deploy in almost any shade. She especially excelled in “Casta diva”, in her vocal duets with Adalgisa, gloriously sung by mezzo-soprano Dolora Zajick, and in the exchanges late in the second act both with Norma’s father Oroveso, and Norma’s erstwhile love Pollione. She showed no sign of fatigue from her very taxing role.

Other Reviews: Charles Downey, Meade and Zajick, Trionfo in 'Norma' (ionarts, March 11) Anne Midgette, Washington National Opera’s ‘Norma’ takes all that symbolism rather literally (Washington Post, March 11)

The singing was so good that the production values actually distracted from it. What one heard was so superior to what one saw that a concert version of the opera would actually have been preferable. The program in the Playbill suggests that much of the bias against bel canto opera had been based on questionable premises, “especially the assumption that the style always required musical values to overshadow dramatic ones”. It may have been quite unintentional, but that seems to have been the operating principle of this production. The evening’s musical values were not just the singing, either, but also the Washington National Opera Orchestra’s fine playing, under the supple and energetic direction of the young Italian conductor Daniele Rustioni.

Read more »

Meade and Zajick, Trionfo in 'Norma'

Dolora Zajick (Adalgisa) and Angela Meade (Norma) in Norma, Washington National Opera, 2013 (photo by Scott Suchman for WNO -- more images)

It has been quite a couple of years for bel canto opera at Ionarts, when we have reviewed productions of Anna Bolena and Lucia di Lammermoor (Washington National Opera), I Capuleti e i Montecchi (Caramoor), and La Sonnambula (Washington Concert Opera). Bel canto opera is supposed to be all about beautiful singing, and by that criterion the new production of Bellini's Norma, heard on Saturday night, is a triumph, with top-notch singing deep into the cast roster. If you are looking for compelling theater -- a plot that makes sense, characters that have depth and subtlety -- bel canto opera is probably not for you. Updating of time or other unusual directorial ideas can deepen the silly stories of most of these operas -- David Alden showed how it can be done with his Lucia two years ago -- but there is something to be said for just letting the singing stand for itself.

Soprano Angela Meade was a knockout in the title role, which she is singing on stage for the first time. It was not a standout because she was the most powerful Norma or the one with the strongest high notes, nor did she give the character the same kind of dramatic edge as some other more famous Normas. Meade deployed her velvety voice to give a truly beautiful finish to this mother of all bel canto roles, with a suave, hypnotic Casta diva, for example. (Compare this to the last Norma we reviewed here, Hasmik Papian at Baltimore Opera.) There was power in Meade's voice, too, allowing her to soar over the orchestra and to stand her ground with the much more experienced and frankly just louder Adalgisa of Dolora Zajick, but it was the elegance of the performance that remains with me, both in Meade's calm presence and in the cleanness and warmth of her tone. We knew from Zajick's WNO debut, in a potent Cavalleria rusticana in 2008, that she can fill the Kennedy Center Opera House with sound. What we did not know was that she could handle the more subtle demands of a bel canto role like this one: a messa di voce that could take your breath away, a fine pianissimo (not as refined as the younger Meade), and considerable agility. Norma is really all about the solos and duets of the two leads, and in this production there is no doubt of that.

Tenor Rafael Davila had a fairly good company debut as Pollione, the Roman proconsul who has had two children with Norma, the supposedly chaste priestess of the local druids in Gaul. Some of the notes at the top were not quite stable and it was not always exactly a clarion tone, but there was beauty when he needed it, even if he was clearly second fiddle to Meade and Zajick. Bass Dmitry Belosselskiy was a puissant Oroveso, Norma's father, with a moving scene with Meade toward the end of the second act, when he learns of his daughter's betrayal. The two supporting roles were filled by Domingo-Cafritz Young Artists, with the Clotilde of Julia Mintzer standing out for vocal vitality and compelling presence (she was one of the best parts of the New Opera Initiative performance last fall), while Mauricio Miranda had a very off night as Flavio.

