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• I have been so busy working/studying these days that I am really impressed with my (until now unknown) discipline... Anyway, Lia stopped by and took me to the movies and we saw a curious entertaining film - Jez Butterworth’s Birthday girl. The story is cliché, the characters are inconsistent and some situations are simply unrealistic (more than often you think "why don’t this guy just call the police???")... but, what the hell?, it has charm. Nicole Kidman is really convincing as the Russian girl and gives life to the film, Ben Chaplin, as always, is a sensitive actor and, on taking seriously what could be silly, provides great fun... The weird thing is that the other two Russian guys are played by French actors, Vincent Cassel and Matthieu Kassovitz... Both of them are brilliant, but I couldn’t help thinking what the Russians thought of it! Wasn’t it simpler to hire RUSSIAN actors? Anyway, for a complete ignorant about Russian language as I am, they sounded legit and it was because of the cast that the film is worth the visit to the theatre.

Today was also Bach day. I was listening to some Gardiner and Suziki cantata discs and was reading in the Bach Cantata mail list about Wachet auf, BWV 140. Although the idea there is posting your thoughts, I have the impression that my thoughts about this cantata are improper. The truth is that I always found this cantata to be real fun. The idea is to depict the mystic marriage of the Christian soul with Jesus through the musical imagery of love-making (in the sense of paying the court, of course...). However, more than often the pun is also there... The first thing I took notice of was the first aria (duet) where the soprano says "Come quickly, now come", the bass answers "Yea quickly I come" and the soprano rounds off with "We’re waiting for you with the burning oil...". The whole structure of this cantata is symmetric and, after the middle Chorale, there is the second duet for soprano and bass, where the soprano sings "My friend is mine" and the bass answers "And I am yours". The first duet has this "candlelight" atmosphere with seductive violins, while the second is all woodwindy in sprightly rhythm. I couldn’t resist calling the first one the foreplay and the second the afterwards... God forgive me! :-) Anyway, Wachet auf! was also part of my days in the chorus. I was composing (so I thought) a piece for four voices with fugato structure and showed to our conductor who told me straightaway "Hey! This is Wachet auf!". Of course, it was the middle chorale embellished almost beyond recognition, but when light was made, the only thing I could think of was "Yeah, this was too beautiful to be made by me..." :-))

Saturday, December 28th

• Who has nephews or godsons has Lord of the Rings in his life. So there I was with three teenagers in a theatre crowded with teenagers, and that was all for the best! They were the best thing in it. Those kids understand the whole thing as interactive entertainment and their jokes were wonderful... Anyway, although the plot is a complete chaos for those who haven’t read the book (and I say that as someone who read less than one hundred pages of the second one), I liked this one better than the first of the series - the characters showed more multi-layered personalities and the dangers were less exaggerated (and were overcome in a more "realistic way", if I can use this word in this case).
However, the surprising thing was that, after the film, I started to tell my godson, his brother and their friend the story of Wagner’s Ring and they showed real interest (I mean, they thought it more interesting than Lord of the Rings...). They asked me "Where can we get the book?" and I explained them it was an opera. "AN OPERA???!!!!" So I told them about the performances I saw at the Met and described the sceneries. As we were close to Saraiva Megastore, I showed them the covers of the DVDs. One of them even said "Now you told me about an opera I would like to see". Anyway, now I owe them a BOOK with the story of the Ring as thought by Wagner (so the Vibelungenlied doesn’t apply) in a way that makes sense for teenagers. I think there is the comic-book somewhere. If anyone of you know anything about it, I’m open to suggestions..

Wednesday I was showing my friend Monica an Astrid Varnay recital where she sings (splendidly) Amelia’s Come in quest’ora bruna from Simon Boccanegra - and I couldn’t help listening to that Abbado broadcast from Florence. I have the impression that this is my favourite opera by Verdi, especially act 1, where the duets between Amelia and Adorno and Amelia and Boccanegra are so spontaneously emotional and so right in their dramatic timing.

Friday, December 27th Abbado

• Olivier sent me a fascinating review of Opéra Bastille’s latest Frau ohne Schatten, with Susan Anthony, Luana deVol, Jane Henschel, Thomas Moser and Jean-Philippe Lafont, Ulf Schirmer conducting. His description of Bob Wilson’s production made me think a lot of Jean- Pierre Ponnelle’s as seen at La Scala in 1999, where the seeting was also Japanese. I agree with Olivier that Susan Anthony is the best Kaiserin these days and am also curious to hear Jane Henschel.

Monday, December 23rd 2002

• I was reading the papers and noticed that there is a film selected for the Oscar called Nicholas Nickleby. I was curious about it, since there is already a film based on this book directed by cinema pioneer Brazilian director, Alberto Cavalcanti, who used to make films in France, England and Germany. This one is from 1947 and had a frightening Cedric Hardwicke as the wicked uncle. It is a charming film where everything happens very fast. The new one is directed by Douglas McGrath, who extracted from Gwyneth Paltrow her best work ever in his charming Jane Austen’s Emma (better than the British film with the pre-Hollywood while-still-interesting Kate Beckinsale). The cast is a bit curious and made of all kind of people. Anne Hathaway (a promising name...) whom I know from that unspeakable film with Julie Andrews plays Miss Bray here and there is Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot) as Smike, a role beautifuly performed by Aubrey Woods for Cavalcanti. There is also Cristopher Plummer, Nathan Lane and think of him or her, he or she is there. The funny thing was that they gave the title role for an actor made famous in a TV series or something. Anyway, I am looking forward to see it - McGrath made miracles with Paltrow in Emma and he has to be a good director.

Saturday, December 21st 2002

• It’s been a busy week and today was going to have an unusual start since I was going to the dentist, but the next surprise was an e-mail I received from German soprano Mariana Zvetkova. It was a good surprise in the sense that this site is read by other people than friends (or if we believe the Irish saying, there are no strangers, only friends to be made...). The bad thing was that she showed (in a witty way, I have to acknowledge) to be upset about my review of her performance as Ariadne auf Naxos at La Scala some years ago. Reading her e-mail made me feel sad, because I have been re-writing the reviews in this site, trying to make them more objective, in the sense of taking in consideration that performing music is a serious and difficult task and one is supposed to be indulgent. As a result, I have tried to delete everything that could sound nasty and reserved myself the right to write longer only to say positive things or when the performer is not serious or respecting enough towards the audience. That, of course, is not the case of Ms. Zvetkova.

The "Reviews" page is something I haven’t taken a look at for a long while and couldn’t therefore revise. I took a look at the review and noticed that I was a bit strong on her performance, although I noticed I took the pains to make clear that the Milanese audience was pleased by it (and, on doing so, my opinion was to be tamed). Anyway, I re-wrote the review based on the clear memories of that unforgettable evening and on the broadcast, this time trying to be more objective.

That doesn’t mean I am trying to make amends here - I am only trying to be fair. I have always fancied the idea that reviews could be a good thing if they pointed out what was going wrong to a perfomer (in order to make him or her think about what he or she is doing) or if they showed someone he or she was in the right path. Anyway, a posteriori, I have learned that performers should NEVER read reviews :-) Lisa della Casa said she performed for four friends of hers on whom she had complete confidence and only their opinion mattered to her. Maybe she’s right. Anyway, my apologies to Ms. Zvetkova! In her e-mail, she says that she herself thinks her Ariadne has developed a lot and I am very happy to hear about it. Maestro Sinopoli seemed to have a high opinion of her - and that is the kind of opinion that makes reviews unnecessay.

Also, I’ve been listening to a delightful work by Handel, Atalanta, a seriously neglected jewel. A review will soon be published in the Handel page. I also borrowed Bartoletti’s La Gioconda, in order to refresh my mind about the work, but I still don’t have an opinion...

Finally, I bought some books today. Dante’s Divine Comedy, which is the kind of reading I’ve been owing myself - a beautiful bilingual edition - and Kierkegaard’s The Seducer Diary, a book recommended by a friend of mine. Of course, all of that is the result of Lia’s persuasive powers to make you buy stuff... If you need any shopping encouragement, you only need to invite her... :-)

Last thing - I start to think that a film with Mary Louise Parker is a good film full stop. John Walsh’s "Pipe Dream" is light entertainment, done with intelligence and a good cast. It tells the story of a plumber who pretends to be casting a film (he says he is the director) only to meet girls. He steals a real script of a girl he knows. But the "film" becomes the talk of the city. The screenwriter friend discovers everything but decides to take part of the "scam" because she sees that this is the only way her script can really become a film. The great thing is the plumber having to deal with directors of photography, the cast, the press etc...

Friday, December 20th 2002

• I’ve been overloaded with work these days, but could find some minutes to work on this site. The discographies of the Da Ponte operas have been reviewed, mainly Don Giovanni, where the newer Naxos recording was added. I have been also listening to an old broadcast, from Munich, of Bellini’s Norma. I haven’t given much thought about it, but I changed my impressions a bit. The Münchner Rundfunkorchester is a great team, but Marcello Viotti’s conducting is routine. I had been seduced to this recording by Silvana Dussmann’s Casta Diva, which is beautifully intimate and heartfelt. But Bello a me ritorna had turned me off. The truth is that Dussmann is no natural bel canto soprano. The style is not entirely correct and the technique is not up to the coloratura demands. However, she is a singer of great appeal. I would like to know what happened to her. The voice is very attractive and she is wonderfully committed - her floating tones are particularly exquisite.

Some films too. Juan José Campanella’s El Hijo de la Novia was a good surprise. I expected very little from it and was really won over. It is not an ambitious film, but one done from the heart to the heart, telling a touching story, sometimes with a sitcom kind of humour, and counting on a great cast. It is a long film but I didn’t feel the time pass. Another film - and one I never could see complete until today - William Wyler’s Little Foxes, based on Lillian Helmann’s play - a great film in every sense. And I am a fan of Bette Davis... If one is willing to do some larger-than-life acting, one has to have all that to give... And she does. I particularly like the way she reveals herself to be completely heartless during the film through her face; in the beginning, she’s quite pretty, but she gets uglier and uglier and in the end she is quite repellent. Anyway, although Regina is supposed to be the woman who came for no good, I noticed that I was at her side the whole time... I regret I didn’t know the play when I was in New York in 1996 or 1997 (don’t remember now), when it was being performed maybe in the Lincoln Center with Stockard Channing as Regina. It would have been interesting.

Sunday, December 15th

• Thanks to Lia’s help, I fixed the links in the James King page, tested them, added some more. I also retouched the biography, which had a dangerous level of imprecision. I still have to work on discography, but James King’s name and search engines are a dangerous combination... to start with there’s the King James bible and there must be a guy named James in Robert King’s choir, because I had to browse throught their complete discography... :-(

I also need to apologise about my comments on "Harry, un ami qui vous veut du bien", because I told the end of the story... but, well, it is worth while seeing even knowing it. I promise.
Another film on cable TV - Hugh Hudson’s "My Life so far". If I am not wrong, it is based on an autobiographic book written by a former director of the Royal Opera House. I got curious about the film because it looked so much as those "fake" movies (I’ll explain more later), but it seems it really is a British film. I found it highly entertaining - the boy playing the main role is really really good and there’s a solid international cast. Colin Firth is a reliable actor, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio looks well her part, sometimes relies too much on make-up to look miserable, but it is a congenial performance, Malcolm MacDowell is always nice to watch and there’s Irène Jacob in IMHO her best performance. I find her beautiful, but sometimes shallow (check her Desdemona). Here, performing the role of a Frenchwoman, she improved her English and offers a lighter version of Fanny Ardant’s charm. It is hard to fault the film, since it is sensitively made in its more detailed aspects, but I wished I didn’t have the impression it was a fake British film. I think that the film could be LESS agile and funny and had more time to be subtle. I liked very much the triangle between the 10 year-old boy, his refoulé father and the French seductive aunt. The desconstruction of the father figure is beautifully made and I wished the film was more about it than about being picturesque.

The "fake" film is something becoming more usual these days. For example, "For Roseanna", a fake Italian film with Mercedes Ruehl and Jean Reno, or the fake French Movie "Chocolat", with Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp. There’s even the fake Brazilian movie - "Woman on Top", with Penélope Cruz and Murilo Benício. A particularly interesting category, and it was Davide who "labelled" it - the fake Woody Allen movie. I like these ones! There is the ugly guy, the sexy girl, the funny friends and everybody speaks to the camera and it is in New York. I remember Davide said "I’d rather see a legit Woody Allen", but my friend Fernando has a nice epigram "Knowing whom you should copy is a good start". He was referring to those sopranos who take an extra subject on music school "Impersonating Maria Callas". They copy everything Callas did - including the early vocal decline - but the genius :-) Maybe that’s the case of the fake Woody Allens, but they are entertaining all the same...

Thursday, December 12th 2002

• Sergi Lopez is a actor whom I find to be really congenial. I knew nothing about him until I saw on TV a film where he plays the role of a Russian guy wandering in French countryside and liked his work very much. Today I saw on TV another film of his - "Harry, un ami qui vous veut du bien", by Dominik Moll.

The plot could perfectly belong to an American film IF things were not so much in "the grey area". Here Lopez is Harry, a rich psychopath with an obsession towards a school friend who used to publish poems and sci-fi stories in the school newspaper. Many years after school days, he suddenly appears at the friend’s house and starts to interfere in the household and, in order to make his friend write again, he starts to eliminate whatever "obstacle" to his friend’s creativity. The interesting thing is that his "therapy" (including killing the friend’s neurotic parents and brother) works! The friend starts to write again and to revaluate many things in his life. The friend’s wife notices her husband starts to have a more aggressive attitude etc.

One day, Harry tells his friend he should get rid of his wife and kids. The friend retorts saying a rude comment about Harry’s girlfriend. This very evening, the friend, after Harry has revealed to everybody that comment, tries to kiss the girl he had offended while his wife was downstairs. Later, he wakes in the middle of the night to discover that Harry has killed the girlfriend and asks him to help him to get rid of the corpse. So does the friend. Then Harry says "Now we have to get rid of your wife and kids". But, calmly, the friend takes a knife and stabs the astonished Harry. He throws the corpse away and cleans all evidences, then has a good night sleep.

In the end of the film, the friend has written a litterary work, with the approval of his wife and is seen with his family in the expensive car Harry had given him. Of course, we have already seen plots with those obsessive homo-erotic atmosphere, plots about having to deal with the dark side in order to be an artist etc etc, but "Harry, un ami qui vous veut du bien" is wonderfully amoral. The role of the friend shows a guy repressed by his overbearing family and his wife’s passive-agressive attitude, and Harry’s doings really "saved" him from all that. Also, Harry is not obsessed by the friend without a reason - his admire the friend’s talents and worships it without any shadow of doubt. His "passion" has artistic grounds and the friend's artistry is, for him, more important than life or death. Also, in the end, one cannot help noticing that the friend only starts to write after he had given vent to his repressed nature, flirting with adultery and ending on killing - something he does as coldly as if he himself was a psychopath too. The cast is consistently very good, but Lopez, doing very mathematically precise acting, without exagerations of any kind, steals the show. It is always good to remember that, although he is a popular actor in France and appears in many French films, he is a Spanish actor and also appears in Spanish movies.

