The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: The annual showcase benefit for University Opera, with student performers and famed bass-baritone alumnus Sam Handley, is this Sunday afternoon
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By Jacob Stockinger
Students in the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s opera program will present the annual “Showcase Concert” of songs and arias this Sunday, Sept. 24, at 3 p.m. at the First Unitarian Society of Madison’s Meeting House, 900 University Bay Drive.
They will be joined by bass-baritone Sam Handley (below top), a well-known alumnus now living in Chicago, and accompanist Daniel Fung (below bottom).
The program includes:
Samuel Handley in the “Calumny” aria from Rossini’s “Barber of Seville” and the song “Her Face” from Merrill’s show “Carnival”
John McHugh in “Donne mie” (Mozart’s “Cosi fan tutte”)
Shaddai Solidum in “The Jewel Song” (Gounod’s “Faust”)
Grace Subat in “Far From the Home I Love” (Bock’s “Fiddler on the Roof“)
Sarah Kendall in “Mi chiamano Mimì” (Puccini’s “La Bohème“)
Benjamin Liupaogo (below) in the “Flower Song” (Bizet’s “Carmen”)
Liza Shapin in “I Walked in the Path Where Jesus Walked”
Matthew Chastain in “Questo amor” (Puccini’s “Edgar”)
Yanzelmalee Rivera in “Dondi lieta” (Puccini’s “La Bohème”)
Also the trio “Soave sia il vento” (from Mozart’s “Così fan tutti”) will be sung by Solidum, Subat and Handley; and the duet “Libiamo” (from Verdi’s “La Traviata“) will be sung by Rivera and Liupaogo.
Sam Handley has been praised for “his rich, burnished” voice and the “genuine emotional depth of his characterizations.” The Houston Chronicle has described his “vivid and polished singing” as “leaving the audience panting.”) You can hear him in the YouTube video at the bottom, where he sings the “Calumny” aria that he will also perform at this event.
A contribution of $30 at the door ($10 for students) is requested for this benefit concert.
A reception of chocolate, cheese, wine and punch will follow the concert and is included in the donation. (Below are the participants from last year with David Ronis, third from left in the back row, who is the director of the University Opera.)
Tags: alumni, alumnus, aria, Arts, Barber of Seville, baritone, bass, Bizet, Bock, Campus, Carmen, cheese, Chicago, chocolate, Classical music, Cosi fan tutte, Daniel Fung, director, donation, duet, Education, Faust, Fiddler on the Roof, First Unitarian Society of Madison, flower, Gounod, Home, Houston, Houston Chronicle, Jacob Stockinger, Jesus, jewel, La bohème, La Traviata, Love, Madison, Mimi, Mozart, Music, Music education, opera, Piano, Puccini, punch, reception, review, Rossini, Sam Handley, showcase, song, spiritual, Student, trio, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, University Opera, Verdi, vocal music, Wine, Wisconsin, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, YouTube
Classical music: Famed opera diva Kiri Te Kanawa says she will not be singing in public anymore
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By Jacob Stockinger
It happened a year ago.
But since then Dame Kiri Te Kanawa (below), the celebrated soprano and opera diva, has kept her insight to herself: She would not sing again in any kind of public performance.
She is 73, so the news is not surprising.
But it is disappointing.
Much as The Ear admires superstar soprano Renée Fleming, he preferred Te Kanawa’s tone, phrasing and vibrato. He particularly liked her voice in operas and other music by Mozart, Puccini and Richard Strauss. (You can hear her in her prime singing the aria “O mio babbino caro” by Puccini in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
But whatever your preference, seeing such a career come to an end is a sad milestone, however inevitable.
Perhaps the best story about the New Zealand artist’s retirement that The Ear has seen came in The Guardian. Here is a link:
And here is a column about retirement in various fields, including professional sports, that praises Te Kanawa’s decision and timing:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/13/kiri-te-kanawa-bowed-out
Tags: aria, Arts, BBC, Classical music, column, Compact Disc, Diana, diva, insight, Jacob Stockinger, Kiri Te Kanawa, Mozart, Music, New Zealand, news, O mio bambino caro, opera, Orchestra, performance, phrase, phrasing, Princess Diana, Princess of Wales, professional, public, Puccini, Renée Fleming, Retirement, Richard Strauss, Royal Opera House, singer, Singing, song, soprano, sportd, Sports, superstar, The Guardian, The Marriage of Figaro, tone, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, vibrato, voice, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, YouTube
Classical music: What is the one piece of music you could listen to over and over and over again without getting tired or bored?