Other Articles: Anne Midgette, Washington National Opera’s ‘Norma’ takes all that symbolism rather literally (Washington Post, March 11) Susan Dormady Eisenberg, Angela Meade Riffs on Her Dazzling New Role as She Debuts Norma at Washington National Opera (Huffington Post, March 11) Tim Smith, Washington National Opera's 'Manon Lescaut,' 'Norma' hit mark with Racette, Meade (Artsmash, March 12)

The new staging, by theater director Anne Bogart, is minimal but also traditional (like the vaguely medieval costumes by James Schuette), with a single set (designed by Neil Patel) showing a steeply raked incline with a ceremonial pit, flanked by wooden structures on either side, the whole thing in a lunar color range of white on gray. The backdrop, a large somewhat abstract depiction of the moon, à la Arthur Dove, adds to the sense of ritual distance, heightened by the mostly slow movements given to the singers. At times, a white cloth descended to create the sense of an inner room, but for the most part it is a static setting that, combined with the motionlessness of the opera -- little happens and the characters sing about that little happening a lot -- may bore some viewers. The only element out of place in this becalmed vision of the world of the ancient druids was at the podium, where young conductor Daniele Rustioni made his company debut. By his histrionic gestures -- leaps and mane shakes a-plenty -- he indicated a general lack of patience with the tidal pull of the score, often having to roll back on tempi that he initiated far too quickly. In spite of it all, orchestra and chorus both sounded strong, rounding out a performance -- if not a staging -- that should iron itself out quite nicely in the weeks to come.

This production runs through March 24, in the Kennedy Center Opera House. It is, we remind you, the last opera production of the WNO season.

SVILUPPO:
The set designer of this production, Neil Patel, confirms the inspiration of Arthur Dove in his abstract backdrop, in the comments here.

Washington Concert Opera: 'La Sonnambula'

René Barbera and Eglise Gutiérrez, La Sonnambula, Washington Concert Opera, 2012 (photo courtesy of Washington Concert Opera)

The Teatro Carcano had quite an 1830-1831 season in Milan. Founded in 1801, the management had dreams of rivaling La Scala as an opera theater. As noted in my preview of the past weekend's highlights here in Washington, the theater premiered both Donizetti's Anna Bolena and Bellini's La Sonnambula in the space of a few months, in December 1830 and March 1831. (A theater in Milan still bears that name, but it now hosts other kinds of performances.) As chance would have it, both operas were performed in Washington this past weekend: the Donizetti by Washington National Opera and the Bellini on Sunday afternoon by Washington Concert Opera at Lisner Auditorium.

Sadly, it was not a good afternoon for Eglise Gutiérrez in the title role, with many of the same issues noted of her performance this past July at Caramoor. There were intonation problems and a swallowed, perilous hold on the high pianissimo notes, although the outdoor acoustic at Caramoor made that sound worse than at Lisner. More disturbingly, the top of Gutiérrez's voice was giving out by the end of the first cabaletta and she struggled with it throughout the performance. The audible torment of the role was doubly sad because, as noted in my preview, it was not created for a voice that went quite that high. The rest of the lead cast was more successful, starting with the lovely sound, heroic high notes, and musical suavity of tenor René Barbera as Elvino -- a nasal, frontally placed voice but one that was beautiful and solid all around.

