Inscape Chamber Music Project

The young musicians of Inscape Chamber Music Project perform as a flexibly sized chamber orchestra during their regular season, under music director Richard Scerbo. This summer, they offered two chamber music concerts, for which individual musicians could assemble a group of players to try out a new piece. The second of those concerts was performed on Sunday evening at Bethesda's Church of the Redeemer, where the group is ensemble-in-residence. The building's small sanctuary of white walls and blond wood has a warm, airy sound, best experienced close to the front. A reviewer from the Post found the acoustic wholly unsatisfactory at the first of the group's chamber concerts last month. We have reviewed the group once before, but at the National Gallery of Art, a much less forgiving space.

The high point of this program was at the end of the first half, the Trio for Clarinet, Horn, and Piano by George Rochberg (1918-2005 -- pictured). Completed in 1980, after the composer's return to tonality, it is solidly neoclassical in style, harmonically far from merely going backward to Chopin but a more or less traditional reworking of classical forms. (Listen to a different performance yourself for free online.) This rendition opened with a lonely horn solo played with forlorn beauty by the talented Andrew Downing, leading into a rollicking 6/8 Allegro con moto. The second movement was particularly lush, opening and closing with homorhythmic duets between Downing's horn and Evan Solomon's ideally matched and smooth-toned clarinet. Danielle De Swert, at the piano, crushed their simple two-part harmonies with more juicy dissonance, and all three musicians played with impressive control and sensitivity.

Another worthy discovery was the Lullaby and Doina, composed by Osvaldo Golijov (b. 1960) for the film The Man Who Cried, about a girl who flees Russia and falls in love with a gypsy. Golijov has not impressed me much as a creator of large forms, but he has an evocative style, an episodic melodic imagination that should thrive in the composition of film scores. The piece lurched to life like a wheezing music box, with a melancholy tune over creaky viola harmonics. That lullaby was then interrupted by the cantillating call of the clarinet, introducing the doina, with the folk parlando taken up in the viola and concluding in a static but pulsating dance. The program ended with Benjamin Britten's second string quartet, a piece that always moves me. Perhaps because it was difficult to hear one another in the acoustic of the sanctuary, the string players suffered some unpleasant tuning issues, especially the cello, and the more complicated sections with big accented chords were not always rock solid. My ears have heard the work played much better -- by the Belcea Quartet on disc and, in concert, by the Auryn Quartet and especially the Jupiter Quartet -- but the group is to be commended for bringing together such a challenging and fulfilling program.

The next concert by Inscape Chamber Music Project is scheduled for November 16, 2008. It will feature Ravel's Trois poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé, Hindemith's Hérodiade, and a new piece by Joseph Hallman.

Crystal Tears

Crystal Tears, A. Scholl, Concerto di Viole, J. Behr (released June 10, 2008) Harmonia Mundi HMC 901993

John Dowland (1563-1626) and other composers of the late English Renaissance are in the air (haha) at the moment. Not only have we reviewed solo albums by Mark Padmore and -- how could we forget? -- Sting, we have heard live concerts of this music by Ellen Hargis and Paul O'Dette, the Folger Consort, and Hopkinson Smith. Now Harmonia Mundi's favorite countertenor, Andreas Scholl, has gotten in on the act, after solo and duet Handel albums in the last couple years. The generous program highlights a set of Dowland songs, accompanied by combinations of lute and viols, surrounded by other contemporary songs and lute or viol consort pieces by John Ward, Robert Johnson, William Byrd, John Bennet, Patrick Mando, and Richard Mico. Scholl collaborates with a group of historically informed performance (HIP) specialists: the young lutenist Julian Behr (a student of Hopkinson Smith in Basel, among others) and Concerto di Viole, all of whom studied at Basel.

The sound is luscious and intimate, with a natural ease of push and pull among the performers, making it a worthy release. One thing that makes it not essential is that English is noticeably not Scholl's native language, and Mark Padmore's exquisite pronunciation was one of the strengths of his recording. The problem in Scholl's recording is so acute that it is often hard to understand what he is singing without reading the words. Even so, the sound is so ravishing in a song like Have You Seen the Bright Lily Grow, that one can forgive the strange pronunciation of phrases like "the bog [bag] off [of] the bee." Even Sting's somewhat idiosyncratic pronunciation was better, although he came nowhere close to Scholl in milking all of the douceur from this exquisite little song. (Scholl's recently re-released disc of German cantatas would surely have the same kind of linguistic advantage, in German, although I have yet to hear it.)

