BELLINI : LA SONNAMBULA

Radio New Zealand Concert network
Sunday 6th of December 2009 at 3 -5.25 pm
Sunday 26th of April 2009 at 3 pm
Sunday 15th of July 2007 at 3 pm

COMPOSER
CHARACTERS
BACKGROUND
UNDERGROUND
ANALYSIS
SYNOPSIS
STORYLINE
LIBRETTO (Italian, by Felice Romani)
SCORE

Vincenzo BELLINI (1801-1835)
La Sonnambula (1831), The Sleepwalker,
an opera in two acts 2 hours 20 minutes

In Switzerland, Amina is an orphan who has been fostered by Teresa, the owner of a mill. Amina is loved by Elvino, a farmer, though she has a rival in Lisa, an innkeeper. The lovers are signing (and singing) their pre-nuptial contract in public. Count Rodolfo arrives, stays at the inn, and has Lisa in his room for a flirty fling; she drops her hanky and leaves when a ghostly figure appears (Joan Sutherland in another nightdress, but this one is not bloodied like Lucia's). The count clears out when Lisa brings Elvino and the populace to gawk. In his jealousy Elvino denounces Amina and links up with Lisa.

In Act 2 Elvino is about to marry Lisa, but the count tells them all that Amina is an innocent sleepwalker (the somnambulist of the title). The tell-tale hanky (or scarf or veil) is produced by Teresa the miller (it is particularly hard to see on the radio, but didn't you notice her picking it up when everybody was milling around the maid of the mill in the bedroom?), and Amina arrives in her sleep, walking on a rickety plank (Gasp!), but she awakens to joy and bliss, as all is forgiven and the original couple is reunited.

PERFORMERS

2009
Amina........................... Natalie Dessay
Rodolfo......................... Carlo Colombara
Elvino............................ Francesco Meli
Teresa........................... Sara Mingardo
Lisa............................... Jaël Azzaretti
Alessio.......................... Paul Gay
Notary.......................... Gordon Gietz
Lyon Opera Chorus & Orch
Evelino Pidò (Virgin 3 95138)

2009
Amina........................... Natalie Dessay
Elvino............................ Juan Diego Flórez
Rodolfo......................... Michele Pertusi
Metropolitan Opera Chorus & Orch/Evelino Pidò

2007
Count Rodolfo.............. Michele Pertusi
Amina........................... Anna Netrebko
Elvino............................ Antonio Siragusa
Lisa............................... Simina Ivan
Alessio.......................... Marcus Pelz
Teresa........................... Janina Baechle
Notary.......................... Johann Reinprecht
Vienna State Opera Chorus & Orch/Pier Giorgio Morandi
(recorded at the Vienna State Opera House, 19 November 2006 by Austrian Radio)

I have a soft spot for this one, having seen it in Melbourne 1n 1965, when Bonynge and Sutherland brought a whole season of operas to town. As you may know, we were too poor to pay to see "our Joan", so it was the half-price versions I frequented (4 guineas versus 10). Margreta Elkins was little orphan Amina, the maid of the mill (she sings the role of Teresa, Amina's foster-mother, in the commercial recording). I bought the highlights recording (57 shillings and 6 pence). The one disappointment with it was that my crystal pick-up could not negotiate Sutherland's top notes, and did some damage; but I still treasure that disc.

Eventually I acquired a box-set (1957, mono, substantially cut), with Maria Callas; some wobbles can be expected from her in the later stages of her career, but not in this bel canto performance. A jury of British critics has voted her as the top soprano (BBC music magazine, April 2007).

Here is the list of twenty greatest sopranos: Callas, Sutherland, De Los Angeles, Price, Nilsson, Caballé, Popp, Price, Flagstad, Kirkby, Schwarzkopf, Crespin, Vishnevskaya, Janowitz, Mattila, Schumann, Brewer, Tebaldi, Ponselle, Ameling. (Christine Brewer and Karita Mattila made it [both born in 1960], but not Gheorghiu, Fleming, Netrebko, nor Eva Turner [1892-1990].)
Notice you get two Prices for the price of ... (Leontyne and Margaret, I presume, in that order).

In the 19th century it was Malibran, Pasta, and Jenny Lind who were turning on the pyrotechnics and bringing tears to the listening onlookers' eyes. These days it is Anna Netrebko, and Natalie Dessay (yet again this year, but who is complaining or counting?).

BRITTEN : OWEN WINGRAVE

Radio New Zealand Concert network
Sunday 29th of November 2009 at 3 - 5.05 pm

PRELUDE
SYNOPSIS
REVIEW
SCORE
CONDUCTOR (1948-2008)

BRITTEN: Owen Wingrave, an opera in two acts
Owen Wingrave............ Peter Coleman-Wright
Spencer Coyle.............. Alan Opie
Lechmere...................... James Gilchrist
Miss Wingrave.............. Elizabeth Connell
Mrs Coyle..................... Janice Watson
Mrs Julian..................... Sarah Fox
Kate............................. Pamela Helen Stephen
General Sir Philip Wingrave/
Narrator........................ Robin Leggate
Tiffin Boys' Choir, City of London Sinfonia
Richard Hickox (Chandos CHAN 10473)

For those who want a dead body (or two, or three, or more) at the end of an opera (Bohème, Tosca, Traviata, Tabarro, Grrrimes) listen to this:

Here we have an opera composed for television, in which Benjamin Britten's pacifism (as proclaimed in his War Requiem) is implanted in a chilling supernatural tale (by Henry James, as was The Turn of the Screw), with the main character's death at the end (like Peter Grimes, Billy Budd, The Rape of Lucretia, Death in Venice).

The fighting Wingraves are an English family with a long history of soldiering, but young Owen is rebelling against his training at "the military cramming establishment in Bayswater", preparing him for Sandhurst. He tells his tutor Spencer Coyle (John Shirley-Quirk): 'I know their fighting and their sacrifice. I will have none of it. I despise a soldier's life'.

I have a 12" disc of 'highlights' (not the right word: just the whole thing with gaping bloody wounds!) taken from the first recording (1970), English Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Britten himself, and so I have the libretto (but not all of it!).

The cover has a picture of Act 1 Scene 7, showing the whole cast at dinner (filmed at the Maltings concert hall in Snape), with a young Benjamin Luxon (Owen) at the end of the table, Peter Pears with whiskers (Grandad Wingrave) at the head, and lovely Janet Baker (Kate) smiling at him (she is not looking at me [ )-:] even though I have watched her from beside the stage in the Melbourne Town Hall as she sang Elgar's Sea Pictures so thrillingly).
She would be saying to him:
'How good to see you well enough to dine, Sir Philip'.
But his daughter Miss Wingrave (Sylvia Fisher) retorts that he has been absent merely because he did not like the company (meaning Owen).
'Am I not good enough?'
'Oh, Kate, Kate, you keep me young.'

Of course, the party breaks up in acrimony, when the old campaigner deplores Owen's anti-war stance. Of the four women, only Mrs Coyle (Heather Harper), the wife of the military instructor, has sympathy for Owen and his 'scruples'. The three Furies shout that scruples are for milksops, parsons, weaklings, and adolescent boys (and for women, Sir Philip puts in).

In the face of this onslaught, Owen rises and declares: 'I'd make it a crime to draw your sword for your country, and a crime for governments to command it'. The General stalks out (albeit hobbling and helped by a man-servant) and the others follow. End of Act 1.

In the next act they continue their attacks on Owen, and his grandfather disinherits him. In the love duet (!) Kate calls him a coward, and goads him into proving his brave heart by sleeping in the haunted room (it is inhabited by the ghosts of a former Wingrave father and the small son he killed for not fighting when challenged by a playmate, and this general was later found dead there). These restless spirits do walk upon the stage, but do not talk or sing.

Kate locks Owen in, and in the end they find him dead. In a sense, he had done his duty and died like a soldier on the battle field, to win his grave. There would be no more Wingrave army officers.

Note that this was set in the time of the warlike imperial Queen Victoria, and the libretto was written by Mrs Myfanwy Piper.

Benjamin Britten was a pacifist (he composed his War Requiem to demonstrate it), and so was his life-partner Peter Pears. When the BBC commissioned an opera from BB he came up with one based on another of Henry James's tales of the supernatural (a ghost story, like The Turn of the Screw). And the part he gave to PP (as he always did, softly softly) is a gruff old general of a
soldiering family who is aghast when his grandson Owen (the last of his line) will not undertake training at the military academy. It is in the reign of Queen Victoria, and all the women of the Wingrave household (including his sweetheart Kate) are scolding Owen for his pacifist scruples,
and even cowardice. Eventually he dies mysteriously in the haunted room of the family mansion; he had allowed Kate to lock him in it, to prove his bravery. Mission accomplished: there would be no more Wingrave warmongers.

More about the occupants of the haunted chamber (and the conductor Richard Hickox, who was also found dead in a room in the year he made the recording we will hear, and you can not blame the Pharaoh's curse for this) and other details of this opera under the click-on headings above.

Ben Britten did not write background music, and I find it hard to pick up the words when sung, even with earphones, so concentration is needed. It is all speech-singing; there is nothing like the themes (tunes?) in the Sea Pictures in Peter Grimes that you can hum and whistle.

