What would you say if you were the director of the Opéra de Paris and a composer, a good one, showed up and told you “You know what? I want to compose an opera with the same libretto Bizet used for Carmen”? This is more of less what Gluck did when he made known that he was using the same libretto Philippe Quinault wrote for Lully roughly 100 years before. Lully’s Armide was considered the model for tragédie lyrique, a revered masterpiece widely admired in Paris. Yet Gluck was confident he could establish his own milestones: his Armide was premièred in 1777 amidst accusations of sacrilege, and if it never became a truly popular opera, it has never sunk into oblivion. I have to say that it is probably my favourite work by Gluck and probably the best opera about this sorceress in Torquato Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata. Its most famous scene – Enfin il est en ma puissance – comes at the end of act 2. The same scene as composed by Lully was considered by no one other than Rousseau as the most perfect example of the art of recitative in French, and I am sure Gluck made sure his own take would stand the comparison. His Enfin il est en ma puissance anticipates Musikdrama in its powerful declamation, flexible use of melodic structure and the way the orchestra sounds like a character in the plot.
Marc Minkowski’s CDs were not my first encounter with Gluck’s Armide, but they remain my version of choice, not only for Minkowski’s alert conducting and the Musiciens du Louvre’s rich, multicoloured playing, but also because of Mireille Delunsch’s singing in the title role. Delunsch is not a singer one immediately falls in love with. The first time I heard her – singing Enfin il est en ma puissance – I thought she was a Mozart soprano and even imagined she would be an excellent Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro. As far as I know, her only official Mozart opera recording is Daniel Harding’s DVDs of Don Giovanni from Aix-en-Provence, in which she has the role of Donna Elvira. Her acting skills were usually praised by critics and her repertoire was frankly eclectic – Rameau’s Platée, Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea, Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, J. Strauss’s Die Fledermaus (as Rosalinde), R. Strauss’s Arabella, Verdi’s La Traviata, Wagner’s Lohengrin… She was naughty about what she could do with her voice and one could feel its texture coming apart at some point. When she sang the title role in Charpentier’s Louise at the Opéra, many critics complained that the voice lacked glamor. I’ve seen the telecast and, yes, she does not wow you at any particular point, but in the long run she was always musically and dramatically quite to the point. I have asked a friend who had seen her sing in Paris how her voice really was. His answer was, “it is a strange voice, it does not flatter the ears, it is a bit ‘green'”.
Well, the character Armide is not exactly someone seeking to please – and the greenness in Mireille Delunsch’s soprano suits it to perfection. It is a voice that can seem beautiful when it needs to be, and also quite chilly and impersonal when necessary too. And you can hear all that in Enfin il est en ma puissance. Moreover – and I love to use that phrase – she knows how to handle her verses like daggers. Every vowel and consonant in Quinault’s text finds here its dramatic purposes. It is a lesson of declamation in the French language, and I am sure Gluck would have approved what she does here. This is a scene with many contrasting moods – almost Wagnerian in its constant shifts of feelings and motivations – and it requires a protean approach to phrasing. Minkowski would conduct the work again in Vienna with an aptly cast Gaëlle Arquez, whose fruity tone and phraseological finesse easily brings to life a seductress. And yet I missed Delunsch’s Swiss-watch precision. She deals with the text and the music as a tennis player; Quinault and Gluck can throw her fast, difficult balls – she hits them all.
The scene we are hearing is almost a fixture of French tragedy – a powerful woman supposed to get revenge on a rival falls in love the moment she sees him for the first time. It never ends well, of course – but the verses are always exquisite. So here we are – the Christian warrior Renaud has fallen asleep and lies defenceless before the sorceress Armide, ready to stab him with a knife. The music begins in dramatic mood, composed in the agitated affetto depicted by the rhythm of horse riding, emotions are unleashed. At first Armide tries to play down the importance of the moment. Delunsch resists the temptation of making a grand entrance and starts with an almost matter-of-fact tonal quality, we notice a note of scorn in the tonic syllable of the word superbe when she says ce superbe vainqueur (“this proud victor”). Her hatred swells gradually up, particularly by the way she pronounces the letter p in the word percer in Je vais percer son invencible coeur (I will pierce his invincible heart). The way the sound explodes in that “p” is just fabulous. I have tried to do it just like her when I sing along, but it is harder than it seems. If you use too much energy in the consonant, the vowel “e” is swallowed in the process. If you don’t use enough, the effect is lost. I invite you all to try it at home – it’s fun even when it doesn’t work at all! From this point on, Armide lets herself go, and Delunsch spits her consonants formidably (and you can understand every word she sings). But then the lady doth protest too much. One feels the hesitation in the music. The singer must balance Armide’s attempts to regain confidence when she says Frappons! (Let me strike!), Achevons! (I must finish this), Vengeons-nous! (Let us get revenge!) with her evident change of heart in Je frémis (I tremble), Je soupire (I sigh). Delunsch’s “green” tone is the opposite of the unfathomable depths of a Jessye Norman – but the energy with which she tries to convince herself is conveyed by sheer intensity of declamation. Her increasing interest in Renaud can be heard in the slight tremor in her tone, the sound is more relaxed when she says Ma colère s’éteint quand j’approche de lui. And here is the end of the recitative.
