In which I continue to plow through opera

[cahn]

-L'Orfeo (Keenlyside) - Monteverdi (1998). Youtube link to the best seven minutes. Youtube link to the entire thing if you are crazy like me: (just be aware that the seven minutes in the first link are probably the best seven minutes). I found this AMAZING although I am not sure I can articulate why (and not sure anyone else will agree :) ). I am not a huge fan of Monteverdi (we even sang his Vespers in college and while I fell in love with everything else we did in choir, I didn't quite know how to deal with him) and this production merges the opera with dance and I'm not a huge fan of dance, and it's stylized abstract modern and I'm hit and miss with abstract opera -- but now, I now think that the ONLY way to do Monteverdi is in conjunction with abstract modern dance and I'm bound to be disappointed by any other rendition of this opera now. It was so compelling to me that I watched it as an abstract performance, not an opera, without the libretto, so I had no idea what was going on much of the time :) I will go back and watch it with the libretto, though... Keenlyside is absolutely wonderful (and so young! I mean, he must have been 40, but that's like baby-baritone) and I feel like he does super well with extremely detailed choreography instruction, which is what we get here -- he's practically a dancer himself, here -- I don't know any other male singer with as good a voice as Keenlyside who could do this at all. Juanita Lascarro (Euridice) is the same -- practically a dancer, but with a beautiful voice. (And with my usual complaint that Keenlyside has a wonderful operatic voice which isn't quite in my conception of oratorio or pre-Mozart music, which is terrible because he's clearly excellent at it, he is such an excellent singer -- and presumably enjoys it!)

-Billy Budd (CD, Langridge, Keenlyside, Tomlinson, Opie, Padmore, etc.) - I can't listen to Verdi any more at work because I get too distracted, but it turns out Britten is OK so I've been doing a bunch of that. And this recording... is like a who's who of great male voices. (The ones I've listed are the ones I had already known and loved for oratorio work or Opera in English work, but everyone is really good.) Keenlyside's voice is (again) a bit on the rich side compared to some of these guys -- Langridge and Padmore especially are spectacular tenors -- but Keenlyside, wow, I mean the man has so much control over tone, he can do so many different things, it's really amazing to listen to. Here's an example.

-Nabucco - DVD lent me by my RL opera friend :) Early Verdi, which I am pretty sure now that I do not like as much as mid-late Verdi, but, hey, still Verdi, so trios and lots of family FEELS and it was the same kind of thing where I went into it not convinced I would like it and by an hour in I was totally hooked. Mind you, I think this one must depend a lot on the Abigaille, who really sold this performance (Maria Guleghina, whom I am not otherwise familiar with) -- the thing I found most interesting is how from her acting alone, in a scene between Nabucco and Abigaille, it became a story of sibing rivalry and father-daughter tension, whereas in the libretto I don't think this was really there explicitly at all.

-Ernani - okay, so, this one (also early Verdi) I found totally hilarious. I watched the Met On Demand version, in which Hvorostovsky is playing the King of Spain (Don Carlos, the grandfather of Don Carlos from the eponymous opera I love so much) and one of the three people in love with Elvira (Angela Meade); the other two are the bandit Ernani (the tenor Marcello Giordani) and Silva (Ferruccio Furlanetto). Because this is early Verdi, the tenor is her True Love. Anyway, the hilarious part is that Hvorostovsky comes in with a fur cloak and a hat sort of shading one eye. When Silva comes in, Silva gets upset at him and Ernani for hitting on Elvira, and I'm thinking, "...you're getting upset at the king? Seems dangerous!" Then a squire comes in and announces that Hvorostovksy is the King! And Hvorostovsky tosses aside his hat and his cloak, which I had not realized until that very moment was supposed to be a disguise. It was also hilarious because Hvorostovsky can do disdain better than anyone (this is why I can't watch him as Germont), and he had this totally dismissive look on his face that I choose to interpret as, "That was such a terrible disguise and you couldn't even figure it out??" I had to actually turn off the opera for a couple minutes while I recovered from that :)

Also featured in this is an aria for Silva in which -- I mean, the Met's subtitles are not the greatest -- but it really appeared that he was singing about how he was just so Frustrated because as an old guy he still Has Needs. Uh, for love, that is. After being super super impressed by Furlanetto in Don Carlo, here I kind of felt sorry for him, because Silva is just such a flat villain, and over-the-top, that it was hard for me to feel anything for him but amusement, although he tried really hard.

Anyway, all the singers were wonderful (I was not familiar with Giordani, who was quite good, and Meade's voice was great although her acting, while decent, was not quite on par with Giordani or Furlanetto), but mostly I thought it was fine, not great, and too much unison singing in the trios, but then Verdi (and the singers) pulled out all the stops for the ending. Now, it is a totally bizarro silly ending which I was glad I was spoiled for (the King pardons everyone, and Ernani and Elvira get married, and then Ernani had earlier promised Silva to kill himself once Silva blows this horn, and Silva blows it, and Ernani kills himself), and yet -- something about the music, and the singers really rising to meet the music, was so marvelous that I was totally invested. Verdi is really something.

Comments

[zdenka]

Ha, that's fine! I like a lot of bel canto myself, but not everyone has to like everything.

