Bach’s Kantate BWV 130, J.S. Bach-Stiftung, St. Gallen (at the Kirche Trogen), 27.10.2023

If you hear someone speak of a Bach cantata from the 1720’s for the Michaelmas with a momentous opening chorus, BWV 19 – Es erhub sich ein Streit – will probably come to mind, but for Bach there was nothing like routine. He was always ready for more. Two years before that, he created BWV 130, “Herr Gott, dich loben alle wir” (Lord, we all praise you). While the later cantata brings us to the middle of the battle between the angelic hosts, the BWV 130 takes off right in celebratory mood. Here we are praising God for having created the angels to protects us from the wiles of the devil. It all sounds wonderful, but as the speaker in today’s concert, theologian Walter Sparn reminded us, let’s not be overconfident: the devil has been defeated in heaven, but he is very much among us in earth. Actually, he is very much there in this celebration.

The way Bach devised this cantata’s opening chorus, we are in some kind of Estates-General: we hear three instrumental groups with their own musical signature – the strings, three oboes and and a trumpet trio/ drums combo. The strings naturally carry the more elaborate material, the trumpet trio + drums produce a simpler, marked rhythmic pattern and the trio of oboes pend between versions of the music written for both softer and more showy instrumental groups. The chorus is no less busy: the sopranos, as usual, carry the chorale melody, while the other voices add independent material with florid melisma in some key words of the text – loben (praise) and danken (thank), as much as an audience commenting the official speech (the chorale text).

Now that Bach composed this big public scene, he will start to decompose it and show us what these instrumental groups stand for. After a recitative informing that we must be thankful for victory, while being aware that the enemy is still there, we’ll find him in the bass aria, Der alte Drache brennt von Neid (The old dragon burns with envy). There, only one of the three groups in the opening chorus joins the continuo: the trumpets/drums team. So here we recognize the devil, and its glibness naturally involves a vocal display with a great deal of fioriture. After a recitative for soprano and tenor with a more uplifting tone (something like “we’ve seen how angels have rescued people from extremely dangerous situations”), we’ll encounter a second group from the opening chorus (the strings) in the second aria – Lass, o Furst der Cherubinen (Allow, o Prince of cherubims). They’re the hosts of angels, always busy in their constant watch over mankind. In the opening number indeed – with very fast divisions to play! Here in the aria, the atmosphere is rather graceful in its gavotte rhythm with a pastoral-touch in the virtuoso solo for transversal flute. The last verse in the text speaks of the hope of being transported by angels to heaven, and here is an image of heaven – Gluck too would use the flute and the dance rhythm when he depicted the blessed souls in his Orpheus and Eurydice. It all ends in a chorale in which every phrase is rounded off with a call from the trumpets and a roll of drums. Again, let’s not be too overconfident!

Conductor Rudolf Lutz started this evening performance in a bold approach: a very fast tempo that brought his musicians to their limits. Oboists had to work hard for their money, and luckily we had today the best trumpet playing I have ever heard in the J.S. Bach-Stiftung series. If this brought a sensation of raw excitement to the proceedings, I’m not sure if this is preferable to a slightly more considerate tempo – as in John Eliot Gardiner’s live recording – when we can understand better what the strings are playing (and also hear every voice in the chorus more clearly). After that tempestuous opening, the performance settled in a smooth atmosphere: the trumpets sounded superb in the bass aria, the flute solo was delivered with unusual warmth in the tenor aria and the conductor cleverly made the chorus sing the second strophe in the final chorale with a rushed tone to show that not everything is self-confidence in this partial victory for mankind.

If the bass aria requires a voice one size bigger and also slightly darker than Dominik Wörner’s, he tackled his division accurately and handled the text knowingly. Patrick Grahl proved to be an ideal Bach tenor. The tone is firm, homogeneous and naturally projecting. Moreover he handles the ornaments with poise and gives an impression of absolute effortlessness. Bravo. Both soprano Stephanie Pfeiffer and contralto Lisa Weiss offered firm and clear contributions in their recitatives, but one must mention that the naturalness and radiance in Ms. Weiss’s low register is a rare and valuable asset in this repertoire.

