A Guest Commentary On Modern Opera Stage Direction: Why the hump, Rigoletto?

[I am pleased to present, for the second time in these pages, a commentary by "ChloeHannah." It was she, you may well recall, who did the piece some time ago on Anne Sofie von Otter, which was so well received by our many readers. Today "ChloeHanna," whose self-portrait appears to the left, speaks about a subject which has arisen many times in the Comments section of this blog—modern stage direction. "Chloe" is well qualified to speak on this subject, not only because of her university degrees (including a Ph.D.) in musicology and interactive media, but because she is still quite young, and offers our readers a point of view from a significantly younger generation than most of us belong to (speaking only for myself, of course:)

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My gratitude goes to our favourite blogger for offering me the opportunity to write about modern opera performances. He asked me to do this a while ago and I was reluctant because of the lack of video examples. But taking into consideration the kind curiosity of one of Edmund’s readers, I decided to give it a go.

I favour the modern production to such an extent that it has become an integral part of the opera experience to me. If I see that an opera is performed in traditional attire I am likely to skip it altogether. I would rather see it performed concertante than have to sit through yet another evening of hoop skirts and fake candles. I have visited the opera around 500 times, and a good chunk of the performances were traditional. If an opera follows every word of the libretto literally, the evening will either annoy or bore me.

Musicologists and opera lovers can be very protective of this form of art, and in the past I have had some aggressive responses to my point of view, so I would like to say that I do not want to press my opinion upon others, nor am I attempting to provoke the reader. Anyone is entitled to their own view.

With this disclaimer I hand you my thoughts on opera as I see it performed in central Europe. The few photos I was able to gather, and all examples mentioned are taken from my local theatre in Basel, Switzerland. It acts as a typical example of what a medium-sized, open-minded opera house presents today.


1. Innovation


First off, a modern production is new. Whether I personally love the performance or hate it, whether it be intellectually stimulating or just fun without any deeper meaning, it always guarantees the viewer something to ponder, a new interpretation of a well-known story. Part of the challenge is trying to crack the director’s thought process, much like attempting differential equations. What fun!


2. Visual Experience


A new interpretation can lead to visually enticing stage and costume designs. By no means is it all graffitied brick walls and miniskirts. This side of rococo furniture, the visual world of a modern designer is limitless and thus unpredictable: I have seen Macbeth take place in an airport terminal; La Bohème at a ski resort:

I have also see Lohengrin in a giant’s kitchen. Other performances are abstract in nature but nevertheless stunning. The sheer size of an opera stage offers so many architectural possibilities, from Maria Stuarda’s world jutting out dangerously across the orchestra to the many atmospheric facets of stage lighting upon a simple white background in Ballo in Maschera.

As a designer, the visual presentation is just as important to me as the musical one, and even with my musicological background I tire of people contesting that music is the most important of the elements opera consists of. If so, what sets opera apart from a symphony? Is it not a Gesamtkunstwerk where story, music and imagery are equals?


3. Humour

A new interpretation can lead to hilarious situations on stage. Certain operas call for humour, and what better way to entertain an audience than by redefining the libretto in an unpredictable manner? We all know the witch lives in a gingerbread house, but I have rarely heard as much laughter as when she appeared in a fridge, her high heels sticking out from below the appliance as she walked on stage and beckoned Hansel and Gretel through the fridge door.

If someone asks me which operas I like to see most, I always reply Rossini. I’m not even that crazy about his music; my preference lies closer to Stravinsky. But when it comes to modern stage performances of Rossini’s operas, I know the evening will be memorable. Barbiere’s Figaro as a dragonfly with a large ego, the rotund tenor as a bumblebee, and Rosina’s butterfly entangled in the mean-spirited spider’s web was a production I returned to see over and over.

4. Political and Social Issues


A modern interpretation of opera can be uncomfortably true to the spirit of the opera. Operas are not always fun. Some are downright tragic. I recently saw an incredibly difficult Aida. I can’t say I enjoyed the evening in a feel-good-There’s-something-about-Mary kind of way, but it has indelibly changed my view on the opera. Aida is about war, and war was what was shown on stage. How utterly out of place are Verdi’s enchanting, exotic dances in such a horrifying piece? It is something I had never before considered, and I am grateful for the questions the director provided me with.