Also, I "discovered" a Handelian masterpiece, "Giustino", and can’t help listening to it again and again. The review is added to the Handel page.

Monday, December 9th 2002

 

• Today my father invited me to the movies - a documentary. I confess I was not animated; the idea of a documentary for me had to do with cable TV and eating something in front of it. :-) But it ended on being a most enjoyable experience. The film is Eduardo Coutinho’s Edifício Master. It is a documentary about a building (the Edifício Master of the title) in Copacabana with 23 tiny apartments per floor. The production hired an apartment there and spent a whole month interviewing people who live there. The idea per se in not new - it is actually a cliché of urban Anthropology. The difference here is that there was no scientifical approach - they don’t have premises and don’t try to make conclusions. They only interviewed this people and asked them about their lives and they were candid enough to tell them all. The surprising aspect is that it is an extremely moving film - because you see how much beauty you can find in the less likely places. There are endearing stories, such as the old lady who lives by herself and never feels alone because she either plays or listen to music. She offers to sing a song and it is beautiful to see her sing. There are revelatory stories, such as the prostitute who has a small child and is completely frank about her life. She says there is only one good thing about her job - the money (her first fee was entirely spent in McDonald’s - "it was wonderful", was her comment) - because it is a job where you have to deal with being humiliated. She also says she has to drink to do it and that she drinks a lot. "This is eventually going to kill me, but that is going to be a good thing - because I believe in the afterlife I won’t have to work anymore". And there are amazing stories, such as the lady who was mugged and lost all her money. She was so desperate that she decided to jump from her window. When she was up there, she thought that, if she killed herself, she wouldn’t be able to pay her debt with C&A (the garment stores). "I don’t believe that death ceases debts. When I pass away, I want to leave a clean name behind". So she didn’t kill herself because of C&A... A really beautiful experience, when you see how wonderfully human nature adapts to whatever situation and is always able to flourish and give its best in whatever circumstances...

Sunday, December 8th 2002

 

• I have to confess a soft spot for my Handel page, not only because I’m always listening to his operas, but mainly because it is so rare to find all the recordings and even comparative reviews about them. So, yes, I fancy this idea that it is a useful thing :-) Today I added two reviews of Rodelinda and two of Giulio Cesare. I was owing the review of Jacobs’ Giulio Cesare, but, thanks to Ivan’s upcoming highlights, I couldn’t resist and decided to publish a "preview" review. It is a work-in-process, but life’s too short and I couldn’t wait to say something about Minkowski’s marvellous performance. It is not the first time I do that - I had posted there a "preview" of Jacobs’ Rinaldo too - based on the complete broadcast.

Another good thing today, and this one I owe to Davide, was re-listening to a broadcast from Naples - R. Strauss’ Capriccio and, yes, I’m not mistaken - it is from Naples, Italy, and has June Anderson as the Countess. Even if the orchestra of the Teatro San Carlo is not a world-class team, they play it so beautifully and the recorded sound has this unique thing "in the discography" - they give pride of place to the orchestra - and that makes all the difference in the world. When Strauss prepared that richly woven orchestral texture, I am sure he didn’t meant it to be background music to the conversation. - and that has nothing to do with drowning the singers with orchestral sound. Although June Anderson doesn’t have the most beautiful of voices, she surprised me in this role. She sings it with so much imagination and stylishness. I don’t mean to say I thought she was unable to do that - but she herself said she didn’t like German repertoire. I am glad she re-thought this opinion. I saw Anderson live only once here in Rio and it was a wonderful evening, when she showed to have it all - voice, imagination, technique, you name it. The cast also has other pleasing performances, especially Jorg Schneider’s Flamand. Gustav Kuhn proved to have a good ear for Strauss. A most beautiful performance which I cherish as much as my official recordings.

Finally, I have to mention this wonderful "bookstore" here in Rio - Letras e Expressões. Sometimes I think they thought especially about me when they opened it :-) They are open during the whole night, they sell discs, magazines, books, gifts _and_ food. They allow us to read the magazines undisturbed without necessarily having to buy them. I have to say that I often buy them just because they were so nice on letting me read them. Today I read Répertoire and Opéra International and discoverd lots of things: that Gardiner’s Alceste has been published on CD, that Muti has a Falstaff DVD with Ambrogio Maestri and Barbara Frittoli and - most of all - that Biondi’s Norma with June Anderson was released! I don’t have a DVD myself and depend on the charity of my friends :-), but I wouldn’t mind at all having a copy, even on VHS, of that one...

Tuesday, December 3rd 2002

• I forgot to say that I owe to Ivan the fact that the James King page was found again. In my animation, I published it here without revising it. The opening text is a bit over-animated, but I still have to see if this is not a good thing. Anyway, the biography has some imprecisions that I can correct now based on his autobiography (which I hadn’t read when I made the page) and the discography needs some updating too.

I also owe Ivan the opportunity to sample a couple of moments of Minkowski’s performance of Handel’s Giulio Cesare, which is going to be released by DG. Marjana Mijanovic has a remarkable contralto that sounds natural throughout and avoids femininity - but I didn’t think her to be better than Jennifer Larmore for Jacobs, who is even more gutsy than her. I was told Kozena took some time to warm, but, in the final duet, she was in beautiful voice - sounding sometimes more Bachian than Handelian - but beguiling nonetheless. However, it was Minkowski’s conducting that called all my attention. Even in such tiny excerpts, he impressed me all the way. I had never heard a Va tacito e nascosto as charming and animated as his! My doubts concern WHO will sing WHAT in the DG release. The original idea was Bartoli as Cleopatra and Daniels as Cesare. Thank God it seems they changed their minds... But, in the tournée, there had been at least three Cleopatras - Danielle de Niese, Christine Schäfer and Magdalena Kozena, two Caesars - Mijanovic and Daniels, two Cornelias - Stephanie Blythe and Charlotte Hellekant, four Sestos - Magdalena Kozena, Anne Sofie von Otter, Sarah Connolly and Eirian James etc. I would have liked if they recorded Kozena as Cleopatra, Mijanovic as Cesare, Blythe as Cornelia and maybe Eirian James as Sesto. Anyway, I’m glad Bejun Mehta seems to be, without much doubt, the chosen Ptolomeo.

I’m still shocked! I was listening to a broadcast from 2000 - Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur from La Scala - and Carlo Guelfi was singing Michonnet. I can’t believe he ruined his voice in only two years! I hope he was in a bad day when they broadcast the Simon Boccanegra from Florence...

Finally, yesterday I saw the film about Artemisia Gentileschi, the great Italian painter, with Valentina Cervi in the title role. I enjoyed the film, although I would have preferred if it was spoken in Italian and the director concentrated less in Gentileschi’s romantic subjects and more in her artistic doings. I wish to see more insight about her work, which is the exceptional thing about Artemisia, probably the most respected female artist of her days. Although Cervi did a good work, once the film was spoken in French, why don’t they just invited Sophie Marceau and made something really impressive? :-)

Monday, December 2nd 2002

• More broadcasts. This one is a Meistersinger 2nd act from a complete broadcast made in Turin. I have never been a radical Wagnerian who deals with the stuff as if I had magnifying lenses trying to track leitmotivs etc - maybe that is why I am so willing not to fault this lovely performance. Of course, the Athestis Chorus and the Orchestra Sinfonica della RAI are not the Wiener Philharmoniker and Jeffrey Tate is making it comfortable to everybody. As a result, I rarely found Meistersinger so lighthearted, so charming and spontaneous. Certainly, it is less impressive than most famous recordings, but Tate keeps everything in good place even in the complex choral passages, the orchestra phrases quite accurately and the recorded sound couldn’t be warmer and clearer, even with voices a bit too close. But, most of all, Tate was wise to choose considerate tempi and that gave his soloists enough time to make their interpretative points and the orchestra to make charming music instead of brilliant tours de force. Nina Stemme displays a velvety soprano and is a total charmer as Eva. It is even more fortunate that the Walther here is such a young sounding musicianly singer such as John Horton Murray. They make a wonderful team, sounding as if they were really in love, so sensuous and intimate are their dialogues. Friedemann Kunder’s Sachs can get hooty now and then, but he has a naturally full-toned bass that sounds pleasing enough and he is very alert to the dramatic situations. A bit more flexibility would help him too. On the other hand, I can’t get used to Alan Opie’s Beckmesser, I find his performance heavy and uningratiating as a whole, as much as I found in the Decca recording. Ulrich Hess follows the tenorino pattern for David and is congenial enough, but Brigitta Svendén’s voice became too heavy for Magdalene.

Sunday, December 1st 2002

• Today I visited my friend André and we listened to the FroSch highlights and Berio’s completion for Turandot. Again, Schoenwandt deserves all the praises for his beautiful conducting and the outstanding clarity - either vertical or horizontal. André was impressed by the sound of the woodwind, especially clarinettes. He made me think I was too quick to jump to conclusions about Berio’s work in Turandot. Although I still think the approach is too modern, therefore, incompatible with Puccini’s, he made me see that the structurally "caleidoscopic" approach is in keeping with contemporary style and also illustrates the multi-layered and conflicting aspects of Turandot’s surrendering to Calaf. As before, I think Berio’s completion is beautiful and musically complex and I would listen to it rather than Alfano’s dreadful work. But I think that Turandot needed, first of all, a faithful completion - something that made complete sense with what was going on before. I bet Sinopoli would be the guy who could have done something like that.

Another broadcast. Abbado’s Simon Boccanegra from the Maggio Musicale. First of all, different from everybody else, I am not a great fan of his classic DG recording, which I find to lack warmth and flexibility. Even if I am a big fan of Mirella Freni, I don’t like her Amelia at all. There is nothing adorable about her Amelia, so formidable and impositive as she is. I think Amelia should "sound" a delightful and gentle young woman capable of strong conviction not because she is strong, but because she is so vulnerable but fearless. In this sense, different from everybody, my favourite Amelia is Kiri Te Kanawa - and I think this is Verdi’s role less suited to an "Italianate" soprano. In this broadcast, I found Abbado more emotional, offering a warmer sound and giving more time for the drama to develop. Although Karita Mattila has her irregularities - sometimes she is below pitch, she doesn’t pull out decent trills and is naughty about chest voice, her voice makes has such an open-hearted quality, a feminine naturally sensuous sound that I can’t resist her. Moreover, she is at her best in act 1, where she sings my favourite passages. As for Vicenzo La Scola, he has a naturally ringing tenor, but the tone is raw and metallic and he lacks subtlety. I would like to know what happened to Alfredo Portilla, the guy who sang this role here in Rio and who made a splendid team with Eliane Coelho, sharing with her this ability of absolute control of dynamics even in top notes and offering a fresh handsome voice. Carlo Guelfi is miscast as Simon, the voice seems to have some power, but is ugly and unsettled. Next to him, Lucio Gallo, even if one notices it is a slimmer voice, sounds as the main baritone in the cast, only because his voice has more tone than Guelfi’s. Julian Konstantinov was the bass here in Rio too - and I find him more solid in Florence, although his low notes still lack resonance.

Finally, you’ll notice that the James King page is back online and that the discography of Verdi’s Il Trovatore is retouched.

Saturday, November 30th

• My generous friend Davide made it possible for me to hear some nice broadcasts. There is this Idomeneo from Ancona. Conductor Gerard Korsten’s a tempo approach made really good sense framed by the beautiful playing from the Orchestra Filarmonica Marchigiana, very clearly articulate and with prominent woodwind. Sometimes, he could be more flexible and more attentive to the dramatic situations - probably a deeper acquaintance with Mozartian style would have helped. In the other hand, the choir seriously lacks discipline. Among the soloists, the most pleasing is mezzo Francesca Provvisionato, a bit on the light side for the role and offering too feminine and fruity a tone, but singing with knowledge of style, tonal beauty, heavenly floated pianissimi and a fresh interpretation making wonderful use of her native Italian. The distinguished sopranos in the cast unfortunately lack tonal poise here. It is a pity Eva Mei was a bit pinched and un-legato-ish too, for she shows to be at home with Mozart and is wonderfully technically accomplished - her trills are admirable. As for Mariella Devia, it is a non-Mozartian performance. Despite her admirable ease with runs and top notes, the voice is too "nervous" for Mozart and she can be kitsch sometimes. Her D’Oreste, d’Ajacce, enthusiastically applauded, is a total mistake. She should sound a fury here, but it seems she is singing Regnava nel Silenzio. However, my greatest disappointment was Charles Workman, a singer I had the pleasure to see live in Salzburg. Now the tone is totally faked - the first octave is puffed-up and overdark, while the second one is unfocused and dangerously lacking brightness. Because of that, the invocation of Neptune is trimmed. Truth be said, his coloratura is wonderfully clean and beautiful in the ear. The tenor taking the role of Arbace has a rather green voice and could be more precise, but has easy top notes. On the other hand, the one doing the High Priest is no musician and sings roughly.

There is also a surprising Frau ohne Schatten from Athens. The Danish Radio orchestra is really atuned to Straussian style and there is astonishing clarity for a broadcast. I only listened to roughly half act 1, but conductor Michael Schoenwandt displayed a good ear for Strauss. His approach seemed to me very similar to Sawallisch’s in his EMI recording, highlighting the lyric qualities of the score. As the Empress, there is Inga Nielsen, whom I saw singing the role for Sinopoli at La Scala. Maybe it is the microphones, but the voice is less beautiful than it used to be. However, her dexterity in the role is still admirable. Also, the voice has the right bright pure-toned floating quality for the role. It is sad that she is such a neglected artist. In any case, she’ll be remembered here as a great Straussian soprano. A pleasant surprise was Marilyn Zschau singing the Amme. I had seen her here in Rio as a strong and competent Elektra, a bit poorly articulated with her text. Although her Amme is not a Hanna Schwarz, she has greatly improved this aspect of her singing and also offers some spacious low notes. I only think sometimes the shifting between registers disturbs her on getting her lines going. Ronald Hamilton is a new name to me, but one to keep in mind. He has all the elements of a great Emperor in him - he has an easy pleasing voice with some ping in it and can soften it when necessary. However, he is not fully at home with Straussian style. Sometimes, there is some verimo-ish mannerisms. Sometimes, it is just awkwardness, but it is a natural voice used with spontaneous lyricism, a rarity in this repertoire. Siegfried Lorenz is a characterful Geistbote.