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Puccini’s Tosca, Bühnen Bern, 15.10.2023

One can generally tell what he or she is going to see in a staging of Tosca even before the show begins. If the budget is generous, a realistic recreation of the Roman setting. If not, a stylized version of it. Only a few directors try something different, some of them – like Raimund Orfeo Voigt – go for cinematographic glamour, generally in a 1940’s film noir atmosphere, like Robert Carsen’s production for the Opernhaus Zürich. Mr. Voigt, however, goes a step further – there is nothing remotely Roman in his staging. One could think of Buenos Aires or Berlin, any place those days where the police could have so much power and costumes and interior design could be that cool. In act 1, Cavaradossi is indeed painting a mural in a church, there is a sacristan but not a cross or a pew in view. There isn’t even a Te Deum – this only takes place in Scarpia’s mind. The elegant minimalist sets – the director is also the set-designer – in act 2 show a terrace with two French windows. Sometimes we can see the action outside or inside, where characters are often seen separated by the wall between them. Act 3 is the most eye-catching – a single flight of stairs up to the right where a pair of windows wait for the final scene. All that said, the most interesting thing about this staging has less to do with the sleek sceneries, but rather with the very detailed Personenregie, which is also intrinsically connected with the unconventional casting in this series of performances.

First of all, everybody looks young here, what makes the story far more believable than when we have a formidable ladylike diva and a respectable middle-aged man as the painter. As a matter of fact, both Elizabeth Caballero and Seth Carico could be Fiordiligi and Guglielmo in a Così fan tutte. Blond, her hair styled à la Lauren Bacall, this American soprano looks younger than almost every Tosca I have ever seen, not only in physical appearance (and vocal color), but also in attitude. Here, her jealousy doesn’t seem annoying, but rather an aspect of her vulnerability, the awkward manner with which she deals with Scarpia rather due to her lack of experience than to the usual … stupidity? One one side, it reduces the role to 19th-century opera’s favorite character – the blameless girl who falls victim to an evil man – and yet, I don’t know, the whole thing seems a bit believable in a me-too perspective. You know, every woman will tell you how one day she was carrying on her own business when a guy comes out of nowhere and makes her life hell without her having anything to do with it in the first place. It is praiseworthy that the director also tried to make Scarpia also more three-dimensional. Here, the guy clearly needs psychoanalysis. He behaves manically, has spells of trembling and seems ill at ease for being in a church, even with delusional episodes (such as the Te Deum). Moreover, he clearly has some kind of erectile dysfunction. Here, when Tosca finally sees the knife on the table just behind Scarpia, she tries to distract him by trying to kiss him etc – and the man gets really uncomfortable with that. When it comes to Cavaradossi, there is less to do, the character is not that interesting. One could tell that the director tried to make him less alpha-male-ish than usual, what is a good for contrast too. He is also young and doesn’t know exactly what he is doing in this difficult situation.

Everything is made to look like a Hitchcock movie, many shades of gray, dramatic lighting, all scenic elements reduced to those essential for the story, a blond Tosca with a Grace Kelly dress, looking glamorous even when things turn really badly for her. At the same time, the director is not afraid of some very difficult blocking, lots of physical interaction, a very realistic death scene for Scarpia. And, for the first time in my life, when Tosca jumped in the end, I gasped. It seems Mr. Voigt has so far more experience with set designing than with direction, but I would never tell. I haven’t paid attention to a staging of Tosca as much as I did this evening in a long while.

