Performances to Stream August 12-13, 2023
This weekend's edition is a trifle late due to a family birthday celebration, but we have performances from Bregenz, Frankfurt, Pesaro, Beaune, Barcelona, and Stockbridge.
Mezzo-Soprano Maya Gour and Pianist Lochlan Brown in Recital from the Alban Berg Concert Hall on Ö1
Part of the Carinthischer Sommer festival in Austria, this recital from Gour and Lochlan features music certain to please any audience. The joy of attending recitals is that one is often given an intimate interpretation of repertoire where as few as two artists are so much more free and synchronized with each other’s ideas. Usually, these experiences last in the recital-goer’s memories for a long time, and I can say with tremendous fondness that some of my favorite music memories come from recitals where I watched my colleagues or musical inspirations make bold choices of conviction in their relay of narrative and, thus, exquisite music.
This program. which was recorded on July 16, 2023, includes works from composers including Gioacchino Rossini, Hector Berlioz, Georges Bizet, Pauline Viardot, Kurt Weill, and Leonard Bernstein. This performance is scheduled to air on Austria’s Ö1 station at 1:00 PM on Saturday, August 12, 2023. It may be available to stream for a limited time following the broadcast.
Rudi Stephan’s Die ersten Menschen from the Oper Frankfurt on Deutschlandfunk Kultur
Another rare instance of an opera with which I am unfamiliar, this work was first brought to my attention through following soprano Ambur Braid on Instagram. It was a treat to catch glimpses of the learning and rehearsal process for this work thanks to one of my favorite facets of social media. According to Braid, as with a good selection of the modern repertoire that she performs, this music was somewhat daunting to learn. She likened it to Schreker, Strauss, and Debussy, which makes a great deal of sense in listening to bits of Stephan’s other work. This airing, which was recorded July 2, 2023, will be my first outing with this opera, and I could not be more ecstatic to enjoy it with a favorite diva in the cast. The history of this opera is a bit tragic, which seems only fitting given the subject matter of the work. Despite being a composer, Stephan was put into military service in World War I for Germany, and he was killed in action on the eastern front. Having completed his studies as a composer in 1908, he began work on this opera, which was to be his only one, the following year. He would not complete it until 1914, shortly before World War I began, and it was scheduled for a premiere at the Oper Frankfurt the following year. However, this was postponed due to the composer’s death in action, and the premiere waited for another 5 years before it would see an audience at the same house. Critics were favorable toward it, but the public did not much care for its story, so it saw very limited production thereafter.
This opera was based on a play by the same title that had caused quite the scandal when it premiered slightly earlier in the 20th century; the play was found to be so disagreeable that it was banned in the kingdom of Bavaria. What made it so distasteful? It was the plot, which applied a humanist lens to the Bible’s first family. Adam and Eve are in a state of conflict in this story, and Cain and Abel experience Freud’s Oedipus complex with sexual desire for their mother. This story’s interpretation is often described as perverse, and this likely has much to do with why this opera never found much of an audience or secured a place for itself in even the avant-garde repertoire. Nevertheless, it was produced four other times across Europe before Oper Frankfurt resurrected it for the 2023 season. Our cast for this performance stars Andreas Bauer Kanabas as Adahm, Ambur Braid as Chawa, Iain MacNeil as Kajn, and Ian Koziara as Chabel. Sebastian Weigle conducted this performance. This broadcast is scheduled to air on Deutschlandfunk Kultur at 5:00 PM GMT on Saturday, August 12, 2023. It will be available for future listening following the broadcast.
Gioachino Rossini’s Aureliano in Palmira from the Arena di Vitrifrigo on RAI Radio 3
From the Rossini Festival in Pesaro, we hear this rare gem from one of the bel canto masters. This is one of Rossini’s works that I have never heard, which is saying quite a lot given my decades of opera listening at this point in my life. When it premiered in 1813 on the day after Christmas at La Scala, it was met with poor reception from the critics. They felt Rossini had not lived up to the reputation he had established for himself as a composer with Tancredi, and they were not entertained by the cast of singers. The production endured for 14 performances in its initial run and would be mounted occasionally in Italian houses over the next 16 years. It even managed to make its way to London, but even this international export did not save the opera from falling out of favor among the repertoire that was to replace it.
