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• I’m still listening to McCreesh’s Matthäus. I find the soloists very good - some of them better than in Harnoncourt’s newest recording, especially the basses. The Evangelist is a bit "explosive", but he is expressive and the voice is pleasing and varied. As for Magdalena Kozena, as always, her vocal mastery and musicianship are admirable, but - beautiful as it is - I thought it lacks depth. I guess I would prefer Bernarda Fink. Also, the dance-like Mache dich is delightful.

A new review of Plácido Domingo’s (as a conductor) Traviata has been added to the Verdi page. Right now, Mirella Freni is singing Sempre libera in my stereo. Sometimes I forget how PERFECT Freni was...

Sunday, June 1st 2003

• I’m listening to McCreesh’s Matthäus Passion done OVPP. I’m still on CD 1, but so far I just LOVE it. I had been thinking about Bellini and what’s all about it. I’ve once discussed a concept for beauty with a friend of mine because of a book (about personal beauty) he had lent me. I told him that the book made me think that beauty is the quality of what is able to suspend rational judgement and arouse admiration. And that’s true about Bellini. If you get your analytic lenses, you’ll see just a vocal melody, string arpeggi and some woodwind chords. But - even if you have those "analytic" lenses on - Bellini’s music has this mesmerising effect on you. It is the musical image of pure beauty. Then I thought of Bach. If one asks me why it is impossible to deny why Bach is the greatest of all composers, I reckon I would have to answer "because he has the best of both words: no matter how structurally complex it is, it is always amazingly beautiful". All the same, it seems that musicians who perform Bach try to deny this "sensuous" aspect of his music, as if this would make it less "profound". That is why I like this news Matthäus - it is Bellinian-ly beautiful. Although I agree that the orchestra is too soft-edged some times, the result is so fresh, clean, clear and also warm, expressive and charming. I guess I’ll develop an addiction to this recording...

I’ve also listened to a broadcast from Luzern. Handel’s Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno, with the Giardino Armonico providing exquisite sounds. If you have in mind that the cast is Laura Aikin, Véronique Gens, the wonderful contralto Sonia Prina and Cristoph Prégardien, this sounds as if I had died and gone to Heaven.

Thursday, May 29th 2003

• Today I went to the Theatro Municipal to see the last of a run of performances of Puccini’s Tosca. Since the theatre has engaged new musicians for the chorus and the orchestra, the musical standards are indeed higher. With the exception of poorly pitched cello playing just before E lucevan le stelle, the results were outstanding for the house’s former standards: the orchestral sound was quite full and rich - and beautiful. Last year, conductor Silvio Barbato had a tour de force of musical horror, offering the worst Traviata of one’s life. But he has done some good work in Puccini. Last year’s Turandot was praiseworthy and this Tosca has also caused me a good impression. There is nothing genial going on, but it’s really reliable. Some may point out that the orchestra was too loud for the singers, but considering the cast, I think that was the best idea. None of these singers have the necessary charisma and vocal glamour those roles require and the overall impression was really cold. The best singer in the cast, Francesca Patanè, has a truly echt sound - rich, penetrating and focused. She could also control her dynamics, even if her piani are not exactly floating. Although her top notes are really powerful, I think she is singing outside her Fach. Her low register is not the one of a dramatic soprano and, as a result, a great deal of singing did not reach the audience with all the congeniality it should arouse. Some of her attempts to produce any sound down there were really misguided. Also, her manipulation of middle register took from the natural pleasantness of her voice and made it acquire a Callas-like hoot. The Cavaradossi, Mario Malagnini, offered some "sans souci" vocalism, but his voice is too open and sometimes he sounded as the tenor version of Sergei Leiferkus. Although he has easy top notes, the sound is bottled-up in the upper reaches. He could do with a bit more legato too. The Scarpia, Arturo Barriera, an eupeptic actor, is on the wobbly sound and has an underdeveloped low register. The settings were adequate, nothing more - but I wish someone would accidentaly burn those red-velvet chairs. They’ve been around in some productions, looking awful and never fitting any of them.

Sunday, May 25th 2003

• Another film directed by an actor: George Clooney’s Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. I’m incined to say that Clooney is a better director than Penn, but he is really working too hard to prove it. The effort to make each little scene THE scene result in a plethora of effects (all of them interesting taken isolatedly) that hamper structural development in a serious way. At the end, you really don’t know if it is comedy, drama, you name it... And it is not because there is a bit of all that, but it because a LOT of all that. I would partially blame Charlie Kaufman’s script - the story has some interesting facts despite the absurdity (for the records, I read in a British review that the CIA has a policy of not explaining who belongs or not to their staff, but in Chuck Barris’ case, they insisted on saying that he did not), but it has no ultimate point. "So what?" was my final thought about it. There are no characters going on there - lots of walking clichés captured with sophisticated camera effects. Anyway, I am inclined to say something good of Clooney as a director because he extracted from his glamourous (but not necessarily amazingly talented) cast really good performances - especially Julia Roberts. Maybe I’m exaggerating, but I guess this is the best thing she has ever done. Anyway, I went home and found Hitchcock’s "Foreign Correspondent" on TV. I had never seen it before - and it is a very charming film.

Also, a review of Previtali’s Il Trovatore with Leyla Gencer and Mario del Monaco has been added to the Verdi page.

Sunday, May 18th 2003

• Just to say that a review of Cristophe Rousset’s Riccardo Primo has been added to the Handel page.

Saturday, May 17th

• Yesterday I mysterious power drawed me to see Sean Penn’s "The Pledge". Later I discovered that this power was drawing me to the bookstore nearby, where I found the bargain of the decade and bought Chung’s Samson and Delilah and Véronique Gens’s Handel disc for less than US$20.00. Anyway, the truth is that I was willing to see Penn’s film, since I like him as an actor. However, I have to say I didn’t like the film. I have later discovered that the film was based on Dürrenmatt and only on reading a British review that compared the novella and the film did I notice that the story was really great. It seems that Dürrenmatt’s story was about how justice and evil may be similar. The fact is I did not see that in the film. To my eyes, Nicholson’s character was a righteous guy who was sensitive enough to sympathise with suffering parents whose moral steadfastness rewarded him with a new family. I was actually enjoying that "sentimental" plot. When the fact that he was actually manipulating that mother and daughter was _inserted_ in the plot, it simply did not make sense for me, for I had not seen that on the screen until that moment. As far as I understood, the original story makes the reader witness the police inspector’s cold plan step by step and sympathise with the mother and daughter who are its victims. As Penn decided to make a you’ll-know-it-in-the-end story, the backbone of the story is completely lost, especially because the dénouement in the film is very weak. The scene is hardly the emotional climax Penn’s idea of leaving everything to the end should entail. I was also disturbed by the film’s timing - which is sloooow for that story. It is particularly annoying because the slow pace is due to some John Woo-like exibitionist effects that only interrupt the action. Also, the extravagant casting played very little effect: if you simply cut out Vanessa Redgrave’s, Helen Mirren’s, Mickey Rourke’s et al scenes, the story would be untouched - and, in a movie like this, Hitchcock’s golden rule (if a key appears on the screen, it must open some door) should be followed. Anyway, the film has a great cast - Nicholson, Robin Wright, Benicio del Toro and Robin Wright are all of them excellent.

Before I entered the bookstore, I thought to myself "I will buy nothing if I don’t find Véronique Gens’ Handel disc". My voice teacher is working on the Lucrezia cantata and I showed her Magdalena Kozena version because she only had the Janet Baker. As she likes Gens I thought it would be interesting if she could listen to her recording of that cantata. But the disc is hard to find here in Brazil and the website where I buy stuff was asking a price on the expensive side. I looked in the Handel shelf and found nothing. When I noticed some old Schwarzkopf and Callas CDs and browsed a bit through that - guess what I found? Gens for this unbelievably low price. Just as an overkill I bought the CDs in three installments :-) Anyway, comparison’s between Kozena and Gens in the Lucrezia cantata are interesting. Kozena is the most extrovert, resorting to some acting with the voice and displaying sensational coloratura. Gens makes her sound exaggerated, since she relies more on the music than on effects. Kozena is still a tour de force, but I cannot help thinking that Gens is more about Handel and Kozena is more about Kozena. Also, Gens’ distinctively rich and warm tone is always an asset in the baroque repertoire. The other two cantatas in the disc - Armida abbandonata and Agrippina condotta a morire - are exquisitie and Gens is masterly partnered by the small instrumental group led by François Fernandez.

Sunday, May 11th 2003

• Although Kiri Te Kanawa is one of the most popular sopranos of her generation, there has always been a certain unwillingness to recognise her talent in more "intellectual" milieux - and that’s only emtpy snobbery. When Lisa della Casa stated that Te Kanawa was her "heiress", it seems that she was hinting at a situation she herself experienced (when Schwarzkopf fans dismissed her for the same reasons the New-Zealand soprano is dismissed today). I think future generations will revere Kiri as one of the greatest singers of her days for many reasons.

First of all, the voice - an alpha and omega of vocal qualities. It is cool and warm, bright and velvety, rich and flexible - most of all, although it is not an "ordinary" voice (she was even labelled a mezzo soprano in the beginning of her career), it is naturalness itself, entirely seamless and homogeneous as almost no other singer in her Fach in a relatively wide range. I have a friend who says you can always find that moment where a singer’s voice strays from good placement. You’ll never find that with Kiri Te Kanawa.

Second, her unaffected, utterly musical and - out of complete avoidance of exaggeration - ellegant phrasing. I’ve seen her live only once here in Rio and she was clearly not in the mood (it seems she had the flu and was in the heat of a divorce) - and it was wonderful nonetheless. I’ll never forget her In quelle trine morbide sung in the manner of a Lied.

Third, her stage presence. I think no-one was so aristocratic on stage as she used to be. And I don’t mean that phoney mannerisms of an Elisabeth Schwarzkopf - Kiri’s statuesque cool sexyness and blasé looks have always appeared to be the real thing. This was to particular effect in Straussian repertoire. I must single out that I’ve twice heard compliments about Kiri’s acting from actresses. Once in the Capriccio video from San Francisco, when an actress friend of mine couldn’t help pointing out thousands of details of her performance to conclude that this woman on stage was a true countess. The second time was about Kiri’s Manon Lescaut (vocally, a stretch for her, truth be said), when a famous Brazilian TV actress said that Kiri’s performance in the Sinopoli video convinced her that opera is indeed about theatre. Check out the scene after the duet "Tu, tu, amore, tu" when Manon decides to flee with Des Grieux, but cannot leave the jewels behinds.

I would point out that Kiri’s advocacy of Strauss’ Capriccio is not only praiseworthy, but also the true mark of a Straussian. As you know, Straussians are always trying to show everybody that there is nothing minor about his "minor" works. I think it is a pity that she has never recorded Ariadne, a role which would suit her voice and personality. Finally here goes my Kiri shortlist: Solti - Le Nozze di Figaro ; Maazel - Don Giovanni ; Pritchard - Puccini/Verdi arias; Tate (for the voice) / Thielemann (for all the rest) - Arabella ; Runnicles - Capriccio ; A. Davis - Four last songs ; Solti (video) - Simon Boccanegra.

A review of Böhm’s Fidelio live in Salzburg has been added to the discography and I’ve been retouching the discographies of the Four Last Songs and of La Clemenza di Tito.

Friday, May 9th 2003

• Many of you have heard about Walter Salles, the director of "Central do Brasil". His brother, João Moreira Salles is also a director and has released a film about Brazilian pianist Nelson Freire. This film has reached a very difficult goal - getting mainstream about classical music. Although it is not a blockbuster, it has found complete theatres and consensus in the ordinary audience. I believe that the reason is that it is not a film about music itself, but about LOVE FOR MUSIC and what it may do to someone’s life. The film does not intend to be a biography or a music video. It is a miscellania of events about the above-mentioned theme. For example, an illuminating presence in the film is Martha Argerich - speaking Portuguese. When we see she and Freire rehearsing or performing, the idea is not to watch musicians rehearsing but these two people who - out of love for music - have tuned their spirits to each other (i.e., love each other). As much as we realise they think the pieces they perform in a congenial manner, we also see them cleaning the piano keyboard (and discussing their methods of doing that of course...). It is all nonchalant and unpretentions, but endearing - in a very Brazilian way. I found it a balsam to the spirit for all those who love music, art or just life in a general manner. There are many nice scenes, but my favourite is the shooting of a publicity in France. As everybody is French there, it SURE is very funny - I won’t tell anything in order not to spoil the fun. The beautiful velvety sounds of the St. Petersburg, the close-up of members of the audience entranced by Freire’s playing, the discovery (at least for me!) of two pieces - one by Rakhmaninov and other by Gustavino - should be highlighted, but it is particularly worthy of mention the reference to Guiomar Novaes, the Brazilian piano goddess, whose artistry, sensitivity, imagination and stylishness remain something to marvel. In the film, Freire plays a record of her playing the Dance of the Blessed Spirits from Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice and gets moved by her performance. Then we see him perform it in a completely different and equally inspired way (I’d say her performance is the more Classical, compared to his Romantic approach). It is said that this has created a Gluck-mania here in Brazil. Well - I’m glad to know that! You guys know I’ve been paying attention to Gluck these days.