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By Jacob Stockinger
It’s Saturday — time for another reader survey.
A few weeks ago, The Ear asked: Which composer or piece you really cannot stand or consider overrated, for whatever reason.
A lot of readers responded and their responses were very interesting, even unexpected. They included such composers as Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Scriabin and Mahler.
It was a question of personal taste and of course was subjective – like music itself.
Here is a link to that blog post:
Today, The Ear wants to know:
What piece could you listen to over and over and over again without getting tired or bored by it?
Of course, it may not have to do with the quality of the piece, but rather with how forcefully it speaks to you.
And the piece you name now may not be the one you would name next week or next month or next year.
Right now, for example, The Ear is on a kick with the Ballade No. 4 in F minor, Op. 52, by Chopin (below). He loves the work for its development and counterpoint as well as its titanic emotion, which is both Classically restrained and Romantically effusive. That’s why The Ear sees it as Chopin’s response to Beethoven’s “Appassionata” Sonata.
The Ear has tried to play the Ballade and loves comparing different interpretations. (You can hear it played by Arthur Rubinstein in the YouTube video at the bottom. And there are a lot other versions on YouTube.)
As to your choice:
It could be larger work like a Beethoven symphony or a Rachmaninoff concerto or a Verdi opera. Or it could be smaller work, like a Schubert song or a Bach prelude or a Puccini aria.
Anyway, let us know what piece you are focused on right now. It might even serve as a recommendation to other readers.
And in the Comment section, tell us what you like about it and why, and include a YouTube link to a performance if you can.
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: Appassionata Sonata, aria, Arthur Rubinstein, Arts, Bach, Ballade, Baroque, Beethoven, blog, Cello, Chamber music, Chopin, choral music, Classical, Classical music, composer, concerto, counterpoint, development, Early music, effusive, emotion, Franz Schubert, Haydn, Jacob Stockinger, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Mahler, Mozart, Music, opera, performance, Piano, piece, post, posting, Prelude, Puccini, Rachmaninoff, Rachmaninov, reader, recommendation, restraint, Romantic, Scriabin, Sergei Rachmaninoff, song, symphony, Titanic, United States, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Verdi, Viola, Violin, vocal music, Wisconsin, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, YouTube
Classical music: Madison Opera’s “Magic Flute” proved enjoyable, opulent and superb
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear’s friend and opera veteran filed this review:
By Larry Wells
I attended last Sunday’s matinee performance of the Madison Opera’s production of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “The Magic Flute.” (Performance photos are by James Gill for the Madison Opera.)
The opera’s mystifying combination of fairy tale and Masonic ritual has been better explained by others, including the legendary Anna Russell. Those who know her only through her analysis of Wagner’s “Ring” Cycle should seek out her lecture on “The Magic Flute, which is accompanied on the CD by an equally humorous look at Verdi’s “Nabucco.” A search through the iTunes store will easily yield these treasures.
The scenery and costumes (below), which were borrowed from Arizona Opera, were superb. I was captivated by the clever set, the opulent costumes and the amazing props.
The choice to have the spoken dialogue in English, while the sung parts remained in German with supertitles in English, was a smart move and helped move the ridiculous plot lines along.
The playing by members of the Madison Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of guest conductor from the Juilliard School, Gary Thor Wedow, (below) was, as usual, brilliant.
And the singing was, for the most part, first-rate.
Special mention should be made of Andrew Bidlack (below top) as a consistently arresting Tamino and Amanda Woodbury (below, right, with Scott Brunscheen as Monostatos) as a crystalline Pamina. Their first act duet was perfection.
Likewise, Caitlin Cisler played the Queen of the Night (below center) and her vocal fireworks were spectacular, plus she was a delight to watch in her bizarre winged costume. (You can hear the Queen of the Night’s astonishing and virtuosic aria in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
I enjoyed Alan Dunbar’s Papageno (below). He has a gift for comedy.
And probably my favorite characters, the three ladies (below, from left, with Tamino) portrayed by Amanda Kingston, Kelsey Park and Anna Parks were brilliantly sung and acted.
UW-Madison graduate Anna Polum (below) did not disappoint in the smaller role of Papagena, and we will be fortunate to hear her again soon in Johannes Brahms’ “German Requiem” with the Madison Symphony Orchestra next month.