This opera’s plot centers around the Roman conquest of Palmyra by Aurelian as he deals with the crisis of the third century. Zenobia is queen of the Palmyrene Empire in the Near East. She has recently declared secession from the rule of Rome, so the Romans have answered this with force as Zenobia’s holdings make her the most powerful subjugated ruler of the region and a considerable threat to Roman interests should she become an enemy or allied with a Roman enemy. The events of our tale deal with the end of the campaign. Arsace and Zenobia are lovers, but Arsace has been captured on the battlefield. Humble in his defeat and grateful to the emperor for sparing his life, Arsace reveals his love to Aurelian and announces that he is prepared to die for Zenobia. The queen requests a truce in the skirmishing for a chance to speak with Aurelian. She has hidden the treasures of the city and gathered a small band of fighters to make a final stand against the Romans, but she tries to bargain with Aurelian for the release of the prisoners of war. Aurelian refuses this, but he does allow her to see Arsace one last time, during which they mourn for the fates they must now endure. Aurelian promises to free Arsace if he will abandon Zenobia, but Arsace refuses to leave the woman he loves and is sentenced to death. As Act 2 begins, Aurelian tries to comfort Zenobia by offering his own love to her, but this is met with cold refusal from the woman whose lover he just condemned to death. Unbenknownst to the pair of nobles, Arsace has been freed by a secret plot and has been joined by some remaining loyal soldiers who believe Zenobia has been captured. Arsace goes to Zenobia that evening, and they meet under the moonlight and the cover of darkness; unfortunately, they are discovered by Roman soldiers, and Aurelian decides to punish them both and to make an example for anyone else who has designs on leading a revolt. They beg for death, but Aurelian says they will continue until the end of their days in separate cells of confinement. After an intercession from Publia, a Roman general’s daughter on Arsace’s behalf, Aurelian reconsiders his harsh judgment and instead asks Arsace and Zenobia to swear continued fealty to the Roman Empire in exchange for retaining control of their territories as governor of the Palmyrene lands. They accept these terms and praise Aurelian for his generosity and grace.
The cast stars Alexey Tatarintsev as Aureliano, Sara Blanch as Zenobia, Raffaella Lupinacci as Arsace, Marta Pluda as Publia, Sunnyboy Dladla as Oraspe, Davide Giangregorio as Licinio, Alessandro Abis as Gran Sacerdote, and Elcin Adil as Sheppherd under the baton of George Petrou. This live performance is scheduled to air at 5:55 PM GMT on RAI Radio 3’s Il Cartellone on Saturday, August 12, 2023. It will be available for listening following the initial broadcast airing.
