What Opera Are You Listening to Now?

[Tsaraslondon]

Resuming my trip through the Warner Puccini set.




The liner notes for this set (apparently written for the earlier version, since they are dated 2008) are by a man named Stephen Jay Taylor who is blatantly scornful of La Rondine.

How odd that they should use a note by someone who doesn't like the opera. I have the original 1997 release, where the notes are by Roger Parker, who likes the opera well enough.

[JBS]

How odd that they should use a note by someone who doesn't like the opera. I have the original 1997 release, where the notes are by Roger Parker, who likes the opera well enough.

The liner notes are for the set, so he gives every opera a few paragraphs along with scattered biographical information on Puccini himself. He didn't particularly care for Turandot either, nor for that matter Signora Puccini.

[Florestan]

Googling Steven Jay Taylor retrieved this:

https://groups.google.com/g/rec.music.opera/c/cMctYZFWc_U

He sounds as opinionated and arrogant as David Hurwitz. 

(Click on his OP to expand it.)

[JBS]

Googling Steven Jay Taylor retrieved this:

https://groups.google.com/g/rec.music.opera/c/cMctYZFWc_U

He sounds as opinionated and arrogant as David Hurwitz. 

(Click on his OP to expand it.)

In the liner notes he actually called La Rondine "a watery and insubstantial piece", and in talking about Turandot, he calls the Princess and Calaf "pasteboard monsters".

BTW, in my earlier post I said the liner notes were written for an "earlier version". I meant this. earlier version of the Warner set⏬

and not an earlier version of the opera or the recording. The Alagna/Gheorgiu recording is (I am pretty sure) of the first of the opera's three versions.

[Florestan]

In the liner notes he actually called La Rondine "a watery and insubstantial piece", and in talking about Turandot, he calls the Princess and Calaf "pasteboard monsters".

Well, he is perfectly entitled to his opinions. The question is why did Warner entrusted him with writing the booklet? It's like giving Tchaikovsky the task to write the booklet for Brahms' Complete Symphonies. 

[JBS]

Well, he is perfectly entitled to his opinions. The question is why did Warner entrusted him with writing the booklet? It's like giving Tchaikovsky the task to write the booklet for Brahms' Complete Symphonies. 

No, he's more normal about the rest of the operas. If anything, he's too enthusiastic about Fanciulla del West, which he calls "a groundbreaking masterpiece". It's just those two operas that get negative treatment.

[Florestan]

No, he's more normal about the rest of the operas. If anything, he's too enthusiastic about Fanciulla del West, which he calls "a groundbreaking masterpiece". It's just those two operas that get negative treatment.

At least they didn't ask Joseph Kerman to write Tosca's booklet. 

[ritter]

I got to know Respighi's Maria Egiziaca on LP decades ago, and remember having liked it, but haven't listened to it since. The opera was revived in the Teatro Malibran in Venice by the forces of La Fenice, and the performance of March 10, 2024 was recorded and released on DVD and BD by Dynamic.



The work, somewhere in between an opera and an oratorio, tells the story of Mary of Egypt, a prostitute from Alexandria who died a hermit in the year 421 in the Holy Land, after having repented. She is venerated as a saint by various Christian denominations.

Despite the excessively archaising text by Respighi's usual librettist Claudio Guastalla, the short work (a "tryptic" lasting some 70') is quite effective and rather beautiful. The music alternates between "ascetic simplicity" and its composer's trademark orchestral lushness (but is in general restrained and "backward looking"), and the vocal lines are always pleasant to the ear.

The performance is very successful. Pier Luigi Pizzi's simple but attractive staging is very effective, and all singers acquit themselves very well, both vocally and scenically. Soprano Francesca Dotto as Mary is superb, with the physique du rôle and a strong vocal impersonation. And the orchestra led, led by Manlio Benzi, acquits itself very well. Highly recommended to anyone interst in 20th century Italian opera.

This was infinitely superior to this other filmed opera I watched some days ago:



I knew this work from a live recording from the mid 50s with the soprano Anna de Cavalieri (the stage name in Italy of Anne McKnight). I've always thought of Alfano as a minor master who composed some interesting works, and had a fond memory of this Sakùntala. Alas, revisiting it now, it bored me to tears. The initial effect of the orientalist luxuriance of the orchestral backdrop wears thin after a short while, and actually becomes tiresome.

This very provincial looking and sounding 2016 performance from Catania intriguingly uses the reconstructed score from the early 1950s, as the original —La leggenda di Sakùntala— was thought lost when the archives of the publishing house Ricordi were partly destroyed in WW2. But the original 1921 version did reappear at the beginning of this century and was given at the Rome Ooera in 2006.

[Florestan]

The work, somewhere in between an opera and an oratorio, tells the story of Mary of Egypt, a prostitute from Alexandria who died a hermit in the year 421 in the Holy Land, after having repented. She is venerated as a saint by various Christian denominations.

The Orthodox Church celebrates her on April 1st.

[JBS]

The Orthodox Church celebrates her on April 1st.

Mary of Egypt is one of the four penitents who appear in the final scene of Faust (and thus Mahler 8 ),
along with the Samaritan Woman, the "Magna Peccatrix", and Gretchen.

[Florestan]

Mary of Egypt is one of the four penitents who appear in the final scene of Faust (and thus Mahler 8 ),
along with the Samaritan Woman, the "Magna Peccatrix", and Gretchen.

She might very well be the ur-Thais.