The three spirits, sung by local schoolboys, were fun to watch with their steampunk attire and props, but they were vocally rather thin.
Nathan Stark’s Sarastro tested the limits of his vocal range. It’s a difficult role in any event since Sarastro has the unfortunate habit of stopping the opera’s action in its tracks whenever he appears.
The audience loved the whole thing, laughing at the comic absurdities and applauding whenever the music paused. But I cannot help wondering why “The Magic Flute” is such a popular opera. Its plot is basically incomprehensible, its second act goes on a half hour too long, the Queen of the Night’s downfall is never satisfactorily explained, and despite a number of memorable tunes, there are, in my mind, many more musically satisfying operas.
Next season we can look forward to yet another of the countless performances of Bizet’s “Carmen” and yet another Mozart opera “The Abduction from the Seraglio.” Madison does seem to love its Mozart. But we will also be hearing the late Daniel Catan’s lush, Puccini-esque “Florencia en el Amazonas,” for which I give praise.
I got to thinking about what other lesser performed operas that are not 200 years old might please the Madison crowd and quickly came up with: Benjamin Britten’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”; Gian Carlo Menotti’s “The Consul”; Leonard Bernstein’s “Candide”; Douglas Moore’s “The Ballad of Baby Doe”; Samuel Barber’s “Vanessa”; and Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “Sir John in Love.”
Each of these is as melodic as “The Magic Flute” and each has certainly more compelling storylines.
What are your suggestions?
Tags: A Midsummer Night's Dream, Abduction From the Seraglio, Anna Polum, Anna Russell, aria, Arizona Opera, Arts, Ballad of Baby Doe, Bizet, Brahms, Britten, Buze, Candide, Carmen, character, choral music, Classical music, clever, costumes, Daniel Catan, Douglas Moore, English, Florencia en el Amazonas, Gary Thor Wedow, German, German Requiem, Humor, humorous, iTunes, Jacob Stockinger, Juilliard School, Leonard Bernstein, Madison, Madison Opera, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Masonic, Masons, Menotti, Mozart, Music, Nabucco, New York City, opera, Orchestra, Overture Center, plot, props, Puccini, Queen of the Night, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Ring cycle, Samuel Barber, sets, Sir John in Love, steampunk, subtitles, supertitles, symphony, The Consul, treasure, tunes, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Vanessa, Verdi, virtuosic, virtuoso, vocal music, Wagner, Wisconsin, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, YouTube
Classical music: This weekend the Madison Symphony Orchestra, with guest conductor Carl St. Clair and trumpet virtuoso Tina Thing Helseth, performs music by Beethoven, Hummel and Richard Strauss
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By Jacob Stockinger
This weekend the Madison Symphony Orchestra (MSO) features Tine Thing Helseth (below), the Norwegian virtuoso trumpet soloist, for a special performance of Johann Nepomuk Hummel’s Trumpet Concerto.
Conductor Carl St. Clair (below) returns for a third visit as guest conductor with the MSO to lead a pair of early 19th-century works with 112 musicians performing the largest of Richard Strauss’s symphonic tone poems. (MSO music director and conductor John DeMain is conducting a production of Puccini’s opera “Turandot” in Virginia.)
The program begins with the Egmont Overture by Ludwig van Beethoven, followed by the MSO’s premiere performance of the Trumpet Concerto by Johann Nepomuk Hummel, featuring Helseth. The concert ends with a nod to the awesome splendor of the Bavarian Alps, “An Alpine Symphony,” by Richard Strauss.
The concerts are this weekend on Friday at 7:30 p.m., Saturday at 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. in Overture Hall, 201 State Street. See below for ticket information.
Beethoven (below top) composed his Egmont Overture in 1810. Both Beethoven himself, and playwright Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (below bottom) upheld the ideals of human dignity and freedom in their works.
Their personal relationship stemmed from Beethoven’s incidental music for a new production of Goethe’s play Egmont in 1810. This play about a nobleman’s betrayal by the Spanish monarchy, is beautifully paired with Beethoven’s music. As Goethe called it, Egmont Overture is a “Symphony of Victory.” (You can hear the dramatic “Egmont” Overture, performed by the Vienna Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein, in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Another friend of Beethoven’s, was Johann Nepomuk Hummel (below). Even though they were rivals, their respect for each other’s talent kept the relationship afloat.
Hummel’s Trumpet Concerto is a frisky fanfare with “playful dancelike” episodes laced throughout. This is the first time Hummel’s Trumpet Concerto will be performed by the Madison Symphony Orchestra.