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, WCO’s ‘La Sonnambula’ is live and wide awake (Washington Post, September 18)

Equally good were the smooth baritone of Ben Wager's Rodolfo, with a present and round sound at both ends of the compass, and the pouty, spiteful Lisa of Maureen McKay, a silver-toned voice that darted and sparkled. Supporting parts were capably filled by Madeleine Gray as a maternal Teresa, Matthew Osifchin as long-suffering Alessio, and Rolando Sanz as the Notary. As usual, much of the credit goes to Antony Walker at the podium, who infused the score -- and it has plenty of corny duds in there -- with delight for its beauties and tolerance of its shortcomings. The orchestra was a little messy in the strings here and there, and there were a few wrong notes and false entrances, but Walker, with a relatively small amount of rehearsal, kept singers, orchestra, and the effective chorus all on the same page. Milan was clearly the place to be for bel canto opera that year. Back at La Scala in December 1831, Bellini and Romani teamed up again for Norma, with Giuditta Pasta once more in the title role: it will be mounted by Washington National Opera next March. Donizetti's Maria Stuarda, which will be the second opera from Washington Concert Opera, in April, was premiered at La Scala just four years later, in 1835.

Bel Canto Weekend

Donizetti, Anna Bolena, M. Callas, G. Simionato, N. Rossi-Lemeni, Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala, G. Gavazzeni (live, 1957) Bellini, La Sonnambula, C. Bartoli, J. D. Flórez, I. D'Arcangelo, Orchestra La Scintilla, A. De Marchi (2009) W. Ashbrook, Donizetti and His Operas P. Gossett, Divas and Scholars: Performing Italian Opera

This weekend at Ionarts will be largely devoted to listening to (hopefully) beautiful voices, beginning with tonight's Vocal Arts D.C. recital by the redoubtable Stephanie Blythe (the first half at least -- life is too short to listen to opera singers perform dinner theater music) and followed by two bel canto classics, the opening of Washington National Opera's production of Donizetti's Anna Bolena on Saturday and Washington Concert Opera's performance of Bellini's La Sonnambula on Sunday afternoon (if you buy now, ask about the half-price tickets, announced yesterday). The last two were our top picks for the month of September, and we have spent some time this week listening to two outlier recordings of these works.

Anna Bolena is an opera that has yet to be reviewed live in the history of Ionarts, since we missed the production at the Metropolitan Opera last year, the first in that august house's history, in which Anna Netrebko did not quite come up to snuff. The La Scala Anna Bolena, recorded live in 1957 (EMI), has the sound drawbacks expected of a live recording, removing it from consideration for most desirable recording of this opera. The attraction, of course, is that it features Maria Callas in the title role, one for which she was justly renowned and in her only available recording. There are better options for overall sound and for the beauty of singing in the title role, including Leyla Gencer (Andromeda), Beverly Sills (DG), and Joan Sutherland (Decca). The opera, premiered to acclaim in December 1830 in Milan with the dream billing of mezzo-soprano Giuditta Pasta and Giovanni Battista Rubini as the doomed lovers (a year in which the prolific composer had already completed three new operas for the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples), has yet to get the critical edition treatment in the new Donizetti Complete Works, but William Ashbrook covered the background extensively in his magisterial study of Donizetti's operas.

Donizetti made some major revisions to the opera after the premiere, not unusual as he sought to tailor the music to his cast. It was a watershed moment, as Donizetti notes that the opera, "externally at least, marks the great turning-point in Donizetti's career." Ashbrook notes that Donizetti finally had a good libretto to work with (by Felice Romani, also available in English), and the many affecting moments in it offered him "the dramatic emphasis he had long been seeking," releasing in him "a vein of Romantic pathos that was to become his particular trademark." It is this quality that is perfectly suited to the timbre of Callas's voice, skilled as she was at deploying the grain and power of her unusual tone to a meaty role. Conductor Gianandrea Gavazzeni kept the pace moving (along with the cuts often made to the score, preventing the performance from running too long), while allowing the singers the room needed to manipulate their complicated lines. Mezzo-soprano Giulietta Simionato makes a cutting but also sympathetic Giovanna, lovely in the duets with Callas, while Nicola Rossi-Lemeni is a glowering presence as Enrico and Gianni Raimondi is an ardent Percy.