Modern opera directors are often labeled the enfant terrible, the provocateur. Their operas are booed at, the singers are interrupted by angry outcries in the audience. But the ideas are nearly always rooted in the original piece. (As a side note, I feel compelled to say that if an opera speaks of sex, which frankly occurs a lot, do we really have the grounds to protest against some steamy action on stage?)


5. Timelessness


Every single opera libretto is timeless, I am convinced of this. Must Rigoletto have a hump to manifest his social marginalisation? He may blame his misery on his physical deformity, but we all know that his moral bankruptcy and habit of throwing married ladies into the arms of a ruthless womaniser are greater issues. What could the deeper reason for Rigoletto’s behaviour be? I have seen six different productions of the opera, and the answer was never the same twice.


6. History

In an historical context I usually point out that ‘back in the day’, opera was a very different type of entertainment. Singers carried a suitcase with their favourite arias, and the stage director would simply mix and match. It was not a strict, by-the-book form of art. The auditorium was not dimmed, talking and drinking was allowed, and prostitutes lured in the boxes. Barring public prostitution, I do wish we could regain some of this lax attitude, because it might also help with my final thought:


7. Attracting a younger audience


Opera has so many facets! Let us colour and animate it to draw a younger audience to the theatres. This tends to be the only argument conservatives will agree with. Presenting opera in a fresh manner will call forth more enthusiasm in a young crowd than a stuffy presentation of a – let’s face it – rather obscure form of art.

These are my thoughts on modern opera. I am only sorry that I don’t have any videos to show just how fantastic, beautiful, hilarious and fascinating some of my visits to the opera have been. But for all the modern efforts made by this central European city, the theatre has yet to embrace the technologies the world wide web offers.

Luciano Pavarotti: The Artist And The Persona

For reasons I am not quite sure of, there are three tenors I find it hard to write about: Caruso, Pavarotti and Domingo. I am not sure why. I did finally write about Caruso last year, when I finally found the key for the discussion, and that turned out to be the fact that he was the first media triumph in the history of American classical singers. I know he was Italian, by birth, but he quickly became Amerca's tenor, lived here, married here, and had his great career at the Met while under contract to RCA Victor. Many singers of Italian background were to follow, in all kinds of music, from Galli-Curci right up through Mario Lanza, Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett. But what about the modern tenors Domingo and Pavarotti? My instincts tell me there is something other than music at work in both cases, and it's just plain tough to get one's head around the voice and artistry per se, without taking many other things into consideration.

There are two reactions a foreign singer can have when he or she lands in America and determines to make their career here. One is to retain an old-world elegance and artistic seriousness, and the other is to discover American show business, and the enormous money to be made there. A good example of a great tenor who retained his artistic seriousness and personal dignity was Giuseppe Giacomini. And he paid the price for it in America. He was basically elbowed out of the country's opera scene, back to Italy and Austria, where he was greatly respected. He did not, you see, play the celebrity game. Tony Curtis once said that fame is a separate career, and if you want to be a famous artist, you must dedicate as much or more time to the cultivation of fame as to your art per se. I imagine you can see where I am going with this: I respect the great voice of Luciano Pavarotti, the near-manic energy he poured into his career in America, and the magnificent effort on his behalf to restore bel canto (for which I, for one, remain eternally grateful!). He did all these things. He was a wonderful tenor, with an uncommonly good voice, with a top range matched only by some of the greatest tenors of all time, such as Lauri-Volpi. All this I grant. He also strove relentlessly to make himself famous, and could, on occasion, play to the gallery in a way that some serious opera lovers found annoying. He was very big, extremely fat and projected a jovial, near-riotous ebullience at times. In a word, he played to the American stereotype of opera tenors.

I believe that Pavarotti's greatest contribution to opera seria was his dedication, along with that of Dame Joan Sutherland, to the badly needed revitalization of bel canto. Here is a 4 minute segment from a BBC documentary on La Fille du Regiment. (As a bonus, we get a brief glimpse of Juan Diego Florez at the end:



Of course, great bel canto artists of the 19th century would seldom if ever sing those high notes full voice. The voix mixte was the approved French method of singing notes above the staff. In this clip, the music critic's remarks and obvious enthusiasm were typical of the way the young Pavarotti was received. To be able to sing so high, with such force! I still remember the New York Times article that followed his premiere performance of La Fille du Regiment in New York. The full page article, with large-point headlines at the top, declared "MAMMA MIA, WHAT A TENOR!" It was shortly afterwards that we were treated to an album, with a picture of a sea pirate on the cover, with the title "King Of The High C's" (To be read, obviously, as" King of the High Seas.")

