Recordings Review: Meet the New Gods

Marek Janowski records his second Das Rheingold.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Second time around: Marek Janowski conducted his second recording of the Ring 
in Berlin. Photo by Felix Bored for PentaTone.

(Note: This is an updated version of a 2013 Superconductor review, republished in advance of coming reviews of the rest of the cycle in the next week.)

Any recording of Das Rheingold, the "preliminary evening" to Wagner's mighty tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen must, in the course of review be compared to the classic Decca recording made in 1958 with Georg Solti and the Vienna Philharmonic. So let's do that first. No, this new recording from Marek Janowski and the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra  (released in 2013 on the PentaTone label) doesn't have much similarity to the Solti. Nor is it the "new standard", "the best" or even the "best-sounding" recording of this four-scene prelude to the main action of the Ring. However, as a document capturing some interesting young artists and a snapshot of the current state of international Wagner singing, it certainly has value.

Opera Review: Keep it in the Family

The Little Opera of New York premieres Owen Wingrave.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

A man alone: Robert Balonek in the title role of Owen Wingrave.
Photo by Tina Buckman © Little Opera Theatre of New York.

Not every opera is made for the stage.

In 1971, Benjamin Britten's penultimate opera Owen Wingrave was premiered on the BBC. It was a new idea, writing operas for television, and one that was not exactly the wave of the future. Owen was seen onstage in 1973 and has enjoyed occasional revivals since. On Thursday night, as part of the ongoing New York Opera Festival, the Little Opera Theatre of New York staged the first live-action performance of the opera. The performance was at the GK Theater, tucked at the watery end of Jay Street in the shadow of the Manhattan Bridge.

Devilish Deeds: A Fast Guide to Faust

Or, how to keep seven different versions of the same story straight.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

(This post first appeared as a Patron Exclusive on Superconductor's Patreon page. Support independent arts journalism at our Patreon.)

The Devil you say! Rene Pape as Mephistopheles in Gounod's Faust.
Photo by Catherine Ashmore for the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden.

"Faust by Christopher Marlowe. Faust by Goethe. Faust by Gounod, Faust by Hector Berlioz. I tell you, anyone who touches this idea has turned it into a gold mine."--Jeffrey Cordova in The Band Wagon. (In the film, his attempt to turn a Broadway show into a modern-day production of Faust turns out to be a dreadful box-office bomb.)

When you start getting interested in classical music, it is overwhelming how many composers set versions of Faust. The story of the German scholar who sells his soul to a representative of the power of darkness in an effort to regain his youth and find love has universal human resonance. The following is a mercifully brief and incomplete guide to different versions of Faust with a focus on those that incorporate music drama and voice into re-telling the story. (That's to get me off the hook for not mentioning the "Faust Symphonies" by Liszt and Wagner!) With that, let's dive into the depths of hell for seven versions of Faust...by seven different composers.

Opera Review: Deviled Eggs

The Washington National Opera's Faust goes directly to Hell.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Hellbound: Raymond Aceto as Méphistophélès in Faust.
Photo by Scott Suchman for the Washington National Opera.

In the last hundred years, Charles Gounod's Faust has fallen from the pinnacle of the repertory. Its descent has been rapid, almost as fast as that of its protagonist, a searching scholar who sells his soul to Satan in the opera's first act. Faust has fallen into irrelevance in this new century. Its stirring choruses, sweet harmonies and story of demonic love and angelic redemption seem quaint in this dark age. When fascists are defended in the media by the sitting President, and hatred lurks in the corridors of power, Faust just ain't scary anymore.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Die Walküre

The Met revives the most popular chapter of Wagner's Ring.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The twins Sieglinde (Eva-Marie Westbroek) and Siegmund (Stuart Skelton)
fall in love under the looming Machine in the Met's production of Die Walküre.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2012 The Metropolitan Opera.

Part Two of the Ring brings humans into the story, but the Gods have already messed everything up. Wotan, the ruler of the Gods, seeks a hero to lead his forces against the dark elf Alberich. But he finds himself in a position of having to murder that hero Siegmund. This is too much for his favorite daughter, the Valkyrie Brunnhilde. She rebels against him, and then runs for her life.