The aria – Ah, quelle cruauté de lui ravir le jour! (Ah, how cruel it would be to rob him of his life!) – is a different emotional landscape. The hesitating accompanying orchestral figures gradually transform into gentle chords, Delunsch’s voice sounds at its purest-toned, she phrases with absolute classical poise and the way she floats the word amour (love) tells you everything you need to hear to understand what is going on. Here again she balances the conflict in Armide’s heart with a brighter, more piercing tone (which is duty) and a softer, warmer sound (which is love) inside the same phrase sometimes, such as Ne puis-je me venger à moins qu’il ne périsse? (Can’t I get revenge without having him killed?). I particularly like the way she sings Que, s’il se peut, je le haïsse. (If possible, that I may hate him). By the way the sound evolves in the first peut, one can hear there she knows that now it is just impossible to hate him. And it is wonderful that Gluck has the singer repeat the text in a quieter and lower register. She can no longer delude herself. And this is when we go to the second aria, Venez, secondez mes désirs (Come, obey my wishes).
When Armide shows up to kill Renaud, she is surrounded by demons (as we can hear in the orchestral sound in the recitative), but now everything has changed, she can’t deny it anymore. She asks the demons to transform themselves in kind zephyrs and flow them away to the ends of the universe! Gluck shows this transformation in the orchestra, graced with woodwinds and gentle melodies, the flutter of wings, the sweet breeze up among white clouds – and at the same time this is no paradise of chaste feelings, Armide’s singing gradually shows anxiety, she needs to fulfil her desires as fast as possible, she cannot contain herself anymore. Delunsch sings it again with classical poise, but the edge is there in her voice, the “greenness” standing for a certain rawness, the metallic quality radiates the building tension. Again, this is not an exuberant, variegated voice – it is just used with mathematical precision, as music of the Classical era requires, to portray conflicting feelings through the delivery of the text. A richer colour in her soprano would have ruined the perfect balance between text and music. This is the work of a tragédienne enhanced by the subtle technique of the singer. And this is why this is a special recording.
Youtube has the scene exactly as in Deutsche Grammophon’s recording split in three tracks. I have tried to embed a version in which one track is supposed to flow into the next one, but just in case, I’ll have the three of them posted to this page.
Armide would be the opera that I am most puzzled by the lack of standing it has in the standard rep, even by Gluck and Baroque music standards. It is an absolutely intoxicating and evocative score and really doesn’t suffer from the longueurs in any impactful way. It has great music for the two leads, Armide herself is depicted so wonderfully in musical dramatic terms, and some of the smaller roles really can stand out. And it is IMO inherently theatrical even if there isn’t a lot of “action” as such. I’ve seen it twice in very different approaches and I’ve loved it each time.
Part of me wishes Delunsch would be a tad more imaginative (in an earlier recording, Felicity Lott is not at ease but gets impressively far through musicianship and characterization) but she is mightily impressive. She almost exclusively did her best work with Minkowksi. His conducting and orchestra are what make this performance as wonderful as it is. And Podles is insane.
Hello, Peter! I agree with you – it is a mystery to me why it is not staged more often. Even if the action is not animated as you point out, it gives plenty of opportunity for stage and costume designers and a director could do a great deal with it if the two leads are good actors.