La Sonnambula was premiered on March 6, 1831, also in the Teatro Carcano, the main competition for La Scala in Milan (we last reviewed it live at the Baltimore Opera in 2005). It was also created for mezzo-soprano Giuditta Pasta as prima donna and Rubini in the lead tenor role and used a libretto by Felice Romani. Of this coincidence, Ashbrook noted, "It would be difficult to find a parallel instance of one opera house in a single three-month season introducing two operas of such high merit as Anna Bolena and La Sonnambula. From this season on, the names of Donizetti and Bellini, as long as the latter lived, would be linked as the two outstanding Italian composers of opera (Rossini having retired)." Philip Gossett, in his entertaining book Divas and Scholars: Performing Italian Opera, lists La sonnambula as one of the few Italian operas of the period that "exist in a unique version identifiable with the composer," mostly because they were staged only once. Cecilia Bartoli is the first mezzo to make a recording of the role as it was originally written, using the new critical edition by Luca Zoppelli and Alessandro Roccatagliati, which undoes the transpositions and vocal extensions that refashioned the title role for high soprano and reverses the cuts that had become widely accepted.

Whether you will be interested in this recording largely depends on your opinion of Bartoli's voice, which some listeners find affected and over-agitated. As someone who not only tolerates but admires Bartoli's voice, I was naturally attracted to this beautifully packaged 2-CD set and, although others may be turned off by the sometimes kooky characterization of Bartoli's performance, found it compelling. Also attractive is the playing of the Orchestra La Scintilla, a fine historically informed performance ensemble here ably conducted by Alessandro De Marchi. The rest of the cast, if anything, will be of greater interest to a wider array of listeners, beginning with Juan Diego Flórez who is an excellent Elvino, a role that Bellini tailored to Rubini's unusually high-placed voice with three pieces "written in keys that seemed even in the early 1830s to be stratospheric." Most tenors sing these pieces in lowered transpositions (including Flórez, in a rare deviation from Bellini's original score in this recording). Such changes put Amina's role, when she interjects lines in pieces sung by Elvino, into low mezzo territory. "In short, as the role is printed in modern editions," Gossett observes, "Amina is a mezzo-soprano when she sings with Elvino, a soprano when she sings alone. No wonder singers have such a difficult time wrapping their vocal cords around the part." Ildebrando D'Arcangelo's Rodolfo, Gemma Bertagnolli's biting Lisa, and a generally fine supporting cast round out the disc.

Bellini @ Caramoor

Bellini, I Capuleti e i Montecchi, A. Baltsa, E. Gruberova, Royal Opera House, R. Muti (re-released on November 9, 2010) DG 477 8031 | 2h10

Charles T. Downey, Caramoor presents a historically scrupulous yet vocally uneven “Capuleti” (The Classical Review, July 22)

The Bel Canto opera series at the Caramoor Festival, situated on a sprawling country estate near Katonah, New York, is generally one of the high points of the summer opera season in the Northeast. The music director, Will Crutchfield, chooses rarities from 19th-century Italy, presented with scholarly attention to the score and often with excellent casts.

The main attraction of this Caramoor season was a rare staging of Rossini’s early opera Ciro in Babilonia, presented earlier this month in the 200th year after its premiere and featuring the outstanding Polish mezzo-soprano Ewa Podleś. That performance was produced in conjunction with the Rossini Opera Festival, in Pesaro, Italy, where it will travel next month.

By comparison, the second opera, Vincenzo Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi — performed in Caramoor’s usual semi-staged concert format and heard on Saturday night — was a less starry affair. Still, Bellini’s 1830 take on the classic story of Romeo and Juliet — bearing little relation to the version by William Shakespeare — is enough of a rarity to warrant interest. [Continue reading]

Vincenzo Bellini, I Capuleti e i Montecchi (better in the critical edition, not online)
Caramoor Festival

SEE ALSO:
Charles T. Downey, Caramoor: Capulets and Montagues (Ionarts, July 20)

Steve Smith, Uncovering the Roots of an Oft-Told Love Story (New York Times, July 23)