What is Die Walküre?
Properly speaking, this is the "First Day" of the four-part "festival play" that is Wagner's Ring. (The composer regarded Das Rheingold as a "preliminary evening.) This is the most famous and frequently performed of the four operas that make up the cycle.

What's the plot?
On a dark and stormy night, the Wälsung twins Siegmund and Sieglinde are reunited, seemingly by chance. They fall in love, committing adultery and incest at the same time. (The result of their brief union will be the title character of Siegfried.) Wotan, who is their father, is forced by his wife Fricka (the goddess of marriage) to order Brunnhilde the Valkyrie fight for Sieglinde's jilted husband Hunding. Brunnhilde rebels, but Hunding kills Siegmund anyway. Brunnhilde saves Sieglinde from Wotan. She is then punished by her father, put to sleep on top of a rock in a ring of magic fire.

What's the music like?
Die Walküre is the opera people think of when they think of Wagner. The first act is all passion as Sieglinde and Siegmund find each other and fall madly in love. The second act has a long stretch of Wotan reiterating all the mistakes he made in Das Rheingold to Brunnhilde. Its second half is all action, as Siegmund battles Hunding. The "Ride of the Valkyries" (that's "kill the wabbit") opens the third act. The "Magic Fire Music" ends the opera in a storm of orchestral virtuosity.

Tell me something else cool!
Of the four Ring operas, it is Die Walküre that hews closest to Wagner's theories of opera and drama. There are few aria-like moments, and the opera is composed mostly of dialogue and duets over a thundering orchestra.

How's the production?
These performances mark the  return of Robert Lepage's sometimes stunning, sometimes problematic multi-million dollar stage set, known at the Met as "The Machine." Mounted on two huge towers, the action takes place on a series of gigantic parallel planks that rotate on a central axis. By changing their angles and locking the planks in place, the Machine creates trees, mountains, valleys and even huge flying animals when necessary. Digital projections render the scenery in vivid patterns, a high-tech solution to Romantic 19th century opera.

Who's in it?
These performances star Greer Grimsley as Wotan, and mark the eagerly anticipated arrival of Christine Goerke as his rebellious daughter Brunnhilde. Jamie Barton is Fricka. The twins Siegmund and Sieglinde are reprised by Stuart Skelton and Eva-Marie Westbroek. (They sang these roles in 2012.) Günther Gröissbock is the villainous Hunding.  Philippe Jordan conducts his first Ring performances at the Met.

When does it open?
There are only five performances of Die Walküre this season. Three are being sold as part of complete Ring cycles. The two in March are on March 25 and 30.

How do I get tickets?
The best way to see the Ring is to get a subscription for the four operas. Call the box office at (212) 362-6000.

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Metropolitan Opera Preview: Les Pêcheurs de Perles

Pretty Yende takes a dive as the Met revives Bizet's early opera.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Soprano Pretty Yende returns to the Metropolitan Opera.
Photo by Hao Zeng, originally published in Essence magazine, © 2015.

The Met revives one of its surprise hits of the 2015-16 season. Les Pêcheurs de Perles is a product of Bizet's youth but features the same blend of exoticism and solid musical construction that would make Carmen an international sensation ten years later.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Marnie

Nico Muhly adapts Hitchcock's 1964 "suspenseful sex mystery" Marnie for the operatic stage. 
by Paul J. Pelkonen

She'll steal your heart: Isabel Leonard is Marnie in a new opera by Nico Muhly.
Photo © 2018 The Metropolitan Opera.

Nico Muhly's second opera for the Met is Marnie, the story of an obsessive relationship that leads to marriage and other interpersonal disasters.

Obituary: Montserrat Caballé, 1933-2018

The soprano and recording artist was La Superba to her fans.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

I've got a secret: the great Montserrat Caballé could sing anything.

One would argue that in opera singers of a vanished age, it was the voice and only the voice that mattered. These words would be fitting as a eulogy for Montserrat Caballé. The soprano, who passed away yesterday at the age of 85, possessed one of the largest and most flexible instruments of her age, succeeding in everything from Rossini to dramatic operas by Puccini and Strauss. The cause of death was listed as a gall bladder infection.

Mahler in Space

An exploration of classical music on Star Trek.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

(This is a classic Superconductor post from 2008 that has been revised and updated, ten years after it first ran! Happy anniversary to me!)