ROSSINI : ELISABETTA

Radio New Zealand Concert network
Sunday 22nd of November 2009 at 3 - 6 pm

INTRODUCTION
RECORDINGS

ROSSINI: Elisabetta regina d'Inghilterra, in two acts
Elisabetta...................... Jennifer Larmore
Leicester....................... Bruce Ford
Matilde......................... Majella Cullagh
Norfolk......................... Antonino Siragusa
Enrico........................... Manuela Custer
Guglielmo...................... Colin Lee
Geoffrey Mitchell Choir, London Phil
Giuliano Carella (Opera Rara ORC 22)

Elizabeth Queen of England is this opera's title, when translated into the language of Inghilterra. The first surprise is the overture: as soon as it starts you will think (all-knowingly and even smugly) that they are broadcasting the wrong Rossini opera, because this is how The Barber of Seville starts; yes, it is indeed the same prelude, and that is because Rossini recycled his material; but it is not because this opera failed; still, it is odd that he could use the same introduction to a serious drama and (later) to a comedy.

This recording is from the Opera Rara series, which is regularly aired on our local fine music station (The Gramophone Room of John Ward). I heard this one from that source recently, and afterwards I played my own recording of it right through. It has Montserrat Caballé as the Queen, and as Leicester (her favourite courtier, say no more) the young vibrant voice of that soprano's protégé José Carreras; Matilde is Valerie Masterson.

ACT 1
Scene 1 The court at Westminster Palace
The courtiers are awaiting the arrival of Queen Elizabeth, who is to bestow honours on the Earl of Leicester after his victory over the Scots. The Duke of Norfolk is envious of the favour Leicester enjoys, and he plots his downfall. Leicester has secretly but unwittingly married the daughter of Mary Queen of Scots; he thought this Matilde was the child of a shepherd (or a swagman camped by a billabong?). Elizabeth enters to general exaltation and is quietly exulting over Leicester's homecoming. She decorates him, and then the Scottish hostages are brought in; Leicester is dismayed to see Matilde and her brother Enrico disguised as prisoners. Later he castigates her for putting him in such danger; then she privately bemoans her fate.

Scene 2 The royal apartments
Leicester confides in Norfolk, who pretends to be sympathetic, but he goes off and tells the Queen; she is shocked, and wants revenge. Everybody is called back, and she announces that she will take Leicester as her consort; he is speechless, but manages to join in the quartet. Elizabeth sends the three traitors to the dungeons.

ACT 2
Scene 1 A room in the palace
The Queen comands Matilde to renounce her marriage in a document, or all three shall die; she eventually gives in; but Leicester appears and declares that they prefer death. Norfolk has the audacity to request an audience with the Queen, but he is banished.

Scene 2 A hall adjacent to the prison
The people are expressing their sorrow over the events, at the Tower of London; Norfolk attempts to stir them up against the Queen, and have Leicester freed.

Scene 3 The dungeon
Norfolk comes to Leicester, who is not pleased with the rebellious plan. Elizabeth arrives, wanting to help him escape, but Leicester refuses, though he begs for mercy for Matilde and Enrico (who have somehow sneaked onto the stage); not possible, because Norfolk has accused them publicly. At this the Duke attempts to stab the Queen, but the brother and sister intervene, and he is dragged away. Elizabeth pardons all three of them, and gives her blessing to the marriage. The crowd comes in demanding release for Leicester, but he berates them for their disloyalty. However, the Queen pacifies them and appoints the Earl as protector of the throne and the nation. Celebration all round; but the Queen tells herself she will now have to occupy herself with affairs of state rather than love affairs.

MOZART : LUCIO SILLA

Radio New Zealand Concert network
Sunday 15th of November 2009 at 3 - 6.05 pm

COMPOSER
BACKGROUND
UNDERGROUND
SYNOPSIS
LIBRETTO (English translation)
ARIA TEXTS (Italian)
SCORE

MOZART: Lucio Silla, an opera in three acts
Lucio Silla..................... Lothar Odinius
Giunia........................... Simone Nold
Cecilio.......................... Kristina Hammarström
Cinna............................ Henriette Bonde-Hansen
Celia............................. Susanne Elmark
Aufidio.......................... Jakob Naeslund Madsen
Vocal Group Ars Nova, Danish Radio Sinfonietta
Adám Fischer (Dacapo 8.226069/71)

I thought I owned just about all the Mozart operas (especially his earliest, and this one, his fifth, belongs to his 17th year); but I cannot find Lucio Silla anywhere in my audio or video collections. The Roman ruler of the Italian title is the dictator Lucius Cornelius Sulla (138-78 BCE), but the story is fiction. The libretto was written by Giovanni di Gamerra (with some changes made by Pietro Metastasio). Incidentally, Handel composed an opera titled Silla.

Silla loves Giunia, so he sends her fiancé Senator Cecilio into exile and tells her he is dead; but his wooing is not welcomed; Cecilio sneaks back, and manages to make contact with Giunia; but he is discovered and is put in prison. In the end Silla grants everybody who is against him a pardon, and he abdicates, to public acclaim (the chorus needs something to sing to earn their keep).

My thanks to the anonymous reader of Operawonk who expressed appreciation, at the end of my long article on Mozart's Idomeneo. I am sorry I cannot produce a comparable essay on this one, but a mass of resources (including the complete musical score!) is available by clicking on the headings above.

MONTEVERDI : ORFEO

Radio New Zealand Concert network
Sunday 1st of November 2009 at 3 - 5.10 pm

COMPOSER
BACKGROUND
UNDERGROUND
SYNOPSIS
LIBRETTO (Italian)

MONTEVERDI: L'Orfeo, an opera in five acts
La Musica/Euridice ....... Emanuela Galli
Orfeo ........................... Mirko Guadagnini
Messaggiera ................. Marina De Liso
Proserpina .................... Cristina Calzolari
Plutone ......................... Matteo Bellotto
Speranza ...................... Josè Lo Monaco
Caronte ........................ Salvo Vitale
Apollo .......................... Vincenzo Di Donato
Ninfa ............................ Francesca Cassinari
Ensemble La Venexiana/Claudio Cavina (Glossa GES 920913-E)

La Favola d'Orfeo (The Fable of Orpheus), music by Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643), text by Alessandro Striggio (a friend of Monteverdi; he was at the court of the Duke of Mantua, but not when Rigoletto was there!); it was first performed in 1607, in a tiny theatre in which the audience barely outnumbered the performers.

Gluck's Orpheus and Eurydice (1762) had a happy ending, with the couple being reunited and surviving death. Not quite so in Monteverdi's version.

The true fictional myth is this: Orpheus was a poet and singer who could charm wild animals with his beautiful music; by the same means he won the right to bring his dead wife back from Hades, on condition that he would not look at her until they reached the upper world again; in his anxiety (and possibly because of her pleading, not to say nagging, and I won't) he turned around at the last moment, only to see her snatched back to Hades; his grief turned him off women; subsequently and/or consequently he was torn to pieces by maenads (raving raging women) in Thrace; the Muses buried his bits and pieces, at the foot of Mount Olympus. By a remarkable serendipitous coincidence the alleged tomb of Orpheus has recently been found in Bulgaria (where ancient Thrace was). Perhaps. It is a Thracian rock sanctuary, allegedly older than the Egyptian pyramids.
http://international.ibox.bg/news/id_1942829985

We will see what Monteverdi and Striggio did with this sad tale. They were not the first to make it into an opera; the oldest-surviving opera is Peri's Euridice (1600); also Caccini (1602), and Ferrari (1607). But it is affirmed that Monteverdi's Orfeo (1607) is the first real opera, though it might sound like continual recitative with numerous symphonic interludes (as in Wagner's late operas).

Monteverdi's Orfeo
The work begins with a fanfare (for the 'Highnesses' in the audience; in the first instance it was Don Francesco Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, Monferrato, etc).

Prologue
Musica (Music personified) greets the audience: Dal mio Parnasso amato a voi ne vegno (From my beloved Parnassus I come to you). Later she sings: My desire now is to tell you of Orpheus, who tamed wild beasts with his song, and even constrained Hell (l'inferno) with his pleading.

Act 1
In an Arcadian landscape, nymphs and shepherds celebrate the marriage of Orfeo and Euridice.
His words: Rose of Heaven [reminiscent of Dante's Paradiso]..., Sun who surrounds all and sees all, tell me, did you ever see a more gladsome and fortunate lover than me?
And to her: Happy was the day, my beloved (mio ben) when I first saw you, and happier the hour when I sighed for you, because you sighed in response to my sighs; happy the moment when you gave me your white hand as a pledge of pure faithfulness. Etc .
Her reply: I cannot say how great my bliss is, Orpheus, because of your bliss.
And the chorus continues rejoicing over the arrival of spring and the felicity of Orpheus.

Act 2
Orpheus is in the place of his youth: Ecco pur ch'a voi ritorno, care selve e piagge amate (Behold I return to you, dear woods and beloved hills). He remembers his former sadness, and contrasts that with his present gladness.

The shepherds and nymphs support him, but then a woeful messenger arrives, bemoaning cruel fate and eventually blurting out to Orpheus that his beloved wife is dead. The proverbial snake in the grass had sunk its fangs into her foot.

Orpheus sings: You are dead, my life, yet I am breathing? You have parted from me, nevermore to return, and I remain? No, if my verses have any power at all, I will assuredly go down to the deepest abysses, and having moved the heart of the king of the shades I will lead you back to see again the stars; or if impious destiny denies me this I will remain with you in company of death. Goodbye earth, sky, and sun.

[Orpheus has learned of Eurydice's death (from snake-bite), and he has decided to go to the realm of the dead and bring her back.]

Act 3
Orfeo is escorted into the Underworld by Speranza (Hope) and comforted by her; she brings him to the place where the boatman Caronte (Kharon) transports the naked spirits across the Styx river, to the empire of Pluto. The infernal ferryman refuses to take him, since no bodily being is permitted to enter this realm. Caronte is slightly soothed by the singing of Orfeo and is touched by the reason for his journey; when Caronte falls asleep, Orfeo crosses over.