From the very beginning, then, there was this aura of excess, ebullience, physical strength, and enormous physical presence (of the 350-pound variety!) Everything about Luciano Pavarotti was big, big, big. Part of the artistic price paid for this was that he, like his predecessor Enrico Caruso, sang monochromatically. There were very few colors in the voice, the singing was hardly elegant, and it was sometimes unmusical. Many in the audience were coming to hear the fat man sing very high, as loud as he could. That was how it all began, with the nearly unsingable "Pour mon âme," with its many notorious high C sharps, almost always sung down a half tone. Not that Pavarotti couldn't sing above C. He did, often, especially in the great bel canto favorite "A te, o cara," from I Puritani."



By 1972, it had been a long time since audiences had been treated to this kind of voice in I Puritani! This kind of full-throated singing, up to such an altitude, harkens back to the days of Giacomo Lauri-Volpi. Bravo, Luciano! How much he gave, how much he did, to restore bel canto opera to its appropriate place in the repertoire! For this, every lover of great and beautiful singing should be eternally grateful! I know that I am!

As the career went on, the voice of course began to darken somewhat, and Pavarotti began to make what I consider the classic mistake. He took on heavier roles. There is a kind of confused thinking that seems to take over a tenor's mind when his voice begins to decline, and that is to think that because the voice has darkened in color, and the luster has gone off the top notes, and the uppermost top notes are no longer there, that it is time to start singing Manrico, Rhadames, Calaf, and Chenier! Whoa! That is to miss the main point, is it not? The voice has begun to lose its color, sheen, squillo and range in the first place because of all the demands that have been placed upon it! Hardly the time to start thinking that somehow this makes it appropriate to sing Andrea Chenier! All that does is hasten the decline of the voice. But, be that as it may, that is what Pavarotti began to do, in the 1970's, with predictable results. He was hardly the first, and I'm sure he will not be the last, unfortunately.

One ambition that never abandoned him was the lust for fame, however. The TV talk shows were still there. I once saw him on Johnny Carson, trading jibes with Loretta Lynn, probably the greatest female country music singer of all time. Great exposure for her, maybe not so great for him. I can remember her saying, "You know, y'all are FUN!" Yes. I'm sure he was. Then there were the "Three Tenors," about which I will say nothing, and of course the famous "Nessun Dorma," which became the theme song of the Italian national soccer team in their quest for 1st in the world championships. This got picked up later in the movie Bend it Like Beckham when the Pakistani-British girl soccer player, toward the end of the movie, made her big penalty kick to the accompaniment of "Nessun Dorma," and of course made the winning goal. More recently, we have been treated to a female food-fight in Drew Barrymore's premier directorial effort, "Whip It," when two opposing girls' roller derby teams start beating each other up to the accompaniment of "Di Quella Pira." This kind of thing can spread. In any case, Pavarotti began marching straight into show business. He and Frank Sinatra became friends, and it seemed, toward the end, that he had begun to wish he were Andrea Bocelli, doing duets with Italian rock stars like Zucchero. The end was near.

I want to stress, finally, that which was best, which is to say that which rose to heights sufficient to match the extraordinary fame. That would be the first half of the very long career, when the Great Pavarotti (and he WAS a great singer!) took himself and his art seriously, and when he brought a huge amount of attention to opera in this country, in the same way Mario Lanza and Caruso did. What he and Joan Sutherland did for bel canto simply cannot be over-estimated. Two of the greatest voices of the twentieth century, given to singing, brilliantly, some of the greatest 19th century operas ever written! Think of it! Yes, for this he deserves our undying admiration. As to the rest, who cares? As the great American poet Ezra Pound once said, "What thou lovest best remains; the rest is dross."

Great Singers Unrecognized: Eric Cedergren

This edition of Great Opera Singers is a personal dedication to a fine gentleman and excellent singer you are not likely to have heard if you live outside the Chicago area. His name is Eric Cedergren, and I have known him off and on since a very long time ago, somewhere around 1962. Eric is now 87 years old.