Captain Jean-Luc-Picard (Patrick Stewart) records Mozart aboard the Enterprise-D.

In the fifty years that Star Trek has been on (and off) the air, classical music, pop music and opera have been an integral part of the franchise's journey. The original show featured space ballads written for the series and sung by Lt. Uhura (Nichelle Nichols). Several episodes showcased the skill of Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) on the "Vulcan lyre." Albums were released featuring the (questionable) vocal talents of Nimoy (who released five records!) and series star William Shatner, whose 1968 album The Transformed Man regularly makes all-time "worst" lists.

Recordings Review: A Show For Our Troubled Times

Opera Saratoga unleashes The Cradle Will Rock.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The cast of Opera Saratoga's searing new recording of The Cradle Will Rock.
Image © Opera Saratoga and Bridge Classics.

There is no show in the history of New York theater with a more troubled history than The Cradle Will Rock. This hybrid between serious drama, operetta and musical comedy was written in 1937 by composer Marc Blitzstein, only to run smack dab into government bureaucracy, anti-Communist paranoia and union regulations that conspired to kybosh its planned first performance at the Maxine Eliot Theater. (The show had been sponsored by the Federal Theater and the Works Progress Administration, but the theater was padlocked four days before the scheduled premiere.) Mr. Blitzstein took the show, its actors and singers twenty-one blocks  uptown to the Phoenix Theater. There, he led the performances from a stage piano as actors, sitting in the house, sung out their parts on cue.

Concert Review: A String of Pearls

Harlem Chamber Players celebrate a decade with Harlem Songfest.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The Harlem Chamber Players (above) conductor David Gilbert
and five fine singers celebrated ten years of music at Miller Theater.

It was billed as Harlem Songfest, but the season-ending tenth anniversary concert of the Harlem Chamber Players was more in the nature of an operatic gala: albeit one on a very modest scale. The celebration, a mix of Verdi, Mozart, Bizet and other operatic favorites was held at the Miller Theater on Friday evening, celebrating the good works of this excellent community orchestra that calls northern Manhattan its home.

The Verdi Project: Simon Boccanegra

Verdi's most political opera gets it right...eventually.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The digital Doge: Simon Boccanegra as he appears in the video game
Sid Meier's Civilization V: Brave New World. Image © 2010 Firaxis Games.

Not every great opera is a success out of the box. La Traviata is one of those major works that bombed on opening night. But that's nothing compared to the struggles that Simon Boccanegra faced on its long and torturous path into the standard operatic repertory. Verdi's eighteenth opera was a failure at its 1857 premiere. It went through heavy revisions in 1881. Those extensive revisions marked Verdi's first collaboration with librettist and composer Arrigo Boito, with whom he would later create Otello and Falstaff. The title role is one of the pillars of the baritone repertory.

The Verdi Project: Nabucco

By the waters of Babylon, Verdi's legend begins.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Historic bas-relief of the Babylonian king Nebachudnezzar, hero of Verdi's third opera Nabucco.

Nabucco put Giuseppe Verdi on the map. The composer's third opera premiered in Milan in 1842. It was an absolute smash. Its success would not only alter Verdi's fortunes, but the popularity of its message and its famous chorus "Va, pensiero" may claim some credit for reshaping the political map of Italy. It was Verdi's music and the eventual rallying cry "Viva Verdi" (code for "Vittorio Emmanuel, Re d'Italia") that would help propel that collection of nation-states toward revolution and eventual political unity.

2018-19 Metropolitan Opera Season Preview: Meet the New Boss

The Met crowns Yannick Nézet-Séguin as its Music Director...two years early.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Yannick Nézet-Séguin leads a rehearsal of Der fliegende Holländer at the Met in 2017,
unaware of the neon crown hovering overhead added by this blog's author.
Photo by Richard Termine © 2017 The Metropolitan Opera. Crown inspired by Jean-Michel Basquiat.

The Metropolitan Opera announced its schedule today for 2018-19, along with the blockbuster news that Yannick Nézet-Séguin, currently in the middle of a successful run of Wagner's Parsifal has been official crowned as the company's music director. This enthronement is two years ahead of schedule.