Finally, I sampled Turandot’s last act with Berio’s completing. I don’t know what I think of it. I didn’t like it - I think it is inconsistent with Puccini’s style and is undramatic. I was told it had a Straussian quality, but I could only think of a John Williams’ soundtrack. If it was Straussian, it would have even richer orchestration, emotional quality and would be a theatrical experience - and there would be one bar of heavenly melody taken through masterly variation of the richness of material presented in the opening of the opera. That said, I think I still prefer it to Alfano’s completing, which I found to be awful beyond words can express. My most humble opinion is that the real problem is the "duet" between Turandot and Calaf. First of all, both soprano and tenor had sang their lungs out throughout the whole opera and the coup de theâtre would be to make them sing a piece of sensuous music with a rapturous conclusion - something like an Italianate version of the first part of Gurrelieder. Thus, we would MUSICALLY perceive the transformation inside Turandot, who would stop singing a permanent ho-jo-to-ho and would sing a bit more like Liù. This would be more interesting if more evidently romantic material, such as the aria Nessun Dorma, was exposed under a bolder tonal atmosphere or something like that. Anyway, this performance had the advantage of the rich orchestral sound of the Concertgebouw. I thought Chailly to be quite competent, but I expected from him something different, something I could compare to Karajan or even to Mehta. Not so. Frances Ginzer is a singer whose Met debut I had the luck to witness. She sang twice the same day - as the Foreign Princess in Rusalka and as a Norn in Götterdämmerung. I saw both of them! As in the Met, Ginzer has a pleasant warm voice that never takes an edge, but the role of Turandot is too heavy for her. She sang freshly throughout, but without much operating space. As Liù, Elena Kelessidi, as usual with Liùs, stole the show. She is a resourceful lyric soprano with good control of dynamics and an appealing velvety voice - but this is a role heavy for her voice as well. If she keeps singing in this repertoire, her voice won’t be lovely for long. Finally, Dario Volonté’s Calaf developed in an unpredicted way. I had listened to an old tape of this aria with him and the voice used to have a more natural production but the top notes were a bit wooden. Here, he is more in control of her voice and offers rounder top notes, but the tone is no longer compact as it used to be. Also, his phrasing lacks finish now and then.

Friday, November 29th

• A French movie night. Laurent Cantet’s L’Emploi du Temps. A beautiful film about the conflict of one’s personal desire with what society expects of him. Vincent (brilliantly performed by Aurélien Recoing) is a guy who has a perfect bourgeois life - a big house, a beautiful wife, kids etc. One day he is fired, but he keeps pretending he’s at work to his family, whereas, as a matter of fact, he is doing what he really likes to do - drive without a particular aim. The problem is that, in order to keep on with it, he has to lie. And lying becomes his modus operandi. At first, the lies are most innocent, but then he’s dealing with other people’s money on pretending to be working on the U.N. and proposing a miracle investment. However, Vincent’s biggest drama is that he cannot tell his family the truth because he doesn’t want them to see him as a failure. Actually, he was fired because he simply didn’t want to perform his duties at work and preferred to wander with his car. However, his family and him play a game of "let’s pretend we’re not seeing it". This whole non-communication situation is taken to a complete family crisis, where finally one sees that nobody cares about what Vincent really feels - they want him to perform what is expected of him and that’s that.

Cantet’s way of telling the story is masterly - we’re never told everything at once and there’s lots to be completed in our imaginations. After the film, me and my friends, Lia, Pedro and Alexandra, started to say what we thought to be happening next during the film. We came to the conclusion that our imaginations are closer to Mexican soap opera - take a look at some of the things we expected to happen during the story: Vincent had a gay love affair; Vincent would have a gay love affair; Vincent’s wife would have sinked in a snow-covered mountain; Vincent would kill his wife; Vincent would kill himself; Vincent would be sent to an asylum... So, as you see, we were glad the script was left to more elegant minds... :-)

Thursday, November 28th

• I finally finished the Wandering Rocks chapter in Ulysses. Now I’m on Sirens and am already fascinated by the fugal structure. I only read the opening "section" and I already found the idea fascinating and I’m really surprised with Joyce’s musical knowledge. I knew he was a tenor, but tenors generally don’t know this kind of stuff :-) (no offense, I’m a tenor myself...). The idea that the "material" already contains everything that is going to be developed is the very essence of a fugue and this was beautifully done.

Thanks to Roelof, I finally have the latest Kuijken Bach cantata disc (BWV 9, 94 and 187). Only today I discovered it is a performance following Rifkin’s one voice per part theory, i.e, the soloist sings also the choral passages. Kuijken has an article explaining why he adopted the idea and that he thinks it should be applied to practically all choral music by Bach. He says that one or more voices per part is ultimately a matter of taste. But he adds the cheeky comment that one is allowed to have bad taste... Anyway, I think that there shouldn’t be a rule about it. The conductor should decide what is best given the circumstances. For example, on a larger hall, I wouldn’t use OVPP or if I had a soloist whose voice is noticeably less projecting than the other singers’... Anyway, my favourite soloist here is Magdalena Kozena, who is always at home in Bach. Midori Suzuki's boyish soprano is wonderfully "alive" in the choral passages. I didn’t like the male soloists. The tenor is strained and the bass lacks resonance. Now - hate me, radical HIP-partisans, the aria Gott versorget alles Leben... I like it better with Kathleen Battle and John Nelson, even if there’s a vibrato-ish violin instead of the oboe! It’s much livelier and contrasted - John Nelson actually did nice things with baroque music on modern instruments... And Battle makes much more of the low tessitura! So, I confess, I have Battle and Perlman’s Bach disc. It was a birthday gift (I’m not defending myself, I’ll always be thankful to Maria Rosa for giving it to me) and is a favourite singalong of mine :-)

Wednesday, November 27th

• After all, this was not a "music" week-end. Friday and Saturday I’ve listened to music so much that I gave vacations to my sound system on Sunday. I checked how things are with my piano and it still is untuned and there is one extra non-operating key. If there is some extra money, I’ll see if I can call the piano guy to take care of the poor instrument (which, BTW, is a very good upright piano with some sensitivity to soft playing - which I like to employ - maybe I read too much about Chopin when I was a kid... :-)

I’m back to the reading of Ulysses, which I had put down for a while. Again in the middle of the Wandering Rocks chapter. But now it went really into focus in my mind. I can’t wait to finish it to write down my notes about it. As a matter of fact, I always write down my impressions on each chapter of Ulysses and read them over and over. It is a good way of building an interpretation and making it richer and organic.

Yesterday, I saw one movie I had read about (some friends hated, some friends liked - they went together to see it and almost killed each other in the end... :-). It is a Dogma film called "The King is Alive", directed by Kristian Levring and starring Jennifer Jason Leigh and Romaine Bohringer (whom I had the pleasure to see in Paris in Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie). The summary of the plot published in newspapers is "Passengers of a bus lost in the middle of the desert decide to stage Shakespeare’s King Lear". And you have to agree with me that this sounds silly, especially when the film turns around the loosening of relationships in the extreme situation presented by the plot. King Lear is used as a mirror - when they are left in this non-civilisation situation and where no excuse or artiffice is possible, they cling to fiction, but the play reveals a cruel parallel with the feelings of the characters. The use of digital cameras has a startling "special effect" result with all those desert colours and bonfires and other kinds of natural lighting. Magnetic are the scenes between Jennifer Jason Leigh and David Calder, the most dramatic in the film, but it is Janet McTeer who steals the show with the best line of the film, on explaining King Lear "You don’t have to worry. Nobody falls in love and everybody dies in the end".

More films on cable TV. Phillip Kaufmann’s Quills. I thought it to be entertaining, but there was too much pocket psychology, imprecision and mistification that I ultimately didn’t take the film very seriously. There is very little "esprit d’epoque" going on there. Some lines are completely 1970’s. And historical facts are too distorted, such as inviting Joaquim Phoenix for the role of a man who was actually 1m20 tall. Anyway, the character portrayed by him as it stands in the script is completely brought to life by Phoenix who makes the miracle of a transforming a cliché into the opportunity for great acting. Kate Winslet is also very congenial in a role made to be uninteresting becayse of the simplistic approach. Finally, Geoffrey Rush is too over-the-top to make any sense. He portrays a "British" Sade, who is more pathetic than dangerous. In Bernard Jacquot’s film, Daniel Auteil, although he portrays a younger Sade, finds the right seductive and decadent point Rush couldn’t see.

Finally, I managed to see Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (in Portuguese, the Secret Chamber). I read Constantijn’s article, but I have to say - I preferred this to the older one, not because it is better, but because the first of a series has the burden of explaining everything, while this one can start right in the story. As Constantijn, I considered Kenneth Brannagh’s performance brilliant. He was better than what I imagined in the book, also because the character is less annoying than in the book. BTW, I thought the script to be a great adaptation. All the unnecessary events were cut and the "knitting" was very well done. My only let-down moment was when Harry is supposed to die because of the bite of the basilisk. In the book, the passage was more dramatic with Harry in the treshold of death thinking "If this is dying, it is not so bad...". I thought it touching because Harry never met his parents and, although he was not saying it, they were probably what he has in mind. As always, my favourite actor is Rupert Grint. He is so much the Watson to Potter’s "Sherlock" in this story and I can’t help laughing - he is so funny! He doesn’t need to do lots of stuff. And it was good to see Gemma Jones - she is such a nice actress. I have a question - is the Mark Radcliff executive producer related to Daniel Radcliff? Ah, also - the mandragors were more fun in the book!
:-(

Monday, November 25th

• I have this problem - whenever everybody likes one film, I get suspicious about it. Come to think of it - there is unanimity about NOTHING. There is not unanimity about Mirella Freni, about Bach, about Woody Allen, about ice cream... So it does sound weird when everybody says they like the same thing. That is why I sometimes am the last one to see some films - for example, The Untouchable, Il Postino... Anyway, today I was going to see Harry Potter II (yes, Constantijn - this time I have even read the book!), but I was too late and the only film left there was Fernando Meirelles’ City of God (Cidade de Deus). It was good, because I was the only person I know who hasn’t seen this film around here. The fact that everybody liked it was a turn-off, also some rich and snob people saying "Ah, it is an eye-opener about another reality...". The slum which names the film is like 20 min of where I live and, as I studied in a State school, many of my colleagues actually lived there. Anyway, Lia was the one who convinced me. She said it was no Sociology lesson, but just a story that happened to be real. First of all, I hate superlatives, but this is the best Brazilian film ever made, from the technical point of view. The film has it all - the direction, the photography, the acting, the sound and - MOST OF ALL - the script, everything is perfect. Although it is a film about violence, it is shown, strange as it seems, in its most poetic. There are no bad or good guys in City of God - everybody is shown in their most human. So, there is place for laughs and for tears. Most of all, Brazilian cinema, in its "Renaissance" is reaching (another good example was Beto Brant’s "The Trespasser") a compltely unique language. Brazil is a particular blend of 1st and 3rd world and these films have this "blended" quality. This is no Iranian film with its ready-made poetry. Here you have the most sophisticated use of cinematographic language to show definitely a "different reality" but with this unique Brazilian way of viewing nothing in a definite, simplistic or radical way. I had a professor who used to say "Here is the country of more or less" and that’s one good thing about here.

Today was also a day of "re-discovery". I was in good voice and trying to do some different things. So I decided to make some experiments - and there was I - at full lung capacity - disturbing my neighbours with Das Lied von der Erde. Suddenly, I realized that it had been ages I haven’t listened to Mahler at all. And then I remembered that Das Lied von der Erde is one of my favourite pieces of music. I don’t talk much about Mahler, because Mahlerians are like a sect. Whenever you don’t agree with them, they start to quote the score from heart (and I can’t tell if they’re lying or not...) and speak of Mengelberg and Bernstein etc etc. I can’t be a Mahlerian, because my Mahler collection is built around Sinopoli and I don’t know if he is doing it exactly as the score tells one to do and I don’t care. I like the way he does! The recording I listened to today was exactly his DG recording with the Staatskapelle Dresden, which is a model of clarity. I cherish his radical La Scala performance with Violeta Urmana too, where he takes the length of the last movement to its limits. I think that this is indeed a piece lucky with recordings. There are many I like very much. The Solti with Yvonne Minton is a reference IMO. The Haitink with Janet Baker and James King is particularly expressive too. I like the Bertini although the strings are too discrete, mainly because of Ben Heppner’s fabulous performance. I have already talked about the Sinopoli’s ones. I would like to have the Giulini - Araiza is excellent and the orchestral sonorities are unbelievable! - and the Boulez. Maybe because of the Vienna Philharmonic and Violeta Urmana. I have one pirate with Carlos Kleiber too where Christa Ludwig is sensational and Kleiber offers some unusual directness which pleased me. But I don’t like the Klemperer. The recorded sound causes me a claustrophobic sensation. It sounds as if they recording it in an elevator.

Saturday, November 23rd

• Today I went to the theatre - Dürrenmatt’s "Der Besuch der alten Damen", directed by Moacyr Góes. I had never seen any staging of this play and it was a great experience, one of the best visits to the theatre this year. The production turns around the veteran actress Tonia Carrero, who is eighty-something (she says she is younger than that, of course...). Carrero used to be considered the most beautiful actress of her days and spent her career doing serious theatre in order to prove her talent. I had seen her in many roles in TV, although she would invariably play the sophisticated ladies. First of all, it is most generous of her to use her prestige in order to stage important texts and she’s always active. Some other very famous Brazilian actresses and actors who could gather the sponsors and artistic forces around them simply do nothing and waste the opportunity to do something for Brazilian audiences, who are always in need of quality stagings. Anyway, I thought this to be Góes’ best work in his career (and I have seen a great deal of what he did). The production is beautiful, sober, elegant and intelligent and doesn’t try to do lots of things, concentrating on the essential. In the main role, Tonia Carrero is fully satisfying. Her Claire Zachanassian has the necessary grandeur, some bitchiness and the remains of a former vulgarity emerging whenever it is necessary. The rest of the cast is of outstanding high level, with distinguished and celebrated actors doing even some small roles. Among them, Cláudio Corrêa e Castro and André Valli deserve special mention.