Jules Massenet’s Manon from the Gran Teatre del Liceu on Ö1
Massenet’s telling of the story of Manon Lescaut is his best known opera and is often considered to be the better version of the opera than other attempts by Auber and Puccini despite the liberty it takes in its ending to the story. The action begins with Manon meeting her brother Lescaut in Amiens. Lescaut meets her midway on her journey to a convent, where it is planned for her to devote herself to a life of service in the church. Manon, however, is impressed by this new world she has encountered on her first journey, and plenty of questionable men notice her beauty. A man who stands out from the crowd, however, is the student Le Chevalier des Grieux. Manon and he meet, and it is not long before they have decided they are in love and make a pact to escape to Paris to live together. When they start their lives afresh in Paris in a small apartment, des Grieux writes to his father to request permission to marry Manon. This is problematic for him because Manon is hardly of noble lineage while the des Grieux family has money, land, and title to its name, and noble families tend to like to protect and preserve such things. Lescaut and his friend de Brétigny have found where the lovers reside, and they storm the residence to put a stop to whatever impropriety Lescaut is sure can be found. Des Grieux gladly exhibits his letter to his father to assure the men of his intentions, but de Brétigny takes this opportunity to privately warn Manon that des Griex will be kidnapped this very evening at the wish of his father. He hopes to convince her to abandon des Grieux in favor of a more comfortable life with his noble name, de Brétigny, providing the pleasures. After the men leave, des Grieux seals his letter and eagerly heads for a post office to send it on its way. While he is gone, Manon struggles with whether to warn des Grieux of his fate or to merely leave him for a better life than the one she currently has in their small apartment. She ultimately decides the more luxurious life calls to her as des Grieux returns home in hopeful spirits. He quickly walks back outisde to investigate a commotion, but the commotion turns out to be the lure to his own demise at the hands of his father, Le Comte des Grieux. In the third act Manon and de Brétigny visit Cours-la-Reine on a feast day. Happy with her life of luxury and delight, she runs into Le Comte with her new companion and learns that her former lover is now in seminary and bereft of his family title. Manon wonders if the younger des Grieux still loves her and flies to Saint-Sulpice. Le Comte tries to persuade his son to leave this life of priesthood and return to the family to continue its lineage, but it is of no avail. Des Grieux will not yield, so the elder man leaves. As the younger gentleman prays and remembers his happy life with Manon courtesy of a picture of the girl that he keeps, Manon arrives in the chapel. Initially rejecting her, he relents when Manon reminds him of their past and repents. In love yet again, they pledge themselves to each other before the eyes of God. In act 4, Manon and des Grieux are living together in bliss, and they visit a gambling salon at a hotel together. Des Grieux is easily enticed by the chance of winning the wealth loving Manon requires. Indeed, win he does, and he continues to do so at cards to the chagrin and ill-fortune of Guillot, one of the men who always wanted to impress Manon. Guillot accuses des Grieux of cheating in the game and brings the police to handle the situation. While they are there, he, of course, points to Manon as a woman of ill-repute, and both are arrested. Le Comte intercedes on behalf of his son, but Manon is left to judgment, which takes form in deportment to New Orleans. Des Grieux and Lescaut, who now regrets his role in disturbing the two lovers from the beginning, lie in wait to hopefully rescue Manon from her transport to the port for deportation. They realize a rescue attempt is futile when they see Manon is heavily guarded, but Lescaut proves resourceful yet again and bribes the sergeant to leave Manon behind for a bit. Unfortunately, Manon is frail and unwell. Des Grieux tries to comfort her in hopes of an escape, but Manon realizes it is too late for a return to that former joyous time in her life, and the opera ends with her death in her lover’s arms. Manon premiered in Paris in 1884 and had reached 2000 performances worldwide by 1952. While this opera may be widely known today, a fact that exists in relative obscurity is that Massenet composed a one act sequel to this opera in which we are introduced again to Le Comte des Grieux in his older years; of course, it is rarely performed these days.
Our cast for this performance May 2, 2023, includes Amina Edris as Manon Lescaut, Pene Pati as Le Chevalier Des Grieux, Jean-Vincent Blot as Le Comte Des Grieux,
Jarrett Ott as Lescaut, Ines Ballesteros as Poussette, Anna Tobella as Javotte, Anais Masllorens as Rosette, Albert Casals as Guillot de Morfontaine, Tomeo Bibiloni as De Bretigny, and Pau Armengol as Wirt under the baton of Marc Minkowski. This performance airs on Ö1’s Oper on Saturday, August 12, 2023, at 5:30 PM GMT. It will be available for future listening following the broadcast.
Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas from the Basilique Notre Dame on France Musique
This opera is among my favorites from the Baroque Era. I find it to be a marvelous vehicle for introduction of new audiences to the artform, as well, for it is delivered in English, which makes it generally more accessible to American audiences than an Italian dialogue work might be. The music is also quite beautiful and relatively easy for listeners to follow, which yields increased engagement from newer audiences, as well. When you add the historical context of the events within the opera, you aid in breeding familiarity with the subject from the audience, and all of these attributes serve to create an ideal opera for new audiences. However, this can also be a delightful treat for experienced audiences, and this performance certainly qualifies for such a purpose coming from the artistic forces of Les Arts Florissants under maestro Sir William Christie. Based on the 4th book of Virgil’s Aeneid, this opera explores the story of Aeneas of Troy seeking refuge with his compatriots at Carthage. While they are there, Dido, the queen of Carthage falls in love with Aeneas, and the two enjoy a state of mutual bliss for a short period until Aeneas leaves Dido for the call of an even greater destiny in Italy promised to him by the gods. Dido is horrified at this discovery and utters a curse that speaks into existence the enmity Romans and Carthaginians would gain for each other. After cursing Aeneas and his people, she commits suicide. Despite the mature themes of this work, the macabre and disheartening elements are juxtaposed with some of the most beautiful works of the early opera scene in England, and it is easy to understand why this opera retains its popularity today. We do not know precisely when it premiered, but we do know it was composed before 1688, for that is the date for which we have the first written mention of a performance of the work in a letter from the same year. The first performance outside of England appeared in Dublin in 1895 and did not find an audience in America until 1923.
The cast for this performance boasts the talents of Helen Charlston as Dido, Renato Dolcini as Aeneas / Sorceress, Ana Vieira Leite as Belinda, Maud Gnidzaz as First Witch, Virginie Thomas as Second Witch / Second Woman, Jacob Lawrence as Sailor, and Michael Loughlin Smith as Spirit. These artists are accompanied by Les Arts Florissants under the direction of Sir William Christie in this performance from July 23, 2023, at the Festival de Beaune. This broadcast is scheduled for Saturday, August 12, 2023, at 6:00 PM GMT on France Musique’s Le Concert du soir. It will be available for future listening on demand following the broadcast.
Richard Strauss’s Vier letzte Lieder from the Bregenz Festspielhaus on Ö1
A calling card for most lyric sopranos, soprano Rachel Willis-Sørensen delivers Strauss’s luscious four final songs to our ears from a concert hall in Austria. She stepped in for soprano Marlis Petersen at the Bregenz Festspielen to sing this work, which marked her debut at the festival. Recorded on July 30, 2023, this concert also included Charles Ives’s Central Park in the Dark and Florence Price’s Symphony No. 1 in E Minor. Maestro Dirk Kaftan conducted the Wiener Symphoniker. This broadcast is scheduled to air at 9:00 AM GMT on Sunday, August 14, 2023, on Ö1. It will be available for future listening for a short period of time following this initial airing.
Gioachino Rossini’s Adelaide di Borgogna from the Arena di Vitrifrigo on RAI Radio 3
If your desire this weekend was to be in attendance of the Rossini Festival in Pesaro, reading this newsletter secures you perhaps the next best thing, which is knowing where to hear multiple live performances from the festival this weekend! If you are an aficionado of Rossini’s obscure contributions to bel canto opera, this is the weekend for you, for we have two of his operas that you are not likely to hear in an ordinary opera season any time soon for your free listening pleasure. This is another work from Rossini’s catalog of which my ear is ignorant, so this proves quite the benevolent weekend for my constant state of opera research, does it not? This opera from Rossini is another of his historical opera seria. The plot depicts the events following the death of King Lotario of Italy, whom history better knows as Lothair II or Lothair of Arles, and his young widow Adelaide’s desparate attempts to retain her throne and to keep it out of the hands of Berengario, whom we know today as Berengar of Ivrea or Berengar II of Italy. The opera begins with Adelaide at the fortress of Canossa. Berengario attacks the fortress in hopes of forcing Adelaide to marry his