Act 4
Proserpina discusses Orfeo's plight with Plutone (Pluto); she prevails upon her spouse to release Euridice, but his condition is that while Orfeo is making his way out of the abyss, he may not turn round to look at her, for a single glance will condemn him to eternal loss. Proserpina is grateful to him. The spirits rejoice that pity and love have triumphed in Hell.

One spirit describes the scene: 'See the gentle singer leading his wife away to daylight above'. Orfeo praises his lyre for having moved the infernal hearts of stone; but, being uncertain that his beloved is actually following him, he looks back, and loses her. As she disappears she laments her fate.

Orfeo departs, as the spirits declare that Orfeo overcame Hell but was overcome by his passion; only one who overcomes himself is worthy of eternal fame.

Act 5
Back on the plains of Thrace, disconsolate Orfeo seeks consolation in a conversation with Echo, but only receives the last word of each utterance in response: Lament! Enough! Sorrow! (Is he about to be torn to pieces by harpies?)

Then Apollo, who is Orfeo's father, descends in his solar chariot, and admonishes him for giving in to his passions. Orfeo admits that he is immersed in anger and grief. because of his lost love, but he submits to his father's will. Apollo conducts him to the heavenly realm, where he will recognize the beautiful figure of Euridice in the sun and the stars.

Radio New Zealand Concert network
Sunday 15th of June 2008 at 3 - 5.10 pm

MONTEVERDI: L'Orfeo, an opera in a prologue and five acts

La Musica..................... David Cordier
Orfeo............................ Jeremy Ovenden
Euridice......................... Judith van Wanroij
Silvia............................. Tania Kross
Speranza....................... Pascal Bertin
Caronte......................... Alan Ewing
Proserpina..................... Wilke te Brummelstroete
Pluto/Shepherd.............. Panajotis Iconomou
Apollo/Shepherd........... Paul Agnew
Ninfa............................. Ilse Eerens
Concerto Palatino/Stephen Stubbs
(recorded at Netherlands Opera by Radio Netherlands)

Arts Channel (79)
Monday 16th of June 2008 at 8 - 10 pm
performance conducted by Jordi Savall

SZYMANOWSKI : KING ROGER

Radio New Zealand Concert network
Sunday 25th of October 2009 at 3 - 4.30 pm

COMPOSER
WORKS
SYNOPSIS
ANALYSIS
HISTORY

SZYMANOWSKI: Kròl Roger, an opera in three acts
King Roger................... Mariusz Kwiecien
Shepherd...................... Eric Cutler
Roxana......................... Olga Pasichnyk
Edrisi............................ Stefan Margita
Archbishop................... Wojtek Smilek
Deaconess.................... Jadwiga Rappé
Paris National Opera Chorus & Orch/Kazushi Ono
(recorded in the Opéra Bastille, Paris by Radio France)

This is a fascinating opera about the Norman King Roger II of Sicily (1095 - 1154). It is unanimously judged to be a masterpiece. This Polish composer, Karol Szymanowski (1882 - 1937) was born in the Ukraine. Shimanovski is how we usually say his name, but I suppose he would have pronounced it differently. The first two syllables always suggest 'shimmer' to me, and I think of his music as 'shimmering' (shining tremulously), as in his first violin concerto.

The historical background can be studied under HISTORY, in which Normans rule over Sicily and southern Italy. Roger had the Muslim scholar Idrisi at his court (I have studied his book of geography for my research into early South-East Asian history, and he receives a passing mention in my co-authored book The Maharajas of the Isles, 2009); he appears here as Edrisi.

Act 1 is Christian, starting with a glorious mass in the Palermo Cathedral, featuring some awesomely beautiful music (like Parsifal). The archbishop and the deaconess (or abess) warn the king about a corrupting influence in the realm, and Edrisi explains that it is shepherd boy. This radiant youth tells the king about his vivacious young god. Queen Roxana is impressed and persuades the king not to kill him, though the crowd is demanding his death.

Act 2 is Oriental (Indian and Arab culture, and also Tristan). Roxana sings a seductive song, and the king is worried that she is under the shepherd's spell. The young mystic names his home as Benares (Varanasi on the Gangga river), declares himself to be a messenger of God, and leads the courtiers in an ecstatic Arabian dance. Roger has him bound in chains, but he easily breaks them, and leads the queen and the people to the 'kingdom of light' (as Indian swamis still do). Edrisi and Roger are left behind, but the king suddenly takes off his crown and follows them on the pilgrimage.

Act 3 is Grecian, and Roger and Edrisi come to a Greek temple or theatre in Syracuse, where Roxana and the shepherd invite him to worship the deity Dionysos with flowers, to free himself of his anxiety and jealousy. A Dionysian dance ensues, and eventually they all disappear, except Roger and Edrisi, who greet the rising sun with a hymn. (And they all lived happily ever after?)

Shamefully I confess that I have never owned a recording of this opera.

HANDEL : EZIO

Radio New Zealand Concert network
Sunday 18th of October 2009 at 3 - 5.30 pm

PRELUDE (Wikipedia)
PREVIEW (pictures and story)
HISTORY (Attila and Huns)
HISTORY (Flavius Aetius)
RECORD (Audio CD)

HANDEL: Ezio, an opera in three acts (1732)
Ezio ............................. Yosemeh Adjei
Fulvia ........................... Netta Or
Valentiniano ................. Mariselle Martinez
Onoria ......................... Hilke Andersen
Massimo ...................... Donát Havár
Varo ............................ Marcell Bakonyi
Basel CO/Attilio Cremonesi
(recorded at the Rococo Theatre,
Schwetzingen by German Radio, Stuttgart)

This is one of Handel's failures, if measured by the mere handful of performances (exactly 5) it had in 1732. Some blame the public disregard for it on its romanticism, imposed on a serious classical form (opera seria). Its libretto was the work of the prolific Pietro Metastasio. The striking feature is that the only components are recitative and aria, with no duets or quartets, trios or sextets; there is one chorus, at the very end (they must have sat around smoking and playing cards behind the scenes, though they could also have been the army and the populace at the start). A feast of good music, a dessert that does not deserve to be left unserved in the kitchen (not mixed metaphors!).

This one gives the lie to the calumny that Handel composed the same opera about fifty times.

There is a strong similarity to Mozart's Tito, The Clemency of, with an assassination plot against the Emperor (here Valentinian) and rivalry over a woman (Fulvia), and finally a happy resolution. However, in real life Aetius defeated Attila in 451, Valentinian murdered Aetius in 454 (born around 390), and in 455 Maximus (Massimo) had the Emperor assassinated by two Huns. (By the way, Huns were not Germanic but apparently Turkic).

A note about librettos
Our usual free source (KARADAR) must now be accessed with the abbreviation for Italy added to the address (.it) instead of .com (which now takes you to their 'shop'). This has wrecked all my older links!

http://www.karadar.it/
The opera Ezio is not on their list, but a pdf is available from the Wikipedia article (PRELUDE). It has three dozen pages, so I copied it onto a document, put the text into two columns, played around with it to save more space, and reduced it to 15 pages.

HAYDN : ORLANDO PALADINO

Radio New Zealand Concert network
Sunday 11th of October 2009 at 3 - 6 pm

COMPOSER
ORLANDO
SYNOPSIS
PREVIEW
RECORDS
RECORDS
SAMPLE
EXCERPTS

HAYDN: Orlando Paladino, an opera in three acts
Angelica ............. Henriette Bonde-Hansen
Rodomonte .................. Pietro Spagnoli
Orlando ....................... Marcel Reijans
Medoro ....................... Kenneth Tarver
Licone .......................... Peter Gijsbertsen
Eurilla ........................... Laura Cherici
Pasquale ...................... Nikolay Borchev
Alcina .......................... Elena Monti
Caronte ........................ Martijn Cornet
Netherlands Radio Chamber Phil/Alessandro De Marchi
(recorded at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam)

An opera by Haydn? That's Joseph 'Papa' Haydn? Not his brother Michael? We know Josef's two great oratorios (Creation and Seasons), but why do we never see or hear his operas, considering he wrote as many as Mozart, and Wagner?

In a period long past, Antal Dorati strove to bring all the symphonies and operas into our hearing through the medium of vinyl discs (now available on compact discs). I own all the symphonies and a few of the operas, but not this one. There are two reviews of the available records of The Paladin Orlando (go to RECORDS above).

The heading ORLANDO will take you to an opera by Vivaldi, about the same character, also known as furious (or crazy) Orlando. Who was he? None other than the celebrated Roland, the most illustrious paladin (palace knight) of Charlemagne (742-814), and the hero of The Song of Roland; his horn-blast warned the King that the Saracens were crossing the Pyrenees mountains, but he died there in 778. He is the subject of Ariosto's epic poem (1533) Orlando Furioso (his fury and madness arises from his jealousy over Medoro and Angelica [Queen of Cathay!] as in this opera), and the poem includes the unsuccessful siege of Paris by Agramant the Moor. You should know that if they had conquered Europe we would all be speaking Arabic now.

The story is told under SYNOPSIS and PREVIEW (which refers to this very performance in the Concertgebouw of Amsterdam).

SAMPLE gives an audio extract from the Dorati record, and EXCERPT leads to a Berlin Philharmonic concert performance, including Jonathan Lemalu as King Rodomonte of Barbary.

Folks, this is a comedy, with a mad scene for a man, for a change. Alcina the sorceress (also beloved of Handel) makes an appearance.

Haydn had a love life, by the way, with a singer (Luigia), and a lady of London (Rebecca).