Tuesday, May 6th 2003

• I’ve just arrived from the theatre - a staging of Goethe’s Faust I, directed by Moacir Chaves. It’s been tough to get tickets and I’ve succeeded in the third attempt, but, well - I didn’t like it. Although Geraldo Carneiro’s translation is very good, the text is really cut. However, that’s a tiny part of the problem. It seems that Mr. Chaves gravitates around the idea of post-modern theatre, where it is left clear that they’re just pretending - that they are actors, that they are reading a text, that those things are sceneries and props etc. I’ve enjoyed the whole approach in the other play directed by him I’ve seen - Bugiaria, but that was a text taylor-made for the purpose. I don’t think that’s the case of Goethe’s text... The staging had no sceneries and only four chairs and the settings and other useful information were either shown on a screen or read by the actors. By the way, there were six of them. Considering that the ones who played Faust, Mephistopheles and Gretchen did not double roles, the other three had to do all the rest - sometimes for embarassing effect, as in the "Vor dem Tor" scene, where 1 (one) actor played everybody making funny voices. Another problematic moment was the Hexenküche scene, where the actors simply didn’t follow the action and looked to the audience with a we-are-not-going-to-do-it expression. Although I think that this no-frills approach is narcisistic and unrelated to Goethe’s work, I could have lived with it if I did not had to deal with a let’s-pretend-this-is-Brecht staging of Goethe’s work, which did nothing but made the whole story silly and unengaging. All the members in the cast followed the concept literally. They read their lines with the technical accomplishment and sensitivity of a computer, with the exception of Fernando Eiras in the role of Mephistopheles. In fact, he seems to be following his very own concept, where the devil sounds like someone who was born in Rio and could be easily found walking in Leblon one of those evenings. Although he is wrong for the director’s approach, his approach is by far the more interesting and the more... I want to avoid the word "modern", because this word is already outdated (for that matter, maybe post-modern too)... relevant for the Brazilian audience. I mean it because I believe maybe Faust has more to say to us than to the German audiences today. Religion or intitution or nature or superstition etc are not excluded by 'rational' Rhetorics in Brazilian minds. This conflict is still very much alive for us in a way few North Europeans may experience it, I guess. Maybe I’m wrong. Who knows?

Sunday, May 4th 2003

• Although I have never written anything about Gluck in this site, I confess I used to have a prejudiced view about his work, repeating the old cliché that his talents were not up to his originality etc. I’ve been listening to Armide these days and I cannot help denying my former ill-informed opinion and understanding why Mozart had such admiration for his work. His mastery of characterisation and orchestral colouring would alone ensure his geniality, but there is really more to that. Renaud’s aria "Plus j’observe ces lieux" and Armide’s "Ah! Si la liberté me doit être ravie" are moments of rare inspiration. I hope that Minkowski is going to pursue his series. His recording of Armide is simply perfect. I don’t need to repeat that Minkowski is IMO the most interesting conductor around, but also someone with a great instinct for casting. Mireille Delunsch is an enchanteresse à la lettre (I would like to hear her singing Mozart one of these days), Charles Workman was in superb voice as Renaud, you’ll find Ewa Podles, Magdalena Kozena, Brett Polegato and Yann Beuron in small roles. There is also Nicole Heaston (a name new to me) beguiling in a series of small roles. I’m happy that a Brazilian singer, Marcos Loureiro de Sá, takes part in the recording in a tiny role.

Saturday, May 3rd 2003

• I’ve just seen the new Brazilian "blockbuster", Hector Babenco’s Carandiru. The film is about a rebellion in a prison in São Paulo, which ended with a butchery executed by the police. There has been lots of ranting about the film. Some say it is a civic duty to see it etc; others that it is manichaeistic etc. I was not willing to see it, but accepted Lia’s invitation. Well, I have to confess I’ve enjoyed the film and didn’t feel the length (almost 2 1/2 hours). Although I would agree that the plot is repetitive (there is the recurring motive of prisioners telling how they ended on jail) and not very organic to the ending (it is quite entertaining until the final shocking scenes), the very idea of showing the whole thing in a personal/emotional/endearing perspective is original and consistent with the new trend in Brazilian movies of showing the hardships of Brazilian life in a non-bitter manner. Actually, the characters portrayed there are charming in their exotic way and the cast is outstanding. The new generation of actors from the Northeast (such as Wagner Moura and Lázaro Ramos) is well represented there, there are names new to me, some nice theatre people, but also famous TV actors in impressive performances, such as Maria Luisa Mendonça and Rodrigo Santoro (his scenes caused a sensation in the audience). Also, although the setting is supposed to be very ugly, I think that the art direction achieved the amazing task of being realistic and poetic at the same time. Side comment: Lia and I agreed that the film has a Daniel Day-Lewis and a Denzel Washington lookalikes.

Friday, May 2nd 2003

• The Handel page has been updated. A review of McGegan’s Radamisto has been added.

Thursday, May 1st 2003

• Maybe it’s only Sunday - but today was a weird day. One newspaper carried the following news "Shark lynched by the crowd on Barra Beach". Well, the event took place near my place - but I guess I’m pro-shark. I thought that the fun part of being an animal was not being judged by your own actions :-))

I also guess I am the last person in the world to see Stephen Daldry’s "The Hours". Me and a bunch of crazy old ladies (really - you should have seen them - one of them arrived 20 minutes after the beginning of the film repeating in a loud voice "why am I doing this? now I won’t get what the hell is going on!"). Lots of people had told me it was a "depressing" movie - I thought it to be a "beautiful" movie. I haven’t seen anything negative on saying that not living is the same thing as being dead. It is actually a cliché. I only regret I haven’t read Mrs. Dalloway. I’ve seen a beautiful movie based on the book with Vanessa Redgrave in the title role and I was entranced. The only Virginia Woolf I had read was half Orlando ages ago - and it was because of the movie with Tilda Swinton. But now I regret I don’t have the time to read Mrs. Dalloway... Anyway, I liked the film, the art direction is sensitive, the cast is great - I confess that the episode involving Julianne Moore was the one which most captured my attention. I thought she was sensational and John C. Reilly and Toni Collette were simply amazing in their short appearances. The whole atmosphere of pale green-pink-blue colours was the very image of phoney happiness. And I agree that the end was surprising to me.

Back home I felt like checking Jacobs’ recording of Così Fan Tutte and had the sudden idea of comparing the duet "Ah guarda, sorella" in some recordings. I was shocked. It was supposed to be "simple" music, but I can say almost nobody is capable of making it work. Actually, Jacobs completely misses the point - it is heavy, unclear, not charming and - WORSE - he made two exquisite voiced singers such as Véronique Gens and Bernarda Fink sound far below their usual standard. On the other hand, MacKerras is a master in Mozart music. From the first chord, one could tell the difference - those wonderful woodwind to start with. Then his tempi, articulation, understanding of affetto - it is a perfect recording of the duet. Although Felicity Lott lacks a bit tone, her musicianship is admirable and she is charming. Marie McLaughlin is a bit small-scaled as Dorabella, but she is really capable. They both exude femininity, insouciance and playfulness. However, Colin Davis, even with less animated tempi, has two distinguished singers - Montserrat Caballé and Janet Baker - to highlight the slightest beauty in Mozart’s writing. They bring their Fiordiligi and Dorabella to life in the space of one duet. Another surprise was Böhm’s last recording. Although it is still slow, his sense of proportion and communication were actually superior to Muti’s (in his live from Salzburg), Levine’s and Gardiner’s. He has an amazing Fiordiligi in Gundula Janowitz, caressing her lines as no-one else, but Brigitte Fassbaender is unstylish and a bit rough as Dorabella. I feel like singling out Sena Jurinac’s Fiordiligi as well - it has such a sparkling effortlessness and appeal!

Finally, it seems that my e-mail is working as it should again. And, if you don’t like Gluck, try "Echo et Narcisse". The Jacobs recording is a treat, with lovely singing from Sophie Boulin and Kurt Streit.

Sunday, April 27th 2003

• I’ve been thinking of making some lists of some Brazilian works of art which I find of particular interest. The idea was speaking about books, but I haven’t entirely made my mind about my final list. So, in the meanwhile, I’ll publish a link to a charming painting from the Fine Arts Museum here in Rio: Almeida Júnior’s "The Repose of the Model". Although the image here is not really faithful, I guess one can still realise the wonderful intimacy obtained by the effects of light, the contrast of colours and the very seductive theme of this painting. In the hall where this picture is exhibited, some of my really favourite Brazilian paintings from the turn of the XIXth to the XXth century appear. Anyway, I’d really like you to check the link and tell me what you think.

Also, at this moment, I’m not entirely happy with Terra, my web provider. For the second time this month, my e-mail account is not functional and I consider this to be unacceptable. If they had the decency of delivering the mail when the service is restored, it would be less problematic - but they simply delete it and that’s the end of it. So, PLEASE, on sending any message for me, add a copy to [email protected] - at least until things are back to normal.

Finally, Constantijn has updated his page with two fresh reviews from Leipzig.

Thursday, April 24th 2003

• Today was supposed to be a boring day, but Eric Rohmer redeemed it with a film that deserves all the good adjectives in the dictionary, "Conte d’Automne". It is so good that I don’t have words to describe it. Its leitmotiv is wine and it is exactly like a French wine with a very rich bouquet. It is entertaining, touching, intelligent, beautiful, simple and elegant. The images are haunting, the direction is Mozartian in its perfect sense of proportion, the actors are great, the characters are multilayered and the story is delightful. Also, when Alexia Portal appeared on screen my heart (which has a good memory) immediately recognised her. I saw her at the Theâtre du Rond Point in Paris in "La Venitienne", with Claudia Cardinale and Catherine Allegret and it was le coup de foudre. In Conte d’Automne, she is delicious as always and the same splendid actress I saw some years ago.

The French have been giving some zest to my week. After a liftime flirting with Alain Planès’ Schubert recital, thanks to FNAC’s special price, I’ve finally bought it. Here is a pianist with a wide tonal pallette and real knowledge of Romantic style.

Ah, ok, Lia told my interpretation of The Samsara is too immobilist. She says that I’ve departed from the premise that one’s nature never changes and she disagrees with that. According to her, the main character was led by his own nature to leave the monastery, but he discovered that he was losing his true nature in secular life. She agrees that he was not "fit" to be a monk before that - he has indulged into "unholy" practices, he ate meat, he was unfaithful, he was deterioriating to a level that he himself was not recognising himself. So, when he leaves his family and goes to the temple he is being a monk for the first time. So - well - ok, she has a point.

Tuesday, April 22nd 2003

• Nice day - everything worked against my plans. I was going to work and discovered that it would be impossible to do it when I got there. So I had a Dutch "art" afternoon. First, Albert Eckhout and his "Brazilian" paintings and then Rembrandt’s engravings. I found by chance some friends at the Eckhout and we couldn’t help making some fun - some of those "Brazilian types" looked like the same people in Rembrandt’s engravings using funny costumes. "I guess he had an ego problem and could only see himself everywhere", one of my friends has joked. Well, she’s not alone in that. I remember James Clifford saying something like that as quoted by my Anthropology professor at the university... This takes me to the next issue. Later, I joined Lia and Pedro for Pal Nalin’s "The Samsara". They are interested in Buddhism and have studied its principles (and also put some into practice, since they are yogis - I hope that’s the right way to call someone who practices yoga...). But in my case I can only deal with the film in my Westerner point-of-view.

If you have not seen the film, I advise you I’ll talk about the plot and refer to the sentence that "explains" it, which is something like "How can you prevent a drop of water from evaporating? By letting it fall into the ocean". Samsara (which I understood to be the "material world") is the story of a man who has lived as a monk since childhood. Although he is capable of unusual spiritual concentration, he begins to endure a certain problem after a amazingly long meditation period, which is lust. As he cannot fight it, he decides to embrace secular life once he realised that "you can’t renounce something you don’t have." So he gets married to the woman he was in love with and leads the ordinary life of a farmer and a married man in the most distant imaginable place in India. However, he develops a crush on one of his employee, a sexy Hindu girl, and lets things get out of control. He feels unhappy and decides to go back to the monastery, but his wife finds him on his way and asks if it is fair that he leaves behind a wife and kids who are completely innocent about the whole thing. Then he is faced by the above mentioned sentence and we don’t know what decision he is going to take.

