Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

Greetings! I realize I've been absent from the bologosphere a lot lately. But I’m still watching and listening and thinking about opera. I’m just not writing about it so much lately. I have thoughts about Norma and the Exterminating Angel from the Met; Calixto Bieto’s Tosca; Il trittico from the Bavarian Opera; that crazy Carmen from Aix last summer; the new Bergman-based opera written for Anne Sofie von Otter; and odd, vague tweets from opera singers. 

And I will get back to writing about these things...soon!  Meanwhile, here are some of my past Christmastide posts.

Baroque Arias – Bach and Matthias Goerne (and Barbara Bonney)

I know secular "christmas" is over, but it's still Christmastide in my world. And who has time to look at/listen to Christmas programming before Christmas, anyway? 

This whole program of Baroque (and one Mozart) music (from 1999) is wonderful. Ms. Bonney and Herr Goerne each have a few solo arias and one sweet duet, plus there's some nice orchestral and brass music—none of it blatantly, commercially Christmas-y. Because I love Matthias Goerne singing Bach, I would like to draw your particular attention to Herr Goerne’s rendition of this aria from Bach's Christmas Oratorio:

 

Großer Herr, o starker König,

Liebster Heiland, o wie wenig 

Achtest du der Erden Pracht! 

Der die ganze Welt erhält, 

Ihre Pracht und Zier erschaffen, 

Muss in harten Krippen schlafen.

Great Lord, O mighty king,

dearest saviour, O how little

you regard earthly splendour

He who maintains the whole world 

and created its glory and adornment

must sleep in a hard crib.

Here are some other seasonal posts from the past.

Opera Stars Sing Christmas Music on Ö1 Radio

World opera stars from Enrico Caruso to Renee Fleming are included in this little Christmas music program on Austria's Radio Ö1. Not just the familiar carols, but also a bit of Bach and some opera excerpts from Rimsky-Korsakov's Christmas Eve and (of course) Humperdinck’s Hansel und Gretel. The program also includes selections from Juan Diego Florez, Mado Robin, Paul Robeson, Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, Thomas Quasthoff, and others.

I haven’t posted as much in 2014 as in past years (oddly, it was easier to keep up when I had a steady job), but I hope to get back to more regular presence here on the blog pages in 2015. So for now, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all my readers! And to carry us through the 12 days of Christmas, here are some Regie or Not Regie Christmas posts from seasons past. 

Sunday Brunch – Christmas in Vienna 2013

Just in time for the First Sunday in Christmastide, this hour-long TV program consists of standard, and mostly traditional, Christmas music, and it's a lovely way to extend our holiday season just a little bit longer. 

The concert features Luca Pisaroni, Angelika Kirchschlager, Ursula Langmayr (filling in for Anna Prohaska), and Joel Prieto, with the Wiener Singakademie, the Wiener Sängerknaben, and the ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien, all under the direction of Erwin Ortner.

Special thanks to Luca Pisaroni for posting the link on Facebook!

Merry Christmas from RnR!

I hope you all enjoy this lovely Christmas medley from the 2008 Christmas in Vienna concert. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Peter Mattei - O Helga Natt

Happy Christmas Eve, from Peter and me!

A Nifty Noel Concert from Laurence Equilbey and her Merry Band

Here's a classical antidote to "[somebody's] favorite pop starts trash your favorite Christmas songs" programs that are so hard to avoid this time of year. Actually, a lot of this music is not specifically Christmas music, but it's all lovely and lovingly performed. I've posted one of the Pavol Breslik solos before, not realizing it's from this concert. Nathalie Stutzman and Sandrine Piau are also featured in this concert.

If you've never heard of Laurence Equilbey or her chamber choir, Accentus, take an hour to treat yourself to some beautiful music: solos, duets, orchestral, and choral (with and without orchestra) selections make for a nice variety of calm seasonal cheer. 

Special thanks go out to Defintely the Opera for reminding me of Ms. Equilbey and her recordings, and for pointing out that she is also at the helm of my new favorite Orfeo ed Eurydice (which is still available for listening till Boxing Day)!  Not to mention a beautiful performance of Mozart's Mass in C Minor.