BEETHOVEN : FIDELIO

Radio New Zealand Concert network
Sunday 4th of October 2009 at 3 pm
Sunday 12th of October 2008 at 3 pm
Sunday 30th of September 2007 at 3 pm

COMPOSER
BACKGROUND
UNDERGROUND
CHARACTERS
SYNOPSIS
STORYLINE
ANALYSIS
LIBRETTO German only

BEETHOVEN: Fidelio, an opera in two acts
Leonore........................ Waltraud Meier
Florestan....................... Simon O'Neill
Don Pizarro................... Gerd Grochowski
Rocco........................... John Tomlinson
Marzelline..................... Adriana Kucerova
Jacquino........................ Stephan Rügamer
Don Fernando............... Viktor Rud

BBC Singers, Geoffrey Mitchell Choir,
West-Eastern Divan Orch/Daniel Barenboim (BBC)

It is springtime and Fidelio blooms again. Tenor Simon O'Neill is buried in his dungeon once more, as Florestan; but he will rise up and flourish with his beloved wife Leonore alias Fidelio, this time in the person of Waltraud Meier. Simon was singing at the London Proms as one of the top ten tenors in the world. The wonderful orchestra is made up of young Palestinians and Israelis, and is directed by its founder Daniel Barenboim, a marvelous mensch.

What does the formidable Denis Forman have to say about Fidelio? In The Good Opera Guide (and he is not joking this time) he characterizes it as striking a blow for freedom, feminism, and prison reform, as "one of the greatest of all operas", and worthy of a mighty alpha.

This concert performance in the Albert Hall is in German, The earlier rendition in Auckland included a narration in English, by Beryl Te Wiata, as Leonore, recalling the events at the prison.

BEETHOVEN: Fidelio, an opera in two acts
Narrator........................ Beryl Te Wiata
Leonore........................ Erika Sunnegårdh
Florestan....................... Simon O'Neill
Rocco........................... Andrew Greenan
Don Pizarro................... Peteris Eglitis
Marzelline..................... Madeleine Pierard
Jacquino........................ Adrian Strooper
Don Fernando............... Malcolm Ede
New Zealand Opera Chorus, Auckland Philharmonia/Jonas Alber
(recorded in the Auckland Town Hall by RNZ)

This Fidelio has the NZ tenor Simon O'Neill (see the sidebar for the address of his website, to see and hear what he is doing these days).
Unless I am mistaken, Erika Sunnegoardh is the soprano in the pictures from the NY Met production under the STORYLINE link. She is with Ben Heppner. The audio recording they offer excerpts from is remarkable: Furtwängler is the conductor, and the singers are Kirsten Flagstad, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Josef Greindl, and Julius Patzak. He was the tenor I used to sing along with in Florestan's piece "Gott! welch Dunkel hier!" ("God! it's dark in here!", or "God! what darkness here", or "Alas! what darkness dense", as it said in my libretto book). Of course, in my youthful innocence I did not know I was a double bass, capable of growling a rock bottom Bb, but not the tenor's top Bb (though he only has to pass through it on a quaver), and I must have been using my "head tones", alias my "squeaky voice", or my true falsetto or phoney falsetto. By the way, speaking of the world's greatest tenors, in those days one of my big thrills was hearing Nessun Dorma sung on the radio by a mystery tenor; it was revealed that it was Harry Secombe. These days, in our local video opera group, I slip Luciano Pavarotti or Simon O'Neill into the program, and they both make the sign of the cross with their whole body at the end (Pavarotti also waves a white flag, but not in surrender).

You know that Beethoven did more than one version of his only opera, and I am pleased to possess a copy of Leonore, conducted by Herbert Blomstedt, with Edda Moser as Leonore. For Fidelio I have Klemperer (Christa Ludwig, Jon Vickers), and Furtwängler (Martha Mödl, Wolfgang Windgassen), though the second-hand shop only had record 1 of 3, so I don't hear WW, who was my favourite Bayreuth tenor, superior to all the other warblers and wobblers.

I have sung in the prisoners' chorus from Act 1, when the Palmerston North Choral Society included Fidelio excerpts in a Beethoven concert. We had Michael Burch and Roger Wilson (both of whom have connections with Radio NZ).

My experience of seeing it on stage was at the Sydney Opera House. We were staying at a hotel in King's Cross, and in the next room was a male singer practising constantly. We found out that he was playing Don Fernando in Fidelio, and when the moment arrived we set off walking with him; but he realized that we would not get there in time, so he hailed a cab for us and promised to meet us in the Green Room. He did not have to appear on stage till the finale! It is a bit ungrateful of me to not even remember his name. His next role was to be Hans Sachs in Adelaide.

I had thought that this Auckland concert performance might not be recorded, and I said so on record. However, Radio NZ has such a close relationship with the Auckland Phiharmonia orchestra, that I hoped that even though it was not broadcast on the night (as usually happens), they might have saved it for an occasion like this. Also, a personal e-mail message to me from Simon O'Neill said: "I hope the broadcast for the Fidelio comes across well". And here it is, after all.

The highlight for us will be the inclusion of Simon O'Neill's voice in the mix. While he was here in August he was able to appear in the media. There was an Artsville documentary about his teacher Frances Wilson (he sang Wagner's Lohengrin, accompanying himself at one of her many pianos, and then abandoned the "bloody Germans" for some Italian gioia, as Verdi's Alfredo). His maturity and humility shone through in a radio interview with opera singer and announcer Kate Lineham (as former members of the national youth choir, they had a lot to reminisce about).

We historicomusicologists (forgetful though some of us may be) know that this is not the first occasion that Simon has been on the Sunday afternoon opera program. He was the High Priest in Idomeneo from the Metropera this year; and last year he was Lancelot in Chausson's Le Roi Arthus (King Arthur); you can actually buy that record (unless you recorded it off air onto videotape, without pictures, strictly for study purposes, not for illicit pleasure).

LIGETI : LE GRAND MACABRE

Radio New Zealand Concert network
Sunday 27th of September 2009 at 3.03 - 5.05 pm

COMPOSER
OVERVIEW (with detailed synopsis)
EXAMPLE Car horn prelude (audio) Act 1.1
EXAMPLE Act 1.2 (video)

LIGETI: Le Grand Macabre, an opera in two acts
Piet the Pot................... Chris Merritt
Amando........................ Frances Bourne
Amanda........................ Ilse Eerens
Nekrotzar..................... Werner Van Mechelen
Astradamors................. Frode Olsen
Mescalina...................... Ning Liang
Venus/Gepopo.............. Barbara Hannigan
Prince Go-Go............... Brian Asawa
Ruffiak.......................... Bernard Villiers
Schobiack..................... Gérard Lavalle
Schabernack................. Jacques Does
White Minister............... Eberhard Lorenz
Black Minister............... Martin Winkler
La Monnaie Chorus & Orch/Leo Hussain
(recorded in La Monnaie, Brussels)

György Ligeti (1923-2006) was Hungarian and Jewish, born in Romania, in Transylvania (I have not noticed any vampires in this opera, but the antagonist does bite a woman's neck and kills her). In 1956 (after the failed Hungarian uprising against Russia) Ligeti moved to Austria (taking citizenship), and he also worked in Germany.

I am in a bind about Ligeti (Latin ligo 'I bind'), and I have never been drawn to his music (I can't think of any of his compositions that have a place in my vast collection of recordings). However, we have all heard examples of his music, in Stanley Kubrick films: 2001 (though the fanfare is by Richard Strauss), The Shining (with mad Jack) and Eyes wide Shut (with Tom cruising and Nicole kidding her man).

Like Messiaen, Ligeti only produced one opera (twice: 1977 and 1996), Le Grand Macabre (French for The Great Macabre) and it is in German, but it has also been performed in Swedish (première in Stockholm), English, French, Italian, and Hungarian. As its title suggests the subject is grim and gruesome, a danse macabre, with Death as the central character, under the alias Nekrotzar. The setting is Breughel-land (an allusion to the apocalyptic paintings) with skyscrapers about to fall (how prophetic!). A comet will strike at midnight.

The metropolis image is conjured up by a prelude of twelve car horns; then we meet Piet, whose occupation is wine-taster (but he does not spit it out); the lovers Amando and Amanda do what lovers love to do, in full view, and their aliases (Spermando and Clitoria) give us fair warning that this is a bawdy show, as well as a bizarre piece of theatrics; as in Der Rosenkavalier the lovers in the first scene are male and female, but played by two women.

The predicted comet strikes, but the characters survive; they know they are existent because they are thirsting for alcohol, in a new version of the formula of Descartes: I drink (rather than think) therefore I am.

A full summary of the plot is available under the heading OVERVIEW above.

This farce has to be seen to be ... believed? understood? appreciated? Well the two examples provided above will lead you to a variety of excerpts from various productions, one in English; but who knows what language this Belgian performance will offer us. At a concert in Finland, Anu Komsi is dressed as a dominatrix (note the paper bag used by a percussionist to make rustling sounds). Regrettably, my powerful Macintosh can not play YOU TUBE stuff without stopping incessantly (!), even the second time round.

BRITTEN : MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

Radio New Zealand Concert network
Sunday 13th of September 2009 at 3 - 5.40 pm

PRELUDE (Wiki)
REVIEW (with pictures)
REVIEW (raunchy)
SYNOPSIS
LIBRETTO

BRITTEN: A Midsummer Night's Dream, opera in 3 acts
Oberon......................... David Daniels
Tytania.......................... Rosemary Joshua
Puck............................. Emil Wolk
Theseus......................... Daniel Okulitch
Hippolyta...................... Natasha Petrinsky
Lysander....................... Gordon Gietz
Demetrius...................... David Adam Moore
Hermia.......................... Deanne Meek
Helena.......................... Erin Wall
Bottom.......................... Matthew Rose
Quince.......................... Andrew Shore
Flute............................. Christopher Gillett
Snug............................. Graeme Danby
Snout............................ Adrian Thompson
Starveling...................... Simon Butteriss
La Scala Chorus & Orch/Andrew Davis
(recorded in La Scala, Milan)

Be warned: this production emphasizes eroticism (beds everywhere, a large appendage to Bottom the Ass), but that should not concern us, listening to the radio without pictures.