I was a bit puzzled by it. Analysing the drop of water statement, it seems that the film is about purity. If you want to keep your essence (i.e., "not to evaporate"), you have to mingle with those who are like you (or with an atmosphere similar to your own nature). I reckon if you take a clichéed buddhist point-of-view (I say "clichéed", because I am clueless on the subject and can’t adopt an insider’s view), if you want to renounce the world, you can’t do it embracing a worldly life. It is like "fighting for peace is like f...ing for virginity". Lia told me she disagrees with that because the main character had to see the world to see he did not belong there. But then I disagree that he does not belong there. I think that he BELONGED there, unlike the other monks, who didn’t experience his longings. Although he wanted to be a monk and made efforts to be one, his own nature proved he wanted something else (that is why his dog does not recognise him when he takes off his monk’s clothes - without them, he was not a monk anymore). His was a man of action and secular life proved it - he starts to break the bonds of a traditional society and implements a more "modern" modus agendi in his rice "plantation", for example. I had the impression that his "ocean" was the world. In seclusion, he was a drop bound to evaporate and disappear. Anyway, I enjoyed the film very much - the images are beautiful, the story endearing and it is priceless to see how people live in those places in the world. It is masterly when we discover that the film happens today - in the previous 60 minutes you could think it takes place in the XVIth century :-)

Thursday, April 17th 2003

• The only time I left the theatre without seeing the end of a movie, I was forced to leave because my friends were in the verge of a rage fit during Kevin Smith’s Clerks. In Godard’s Nouvelle Vague’s case, I haven’t slept - my physical presence remained there during the whole movie. I remember I I had woken up early and was with a friend who’s one of the less "cult" people I know (when I invite her for the movies, she always asks "how is it? is there a beginning, a development and an ending - in that order?"). So I was sleepy and dozed off and, whenever, I opened my eye (the other one would be still sleeping) there was always the same leaf being carried by the wind. In the end, I was wondering WHY it never touched the ground. There also was probably Marcello Mastroianni dying and coming back to live like one zillion times, but maybe I was just dreaming. Anyway, I’m speaking all that because I’ve just seen a film that really puzzled me. It is Richard Linklater’s Waking Life. Aesthetically speaking, I thought the film to be delightful - with all those contrasting animation techniques applied to material previously filmed on digital camera. OK, I liked that - and the soundtrack too. As to the continuous lecturing, I have to confess I’m clueless. Sometimes I thought it was serious - sometimes I thought it was joking. There were some nice funny scenes and some cute animation effects, but I couldn’t help getting uninterested as long as my doubts about the seriousness of the project grew. Sure, the idea of having the guy trapped on a dream with all those interesting people and the paradoxes about dream x reality, individuality x collective (un)consciousness is good raw stuff, but it seemed we were dealing with the raw material - as if I was walking through a corridor at the Philosophy Institute and hearing bits of all the teachers' (especially the not very serious ones...) lessons. I like the idea of using the language of dreams as Strindberg did or Kurosawa did or even as David Lynch did, because somehow we have the feeling that anything can happen. In Linklater’s film, you know it from the first 30 min and then start to look at your watch.

Ah, the e-mail is working again.

Tuesday, April 15th 2003

• Talking about poetry with friends, I’ve remembered a poem I learned in an English book called "Things that matter", by E. Nesbitt. I had no idea of who the author was and then someone gave me the obvious suggestion to research on Google. I’ve discovered that Nesbitt was quite a character - a "modern" woman who supported her husband and children (plus the husband’s illegitimate children...) writing stories for children on fancy cafés while smoking tons of cigarettes (which eventually caused her a lung cancer). Out of curiosity I found one of her books "The Story of the Treasure Seekers" online. I have always been fond of books for children (I was a compulsive reader as a child and had an agreement with my father involving at least two books per week), but this one is really special. Maybe it is my ignorance and Nesbitt is still widely read, but it seems that - at least here - nobody talks about her. While reading, I couldn’t help wondering HOW this book has not become a film (or has it?). It is so charming and witty and has some metalinguistic comments which are irresistible (such as the narrator explaining his writing methods and apologising for doing so in a regular chapter instead of a preface, but who reads prefaces after all?). Another endearing detail is that the narrator says he (or she) won’t say who he (or she is) and dares us to discover - but he (or she - I won’t tell) makes lots of slips and you don’t have lots of trouble to realise who it is. If anyone is interested, here is the link.

Finally, it’s been almost 24 hours since my server returned its soul to the Creator. I’ve been a) furious; b) sleepless; c) unable to check my mail. They have promised that it would be fixed five hours ago... As I’m gullible, I believe it will be fixed until the morning. Anyway, if someone has a returned mail, please send a copy to [email protected].

Monday, April 14th 2003

• Today I went to a Beethoven concert at the Theatro Municipal - Egmont + Piano Concert 4 and 5. I was happy to see that the OPPM has such beautiful strings, far better than the OSB, but their French horns and trumpets really need some rethinking. The conductor Roberto Tibiriçá deserves praises for his achievements with the orchestra, but I found his Beethoven a bit tame. Arnaldo Cohen has dazzling technique and offers true deluxe pianism, but I couldn’t get it into the mood. I found the whole thing a bit cold. Maybe seeing the 100% inspired Maria João Pires in the previous day has something to do with it.

Also, the Handel page has been updated with a new review of McGegan’s Ottone.

Sunday, April 13th 2003

• I’ve had problems during the broadcast of the Met’s Parsifal and could only listen to the Kundry/Parsifal scene in act II to the end - but I was positively impressed by what I heard. Gergiev’s achievement is so outstanding that talking about the cast seems irrelevant. His rhythmic variety, clarity and the cantabile quality the strings had thoughout the opera made it an unfortgettable experience. It is funny that Kubelik’s Lohengrin is the comparison that came more easily to my mind - the sense that something "magic" is going on only throught the sound of the orchestra and perfectly articulated phrasing. The last chord of the opera - it seems so particular to say that - had such a supernatural sound: I was completely thrilled. All that playing with her voice is doing no favour to Violeta Urmana. Although she is still a formidable Kundry, with ample resources and dramatic imagination - her extreme registers are starting to "disconnect" from the middle, which is a clear sign of abuse. I hope she comes back soon to her senses and return to the mezzo repertoire, where she had almost no rivals. As for Domingo, his Parsifal has developed a lot. The sound is more Heldentenor-like and he is finally inside the role (yes, the text does make sense now). I was not that excited by René Pape’s Gurnemanz, though. The voice is indeed rich and big etc, but that was all I found in his Gurnemanz.

Today I had a beautiful musical experience in Maria João Pires’ recital at the Theatro Municipal. That is a pianist who is not concerned about acrobatics (as 97% pianists...) and is making MUSIC all the time. Her ability of adapting to each piece she is playing is amazing. The program was Mozart (Concerto no. 20) and Beethoven (Variations on an original theme in C minor + Concerto no.3) - and she sounded like two completely different pianists when shifting from her sophisticated, articulate and elegant Mozart to her richer, contrasted and utterly classical Beethoven. In the Variations, the protean nature of her playing made each variation a unique microcosm. However, my "special" moment was the opening of the 3rd concerto’s largo - played with such intimacy and emotion that I once had impression that the piano was sighing. A naturally generous musician, her encores were chamber music pages played with members of the orchestra. Maybe it was a proper number of rehearsals or the galvanising presence of Ms. Pires, but the Brazilian Symphony was in good shape. The sound of the strings still needs some polishing and the French horns... everything, but they are far better than in the Wagner/Strauss/Mahler concert. Scharowsky offered decent readings of both concerti, with plausible tempi, quite articulate phrasing and forward movement.

Finally, I have to re-write what I said about Fleming and Alcina. I said that her performance is the one which cames more easily to my mind because she is the only one who brings the character of Alcina to life. I am listening to Arleen Augér right now and it seems my memory has been playing tricks on me. Augér does everything Fleming does AND had sense of style circulating on her veins. Only she has Hickox as conductor, while Fleming has William Christie... Anyway, both are very expressive Alcinas - and expressive sopranos in the Handelian repertoire are rare.

Last thing, I promise - I used a * in the previous post after the word NEW and forgot to explain what that meant. Considering that nobody ever knows what to give me on my birthday - the Battle/Chung French opera arias recital would be a good idea... :-)

Saturday, April 12th

 

• Last tuesday, I was given two discs which I had looked for a while in vain. The first is Natalie Dessay’s Mozart concert arias. I’ve listened to it just once and found that, yes, her technical skills are certainly impressive, but, at the time, she was completely clueless about what she was singing. All those arias sound the same and have no sense of event. For example, when Gruberova sings Popoli di Tessaglia, we feel that something of extreme importance is being said. Dessay could be singing of the dress she would use later that night. Although her Queen of the Night had given me a similar impression, her performance in Rousset’s Mitridate is expressive and engaged.

The other disc is Kathleen Battle’s Handel recital. First of all, it was such a pleasure to get a NEW * (I mean, new to me) disc by Battle, of whom I am a great admirer - especially in a repertoire fit for her voice and talents. Unfortunately, the disc is disappointing. Neville Marriner’s fluffy conducting makes me realise why people liked to say they disliked Handel some years ago. Because of it, the performance seriously lacks charm and personality. Also, the orchestral sound is a bit dim and Battle is out of character in most of those arias. Actually, she should have chosen stuff like Io ti levo l’impero degli armi from Partenope, Bel godere from Rinaldo or Se tanto mi piace from Ariodante, where her seductive phrasing would be an asset. As it is, only the Alcina arias are worthy of mention. First of all, she sings Ah, mio cor, which is an aria for Alcina. Surprisingly, she is at ease and in character. Then, she sings Morgana’s Tornami a vaghegiar, where her phrasing is of outstanding clarity and musicianship.

Finally, there are some good news from Senta’s page. A new Agrippina with Véronique Gens in the title role. Unfortunately, the roles of Ottone and Nerone were given to male singers. I have never heard about them - and I only hope that those are not a tenor and a baritone (as in Östman’s live from Schwetzingen). Also, Virgin has released the masque Aci, Galatea e Polifemo with Sandrine Piau and Sara Mingardo and Image has released on DVD Minkowski’s Entführung from Salzburg, with Christine Schäfer, Paul Groves and Franz Hawlata. However, I must say that the main thing for me is the longed for Fidelio conducted by Böhm with Christa Ludwig and James King - on Opera d’Oro.

April, 10th 2003

• A review of the only existing recording of Handel’s Floridante has been added to the Handel page. Also, I’ve gone to the movies - Gabriele Muccino’s L’Ultimo Bacio, a charming funny/bittersweet film with a wonderful cast - especially the beautiful Stefania Sandrelli, who portrayed with energy and sensitivity a woman having to deal with ageing. The film touches a subject which has been a usual note in my experience with European people around the age of 30 and that has always stricken me as weird. Once I heard from an Italian who had moved to Brazil that in Europe your life is predetermined in an almost inexorable way: you go to college, get a job and you stay in it generally in order to maintain the structure necessary for marriage. He said that the good thing about living in Brazil is that nobody expects anything from you and there is a general understanding towards the fact that you can entirely change your life from one moment to the other. I had never thought about that before and I think that maybe he has a point. I do believe that people with no dreams, ideals or interests (generally provided by culture) are the ones most prone for those crises. I mean - what is so wrong about being stable when you have imagination?

Monday, April 7th 2003

• I have been thinking about my review of Handel’s Alcina with Renée Fleming and decided that I was too hard on her performance. I have been listening too all my recordings of this jewel among Handel’s marvellous operas and came the conclusion that, even if everybody is more stylish than her, her performance is the one that has stuck to my mind. This has really made me realise that one should never forget that the main word in baroque aesthetics is: theatre. In this sense, Fleming goes right to the heart of it. I saw her as Rusalka at the Metropolitan Opera House in 1997 (?) and she is indeed a lovely actress. In Christie’s Alcina, even if I regret that she abuses the style almost all the time, she does find the living creature in the sorceress Alcina, presenting the chiaroscuro of that woman’s personality, pouring her soul in an aria the way a Billie Holiday would do singing a song. Even the roughness is part of it, for Alcina is really beyond cuteness in this opera, in which we witness her falling from her artifficial paradise into complete emptiness. Accordingly, the review on the Handel page has been rewritten. Finally - and even I myself find strange to read what I am going to write - now I do think that her idea of recording Rodelinda with Andreas Scholl could be interesting. This opera is a sad victim of unengaging, untheatrical performances - and Fleming’s excesses would certainly be redeemed by her dramatic abandon.

I have been awfully busy these last days, but there is always room for Rosselini’s Rome, Open City. The film needs no comments, but one never praises enough Anna Magnani.

Sunday, April 6th 2003

• Just to say that the Verdi page has been updated. A review of Covent Garden’s Trovatore DVD with José Cura and Dmitri Hvororostovsky.

Tuesday, April 1st 2003

• Two opera films today I’ve already seen. The b&w Otello conducted by Tulio Serafin, which displays really imaginative direction, with some difficult effects of deep perspective and some experimentation with focus and shadows. Rosana Carteri made me change my mind about Desdemona. Her Greta Garbo looks, floating pianissimi and disarming artlessness made me believe for the first time that Desdemona is really naive. It is really more touching when it works the "predictable" way... :-) Mario del Monaco was in healthy voice and indulges in some tonal colouring (never completely spontaneous, but well intentioned). Renato Capecchi’s Iago is made to sound blunt, but he goes for it with total commitment. Serafin was also in great shape, obtaining rich and detailed orchestral sound throughout. I still could not listen to my new Chung Otello properly - so far only my favourite passage, which is the love duet. I just love the transition from the previous scene with that warm cello solo and I must say that it contains probably the most beautiful phrase for a solo singer in an opera - Mio superbo guerrier, quanti tormenti, quanti mesti sospir e quanta speme ci condussero ai soavi abbracciamenti - sung by Desdemona. In this short phrase, Verdi has so many subtly unpredictable notes. Harmonic richness abounds and it shows everything in a soprano voice - floating pianissimi and warm low notes included.