I know Felicity Palmer’s recording, which was my first Armide. She is a singer who makes the best of her resources even when things are a bit hard for her. My point about Delunsch is that the balance with tragédie lyrique is a little tilted towards the text, and this has pervaded a bit of the French vocal school probably until WWII. When we hear pre-war recordings, even the mezzos and baritones sound a bit bleached out compared to Italian or German singers, but their vowels are always perfectly clear. The role of Armide, of course, offers opportunity for 19th century-ish grand vocal interpretations (and I am not against it – we are reviving these works and we can add a splash of our times in them), but I appreciate the fact that Delunsch was able to produce a “grand” _18th century_ interpretation here, in which words are not a trampoline to create an impression, but rather words themselves are supposed to create the impression, vocal interpretation as a magnified intonation of speech. The whole genre was a stand against the triumph of song found in Italian opera, in which – definitely – an interpretation as heard here would sound a tad pale indeed.
But in any case, you can do no wrong with Minkowski in this repertoire. Moreover, he knows voices, knows how to guide singers, as we hear here (and elsewhere).
No real arguments about Delunsch here, I do think it’s a very impressive performance. I would recommend seeking out the Gauvin broadcast with Bolton. It’s something like career best work from her. And I saw Antonacci hypnotize the Scala audience in the role.
Wish Gens had had a go at it.
I did find a bit of Gauvin’s Armide on Youtube and I agree she is plugged in as she only rarely is. I have seen a bit of Antonacci on Youtube too – I find her compelling, but verbally a bit all-over-the-place. Gens did record Enfin il est en ma puissance (both Lully’s and Gluck’s) in her CD Tragédiennes. Arquez/Minkowski is also a very interesting performace on video, only highlights of it available on Youtube.
I saw Antonacci in the 1999 revival, when she was beginning to enter the newer phase of her career. I’ve only heard the broadcast for the premiere where I like her but she’s less confident and was mostly new to French rep. I think circa 1996 was when she was generally in a mezzo mode trying to work some things out (she has said this). In 1999 she was more plugged in, the role was better worked into her voice, and she had gained the suavity that would help her in French rep more thoroughly and had a better handle on her unruly voice.
I generally am in the bag for Antonacci. I get the reservations about her voice but I usually think what she has to offer really overcomes (or overcame for a time) the physiological flaws of her voice. Like Waltraud Meier in her best years I thought Antonacci somewhat took a flawed and not exactly beautiful or even “special” sound and make it a weirdly seductive fibrous thing that compelled attention. And her textual acuity can be remarkable and varied.
I’m surprised to find that you too would quote Antonacci and Meier in the same sentence, for I have always said that they both fall into a “weird, sexy voice” category. I like Antonacci – it is an unruly voice, as you said, but she mostly knew what to do with it. I’ve seen her in some of her most famous role – Carmen and Cassandre – and an Alice Ford (she was really fine in it). I regret I have missed her Vitellia – in the broadcast, she has the perfect sound for the role. I usually look for everything she does – she has a unique take on things and her “textual acuity” never goes close to mannerisms etc. It’s quite spontaneous and convincing.
I have an incredible soft spot for the very early Fiordiligi. There are some evident issues and dulcet tones are not really possibly in the upper third of her voice. But the strength of the lower register, the excellent coloratura, and the color of the sound, so unlike anyone else in the role make for a cumulatively impactful performance with a personal fav Per Pieta.
Me too, I like that Fiordiligi (probably more than the Dorabella she would sing for Abbado some years after that). I’ve just checked what I’ve written about her in the comparative discography: “here is a pleasantly bitter aftertaste to the sweetness, a fierce temper made smooth by discipline – the very sound of this voice tells you everything you need to know about Fiordiligi”.
Also like Meier, she excels specifically in her native tongue and French (Meier’s tone is not ideal for French rep but I actually think prior to the late 1990s she was actually fairly effective and stylish in that rep) and the two of them somehow figured out what to do with voices are some pretty notable limitations and make what came out of their mouths always sound “right” in the moment. In different interviews both of them have said that while they started young, they didn’t start out as super trained musicians and neither was singled out as having a particularly unique or special endowment. So the way in which they managed to will themselves into their artistry and stretch themselves at the same time is something I admire. In a very different way Mattila was similar, she just actually did have an amazing sound.
Meier’s Dalila sometimes sounds rather astringent, but if you give her 10 minutes, she’ll sell it to you. And nobody sings “Lâche, coeur sans amour, je te meprise!” as she does. It’s WONDERFUL.