The Stadtheater Bern has a tiny auditorium – what is in theory good for singers – but not necessarily for the orchestra. The acoustics are dry, the strings sound recessed, not enveloping voices as one would expect in Puccini and the competition with wind instruments could be a bit fierce. In these circumstances, conductor Nicholar Carter did not try to go for a Karajan-approach, keeping everything moving fast and avoiding any hint of profoundness. Just like a Bernard Hermann score in a Hitchcock movie.

Ms. Caballero is not a name you would imagine to find in a cast of Puccini’s Tosca. Hers is rather a Elizabeth Harwood-like lyric voice with an appealing Pilar Lorengar-ish fast vibrato and high notes many a soprano would kill for – free, round, unconstricted and unforced. Her middle register is focused and warm, and she can conjure some chesty low notes when she has to. This was a lesson of how to sing a heavy role without forcing a lighter voice. In the context of this production, her blond, lyric sound was ideal to project an idea of youth and vulnerability – and she acted famously, doing her Kim Novak-routine with naturalness. Seth Carico’s focused, rather slim baritone is also light for the role of Scarpia – and he often touched his limits (especially in the end of act 1), and yet he never darkened the tone or tried to make it sound bigger. It required his 100%, and luckily he knows where the 100% are. He is also a bête de scène, sometimes tending to the overacting, and maybe the director should have formatted it a bit. Nevertheless, he clearly understood the the sexually frustrated psycho-approach and embodied it with gusto. It is difficult to tell if the tenor was experiencing a serious vocal crisis or if he is not technically equipped for the part of Cavaradossi, in spite of an appealing tonal quality in his middle register. I would have to see him in different circumstances to hear what he can really do.

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Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Opernhaus Zürich, 14.10.2023

Heraclitus was right about stepping in the same river for the second time – and this is even truer in what regards seeing an opera staging again, even more so in subsequent seasons. My experience of watching Sebastian Baumgarten’s Don Giovanni last year was not very positive, but for Jordan de Souza’s polished, transparent conducting. This time, Petr Popelka did not produce a similar impression. After an ungainly overture, the strings’ playing rather blurred, the performance took a long while to take off, some numbers sounding underrehearsed with many failed entries in ensembles, until it finally settled into a rather careful and unexciting mood. On the other hand, rereading what I wrote about the production itself, I thought of a teacher who stayed with an English family as an exchange student in London. When served potatoes for dinner, his reaction was “I hate potatoes”, and the answer was “You just need to say that you don’t like them”. But again, as much as Heraclitus would say that I am a different man, well, this was also a different cast. And I reckon that they acted better too. This time, I did not feel that these singers were trying to make sense of a nonsensical production, but rather that they could somehow find themselves in it. This also means that many sharp angles were rounded off, and that was also for the best.

I have seen Golda Schutz both as Vitellia (in Salzburg) and Fiordiligi (in Munich), and if she sang stylishly in both occasions, she also sounded a bit small-scaled for the circumstances. There is still something curious about the way her high register lacks radiance, the hint of a tremolo in her vocal production may not be for all tastes, and yet her Donna Anna this evening is the best Mozart I have ever heard from her and also a performance above standard in this difficult role. Her low register has developed a lot since last time I saw her too. Most importantly, she phrased with absolute poise, produced high notes naturally and easily, using the text and the notes with intelligence and musicianship, even in florid passages. A beautiful performance. She was well contrasted to Ruzan Mantashyan, whose lyric soprano is richer and fuller. This Armenian singer glided through Donna Elvira’s music without any sign of effort. She too is at home in this repertoire and knows what mezzo carattere means without making violence to classical style. Her Mi tradì was technically accomplished, every repetition of the material sung with a different approach. To make things even better, she acted famously as well. Brava. Although Alastair Miles’s voice now sounds a bit slimmer and lighter, he dealt with the part of the Commendatore with such energy and passion that, in the end, one could think of it as a dramatic effect.