The other film is probably my favourite opera film ever - Sellner’s Fidelio. First of all, Fidelio has been conducted by the world’s greatest conductors, but I am sorry to say that only Karl Böhm got it completely right. Everybody in the cast acts and sings wonderfully, but Gwyneth Jones and James King are really special human beings. She is so talented, beautiful, intelligent and sensitive - she must have some big flaw somewhere! :-) King has such unrepressed emotion in his performance and sings his aria with such classical shapeliness... Well, around "Gott welch ein Augenblick" I have usually got dehydrated.

Sunday, March 30th 2003

• Today I went to the Theatro Municipal for a Wagner/R.Strauss/Mahler program with the Brazilian Symphony (OSB) conducted by its main conductor, Scharowsky (I can’t remember his first name). My first impression is that the OSB has improved 1% since I last heard it play. The strings are far better and actually have some tone in high pianissimi, but they get completely lost in the slightest passagework. The trumpets were functional (and I say that after having listened to a tour-de-force of out-of-tune playing in one Messiah some years ago...), but French horns are still an ordeal. Anyway, it seems that the orchestra needs a strong conductor to create a "sound" for them. As it is, the overall effect lacks finish, with less than rounded strings and woodwind and brass standing out of the frame. Although I know about their financial problems, it seems that a bit more rehearsing would make them play all together when there is a 1/8 note phrase in the score. Anyway, the Meistersinger overture was made in plausible tempo and seemed animated enough, but the level of mismatching was far above the forgivable. Then there were R. Strauss’ Vier letzte Lieder. I thought that Scharowsky found really reasonable tempi and was really kind to his soloist, Pamela Coburn, whose voice has lost all natural brightness. As a result, it did not project into the hall at all. It was a pity, for Ms. Coburn seemed a stylist Straussian with a good feeling for the text and ready to take to mezza voce whenever it was called for. To my ears the sloppy violin and French horn were fare more problematic. The Mahler’s 4th naturally posed more problems. There Scharowsky were less at ease with transitions, which were all of them made as if there was a scratch on the LP. Also, the orchestra seemed a bit desperate to do what they had to do - hence the conductor’s metronomic phrasing (which was a wise decision considering the circumstances). In the last movement, the conductor could not be as considerate with his soloist as he had been in the Strauss. So, she was barely audible, especially her low notes.

When I arrived home, I turned the TV on and found the most unimaginable film, Fritz Lang’s "The Tiger of Eschnapur", a flamboyant story with some over-the-top sceneries and costumes and all the clichés one could think of. The most exotic thing is, however, that the dialogues are in GERMAN. Everybody in India but the elephants - they all speak German. And I had the impression that those were not highly sophisticated dialogues, for one could easily follow them without subtitles. Debra Paget plays the "ritual dancer" who is always seeing the gods’ signs in everything and that eventually discover she is half-European because she happens to keep her father’s guitar (I mean - an exotic instrument in India...) where she can play an Irish tune without noticing that it does not sound like local music. One may say that she is no musician, but you should see her explaining her band "das richtiges Tempo - eins, zwei, drei, vier..." . Anyway, her very sexy ritual dance would make Gina Lollobrigida green with envy! However, things were too good to be true. When we were right in a sand tempest (that comes precisely from one spot in the scenery and never touches the second half of the screen) watching Paget passing out after they had put the poor horse "to sleep", we read something like "If you want to know the end of the story, check »Das Indische Grabmal«, which is supposed to be heftiger and geheimnisvoller (or something like that... they’ll show it tomorrow and I can’t miss it!).

Saturday, March 29th 2003

• The Bel Canto and the Handel pages have been updated - the Sutherland/Troyanos Norma video from Vancouver and McGegan’s Alcina. I had talked about the latter here in the weblog because it was not supposed to be released. However, the Göttingen Festival did publish it. So I added a newly written review to the discography. Finally, today I had some reasons to celebrate and was behaving like a good boy until I saw a big big sale - for less than US$20.00 I bought Chung’s Otello and Marriner’s Un Turco in Italia. I could not listen to any of these, but the first stept has been taken :-)

Tuesday, March 25th 2003

• The Wagner page has been updated - the Barenboim Tristan reviews have been re-written after watching to the DVD and listening to the CD this Sunday. I’ve also taken a quick look at a black and white Trovatore with Leyla Gencer, Mario del Monaco and Fedora Barbieri. The production is un-be-lie-va-ble. It is a pity the colours are not there, because it would be a serious candidate for the golden raspberry. However, the soundtrack is interesting. I’ve listened only to Condotta ella era and Di quella pira (transposed down half a tone). I found Barbieri impressive - far superior to the Karajan recording. Her acting could be called over the top, but in the "wow!" variation of over-the-top. Del Monaco is helplessly hammy, but the voice is in splendid shape. The conducting seemed ok and the recorded sound is very clean.

Sunday, March 23rd 2003

• I’ve tried to post something here during the week - I though of writing how much I miss Kathleen Battle (when I listen to anything by Handel, I always wonder why she has so rarely recorded that repertoire) or of recommending Brazilian writer Graciliano Ramos’ novel "Anguish" to my foreign friends - but then I decided that one should never force inspiration... :-) Today, I saw Alexander Payne’s "About Schmidt" and liked very much the film. Payne knows how to create beautiful images without narcisism and to add interest to a story which is endearingly banal. A reviewer here from Rio whose criticism I generally like (although he’s too worried about being cool too often) disliked the film because nothing extraordinary happens. I don’t know - that is the truth about many films excellent movies - is that not the truth about Ettore Scola’s A Special Day (With Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni)? Anyway, you could say that Loren and Mastroianni are extraordinary enough. So is Jack Nickolson, in a marvellous performance, full of repressed energy. There is so much energy in everything he does not do in this film that this generates tension enough during the whole story - which is in fact a moving, entertaining and touching story. I was upset to see some people at the theatre making fun of the ending - I thought it was especially touching and a good moral lesson for the days we’re living. When I arrived home and browsed a bit, I discovered that Payne is the director of the excellent "Election" - a film with beautiful images, good actors and a plot relating small town life and larger frame problems too.

I’ve just read in Senta’s page (and I hope she recovers soon too) about an Otello with Montserrat Caballé’s Desdemona (McCracken, Gobbi, Met - Mehta) on Living Stage. Since I’ve seen Caballé sing her two last act arias here in Rio (and she made us forget who and where we were while listening to it - the work of a truly great artist), I’ve been wanting to listen to a complete Otello with her. But I’m not that brave (and rich) to risk. So, if anyone of you has already listened to it, please tell me what you think. Senta also lists a Schubert Lieder disc with Soile Isokoski, which must be interesting. Julianne Banse singing Mozart and Debussy with her floating soprano may also be a good idea. There is also a live Schubert recital with Gundula Janowitz - a lovely Schubertian who believes that Schubert does not need help to make its best effect and she proves she has a point. Finally, my obsessive curious makes me feel like listening to that new exotic La Gioconda with Urmana (title role) and Domingo. Again, if you have it, please share your thoughts!

Saturday, March 22nd 2003

• Two reviews were added to the Mozart and Handel pages: Conlon’s Don Giovanni DVD (the Hampe production, as seen in Salzburg - Vaness, Allen, Furlanetto et al) and Alan Curtis’ Admeto on CD with Yakar, Gomez and Jacobs.

Other than that, a reprise of Alain Resnais’ "On connaît la chanson" sealed my affection for that film. Knowing the plot beforehand, the marvellous cast’s performances looked even more brilliant and I could pay more attention to the songs - my favourite is still Sabine Azéma dubbing "Résiste, prouve que tu existes..." - that’s so funny! Also, today Ivan sent me a file with Czech contralto Sona Cervena (she did all sort of minor roles in Bayreuth) and I was impressed by her deeeeeeep tones. I checked her discography and there is almost nothing with her - Mahler with Scherchen and a Carmen in German with Kegel was all I found. It is sad that she was so neglected by recording companies, especially if we have in mind that there are very few good contraltos around.

Tuesday, March 18th 2003

• Today I could watch again the Glyndenbourne Jenufa on DVD. This is a work I enjoy more and more each time I listen to it. Theatre and music are amazingly together and there’s such passion going on there... I think it is a true jewel in the repertoire, and that video is worth of Janacek’s opera. The sceneries are simple, beautiful, believable and poetic, Andrew Davis gives that dramatic score all the energy and emotionalism it demands and the cast is admirable. Although she does not suggest a beautiful young woman, Roberta Alexander sings it from the heart to the heart. Her lyric soprano is sometimes hard pressed in the orchestral climaxes, but it is bright and creamy enough. Also, Alexander is far beyond "just singing" here - her whole face, body and voice are living Jenufa’s predicaments and sometimes her tone gets some unusual highly expressive colours that are dictated through genuine enthusiasm (in the sense of being possessed by a greater power). My consultant for subjects related to the Czech language :-) says Anja Silja is less than idiomatic, but to those who are completely ignorant in that language (such as I am) she gives a gripping performance where her powerful overlit soprano is a real asset. Mark Baker offers a truly handsome tone to the role of the handsome Steva, while Philip Langridge’s more workmanlike voice fits the unglamourous but good-hearted Laca. All the second roles are nicely taken, but Alison Hagley is really nice as Karolka. The film direction deserves praises - it does look like a movie.

Sunday, March 16th

• In order to cheer a bit a lazy Saturday, I went to the movies - Spike Jonze’s "Adaptation". I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, first of all because all those who write would be interested in following someone’s creative process. Second of all, because of personal identification. For example, when the main character ponders whether he is going to have coffee and donut before he writes to stimulate him to write or afterwards as a reward for his work.

Saturday, March 15th

• I apologise for the long period without updating this page. However, there is a sad story behind that. This page is made in a computer bought last century - precisely in 1993. Although it has been quite active and proficient in its old age, we have to be understanding towards its problems. Anyway, I made it perform something it was too old to do - and, yes, it was reading a VCD... As a result, it had the correspondent of a brain stroke and it was unable to perform his most basic tasks. Therefore, not only I was consumed by guilt out of my recklessness toward my elderly machine, but also had to get professional help. Thank God, it did survive, but there are sequels here. Basically, the modem got completely insane. Sometimes, it doesn’t want to work. Sometimes it starts to work then gives up. I don’t know - it is too unpredictable to explain. As a matter of fact, I am writing this without knowing if I’ll be able to publish it, but - life’s too short not to try...

Anyway, meanwhile I could do some stuff here. First of all, thanks again to my generous friend Ivan, I have been able to listen to the complete Minkowski’s Giulio Cesare, which is a thoroughly wonderful performance and I maintain all the words I had written about it. Bejun Mehta deserves special mention - his countertenor is simply amazing. When you have such a hearty powerful voice, you really don’t need to regret that a contralto haven’t taken the role (although I am still curious to hear a female singer in the role of Tolomeo...).

Some films too. Most on TV, but few worthy of mention. I could finally watch Chinatown - a film I had never seen before but for parts of it. I have seen a documentary about film noir and they mention this film, but I think it goes beyond the film noir, since it has this aspect of social-economic approach, when we go from the microcosmic murder of a man to a macrocosmic situation of the end of a traditional geo-economic-political modus agendi... OK, maybe I’ve been studying too much Geography, but, well, I think that the film is made to be even more interesting if seen that way. Another good film is Chen Kaige’s "The Emperor and the Assassin", with a great casting including Gong Li, where we also seen the coming of a new era, where some old sensitivities and sensibilities were left aside. I found the images hypnotic and the story more than interesting, the making of Chinese Empire around the life of China’s first emperor, who built the first Wall. Some critics say that the film is too centered in personal affairs yet cold. I disagree - I think that all that court intrigue and love-and-hatred are in keeping with the kind of emotion those people had. They were not Werther-readers after all.

Today I went to the movies - Roman Polanski’s The Pianist. I liked the movie, although there is nothing new about it. I found it very unlike Polanski’s films. They generally have less sharp colors (including Chinatown). I don’t know - maybe I’m overstating this, but I always find some paleness and artifficiality the photography of Polanski’s movies. IMO the film’s great quality is to show violence in a dry way (those horrors really don’t need exaggerated soundtrack) and to highlight poetry in the right moments, such as in the moment Szpillman listens to his former sweetheart playing Bach, when he realises how much beauty he has missed in his fight for survival. The cast’s sincere acting, the sensitive choices for the soundtrack, the touching story that never for one second strays from the important points - all that makes The Pianist a beautiful and moving experience.

• Today I intended to see "The Hours", but I was too late and the only movie available was a Brazilian production "Cristina wants to get married". The fact that it shares with "My big fat Greek wedding" one joke (the one about men being the head and women being the neck) made me think of a conversation I had with the late Victor Giudice (a nice professor of theory of literature and writer) about a famous Brazilian author of soi-disant literature widely translated, when Giudice said "Well, if we have to read crap, at least let’s read Brazilian crap!". Anyway, "Cristina wants to get married" is not crap - it is as superficial as any Sandra Bullock movie (btw - is she really Helga Müller-Mollinari’s daughter?), but it has a top level production, with a great cast, beautiful sceneries, charming dialogues etc. Brazil is one of the few countries in the world that has an industry of national popular music so profitable that it even exports! Anyway, it used to have a good level of film production of popular taste but it largely disappeared in the 70’s, making way for "cult" movies. As much as I love cult movies, I have become aware that "entertainment" industry sees films as a kind of commodity. Magazines like "The Economist" deal with it as if they were talking of soya or airplane parts - and that made me finally understand - silly me! - why the French are so concerned about producing their own cr... I mean films like "Amelie Poulain". In this spirit, I warmly welcome good productions such as the one I saw today with the hope that they will bring the people back to the theatres and that they make success with the audiences and bring jobs for the multitude of talented artists we have here in Brazil.