Richard Strauss (below top) composed his Eine Alpensinfonie (“An Alpine Symphony”) from 1911-15. The final score used materials from some of his unfinished works, including an Artist’s Tragedy and The Alps.
Though there are many influences for this piece, the main is Strauss’s love for the Bavarian Alps. In his diary he wrote: “I shall call my alpine symphony: Der Antichrist, since it represents: moral purification through one’s own strength, liberation through work, worship of eternal, magnificent nature.” Antichrist is a reference to an essay by philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (below bottom), and though the title was dropped for its publication, the work still carries many of Nietzsche’s ideals.
One hour before each performance, Michael Allsen (below, in a photo by Katrin Talbot), the author of MSO program notes and an MSO trombonist as well as a UW-Whitewater Professor of Music, will lead a 30-minute Prelude Discussion in Overture Hall to enhance concertgoers’ understanding and listening experience.
For more background on the music, please visit the Program Notes at: http://www.allsenmusic.com/NOTES/1617/6.Mar17.html.
Single Tickets are $16 to $87 each, available at madisonsymphony.org/helseth and through the Overture Center Box Office at 201 State Street or call the Box Office at (608) 258-4141.
Groups of 15 or more can save 25% by calling the MSO office at (608) 257-3734. For more information, visit madisonsymphony.org/groups.
Club 201, MSO’s organization for young professionals, has continued to fulfill its mission for the past 11 years as the premiere organization promoting classical music and networking opportunities to the young professionals’ community in Madison. Tickets are $35 each and include world-class seating in Overture Hall, an exclusive after-party to be held in the Promenade Lounge, one drink ticket and a cash bar.
The conductor as well as musicians from the symphony may also be in attendance to mingle with Madison’s young professionals during the after-party.
The deadline to purchase tickets is Thursday, March 9, pending availability. Tickets can be purchased for this event, as well as the other events throughout the 2016-17 season by visiting the Club 201 page on the MSO’s website at http://www.madisonsymphony.org/club201.
Student rush tickets can be purchased in person on the day of the concert at the Overture Center Box Office at 201 State Street. Students must show a valid student ID and can receive up to two $12 or $15 tickets. More information is at: madisonsymphony.org/studentrush. Students can receive 20% savings on seats in select areas of the hall on advance ticket purchases.
Seniors age 62 and up receive 20% savings on advance and day-of-concert ticket purchases in select areas of the hall.
Discounted seats are subject to availability, and discounts may not be combined.
Major funding for the March concerts is provided by: The Madison Concourse Hotel & Governor’s Club, An Anonymous Friend, and Madison Gas & Electric Foundation, Inc. Additional funding is provided by: Audrey Dybdahl, Family and Friends, in loving memory of Philip G. Dybdahl, John A. Johnson Foundation, a component fund of the Madison Community Foundation, Madison Veterinary Specialists, Gary and Lynn Mecklenburg, and the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts.
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Classical music: It’s Valentine’s Day. What piece of classical music would you give to your Valentine?
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By Jacob Stockinger
It’s Valentine’s Day.
If you want to celebrate, there is always chocolate or roses or champagne or a special dinner.
But there is music too.
Many composers come to mind: Johann Sebastian Bach, Antonio Vivaldi, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Frederic Chopin, Franz Liszt, Antonin Dvorak, Johannes Brahms, Peter Tchaikovsky, Gabriel Faure, Giacomo Puccini, Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Sergei Prokofiev, and Sergei Rachmaninoff to name a few.
But The Ear thinks one of the most beautiful pieces is a short one, a miniature if you will.
It is the Romance in F-sharp Major, Op. 28, No. 2, by the Romantic German composer Robert Schumann (below with his wife Clara Wieck Schumann). Nobody wrote music about love, music filled with love and yearning, better than Schumann.
Not only does the piece sound intimate.
It IS intimate — with the two thumbs playing the melody a third apart much of the time. It is as if the two thumbs, left and right, are the two lovers.
Little wonder that the composer asked his virtuoso pianist-composer wife Clara to play it for him as he lay dying.
And to top it off, it is not all that difficult to play, so you could learn it and play it for your Valentine.
Here it is, performed in a YouTube video by the late Van Cliburn:
But what about you?
As radio stations like to say ”The Request Line is open!
What piece of classical music – big or small, old or new, hard or easy — would you play or dedicate to your Valentine?