I might be guessing wildly here, but I can put a finger on what’s wrong with Meier’s technique – you just have to look at her stretching her neck forwards for every high note to understand what’s wrong there. It’s really amazing that she was able to sing all that she has sung for so long like that. With Antonacci, it’s a bit different – a woman who sang an impossibly difficult aria such as Il capro e la capretta (from Le Nozze di Figaro) as well as she did can’t say she was poorly trained. As a soprano, the high notes were there, all of them tense and a bit fixed and maybe she was a mezzo (with high notes) since the beginning. I’ve often heard that once you’ve already learned your roles and sung them first as a mezzo (or a soprano), it is very difficult to recreate yourself later as a soprano (or a a mezzo, if you were a soprano before). Maybe that was the problem with Antonacci, I can’t really say.
The case with Mattila – yes, amazing voice, amazing singer – is IMHO closer to Meier’s – at least for me, I can see what she was doing wrongly. It worked for her when she was young and in lighter repertoire, but later it was hit or miss. I’ve always enjoyed seeing her, but Salome got me in the edge of my seat for the wrong reasons 🙂 Anyway, love her 😉
I will say this: While I do see what you are saying I personally loved Mattila’s Salome, even in 2008 (saw multiple performances because I’m an obsessive and there was one night she was incredible). However her 2004 run at the met was truly astonishing. She was at her limits but in prime voice and in was both overwhelming in it’s intensity but also so complete as a characterization it was mind boggling. It ranks as of the finest acted AND sung performances of the role I’ve ever seen in any medium. It was like an old school event, the audience went insane.
The thing with Mattila is that circa 1995 she entered into about a decade long stretch where her appearances were THE highlights on any season and seemed to suddenly grow as an artist to a degree that was remarkable. She was rarely less than incredible. NO ONE would have guessed based off her very uneven and IMO kind of dull mozart performances that she would become what she became. Similarly to the other two everything in the moment always seemed “right” even if when listening through a recording the issues were evident. But as Elsa, Lisa, Jenufa, Fidelio, Kata, Arabella, and Salome I thought at her best she legitimately qualified as being ranked with the very best. And she still can whip it out even now. The second ROH Ariadne was incredible and I saw her first Ortrud before the lockdown and it was very impressive.
I can’t speak to Meier’s technique. There are obviously things she could never figure out how to do. But she must have known how to use her voice if she managed to keep it up for as long as she did (IMO she was up to most up until the 2010s). So I’m not really prepared to say she’s a bad technician exactly. Someone like Modl really did hurl her voice around and Meier didn’t do that. Which is why I classified her alongside Antonacci and Mattila. They obviously have very different ways of handling there sounds but they just struck me as singers who tailored their rep very specifically towards the particular gifts and managed to make one (in the moment) ignore the obvious physiological flaws that never quite went away. And I think they are three of the very greatest performers, akin to those “great spirits”, more modern in terms of acting but also on a scale that really goes back.
FYI I think Mattila was a large lyric bordering on spinto with a problematic top and so while I thought she was sensational as Fidelio and Salome, she didn’t actually have the capitol to really sing the dramatic rep full time. But for a time it was great.
Hi, Peter! I agree that Mattila goes to the “big lyric” drawer. I don’t think she has done any reckless choice in her career – all her roles (Sieglinde, Leonore, Elsa, Manon Lescaut…) have been sung by sopranos just like her. I am sorry she never (as far as I knows) tried to sing the Marschallin. In any case, I don’t think she lacked the high notes for these roles – I just think her approach to these notes did not help her in heavier repertoire. But IMHO that’s not nature’s fault.
FYI opera news literally just published a little right up of Crespin, probably their best one so far. There was a fascinating interview from the 1990s that doesn’t seem to be on their bizarre archives anymore.
I think Mattila needed more control to sing the Marschallin. At her best, she’s ideal for Strauss but the role she picked made sense to me because it’s at lower dynamics and parlando that voice can seemed hoarse and on the flat side.
Thanks, Peter! I have just read the article on Opera News with pleasure. I am not sure that I agree with the author’s opinion about Crespin’s Sieglinde in the Solti recording. He has a point when he finds the live performances more compelling, but I wouldn’t say that she “was primarily concerned about the heroics” in the studio recording. And I love to hear her next to James King’s Siegmund.
