Opera
CD and Other Review

Review: Sullivan: The Beauty Stone (BBC National Orchestra of Wales/Macdonald)

For some time, enterprising groups have been recording the Sullivan operas which he didn’t write with Gilbert, a welcome development, especially when as well performed and recorded as is this splendid offering from Wales. Most contain a good measure of attractive music and are important additions to the catalogue. The Beauty Stone arrived at the Savoy in 1898, two years after the last G&S opera, The Grand Duke and ran for a mere 50 performances. The Savoy audience had tired of the genre and were being entertained by hits such as Floradora and The Geisha. On top of that, the librettist, Comyns Carr and the brilliant playwright Arthur Wing Pinero, overwrote the piece into the ground. Unlike Sullivan, who knew a thing or two about these things, they thought it was play with music, and it ran four hours at its premiere. Now, with a good recording and first-rate cast we can largely ignore the clumsier aspects of the drama and content ourselves with Sullivan’s fine score, and it is excellent. With his grand opera, Ivanhoe in 1891 Sullivan was endeavouring to find a way from Wagner to a newer romantic English school with strong medieval elements. He continued this…

May 15, 2014
Opera
CD and Other Review

Review: Rameau: Castor et Pollux (Pinchgut Opera)

Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Tragédie en musique Castor et Pollux received merely a lukewarm reception when it was first performed at the Paris Opéra in 1737. However, its 1754 revision turned out to be a complete triumph. That’s the version Australia’s Pinchgut Opera presented in Sydney, December 2012, from which live performances this recording was assembled. One of Rameau’s most popular operas, containing music of exceptional quality and beauty, it’s surprising this was the first time the work had been performed in Australia in its entirety. Better 258 years later than never, I suppose. It is also of great comfort that this is such a fine interpretation. The story is straightforward. The immortal Pollux offers to marry his deceased mortal brother’s widow, Télaïre. She’d rather have her husband back, which request Jupiter agrees to grant providing Pollux takes his slain brother’s place in Hades. Castor’s filial love is too strong, however, and he insists on spending one day only with the grieving Télaïre. Impressed, Jupiter makes Castor immortal as well and both brothers are placed among the constellations as the heavenly twins. Conductor Antony Walker and harpsichord continuo player Erin Helyard are fully conversant with the style of the French Baroque, and…

May 8, 2014
Opera
CD and Other Review

Review: Tonight (Fleming, Vogt, Staatskapelle Dresden/Thielemann)

Celebratory concerts such as this are always a mixed bag. Those who like American songs will often be at odds with those who prefer the sounds of old Vienna. The days are long gone when a traditional German orchestra sounded stiff and formal playing a Broadway tune. The fabulous Dresdeners are quite at ease in this music and play it better than most. The deliciously slinky way they have with Gershwin’s Strike up the Band Overture would match all comers. Thielemann is on top of all musical styles, even though the first half of the concert is clearly the better half. Renée Fleming’s voice is best suited to operatic items; she sounds as if she’s slumming it in the American material. Her version of I Could Have Danced All Night is breathlessly over the top. She is simply too heavy for those parts and tries too hard to be ‘cool’. Vogt, with his superb voice and matinee good looks is a charmer. Although in Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better by Irving Berlin, he is under par and Fleming is simply wrong. The alternate verses are sung in German, which is a treat for us Anglos. The overtures from many of these…

April 22, 2014