The Top Five Storm Scenes in Opera

Something to read during Hurricane Irene!

Storm effects have always been an integral part of opera composition. Whether adding the effect of wind by a hand-turned drum or thunder with strategically placed metal sheets, the storm is a standard element of many dramatic works, and even comedies.

5) Britten: Second Sea Interlude from Peter Grimes

Benjamin Britten's opera about a misanthropic fisherman living in perpetual exile from a small English fishing village swims with powerful imagery of the vast oceans. The storm's fury is unleashed in the Second Interlude, which depicts the hero's struggle to reach his fishing hut during a ferocious storm.

4) Rossini: Temporale from Act II of Il Barbiere di Siviglia

Rossini worked storms into a number of his operas, including a memorable one in the overture to William Tell. Barbiere has one of his best comic tempests, starting with little stabs and drips in the strings before unleashing the full fury of the heavens (and the orchestra.) Although it can be played by a small orchestra, Rossini's brilliant writing packs a mean meteorological wallop. And like most summer rainstorms, it is over before it begins. 

3) Gluck: Introduction and Chorus from Act I of Iphigénie en Tauride

The great operatic reformer Christophe Willibald Gluck created the model for an orchestral tempest with the powerful overture of his second opera based on the tragic story of Iphigenia. The opera has no overture (another innovation) drawing the listener in with a few string chords that swell like clouds about to burst. When the storm breaks, the leading lady and her priestesses sing an evocation against soaring, chugging strings and rolls on the timpani, an effect later borrowed by Verdi for the opening scene of his Otello.

2) Wagner: Prelude to Act I of Die Walküre. 

The Ring has its share of stormy moments. But nothing is more impressive than this scene which depicts Wotan's conjured tempest chasing poor hapless Siegmund into the hut of his enemy. The heavy, descending figure carries the weight of the raindrops, and the Wagner tubas ring out with Donner's "He-da! He-da! He-do!" theme, which last appeared when the thunder god let out a bolt of lightning at the end of Das Rheingold. An perfect operatic storm.

1) Verdi: "Bella figlia dell'amore" (Quartet and Storm) from Act III of Rigoletto.

The third act of Rigoletto is the full flowering of the mature Verdi's genius. He creates a mighty storm with the simplest effect: a group of choristers in the orchestra pit, humming a wordless melody to create the effect of oncoming thunder and rising, gale-force winds. The storm serves as background to the great quartet (sung by the Duke, Maddalena, Sparafucile and Gilda) which ends in the leading lady's death at the hands of the assassin.

Daniel Barenboim conducts the Prelude to Act I of Die Walküre.
© 2010 La Scala.

Essential Works: Gustav Mahler

The mighty symphonies and heart-rending songs of Mahler continue to speak to us 100 years after his death. Continuing the celebration of his 150th birthday (which was last week) we look at five works that the budding Mahlerite should start a collection with. As usual, titles link to recording recommendations.

A cartoon depicting the eternal struggle: Mahler vs. Orchestra.

Symphony No. 1 "Titan"
On the surface, this is Mahler's most conventional symphony, with its four-movement structure and funeral march. However, one movement ("Blumine" was dropped right before the premiere. The symphony moves from a bucolic opening into a charging, heroic theme. When the hero, a hunter is felled, his funeral is depicted as the animals in the forest carrying his corpse to the theme of "Frere Jacques." The orchestra then lurches into celebratory music that you might hear at a Jewish wedding--or a particularly raucous funeral.

Symphony No. 3
The 'big enchilada' among Mahler symphonies. Number Three is a six-movement epic which finds Mahler attempting to depict all the world in 100 minutes, from the mountains bursting out of the earth, to the flowers in the meadow, the beasts in the forest, mankind and the angels above. It's all very Nietzschean and requires a tremendous commitment from orchestra, conductor, and audience. But it's worth it. The Third originally bore the title "My Happy Science" after Nietzsche. A seventh movement ("What the Child Tells Me") was also dropped: it became the finale of Mahler's Fourth.

Symphony No. 6. "Tragic"
The Sixth is a muscular four-movement symphony depicting the downfall of an unidentified hero. The work starts out with a sturdy march, and moves on through some of the loudest passages Mahler ever wrote. This is the one to leave on in the house when you go out if you don't like your neighbors. In the finale, the hero is felled by a series of great hammer-blows in the percussion. And yes, this effect is achieved with a gigantic wooden mallet, most often hitting a wooden box.