In the album's oddest choice, Scholl first whistles the refrain of Bennet's Venus' Birds before singing it, even cheesily ornamenting the whistling a second time. It goes with the sort of breezy mode of performance -- some friends sitting around the score -- but the producer should have insisted on getting a recorder player. A DVD extra (not all that interesting but free) includes some footage of the recording process, along with Scholl speaking about his history with the music of Dowland. There is also a video of the recording of Venus' Birds, embedded below, where you can see Scholl singing and ... whistling.

79'32"


Andreas Scholl, Venus' Birds (John Bennet)

My Jerry Springer Moment

Lawrence Redmond (Jerry Springer) in Jerry Springer: The Opera, Studio Theater, 2008 (photo by Scott Suchman)

It was only a matter of time before Jerry Springer: The Opera came to Washington, although the Ionarts junket to Santa Fe Opera coincided with last month's opening at Studio Theater. You may recall the scandalous premiere of this British musical, one of any number of trashy, headline-grabbing "opera" gimmicks in recent years. The work, a collaboration of Richard Thomas and Stewart Lee, was an attempt to merge the infamous American talk show with the exalted emotional expression of opera. It is a marriage made in hell: both trash talk show and opera favor a hysterical tone, as far over the top as one can go, with narratives at the extremes of human existence that often defy credulity.

Springer's second act, which casts God, Jesus, Mary, and Satan as guests on an infernal edition of The Jerry Springer Show, has drawn protests of outrage from conservative Christian groups, something that has dogged the show in all of its subsequent openings. No doubt about it, Jerry Springer is foul-mouthed, outrageous, and blasphemous. As satire of Christianity, Springer is ham-handed, a blunt hammer instead of a scalpel. If the best satire knows its target, Springer is wide of the mark. For example, Jesus says, "Talk to the stigmata" as he shows his hand, but the stigmata are mystical wounds that other people receive in imitation of Jesus' wounds -- Jesus did not receive the stigmata. For a show that exults in deflating piety, the pious ending reconciling God and Satan with the platitude "There are no absolutes of good and evil" rang hypocritical. Besides, after two hours of lines like "three-nipple cousin-fucker" and "barbed wire up the ass," could anyone be expected to take the moralizing seriously?

Bobby Smith (Jonathan/The Devil) in Jerry Springer: The Opera, Studio Theater, 2008 (photo by Scott Suchman)

So, those upset by the anti-Christian bits or the vulgarity should lighten up and those who are looking for a philosophical message should forget it, which is pretty much the same formula for actually being able to enjoy Springer's television show. As heard on Saturday night, the score had a few hints of something like opera or classical music in the opening sequence (a touch of Mozart's Requiem Mass?), but the musical idiom is firmly Broadway and jazz in flavor. The speaking role of Jerry Springer, played by Lawrence Redmond with uncanny timing ("Chucky, you seem upset" [by your wife's embarrassing admission on national television]), stands outside the all-sung action of the rest of the show. At points, Jerry's morals are critiqued by a character he calls his "inner Valkyrie," sung beautifully by one of the two really operatic voices in this production, soprano Patricia Portillo. The best singing of the evening came from Michael Nansel, who applied a resonant, operatically trained bass voice to the roles of Dwight, the first guest on the show in the first act, and God in the second act.

The quality of the rest of the singing was appropriate to the absurdity of the show, which first sets to music a typical Jerry Springer Show. A series of guests make embarrassing, televised confessions to the people who love them. Dwight tells his fiancée, Peaches (Mary Gresock), that he has been screwing not only her best friend Zandra (Kristen Jepperson) but also a black transsexual named Tremont (the visually convincing and vocally high-flying Aaron Reeder). A fat Filipino named Montel (the sweet-voiced and guilelessly smiling Ron Curameng) tells his girlfriend Andrea (valiantly sung by Janine Gulisano-Sunday) that he is a diaper fetishist and has an infantalist friend, the pathetic Baby Jane (Florrie Bagel). Finally, a fed-up wife, Shawntell (a high soprano part sung by the light soubrette voice of Rachel Zampelli), tells her husband, Chucky (played by understudy Alan Hoffman on Saturday night), that she wants to be a stripper.