Thursday, November 21st

• I have been listening to Gruberova today - Mozart concert arias on DG. I have always wondered why some reviewers are so pleased to say bad things of her. Later I discovered she dislikes interviews and is not very pleasant with the press. Now it makes sense that reputed reviewers play the silly role of saying bad things of someone who is so above her competition. Of course, Gruberova is not perfect - but then she is like everybody. However, in my opinion, she is like 97% perfect :-) But her enemies concentrate on the 3%. The usual thing is "she scoops". OK, she does now and then. But, hey!, she can trill, she has the most amazingly articulate coloratura, she used to hit high g’s in alt, she has a powerful voice that happens to be beautiful, produces the most exquisite high floated pianissimi, has thoroughly musicianly phrasing, is intelligent, has perfect diction, is stylish in whatever repertoire (and she has a huge repertoire), including Lieder. If she scoops, it is probably because she wants us to believe she is human! Anyway - let the bad reviewer be judged for his reviews! Today I was discussing about singing Mozart - that Mozart requires absolute naturality. That is why singers who fake their vocal production cannot sing Mozart. However, he could be cruel with singers and one is used to accept performances where not everything is seen to properly. Gruberova is one of the few singers who are always at home in Mozart. With her, Martern aller Arten is just an aria. She is completely untroubled by technical demands and concentrates exclusively in the artistic part of it. So - if you haven’t heard her Popoli di Tessaglia, what are you waiting for? Forget it is a killer aria - with Gruberova it is only beautiful music.

Another surprise was prepared by my friend Ivan. He made me listen to some tracks of that old Giulio Cesare in German on Orfeo. He told me it is called "Der Fliegende Cesar" - and there’s some reason in it. It’s heavy and sorely uninflected, although it is not as dull as Richter’s. I listened to Lucia Popp’s Tutto può donna vezzosa. She sings it with a velvety ease that no Handelian soprano these days can imitate. However, I couldn’t see a Cleopatra in that heavenly singing. She’s someone who’s saying "I’m beautiful so I can do whatever I want". And that HAS TO sound more sexy. But Popp is not alone. No Cleopatra recorded ever suggested something like that. It is a pity Kathleen Battle never recorded it - for her Semele has tons of that. I was also amazed by Fritz Wunderlich’s technique. He is singing something that is simply too low for a tenor, but he keeps it in perfect place. But, anyway, it can’t be congenial when a tenor is in the less interesting part of his voice and singing a German text that simply doesn’t fit in the music Handel composed in Italian. Finally, MY GOD, Walter Berry is a neglected singer! Why aren’t we reading in music magazines things like "One of the greatest singers of his generation". We’re talking of someone who sang Wotan, Ochs, Leporello, Don Magnifico and... Händel. I was astonished by the accuracy of his coloratura. It is really something one has to listen to first to believe. Anyway, I like Jacobs’ Giulio Cesare, but Barbara Schlick is too well-behaved for a Cleopatra... Considering that the repertoire Natalie Dessay has been singing is contributing to the decline of her voice, she should think of dealing with Cleopatra one of these days... It could be interesting.

Wednesday, November 20th

• I finally could see Almodovar’s Hable con Ella. I think Almodovar is aging very well - I didn’t want to use the cliché "like good wine", but that’s the idea. Everything is reaching its optimal proportion and the style is getting more and more sophisticated (in the sense of being masterly crafted). First of all, I like the photography of the film. The images are so beautiful, sensitive and undemonstrative! As always, the cast is wonderful and his use of comedy is getting more and more sensitive. Out of his unconventional particular situations, he gets straight to what is more moving and human in an universal way. This film has lots of niceties too - Pina Bausch, Caetano Velloso’s singing as sweetly as it can be... And there’s that wonderful, weird, captivating, beautiful story. Everybody kept telling me "it’s a sad film", but I didn’t see it as a sad film. An emotional film, certainly, but I found its main idea - that the power of love resides in giving and not receiving it (that is why the film is "TALK to her") - so inspiring and truthful, especially these days where people only see things in their point-of-view and according to their personal needs.

Tuesday, November 19th

• Some of my very favourite discs are Schubert Lieder. One very very dear to me is Margaret Price’s volume in the Hyperion Complete Edition. I like this disc so much that there are tracks I have practically never listened to, because I want to save them for the future :-) Anyway, for a while, I had been obsessed by Price’s performance of Der Winterabend, with its wonderfully evocative moods and the sense of reclusion, warmth and melancholy. Now, my obsession moved on to Im Freien. The way Graham Johnson and Price perform it displays a rare poetic atmosphere. To me, this song has this sense of being in complete unity with Nature and being received in it in complete understanding. The piano part is so delicate and speaks of the shimmering moonbeams filtered by the leaves in the road, the carriage lovely rocking us in that visit to this lovely place we hadn’t seen for a while and that is home, of the little laughs and tears of joy. I particularly like the subtle variations in the more or less "strophic" structure. The same feeling is portrayed in each stanza, but the very descriptive nature of the poem needed those little suprises here and there. And there’s Margaret Price singing it soo deep from the heart that you can’t help sharing her enthusiasm and wonder - Drum auch winkt mir's überall / So begehrend hier, / Drum auch ruft es, wie der Schall / Trauter Liebe mir. Words so lovely as these ones could only be set to music by this most generous of composers, which is Schubert.

Monday, November 18th

• More changes in this page. First of all, the "This week" articles are now under only one page called "Articles". And the link to the "Miscellany" page is off for a while. I haven’t read what I had written there and, on doing it this week-end, I was appalled by some things that sound a bit silly to me right now. I am studying the deletion of the page for good, although I more or less like what I wrote about national styles in music, castrati and probably that weird "analysis" comparing Woody Allen’s Interior to Wagner’s Parsifal (isn’t that WEIRD?). Also, Constantijn’s page has been updated with a CD review.

This Sunday I could also see a video of an opera new to me - Janacek’s The Cunning Little Vixen. There is not much of a plot going on there, but the scene where the fox woos the vixen is really really funny! As always, Janacek music is successful in producing real lyricism while keeping its inconventionality. Maybe this sounds insensitive, but I still think that Jenufa is his greatest opera, but the Vixen is a charming work, especially when performed as in this video from the Châtelet. First of all, the staging is irresistible in its beauty and sense of humor. And the "fox" couple was given to extremely gifted singing actresses. Eva Jenis’s and Hanna Minutiullo’s voices are a bit edgy, but they give their heart and soul to their roles - and the "wooing" scene is definitely the highlight of the performance. The musical direction is under the direction of the authorative Charles MacKerras and all I can say is that it is highly recommended.

Sunday, November 17th

• Due to my frustration about the Jess Thomas biography, I decided to compensate myself on anticipating my Christmas gift to myself. I went to FNAC and thought I’d buy like some 10 discs, but I came back to my senses and bought the Jacobs Giulio Cesare - something I already ower myself since long time ago. I also took profit I was in the shopping center and decided to see one movie. "Midnight Mile", by Brad Silberling. I thought that the cast was very nice. Besides the expected pleasure of watching Susan Sarandon and Dustin Hoffmann (without affectations), there was the surprise of Jake Gyllenhaal’s discrete and insightful performance in the main role. The film has beautiful photography and the plot manages to offer some unexpected turns in what is essentially a conventional story. My problem about the film is that it needed to be a Scandinavian film to get really deep into the heart of the matter. There were some unnecessary scenes just to make it more digestible, such as the fight between a cat and a dog in the post office. For a moment, it could be a Jim Carrey movie. Or the scene of a dinner in a future business partner’s house. Or the dead girl’s friends scenes. All of that added colour to a plot that would make real sense if presented dry. With such a cast, they could have relied more on their talents than on jokes. Also, there is something about many American movies which displeases me. Whenever someone has to make something of his or her life, he or she doesn’t go to college, get a job, write a book, learn to play an instrument, resign from job, move abroad, start to go to the theatre, learn a foreign language, whatever - they invariably meet a half-excentric person that IS the solution to their lives and that’s it.

Also, the film seems to be happening somewhere between the 60’s and 70’s. And I couldn’t help thinking that I was kind of lucky having been born in the mid 70’s. Of course, I don’t remember the 70’s at all - but I still could live with some stuff which are like museum items and that were so lovely at their times. For example, the LP. In Brazil, RCA was successful in making us call our "players" victrolas. I had my small orange victrola, but I was so nervous trying to skip to another track (it was not automatic) - I had to hold my breath and pray to God that I wouldn’t scratch the LP. So, I used my parents’ victrola, which was easier to deal with. Also, LPs were big and had enormous booklets and there was always tons of pictures and texts. Another thing - the typewritter. I had a brass Remington painted gray. I gave it a name "Charlotte". I used "transfer letters" to write it just above the Remingtom, so that it could have a name and a surname. For me, the typewriter was a permanent challenge, because I wanted to have both sides of the texts justified no matter what. So basically I was always playing with the carriage release thing so that I could make a big word to fit into a small pace. Also, I was ALWAYS running out ribbon. So, invariably I finished my writings on red ink. And there was the equipment. That thing one used to clean the typebars or that small paper you typed upon to "correct" typos. I just loved it! Another important item - the mimeograph. All my homework papers were made on mimeograph, because xerox copies were too expensive. I remember I always asked my father to give me a mimeograph! My mother had the carbon sheets here because she used to be a teacher and prepared her students’ homeworks on them. Anyway, the first "magazine" I published was called the "Graphic Juice" and was entirely "printed" in mimeograph, lent by the school headteacher. I could go on forever with this... :-)

Saturday, November 16th

• I don’t know if you have noticed it, but I changed the background colour of the entire site. I was told there was little contrast between the text and the background and that made reading a bit painful. I have to say that I already suspected that, but I liked the old blue too much... Now I see it was silly - the new blue is charming too :-) As a matter of fact, this is the beguining of some changes here. You’ll gradually notice that.

Today I listened to another nicest broadcast, which was Gardiner’s Jenufa from Salzburg. I am not as familiar as I’d like to be with the opera, since I have listened to the MacKerras with Elisabeth Söderström only a couple of times and seen the video with Roberta Alexander not that often either. However, the Gardiner performance struck me as being wonderfully articulated and animated, with wonderful orchestral playing. Also, Karita Mattila’s Jenufa has what her recorded rival don’t - not only she has more lyrical quality but also the voice is more dramatic to deal with the more taxing moments. The rest of the cast was not in her level. Hildegard Behrens was in very poor voice and her performance is a bit difficult to listen to. As for the tenors, I am of the opinion that there must be a difference in the vocalisation of these roles. In the above mentioned performance, the role of Steva was given to tenors with handsomer voices than the ones taking the role of Laka. I think this is important to understand the opera. It would be the same thing as giving the role of Adalgisa to a dramatic soprano and the role of Norma to a lyric soprano. Even if they sang well, it would sound odd. Here we have Jerry Hadley with some uneven top notes as Laka and David Kuebler as Steva. Hadley’s voice is more beautiful than Kuebler’s - but both sound like Laka.

Finally, I’m so disappointed. It has been two days since I started trying to buy Jess Thomas’ biography. I ordered it on abebooks.de and on Bibliobase, but in vain both times. The books had already been sold. Anyway, if anyone of you see it somewhere, please let me know. If one library has it, maybe a good xerox copy could solve the situation... :-) I haven’t given up, though!

Friday, November 15th

• Unfortunately, the run of performances of the play has been interrupted. Due to the bureaucratic idiocy of the theatre administration (I’m trying to keep down what I think of it...), it was decided that it would be better to call off yesterday. It was particularly sad because the play was getting a nice rhythm and we were finally reaching a minimal audience response etc. But that’s life... I can’t help thinking that the whole story was a great pity... for the audiences. It was a valuable opportunity to see a text rarely performed. More than that - in a production that took all the necessary care to present it into the correct stylistical approach. It was the same thing as hearing Bach with, let’s say, Gustav Leonhardt. The whole idea was to perform it with "historically informed practices". As Brazilian audiences are largely uninformed and we were dealling with Romantic theatre, we ran the risk of being kitsch, but a decision had been taken of meeting the demands of those who were either knowledgeable enough to recognize that (and we received nice compliments from these people) or to those who were open enough to a different thing (something also acknowledged by other part of the audience). What I mean is - artistically, it was a success and I’m happy I took part in it.

Anyway, today I was listening to Rio’s only radio station that plays classical music - the Radio MEC. They have an excellent program, but I can’t remember the name... The hostess is wonderfully well humoured and they concentrate on operetta. Today she said we were going to plunge into the abysmal depths of the unknown - she referred to ITALIAN operetta. To tell the truth, I was unaware that the genre existed in Italy. I read later that because of the strength of melodramma with Italian audiences operetta was introduced quite late under the influence of people like Lehár. Anyway, they played highlights of an operetta called "Addio Giovinezza", by a guy called Pietri. I have to say that I found it really really charming. There was one aria for soprano which was particularly exquisite. It was sung by a singer called Romana Righetti, completely unknown to me till then. She really called my attention because her whole method is sooooo similar to Callas’ that I thought it was her under a fake name! Anyway, it is not Callas - and the voice, although similar to La Divina’s, it’s a bit lighter, more homogenuous and creamier. Anyway, I think that this repertoire deserved a decent recording, with good orchestra, conductor and singers. It is sad to see it is so neglected, while there are sopranos recording stuff like "I love you just the way you are". It would be nice if... I don’t know... Barbara Frittoli, Marcello Giordani, Michele Pertusi... some really nice Italian singers and a good orchestra, such as the Giuseppe Verdi in Milan recorded a CD of Italian operetta so that the audiences could sample a bit of these works recorded in a high musical standard.

p.s. While writing, I am listening to a R. Strauss disc conducted by Richard Stamp. There are some songs exquisitely sung by Gundula Janowitz, but there is also a recording of Metamorphosen which is simply fantastic! It has such passion and poetic quality! It might be a favourite for me.

Wednesday, November 13th

• Lots of stuff here. Thanks to a generous friend, I could listen to some wonderful broadcasts today. The first of them was Jacobs’ Rinaldo with Vivica Genaux. The review is already added to the Handel page, since it is going to be released. When the official item is around, I’ll try to listen to it and re-review it. The other Handelian item was McGegan’s Alcina this year at the Göttingen Festival. I don’t know if the festival label is going to release it, but they should! Here goes a review:

McGegan’s performance has a directness and forward movement that makes Alcina sound as a heroic opera quite often. His orchestra is wonderfully clear and rich toned. A comparison with both Christie and Hickox shows a certain lack of pathos in the slower numbers. The role which suffers more is the title role. Its wonderful arie di affetto, true psychological exercises, are here reduced to dance music. There is, of course, the compensation is the extra clarity in the obligatto instruments, but the atmosphere is sorely missing. A bit to blame is also Yvonne Kenny, who could have been interesting in this role some years ago. Now the tone is edgy all the way and she resents sustaining notes. The tone is still pleasant and the scale of the performance is in keeping with the writing of the role, but the result is too impersonal. Also, this is probably the slowest Ombre palide I have ever heard. As Morgana, Cyndia Sieden calls all attention. With her high lying soprano, flexibility and charming tone, she causes a great impression. She is also stylish and imaginative. In Tornami a vagheggiar she wisely borrowed some ornamentation from Natalie Dessay, but the tone is not as creamy as the French soprano’s. The rest of the cast is simply impressive. Wilke te Brummelstroete is a most pleasing mezzo which sings the role of Ruggiero with sensitivity, fluency and charm. The contrast with Ewa Wolak’s dark voice is telling. The Polish contralto has her similarities with Ewa Podles, but the voice is more spontaneous and rounder. Maybe because her coloratura is short of impressive, she became the victim of McGegan. The tempi chosen for her arias are simply fast beyond sensibility. In Vorrei vendicarmi, things simply go apart. Singer and orchestra get lost and the aria is aborted before the end (as a matter of fact, only the section A of some arias is performed). It would be a pity to preent the release of this otherwise charming performance because of it. Wolak, a extraordinarily gifted singer, deserved to re-record these arias in reasonable tempi. Susanne Ryden is also pleasant as Oberto and is caught short only in Barbara!. Iain Paton has a natural tenor who takes beautifuly to Oronte’s music, even in some overfast tempi. Finally, Andrew Foster-Williams’ Melisso couldn’t be better in the role. I preferred him to both Tomlison et Naourri.