Duets of all kinds seem especially appropriate. But so do songs and symphonies, operas and oratorios, and all kinds of chamber music.
So tell us about your musical gift for Valentine’s Day.
Leave a message in the COMMENT section, with a short explanation and dedicatory comment and perhaps with a YouTube link if possible — the forward it to your Valentine.
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: Arts, Bach, Baroque, Beethoven, Brahms, Cello, Chamber music, Chopin, Clara Schumann, Clara Wieck Schumann, Debussy, duet, duets, duo, Dvorak, Faure, Giacomo Puccini, intimate, Jacob Stockinger, Johann Sebastian Bach, Liszt, Mozart, Music, opera, oratorio, Orchestra, Piano, Puccini, Rachmaninoff, Ravel, Robert Schumann, Romance, Romantic, Schubert, Sergei Prokofiev, Sonata, song, symphony, Tchaikovsky, thumb, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Valentine, Valentine's Day, Van Cliburn, Viola, Violin, Vivaldi, vocal music, Wisconsin, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, YouTube
Classical music: Broadcasts of operas from the Met and string quartets by the UW-Madison’s Pro Arte Quartet are featured on old media and new media this Saturday and Sunday. Plus, the 89th Edgewood college Christmas Concert is tonight and tomorrow afternoon.
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ALERT: Edgewood College will present its 89th Annual Christmas Concerts tonight at 7 p.m. and Saturday afternoon at 2:30 p.m. in the St. Joseph Chapel, 1000 Edgewood College Drive.
Now expanded to two performances, the holiday concert features the Edgewood College choirs and Concert Band, along with audience sing-alongs, prelude music by the Guitar Ensemble, and a post-concert reception featuring the Jazz Ensemble.
By Jacob Stockinger
Classical music meets old media and new media this weekend through opera and chamber music.
SATURDAY
This Saturday marks the beginning of the LIVE RADIO broadcasts of operas from the Metropolitan Opera (below) in New York City. This will be the 86th season for the radio broadcasts, which educated and entertained generations of opera lovers before there were DVDs, streaming and the “Live in HD From the Met” broadcasts to movie theaters.
The performances will be carried locally on Wisconsin Public Radio, WERN-FM 88.7. This Saturday, the starting time for Puccini’s “Manon Lescaut” with Russian superstar soprano Anna Netrebko (below, in a photo by Richard Termine for The New York Times), is 11:30 CST. Other operas will have different starting times, depending their length.
This season runs from Dec. 3-May 15.
Radio has certain strengths, The Ear thinks. For one, it allows the listeners to focus on the music, to be less distracted or less enriched – depending on your point of view – by sets, costumes, lighting, the physicality of the acting and other stagecraft that is left to the imagination.
This season, there will be lots of standard fare including: Verdi’s “La Traviata” and “Aida”; Puccini’s “La Boheme”; Bizet’s “Carmen”; Beethoven’s “Fidelio”; Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde” and “The Flying Dutchman”; Richard Strauss’ “Der Rosenkavalier” and “Salome”; and Mozart’s “Idomeneo.”
But you can also hear the new music and less frequently staged operas. They include the 2000 opera “L’amour de loin” (Love From Afar) by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, which will receive its Metropolitan Opera premiere next week, on Dec. 10.
Here is a link to the complete season along with links to information about the various productions. Starting times are Eastern Standard Time, so deduct an hour for Central Standard Time or a different amount for your time zone:
http://www.metopera.org/Season/Radio/Saturday-Matinee-Broadcasts/
SUNDAY
On this Sunday afternoon, the Pro Arte Quartet (below, in a photo by Rick Langer), longtime artists-in-residence at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, will wrap up the first semester of “Sunday Afternoon Live From the Chazen,” which used to air weekly on Wisconsin Public Radio but now is presented once a month, on the first Sunday of the month, directly by the museum.
The program this Sunday features the “Italian Serenade” by Hugo Wolf; the String Quartet No. 3 in F Major by Dmitri Shostakovich; and the String Quartet in A-Flat Major, Op. 105, by Antonin Dvorak.
The FREE concert takes place from 12:30 to 2 p.m. in Brittingham Gallery No. 3 of the Chazen Museum of Art and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Donors to the museum can reserve seats. Concerts by the Pro Arte Quartet, kind of the house quartet of the museum, are usually “sold out.”