Looking at the cast, we see at the top the omnipresent squeak-tenor (or under-the-counter tenor) David Daniels (apparently he had trouble projecting his voice to the furthest recesses of La Scala; he was said to lack charisma, but he had vertigo on stage, restricing his movements; the original man for the part of Oberon was Alfred Deller, not strong on high notes, so Britten did not require him to sing any loud top notes).

At the bottom (not playing Bottom but Starveling/ Moonshine, a tailor) is baritone Simon Butteriss (we have seen him on television in his 2006 documentary on Grossmith, the patter-song virtuoso for Gilbert and Sullivan, and SB himself presents and performs); the director has made him Jewish.

Rosemary Joshua is critically acclaimed for her efforts as a new coloratura star portraying Tytania.

Benjamin Britten most often built his operas around the tenor Peter Pears (his life-long partner), but not this time: they both worked on reducing Shakespeare's play to a manageable opera libretto, and PP got the role of the bellows-mender Flute/ Thisbe. In the recording they made (produced by John Culshaw, the man who created the Decca Ring of the Nibelung) Peter moved to the role of Lysander, one of the lovers. Tytania, Queen of the Fairies, is sung by Elizabeth Harwood (I saw her as Lucia in Melbourne, when her virus-invaded voice cracked a few times, but she is generally sweet to the ear). Richard Hickox (now departed, sadly) made a recommended recording, with James Bowman.

The cheery chappy who conducts this performance receives well-merited praise; Andrew Davis was a favourite at the London Proms, and a few days ago I listened to his recording of Richard Strauss's Four Last Sings, accompanying Kiri Te Kanawa's dulcet tones.

HANDEL : FARAMONDO

Radio New Zealand Concert network
Sunday 6th of September 2009 at 3 - 5.30 pm

SYNOPSIS
SYNOPSIS (with photographs)

HANDEL: Faramondo, an opera in three acts
Faramondo................... Max Emanuel Cencic
Clotilda......................... Sophie Karthäuser
Rosimonda.................... Marina de Liso
Gustavo........................ Insung Sinn
Adolfo.......................... Philippe Jaroussky
Gernando...................... Xavier Sabata Corominas
Teobaldo...................... Fulvio Bettini
Childerico..................... Teresa Nesci
Italian-Swiss Radio Chorus, Lugano, I Barocchisti/Diego Fasolis

Is there no end to the number of Handel operas? This is the fifth to be added to the operawonk index. On the list I have seen, it is 39th out of 46 (to be followed by Serse (Xerxes) and Semele, to name the two best-known of the final bunch); so it is a mature work, and the music is rated as splendid.

Handel’s Faramondo was composed between 15 November and 24 December 1737. It set in a mythical period of the history of France, when a legendary king named Pharamond was ruler of the Franks, supposedly around 420. It had eight performances in 1738, and was then put to bed until 1976.

The story sounds like a farce, and I will not attempt to recount it (see the two synopses provided above); its basis is revenge (the planned vengeance of King Gustavo on Faramondo for the murder of one of his sons), and rivalry in love and war (there are two opposing military camps with lovers on each side separated from one another). The problems are all settled when it is revealed that there was a switch of infants (shades of Trovatore and Pinafore, but those names do not rhyme, remember) so the need for revenge is obviated.

This performance comes from soloists with the Italian-Swiss Radio Chorus, Lugano with I Barocchisti conducted by Diego Fasolis, and it is available on record.

MESSIAEN : SAINT FRANCIS OF ASSISI

Radio New Zealand Concert network
Sunday 30th of August 2009 at 3 - 7.15 pm


COMPOSER Olivier Messiaen (Wiki)
SUMMARY
SYNOPSIS
ANALYSIS
REVIEW
REVIEW (San Francisco)
RECORD

MESSIAEN: St François d'Assise, an opera in three acts
L'Ange.......................... Camilla Tilling
St François.................... Rod Gilfry
Le Lépreux................... Hubert Delamboye
Frère Léon.................... Henk Neven
Frère Massée................ Tom Randle
Frère Elie...................... Donald Kaasch
Frère Bernard............... Armand Arapian
Frère Sylvestre.............. Jan Willem Baljet
Frère Rufin.................... André Morsch
Netherlands Opera Chorus, Residentie Orch/
Ingo Metzmacher (Radio Netherlands)

Olivier Messiaen (1908 - 1992) managed to write only one opera in his life, with initial reluctance and then great devotion (1975 - 1983); he was a reverent Catholic (and spiritual joy was the virtue he prized most highly) but he did not object to opera; in fact he analysed the operas of Mozart and Wagner in his role as a music professor. After declining a commission from the Paris opera house, he was taken to dinner at the presidential palace, and was there commanded to compose one for them, by President Pompidou. He first contemplated making Jesus Christ the subject of his work, but he felt unworthy, and so he turned to the Christ-like figure of Saint Francis of Assisi (who lived in the 13th Century). Ultimately, Messiaen produced a music drama that is longer than Wagner's Parsifal. Like Wagner, he composed the libretto and the music. Although he had studied Tristan and Isolde, he refrained from including Francis's friend Saint Clare in the proceedings.

This work is divided into three acts, with eight scenes (3, 3, 2), to which I would give these one-word titles (Messiaen's titles in brackets):

ACT 1
[1] CROSS [La Croix]

[2] PRAYER [Les Laudes The Lauds]

[3] KISS [Le Baiser au Lépreux The Kissing of the Leper]

ACT 2
[4] GRACE [L'Ange voyageur The Journeying Angel]

[5] BLISS [L'Ange musicien The Musician Angel]

[6] BIRDS [Le Prêche aux oiseaux The Sermon to the Birds]

ACT 3
[7] WOUNDS [Les Stigmates The Stigmata]

[8] TRUTH [La Mort et la Nouvelle Vie Death and the New Life]

Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) produced religious devotional music for organ, and for orchestra (including the exotic electronic instrument known as the ondes Martenot, which emits sounds you could actually make in one of those toy whistles with a plunger); but he only composed a single opera in his whole life, and it was about a single man, a monk, namely Saint Francis of
Assisi (13th century).

I have always been fascinated with Francis, and I have visited Assisi (Rome is the only other Italian town I have been in). I am not a globetrotter, and I have now given airline travel away: (1) because aeroplanes pollute the atmosphere and contribute to climate change; eventually, when they are fuelled with sunshine, I might get into one; (2) I am personally a hazard to the world. When I departed from Athens airport for Paris, terrorists (fearmongers with explosives) came in and blew it up; after I had inspected the awesome York Minster, the roof caught fire; and after I had marveled at the magnificent church of Saint Francis in Assisi, an earthquake ruined it. There is a possibility that a disaster might one day coincide exactly with my visit to a celebrated place, and that thought keeps me close to home.

But the Assisi catastrophe might have been divine retribution. When I went there, I wanted to see his original little chapel, as pictured on a postcard that I had on show in my study at home. Our woman guide on the bus claimed to know nothing about it, and herded us all up the hill to the great basilica of Saint Francis, through Vanity Fair (Buy! Buy! and Bye Bye to your money), past the shop of his father, which he left to take Poverty as his bride (also Chastity and Humility, but that does not make him a polygamist). A church in memory of his dear friend Saint Clare is also up there. But this opera is not a Hollywood movie, so she is not in it.

Here is the solemn and sobering point. Before he passed on, Francis instructed his Franciscan friars (brothers) to prevent any adorning or aggrandizing of his tiny chapel. Once he was out of the way, his devoted admirers built a large church over it (to protect it from the weather, perhaps), and also the one on the hill with elaborate art work. That makes two grand edifices in his honour, and if the saint knew, he might feel aggrieved and turn in his grave with so much agitation that the earth could tremble and the walls tumble.

Messiaen's music is not a procession of pretty tunes, and this opera is longer than Wagner's Parsifal, so it requires sympathetic attention. He was crazy about birdsongs, and he took great pains to note down their various calls; but a chorus of them can seem cacophonous!

Afternote: I happened to be out in the forest and the meadows listening with earphones to the BIRDS section of the opera, with our own local birds singing outside me, and myself whistling, too. A harmonious cacophony, I think.

BELLINI : CAPULETS & MONTAGUES

Radio New Zealand Concert network
Sunday 23rd of August 2009 at 3 - 6 pm

BELLINI: I Capuleti e i Montecchi, an opera in two acts

Tebaldo........................ Dario Schmunck
Capellio........................ Eric Owens
Lorenzo........................ Alastair Miles
Romeo.......................... Elina Garanca
Giulietta......................... Anna Netrebko
Chorus & Orch Royal Opera House, Covent Garden/Mark Elder
(recorded in performance by the BBC)

INTRODUCTION (Wikipedia)
LIBRETTO (Italian)
RECORDING (sampler)
(Netrebko and Garanca in Vienna)
Garanca is a mezzo soprano, but she can sing top C.
The set I have is from the same theatre in 1985: Agnes Baltsa (Romeo), Edita Gruberova (Juliet), Gwynne Howell (Capulet), John Tomlinson (Laurence), Dano Raffanti (Tybalt).

Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi (The Capulets and the Montagues, rather than the Catapults and the Montages, or Cataleptics and the Monotechnics), also known as Giulietta e Romeo (1830), just to be different. Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835) had the same short lifespan as Wolfgang Mozart (1756-1791). (My dear piano teacher, in Balmain, in the years around 1947, was named Mrs Bellini.)

Even after he had completed the Ring, Wagner praised this opera, along with Norma, as exhibiting true passion and emotion, as well as melody, and he said he had learned from it (adding that Brahms had not!). With the right soprano, he added, it can carry you away.

