Vivacious music and an interview with Jon Nakamatsu!

This Friday, on Vivace, we'll feature a new recording of Alessandro Rolla's Basset Horn Concerto, a work I played back in April.  This is a great recording and I know you'll enjoy it.

We celebrate the birthdays of pianist Evgeny Kissin and of composer Giuseppe Verdi.

Also, there's plenty of music for Mozart lovers!

At 8 o'clock, we have a short interview with pianist Jon Nakamatsu, who will be appearing in Charlottesville next Tuesday, as part of the Tuesday Evening Concert Series.

As ever, I hope you'll join me for Vivace, this Friday 6-9 am, here on WTJU-Charlottesville.

Kaufmann Sings Verdi

In this Verdi Bicentennial year, we are the beneficiaries of an abundance of recorded riches. Among them is Jonas Kaufmann's Verdi recital disc. He sings 12 (13 on the "deluxe edition" disc) of the Maestro's tenor arias, both familiar ("La donna e mobile" from Rigoletto) and less familiar ("Destatevi, o pietre. . . Giuri ognun questo canuto" from I masnadieri). All are sung by Kaufmann, who is in sumptuous voice, with consummate technical skill. The baritonal quality of his voice often belies the delicacy of his delivery. The German tenor proves himself a master of Italian style, but without most of the vocal and emotional excess that often typifies less skillful tenors in this repertoire.

Where to begin? Rarely is the entrance aria of Radamès from Aida, "Se quel guerrier io fossi! . . .Celeste Aida," sung with the concluding diminuendo as it was written by Verdi, much less with perfect messa di voce. On this disc, Kaufmann's performance rivals Corelli's legendary recording of the aria. If Kaufmann can manage the same feat on stage, he will bring down the house. Manrico's great aria, "Ah! si, ben mio. . . Di quella pira" from Il trovatore, is introduced with such delicacy that the thrilling cabaletto sounds like a hurricane is being released. The concluding top "C" is held long enough to bring any opera audience to its feet.

Among the amazing accomplishments that Kaufmann brings to Verdi is the contrast between the rich, burnished quality of his voice and the control and lyricism of his delivery. At times it is possible to imagine that he is a "pushed" baritone, until he unleashes the high notes. Extraordinary singing is on display throughout this disc. The two arias from Otello, "Dio! mi potevi scagliar" and "Niun mi tema" make any Verdi lover long for the day when Kaufmann takes up this great role on stage. This writer had the privilege and pleasure of seeing both Vickers and Domingo sing the role on stage, and Kaufmann shows every promise of being the next in that noble line of interpreters of Verdi's greatest tenor role. When and if Kaufmann sings Otello, I hope to be in the audience, wherever that may be.

While the conducting of Pier Giorgio Morandi is perfectly acceptable, the playing of the Orchestra dell'Opera di Parma is on the whole lackluster. But what singing!

Domingo: Verdi - immaculately sung

Placido Domingo
Verdi
Orquestra de la Comunitat Valencian
Pablo Heras-Casado, conductor
Sony Classical

Normally a new recital disc of Verdi arias by Placido Domingo would not be particularly noteworthy, except this disc features the great tenor in arias written for the baritone voice. After a distinguished career as a tenor, Domingo now is singing Verdi's baritone roles. Already Covent Garden, Berlin, Mantua, and the Met have heard him as Simon Boccanegra, Germont, and in other roles, but this new disc features a broad spectrum of arias composed by Verdi for his baritone characters.

Distinguished Verdi baritones are a rare commodity these days, so this disc is especially welcome. Verdi's baritone roles typically lie mostly in the upper part of a lyric baritone's register, well within the range of Domingo's voice.

Domingo the baritone does not evoke memories of Macneil, Warren, or Milnes. Instead, he makes these arias his own, almost as though Verdi composed them for a lower-voiced tenor. The dark, but still lyric quality of the Domingo voice is still very much in evidence, as is the noble phrasing and immaculate technique.

As always, he does not simply sing the arias, but he inhabits the role that he is portraying. Boccanegra's curse terrifies, and Germont's sorrow is made real for us. Domingo's voice does not quite reach the depths of the baritone register, so a phrase or two is not perfectly finished where it concludes in the lower register, as in "Eri tu" from Un ballo in maschera, but otherwise his voice comfortably fits the selections he has chosen for this recital.