But the concert can also be streamed live via computer or smart phone by clicking on the arrow in the photo and using the portal on the following website:
You might also want to arrive early or stay late to see the historic and rare First Folio edition (below) of the plays by William Shakespeare that is on display at the Chazen Museum through Dec. 11 to mark the 400th anniversary of the death of the Bard.
Tags: acting, Aida, Anna Netrebko, Arts, band, Beethoven, Bizet, Carmen, Cello, Chamber music, chapel, Chazen Museum of Art, Choir, choral music, Christmas, Classical music, computer, Concert, costume, DVD, Dvorak, Edgewood College, Finland, First Folio, guitar, Holiday, Hugo Wolf, Italian Serenade, Jacob Stockinger, Jazz, Kaija Saariaho, La bohème, La Traviata, lighting, Live From The Met in HD, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Met, Metropolitan Opera, Metropolitan Opera Live in HD, movie, Mozart, Music, new media, New Music, New York City, New York Times, old media, opera, Orchestra, Prelude, premiere, Pro Arte Quartet, Puccini, Radio, Richard Strauss, Richard Wagner, Russia, Salome, sets, Shakespeare, Shostakovich, sing-along, smart phone, soprano, St. Joseph, stagecraft, streaming, String quartet, Sunday Afternoon Live From the Chazen, theater, Tristan und Isolde, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Verdi, Viola, Violin, vocal music, Wisconsin, wisconsin public radio, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Classical music: University Opera’s updated Hollywood production of Verdi’s “Falstaff” proves a triumph on all counts. Plus, FREE Opera Scenes concert is Tuesday night
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By Jacob Stockinger
Here is a guest review by The Opera Guy of Giuseppe’s Verdi’s “Falstaff” as staged by the University Opera. Performance photos are by Michael Anderson.
By Larry Wells
In the past few years I’ve seen Verdi’s “La Forza del Destino” set in the Spanish Civil War, Wagner’s Ring cycle re-imagined as the history of cinema, and Puccini’s “Turandot” presented as a performance by a traveling circus.
Thus, Verdi’s ‘Falstaff’ set in 1930’s Hollywood seemed a reasonable reinterpretation, and so it proved at its final performance Tuesday evening by University Opera.
“Falstaff,” drawn from three plays by Shakespeare, is Verdi’s final opera and a rare comedy. More importantly, gone are his familiar forms of a recitative followed by an aria with lots of oom-pa-pa orchestral accompaniment, now replaced with a conversational style that to me shows Wagner’s influence. It just doesn’t sound like Verdi, but it certainly sounds good.
I felt that the whole evening was a triumph.
The sets were beautifully dressed, the costumes were excellent and the lighting was effective.
The UW Symphony Orchestra, conducted by James Smith, played wonderfully, although from where I sat the sound was occasionally muffled.
Thank goodness a new music building is being built, and I trust that there will be a theater within it that will accommodate operatic performances. The current Music Hall has its limitations, one being that much of the orchestra was playing underneath the stage and another being that for some reason the theater’s temperature cannot be controlled. It was stiflingly hot during the performance.
As for the singing and acting, the cast I saw was uniformly strong. Falstaff, performed by UW-Madison faculty member Paul Rowe (below), was very robust and was particularly affecting during his act III soliloquy. The Ear mentioned to me his Oliver Hardy mannerisms, and once I noticed that I was constantly amused.
Yanzelmalee Rivera as Alice was hilarious in her seduction scene and really came alive in Act III. Courtney Kayser as Meg was a compelling comic actress. Rebecca Buechel’s Mistress Quickly was an equally adept comic actress and had an excellent voice. Emily Weaver as Nannetta was a beautiful singer who shone in her third act moments as Queen of the Fairies. These four women had some outstanding ensemble moments, and I was constantly diverted by their antics as they outwitted the men.
Among the hapless male characters, Brian Schneider was a standout as Ford and the deep voice of Benjamin Schultz (below left, with Paul Rowe and Jiabao Zhang) made the minor character Pistola noticeable whenever he was on stage.
But the voice of the evening belonged to tenor José Daniel Muñiz (below right) as Fenton. He excelled not only in his solo moments but blended extremely well with his paramour Nannetta (Claire Powling, below left).
The outstanding ensemble work exhibited throughout the opera culminated in the grand fugue at the end of the opera, and the nearly full-house audience was blown away by those final moments. (You can hear the fugal finale, conducted by Sir George Solti, in a YouTube video at the bottom.)