As for Mattila, yes, you’re right – she would probably “lapse” into her Mozart approach as the Marschallin, but I find she would have done a womanly Marschallin and – we can’t forget – Strauss helps the soprano a lot with very light orchestration in most of her scenes. Now back to roles she has indeed sung, it is a pity that the Abbado Elektra is not officially released. I only have it in very poor sound – but I have seen it on TV ages ago and it would be great to see/hear it again in decent sound.
Yeah I think of the Solti Ring in general is almost underrated at this point. I do think almost everyone can be heard in more interesting surroundings elsewhere but Crespin I think comes closer than most in the case of given the most “complete” characterization and she’s certainly in prime voice. The sound of the live one really does capture her sound spectacularly well.
I saw Mattila’s Chrysothemis, first at the ROH with Polaski and Palmer conducted by Thielemann. Like a lot of her roles it wasn’t an “ideal” role for her, but in 1997 she was in her absolute prime and the sound was so perfect for the part that I don’t think anyone noticed. And she was overwhelming and, similar to what Rysanek went for (variably IMO but she does kind of deserve credit for this) in that she really asserted that the character was very much a co-lead not to be dwarfed by the other two roles. It was extremely intense but very palatably human. She was riveting at the met with Polaksi, but the upper third was beginning to the get that tangy rawness and frayed edge, which IMO was exciting at the time but probably was the harbinger for what would come after 2004, and this made the role less easy for her in a house the size of the met and people were very much used to Voigt in NYC. Not a Voigt person but objectively the demands of Chrysothemis basically might have been written for Voigt in her prime.
In my opinion, Chrysothemis is Rysanek’s best role – it seats right in her money notes. One never has the impression the role is impossibly high when she sang it. That is more or less the case with Voight (that said, I still prefer Rysanek in it for many reasons). As for Mattila, yes, you just have to look at her while she sings in order to realize that she changed her emission mid-phrase to get to high notes. Then you would see her also pushing, muscling her way through the note (which turned out unfocused and quite opaque). In her good days – when her vocal folds did not resent the effort yet – there was an important trade-off: she never sounded pinched, metallic, shrill etc in her high register. In studio recordings, the sound came across rather warm and sensuous. Live – especially in a big theatre, as you have just explained – things could get pale. In the Abbado Elektra, she sounded feminine and passionate and contrasted well with Polaski.
I want to make an observation about her Mozart – I really like her Countess in Zubin Mehta’s recording. For me, it is the only studio recording that captured rightly her Mozartian credentials.
I think her voice is very beautiful there, it’s clearly more healthy and recognizable as her post Chrysothemis prime voice. And it’s much better sung than either the Elvira or the Fiordiligi. I saw her sing all three roles in the 1980s and oddly enough, the Countess was the one that was really poor. It was in 1987 or so at the ROH and she just seemed overwhelmed and visibly knew she was not sounding too hot. The Fiordiligi earlier had actually been quite impressive, if a bit stiff and while I NEED consonants for my Elvira’s, she seemed to have gained in confidence when she did the role in Vienna and for her Met Debut. But she clearly needed to be in extremes temperamentally and artistically because, like I said, beginning with the Lisa in 1995 it was like a different woman entirely. I saw both her Donna Anna and Fiordiligi in the late 90s at Salzburg and she was basically terrific in both (although she very famously lambasted both productions and clearly was not happy onstage) with lots of beautiful singing and surprisingly agile passagework AND a trill. Still she never quite got the repose in her production that would have made her an ideal mozart singer otherwise and even in those two Salzburg runs, that tension and slightly lumbering quality was more apparent than in other composers. She’s unique, she got a lot of mileage of her gifts and I don’t know ultimately that she’s any more flawed than the average singer. But I will say again, from about 1995-2008 I just thought she remarkable.
While Chrysothemis was obviously ideal for Rysanek, of her “major” roles it its one of the roles I cannot seem to stand when I’m just listening to her. By the time she started doing it with Nilsson. Her approach had calcified and I found her hysteria and flailing seemed way overdone when set against Nilsson. And while the role suited her in so many ways, I find all the live recording of her in role from 1965 on to be so approximate and liberal with the music (Bohm is complicit in this, I have contrarian thoughts on his work with Rysanek) that the role just kind of becomes a mess of hysteria. She just seems to be writing her own script. Live in person I cheered with the rest of them and was thrilled, but it was one where even live I thought the returns diminished early. That’s very convoluted so I apologize but that was a role I weirdly couldn’t feel the love for. In truth she really did help re-establish it as one of the major players in the opera and could do the climaxes like no one else. But in person, though her charisma carried her through, I thought she overwhelmed the role and opera in an alienating way and kind of “did her thing”. I actually did prefer Mattila in the part. And Studer for the month or so she was a great singer was stretched but came closest along with Mattila in having the exact sound I wanted for the role whatever else they were lacking.