Also, today I also saw Götz Friedrich’s Salome film. I haven’t seen it for a while and in a friend’s high end sound system, the relatively dim orchestra seemed more vivid and present. Hence, I could re-assess my opinion on the musical performance. Quite to my embarassment, something I previously called "well-behaved" actually seemed an enlighted performance of Richard Strauss’ music. I say enlightened, because Böhm didn’t succomb to the idea that you have to make lots of noise to perform Strauss. Relying on tone colouring and inflection, Böhm made the irreplaceable Vienna Philharmonic to speak all the underlying truths in Oscar Wilde’s play. A friend who was watching the film said that he is always surprised by the fact that, in the closing scene, Salome sings such beautiful music over the head of a dead man she herself led to death. I had never seen it under this perspective, but it made me think that, if we have in mind Wilde’s situation with Alfred Douglas, one could think that, because of the power of beauty, some people destroy things that are far beyond their understanding - and that does not make them less beautiful. On the contrary, therein lies precisely the whole tragedy. From this point-of-view, it was quite sensitive of Strauss to make her sing such beautiful music amidst the tragic destruction caused by her beauty.

Tuesday, March 4th 2003

• Some time ago, I was talking to my friend Marcos about Brendan Fraser and we said that he is a younger version of Michael Caine because, although they are wonderful actors, they appear in less than good movies more often than one would have wished. It was particularly refreshing to see both of them together in a GOOD movie, which is Philip Noyce’s "The Quiet American". In our days, watching this film has a certain enlightening perspective, translated in the old adage "the road to hell is paved with good intentions". In Portuguese, we say that hell itself is paved with good intentions, which is an even more realistic view. Anyway, this is a film that takes the risk of being a bit of everything - a thriller, a political film, a romantic film... - and succeeds, because the personal affairs stand for symbols of the public ones. Eric Hobsbawm says that there is a political importance in Mozart’s Die Zauberflötte - some have seen Pamina as the Austrian people, the Queen of the Nice as ancien régime and Sarastro as the Englighted philosopher... Here, things are more clearly done. Michael Caine plays the old Europe, Brendan Fraser young America and the charming Vietnamese girl the colonial world. However, Graham Greene’s book is wise enough not to be manichaeist and a lot is left to imagination.

It is a bit of a shame that I confess having seen on TV two half-films (I mean I lost the first half of both of them), but I enjoyed what I saw. The first one is a Korean film called Chunyang, which is a kind of old legend about a faithful wife having to deal with a lusty tyrant, wrapped in rich poetic images and narrated by a typical Korean singer who "declaims" (it sounds rather like a blues in heavily interpretated style accompanied by a percussive instrument). The other one is a Brazilian film called "Cinema de Lágrimas", directed by Nelson Pereira dos Santos. According to what I understood, the original idea was to make a documentary about melodramatic films, but a plot was provided to give some zest. The result is lovely. The main character, beautifully portrayed by Raul Cortez, is a theatre director who is obsessed by his mother’s suicide when he was a child. He knows that she had seen a Mexican movie before she killed herself. So he puts in his mind that he has to discover which movie is that. So, he hires a cinema student to help him out and they go to Mexico. There, they see lots of old Mexican films with those stars like Maria Felix - all of them endearingly exaggerated - and an infatuation begins to appear betwen them. The film is a very good way to get acquainted with that style of Mexican movie and made to be not too professoral because of the "personal point-of-view" allowed by the parallel story.

Finally, I bought highlights of Muti’s La Forza del Destino. I felt cheated because the OUVERTURE is not there! Anyway, the recorded sound is awful - too dry and the orchestra is on the dim side. It seems that Muti’s conducting is very dramatic, but he really needs to record it again! And not release that video with José Cura... I mean - again again. I have never heard Zinka Milanov or Renata Tebaldi as Leonora, but so far Freni brings a voice which deals with the tessitura without weird effects. There is an edge in the voice, but I think it’s part of legit Italian soprano singing. On the other hand, she is singing at 100% too much of the time and in the end the result is a bit unvaried. That said - it is nice to hear this role with a soprano who sounds like a soprano. Domingo is in great voice too - it is better than his previous recording with Levine. Anyway, today Olivier and I were ICQ-ing and browsing through amazon.de. You know what? I am DYING to listen to those German Verdi opera recordings, because I have to confess that German singers from the 70’s and 80’s were more interesting than the Italian repertoire guys. There is this Ballo in Maschera with Inge Borkh, Jess Thomas and F-D. Olivier says I am crazy, but I would like to hear that Macht des Schicksals with Grace Bumbry, Helga Dernesch, Nicolai Gedda and Hermann Prey... Now let’s use our imaginations - I imagined a recording with the Vienna Philharmonic and Kubelik, an Aida - Gwyneth Jones, Astrid Varnay, Jess Thomas, Thomas Stewart and Karl Ridderbusch. I would have liked also an Otello - with Karl Böhm conducting - Gundula Janowitz, James King, Thomas Stewart. Anyway, there is at least Böhm’s Macbeth with sensational Christa Ludwig and Karl Ridderbusch. If you don’t have it, what are you waiting for?

Saturday, March 1st

• Two weeks ago I was talking to my friend Emilia Rey about Ronald Neame’s Gambit with Michael Caine and Shirley MacLaine and she told me how much she missed those films from the 60’s with entertaining but intelligent plots and sheer charm. Today I saw Spielberg’s Catch me if you can and from the Saul Bass-like opening credits there was no doubt that this would be a kind of homage to those elegant witty films. More endearing still was to find Nathalie Baye in the excellent cast, where Leonardo di Caprio is back to roles proper to his physique and personality (and he is doing a great job here).

Saturday, February 22nd 2003

• A review of Bruno Weil’s Freischütz has been added to the discography. Also, a link to a Jess Thomas page I am working on is found here in this page. The discography and the biography are already there. I couldn’t find a suitable text to the opening page - I am working on it.

As a matter of fact, I am enjoying Jess Thomas' biography a lot. He is wonderfully down-to-earth and has a good feeling for choosing interesting facts to share with the reader.

Finally, two French films on TV. Yesterday Alain Resnais’ On Connaît la Chanson, featuring a wonderful cast, including the marvellous Agnès Jaoui and Jean-Pierre Bacri. My friend Mariana had seen this film and I agree with her - if we were more familiar with the songs, it would have been more interesting. As it is, those French songs are really funny... Today, cable TV reprised "Une liaison pornographique" with Nathalie Baye and Sergí Lopez and again - I love that film!

Tuesday, February 18th 2003

• The Met’s Don Giovanni broadcast called my attention because I related to it in many ways. First of all, one of the best opera performances I have ever attended was a Zeffirelli production in Vienna with Ferruccio Furlanetto and Rainer Trost and also I had the opportunity to watch the TV broadcast of the Met Zeffirelli production, again with Furlanetto. First of all, although Cambreling’s tempi were quite decent and there was reasonable clarity, I thought it lacking purpose. The extra weight of a big orchestra didn’t add to any dramatic atmosphere, because the conductor appears to identify Mozart with "pleasant music".

It is very difficult to cast Don Giovanni for a performance in a big theatre, especially with all- purpose soloists. This is more serious in the case of Donna Anna - and the Met has a tradition of giving the role to big-voiced not entirely fluent sopranos. I had never heard Sondra Radvanosvky’s voice before - and I liked it. It has the kind of focus and homogeneity few American sopranos in her Fach can boast these days. However, a Donna Anna HAS TO be someone completely at ease with her high range and preferably bright toned. Radvanovsky proved to be musicianly, but her voice made me think of Tatiana Troyanos - not Joan Sutherland or Margaret Price. As a result, lots of distortions had to be employed in order to accomodate her means to the score’s demands, especially shrill top notes and wiry pianissimi. She could be more attentive to her text too. On the other hand, Melanie Diener used her text favourably and showed feeling for the Italian language. Nevertheless, her voice is essentially non-Mozartian, producing unclear passagework and too puffed-up a tone, which makes naturalness impossible in this context. Among the women, Anna Netrebko (Salzburg’s Festival latest Anna) was, despite a grainy tone, the most satisfying singer due to the warmth of her low notes and the spontaneity of her high register. Rainer Trost's voice did have a touch of hardness when I saw him in Vienna, now it seems to be all hardness. It is a pity, since he is a stylist sensitive singer. Peter Mattei is a natural to the part of Don Giovanni, singing with good taste, imagination and intelligence. His recitatives with Furlanetto’s Leporello were excellent (despite the perfunctory continuo). The same can be said of Furlanetto’s classic portrayal of Leporello, highlighting the text as no one, but as I had observed in his Don Giovanni in Vienna he tends to hinder the pace, which results some mismatching with the orchestra.

Comparison to the old TV broadcast are almost entirely very unfavourable. First of all, Levine’s theatrical conducting offered a strong argument for a performance of this opera with a big orchestra. Although Carol Vaness is too Verdian for Donna Anna, she was entirely at ease with the role, producing firm round top notes and admirable coloratura. Also, Karita Mattila’s Elvira offered a neverending string of warm flexible gorgeous tone. Peter Mattei and Samuel Ramey are equally satisfying in the role, the former more interesting and stylist, the latter richer of voice. However, Anna Netrebko is still more interesting than Dawn Upshaw’s nasal Zerlina and Rainer Trost will always remain preferable to the unacceptable Jerry Hadley (who is a foreign to the style). If I was pressed to stage a work like Don Giovanni in a big opera house, maybe I’d look for a cast involving Carmela Remigio’s Donna Anna, Barbara Frittoli’s Elvira, Maria Bayo’s or Dorothea Röschmann’s Zerlina and maybe Richard Croft for Ottavio.

Saturday, February 15th 2003

• Yesterday I saw Martin Scorcese's "Gangs of New York". Because of the historical interest, this is first of all a film one should not miss. At least for a Brazilian like me, it was the first time I saw a film about the American Civil war not set in the South. Somehow I guess we had the idea that everybody in the North was willing to fight to incorporate the South into a "modern" modus agendi - and the film shows that things were not exactly that way. Also, it is a directing tour de force - with mathematically precise playing of effects by an artist in full control of his talents. Also, the art direction is of utmost interest. Historic pictures tend to show rich people. When poor people are shown, we had stereotypes such as beggars or servants. Here, the challenge was to portray a certain "outcast" aesthetics - people who had no taste or culture and their dealing with some "remains" of the elegant society forbidden to them. Thus, we see those gang people looking tacky trying to look nice - around 1860. This had to be achieved by a thorough research and ultimately imagination. Those fascinating characters are portrayed by a top class cast in secondary roles. The leadings roles are all convincingly taken, although only Daniel Day-Lewis offered something really amazing. However, I have to say that my stomach took some time to recover from the butchery portrayed in the opening scene. It does add some thrill, but I guess I’d prefer a less sensationalist approach, since it seems that the Five Points riots were less spectacular than as shown in this movie (also that there was no canon shooting during any riot).

In these days where I have to keep my mind in order in chaotic circumstances, Bach has been wonderful company. I don’t know if I have already praised Patrick Bismuth’s sonatas and partitas for solo violin here, but anyway here I am again. I can’t help being impressed by his amazing technique and stylistic mastery. In the famous chaconne, for once, one can notice a dance rhythm! Also, the Kuijken OVPP recording of Bach cantatas with Midori Suzuki and Magdalena Kozena rates higher in my opinion. I had written that the use of soloists for the choir parts favoured poor balance (high voices over low voices), but I think I rushed to that conclusion. Maybe that happens, but it is also true that the gain in articulation is considerable. Also, Brazilian violonist, Luis Otavio Santos, has recorded Bach here in Brazil - with period instruments. It happened in the admirable music festival in Juiz de Fora, a town two hours from Rio with some good (and cheap) restaurants too. I have attended the festival only once - where I saw a concert with free admittance in which Jerôme Coreas, Santos and other baroque specialists played Handel and Vivaldi. Anyway, I am impressed with the orchestral playing from the festival orchestra. Their performance of the Ouverture in D is top grade with one of the most beautiful recordings of the famous aria I have ever heard, done with true intimacy and sensuousness.

OK. Final comment. I am really glad the Jess Thomas biography I had ordered from a Vienna second-hand dealer has arrived safe and sound. As I had written here, I was shocked to found that there is practically nothing about Thomas in the web and wanted to prepare a homepage about him or something. So, next step was finding the book, which is a rarity and I guess I found one of the free copies available for purchase on-line. So far I read a few pages and the preface and I see it is a far more ambitious work than either James King’s or Christa Ludwig’s biographies (I don’t know how to compare it to Ursula Tamussino’s marvellous Lucia Popp biography, which is done with academic thoroughness, rich documentation and charm). Here, Thomas and K. Judmann, a Viennese voice specialist, not only talk about his life and career, but comment the core of Thomas’ repertoire (with special attention to Wagner) in terms of vocal difficulties, plots, staging possibilities and many other things.

