Norrington and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment

Roger Norrington is one of the best-known champions of the use of period instruments and understanding correct performance style for music of all periods. In this video he works with England's Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment playing on period instruments. The music is by C.P.E. Bach, one of the most gifted and successful of J.S. Bach's sons. Unfortunately, C.P.E. Bach's music is rarely played today. Norrington and the members of the OAE set out to rectify the situation.

More from Norrington on my companion video this week.

Paul E. Robinson

Russian soprano Ekaterina Sadovnikova Sings "Caro nome" from Rigoletto

This week marks the opening of the second production of the COC fall season, Verdi's Rigoletto. Russian soprano Ekaterina Sadovnikova makes her Canadian debut as Gilda (sharing the role with Canadian soprano Simone Osborne). It is always exciting to hear new singers, especially one with a voice as beautiful as Sadovnikova's. Born in 1980, she studied with Tamara Novichenko in St. Petersburg and went on to win many prizes at vocal competitions and became a member of the Mariinsky Theatre Ensemble in St. Petersburg. Outside Russia, Sadovnikova has sung Violetta and Lucia at La Fenice, Gilda at the Caracalla Baths (Rome) and at Covent Garden. There are a number of video clips of her Gilda and Lucia on Youtube. Here is the soprano singing "Caro nome" from Rigoletto at the Caracalla Baths in August 2010. The video was taped from the audience and  the conditions were far from ideal, but you can still tell that hers is an exceptional voice. 

- Joseph K. So

The Marx Brothers at the Opera

Let me hasten to add that at its best opera can be glorious entertainment and includes some of the most beautiful music ever written. Long live opera - and the Marx Brothers! 

As opera companies everywhere are opening their seasons it is an appropriate time to be reminded that opera shouldn't take itself too seriously. Many operas and especially opera productions, are basically ridiculous. The Marx Brothers loved to make fun of everything but in opera it was almost too easy. Their film "A Night at the Opera" remains a classic. It would be hard to sit through a performance of "Il Trovatore" again with a straight face.

Paul E. Robinson

Fischer and Fischer Play Mendelssohn

This is a wonderful performance of the last movement of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, recorded at a concert in Paris May 29, 2010. Violinist Julia Fischer and conductor Ivan Fischer - no relation - perform with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. What makes this performance so special is first and foremost the quality of the playing but also the impeccable phrasing, the articulation and the rthythmic exactitude. Not to mention the joy of music-making which pervades the performance. The superb control is also a major factor. The musicians make suble tempo changes but always in the most natural possible way. This concerto is played day in and day out but rarely do performers succeed in making it fresh again. 


And conductor Fischer does his work with a minimum of histrionics. Beating time is scarcely necessary with an orchestra of this quality - it is really a largish chamber ensemble in the way that it makes music. But Ivan Fischer has a sense of humour too. Not many conductors give cues with their eyebrows but he does.


I hope you enjoy this performance as much as I did.


Paul E. Robinson

Montserrat Caballe Sings "Casta Diva" from Orange Festival Norma 1974

This Friday (Sept.23) 176 years ago, the great Vincenzo Bellini died, at the lamentably young age of 33.  To many opera fans, including yours truly, Bellini was the greatest - and the most melodically inspired - among the Italian bel canto composers.  One can only imagine that if he had lived longer, the opera world would have been blessed with many more of his creations.  Arguably his greatest opera was Norma, not just for its many fabulous melodies but also its extraordinary emotional depth, uncommon in the bel canto school that focuses entirely on "beautiful singing".  The role of Norma is particularly demanding, requiring a beautiful voice with an easy top, great technique (especially infinite dynamic variations.) There have been many great Normas in history - among them Rosa Ponselle, Claudia Muzio, Maria Callas, Leyla Gencer, Joan Sutherland, Montserrat Caballe, and more recently Edita Gruverova. Here is Caballe singing Casta Diva in the legendary Orange Festival performance in 1974.  This performance, with Jon Vickers as Pollione, was almost cancelled because of unseasonable cold and strong wind. We are lucky that it went ahead, and that there is a complete video document.  Caballe's high pianissimos and legendary breath control have never been equaled.