Hi, Peter! I see you have an enviable “portfolio” of Mattila performances. I have the Salzburg Don Giovanni in very poor sound and I wish there were something more “professional” out there so that I could hear it properly. Mattila did surprise me in terms of flexibility, but in my sources the voice lacks a bit color.
I see your point about Rysanek’s Chrysothemis – if I had to say something without thinking, you’re right, it’s a bit overdone, but vocally it’s very rich and full-toned. I have never stopped to think about Böhm/Rysanek, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he let her be and do her thing. They had a long history of working together and one tends to indulge old collaborators. I have never thought of Mattila as over-the-top, she is an exciting performance, but I always see nuance in what she does. As for Studer – a month or so hahaha, that’s a bit mean – the sound was more immediately “Viennese” and the tone closer to what one has in mind when one thinks in “jugendlich dramatisch” roles. She had also a “Viennese” bad habit of being above true pitch as an “expressive” tool and that could be bothersome sometimes. I am not crazy about her in the Sawallisch recording, though. For me, her memorable contribution to recorded opera remains Sawallisch’s studio FroSch, in which she is ideal as the Kaiserin.
Haha I mean I did really love Studer for a time but that career just went wrong in so many different directions. So I cherish the good performances even more so, but the size of her discography unfortunately means its beyond variable and her decline is linearly documented. I love the Chrysothemis on DVD with Abbado, not the CD (which I do like) and in person she was exciting.
I think most agree with you the Empress is not only her best role but that she really does rank as one of the very best. In terms of vocal beauty and accuracy she might be THE best. Rysanek in this role needs to be set aside since you’re dealing with something else entirely. But I thought Studer was sensational in this role this role over a number of years. She also was one of those non-charismatic performers who could, in certain roles, win you over by her basic empathy and earnestness. In the Solti video she struggles with the spoken climax but then has this beautiful bit where she sees her own shadow and watches it as she moves around and her sincerity somehow makes her very moving. Basically I think she had the potential to be legitimately great but her career tract just precluded that and sadly a lot of that was documented.
Well, the Melodram in the last act of FroSch is not easy for everyone. I frankly wish Strauss had composed it through. I agree that Studer made a lot of poor career decisions, mostly around the marketing strategy involving her being an “absolute” soprano. That said, I wouldn’t call her a footnote in the history of opera. She left some key recordings that outnumber those of singers wiser in their choices but less remarkable in general. I find all her Bayreuth recordings noteworthy, and her Elsa in the Abbado Lohengrin beautifully sung. Reviewers weren’t excited about her in the Sinopoli Tannhäuser, but I’ve always liked it anyway. The light, lyric Sieglinde for Haitink too is – if not a reference – very enjoyable. There is the Sawallisch FroSch, of course – and the Chrysothemis. I really enjoy her Schubert recital on DG – and I am afraid I like that studio Semiramide with Larmore and Ramey. I was very disappointed with the Vier letzte Lieder (not only the studio with Sinopoli). There are some interesting broadcasts floating here and there too.
Yes I love Die Frau but I’m not one of those people who get enraged when it’s cut (I mean certain conductors went insane with cuts but on principle I don’t mind).
I think Studer’s best stuff are live and video recordings. I don’t love the Sinopoli Elisabeth as recorded (not because of her, and it’s a solid recording, but it’s very studio bound and there’s odd sound reverb that makes her seem more brittle than she was in person at that time) but the Bayreuth DVD which is otherwise worthless is IMO the best Elisabeth on DVD. And I think she’s an even better Elsa on a similarly mediocre Bayreuth DVD. On CD her Salome caused something of a sensation when it was released. I think ultimately it’s more of an impressive feat than a true statement on the role but on those terms, and in terms of musical accuracy, it’s certainly something worth hearing. The role that I remember being blown away by was Elettra, both at Salzburg and the met. The Salzburg broadcast is on YouTube and is tremendously exciting. And I agree, she was an excellent recitalist even fairly late. Her Carnegie hall recital circa 1994 was excellent. I haven’t heard the Vier Letze Lieder recording but I saw her do it a couple of times, never very well I’m afraid and the last time at Carnegie Hall was unfortunately one of those very public bad nights for her.