Today I also added a new page to the site - Constantijn’s page. He has been such a regular and interesting contributor that I decided to concentrate his writings on a page of his own, that can be reached through the link here just in the left.

Monday, November 11th

• Today was Rosenkavalier day. Everything started with my listening of the C.Kleiber Vienna performance with Felicity Lott. The structural clarity and the sheer excitement were so irresistible that I felt I had to compare. I started with Kleiber, father. The animation was still there, but not the warmth. Also, with Kleiber, Jr., woodwind led the ensemble - and this makes all the difference in the world to this opera. So I shifted to Böhm II. I should say "predictably", the old master was still ahead. The same elements found in C.Kleiber were there in Böhm, but displayed in an even more organic way. I don’t know, but everything C.Kleiber did, Böhm did even better! So it was time to listen to Dohnányi. Funny - Dohnányi’s tempi were marvellous and it was amazingly clear. But this sense of "seeing beyond" both C. Kleiber and Böhm display eludes him. So, time to to listen to Solti. The prelude is amazing, but - as always with Solti - when the texture gets simpler and things get less "defined", he looses his way. For example "Wie du warst..." is really square. Then, back in time for Karajan I. Boy, it is kind of blurred... It was really below the standard found here, although he still has the edge on Solti on those "less defined" passages. But the total looser here was Haitink in his "what’s going on here?"-approach. It is a pity - with a recording and an orchestra such as the ones he has, it was supposed to be wonderful...I was going to listen to Karajan II, but I felt I needed to listen to something ELSE. So, my order of preference (for conducting) here was Böhm II - C.Kleiber II - Solti/Dohnányi - Karajan I. Of course, I retouched the Rosenkavalier discography after these comparisons.
As for the singers, some surprises. First of all, I used to find Christa Ludwig a bit uninteresting as the Marschallin - but I guess it is a question of getting used to a tone dark as hers in the role. I think that the "pianissimo" approach tends to be seen as the truth of this role - but the fact is that it is only one way of approaching it. In this sense, Crespin has the advantage. She has the weight of voice AND the mezza voce. It is funny - the Marschallin is not as easy a role as it sounds. For example, Felicity Lott, even with her wonderful word-pointing, cannot hide that her tone gets tense too often. As a matter of fact - the great test is the phrase "Du bist mein Bub, du bist mein Schatz, ich hab dich Lieb". The only two here who could do it entirely pure-toned were Crespin and Janowitz. As for Octavian, I am starting to suspect that the role is more difficult to cast than I thought. Strauss says it is a soprano role, but everybody casts it with a mezzo. Sena Jurinac, for example, is a soprano and is completely at ease, but it sounds as if two ladies and not a lady and a boy were in that room. In Anne Sofie von Otter’s case, there is a tone dark in the right measure, but she suffers with the role. The tone is rarely relaxed and is rarely pure. Of course, she does beautiful things throughout - but her voice is helplessly light for the role. Listening to Tatiana Troyanos is a complete change - her sexy rich tone works wonderfully in the role. I used to think Frederica Von Stade was like one of the best, because of her high pianissimi, but the tone gets as tense as Von Otter’s otherwise. Yvonne Minton offers yet a different kind of voice. It is bright and light, but it is a tone that naturally projects into a big room and is still clean. I haven’t listened to Karajan DG today, but my memories are all in favour of Baltsa. A mezzo with that exuberance of top notes and directeness of interpretation is more into my idea of what the role should sound.

Sunday, November 10th

• I have just added another review of Arabella in the R.Strauss discography. It is the Böhm performance on DG. Previously, I had said that the recorded sound was unacceptable, but that was a gross exageration and I apologize for it. The sound is actually OUTSTANDING for 1947 and Böhm’s wonderful structural quality survives a less crystaline recorded sound. And there’s Maria Reining, who - in spite of some less than scrupulous vocalism - is the very example of how a Straussian soprano should sound - creamy, bright, easy and charming.

Saturday, November 9th

• Today I was introduced to a nice yahoo group about Cheryl Studer. There I listened to some beautiful examples of her artistry. First of all, a most seductive performance of Rosalinde’s Csardas in Die Fledermaus. There may be more brilliant performances, but few are so charming as this one. Although Fidelio is a part on the heavy side for her, she does beautiful things all the way - I was surprised by the warmth of her tone in Mir ist so wunderbar and by the floating lyricism she brought to Abscheulicher! But, more than that, I thought Solti’s conducting excellent and the cast very exciting - Ben Heppner in beautiful voice, Ruth Ziesak, Roberto Saccà, René Pape. When Cheryl Studer was here in Rio, she said that this Salzburg performance was TAPED by a recording company, probably Decca and that she didn’t know why it wasn’t released. It is a shame - it sounds as though it could be the best Fidelio since the Haitink.

Also, today I accidentally found a 1940 film with Henry Fonda on TV called "Young Mr. Lincoln", by John Ford. I hadn’t intended to watch a film, but I couldn’t turn my eyes from the screen. I thought the film to be marvellous. It centers on Lincoln’s life where he was a young lawyer and the story is most about a murder case where he represented the defendants. There is also a touch of sentimentality, but it is so beautifully performed by the excellent cast that it ends on being really touching. Also, I was really impressed by Fonda’s acting here. He brings so much energy and imagination to it! I would highlight the scene where he stops the crowd from lynching his clients. It was a scene for the posterity - really done from the heart without resorting to any easy tricks.

Tuesday, November 7th

• Thanks to my friend André, today I had a wonderful Wagnerian afternoon. First of all, we took a look at Parsifal act II from the Met on DVD. The clarity was amazing and it is good to see how Waltraud Meier used to sing well before she decided to be a soprano. Anyway, it is still a bit tough for her towards the end. Also, the staging is ugly beyond help. Who would call a woman in pink granny-like nightgown with some camelias on her head an Ur-seductress? OK, we shifted to C. Davis’ Tannhäuser. Last time I saw it, I started to realize how much I was mistaked about it. Now I see it as a major performance of this difficult opera. C. Davis NEVER conducted like that before or after. It has such a level of theatrical commiment and musical precision - as he never displays in German Romantic repertoire. His Freischütz and Hänsel und Gretel and also the Lohengrin are slow, uninflected and not really articulated. Also, the Bayreuth orchestra and choir are in great shape. And there is Gwyneth Jones - her Venus is good, but her Elisabeth is wonderful. There is real musicianship and sensitivity in her phrasing, a purity of sound that suggest Elisabeth’s Tugend, but there is some power there too and also some warmth. She suggest to perfection the idea that Elisabeth recognizes the sensuousness between her and Tannhäuser, but she makes it transcend to a higher level. A poetical performance throughout. And there’s Spas Wenkoff - the only Tannhäuser to arrive in full shape into a complete recorded performance (made live in front of an audience) of this work. His voice has weight, spaciousness, beauty of tone and he sings with true legato. He is a bit overcareful with his top notes, which sometimes could be more intense, but it always sounds rounded and natural. Pity he never recorded Siegmund. Finally, we saw a documentary about Bayreuth. It was in German and some people had difficult pronunciations. Not Wieland Wagner - one could understand each word he said. However, the endearing part were the rehearsals.

First of all, there was James King and Leonie Rysanek rehearsing the Wieland/Böhm Walküre. I am reading his biography exactly where he explains he sang the role for the first time there and accepted it because he was led by the experimented hands of those two great artists. And one feels how happy and confident and open-hearted he feels there. This generosity is something I have always sensed in his artistry and that is what makes me have a special fondness for it. The film showed also an unbelievably funny rehearsal of the Holländer, with Thomas Stewart, Joseph Greindl and a tenor I don’t know, the three of them in very bad mood and making funny fances to each other. We could see also some moments of what may have been a fabulous Parsifal, conducted by Cluytens with Astrid Varnay and Jess Thomas in fabulous voice. Finally, the straight-to-the-heart item - Hermann Prey singing O du mein holder Abendstern in complete state of grace. What a shame that someone who sang like that had to die! I think Hermann Prey should live forever!

Finally, there are two things I need some help with. First of all, a woman called Regina (or Regine) Fonseca sang KUNDRY in Bayreuth at the 80’s. This sounds as a Portuguese name. So I wonder if she could be Brazilian. That would mean that she would be the ONLY Brazilian who have sung in Bayreuth. I mean - I have the utmost interest to discover WHO SHE IS. I have looked everywhere - but nothing. So, if anyone has any idea, PLEASE write.

The second thing is - I have been trying to collect some information about Jess Thomas and found simply NOTHING about him on the web. So I thought that it is really a shame and was thinking of making a Jess Thomas page. But I would need some material or at least some direction of where I could find some material. Any help would be welcome!

Sunday, November 3rd

 

• I’m still reading James King’s biography - Nun sollt Ihr mich befragen, a book I recommend. I have written here that his Lohengrin has a level of emotional commitment that always impressed me. There is a passage in the book where he reveals that he has a strong personal connection to the work - especially one day when he arrived from a performance of Lohengrin to discover his wife had abandoned the house with their child while he was away. Here’s a quote "Lohengrin’s tragedy in the end of the story is also an example of how none of us, even the most virtuous, is immune from the inability of others - for whatever reason - to submit to the binding rules that we establish to ourselves" [my translation...]. Again, if you don’t have Kubelik’s Lohengrin - with Gundula Janowitz, Gwyneth Jones, James King, Thomas Stewart and Karl Ridderbusch - you should go to the next CD store right now.

Today I saw parts of a Verdi Gala in Parma on DVD. First thing - what happened to Daniella Dessì and Barbara Frittoli? They used to be good looking! Frittolli should bar pasta from her diet... but Dessì... I don’t know - she looks as if Jane Mansfield had just waken up from a looong night. Anyway, they are wonderful singers and the fault is their hairdresser and fashion stylist’s. Dessì, a once marvellous Fiordiligi and Donna Elvira, despite a voice a bit on the metallic side, is a singer whose intensity and sensitivity I have always admired. Her Adriana Lecouvreur at La Scala could melt a heart of stone. So the Pace, pace mio Dio she sang here. I could see the whole drama in her performance of that aria - the quiet praying of an exhausted soul, the passion that didn’t disappear from a suffering heart. I once read that, as Leonora in Il Trovatore, Callas was able to offer "a breathtaking blend of tension and effortlessness". So did Dessì here - in one of the most original performances of this aria I have ever heard, full of lovely pianissimi and a strongest top note at the end. I still think it is crazy of Frittoli to sing stuff such as Ritorna Vincitor - I saw her as Donna Elvira at Vienna some years ago and don’t remember her voice as powerful enough to sing this repertoire. Nevertheless, she sang Aida’s aria beautifully. Most of all, her Già nella notte densa was unforgettable - worthy of a Caballé or a Freni. Pity she was not as inspired in the broadcast from La Scala. But the saddest thing was the state of José Cura’s vocal decline. His creativity and sensitivity as a singer (I can’t say the same thing of his overacting...) are still there, but the top notes are gone for good. Ah, when I say top notes, I mean starting from a f#...

At the moment, I‘m working on a discography of Il Trovatore for the Verdi page - IMO, one of the most exciting works in the Italian repertoire. Including the libretto, despite everything everybody says. I am only sorry I couldn’t find either Levine’s CD or video, Cellini, Mehta II, Mehta I remastered, Pappano, Karajan on Salzburg on DG (not the Gala), among other stuff. If anyone of you has one of these recordings on your collection, a copy would always be welcome. I’m open to negotiations, should this be the case. :-)

Finally - a kitsch thing to end today’s post - yesterday I saw a endearing rarity on TV. A 1947 film called "Golden Earrings" with Marlene Dietrich as a half-crazy gypsy and Ray Milland as an obnoxious British officer who learns that life can be good if only you relax (even being chased by Nazis through the Black Forest...). The film has its really funny and its unintentionally funny moments. The soundtrack involves Dietrich using her low harmonics in plenty singing some gipsy songs in a language which sounds like Hungarian - and also poor Meistersinger prelude is the musical theme of the Nazi bad guys...