Wednesday, February 13th 2002

• I had never listened to a complete performance of Bellini’s Il Pirata before and, although I was made to understand that the score has been edited by Maestro Campanella, I took profit of the occasion to listen to the Met broadcast. Although the overall atmosphere has the shadow of Rossini, there are many examples of pure Bellini soaring lyricism, especially in act 2. I liked Campanella’s energetic conducting, really aware of the dramatic situations. I found Dwayne Croft as Ernesto in beautiful velvety voice, phrasing with elegance. Marcello Giordani has his moments when things get high and not very florid - I have found him more musicianly in the past. Renée Fleming is an habituée here in this page and deserves more comments. I have tried to frame what the hell Fleming is doing with her career, but I must confess she always brings material for new ideas. In the intermissions of the broadcast, we were offered moments of the opera with Caballé and Callas, and that only showed us what was wrong there.

First of all, I disagree with the idea that Fleming can be snobbed by the great opera houses in the world. I might have given that impression, but then it was only an impression. I think that she is probably the best equipped soprano for those Italian lyric roles, even when some coloratura is required. Her voice is creamy, full, reasonably flexible, responds to a trill and shifts effortlessly to floating pianissimi. I have to confess that the comparison to Caballé has often occured to me. And the fact that someone could be compared, even if not very favourably, to Caballé is already something worth of attention. However, Fleming seems to have very poor criteria when she decides to imitate someone. The idea is that you should absorb the good habits and overlook the bad ones. If she learnt from Caballé the value of pianissimo singing and of full toned legato singing, she should have improved from Caballé’s occasionally guttural low register and glottal attacks, which the American soprano seems to like more than the above mentioned qualities. Moreover, she was not able to imitate her Spanish senior’s instinctive mastery of portamento and clean articulation.

The comparison with Callas is even more problematic, since the only thing Fleming appears to have inherited from the Greek diva is the inequality of registers. I don’t want to defend a negative thing to make a point, but Callas’ unequal registers do make sense if you have a voice like Callas' - which was "tough", in lack of a better world. Callas didn’t need to resource to effects to sound awesome, her voice already had it - and the chest voice, acid top notes etc worked all in favour of it. But that’s not the case of the aptly creamy-toned Fleming. Worst of all: Callas and Caballé were not imitating anyone. Everything Callas displayed in a performance was a coherent feature of a performance fashioned by stylistic awareness and dramatic instincts. Caballé was a whole different thing - that was a voice entirely responsive to its owner’s musical ideas and, in its proper repertoire, incapable of unloveliness, even when she had to be tough.

During the broadcast of the Met’s Pirata, there were moments where Fleming was probably thinking of where she would have dinner after the performance - and the results were amazing, such as the second act duet Tu m’apristi in cor ferita, where she made things only the truly great do. However, the rest of the time generally dealt with glottal attack, guttural low register, sliding, hindering the tempo, parlando effects, unclear phrasing and other "artifficially" inserted signs of bad taste... The cabaletta of Col sorriso with her sexy "sì" and some frightening noises made me laugh before I realized it (thank God I was not at the Met - otherwise security would have thrown me away...). Nevertheless, I don’t want to throw stones in Fleming. Somehow I think that this style of performance defined by a NY reviewer as "Sarah Vaughan-like" she uses for whatever repertoire she sings is the fruit of unawareness rather than whim. I don’t think her immediate rivals today can rival her in vocal resources and stage graciousness and I ask you - what would you prefer: a stylish and intelligent singer who is vocally dull or a stylistic illiterate singer with truly amazing vocal resources? I don’t know - I think that the second option in a Bellini opera is still the most "interesting" one, even if it is far from satisfying. Somehow, the good moments scattered in her excentric performance still pay the price. My only doubt is what kind of an artist Ms.Fleming is. How can she bear the thought that she could belong to the truly great singers in our days (if she didn’t do anything "funny", she would already be an admirable singer) and be contented to get her fee and be the idol of circus-goers?

Saturday, February 8th 2003

• I have been listening to some recordings I haven’t touched for a while. This week I’ve decided to give a serious try with Die Ägyptische Helena. The first challenge involved is tuning down the a priori aesthetic condamnation - the work is helplessly kitsch and decadent, the libretto is flamboyant and pointless etc. Well, I am not done with it, but so far (I’m on act 1 scene 2), I have to confess I wouldn’t be bored if I was to see it on stage. On the contrary, there are some really exciting if a bit calculated moments. For example, when Aithra summons the winds. Also, although the whole approach is a bit elephantic, there are moments of true lyricism in Aithrea’s "aria" before the arrival of Helena and also in Helena’s seductive phrases just after that. As a whole, I think Dorati’s recording ultimately fails as an advocate of the piece. Not because of him, but it needed a clearer and richer recorded sound, a Helena more sensuous in tone than Gwyneth Jones (who is a bit tired in this recording), a decent tenor, a true contralto for the Allwissende Muschel (especially since her lines are a bit uninteresting) and some acceptable singers in the secondary roles. I don’t know - big studios wouldn’t care about recording the opera again and Sinopoli’s death put an end in all hopes. I say this for this is a big studio affair. You can’t have a Tirolese festival orchestra with a loud and unsubtle soprano in the title role. As casting is my favourite hobby :-), here goes my humble suggestion: Karita Mattila as Helena, Soile Isokoski as Aithra, Ben Heppner as Menelas, either the Vienna Philharmonic with Chung or the Bavarian Radio with Maazel.

The other forgotten recording is C. Davis' Don Giovanni. It is not considered one of the top Don Giovanni recordings, but - I don’t know - it has an everything-has-been-taken-care-of quality which I find refreshing. The tempi are flowing, the orchestral balance is perfect, the phrasing is clear and Davis' choices are coherent and consistent throughout. If the orchestra was the Vienna Philh, it would have been quite amazing. I like Martina Arroyo’s Anna, done without any tricks and in unashamedly richt tone and Wixell’s manic Don Giovanni. Wladimiro Ganzarolli is vivacious enough but the voice doesn’t help him very much, it is a bit ugly; Stuart Burrows is reliable but nothing more. Then, there’s Mirella Freni. Although she does those kitsch "funny" effects that disfigures her arias, in the ensembles her quickwitted idiomatic singing does beautiful effects. In the party scene, she’s marvellous, responding with true theatrical feeling to the various situations. Kiri Te Kanawa, unfortunately, was in a bad season. She is utterly uninteresting here. It is a pity, she would be so lovely in the Maazel recording...

OK, my present favourite singer is... Bernarda Fink. I’ll borrow Hofmannsthal’s words to describe what she achieves: "Das Wort dem Atemzug ist gleich dahin". It seems that her emotions and ideas just naturally flow into music, as if she just opens her mouth and beauty is produced. I don’t have her song discs - the Spanish songs and the Schumann, but they are in the top of my wish list - and I would be eternally grateful if she decided to record a SCHUBERT (please, please...) and a MAHLER disc.

Tuesday, February 4th 2003

• Today I saw a new staging of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. As far as I could realize, the text (excentrically translated sometimes) has been adapted: some characters and lines cut, some lines added etc. The staging was beautiful, with relevant sceneries and beautiful costumes. Antonio Abujamra’s direction seemed a bit opportunistic and all for effects in my opinion. His overused spotlights in the actors for the "great" lines and coreographic movements, to start with. On the other hand, the atmosphere was admirable in general and the group of girls was well rehearsed. However, the big flaw was the clear feeling that the director was not able to pass over to the actors a fully developed concept about the play, probably because he was not able to develop one. Although the actress playing Mary Warren was very nice, her comedy approach ruined the atmosphere of the play as a whole, breaking the building tension it should have. Also, Eriberto Leão's Proctor was monochrome. He appears to have the technical possibilities of offering a good performance, but he is not the kind of actor who can work out a character without the help of a thorough and inspirational director. Most surprising was the disappointing performance by Thelmo Fernandes, usually a reliable actor, as Parris. His acting was all charicature and this seems to be another failure from the direction. The characters of Hale and Mrs. Putnam were given to undependable actors and that ruined some great scenes. However, Bel Kutner as Abigail and Suzana Faini as Rebecca Nurse, undisputably above the level of the rest of the cast, offered arresting performances. The former achieving an ideal balance of mischief and seduction, the latter reading her lines with sincerity and unforced emotion.

It is said that the whole idea of staging the play was an idea of the mayor himself as a kind of propaganda against neo-pentecostal sects who are in their way of becoming a kind of unruly political force here in Rio. This may sound surprising for those who defend that Miller’s play has not aged very well and is out of context without the frame of criticism against McCarthyism. I have to confess that, if the mayor had indeed this purpose, it reduced a lot the idea of the play (and that explains the charicature approach). In my opinion, the great thing about the play is the danger involved in giving power to mediocre people. An intelligent, good or talented person doesn’t need anything beyond his or her natural qualities to perform what he or she has to do. Only the mediocre have to resource to prejudice, ignorance, generalization and terror to achieve their vain purposes.

Sunday, February 2nd 2003

• I couldn’t listen to the whole Entführung aus der Met, but I liked what I could listen to. I thought James Levine’s conducting very good, with complete rhythmic control and the right approach of inserting singers into the orchestral texture. We could perfectly see the interplay between the material in the orchestra and the main line and that is the raw material of what good Mozart music making is - and this could be noticed even with pride of place given to singers by the engineers. Some things were quite bold - such as the Marsch, marsch trio made as fast as Solti’s and the fastest O Engländer seid Ihr nicht toren... It takes some courage to do it with an orchestra such as the Met’s ( not to mention the disastrous choir...). I think that Alexandra Deshorties does not deserve the booing. She cannot help her voice is not the one for the role - it is too low to start with and that flawed her Ach, ich liebte. However she did beautiful things in the two next arias (unfortunately the broadcast failed during Traurigkeit...) and she has an unusually clean phrasing and can strike some beautifully floated notes. Also, the rich tone is quite pleasing. She should avoid singing roles such as Konstanze and Donna Anna and concentrate on Donna Elvira and Fiordiligi if she wants to keep singing Mozart (which is probably not the best repertoire for her voice anyway...). The Blondchen and the Pedrillo were decent enough and, considering he has to sing in the Met, Paul Groves seemed a good Belmonte, despite a tone a bit unrelaxed and a less than idiomatic German (in the dialogues, his spoken voice was downright ugly). As for Moll, sure, he’s a bit rusty, but he’s amazing as Osmin! And he’s so funny!

Saturday, February 1st 2003

• Yesterday I went to the movies - Brian de Palma’s Femme Fatale, which could be defined as a bric-à-brac of American fetiche. They have the lesbian girls, Paris, easy money and a moral ending. It is however consistent with de Palma’s artifficial-on-purpose style and I liked it if I consider it a comedy. For example, that model with that Gisèle Bünchen swing using her camouflage shorts, hat and long boots! Or that soft porn scene in the decadent bar! I thought Rebecca Romijn-Stamos at ease and very hot in an undemanding role and Antonio Banderas was efficient playing Antonio Banderas in a role written for Antonio Banderas. I only wonder WHY nobody makes him visit a hair-stylist! He looks like a doorman since he moved to America. Finally - Lia and I, we noticed the cockroach walking by the bathtub in Rebecca’s first bathtub scene! I was hoping it was on purpose, otherwise it would be only an unhygienic set... But I guess it was hypothesis no. 2.

I was listening to Kna’s Götterdämmerung and, well, I don’t care a lot about him (but it is one of his best recordings, I must say), but Astrid Varnay! She’s the model to the role of Brünnhilde. She’s perfect! I’ve read that her voice was sometimes unreliable live, but in all the recordings I’ve listened to, it is a rock solid instrument capable of ANYTHING in the service of a skilled musician and a powerful actress. I have to confess I like Bernd Aldenhoff’s Siegfried. The voice is a bit ugly, but he’s reliable and at ease. Hermann Uhde’s Gunther is also more interesting than usual, maybe because he does have a voice (unlike most Gunthers...). Another surprise is Martha Mödl. I’m starting to grasp the Martha Mödl thing. I’m not done yet, but so far I think she should have stayed in more lyric roles. For example, as Gutrune and Isolde (I see Isolde as a lyric-dramatic role and not a hoch dramatisch thing), she is able to present a slim warm sound which is quite appealing. But she’s under vocal bad weather and hard pressed singing stuff like Kundry for example. In interviews, she says her problem was poor technique. Maybe - but miscasting starts to sound as a more likely idea to me... I don’t know...

Thursday, January 30th 2003

• I have made a mistake in my previous post - Sinopoli’s La Scala was not in the short-list because of Wolfgang Schmidt. The recording I had forgotten was Solti’s CSO. I was listening to it right now and, yes, it is a most beautiful recording, with Yvonne Minton giving a smooth and sensitive performance. The Chicago Symphony is also in great shape and Solti achieves an excellent level of clarity, but I think that the results are rather underinflected (both in the sense that tempi sometimes get a bit loose but also that phrasing may sound indifferent) and his vision of the work is a bit too monumental (and Decca recording is to blame too...).