The Semiramide is neither here nor there for me. The Sutherland recording has really poorly chosen cuts, bad singing from the men, and I’d argue that Sutherland can be heard in the role to better affect in several live performances. So in many crucial ways the Studer recording is superior and it has a reputation as a party tape that doesn’t hold up. But I can’t say her work impresses me beyond offering a decent alternative to Sutherland. But frankly at the time of that recording there were MANY alternative under recorded women who sang the role and who were far more deserving to have it documented that Studer. Which I guess isn’t here fault exactly, but the feeling that she was being forced down our throats by a record company sadly has a basis in reality and while that performance isn’t bad I think it does qualify as an example of that.
There are cuts and cuts. To be honest, I believe FroSch’s 3rd act is below the level of the other two acts. If the soprano can really do something of the Melodram, then it’s worth keeping it. Otherwise one just feels sorry for a singer with an impossible task. I am not crazy about Schwanewilms’s Kaiserin but she really managed to do something of it in Salzburg.
As for Studer, I’ve actually only seen her live once – as Elisabeth – and she confirmed my impression of her recording of the role (she was already a bit past her prime, but still it was a very good performance). I tend to agree about your assessment of her live/videos. The microphones tended to exaggerate the metal in her voice (which had a little bit more warmth live) and also a certain instability in her high notes when she sang piano. I know the Elettra from recordings. I find exciting if a bit over the top, but a friend of mine who saw it in Salzburg said she looked really scary with the axe in her hands while singing D’Oreste, d’Ajace.
As for the Salome, she did have a clear advantage – the piercing silvery tone that help a singer survive the uncomfortable tessitura against a big orchestra. In terms of interpretation, I find it quite on the mark and in keeping with what Strauss expected from a singer in the role, but the strain, even in studio, is there. Anyway, I’m glad she recorded it.
The Semiramide. I would never claim it is a reference, but I like her there for all the wrong reasons 🙂 I understand Studer was a bit too ubiquitous in studio recordings back then, but I don’t think Abbado, Muti, Sawallisch, Sinopoli were forced to work with her, but rather were appreciative of her work and found In her a distinctive voice and someone who enjoyed taking risks. In the case of the Semiramide, it was an unusual performance I would gladly take over more “authentic” yet lackadaisical ones. But I won’t defend it – I just find it fun.
And no problem we’re not talking about Armide! Always a pleasure to chat! 😉
Well at the met, the Ponnelle production encourages “over the top” and Studer was game but didn’t really have the intensity to sell it as something other than nutty (the way Vaness could when she was younger). The Salzburg was a new production, a decent one that was comparatively much more sober and a conception designed to accommodate her. There she began at a more vulnerable nervier state that matched her timbre and managed to work herself up into a very impressive state of fury at the conclusion that was scarier than any other Elettra I’ve seen, nearly all of whom were better known for their acting than Studer was. The timbre of her voice and basic fragility really lent a very logical and complete characterization in sound and manner. You actually saw this very tense young lady trying to keep her darker problems and worst impulses at. It was straightforward but you actually felt both scared and sad for her. But really the story was her singing, which was IMO pretty staggering.
All the Semiramide recordings are lacking something so it’s kind of hard to really settle on “best one”. They all have very individual strengths and weaknesses and depend on your allegiances to certain performers and what you’re specifically looking for when listening. I’ve honestly never seen an “ideal” performance of it (I did see Sutherland and Horne and it was a feast but again not really a performance of the opera as such) so I have no real hardcore affection or active dislike of any of the recordings.