Saturday, November 2nd

• Another movie today - Claude Chabrol’s Merci pour le Chocolat. I have read that most reviews tend to stress that this is not a masterpiece, but a nice charming film. I think that this is irrelevant considering how interesting and seductive the film is. If I had to fault something, maybe it would be the clear idea that the film was taylor-made to highlight Huppert’s talents instead of making a whole organic thing. Anyway, Huppert is someone to be highlighted anyway. Her acting is so hypnotic and so original - it reminds me of Henry James’ novels in the sense that it seems that most part of the story is NOT being told to you. Whenever Huppert is on a scene, it seems that there are two parallel things going on - what she is showing us and what she is not, which looks more fascinating than what we are allowed to see. I think that the question that goes to everyone’s minds while watching her is "What is she thinking of now?". This acting which makes more of hiding than on showing is something reserved only to an elite of actors - and we’re lucky to have Huppert so active in a great variety of genres. Nevertheless, it is a great cast - and Anna Mouglais is so beautiful, charming and spontaneous that she survives the competition with Huppert. Again, it is a film where the plot should take second place, although it is quite a "suspense" plot - but a plot that can be solved in the first 20 min, so that you can relax and relish on the aesthetic pleasures offered to you in the shape of music, especially the intelligent way with which the work on Liszt’s Funerailles is shown, of images, helped by the exquisite ice-cold photography... and, of course, there is the chocolate, which makes you feel like running for a cup of hot chocolate when the film is over! Some scenes of the film are, as a matter of fact, hypnotic, such as the passage where Huppert reminds an evening where her best friend died. Finally, there is this wonderful feature of European films of letting lots of loose ends so that you can feel that it has to do with real life (where nothing makes real sense...) and that you have something to discuss when the film is over. :-)

Saturday, October 25th

• Today I went to the movies and saw Tom Tykwer’s Heaven. I had read that the script was intended to be the first part of a new trilogy by Kieslowki, which never happened because of his unexpected death. Most reviews commented that, even if Tykwer never said this was his aim, his style is inspired in Kieslowski. I think that this is an exaggerated proposition, especially if one is inclined to compare Heaven to Run, Lola, Run. I think that Tykwer was only sensible to adapt his style to the rhythm imposed by the script itself. Also, Tykwer’s photography is completely different of Kieslowski’s more intimate and less spectacular one. To start with, I must say that it is a fact that the place in earth closer to heaven is Italy - and I was glad to see those heavenly landscapes and also those beautiful vols d’oiseau of Turin, a city that has inspired films of reflective nature, such as Mimmo Calopresti’s Preferisco il Rumore del Mare. Then there are Cate Blanchett and Giovanni Ribisi, looking like Boticcelian cherubins and acting with Bergmanian economy even in scenes of suspense and intense drama. One could suppose that Ribisi, an Italian citizen although born in Los Angeles, would be so idiomatic in Italian, but Blanchett, even accented, sounded pretty comfortable, especially if we remember that Italian is a language ill-treated by foreigners. I also noticed that most reviewers accused the film of being pretentious and of having the flimsiest of plots. I think that there is a point being lost there - a film is not primarily concerned about script, but of images. And the plot itself is very simple - two twin souls which are innocent in each other’s eyes, but guilty to the world, can only be entirely each other’s away from society. There love scene is the image of paradise - man, woman and the tree. Nothing else. The closing scene where the helicopter goes higher than it is possible (as we are explained in the beguinning of the film - where the computer images sound unrealistically beautiful, but then Italy is always a surprise...) does perfect sense to anyone who has seen Tristan and Isolde. A beautiful film.

The week-end also had new discs. Sacred pieces by Bach and Handel. First of all, I have no further doubt that Masaaki Suzuki’s Bach cantata series is the overall best. There are individual cantatas that are ultimately better found in other performances, but what Suzuki offers is reliability and a strong sense of unity in his whole series. The volume I bought is the 7th one, with a lovely Ingrid Schmithüsen, a spontaneous sounding Yoshikazu Mera, a strong performance from tenor Makoto Sakurada and the dependable Peter Kooij. I was particularly happy to find the cantata 61. My other recording is Gardiner’s and I found it amazingly disappointing, for many reasons - I found the conducting shallow, the soloists unappropriate (especially Olaf Bär) and, most of all, my favourite number, the bass recitative, with the famous pizzicati representing Christ knocking at the door virtually inaudible. With Suzuki, they are performed expressively and Kooij is simply perfect. However, I have to confess that I’m glad that I have Gardiner’s cantata 172, which beats Suzuki in exuberance, with supernatural trumpet playing and a tenor of unusual sweetness of tone and expressivity, Cristoph Genz, whom I had the pleasure to see in Ariadne auf Naxos some years ago.

I still don’t have an opinion on the Handel disc. So far, Magdalena Kozena is, as usual, irresistible and Minkowski a thorough stylist. I still have to form an idea on Annick Massis - sometimes I found her style a bit operatic, although she has unbelievably nimble coloratura - and on the choir, which seems too closely recorded. Ultimately, I have to find an opinion on the pieces itself. I am used to profane Handel and was surprised to find him Vivaldi-ian in those sacred pieces...

Sunday, October 20th

• I haven’t seen Solti’s FroSch on DVD until today. I think that Decca made a great job on it. The sound is far more natural than on LD and the singers’ voices are more naturally reproduced. It is always good to remember how inspired Solti was that evening. Every little aspect of the score is seen to in a natural and sensible way, the Vienna Philharmonic is in superb shape, there is Cheryl Studer, the reference for the role of the Empress, Marjana Lipovsek in a legendary performance. Although Moser, Marton and Hale are not ideal, they offer heartfelt and commited performances. I only wish the production was less ugly and unsensational... Sometimes it looks so careless. I think most American and European stage designers think that an elaborate production means lots of money. And that’s not true. If one looks at Rio’s Carnival parade, one can see sophisticated floats which are nothing but cheap material properly handled. I remember once when the "designer" of one of those samba schools was responsible for a staging of Turandot here in Rio - and it was one of the most creative and beautiful performances I’ve seen of this opera. Anyway, the key element is imagination. I promise that if I staged Frau ohne Schatten, it would be far better than that thing he made for Salzburg! Anyway, the musical thing is the one that matters - a performance that will make Solti remember for eternity.

Thursday, October 15th

• Today I went to the opera - Hänsel und Gretel, in a Portuguese translation. I thought the translation to be very bad. On trying to be faithful to the letter of the German libretto (although softening some passages...), they produced a Portuguese text of poor quality. The production, on the other hand, was gorgeous! It was designed by the creator of Brazil’s best TV show for children and had elements of cartoon, black theatre and lots of imagination (particularly one passage in the woods, where we see Snow White, Cinderella, Little Red Hoot - actuallty the Evil Stepmother disguised...). It was very funny. Since they hired new musicians, the orchestra of the Theatro Municipal developed a bigger and richer sound. There were still lots of mistakes, but the French horns did a very good job, which was unlikely to happen one year ago. Conductor Jamil Maluf had the good sense of choosing comfortable tempi and to underplay the orchestra in some key moments to help his light-voiced cast. IMO, there was only one major performance, Denise de Freitas’ Hänsel. A mezzo with a most firm and natural voice, she sang with utmost good taste, beautiful top and low notes and was the only female singer to present clear diction. Andréa Ferreira’s Gretel was sometimes barely audible and her top notes were a bit uncontrolled. She also sounded a bit kitsch to my taste. Celine Imbert’s mezzo is in ruined state and her mother was far from illuminating. Regina Helena Mesquista’s voice is under no better condition, but her charisma and imagination offered some compensation to the role of the Witch. Sandro Cristopher was the other member of the cast with good diction. His clear baritone is pleasing enough, but tends to sound on the raw side under pressure. Netti Szpillman’s Sandmann was completely miscast - the role requires a singer with a beautiful voice and a decent low register, but Flávia Fernandes was a charming Taumännchen. The children’s choir was really nice too. Everyone in the cast was completely at home with their acting and they captivated an audience half made of children - especially Denise de Freitas and Regina Helena Mesquita.

Saturday, October 12th

• The opening night happened under very complicate circumstances. The theatre where we’re performing is seriously lacking technical conditions and had three plays premièring the same week. This led to a series of minor problems, but - considering the circumstances - it could have been worse. Next week, we’ll be able to present a better show, not only because we overcame most difficulties, but also because things do take some time to mature.

Yesterday I saw István Szábo’s Taking Sides. I am completely unbiased in the affair Furtwängler. I never read any book about him - only saw a couple of German documentaries about his life, which don’t mention any after-war event. However, I had read some articles about similar situations involving other artists, such as Karajan. I confess that the way the situation of German people and German artists who stayed in their country during the war was shown corresponded to my idea, based not only in my imagination, but in conversations I had with people who stayed in Germany during the war or their children. However, it is not the first time that I find that Szábo takes a kind didatic point-of-view in his films. A kind of cliché-ed simplistic approach which is nevertheless always grounded in good ideas. The building of characters is always the main problem. As in "Meeting Venus", characters seem more a series of situations rather than real personalities. In this film, for example, only Furtwängler himself (understandably) sounded real. The other characters seemed rather sketchy to my eyes, even Harvey Keitel’s American officer, who could be an operetta character, with lots of conventional American features (calling everybody by their first names, the ignorance about other people’s cultures, the overfondness for empty discipline etc). I don’t know to what extent the character was based on the real man or is a product of imagination, but I think it would be more interesting if he was a man of REAL moral force trying to figure out something that really was important for him. In this sense, Lars von Trier’s Europa has the complete edge on Taking Sides. Anyway, as always, Szábo presents images of complete poetry and has a magnificent cast, especially the actor playing the part of Furtwängler, offering a performance of great subtlety, without any hint of caricature (for example, he was very subtle on portraying Furt’s weird way of walking). It was funny, for I almost guessed that the performances in digital sound in the soundtrack were conducted by Barenboim. I was once asked why I had compared Barenboim’s Wagner to Furtwängler’s. Of course, Barenboim is not in the level of Furtwängler, especially because he lacks the German conductor’s structural clarity and immaculate articulation, but the grandiose sound picture seems to be the common feature.

I’ve been listening to lots of Handel these days. It is no surprise to me that Alcina is probably the best baroque opera - its richness of invention and "psychological" subtlety are short of miraculous. But this days I’ve been listening to Amadigi all the time - and again there’s music on the highest level of inspiration there. It’s one of Handel’s best works, offering a kind of melancholic atmosphere, with some unforgettable arie d’affetto of rare evocative beauty. And Minkowski is the man to conduct it - offering one of the all-too-few recordings where the cast is simply perfect - Eiddwen Harrhy, Jennifer Smith, Bernarda Fink and Nathalie Stutzmann.

Friday, October 11th

• Due to some technical problems, the opening night of the play was postponed to next Tuesday. It was all for the best, because we could perfect some details, including the soundtrack. I regret not having more Renaissance and early baroque here - for I could have done a better job, but the soundtrack was only ONE of the things I was doing and the one I had almost no time at all to do.

Yesterday I saw that Benoît Jacquot’s Tosca film. And I have to say I found it AWFUL. First of all, those piling up of different techniques is amazingly distant of what an opera film, especially a Puccini opera film, is about. I found it really kitsch, as something done from outside to inside, instead of the opposite - you know, when a guy who doesn’t care about opera tries to turn it into a more "attractive" thing. Also, that stylization, including the replacement of the sceneries’ wall for a black "screen", is a complete nonsense. What’s the point of making a film who resorts to "theatrical" effects? What’s the point of those takes from above during long scenes? I just need to go to the upper balconies in an opera house to see the whole show from above! Even the actors’ direction - I had the impression that Jacquot didn’t read the libretto. After Vissi d’Arte, for example, Tosca is supposed to be kneeling begging with both hands (she SAYS that). There, it seemed to me that she was behaving like a vamp - and she was standing up and the hands were not together as she was saying. Then there are the silly things - such as making the actors speak their lines ABOVE what they sing. What’s the point? I thought that a musical line enhanced the text in such a way that things like that were unnecessary. Then there is Roberto Alagna’s ridiculous acting! I felt like laughing many times when he was looking at the screen in the most dramatic scenes with that "hey, I’m cute, aren’t I?" looks... As for Gheorghiu, under a better direction, she could have done a better job, but she was ok. Even if defeated by hair-style, make-up and costumes. She looked old and ugly in a way she doesn’t in her videos made live in regular opera houses. The hair, the costumes were so exaggerated and artifficial. I guess that M. Jacquot wasn’t told that the style they were portraying was VERISMO. I think that the film was regrettable and Gianfranco di Bosio’s film, with Kabaivanska, Domingo and Milnes, including the real locations in Rome, is still the one to go.

From the musical point-of-view, I can’t tell exactly what I thought. I had the impression that the sound was enormously reverberant, but I was in a regular cinema and can’t tell how good their speakers are. I noticed that Pappano’s conducting was kind of "Straussian" with gentle orchestral playing to accommodate the light-voiced singers in the cast. As a result, the impact was not always there. I think that Angela Gheorghiu offered a very good Tosca, although it sounded like a performance for the microphone. One noticed that the top notes lacked cutting power, but she didn’t force and that’s all for the best. Her Tosca is beautifully and sensitively sung and shows a performer in complete control of her resources. I can’t say the same of Alagna. His voice sounds worn and effortful and seriously lacking brightness. He does some creative things now and then, such as in E lucevan le stelle, but he’ll ruin his voice if he keeps in this track. As for Raimondi, it’s intelligent and well sung, but I prefer his performance for Karajan.

Last thing - I’m re-listening to Sawallisch’s Frau ohne Schatten and I notice how much I underestimated this marvellous recording, probably the most purely beautiful in the discography. Some conductors stressed their points in a more revelatory way, such as Karajan or Böhm, but nobody found so much beauty in this music as Sawallisch did. Not to mention the heavenly orchestral sound with the kind of clarity which is build in rehearsals and not by the buttons of edition equipment.

Sunday, October 6th

• The opening night of the Victor Hugo play is on Tuesday. Actually, I’m not stressed any more. Things are running smoothly and my participation in this production (I mean - the only thing I don’t do there is acting, so I participate a lot...) has been very positive, I guess. Now that the rehearsals are practically over, I’m gradually setting my mind to work on some projects I had to postpone.

This week-end I noticed that I’m quite back to Wagner and Gundula Janowitz. This week I’ve listened a lot to Karajan’s Walküre 3rd act from Bayreuth. I think no-one conducts the Walkürenritt, with those zipping strings and woodwind, as Karajan does. And Astrid Varnay is just amazing there. But then I felt like listening to his DG recording and it served to remind me of how wonderful this recording is. Although sometimes the tempi are too slow, there is a sense of classical poise and nobility throughout the whole performance, in its minimal elements. Some moments that all other conductors overlook are conducted with such love and care - for example when they eight Valkyries try to persuade Wotan to give up punishing Brünnhilde in the 3rd act. Also, Régine Crespin’s Brünnhilde, the loveliest performance ever of this role. And Thomas Stewart’s noblest Wotan. But there is Gundula Janowitz’s Sieglinde. There is this uncanny quality in Janowitz’ voice. It has a supernatural vibration into it, the touch of something magic. More than that - it is not only a voice - that phrasing! Sculpted by magic hands. It is like a painting by Boticcelli. I’ve been listening to her Schubert disc the whole week-end. Try Berthas Lied in der Nacht. It’s like dying and going straight to Heaven.

September, 29th - Sunday

• Lots of work these days! The play’s opening night is October 1st and we’re working on 300 km/h now. I have to tell I hate opening nights - I get awfully nervous... Anyway, I could find some time for the movies. I saw two of them - the latest Beneix, "Mortel transfert",with a hottest Helène de Fougerolles... The film is interesting, but I think that it overdid the seriousness a bit. I think that it should be more of a comedy than it was, without the psychologic babble etc. I was taken to the other film because Lia insisted and insisted... it is Katherine Bigelow’s K-19. I was ready for the worst, but I have to say I liked it. It surprised me because the plot was about the people in the submarine and not about the submarine itself. And also because of the craftmanship in Bigelow’s direction. Some may find it not revelatory, but it is the work of someone who knows what he (in the case - she) is doing. And there was even the Kirov Orchestra conducted by Gergiev in the soundtrack.

