Gian_Carlo_Menotti

Plea for Giancarlo Menotti and his operas.

A newspaper article of February 12, 1947 on the suicide of a Polish emigrant whose visa for the USA had been rejected, was seen by Menotti, who sadly remembered the fate of his Jewish friends in Austria and Germany (his own partner, the composer Samuel Barber, was also Jewish). He took this sorry tale and used it as a basis for his first full-length opera. The subject has – unfortunately – lost none of its actuality and The Consul is and remains an opera that cuts right through your soul.

In 1960, it was produced for television, and that registration has been released on DVD by VAI (4266 ). In black and white, without subtitles (don’t be alarmed, there is very clear singing) and extremely dramatically portrayed by Jean Dalrymple.

Patricia Neway sings ‘To This We’ve Come’:

HILFE, HILFE DIE GLOBOLINKS!

This opera is ‘for children and for those who love children’. The premiere took place in 1968 in Hamburg and a year later it was filmed in the studio.

I must confess that I’m not a big fan of children’s operas, but I’ve been shamelessly enjoying this one. It is an irresistible fairy tale about aliens (Globolinks) who are allergic to music and can only be defeated by means of music.

The images are very sensational for that period, full of colour and movement and the forest little Emily (the irresistible Edith Mathis) has to go through with her violet to get help is really frightening. The aliens are a bit of a let-down according to modern standards, but that doesn’t matter, it gives the whole a cuddly shine. The work is bursting with humour and irony; musical barbarians are lashed out at: the school principal who doesn’t like music turns into an alien himself.

There are also a lot of one-liners (“music leads you to the right path” or “when music dies, the end of the world is near”). It is incomprehensible a work like this is not performed all the time in every school (and I don’t mean just for the children), the subject is (and remains) very topical.

None of the roles, including the children, could be better cast, and this once again proves the high standard of the Hamburg ensemble. In which other city would you find so many great singers/actors who can perform so many different roles on such a high level?

VAImusic, or: Open Sesame!

VAI (Video Artist International) was founded in 1988 by Ernie Gilbert. It was born out of pure idealism and enthusiasm and Gilbert’s intention was to release interesting concerts as well as opera and ballet performances on video.

First of all, ballet films from Russia, featuring Maya Plisetskaya, one of the greatest ballerinas of all time, were brought out.

Below, Maya Plisetskaya in an excerpt from the second act of Swan Lake:

The catalogue was soon further supplemented with performances by Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn, mouthwatering names for many ballet lovers

The first operas to be released were Lucia di Lammermoor (with Anna Moffo and Lajos Kozma) and The Medium by Giancarlo Menotti, followed by Tosca with Tebaldi and three titles with Beverly Sills, the uncrowned American queen of bel canto.

Below, Beverly Sills in the last scene of Roberto Devereux by Donizetti:

For the many fans of opera stars, VAI is a real Sesame, full of unsurpassed treasures, because where else do you get the complete operas of Corelli, Kraus, Caballé, Bergonzi or Tagliavini? Or recitals by Scotto, Eleanor Steber, John Vickers or Leontyne Price, to name but a few?

About ten years ago, a very attractive DVD was released with Leontyne Price singing the complete third act from Aida, recorded by Canadian television in 1958, plus a recital from 1982 with arias from Cosi fan tutte and Madama Butterfly, among others. With the added bonus of three arias from Il Trovatore, Aida and La Forza del Destino, taken from her performances in the legendary ‘Bell Telephone Hour’ from 1963-67 (VAI 4268).

Leontyne Price sings ‘O patria mia’:

However, VAI’s catalogue is not limited to opera and ballet; it also gives us recitals and concerts by many famous instrumentalists and conductors, including Oistrach, Menuhin, Barbirolli, Munch, Martha Argerich, Arturo Benedetti Michalengeli, William Kapell, Joseph Hoffman… An Arthur Rubinstein DVD was brought out with his recitals from 1950 and 1956, together with a selection of works by Chopin, and the (abbreviated) Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini by Rachmaninoff (VAI 4275).

