Performances to Stream July 15-16, 2023
This weekend's edition is a late one (it has been a busy weekend), but we are squarely in Summer Festival Season! Performances are from the United States, France, Australia, and Germany.
George Friedrich Handel’s Semele from the Münchner Prinzregententheater on BR Klassik
Semele is one of Handel’s oratorios that was really a thinly-veiled opera. Unlike most oratorios, it did not feature a Biblical story or theme and instead pulled its subject matter from the pages of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Nevertheless, during the season of Lent in 1744, this work had its premiere in concert form at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden. Like oratorios, it featured far more choruses than traditional opera presents, and, unfortunately, it proved not to be very successful in Handel’s lifetime due to its subject matter. Semele tells the story of a woman who refuses to marry a man because she is in love with the Roman god Jupiter himself. Jupiter, ever one with a roving eye, is only too quick to oblige, which leaves his wife Juno to form a scheme to teach everyone a lesson. She visits Semele and tells her to make Jupiter show his true form as a deity to her. By doing so, she will also become a goddess herself, and she and Jupiter will no longer be mismatched as ardent lovers. Semele is excited by the possibility, so she makes Jupiter swear to grant her a wish, and she asks to see his full glory. Jupiter begs her to reconsider and to request something else, but Semele is relentless. Finally, Jupiter gives her the sight for which she asked, but it destroys his lover. Apollo descends and tells Semele’s earthly family of what has transpired and leaves them with the hope that Semele’s unborn child will rise from her ashes and become the demigod Bacchus bringing joy to all through wine and pleasure.
This live performance of Semele stars Brenda Rae as Semele, Michael Spyres as Jupiter, Jonas Hacker as Apollo, Jakub Józef Orlinski as Athamas, Emily D’Angelo as Juno, Philippe Sly as Cadmus/Somnus, Delphine Galou as Ino, Jessica Niles as Iris, Milan Siljanov as High Priest, and Claus Guth as Inszenierung with Stefano Montanari conducting. It is scheduled to air on Saturday, July 15, 2023, at 4:00 PM GMT on BR Klassik. It will be available for listening following the live broadcast.
Giacomo Meyerbeer’s Le prophète from the Grand Théâtre de Provence on France Musique
This opera comes to us courtesy of the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, which is one of the most glorious places to be in Europe during the summer. Since I tend to focus my summer listening on the BBC Proms, the Edinburgh International Festival, and the Verbier Festival, I never hear nearly as much of this festival as I ever hope to do; believe it or not, there are limits to how much music a single person can actually consume in a festival season! Le prophète is one of Meyerbeer’s best known and most performed operas. Though perhaps difficult for modern audiences to fathom, he was the most frequently performed composer in world-class opera houses in the 19th century. As an early supporter of Wagner, his work fell out of favor following World War II. This opera takes place in the 16th century and deals with the Anabaptist revolt in Holland. At the time of its premiere in 1849, critics noted how closely some of the remarks from the Anabaptists resembled mantras from the Communist revolutionaries of the ill-fated, short-lived 1848 revolution in France, and history does not seem to show Meyerbeer avoiding this. Nevertheless, the work is a cornerstone of the height of opera in the mid 19th century and was celebrated for its theatrical splendor.
Our cast for this live performance from Aix-en-Provence includes John Osborn as Jean de Leyde, Elizabeth DeShong as Fidès, Mané Galoyan as Berthe, James Platt as Zacharie, Edwin Crossley-Mercer as Le comte d’Oberthal, Guilhem Worms as Mathisen, Valerio Contaldo as Jonas, Maxime Melnik as Un soldat, Hugo Santos as Un soldat, David Sánchez as Un soldat. Sir Mark Elder conducts the Mediterranean Youth Orchestra and the London Symphony Orchestra. This live performance is scheduled for airing at 5:00 PM GMT on Saturday, July 15, 2023, on France Musique’s Le Concert du soir. It will not be available for future listening following the initial broadcast.
Giacomo Rossini’s L’Italiana in Algeri from the Filmtheater Delphi on Deutschlandfunk Kultur
If there is one name synonymous with bel canto operatic comedies, it is Rossini, and L’Italiana in Algeri upholds his reputation. This opera centers around a Turkish leader and his desire for an Italian woman to satisfy his appetite for love. His harem is no longer the adventure he desires, so he imagines an Italian girl with her feisty zest is exactly what he needs. As luck would have it, an Italian ship gets lost in a storm and becomes wrecked with its passengers. Of the passengers on board, there is Isabella, who quickly becomes the woman of Mustafa’s dreams. Enslaving the rest of the people on board, Isabella tricks her new lover into a drunken state of silence and leads her friends to escape back to freedom for Mustafa to realize Italian girls are too much for him and to return to the pleasure of his wife Elvira.