Another good surprise was an article by Richard Wigmore in the Gramophone magazine about Lucia Popp. I don’t know what’s about Popp, but she has a kind of special place in my heart, as a dear friend would have. Maybe it’s because the way she approaches what she does always strike me as the way I would have liked to do. It makes me feel as if she is singing just for me. It is also funny to see that she’s such a beloved singer and that lots of people feel about her the same way. And Wigmore’s article - he wrote about her in a way I could have done myself.

Friday, September 20th

• Just to tell that I have rewritten my review of Hogwood’s Entführung aus dem Serail in the Mozart discography. I’ve been busy with the play and there’s really not much to tell, but for a really imaginative film I saw on TV, "Where’s Marlowe?", by Daniel Pyne. It is a kind of "Ariadne auf Naxos" made film, in the sense it is a metalinguistic comedy. The story is about some guys who make documentaries. We see a bit of their first and probably pretentious work before the opening credits. Then we see them working in their new one - and the film and the making-of become one only thing and, without trying to be deep, the film ends on proposing some interesting ideas about film-making.

September 7th, Saturday

• News about the play. It seems we finally settled about the role of Catarina - the actress is Renata Castro and she is simply perfect for the role. BTW, please take a look at our theatrical adventure site.
Another piece of good news - Olivier have just prepared a commented discography of Bizet’s Carmen, already found in the re:opera page.

August 29th, Thursday

• Just arrived from São Paulo. You know I’ve been miserable because I can’t afford to go to Italy... but somehow I got my a compensation. For the first time, I noticed how many interesting things to be seen exist in São Paulo. Maybe because of the Italian architects, there are some places in town where you could perfectly feel in Milan. And that’s what the feel of the trip - it felt like Milan, without La Scala. The MASP is always worth the trip - I hadn’t noticed they have a Hyeronimus Bosch there before. But I liked the museum best when the pictures were exposed in "glass walls" and you could see the town and the pictures "floating" all around the place. We did try to visit the famous Sala São Paulo (and the building is exquisite) but the tickets were sold out. So we went to a Chinese art exhibition at the FAAP - and the place is so beautiful that it looks like Rome. It was also a great occasion to meet some marvellous contemporary Chinese artists. What they do is so different and so beautiful - we should be hearing about them more often. In the evening, we went to the theatre to see Emilia in Shaw’s Major Barbara. I didn’t like the sceneries and thought that she was completely superior to her partners. Anyway, it is Shaw and a great opportunity to see such a wonderful actress and friend. After that, we went out dinner in a pizzeria called Speranza. I was told it is São Paulo’s best pizza. The artichoke pizza certainly deserved the title.

The next day started a bit lazy and I didn’t join Emilia and Marcos in a visit to the beautiful Pinacoteca do Estado. So, we picked them up to a street fair in Vila Madalena. It was a bit crazy, but a bit fun. Then, we went to a shopping center - an excellent restaurant, can’t remember the name - Bertolini or something like that. The risotto was great. After that, we saw a film that has to be seen to be believed - "La Comunidad", avec Carmen Maura. It is the most outrageously unconventionally bizarrely funny film I’ve seen these days. Anyway, it was a great trip, mainly thanks to my hosts Paulo and Mariana - who are the best guides to São Paulo.

August 26th, Monday

• Some good news in the play - the first of all that we found a marvellous actress for the role of Catarina, her name is Thaís Tedesco, and she won everyone’s heart with a first-sight reading that brought tears to the eyes. There are still minor problems to solve, but the fact that we had such good actors makes me feel we’re going to present a very beautiful show.

I also have some new discs - Billy’s Così and also a Susan Anthony recital. I hadn’t heard her voice before and I’m really really impressed. It is a beautiful voice - warm, sunny, bright. I read an interview of hers where she says she will sing some dramatic roles in the future - but I think she shouldn’t. Her top notes are not a dramatic soprano’s top notes - they are a bit strained and unconnected to the rest of the voice when made to sound forte. It would be a pity if she didn’t keep in the lyric and jugendlich dramatisch repertoire. Anyway, she’s probably the loveliest singer in her Fach these days. And I loved her interview too.

August 17th, Sunday

• I feel a bit guilty for I haven’t updated this page as often as I do. Basically, we’ve been busy with the play. We still haven’t an actress for the role of Catarina. The two nice actresses who read the role with us were held in the television contracts and we still haven’t found someone who really fits in our otherwise nicest cast.

Anyway, today I picked a book I gave my mother in Mother’s Day. I am generally not very curious about these best-seller stuff, but I have to say - this one made me laugh as few stuff in written media has had. It’s called "Pasquale’s Nose" and is written by Michael Rips. First of all, the first chapter has some "déjà vu" with my life - and as the rest is about Italy, it is always going to find a soft spot in me. I imagine that the inhabitants of the small town called Sutri described in the book must be hating the author with all their strength. It seems it was a city where tourists never showed up - but, after reading the book, I imagine one must feel like "I HAVE TO GO TO SUTRI!". Anyway, I’d be glad to be anywhere in Italy - but with the dollar rate as it is, I’d better get a sleep and hope to dream I’m there...

Ah, last thing - I have already finished the translation of the libretto of Frau ohne Schatten (to Portuguese). I’m still awaiting the end of the procedures in the National Library so that I can publish it HERE in the site. Now I’m working on Ariadne auf Naxos (and, yes, the idea is doing all the Hofmannsthal ones). Technically, there already is an Elektra, but it is a compromised edition between the play and the libretto and I won’t be messing with it for a loooooooooong while...

Wednesday, August 14th

• Yesterday I saw Spielberg’s Minority Report. I liked the film - great photography, with those marvellous masses of white lighting and those milky shadowy effects. Also - the Kubrick-isms were all marvellous and I think they improved a lot Spielberg’s style, particularly the way with which each scene has an interest of its own - such as the scene in the hothouse with the weird plants, or the scene of the recovery of the eye surgery with the "spiders". From the formal point of view, it is a perfect movie - even Tom Cruise is not disturbing anything. But there is still something between it and being a great movie, and one just has to think of Kubrick again to see what it is - some insight about human nature to be communicated with the audiences. There won’t be people debating Minority Report - I think that everybody is going to say "isn’t it good" and that is going to be it. Just for the records - the good talk about the film was guaranteed by Lia , who, as always, is the most perceptive movie-watcher I know.
Ah, news about the play. Unfortunately, Iris couldn’t be in the cast! But she introduced us to Juliana Knust, a marvellous young actress, who has everything - she’s intelligent, perceptive, sensitive, charismatic and beautiful. We’re lucky that she agreed to be a part of the cast.

Last thing - I can’t stop listening to Minkowski’s Ariodante! And I’m reviewing the FroSch libretto translation. I intend to publish it here soon.

Monday, August 5th

• I have to start with apologies. I had said some bad stuff about Colin Davis’ Tannhäuser but now I saw that a bad VHS copy was to blame. Davis’ conducting is really good there and Spas Wenkoff is an admirable Tannhäuser, displaying beautiful tone and solid technique. Gwyneth Jones’ tour de force as Venus and Elisabeth (and she was in outstanding good physical shape then - she needed that, singing topless) is simply hypnotic. I’m updating my review of this production.

Also, yesterday I was at the Theatro Municipal for Madama Butterfly - it was probably the worst operatic performance I ever seen. I prefered not to write a review.

Sunday, July 29th

• Finally we completed the cast of the play - and we have a great great cast. The leading role is taken by Emilia Rey, one of the most gifted actresses I have ever seen - and the very example of the definition of good company. She’s playing La Tisbe. We invited Iris Bustamante, the actress who played Miss Julie for us, for Catarina. I like her - she’s a skilled, professional and insightful actress - and very beautiful too. The actor in the part of Rodolfo is someone whom I have never worked with and yesterday he offered the best first reading of a text I have seen in some time. His name is Bruno Padilha and he is really really talented. In the title role, there is Tião D’Ávila, who has a most powerful voice and he’s really really funny. He keeps us laughing all the time - except when he’s scaring young actors and actresses with his "bad guy" expressions. As the bad guy of the play, there is Marcelo Gonçalves, who’s developing into an excellent Homodei - a very subtle role. The rest of the cast is entirely made on inteligent and talented actors and we hope that the audiences will enjoy Victor Hugo’s Angelo, Tyrant of Padua as much as we do. Also, great news, our project of Strindberg’s The Father seems to be working. A very good actor, whom I like very much, seems to be willing to play the title role - and as we count with Emilia as the mother, things are going to be marvellous, I’m quite sure.

Anyway, today was "free day" from the production and I took profit to listen again to some things - among them, Harnoncourt’s Così with the Concertgebouw. I noticed I was unfair to Charlotte Margiono and a bit vague about Harnoncourt. So, I retouched the review.

Thursday, July 25th

• Some films. It sounds weird, but only now Woody Allen’s The Curse of the Jade Scorpion has arrived in Brazil. My friend Lia thought that, if Allen wasn’t acting, no-one would have guessed it is a Woody Allen film. I agree it is a minor entry in his fimography, but it is endearing in its "afternoon on TV" atmosphere. The gags sound more like his early comedies and the chcaracters are very nice - I liked Helen Hunt’s Barbara Stanwick-like performance and Charlize Theron was very nice too. And the decors are sensational - I still haven’t recovered from that apartment with the blue and purple sofas, wallpaper and carpet in unmatched patterns. It was wonderful!
The other film was François Ozon’s Huit Femmes. It is, to start with, a filmed play and a vehicle for those wonderful actresses. And all the best for that! France is a lucky country to count on such GREAT and contrasted talents. Isabelle Huppert is a favourite of mine and her thought-through thought-provoking performing style was awarded the funniest character in the film. Catherine Deneuve is chic above all - her snob looks and that Klytämnestra-like heavy eyelids of her. And there is Fanny Ardant! Can anyone not look at her when she is in a scene? There’s fire enough in this woman to burn the whole planet! All the other actresses are very nice - the lovely Beart especially - but the two younger ones were good surprises. I had a prejudice against Ledoyen (maybe because of "The Beach" and L’Oréal advertisements...), but she was very very nice and Ludovine Saignier deserved the good reviews. The film doesn’t have a lot of story, but a kind of Nelson Rodrigues-like story with music numbers (charming all of them), but there is at least an anthological scene - Deneuve and Ardant’s fight cum lesbian scene in red and green colours. Unforgettable.

I also could see again Gardiner’s Figaro on DVD. I changed my impression on the sopranos. Now Martinpelto sounded entirely lovely to my ears. I noticed she was containing a voice bigger than the role but she did it lovely and there is an unique blended of bright and warm in her voice and her phrasing is 100% musicianly. As for Hagley, she’s really cute, but she has some notes poorly tuned and weak low notes. It is a charming performance, nevertheless.

Sunday, July 22nd

• Those have been busy days! I barely have the time to breathe! Anyway, I finally could listen to the whole of the Karajan FroSch (the second one) and the bonus tracks of the Böhm 1977 Vienna performance. I was hoping that Gundula Janowitz would be a nice Empress, but she surpassed my expectations. I found her marvellous. Her crystalline voice and clean phrasing made for a fabulous musical experience - and her top notes are completely free and rounded. The recorded sound leaves something to be desired and Karajan and the orchestra are less perfect than in the previous performance with Leonie Rysanek. On the other hand, the bonus tracks are in excellent sound and show Böhm in his most inspired - it is a incandescent performance, where everything is alive and alight. And Christa Ludwig is again wonderful. I added the reviews to the Strauss page.

Thursday, July 19th

• Although this was probably the stormiest weekend of my life, I could find some "intervals" to relax - and I did it in theatre. With a group of webfriends, especially Henry, I have discussed this week some American playwriters. And, by coincidence, I saw two American plays this weekend. The first of them has two plays by Nicky Silver: "Pterodactyls" and "Fat Men in Skirts". I liked very much the first one, which seems to be the nasty version of sitcom - the gags, the stereotypic characters, the flowing rhythm, all of that nicely used to criticise this very society that enjoy sitcoms. The second one is largely disappointing - it is meant to be very shocking, but it is quite tame and uninvolving - the characters lack consistence, the dramatic situations lack timing and there is no structure in it. Director Felipe Hirsch offered an Italian-design large-gestured approach to Pterodactyls that worked quite well, but seemed a bit lost with his static vision of Fat Men... Although Marco Nanini is a great actor, he is playing two roles unsuited to him - a 15-year-old girl in the first and a 11-year-old boy in the second. He is around 50. As Pterodactyls was made to be outrageously funny, his Emma was raw material for laughs - but he seemed a bit lost as the boy Bishop. Also, Marieta Severo, playing both "mother" roles, was a turn off - apparently she was worried with shouting off her text as fast and as loud she could.

The second play is far from contemporary - O’Neill’s "A Long Day's Journey into Night". The beautiful text had two veteran and celebrated artists in the role of the parents - Cleyde Yáconis and Sérgio Britto. Yáconis is a greatest actress (I had seen her as Karen Blixen in a monologue about the Danish writer’s life) and was the main thing on stage. Britto was out of character and was having cleverly disguised memory blanks all the time. The two other actors were decent, but nothing to die for. But the director Naum Alves de Souza couldn’t do great things with the play - it lacked rhythm, the scenery was problematic and the costumes were ugly. Only Yaconis made it happen whenever she was on stage. It seemed to me a difficult play - the text is not "actorproof", i.e., it doesn’t work with whatever cast and director - too much is left to the interpreters IMHO. It makes me think why people are so prejudiced about Tennessee Williams - no matter what his plays are about, the STRUCTURE - litterary and dramatic - is always perfect and it is almost impossible for a cast and director, no matter how bad they are, to spoil it.

The third thing I did this weekend was listening to tsome music - Kempe’s Ariadne auf Naxos, which is a jewel of an interpretation, with divine Janowitz and King. And Kempe’s recording is musical and intelligent all the way. The other is a "discovery" for me - Weber’s Oberon. The opera is charming, not as magnetic as Freischütz, but it is far more interesting than Euryanthe, melodically speaking. This recording is just marvellous - Kubelik and the BRSO making miraculous sounds throughout and a performance from Plácido Domingo that would be enough to include him in the best tenors of all times. He sings his amazingly difficult role with such beauty and richness of tone - even his German is very good here. I think it is his most impressive recording and a performance to be treasured. Although Nilsson was not in her rounded-tone days, she is in her best behaviour and is scaling down beautifully. The rest of the cast has lovely performances of singers such as Hermann Prey, Donald Grobe, Julia Hamari and Arleen Augér. A great disc.