- Joseph K. So

Kempe Conducts Dvorak

Rudolf Kempe (1910-1976) gave me a splendid introduction to Wagner's Ring cycle in 1960. These were broadcasts of Bayreuth live performances and they were wonderful. Kempe was a regular at Bayreuth and in constant demand as a guest conductor with the Vienna Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic and the Staatskapelle Dresden.

I grew up listening to his splendid recordings of Brahms Requiem and Strauss tone poems. Kempe also conducted regularly at the Met although he rarely appeared with American orchestras.

Kempe was born in Dresden and studied oboe and piano. He played oboe in the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and he was a good enough pianist to play Mozart concertos.

I heard Kempe live only once: a concert with the Royal Philharmonic in London in 1969. He was simply one of the best and musicians knew it.

His recordings are hard to find these days and they deserve a better fate. For more on Kempe visit his website at www.rudolfkempesociety.org.

In this video Kempe conducts the BBC Symphony - he was its chief conductor at the time - in the final movement from Dvorak's New World Symphony. The concert was given at a Proms concert at the Royal Albert Hall in 1974.

Paul E. Robinson

Christopher Plummer Talks About Growing Up in Montreal

When the Toronto Symphony opens its season next week Christopher Plummer will be the featured "soloist" in excerpts from Shakespeare's Henry V with music by William Walton.

Plummer grew up in Montreal and discusses these early years in an interview recorded in Palm Beach in 2009. He also talks about making the film "The Sound of Music."

The interview was done while Plummer was on a book tour promoting his wonderful autobiography "In Spite of Myself." He is in his 80s now but shows no signs of slowing down. And his performances just get better and better. In recent years he has had enormous triumphs at Stratford in "King Lear", "Caesar and Cleopatra" and "The Tempest." In film he was highly praised for his performance as Tolstoy in "The Last Station." And his acclaimed one-man show 'Barrymore" was filmed last year and just opened at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

But in addition to being a great actor Plummer is a born raconteur. The book has some unforgettable stories and in the Palm Beach interview he tells a few more.

- Paul E. Robinson

Soprano Aga Mikolaj Sings Strauss' Four Last Songs

#1  Fruhling


#2  September


#3 Beim Schlafengehen
#4 Im Abendrot
 

Last Thursday, September 8 marked the 62nd anniversary of the death of the great Richard Strauss.  Born on June 11, 1864, Strauss was above all a composer for the human voice, particularly the soprano.  Throughout his long life, Strauss composed some of his most inspired music for the high female voice, perhaps none greater than his last compositions, the Vier letzte Lieder or Four Last Songs. It places daunting demands on the singer, requiring beauty of tone, supreme technical control - particularly long breath, and heart-felt expression.  There have been some spectacularly wonderful versions on disc - Janowitz with von Karajan and the Berlin Phil, Lucia Popp with Tennstedt, Soile Isokosi with Marek Janowski, and in a contrarian fashion Jessye Norman in a very slow and luxuriant reading for Kurt Masur. Many VLL connoisseurs love the Schwarzkopf recording with Szell, or better yet, the early one in mono sound with Ackermann. To this list I would like to add a new recording with young Polish soprano Aga Mikolaj and conductor Karl Sollak on the German CPO label.  Hers is an exceptionally beautiful and expressive voice under superb technical control. Her singing is just indescribably beautiful, equal to some of the greatest versions on record. She is a member of the Bavarian State Opera ensemble, and I heard her there as Naiade in Ariadne auf Naxos. This small role doesn't really show of her voice  Here are four video clips of her VLL in a live performance in Hungary. The video was taped from the audience and the orchestra was not ideal, but even under these conditions, you can tell she is a wonderful singer

 

- Joseph K. So

Herbert Blomstedt Talks About Mahler

Herbert Blomstedt was born in the United States of Swedish parents. At age 84 he remains one of the world's great conductors. To see him in action on the podium visit my companion video this week. He conducts Bruckner in a concert from last year's Proms.