Other Articles: Peter Marks, Singing and Zinging (Washington Post, July 29) Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts, 'Jerry Springer' May Be Unholy, But Sales Are Divine (Washington Post, July 24) Peter Marks, Actor Has Springer in His Step (Washington Post, July 20)

The other lead role is Jerry's warm-up guy, Jonathan, played with pathetic self-importance by Bobby Smith, who gets his revenge in the second act as the Devil torturing Jerry. The chorus takes the part of the rabid, profane audience, seated in the first rows of the house and singing in often complex harmonies. Besides singing well and with impressive strength, members of the chorus had unforgettable turns in a tap-dancing Ku Klux Klan number (Mel Brooks would be so proud) and a curtain call number as tap-dancing Jerry Springers (hilarious choreography by Matthew Gardiner). Piano-conductor Christopher Youstra, hidden from view backstage, somehow kept the eight-player band on track with the singers, for the most part. Giorgos Tsappas's set is a convincing reproduction of a television studio set, and Kristopher Castle's costumes most definitely say "white trash." It is all brought together by Keith Alan Baker's direction in a style that is in your face, visually active, and ultimately exhausting, but never dull.

In the second act, the chorus and all the characters return to assist in the judgment of Jerry in hell. It would be too weighty a conclusion for such a grotesquely silly piece, except that, as noted above, it only becomes more irreverent and less actually about anything theological, philosophical, or serious. In that spirit, Jerry Springer: The Opera offers an evening of hilarity and groan-inducing one-liners ("I can't go to hell! I'm Jewish!"). It will also certainly exceed your expectations as to how much of the book could possibly be taken up with naughty words.

The run of Jerry Springer: The Opera has been extended at Studio Theater's Metheny Theater through August 31 September 7.

Maybe Don't Dip Your Ears (Cover Your Eyes)

Mozart, Die Zauberflöte, Harnoncourt / Zürich Opera

For most opera-lovers, this Zauberflöten-DVD will likely disqualify just on account of its wildly mediocre singing. Maybe the voices were not caught well in this live broadcast, either – it’s difficult to tell what or who the main culprits are. Suffice it to say that none of the singers – save perhaps Matti Salminen’s Sarastro – are particularly worth listening to.

That is a shame in principle, because I find a Nikolaus Harnoncourt – Martin Kušej Mozart-cooperation a very exciting proposition given their spectacular and dramatic La Clemenza di Tito from Salzburg. Too bad, then, that the production matches the singing.

Not for lack of ideas or their quality, or for an surplus of director’s ego – but sadly for execution. Even after hearing Kušej and stage designer Rolf Glittenberg explain their principally genial concept of setting the Magic Flute as a string of fantastical episodes in the mysteriously dark cellar of a house from a child’s point of view and imagination, the reality of the production – half “Terminal”, half “Snakes on a Plane” – ruins it, still.

Had the envisioned setting been translated more effectively, the Three Ladies “of the night” being blind might have come off better. The grayish basement-imp of a Queen of the Night might have invoked a dreamy or nightmarish sense. And instead of covering Papageno with feathers, dousing his suit with bird shit might have been “compellingly effective” (as a Vienna on-line magazine described the production). Instead it’s not “astoundingly clever” (according to Zurich’s major daily) – it’s just too clever by half.

A good modern Magic Flute would be highly welcome, and if Kušej were to try again, I’d be very eager to see it, indeed. But this wimpishly sung production can’t possibly be the realization of his own ambitions. Harnoncourt’s flexible and pointed conducting is not nearly enough to rescue the project.

In Brief: Summer's End

Here is your regular Sunday selection of links to good things in Blogville and Beyond. There is not much activity out there, it being summer and all, but a few people are still posting.