[UPDATE: (September 3, 2011)  In Memoriam.  I wrote this article and posted it on March 6, 2011.  I learned a week ago that Eric passed away on June 6.  I was sad, of course, but so very glad that he had been able to see this piece, and to have read the many comments that came in from viewers.  I spoke to him, and he made it very clear that this meant so very much to him and his family.  It is most gratifying to be able to give flowers to the living when possible.  E. StAustell]

Not every person who has all the qualifications for a great musical career ever gets the chance to have one. In fact, this happens more often than not. Other things get in the way. We saw a particularly tragic instance of it a while back when we discussed Florence Quartararo. With all the voice and talent in the world, she made a decision, after her marriage to Italo Tajo, to be a mother and housewife. The loss to great singing was unavoidable.

Eric Cedergren, even in his youth, had what I would call an exceptional voice. A bass-baritone with an immensely rich and powerful voice, he was always applauded when he sang, and was simply better than many who went on to major careers. Eric did the traditional round of auditions, and was heard by important people, who showed interest. City Opera offered him work at one point, but Eric was married, with 4 children. He had a decision to make, not just regarding the City Opera offer, but regarding others as well. He was not the kind of man to make a selfish decision, and he returned to Chicago, to his family, and has sung in and around Chicago ever since, essentially. He now has a large family of children and grandchildren, and they are well settled. All decisions have not only their costs, but also their rewards.

Eric's family gathered tapes of his singing and have posted them on Youtube to honor their father and grandfather,a good-hearted and appreciative gesture I would like to participate in. I think you will understand what I am doing here when you hear Eric sing "Old Man River."



See what I mean?! This was quite a voice in its day, no doubt about it! The unrelenting intensity of the singing is in the best tradition of this highly dramatic music, and serves it very well indeed. This is more power, intensity and color than many voices can muster in service of any kind of music!
Here is the lovely "All the things you are":



Finally, an ancient operatic favorite certainly not conceived of for a bass-baritone, but which nevertheless works perfectly well as such:



Just beautiful!

Eric, I want you to know you have not been forgotten by those who knew you, heard you, and care about you. You were a wonderful singer, with a great voice, and I hope you read this some day. You made the right decisions when it mattered and when others were concerned.

Fernando de Lucia: A Unique Window Onto 19th Century Vocalism

Fernando De Lucia's generally accepted date of birth is 1860, in Naples. He studied voice at the Naples Music Conservatory and made his operatic debut at the Teatro de San Carlo, as Faust, at the age of 25. His climb through the small houses in Italy and early engagements abroad (Spain and South America) follow the by-now familiar path of so many Italian singers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. At the beginning, he sang the lyric tenor repertoire for which his voice seemed particularly suited; operas such La Sonnambula, The Barber of Seville, and La Traviata. He sang in the tradition of bel canto tenors before him, and his vocalism per se was not all that different from the vocalism of other bel canto tenors of the time They all sang in a way that incorporates, virtually in their totality, the principles of singing laid down by Manuel García in his famous study, L'Art du Chant.

De Lucia's career straddled the cusp of a major divide in operatic history. Clearly trained in bel canto, he found, mid-career, that new operas, of the so-called verismo school, were starting to attract a lot of public attention. De Lucia had already, by his early thirties, become a famous tenor in Italy, and was sought out by composers. He created the role of Fritz in Mascagni's L'Amico Fritz in 1891, and, the following year, was part of the original cast of Mascagni's I Rantzau, an opera that never really got off the ground. He soon got on board with Leoncavallo's I Pagliacci, and his Canio was much applauded. He went on, in coming years, to do Rigoletto, Tosca , and Cavallería. I mention these because it is clear that, even though trained in bel canto singing, and with a very flexible voice capable of near-coloratura singing, he managed to take advantage of the new verismo , and make quite a good impression in those roles. I seriously doubt if he changed his singing style one bit to do the bigger operas, relying almost certainly on a new set of mannerisms, more melodramatic in nature.

Happily for us today, De Lucia made a huge number of recordings at a very early time, and, whatever roles he may have sung in public, and whatever "school" of operatic theater was uppermost at any given time, the fact is that it is by his recordings he is known, and they reveal a singing style that is fascinating, and provides a nearly unique window on a lost era of singing; lost because even though much of bel canto has survived, and is still appreciated, this cannot be said of its highly individualized excesses. That much is gone forever.