Our cast features Hanna Ludwig as Isabella, David Oštrek as Mustafà, Miloš Bulajiæ as Lindoro, Manuel Walser as Taddeo, Polly Ott as Elvira, Laura Murphy as Zulma, and Adam Kutny as Haly. Jakob Lehmann conducts this performance from October 23, 2022. This performance airs at 5:00 PM GMT on Deutschlandfunk Kultur on Saturday, July 15, 2023. It will be available for future listening following the broadcast.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Così fan tutte from the Tanglewood Music Festival on CRB Classical
One of the United States of America’s premiere summer festivals is the Tanglewood Music Festival from the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Dating back to 1936, this annual tradition is in its 87th season. The Boston Symphony Orchestra takes its music out of the symphony hall and into the landscape of the Berkshires for an idyllic summer of refreshing celebration of our art and nature, and performances here are special and well remembered by all who experience them. Così fan tutte remains one of Mozart’s most beloved operas today because of its timeless treatment of romance and the quirky dilemmas that love can introduce to our lives. Two sisters are loved by a couple of suitors who are approached with a wager by another gentleman who insists women will be unfaithful if given the chance. Ferrando and Guglielmo have to know if this is true, so they hatch a plan to try to catch ladies in a trap. The ladies and their maid Despina have something to say about this, and both sets of lovers learn something in the end.
The cast includes Nicole Cabell as Fiordiligi, Kate Lindsey as Dorabella, Meigui Zhang as Despina, Amitai Pati as Ferrando, Elliot Madore as Guglielmo, and Patrick Carfizzi as Don Alfonso with Sir Andris Nelsons leading the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The broadcast is scheduled for 12:00 AM GMT on Sunday, July 16, 2023, on CRB Classical. This live performance will be available for future listening after the broadcast.
Giovanni Legrenzi’s Giustino from the Sydney City Recital Hall on ABC Classic
While it is rare for me to have never heard an opera brought to broadcast today, Legrenzi’s Giustino is, indeed, an opera I have never heard! Legrenzi lived from 1626 to 1690, which makes him a composer of the middle Baroque era. Like many composers of the time, his career began with appointments as a church organist and maestro di cappella. His compositions were first written for the church, and he left us a wealth of sacred vocal music and oratorios, which were popular in his day to such an extent that his books of music were known to have second editions during his lifetime. The height of his career was found in Venice where he enjoyed considerable prominence as a composer during the latter half of the 1600’s. Few of his operas survive today, but he is said to have composed 19 of them in less than 25 years. Giustino premiered in 1683, and its popularity was such that it was still part of the repertoire selections until at least 1720. Its introduction to modern ears, however, came courtesy of the 2007 Schwetzingen Festival under Thomas Hengelbrock’s academic reconstruction. Giustino details the rise of a young peasant boy to founding the Justinian Dynasty of the Byzantine Empire, which is as much exciting history as it is a tale fit for the opera stage.
This performance from May of 2023 starred Jacob Lawrence as Anastasio, Madeleine Pierard as Arianna, Nicholas Tamagna as Giustino, Lauren Lodge Campbell as Eufemia, Owen Willetts as Vitaliano, Russell Harcourt as Andronico, Louis Hurley as Amantio, Andrew O'Connor as Polimante/Ombra, and Chloe Lankshear as Fortuna. Erin Helyard led the Orchestra of the Antipodes. This broadcast is scheduled for 9:00 AM GMT on Sunday, July 16, 2023, on ABC Classic’s Sunday Opera. It will be available for future listening following the broadcast.
Ludwig van Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No. 3 and Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana from the Tanglewood Music Festival on CRB Classical
Orff, a seminal figure in music education, was a prominent composer of the modern era of music. Best known among his works is his secular cantata Carmina Burana. It is based on a collection of Latin poetry thought to be from the 11-13th centuries for use with secular music. Casual listeners will know the opening O fortuna movement well from many film scores. The work on the whole is written for 2 choirs, a treble choir, orchestra, and three soloists. It errs on the side of harmonic simplicity in favor of a more nuanced and complex rhythmic ideal that is a hallmark of Orff’s musical development in his work and in his direction for students learning music. Beethoven’s Leonore Overtures are revisions to pieces of music from his opera Fidelio. Beethoven desperately wished to be an opera composer, but his creative process of constant revision was not at all conducive to the way in which opera is produced. The title comes from Beethoven’s original title for the opera, which was Leonore. In the modern era those revised works were turned into concert works and are used in various stagings of Fidelio during intermissions or between scenes.
The soloists for this recorded broadcast are soprano Erin Morley, countertenor Reginald Mobley, and baritone Will Liverman. This performance airs at 11:00 PM GMT on Sunday, July 16, 2023, on CRB Classical and will be available for future listening following the broadcast.
Amazing, as always - thank you Tyler ❤️