• Bob Shingleton pours some vitriol on a fawning puff piece on Gustavo Dudamel. He basically uses it as an example of why press cultural journalism is losing ground to bloggers, because the latter "don't receive press releases, free review CDs and complimentary concert tickets," etc. As far as I can tell, Dudamel is a critical darling at the moment, of both newspaper journalists and bloggers. Anyway, except for people who have considerable personal wealth, complimentary review CDs and concert tickets are the only way to make well-rounded critical experience possible. [On an Overgrown Path]


• Clayton is absolutely right: there has been a quiet change to the casting of Washington National Opera's Lucrezia Borgia next season! One of the best things noted in my season preview is no longer true -- instead of finally getting to hear Giuseppe Filianoti, apparently stolen away by the Met, we will have Vittorio Grigolo instead (boo). For now, Renée Fleming and Sandra Radvanovsky will still share the title role, and Ruggiero Raimondi is still listed in the role of Duke Alfonso, so it remains the best cast of the WNO season. [Operatically Inclined]


• Phil Ford has some thoughts on the Orwell Prize's plan, now being realized, to put all of George Orwell's diaries online, in blog format. [Dial "M" for Musicology]


• Kriston Capps has fortunately been able to retrieve his domain from Internet squatters who swooped in when he let his registration lapse. Welcome back! [Grammar.police]


• "Brian" arrived in Santa Fe shortly after we left New Mexico. He has some thoughts on all of the productions. [Out West Arts]


• Scott Spiegelberg embedded a video of the site-specific instrument at Vitthala Temple in India: 56 pillars tuned to the pitches of the ragas. Tan Dun or Osvaldo Golijov incorporates this into a new piece in 5, 4, 3 ... [Musical Perceptions]

Vivaldi's Orlando Furioso, Again

Vivaldi, Orlando furioso, A. Desler, N. Kennedy, L. Dordolo, Modo Antiquo, F. M. Sardelli (released May 27, 2008) cpo 777 095-2

Ensemble Matheus was given the nod to record Vivaldi's Orlando furioso for Naïve's Vivaldi Edition in 2005, although there were already a couple of complete recordings by that point. The work was given its modern revival back in the 1970s, and Marilyn Horne continued her association with the opera from that point to a performance at San Francisco Opera, which was captured on DVD. Now another fine Italian historically informed performance ensemble, Modo Antiquo, has offered up another recording, on the cpo label. Federico Maria Sardelli's group contributed the wonderful recording of Atenaide to the Vivaldi Edition but has also been recording its own Vivaldi series with cpo, of which this opera is the third installment after Arsilda and Tito Manlio (all with Carnival masks on the covers). Unfortunately, the cpo sets are far more expensive than their competition, making the Naïve set of Orlando furioso a much better deal, now discounted to about half the price of this set.

The libretto by Grazio Braccioli, with numerous additions and changes, is a free, somewhat clumsy adaptation of Ariosto's fantasy epic of the same name, a source of a dizzying number of operas in the first two centuries of operatic history. Actually, Sardelli's recording predates Spinosi's for the Vivaldi Edition, as this live CD was captured at the Opera Barga Festival in 2002. The sound in Barga's Chiesa del Santissimo Crocifisso is generally good, although the Orlando, mezzo-soprano Anne Desler, consistently sounds a little hazy and distant. Whether this contributes to or is an attempt to compensate for her unsatisfactory sound is difficult to know, but her performance is disappointing (contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux is much better on Spinosi's recording), in spite of a disturbing unhinged quality to her mad scenes (as in Act III, where Orlando dances crazily to the strains of the Follia melody). Still, her murky top lacks clarity for the ringing high parts, and she often sounds spindly and out of tune. To be fair, it's a bitch of a role, requiring a top-notch singer, which she is not yet. The Angelica of Nicki Kennedy is only slightly better, with questionable Italian pronunciation and an errant vibrato, and mezzo-soprano Lucia Sciannimanico does not really have the lower range surety needed for Bradamante, resulting in a harsh tone and inaccurate runs (again Spinosi's recording has a much better Ann Hallenberg).

Happily, the rest of the cast is better. Oddly, the role of Medoro, intended by Vivaldi for a castrato and given to a mezzo-soprano in Spinosi's recording, is here assigned to tenor Luca Dordolo. The choice must have involved some transpositions, but Dordolo has a suave sound, especially impressive in his first aria ("Rompo i ceppi"). In the other castrato role, Ruggiero, countertenor Thierry Gregoire makes a consistently pleasing, sweet sound, if not as good as Philippe Jaroussky on the Ensemble Matheus recording. Marina De Liso's Alcina has some nice turns, and the Astolfo of bass-baritone Martin Kronthaler is gruff and snarly in his rage arias "Benché nasconda" (Act II) and "Dove il valor combatte" (Act III).