So,to the core of the matter. Here is 1904 recording of "Ecco ridente in cielo." Almaviva was one of the roles for which De Lucia was famous, and the following is one of the most extraordinary recordings of tenor singing ever made. The fioratura is so remarkable that it almost defies belief. Be sure to listen to the video until the very end, as it is toward the end that De Lucia presents his amazing vocal display:



Isn't that amazing? It is made possible by a vocal production that creates an extremely rapid vibrato. A very good coloratura soprano once explained to me that the trick, with that kind of fioratura, is to synchronize the notes of the coloratura passage with the vibrato of the voice, so that the voice rides on the crest of the cadenza, as it were, through the agency of the vibrato. It certainly works here. I know of no contemporary tenor who could do this, although there probably are some. As pure vocal display, which was much prized in the 19th century, (as it still is by many today) this was both acceptable and praiseworthy. It must be remembered that De Lucia's reputation was great in his day. It was an honest gesture on his part to make these recordings. I for one greatly enjoy listening to them, and I know from my correspondence that I am far from alone.

Here is De Lucia singing the very difficult "Siciliana," from Cavalleria Rusticana, in a 1902 recording:



What I find interesting here is that Cavalleria is one of the warhorses of the verismo reprtoire, along with I Pagliacci, and De Lucia, based on the clear evidence of these recordings, approached the arias in vocally consistent ways. The rapid-fire vibrato is there, the elongated phrases, the diminuendos, the portamenti, and so on. It would seem that he relied on acting ability, and a dark shading of the voice, which he seemed able to do effectively, to carry off these intense dramatic roles. It was art, and not barrel-chested belting, that did the job. Most interesting.

Finally, a Neapolitan song. He was a lifelong son of Naples, and was greatly admired there. He knew many of the composers around Naples in his day, and it is very likely that at least some of the songs were written either for De Lucia, or at least with him in mind. I choose the following, the famous "Fenesta ca lucive," because it is a very dark, sad and brooding song, and I think reinforces the idea that his mastery of color and mood may be the major factor in his ability to have been so successful in verismo operas. To help understand, here is the first verse, in essence:

No light in the window?
Is my love sick.?
I asked her sister, and no!
My girl is dead! And Buried!
She slept alone too long...and cried so much.
Now she sleeps with the dead!



Not much I can add to that!

I cannot think of another tenor quite like Fernando de Lucia. Everything about his singing bespeaks a bygone era. He was unique, and his vocalism was extraordinary; very much sui generis, to be sure, but clearly founded in very early bel canto. Through his many recordings, all of very early date, we have the opportunity to visit 19th century Italian singing as if we were actually there! This is a very rare privilege!

Roberta Peters: The American Nightingale

When she retired from opera in 1985, the great American coloratura soprano Roberta Peters had been a leading principal female singer at the Metropolitan Opera longer than anyone in the company's long history. Peters was born in New York in 1930, and was discovered by her life-long mentor, patron and friend Jan Peerce when she was still a teen-ager. Rudolf Bing was convinced to listen to her when she was scarcely more than a girl, and made her sing "Der Hölle Rache" 7 times (!) from the stage of the Met, while he went from place to place in the house to make sure he could hear her from any location! Only Bing. He need not have worried. Her voice, like that of Amelita Galli-Curci and Lily Pons, her artistic predecessors, sailed right over the top of the orchestra in true, traditional coloratura fashion.

Impressed, Bing gave her a contract to sing the Queen of the Night in Magic Flute, in early 1951. However, as sometimes happens in live theater, she was called upon to replace Nadine Conner as Zerlina in a Don Giovanni scheduled almost immediately. She was 20 years old and, I am quite certain, terrified, since she had never performed the role. Worse, the conductor was Fritz Reiner, before whom mere mortals trembled. I cannot image a more frightening prospect for a girl barely 20 years old. However, showing the stuff she was made of, and winning Reiner over, to the amazement of all, she did it. Her unscheduled debut as Zerlina in November of 1950 was a huge success, with Reiner carefully guiding her through the performance. That night, in storybook fashion, a star was born.