Sunday, 14 juillet :-)

• Busy week! The rehearsals of Hugo’s Angelo, Tyrant of Padova have already started. We have a good cast and the director, who is also the responsible for the costumes and sceneries, was able to provide a beautiful and functional visual element for the complicate staging (lots of scene changes). We’ve been looking for films that either shows the city of Padova (this is probably the shiest Italian town - you can’t find photos or anything about it!) or XVIth century Italy! So far, we got very little. My friend Davide is trying to find more stuff, but it’s a hard task!

Saturday, July 13th

• Still working on Strauss. I’ve compared the Kiri/Solti to the Isokoski/Janowski and came to the conclusion that I was unfair to Kiri. I still prefer her former performance, but it is absurd to refuse such wealth of velvety tone and of shapely phrasing. I only think the voice lacked a bit brightness by the time she recorded it and maybe her collaboration with Solti was not very profitable. If she had recorded it earlier with someone like Karl Böhm, maybe we would have had a definitive reference. Who knows? In the same spirit, I decided to listen to Sinopoli’s FroSch again. And again I think I exaggerated my point. I still think it is pale beside competiton such as Böhm and Karajan, but also Sawallisch and Solti in Salzburg. However, now I would consider it better than Böhm 77 and Solti studio, because of its amazing transparence. The cast and the lack of theatrical sense and, most of all, of "interpretation" (Sinopoli is just making sure we hear the tiniest thing in the score - I know, that’s really something, but is it all?). Of the cast, I tamed my criticism against Voigt. She has no musical or dramatic interpretation, but she is really in healthiest voice, even if it is not my idea of voice for the role. And I don’t know - I’m starting to think that I’ll end on liking Ben Heppner’s Kaiser. It is beautifully sung and I’m starting to suspect that his lack of ardour is basically lack of strain. It is like Gruberová’s Elettra. We’re used to hear the role sung under stress and the stress started to make part of the experience. So, when you listen to Gruberová singing it as if it was nothing, it sounds as if something is missing. I don’t know. I only have to say that the lyrical passages are exquisitely done. The overcarefulness in the more outspoken moments is something I still have to frame.

Sunday, July 8th

• The discography of the Vier letzte Lieder is more complete now. The Soile Isokoski/Janowski disc has just been reviewed by me. All I can say is - BUY IT. I said it there and repeat it here - Isokoski is the leading Straussian soprano these days. Mattila has gone into the heavy things, Melanie Diener didn’t make a step further (and the voice has also gained some weight), Felicity Lott was a possibility that never entirely turned into a reality and Renée Fleming deserves tomatos and eggs in this repertoire. Isokoski light and warm soprano has the aristocratic tone, the elegant phrasing, the poetic imagination, the technique and the style. I’ve heard she has sung Daphne and the Marschallin. In time, those portrayals will get more and more perfected and I am hoping for an Arabella and, most of all, the Countess in Capriccio. At the moment, Ariadne seems a bit heavy for her - but who knows?

Other good news - the season here at the Theatro Municipal is not cancelled. Only it was re-structured and we’ll have new titles and new casts, mainly Brazilian singers. And Eliane Coelho is still in it - as Butterfly probably next month. It is never too much to remember that Coelho offered here in Rio one of my best experiences with the Vier letzte Lieder - a supreme performance, with warm tone, heavenly floated pianissimi, an entirely fresh approach and lots of charisma. What a shame that she was left aside by recording companies while some circus beasts were taking leading roles (to disgrace) in important recordings.

Monday, July 1st

• At a friend’s house, I saw an excellent DVD - Abbado’s Sylvesterkonzert 2000 - a Verdi Gala. First of all, although it was shocking to see how much the disease had consumed Abbado, it was pleasing to see that it didn’t consume his energy. He was in wonderful control of his forces that evening. The Berlin Philharmonic was in its nicest shape and the recorded sound was excellent. It was also useful to clarify some ideas about singers taking Verdi roles. To start with, finales from act I and II from Ballo in Maschera. I was surprised to see Carmela Remigio as Amelia - and she was very very nice - with her spontaneous slightly metallic soprano (as the echte Italian sopranos tend to be) and floated notes and unforced low notes. I am glad to see that Remigio is developing from an excellent Donna Anna into a more versatile singer. I can’t say the same thing of Lucio Gallo’s Renato - he sounded really light-voiced. Basically, he didn’t produce lots of sound. There was Andrea Rost’s Oscar - and the role goes well for her penetrating voice, but Ramón Vargas was quite a surprise. Judging from that evening, he clearly can’t take Verdi roles, beautifully and intelligently as he sings (as the Rigoletto arias showed). The voice is simply modest for what is demanded on it - especially the top notes, which don’t develop as much as it should. Most worrying is the fact that the voice sometimes gets off placement now and then as if he was not singing his actual nature there. I like Vargas and he is a real artist (and not a circus thing), but, for his voice’s sake, he should keep to his Rossini roles - and invest more in Mozart. I think he could do something in Tito and Idomeneo. Anyway, Abbado was sensational - the closing scene of act I has NEVER been better conducted. Sometimes it sounds like a broadway musical number - but here it gained real nobility and grandeur. Act II was exquisitely handled too. The Don Carlos scene - one generally cut, where Elisabeth and Eboli exchange costumes - had also brilliant conducting and orchestral playing, but Remigio wasn’t at ease in French and Stella Douflexis is some sizes smaller than a true Eboli. The Traviata didn’t impress me much - and Andrea Rost has too much of an edge in her Violeta, but the voice gained fulness, albeit it tends to lack operational spess. It’s too glaring sometimes.

The Falstaff was particularly pleasing. First of all, it is REALLY better than the complete performance on DG. It has more character, naturality and better recorded sound. The casting was, most of the time, better too. I thought Carmela Remigio’s Alice a big improvement on Adrianne Pieczonka’s rather pale performance. Not to mention that Remigio’s native Italian makes all the difference of the world - also her looks. I can’t say the same of Elizabeth Futral’s Nanetta, who was not floaty enough, while Dorothea Röschmann is a charmer (and cuter too). Diadkova is Quickly in both performances and she’s ok in this role. The Fenton was an Italian tenor, Massimo Giordano, and he follows the rule of light Italian tenors these days - it’s rather pointed, penetrating and there could be more legato going on there - but he’s funny. As for Lucio Gallo, he still sounded undistinguished like Ford, but the most serious thing - what a shame that DG wasted the chance to record Alan Titus in the role of Falstaff! Especially when Terfel is sooo awful in the role. Titus showed so much naturality, good Italian and beauty of voice (not to mention that he acted vivaciously enough) that his Sir John sounded like a knight, but retained all his sense of humour nonetheless.

Sunday, June 30th

• Today I went to the Theatro Municipal for a concert with the Orchestra of the XVIIIth Century, led by Thomas Zehetmayr. They played Mozart’s Symphony 39 and Violin Concerto no.1 and Mendelsohn’s 1st Symphony - the encore was a movement of Haydn’s "La Poule" Symphony. I thought the 39 exquisite - although the theatre is too big for this kind of orchestra, they had a brilliant sound with excellent valveless brass. Zehetmayr’s respect for Mozart dynamic instructions were something to be treasured - very subtle and elegant and intelligent too. In the concerto, at first, he was a bit unsure - maybe of the acoustics or of the tuning (Rio is hell for period instruments - too wet). But in three minutes he was ok again and produced something that I should describe as big toned playing for a gut-stringed instrument. I noticed he used some vibrato and portamento now and then, but it was very effectively done and the cadenza of the last movement was dazzling. I have to remind myself NOT to say bad things of Mendelsohn. Last time I saw the Italian Symph - with the Philharmonia and Paavo Järvi - it was awesome. Then there was the broadcast of Harnoncourt’s Die schöne Mellusine - sensational. And Zehetmayr produced a bold and most sophisticated account of the 1st Symph. today. A nice consolation for us, Cariocas - the opera season was cancelled (a new season is being studied) and we were so anxious to see Eliane Coelho again (in La Gioconda). In vain. I was told she is upset because she had already planned to stay a month in Rio with her family and now there is no opera to be sung. But, hey!, Eliane, you could do that Berg/Strauss recital you cancelled two years ago! It would be HEAVENLY.

Tueday, June 25th

• Very short comment on a production of Boris Godunov from the Mariinsky. I’m not a fan of Russian opera - but, in this starriest of casts with singers like Larissa Diadkova in a short role, an excellent stood out - Alexei Steblianko. Nicest nicest voice - and an evidence that the hope for the heavier repertoire for tenor comes from Russia - there is Galusin and Larin to show it. But I found Steblianko really special - a bright, powerful even voice with marvelous low notes, a round spontaneous quality and he seems at ease with legato (unlike most tenors in this Fach) and can soften his tone when necessary. I made a small research on google and read that his Otello has received praises in Germany and that his Siegmund is something to be heard. It is a pity that the industry is always investing in the wrong names - singers who don’t fulfill their promises, such as Alagna and Cura are kept on the spotlight - while those already mature such as these guys from Russia (and other countries that side of the world) are left aside.

But the day is Gundula Janowitz’s. Last night, I wanted to check a Schubert song and found it on her double album and haven’t stopped listening to it since them. I re-read my review on Amazon and found myself content with what I wrote - I stick to all I said. It is true that this is a disc you develop to love more and more with repeated listenings. With time, it speaks more and more to my heart. Whenever I listen to Janowitz with a friend of mine, Fernando (we call ourselves her fan club - and he was lucky to have seen her live in Salzburg a couple of times and also here in Rio), he says "Her voice is so unique that it is unfair that it had to decay". Thank God she is one of the rarest cases where talent and recording companies agreed.

Monday, June 24th

• Today was Lohengrin day. I’ve just listened to many recordings. I started with Böhm’s broadcast from the Met 1967. Unfortunately, I lost my CD1 and had to start in Euch Lüften. I had the impression that Böhm was in constant concern about the possibilities of his orchestra and chorus (and maybe his leading tenor). Things tended to be bureaucratic and both Konya and Bjoner seemed to resent when Böhm tried do something exciting. But the power Christa Ludwig has is amazing - she just had to show up that the atmosphere changed - Böhm turned on and started to provide real excitement. Because of Ludwig and Berry (also in great voice as Telramund) and the energized Böhm, act II is just really exciting. Even Bjoner got in the mood and sang with extra animation. I’ll say it for the nth times - Ludwig is just the best Wagner singer I have ever heard. It is so amazing to see her - at the same time - making her subtle and intelligent interpretative points and singing for a big auditorium! Then I went for Pappano/Bayreuth 1999 - a thoroughly musicianly performance - and a conductor who is not afraid to be a tempo (thank God!). Although it is a pity that Roland Wagenführer burnt his voice singing roles like Lohengrin - since he had a most beautiful voice and sang with true animation - I am glad that he sang it at all. I think that, although Seiffert’s voice is richer, he is not as varied and commited as Wagenführer used to be. Jean-Philippe Lafont is also a strong Telramund, although the voice had lost a lot of its natural beauty. Then, because my friend Davide insisted that I should reconsider my opinion on C. Davis, I got my recording and I have to say - I keep my opinion. It’s boring to death - it’s square, underarticulated, underinflected, blurred and the soloists are awful. I enjoyed Sweet more than I did before, although her voice has a bothersome squillante quality and her interpretation is artifficial - however, she has still her reserve of tone colouring and can produce some exciting big vocalism. The recorded sound, although unclear for the strings (or is it C. Davis’s fault alone?) is clear enough for the vocal ensembles. The passages where Lohengrin and Elsa sing together are inert - from Wenn ich im Kampfe für dich siege to Elsa ich liebe dich is so inanimated that it sounds as if pipe organ’s chords were following them. I felt it so curious that I decided to compare it with a recording not particularly famous for clarity or subtlety and picked the Solti. WHAT A DIFFERENCE! Lots of things happen during this "organ chords" invented by C. Davis - and not only that, Solti provides all the flowing rhythmic quality and also clarity and, after listening to Heppner, I thought even Domingo’s accented German more vivid than Heppner’s perfunctory good pronunciation. And Jessye Norman - my God, it sounded like another opera! So much was going here while I could only think of what would go on on TV next while listening to C. Davis.

Sunday, June 23rd.

• I’ve just arrived from a performance of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya and I’m finally convinced it is his best play. All the elements sometimes overused in his other plays (which I like too, let’s make it clear!) are here in perfect proportion. It was a modest staging, by a group called Ágora, from São Paulo. Sceneries and costumes were very poor and, although none of the actors were brilliant, they gave heartfelt performances (and had very good voices - which is rare among Brazilian theatre actors).

Also, Olivier’s Ring page was retouched and there is a new discography of Hänsel und Gretel too.

Saturday, June 22nd

• Nothing really exciting this week. I tried to get tickets to Peter Brooke’s staging of Hamlet - stood hours in the line, just to discover that most part of the tickets had been given away for the theatre director’s friend and celebrities. It was very irregular (since it’s a PUBLIC theatre) and mean (if there were no tickets, they should simply have told us right away). Anyway, some good news. Thanks to my friend Daniel, I finally could get a recording I have been coveting for ages - Patrick Bysmuth’s recording of Bach’s sonatas and partitas for violin solo. This is the best recording ever made of the work. While it has all the technical cleaness, virtuoso quality of a Gidon Kremer (and Bysmuth plays on a "historical" instrument), it surpasses a guy like Kremer in its supernatural understanding of baroque aesthetics. This guy simply plays as if he never had listened to a piece of music composed after 1750 - and this is sensational. Maybe because he is French, he has a perfect notion of dance rhythms and of accent. His chaconne is the best ever - he made me notice clearer than ever that it has a kind of French overture pattern - he really makes the dotted rhythms as no one does in the opening, and in the "counterpuntal" passages, he shows all the voices with no effort at all and producing exquisite tones throughout. It is also amazing that he can phrase at the highest imaginable speed only to keep the rhythmic pattern "alive" during the piece. This man is one of the greatest musicians I have ever listened to.
Other fine discovery is Ferencsik’s Gurrelieder - John Steane has praised this performance in his book and I thought maybe he was exaggerating, but he really makes it sound like chamber music. Maybe I’ll add a Gurrelieder discography to this site - for the moment, three or four recordings would be missing, but so much here is under construction...

Lots of work too here - I finally finished the translation of Hugo’s Angelo, Tyrant of Padova and the production of the play is going in fast pace. In the meanwhile, I’m working on a translation (to Portuguese) of the libretto of Die Frau ohne Schatten that maybe is going to be published here.
Finally, the James King biography I ordered FINALLY arrived from Germany. I have just looked at the photos and read the back cover comments. It sounds like good reading - as much as Christa Ludwig, he calls Karl Böhm his "musical father" and that’s really really great.

Friday, June 21st

 

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