Opera Review: The New Kings

Parsifal offers much needed redemption at the troubled Metropolitan Opera.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Local boy makes good: Klaus Florian Vogt lifts the Holy Grail as Gurnemanz (Rene Pape) looks on.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2018 The Metropolitan Opera.

The Metropolitan Opera opened its lone Wagner offering of the 2017-18 season on Monday night: a revival of the extraordinary 2013 François Girard staging of Wagner's Parsifal. This production was acclaimed when it opened, for its stunning visuals (including a lake of stage blood in Act II) and its potent, spare message. It was also the second opportunity for the Met's new maestro-designate, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, to prove his mettle with Wagner's music, this time conducting the composer's final opera.

Concert Review: The Man With Three Countries

Stéphane Denève brings Prokofiev back to the Philharmonic.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

"If you want them to take you seriously you've got to have serious hair." Stéphane Denève.
Photo from the Royal Scottish Opera by Chris Christodoulou.

Sergei Prokofiev gets a bad rap.

Oh sure, he's a major composer of the 20th century, a fearless innovator whose music pushed boundaries in the areas of piano, orchestral work, opera and ballet. And yet there is something of the sidelong glance, something of the raised eyebrow among music elitists that keeps his huge catalogue from being programmed regularly outside of Russia. Sure, the works are technically difficult, but this writer would postulate that said programmers are never quite sure if the composer was being serious or was secretly laughing at his audience.

A Certain Dark-Eyed Beauty of Romany Extraction

My long relationship with Bizet's Carmen.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

My Carmen collection: (clockwise from upper left: Victoria de Los Angeles (not pictured), Marilyn Horne,
Agnes Baltsa, Christa Ludwig, Teresa Berganza, Tatiana Troyanos (not pictured), Jennifer Larmore.)
Photo by the author, screen cap taken from my iTunes.

Q: "What do you call two guys driving to the opera house?"

A: "Carmen."- -Mauri E. Pelkonen

I first met her when I was nine (maybe ten) years old, in my first year of going to the New York City Opera with my parents. A dusky, dark-haired bohémienne vixen with a rich mezzo-soprano voice (it was either Judith Forst or Susanne Marsee) that seductively sang in French, a language I knew little of. And yet, for that prepubescent kid sitting in the New York State Theater with his Mom and Dad (at his fourth opera!) Carmen was already something special. The show mixed spectacle, comedy and tragedy in a dizzying brew, laughing in the orchestra even as its characters hurtled toward disaster in the fourth act. And thanks to Dad's record collection, I already knew some of the music.

Concert Review: There Are Two Paths You Can Go By

Daniele Gatti climbs Wagner and Bruckner's stairways to heaven.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Daniele Gatti at the helm of his inaugural 2017 concert as music director of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.
Photo by Mladen Pikilic for the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.

The final utterance of a major composer is often an insight into their innermost thoughts. In the case of Richard Wagner and Anton Bruckner, (two composers who knew each other in life) those utterances, performed by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra at Carnegie Hall on Wednesday night, were very different indeed. Wagner was a man of the theater turned to the mystic epic of Parsifal and the story of the Holy Grail and the Kingdom of Montsalvat. Bruckner, who revered Wagner, found his Grail in the structured form of the symphony, offering a Ninth that he would not live to finish.

No Roads Lead to Rome

Sir Bryn Terfel pulls out of the new Met Tosca.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Sir Bryn Terfel (center) has exited the Met's troubled new Tosca, opening Dec. 31.
Photo by Cory Weaver © 2010 The Metropolitan Opera.

First they lost their leading lady. Then the conductor. The Cavaradossi quit. And then the second conductor. Now, Sir Bryn Terfel has become the latest artist to pull out of the Metropolitan Opera's increasingly troubled new production of Puccini's Tosca.

Editorial: In Times Like These

Some thoughts on the James Levine scandal.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

James Levine (center right) at his return to the Met pit conducting Cosí fan tutte.
Photo by Naomi Vaughan © 2016 The Metropolitan Opera.

There are times when this profession, that of a full-time commentator on classical music and opera, can be the greatest in the world. I go to a lot of concerts. Occasionally I get to fly around the world. I bathe (daily in pools of aestheticism, picking over the work of great artists in an attempt to keep the fires of inspiration burning and feed the cycle of the news.

And then there are times when those fires goes out, doused by the cold waters of harsh reality.