[André]

I got to know Respighi's Maria Egiziaca on LP decades ago, and remember having liked it, but haven't listened to it since. The opera was revived in the Teatro Malibran in Venice by the forces of La Fenice, and the performance of March 10, 2024 was recorded and released on DVD and BD by Dynamic.



The work, somewhere in between an opera and an oratorio, tells the story of Mary of Egypt, a prostitute from Alexandria who died a hermit in the year 421 in the Holy Land, after having repented. She is venerated as a saint by various Christian denominations.

Despite the excessively archaising text by Respighi's usual librettist Claudio Guastalla, the short work (a "tryptic" lasting some 70') is quite effective and rather beautiful. The music alternates between "ascetic simplicity" and its composer's trademark orchestral lushness (but is in general restrained and "backward looking"), and the vocal lines are always pleasant to the ear.

The performance is very successful. Pier Luigi Pizzi's simple but attractive staging is very effective, and all singers acquit themselves very well, both vocally and scenically. Soprano Francesca Dotto as Mary is superb, with the physique du rôle and a strong vocal impersonation. And the orchestra led, led by Manlio Benzi, acquits itself very well. Highly recommended to anyone interst in 20th century Italian opera.

This was infinitely superior to this other filmed opera I watched some days ago:



I knew this work from a live recording from the mid 50s with the soprano Anna de Cavalieri (the stage name in Italy of Anne McKnight). I've always thought of Alfano as a minor master who composed some interesting works, and had a fond memory of this Sakùntala. Alas, revisiting it now, it bored me to tears. The initial effect of the orientalist luxuriance of the orchestral backdrop wears thin after a short while, and actually becomes tiresome.

This very provincial looking and sounding 2016 performance from Catania intriguingly uses the reconstructed score from the early 1950s, as the original —La leggenda di Sakùntala— was thought lost when the archives of the publishing house Ricordi were partly destroyed in WW2. But the original 1921 version did reappear at the beginning of this century and was given at the Rome Ooera in 2006.

It's a beautiful work. I have it in Lamberto Gardelli's version. Well, he doesn't sing the Maria, Veronica Kincses does 🙃. An all-star hungarian cast. Track it down if it's available.

[Mapman]

Mozart: Die Zauberflöte
Böhm: Berliner Philhamoniker

Act 1 today. I don't think Fischer-Dieskau works as Papageno.

[Wendell_E]

In the liner notes he actually called La Rondine "a watery and insubstantial piece", and in talking about Turandot, he calls the Princess and Calaf "pasteboard monsters"....

No, he's more normal about the rest of the operas. If anything, he's too enthusiastic about Fanciulla del West, which he calls "a groundbreaking masterpiece". It's just those two operas that get negative treatment.

Sue me, but I think his points about all three operas are valid, and you don't get to see those liner notes until after you've bought the box. 

[Roasted Swan]

In the liner notes he actually called La Rondine "a watery and insubstantial piece", and in talking about Turandot, he calls the Princess and Calaf "pasteboard monsters".

BTW, in my earlier post I said the liner notes were written for an "earlier version". I meant this. earlier version of the Warner set⏬

and not an earlier version of the opera or the recording. The Alagna/Gheorgiu recording is (I am pretty sure) of the first of the opera's three versions.

I love La Rondine!  I guess he'd hate all operetta and anything "lacking seriousness"

[nico1616]

Mozart: Die Zauberflöte
Böhm: Berliner Philhamoniker

Act 1 today. I don't think Fischer-Dieskau works as Papageno.

Glad to see I'm not the only one who thinks Fischer-Dieskau is an acquired taste.

[Tsaraslondon]

Glad to see I'm not the only one who thinks Fischer-Dieskau is an acquired taste.

Well it's one that has been acquired by me, especially in Lieder, but I like him in (certain) operas just as much. I'm thinking of his Olivier in Capriccio, his Dutchman under Konwitschny, his Wotan in the Karajan Das Rheingold, and, yes, his Papageno, in which he gives Evelyn Lear a lesson in sustaining a pure legato line in Bei Männern. I don't much like him in Italian opera, though.

[ritter]

Well it's one that has been acquired by me, especially in Lieder, but I like him in (certain) operas just as much. I'm thinking of his Olivier in Capriccio, his Dutchman under Konwitschny, his Wotan in the Karajan Das Rheingold, and, yes, his Papageno, in which he gives Evelyn Lear a lesson in sustaining a pure legato line in Bei Männern. I don't much like him in Italian opera, though.

I've admired FiDi all my adult life... And some things in Italian opera are, at least, interesting (e.g. his Falstaff under Bernstein).

THREAD DUTY:

I bought Montserrat Caballé's classic recording of Rossini's Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra last year, but only now am giving it a spin.



What better music than this to accompany me while I cook a risotto with asparagus and sage, which I hope comes out finger-licking good. 

[Tsaraslondon]

I've admired FiDi all my adult life... And some things in Italian opera are, at least, interesting (e.g. his Falstaff under Bernstein).

THREAD DUTY:

I bought Montserrat Caballé's classic recording of Rossini's Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra last year, but only now am giving it a spin.



What better music than this to accompany me while I cook a risotto with asparagus and sage, which I hope comes out finger-licking good. 

It's an excellent set and lovely to see Valerie Masterson in a complete role. It's a million times better than the recent set on Naxos I reviewed recently for Musicweb International.

[Ganondorf]

No, he's more normal about the rest of the operas. If anything, he's too enthusiastic about Fanciulla del West, which he calls "a groundbreaking masterpiece". It's just those two operas that get negative treatment.

Fanciulla is in my opinion the greatest opera after Wagner's Ring cycle.