Opera Preview: Dimitrij

Superconductor delves into "The Time of Troubles" and Dvořák's opera.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The incident that started it all: Ivan the Terrible (top) holds his dying son Ivanovich.
Painting by Vadim Repin. 

The biggest opera premiere of the summer is this Friday evening, when Bard SummerScape unveils the rarely performed Dmitrij by Antonín Dvořák. Dmitrij is a Czech opera that delves into a bloody and to historians, fascinating period: the Time of Troubles. With the premiere scheduled for Friday night, I thought it would be a good idea to delve into the history of Dmitrij, and its more famous "prequel": Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov.

Summer Festival Preview: Bard SummerScape

False Tsars and Polish piano mastery mark this year's festival.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The Murder of the False Dmitry by Konstantin Makovsky
gives some idea of the mayhem to come at this summer's Bard Festival.
Image from Wikimedia Commons.

The rolling greens of Bard College, located just off the Hudson River in the quaint but practical little town of Annandale-on-Hudson, welcome music lovers once more. The attraction: Bard SummerScape, offering six weeks of classical music, academic programming and as always, a unique opera that you probably won't hear anywhere else anytime soon.

Brass Tacks: Basses

How low can they go? (The answer is, usually a low "D.")
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Matti Salminen as Hagen in Götterdämmerung at the Savonlinna Festival.
Photograph by Stefan Bremer © 2011 Savonlinna Festival.

This is the last section of Brass Tacks dealing with voice types. And I've saved my favorites for the very end.

Basses are the lowest of the six major voice types, and exclusively male. A great bass will be able to sing in his normal range and then move his tone production deep down into the chest (this is called the "break") to deliver room-shaking low notes. A full "black bass" must be able to bellow over the orchestra, in scenes like the Calling of the Gibichung Vassals from Act II of Götterdämmerung.

Most operas have parts for basses, who get to play devils, priests, and the most villainous of villains. The hardest roles in the bass repertory (mostly because they're very long) are the title role in Boris Godunov and the father-and-son villains Alberich and Hagen in Wagner's Ring Cycle.

There is some cross-over from the baritone range, particularly in bass-baritones, the voice type that is frequently a bass who can push up into the baritone range for certain passages. Examples of this include Wotan in Wagner's Ring although the part in Das Rheingold has been sung by a full baritone,and John Tomlinson, a full bass, sang all three Wotan roles at Bayreuth in the 1990s.

Let's start with a great example of bass singing: Martti Talvela as Osmin in Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail. This aria, "Ha! Wie Will Ich Triumphieren!" requires a low D.

Footage © 1978 Bayerische Staatsoper. 

And here's a rare duet for two basses as King Philip (Ferruccio Furlanetto) confronts the Grand Inquisitor (Matti Salminen) in Act IV of Don Carlo.

Footage © 1980 Salzburg Festival/Sony Classical.

"Migration" between bass voices is usually a one-way street--a Dr. Bartolo is highly unlikely to sing Hagen in Götterdämmerung although sometimes deep bass voices go "up" to sing comic villains.

The range for a bass voice is the C two octaves below middle C to the F above middle C (C to f'). A bass-baritone  The lowest note required for a bass is Osmin's low D2 in Die Entführung aus dem Serail.

DVD Review: Catch a Falling Tsar

A new edit of Boris Godunov from Turin.
by Paul Pelkonen

Throne for a loop: Orlin Anastassov in Andre Koncalovsky
Photo by Ramanella & Giannese @ 2010 Fondazione Teatro Regio di Torino.

In 1869, Modest Mussorgsky first submitted his opera Boris Godunov to the Imperial Theater. It was rejected for its lack of female characters and novel dramatic structure that placed equal emphasis on the plight of the titular Tsar and the suffering of the Russian people. His later revision (with some tweaking by Rimsky-Korsakov) was a success in 1874.

Today, opera directors and conductors usually choose one of these two versions. This DVD from OpusArte, shot in 2010 at the Teatro Regio del Turin, offers a compromise. Director Andre Konchalovsky chooses the 1869 version of Boris for its dramatic momentum, but inserts the finale of the revised version (the march of the false tsar Dmitry through the Kromy Forest) between the St. Basil's scene and the death of Boris.

Orlin Anastassov is a youthful, convincing Boris, giving the impression from the get-go of being in over his political head. His Mad Scene is something to behold, acted with wide, staring eyes, the camera unforgiving and in his face. Heldentenor Ian Storey sings with loud, raw tone as Grigory, the monk who becomes the false Dmitri. Unaccountably, he is alone in the Kromy Forest scene--his paramour Marina (star of the missing "Polish Act") does not appear in this production.

DVD Review: Songs From the Big Chair

Boris Godunov at the Liceu

In the capable hands of director Willy Decker and conductor Sebastian Weigle, this production of Boris Godunov (filmed at the Teatre de Liceu in Barcelona) , the Liceu Boris becomes more than a radical work that changed Russian opera forever. It becomes the first great political thriller of the stage.

Matti Salminen and Erik Halfvarson are both basses, and both known for their huge, round dark voices that have led them to build their careers around the role of the villain Hagen in Wagner's Götterdämmerung. Salminen takes the title role into his massive hands and delivers a thunderous performance, swinging between grim self-defeat and stark terror in the mad scenes. Halfvarson, as the monk, Pimen is the more emotionally stable of the two--his opening monologue is riveting. The two great basses finally confront each other in the Duma scene, now moved to the close of the opera.

This is Boris as Mussorgsky originally conceived it--seven tableaux clocking in at two and a half hours. In this production, there is no Polish act. Grigory's part is accordingly diminished. Princess Marina and the Jesuit, Rangoni are cut completely. Also cut out, the Kromy Forest scene--replaced here by the confrontation before St. Basil's. However, these cuts have their advantages. While Grigory (the appealing tenor Pär Lindskog) is reduced to a mere historical footbote against the grand drama of Boris, the shadowy schemes of Shuisky (the excellent Philip Langridge) now come to the fore.

Director Willy Decker has opted against the tradiitonal Russian look, choosing a quasi-fascist 20th century setting that opens with Boris in a well-cut business suit before he becomes tsar. The set consists of a wide open space dominated by an enormous, gilded wooden chair--which serves as scenery and blocking as well as the central image of the Russian throne. The seat is literally too big for any one man--perhaps that is the idea. The spare set gives the choristers plenty of space to move and act, allowing them to dominate this opera when the two great basses are not onstage.