Symphony No. 7 "The Song of the Night"
This is deep-end Mahler. Five movements. The first four evoke nocturnal activities and journeys in the dark. A noble theme depicting the fall of evening. A walk through the Austrian countryside at night. A shadowy nightmare. Tender love music with mandolin and guitar. But in the finale, the night music gives way to clattering, brassy daylight as the orchestra roars through a theme borrowed from the more pompous pages of Die Meistersinger. Mahler satirizing Wagner? We can only speculate.


Das Lied von der Erde
A symphony in all but name, the "Song of the Earth" is Mahler's setting of a book of Chinese folk songs. Tragic and contemplative, it is one of Mahler's finest intersections of voice and orchestra. Mahler originally planned to make this his Ninth Symphony, but changed the title in order to beat the "Beethoven Curse" that plagued composers in the 19th century who struggled to write a Tenth Symphony. Mahler then wrote his Ninth proper, but died while working on his Tenth, fulfilling the curse.

Recording Recommendations: Five Fabulous Figaros

Hermann Prey as Figaro. Album cover © 1968 Deutsche Grammophon.

As I am slowly working my way through Brilliant Classics' Complete Mozart Edition, I thought this would be a good time to talk about one of the greatest comic operas ever written, Le Nozze di Figaro. With many recording on the market, it can be confusing for the consumer, especially since those great havens of wisdom--record stores--are disappearing from our urban landscape faster than Kathleen Battle from the Metropolitan Opera roster. Better yet, none of these are full price recordings, except for the Gardiner, which is due for a cheap-o DG Collector's Edition reissue one of these days.


Anyway, to launch a new semi-regular feature here at the blog, we are going to look at five recommended recordings of this great opera, in chronological order. Next week, we'll do another. And so on. Enjoy!

Vienna Philharmonic cond. Erich Leinsdorf. (Decca 1955)
Studio recording.
The heavyweight champion. Finally given a proper CD mastering in 1999, this effervescent performance by the senior Kleiber with the Vienna Philharmonic is anchored by a phenomenal cast, which includes Hilde Gueden, Cesare Siepi and Fernando Corena. And did we mention the Goddess of Vienna, Lisa della Casa, radiant yet mournful as Mozart's Countess.




Chor und Orchester der Deutsches Oper Berlin cond. Karl Böhm (DG, 1968)
Studio recording.
With Hermann Prey as Figaro and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as Almaviva, this German-flavored recording has a pair of very strong leads. Rich comic timing, crisp, nimble performances and a great Mozartean at the helm. A loveable Figaro and the first one I reach for. And with a cast that includes Gundula Janowitz, Edith Mathis and Tatiana Troyanos, can you blame me?


Drottingholm Court Orchestra and Chorus cond. Arnold Östman. (L'oiseau-lyre 1988, now Decca)
Live recording.
Originally pressed on Decca's now-defunct period label L'oiseau-lyre this was the first Figaro on period instruments. Östman is a sure hand at the podium, leading his radically reduced orchestra and a fresh cast (featuring future superstar Barbara Bonney) through a complete performance of this opera. Includes an appendix with the often cut arias for Basilio and Marcellina in the final act. A marathon Figaro but a satisfying experience. Currently available (with three of Östman's other Mozart recordings) as a super-bargan box set from Decca.

1994: English Baroque Soloists cond. John Eliot Gardiner. (DG Archiv 1994)
Live recording.
Gardiner's fussy, quicksilver conducting dominates this live recording made at the Theatre du Chatelet and filmed for release on VHS and DVD. In fact, this was one of the first opera DVDs released by DG back in 2000. The recorded debut of Bryn Terfel as Figaro, alongside a strong cast of future stars that includes Rodney Gilfrey and Alison Hagley. Pamela Helen Stephen is an excellent Cherubino. Hillevi Martinpelto gives an emotional, carefully weighted portrait of the Countess, the perfect, irresistible compliment to the macho bluster of the two male leads.

La Petit Bande cond. Sigiswald Kukijen. (Brilliant, recorded 1998)
Currently available in the Complete Mozart Edition, Brilliant Classics
This is a finely-balanced recording that is currently available as part of the mammoth Complete Mozart Edition from Brilliant Classics. Recorded in Belgium, it features period playing of exceptional clarity and beauty from Le Petit Bande, and a cast of mostly unknown singers that excel in the opera's complicated ensembles. Well-recorded and well performed, with excellent choral singing. When the audience applauds at the end of Act I, it's a pleasant shock as there is little stage noise.

