Vêpres

A quick-and-dirty report on this afternoon's Met Vêpres, which I heard in the house.

The opera is a cheery little five-acter about a terrorist insurgency against foreign occupiers. As Julian Budden observes, at the time of Vêpres' premiere, "the unification of Italy was still a burning question and Paris [was] full of exiled patriots." The specific Sicilian Vespers incident "is a historical myth though its context is true enough." Interesting how the dipsh*t regime of Napoléon III didn't seem to mind this spectacle of anti-French sedition, while in the United States c. 2004 failing to endorse bigotry is considered too controversial for our supposedly free media.

Not a word in the program about the Italian translation. Imagine if the Met were casually to offer, say, Le Vaisseau fantôme: People would scream bloody murder! (The expression springs irresistibly to mind after viewing Vêpres.) Given that Radvanovsky, Ramey, and Giordani (originally announced for Henri) recently sang Vêpres in French in Paris, the use of the wretched Italian text is inexcusable. I cannot fathom why a U.S. house would perform a work in something other than its original language or our local lingua franca, English.

Anyway, you should hop on over to trrill.com and download Sondra Radvanovsky's "Arrigo! ah, parli ad un core." In the second descending chromatic phrase, the first note (a B?) sounded squally in the house—I remember that Scotto could pull that note right out of the air, though it was needle-sharp. (In the great Kunst vs. Stimme debate, I almost always come down on the side of Kunst.) Still, what sumptuous vocalism from Radvanovsky. She has it all: a luscious, dark flame of a voice (I think the resinous quality is what reminds people of Callas); a real trill; a stunning command of dynamics; great-heartedness; and good looks and charisma aplenty. I wish that Radvanovsky's fioritura were more consistently tidy and her enunciation clearer, but I still would rate her singing as the most beautiful and accomplished I have heard in Verdi in a long while. Can't wait to see and hear her Roxane.

A few months ago I gave a hard time to some colleagues who insisted that Ramey had developed a wobble. The distinguished basso had sounded fine the last few times I had heard him (as Zaccaria in Nabucco), but this afternoon the wobble was sadly in evidence. Well, even if the voice no longer obeys him as in the past, Ramey remains a great stylist who knows how to shape Verdian cantilena like few others. Ditto for the sixty-something Leo Nucci, who was never about beauty of timbre, but who digs into the accento and meaning of words to transform that unremarkable sound into eloquent and gripping singing.

Francisco Casanova had some strong moments (the recitative leading into "Giorno di pianto"), though he often sounded pinched, and his acting consisted of standing around staring into space with his hands in his pockets. I thought that Frédéric Chaslin's conducting was miserable. Again, check out Radvanovsky's "Arrigo!": It may be that *she* is dawdling, but it's up to *him* to maintain the pulse and sense of forward motion that are the sine qua non of Verdi style. When Riccardo Muti conducts the Vêpres overture, it is taut and edgy, with a sense of mayhem about to explode; with Chaslin at the helm, it's just so much rum-te-tum.

Count me as one of the loonies who *worship* Josef Svoboda's set designs, though the Met production as currently staged is brain-dead. I'm not sure how a director could make sense of this unwieldy opera: maybe an ottocento-style staging, with painted flats and very emphatic, oratorio-style delivery; maybe a Risorgimento-era setting; maybe an epic political treatment, à la Bertolucci's "Novecento."

In coming weeks, I'll try to post an MP3 of Heinrich Schlusnus and Helge Rosvaenge in the big Act III duet—auf Deutsch, natürlich!

Comments

[alan]

haha! the comments are almost as good as the respective blogs!

and yes that radvanovsky dame does remind me of callas, if not quite so imperious.

[Mme. Grisi Pasta]

Brilliant. And all this time I thought the ed/ad thing was a requisite, not an option. I guess euphony is as subjective as any other qualitative assessment. For me, "ad" simply sounds old and blocky, probably because it's a hold-over from Latin. I find them both easy to sing, but the "ad" version seems to take on a little combination of Julio Iglesias and Franco Corelli--a lispy, Spanish [dh]. It's probably because my voice just wants to move on to the next vowel; it's marginally easier to shift the throat from ah to oo without a consonant in the middle.

OMG. Can I, like, shut up now?

[vilaine fille]

Chre Madame, mille mercis for your kind words. Your preference re: Trrill (cap, no ".com") is noted and will be respected henceforth. Regarding the aria title, "ad," "od," "ed," etc. are used before a vowel or vowel sound for reasons of euphony. As far as I know, they're always optionaland increasingly in disuse in these tristi giorni of no respect for euphony. (You will sympathize, I'm sure.) As a singer, you can better judge their usefulness in this particular context: Is it easier to use the "d" to launch "un," or to meld the "a" and "u" sounds? The answer, I think, will vary from artist to artist. Bonne journe vous!

[Mme. Grisi Pasta]

Oooh! Tidbit of trivia-cum-query:

Your titling of the aria ["Arrigo! ah! parli ad un core"] makes much more sense, grammatically, but I only find it spelled that way on one recording on Amazon, and that's the Callas Rarities disc. All the other recordings and libretti list the aria as "Arrigo! ah! parli a un core."

I can't figure out why this is. Have any ideas?

[Mme. Grisi Pasta]

Since we're the only ones posting opera mp3s in the bløgösphère, I'm sure we'll be referring to each other quite frequently. I guess I should let you know it's ok just to call us Trrill--capital, sans .com! And while I'm letting you know things, may I be allowed to express my sincere devotion au Temple Vilain?

P.S. I've now posted the bolero, for our listeners' horror, in addition to "Arrigo."