Another film in cable TV - James Ivory’s "The Golden Bowl". I feel a bit presumptious writing about an adaptation of a book I haven’t read, but my impression that the "skeleton" of Henry James' style was there, but not the "flesh". This sense of multi-layered realities in apparent normality, of the unspoken woven around the banalities of daily life (of rich people, of course...) was not there. It seems that Ivory centered his interest in the cultural aspect of the story - the American millionaire buying European culture and implanting it in the heart of American in a rather impositive manner. Many reviewers said that the film was too long and too dependent on art direction. I would take out the word "too" in both cases. Yes, the sceneries, costumes, settings were all exquisite and, yes, they made the film a feast for the eyes and - therefore - not overlong. I only disagree with the Parisina "historic" scene - it looked like those BBC series we see in the afternoon as a diggestive (no criticism here). I also think that the direction was not able to share its view with all the members of the cast. In my opinion, the great performance there was Jeremy Northam, who incorporated the Italian aristocrat to perfection. There were moments where he was saying his lines and simply interrupted himself and made a gesture in a way only an Italian person would have done. Kate Beckinsale in her serious career days (ok - it seems I don’t like her, but, no!, I like her - I only think she traded a nice career for a penny arcade one) also achieves the perfect balance between naitveté and moral strength. My problem has to do with Nick Nolte and Uma Thurman. I think his character needed more energy and that is something he could have done. Hence my blaming the direction. As to Thurman, I don’t see in her performance the wonderful creature whose sophistication is so dazzling that she needed to be exported back to America. Her performance is so centered in the "love affair" thing that the general impression is that her Charlotte is nothing but a weepy bitch. I don’t know - there is a reviewer who suggested Cate Blanchett for the role and I guess this would have been a good idea.

Friday, January 24th 2003

• One more Lied von der Erde in the comparative listenings my friend Fernando and I have been doing. He made a short-list of recordings: Haitink’s Concertgebouw, Maazel’s BRSO live, Sinopoli’s La Scala live (but not the tenor movements because of Wolfgang Schmidt) and Giulini’s BPO. We listened to Giulini’s today and, yes, Fernando is right on making of it a special recommendation. It does have Maazel’s clarity "with lush strings, though", Fernando would add. I’d say more than that: in his recording, the phrasing of each instrument is lovingly taken care of. Every member of the Berlin Philharmonic is attuned to Giulini’s idea about these songs. He has a strong soloist in Francisco Araiza, but Fassbaender lacks poise in the upper range. On the other hand, I think I still prefer Maazel’s less emotional approach. I think that his restrained view enables a wider range of responses from the audience. You don’t necessarily have to be overwhelmed by emotionalism, and this is refreshing.

Thursday, January 23rd 2003

• Today I felt as if my cable TV had died and gone to Heaven. There was so many interesting things going on that I could hardly believe. I turned it on during Bergman’s Wild Strawberries. It is a bit obvious to say good things about this most engaging of films. This time I focused in the many and many details that make each scene unforgettable, such as the one when Ingrid Thullin enters the old doctor’s room with her party gown and sits on his bed. We see him surrounded by vaporous fabric and there is her beautiful head and neck. It looks like a dream! Then there was this weird film going on - Nick Willing’s Photographing Fairies. When it was over, I felt like saying it is a very silly film, but I don’t know.... British people like ghost stories and the images are beautiful, the sceneries... this kind of stuff that always looks great in British films. There is this actress, Emily Woof, whom I liked very much, but I have to say something about Toby Stephens. Toby, whatever you do with your upper lip - DON’T. I thought it was part of the character he performed in the James Bond movie and found it "funny-over-the- top". But then I saw him raising one side of his upper lip during a love scene, a sad scene, whatever scene... That was annoying! And there is the fact that we can see his teeth like 99% of the film. Then, very late at night on OPEN TV there was a Dame aux Camélias with Greta Scacchi as Marguerite and Colin Firth as Armand (and John Gielgud, Denholm Eliott...). Those two walking through those lush French woods in pale colour photography - it was pure Fragonard.

Yesterday, I visited a rehearsal of Bach’s St. John. My respect for the chorus members who sing this kind of music has increased a lot. In my chorus days, we never sang complicated stuff such as Bach, so I never had to deal with really tangled counterpoint. But this is a very different business! First of all, the tessitura is HIGH for everybody. Remember: using straight tone because it won’t sound like Bach otherwise. I felt very sorry for the tenors having to deal with high g’s and a’s like... all the time without being able to sing really out. Worse than that. When we listen to those fugal choral passages in the disc or in the concert hall, they sound like "it couldn’t be otherwise". But when you deal with the voices separatedly, you notice that it is not that simple. First of al, the phrases are amazingly similar to each other. Generally, the difference between them is a dissonance you would never guess. Then, these very similar phrases appear in varied keys and you have to remember the sequence. One could say "You just get it from the harmony". Not so. If you deal with it harmonically, you have the impression that chaos was made. Especially in moments where everybody is singing dissonance or in chromatic passages. Also, if you try to pick it in the air, you may end singing other voice’s lines... Suddenly, I felt what is the joy of singing Donizetti! :-)

Tuesday, January 21st 2003

 

• The Met broadcast this Saturday was Carmen. I started to listen to it from act II. I have to say I liked this one far more than the previous one with Olga Borodina. I remember that, at the time, I liked Borodina’s Carmen a lot, with her amazing dark tone and good usage of French language. However, I guess I prefer Denyce Graves' less exuberant approach. Olivier told me she owns the role in Paris and one can see why. Her Carmen is definitely smoother. Although she didn’t abuse from chest voice, I still think she should go for a slimer tone down there. Anyway, I particularly liked the way she sounded seductive without resorting to vulgarity - her final duet was relatively contained. I had never heard about Mary Dunleavy (this definitely doesn’t sound like a singer’s name...), but she surprised me as a light-voiced sensitive Micaela. Neil Schicoff was also in strong voice. Although he wasn’t very subtle and there is still this lachrimose thing about him, his tenor was in excellent shape. On the other hand, Ludovic Tézier was fabulous as Escamillo - he was my favourite soloist in that performance. Yves Abel conduced deserve praises for his light colourful conducting, rather clear and avoiding verismo-like expression.

Saturday, January 18th 2003

• Today I had the opportunity of watching a video I haven’t seen for a while - Solti’s Simon Boccanegra from Covent Garden. Although Solti’s conducting is indifferent and the orchestra is a bit distant, I felt as if I was in singing paradise. First of all, there is Kiri Te Kanawa’s Amelia, gorgeous in every sense, producing rich creamy aristocratic tone throughout and a perfect trill for the council chamber scene. Then there is Michael Sylvester rich-toned spontaneous musicianly Adorno. But there is also Alexandru Agache in splendid powerful voice and in sensitive disposition. There’s even more: Roberto Scandiuzzi’s noble bass as Fiesco. All these singers prove that vulgarity has no place in Verdian repertoire and make for an unforgettable experience.

After another listening of that amazing Lied von der Erde Maazel conducted in Munich with the BRSO, I felt tempted to listen to Sinopoli’s live at La Scala. It is difficult to choose between the two performers. Sinopoli has one weak link in Wolfgang Schmidt’s poor performance, while Maazel has Robert Dean Smith in splendid shape. Comparisons between Violeta Urmana and Lioba Braun are difficult too. While Urmana has the most beautiful voice, Braun offers a Lieder singer tone colouring that may sound a bit detached but makes for a more interesting performance. However, Urmana is more appropriate for Sinopoli’s more emotional approach. Maazel seems to turn down string sound in order to reveal the riches in the other sections of the orchestra. As he has the transparent strings of the BRSO, they keep a celestial slim-toned quality throughout, while French horns and woodwind have a quasi-soloist position. His approach is also the musicologist’s one - he gives the score all the time it needs and only shifts for a more andante quality whenever there is a propelling rhythm demanding it. His whole concept is unemotional and has a kind of Chinese miniaturism which is unique. On the other hand, Sinopoli has comparable clarity but his paintbrushes are broader and he doesn’t resist a certain emotionalism, employing larger string sound and more rhythmic variety. I would have to listen again to Sinopoli to have my verdict, but my heart is already with Maazel, who builds a whole poetic atmosphere. I don’t know - it seems that he really understands the nature of the poems as no-one else (as both his soloists appear to do, especially the marvellous Lioba Braun).

Finally, the idea of translating the texts of Bach cantatas is already happening. I’ve already done BWV 140, 199, 3, 11 and 111 and am keeping a rate of one cantata per day. These translations may be found in the Bach cantata page made by Mr. Aryeh Oron. My approach to these translations is based on direct translation from the German, comparison with the other translations offered in the page and checking with the religious vocabulary adopted here in Brazil, especially in João F. de Almeida’s translation of the Bible. Therefore, these translations are not meant to sound like "current" language, but a very specific usage of it. I follow some "personal rules" too, such as the adoption of "tu" and "vós" (although only when the idea is plural - God and Jesus being addressed as "tu") and the attempt to keep each verse as close as possible to the original German, so that one may found the corresponding words in Portuguese at the first glance.

Friday, January 17th 2003

• I remember when I discovered Handel’s Partenope, it was through Kuijken’s recording and I found the opera a bit uninteresting. Now that I have the McGegan, I discovered that it is actually addictive. I have probably listened to it four times today. Meredith Hall has something to do with it - she has this Kathleen Battle-like natural sexy quality... I can’t resist it.

As a matter of fact, there was a discussion in the Bach cantata list today about Handel and Bach, with this underlying "indisputable" truth that Bach is marvellous and Handel is "not bad". I used to say stuff like that, but never out of conviction. Anyway, I think that this is the kind of opinion that doesn’t do one any favour. I basically think: even if Bach might be seen as music of a higher level of structural sophistication, does he replace Handel, in the sense that he does EXACTLY what Handel does, only better? I don’t think so. Handel and Bach are as different as Verdi and Wagner. When you dismiss Handel, you gain nothing and miss a lot. It is not like trading a hamburger for a Big Mac, but trading a hot dog for a hamburger and... ok, that was a cheap comparison :-)

Anyway, in the Bach list, they were saying that they would like to find translations for Bach cantatas in Portuguese and I had that "why not?" feeling. I made a test drive with BWV 140 and took less than the time I’d spend listening to it. So maybe I was thinking of adding to the translation page a Bach cantata thing. It would be a more informal thing than those marvellous sites with context and translation notes and historic approach etc... It’s not decided yet.

Finally, today I saw half a film on cable TV and regret I couldn’t see the other half - Alfred Weidenmann’s film based on Thomas Mann’s The Buddenbrook, with this charming actress Nadja Tiller playing the role of Gerda. I was zapping and saw this film in German and decided to stop there to practice German and then I noticed it was a) good; b) the Buddenbrook. Unfortunately, the film won’t be reprised this month. Pity - there was an economic thing about it - quick scenes, economic acting and an unsentimental approach that were refreshing.

Monday, January 13th 2003

• Today I saw Karajan’s 1986 Salzburg Don Carlo on DVD. There are so many things to marvel there - Cappuccilli’s neverending phrasing, Baltsa’s incredible dramatic engagement, Furlanetto’s intelligence, but the real thing for me will always remain Fiamma Izzo d'Amico’s ethereal Elisabetta. Her effect on me starts before she sings. Of course, she’s beautiful and charming, but that eyes of her! What wonderful eyes - you just have to look at them that you feel like crying. She was only 22 in that video but that is what I call a perfect voice - 50% velvet, 50% metal, entirely homogeneous, at ease either floating in mezza voce or at full power. But that’s more than voice in Fiamma (I like that name!). You don’t find phrasing so clean and precise as hers so often. She sings with instrumental accuracy without sounding "hard-edged" in Verdi. Also, her cleardiction must be singled out. I am really curious to know what happened to her.

She was in favour with Karajan, had a recital on EMI (now deleted), sang that La Bohème with Pavarotti (where she was lovely too) and has sung in some European opera houses (that Nozze di Figaro in Germany made me curious), but is that all? An extraordinarily gifted artist such as her should be heading casts in international recordings and starring operatic productions in the leading opera houses. I read that she has a reputation dubbing TV stuff. Apparently, she dubbed one character in a chapter of Buffy, the Vampyre Slayer... Well, considering that she has never recorded a Desdemona or an Amelia, it must be something to celebrate... :-( Anyway, if someone has news about her or knows where I can find that EMI recital, please write.

Sunday, January 12th 2003

• In this weblog, I have written about my impression on Strehler’s production of Goldoni’s Arlecchino, Servitore di Due Padroni as performed at the Theatro Municipal with Ferruccio Soleri’s tour de force in the title role. Today I had the opportunity to see a new staging of the same play here in Rio at the Teatro da Maison de France. Director Luiz Arthur Nunes explained that the Strehler production was an inspiration and we can see that all Strehler’s good points have been taken profit of, while new things were added, making Goldoni’s play speak more directly to Brazilian XXIst century audience.