The 1930’s Hollywood concept worked well. It seemed completely fitting and was undoubtedly more amusing than it would have been had the opera been set in the time of Henry IV.
“Well done” to the University Opera’s new full-time director David Ronis (below center) for his imagination and direction. I look forward to his production of Benjamin Britten’s “Turn of the Screw” in early March.
And since this University Opera production and other events are being presented to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death and the exhibition of a First Folio at the Chazen Museum of Art, I want to put in a plug for Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “Sir John in Love” which has almost exactly the same plot as “Falstaff” and is woefully underperformed.
I also want to draw your attention the FREE Opera Scenes concert by University Opera that will be presented this Tuesday night, Nov. 22, at 7:30 p.m. in Music Hall. Featured are singers, with piano accompaniment, in scenes from: Charles Gounod’s “Faust”; Claudio Monteverdi’s “The Coronation of Poppea“; Giacomo Puccini‘s “La Rondine”; Leonard Bernstein‘s “Trouble in Tahiti”; Gioacchino Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville”; Dominick Argento’s “Postcard From Morocco”; and Marc Blitzstein’s”Regina.”
Tags: accompaniment, Arts, Barber of Seville, Beethoven, Benjamin Britten, Charles Gounod, Chazen Museum of Art, choral music, Christina and Michelle Naughton, cinema, circus, Civil War, Classical music, concerto, Dominick Argento, Edo de Waart, Falstaff, Faust, Francis Poulenc, fugue, Giacomo Puccini, Gounod, Hollywood, Igor Stravinsky, Jacob Stockinger, La Forza del Destino, La Rondine, Laurel and Hardy, Leonard Bernstein, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Marc Blitzstein, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Monteverdi, Music, Oliver Hardy, opera, Orchestra, Piano, Postcard From Morocco, Puccini, Ring cycle, Rossini, scenes, Shakespeare, Sir John in Love, Solti, Spain, Spanish Civil War, symphony, The Coronation of Poppea, Trouble in Tahiti, Turandot, Turn of the Screw, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, University Opera, vaughan williams, Verdi, Wagner, wisconsin public radio, YouTube
Classical music: Madison Opera’s production of “Romeo and Juliet” excelled in singing, orchestral playing, drama and other aspects that redeemed a largely unmemorable work. Plus, what is good music for Veterans Day?
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ALERT: Today is Veterans Day. What piece of classical music should be played to mark the event? The Ear suggests the War Requiem by Benjamin Britten. Leave your choice in the COMMENT section.
By Jacob Stockinger
Today’s post features a guest review of Madison Opera’s “Romeo and Juliet” by Larry Wells. Wells has been enjoying opera since he was a youngster. He subscribed to the San Francisco Opera for nearly 20 years, where he last saw “Romeo and Juliet,” sung by Alfredo Kraus and Ruth Ann Swenson.
More recently he lived in Tokyo and attended many memorable performances there over nearly 20 years. These included Richard Strauss rarities such as “Die Ägyptische Helena” and “Die Liebe der Danae” as well as the world’s strangest Ring Cycle by Richard Wagner and a space-age production of Puccini’s “Turandot,” featuring Alessandra Marc singing “In questa reggia” while encased in an inverted cone.
By Larry Wells
Last Sunday’s matinee performance of Charles Gounod’s “Romeo and Juliet” by Madison Opera at the Overture Center was a feast for the eyes. The costumes, sets, lighting and staging were consistently arresting. (Performance photos are by James Gill.)
But we go to the opera for music and drama.
The tragedy of Romeo and Juliet is well known. Gounod’s opera substitutes the tragedy with melodrama, and therein lies one of the work’s flaws. Despite sword fights, posturings and threats as well as one of opera’s lengthiest death scenes, one leaves the theater thinking that a vast amount of theatrical resources have been squandered on something insubstantial.
However, despite its dramatic flaws, the opera’s music has somehow endured. And Sunday’s performance milked the most out of the music that could have been expected.
The star of the show was the Madison Symphony Orchestra under the expert direction of Maestro John DeMain (below). He knows how to pace a performance, how to build an exciting climax and how to highlight a solo instrument.
He is an incredibly intelligent conductor, and we are fortunate to have him in Madison. I want to make special mention of the beautiful harp playing, which, according to the program, was accomplished by Jenny DeRoche.
The second star on the stage was the Madison Opera Chorus (below). The chorus plays a significant part in many of the opera’s scenes, and the singing was stirring when it needed to be and tender when it was called for.