Particular favorites are "Pietà, rispetto, amore" from Macbeth, which opens the disc, and Rigoletto's anguished "Cortigiani, vil razza dannata." Domingo's treatment of Germont's aria "Di Provenza il mar" from La traviata rivals Robert Merrill's interpretation in its lyricism, if not in pure baritonal heft. Verdi usually encouraged a lyrical interpretation from his singers (the role of Lady Macbeth being an exception), and he would have approved of Domingo's always lyrical approach. It is only in the arias from La forza del destino, where we have grown accustomed to a more muscular approach, that Domingo's treatment of Carlo's music is not entirely convincing. albeit beautifully sung.

Throughout the disc Pablo Heras-Casado's conducting of the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana is supportive and flexible. (Heras-Casado recently made his Met debut conducting Rigoletto).

Verdi's Shakespeare

 Verdi's Shakespeare
Men of the Theater
Garry Willis
Viking Press

Historian Garry Wills' new book, Verdi’s Shakespeare, is a fascinating study of the Italian maestro’s lifelong love of the works of the great English playwright. Even though Verdi neither spoke nor read English (although his wife, the singer Giuseppina Strepponi knew English), he read the plays and poetry in Italian translation for pleasure throughout his long life (1813-1901).

The scholar and Verdi friend Italo Pizzi recounted that in 1883 Verdi told him that "Shakespeare . . . analyses the human mind so acutely and penetrates it so profoundly, that the words he puts into his characters' mouths are essentially human, essentially true, as they should be."

As a result of his study of Shakespeare’s plays, Verdi created three works of genius, Macbeth, Otello, and Falstaff, the last two among the greatest of all operatic works, and ushered in a new standard of truth and realism to the lyric stage.

It is Wills' central thesis that both Shakespeare and Verdi were men of the stage, who created their works for their own time, adapting them where necessary to the talents of the performers who were available to them. Verdi made this central fact of his artistic life explicit. After the triumph of Otello at its premiere (La Scala, Feb. 5, 1887), Verdi expressed his sadness to his friend and sometime collaborator Giuseppe Giacosa (as recounted in Marcello Conati, Encounters with Verdi (1984)). "How painful to have finished it! I shall now suffer such loneliness. Till now I used to wake each morning and return to the love, anger, jealousy, deceit of my characters. And I would say to myself: today I have this scene to compose, and if it did not proceed according to my wishes, I would arm myself for the struggle, confident of victory. . . I would arrive home, still excited by the glorious life of the theatre, happy at the goals I ad reached, thinking about those I intended reaching tomorrow, and I was not conscious of fatigue and I did not feel my age. But now? Since Otello now belongs to the public, it has ceased to be mine . . . I now feel an enormous void, which I think I shall never be able to fill."

Shakespeare needed to be mindful of the economics of his theater, so many of his players were expected to play more than one part to economize on actors' fees. So he carefully arranged their exits and entrances, providing ample opportunity for costume and scene changes. By the time of Otello Verdi was world famous and could command the resources he required. But at the time of Macbeth’s premiere in 1847, Verdi was limited by the resources of the commissioning theater, the Teatro alla Pergola in Florence.

He did not have available a first-class tenor, so the only major tenor role, Macduff, has only one aria, Ah, la paterno mano, although being Verdi, it is very fine. He did have available the finest baritone in Italy, Felice Varesi, for his Macbetto. He wanted the excellent soprano Sophia Löwe, but she was unavailable, recovering from an abortion. Instead Marianna Barbieri-Ninni, a fine singer, was cast as his Lady. She had the virtue (for Verdi) of being spectacularly unattractive visually, but she could sing Lady Macbeth's music with the kind of menace and coarseness that Verdi wanted in the role.

Verdi’s Shakespeare is written in Wills’ typically graceful style. Reading it will reward lovers of the works of both great artists and casual opera fans as well. Although the book reflects considerable scholarship on Wills' part, it is no turgid work of academic prose. Instead it can be read for pleasure and can only enhance our enjoyment of Verdi’s great operas, even as we regret that Verdi never accomplished the one unfulfilled dream of his career–Il re Lear.