First of all, the text was skillfully adapted with some witty "modern" lines inserted. The sceneries were simple and beautiful, the costumes exquisite - in a word, the technical aspects were perfectly seen to. I am inclined to say that I liked this production as much as I liked Strehler’s, especially because the cast is as good as the Italian one was in a general way.

Marcos Breda was physically up to the role of Arlecchino, while bringing a certain Brazilian nonchalance to it. In this aspect, Anderson Müller’s Brighella was his equal, making the role more interesting than in the Italian production. In the same level, Carol Machado offered a mesmerizing Smeraldina, naughty and open-hearted in the same proportion. Ernani Moraes as Pantalone also gave a stronger performance than the Italian actor as well. I have previously seen him as Petrucchio in The Taming of the Shrew and he caused me the same excellent impression. Mario Borges was also perfect in the role of Dottore Lombardi, relying less in his characterization than the Italian actor and offering a more open-eyed performance. As Silvio, Leonardo Vieira was playing a role taylor-made to his talents and made to be more interesting in this production, where his relationship with Clarice is hotter than the one seen at the Theatro Municipal. On the other hand, Carolyna Aguiar couldn’t efface memories of the lovely Italian actress who delivered her lines with such charm and poetic quality, turning Clarice into a truly affecting role. I regret I couldn’t discover her name - she was really wonderful. Walter Daguerre was also no rival to the Italian actor and was less at ease than his colleagues tonight.

I could also listen to a bit of the Met’s Fledermaus. I found Philippe Jordan’s conducting attentive to the singers’ needs, but lacking buoyance too often. I was also annoyed by the excessive decoration in Orlofsky’s couplets. Despite a flutter in the sustained top notes, I find Solveig Kringelborn’s Rosalinde quite good, with a strong low registe, but a bit careful about what she had to sing. On the other hand, I liked Rosemary Joshua’s Adèle very much. Her rich and charming voice and flexibility were quite refreshing. In Jennifer Larmore’s case, as I have said, I disliked the excessive decoration and noticed her German to be lacking comfort, but she has the necessary élan. Paul Charles Clark was Italianate and funny enough as Adolf, but David Kuebler sounded overbright to my ears as Eisenstein.

Saturday, January 11 2003

• Brazilian press has been promoting David Cronenberg’s Spider as a "challenge to the audience’s intelligence". With Mulholland Drive in mind, I invited Lia, who is the best company to those puzzling films, to watch it with me. I had taken some anti-allergic stuff and I confess I was sleepy during the first part of the film. Actually, I couldn’t tell if the main character was schyzophrenic or if it was me who had slept over the in-between scenes :-) Anyway, the anti-allergic soon lost its powers and then I realized that maybe the challenging thing happened during one of my dozing-off events, because the plot seemed pretty obvious to me. As I am a reasonably modest person, I checked with Lia and her boyfriend Pedro if they had understood the film the same way I had. Yes - "from the start", they said - and they hadn’t taken Claritin... Anyway, I felt cheated. Ralph Fiennes, Miranda Richardson and the rest of the cast were wonderful, but I guess I’ll have more fun with James Bond tomorrow. It certainly is going to be more challenging.

The Handel page was retouched today. There is a new review of McGegan’s Partenope - a performance so persuasive that made me change my mind about the opera.

Finally, I received a wonderful e-mail today about hot tempers in the Vienna State Opera’s audience. It seems that things are running really wild at the Kaiserstadt. The police has been showing up regularly there to contain violent members of the audience. Some have even been arrested. And some people say that a night at the opera is unexciting...

Thursday, January 9th 2003

• As an antidote to yesterday’s film, the cable tv presented today Frédéric Fonteyne’s "Une Liaison Pornographique", who has not an ounce of pornography in it in spite of the title. The film won me over first with that 70’s-like atmosphere of "very little happens here" that makes the whole thing seem so realistic. Also, the water-colour-like photography that has lots to do with Paris (it’s funny - that is how I remember Paris - in pale blue/grey/green/brown colours - blue most of all...).

It is a story of a man and a woman who meet through a newspaper advertisement. The idea is having sex each Thursday without any kind of commitment - no names, addresses etc. And it is exactly because they are so free of any kind of bonds that they show themselves in their most real - and, as a result, in their most lovable [the word I wanted to use is the Portuguese "apaixonante" = capable of awakening passion]. There is this most fascinating sex scene where, at first, there is nothing romantic or even erotic about it (he is uncomfortable, she gives him lots of directions, asks if she can talk and starts to talk a lot etc etc...) - she even comments that, in movies, sex is either fantastic or awful, while in real life it’s generally something in-between - but, then, it is the scene where they start to realize that maybe they love each other. Anyway, the film is thoroughly admirable.

First of all, there is the lovely Nathalie Baye, with her radiant smile and sincere eyes, and the always amazing Sergi Lopez. Then, there is the beautiful and discrete photography, with that marvellous red hotel corridor leading on that bluish bedroom. And a marvellous soundtrack.

After those considerations on Ariadne auf Naxos, I re-wrote some reviews in the R. Strauss page - the main updating is to be found in what refers to the Karl Böhm film and the Leinsdorf recording. Anyway, I have to say a capital letter THANK YOU to Davide because I have just listened to this otherworldly Lied von der Erde from Munich. I hadn’t read anything but Maazel’s name when I started to listen to it, but then the orchestra was so marvellous that I started to suspect it should be the BRSO and - yes - it is their hallmark crystalline sounds wouldn’t have eluded me :-) I don’t want to sound exaggerated and say this is probably one of the 5 best recordings of this piece I have ever heard, but it certainly is something especial. Besides the exquisite sonorities and absolute clarity (either vertical or horizontal), there is a "cantabile" quality in Maazel’s conducting which is particularly moving. Although the tempi tend to be considerate, there is a genuine flowing quality due to the legato-ish phrasing aptly displayed here. Also, the pace is rather flexible seeing to the demands of each phrase in order to make structural sense. I have no doubt in saying that this was the better second movement I have ever heard. Actually, Maazel worked a most-welcome miracle of borrowing from the Abschied a sense of serenity to all the remaining movements. Even the Trinklied vom Jammer der Erde gained a more polished outlook, while keeping all the necessary Schwung.

The soloists are also very accomplished. Robert Dean Smith in absolute vocal health - less detailed than Heppner or Araiza, more in the Wunderlich style - and the rock-solid Lioba Braun, who sounds like a darker and velvetier version of Waltraud Meier. After listening to it, I checked the discography only to discover that Maazel did record a studio version with the BRSO - featuring again Ben Heppner, who offers the best tenor performance of this piece for Bertini on EMI, and Waltraud Meier, who was a sensitive if not completely ingratiating soloist for Barenboim. It’s on my wish list now... :-)

Ah, I caught some minutes of Helen Hunt in those interviews from the Actors' Studio and, yes, she’s a dear... :-)

Tuesday, January 7th 2003

• Today I saw Bertolucci’s Besieged on TV. Again I am not a great fan of Bertolucci - I think he lacks the Hitchcook golden rule "if something appears on screen, it must intrinsically have something to do with the story", but, yes, the images are great... Anyway, Besieged has the natural advantage of being set in Italy - so it is never devoid of interest and there were lots of visual poetry there, but, in the end, I felt cheated. Some accused the movie of having a scarce plot, but that’s indifferent. The Scent of Green Papaya (I was going to risk writing the Vienamese director’s name on memory, but gave up...) had almost no plot to start with, but it was honest in (successfully) conveying emotions through images.

Besieged, on the other hand, is cold aesthetic demonstration - with wonderful use of staircases, doors, windows and pale colours. But pale are the feelings too. Worse: the key element in the plot can be guessed in the first 10 min: the guy was selling everything to make the most expensive and altruistic love token in World History. OK - one can accept that. But a top-grade nurse student was supposed to have guessed it BEFORE 2/3 of the film... More than that: does a love as great as this show in David Thewlis’ character? Also - besides being cute - what was in Tandie Newton’s character to be the motor of all that? Why was she African to start with? Bergman’s Swedish female characters have flaming tempers compared with that African girl. I don’t know - to me, this felt like "for export" Euro-trash. As much as Amélie Poulain made lots of girls felt "Oh, this is a French film I like" while their boyfriends were sound asleep, I guess this is the Italian correspondent of it.

Anyway, back to Ariadne. I think I was unfair to Böhm’s (unfortunately by Unitel, a company making hostage of priceless musical treasures) Ariadne. Although the harp/piano below described effect is not as impressive as in Sinopoli’s LIVE performance, it is certainly in the level of the studio one. And there’s also a 100% fresh-voiced Zerbinetta from Edita Gruberová and a strongly improved Gundula Janowitz from her already impressive performance for Kempe. An interesting thing: although the role of Zerbinetta is fiendishly difficult, it is generally better sung than the title role. In the Gibt es kein Hinüber passage, most sopranos failed miserably. By a large advantage, Jessye Norman was the one most comfortable with it and the one who took more advantage of it, followed by Janowitz and then Christa Ludwig (who has the disadvantage of being a mezzo singing a soprano role - otherwise, she’d be in the top of the list, don’t worry...). Anyway, having in mind the FACT that the role is not usually well sung, it is a pity that people like Hildegard Hillebrecht recorded it and people like Kiri Te Kanawa, Teresa Zylis-Gara and Lucia Popp didn’t.

Monday, January 6th 2003

• Here we are in 2003. First of all, some structural things. I bet nobody has noticed it, but the link to the Miscellany page disappeared since a while ago. The idea was to delete / re-write things, but I’m too busy and won’t be doing it in the next two hundred years. The problem is that the page is still there because I think it’s better to keep it stored where it is. So, please be kind on reading some of the silly stuff there... Also, a review of Atalanta was added to the Handel page and another of Abbado’s Aida to the Verdi page. Some minor details were reviewed in the Wagner page as well.
Some video these days. Friday I took a glimpse of the Harnoncourt/ Ponnelle Così Fan Tutte, where Edita Gruberová is simply amazing as Fiordiligi singing her role completely at ease and free to concentrate on the important things: musical and interpretative values.

Today I renewed my bonds with these absolute geniuses, Hofmannsthal and R. Strauss. I resist the idea of having favourite things. So I avoid saying Ariadne auf Naxos is my favourite opera, but I guess it is my heart’s favourite opera :-) It re-creates this Mozartian ideal of absolute perfection, wonderfully described in an Italian magazine in the occasion of Sinopoli’s death as "light as the wind and deep as the sea". Hofmannsthal has occasionally been dismissed as "over-hermetic" or confuse, but I completely disagree with this idea. Hermetic and complex, maybe. But in the wonderful arabesques of his writings, there is such multi-layered beauty that you could read it forever.

Anyway, today a friend invited some company to watch Levine’s Ariadne in DVD (the recorded sound is greatly improved - more clarity and the voices are more natural). He asked me to introduce the opera because many among us didn’t know it. I concentrated on the idea that it is an opera about love, more specifically falling in love. Ariadne and Bacchus don’t communicate at all. Their dialogue could stand as example of nonsense, but the "secret of transformation", to use Hofmannsthal’s words, make it happen. Ariadne is transfigured by the experience - her old self is deleted through subtle (self-)deception - and Bacchus takes full conscience of his own self through her transformation, which he is made to see as his own doing. Doesn’t the same thing happen with Zerbinetta once and once again? Ewig or in ein Augenblick, it is always the same thing...

As we watched the DVD, the old thrill was there, but I couldn’t help envying those who were watching it for the first time. The sensation of discovering something miraculously beautiful is something so rare! Later, I was thinking of this lovely passage "Gibt es kein Hinüber? Sind wir schon da?" and of how Sinopoli performed it at La Scala - with the wonderful undulating chords in the harps and up and downwards arpeggi in the piano given pride of place. The passage is roughly in C - and all the harmonic richness is in the harps (flirting with bitonality sometimes) and the piano. Levine didn’t make it happen in the video and I decided to check which conductors fully understood it and which ones didn’t.

Basically, it’s unclear in Kempe, Masur and Levine (also the DG studio). In Solti, it is non-existent. In Karajan, the mono recording doesn’t help a lot, but you can hear the piano very clearly. I remember the Leinsdorf recording has always been a souce of surprise, but I didn’t expect to hear the piano and the harp as clearly as I could. However, only two conductors really understand the structural importance (and also expressive possibilities) of it. To say the truth, in Böhm’s DG studio recordings (the film and the Munich one), the recorded sound prefers to highlight other things, but you still can feel the effect. I confess I expected more - of Böhm, maybe - but then I shifted for my least favourite Böhm Ariadne - the live from Salzburg with Lisa della Casa. And there, with that awful mono live sound, the harps and the piano were comfortably presiding the texture - and Böhm’s accelerando was masterly.

However, my memory didn’t betray me. Nobody realizes the organic importance of this "effect" as Sinopoli. In the DG studio, it is completely there, but the La Scala performance is still the one where there is magic. He uses the harps as a kind of propulsive element that makes for a gradual accelerando from a very slow tempo. I couldn’t resist and listened to the end - a perfect example of Straussian conducting, unrivalled in any other recording, even his own studio one for DG. And, yes, I was there! And it was even better live! You can bet that being in Italy with good friends and listening to Sinopoli conduct this Straussian masterpiece makes you wonder Sind wir schon da?

Sunday, January 5th 2003

 

 

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