Cecilia Bartoli has revived interest in one of the sopranos who played Romeo (another was Richard's niece Johanna Wagner, in 1856, in London) namely Maria Malibran (née Garcia, 1808 - 1836). You can buy an audio disc of Cecilia singing Maria's songs, and see a documentary about her travelling Malibran Museum.

The story in Felice Romani's libretto is not quite the same as in Shakespeare's drama. Friar Laurence is now Lorenzo, physician and adviser to Capellio, the leader of the Capulets; he does not marry the ill-fated couple, but he does provide the potions and poisons. Tybalt (Tebaldo) is the one engaged to marry Juliet in this version.

Overture
Act 1.1 : A hall in Capellio's palatial mansion in Verona
Romeo, not a boy, is the leader of the Montagues, and he has killed Capellio's son; the Capulets swear vengeance against them. Tebaldo is in love with Capellio's daughter Giulietta, and Capellio declares they will be married that day, rejecting Lorenzo's advice that the feud with the Montagues should be ended and that the unwell girl [a love-sick teenager] should not be dragged to the altar. Tebaldo (Tybalt) is hesitant, but Capellio (Capulet) reassures him. Romeo (incognito) comes in and offers a peace treaty, to be sealed with a marriage, Romeo and Juliet! The Capulets reject this offer and vow to continue the war.

Act 1.2 : Giulietta's room
She ponders over the impending wedding celebrations and her own unhappiness. Lorenzo brings Romeo in, and the lovers greet each other passionately. Romeo's plea for her to elope with him is resisted: her duty to her father and her honour hold her back. Romeo threatens to make a scene and fight to the death with Capellio, but is persuaded to leave.

Act 1.3 : A courtyard in Capellio's house
The chorus sings: "Joyful night where Love smiles", and then Romeo the party-pooper enters, in disguise again, and the Montagues put the guests to flight. Giulietta is alone and sings about her conflicting loyalties. The two lovers have another futile discussion about eloping. This time Capellio and Tebaldo and the Capuletti confront him, and eventually realize that he is Romeo. The Montagues burst in and the act ends with a grand ensemble, predicting much carnage and slaughter.

Act 2.1-2 : Same place as Act 1.3
Giulietta is alone, wondering about the outcome of the violent confrontation, but Lorenzo tells her that Romeo is safe, and warns her that she will soon be taken to Tebaldo's castle, so she must take his potion and go into a deathlike coma. Her father enters and tells her to prepare for the wedding, but she says she is sick unto death. Romeo arrives later, unaware of Lorenzo's plan. His sword-fight with Tebaldo is interrupted by Giulietta's funeral procession.

Act 2.3 : The chamber of tombs
The usual story, Romeo thinks she is dead, and takes poison. Giulietta revives, ready for the great elopement; she wants to die too, but he tells her to live on and visit his grave. But when he dies she is so stricken with grief she falls dead on his body. [As we said, Wagner liked this opera, and this may be where he got the idea of making his heroines "sink lifeless" to the ground (Elsa, Kundry) or onto the body of her beloved (Isolde).]

The Capulets and the Montagues come in; all are horrified. "Killed by whom?" Capellio asks. Lorenzo and the Montagues respond in unison: "By you, callous man (spietato)".

The benefits of recycling are demonstrated by this opera: Bellini turned his failed opera Zaira (which was hissed at Parma) into one that would appeal to the public, by inserting the pieces into the great love story and 'tale of woe' of 'Juliet and her Romeo'.

MONTEVERDI : ULISSE

Radio New Zealand Concert network
Sunday 16th of August 2009 at 3 - 6 pm

MONTEVERDI: Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria,
an opera in a prologue and three acts
Human Frailty................ Terry Way
Time, Neptune.............. Luigi Da Donato
Fortune......................... Hanna Bayodi-Hirt
Cupid, Minerva............. Claire Debono
Penelope....................... Christine Rice
Ericlea........................... Marina Rodríguez-Cusí
Eurimaco, Jupiter........... Ed Lyon
Ulysses......................... Kobie van Rensburg
Eumaeus....................... Joseph Cornwell
Irus............................... Robert Burt
Telemachus................... Cyril Auvity
Antinous........................ Humberto Chiummo
Peisander...................... Xavier Sabata
Amphinomus................. Juan Sancho
Juno.............................. Sonya Yoncheva
Les Arts Florissants/William Christie
(recorded in the Teatro Real, Madrid by Spanish Radio)

BACKGROUND

Radio New Zealand Concert network is giving Ulysses (real name Odysseus) another operatic homecoming (last occasion was in July 2007 in Wales), this time his rain will fall in Spain (plainly not on the Main), a rain of arrows from the bow that none of the suitors could string, those pesky potentates who have been pestering his Fair Lady during his long absence from his
homeland, Ithaka (somewhere in Greece). He had been to the Trojan war to rescue Helen from Paris, and got lost (in a great variety of locations) on his way home, as recorded or recounted by Homer in The Odyssey. He met a few saucy women in his voyages, notably Circe who turned her visitors into pigs.

The patience of Penelope, slaving over her hot embroidery, is legendary (so is the whole tale). For twenty years she did not receive a Valentine greeting, or a philia-epistle (that's Greek for billet doux in the mail), or even a picture postcard [Wish you were here on the beach at Troy; Having a lovely time on Circe's pig-farm; We got a bullseye on the Cyclops]. When her husband finally did arrive she was very suspicious about his identity, and the only way he could get back into her bed was by describing the silk coverlet on it, depicting Artemis (Diana the Divine Huntress).

The opera is by Claudio Monteverdi, but there is only one manuscript available, and academic doubts have been raised (needlessly) about its authorship; it belongs alongside his Poppea and his Orfeo.

The full title of Claudio Monteverdi's opera is: Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria (The return of Ulysses to his homeland). The story starts when Ulysses finally reaches Ithaka (his homeland in Greece), after fighting for many years at Troy (the subject of The Iliad of Homer) and then wandering over the sea for many more (involuntarily, as narrated in The Odyssey). In the mean time, his faithful wife Penelope has been fighting off a multitude of suitors.

Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) established opera as an art form. His first masterpiece was Orpheus (L'Orfeo) (1607); Ulysses was composed late in his life (1640). The author of the text was a Venetian nobleman named Giacomo Badoaro, who described himself as a dilettante, writing for pleasure not from necessity (he certainly won't be earning any royalties from this production of it in Spain). The first performance was in Venice in 1641.

It has a prologue and some 20 scenes, divided into 5 (or 3) acts. The selection I have described below totals 16 (my own numbering). The recording I have, on three black discs (Vox), omits the prologue, and you can not predict what various productions will do in subtracting scenes.

Prologue
Monteverdi's operas usually open with a prologue, featuring gods or personifications of abstract nouns, such as Fortune and Virtue in Poppea, and Music in Orfeo; here it is Time, Love, and Fortune, confronting Human Frailty, played by a naked woman in Peter Hall's production at Glyndebourne in 1972 and 1979.

[1] The palace
Penelope is in her royal palace (remember, she is a queen) with Eurykleia/Ericlea, Ulysses's old nurse; Penelope is pining; she misses Ulysses. Where's that husband of mine? He's never home. Will he no come back again? Twenty years have passed since the troubles began (the 'rape' or abduction of Helen by Paris of Troy, alias Alexander of Ilias). It was right that the adulterer was punished and his city burned, but now your chaste wife is abandoned amongst hostile rivals, with her honour in jeopardy, and in fear of death. Return, oh return, return Ulysses/ Odysseus.