Edit 12/25/2017: This little gem of a Christmas concert has disappeared from the Tube of You in it's full-concert form, although individual bits of it are still there. In fact there are many videos of Maestra Equilby's performances. As a holiday consolation, here is a video of a more recent performance of Bach's Christmas Oratorio:

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

Sunday Brunch – Pavol Breslik Sings Franck

Christmas concerts are strange beasts. Sometimes musicians program the darnedest things—probably because, "Hey! It's religious, right?" So we get Ave Maria (pray for us now and at the time of our death) and Panis Angelicus (the sacred body, broken for us) mixed in with O Holy-a Night-a*; O, du fröliche; and the Twelve Days of Christmas. But I guess, when else is a tenor going to get to sing this chestnut in a concert setting? 

Christmas in April with Peter Mattei

Any day is a good day to hear Peter Mattei sing—even Christmas music. This is not your standard pop/crossover Christmas record. Neither is it an esoteric program in the way that Christmas with the Palestrinas would be. It’s an absolutely beautiful, gentle program that you might hear in your local church; if your local church had an amazing chamber orchestra, and if Peter Mattei sang in your choir.  It’s simply Jul med Peter Mattei—his gorgeous voice backed by tasteful arrangements, with a few bells, but no whistles, and no backup singers.

Elīna Garanča Sings Ave Maria (no, not THAT one)

I almost skipped this one, thinking: oh boy, another Ave Maria. But not reading the fine print, and wondering if it were the Gounod or the Schubert, and loving Elīna Garanča's voice, I clicked. (Elīna Garanča is of course, the beautiful Latvian mezzo-soprano known for her many stage roles, including Carmen, La Ceneterola, Dorabella, and Sesto.)

This is gorgeous: it's a Spanish setting, that is almost pop or broadway-opera-crossover. Ave Maria, while a prayer to the Virgin Mary, is not really a Christmas text, but it crops up a lot at this time of year, and it is about Jesus' mom. This is from the same Viennese concert as the Genia Kühmeier clip. 

Garanča sings Ave Maria by William Gomez.

The 12 Days Of Christmas – Frederica von Stade & Kathleen Battle

This clip is from the wonderful 1991 Carnegie Hall Christmas Concert. Frederica von Stade and Kathleen Battle joined forces with the New York Choral Society, the American Boy Choir, and  the Orchestra of St. Luke's, all under the direction of Andre Previn. Wynton Marsalis and his quartet also appeared on their own and with the sopranos in various combinations. I have had this program on CD for years, and I enjoy the variety of straight up classical, pop-ish arrangements, and jazz. All of the principal artists do a great job in each style. 

Genia Kühmeier sings Reger's Maria Wiegenlied

The lovely Genia Kühmeier has appeared as Pamina in the M22 Zauberflöte, Michaela in Carmen with Kaufmann and Kožená, and a charming Zdenka in the recent Vienna production of Arabella. Here, in a 2009 Christmas Concert from Vienna, she sings Max Reger's beautiful Maria Wiegenlied (cradle song). Merry Christmas!

Jonas Kaufmann sings Cantique de Noël

O Holy Night is possibly my all-time least favorite (sacred) Christmas song. I have heard way too many people massacre it in various hideous ways. On the other hand, have you ever tried finding any recordings of JK singing Christmas music? And in the right hands (voice) it can be a lovely aria. In the YT comments, someone bashes JK (it seems like a popular hobby) for some "alterations" of the melody in the second stanza. But if my memory serves me, it is actually written that way. In any event, who can pass up any opportunity to watch and listen to Jonas Kaufmann sing? 

Cantique de Noël

Advent Concert, Dresden, 2009

Sunday Brunch – Hansel und Gretel: Abendgesang

This isn't really a Christmas song. But the opera is often presented at Christmastime. (Although some recent productions are not of the happy, fluffy, Christmas fairy tale variety. I probably would not take kids, for example, to the Richard Jones production!!)

Anyway, this duet is sometimes featured on Christmas albums. It's sung beautifully by the ever-wonderful goddess of song Malin Hartelius as Gretel, and Zurich stalwart mezzo Liliana Nikiteanu, who is super in a dress or in pants, as Hansel. 

Happy Christmas Eve Eve. 

O Tannenbaum – Roberto Alagna and Thomas Hampson

Opera singers singing Christmas music through a Hollywood orchestral filter in O Tannenbaum (orchestrations by the great Jonathan Tunick). It looks like this is from a 1996 Christmas album they did with Kiri Te Kanawa. It might be fun to hear the rest of it. Unfortunately there's no video of our divos, but they do sound lovely in their brief few bars together.

Roberto Alagna and Thomas Hampson