Volume 21 Issue 9 - Summer 2016

Concert Note: Eric Milnes conducts Bande
Montréal Baroque and a cast of rising young
singers in Bach Cantatas 76, 79 and 80 at the
Montreal Baroque Festival June 26.
Ferdinando Bertoni – Orfeo
Genaux; Lombardi-Mazzulli; Petryka;
Accademia di Santo Spirito de Ferrara;
Ensemble Lorenzo da Ponte; Roberto
Zarpellon
Fra Bernardo FB 1601729 (frabernardo.
com)
!!
Ferdinando
Bertoni’s Orfeo ed
Euridice was first
performed in 1776,
14 years after Gluck’s
opera on the same
subject. The two operas
use the same libretto
(by Calzabigi) and, in
both cases, the role of Orfeo was first sung
by the castrato Gaetano Guadagno. Bertoni
was clearly aware of the Gluck opera and
the two works have a great deal in common:
no more da capo arias and an increased
role for the orchestra and for the chorus. No
one is likely to prefer Bertoni’s work to that
of Gluck: it lacks the aggressiveness of the
Furies or the celestial calm of the Elysian
Fields or the pathos of Orfeo’s lament when
he loses Eurydice for the second time. The
English 18th-century musicologist Charles
Burney once wrote that Bertoni’s operas
“would please and soothe by their grace
and facility, but not disturb an audience by
enthusiastic turbulence.” The comment is a
little snarky and certainly very English but
not altogether unfair.
Casting a singer for a role created by a
castrato always involves problems. John Eliot
Gardiner has both performed and recorded
Gluck’s opera and has always used a countertenor
in the main part. He argues that casting
a female mezzo or alto constitutes a “deplorable”
distortion. But we don’t really know
what an 18th-century castrato sounded like
and we have no guarantee that a modern
countertenor comes closer than a female
singer. In this recording the part of Orfeo is
taken by the mezzo Vivica Genaux and she
is splendid.
It is probably true that Bertoni “never
had sufficient genius and fire to attain the
sublime” (Burney again) and that he was
not a major composer like Gluck. Still,
there is plenty to enjoy in this recording.
Recommended.
Hans de Groot
Schubert – Winterreise
Jesse Blumberg; Martin Katz
Blue Griffin Records BGR393
(bluegriffin.com)
!!
It is a rare occurrence
when the
accompanist in a
recording is more of
a household name
than the singer; at
the same time, it is
refreshing to see the
older, accomplished musician supporting a
younger generation of singers. Pianist Martin
Katz, who is well known for his performances
with Marilyn Horne, Frederica von Stade,
José Carreras, Kiri Te Kanawa and Kathleen
Battle, first performed Schubert’s poignant
song cycle Winterreise with Jesse Blumberg
at Chicago’s Collaborative Works Festival,
an annual celebration of art song, showcasing
up-and-coming singers. While the
young baritone clearly possesses the ability
to provide all the necessary dramatic aplomb,
Katz underscores the performance with all
the intelligent expressivity of a supremely
knowledgeable and seasoned veteran. And, at
the same time, both manage to present this
mixture of pathos and bluster whilst never
sacrificing the beauty of exquisite tone and
lyricism. The richness of this baritone voice
also has a lovely upper register realized in
Die Nebensonnen near the end of the song
cycle, finishing with the tender yet strangely
detached observation of the Hurdy-Gurdy
Man (Der Leiermann). A lovely and sensitive
rendition of a most complex and challenging
work.
Dianne Wells
Concert Note: Jesse Blumberg is one of four
young singers featured in Bach Cantatas 76,
79 and 80 at the Montreal Baroque Festival
June 26. Eric Milnes conducts Bande
Montréal Baroque.
Bizet – Carmen
Rice; Hymel; Argiris; Kovalevska; Royal
Opera House; Constantinos Carydis
Opus Arte OA 1197 D
Bizet – Les Pêcheurs de perles
Ciofi; Korchak; Solari; Tagliavini; Orchestra
e Coro del Teatro di San Carlo; Gabriele
Ferro
Cmajor 719508
!!
This release calls itself
a film, but in reality
it’s a DVD of Francesca
Zambello’s 2006 staging
that has seen better days
like Jonas Kaufmann
and Anna Caterina
Antonacci, big name
stars, but in another
video. There were
movies made of Carmen
very successfully in the past with beautiful
Seville as backdrop, real mountains, real bullfights,
but this is nothing of the sort. It is shot
in HD and even in 3D, obviously aimed at the
mass market, because “Carmen sells” even for
people who don’t know or care much about
opera. The score is cut heavily by leaving
out the “boring bits” like the intermezzos
between acts, some of Bizet’s most beautiful
music, making a rather short opera even
shorter. The staging is traditional, expertly
directed with unremarkable sets that leave
lots of empty space for big crowds. There
You can find enhanced reviews of all discs below the yellow line in The WholeNote listening room.
This recording is most extensive
reconstruction of cabaret acts
created by brilliant Jewish artists in
the Theresienstadt concentration
camp during WWII, for the first
time in English!
The new album by pianist, Florian
Hoefner, winner of the Montréal
Jazz Festival Rising Star Award
2015.
“A composer-bandleader of
insightful resolve.” (NY Times)
32 CDs of the Complete Works
of Bartók, including never before
recorded early piano and vocal
works
Deutsche Grammophon’s 64 CD
set completes its deluxe survey of
this legend. Presented in original
sleeves and couplings!
thewholenote.com June 1, 2016 - September 7, 2016 | 79