The idea of casting Mozart operas from the ensemble – unless we’re speaking of the Vienna State Opera in the 60’s – is always risky, but this time it really paid off. Ziyi Dai was a lovely Zerlina, charming in personality and appealing in tone. Last year, Andrew Moore appeared as Masetto, and his promotion to Leporello was inevitable. He was born to sing this part: it poses no challenges for him in terms of tessitura, he is technically equipped for it, knows exactly when the buffo effects should be used and when you really have to go for it with everything you’ve got, and he doesn’t need to exaggerate anything – he is naturally funny. Bravo. The new Masetto did not leave anything to be desired either. Brent Michael Smith, who can sound really cavernous in his pitch-back bass, showed he can scale down to a more conversational tone and sang the part with unusual accuracy and charm.

Both Sebastian Kohlhepp and Konstantin Shushakov are repeaters from last year. Although Mr. Kohlhepp has funny Italian vowels and sometimes darkens his tone in a way that collides with Mozartian style, his performance this year is a big improvement from last time. When he sings with the natural color of his tenor – what he did far more often this evening – the sound is remarkably pleasant and has more presence than one would expect. In this production, Don Giovanni is not seductive at all, and Mr. Shushakov acts the concept well. He delivers the recitatives with variety and clarity, and I don’t understand why he finds it necessary to shift for a curdled, overblown tonal quality to sing the numbers. Maybe the idea is to show the character’s hyper-ness, I don’t know. It just does not shows him at his best.

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Handel’s Ariodante, Les Arts Florissants (at the Grand Théâtre de Genève), 05.10.2023

The first time I saw Ariodante, it was a concert performance (Alan Curtis and the Complesso Barocco in Braunschweig), the last time, it was a superproduction (including dance numbers) in the Opéra de Paris. This evening’s concert in the Grand Théâtre de Genève with William Christie and Les Arts Florissants was supposed to be in-between in terms of scale as a semi-staged affair in a medium-sized theatre. However, the label proved to be a bit misleading. Calling this “semi-staged” is something of an exaggeration. There were video projections with superpositions of tartan patterns and baroque palatial interiors on a backdrop, while singers would perform the bare minimum downstage in their own clothes with no props, not to mention the gags for the audience no fourth wall involved. I mean, I have seen non-staged operas in more eventful circumstances: 

To be honest, it would be inaccurate to call this evening uneventful. Ana Maria Labin, who was supposed to sing Ginevra, fell ill two days before the concert, and Mélissa Petit had only one day to learn the stage movements. She had not sung this part since one year ago and needed to carry the score around the whole evening. Then yesterday Ana Vieira Leite (the Dalinda) also felt indisposed and finally realized today she could not sing. Sarah Gilford was in Ljubljana this morning when she was asked if she could stand in. A brave woman, she had to deal with flight connections and arrived in the theatre two hours before showtime. She too had last sung her part one year ago and had no time to lean the stage action. Therefore. The assistant director did the acting, while she sang. 

One could wonder if two latecomers in key roles would affect the dramatic balance or the expressive coherence of this performance, but the truth is that this was an extraordinarily undramatic account of this score, very much concert-bound, the orchestra in this acoustics sounding recessed, the conductor going for a divertimento approach, sprightly and light on the foot, very much centered around the arie d’affetto, often done on a broad tempo and a highly expressive atmosphere that curiously made them sound a bit uncharacteristic. As this was a light-voiced cast, it is hard to say who was the egg and who was the chicken in the rather pale final results in terms of sound picture. By saying this, I don’t mean this was unsatisfactory. On the contrary, it was pleasant, as if we were watching in a Handel gala. 

It is difficult (and unfair) to say anything definitive about the prima and the seconda donne’s performances this evening: both sopranos barely had time to prepare and the high level of their singing tonight is an evidence of their talents. Ms. Petit its soprano is a bit light for a part written for Anna Maria Strada (the first Alcina, among many other Handelian dramatic roles). Yet her voice has enough cream for it. She handled the coloratura in the grand manner, offering accurate divisions even in fast tempi. She sang her big aria – Il mio crudel martoro- chillingly, finding a voice that suggested spiritual exhaustion without making violence to the style and tried some dangerous threadbare high mezza voce effects. As this was a heavily cut edition (Ariodante’s Con l’ali di costanza surprisingly reduced to the A section), she wasn’t able to sing the repeat of Volate, amori and most unforgivably only the first part of the duet Bramo aver mille vite, in which both singers offered sensational fioriture. 

