Vesselina (and Véronique and Charles) in my Mailbox...

Mozart Week continues at my house! This arrived today:

I finally tracked down a copy of this 2006 recording. It's hard to believe I haven't tagged any posts with LCdT for almost a full year. A while back I featured Tito's three arias sung by Charles Castronovo, not realizing they were from this recording. A quick search did not reveal any other clips from this CD over at the Toob. In the next week or so, I will see what I can do to address this gap.

Natalie and Véronique and Topi and Luca vs. Mozart's C-minor Benedictus (Audio only)

Well, here is the Benedictus from this recording. The one chance for the bass soloist to sing! Think what other goodies the tenor and bass might have ended up with, if Mozart had managed to complete this Grand Mass!  

I like Natalie, but she's not my first choice to top this quartet*. Meanwhile, I love Véronique, Topi, and Luca; and the chorus is quite good. The timpanist seems heavy-handed; but it is the "end" of the mass. I guess he wanted it to sound really final.

References to this recording indicate that the score has been "revised" by Louis Langree. This means I now have to do some research to find out what exactly he felt he had to do to "fix" the work.

*One soprano in particular I enjoy hearing in this mass is Miah Persson.

Monday Morning Mozart – Natalie vs. Véronique

The Soprano Sing-off from Mozart's C-minor mass. This time with two sopranos (often we hear a mezzo in the role of Soprano 2.) I am not sure where this came from, but as you can imagine, I was searching for Luca Pisaroni when it cropped up. (The bass gets totally short-changed in Mozart's partial setting of the Roman Catholic Mass.)

Huh! The entire Mass was at YT just the other day. Ach, the ephemeral internet!

Random Thoughts While Listening to Lirico Spinto on France Musique

I wish I understood French. I don't even understand most of the singers' names in French. Even the French singers. 

Most of the time, I really dislike Maria Callas' voice (Sorry, everyone. I know that's a special kind of operatic heresy.) She made some truly dreadful sounds. (Gluck – see below)

Sometimes, I really like Maria Callas' voice. She made some absolutely lovely sounds (now and then)! (Bellini – see below)

Speaking of Bellini, almost everything he wrote sounds the same to me – even the bits that I already know. 

Almost everything Gluck wrote also sounds the same to me – even the bits from Orfeo/Orphee; although I definitely like Gluck better than Bellini.

Anna Moffo had a pretty spectacular voice (I know, that's not really news.) At least Bellini is really pretty when she sings it.

Véronique Gens also has a spectacular voice, especially when she’s singing in French.

James King sounded pretty darned good back in the early 60s – even singing Gluck in German.

Vesselina Kasarova has at least three voices, and she uses them all to great effect, especially in this Orphee excerpt in the Gluck program. (It's credited to an RCA CD, but I think it's the same performance as on this DVD.)

Richard Croft's voice is still god-like. (Also not news, but...oh my!)

Google Chrome continues to aggravate by automatically translating (or trying to translate) any page that's not in English. OTOH, it does provide a hearty giggle now and then. For example, this aria from I Capuleti e i Montecchi  entitled "O, fifty flip" (O, quante volte).  

The Bellini Program

 The Gluck Program

Two Py, Not Square (Dialogues des Carmélites and Hamlet)

Stage director Olivier Py is busy all over Europe these days. Videos of two of his latest productions can be viewed online (and they're not on YT, so they won't magically disappear without warning.) On a post over at the Parterre Box*,  redbear commented:

...his Theatre des Champs-Elysees “Dialogues” [is] a “perfection rarement atteintes” and the “Hamlet” in Brussels last month “brillante.”

At Arte Live Web, where you can watch a video of Dialogues des Carmélites (featuring French divas Véronique Gens, Sophie Koch, and Patricia Petibon as Blanche) for about six more months, we learn:

Francis Poulenc's composition is based on the eponymous drama by Georges Bernanos and is an outstanding masterpiece of French opera of the 20th Century. The historical setting and the extraordinary protagonists make "Dialogues of the Carmelites" as an impressive allegory on human existence, death and the relationship of people to each other and to God.

Then check out Ambroise Thomas' Hamlet at La Monnaie; and not just because there's a nude barihunk (thank you, barihunks.com). It also is an opera we don't get to hear that often, and it's an impressive production. Marc Minkowski conducts, and Stéphane Degout is the wonderful Hamlet (he was a super Pelleas last season, too); Degout's brief nakedness adds a special creepiness to a mother giving her grown son a bath. Mathieu Rémy as Laertes is a tenor to watch out for, too. You can see the full opera on France's Culturebox until June 2014. 