This interview on the subject of Mahler is part of a series of interviews with well-known conductors for the Mahler anniversary years. They were organized by Universal Edition, publisher of the authoritative editions of the Mahler scores.

When he was music director of the San Francisco Symphony Blomstedt made numerous excellent recordings for Decca. They are not all readily available today but they are well worth the effort it may take to find them. The sound is superb and the performances nearly always exceptionally good. Lots of Sibelius, Nielsen, Bruckner, Beethoven, Brahms and not least of all Hindemith. The only DVD to date featuring Blomstedt is a recording made of his last concert as head of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra in 2005. It is Bach's B minor Mass and it is extraordinary. His many fine recordings with the Staatskapelle Dresden should not be overlooked either including some powerful Beethoven performances.

Paul E. Robinson

Blomstedt Conducts Bruckner

Herbert Blomstedt must be the least known and appreciated of living great conductors. As you can see he is not flashy but he invariably gets to the heart of the music he conducts and gets the utmost from his players. In this video from the BBC he conducts an excerpt from Bruckner's Ninth Symphony with the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra at last year's Proms in London. I have no doubt that these young players will remember learning Bruckner from Blomstedt with great admiration well into their old age.

Blomstedt was born in the United States of Swedish parents but was brought up mostly in Sweden. For advanced conducting studies he went to Juilliard, and to Tanglewood to work with Leonard Bernstein. Blomstedt went on to become at various times chief conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden and the San Francisco Symphony. His repertoire has narrowed in recent years but he is particularly renowned for his Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, Sibelius, Nielsen and Mahler.

Check out my companion video this week in which Blomstedt talks about the music of Mahler.

Incidentally, Blomstedt was 83 when this Bruckner performance was recorded.

Paul E. Robinson

Salvatore Licitra Sings Manrico in Il Trovatore (La Scala, Milano 2000)

Yesterday (Sept. 5th 2011) the opera world lost one of the brightest tenor stars to come out of Italy in recent years, tenor Salvatore Licitra. On Saturday August 27, Licitra sustained massive trauma to his head and chest when he lost control of his Vespa scooter in Sicily and slammed into a wall. He was airlifted to Garibaldi Hospital in Catania where he underwent surgery. He remained in a coma until his passing on Sept. 5. Licitra, born in Bern Switzerland of Sicilian parents and grew up in Milano, burst onto the international scene when he replaced an ailing Luciano Pavarotti as Cavaradossi at the Met in 2002. To my knowledge, his appearance in Canada was limited to a concert at Place des Arts in June 2004, a recital at Toronto's Roy Thomson Hall in January 2005, and his appearance as guest soloist in the Bel Canto Foundation Gala Concert in Toronto on September 29, 2010. A singer with a warm and robust Italianate timbre and a generous stage persona, Licitra sang with a beautiful voice and lots of heart. To remember him, here is an unusual selection from Youtube - a complete opera! This is a 2000 La Scala performance of Il Trovatore starring Licitra as Manrico, Barbara Frittoli as Leonora, Leo Nucci as di Luna, and Violeta Urmana as Azucena, under the baton of Riccardo Muti. This video caught Licitra near the beginning of his international career - not the most polished performance but exciting and ingratiating just the same. 

- Joseph K. So

Danny Kaye and the New York Philharmonic

Danny Kaye was one of the great comedians of his time. He could sing, he could dance and he could make people laugh. But he also cared deeply about classical music and raised millions for the pension funds of U.S. and Canadian orchestras. Here he is at work (play?) with the NY Philharmonic.

Paul E. Robinson

Ivan Fischer Conducts Brahms

Ivan Fischer is perhaps best-known for building the Budapest Festival Orchestra into a renowned ensemble. His interpretations of the music of Bartok, Kodaly, Dvorak and Brahms are wonderfully fresh and imaginative. He made a particularly fine recording of all the Hungarian Dances by Brahms and it is outstanding. Here is Fischer with the Berlin Philharmonic in one of the least played of the dances. Note the flexibility in the phrasing, the attention to detail and the robust sound he gets from the strings.

- Paul E. Robinson