Vaimusic trailer:

Peter Rosen’s film about the Armenian composer Aram Khachatourian, which was awarded the prize for best documentary at the Hollywood Film Festival, is exceptionally fascinating. It begins with his funeral and then, in chronological order and in the first person, sketches the life of a man whose history ran parallel to that of the Soviet Union. It contains unique archive images in black and white, breathtaking film images of the Armenian landscapes, interesting interviews, fragments of his ballets and, as a bonus, the complete performance of his cello concerto by Mstislav Rostropovich (VAI 4298).

Below: Mstislav Rostropovich playing Khachatourian’s cello concerto

PLEA FOR GIANCARLO MENOTTI AND HIS THE CONSUL

Giancarlo Menotti. For most Dutch opera lovers, he is no more than a vaguely familiar name. His operas have never been very popular here and performances can be counted on one hand.

A pity, really, because not only is his music exceptionally beautiful (think of a combination of Mascagni and Britten), but the subjects he deals with in his (self-written) libretti are socially engaged and they address current topics.

A newspaper article of February 12, 1947 on the suicide of a Polish emigrant whose visa for the USA had been rejected, was seen by Menotti, who sadly remembered the fate of his Jewish friends in Austria and Germany (his own partner, the composer Samuel Barber, was also Jewish). He took this sorry tale and used it as a basis for his first full-length opera. The subject has – unfortunately – lost none of its actuality and The Consul is and remains an opera that cuts right through your soul.

Pleidooi voor Gian Carlo Menotti en zijn opera’s

Gian Carlo Menotti. Voor de meeste Nederlandse opera-gangers is hij niet meer dan een vaag bekende naam. Zijn opera’s zijn hier nooit echt populair geweest en de uitvoeringen ervan zijn op de vingers van één hand te tellen.

Jammer eigenlijk, want niet alleen is zijn muziek buitengewoon mooi (men denke aan de combinatie van Mascagni met Britten), ook de onderwerpen die hij in zijn (zelfgeschreven) libretti aankaart zijn maatschappelijk betrokken en snijden actuele onderwerpen aan.

Consul

Een krantenartikel van 12 februari 1947 over de zelfmoord van een Poolse emigrante wier visum voor de VS was afgewezen, werd door Menotti, die zich het lot van zijn Joodse vrienden in Oostenrijk en Duitsland nog goed herinnerde (ook zijn eigen partner, de componist Samuel Barber was Joods), gebruikt voor zijn eerste avondvullende opera. Het onderwerp heeft – helaas – niets aan zijn actualiteit verloren en The Consul is en blijft een aangrijpende opera die je door je ziel snijdt.

In 1960 werd het geproduceerd voor de televisie, en die registratie is door VAI (4266) op DVD uitgebracht. In zwart-wit, zonder ondertitels (niet schrikken, er wordt zeer duidelijk gezongen) en buitengewoon dramatisch in beeld gebracht door Jean Dalrymple.

Patricia Neway zingt ‘To This We’ve Come’:

HILFE, HILFE DIE GLOBOLINKS!

Liebramann Globolinks

Speciaal voor Hamburg heeft de Italiaans-Amerikaanse componist en regisseur Gian CarloMenotti Globolinks!, een opera ‘voor kinderen en voor hen die van kinderen houden’ gemaakt. De première vond plaats in 1968 en een jaar later werd het in de studio verfilmd.

Ik moet u bekennen dat ik niet zo’n liefhebber van kinderopera’s ben maar hier heb ik toch schaamteloos van zitten genieten. Het is een onweerstaanbaar sprookje over aliens (Globolinks) die allergisch zijn voor muziek en alleen door middel van muziek bestreden kunnen worden.

De beelden zijn voor die tijd zeer sensationeel, vol kleur en beweging en het bos waar de kleine Emily (onweerstaanbare Edith Mathis) met haar viooltje doorheen moet om hulp te gaan halen is werkelijk beangstigend. De aliens zijn volgens de hedendaagse begrippen een beetje knudde, maar het geeft niet, het geeft het geheel een aaibare glans. Het werk zit barstensvol humor en ironie, er wordt naar de muziekbarbaren uitgehaald: de schooldirecteur die muziek niks vindt verandert zelf in een alien.