There is a scene (available in the score) in which Melanto (Penelope's maid) and Eurymachus/ Eurimaco sing of their love. And the libretto has a chorus of nereids and sirens, which is not found in the musical score. Another scene shows Ulisse being deposited on the shore. So, counting the prologue, there are five scenes preceding the one I have numbered as Two.
[2] The seashore
Neptune and Jupiter (Jove, Zeus) are in conversation about human hubris, and the Phaeacians are singled out for acting against Neptune's divine decree, by delivering Ulysses to his homeland, Ithaka. Jove gives Neptune permisson to punish them, and teach them that no human undertaking which has the gods opposed to it has a fortunate outcome.
[3] The coast
A seafarer's chorus. Neptune wreaks his vengeance by turning their ship into rock.
[4] The shore
Ulysses is stranded on the beach, and when he wakes up he does not know what country he is in (he is really out of touch, not recognizing his own domain). He blames himself for his misfortunes, but he also thinks the gods are ruthless and harsh. He curses the Phaeacians (unfairly!) for dumping him on an unknown shore.
[5] The shore
Minerva (Athena, actually) arrives [in her skymobile at Glyndebourne], disguised as a young shepherd, extolling the virtues and joys of youth. Quoth Ulysses: Charming young shepherd, give advice and assistance to a lost wanderer, and tell me please the name of this shore and this port. Even when she tells him he is in Ithaka he babbles on about being a fugitive hounded by hostile fate thrust onto this shore. Minerva says he is speaking in a dream, and tells him who she is and offers him her advice. He is to disguise himself as an old man, and go to his palace to confront the shameless suitors, and observe the unshaken constancy of his pure Penelope. Interjection: O fortunate Ulysses, he exclaims. Minerva has had her vengeance on Troy, and now wishes to reinstate Ulysses in his own country. (He takes on the role of a beggar, with a bowl.) He must go to the fountain of Arethusa, where Eumaeus (Eumete, his faithful old servant) is tending his flock. She will transport his son Telemachus (Telemaco) from Sparta, and meet him at the fountain. Ulysses now expands his 'O fortunate Ulysses' line: Forget your grief, your past misfortune; relish the taste of life, which brings both delight and grief, both peace and war; there is no longer despair for mortals on earth.
[6] The palace
Penelope is with Melanto her maid. (For twenty years she did not receive a Valentine card, or even a post-card ['Wish you were here on the beach at Troy', or 'Having a lovely time at Circe's pig-farm'] but she remained completely faithful to him.) Melanto tries to persuade Penelope to accept one of the suitors, since Ulysses must be dead. Pnot on your pnelly, Penelope retorts. Actually, she is feeling painfully disillusioned about love, and thinking Ulysses could be like Jason and Theseus, both of whom abandoned their lovers (Medea and Ariadne respectively, but not at all respectfully).
[7] A grove
Eumaeus/Eumete soliloquizes on the pastoral life: the herdsman with his staff has a better time in the woodlands and meadows than the king with his sceptre, dressed in silk but weighed down with worries. Now a comic interlude. The stuttering Irus/Iro (a glutton) mocks him: only the beasts can eat the grass that Eumete delights in, but he eats the animals at royal tables. Eumete tells him to go away and stuff himself. At this point Eumete starts pondering over the fate of Ulysses: perhaps the gods may not have wanted Troy to be destroyed, and he has become their victim (true enough). Ulysses, in his beggar's disguise, overhears this soliloquy, and speaks enigmatically (or cunningly): If you desire his return, then give shelter to this old beggar you see before you. Eumaeus is delighted, but apparently does not recognize him.
[8] The countryside
(Act Two begins here in some versions)
Telemaco and Minerva/Athene have travelled in her celestial chariot to Ithaka. Eumaeus welcomes him home. Eumaeus is sent to announce to the Queen that Telemaco has returned. Then Ulysses reveals himself (in all his glory) to his son, and eventually sends him to be reunited with his mother Queen Penelope.
[9] The palace
Melanto tells her lover Eurimachus that Penelope is wallowing in sadness; but they both take pleasure in each other's company (once again, if their earlier love-scene has been included).
[10] The palace
(Act Two now begins, if you like)
Penelope is being wooed (as usual) by the suitors (notably Antinous, Amphinomous, Peisander); she is still rejecting love. Feasting and dancing continue (here eight 'Moors' are programmed to perform a Greek dance and sing, recommending that ladies should love while April lasts). Enter Eumaeus with his glad tidings: Telemaco is back, and Ulysses is alive. Penelope is not sure how to react: it is certainly a change of fortune, but for good or ill? This is a worry, the three suitors say; we had better shower our gifts on her now, and assail her heart with gold-tipped arrows of love. But Telemaco must be killed before Ulysses arrives. Thereupon an eagle appears and causes consternation. Eurimachus sees it as as an oracle from Jupiter / Zeus. The suitors decide there is no time to lose; they must soften Penelope's heart before her son arrives.
[11] A grove
Ulysses is confident of divine protection. Minerva/Athena tells him that she will inspire Penelope to set up a game, which will ultimately lead to the downfall of the suitors: a contest to string the bow of Ulysses. Eumaeus reports to Ulysses: the suitors were transfixed with terror when they heard the name of Ulysses. The hero laughs, and looks forward to his onslaught against them.
[12] The palace
Telemaco recounts his adventures to Penelope. He has met Helen, and gazed deep into her eyes, and she is truly beautiful, so Paris could not be blamed for falling for her (yes, he fell in battle on her account). Penelope does not want to hear about Helen, and rebukes her son (but Janet Baker sings beautifully). Telemaco says Helen is indeed a witch, and she has predicted the return of Ulysses to restore his kingdom.

The three kings, the most prominent of the suitors wooing Penelope, will presently present their presents: gold, 'frank incense', and a mur-mur of their undying love.

[13] The palace
Eumaeus brings Ulysses (with his begging bowl) into the hall. Antinous reviles him for introducing a pestiferous beggar into their company. Eumaeus retorts that Fortune has led the man to the home of Ulysses. Antinous orders them both to get out of his noble sight. Irus stutteringly seconds this motion (he is worrying that they will eat his share of the dinner). Ulysses stands up to the corpulent upstart, but Irus threatens to pull the beggar's whiskers out, one by one. A fight ensues, and the pot-bellied knave accepts defeat (Son vinto, ohimè). Antinous asks the beggar to pardon his opponent, and calls Irus a great eater but a poor fighter. Penelope welcomes the valiant mendicant.
Now the three kings present their gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh (well, not quite, but very close). According to the libretto, Peisander (Pisandro) goes first, proffering a royal crown and his heart; Amphinomous (Anfinomo) offers royal robes; Antinous (Antinoo) tries to bid higher, not treating her as a queen but worshipping her as a goddess, and so he gives gold and 'frank incense' (his own sighs are incense for her, and his desires are sacrificial victims for her).
[Note that there is confusion here, between the text and the music: Antinoo is a bass, and the other two are a tenor (Pisandro) and a counter-tenor (Anfinomo); but in the score the order of the suitors is counter-tenor followed by tenor and bass; so, we will watch to see whether Peisander will be moved to second place in any particular production of the opera. However, in the Glyndebourne version, there is no counter-tenor, male alto, or female alto, but two tenors. Apologies for this musicological interruption; we will now resume our normal programme.]
Penelope graciously accepts the gifts, but sets up a contest: whoever can string the great bow of Ulysses shall have her and the kingdom. Telemachus cries out for Ulysses himself to come and set things right. Penelope is wondering why she opened her mouth, but rightly divines that the divinities have prompted her. The trio welcome the competition. Penelope offers the bow to Peisander (but maybe Amphinomous will have first turn sometimes). None succeeds, so the old man volunteers, and immediately uses the weapon against the suitors. Power from Minerva's spear and the arrows of Ulysses, and a thunderous war-symphony (sinfonia da guerra), all contribute to wreaking Jove's vengeance on the hapless wooers.
[14] The palace
This is the beginning of Act 3, or 5, but Irus has a long soliloquy over his lack of sustenance: hunger will drive him to suicide, and his body will 'defamish' his tomb. (This piece is generally omitted, and a second scene, in the desert, with the shades of the suitors and the god Mercury / Hermes, was not even set to music.)
Melanto (Penelope's maid) is astonished to find the suitors slaughtered. Penelope is not certain about what has happened and how she should feel. Eumaeus comes and tells her that the bold and brave beggar is Ulysses. No, you are dreaming, she says, and goes into denial and keeps rejecting his protestations. Telemachos remonstrates with her, to no avail.
[15] The seashore
An interlude with Minerva, Juno, Jove, Neptune, and a chorus of Gods. Minerva (Athena) is commissioned to prevent any more bloodshed among the Greeks resulting from vendettas over the slaying of the suitors. (This scene can be long or shortened.)
[16] The palace
Ericlea (can be mezzo soprano [castrato?], or counter-tenor!), the old nurse of Ulysses, knows he has returned but ponders whether she should speak up. Penelope persists in her refusal to believe the truth, as Telemachus and Eumaeus continue their attempts to persuade her. When Ulysses himself appears and presents himself to her she rebuffs him: You are not the man I married. You are not the first deceiver in disguise who has tried to take the kingdom from me. (She is reacting like the modern wartime wives who have to give up their freedom and power when the husbands come marching home?) Ericleia finally intervenes: This is certainly Ulysses, chaste noble lady; I saw the scar of his old boar-gore-wound when he was bathing naked. Penelope's response is that she has to be careful, because her undefiled bed is only for Ulysses. And he gives her a secret sign to prove his true identity: he alone knows that she has a silk coverlet on her bed, woven by her own hands, depicting Diana, and this memory has comforted him in his travels. Aha, at last she recognizes him, and a rapturous love-duet is called for: the flowers are blooming, the birds are singing, and the phoenix has risen from the ashes of Troy; no more torment and sorrow, only gladness and enjoyment, happiness and pleasure.

In the Glyndebourne video recording Janet Baker is radiantly glorious, and Benjamin Luxon is tonally beautiful and not showing the distressing deterioration in his voice that eventually ended his career as a singer.

Radio New Zealand Concert network
Sunday 8th of July 2007 at 3 pm
Welsh National Opera Orchestra, Rinaldo Alessandrini
(recorded in the Welsh National Opera House,
Cardiff, 30 September 2006 by BBC)
PERFORMERS

HANDEL : ACIS AND GALATEA

Radio New Zealand Concert network
Sunday 9th of August 2009 at 3 - 4.25 pm

PREVIEW
SYNOPSIS
LIBRETTO

HANDEL: Acis & Galatea, a pastoral opera in two acts
Galatea, a semi-divine nymph........Julia Kleiter
Acis, a shepherd................. Christoph Prégardien
Polyphemus, a one-eyed giant....Wolf Matthias Friedrich
Damon, another shepherd............... Michael Slattery
NDR Chorus, Göttingen Festival Orch/Nicholas McGegan
(recorded in the Stadhalle, Göttingen)

If you think you don't know this opera, I am here to say that you will be surprised, because there are several bits you have already heard separately on the radio or at concerts. How about the song in which the monster Polyphemus expresses his (jealous) love for Galatea? This is usually sung by the British basso Owen Brannigan.

"O ruddier than the cherry, O sweeter than the berry, O nymph more bright than moonshine night, like kidlings blithe and merry." (I always fail to catch the word 'blithe', so it is good to see it in writing.) "Ripe as the melting cluster, no lily has such lustre; yet hard to tame as raging flame, and fierce as storms that bluster! Whither, fairest, art thou running, still my warm embraces shunning?"

When the monocular Cyclops Polyphemus sees Acis and Galatea exchanging smiles in close proximity to each other, he rocks him to sleep, that is, he rolls a boulder which gets bolder and bolder, and crushes him to death.