My appreciation for the Semiramide has to do with Studer building something close to a three dimensional character, while almost everybody else goes for just bossy. The way she does it is more German than Italian, but it’s fun nonetheless. Sutherland, of course was more than equipped for it, but it’s dull and the studio recording was past her prime. I still have to hear the two last official recordings, but otherwise, as you say, they rarely hit the mark. It’s a complex work, it’s understandable
Don’t agree Sutherland was past her prime, or at least in person she wasn’t. She’s droopy sounding, not at her best, and uninvolved. And perhaps microphones after a certain point picked up the grogginess a bit more than was ideal. But 1966 was hardly late for Joan Sutherland and there some good recordings later than the Semiramide. I saw her sing it in 1971 and purely as a vocal feat she was astounding (broadcast exists). People who are searching for different things have different mileages and my indifference to bel canto generally means I never quite worshipped at the Sutherland alter. But as with most greats from that era, recordings are not even close to the full story when it comes to Sutherland. Past a certain point it was obviously not the same but I have yet to see almost literally anyone sing her roles as well, even when she was old. Studer might be manufactured to sound richer voiced than Sutherland, but that’s mics working their magic. In person Sutherland had much more body to her sound and would have been twice as loud singing about half the volume in basically any register.
Studer is diligent and intelligent and is still in her prime, I don’t think it’s a bad performance, or even one without merit. But there’s simply too much on the page she has to be careful about so IMO whatever strengths she has character wise pretty much fly out the window whenever she has to do sing the really difficult stuff. And I just personally think if one is deliberately avoiding the Sutherland coloratura soprano sound in this role, a darker more Mediterranean sound would have been interesting, or at least someone with those abilities. And I’m not talking about having a bigger voice either, but there’s a disconnect for me.
You’re right, Sutherland was not past her prime in that Semiramide. Although I respect what she did after the early 1960’s, I have to say that I don’t like any of those recordings in which her voice sounds thick-ish. I am aware that she was a singer to be heard live, due to the size of the voice. And Decca always recorded her far from the microphone (understandably) and there was a ghostly halo around her voice that I find disturbing. In any case, I don’t think that Studer sounds rich-toned at all in the DG studio – she sounds pretty much like herself, and this is one of the reasons it is a very particular recording. It is not a bel canto voice at all.
I think the Elder recording which just came out is pretty great in that it really does feel like a theatrical experience and has terrific sound and orchestral playing. And it probably has the most “even” group of soloists. None are singers I have a particular fondness for in other contexts, and again you have a high coloratura in the title role. But the whole really does add up to being greater than the sum of the individual parts and as a performance of the opera I would highly recommend it.
The earlier Penda recording is interesting if only to hear a soprano whose timbre and manner brings to mind the character immediately. And Marianna Pizzolato is certainly up to Arsace and it’s nice to hear an Italian in the role. But she’s very low key and her approach to music in general makes her less than an ideal match for Penda, who of course has her own very idiosyncratic approach to singing which for me, outside of a select groups of recordings, tends to wear me out after a few minutes of listening. But it’s a striking sound for the role. Sadly the orchestra fully cancels it out. The playing is horrendous. There’s also another live recording between these two but I haven’t heard it. Ann Hallenberg aside, the cast names are not encouraging.
I would have been interested in Antonacci having a go at recording it the early 1990s. I’m sure it would have been lacking in certain ways but that’s the ideal sound for the role IMO. And while 1991 probably would have been too late, I just wish Cuberli had been able to get it down at some point.
I’ve read good reviews about the Elder recording, but I was not excited about hearing Shagimuratova in the title role – and those CDs are REALLY expensive. You pretty much confirmed what I feared about the Pendatchanska (I refuse to call her “Alex Penda” – it’s just bizarre). I’ve actually checked my bookshelf right now – I even have it, but never listened to it.
Antonacci would have been fun in an all-over-the-place way. I imagine she would have cheated a bit with the high notes and the coloratura, but she would have made something of the text. I guess – and this is wild guessing – that Pirozzi could have embraced that repertoire instead of the dramatic/lirico spinto stuff she has been singing for a while, but now that train has already left the station.
There was a live Bonyage 1991 Antonacci performance complete on YouTube for the longest times, both complete and excerpts. The passagework is pretty great unless its high. Her coloratura when younger was pretty pristine. But of course it’s not the most accurate or effortless singing one could imagine and, similar to the Cosi, she does “cheat” her way around the very hardest passages and while her voice was the closest thing it would ever be to conventionally beautiful she did get more vocally commanding later on. But the sound just conjures up the role so completely without Penda’s mannerisms.
I just use Alex Penda because I don’t know how to spell her name without looking it up haha. I should say a lot of these recordings are streaming and while I prefer to get them on CD, things like Elder recording I did just look up. I don’t actually own any recordings of this opera, must have given Sutherland away.
I am sorry that my comments go so off track from the posted topic. Especially when it’s Armide!