As for the soloists, highest praise must go to UW-Madison alumna soprano Emily Birsan (below right) for her portrayal of Juliet. Her solo arias, particularly her big number in the first act as well as her subsequent lament, were stunning.
Her Romeo, tenor John Irvin (below left), sounded a little forced during his forte moments, but he sang magnificently in his quiet farewell to Juliet after their balcony scene. (You can hear the famous balcony scene, sung by Roberto Alagna and Angela Gheorghiu in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Their voices blended beautifully in the opera’s multiple duets. And the wedding quartet, where they were joined by Allisanne Apple’s nurse (below, rear right) and Liam Moran’s Friar Lawrence (below, middle center), was a highlight of the performance.
The opera abounds with minor characters, all of which were ably portrayed. Special mention should be made of Stephanie Lauricella (below, far right) for her fantastic moments as Romeo’s page; Madison’s Allisanne Apple for her amusing portrayal of Juliet’s nurse Gertrude; Sidney Outlaw (below, second from left) as a robust Mercutio; and Philip Skinner as a powerful Lord Capulet.
I have wondered why this opera is still performed. Its music is lovely but unmemorable, and its dramatic impact is tenuous.
I left the performance thinking that it had been a good afternoon at the theater – certainly more interesting than the Packers’ game – but wishing that one of a couple dozen more meaty operas had been performed in its place.
Since we are celebrating the 400th anniversary of the death of Shakespeare, how much more interesting would have been Benjamin Britten’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream”?
Tags: Alfredo Kraus, Angela Gheorghiu, aria, Arts, Characters in Romeo and Juliet, Charles Gounod, choral music, chorus, Classical music, conductor, costume, death, drama, Emily Birsan, friar, Grant Johnson, harp, Jacob Stockinger, John DeMain, Juliet, lighting, Madison, Madison Opera, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Maestro, melodrama, Music, nurse, opera, Orchestra, Overture Center, photo, Puccini, Requiem, Richard Strauss, Richard Wagner, Roberto Alagna, Romeo and Juliet, Ruth Anne Swenson, San Francisco, San Francisco Opera, set, Sidney Outlaw, soprano, staging, swordfight, tenor, The Ring, Tokyo, tragedy, Turandot, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Veterans Day, vocal music, War Requiem, William Shakespeare, Wisconsin, YouTube
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Classical music: Today is Labor Day. Opera San Jose brings classical music into the workplace – can we try that here? Plus, you can take a WQXR poll about what music is best to mark the holiday
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By Jacob Stockinger
Today is Labor Day (celebrated below by famed photographer Lewis Hine.).
The holiday probably won’t be celebrated in a big way by the blowhard billionaires and anti-union tycoons who run the government these days.
But workers can be and should be proud of what they do—despite the wealth gap, wage stagnation, unfair taxes, income inequality and a general lack of respect and support.
The Ear, however, has two offerings for the holiday.
The first is a story about how Opera San Jose is bringing classical music into the workplace of high technology companies like Adobe in Silicon Valley.
The opera company has started a program called “Arias in the Office” (below). And it sure sounds like a fine idea that other local groups – especially small chamber music groups – might try doing here in the Madison area.
Talk about taking music to the people if the people aren’t going to the music!
And let’s not forget that composing music, performing music and presenting music are all hard work too. So we should also celebrate the musicians, the administrative and box office staffs, the stagehands, the light and sound engineers, the sets and costume people, and all the others who toil behind the scenes for our pleasure.
The story was reported by NPR (National Public Radio) and can be found on the radio station’s website and Deceptive Cadence blog:
http://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2017/08/30/544164183/new-pop-up-series-treats-silicon-valley-workers-to-opera-at-the-office
The second is a listener poll, now three years old, done by the famed classical music radio station WQXR in New York City.
It is a survey of classical music that is appropriate for Labor Day and features three generous examples in YouTube videos — an opera by Giuseppe Verdi, a symphony by Franz Joseph Haydn and a film soundtrack by Virgil Thomson.
But it also has about two dozen other choices– including music by Handel, Schubert, Copland, Joan Tower, Robert Schumann, Gershwin, Shostakovich and others — for the public to select from, and a lot of comments from other respondents that you might want to check out.
Here is a link:
http://www.wqxr.org/story/poll-what-music-best-captures-spirit-labor-day/
Happy Labor Day!
And if you have another piece of music that you think is appropriate, let us know in the COMMENT section.
The Ear wants to hear.
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