Roberta Peters went on to sing nearly 500 performances at the Met, in 24 roles, including Queen of the Night, Rosina, Gilda (her most often performed role), Despina, Sophie, Adele, Lucia and Norina. She knew her repertoire, and she mastered it. More importantly, she stayed within it. Like her friend Jan Peerce, she was extremely sensible and knew how to take care of her gift so that it would last and last.

I have to admit to being an unabashed admirer of Roberta Peters, and I always have been. I was privileged to meet her and work with her at one time (in a fund-raising capacity) and I was very, very much impressed with her dignity, grace, and willingness to promote the fine arts in America. She and Peerce shared this love of art and willingness to support and propagate it. She was a very busy concert singer, and—again like Peerce—made it a point to go out into the country in places that were far from major cultural centers. It was always possible to hear her, either on television, or in concert venue. This is one of the many reasons that she and Peerce were two of the most popular and beloved classical singers of all time in this country.

Here is the famous aria that Mr. Bing had her sing repeatedly at her audition, and which she went on to sing many times in her life, "Der Hölle Rache":



Now THAT is coloratura singing of an extraordinarily high order! The seeming ease with which she sings the F above high C is simply astonishing. This is a true coloratura in the grand tradition. The voice is clear as it can be, the notes are precisely articulated, squarely on pitch, with no scooping or unauthorized portamentos, up or down, and—perhaps most importantly—no sense whatsoever of strain or pushing in a piece that requires such very high singing. It is immaculately pure and natural vocalism.

One of the problems Peters had to confront during her career was the fact that Joan Sutherland, admittedly one of the great voices of all time, seemed dedicated to singing this repertoire with a voice that was markedly dramatic and heavy for such roles. Peters should never have been compared to Sutherland. It's apples and oranges—the voices are in no way similar, and, Sutherland admirer that I am, I nonetheless must say that tradition is on the side of Peters. She naturally follows Pons, who naturally followed Galli-Curci. There is an unbroken string of coloratura tradition in which Peters fits perfectly. The aberration is Sutherland, whose astonishing voice made it possible to forgive all that was out of place—her size, looks, singing technique that made it impossible to say what language she was singing in; all these things were forgiven, and seen as nothing. Opera at that period had become a purely vocal art. I do not criticize the Great Sutherland in the least, I just point out the obvious.

Here is Peters in the charming aria "Je veux vivre," from Romeo and Juliet


To the words "immaculate," "elegant," "musical," and "traditional," add "perky" and just plain "cute." She looks like a coloratura, which is nice, considering the roles written for such voices.

Finally, the great test for all coloraturas, and a show-stopper if ever there was one, the Mad Scene from Lucia di Lammermoor:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLYbuquZ0A8


I have seldom heard it done better. Even more words of praise enter the discussion at this point, and I am inspired to say "dignity of conceptualization." This particular scene has inspired a considerable amount of carpet chewing among singers of less innate dignity and restraint than Peters. It is this quality, with which she imbues all her work, that elevates it above merely "good work." It is inspired work; art that looks inward and can embrace dramatic situations of the most heart-rending kind and make them something larger, something that moves in the direction of tragic rather than simply sad or heart-breaking. In a word, toward greatness in art.

She was an amazingly good singer, and remains a great lady of opera.

Galina Vishnevskaya: The Ultimate Survivor

Galina Pavlovna Vishnevskaya was born in 1926 in Leningrad. This was certainly not an auspicious time to be born in Russia, for a singer or anyone else. The first half of the twentieth century was nothing less than an endless nightmare of revolution, civil war, foreign invasion, poverty and socio-political chaos. Vishnevskay's own biography, Galina, is a primary first-person historical source of information about the siege of Leningrad by the Nazis. What she suffered at that time can scarcely be talked about, much less comprehended by anyone who did not have to go through it.

