To hear his pure baritone voice ring out, every word, every inflection rich with meaning and wisdom, was to comprehend the agonies of this proud, angry, sanctimonious father. This world-leading Lieder singer has always limited his operatic appearances. This list will be for those audiophiles and/or music lovers who want to 'get into Classical Music', but have found no other place to start. Unforgettable, above all, was Christian Gerhaher as Germont père. Supporting roles were well taken, the chorus and orchestra on buoyant form, the conductor, Antonello Manacorda, responsive to the sweep and detail of the score.
Her Alfredo, Liparit Avetisyan – the pair led the cast in the Royal Opera’s new-season Rigoletto – is a more impetuous performer, a little too much so at times, but he has the ringing top notes and the stage personality. In an intelligent and harrowing performance, she unleashed Violetta’s emotions slowly, from restraint and dignity to raw emotion. Excitement and rapturous cheers greeted Lisette Oropesa on Wednesday. Six different sopranos will sing the title role in two runs (the second in spring 2022). Bob Crowley’s sumptuous costumes and designs, rooted in the 1850s, when Traviata was written, still impress. Not in the case of Richard Eyre’s take on Verdi’s La traviata, new at the Royal Opera in 1994 and now back (revival director Pedro Ribeiro), as it has been every couple of years since. Although these other volumes added further reviews, the authors acknowledged that attempting to cover all releases was impossible, and they focused on what they regarded as the 'cream' of available recordings. Never think an adored old staging must have lost its mojo. From 2001 classical music DVDs were incorporated, initially as an appendix, but, from the 2006 edition, in the main body of the reviews. (In this context, an important new study of the life and death of the folk tradition is just out: Musics Lost and Found by Michael Church.) Hungarian tunes surge and dance through this last work, as you would expect from this collector of folk melody. The most substantial works in this mesmerising evening were Ravel’s Sonata for violin & cello and, as the finale, Kodály’s Duo, Op 7. The Argentine-born Gabetta is equally spirited and unconventional, like Kopachinskaja a dazzling virtuoso who approaches CPE Bach or Ligeti or Jörg Widmann with the freedom of jazz.
She examines the component parts of everything she plays and puts it all together in her own irrepressible way, always faithful to the original but not afraid to provoke. The Moldovan-Austrian Kopatchinskaja, renowned for her independent spirit, can do anything, technically, and does: from a breathy, almost inaudible whisper that makes her violin sound like a rustic flute, to the fat, clawing rasp she creates as she digs her bow into the bottom string, as if determined to saw through it.
0 kommentar(er)
