Every Valley...Has Its Terrors

My first time performing Handel's Messiah.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Where's your Messiah now?

In the course of my professional career, both as the author of Superconductor and for other publications, I have written an awful lot of reviews. However, last night at the National Chorale's annual Messiah Sing-In at David Geffen Hall, the tables were turned: I found myself, along with the audience, as a choral performer, embedded among professional and vocational singers in a struggle with Handel's written work. So yesterday I did the smart thing: bought a copy of the Dover miniature score at Juilliard and sat in Starbucks, listening to a new BR Klassik recording of the oratorio and dog-earing the choral sections in the score: the sections which I would be participating in in the night's performance.

Opera Review: Statue, With Limitations

Don Giovanni returns to the Met.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

"Want to switch?" Don Giovanni (Ildar Abdrazakov, l.)  negotiates with Leporello (Erwin Schrott, r.) 
in Act I of Don Giovanni. Photo by Marty Sohl © 2012 The Metropolitan Opera.

On Wednesday night, the Metropolitan Opera revived Michael Grandage's 2011 production of Don Giovanni, which sets the action against a curved, sliding wall of louvered doors that (to this writer) recalls the façade of certain seedy motels in Wildwood, New Jersey. The show's biggest success:  Ildar Abdrazakov, whose bellowing, hyper-testosteroned take on the title character made him an energetic and charismatic leading man.

This reviewer saw Mr. Abdrazakov's Don a few months ago. He still purrs and fawns during "La ci darem la mano" and achieves a manic glee in the Champagne Aria. He still prowls with a catlike presence and charisma. And he remains compelling in the Damnation Scene, going (quite literally) down in flames as he bellows his last notes at the statue. (Note on that effect: although it was a major talking point of this new production last year, it (along with the rest of this staging) has outworn its welcome.) If anything, the Russian bass seemed more restrained in this show, toning down the excesses and working within the context of the ensemble.

In this cast, Erwin Schrott moves from singing the Don to Leporello. As the put-upon servant, the  bass-baritone seemed to yearn for his old role: macking on the ladies instead of carrying the catalogue. He undermined his performance repeatedly, with comic mugging and repeated attempts to one-up Mr. Abdrazakov. However, his Catalogue Song sparked the first act, bringing a sluggish opera to life The Act Two "seduction" scenes with Donna Elvira (Emma Bell) were a comic highlight.

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.