She began singing in opera reviews, or more nearly operetta reviews, during the last year of the siege. Where she and her fellow musicians found the strength to take their little show around I cannot imagine. They were surviving on 7 ounces of bread a day, if I recall correctly, along with a spoon of lard and a spoon of sugar. One night, one of the performers dropped dead on stage, from malnutrition and exhaustion, and they buried her outside the theater in her costume. Galina (who was a member of the Pioneer Corps) fell in love with a young officer around this time, who was killed in action. When the news got back to where she was stationed, some of the other women laughed at her and made fun of her for her loss, dreadful as that may sound. I mention these heart-breaking details for the same reason I chose the unusual picture that appears above, taken from her recent film. She was young and beautiful once, as you will see in the excerpts, but this photo shows her on the inside more than on the outside, in old age. It helps me keep ever in mind what the reality of her life was. To anyone interested in Russia in the early through mid-20th century, and what it meant to live there at that time, I strongly recommend her biography. Having read it (twice) I determined never to say a harsh word about her, because many of the things she did could be criticized (and have been). She was a hard woman, to be sure, ("hardened" would be a better word) who would do whatever she had to do to survive, and who would do exactly what she wanted to do for reasons of her own. Enough said, on to the artistic facts:

She won a competition in Moscow in 1952, and in 1953 joined the Bolshoi Theater. For the next seven or eight years, she worked her way up, and her voice developed into a powerful instrument that made the bigger roles accessible to her. She had made important contacts in the artistic and government circles (which were tightly interwoven at that time) and she was given permission to sing abroad in 1961, which was the year of her debut at the Metropolitan Opera, in Aida, one of her most popular roles. Covent Garden followed in 1962. The La Scala debut was two years later. She sang many roles from the Russian repertoire (her Tatiana was noteworthy) but she also did Italian operatic roles, both in Russian and Italian. Principle among them were Aida, Violetta, Tosca, and Cio-cio-san. Benjamin Britten wrote his War Requiem with her in mind for the soprano lead. In 1966 she was named People's Artist of the Soviet Union, and her fame and reputation were solidly established. She made many recordings, and was, in general, celebrated as a great artist.

Eventually, difficulties arose. Her friendship with some artists who were critics of the Soviet Union was making her life there increasingly problematical. Realizing that she was in danger, she, along with her recently-acquired husband Mstislav Rostropivich, left the Soviet Union in 1974, purportedly for singing engagements abroad, but with no real intention to return. Clearly in de-facto exile, she was denounced by the Soviet government and all her recordings and videos were destroyed, a terrible artistic loss.

After many years abroad, she finally returned to Moscow in 2002 as an elderly woman, and established the "Galina Vishnevskaya Opera Center." In 2007, she starred in Alexander Sokurov's film Aleksandra, in a straight acting role, and received excellent reviews worldwide. She was 81 at the time.

First, a very rare surviving video-clip of a fragment of "Ritorna Vincitor:" (You will have to click on the link for this one—it cannot be embedded.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGrbaxJRGXo&feature=related

This is Vishnevskaya in her prime. The power of the voice is apparent, and the top—never all that easy in so large and powerful a voice, is nonetheless rock-solid at this period in her life. The finesse is also there, and the firm control of the voice makes possible the crescendos and diminuendos necessary to accommodate the musical and stylistic demands of the piece. This was a signature role for Vishnevskaya, for all these reasons, but—as is characteristic of Russian singers—she sang a wide variety of roles, some much lighter. Here, for example is a lovely rendition of "Un bel di," from Madame Butterfly:



This is very interesting to the degree that it shows how she could lighten the tone of the voice to more nearly approximate the color of a girl's voice, while at the same time relinquishing none of the power-potential or intense edge to the big passages where she must soar because of the dramatic demands of the text at that point. It shows how artistically she could hold her vocal powers in check when required to do so.

Finally, the darker, heavier demands of Tosca:



This is right up there with the interpretations of great Italian singers. It is all there—the power, the dramatic intensity, the color, and always the grand style of Italian opera seria. She was of course a prima donna; the fact that she was able to endure, to work, to ascend to that status, and survive there—for decades—is little short of a miracle.

The Great Fritz Wunderlich

"Fritz"(Friedrich) Wunderlich was born in Kusel, in 1930, into a musical family. His mother was a violinist and his father a choirmaster. Wunderlich's youth was not at all a happy one, owing to the terrible times in Germany, which was suffering extreme economic depression and the rise of the Nazis. His father, wounded in battle during World War I, and beset by many problems, took his own life when Fritz was a small child. Fritz worked in a bakery as a boy and, as the years passed, began to be noticed by others for his obvious musicality. He took music lessons and finally obtained a music scholarship that made it possible for him to study at the Freiburg Musical Academy. It was there that his voice attracted serious attention, and he was soon spotted as a very promising young tenor.