Ms Gilford has an ideal voice for Dalinda, with a right splash of soubrettish but smooth enough for her duet with Lurcanio. For someone who didn’t rehearse at all, it is remarkable how right on the mark she was in terms of expression, both in musical and scenic terms. Yes, although she did not act, her facial expressions and body movements while she sang were even more convincing than those of the stage assistant. 

Léa Desandre is a highly musical singer, with an extremely likable personality and impressive technique. She seems to have fashioned her singing style increasingly towards an impression of absolute spontaneity in her vocal production. This is undeniably appealing in terms of the quality of the sound, which can sometimes seem almost “pop”, yet her mezzo lies on the limit of minimal projection for operatic performances. I mean, even with an orchestra very much under the leash, she sounded in disadvantage in comparison to her colleagues. She handled all numbers with soft affetti – especially a rather slow and almost too emo Scherza, infida – with elegance, purity of tone and love for the music. In the arie di bravura, her coloratura is exemplary in clarity and accuracy, but the results are hardly heroic — and one could almost guess she makes it the way her voice permits it. It must be noticed she is a bit more generous with breath pauses than all singers I have seen in this part in live performances. 

I had never seen tenor Kresimr Spicer before and one is immediately impressed by the natural size of his tenor, which even allows him to croon sometimes without any loss in hearability. Although one can feel that there is far more there in terms of overtones, what he uses for this repertoire is pleasantly free of nasality, clean and warm in tone. He wooed Dalinda with dulcet tone and lovely mezza voce and handled the florid music famously. 

Countertenor Hugh Cutting has developed considerably since I last saw him in Handel’s Partenope (also with William Christie). Then I found him a bit lacking in more exuberant numbers, but that wasn’t my impression this evening. He sang the part of Polinesso with a full, “natural” sound, went to the bottom end of the range without any audible break and dispatched his divisions without effort. He seemed to be having the time of his life in a bad guy role and used the text with imagination too. In the gemütlich ambience of this performance, there wasn’t really room for the role of Polinesso, but Mr. Cutting made a virtue of that, making the character almost congenial.

The role of the King of Scotland ideally requires a deep-toned, true-blue basso, and that is not really Renato Dolcini’s Fach. That said, he manages the extreme low notes very decently, while wowing the audience with his extraordinary ease with coloratura, long breath and ability to scale down to mezza voce. 

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Puccini’s La Rondine, Opernhaus Zürich, 01.10.2023

When Puccini accepted the commission to composer a work in operetta style to be premiered in Vienna, he did it half-heartedly and probably because it was really a lot of money. Maybe this is why he was never truly satisfied with his commedia lirica La Rondine, and this could also explained why it is so rarely performed. I mean – even if he did it just for the money – there is nothing wrong with La Rondine. I guess that, if I had to choose between it and La Bohème, I’d probably go for La Rondine. It is a charming work, the leading soprano role is far more interesting than Mimì, Musetta, Tosca, Liù, Turandot et al, and the combination of Italian emotionalism and the sweetly melancholic nature of Viennese operetta works better than one could have imagined. There work has many pensive/nostalgic moments, and Puccini tried to keep it light and flowing. Maybe the Viennese libretto has something to do with it. In a nutshell, I don’t understand why it is a rarity. For instance, the Opernhaus Zürich’s new production is supposed to be the Swiss premiere.