The best part of this recording is the playing of Sardelli's group, Modo Antiquo, and it is too bad that the voices are not uniformly up to snuff, as they were in his Atenaide. The whole ensemble gives a fine performance, marked by unity of intonation and attack, in the interpolated overture: the manuscript does not include one, but Sardelli uses another Vivaldi sinfonia ("Farnace," RV 711). Individually, the trumpets sound strong and clear in the chorus "Gran madre Venere," and there is an incredibly gorgeous recorder obbligato on Ruggiero's "Sol per te mio dolce amore," which I think must have been played by Sardelli himself (not credited but Sardelli is listed as the principal on the group's Web site). At fast tempos, the group is like a buzzing, boiling tempest of sound.

166'53"

Santa Fe Opera, 2009 Season

In the spring Santa Fe Opera announced its 2009 season, the first after retiring General Director Richard Gaddes (shown at right, as in the season program, riding off into the sunset) is succeeded by Charles MacKay, who comes from Opera Theater of St. Louis, as did Gaddes -- as Anne Midgette put it, "In opera, the incest isn't only onstage." MacKay will be in charge, but folks at the opera made clear that next season was mostly the work of Gaddes, his last one rather than MacKay's first.

On the surface the season looks slightly lackluster, with three warhorses on the schedule (La Traviata, L'Elisir d'Amore, and Mozart again with Don Giovanni). Read the details, however, and you learn that the Traviata will bring the Laurent Pelly team (Cendrillon, Platée) back to Santa Fe, with Natalie Dessay taking on her first Violetta (we heard her first Pamina at Santa Fe in 2006). Rounding out the French connection is Laurent Naouri as Germont, which will be somewhat strange to see -- husband and wife in that father-"daughter" duet (Naouri will be replaced again by Anthony Michaels-Moore later in the season).

The other two warhorses are less exciting, in terms of the productions and the casting, which focuses mostly on former apprentice singers (although they are all strong). Elisir will star Jennifer Black as Adina and the remarkable Patrick Carfizzi as Belcore, in a Broadway production directed by Jerry Zaks. Don Giovanni, disappointingly, was last heard at Santa Fe only in 2004, but its cast will have Susanna Phillips as Donna Elvira and Kate Lindsey, from Roanoke, Virginia, as Zerlina. The production is a revival of Chas Rader-Shieber's 2004 staging -- did this fill a slot left absent by something else more interesting that fell through?

The Santa Fe Opera programming formula calls for one world premiere or American premiere, and that slot next year goes to Paul Moravec's first opera, The Letter, based on Somerset Maugham’s 1927 short story of the same name (via the author's own adaptation as a play). Moravec (pictured) and his librettist, critic and blogger Terry Teachout, were both at Santa Fe Opera this summer and spoke to me about their continuing work on the opera, which was commissioned by the company, reportedly after Moravec won his Pulitzer for The Tempest Fantasy.

The piano-vocal score is finished, and the vocal parts have been fine-tuned in many cases in close consultation with the singers who are engaged for the world premiere next summer. Ionarts favorite Patricia Racette will star as Leslie Crosbie, with Anthony Michaels-Moore as Robert Crosbie, and James Maddalena as Howard Joyce. Moravec will begin the orchestration later this year. In terms of world premieres of new opera, the creative team is light years ahead of schedule -- Osvaldo Golijov was still making changes to Ainadamar at the final rehearsals. Terry's posts about his libretto clearly rubbed La Cieca the wrong way, but we will reserve judgment until we hear the whole work next summer. To judge from how Moravec described his musical approach to the story, it sounds like it will be a 90-minute roller coaster ride, without intermission.