He first attracted attention for his singing of Mozart, but soon expanded his repertoire to include popular Italian operas, which he sang in German, as that was the tradition in Germany.

Wunderlich's career, because he died very young, was largely limited to singing opera in Germany and making (thank God!) a very significant number of recordings. It is almost exclusively through these recordings that Wunderlich is known and remembered today outside Germany. His recordings include famous operatic arias (usually in German), lieder, at which he excelled (he was very widely praised for his recording of Schumann's Dichterliebe, for example), religious music, and popular operetta pieces.

Wunderlich's voice was flawlessly produced, and very beautiful; it was, however, his extraordinary musicality and sense of style that won him such fame. The voice, spectacular as it was, would not have brought him the great reputation he enjoyed among musicians had he not been so brilliant a musician. By age 35, his future, both as a man and as a musician, seemed assured. He had married in 1956 and had three children. His reputation had begun to spread outside Germany, and he was starting to make foreign appearances (France, England, Argentina, Italy) and had been signed to appear at the Metropolitan Opera. Then, just short of his 36th birthday, he suffered an accident—falling down a flight of stairs at a friend's home—and died from the injuries he received. It was unquestionably one of the greatest musical tragedies of the twentieth century.

First, here is the aptly-named Wunderlich in one of opera's best known pieces, the lovely aria from Von Flotow's Martha, "Ach! so fromm," known to most by its foreign Italian title "M'appari."





This is musical and vocal perfection. Where to start! First, the very beautiful quality of the voice. We are in the non-Italian world of opera now—this is a much more open and "white" sound than the heavily covered and dark sounds so characteristic of Italian singing. This is not to say one is better than the other, only to say that the tonal qualities of open vs. covered singing are distinct. I believe the more open phonation of the German singers results in more distinctly individualistic sounds. The darker sounds of most (not all) Italian singers can sometimes lead to one voice not sounding all that different from another. In German, however, I believe it is immediately apparent to a music lover that Tauber's voice is distinct from Slezak's and both are distinct from Wunderlich's. The quality of each voice tends to be individual as opposed to universal "tenor." In English, we notice this more in musical comedy. Did Ethel Merman ever sound like anyone else?) Apart from the sound, which is lovely, there is the range. Wunderlich was solid all the way to his spectacular high C, and this is very rare for German tenors. Both the language and the training in Germany have historically tended toward high voices that are much heaver in the lower and middle registers than their Italian counterparts. This, in turn, can result in a short top. Tauber is a good example. He almost never sang above a Bb, (and there is nothing wrong with that), but it tends to narrow the singable repertoire. The big opera arias can only be transposed so far.

Here is a perfect example of what I mean. Wunderlich's recording of "Che Gelida Manina" is as vocally perfect as it can be. Be sure to wait for the big high C. I know of no other German tenor, living or dead, who could match it. Here I must ask you to click on the link, for technical reasons. I have the only version of the aria up on youtube, and I don't want to embed my own video in my blog because it can jam my hit counter on Youtube. Here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkP2Qu5-9TI


How about that! This is so uncommon for a German tenor! I cannot imagine it done any better. Yes, we can all name Björling, and a host of Italians, but they are not German speaking singers. The range is extraordinary, and the most extraordinary thing of all is that the top is entirely in line with the other registers of the voice. It is a seamless ascent to the top, with no sacrifice in beauty of tone. Musically, it is perfect.

The near disappearance of Otto Nicolai's Merry Wives of Windsor from the operatic repertory has robbed modern music lovers of some very beautiful music. It contains, among other things, one of the loveliest tenor arias ever written, "Horch! Die Lerche singt im Hain!" ["Listen, the lark is singing in the Grove!"]
Again, I seem to have the only copy up on Youtube, so please click the link again:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ovy7P805R4


I honestly believe that this is one of the most beautiful arias I have ever heard.
What it all comes down to at the end is that it is almost impossible to fault Wunderlich on any aspect of his singing. The voice is lovely to the point of being glorious, the range is very high, and tonally it is a solid column of sound from top to bottom. The musicality was immaculate, and was said to be so by virtually everyone at the time. It's just perfect singing. As his friend and colleague Dietrich Fischer-Deiskau said when Wunderlich died at 35 years of age, there is no way to calculate the irreparable loss suffered by the world of music. We are unlikely to see another tenor who was so nearly perfect for a very long time indeed!