Those sound like some good acting choices. I've sadly seen some productions on YouTube where they basically stand there and sing with minimal reaction, and unless you're going to treat it like an oratorio, Nabucco really needs more than that.

Well, I'd agree that Silva is totally unsympathetic in the last trio, so that's fair. I just wanted his one heroic moment to be mentioned. :)

Glad it was helpful! And I'm not blaming you for finding it silly, especially in a bad translation. But I thought a different translation might help.

[cahn]

So, uh, just today I was listening to No Tenors Allowed and very possibly the way to get me into bel canto is through baritone-bass duets. (I know. You are shocked.) But it made me think, I should just ask you: for someone who has had rather ambivalent experiences with bel canto in the past, what would you recommend?

[zdenka]

Hee! I'm very glad you're enjoying No Tenors Allowed. Hampson and Ramey are both sooo great.

I'll see if I can think of some things, but I won't be offended if you don't like them. If you don't mind, could you say what it is about bel canto that turns you off? Just so I can try to minimize those aspects.

Are you familiar with The Barber of Seville? The first thing that comes to mind is "Numero quindici, a mano manca". It's a tenor-baritone duet, but it's just so sparkly and delightful. Also "Largo al factotum" from the same opera (which is Figaro's introduction song).

[cahn]

Ah, I had forgotten about Barber of Seville! I do like that one.

Hm. I feel like I associate bel canto with very frothy soprano solo arias and tenor-soprano love duets, which I don't necessarily object to (and I understand that you have to have them!) but I don't like when it's the only thing around. :) I also feel -- and maybe I'm wrong about this? -- like there are too many duets/trios where everyone just kind of stands around and sings more-or-less in unison rhythm -- I was really pleased when Verdi turned out to have all these really interesting trios and quartets where everyone is doing something different!

Also I had a bad experience with Lucia di Lammermoor, which I really, really didn't like -- to be fair this was rather early in my opera-watching days, so I was ambivalent about opera as a whole and this may have played into it -- but anyway, I disliked pretty much all the characters, and felt the plot only worked because everyone behaved completely idiotically. (Though I will say that even though I'm not really fond of mad scenes, I did like Lucia's music in the mad scene -- can't remember the soprano but I think it was a famous one and she was brilliant.) So I think the librettos can really bother me.

[zdenka]

Glad you like Barber of Seville! I'm fond of it.

That makes sense! The soprano/tenor romance is often the least interesting part of a bel canto opera for me. (And the sopranos are very often sweet and virtuous and helpless, which personally annoys me as an amateur opera singer who would really like to try some other kinds of characters.)

*nod* Everyone doing something different is also one of the things I like about Verdi ensembles (and Mozart has some brilliant examples too). It's a fair complaint, but it's also the hardest item on your list to avoid, I think, because bel canto does that a lot.

. . . and bel canto librettos frequently being stupid is also a fair complaint. :) I say this though I like them.

I'll keep thinking about what you might like and I'll try to come back with a longer list later, but here's a another suggestion to start with. Maybe you'll like bel canto if it involves a dramatic confrontation at the Spanish court? ;) This is the Act II finale from Donizetti's La Favorita (or La Favorite, since this is another opera with both French and Italian versions).

Leonor (soprano) is the mistress of King Alfonso XI of Castile (baritone). Alfonso wants to divorce the Queen and marry Leonor. Balthazar (bass), an important churchman and the Queen's father, strongly disapproves. In this scene, Balthazar bursts in and publicly threatens Alfonso with divine wrath if he won't banish Leonor and reinstate his queen. He has gone to Rome and come back with a decree from the Pope: if Alfonso won't permanently separate from Leonor, they will both be excommunicated. Alfonso is furious at the insult to his royal authority, and Leonor is terrified. The court, horrified by the threat of anathema, joins in demanding that Leonor be driven out.

(Poor Leonor doesn't even want to marry Alfonso. Like Violetta, she's a "fallen woman" who has fallen in love with an ardent young man -- the tenor, Fernando, who doesn't appear in this scene. Sadly, Fernando, rather like Alfredo, has the capacity to be a total dick when he thinks he's been betrayed, and it doesn't end well.)

I couldn't find a Youtube clip with just that scene, so here are the links to the correct spot in two different complete performances. The scene is about ten minutes long.

A video in French, with subtitles, though unfortunately with a weak bass:
https://youtu.be/pwApcfB41P4?t=59m2s

And a much better bass (and a fantastic cast), but without subtitles and audio only, in Italian:
https://youtu.be/M1XiqkrF3KI?t=51m5s

[cahn]

WELL. This was great! Yes, apparently what I need is a) baritone and bass duets (as you know, hee), and b) dramatic confrontation at the Spanish court :) (and, yeah, I didn't think the bass would make that much of a difference, but it totally does -- about five minutes in I switched to the audio :) )

Are there bel canto operas you would recommend as a whole that have a good (non-totally-stupid) baritone or bass role and that have not-completely-stupid librettos? :) (Extra points if they're relatively popular so there are more choices on Youtube and Met on Demand :D ) I do have a rather higher threshold for stupidity in librettos than I used to, but Ernani was... about the limit I'd be willing to go, I think :)