My fluency in French is slightly below survival level, so even though I know the basic plot of each opera, I found these synopses from the Metropolitan Opera very helpful:

Hamlet

Dialogues des Carmélites

*A rather interesting (and impressively civil) discussion regarding pros and cons of Regieoper.

Gratuitous Friday – Véronique Gens Chante Berlioz

Every time I see and hear  Véronique Gens perform, I like her even more than before. This is the first time I’ve heard her sing anything in her native language; her presentation of Berlioz's Les Nuite d'ete is just delightful! 

Mme. Gens enters the stage about 14:30 into the video. Click here for texts and translations of these songs. (The rest of the program is lovely, too; but, sadly there's no more singing.)

Lionel Bringuier is a (very) young French conductor who has already served six years as a resident conductor for the Los Angeles Phiharmonic (once filling in, mid-concert, for the"Dude" to conduct the same Tchaikovsky sixth we hear here), as well as conducting the New York Phil and a host of European ensembles.  

La Clemenza di Tito (Part 2: Personal Drama Played Out in Public)

Act 2 Finale

In some productions, Sesto is on the verge of a nervous breakdown (same for Vitellia and Tito, too, in other productions.) I think this Sesto is just a wimp. Anna Bonitatibus sings and acts gorgeously, but all I want to do is slap Sesto and sign him up some self-esteem classes. 

Kurt Streit portrays the Tito’s stress and exasperation, but sounds strained. (Actually most tenors do. It must be true that Mozart hated tenors. The slow rising of standard concert pitch over the years can’t take total blame for the awkward tessitura of Mozart’s tenor roles.)

La Clemenza at La Monnaie

Check out this new production of La Clemenza di Tito online at La Monnaie's website for a limited time (through Nov. 30*). Kurt Streit is Tito, Veronique Gens is Vitellia and Anna Bonitatibus is Sesto. 

I've only seen the first two scenes. The set is a big bedroom/office (maybe a hotel room?) There's a big video screen over center stage that shares intriguing and/or significant closeups (often of someone who is not singing, but usually reacting to whomever is singing). Both Sesto and Annio look and move convincingly like guys, and Tito is on stage at a desk stage left from the start. I haven't gotten far enough in to find out how that's going to play out. 

Sometimes videos from La Monnaie appear elsewhere later. Sometimes not. So watch it now!

*Update 11/10/13 My original intelligence said Nov. 21, but I just noticed on the La Monnaie site it says the 30th. (Also, I now have a crush on Swedish mezzo Anna Grevelius as Annio, but I am not sure if I have a crush on her, or on him.)

Related Posts:
Servillia and Annio (Review, Part 1)
Personal Drama... (Review, Part 2)

Gratuitous Friday – David Bižić is Leporello

This video is a low-quality bootleg but more than we'd have otherwise. And it's a good one to have. I've posted bits of this before, which you can find by clicking on the David Bižić link below or looking for Peter Mattei on RnR. The full cast list is below the clip; they are stage-directed by Michael Haneke at the Opera Bastille. 

The whole performance (or nearly whole, anyway) is contained in this YOO_TOOB playlist. It’s quite worth listening through the muffled sound and watching the dimly lit stage to hear Peter Mattei, Véronique Gens, and David Bižić do their Mozart thing. The rest of the cast is pretty good too. Happy Friday! 

Filmed live on April 19, 2012 at Opera Bastille, Paris. 

Peter Mattei - Don Giovanni 

Paata Burchuladze - Il Commendatore 

Patricia Petibon - Donna Anna 

Saimir Pirgu - Don Ottavio 

Véronique Gens - Donna Elvira 

David Bizic - Leporello 

Nahuel Di Pierro - Masetto 

Gaëlle Arquez - Zerlina 

Marius Stieghorst - Conductor

Michael Haneke - Stage Director

Christoph Kanter - Sets

Annette Beaufaÿs - Costumes

André Diot - Lighting

Alessandro Di Stefano - Maestro del coro

Two Favorite Barihunks in Don Giovanni: Bižić & Mattei

Men at work

We've posted about both Peter Mattei and David Bižić recently. Now it's time to see/hear them together. Mr. Bižić just made his debut as Don Giovanni at the Slovenia National Theater (I am still trying to find a review!) In the great tradition of Mozart bass-baritones, he started as Masetto, and moved up to Leporello. In fact, his Don Giovanni in this Michael Haneke production is...you guessed it: Peter Mattei!

This is another one of those controversial French productions; it premiered in 2006 at the Palais Garnier, and was revived in 2012 at Opéra Bastille. Blogger Opera Cake loved it (I think we’d enjoy going to the opera with Opera Cake) but many, if not most others were not as enthusiastic. Mr. Mattei is a very controlling Giovanni (he sings gorgeously, of course) who uses his sex appeal to manipulate everybody (with Bižić at right).