Er wordt ook rijkelijk met oneliners gestrooid (“muziek leidt je naar de juiste weg” of “als de muziek sterft is het eind van de wereld nabij”). Onbegrijpelijk dat zoiets niet standaard voor alle scholen (en ik bedoel hiermee niet alleen de kinderen) wordt opgevoerd, het onderwerp is (en blijft) zeer actueel.

De bezetting van alle rollen, inclusief de kinderen, kan gewoon niet beter, en bewijst nog eens de hoge standaard van het Hamburgse ensemble, want waar vind je nog zoveel geweldige zangers/acteurs bij elkaar, die zoveel verschillende rollen op zo’n hoog niveau kunnen brengen?

Grachtenfestival 2015: FAÇADE MEETS THE TELEPHONE

Twenty years after his death: Rolf Liebermann In Memoriam

Rolf Liebermann © Claude Truong-Ngoc (1980

The Swiss composer Rolf Liebermann (14 September 1910 – 2 January 1999) is nowadays seen as the father of Regietheater, although he meant something different from the current conceptualism in which the boundary between the permissible and the ridiculous is explored and often crossed.

Under his leadership, the Hamburg State Opera, where he ruled for fourteen years between 1959 and 1973, grew into one of the best and most talked-about opera houses in the world. Liebermann created a good, solid and varied repertoire with special attention to contemporary works, built a fantastic artists’ ensemble and attracted foreign stars and would-be stars (Plácido Domingo’s world career began in Hamburg). Arlene Saunders, William Workman, Raymond Wolansky, Franz Grundhebber, Tom Krause, Hans Sotin, Toni Blankenheim – they all formed a solid and close-knit ensemble, with the occasional addition of a bigger (read: more familiar to the general public) name: Lucia Popp in Fidelio and Zar und Zimmerman, Cristina Deutekom, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Nicolai Gedda in Die Zauberflöte, Sena Jurinac in Wozzeck.

Liebermann also regularly commissioned compositions. In the years of his management no less than 28 operas and ballets had their world premiere, a number many an opera house should be jealous of. Later, in his autobiographical book ‘Opernjahre’, Liebermann described his time at the Hamburg State Opera as the happiest time of his life. I can imagine that. If you were able to realise so much beauty at such a high level, you can only be intensely happy.

Luckily for us, who have not (consciously) experienced those years, Liebermann was also thinking about the future and had director Joachim Hess record thirteen productions for television. Most of the recordings took place in a studio. With the means available at the time, it was impossible to record sound and images at the same time. This meant that first a musical soundtrack had to be pre- recorded, after which the singers could mime to it in the studio very precisely, so everything was in sync.

Liebermann box

About ten years ago, Arthaus Musik released these operas on DVD. Of course, by today’s technical standards, it’s all far from perfect. The sound is mono and the camera is rather static, but for the enthusiast there is a lot to enjoy, not in the least because of the repertoire.

PENDERECKI: DIE TEUFEL VON LOUDUN

Liebermann Penderski

In 1967 Liebermann approached Krzysztof Penderecki with the request to compose an opera for Hamburg. The result was Die Teufel von Loudun, for which the composer himself had written the libretto. The story is based on a true event: in Loudun (France) in 1634, a Prioress of the Ursuline Order accused a priest of diabolical practices for which he was sentenced to be burned at the stake.

The opera had its world premiere on 20 June 1969 and shortly afterwards it was filmed. The leading role of mother Jeanne was performed in a very impressive way by Tatiana Troyanos, another great star whose career began in Hamburg (after she had received a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation to further her education in Europe, she auditioned in Hamburg where Liebermann immediately offered her a contract). Her portrait of the hunchbacked demonically possessed nun with sexual visions is breathtaking. Everything about her, from head to toe, acts. Her facial expression changes with every phrase she sings and her voice chills you to the bone.

The horror-like music with its many glissandi and octave leaps evokes a feeling of unease and makes the opera, despite the immense tension, rather uncomfortable to watch. The staging, with a lot of nudity and explicit sex scenes, is very progressive for that time and I can imagine it was experienced as shocking!

First act of DIE TEUFEL VON LOUDUN:

Speaking of music: did you know that William Friedkin used music by Penderecki for his film The Exorcist?