son Adelberto, who serves as his co-regent of the kingdom of Italy. This would strengthen his position in the public eye, among local nobles, and upon the grander European regional stage. Adelaide’s fortune would also be a considerable prize to finance their endeavors. Adelaide, however, has already previously refused this offer personally, so she exerts a resource that would prove to have immense ramifications for European nobility for centuries into the future; she sends for aid from Ottone, Otto I of Germany, and promises to marry him and add her kingdom of Italy to his domains if he will rescue her from Berengario and Adelberto. Berengario and Adelberto’s siege effectively captures Canossa, and Adelaide is subjected to their demand of marriage. She again refusese, so Berengario keeps her imprisoned under his rule. Ottone’s forces arrive across the Alps and begin to engage Berengario’s army, which is ill-prepared for such battles after the siege and loses ground to the German forces. Adelberto goes to Ottone’s camp to offer a truce, but he makes certain to warn him of Adelaide as an ambitious woman who cannot be trusted. The truce is a ruse until Berengario and Adelberto can gain reinforcements, but Ottone takes Adelberto at his word and arrives in Canossa. Upon his arrival, he requests to see Adelaide and tells her he has come to her aid and upon seeing her is ready to marry her. They leave together and in love while Adelberto has to be restrained as he watches his chance at a secured future of monarchy slip from his grasp. Adelaide and Ottone discuss their fidelity to each other and prepare to be married at the church when Adelberto and Berengario’s reinforcements relieve the Italian usurpers’ forces, and they reveal their true intent by attacking Ottone and taking Adelaide prisoner again. Adleberto’s continued advances of marriage to Adelaide are rebuffed again by the Italian queen as Berengario continues fighting the battle against Ottone, whose forces have been driven from the city. In the midst of Adelaide’s arguments with Adelberto, news arrives that Ottone has captured Berengario; he is prepared to return Berengario to Adelberto if Adelaide will be set free. In his selfishness Adelberto cannot decide how to respond to this, so his mother concocts a ploy to help Adelaide escape with the promise that Adelaide will see to it that Ottone releases Berengario without harm. While Adelaide is on the way to Ottone, Adelberto decides to rescue his father by agreeing to Ottone’s terms, but Berengario vehemently forbids this course of action unless Ottone will guarantee him the throne of Italy. Adelaide interrupts the negotiations with her arrival in the camp, which gives Ottone all the cause he desires to exact punishment on Berengario and Adelberto for their insolence. Adelaide urges restraint and mercy in keeping her promise to Eurice earlier, so Ottone relents and releases the two troublemakers, who leave swearing revenge for their wounded pride and last chances at the throne of Italy. One more battle ensues on the folowing day, but Ottone emerges victorious once more and this time takes Berengario and Adelberto as prisoners while the Italian people rejoice. The opera may end here, but the historical reality is that Otto I kept Berengar II as King of Italy as a vassal to his own Empire for another decade. Berengar II’s invasion of the Papal States would cause Otto to return to Italy and eventually depose him from the Italian throne.
The cast for this live performance includes Varduhi Abrahamyan as Ottone, Olga Peretyatko as Adelaide, Riccardo Fassi as Berengario, René Barbera as Adelberto, Paola Leoci as Eurice, Valery Makarov as Iroldo, and Antonio Mandrillo as Ernesto. Francesco Lanzillota conducts. This performance is scheduled to air at 5:55 PM GMT on Sunday, August 13, 2023, on RAI Radio 3’s Il cartellone. It will be available for future listening after this initial broadcast.
Renée Fleming Performs Strauss with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood’s Koussevitzky Music Shed on CRB Classical
My favorite soprano from my earliest days of acquaintance with opera visits the United States of America’s most well-known classical music festival this summer. A staple of her performance repertoire in the last decade, she brings songs of Richard Strauss to enchant the audience on a summer evening, which is something approaching perfection if anyone asks me. Fleming was not originally part of this concert, but she comes to the stage as a last-minute replacement for cellist Yo-yo Ma, who recently tested positive for COVID-19 and withdrew from this performance. Also on this program are works by Julia Adolphe and Igor Stravinsky, their Makeshift Castle and Petrushka, respectively.