BadFellas

Or: Five Lousy Dates for Valentine's Day
In honor of this most romantic of holidays, here's a list of five guys who you wouldn't want to be dating on February 14, or any day of the year. This was originally going to be "Five dumbest opera heroes" but I couldn't decide between Siegfried and Parsifal.

Baron Ochs von Lerchnau (Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss)
Ol' Ochs has more experience of the ladies than anyone on this list, but there's a reason this lecherous Austrian nobleman has stayed single. He's a relentless skirt-chaser, outdoing Don Giovanni himself in pursuit of a shapely female. But he's a boor, a coward, and a sufferer of romantic ADD! Witness: Act One of Rosenkavalier. Ochs gropes a crossdressing chambermaid while trying to negotiate his marriage contract (and add on a large emoulument for himself).


Lohengrin (um...Lohengrin by Richard Wagner)
At first glance, the courtly knight in shining armor looks like perfect hubby material. He's even a fan of love at first sight, defending women in single combat, and settling down and getting married. But there's a catch: he'll marry you but you're not allowed to ask him about his name, his lineage, or where he came from. Needless to say, he catches the next swan-drawn boat out of town.

Mustafa, the Bey of Algiers (L'Italiana in Algeri by Gioacchino Rossini)
The Bey has his heart in the right place. Unfortunately it's the harem. This rascally ruler spends most of L'Italiana in Algeri trying to seduce the lovely Isabella. She spends the opera trying to escape. Finally she convinces her would-be Lothario that the only way she'll ever have the Bey is if he joins the sacred order of the Pappitaci, those very Italian men who do nothing all day but eat, sleep, and ignore their women. Who said romance isn't dead?

The Duke of Mantua (Rigoletto by Giuseppe Verdi)
This guy is almost as bad a skirt chaser as Baron Ochs--but with even less morality. At the start of Rigoletto the Duke sends the Count of Monterone to the gallows/. Why? Monterone complained when the Duke deflowered his daughter. Our randy ruler then turns his attentions to Gilda, (the daughter of the titular court jester), claiming to be a poor student named "Gualtier Malde." When the Duke tosses Gilda aside for the slutty sister of a professional hitman, Rigoletto vows revenge. Since this is Verdi, a bloody ending isn't far away.

Wozzeck (Wozzeck by Alban Berg)
This Army private isn't a bad guy. He has a nice kid and a girlfriend named Marie. Wozzeck suffers from instestinal humiliation at the hands of his doctor (who makes him eat nothing but beans) and general abuse from his superior officers. Marie cuckolds him with the sexy Drum Major, who then beats up Wozzeck. He snaps, murders Marie, throws the knife into a lake, and then drowns looking for it. Not the sort you settle down with. (Ironically, about nine years ago, the Met scheduled a V-day performance of Wozzeck.)

Five Femme Fatales of Opera

Delilah (Samson et Dalila, Saint-Säens) Shear Madness

This scissor-wielding Philistine seduces Samson, only to give him the most famous haircut in history. She gets hers in the end though, perishing in a temple collapse when a shorn, blinded Samson gets his strength back and brings down the house--literally.

Salome, by Aubrey Beardsley.

Salome (Salome, R. Strauss): The Girl Who Wanted It All

All she did was demand that Herod, her stepfather, give her the head of John the Baptist in exchange for doing the Dance of the Seven Veils . At the climax of Richard Strauss' shocking one-act opera, the princess sings a final, bloodthirsty ode to the now-severed head. Disgusted by her, Herod orders his guards to crush her to death beneath their shields in the opera's final, crashing bars.

Carmen (Carmen) She's not bad, she's just composed that way.

The cigarette-smoking Gypsy captured the heart of Don Jose in order to get out of a prison sentence for slashing another girl who worked in the cigarette factory. Unfortunately for Jose, he followed Carmen into the smuggling business, seethed with rage as she ditched him for a bullfighter in tight, glittery pants, and then finally killed her outside the bullring.

Kundry (Parsifal, Wagner) The Worst of Both Worlds

The only female character in Wagner's final opera leads a complicated double life. In between stints serving the Knights of the Grail as a messenger, she acts as the agent of the diabolical mage Klingsor, luring the Knights to their doom in a seductive flower garden of evil. It turns out that she's cursed--payback for laughing at Jesus Christ as he suffered on the cross.

Lulu (Lulu, Berg) Death on Two Legs

This bisexual vixen tears through Berg's second opera like a hot knife through gouda, destroying the lives of almost every other character she encounters in the course of her sexual adventures. She finally becomes a prostitute in London, and is murdered by her last client, who turns out to be Jack the Ripper.