As a matter of fact, I have an idea why opera houses are not inclined to present this work: it is hard to cast. Although this is unmistakably Italian, I am not sure that you could hit home with the same singers you would use for La Bohème. It is a work of demi-tintes, and yet the vocal demands are not entirely compatible with the nuances required from the prima donna and maybe both tenors. The role of Magda is something like a Feldmarschallin transposed up a third. She has to muse a lot, produce lots of high pianissimo, be crystal clear in diction, adopt a conversational tone – but everything is horribly exposed and hard to sing. At least with the poise required by the composer and the librettists. The young and debonair Ruggero too cannot sound too robust, he has to give the impression of a gush of fresh air, but he has to blend with the soprano’s diaphanous singing in duet – and, of course, there are big acuti here and there. The role of the poet Prunier too feels a bit like David in The Meistersing – it is wordy, has to sound charming and congenial and yet legato is important for the key moment… and it can be high too.

The main reason for the success of this run of performances in Zurich is the cast – and the fact that these singers don’t have classically “Italian” voices – although they are used to sing Italian roles – may be the reason why they are so comfortable with the ambiguous style they have to deal with. Albanian soprano Ermonela Jaho, for instance, basically sings Italian opera – and yet her fleece-like soprano won’t make you think of Scotto, Stella, Freni, Dessi or, for that matter, Agresta or Pirozzi. As everybody else, I have refreshed my memory of La Rondine by listening to the Pappano recording – and Angela Gheorghiu’s voice shares many qualities with that of Ms. Jaho’s. Both are not entirely at ease with the lower end of the tessitura, but shine in velvety top notes, float soft pianissimo at ease and have a feeling for the melodic flow of Puccini’s writing. Ms. Jaho’s high mezza voce, to be sincere, is a thing of beauty – she held the whole theatre on her spell spinning delicate threads of cotton-candy sounds in the hall. She sings with great passion and emotional generosity too and acted with sincerity.

As Ruggero, Benjamin Bernheim sung with complete technical abandon and a voice ideal in weight and color for the role. He phrased with tonal variety, clarity, fined down to piano with naturalness and produced some big high notes with the ideal blend of body and squillo. His eschewal of verismo-mannerisms and his elegant, clean phrasing is a model for this half-Viennese, half-Italian Parisian setting. Bravo. If Argentinian tenor Juan Francisco Gatell’s tone has a touch of the tenorino nasality one usually finds in this role, he proved to have an extra something in his high register, sounding a tad more alpha-male-ish than, say, William Mateuzzi in Pappano’s recording. Even a bit on the light side for the role of Lisette, Sandra Hamaoui sang with naturalness and spirit. She too acted well and avoided exaggerated comedy effects. The cast had no weak links. Both scenically and vocally, Vladimir Stoyanov produced the right impression of maturity without sounding or looking old, and Yuliia Zasimova, Meeta Raval and Sienna Licht Miller were all of them perfect in their small roles both in act 1 and 2.

In the experienced hands of Marco Armiliato, the house orchestra delivered a performance ideally poised between passionate and elegant, exactly as the work requires. Mr Armiliato exaggerated nothing, let the music speak for itself and managed to ideally paint the atmosphere of every act: the lightly melancholic yet lively mood of Magda’s salon, the animated yet not hectic ambience at Bullier’s gradually dissolving into the intoxicated end-of-night/new romance feeling and finally the gentle sadness of the French Riviera act and its bittersweet finale.

The Zurich première is a brainchild of director Christof Loy, who claims to like the work and find the Opernhaus ideal in size for an intimate piece such as La Rondine. Although he clearly does not want to make a tragedy of it, his staging seems to make a point of showing the Magda’s attempt of flying to new shores is doomed from the beginning: both Bullier’s and the French Riviera villa are thinly disguised versions of Rambaldo’s Paris apartment. By the end of each act, his smoking room reappears as nothing had happened after act 1. Sometimes, Mr. Loy’s productions seem to chic for the circumstances, but not here – the coolness really pays off in this unique operatic experiment.

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