Last is what may turn out to be the high point of the season, a new production of Gluck's Alceste, an important work entering the Santa Fe repertory for the first time. It will also be the debut of Christine Brewer in the title role. Kenneth Montgomery will conduct, perhaps not an inspiring choice, and Francisco Negrin will direct. It is wonderful to see 18th-century opera other than Mozart (Rameau, Handel, now Gluck) at Santa Fe, but this critic is secretly hoping that Mr. MacKay, somewhere in the back of his mind, has a plan to bring Lully's Alceste to the Santa Fe stage, or bring back some Monteverdi or Cavalli, neither heard there since the 1980s. There is an entire century, opera's first, from which to choose.

DVD: Martha Argerich Evening Talks

Martha Argerich: Conversation nocturne, directed by Georges Gachot (released July 29, 2008) Medici Arts Idéale Audience 3073428

It is one of the disappointments of my concert-going life not yet to have heard Martha Argerich live, which is one of the unfortunate results of her tendency to cancel. She is an idol for most people who love the piano (witness the several hundred videos uploaded to YouTube), and her recordings are often in my ears as the reference point on many pieces. Another film made for the excellent European arts network Arte, this recent installment in the DVD series from Medici Arts Idéale Audience is an hour-long documentary, premiered in 2002, about the elusive Argentinian pianist (also recently reviewed by Vivien Schweitzer in the New York Times). Director Georges Gachot not only convinced Argerich to speak to him on camera (all shot in a single evening in 2001, in between a rehearsal and a performance) but was able to include some remarkable footage, including some of that very rehearsal, of the Schumann concerto with conductor Jörg Faerber and the Württembergisches Kammerorchester.

Mostly she speaks in French, with some anecdotes related in English, and a feisty exchange in German during that rehearsal with Faerber about the details of the Schumann concerto. She speaks a lot about her earliest musical influences. Yet another thing we can thank Claudio Arrau for is that his performance of Beethoven's fourth concerto gave the young Argerich her first musical frisson, awakening something in her, so much so that she insists she is afraid to play the work herself. She played for Viennese pianist Friedrich Gulda, when he came to Argentina, and soon became his only student, for which she first went to Europe. She recounts some wonderful memories of Gulda, and Gachot includes an excerpt of Gulda playing the last movement of Beethoven's op. 27, no. 2 sonata. There is another unforgettable clip of Gulda, playing ping-pong in short shorts, that is probably worth the $20 to buy the DVD by itself.


Trailer for Martha Argerich: Evening Talks
Argerich also speaks about the composers whose music she plays: of one whom she feels suit her style, she says, "Il m'aime" (He likes me). What you will not be prepared for is Argerich's levity, given how serious and intense her stage persona is, the wreath of dark hair, the pouty frown and furrowed brow. She has a wry laugh and even speaks about how Gulda's playing taught her about humor in music. At one point, she says that if she plays Liszt and Chopin on the same program, she feels like she always plays one well and the other not so well, as if one gets jealous of the other, as she puts it. Of course, a good part of the documentary is given over to clips, both old and more recent, of Argerich playing, and such playing! Excerpts of the big concertos -- the Liszt no. 1, the Chopin no. 1, and especially the Ravel G major and Prokofiev no. 3 -- are all absolutely astounding technically. There are also some video clips and pictures of her very young, including her legendary victory at the Geneva Competition (at age 16) and the first prize at the 1965 Chopin Competition (at age 24).

In addition to the documentary, there is 38 minutes of extra footage, complete tracks of music that was excerpted in the film. This includes a full performance of Witold Lutosławski's outrageous two-piano Variations on a Theme by Paganini, with the young pianist Mauricio Vallina, and three encores from a Zurich performance in 2001: a jaw-dropping Scarlatti sonata (the D minor one with the machine-gun repeated notes), a smoky Chopin mazurka, and the Capriccio movement of the second Bach partita.

For American readers interested in trying to hear Martha Argerich, she will play two concerts this month with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center: the Beethoven Triple Concerto (with the Capuçon brothers, tonight) and the Prokofiev 3rd concerto (August 14), under the baton of her ex-husband Charles Dutoit. She will supposedly also be back in the fall, for concerts in Philadelphia (October 2-4), playing both the Prokofiev 1st concerto and the Shostakovich 1st concerto, with Dutoit. They will bring the same program to Carnegie Hall on October 7. For other information, Andrys Basten keeps a meticulous list of Argerich's concert plans.

63' (extras, 38')