To immortalize her lover, Galatea converts Acis into a bubbling fountain whose waters stream over the landscape, murmuring his love for her.

Other familiar pieces are: "Happy, happy we" (love duet). Damon's advice to the giant on gentle wooing (with its lavender blue dilly dilly introduction): "Would you gain the tender creature, softly, gently, kindly treat her: suff'ring is the lover's part."

The words of the libretto are mostly by John Gay (later to write The Beggar's Opera).

This was Handel's only opera in English (1719), but he had previously produced an Italian cantata on the same subject, Aci, Galatea e Polifemo (Naples 1708). Handel had a period of English oratorio production, but Acis and Galatea appeared in the midst of his thirty years (1711 - 1741) of staging his numerous Italian operas, in which time he was competing with Bononcini.

The poet John Byrom (1692-1763), in a poem about the musical rivalry of the composers Giovanni Bononcini and George Frideric Handel in London, called them Tweedledum and Tweedledee:

Some say, that Signor Bononcini,
Compared to Handel's a mere ninny;
Others aver, that to him Handel
Is scarcely fit to hold a candle.
Strange! that such high dispute should be
'Twixt Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

The characters Tweedledum and Tweedledee make their appearance in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass as well. Ultimately the names are of imitative origins, from tweedle (to produce a high-pitched sound) + dum (sound of a low musical note) and dee (sound of a high musical note). [Anu Garg, A Word a Day, wsmith@wordsmith.org]

RESPIGHI : MARIE VICTOIRE

Radio New Zealand Concert network
Sunday 2nd of August 2009 at 3 - 6 pm

RESPIGHI: Marie Victoire, an opera in four acts
Marie de Lanjallay.................. Takesha Meshé Kizart
Maurice de Lanjallay............... Markus Brück
Clorivière................................ German Villar
Cloteau/du Fulgoet.................. Stephen Bronk
Kermarec............................... Jörn Schümann
Simon..................................... Simon Pauly
Lison Fleuriot.......................... Martina Welschenbach
Caracalla................................ Gregory Warren
La Marquise de Langlade........ Nicole Piccolomini
Le Marquis de Langlade......... Yosep Kang
La Novice.............................. Anna Fleischer
L’Abbé.................................. Thomas Bondelle
Le Mouton............................. Andrew Ashwin
Le Commissaire...................... Hyung-Wook Lee
Le Marquis de Grandchamp.... Krzysztof Szumanski
Le Vicomte............................. Nathan Myers
Le Chevalier........................... Tomislav Lucic
German Opera Chorus & Orch/Michail Jurowski (Berlin Radio)

PREVIEW
SYNOPSIS
PICTURES
REVIEW

At last, an opera by Ottorino Respighi (1879 - 1936; he went out as I came in). We know him as composer of tone-poems about Rome, and as arranger of early ('ancient') European music; but the only opera I had heard of was La Fiamma ('flame' or 'passion'), in which a seventeenth-century adulteress in Ravenna is condemned as a witch. Lamberto Gardelli produced a recording using Hungarian forces, and also recorded Semirama, about the same Mesopotamian queen as Rossini's Semiramide, who loves a man who is actually her own son.

Marie Victoire is set in the time of the French Revolution, and so it has a connection with Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites, and even includes a Carmelite novice who is going to the guillotine; also the idea of the servants lording it over their masters when the tables are turned in the new Republic, and its ruthless cruelty under Robespierre.

This work was ready for performance in 1913 (the libretto, in French, was based on the drama of the same name, both by Edmond Guiraud) but it did not emerge from oblivion till 2004, in Rome, and now in 2009, in Berlin.

Critics enthuse over the Afro-American soprano Takesha Meshé Kizart (born in Chicago) who sings the role of Marie, the heroine.

SUTTOR : CANNIBAL DOG

Radio New Zealand Concert network
Friday 31st of July 2009 at 8 - 1o.35 pm

The Trial of the Cannibal Dog

An opera by MATTHEW SUTTOR following the voyages of Captain Cook, taking in the cultures of the Pacific and building to the brutal climax of Cook’s ultimate demise. With a libretto by John Downie

The opera is preceded by the composer talking to Christine Argyle about the work’s genesis
Captain Cook............... Andrew Collis
Chief............................. Phillip Rhodes
Tahitian Queen.............. Deborah Wai Kapohe
Elizabeth Cook.............. Janet Roddick
orchestral accompaniment/Peter Scholes (première performance)
(recorded in the Wellington Opera House by RNZ)

PREVIEW (LISTENER Dog's Truth, Rachel Morris)
REVIEW (LISTENER A Dog's Breakfast, Rod Biss)
REVIEW (HERALD Cannibal Dog indeed a trial, William Dart)
PROFILE (Deborah Wai on YouTube)

Well, the barking mad dog comes back to bite us again; previously it left a lot of people foaming at the mouth. Anne Salmond's historical Cook book was dished up as a minimalist opera in March 2008 for its première performance, and possibly its derrière outing, judging by the reaction of the critics: Rod took a bite out of it [German Biss 'bite'] and William [whose ears can appreciate many kinds of noise dubiously labeled as music] hurled his darts at it.

At the time I listened with great interest to the interview with Australian Andrew Collis (playing James Cook), a namesake of mine from Oz (but we Collesses are the convict lot with the unique spelling).

On a rare trip to see family in Australia I heard Deborah Wai Kapohe on the radio there, and they talk as if they own her; she speaks about her preparation for the role on You Tube.

Phillip Rhodes we know as one of our home-grown winners.

Janet Roddick is a voice who seduced me when she was an announcer on that same RadioNZ concert network; I loved her when she said (quite out of the blue and probably breaking the hidebound rules of national broadcasting) she had been to that wonderful performance of Wagner's Rheingold in Wellington, and that she was going again; William Dart devoted one of his radio programs to her, but she is not an opera singer.

I listened to this opera first-time round, wondering what was going on, without the pictures. At the top of the Listener articles you can see Collis with dog-eyes, canine nose, and hound-ears; and the NZ Herald will let you see Deborah in her costume.

The original account is still a closed book to me, I am sorry to say; but I still have not finished Beaglehole's seven-hundred-page tome (which I purchased in 1974 at the true Bennets book shop, from a salesman named Bruce McKenzie); but my dear mother, from the port of Kingston-on-Hull in Yorkshire, whose father had been a sea-faring fisherman, devoured it completely when she came over from Sydney to visit us.

HANDEL : PARTENOPE

Radio New Zealand Concert network
Sunday 26th of July 2009 at 3 - 6 pm

HANDEL: Partenope, an opera in three acts
Partenope............................... Christine Schäfer
Prince Emilio of Cuma............. Kurt Streit
Prince Arsace of Corinth ....David Daniels
Rosmira.................................. Patricia Bardon
Ormonte................................. Florian Boesch
Prince Armindo of Rhodes...... Matthias Rexroth
Les Talens Lyriques/Christophe Rousset
(recorded in the Theater an der Wien, Vienna)

INTRODUCTION (Wikipedia)
REVIEW (ENO 2008, set in Paris in 1920s)

BERLIOZ : BEATRICE ET BENEDICT

Radio New Zealand Concert network
Sunday 19th of July 2009 at 3 - 5.10 pm

INTRODUCTION
(Wikipedia, with links to the libretto)

BERLIOZ: Béatrice et Bénédict, an opera in two acts
Leonato........................ Christophe Fel
Don Pedro.................... Nicolas Cavallier
Hero............................. Nathalie Manfrino
Claudio......................... Jean-François Lapointe
Béatrice........................ Joyce DiDonato
Bénédict........................ Charles Workman
Somarone..................... Jean-Philippe Laffont
Ursula........................... Elodie Méchain
French National Chorus & Orch/Colin Davis
(recorded in Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Paris)

With regard to opera, I don't have favourites (not even Richard Wagner and Anna Netrebko) but I will say that I have a soft spot for Hector Berlioz; I get excited about his music (example: Symphonie funèbre et triomphale, which impressed Wagner), and his wicked wit (I remember sitting in the Melbourne University library giggling and guffawing over his Nights in the Orchestra, in which his satirical essays are represented as discussions by orchestra players in the pit of a theatre, while an opera is being performed).

The four completed operas are: Benvenuto Cellini (1838), La Damnation de Faust (1846), Béatrice et Bénédict (1862), Les Troyens (1863). In our local opera group we have viewed Damned Faust, and Ruined Troy (The Trojans), but the other two are unlikely to appear in any opera house in New Zealand or Australia (but I don't mind at all if you can prove me wrong). Mention also Roméo et Juliette, and L'Enfance du Christ (the only Berlioz work I have sung in), which are only performed in concert halls, though they have a story-line.

Berlioz was crazy about Shakespeare, and he was married to an English Shakespearean actress (for a while). Beatrice and Benedict is a gutted version of Shakespeare's Much ado about nothing, with some dialogue borrowed directly from the Bard, and the rest written by the composer himself. Actually, even the "ado" is pruned out, the threat to the marriage of Claudio and Hero (the bride); they become an idealized couple, and Beatrice and Benedick come to the fore (Perfick!).

So, we miss out on this speech from Dogberry (replaced by Somarone) when the malefactors who have maligned Hero are brought to justice:"Marry, sir, they have committed false report; moreover, they have spoken untruths; secondarily, they are slanders [sic]; and lastly, they have belied a lady; thirdly they have verified unjust things: and, to conclude, they are lying knaves."

The two recordings I have are conducted by Colin Davis, and here he is again, in Paris. Beatrice is sung by Josephine Veasey in one and Janet Baker in the other; here it is Joyce DiDonato (the only name familiar to me in the cast-list; we hear her at the NYMetropera). Colin Davis has conducted all the Berlioz works which have an orchestra (name one that does not!).